It's pretty much impossible to make out who's the boss of the pirates from what they wear.  They don't exactly use uniforms or insignia.  So instead, Lucky fires a well-aimed shot at the nimrod most likely to hurt his precious Liberty!

  Joe has this difficulty, where sure explosives are effective and all that.  But detonations on your own ship are kind of a no-no (No, not a moogle mechanic).

  Though, a grenade launcher fired in an arc at the other ship works out a bit better.  At least on principle.

A pirate goes for Liberty and Lucky fires on him, making the pirate fall. However, even as the pirate falls, he twists and fires back at Lucky. The shot is off. Yeah... try aiming accurately behind yourself while falling, using an old flintlock pistol. Good luck with that.

Liberty, however, takes the fallen pirate's sword and charges into battle! The captain says, "Liberty! Come back! Go ranged! Darn it!"

Meanwhile, Joe's grenade goes in an arc and... hits a rather large crate that was on the pirate ship. All the pirates look over their shoulders. "No!" several of them say while others just go for cover. The pirates go quiet and as the smoke clears from the crate, there is a Cyborg Zombie Unicorn Pegasus! It's huge, looking big enough to be a mount for an ogre. It stomps its hooves a few times then lets out a terrifying multi-voiced scream.

"Are they crazy?!" Lucky wonders as he chambers a tracer round before suggestiong something rather crazy himself, "Who keeps something like that on their ship?!  I'll keep it's attention!  Someone blast it!  Explosives are about all that'll actually hurt those things!"

He shoots at the monster's face hoping it'll go after him!  Well not exactly hoping that.  More hoping it'll not go after someone else.

  Joe is a strong supporter of 'arm your children today'.  Of course, as this is not a Pokemon setting, devastating ranged firepower for the kids along with you is apparently less ready in supply.  "I suppose it would be too much to hope it uses it's wings to just leave?"

  He'll get right on that whole 'shoot it more' thing.  Just as soon as he reloads...

The C.Z.U.P is shot by many. The shots all seem to just bounce off either the metal parts or the bone parts, while penetrating what flesh seems to be there. Another horrifying scream. The thing spreads its wings and flaps!

Meanwhile, Liberty took full advantage and stabs several pirates in the legs to disable them. The CZUP takes off into the air and shoots acid at the crew. Liberty panics and runs away from it towards the mast, which she begins climbing.

However, the CZUP fires a laserbeam at the mast, cutting it and causing it to begin falling. With Lucky still in it. Liberty lets go and falls to the deck again.

Lucky is terrified of falling to his doom Liberty getting hurt!  Yeah.  >.>  <.<  He jumps for the nearest rope with any amount of tension and uses his rifle as an overhead zip-line device to descend to the deck with a high-speed thump!  Ow.  Looks a lot less painful in the movies.

"We need to lure it to the gun ports!" he suggests, "Someone get me a big mirror!"

If gunshots are hardly worth note, maybe flashing sunlight at it.  Or reflecting that laserbeam back at it.

  "A little busy at the moment to grab full standing mirrors, I'm sure you understand."  Yes, clearly the people that could fall to be crunched under ship parts understand the meaning of 'a little busy here' more than you might at the moment Joe.

  Joe has to scramble to avoid a reminded that 'acid really hurts'.  He finds himself wishing he had something a bit more accurate than grenades, but he doesn't exactly carry ground to air missile launchers around with him at all times.

  Those are in a locker for special occasions.

  As it is, he tries to get in a shot that if it misses horribly, won't hit their own ship at least.

Liberty squeaks as she sees the monster hop onto the ship she's on. Don't worry, Joe, at least you didn't hit your allies. And at least the monster didn't deflect anything back at you or your allies.

And don't worry, Lucky, the captain heard you and pulled out his own hand mirror to catch the monster's attention. It looks at the captain, roars and gets its roar cut short from bullet-to-the-face. MORE roaring!

Liberty says, "It's on our ship now! Luring it to the gun ports is...." she suddenly realizes something. Liberty runs to the captain, makes a grabbing motion and the mirror flies from the captain's hand to hers. With that, she catches the monster's attention and runs between its legs! "Come get me, you god-forsaken beast!"

"Liberty!" Lucky screams, expecting her to wind up dead in the next second.  His panic forces back the tears, and he comes up with an idea of his own.  He rushes to the edge of the ship and jumps over to the pirate ship!

"Sharpshooter comin' through!" he shouts at any pirates that might object, "Stay outta my way if you wunna survive this thing your brought on us both!"  He then makes his way for the pirate harpoon gun!  If he can harpoon the thing, they might be able to bring the power of the entire pirate ship to bear against it and help steer it to where they need it to go!

  On the one hand, Joe would have preferred if Liberty didn't do something quite so dangerous.  On the other hand, he wishes Liberty took a moment to take a swing at a Very Sensitive Area on her way by because if that's not a distraction, what is?

