Imagine Marco the Phoenix

Thanks for your question, and for all the prompts we received since our last update!

We’ve been holding off on any announcements since this year turned out to be much worse than expected and we didn’t really have any updates for you guys. We appreciate the support and the prompts that have been coming in while we were gone.

This year was terrible, both with the pandemic and for personal reasons for both mods. It’s been really tough and neither of us had the energy or inspiration to create much with everything that has been going on. While we are sorry for just disappearing like this, we do have to put ourselves first and to take care of ourselves in these trying times.

We’re hoping things will calm down soon so we can come back to some kind of posting schedule. Hopefully, there should be a slow update schedule starting in October, but we’re not making any promises just yet. We are definitely coming back though as soon as we’re able so feel free to send in asks with your prompts (and we appreciate that you’re doing so with the format we requested).

We’ll also follow up on some of the community aspects of this project we mentioned before this impromptu break.

As always, we’re here if you have any questions or prompts for us.

We hope everyone is staying safe and that you’re doing well!

“Have you seen Thatch?” Izou asks pausing outside of Marco’s bedroom door as he spoke. “I’ve been looking for him, since it’s late and he wants to wake up early enough to help the morning shift.”

“I haven’t,” Marco answers, leaning back in his chair, sighing when his back cracks. “I can help you search. I know that you have a mission tomorrow.”

Izou frowns, hand on his cheek as he thinks. A habit that he’s had longer than Marco has known him, “I should get some sleep.”

Marco stays quiet, because the last time he had tried to agree, Izou had refused to follow through with his own plan. He’s still not sure if it was spite or something else that drove him to act like that.

“Please,” Izou agrees finally. “I was hoping to speak with him tonight, but I can’t afford to be unfocused.”

“Sleep well then,” Marco states, biting back his grin. “I’ll find Thatch and make sure he gets to bed at a decent time.”

Izou tips his head to the side, smiling easily, “You are far too worried about us, you know.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Marco follows Izou to his room, asking where Izou had searched and ensuring that he made it to bed without stopping before turning back down the hallway. Thatch had mentioned at breakfast there was something he was looking into, not that he had said what.

“Something wrong?” Ace asks, raising an eyebrow when Marco pauses to look at him.

“I thought you were asleep.”

Ace laughs, flicking one of his firefly flames towards Marco’s nose, “I’m headed to watch with Kingdew. You’re such a worrier. Besides, my narcolepsy keeps me rested enough.”

“That’s not how narcolepsy works,” Marco frowns, eyes narrowing. “Who told you that?”

“No one, but Namur and Haruta said you made a great face when we say things that aren’t medically correct. It’s a great face. Hey Kingdew!”

“Marco,” Kingdew states stepping around him. “Ace, front or back of the ship?”

“Back! See you later, Marco. Don’t forget to sleep yourself!”

Marco snorts, moving deeper into the ship to continue his search. The library’s entrance is hidden, for all that it’s open to everyone, amongst a series of storage closets and rooms that were no longer in use.

Thatch is impossible to miss, his upper body sprawled over the table top and his face mashed into a book as he snores softly. Which means someone will have to check to make sure the book was alright, since Thatch always drooled in his sleep.

“This is not a place to sleep,” Marco says finally, knowing Thatch won’t answer. “This is almost as bad as the time I found you sleeping in the potato bin.” Thatch grumbles, trying to bury his face into the book. “Alright, come on you great lump. If you drool on me, I will dump you into the ocean.”

created by: The Artist

This image was created for the purposes of this blog so please don’t repost it.

Hi!

This isn’t an original format so you’re totally free to make your own. I (mod D) got the inspiration from an ImagineSteveRogers blog I think, but I know there are many more. 

Usually, we’d answer this on Saturday, but I’m using your ask to get some things out too, I hope you don’t mind :D

First, about your question. We weren’t considering taking submissions of anyone else’s art or fic simply because this blog was created for content made by the mods of this blog, but we talked it over and decided to make it a thing.

So we will be taking submissions of Marco related content starting in the near future, and we’ll announce a short set of guidelines on what we’ll be accepting and posting on this blog. We hope you understand that we want to have a solid set of rules about the content we put up so it goes hand in hand with what we create for the blog.

In short, that’s a yes on submissions, but wait a bit for an official announcement with guidelines and how to send us stuff. Should be out this week.

