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I had to drag Luffy back to Cricket's house because he kept getting distracted and running after beetles. We made our way back to the house and saw the others loading things onto the ship.
"Hey, we're back!" Luffy yelled as we got closer. "I caught a Hercules!"
"You were supposed to get the gold and get back!" Nami yelled.
"Sorry!" I told her.
I got a look at the Merry. The ship now had wings and a fin. The ship went from looking like a ram to looking like a chicken.
"It's so cool!" Luffy said in awe.
"It's something, all right," I said uneasily.
Luffy and I dropped the gold off with Cricket, and he told us to get going.
"Thank you⊠for the ship," we said.
"Thank them, not me," Cricket said, pointing to the monkey brothers.
"Thanks!" Luffy yelled. "I'll give you my Hercules."
"Come on, Luffy, we have to go," I pulled him back toward the ship.
We hopped aboard and got the ship all set to leave. Before we left, Cricket had one last thing to say. "We have to part here. Just remember, no one has ever disproved the existence of Sky Island. Others may laugh at us, but who cares. An adventure like this is for the romantics!"
We pulled away from the shore and headed to the Knock-up Stream. Masira and Shoujou explained what we were going to have to do to get to Sky Island. We had to find the Knock-up Stream, which appears in a different place each time. We relaxed on our way there; there was nothing to do but wait.
It took three hours, but we made it to our destination. We saw the magic cloud in the distance and started making a beeline for it. We had found the cloud earlier than expected, so they had to rush to find where the current would appear.
"Turn your ship to ten o'clock; that's where the current is. Follow the whirlpool," Masira told us.
The ship got tossed back and forth by the waves, but Nami said the Log kept pointing at the cloud above us.
"We'll take you to the edge of the whirlpool, after that, head to the center, and it'll be up to you," Masira told us, attaching a mooring line to the ship.
We got into the whirlpool and saw that even a Sea King had been sucked in and was struggling to stay afloat. Usopp begged us to turn back, but Luffy told him no.
"If we miss this chance, we'll regret it for the rest of our lives," he laughed.
We hit the rim and jumped into the center of the whirlpool. As we got closer, the swirl disappeared, and the ocean calmed. Then, the whirlpool appeared under the surface, and the current began to form.
"Hey, Zoro!" Luffy pointed out that there was another group following us. "It's that guy from the bar."
"It's that guy who was picking a fight with me," I pointed out to Robin.
"I'm here for your 100,000,000 Berry bounty!" The man yelled.
"What's he talking about? 100 million?" Luffy said.
The man held up his hands and had four posters, one for Luffy, one for me, one for Zoro, and one for Ikki.
'Strawhat' Monkey D. Luffy- 100,000,000
'Torturer' Steve- 80,000,000
'Pirate Hunter' Roronoa Zoro- 60,000,000
'Deathblossom' Ikki- 10,000,000
"It's true, Zoro!" Usopp said, looking through a pair of binoculars. "You and Ikki are both wanted pirates!"
Sanji begged Usopp to keep searching for one of him, but there wasn't one. This makes five people on this crew with bounties. Five out of nine is more than half. Things may get bad.
"Stay focused; it's coming!" Shoujou yelled.
The sea started to bubble, and Nami told us to hang on to something or get inside. Then the water erupted up toward the sky, taking our ship with it. The ship was vertical on the water. This is incredible!
"YEAH!"
"The ship's lifting up!" Sanji yelled, killing the mood. "If this keeps up, we'll fall off!"
The Sea King from earlier dropped out of the sky and went back toward the sea below. Nami told us to lower the sail so we could catch the updraft from the lower explosions. We lowered the sail, and the ship lifted up off the water and started flying.
"I wonder what's at the top," Luffy said.
"We'll know soon, pal," I told him as we broke through the cloud.
We were thrown around the ship as it reached the top of the cloud. Everyone was on the floor, catching their breath.
"We're sailing on top of the cloud!" Luffy yelled, leaning over the railing.
I stood up and took a look around. The ship was floating on the sky, and somehow, we weren't sinking.
"This is a sea of sky!" Nami said in awe. "But the Log is still pointing up."
"Maybe this is only the middle part of the cloud," Robin proposed.
"So we need to keep climbing?" I said.
"I suppose so," Robin said.
"I, Captain Usopp, will now swim in the sky!"
