A/N: right, a couple of quick notes regarding updates, I have no set schedule, whatsoever, I will attempt to have at the very least two chapters a month on average, but that is by no means concrete, updates will be slightly slower at the start as I need to rewatch some of Skypeia to it down better. Another thing to note is a quick rule of my writing ("text") is speech, ('text') is thought.
lastly I own neither One Piece or Avatar: The Last Airbender which are the intellectual properties of Eiichiro Oda and Bryan Konietzko/Michael DiMartino respectively, If I did own either or both, I would not be writing fanfiction, I'd be adding another bathroom to my sky palace made of pure gold.
(Northwest Coast of Jaya)
On the jagged shoreline of Jaya, Montblanc Cricket was enjoying an ordinary day just like any other, He enjoyed nothing more than to sit out in the morning, enjoy the calm ocean waves, smoke a little bit and gaze upon the massive funnel of water that had just aggressively blasted his new-found acquaintances into the sky. OK, scratch that, it wasn't quite an ordinary day.
Only one thought came to the mind of the aging seafarer, 'Good luck kids, try to stay calm up there.
(The Knock-up Stream)
"What the hell is happening?" Usopp screeched, tears flowing freely from his eyes as he anchored himself around the banister of the steps leading to the ship's cabin.
"We're sailing up a huge pillar of water!" Sanji shouted back, he was decidedly calmer than his sniper comrade, but still didn't seem entirely comfortable with this new development. the Ship was now moving vertically, its base running parallel to the rushing shaft of water between the sea and sky.
"This is awesome!" Luffy yelled, still anchoring himself and Toph to the mast.
"No, this is terrifying!" The small earth-bender screamed in response.
"Haha, don't worry Toph, I won't let go of you or anything." Luffy replied cheerfully, did anything faze this guy?
Meanwhile Katara had stuck her feet to the ship using ice she had bended from the knock-up stream itself,
"How is this even possible?" she asked Nami, the only person she would figure would have any idea what was happening, 'Does gravity not exist in this world?!' she added in an afterthought.
She got a response but not from whom she was expecting. As Zuko started to speak
"Just like anything on the ocean the knock-up stream must have a current, and subsequently it has wind. that, plus a lot of momentum is what's driving us upwards."
Nami and Katara just stared at him for a few seconds.
"What? I spent three years on a ship with Uncle, I just happened to learn some stuff about seafaring." Zuko added defensively.
"Yay!" Nami led out a little shriek and proceeded to hug Zuko, much to his embarrassment, "We finally have a guy on the crew who's A; somewhat normal, and B; not completely oblivious!"
"Um... thank you, ca-can you let go of me now?" Zuko asked, his face went bright red as he attempted to divert his eyes away from the girl's chest that was mere inches from his face. After Nami released him he turned to see Sanji glaring at him with eyes like daggers. "Uh… can I help you with something? Sanji?" To say that Zuko was confused was a massive understatement.
"No… nothing, nothing at all." Sanji turned away and walked away along the now horizontal front wall of the cabin.
Before Zuko had any time to question what had just happened, Zoro spoke up. (A/N: oh… so many scan-readers are gonna be tripped up by those two names! XD)
"Guys, we have a new problem. The ship is starting to lift off of the water!" the swordsman shouted, panic started to set in amongst the crew with those words.
"What?!" Toph yelled.
"Yeah, there's not really much we can do about it either, we're at the mercy of Mother Nature now." Zoro continued in a resigned tone.
Katara began to ponder what methods she could take to help, but short of diverting the angle of the entire pillar, which would be impossible, she couldn't think of anything. 'Damnit!' if Aang were here he'd be able to force us back down with a rush of air or something,' she thought, once again lamenting that the team had been separated upon their entry into this new terrifying world.
For the last few moments Nami had been racking her considerable nautical knowledge to think of a way to save the ship from falling, 'I've got it!'
"Sanji, Zoro! Unfurl the sails, now!" the navigator barked in a commanding tone. Upon seeing Zoro's questioning expression she continued "We need more speed, the sails will capitalize on the current, and the inertia will keep us flat and moving! Now hurry!"
The two men quickly complied, Sanji doing so enthusiastically and immediately the change in speed was notable, the Merry lifted off slightly more before levelling out.
"Yeah! We're flying!" Luffy laughed out.
"Yeah… we're flying, the one thing that makes me sick faster than being on a boat," Toph groaned as her face turned pale.
"Don't worry Toph, it won't be too much longer, we're nearly there, right Nami?" Katara said in a comforting manner.