Second, I’m using this opportunity to announce that we’ll be taking this week off from posting prompt fills. This is a very busy season with holidays coming up and with all of us having time-consuming jobs, we don’t feel like the content we can create in such a hurry is on par with what we want to post for our followers.

We encourage everyone to still send in their prompts because we will be checking the inbox regularly and still dividing the prompts between ourselves. Holiday/winter prompts are very much welcome. 

We’re also playing with the idea of a new schedule overall after this break just to work out what’s best for both the team and our followers. We’re having a lot of fun posting for this blog and we definitely don’t want to take as long of a break as we have so far, so little week-long hiatuses may happen here and there so we can focus on real life and our own projects outside of this blog.

Ask box is open!

“I’m not immune to damage,” Marco states flexing his hands slowly, smirking when Enel’s lightning crackles around him like a halo. “I know that it looks like it, since your attacks aren’t doing anything. But I’m not immune.”

“Then you should have died by now.”

“I heal too fast. Which I’m sure is inconveniencing you. Not that you could land a hit on some of my crewmates either, this is paradise after all.”

Izou sniffs, “I doubt he could hit me either. Maybe Thatch, since he’s been more forgetful lately.”

“My haki is stronger than yours!”

Marco rolls his eyes, ignoring what he knows will devolve into a spar to prove which one of them is better. Something that usually ended with more damage to the ship than they could do to each other.

“If you’re just healing, it has to stop at some point.”

“You can certainly try,” Marco agrees easily, crossing his arms over his chest as he watched Enel’s followers curiously. Rumors of the God had brought Whitebeard to Skypiea, that and Ace’s casual mention that he hadn’t entered the Grand Line along that route. “I don’t think anyone has gotten me to the point where my healing as slowed down.”

“Except himself,” Ace adds helpfully, from where he’s convinced Kingdew and Vista into playing cards with him. At least Kingdew was suspicious enough to insist on shuffling the deck himself. “Marco has slowed his own healing down before.”

Vista nods, “That is true.”

“It wasn’t even slow when he was a cute little apprentice,” Jozu agrees, laughing when Marco flips him off. “Pay attention to your fight, Marco.”

“I would if you idiots would stop distracting me,” Marco shoots back, frowning when Enel hits him again, hating the way it leaves his mouth tasting. “You do know that it’s rude to interrupt people.”

“You invaded my island.”

Marco yawns, rolling his shoulders as he shoves his hands into his pockets, “You’ve been causing issues, it’s not our fault that we came along to investigate. Pops loves to stick his nose where it doesn’t belong.”

“And Marco wants to try and steal Ace’s medical files from Crocus.”

“Shouldn’t he just ask,” Ace mutters, throwing down his hand. “I win!”

“Can I at least have a fight where you all actually pretend to be interested in the outcome?” Marco asks curiously. “I know he’s just from paradise, but he does have electricity?”

Pops laughs and Marco frowns at him, eyes narrowing, “Well if you insist on show off, son, you can’t expect your siblings to have the attention span to watch.”

Marco laughs at their outrage, turning back to Enel as they demand Pops take it back, “Now, I think playtime is over.”

Since we’re not posting any fills today, how about a look behind the blog?

All the prompts we get are collected in a table where we basically fight each other in the pit to claim them as they come in. Each of us has a color and we just claim the prompts we want to fill as they come in then divided up the unclaimed ones until everyone has the same number.

Ask box is open!

“You’re not doing yourself any favors here, little bird,” Ace states somewhere behind Marco, sighing when Marco refuses to look at him, watching the waves break against the hull instead. “Hey, little bird-”

“Marco.”

“Marco then. You’re not doing yourself any favors, Marco,” Marco presses his mouth against his knee in annoyance. “You don’t have to join the crew, but you have to know that time is running out for you to choose.”

Marco nods, “I know.”

“What’s the hang up then?” Ace asks dropping down beside him, radiating heat like a furnace. Like he always does, made of fire as he is. “Is it something we’ve done?”

“Why do you care?”

Ace grins, “I’ve got a friend with a kid close to your age, I go visit when I can. You remind me of him a little. You don’t give up and you’re too stubborn.”

“Sounds like a pain in the ass.”

“He is, a little brat. Just like you,” Ace pauses. “What?”

Marco frowns watching him for a moment, “Why did you join? I mean, everyone knows who your dad was, why not join up with him?”

