Chimera Luffy

by mellra

What if Luffy ate a different Devil's Fruit as a child? Not just any fruit, but the most powerful of the Zoan fruits, the Chimera-Chimera Fruit. It is a legendary Zoan fruit that allows the user to take on the forms of any Zoan fruit users, as well a true form as the mythical chimera. How will this change the course of the One Piece world? Pairing most likely Luffy/Boa Hancock, but

17. Chapter 17

Disclaimer: Only the original owners and RoseDragonWitch can claim ownership to their stuff. I just alter it.

Chapter 17

The Straw Hats were spread out everywhere, dripping wet and panting for air as if they had all just run a marathon. The air seemed to be so thin that it was difficult for them to draw breath… there was bright sunlight all around and it took them all several minutes for their eyes to make anything out.

The first thing they noticed through the light was that the ride had taken it's toll… both of the Merry's wings on her sides had been broken clean off and the sails had been torn to shreds… they were all gasping and coughing, and then Zoro's voice croaked out, "What the… what just happened to us? Everyone alright?"

No one answered him, too exhausted to speak. Luffy finally got back up and was looking around excitedly. "Hey guys! Look out there! What is that?!"

The others were slowly getting to their feet, and their jaws all hit the deck when they saw. They were sitting afloat on a sea of white, fluffy clouds.

"What in the world?!" Sanji gasped, truly not believing what he was seeing.

"It's solid white!" Luffy cried out joyfully.

"THEY'RE CLOUDS!" Chopper yelled, his eyes were practically glowing, looking like he wanted to jump into the clouds and see for himself.

Nami was gapping at it all, wanting to know how it was possible—and what was keeping them from falling? Luffy tried to reason that since both clouds and boats float it was the same thing. Rolling their eyes, the crew tried to explain it to him that it was completely different until Chopper realized that Usopp had stopped breathing—apparently the shock of breaking through the clouds was too much for him to take. After a little panicking and CPR, Chopper was able to get him breathing again, but it looked like he was going to pass out again when he got a good look at his surroundings; as if truly not believing that he was alive. He screamed in panic, crying out to know where exactly they were.

"Basically…" Nami whispered, "It's an ocean in the sky!"

"No way!" Usopp said to what Nami stated, running to the side of the Merry to look down at the clouds. "Seriously?"

Nami was then staring down at the Log Pose and gave a sharp intake of breath when she noticed the needle. She looked up to Robin and told her that the needle was still pointing straight up.

Robin answered reasonably, "So we must still be somewhere in the middle of the Cumuloregalis cloud."

"Wait!" Chopper asked, sitting next to her, "You mean we have to travel even higher?!"

"That's what the Log Pose says at least," she answered.

Usopp laughing triumphantly, and when they looked back, he had taken the top of his overalls off and he posed on the side of the Merry.

"Here I go!" Usopp cried out, "Cloud swimming champ, USOPP!"

Chopper and Luffy both whistled and cried out, happily rooting Usopp on. Sanji tried to warn Usopp not to do anything since they still didn't know much about this place. But, naturally, Usopp didn't listen as he did a perfect dive right into the sea.

Sanji held Luffy back from jumping as well while Chopper was pouting as he looked down where Usopp had disappeared, wishing that he could swim like that as he frowned down at the sea… but as they waited, they slowly began to realize that he wasn't coming back up.

As the others joined Luffy and Chopper at the side, Robin spoke up, "You know… it's possible that this ocean may not have an actual bottom."

"Say what?!" Sanji cried out.

Once Robin's words had sunk in, they all realized what she was talking about and looked ready to panic themselves as they stared in horror at the sea before them.

"IDIOT!" Zoro cried out, sweat falling from his face, "DID THAT FOOL JUST FALL THROUGH THE CLOUDS?!"

Eyes wide, Luffy cried out Usopp name before he jumped up into the air, turning into an eagle hybrid as he went, and dived into the clouds with Sanji yelling out that he just told him not to do something so stupid.

Robin called for Luffy to fly as fast as he could go.

Luffy flew as fast as his wings could go, though the thickness of the clouds made even his sharp vision obstructed. Fortunately, the consistency of the clouds was soft enough that he had little resistance on his body. Finally, he was able to catch an echoing girlish scream a short ways away from him. Luffy, with a final burst of speed, was able to get out of the cloud cover just in time to see Usopp start to fall out of the sky sea. Reaching out with his taloned feet, Luffy was able to snag the sniper's arms before he fell too far.

