The next morning, Amon woke up very early.
It was not because he wanted to.
It was because he opened his eyes and found Kaya and Kirlia squatting at the foot of his bed, staring at him with round, curious eyes.
"Sir, you are awake."
"I still wanna know what happened to the Ugly Duckling in the end. Did it turn into a beautiful white swan?"
Last night, because Kaya refused to sleep unless he told her a story, Amon had burned through a whole stack of fairy tales from his previous life.
But in the end she had been too sleepy and nodded off halfway, so they had agreed to continue the rest today.
The moment she woke up, she had been thinking about it non-stop. As soon as she realized Amon was still in the house, she went straight to his room, waiting for him to open his eyes so she could ask.
...
"Uh..."
Amon had not expected to be woken up for this reason.
Looking at the bright, innocent, and expectant eyes in front of him, he suddenly had the urge to mess with her a little.
He sat up lazily and gave her a half-smile.
"You really want to know what happened to the Ugly Duckling in the end?"
"Mm, Yes I want to know."
"Kiru."
Kaya nodded seriously, and Kirlia beside her nodded too.
It could understand human speech perfectly well. For a Pokémon, it was very clever.
"Very well. Then I will tell you the ending of the Ugly Duckling."
Amon nodded with fake seriousness, then began slowly:
"The Ugly Duckling, although it was ugly, in the end..."
He deliberately paused there and watched Kaya's mouth purse anxiously.
"What happened at the end? It turned into a white swan, right?"
She was expecting the story to go that way. That was how it was supposed to go.
Amon, however, shook his head.
"In the end, people discovered that although the Ugly Duckling looked ugly... its meat was still very tasty."
Kaya froze.
At first, she did not quite understand.
She quietly repeated the sentence in her head once, then suddenly realized what he meant.
The Ugly Duckling did not become a swan. It ended up being eaten?
The moment that ending sank in, Kaya exploded.
"Humph, You are lying. The Ugly Duckling is supposed to become a beautiful white swan in the end."
"Hahaha, no. In the end, just like all the other ducks, it successfully got eaten. This story tells us that warm, inspirational 'chicken soup for the soul' is useless."
"I do not want to hear it, I do not want to hear it! The Ugly Duckling definitely became a white swan in the end. Right, Coco?"
"Please, sir, tell me the Ugly Duckling became a white swan in the end."
Kaya seemed extremely attached to the ending of this story.
She clung to Amon's arm, shaking it over and over as if she could shake the result out of him, tears brimming in her eyes. Clearly, this cruel version was unbearable to her.
...
"Uh... all right, all right. I think I remembered it wrong."
"In the end the Ugly Duckling did become the most beautiful swan, and then it lived happily ever after with another swan, in a shamelessly lovey-dovey life."
Seeing her about to cry, Amon surrendered and obediently patched the ending back to its original form.
"Sir, what does 'shamelessly lovey-dovey life' mean?"
Now that she had the ending she wanted, Kaya finally stopped tearing up, but the phrase "shamelessly lovey-dovey" made her curious.
"Um... it probably means a happy life."
Amon waved a hand and glossed it over.
"All right, off you go for now. I want to sleep a little longer."
Being gently shooed out, Kaya puffed her cheeks again.
"You are such a lazy bug. How boring. Come on, Coco, let us go play."
She pouted, then decided to leave him alone.She had not been outside properly in a long time. So now that she was healthy again, she wanted to walk everywhere.
"Let us go, Coco. We are going to the village pier to watch the sunrise over the sea."
"Kiru."
Hand in hand with Kirlia, Kaya walked out of the villa toward the village entrance and the dock.
...
On the other side of Syrup Village, Kuro was quietly preparing the first step of his plan. He had already gone over several different strategies and had secretly investigated the people in the village.
He finally decided that slipping into the big villa at the village entrance and becoming their butler would be the safest move.
To get in, he needed a flawless performance.
The best would be to enter in a very "natural" way, or better yet, as someone who saved their lives.
So his plan was to have his subordinates pretend to be pirates chasing him, while he "fled" toward Kaya's house, playing the role of a desperate victim.
Once inside, he would slowly win their trust.
When the time was right, all he needed to do was quietly eliminate the key members of the household, and the villa would belong to him.
From then on, he could completely abandon his pirate identity and live as a member of the upper class.
His descendants would be nobles, not the children of a pirate, forced to hide and run their whole lives.
He had gone through this plan over and over and found no obvious flaws.
So he ordered his crew to dress up as pirates and "chase" him.
...
"Help, help! Someone help me!"
Kuro shouted as he ran, heading straight in the direction of Kaya's villa.
...
"Hm? Coco, I think someone is shouting for help over there. Let us go take a look."
Thanks to the Marrow Cleansing Elixir, Kaya's body and senses were greatly improved. She quickly picked up Kuro's panicked yelling in the distance and, curious, headed toward the sound with Kirlia.
They arrived just in time to see several "pirates" chasing a man in glasses and neat clothes.
"There really is someone. Coco, go."
"Use Confusion!"
Last night, Amon had already explained Kirlia's abilities to Kaya, so she was now very familiar with its moves and shouted the command with enthusiasm.
"Kiru."
Kirlia's eyes flashed. It raised one arm and a wave of invisible psychic force rippled outward.
Under the impact of that psychic blast, the pirates chasing Kuro were lifted clean off the ground and flung into the air, then slammed heavily back onto it, life and death unknown.
Kaya stared at Kirlia in shock.
She had not expected her cute little partner to be that powerful.
...
The sudden turn of events stunned Kuro, who had been pretending to run for his life.
What the hell?
How did this little girl become so strong?
The last time he had come to scout the village, Kaya had been a frail, weak little thing.
Now, after just a short time, she suddenly had such terrifying combat power at her side?
He had not even seen how she attacked before his men were all down.
Fortunately, his ability to improvise was good. He quickly adjusted his expression and put on a grateful face.
"Little girl, did you save me just now? Thank you so much..."
He had just started his line when his knees "buckled" and he pretended to faint dramatically from exhaustion.
He had barely finished falling when a playful voice sounded right next to his ear.
"Captain Kuro, drop the act."
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