Ace laughs, leaning back on his arms as he looks up, “Because he was my dad and I loved him, but I hated him sometimes too. He wasn’t really ready to be a dad and it showed, really showed, after my mom died. When she was there, he was tempered, I suppose. Less manic Pirate King and more doting husband and father, after,” Ace shrugs and Marco thinks he can understand. “What about you? How did you end up here?”

 “Orphan living on the streets, found something and,” Marco’s toes curl into talons. “Wasn’t safe there. So I left, hopped from island to island until I found a ship and then a crew.”

“They care about you,” Ace says smiling easily when Marco looks up at him. “Your crew. It’s why pops invited you to join us. He insists that you can tell a lot about someone from how they treat their crew and those around them,” Ace sighs, standing and brushing off his pants. “I can’t make this choice for you, no one can. But you have to make it, it’s not something than can wait forever.”

“I know,” Marco bites his lip. “Ace, was it worth it? Joining up with Whitebeard even at the cost of upsetting your dad?”

“Dad wasn’t mad that I joined pop’s crew. He was happy, I think, that I was going to be protected. Why, would joining up with us upset someone that you care about?”

Marco shrugs, not bothering to answer as he studies the water, startling when Ace’s hand lands on his head, mussing his hair, “What?”

“If someone can’t respect your choices, they don’t care about you. I’ll be back in a couple hours with your lunch, think about it, alright?”

“Yeah,” Marco whispers into his knee, waiting until he heard Ace’s footsteps vanish before falling back to stare at the sky. “A choice, huh?” he sighs, pushing his hair back from where it’s fallen into his face, he wonders if it was really as easy as Ace had tried to make it seem.

Continuation of this fill.

“You know,” Marco says slowly, watching the young man he had caught falling towards the ocean after launching himself into the air. “That is dangerous.”

“But you caught me!”

“And what if I wasn’t here to catch you? Then you would have fallen into the water and I didn’t see any ships nearby, you wouldn’t have been able to stay afloat until one came.”

“I can’t swim.”

Marco closes his eyes and counts to ten, as he does when his siblings are being more disastrous than normal, “you can’t swim?”

“I have a devil’s fruit,” he agrees brightly. “I’m made of rubber!”

“Luffy?”

Luffy blinks owlishly at him, “you know my name?”

“I know Ace, we’re on the same crew. He talks about you all the time,” Marco answers tilting his head to the side to study him curiously. Ace’s stories about his brother were always about his actions never about how he looked and it was interesting to have a face for a name. “He said that you were interesting.”

“Ace is a good brother,” Luffy says earnestly before his attention seems to catch on something else. “You’re a bird man!”

“I’m Marco,” Marco corrects because for all that Luffy isn’t related to Roger, this is what Roger had done to him too and he hadn’t been fast enough to stop him. “Marco the Phoenix, I have a Zoan Devil’s Fruit.”

“Bird man,” Luffy repeats brightly.

Marco closes his eyes and regrets not introducing himself sooner, “Please call me Marco. I understand that I am a man who turns into a bird, but I do have a name.”

“Is Ace happy?” Luffy asks curiously, leaning forward and tilting his head too far for anyone who wasn’t made of rubber.

“I like to think he is,” Marco says slowly. “He enjoys being a commander and he calls us family.”

Luffy nods sharply, “Good. Ace is a good brother and he should have friends. Why are you here?”

“I’m looking for someone,” Marco says slowly. “A man with missing teeth and a horrible laugh. He calls himself Blackbeard.”

“Don’t know him. Is he dangerous?”

Marco nods, “he ate a devil’s fruit that controls darkness and killed a member of my crew. Shanks never had anything good to say about him. Be careful.”

“I will! But Marco should be careful too!”

“I will, I promised my pops and my siblings the same,” Marco pauses. “Will you be okay here?”

Luffy nods eagerly, “Zoro will catch up!”

Marco nods, stepping away and transforming. He was certainly an interesting person, Marco could understand why Ace talked about him so much.

created by: The Artist

Ask box is open!

“Mind explaining this one more time?” Izou said from his side, and Marco didn’t have to see him to know the expression on his face. “Dumb it down for me, if you don’t mind.”

Marco wasn’t about to fall for that, not after last time.

“I’m not falling for that again,” he said as much, tilting his head in Izou’s direction.

“Be that as it may, I feel like you still owe me an explanation,” Izou said, sounding very put upon as usual when dealing with random bullshit. 

