Chapter 8: Father's summons.
After having breakfast with Vanelope, I spent the rest of my day in the woods running battle simulations in preparation for the upcoming tournament. All the other seven candidates were without a doubt stronger than me especially with their pulze abilities so I have to at least put some strategies in place.
I made it back to the mansion at around dinner time mentally exhausted and went up to my room, I jumped into bed to get some rest, and just as I was about drifting to sleep I heard a tap at my door, with my permission the person entered the room.
"Sorry to bother you master Brian but master Lemuel wishes your presence at the table".
"[Sign],how many times must I tell you that you don't need to knock to enter my room Vanelope".
"That would be disrespectful to your privacy".
"Whatever, that's not important anyway,do you know why my father is calling for me?"
"I'm sorry but I haven't the slightest idea"
"I see,thanks for relaying the message though, I'll be there shortly"
After she had left I tried to figure out what my father could possibly want from me,but due to my mental exhaustion it only gave me headaches. If it's a direct call from him I can't refuse to go,so I took a bath to wash my fatigue away and went down to see what was up.
As I arrived at the table,the piercing stares of the family made me uncomfortable so I hesitated to sit down.
"Why don't you take a seat first" my father said ushering me with his hand to an empty seat by his side.
"Try the rice with the beef stew,it's really good, made it myself ".my mother suggested.
The whole situation was awkward in my sight,for some reason they were acting nice,and the eerie atmosphere from a while ago had disappeared. secondly,Mom rarely cooks with all these maids around. Were they trying to poison me to death is what run through my mind, but with my current level of Pulze-overdrive I could easily control poison in my body.
"O-okay mom",I said as I picked up a fork.
The stew was excellent,turns out my mom is a really good cook and I also didn't detect any negative reactions in my body so it wasn't poisoned.
"So how was your training?",father asked as he played with the food on his plate. He was probably talking about my training for the tournament,since I hadn't done anything much I decided to honestly tell him what I was up to...
"I've not really done anything much,I just tried using the information I have about my opponents to predict the best way to use my current abilities to fight them".
"I understand,but I wasn't asking about your tournament preparations,I am referring to the one you have with Julius in the woods near that wooden cottage".
My facial expression changed to that of a shocked one but I actually wasn't, I'd always known he's been watching me.
"So you knew?"
"Actually, Julius is a friend of mine from a long time ago, when I ran into him again not too long ago we started talking and I ended up telling him about my family,he took an interest in you especially and volunteered to train you since you can't undergo the strider family training because of your lack of Pulze ability".
"Now I understand,the way things happened so abruptly was unatural,guess you were behind it. Anyway master Julius left two days ago,he said something important had come up".
"That so, why didn't he let me know then". My father muttered to himself.
"Out of curiosity,what did you mean by I can't undergo the strider family's training,when you didn't even bother to teach me anything".
"It's more complicated than you think".
"I just wanted you to let me learn the martial arts you teach Andrew and Felice, how's that complicated?".
"It may look like normal martial arts but it's very different, you wouldn't be able to do it even if I taught you"
"How would you know that until you let me try".
"In order for people to manifest their pulze abilities they first have to release the pulze within them through their skin pores into the surrounding, the strider family's martial arts is based on this principle,by releasing the pulze that is in our body and adding it to our moves it vastly differentiates our martial arts from normal,it requires immense training just to release your body pulze willingly without activating your ability and even more training to control the energy and sync it with your moves. You don't have an ability,which means you can't even release your body pulze in the first place so how are you gonna learn the martial arts.
"In that case,why did you really call me out here,was it to find out about my training with master Julius?,because you could've just asked Vanelope,or is it something else?"
"Calm down, we had something to discuss with you as a family,but seeing as how we've already got ourselves worked up we should do that tomorrow".
"A family discussion?,last time I checked I wasn't part of this one,if you don't have anything else to say I'm leaving".
Back at my room I wondered what they wanted to discuss but nothing came to mind, they were definitely different today than normal,like all the hate they poured at me had suddenly disappeared, but I decided to save those thoughts for when my mind was in a better condition.