"Don't worry Usopp, I've got you!" Luffy called out as he went back into the clouds to fly back up to the Merry. Halfway through, however, Luffy experienced some resistance coming from Usopp's form. Luffy burst back up to the cloud sea a few feet from the Merry, much to the crew's relief. Luffy seemed to struggle a bit getting his lower half clutching Usopp out of the clouds. With a great tug, Usopp came bursting through the clouds; and he was apparently out cold.

"Yes!" Nami cried happily, "He's back!"

But just then something beneath them began to rise up and Luffy cried out, "But he's not alone!"

A giant octopus and with a long, colorful snake-like fish burst through the clouds underneath them—both of them treating Usopp like he was a worm on a hook as they went to try and eat him.

Thankfully, Zoro and Sanji took care of both of them. As Luffy pulled Usopp safely onboard, Zoro slashed at the octopus and Sanji kicked the fish—but then, the strange thing was that when they did attack, it was like they were fighting giant balloons… they both seemed to pop and the air went out of them. The 'Monster Trio' were all gasping for air, already looking tired after even something as simple as that.

Zoro was suddenly struggling for breath as he croaked out, "This air… it's so thin… it's hard to breathe."

"What do you make of this?" Sanji asked, looking over the dead fish, that was now flat as a pancake, "I've never seen anything like it before, I'm not even sure if it's even a fish!"

"That octopus thing was more like a big balloon," Luffy pointed to the remains of the creature.

"Yeah," Zoro agreed darkly, "'Cept balloons don't have teeth!"

"How can there be fish up here in the clouds?" Nami asked them all, clearly not understanding any of this as much as the rest of them.

"You said it best yourself," Robin answered her softly, "Basically it's an ocean in the sky."

As they examined the dead fish, Usopp, who had been laying frozen on the deck suddenly came back to life, now thrashing around. Sanji looked to him in annoyance, asking what the problem was now and Usopp cried out as he reached his hand into his pants, "There's… SOMETHING IN MY PANTS!" and suddenly he pulled out a blue fish before he fainted.

Chopper cried out in worry as he ran over to see if he was alright, but Usopp just laid there in a fetal position muttering, "Sky Island's scary… Sky Island's scary…"

"Not his day," Robin said before she noticed the strange fish on the floor.

As Robin examined the fish with Nami, they came to the suggestion that these creatures seemed to have evolved to become flat or balloon-like to make themselves even lighter. But when their backs were turned, they saw that Sanji had already cooked it up and Luffy was gasping out how good it was.

Nami however spotted them eating the fish and began yelling at them, "HEY! WE WERE STILL EXAMING THAT!" She began shouting at them until she tried it and suddenly her anger disappeared, her taste buds melting as she took several more pieces and Luffy was telling Sanji they should cook the bigger fish. Meanwhile, Chopper was on one of the Merry's broken wings and was looking through the binoculars, trying to find any signs of an island. "Hey guys!" he suddenly called excitedly, "There's a…"

But his voice died in his throat so quickly that it was as if he hadn't said anything at all… he just continued to stare, turning bone white.

"Hey, what's wrong, Chopper?" Sanji asked when he noticed that he had frozen up. But then Chopper dropped the binoculars and fell back, looking like he was about to faint. "What's the deal? You see something out there?" Sanji went on. But now Chopper was freaking out as he began to scream out that he saw a ship out there that had just been destroyed, and a guy running around the clouds with wings. Now he was heading straight towards them so they had to get out of there.

The Straw Hats were all looking skeptical, but when they looked up and saw that he was right. A man, tall and muscular, sporting a pair of tiny wings on his back, and various tribal tattoos across his left shoulder was heading straight towards them. They couldn't see his face however because he was wearing a large horned mask and was moving along the clouds as if he had little rockets attached to his feet.

"Check it out, he's right," Sanji said in mild surprise as he glanced out at the figure speeding towards them, as if this happened every day, "There's a guy running around out there." He then called out to him, "Hey stop! What do you want?!"

"To destroy you!" he yelled back with a deadly voice.

"Oh, is that all?!" Sanji asked, sounding ready for a fight as he moved into a fighting stance, with Zoro stepping up as well, snarling that he'd deal with him. Luffy came running up behind them, asking what was going on—but the guy with the mask was already there.

The battle after that was short—even though they had him outnumbered, this guy was able to fight all three of them off. Their movements were slow and sluggish, and so it was easy for he was able to kick all three of them down before he pointed his bazooka down at them, getting ready to fire. Chopper was screaming, sure that he was going to blow up their ship… but then something else came.

