To Help or Not To Help (2)

"Ryan, do you think I can be helpful to Daddy?" Lily asks while warming up.

"What makes you think that you won't be helpful?" Ryan questions back after recalling Lily's conflicted reaction after they left Lucario's office.

Stretching down to touch her toes, Lily looks through the gap between her legs at Ryan. "Because I'm not strong like you are or not smart. I'm only seven."

Ryan walks over to Lily and squats down in front of her while she raises back up. "But you are strong, Miss Lily. In your own way. You're smart as well. You find solutions to problems we have in a fresh new way that we would have never thought of. And your age doesn't matter. Mistakes will happen when you're young. That's why you have your father, me, Billy, Dennis, and all of the other guys on this estate. We will protect you in case you make mistakes, like your father said."

Lily finishes her stretches before looking over her shoulder at the seemingly empty hallway. "Henry, do you think that I will be able to help Daddy?"

From the shadows, Henry scratches the back of his head after revealing himself. "I will never be not surprised that you can sense where I am," he laughs to himself. "No one has ever been able to pick up on where I hide." After walking up to Lily, Henry sets a hand on Lily's shoulder, beaming a confident smile. "I think that you should start early when it comes to helping out Mr. Lucario. This is the perfect time to learn what you should and should not do as well as to build up your confidence so that you won't doubt yourself like you are now."

"Henry's right," Bryle's calming voice echos, sounding from the training hall's intercom. "You should be more confident in yourself, Ms. Lily. You are the daughter of a very powerful person, so it's okay to be a bit more prideful."

Giggling to herself, Lily's sweet smile grows on her face as she hears the encouragement from the people around her.

Meanwhile, Henry and Ryan throw their heads in their hands in disbelief after hearing Bryle speak out. Bryle is specifically not allowed to expose the fact that he's watching Lily over the security cameras in order to make her not feel conscious walking around the estate. However, the urge to encourage Lily is stronger than the fear of breaking his one specific rule.

"Lily!" Ethan shouts after entering the training hall. "Sorry I'm late. Your father had something to talk to me about. Are you already done warming up?

"Yeah! I just finished," Lily responds, not able to stop smiling to herself.

Ethan glances behind Lily and finds Henry trudging back into the shadows and Ryan looking like he's ready to give up on something. "Did something happen while I was away?

Shaking his head, Ryan drags himself over to a nearby bench. "Someone might die tonight," he mutters to himself.

Not sure on what to do, Ethan turns his attention to Lily. "Are you ready to start?"

"Let's do it!" Lily shouts before running over to her position on the floor.

After the two kids get into their positions, Ryan has somewhat recovered, so he raises his hand then shouts "Begin!"

—

"Lily… how was practice?" Lucario asks with nothing but concern riddled in his eyes as he watches his daughter happily eat her dinner with band-aids on her face.

With her mouth full, Lily gazes up at her father with her beady emerald eyes. "It was a lot of fun! We started learning how to use knives in fighting since Ethan and I are already really really good at fighting with our hands, so Ryan gave us plastic knives to practice with!"

"Before you say anything," Ryan immediately intervenes before Lucario could kill him, "I was watching the kids the whole time and stopped them before they poked their eyes out. The reason why Ms. Lily has band-aids on her face is because she tripped and fell on her way to the main house and got a couple of cuts."

"Angie drove to the store to get me these cat band-aids because there were only plain brown ones, and he said that I should only wear cute things," Lily adds proudly.

Lucario lightly laughs at Lily's comment while he wipes the sauce off of the corners of her mouth.

Lily has been absorbing all of her training at a rapid pace, Lucario thinks to himself. It's not only her training but also in school. She retains everything she learns to the point where she could skip grades if I bring in a tutor to teach her more advanced topics. She might even be able to learn more martial arts than the one she's learning now.

"Daddy?" Lily asks, snapping her father out of his thoughts.

"Ah… sorry, Lily. I was just so surprised at how fast you're growing." Lucario slices up a piece of steak for Lily and feeds it to her. "As long as you're happy with what you're learning, that's all that matters to me. Just make sure that you're being safe while doing it."

"Yes, Daddy," Lily sings as she happily chews on the piece of steak. Remembering that she has to give her father her answer, Lily nearly chokes on the steak after suddenly inhaling to speak.

"Lily!" Lucario yells, lunging over to Lily's side and patting her back. "You have to cough it out!"

After a few panicked seconds, the small piece of steak falls out of Lily's mouth, and Lily begins to breathe deeply in order to regain herself. In the meantime, Ryan rushes over with a glass of water and hands it to Lucario.

"Baby girl, drink some water," Lucario pleads, leaning Lily against his arm in order to tilt Lily's head up and pour the water in her mouth.

Slowly, Lily drinks the water and composes herself. Once Lily is strong enough to hold the cup herself, Lucario takes the table napkin and dabs the sweat from Lily's forehead.

"Daddy," Lily finally whispers.

"Yes, baby girl, Daddy's here."

"I want to help you."

Surprised by Lily's sudden answer, Lucario hugs Lily in his arms. "I know that you said that you'll give me your answer at dinner, but you don't have to rush your answer, Lily. You just choked on food. Right now, you should focus on recovering."

Not wanting to lose her conviction, Lily pushes herself away from her father, shocking him even more. "I want to help you, Daddy. I know you and everyone else will protect me, so I want to start learning how to run the family while I'm young and able to make mistakes so that, when I get older, I can help you."

"You are going to get a lot of older men staring at you with really mean eyes," Lucario reminds.

"That's okay because Daddy can tell them to be nice to me."

"You might have to learn a lot of names of different organizations and people."

"I'm confident in my memory."

"There may be times when you have to talk to people you have never met before."

"I might be shy at first, but with more practice, I can get better at it."

Realizing that his daughter won't back down, Lucario pets the top of Lily's head. "There's going to be a meeting later this week, and all you will have to do is sit down next to me or in my lap. Whichever is more comfortable to you because you might be scared at first. If they ask you a question, you can answer if you want. If you don't want to answer, you can just look at me, and I will answer for you. Is that okay?"

"That's okay!" Lily replies, pumped up with excitement.