Author's Note: It will be easier to understand this if you have read "Feathered Nakama", prequel to this. Just a suggestion!
Disclaimer: Don't own One Piece, never will, yadda yadda yadda
Chapter 1: Falling Ships
Seagulls cried out high in the sky. They circled around the sun peacefully, calling out to one another. Below them lay the vast ocean of the Grand Line, the most dangerous ocean in the world. A sail snapped in the breeze, and a Jolly Roger with a straw hat grinned on the mainsail. Below, there were sounds of a commotion…
"Quit your damn kicking, Love-Cook!"
"Shut up you shitty Marimo-head!"
"OI! Luffy, how dare you run right into me when I'm not expecting it!"
"Sorry, Hoshi, I wasn't looking where I was going!"
"Damn right you weren't!"
"What the hell am I doing in here?! OUCH! Don't pull my nose!"
Confused shouting came from inside a dust cloud that was moving around in crazy patterns across the deck of the Going Merry. Bits and pieces of bodies all hitting each other blindly could be glimpsed, including two, pure-white wings.
Robin watched the cloud crazily go this way and that and chuckled softly. It seemed that she had chosen the right ship to stow away on when the crew escaped Arabasta a couple weeks ago.
Hoshi was a cheerful 17-year-old with jet black hair that reached only to her earlobes. She wore a black T-shirt over long black pants that hugged her legs yet allowed freedom of movement. The crew had found her out in the middle of the ocean… or more, she had found them. Hoshi was a genetic experiment of the World Government. Her DNA was comprised of both human and phoenix genes, and the result was a being who had wings and had command over the wind. She had escaped from a laboratory somewhere, and had been on the run for several years. Flying over the ocean, she was going to fall into the sea out of exhaustion… but she had actually fallen into the crow's nest of the Going Merry, and had been taken in by the crew.
The dust cloud died down as little bits of debris started falling from the sky.
"What IS this?" Usopp asked.
"It's not rain…" Sanji answered.
"It's a Mystery Rain!" Luffy shouted excitedly. Everyone in the crew sweatdropped. As expected from the crazy captain…
When the source of the 'Mystery Rain' was revealed, panic broke out on board.
"A SHIP!! FALLING FROM THE SKY!!" Usopp screamed.
No one had any more time to do more than gape as the ship crashed into the ocean about three meters from the Merry.
"BRACE YOURSELVES!" Zoro yelled as the ship rose and fell sharply with the waves. "DON'T LET GO OF THE SHIP!!"
As if anyone was going to do that… Luffy had sort of wound himself around the mast, but Hoshi was having a really hard time because her wings kept catching the wind and she wasn't able to pull them in under these conditions.
The main wave that had come with the impact was now gaining on the Merry. Usopp's eyes went super wide. "A dream, a dream, this HAS to be a dream!" he muttered to himself.
Hoshi screamed, and Zoro saw her torn away from the ship by a particularly savage gust of wind. Unable to control her flight, she was knocked about before being pushed into the oncoming wave.
"HOSHI!" he yelled. He growled, disgusted at his helplessness… but Hoshi wasn't helpless either, she was able to swim… Robin's eyes were wide, and she thought that she had forgotten how to breathe.
"Zoro! It's okay! Hoshi can take care of herself!" Luffy tried to reassure Zoro.
"Oi, Luffy, we have to protect the ship!" Sanji yelled.
"Yosh, got it!" Luffy responded. He looked up. "Usopp?"
Usopp was sitting in the middle of the deck. He was sitting cross-legged and he had a serene look on his face. "To ease one's fears, be calm and close your eyes. Then slowly lift your eyelids." Usopp followed his own instructions. "See? A nice, quiet- EYAAAAAHHH!!" A skull fell in front of Usopp's face as he opened his eyes. "A SKELETON!!"
"MORON!" yelled Nami as the skeleton flew towards her. "Don't throw it over here!"
"There's still more coming down! Everybody be careful!" Sanji yelled.
"A SKELETON!!" Usopp screamed.
When things settled down, the Straw Hats were staring at the underside of a huge ship that had just fallen out of the sky.
"Why'd a ship fall out of the sky!?" Luffy exclaimed.
"It's a total mystery," Sanji muttered.
Usopp and Chopper hugged each other, trembling.
Zoro was at the banister, looking out over the floating debris. Suddenly, the figure he had been looking for broke the surface of the water, coughing and gasping, about twenty meters away.
"Hoshi!" he called. She stopped spitting out water and saw Zoro waving to her. She waved back cheerfully, in a "yes I did get knocked overboard, and yes I did almost drown, but now everything is good" sort of way.
"D-damn, the G-grand Line is wa-ay t-too s-sc-scary," Usopp stuttered.
Hoshi swam back to the ship and climbed aboard. She briskly shook her wings out, then her hair, spraying water everywhere within a two meter radius of herself. As she did, Nami screamed.
"T-the Log Post!" she shrieked. "It's… it's broken!"
"WHAT?!"
Everyone gathered around to look. Sure enough, the Log Post was pointing straight upwards, and it wasn't moving any other direction. Nami shook her wrist a few times, but the Log Post remained in its position. Robin smiled when she saw Nami's face.
"Kokashi-san, that Log Post is not broken. The direction of that Log Post has changed because it has been attracted by a strong magnetic force from an island in the direction it is pointing. The Log has been taken by Sky Island," she informed Nami.
"SKY ISLAND?" everyone yelled.
"Are you saying that there's an island in the sky?!" Nami exclaimed.
Luffy had stars in his eyes.