"THAT'S ENOUGH!" yelled an aged voice and they looked up to see two figures coming right at them.

They turned back to the battle to see that it was old man with a long white mustache and beard, dressed in armor made of solid metal who had come to their rescue on the back of a large pink bird with red polka dots all over his body and horn-like ears. But the two obviously knew each other so well, they had no problems working together; and though he was old, he was light and nimble… he jumped from the bird's back and clashed his lance against the attacker's shield, sending the attacker back through the clouds.

Gracefully, the old man landed on the side of the ship; with Nami now looking terrified, "Oh, great! Now who's this guy?!"

The old man turned and stepped onto deck. "Miss…" he said politely, "You may call me… the Sky Knight."

The Sky Knight was looking around them, as if still expecting trouble, but soon sighed as he muttered in grim satisfaction, "He's gone…"

"What's going on here?" Nami demanded, looking at the knight. "Who was that guy?" But rather than wait for an answer, she glared back at all three men who were lying there having a hard time breathing, "And you… could you be anymore useless? You've had him outnumbered three to one!"

Chopper was thanking the old man for saving them, who replied that he was just doing his duty and this was on the house.

"What gives?" Sanji gasped, and seemed unable to sit up, "I feel so weak."

"Yeah…" Luffy wheezed, "I… could barely… move."

Robin reminded them that it had to do with the thin air as the old man walked up the stairs, asking if they were Blue Sea People.

"Blue Sea People?" Nami asked in confusion, "What's that? And who are you?"

"As I said I am the Sky Knight," he answered calmly, "And Blue Sea People are what we call those who live below the clouds. I'm assuming you traveled here from the Blue Sea?"

"Yeah, that's right," Luffy said, looking up at him.

"Then that explains it," the Sky Knight answered in understanding as he sat on the railing, observing them all with interest, "You have reached the White Sea, seven thousand meters in the air. The Great White Sea, where I assume you're heading, is still further up," he went on, "about ten thousand meters. Ordinary Blue Sea People can't possibly endure it here."

Luffy was sitting up, giving his chest a little punch before he began to say that he thought he got used to it which the others agreed.

"No, no, no, that's just not possible," the old man said, clearly sounding like he didn't believe them. Chopper then tried to ask him who it was who attacked them and why. But the old man stated that they had other business to talk about. He told them that he was a solider for hire… that the Great White Sea was dangerous since that these 'Guerrilla' like the one who attacked them, wouldn't hesitate to kill them, but if they bought a One Whistle for five million extols, he would protect them.

The Straw Hats were lost, clearly not having any idea to what he was talking about. The old man was looking put out, saying that it was a reasonable price and that he couldn't afford to lower it any more than that. But when Sanji asked what he was talking about, saying that they didn't know anything about extols or this whistle, it was the old man who looked lost this time.

"You don't know?" he asked in puzzlement, "I don't understand. You came here from the Summit of High West didn't you? Surely you must've passed an island or two?"

"I still don't know what you're talking about," Luffy said to Gan Fall.

"Wait! Let me get this straight!" Nami yelled up at him, now sounding truly ticked off this time, "You're saying that there was another way we could've gotten up here, where we would've passed an island or two? As in there's more than one Sky Island?"

"What?" Gan Fall said, realization coming over his face, "Don't tell me you travelled by way of…" but it was Robin who interrupted him, "We rode up here on the Knock-Up Stream."

"My word," he said in amazement, staring at them all with a great deal more interest, "That monstrous current? So there are still souls in the world brave enough to make the attempt?"

Nami was now crying. "I knew it…" she whispered, "Then we risked our lives for nothing!" To vent some of her anger, she grabbed hold of Luffy, shaking him violently as she began to scream at him at how she was going to kill him for almost getting them killed and how if they had asked around a little more, they could've found another way up here.

The Sky Knight asked them if they lost any of their crewmates.

"No! We all made it!" Luffy yelled up at him.

"Then you can consider yourselves fortunate," he answered him, "If you had taken another route, one or two of you would have survived, but the rest of you would have perished. That's the gamble. By way of the Knock-Up Stream either everyone dies, or everyone survives," he stated, "Those are the only two possible outcomes.

"Not many are willing to accept such an all or nothing risk," the Sky Knight continued, "Especially these days, if nothing else, I see that you are navigators of exceptional bravery and skill."

Usopp smirked, trying to take the credit for that before he changed his mind as Nami grabbed his face threateningly.

But the old knight was now looking deeply impressed; and it was a surprise to see him pull out a whistle and toss it down to them. "Should you find yourselves in danger, you have but to blow it and I will come to your aid!" he called as he turned around dramatically, "As I said, normally I would charge five million extols, but for today please consider this as my gift to you."

