//------------------------------//
// Prologue 
// Story: Daring Do and the Hunt for the Hippogriff's Harp 
// by Tyrael 
//------------------------------//

May 15th, 1476
3,000 feet above the Badlands, Equestria

Captain Blackjack sat in his quarters before a table of charts and maps, plotting out the final leg of their journey. Blackjack was a hippogriff - the result of breeding between a griffon and a mare. Like a griffon, his head was that of an eagle, covered in immaculate white feathers. The front part of his body was that of a lion, his sinewy forelegs ended in the talons of an eagle. The hindquarters were that of a pony, complete with hooves and a tail of unruly white hair. His coat was a dark brown, and upon his flank was a cutie mark of a royal flush in the suit of clubs. 

The hippogriff captain and his crew had been tasked with transporting some precious cargo for the leader of their people, Queen Rozenn Thunderstruck. The hippogriff monarch, a talented musician, was scheduled to perform at the neighboring pony kingdom's capital, Canterlot, and so Blackjack and his crew were delivering all the necessary supplies for her concert. The cargo also included a national treasure, the queen's magical harp, so it had been a high honor for the hippogriff sailors. The sailors had been perhaps a tad too excited about this task, as they had done their fair share of bragging in the cider taverns before they took off.

A knock at the door to his cabin pried Blackjack's attention from the charts. He stood and opened the door, an ashen-faced sailor waited on the other side. Blackjack knew something must be wrong, he could feel it in his feathers. "What's the problem, ensign?" Blackjack asked.

The sailor raised his wing in a salute. "Sir, we have a situation. Vessel closing in fast on our six."

Blackjack scowled and spread his wings, flying quickly up to the bridge. He raised his spyglass to his eye and gazed astern at the horizon. A distant dot soared through the overcast skies, gradually increasing in size with each passing moment. He swore and glanced over his shoulder, silently urging his ship, the Half-Blood's Lament, ever faster. He turned his attention back to the approaching craft and snarled. The dot had become two dots, and they were both coming in fast.

The Lament was a Clipper-class cargo airship, a product of Forelockheed Aerospace. It was one of the fastest classes of airships in the world, but they were heavily laden with cargo as well as some defensive modifications including a large ballista and metal plating along the hull, severely reducing their speed. The helmsman nervously asked Blackjack, "Think we can lose 'em, skipper?"

"I don't have my hopes up, but head for that cloudbank off the starboard bow," Blackjack ordered.

"Aye, aye, captain," the helmsman replied as he turned the wheel, steering the airship towards the clouds off to the right.

The two vessels were drawing nearer, and Blackjack could make out flags being hoisted on them - black banners with a white canine skull and crossed bones. Pirates. Even worse, dog pirates. Blackjack spit. "Pirates! Sound the general quarters!"

A sailor began rapidly ringing the ship's bell, summoning the crew to battle stations. A small group of heavily armed and armored hippogriffs emerged from below decks. They were the queen's royal guards that had been tasked with guarding the harp. Their leader, a burly hippogriff named Steelwing, flapped his wings and landed next to Blackjack. Steelwing's coat and feathers were dark grey, his cutie mark of a winged shield barely visible beneath his gleaming silver armor.

Blackjack handed the spyglass to Steelwing. "Two vessels approach from the south," Blackjack said. "Pirates both, as you can see."

Steelwing casually gazed at the approaching ships and shrugged. "Let the worms come. This was getting to be a boring trip, anyway."

As the two pirate ships drew near, Steelwing readied the defenders. The small contingent of royal guards was supplemented by crewmen of the Lament, but they would still be vastly outnumbered by the pirates. Steelwing divided the hippogriffs into small fighting squads, then assigned them to guard each side of the airship. A team of veteran marines had been provided to man the ballista, and as they readied their weapon they offered words of encouragement to calm the nerves of the less experienced crewmen.

