Hiya, this is my first One Piece fanfic and reviews are welcome. Lso, thank you for taking the time to read this

Soft hands wrapped around the mast of a one man vessel as angry eyes looked into the surrounding ocean, a volley of curses escaping the man in question as he realised exactly how much trouble he was in.

His current predicament was one where he had no way of going anywhere. At all. Thinking over his situation, Ace came to the conclusion that someone must have tampered with the engine on his boat before he left the island he had previously been at, as that was the only way to explain the engine on his boat exploding once the island in question was out of sight. The one man vessel that he was talking about was the small boat that ran using the flames he controlled and said vessel had never broken down before. The mast was in place on this one man boat for when he was too lazy to make the boat move using his fire. Right now, though, the mast was proving to be completely useless as there was no wind at all. Not even a slight breeze.

This meant that Fire Fist Ace was completely stranded in the middle of the ocean with no way of getting himself to land. And what was worse was that without even the slightest breeze he was forced to withstand the overpowering heat coming from the sun that was still high in the sky.

At least he had booze from his trip onto the island. That was one of the few good things he could think of, the only other one being that he could also work on his tan in this heat.

Yeah, he didn't have much to be happy about.

Stripping of his shirt and placing his hat over his eyes as he lazed about on the small vessel, the tan, raven haired man quickly fell asleep, quiet snores escaping him every now and then.

Several hours later, when night had fallen, the ravenette awoke to the sounds of splashing and shouted orders. Now, normally one would assume this to be a good thing, however, for the dark haired man currently stranded and alone it was not.

You see, Ace was supposed to be dead and no-one, not even his brother Luffy or his old pirate captain, knew he was back. For all intents and purposes he had died, and when his death had occurred the Mera Mera no Mi fruit that had given him his powers had also been the cause of his body burning into ash. The reason he had been brought back was still a mystery to him, but how he had come back was not and right now no-one was supposed to know he was alive and still had the powers of the Mera Mera no Mi.

And the boat currently heading in his direction was one of the marines boats. This presented two possibilities to the quick-witted pirate. The first was that they would notice him and believe him to be a ghost (something that quite amused him), and the second was that they wouldn't notice him and he would be able to sneak on board and keep hidden until the marines went into port. The second possibility was the one he was hoping for, especially as it would mean that he would be able to check up on the current situation his brother and his favourite marine officer were in, as the last time he had seen them had been when he had died.

As the marine ship drew near it became obvious what was causing the splashing. The marine officers on board were using the many oars to move the ship and due to the level of concentration they were using they hadn't noticed him. Smirking up at the officers Ace waited until it was nearer to move himself to the back of the ship where he promptly pulled both himself and his small vessel on board. Looking around in case he was noticed Ace was pleased to note that he had gotten on board without being noticed. Not bothering to think about the lack of guards, the dark haired male quickly went below deck, finding a storage room that he could hide in and setting himself up in the darkest corner. Smirking at what he considered a job well done, Ace decided it was about time he got something to eat since he was starving. Looking through the storage for a spare marine uniform, Ace sighed and cursed under his breath as he considered his rotten luck.

If there was one thing that he never wanted to do it was dress up as a marine, but right then it was the only way he could get to food without the possibility of someone recognising him.

After an hour of searching the dark haired male found himself with what he could consider a decent disguise. After hiding his own clothes by his one man ship, Ace changed into the marine uniform, cursing the existence of such tight fitting shirts. Or at least, they were tight fitting to a man who usually wore shirts almost two sizes too big or no shirt at all. Pulling his hair back and tying it up in a ponytail as slicked to his head as possible, the only thing he had to do to completed his disguise was put on the hat and glasses he had found as well. Stepping out of the shadows the now disguised Ace moved to the door of the storage room, slipping out of the room when he was sure no-one was nearby. The glasses he had on were quite weak which was lucky for him as otherwise he wouldn't have been able to see properly. Deciding to test out his disguise, Ace walked through the halls mapping out the layout of the ship.

After half an hour of searching for the kitchen and passing the odd marine officer Ace found himself getting close to asking for directions which would seem pretty suspicious to anyone with a half decent brain in their heads.

Lucky for the disguised male the next door he opened did indeed open to the kitchen and mess hall. And a mess hall it was, he quickly realised, as the room was filled with marines who were eating and, well, making a mess.

