Lady Misfortune: Daddy, I'll Be A Righteous Villainess!

Fallon simply observes as Lady continues to act all domineeringly.

She has started to boss everyone around out of nowhere – or more like, she's trying to. He isn't sure what kind of reaction she wants to get from them, but if her look of contentment is anything to go by, he is thinking that it's probably their absolute submission to her. But then, the catch is that they're all just obviously playing along.

No one really thinks of her as bossy. No one is being fooled by her acting. 

Fallon could see how the maids were trying so hard to keep their expressions blank when they served them a couple of glasses of milk and a plate full of cookies. Only when they were no longer in Lady's sight did they finally break character and start looking all smiley. 

'The heck is going on here…?' he wondered as he took his seat at the lounge table and watched her settle down on the opposite side at the same time.   

'Is she practicing for a theatre audition or something?'

It seems that his research so far is still far from enough. There's a lot of things about her that bemuse him. This whole stuck-up act, for one, is a new addition to the list.

"By the way, Fallon, how did you get here? Are you on your own?" she inquired before taking a cookie from the plate and munching on it, suddenly looking like she was in heaven as soon as she did.

"It was Uncle Max," he replied, finding it hard to maintain a straight face while she was in front of him indulging herself like the sweet-toothed glutton that she actually was.

"Huh? Father?"

"Yeah. He called Dad, and I just went with him-"

"What?! Uncle Calix is here?!"

"I just said so."   

Lady seems delighted to hear that Calixtus is there, much to Fallon's confusion.

It reminds him of what his father said a few days ago – about her insisting to see both of them for some reason. His uncle had been stressing over her lately because of that. While he understands that she wants him to pay a visit, he has no idea as to why she wants his father to do the same as well. 

"Where is he? Let's invite him for some snacks!" Lady suddenly enthused, looking really ecstatic to see Calixtus.

"Are you serious? You don't really expect Dad to join us for some snacks, do you?" Fallon blurted out incredulously.

"Why not? He might be feeling like it!"

"He's doing something important."

"He might need to take a break!"

"He's with your father right now."

And she slumped.

She really doesn't want to deal with Maximilian right now. Just looking at his face annoys her. It makes sense that Calixtus is with him, though. They are probably discussing business together. 

"Why have you been insisting to see Dad, anyway? Do you want something from him?" Fallon asked with a raised brow. 

"W-What? Am I not allowed to get to know Uncle better?" Lady answered, looking away. 

She can't say it. 

It's just out of the question. She can't possibly tell him that she wants his father to turn into a bad guy – that she wants him to manipulate her into doing his evil bidding. This is for the sake of the plot of the story. Since she had caused it to go off track by keeping him from dying, which was a very significant and consequential event, she had to look for an alternative way to make one of the main villains join the dark side.

In the present, all Lady can think of is to learn more things about Calixtus – his secrets, his hidden grudges, his nasty sides, anything. 

So, technically, she's not lying when she said that she wanted to know him better. She could make this work if she could just spend time with him more often. 

"You want to see Dad, but you don't want to see Uncle, huh? Really. Just what is with you and your father?" Fallon went on to question, making Lady flinch a little in surprise.

"Well, ummm… You see, we visited Golden Rose Academy earlier today." 

"Or so I've heard. And?"

"I kinda got lost during the tour and met this boy whose name I didn't get to know. We became friends, and we talked a lot. But when it's time for me and Father to leave, he suddenly vanished without saying a thing. I felt very sad. Until now, I do."

"You've met a boy at school, and you don't know who he is… Wait. Let me guess. So, you decided to take out your frustrations on Uncle, didn't you? How shallow of you-"

"Of course not! I didn't take it out on him! It was him! He said mean things to me!"

"I can't believe you're straight-up calling him mean now-"

"Because he is! He kept telling me to forget about my friend and everything! He also said that he must've not even seen me as one! That he's just sucking up to me that whole time!"

"Well, that could be true."

"Fallon!"

"I mean, I don't know who that boy is, Lady. It's easy for us to think this way because that's what people usually do when they learned that we're part of the Mireille family – they suck up to us."

"You're all being judgmental."

"And you're being naïve." 

"What's so bad about making friends?!"

"Look, you are no longer a commoner. As a member of our family, you should already be aware that there are many people out there who would want to take advantage of you."   

Much to Lady's dismay, it turns out that Fallon is kind of worse than Maximilian.

Or perhaps, he's just explaining his side of things. Since she's already arguing with her father at that time, she thought for sure that he's just making things up to vex her, and because that's exactly how she reacted, she no longer waited for him to explain himself further. Their words do make sense, though. She shouldn't take this family's power and influence lightly.

"Still, that boy is a good boy…" Lady insisted nevertheless.

"I wouldn't have befriended him if he's not."

"You're that taken to him, huh…?" Fallon sighed, relenting.

"Alright. If you say so."

"Oh, but please, don't be jealous! I also consider you a friend!"

"Huh? What're you on about now?"

"Just don't get any wrong ideas. You're irreplaceable to me."

"Stop spouting out nonsense, idiot. I'm not jealous, okay? And I'm not getting any wrong ideas-"

"Oh, I know! I can make you my sidekick! In fact, I should! Since you are Uncle's son, that will be perfect! Don't you think so, too?!"

"No, I don't. I don't even get it." 

He's not following her. She just kept coming up with one idea after another. 

From that point on, the only words that would come out of her mouth were anything synonymous to a sidekick – henchman, lackey, underling, disciple, partner-in-crime, and so on and so forth. She would also mention his father from time to time. Then, to add to his bafflement, her arrogant and domineering tone was slowly coming back again. The more she got caught up in whatever she was babbling about, the more that attitude showed through.

"You're a perfect candidate for this position, Fallon! You'd do a great job scaring others away with that face!" she declared while holding up her glass of milk, looking as if her genius was showing. 

"Hey! What's wrong with my face?!" he bolted out, offended.

"You can be the Prince of Darkness, the One True Evil, the Shadow King, the-!"

"The heck are those?!"

"Your titles as my potential sidekick~!"

"Sidekick, my butt! I don't want them!"

"Oh, how cute~ You're saying butt instead of ass-"

"Stop messing around already!"

At this point, Fallon is starting to suspect that there's some pill in these milk and cookies that could've made Lady delusional.

She appears to be enjoying herself thoroughly. That would've been fine if only he knows what kind of baloney she's talking about.

"Listen up, I came here with a set of questions too. So, can we please move on to those now?" Fallon grumbled, feeling incredibly exhausted.

"Why didn't you say so~? Of course, we could!" Lady cooed. 

"How could I say so when you kept shooting your mouth off?"

"Right. Choosing a good sidekick title is pretty hard, huh? Don't worry. We'll find one soon. Let's just put it aside for now." 

He sighed out loud then, trying his hardest to keep himself from saying anything. At this rate, this conversation would never be over. He'll just have to make her forget about it.

"I'll go straight to the point. I'm not really good at beating around the bush…" he then finally began with a solemn tone and expression, making sure that she would understand that this was serious. 

"You owe me an explanation, Lady. How did you know about Xavier's purpose for abducting me? And why did you not tell Uncle Max or anyone else? I heard everything from Dad, you know."

At that, Lady went still - a subtle reaction that didn't go unnoticed by Fallon.