Blackjack kept an eye on their pursuers, which were still closing in fast on their slower prey. The pirate ships were much smaller than the Lament and they had been painted in a camouflage pattern to try and match the sky, an old disguise trick favored by pirates. Blackjack watched the approaching ships, rapidly clenching and unclenching his talons into fists, quivering in rage. He could see the pirates now, bipedal canines who seemed to be armed to the teeth, but thankfully lightly armored. 

Blackjack smirked and began to put on the chainmail armor a crew member had brought for him. The hippogriffs were outnumbered, but he was confident that their likely-superior equipment and training would even up the score. Blackjack buckled on a sword belt and inspected his cutlass before slipping it back in the scabbard. He moved to the front of the bridge and bellowed, "This is it, men! Gods save the Queen!"

The hippogriffs erupted into a chorus of 'Gods Save the Queen' as the pirates began to make their attack, answering the hippogriffs' chant with a dreadful baying. The ballista's shot sent a spray of splinters into the dogs as it tore through the railing of their ship as well as several unfortunate pirates. Undaunted, the lead pirate ship began to close in and work its way abeam of the Lament. 

The lead ship accelerated, passing the Lament with a litany of curses, taunts, barks, and howls pouring from the pirates on the deck. The pirate ship continued to blitz past the Lament, before it suddenly swung completely around and veered head-on towards the hippogriffs. Blackjack chuckled and slowly shook his head. They're trying to ram us? Can't they see the metal plating on our hull?

Blackjack put his talons on the helmsman's shoulder. "They want to play chicken, eh? When they flee, I want you to turn into them and give 'em hell!"

The helmsman smiled happily. "Aye, aye, skipper."

Silence befell the airship as everypony waited, watching for the pirates to break off their attack. The pirates held their bow to the Lament, closing in until there was only a hundred feet between the two vessels. The pirates suddenly swerved sharply to starboard and raucous cheers erupted from the hippogriffs. Blackjack smugly smiled at the fleeing pirates and yelled, "You scurvy dogs!"

"We have them now!" Blackjack shouted, as the helmsman rapidly spun the wheel to the left.  The Lament shuddered under the impact as its steel-plated bow ripped into the pirate ship, gouging a large gash from midship all the way aft. Blackjack watched the fleeing pirates and immediately knew something was wrong. Instead of any sign of concern over what just happened to their ship, the pirates were grinning and laughing.

Blackjack looked to the right and saw what the pirates thought was humorous. The lead ship's attack had merely been a distraction. Her captain had even let his vessel get rammed in order to play out the charade. While the hippogriffs were watching the lead ship play out the game of chicken, the second ship had ascended just out of sight, waiting. When the Lament had impacted with the lead ship, the lurking pirates sprung into action, descending and lashing the two airships together with grappling hooks. With a chorus of terrifying howls, the pirates began to swarm aboard the Lament.

Blackjack cursed his foolishness under his breath and drew his cutlass as he prepared to defend the bridge alongside the Lament's first mate, a lanky hippogriff mare. The first of the pirates had barely touched the deck when they were struck down by a hail of crossbow bolts. The hippogriffs were lethally accurate, and every razor-sharp bolt had met its mark. A second wave of pirates charged onto the Lament and Steelwing's men dropped their crossbows and surged forwards to meet them. The hippogriffs' superior training gave them the advantage and they quickly repelled the initial attacks. The pirates, used to attacking lightly armed pony vessels, not well-armed soldiers, faltered and fled back to their ship with their tails between their legs. Steelwing rallied his men and pursued the pirates back onto their own ship.

The pirates were running around in disarray before their captain, a massive Great Dane-looking dog, restored order. "You bloody mongrels! Are you dogs, or cats? There are three of you for every one of them! Have all you mutts forgotten the lessons of the wolf!"

The pirates heeded their captain's words, thinking of how the wolf hunts in a pack, and realized that despite their losses, they still vastly outnumbered the hippogriffs. Attacking in large groups, the pirates would single out a hippogriff and overrun his position, quickly turning the tide of battle in their favor. Worried, Steelwing and his men regrouped and began cutting their way through the pirate horde back to the Lament.