Slipping quietly through to where the food was Ace tried not to draw attention to himself. Unfortunately, this plan failed due to the amount of food he piled onto his plate. It wasn't unusual for the marines to take big plates of food, unfortunately for Ace, though, he was also considered a 'new face' as he hadn't been on the ship before. Heading to an empty seat, the dark haired male soon found himself being dragged into a conversation by other officers as they bombarded him with questions, and it all started with one of the officers noticing him and pointing out that he was one of the new faces picked up at the last port (or so they assumed).

"So what's your name?"
"Where are you from?"
"What rank are you?"
"Hey, you always eat that much?"

The whole time he was being bombarded with questions Ace had been stuffing his face. The sudden quiet drew his attention and he realized they were waiting for him to answer their questions. Swallowing his mouthful of food Ace grinned up at the officers. He opened his mouth food answer the questions when the door to the mess hall was opened and an angry commodore walked in. Looking over at the new person Ace couldn't help the grin threatening to cross his face. He had been planning on getting off of his ship as soon as possible but now he thought he might hang around a bit longer. After all, he had just found one of the two people he had been searching for.

Commodore Smoker had just walked into the mess hall as he had discovered that the me who were supposed to be on duty had been absent from their posts and this had gotten on his nerves as someone could have attacked them and they wouldn't have known until it was too late. Shouting at his men to move their asses and get back to their positions, Smoker cursed at the fact that he also had new recruits that he had to train. It was, in his opinion, stupid to have new recruits trained on the job as they were more likely to get themselves killed that way. Scowling as the men ran around rushing to get to their positions and avoid the commodores wrath, Smoker soon found his attention being grabbed by what he assumed to be a new recruit as it was a new face. Although he felt like he had seen that face somewhere before. Shaking his head Smoker walked over to the new recruit, eyeing the man who was currently watching the rushing and stumbling marines with an air of amusement.

Ace laughed at the scared marines, a smirk playing across his lips. He avoided thinking about his cover being blown, but let's face it, even if his cover was blown Smoker would never believe that it was really him considering the white haired male had seen him die. Looking up at Smoker with a cheeky grin, the raven haired male couldn't help but tease the commodore a little, "They seem a bit scared, don'tcha think?" Laughing lightheartedly, he returned to his meal feigning ignorance as to who the white haired male actually was. "You'd think there was a pirate on board from the way they ran like that!"

Smoker looked at the new recruit with no idea how close to the truth the statement actually was. Unable to believe that this recruit had no idea who he was Smoker came to the decision that he must simply be stupid. Or insane. Possibly both judging from the manic grin spreading across the freckled face.

"Get to your station, brat."

Ace grinned up at him and, after swallowing his mouthful of food, licked his lips, "And what station would that be, sir~?" The innocent question came out in a teasing tone and Ace's eyes flickered with a hint of amusement.

Smoker growled and placed two cigars in his mouth, lighting them up and deeply inhaling the smoke. Blowing the air out after the calming effect of the nicotine kicked in, Smoker allowed his eyes to roam over the man before him. Unlike most of his new recruits, this one had a body that had obviously undergone training far more strenuous then what most recruits did. The uniform he was wearing that was actually one size small showed off the muscles that were currently hidden by layers of clothing. The muscles were not of the bulging sort and, unlike Smoker's own muscles, this recruits muscles were of the lithe sort. Upon further study of the man in front of him, Smoker noticed the many scars visible on the man's arms that seemed to be from a variety of weapons.

As Smoker studied him, Ace couldn't help but note the almost glowing intensity of the Commodore's eyes. Slowly, a devilish smirk closed his lips as Ace regarded the man before him.

"You have pretty eyes."

Smoker snapped said eyes to the face of the recruit before him, a scowl crossing his lips. Ace was sat there smiling innocently at Smoker, laughter evident in the exotic depths of his own dark eyes.

"What did you say, brat?"

"I said, 'like what you see'?" Holding back his laughter was getting harder and harder, mostly due to how he found teasing the commodore to be so fun.

Smoker scowled and caught hold of the brats shirt, yanking him up and dragging him from the room and barely restraining the urge to smack the recruit upside the head. The longer he spoke to the annoying recruit the more he felt like he had met the kid before.

"Just for that comment you can have the fun task of cleaning all the latrines on board today." A smirk crossed his face as he glanced down at the man stumbling after him, "Oh, and a few of the others on board were sick earlier."

Ace felt the smile drop from his lips as he was told what his punishment was, and a pout was quick to form on his lips as he started to mumble under his breath about being told of.

Finding himself being shoved into a bathroom with cleaning supplies, Ace turned to complain just as the door slammed shut behind him.