An hour after their deathly debacle— which originally was only supposed to involve them serving their two persons of interest some cuisine from the galley— Selka and Tarasha found themselves walking back down the same corridor they had left from before, except they weren't returning to the aforementioned cell room alone.
Leading the two monster girls was a young woman with blond twin-tails, ivory-pale skin, and a deceptively jaded look in her yellow eyes that made her appear abrasive— despite her subjectively beautiful appearance.
Dressed in white— save for her bronze shoulder armor and black long-sleeves that were part of her blouse she wore, beneath her decorative white vest and blue ascot— the noble fencer kept one hand resting on the golden hilt of her trusty sheathed rapier, as she came to a sudden stop just meters away from the end of the corridor.
With the ten-foot tall shark woman behind her left shoulder, and the jingling of the moth girl's bell ringing out from behind her other shoulder, the yellow-eyes fencer stared contemplatively ahead at the locked door separating them from whatever she was about to walk in on.
"Ladies," she addressed without turning to look at them, as she reached down with her left hand to grab a hold of her set of keys.
Slouching to one side with her massive gloved-hands resting on her curvaceous hips, Tarasha smiled at the back of the young woman's head, as she casually replied with, "Yeah, Hannah? What's up?"
"With all due respect, I'd feel more at ease if you two stayed posted in the p-way for the time being— just until I can ensure that it's safe for your re-entries," the blond woman said politely, and in a protective tone— causing the moth girl to let out a heavy sigh.
"Thank God…!" Selka muttered with an uneasy smile across her fuzzy-white face.
Although her petite colleague was relieved, Tarasha couldn't help but to raise a brow at Hannah's request, despite her long raven-black bangs covering her eyes. "Uh… I don't know how I'm supposed to feel about leaving you alone in there, girlie— especially with how rowdy those two were earlier."
Smiling softly as she unlocked the door, Hannah took a step forward to press her shoulder up against the cell door— ensuring that it couldn't be easily opened from the other side, before turning to her side and tossing the unexpecting moth girl her keys.
Gasping while fumbling to catch the keys while still hovering a foot off the polished wooden floor, Selka almost dropped the key ring before holding it tightly to her corset-covered chest, as she and Tarasha looked back at the appreciative expression across the blond fencer's face.
"Everyone's safety who's aboard the sub is my top priority; if these two are as much of a security risk as you've described them to be, then I cannot allow them to endanger the rest of us," Hannah explained with sincerity in her voice, while turning to look specifically at the muscular shark woman.
"Tarasha, I'm relying on you to keep this hatch fastened— under no circumstances does anyone enter or leave out of this brig, unless I or my father give the order," Hannah instructed, to which the shark woman seemed uneasy towards.
"Sure, but uh… J-Just so we're all on the same page here, umm… I… I might have been a little TOO lenient on the part about them "sleeping"," Tarasha admitted with a guilt expression forming across her snouted face— her light-brown scales turning red. "Truth is, uh… Truth is that they're probably… Ya know?"
"Dead?" Hannah inquired, while visibly undeterred by the revelation— though, the same couldn't be said about Selka, who froze midair upon hearing the word she had been trying desperately to avoid.
Reaching up behind her head full of hair to bashfully rub the back of her dorsal fin, Tarasha replied back with, "Y-Yeah, that," before cautiously asking her, "Err… Whyyyyy doesn't it seem like it's making all that much of a difference to you…?"
"Because Tarasha, that's precisely what they more than likely want you to believe," Hannah replied confidently, to which earned her confused looks from the two monster girls.
Fidgeting with the key ring she had been tossed, Selka tilted her head slightly to her left shoulder before asking the noble fencer, "A-Are you suggesting that they were just p-pretending this whole time…?!"
"That's a very plausible scenario— yes," Hannah replied, before explaining to them, "It's more common amongst prisoners than one would normally imagine— even if they're supposedly just little ankle biters, we shouldn't lower our guards for any reason whatsoever."
Appearing shocked with her jaw agape, the borderline paranoid reasoning that the blond girl had given them was nothing short of mind blowing to the shark woman.
"U-Unbelievable…! And to think, I was in there, behind the bars with them by myself…!" Tarasha muttered in retrospective astonishment— shaking her head softly, while turning to look at the uncomfortable expression across Selka's face. "They could have gotten the drop on me…!"
Shivering at the thought, the moth girl turned to look worryingly at the blond girl to ask, "S-Should you be going in there alone then, Miss Augusta? If they're as conniving as you're suggesting they are?"
"Like I've said, Miss Lamplight: your safety is my top priority; I'd much rather put myself in danger, than any of you," Hannah repeated herself, much to Tarasha's visible disagreement.
"And my top priority is making sure you're alright!" She countered, and immediately began getting heated up as Hannah stared back at her with a calm expression. "If I hear anything that makes me even sort-of THINK that you're in trouble, girlie, then don't be surprised if you see my ass bustin' through that goddamn door!"
Smiling appreciatively at the protective shark woman, Hannah paused briefly before reminding Tarasha, "You'd be putting your mates at risk then, and I know you don't want that either."
Letting out a sharp, muffled grunt, Tarasha opened her mouth full of razor sharp teeth to speak, but soon found herself unable to argue with the blond girl's logic. Clenching her fingers into fists, the shark woman became even more frustrated at the situation as she averted her glare down to the floorboards.
"Y-Yeah, but…! S-Still…! You can't expect us not to do anything, if things go tits-up in there!" Tarasha finally argued, to which Hannah seemed more than ready to address.
