I was up in the crow's nest on a seemingly normal day, when all of a sudden, it started raining. But it wasn't water that was raining down. No, no.
It was pieces of wood.
"This isn't rain…" Sanji said, looking up. "It sort of looks like-"
A mast fell from the sky into the water with a splash. I looked up to see a huge galleon falling with it.
Thankfully, the ship didn't fall on top of the Merry, but it did increase the turbulence in the water by at least 500%. I hung onto the railing of the crow's nest for dear life as more pieces of wood kept falling.
"Don't let go of the ship!" Zoro yelled to everyone amongst the girlish screams and panic.
"What the heck is happening?!" Nami screamed.
That's when Usopp screamed. "A SKELETON!"
"Don't throw it over here!" Nami yelled.
"There's still stuff coming down!" Sanji said.
When everything stopped and the waves calmed down, I climbed down the rope ladder unscathed.
"Why'd a ship fall from the sky?!" Luffy asked, looking up.
Usopp and Chopper were cowering in the corner looking at the skeleton that had fallen.
"The Grand Line is scary…" they chanted together.
"What the heck?!" Nami exclaimed.
"What happened?" I asked her.
"Something's wrong with the log pose…" she said. "It's pointing up! It must be broken…"
"That's not it," Robin said. "An island with a stronger magnetic field is causing the needle to point towards a new log. And if the needle is pointing up…"
"There's an island in the sky!" I said, excited.
"An island in the sky?!" everyone asked.
"This is so cool!" Luffy said.
"Then the ship and the skeleton fell from there!" Usopp said.
"There's nothing in the sky that looks like an island," Zoro said.
We all looked up. There were only clouds.
"I wouldn't say that," Robin said. "What's floating up there is a sea."
That got everyone's attention. But some were still skeptical (Zoro and Sanji). Luffy was super excited, though. He said we should take to the sky right away. Sanji reminded everyone that pointed the helm towards the sky wouldn't get us there.
"To be honest, I've never seen a sky island," Robin said. "And I don't know much about it."
"Well, obviously it's impossible!" Nami said. "The log pose is probably broken."
"No, Miss Navigator," Robin said. "Don't think of trying to fix it, but how to get into the sky. You shouldn't doubt the log pose no matter what happens. If anything, doubt your common sense. Wherever the needle points, there will be an island."
Chopper and Nami hid behind the main mast while Robin examined the skeleton that fell from the sky. First, she started putting the skull fragments back together. I sat down next to her as she worked, watching intently. Sanji and Zoro came to watch as well.
"You have some weird hobbies…" Nami mocked.
"Wait, where's Luffy?" Zoro asked. He looked around and saw Usopp and Luffy on the shipwreck. "What are they up too?"
"They said they were going to explore," Chopper said.
And with that, Robin set the completed skull on the ground, saying it was complete.
"The holes here, here, and here," she pointed to them respectively on the skull, "are artificial."
I looked at the holes and said, "They look like bullet holes."
"No, this is the result of medical treatment," she said. "Burr hole surgery, don't you think, Mr. Doctor?"
Chopper nodded and said that they used to drill holes in people's skulls to remove brain tumors. "But that's an archaic practice!"
"Seems a bit extreme…" I said.
"Yes, at least 200 years have passed since he died," she determined. "He was in his early thirties. During his voyage, he collapsed and died from illness. His teeth are in good condition, more so than the other bones. They must've been coated with tar, and that's a strange custom from the South Blue. The ship must've been an exploratory vessel." Robin left briefly to get a book. She opened the pages when she came back and said, "Ah, the Bliss Kingdom from the South Blue. The St. Bliss was a ship sent to explore the Grand Line. It was 208 years ago." She pointed to the picture of the ship.
It really was the same ship that fell from the sky.
"That means that for at least 200 years the ship has been wandering around on the sea in the sky," she said.
I clapped and said, "That's amazing what you can learn from just bones!"
She smiled at me and said, "Thank you. Corpses only have lost their ability to speak. They still contain much information." She looked back to the bones and said, "If it was an exploratory vessel, there must be more evidence and documents on the ship."
"Yeah, but the ship is sinking into the ocean-" Nami said, looking at the sinking ship. "What the hell are you doing?!"
I looked over and saw Luffy drowning and Usopp was freaking out.
When Usopp finally saved the captain, Luffy spit water out from his mouth and sat up.
"Oi, guys!" he said. "I found something great!" He unrolled a piece of old paper, revealing that it was a map.
"It's a map of a sky island!" Usopp said.
The map did say the land was called Skypiea.
"See!" he said, proud of himself.
Nami took the map and stared at it, baffled. "So there really is an island in the sky…"
"Yahoo!" we cheered.
I jumped up and down with glee. "We get to go to the sky! When can we go? Can we go there now?"
"It's still only a possibility," Nami said, raining on everyone's parade. "The world is full of fake maps."
I almost started crying. The idea of an island in the sky seemed magical.
"No, no!" she said, contradicting herself. "It exists! Really."