  "Maybe you could aim for it's mouth and get it's brain the next time it roars, or something Lucky.  you will only have a chance every.... 2.3 seconds, really."

The pirates on the pirate ship? Yeah, they don't care. "That thing's YOUR problem now that it ain't on ARR ship!" They attack Lucky.

Liberty may not be able to read so much as surface thoughts without people wanting her to, but hey.. sometimes great minds just think alike, you know? SLICE! The CZUP lets out a Michael Jackson scream. Enhanced by multivoice, but still girly and "OW!" ish.

It turns to face Liberty, who is now leaping towards the pirate ship. But she seems to have purposefully dived in between the two ships! The monster is taking the bait, though, and jumps after her just before being hit by the first harpoon Lucky fired. It growls at Lucky, but looks back down at Liberty, who is using a lot of mental effort to levitate. She raspberries at it.

"Really?!" Lucky hollers at both the pirates and Liberty.  Oh well.  Times like these, he wishes he didn't care so much for other people's lives.  "Keep these pirates off me, please, Joe!"  He sets the harpoon to reel in the monster and leaps overboard!  He means to wind up back on his own ship, and if he aimed himself right, he'll arc through a gun port and be right next to a cannon!

  Joe sighs.  So many thing trying to kill them, really, such a hassle.  He also lobs a smoke grenade while he's at it because Lucky is more likely to hit SOMETHING that they would like shot than it is for the pirates to shoot or stab Lucky specifically.  "I am so getting that girl a grappling hook gun one of these days."  Hey, being able to tow herself back with less brain effort would be a good thing.

The smoke grenade proves useful for keeping the pirates off Lucky. And Lucky manages to stage-dive into one of the cannon ports. The CZUP didn't even notice Lucky, so angry is it towards Liberty. It spits acid at Liberty who manages to maintain her levitation while holding up some psychic shield that makes the acid go around her. She makes with the girly cringe when she does this, squinting her eyes and then peeking back at the unicorn.

Lucky has a clear shot at the thing. Point blank.

"Thanks Joe!" Lucky hollers!

A point blank shot might seem like an easy thing to do, but then there's the chance of shooting Liberty in the process.  Or shooting bits of monster into Liberty.  Lucky swings the gun to angle it juust right...

KABOOM!

Mittens would approve.

  And there was much rejoicing.  "Yaaaay."   See?  "Though, seriously Liberty.  Get back up here before Lucky dies from a heart attack instead of pirates or mishmash what the hells or ack."

  Joe's cut off (only sort of literally) as he blocks a pirate sword with a knife... Note to self, stop having no middle ground between 'explosives' and 'knives'. It stylish and is more manageable in a grid based inventory, but has certain practical flaws.

The monster is blown away and Liberty hops back aboard the ship. The pirates are soon defeated and things settle down. (Fast forwarding a bit)

The crew is assembled to the deck again. The captain explains they won and are going to take a portion of the pirate ship's fuel, but then will tow the ship to the nearest air-community so others can get use of the ship rather than pirates. The captain then dismisses everyone to do whatever. The mast will just have to be repaired by the now-enslaved pirates.

Liberty heads for below-deck.

Lucky can't read lips so he missed everything in the post-combat brief.  Because he was point blank to an airship scale cannon without hearing protection.  Supposedly the ringing will stop in a few days.

"Libble helb here?" he stammers and he hobbles like a drunkard, trying to keep up with Liberty.

Inner ear damage sucks too.

  Joe opts to help Lucky along.  He'd also transcribe via tiny whiteboard for them, but that's a bit tricky to do when trying to lead a wobbler person effectively.  "That was awesome, but I'm pretty sure more people get action poses as opposed to slurring than you do. why are you named Lucky again?"   Oh, right. because they survived something like that.

  Also, why are you talking to him if you know he cant hear you Joe?

Liberty may not be able to read minds without permission, but she can send thoughts without permission. People's brains can hear her telepathy just like their ears can hear her voice. So she is sending what Joe said to Lucky telepathically before going to help Joe with helping Lucky. "I'll be helping us communicate." she says telepathically.

"Thamks you boo," Lucky answers.  He's also lucky because Liberty's alive in spite of shooting at her with a cannon, "Hamdy dad telegapaffy,"

He's able to carry his own weight at least... Just not very well.  Below-deck get!

  Joe is more making sure Lucky doesn't wobble face first into a doorframe or something.  "Thanks Liberty.  When we get some less hectic freetime and I got a more free rein on the munitions, remind me to give you some grenades.  Unless you couldn't have floated one into that thing's mouth."

  Yor hed asplode.

Liberty widens her eyes. "Good thought, Uncle Joe!" She looks up at Lucky and telepaths, "What an amazing battle... and it helped us avoid having to go to the surface for a while. Cap says maybe even a month."

Luggy vazebalms... facepalms.

"Gendades?" he asks, "Do a ibble kurl?  Grade.  A momf.  Jusd enub dime do ged wew enub fo mo viowez."