Not wanting to fall for the same trick twice, Blackjack had kept his eye on the wounded pirate ship. Sure enough, It had swung around and was coming in towards the Lament's port side. The pirates began to throw grapples and the hippogriffs moved to engage the new threat. Blackjack readied his cutlass and flew towards the port rail.

"Port side! We must sever the grappling lines!" Blackjack ordered. The marines, realizing the danger if the second ship was able to unload her pirates, abandoned the ballista and rushed to help. 

Blackjack raised his cutlass and slashed through one of the rope lines. He prepared to slice another line and heard a whistling through the air as an arrow hit the deck an inch from his hoof. He ignored it and cut another grapple line, then flapped his wings and rolled to the right as another arrow streaked by. He peeked up from behind the railing and saw a dog with a recurve bow clutching the pirate ship's rigging.

Blackjack watched as the archer slowly, deliberately, aimed his bow further astern. Blackjack tried to shout out a warning, but was too late. The arrow pierced the helmsman's chainmail hauberk and plunged into his chest, knocking him to his knees. The archer smiled and nodded at Blackjack, before letting loose another arrow, this one hitting the first mate's unprotected wing as she knelt to tend to the injured helmsman.

Blackjack glanced around the deck and frowned. They appeared to be losing the battle. The majority of the hippogriffs were fighting for their lives against an endless swarm of pirates. A wounded dog lay nearby, and Blackjack hoisted him over his shoulders, using the pirate as a living shield. Blackjack made his way along the port side, slicing grapples as the archer mercifully held his fire. With only a few lines left, the archer had second thoughts and opened fire on Blackjack once more, peppering his own comrade with arrows in a desperate attempt to stop the hippogriff.

Blackjack rolled the now arrow-laden dog off his shoulders and watched the marines as they hacked through the final lines, then collapsed on the deck to catch his breath. Pain lanced through his body as an arrow tore through his wing. He clambered to his feet and dashed towards cover, but not before another arrow had hit its mark, piercing through his chainmail and embedding itself in his shoulder. 

Blackjack grimaced and glared towards the archer, watched as the pirate ship drifted away. He muttered, "Damn your eyes." 

As if he had heard, the archer notched one last arrow and snap-fired towards Blackjack. His shot clanged against the metal plated hull, and Blackjack breathed a sigh of relief.

Steelwing and the other hippogriffs had fought their way back on-board and regrouped with the others. Together, they cast off the starboard grapples. With their ship freed, the first mate spun the wheel hard to port to get some distance between them and the pirates. The threat diminished, the marines quickly got back onto their ballista and began firing at the pirates once more. Their shots were both accurate and destructive, and soon dissuade the two bold pirate captains.

The hippogriffs dealt with the few remaining pirates on-board the Lament and watched in relief as their attackers turned and fled - both of the pirate ships were badly damaged. A great cheer erupted from the surviving hippogriffs as the pirate ship that had been rammed suddenly began to yaw then spiraled towards the ground below. Blackjack staggered back to the bridge and took over the helm. Raising the spyglass with his uninjured arm, he could make out Canterlot Mountain in the distance and turned the wheel to get back on course.

An eerie silence crept over the deck, prompting Blackjack to limp to the forward rail and peer down. The sight stunned him. Littered across the blood-spattered deck was a tangled mass of bodies of dogs and hippogriffs. Blackjack had never seen such carnage, and he felt the urge to vomit. Of the twenty-seven sailors, soldiers, and marines that had been aboard the Lament, only eleven were left standing, and most were badly wounded. Blackjack could count at least twenty dogs' bodies on the deck, and knew Steelwing and the marines must have claimed far more aboard the pirates' own ships, but the thought gave no comfort. 

Shaken by the sight and his loss of blood, he stared up into the heavens and whispered, "Gods save us all..."

Blackjack made his way back to the helm and tightly gripped the wheel. He could feel himself getting weaker, slipping towards unconsciousness. His eyes stared vacantly at the mountain in the distance as he used his ebbing strength to attempt to keep the airship on course.