Nami quickly asked his name.

The old man turned back to her, "I am… Gan Fall! And this is my partner, Pierre…" he gestured to the bird next to him.

The bird only got weirder… for as the Sky Knight jumped onto his back and bade them a farewell, the bird transformed. A horse with wings that maintained the pink body and red polka dots but with white feathers. It turned out that he had eaten the Horse Horse Fruit… Pegasus model. It was a bit of a letdown for them all as they watched him fly off—having expected to see it look cooler. Even Luffy thought that for a Pegasus…that was super lame.

"In the end…" Robin stated, once the duo were both gone, "He really didn't tell us anything did he?"

They all agreed as they looked to the little whistle on the deck. As they began to look around for a way to go, Luffy stated that they should call the knight back and ask him. Nami, Chopper, and Usopp all jumped forward and began to fight over it, struggling over which one of them should have it. It was really quite funny… to hear them fighting over which one of them was the weakest and why they should be the one to carry it… with Luffy, naturally, just wanting to be the one to blow it.

In the end, since none of them could agree on anything, Nami fixed the whistle to the mast, saying that if anyone got into trouble, all they had to do was run over here and blow it—now it was fair to them all… which Usopp and Chopper agreed.

Nami then turned her wrath onto Robin and the boys, telling them that they were not to blow the whistle under any circumstance. Luffy groaned out that he wanted to blow it just once, with Nami threatening that if he so much as touched the whistle, he'd be swimming with the Sky Fish. And they all promised they wouldn't touch it.

Once that was settled, they noticed what appeared to be a waterfall in the distance and decided to head for that. They sailed easily through the clouds, much smoother than on water; but as they went further on, they soon found their path blocked by clouds so thick that they couldn't move.

"Those big clouds seem to be floating on top of the ocean, sorta like icebergs," Sanji said pointed out as they tried to figure out what the problem was.

"So what, they're cloud-bergs?" Usopp asked skeptically.

"Well, there's obviously something different about them," Nami said as Luffy offered to transform into a sparrow, fly over and grab a piece, but when he did, it ended up bouncing back like a ball.

Seeing Luffy's talons bounce back was all it took and soon he turned into his human form and jumped right onto them, bouncing around on it like it was a giant marshmallow. Usopp and Chopper quickly joined him and they were all bouncing around, loving everything here. Getting frustrated with them, Nami was telling them to quit playing around and that they should be looking for a way to get around them. But Usopp solved that problem… he was standing near the top of the cloud and was looking off into the distance when he obviously spotted something.

"Hey!" Usopp yelled as he and Luffy both came running back down to them, "There's a gate up there!"

"A gate?" Nami repeated, sounding skeptic.

"Yeah!" Luffy yelled joyfully as he jumped down onto the deck with them all, "A big one! It's up ahead underneath that waterfall thingy!"

Chopper also jumped down from the marshmallow cloud, crashing into Usopp's head, but he was having so much fun that he didn't seem to notice it all even as Usopp yelled in pain.

"So there's a man-made structure in the middle of the clouds?" Sanji asked as they continued sailing on.

"At this point, I'm not sure anything we find up here would surprise me," Robin answered him.

After a little arguing, they soon reached the waterfall on top of the cloud-bergs. And just at the base was a large, and elaborate gold and white gate there, the name "Heaven's Gate" carved right above it.

"Yep, that's a gate alright," Sanji stated, in a little impressed tone.

"Hold on," Usopp said nervously once he read the name, "Am I reading this right? Heaven's Gate? What's that about? Sounds like a place you go when you die!"

"Yeah?" Zoro asked to Usopp's worry, an evil smirk on his face. "Well, now that you mention it, maybe we are dead, you ever think about that?"

"Huh…" Sanji stated, thinking that over, "You know that would go a long way to explaining this weird place…"

"BUT I DON'T WANNA BE DEAD!" Chopper screamed out.

Luffy just laughed, "Who cares? We're here aren't we? Wherever this gate goes, I'm going!"

Nami was getting really angry at the boys for trying to scare them and hit them over the heads to tell them to start acting serious. But as they neared the gate, a very old woman came outside, something in her hand—some kind of camera—and began to take pictures.

They were all startled by her as she called to them all that she was Amazon, the Heaven's Gate Inspector, and she wanted to know what their business was. Sight-seeing, Warmongering, other…?

"I… I guess it's kinda like sight-seeing!" Nami called.

