Octavius raised an eyebrow as Ceres looked like she was about ready to start really rubbing it it. She'd gotten her ship before he had gotten one for him. Apparently that was cause to celebrate. The pirate was about ready to celebrate the woman right in the face, with the butt of his fowling piece. Then, of course, she said that he should be the one in charge. He just about tried to slap her anyway, his knee-jerk reaction being to refuse. Thankfully, just in time, he remembered that she was crazy, and that he had to share a ship with her. And she was a woman too, on top of it all. Bad signs, where he was concerned. He did his best to be polite, then, knowing that he last thing he needed was an [i]angry[/i] woman on this vessel. It was bad enough she'd attract sharks for a whole week every month, he didn't want her flipping out on him now. "If you want the ship, I'd suggest you take command." he informed the new captain as politely as he could manage. It came out a little rough, but the effort was obvious. "If I'm in charge, this is my ship, but it can't be mine, because I can't go around collecting things while I still owe you. If I were you, I would get things under way before the marines show up..." He was quite proud of his polite tone, and left it at that. The thin veil of civilization would fade soon enough, he didn't need to tear it up in front of her just yet. As it was, this woman was becoming increasingly stressful for him, and he didn't need any more of her attitude, or her crazy notions. Ideally, her shark-attracting self wouldn't even be here, but that wasn't really an option now. He'd gotten her a ship. Now he just needed an escape. If it would have been safe to just step off the gangplank doctor in tow, he wouldn't be on the ship right now. But the section's worth of marines running down the docks said it wasn't safe to be wandering about. He poked his head up from below just in time to realize that these men knew where they were going. The psychotic woman was probably still checking the cargo. He decided something needed to be done, and the captain wasn't disposed properly to do it.

"All hands on deck. Prepare to repel boarders." he said calmly, smacking the nearest sailor as he spoke. The man relayed the order with gusto, shouting even as he ran to secure weaponry for the crew. The pirate lord was already armed, and he watched as the marines sprinted into range. Unfortunately, they had the nerve to change tactics before the Shotgun Preacher could start organizing things. That meant that his crew of men armed with scatterguns and pistols wasn't going to be terribly effective against the repeating rifles of the marines. He then designated four of the quickest-looking sailors to start things going. "Get us moving." he ordered, letting them figure out what actually needed to be done.

While the crew was loading up and taking up repelling positions, the marines had formed up in two ranks and were preparing to fire. Their usual, orderly manner had the captain starting to feel nervous. "Fire at will." he bellowed at the men who'd taken up positions on the swivel guns. They got off one shot each before the soldiers got themselves together. Four marines died, and then they volleyed back. Their rifles thundered as the hail of lead began tearing up the sides of the ship. Not enough to do any significant damage to the vessel herself, but concerning enough to get Octavius into a rage. He tossed his pistol into his left hand and then his whole left arm exploded. But the revolver was just gone, not detonated like the rest of the limb. When the canine head raced toward the marines, he saw them start to falter. Then their rifles ran dry. His human arm burst from the mouth of the dog the moment it was comfortably close to the enemy soldiers. They tried to take cover and reload, but found their opponent too swift on the trigger for that. His pistol barked violently, each shot ending a life. Only six of the shots went off properly, though. The section commander and a grunt both made it to cover, and from there, he watched them flee.

The pirate started swearing violently, most of his crew having been useless. One of them was even dumb enough to get shot to death. And the ship still hadn't started moving. "Everyone arm up. Get this fucking thing moving or I'm going to start eating people." he growled, finding himself a keg of powder, and a case of shot. He went up to the poop deck and found himself the largest of the swivel guns. He could keep watch better from here, and if anyone wanted to do battle again, he would be ready. And really, it was only a matter of time, since two of the marines had escaped. Hopefully that time wouldn't be wasted. It didn't look like it to him, which was good. Actually eating people was disgusting, but when you could turn into a massive, hungry-looking dog-thing, people believed you might actually eat them, and it was excellent motivation, even when death was chasing you down anyway...