Lily's Serious Side

The office is quiet aside from Lily's happy chew noise as she snacks on the cookies prepared in her father's office. Noticing the crumbs piling up on Lily's mouth, Ethan takes the tissue from the table and wipes the corners of Lily's lips. Lucario sees this and can't help but find himself annoyed for some reason.

"Lily, come here," Lucario demands, holding his arms out.

Excited, Lily immediately hops off of the couch and runs into her father's arms where he lifts her up and sets her on his lap.

Lucario glares at Ethan while Lily is occupied with the cookie in her hand to which Ethan simply brushes off his new boss's immaturity.

"Daddy," Lily calls with eager anticipation in her eyes. "Why did you call me and Ethan into your office?"

Turning his attention to his daughter, Lucario wipes the crumbs off of Lily's mouth with his thumb. "Remember the meeting I told you about yesterday?"

Lily nods, slightly jumping in Lucario's lap.

"We will be having that meeting in a couple of hours, so I wanted to let you know what we will be talking about in order for you not to be surprised during the conversation."

"Why do you need me in here then?" Ethan interrogates after taking a sip of the glass of milk. "I won't be here during the meeting."

"There may be some things that Lily might misunderstand or not comprehend well, so I need someone who can think on the same level as Lily to explain it to her so that she can fully understand the situation at hand."

Ethan gets up from the couch and heads over to the chair in front of Lucario's desk. "I understand. I'll do my best to explain the topics well if she has any questions."

Opening the top drawer of his desk, Lucario takes out the notepad that Ryan wrote on earlier with all of the topics on it. "There aren't a lot of things that will be discussed, but the stuff that will be talked about will take a while to come to an agreement. Are you ready, Lily?"

"Ready as I will ever be, Daddy!" Lily answers with a more focused and determined fire in her gaze as she suddenly shifts into a serious mood.

After flipping the cover open, Lucario begins with the first topic. "I will be starting the conversation by asking the person how their relation is with the Johnson Family."

"There's a kid in my class with the last name Johnson," Lily comments, wrinkling her nose and furrowing her eyebrows at the thought of remembering him. "He's a big bully, though. I don't like him."

Lucario heartily laughs at his daughter's reaction. "I never knew you could look so disgusted because of someone." Wiping the built up tear in his eye, Lucario continues on. "His parents are also big bullies in the adult world. I'm hoping that the person that I'm going to be talking to later has a bad relationship with them so that we can arrest the family because people who bully others need to be punished."

"The apple doesn't fall far from the tree," Lily huffs as she crosses her arms.

Shocked, Lucario rubs the top of Lily's head. "Where did you hear such a phrase?"

"My grandpa used to say that when he sees bad kids in the park with their moms who aren't paying attention."

"Nevermind then," Lucario quickly concludes, not wanting Lily to recall her grandfather anymore. "If the person that I will be talking to has a bad relationship with the Johnson Family, then we can move onto the second point which is convincing them to join my side."

"What will they get if they join your side?" Lily asks, gazing up at her father.

"What do you mean, baby girl?"

"At school, they teach us that we can't use people without giving them something in return for their help," Lily explains. "So if you are going to convince the person to join your side, what are you going to give them in return for their help?"

Lucario's narrow as he stares at his daughter. 'She's a lot more advanced mentally than I expected', Lucario judges as he fixes his daughter's hair. 'I underestimated her ability to understand.'

"That's where your presence comes in," Lucario elaborates. "You will become the head of this family in eleven years which means you have eleven years to build the trust of the people I handle and deal with in order to take over smoothly. Lily, you are an incredibly smart and talented child. There has never been a woman to take over this family which means that there will be a lot of eyes on you, but that also means that there will be people who would want to join your side to see what you will do."

Catching her reflection on the monitor's black screen, Lily stares at herself. Not much in awe or curiosity, but more in anticipation. "Are you saying that you're going to use my potential as a leader to get the person you will talk to on your side?"

"You catch on really fast," Ethan compliments, equally as amazed as Lucario. "You really are super smart, Lily."

Proud of herself but also bashful from the sudden compliment, Lily cups her cheeks with her hands in order to control how wide she's smiling as if her cheeks would burst if she smiled any more than she already is.

"You are correct, my brilliant child," Lucario praises handing Lily another cookie. "The person I will be talking to works for a company where the vast majority of their workers are women, so they know the potential that women have. However, this also means that if they join my side, they will have extremely high expectations for you. Would you still like to help me even after knowing that?"

As if she's been insulted, Lily quickly swallows the cookie in her mouth and pierces a dagger-like glare at her father. "Nothing will change my mind about helping you, Father."

Thrown completely off by Lily's rapid shift in demeanor, Lucario lowers his head. "I'm sorry, Lily. I didn't mean to upset you. I was just concerned that you might not like the pressure that will be put on you at such an early age."

Realizing what just happened, Lucario swiftly lifts his head and stares with gaping mouth at the effect that Lily's demeanor did to him. He's never been controlled by someone's presence before other than his parents, so finding a tiny seven year old able to control his actions through her gaze alone without the need for childish antics puts him in a dumbfounded situation.

Even Ethan can't help but freeze in his spot with fear in his eyes as he witnesses the scene in front of him. "Li… Lily… are you angry?" he quietly asks, afraid to speak any louder.

"Did I do a good job?! Were you scared?!" Lily excitedly asks as she sees the effects of her hard work.

More confused than before, the two guys look at each other for answers that neither of them have.

"Lily, what do you mean?" Lucario finally says after quite literally slapping himself out of it.

Turning in her father's lap to face him, Lily puts a finger between her father's eyebrows to stop them from furrowing. "I've been practicing, you know. Ever since I agreed to take over the family, I have been practicing how to be mean and perfecting my mean stare so that I can be scary like you so that no one can be mean to me when I get older! Did I do a good job?"

Relieved that he didn't actually make his daughter mad, Lucario relaxes in his chair and hugs the little girl in his lap. "Lily, you don't have to practice being mean. You should focus on being a child, laughing and playing, and leave the scary mean things to me. You can be mean later when you're older. However, I will say that your hard work paid off. You were really scary to the point that I felt you were the boss and I was just your underling."

"Yahay!!! I did it! I did it! Wasn't I really cool and scary earlier?!" Lily asks after noticing Ethan trying to laugh himself back to reality.

"You were incredibly scary and really cool, Lily," Ethan reassures. "It felt like you were a real leader."

While the two guys were recovering from what happened, Lily happens to notice that there is a third bullet point on the notepad: 'How to get rid of the Johnson's completely'