"But why Miss Alderney, we have the answer to this impasse of ours floating about right here, like the little angel she is!" The blond girl exclaimed lightheartedly, while extending her left arm up to gesture at the off-guard moth girl.
"Oh, uh…?! Y-You're referring to me…?!" The moth girl murmured with a worried tone, while doing her best to put on a brave face as the young woman smirk expectantly at her. "W-What can I do to help, ma'am?!"
"Keep track of my keys, if you'd please, and double-time to my father if the need arises," Hannah instructed, before giving the anxious moth girl a reassuring wink. "I'll be counting on those quick wings if yours, Miss Lamplight~!"
Although the idea of being relied on certainly made her feel more pressure than she desired, the blond girl's trust in her hardened her resolve. Raising a hand up to her forehead to salute her, Selka replied back as confidently as she could, "A-Aye-aye, ma'am!"
Returning the salute with vigor behind her hand movement, Hannah gave her two companions an appreciative nod before turning around to face the door— her left hand grabbing a hold of its latch-handle, while her dominant hand grabbed a hold of her rapier's handle.
"At the ready, ladies; I want this to be smooth, and I want this to be quick. Any questions?" Hannah asked, while turning her head toward her shoulder to give both of them an inquisitive side-glance.
"Nah, I'm good— I guess."
"N-No, ma'am— none at all!"
"Aye, then; let's carry on, and engage on the count of three," Hannah said in a determined voice— sliding her feet into a lunging stance, as her fingers tightened around the rapier while beginning to lift it out of its decorative sheathe.
"Three… Two… One— HOO-RAH!" The noble fencer roared out righteously— her eyes immediately shining brightly in a white light, as her entire body began to become enveloped in an aura of arcing sparks of electricity.
Fully prepared to go all-out in her prisoners, Hannah practically ripped the steal door off of its heavy-duty hinges, before lunging forward into the brig— her razor-sharp blade cutting the air, as she unsheathed it fully, by the time her boots made contact with the floor.
With the hatch shutting tightly behind her, Hannah's glowing white-eyes scanned the other side of the cell room's steel bars— and felt immediately taken aback, by the lackluster sight beholden to her.
Sitting upright with bags under their purple eyes— and an utterly exhausted expression that looked akin to them being hung-over— Luca had an elongated frown across their pale face, as they stared blankly towards Hannah's direction— seemingly having a hard time registering what was going on.
Passed out beside them while sitting up with his back up against the damaged wall, Ren was snoring loudly as he slept completely unaware of what was going on— drool trickling down from the corner of his agape lips, as he rested his head against the side of Luca's slender shoulder.
Just like her electro-kinesis, her excitement quickly fizzled out upon finally coming to terms with how underwhelming her encounter with them was. '… Better safe than sorry, as they say,' Hannah thought to herself, while relaxing her posture slightly as she kept her fingers tight around the handle of her drawn rapier.
"Oi, Cunt! What's this rubbish I hear about you two dying?!" Hannah demanded vulgarly, in a loud enough voice to cause Luca to wince painfully at.
Groaning in a whiny voice, the white-haired boy closed his eyelids tightly as he recoiled as much as his unbearable migraine would allow him to. "Mmmmm, gnhhh… W-We got better, or whatever— I don't know," Luca murmured out in a barely coherent tone— shortly letting out an elongated yawn, while Hannah momentarily darted her eyes over to the cart with two covered plates on it.
'It doesn't seem like they've even had a go at their grub yet… Did they just wake up?' Hannah wondered to herself, while soon also taking notice of the other structural damage that the two incurred. "Best wake up your little accomplice there, mate; the captain wants to speak with the both of you, and that's not up for negotiation either!"
Letting out another guttural whine from the loudness of her voice alone, Luca's frowning lips twitched before he begrudgingly replied back to Hannah with a half-hearted, "O-Okay, fine…!"
Now under more reason to believe that the two of them weren't faking any of what she thought they were, the noble fencer momentarily considered sheathing her rapier— staring down at its glistening blade from the corner of her eye, as she slowly rose from her battle stance.
"… I'm going to send for a mate of mine who specializes in sealing spells, which is going to require me to open the hatch," Hannah explained aloud, and took a step closer to the door while raising her golden hilt up— so as to aim the tip of her rapier directly at Luca.
"Even you two even so much as take one foot off of that bench, and I'll bloody disintegrate you fucks into columnated pile of ash," Hannah threatened with conviction in her voice— tauntingly smirking at Luca, before mockingly telling them, "We'll see whether or not you two can "get better" from that."
"W-Watch me," Luca sassed back— establishing just how unfazed by her threat they were, as they attempted to move from their seat to test the waters. However, all it took was an inch of scooting closer to the edge of the bench to make the white-haired boy freeze up in excruciating pain.
Reaching up to grab a hold of their head— in a vain attempt reduce the throbbing sensation within their cranium— Luca reeled in unspeakable agony for several minutes, before finally being able to tearfully utter out to their captor, "F-Fine, do w-whatever— I don't even care…!"
Hearing how pitifully upset Luca sounded— while Ren was completely down for the count, and too preoccupied sleeping away his exhaustion to say a single word in protest— Hannah's hand flustered a bit, as she found herself beginning to lower her blade.
'Are they…? Are they actually children then, and not simply not ageless as I thought they were?' Hannah contemplated, while resting the tip of her rapier against the floorboards. 'If that's truly the case, then… How were they capable of doing so much structural damage to their cell— let alone slaughter the entire crew of that fucking ferryboat?!'