Zoro looked around Whitebeard's ship wearily. Will anyone notice? he wondered.

"Hey, Marco!" someone yelled. The voice was awfully familiar, the green-haired swordsman noted. He turned around lazily (worriedly?) and came face-to-face with Ace, the second division commander and Luffy's brother.

"Yo," he greeted uncharacteristically, although he hoped it would be something the phoenix would do.

"Hey," Ace greeted back, grinning. "Where've you been? Oyaji said you were on a mission, but it's been a while."

"A-ah, yeah," Zoro muttered. "I got sidetracked."

"Sidetracked?" Ace repeated, raising one of his eyebrows. "Where were you, anyway?"

"Nowhere in particular," he shrugged. "I met up with your brother."

"Luffy?" Ace asked, confused. "He's back before the New World starts, though."

Zoro tapped Ace on the head. "I can fly, remember?"

Ace grinned sheepishly. "Sorry, I forgot." He then looked at Zoro a bit oddly. "Say, did something happen while you were there?"

"Eh?"

"You seem off..." Ace muttered. He then looked at the phoenix with wide eyes. "You don't say 'yoi' anymore!"

"Yoi...?" Zoro mumbled. "Oh, yeah."

"What do you mean, 'oh yeah'?" Ace asked incredulously. "That was your thing!"

"Bad habits die hard?" Zoro suggested, an odd nervous look on his face.

Ace frowned. "Why were you with my brother?"

"Whi - Oyaji asked me to make sure nothing happened," Zoro quickly lied. "He had heard that your brother had gotten into a serious fight and figured that you'd get upset if anything were to have happened."

"'Whi'?" Ace muttered, suspicion rising up within him. Zoro took a small step back as flames began to lick up off of the former Pirate King's son. "You're slipping up, imposter."

Zoro bit his lip before chuckling nervously. "I'm no imposter, Ace."

"Oh yeah?" Ace questioned defensively, raising a fist covered in flames. "Prove it. With your Devil Fruit, Marco."

Zoro looked around frantically. He then thought of what a phoenix was, but he wasn't quite sure. Maybe it was like a chicken? Deciding that was the best thing to do, he flapped his arms stupidly and said, "I can heal any injury, y'know!"

Ace had near fallen over. "Eh?"

"Shoot me!" he yelled, still flapping his arms. "I'll be fine, yoi!"

"Shut the hell up!" Ace yelled. "You're just being disgraceful at this point, fake!"

"CUT ME UP A LITTLE!" Zoro yelled at the black-haired pirate. "I'LL HEAL IMMEDIATELY ANYWAY!"

Suddenly, a shot hit him straight in the heart. As he was not actually a Logia, he died instantly, leaving a confused Ace on the Moby Dick and a bound and gagged Marco on the Thousand Sunny.