"We wanna go to the Sky Island!" Luffy added, looking unsure as to what to say, "It's passed this gate right?"

"Can we say all the above?" Zoro offered.

The old woman said that it didn't make much difference to her, but that they were to pay seven billion extol for the entrance fee if they wanted to go any further.

The Straw Hats started to quietly talking amongst themselves that they had no idea what an extol was, and even if they did, they doubted that they had enough for that. Usopp hissed to the others that this had to be some kind of scam, but Nami covered his mouth to shut him up and instead asked Amazon what would happen if they didn't pay.

"You may still pass," Amazon stated.

Usopp almost choked on that answer.

"The choice is yours," she answered, "I certainly won't try to stop you!" when they looked startled she added, "My job description doesn't require me to actually guard the gate. I'm merely here to ask your intentions."

"Well that settles it!" Luffy called agreeably, "We wanna go to the Sky Islands!"

"But we don't have the money so we can't pay you!" Usopp added.

"Very well," she said, "The seven of you then?"

Luffy, still looking surprised at how easily she was letting them go, answered yes, but they still needed her to tell them how to get there. Rather than tell them two giant pinchers came out of nowhere and grabbed down on their broken wings. As they screamed what it was, she answered that it was the Great White Sea's Express Lobster. Just then they shot forward, the creature was taking them up the waterfall at breakneck speeds. When they looked they could see the road, spiraling up to the heavens in front of them and they began to ride it—the Milky Roads.

Soon they saw the sign that read: Godland Skypiea. But then they saw a bright light from above them and Chopper cried out, pointing at the exit. But Luffy was grinning as he screamed out excitedly, "This isn't the exit, it's the entrance!"

Up and up they rode… and when they burst through the clouds and were in the bright sunlight. Blinking through the blindness of it all, there it was… like they were dreaming.

In the bright sunshine there was an island made up of clouds, filled with sparkling buildings and roads made up of what looked like cotton candy. There were several smaller clouds that held shops and trees, and there were several large roads made up of clouds and embedded with what looked like twisted up vines crossed to the smaller islands… it was gorgeous.

The Merry came to the cloudy beach with a little bump and they heard Luffy took a deep breath. "I can smell the adventure!" he gasped out, his eyes wide. "Potent as the seaweed in summer!"

And he then jumped, with Usopp right behind him running ashore on the soft clouds. And that's how it was… they were like a bunch of little kids during a Snow Day. They were running around the marshmallow-like beach, with Chopper rolled around, looking like he was drifting off as Usopp began building a cloud castle. Luffy was hanging from the tree, laughing as he pulled some strange fruit off the tree and almost ended up breaking his teeth on how hard they were.

"This is why we came here," Nami laughed as Sanji ran around with flowers for the girls before they heard the sound of gentle music being played.

Looking around, they saw a very pale girl with long, blonde hair tied in two braided pig-tails, she also had what looked like antenna sticking out at the top of her head and miniature wings on her back. They all stared at her, with Sanji naturally claiming that she was an angel. She played her harp for a few more minutes before she looked to them.

The girl slowly turned with a smile at the Straw Hats, as if she had been expecting them. "Heso…" she said with a smile in a soft voice.

The Straw Hats stared at her in confusion as they tried to figure it out. But then the angelic girl called to a furry creature they didn't noticed before. "Su… come here," she called. A solid white fox with squinted eyes and a mouth that looked a little like a snout happily went over to the girl, flicking her bushy tail. As she walked out to Su as well she addressed the Straw Hats, "Did you come from the Blue Sea World?"

"If that's what you call it," Luffy called in a friendly voice, "We sailed up a river of clouds to get here. Speaking of here, is this your home?"

"Yes, it sure is," she said, putting the harp on her back, "And I'd like to welcome you to Skypiea's Angel Beach." She noticed the large fruit in Luffy's hand and she laughed a little sweetly as she offered to help him open it. She showed them that you had to cut through the underside to get to the sweet stuff inside.

"My name is Conis," she told them as she picked up the fox and added, "And this little one's name is Su, she's a Cloud Fox. If you need anything at all, please, let me be of service."

Sanji, naturally, tried to start giving her romantic words, until Nami pulled his ear and threw him down to get him to behave himself. But she beamed at Conis as she walked over to her, and started to ask questions. But they didn't get too far with that as Conis's father showed up on a waver on the sea, and almost crashed into them as he tried to stop. He was almost bald, but had those strange antennae sticking out his head, with a round beard around his mouth. However he was just as, if not even more, hospitable as his daughter and he even invited them to their house for lunch. Nami stared in amazement at the waver and asking Conis's dad, Pagaya, all about it.