"Yay!" I said, cheering.
"Listen, Luffy," she said. "I don't know how to get there."
"You're the navigator! Figure it out!" he argued.
"There are things I can and can't do, you know!" she sassed him.
"I don't care!" he said. "We're going to the sky island!"
Nami finally hit him on the head. She sighed and said, "This is getting us nowhere… In any case, we can't possibly continue sailing like this. What we need now is information. If that giant ship was in the sky, then they must've found a way to get there. We need to get on that ship and pull out any documents or records left."
"But's it's in the water…" I said. "How are we supposed to do that?"
"We'll salvage it!" she said.
"What's that?" Chopper and I asked.
"It's a way to bring up ships that have sunk," Robin explained. "But I don't think we can salvage that one. It's too big."
Some weird monkeys showed up when Luffy, Sanji and Zoro tried to salvage the ship. After a couple minutes of anxiously waiting, a giant turtle ate the ship.
Strange things happened after the turtle came.
Night came during the day and huge scary giants appeared before us. The Going Merry rushed out of there as quickly as possible.
Nami yelled at the guys for not getting any treasure when it was all over. It turns out Robin stole an eternal pose from the monkey's ship. It was to a land called Jaya. So that's where we headed.
I went back up in the crow's nest on the lookout for the island called Jaya.
"Do you still not see it?" Luffy asked.
"I'm sure, Luffy-san," I said looking through my telescope. I angled my bottom lip towards my eye and blew to get my bangs out of my face.
"Yeah, but it isn't that far, right?" Zoro asked.
"The weather's been stable, so I would assume so," Nami said.
"Jaya's a spring island!" Luffy said. "It's nice and warm."
"Spring weather's nice," Chopper said. He looked up into the sky and said, "I bet the seagulls enjoy it, too."
I smiled at the seagulls that flew over my head. That's when they all fell onto the deck, dead. Chopper screamed that they were shot.
"I didn't hear gunfire…" Usopp said.
"There's a bullet!" Chopper said, examining them.
No one believed him.
A couple minutes later, I looked through my telescope at the beckoning of Luffy for the last time and said, "I see it! It's up ahead!"
As we neared the cost, I came down the crow's nest. Everyone could see it at that point. It looked like a nice town, too.
"It kinda looks like a resort!" Usopp said.
"Makes me want to stick around a bit," Nami said.
We were by far the smallest ship docked there. The rest were much bigger and had scary animals at the front were we had Merry's sheep head. I started to have second thoughts about staying.
"I think they're pirate ships," Usopp said.
"When can pirate ships just openly dock at a harbor?" Nami asked.
"Yeah, I guess you're right…" he said.
"But they have Jolly Rogers!" I said, looking at the flags.
We all heard someone screaming from inside the town for their lives.
"Don't kill me! Please don't kill me!" the man screamed.
Nami, Chopper, Usopp and I were all worried about docking at this seemingly un-quaint island.
But of course, Luffy was excited as ever. Both Zoro and Luffy hopped right off the ship as we docked and headed into the town.
"There's no way…" Nami said.
"No way what?" I asked.
"Those two can come back without getting into trouble," she said.
"It looks dangerous enough…" Usopp said. "It's next to impossible."
"You're right," she said. She hopped off the ship and caught up with them.
"She's a goner!" Chopper said.
"Nami will be dearly missed," Usopp said.
Have a little faith, would you? I thought to myself.
"If Nami-san's going-"
Chopper and Usopp rushed to hold Sanji back, saying there'd be no one to protect the ship if he goes.
"I guess I'll prepare some tea and hold down the fort," he said, deciding to stay. "I mean, Magnolia-chan and Robin-chan are still here~"
"Robin just left…" Chopper said.
"Ok, then, just Magnolia-chan-"
"I don't really want any tea right now, Sanji-san," I said. "But thank you!"
"About that tea-" Usopp asked.
"Make it yourself."
We three, Usopp Chopper and I, sat in the kitchen chatting and waited for everyone to return. Sanji started making lunch for everyone.
I began to get very frustrated because my straight-across bangs kept getting in my eye. Finally I just got a headband to keep them back. But the headband didn't really match what I was wearing so I took it off and just lived with it with an annoyed expression on my face whenever I had to brush them out of my eye.
"I don't know how you do it, Sanji-san…" I said. "I hate it when my bangs get too long…"
"If they're bothering you so much, why don't you just cut your hair?" Chopper asked.
"I only have eye when I'm wearing this," I said, pointing to my eye patch. "I don't want to mess up when I'm down an eye."
"I can cut it for you," Usopp offered.
My eye lit up and I said, "Really, Usopp-san? You'd do that?"
"Yeah, sure," he said. "You know, I was a hairdresser back on my home island. I was the best in the world!"
"That's amazing!" Chopper and I said, impressed.
"Not to brag or anything, but people came from all over the world to have the opportunity for me to cut their hair," he said.
Sanji hit him on the head with a spatula and said, "Don't lie to a lady."
