As Aden flew away from Moby Dick, he was also deep in thought. The cube, still in it's compressed form felt heavy in his pocket.
"Noone can know i have this. From what Whitebeard just said to Marco, it seems like an ancient artifact of significant power.
If the Government got their hands on it...." were just some of the thoughts in Aden's head.
While he could have flown faster or try to use the cube again, he wanted to take some time for himself.
Not that he disliked his crew, on the contrary. Him being gone for a while would cut their over-reliance on him, thus making them stronger.
After what felt like a few hours of flying around aimlessly, spotting a few islands along the way. The most memorable one being covered with blue grass and trees, and a mountain shaped like an hourglass. The island itself was on the smaller side. By Aden's estimate, one could walk it end to end in a day or two. Not counting the terrain of course.
"Oh might as well..." Aden said as he began to descend, deciding to explore the strange island.
After landing on the mountain top, he looked around with an excited expression.
"Well let's see here." Aden started thinking out loud "Unusual colors? Check. Strangely shaped mountain or a hilltop? Check. No towns or settlments? Also check. This is a prime spot for a bit of exploring." Aden spoke in a giddy tone, his inner adventurer coming out.
He used his haki to check for signs of life, but besides a few animals he found nothing in his range.
Choosing to just go and explore he jumped off the mountain towards the forest below.
On the way down he noticed a strange smell in the air, that got stronger the closer to the forest he got.
"Strange...Smells like...Fresh rain? Or maybe just before a thunderstorm. Maybe these trees produce petrichor? No idea how, but the world is filled with strange things. Island like this is actually on a normal side." Aden thought as his mind was filled with memories from his childhood. Him and his brothers sitting in theirsecret hideout.
He recalled how they met for the first time.
He got washed ashore by the sea after his boat capsized. At least that was their guess, as he had no recollectuon of his life prior to that. He was found by Makino, who was out for a walk to clear her head after some spoiled brat acted all high and mighty in her bar.
Lucky too. If not for her finding him, Aden would be dead.
He was then introduced to Luffy, Ace and Sabo. He was the latest addition to their group, but instantly became the big bro to the others.
Shaking his head, Aden returned to the present. He was presently still falling to the forest, so he gently slowed himself down with his powers over air and landed as if merely taking a step down.
As he looked around, he saw that the forest was a mix of tall pine-like trees and slightly shorter oak looking trees. The most striking difference was the blue colored pine needles and leaves. The area he landed in also had a bunch of smaller bushes, also blue in color.
Aden noticed some blue apple like feuits growing on the 'Azure Oaks' as he decided to call them.
Reaching for the closest one, he picked it with a soft snap of the stem.
Upon smelling the fruit, his nose was hit with a scent of an apple at first, but it also had a sour smell to it, almost like a lemon or a lime.
Deciding to just try the fruit, Aden took a bite.
The moment he bit down, his mouth was assaulted with a sweet flavour of orange, lime and honey. A combination he strangely found rather enjoyable.
Pulling out a small bag from his belt pouch, he picked about a dozen more of these fruits, covered them in a thin layer of ice to keep them fresh and put them in the bag, which he then attached to the back of his belt.
"I'll bring some for the others. They are gonna love these. I will also have to remember where this place is. I detect no signs of civilization, so it could be a nice territory for grabs. We shall see." Aden mused in his mind as he began to explore the island.
After about an hour of walking around, he confirmed that there were no people on the island. Strange, but not uncommon.
Most of the islands in the world are not settled by people and are wild. Aden started to suspect he might be the first human to ever be on this island. It is rather out of the way. The only reason he was so far off the "beaten path", was because he got lost in thought.
Realizing his mistake he took out the piece of paper he had behind his belt and smacked his forehead in frustration.
"I am so much further away than i was. Well i was rather lost in thought... And flew around without direction, but still. Also this habit of speaking to myself is a bad sign. I might be losing it? Nah, i would know if i was going crazy. Crazy people know they are crazy. Orneas it the other way aro...Why am i still doing it!?" Aden slapped his forehead again. What just happened was another one of his rare moments of self-talking.
While this amount of it was rare, he spoke to himself rather often. A bad habit he picked up as a kid, because speaking his mind outloud sometimes helped inspire new ideas or solutions to problems.
Simply deciding to keep exploring, Aden walked further into the forest.
The scenery was more or less the same, with the exception of a few differently colored plants.
Maybe an hour of exploring later, Aden found an ancient looking building. It looked like a small temple, but it was hard to say with how old and fallen apart it was.
From what he could see, the circular main chamber was still standing so he went to explore it.
Inside he found piles of rubble from the holes in the dome-like roof, some scrap too rusted to be recognizable and a single stone pillar in the middle of the room.
The pillar was just about reaching Aden's waist. It had what looked like runic markings, but it was too weathered to really tell.
What was very noticable was the square indentation on the top of it.
"Wait. No way right?" Aden thought to himself as he pulled out the cube in it's flat setting.
As he held it he used his power to activate it and it expandes to it's cube form with a bunch of mechanical clicks.
Placing it into the indentation, he noticed it fit perfectly. With a heavy stone-sounding click and thud the pillar and the cube began to glow in a shimmering golden light.
"What the hell...?" Aden could not help but say outloud.
As the glow got brighter, a thin stream of light flew upwards from the cube reaching about halfway to the ceiling. There it looked like it hit a barrier and began to form a dome around the pillar and Aden.
As the dome closed up, Aden saw the room no longer in disrepair, but with pristine white stone walls, and polished granite floor.
There were flower pots filled with flowers of yellow and red, and at the end of the room opposite him, was a big plot of grass with a blue sappling growing.
Suddenly a shimmering figure appeared on the other side of the pillar from Aden. It had white flowing robes with golden trim, silver arm guards and a left shoulder armour made of a gold material. The figure was female, reaching Aden's height, with blonde hair that seemed to glow. But that seemed to be just because of the projection.
As Aden was still trying to wrap his head around this situation....
"~Greeting, Aden.~"
(Aand i am back with one more chapter. Sorry it took so long. It will probably take me some time to release the next one. My inspiration ran dry it seems. But i am really trying. Anyway, i hope you liked this one. And again sorry)