Time to give up

I woke up the next day with tired eyes. As I said, I was awake very late at night. I am screwed. Yes, I am screwed. My only hope is to find how to create illusions of thoughts. At breakfast, I did not pay attention to anything that was being said. I was too focused on solving my problems. I also decided that I will harden my pokemons training. Why should I be the only fighting an enemy who could read my mind and memories? It will be the same for them! That is the doom difficulty for you! According to what the difficulty name means, you cannot win against the opponents from it!

Just wait a minute… what if I make Mia believe that I could also read her mind with my illusion magic? But then she would read mine and she would discover that I tricked her, would not she? Or then I could trick her on thinking that she knew I tricked her? No that is going to far and it will become an endless loop.

"Son read this" my father dropped a book in front of me, waking me up from my train of thoughts.

"Eh? What is that?" I said.

"So you really were not listening at all. It will explains you about firearms. How they work, how to take care of them… read it. I will make preparations in the few next days"

"And me who thought I was unlucky" my brother chuckled nervously as he passed me. I knew he was even more stressed than me. After all, he thought that I would be from responsibilities but it turns out that at any wrong step our family would perish.

I took the book and left to the warehouse. It was time to push myself and my companions to our utmost limits.

For martial arts, I fought against my fighting pokemons. Well, what else could I do? My father also hired what seemed to be an ancient agent of the special forces. Not only did he give me martial arts lessons, but he also taught me how to use firearms. Meanwhile I was practicing on my own magic and swordsmanship. I was pretty sure that I could fight two demon kings at the same time right now. That because they could not read my mind. Just thinking of it drive me crazier. I even trained on fighting 3 demon kings at the same time but I kept loosing.

Mia kept passing to our house every week. She gave me lessons in the warehouse. Well she enjoyed teasing me during those lessons, talking about things I did in the past and would have prefer no one to know about. It was really embarrassing for an 8 years old talking about this. If someone overheard our discussion, I am afraid they would labeled us as perverts.

Anyway, time passed my family was still alive! The annual tournament of the ground battle club was approaching and so I had to prepare for it. Mia decided on her own that she would watch me. She was taking her wife role far too seriously. We were not married yet! Was she afraid that I run away? It is just so stressful to be carry the lives of my family on my shoulders. No, not only was it their lives, but also the ones of our employees.

While thinking of this, I participated in the competition. I won but this time I did not feel happy. In fact I was disappointing but I hid it. I still committed to many errors. Some movements were useless. I sometimes did not take the optimal decision or took too long to take one. Of course against kids it was not a big deal. But if my life was on the line, then I could die from it.

Thanks to this win, it was time to prepare another team. The more pokemons the merrier. If I have to fight a whole family and their pokemons, then I will need an army of my own.

This time I went for dragons. I got an axew, a dratini, a bagon, a dreepy and a deino. I also did some progress about protecting my mind but there was still so much work waiting for me. To be honest, I do not even see when it could end. Everything was going more or less fine, until that day.

"You come to sleep at my house tomorrow" Mia declared after a training session.

"Eh?". My mind went blank, literally. Even her could not read my thoughts for once.

"Do not worry, it is nothing big. It is just that my family wanted to see you at least once before marriage. Since I am always the one coming here, I thought that for once you could come. But if you do not want then that is fine… I will just have to come up with something"

"I will come" I declared at my own surprise.

"Really? That is so nice! Thanks a lot" she said before kissing my cheek.

"Y-yeah" I replied while thinking about why I said this.

"Well then I should go. I will come tomorrow afternoon to take you. So do not forget to prepare your things before" she said before entering the car. I watched it going away while being dumbfounded. Why did I accept to go into the tiger den?

Once I announced the news to my parents, they were taken aback.

"Are you really going there?" my father asked nervously.

"Apparently" I replied.

"Why did you say such a naive thing? Oh my arceus! Why would you agree to go there?" my mother said at the limit of crying.

"What if my refusal hurt their pride? What if Mia cry because of this?" I asked back.

Those words were enough for her reason to return.

"You made the most logical choice. It just us who are being lead by emotions" my father said while patting my head.

"Should we give him a gun?" my mother asked seriously. Hearing those words, my eyes grew bigger.

"No if they discover this it would led to a misunderstanding" my father replied.

"Well that is true… son take all your pokemons to protect you" my mother ordered.

"A-all of them?" I asked. I accumulated quite a lot of them already.

"Yes take the 47 of them" my mother nodded.

"B-but where I am supposed to put their pokeballs?" I said while scratching my head. A pokebelt could only support a maximum of 18 pokeballs. That was only the case if nothing else was on the belt.

"Do not worry we prepared for a situation like this. You will just need to wear 3 pokebelts"

"I will go look for them" my father declared.

"Now my child, we will need to buy them a present. After all Mia, always brings some flowers when she comes, does not she?"

"Yes but what should we buy to people like them?" I asked.

"My ignorant child, follow me" mother said. Ignorant? Me? Why would she say that all of the sudden? I kept those questions for my self while we began walking.

"Do you know what business our family do?" mother asked me.

"Business? I never really think of where our many comes from" I realized. I mean I knew we were rich and since I was not going to inherit the company, I never truly spend time thinking about it.

"My dear son… I knew you were busy playing around but I thought you were paying a little more attention to your environment" she sighed.

"I was not playing! I was working hard!" I protested.

"Yes yes" she gave up. It was not the first time I tried to explain to her but each time she did not pay attention!

"So what kind of business do you think we have?" she asked while turning around and looking straight in my eyes.

"Well we are not assassins" I began.

"Of course not" she agreed.

"Could it be… we are merchant?" I tried.

My mother sighed once again.

"My son… just stay into your pokemon battle, alright?" she said while patting my head.

"I will mother!" I replied.

"Good boy. Do not grow up too quickly" she said before resuming walking.

"Wait mom! What was the answer?" I asked.

"Do you know what are the primitive needs?" she asked.

"Primitive needs? I guess it is drinking, eating and sleeping? Maybe also…" I could not finish my sentence since I realized how embarrassing it was to talk about this with my mother.

"And sex" she said without holding back.

"Does it mean… the company is in that field?"

"My son, we have 4 companies. One for water, one for food, one for real estate while the last one is, yes, about sex toys. Actually your brother will have to prove himself soon. In order to do so, he will have to create a fifth company for the family. If it is successful then he will inherit the 4 others" she said.

"And if he fails?"

"He will not fail" she said firmly.

"A-alright" I replied.

"Now what do you think we should offer them?" she asked while facing me once more.

"What about rare food?" I tried my luck.

"Rare food? Well I guess that is better than my idea… well Mia is too young for this anyway"

"Mother!" I yelled as I induced what she was thinking to offer.

"Son, one day you will have to face reality… adults also like playing around and swinging their swords" she giggled.

It was my time to give up.