"I'm telling the truth!" he promised.
"Yeah!" Chopper said, backing him up. "Usopp would never lie!"
Sanji rolled his eye and continued cooking.
"I'll show you, Sanji!" Usopp said. "Magnolia's hair is going to look fantastic when I'm finished with it!"
"I just want you to trim my bangs… Nothing drastically different," I said.
"Of course!" he said.
So Usopp got some scissors and with everyone watching intently, he sat down in front of me.
"If you screw this up, you won't have meals for as long as it takes for Magnolia-chan's hair to grow out again," Sanji threatened.
Usopp gulped and I leaned in closer to him. He slowly held the scissors to my bangs. He held a section of my bangs with his hand and scissors in the other. I closed my eyes as he made the first cut. The tiny section of hair fell into the towel on my lap.
Chopper gasped and I opened my eyes. "What?" I asked. "What's wrong?"
"He actually cut it!" Chopper said.
"I'm not done yet!" Usopp said. "Be still so I don't mess up…"
I froze in my chair as he held the next section of my bangs in his hand. He made the next cut and continued until they were even across my forehead and above my eyes.
"Magnolia-chan~" Sanji said. "Your hair looks amazing!"
I smiled and said, "Can I see it?"
Chopper held up a small mirror. My bangs looked much better and they weren't in my eye.
Sanji picked up the towel from my lap and threw away the unwanted hair. Usopp looked very relieved and proud of himself. I hugged him and said thank you a bunch of times.
"My pleasure," he said with pride. "Ask me anytime and I'll be happy to cut your hair again. That includes everyone in the crew as well. I'll have to tell them when they return."
"It really does look great!" Chopper said.
Eventually Usopp and Chopper started fixing up the Merry. Sanji said that is was gonna be dangerous if we kept the Merry in such bad shape for a while. I had to admit it, she did look a bit worse for wear, but that just means that she and we had been through a lot together. We'd keep sailing on her until she couldn't possibly sail anymore, which was probably going to be a long time from then.
Not long after, Nami, Luffy, and Zoro returned from the town. Luffy and Zoro looked like they'd gotten beaten up. I wondered what had happened.
"What the hell happened to you two?" Usopp asked.
"Nami-san!" Sanji said. "Are you ok?"
Chopper started screaming for someone to get a doctor. "Oh wait, that's me…"
Chopper treated them both back on the deck while Usopp and I asked what happened.
"How many monsters?" he asked.
"Just a pirate," Luffy said, smiling. "But don't worry, it's all good now."
"Yeah," Zoro said.
Nami looked pretty pissed at them both. "You guys may think so, but I don't," she said vengefully. "You men are supposed to take on whoever wants to fight and beat them up! This whole town should be burned to ashes for pissing me off!"
"Nami-chan…" I said.
"I thought you said we weren't supposed to cause trouble," Zoro said sassily.
She turned around to face him with a horribly angry face on and yelled, "The past is the past! Bring up old details and I'll crush your skull."
Zoro looked a bit frightened.
"Why is she so mad?" Usopp asked. "She wasn't even hurt…"
"Dunno," Luffy said nonchalantly.
"Well did you find out anything about the sky island?" I asked.
Nami turned her head towards me with weird jerks and had a murderous aura about her as she said darkly, "Sky island? I don't care about that place anymore. Just mentioning that place made the whole bar laugh at me! WAS IT THAT FUNNY?! What the hell…"
Chopper was so scared he went into Guard Point and looked like a giant bush. Usopp even shot a Ketchup Star on the ground and pretended to be dead.
Nami was completely furious and we were all very afraid of encountering her wrath.
That's when Robin came back.
"Things certainly are lively here," she said. "What's all the excitement about?"
"Welcome back, Robin-chan~" Sanji said passionately.
"What's up?" Luffy asked. "Did you go somewhere?"
"Yes," she said. "I got some clothes, provisions, and information about the sky island."
"That's right!" Nami yelled. "You're the one to blame, Robin! You told us about the sky island! If it doesn't exist, I swear to god I'm throwing you overboard!"
I walked up to Robin and whispered, "Nami's really mad about something. You might want to avoid her for a bit."
Robin smiled at me and said, "I'll keep that in mind." As she walked the doorway to the room that lead to the lower deck, she handed Luffy a map with her many hands that appeared up the railing. "Here you go, Captain."
"Ooh! A treasure map!" he said. "Where is it?"
"This island," she said. "The town on the left is where we are, Mock Town. And on the opposite side, there's an X. Apparently an outcast of Jaya is living there and his name is Montblanc Cricket. He was chased out of this town for speaking about dreams."
Robin went into the room and closed the door behind her.
Luffy looked at the map and smiled, saying "Let's check it out!"
We ended up having a short run in with the brother of the salvaging monkey we saw earlier when we set sail to look for the man named Cricket, but nothing of interest happened until we got there.
(I don't own One Piece or any of the characters. This was made for entertainment purposes only and no copyright is intended.)