"Don't fool around. We don't know anything about this place," Sanji told Usopp, who just jumped off the ship anyway.
Usopp was down there swimming for a while.
"Uhh⊠he's not coming back up," Ikki said.
"Just a thought," Robin started. "Does this sea have a bottom?"
Luffy threw his hand into the cloud to try and find Usopp, but he couldn't see where Usopp was to fish him out. Robin sprouted eyes on Luffy's arm so that we could find Usopp.
"Okay, pull him up," Robin said as Luffy reeled in his arm.
Usopp surfaced from the cloud, being chased by a group of large fish. Zoro slashed the octopus chasing Usopp, and the mollusk popped like a balloon. Sanji and Luffy took care of a snake that had followed Usopp up as well. These fish were made to live in the sky.
Usopp pulled a flat fish out of his pants and began whining about how he hates this place.
"He's having a rough day," Robin remarked.
"Did you see the teeth on that thing? I don't want it near there either," I told her.
Robin picked up the fish and examined it. She said this was like the fish described by Noland in his Logbook. She said the fish had evolved to live in the sky; they became like balloons so they could float.
"Don't eat it!" Nami yelled as Luffy devoured the fish we were looking at.
"Look, a ship⊠and a person," Chopper said, looking ahead.
Chopper started screaming, but most of it was gibberish except for a few words: "There's a Human coming!"
Flying toward us, floating on the clouds, was a masked man sporting some sort of rocket launcher.
"Die!" The figure said, jumping toward the ship.
"He's looking for a fight," Ikki pointed out, taking out a knife.
The man jumped toward me, and I swung at him and missed. He kicked me in the face, but it felt like I got shot by a cannon. I looked over and saw that he had wiped the floor with the others as well. The man was about to shoot the ship with a bazooka, but a different person stepped in and stopped him.
"Who's this guy?" Nami asked.
"I am the Sky Knight," the armored man said.
The masked man flew off, grumbling something, and a man in armor remained.
"God, I'm tired," I said, panting, trying to catch my breath.
The man in the armor gave me a look while Robin explained that the air was thinner up here, so it was harder to breathe.
"Did you people come from the blue sea?" The Sky Knight asked.
"If you mean we're from below here, then yes," I told him.
The man said that it was difficult for blue sea people to survive up here; we had adjusted pretty quickly, though, so it was no problem. The Sky Knight explained that he was a mercenary who would protect us for 50,000,000 Extol.
What are those? Is that the money up here?
The man wanted to know why we didn't know what these 'Extols' were. He assumed we had been to an island or two. He said that there was a second way to get up to Sky Island. He did warn us that taking the other ways would most likely have killed all but two or three of us.
"Blow this whistle if you ever need assistance," the Sky Knight said, tossing us a whistle.
The man introduced himself as Gan Fall, the Sky Knight, and his bird's name was Pierre, a bird who ate the Horse-Horse Fruit. The bird looked pretty nasty in horse form. Not very majestic.
We decided to head to a nearby waterfall since we had no other ideas on where to go. We got closer to the waterfall but couldn't find a way past. Luffy tried punching the cloud, but his hand bounced off. We saw a door behind the waterfall and headed toward it.
"Heaven's Gate?" Nami wondered as we pulled closer.
As we pulled past, an old woman stepped out and took a bunch of pictures. She then told us we had to pay a one billion Extol entrance fee.
"Um⊠we don't have the money," Nami nervously told her.
"You can still go through."
"WHAT!"
"How do we get up?" Luffy asked.
A giant shrimp appeared and grabbed the ship and pulled us away from the gate and into Sky Island.
"YAHOO!"
On the way up, we passed by a sign reading 'Godland Skypiea'.
"This is it!"
The shrimp threw us onto another level of the cloud, and we were even higher. There was an island in the sky, an island situated on clouds. Luffy, Usopp, and Chopper jumped off and ran to the shore.
"It's so soft!" Luffy yelled.
Almost everybody had gotten off the ship except for me and Robin.
"Will you be getting off?" She asked me.
"Yeah, just a sec. I didn't want to leave you alone on the ship," I told her.
"I never thought sailing could be this enjoyable," the archeologist said.
"Yeah, it's something special."
I gave Robin a hand getting off the ship, and we headed to the shore. Walking on the clouds was strange; everything was so fluffy. We decided to take the opportunity to relax while we were here.
"It's an angel!" Sanji yelled out of the blue.