They were in a bright, wide-open house that overlooked the sea of clouds… it was very strange for them all to see the ocean a calming white instead of blue… but at the same time, this place was so welcoming, that it was almost like home. Most of the crew was in this room with Conis, and they could hear the sounds of Sanji and Pagaya in the kitchen making lunch.

Nami meanwhile had taken Pagaya's waver out for a ride. Conis was explaining the working of Dials… how they were strange devices made from the remains of particular shellfish, which have the ability to store energy and matter. The shellfish remains are gathered from the shallows near the shore of the White-White Sea and how there were many different types of Dials that store various things depending on their type. And how the content can be released by pressing the apex on the other side of the Dial. As long as they are not used or damaged, Dials seem to be capable of storing their contents indefinitely.

Sanji then came in with Pagaya, carrying trays of food that they hadn't seen before and they began to enjoy their meal—marveling at the exotic tastes.

Sanji went to the window, staring out at the sea and asked them where Nami was.

"I think she's riding the waver," Luffy said through a mouthful of food.

"I don't see her," Sanji spoke up, now sounding worried and Usopp told him to relax, that she probably just went too far out for them to see her.

"I'm worried," Conis said nervously to her father, "Do you think she's ok?"

"I have my concerns," he answered back, sounding apprehensive, "But I can't say one way or another."

Luffy noticed the uneasy looks and asked what the problem was. Conis looked to them and answered, "In the clouds, there's a place called the Upper Yard that no one is ever allowed to set foot on. It's not too far away… it would only be a short trip by waver from here. I'm afraid your friend Nami may have set ashore there out of curiosity."

"What's so bad about this place that no one's ever allowed to go there?" Usopp asked after a large swallow of food, "Is it full of monsters?"

"It's sacred ground," Conis answered him. Robin was looking at Conis in real surprise.

"But it's so much more than that," Conis said, her face darkening slightly, "It's the island… where god lives."

"There's actually a god?!" Luffy exclaimed loudly, "And he lives on an island up here that no one's allowed to walk on?!"

"You mean the God?" Chopper asked startled, "The same one from the all the old stories? And he actually lives on the island next door to you?"

"He does," Conis said almost regretfully. "I'm sure that everybody noticed the big sign that said Godland Skypiea. That means that this land is ruled by the almighty god Eneru."

Sanji looked like he couldn't believe that God would have such a stupid name.

"He knows and sees everything," Conis went on, "He's truly omniscient. He keeps his all-seeing eyes on everyone… always."

The Straw Hats were all staring at her, wondering if what she was saying was true. But past Zoro merely leaned back skeptically. "God huh?" he asked.

"Wait, you mean you don't believe in god?" Chopper asked, "But why?"

Zoro explained, "Well for me, it's not a matter of belief. I don't see proof of it one way or the other. And to be honest, I don't really care to. But if you want to, go right ahead. It's not up to me to deny anyone their little beliefs."

Sanji then looked back to Conis and asked that if this 'god' lived so close to them, then she must've seen him before. Her eyes widen at once, trying to say absolutely not, that she knew that the Upper Yard was a place where only god could live. But the way she spoke made it sound as though she was reciting something that she had memorized countless times before.

"I see…" Luffy said, and a dangerous sparkle was in his eyes. "A place we're not allowed to go to no matter what."

Usopp noticed the danger signs. He screamed in terror before he grabbed hold of his captain's vest and began to shake him hard, "I've seen that look in your eyes before Luffy! And it always gets us into trouble! When the lady tells us not to go because it's sacred or whatever then that's exactly what she means! We cannot go there! I am not letting you drag me down with you this time!"

"Hey…" Luffy said in a falsely innocent voice that none of them believed, "I know that we're not supposed to go there. Come on… you really think I'm the kind of guy who would do that?"

Without hesitation the Straw Hats all said, "Yes… absolutely," with Robin giggling at it all.

But then Luffy asked Conis that if this really was God, shouldn't he forgive them no matter what, and that walking around on the Upper Yard didn't seem too serious to him. Conis tried to tell him that any law set by Eneru was always met with punishment. Robin then asked her what these 'punishments' were and Pagaya told them that they believed that anyone who set foot in the Upper Yard never returns.

"EVERYONE WHO GOES THERE DIES?!" Usopp yelled out as the cigarette fell from Sanji's mouth when he finally understood why they were so worried about Nami going out to far.