"But you can't see an island from here," Zoro pointed out, scanning the sky for anything that resembled an island.
"No… I think that there's an ocean in the sky," Robin replied.
"A SEA!" Luffy, Usopp, and Chopper all had stars in their eyes now.
"This gets harder and harder to take in," Sanji muttered.
"So there's an ocean in the sky with an island on it! LET'S GO! HARD TURN SKYWARD!" Luffy yelled.
Robin sweatdropped and sprouted two hands to clap over Luffy's mouth.
"There's no way we can turn the helm to the sky, Captain," Sanji informed Luffy as he thrashed on the ground.
Robin continued. "To tell the truth, I've never seen Sky Island, and don't know much about it…"
"Of course!" Nami exclaimed. "Islands and seas floating in the sky… it's all impossible!"
"There's no such word on the Grand Line," Hoshi told Nami, perching in her soaking wet clothes on the banister, bouncing her heels off rail.
"Hoshi is right, Kokaishi-san. What you should think about now is not how to fix a broken Log Post, but how we are going to get up to the sky," Robin told an annoyed Nami. "Do not doubt the Log Post. That is the iron-clad rule when traveling on this sea."
"An island in the sky!? AMAZING! Let's go!" Unexpectedly, this remark did not come from Luffy, but from Hoshi. She grinned as the crew turned to look at her. "It'll be so much fun!" Sanji, Zoro, and Nami sweatdropped.
Robin kneeled down and examined the skeleton that had freaked out Usopp. Picking up the shattered skull, she took out a pair of tweezers and began to piece it back together.
"Urgh Robin, you have some weird hobbies," Nami commented.
Chopper hid on the wrong side of the mast, shuddering as he watched Robin put it back together.
"The comparison of a beautiful body and a deceased one is quite quaint in itself!" Sanji swooned.
Zoro glanced around the deck, and noticed something. "Oi, where'd Luffy go?"
Everyone looked on the deck. Luffy had disappeared. "Hey, come to think of it, Usopp's not here too," Chopper pointed out.
"He went over there," Sanji said, jabbing her thumb over his shoulder. Scanning the direction he pointed, the crew could make out two figures jumping around inside the ship still floating on the water.
"What're they up to now?" Zoro grumbled.
"Something crazy?" Hoshi suggested. Zoro groaned. "Maybe they're looking for something fun!" she said, her face breaking into a smile. Zoro felt his stomach drop.
"Nami! Do you have some spare clothes I can borrow?" Hoshi called, jumping lightly off the banister.
"Sure Hoshi! Come into my room, and we'll find you something," Nami replied.
Two minutes later, Hoshi came out of Nami's room in dry clothes. She was dressed in a black T-shirt with three stars embroidered onto one shoulder ("Just like your name!" Nami had exclaimed), and a pair of long, dark-brown pants. (Who would think that Nami owned long pants?!) Robin had finished putting the skull back together, and began to explain what she had figured out.
"This man was in his thirties when he died." Touching some holes in his skull, she continued. "These holes were artificially made."
"Oh… so someone skewered him through the head and he died?" Sanji asked, kneeling down for a closer look.
"No, this is the result of some medical treatment, am I correct Isha-san?" Robin asked Chopper, still hiding on the wrong side of the mast.
"Yes, it is. They used to bore holes in the skull to take out brain tumors… but that's a really archaic method," he confirmed.
"At least two hundred years have passed. He was in his early thirties when he died. During the voyage, he collapsed and died," Robin said. "His teeth, compared to the rest of his bones, are in the best shape. They were most likely coated in tar, a old practice in a specific region of South Blue. At that point in history, any voyages out onto this ocean would have been exploratory voyages." Robin disappeared into the cabin for a moment and came out with… a book. She flipped through it for a moment, before stopping at a certain page. "See? The Bliss Kingdom in South Blue. That ship, St. Bliss, originated from there. It sailed 208 years ago."
An illustration of the ship that had fallen from the sky took up a large portion of the page.
"Wow. We found that all out just by looking at a skull!" Nami exclaimed.
"Skeletons have lost only the power to speak. They are still full of information," Robin replied with a smile. "Also, if that was an exploratory vessel, then there must be documents and papers with information about the voyage still on the ship."
"But… that ship is sinkin- AH! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TWO DOING?!" Nami yelled. The ship had sunk completely, leaving Usopp and Luffy thrashing in the water.
"SABE B-BEE! (Save me!)" Luffy yelled.
"Hang on Luffy!" Usopp was screaming.
Hoshi broke out in laughter at the silly pair, and Zoro felt his stomach drop again, taking his chest along for the ride.
When Luffy, soaking wet, had gotten back onto the ship, he held up a piece of paper excitedly. "Look at this! Look, look!" he said.
The crew turned and looked. "A MAP OF SKY ISLAND?!"
He handed it to Nami, who looked over it with a critical eye. "Skypia? So there really is an island in the sky?" she asked herself.
"YATTA!" Hoshi, Usopp, and Luffy all linked arms and started dancing around the ship as Chopper danced on their shoulders. "WE DID IT! THERE'S AN ISLAND IN THE SKY! SKY ISLAND DOES EXIST! A DREAM ISLAND! WE'RE GOING TO A DREAM ISLAND!" they sang at the top of their lungs.
Hoshi felt so happy! The first adventure that she would have with her new nakama was going to be so much fun!!
Sky Island! Hoshi's first adventure with her new nakama is promising to be an exciting one. How will her presence affect this adventure? Review please! I want to know if people will like this, or if I should just write up a brand new adventure and not tie Hoshi in with the original story.