"Yep, Skypiea should be right over those clouds there." Nami replied pointing upward, 'or was it forward?' at the gap in the clouds that the Knock-Up Stream had created.
And so the Merry continued its voyage upwards. Things became rough as the ship penetrated the cloud layer; with Chopper losing his grip at one point only to land on a net weaved out of copies of Robin's hands. Katara was holding on to the ship solidly with one arm wrapped around a railing while trying to bend as much of the cloud as possible out of their way with the other hand, particularly bending it away from Toph and Luffy, as she didn't want the water to weaken the rubber man and cause him and Toph to fall off. Eventually the Merry pierced through the peak of the clouds, and into open sky,
Thousands of metres below, Cricket watched onward as the Knock-up Stream started to dissipate. 'Ya know? I think those kids might have actually pulled it off' he thought to himself before yelling towards the sky,
"Way to go Straw-Hat! Follow your damn dreams! No-one else will follow them for you!"
A little way further out at sea, the small crew that had briefly accosted the Straw Hats, sat upon one of the few intact logs that remained of their raft.
"Well. Looks like they got away!" the bearded leader laughed to himself.
"How can you just laugh that off captain?! We just lost 160 million beris!" his Luchador looking crewmate replied angrily.
"Easy Burgess, we'll run into them again, and next time they won't get away." The jovial captain responded.
Back above the clouds the Going Merry had finally come to a halt, floating on a canvas of white.
The crew on board were all In varying states of consciousness, Usopp being completely out of it.
"Well, that was horrible." Toph mumbled, as she attempted to stand.
"It could have gone better, I agree." Zuko added as he too stood up, quickly noting that, like him, the rest of the crew was breathing hard and looking drained.
"Seriously, what just happened? Is everyone alright?" Zoro asked, even he appeared to be struggling somewhat. The response was generally just affirmative grunts, that being all that most members of the crew could muster, with the exception of…
"Wow! Look at this place! It's amazing! It's so white!" The captain of the vessel appeared none the worse for wear.
"Yep, nothing fazes him whatsoever." Toph laughed while still looking haggard.
"If we ever run into anything that puts him down, remind me to run for my life, okay guys?" Katara added, as she stumbled into a standing position. She then proceeded to dry off the other members clothes using her water-bending to a host of murmured thanks.
"Guys, I mean it! come look at this!" finally responding to their captain, the rest of the crew gathered near Luffy on the starboard side of the ship and with the exception of Toph, looked outward, what they saw stunned them.
"It… it's just a canvas of clouds? How the hell aren't we falling through?" a flabbergasted Nami asked.
"Clouds float and boats float, so we float, no?"Luffy responded with a grin.
"I don't think it's quite that simple Captain." Robin said the same thing that came to the entire crew's minds.
It was at this point that Usopp woke up and started screaming, having seen the sheet of clouds surrounding the ship. He immediately asked Nami what was happening and where they were, she told him that they were basically floating on a sea of clouds, before checking the Log Pose.
"Wait, the Log Pose is still pointing up… what the hell?" She pondered, utterly perplexed by this latest development.
"Well clearly Skypiea is up even higher than we currently are, I guess we still have some more distance to travel, so shall we get moving?" Robin proposed.
"I think we should try to get our bearings first. We still have no idea where we're going." Katara shot back, sounding slightly irritated; Before Toph lightly hit her with an elbow.
"Play nice Sugar-Queen! Whining at her isn't gonna help anything." The earth-bender added, Katara noted that she had looked increasingly uncomfortable since the revelation that there was no solid land in sight.
While she was sympathetic to her friend's potential plight, the thought of a place with this much water made her feel a lot more confident and being honest, it made her feel powerful, like this was a place where she could actually compete with the juggernauts of this world.
Usopp having grown bored of all the navigational talk, decided that this would be a decent opportunity to try something new, and showing some uncharacteristic bravery he dove into the sea of clouds, to the cheers of Luffy and Chopper. Not one minute later he was being reeled back in by the combined efforts of Luffy and Robin as he had managed to swim straight through the cloud layer, which evidently did not have a solid bottom. As he was being reeled back though, it became clear that he wasn't returning alone.
As Luffy's hand returned back through the cloud layer with Usopp, it was promptly followed by two massive creatures, one was an elongated giant blue eel, and the other was a giant octopus-like thing. And both were several times the size of the Going Merry.
The two creatures set upon the Merry immediately, but were quickly stopped by a flurry of kicks from Sanji against the Eel, and a fast moving blade-like jet of water from Katara to dispatch the Octopus while Luffy placed an unconscious Usopp down on the deck.