"I must admit," Pagaya said softly, "I'm as worried about Nami as all of you are. I hope she hasn't sailed too close to the Upper Yard."

Sanji spun around and began screaming Nami's name out the window, as if hoping she could hear him; and Luffy was already saying that they should go out and look for her.

"You don't care about saving Nami!" Usopp yelled shaking him one again, "You just want to satisfy your twisted desired to do the exact opposite of what you've been told!"

Soon they were all back on Angel Island's beach, the Straw Hats, Conis, and Pagaya were all standing in front of them were a large group of men with uniforms consisted of light-purple T-shirts, blue with white cloud-shaped spots wide trousers.

"Well look at what we have here!" the man in the front, wearing a long cape, obviously their leader, as they looked at the six present Straw Hats. "You must be the Blue Sea Dwellers who have illegally entered the land of Skypiea! Prepare to have the full weight of Heaven's Judgment brought down upon you!"

These men served as Skypiea's lowest level of law enforcement, The White Berets.

"You're calling them criminals?" Pagaya asked in astonishment as Conis looked fearfully at them all. Luffy asked the two of them what they meant by illegal entry and Pagaya responded that it just wasn't a good thing.

The captain pulled out a stack of photos from his coat and stated that Amazon took those photos and there was no point in denying anything. As Pagaya tried to explain to the White Berets that they weren't the criminals they thought they were, Sanji quickly got annoyed and asked for what felt the hundredth time, just what this whole thing was about.

"Does this have to do with that ridiculous one billion extol entrance fee?" Robin asked, "Because we didn't pay her a thing."

"But didn't that old lady say that we didn't have to pay for it?" Usopp asked, "It's not like she tried to stop us."

"Yeah, that's true," Chopper said.

"Enough!" the captain, whose name they learned was McKinley, said loudly, "There's no sense in denying it, now fess up!" when no one spoke, he went on, "Don't worry, you need not become panicked just yet. According to Heaven's Judgment, illegal entry is only an eleventh degree crime. Once you accept your punishment, which will be minimal, you become legal tourists on the spot and may go about your business!"

"Well, you should've told us that sooner," Sanji said, but he sounded highly suspicious about the whole thing before he demanded to know what they had planned for them as far as punishment before they accepted anything.

"A mere slap on the wrist!" McKinley answered, "All you need to do is pay ten times the entry fee! Of course if you pay immediately we'll forget this little episode never happened. So ten billion per person, times seven people… makes your total seventy billion extols. Cash only."

Usopp was calling out to know just how much that was in beris. McKinley told them that the payment would've been seven million beri's and Sanji dropped his cigarette once again as he yelled out, "Get real! Do you realize how expensive that is?! After risking our lives coming to this place, why should we have to pay a stupid fee just to enter your precious city?! We can't agree to that!"

"You brought this upon yourself!" McKinley yelled, still in that annoyingly loud voice. "If you had just paid the seven hundred thousand beri's in the first place, we wouldn't be having this talk!"

"That's still way too much money!" Sanji yelled and the others all nodded at that.

But the White Berets were clearly not interested in listening anymore. "This is your first warning!" McKinley yelled threateningly, "The White Berets serve under the vessels of almighty Eneru. Arguing with us will only raise the number of your crime!"

The Straw Hats all chose to ignore what McKinley was saying, talking among themselves about what it was they should do. With the White Berets watching them, Usopp managed to buy them time by convincing Luffy that they should wait for Nami where they were in case she came back for them. But as they waited, every minor thing they did seemed to raise their crime level. Such as the broken waver they brought with them, which they were accused of destroying before stealing.

"This waver looks downright abused!" McKinley yelled as Luffy told Pagayu that he hoped that he could fix it, "If I find out you're responsible for this damage, you're looking at a tenth degree crime! Destruction of Sky Island property by a Blue Sea Dweller!"

Pagayu tried to explain that he was the one who broke it as Luffy added that this one belonged to them anyway. McKinley looked skeptical as he went to it and went on, "Is that right? Sounds suspicious to me. I was under the impression that wavers didn't exist in the Blue Sea World. If this one was stolen from Skypiea, the decree of your crime will increase!"

"It's not stolen!" Luffy snarled, "Wanna fight about it?!"

And it went downhill from there. Usopp was running around, trying desperately to keep the fragile peace between them and the White Berets, hoping that Nami would be able to bail them out when she got back. But when he tried a simple distraction, fishing, they ended up catching a rare Sky Fish that tried to eat Conis, until Zoro attacked it. The White Berets declared that this fish was so rare that it was illegal to catch it and their crime level was now to the ninth decree.

