Seeing Marco look ready to fight him to the death, Gern waved him off dismissively.
"All right, all right. That's enough warming up.
Were you really planning to risk your life fighting me? When did you get back?"
Seeing that his "wrath of the Phoenix" had failed to intimidate Gern at all, Marco deflated.
The blue flames around him shrank back with a soft puff, like a gas stove running out of fuel. His birdlike features faded, leaving him once again wearing his crooked glasses.
The ship's doctor, radiating the exhaustion of an overworked office drone, adjusted his glasses and answered in a low voice, "Four months ago."
"Four months?" Gern raised an eyebrow and stepped closer. "Then, with Blackbeard..."
"Heh." Marco cut Gern off with a short, bitter chuckle.
He scrubbed a hand hard over his face, forcing his lips into an ugly smile. "We lost."
"A lot of people died. The Whitebeard Pirates... fell apart. Everyone left."
Only a few words, yet they weighed enough to break a man's back.
A wordless sorrow spread through the air. Even the sea breeze sounded especially desolate.
Gern listened in silence, his habitual smile fading a little.
His gaze passed over Marco's clenched fists and faintly trembling shoulders, but he offered no comfort.
Nor did he kick him while he was down. He simply changed the subject with another calm question whose answer he already knew.
"So, who's this 'Weevil' you mentioned?"
"Weevil? Heh." Marco took a deep breath, struggling to settle his surging emotions before answering in a somber voice.
"An old woman named Buckin brought him here.
She claimed she'd once sailed on the same ship as Pops, and that she was a woman he'd loved deeply.
Then she brought along this big idiot, called him Pops's 'biological son,'