“It’s for science.”

The sigh he heard was everything he’d been expecting, and possibly more.

“So you have some unidentified poison in your eyes, and you’re not healing it even though you could,” he explained as if he was dumbing this down for Marco, “for science?”

“Well, technically,” Marco started, knowing just how much it’d annoy Izou because he was not a fan of technicalities, “I’m healing it just enough so it doesn’t kill me before someone comes back with my kit. We need a sample to make an antidote, so,” he trailed off without actually offering a full excuse for his temporary condition.

“Don’t get technical with me, you dick,” Izou said, audibly annoyed as he’d always been when one of them got hurt. 

Barely a moment later, his hand brushed against Marco’s forehead, pushing his sweat soaked hair away. Of course Izou could see right through his casual demeanor and notice just how much this was taking out of him. Better for morale if he stayed calm and collected, but in the end, the ability to heal any wound didn’t mean he wouldn’t hurt.

Izou could always tell how much he hurt.

“It won’t be long,” Izou said and Marco could hear him drop down to the ground next to him, immediately leaning his weight against Marco’s shoulder. “Your team was almost back at the ship when I ran into them.”

“They shouldn’t have left you here alone,” Izou said after a brief pause, voice still low, his warmth still bleeding over into Marco’s shoulder offering a fair amount of comfort.

“They didn’t leave me all alone,” Marco told him, “I sent them away.”

Izou scoffed at that, leaning a bit further into his shoulder.

“Always the martyr,” he said with that familiar old resignation when Marco’s mortality was brought up. 

Wisely, Marco said nothing to start up that particular old argument when he was at such a disadvantage. When he was in as much pain as well, aware that Izou knew all of it.

“In any case, I’m safe now that you’re here,” Marco said instead. “My hero.”

It made Izou scoff, just like he hoped it would. From him, a scoff was almost as good as a full laugh.

“Your hero, indeed,” he said and Marco could hear the smile in his voice, that small fragile thing he reserved just for only a few of them.

His hand found Marco’s though, unclenching the fist Marco was almost unaware of, and tangled their fingers together just like he’d always used to when he knew Marco was hurting and hiding the pain behind his Devil’s Fruit.

“Won’t be long now,” Izou said again, and held his hand tighter.

Ask box is open!

“It’s not as hot as I thought it would be,” Ace admits, trailing his fingers through the flames cradled in Marco’s hands. “I mean, they’re not cold, but not as hot as mine. Do you think it’s because phoenix fire is different from mine?”

“Your flames are more intense than mine. It’s the difference between a candle and an inferno,” Marco answers easily, because he isn’t sure but those are the theories that he’s always held. “My flames are part of being a phoenix, but I’m not fire.”

Ace nods thoughtfully, “Can I, do you think it would be okay if I added some of mine?”

“If you like.”

Marco grins when Ace’s fingers turn into flames, still moving through the flames in Marco’s hands, sliding and passing through them instead of mixing.

“I thought they would,” Ace shrugs, trailing off with a frown as one of his fingers flickers back into solid form to touch where Marco’s flames flicker along his fingertips.

“Merge together?” Marco finishes for him, rolling his eyes when Ace nods. “I didn’t. They’re different kinds of fire, Ace. We would have to really try to mix them. We could try?”

“You mean it?”

“It’s not like we’re doing anything else tonight,” Marco answers, wiggling his fingers and making sure the flames edged only one hand, holding it up. “Your turn.”

Ace nods, his own hand flickering as he presses it against Marco’s, blue and gold flames twisting around his fingers. Marco raises an eyebrow as Ace wiggles his fingers.

“Is it alright?”

“I had a cut from one of the specialty tools I was using today. It felt strange when it healed,” Ace admits, threading their fingers together to pull Marco’s hand closer, kissing the back of it. “It almost feels like an itch.”

“An itch?”

“Like when something’s healing. That’s what your flames feel like, like they’re healing something even when I can’t see it.”

Marco nods thoughtfully as he pulls their hands closer to him, kissing the back of Ace’s, “Yours is warm. Like a burning day and sleeping in a bonfire.”

“You’ve slept in a bonfire?” Ace teases leaning closer to Marco. “Was it nice?”

“A bit like when you finally agreed to spend the night with me,” Marco answers honestly. “You give off enough heat to feel similar. Though, I do suppose waking up with you is more interesting.”