"What? Why… do… I feel…so…tired?" Katara asked immediately afterwards, her breathing had become very heavy, even the simple flourishes needed to summon up the water from the clouds beneath her then focus and direct it at the creature had severely tired her out.
"I think it might be the air up here, it's much thinner, and that makes it harder to breath" Sanji theorized, he too looked to be feeling the effects of exerting himself
"That's probably it, so take it easy you guys, at least until you get used to it." Chopper called from the side of the ship, where he was using the binoculars to scan for any signs of life or anything, to help them find their way. Behind him the conversation turned towards Sanji's cooking abilities, as Luffy requested that Sanji attempt to cook the large eel creature, much to the rest of the crew's amusement. It was at that point which Chopper finally spotted something. What looked to be another ship, he was about to inform the others of this discovery, when the ship suddenly burst into flames. Chopper immediately attempted to warn the crew of imminent danger.
"Guys, there-was-a-ship-and-then-it-split-BOOM-and-then-a -guy-was-flying away and-" Chopper was interrupted from his incoherent rambling by a light knock on the head.
"Chopper, calm down, no-one can tell what you're even saying." Toph had bonked him on the back of the head to attempt to get some clarity out of him.
"I think I know what he's talking about anyway!" Zoro said sharply before putting one hand towards his swords, it was immediately clear why. "There's someone out there!"
Out on the cloud-ocean, what appeared to be a man wearing a large tribal mask was gliding towards the Merry very quickly.
"Hey, stop! What do you want?" Sanji demanded.
"To destroy you!" the masked figure responded.
"Well…crap…" Zuko's statement adequately summed up the situation.
In mere moments the man landed on the Merry then proceeded to lay waste to the crew's best fighters, promptly kicking Sanji flying into the wall of the cabin, before backhanding Zoro halfway across the ship, Zuko responded first by launching a ball of fire at the assailant. To everyone's surprise the flames he launched were absolutely pitiful. Barely even embers, and to make matters worse he received a strong gut punch for his trouble, winding him and knocking him to the ground,
Luffy stepped up next and threw a strong right hook, which the man weaved away from, before responding by slamming the rubberized man's head into the deck. He stepped forward towards the weaker members of the crew as well as the defenceless Toph who had been pulled out of range by Robin.
Cracking his knuckles, he looked set to continue his rampage before he was hit and sent tumbling towards the side of the ship by a large wave of water. He looked towards the girl who had launched the counter-attack.
"Stay away from my friends, you ass!" Katara yelled. She had bent up a large amount of water from the clouds below, and was now keeping it moving around her body from shoulder to hip in a ring shape.
"Wow. It must be serious business if Katara's using bad language." Toph cracked; joking aside, she was worried; she had been able to gather that the crew was under attack and she only wished that she could help, but on a boat surrounded by clouds she was effectively helpless.
With one fluid motion Katara launched the water at the attacker in the form of a whip, however with a flourish of air that seemed to be coming from devices on his feet he easily jumped clear of the attack, then clear of the ship, before pulling a tube like device from his shoulder and aiming it at the Going Merry.
'What is that? It almost looks like… a small…cannon, oh... oh crap.' Katara immediately moved to form a defence, but she was already getting tired, having still not adjusted to the altitude yet. Luckily for her and the Straw-Hats her last ditch defence wasn't needed, as the masked man was promptly intercepted by another mysterious person.
"Leave them be, you fiend!" came the yell from what appeared to be an old man in very heavy armour riding a large pink bird, he had come out of nowhere and attempted to spear the masked man on his lance. After a short encounter, the masked man fled and the armoured man descended down towards the Merry.
"Are you all alright?" the man asked in a kindly voice.
"I think so." Katara briefly scanned the members of the crew who had fallen; they all seemed to be recovering.
"Not that we're not thankful or anything, but, who are you?" Nami was the one to ask the question which they were all pondering,
"My name is Gan Fall and I am the Sky Knight." The man replied proudly.
A/N: Right, another chapter down quickly, so I hope you all enjoyed. Not sure if I'm maybe being a bit too long-winded at this point, because I've not even covered the content of two full episodes yet. And as much as I love to write this story, I really don't want to create 450+ chapters each of about 3000 words. (That would put my eventual word count for the entire story at over 1.3 million FFS…) so maybe I'll condense the story at least a little bit more, as everyone here already knows it (why would you be reading One Piece fanfiction if you didn't Know the one piece story?) but I'll keep the same level of detail for the non-canon parts (everything involving the benders, a few side stories, and the post-whitebeard war stuff.)
Regardless. I hope you all enjoyed. Please leave reviews, and have a good day.
