The scar-faced pirate's pupils abruptly contracted. He thought he had misheard, then an overwhelming sense of humiliation engulfed him.
"What the fuck are you babbling about?!" He pressed the blade deeper against the little girl's neck, making her blood seep out faster. "You think I don't have the guts? Believe it or not, I'll-"
His threat cut off abruptly.
Because the figure who had just been standing in the middle of the beach had vanished.
"Where is he?"
"Where did he go?!"
"Did he run away?"
The pirates holding hostages looked around in alarm and uncertainty, trying to find Lorne.
The scar-faced pirate's heart clenched. A sense of extreme danger shot from his tailbone to the crown of his head, and every hair on his body stood on end.
Crack!
A crisp, teeth-grating sound of shattering bone came from his own neck.
The vicious expression on the scar-faced pirate's face froze, and the light swiftly faded from his eyes. The last things he saw were the little girl he had held hostage dropping safely to the ground, and several of his companions with their necks broken at the same twisted angle.
Their bodies still held the posture of holding hostages, but every trace of life was already gone.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
The corpses fell one after another.
Lorne's figure appeared like a ghost where they had been standing, as though he had been there all along.
He did not even glance at the bodies. He merely bent down and lifted the little girl, who had frozen in fright, and the other civilians with a steady grip.
"En... Ensign!" Aboard the Fearless, Lieutenant Commander Ethan watched through his binoculars, his voice changing pitch. "When... when did he get over there?!"
The veterans on deck were utterly silent.
They had only seen