“Because I can talk?”

“I like you better,” Marco corrects. “Fires are nice, but you’re better.”

Ask box is open!

“That’s very good,” someone said as a shadow fell over Marco’s seat on the sidewalk, effectively blocking out the sun.

People always did that, either completely unaware they were bothering him, or simply not caring. Whichever it was, Marco couldn’t say he appreciated it.

“Thank you,” Marco said through gritted teeth without looking up from the drawing in his hands.

There was no time to turn and pay attention to someone who wasn’t paying him at the moment. He had to work fast, before his customer got too bored to sit there and pose. Too many just walked off without paying him for their portraits if they felt he took too long, and Marco couldn’t afford that waste of time and supplies.  

It was all coming together nicely, the woman in front of him still smiling as he worked, but he didn’t let it lull him into a false sense of ease. The man that gave him the money for the drawing was looking more impatient, and that was what mattered. 

So Marco finished up as quickly as possible, while she still smiled, and before he started tapping his foot in annoyance. At least the woman looked happy as she said her thanks and walked away down the dock with the drawing in hand and her partner trailing behind, looking less annoyed as they left.

The locals ignored him for the most part, passing him by without a second glance, while the travellers sometimes took interest enough to sit in front of him. 

Still, it came as a shock that the seat in front of him was filled almost as soon as the woman he’d just finished drawing had left.

“Sorry for distracting you, son,” the man from earlier said, Marco could recognize him by his voice, booming and cheerful. “Your work is amazing.”

“Do you want one too?” Marco asked, pulling out a new paper and taping it to the small board he had in his lap. He wasn’t sure what kind of answer he’d been expecting.

“Of course!” the man said, his pretty impressive mustache wiggling as he laughed. 

“Captain Newgate!” someone called from behind Marco, voice rising above the noise of the docks. “Captain we have to go!”

The man with the mustache sighed, hands on his knees before he stood with some degree of difficulty. Marco watched him crouch down again to drop a couple of bills into the pouch at his feet with a smile.

“Maybe next time, son,” he said cheerfully. “I’m sure I’ll be back to see you.”

With that he was off, walking away towards the man that had called out his name, leaving Marco confused for the moment, until someone else sat in front of him and he focused on more important things.

Ask box is open!

“You haven’t been sleeping,” Rayleigh states firmly, leaning against the door to the office Marco had taken over upon joining the crew. “I don’t think Roger’s noticed yet, but I don’t think Roger’s noticed that our apprentices are skipping out on work again.”

“Roger is more observant that you think,” Marco answers calmly, skimming the page he was on and sighing when it reveals nothing he didn’t already know, and nothing to help him find a hint of what was slowly killing Roger. “He is the captain of this ship, after all.”

“And an idiot.”

Marco snorts, not bothering to disagree because they’ve both seen Roger pull stunts that any sane man wouldn’t have considered, “You want something?”

“You’re overworking yourself. And, seeing as I’m higher ranked than you, I’m ordering you to get some rest.”

“Pretty sure that I can overrule you, considering that I am the ship’s doctor.”

“Could try, but then we’d have to get Roger to come settle this for us before it gets out of hand,” Rayleigh sighs and Marco knows it’s because he’s reached for another book. “He’s not going to die if you take a few hours to yourself.”

“Identifying the disease needs to be done quickly. Just because Crocus couldn’t devise a cure doesn’t mean he was right about the diagnosis. I mean, look at these notes,” Marco states slapping the back of his hand down on the papers Crocus had given him before he had gone back to his home. “They’re not comprehensive, there’s nothing about illnesses that cause the wasting that Roger’s suffering. It’s like he focused on certain aspects and forgot-”

“Forgot,” Rayleigh prompts when Marco doesn’t continue.

“A disease that I saw when I was younger had several symptoms in common with what Roger is currently suffering,” Marco says slowly, thoughtfully. “My Devil’s Fruit healed me of it before it could get too entrenched in my system.”

“Was there a cure?”

Marco taps his fingers on his desk, trying to remember more, “Maybe. It does mean that I can safely use my flames to increase his own healing factor without exasperating the situation. I might have to make a trip.”

“I can probably sell it to Roger as a resupply,” Marco raises an eyebrow, smirking when Rayleigh looks away. “I don’t want to get the rest of the crew’s hopes up.”

“And Roger might try to do something stupid?”

“When isn’t he trying?”

Which, Marco knows even though he laughs, isn’t fair to Roger. He’s not an idiot, at least not in the way that Marco and Rayleigh usually complain about him, but he’s prone to doing things without thinking and causing more trouble than he’s worth.

“They’ll be devastated if he dies,” Rayleigh says finally, nodding to where Shanks and Buggy have hidden themselves as they stalk Roger, or try to, even from here Marco can tell that Roger’s spotted them. “Or disbands us.”

“You would be too,” Marco yawns, standing to crack his back. Even with his healing, he knows that he shouldn’t sit for too long, even if he doesn’t have to deal with the ache of it. “How about a deal? I take a nap and you talk Roger into letting me run off for a bit.”

Rayleigh laughs, “You say that like I wasn’t already planning what to say. Get some sleep,” he pauses, hand falling on Marco’s shoulder before he can slip past Rayleigh. “Thanks, for not giving up on him.”

“He’s my captain too.”

Please try to start your prompts with ‘Imagine Marco…’ (for example, ‘Imagine Marco has amazing hearing.’ or ‘Imagine Marco owns a pair of shiny pants.’)

The blog is open for prompts of all kinds, both canon-verse and AU.

Prompts with Marco as a part of a pairing are okay as well as prompts about him interacting with other characters in a romantic or platonic way, as long as they are OP characters. All pairings are welcome as long as they don’t contain underage characters.

Mention if you specifically want your prompt to be filled in canon-verse or AU (prompts with no specific mention could go either way).

Some prompts might end up as drawings.

Things we will not fill:

prompts with OCs

prompts where only one of them is genderbent (this is an mlm pairing and we do not want to write it a straight ship. genderbending both will be accepted)

prompts with very graphic violence or explicit sexual content (mature themes are fine, but we won’t be filling anything explicit that may get the blog flagged)

prompts with ship or character bashing

prompts with non-canon major character death

prompts with dub- or non-con themes (this covers both sexual and non-sexual themes like rape, drug use, body modifications, etc)

kind of created by: The Artist

Ask box is open!

Marco raises an eyebrow as the voices start to get louder, an argument on the other side of the bar between a newer crew. At least he thinks it’s newer, he doesn’t recognize any of them from the newest round of wanted posters and most crews are at least weary about coming to one of the islands under the protection of Whitebeard.

He shakes his head when Ace looks up from where he’s conned several of their crew into playing pool against him, before turning to where Jiro and Haruta have convinced several of the commanders to join them in a drinking game and gesturing for them to stay seated.

It’s how he misses who throws the first punch, by the time he’s picked his way through the mess of fists and shouting to the people who started it.

“I think it’s time we stop-” Marco tilts his head to the side to avoid a fist.

“Fuck off, old man!”

Marco hears one of his siblings laughing hysterically over the sound of the crowd and slams his heel into someone’s soft stomach and smirks when they slam into the wall behind him, going still as he moves forward again, grabbing one of them by the collar of their shirt and lifting them up.

“I said, it’s time to stop,” Marco repeats firmly, using a foot to keep the fool on the floor from trying to make another attempt at continuing their fight. “Did your stupidity clog your ears?”

“Shut up, you old man!”

Ace cackles, his head thrown back as he holds onto the pool table, “Old man?”

“Shut up, Ace.”

“I don’t know, Marco,” Izou smirks behind his fan, face red as his shoulders shake, “You are pretty old. Isn’t he, Jozu?”

Jozu snorts into his drink, “We are the same age, Marco.”

“That doesn’t make me old!” Marco snaps, elbowing the idiot coming up behind him in the nose before he can do anything. “Pops is old.”

“You’re at least forty, if not older,” Ace counters, wiping his face as he pushes himself upright. “That’s pretty old.”

“People who just turned twenty don’t get to comment,” Marco retorts, shaking the man in his grasp. “Now, you are going to tell me what you think you were going to do here in Whitebeard territory.”

There’s a long moment of silence and Marco watches the blood drain from his captive’s face.

“Whitebeard Pirates?”

“That’s right. I’m Marco the Phoenix and this is our territory. Why don’t you explain to me what you’re doing here and why you decided to pick a fight in one of my favorite bars,” Marco grins brightly. “If you answer quickly enough, Ace might not set your ship on fire.”

“I do like setting ships on fire,” Ace agrees, playing along with him.

“See, fire. Now, you best start answering.”