"WHY IS THAT A CRIME?!" Chopper screamed out just as angrily, "THAT THING WAS GONNA EAT CONIS! ZORO SAVED HER LIFE!"

But the White Berets just seemed to be glad for any excuse to declare that they were in trouble.

Even when it turned out that Zoro didn't kill the stupid fish, Luffy still tried to eat it, which went to their eight decree crime. After they sent it off on its way Luffy, Zoro, and even Chopper were all growing more and more irritated with the White Berets, and even when they tried to take a nap and started to snore, their crime only increased. The Straw Hats had just about reached their limit. Luffy was all for beating them up and Zoro was already getting his swords out at that order.

Usopp was doing his best to try and prevent a fight breaking out, but they all knew that these guys weren't going to take it for much longer. But just when things were getting serious, Nami finally returned, calling out to them from the waver. "LUFFY! PROMISE YOU WON'T START ANY TROUBLE OK?!"

"DON'T KNOW IF I CAN KEEP THAT PROMISE!" he yelled back.

"HEY NAMI!" Usopp screamed out desperately, "WE NEED YOU TO FORK UP SEVEN MILLION BERI'S FROM YOUR STASH TO PAY FOR ALL THE FINDS WE GOT!"

"OH GOOD! SO WE PAY THE FINE AND WE'RE CLEAR!" she called before she seemed to realize what he said and a very dangerous smile came over her look. She suddenly sped up and rammed the waver right into McKinley's face, screaming out, "YOU'RE RIPPING US OFF!"

Time seemed to freeze for a moment before McKinley was sent flying off, crashing through the ground and lay there with blood dripping down his face. Nami brought the waver back to its owners before she turned to the crew and said that it was time to make themselves scarce, telling them that Eneru wasn't someone they wanted to mess with. As they all looked over to McKinley laying there, Zoro asked Pagaya, sounding like he already knew the answer, "I assume that's another crime on our records?"

"Oh yes," Pagaya said fearfully, "Quite… knocking out an official is a crime of the fifth degree!"

"Fifth huh?" Usopp asked, not looking too worried, "Could be worse."

"That's not good at all!" Conis said, shaking a little. "Once you're found guilty of committing a fifth decree crime, almighty Eneru will banish you to the Land of the Drifting Clouds."

Usopp asked what was so bad about it and Luffy commented that it sounded like fun to him.

"It's a death sentence!" she cried out, "You die!"

"WE… WE DIE?!" Chopper, Usopp, and Nami cried out in horror—looking close to running to the Merry and getting the heck out of here.

"You got him good Nami," Zoro stated as he pointed to McKinley, who was still out, and the other White Berets who were examining him worriedly. "But come on… a death sentence in god's land? That's quite the contradiction."

"But it's the truth!" Conis cried out, sounding close to screaming, "This is very serious! They'll put you and your ship on a small cloud and set you adrift in the sea with no hope of rescue or escape! You'll eventually die a very slow and painful death! It's terrible!"

Sanji shivered at the thought, knowing how painful that would be… and she would be right, there wouldn't be any hope of escape in this situation… after all, who would think to look for you on a cloud?

Robin thought that over before mentioning that was probably what happened to that ship that fell on top of them. When they looked to her, she reminded them of the St. Briss, the incident that started them on their quest to find Skypiea, and for all they knew that crew could've been punished just like that over two hundred years ago.

At those words, Nami went deathly pale and went to the other White Berets and tried to trick them into believing that she hit their captain by accident when she lost control of the waver. Luffy started to say that it looked like she knew what she was doing to him, with Usopp having to drag him away, hissing at him to keep his mouth shut.

Pagaya step in and suggested that they should carried McKinley up to his house to treat him. Once understanding their priorities, the White Berets—for some reason—crawled away before warning the Straw Hats not to go anywhere.

Once they were gone, Conis told the Straw Hats that she truly didn't believe that they were as bad as they were made out to be. But she screamed at them that they should take this chance to leave before it was too late.

As Conis went running off, Nami quickly explained to the others that they were going to do what she suggested. That she saw the island and it was full of monsters. Luffy was looking excited at the very thought, but Nami snapped at him that they were leaving now, and if they hurried they shouldn't cause Conis or Pagaya any trouble. Since they were with the White Berets, they shouldn't be suspected of helping them. Robin, Usopp, and Chopper were all climbing onboard, with Sanji and Zoro halfway out as well. But Luffy hadn't moved, staring at Angel Beach with Nami asking what the problem was.

"Why are we running away?" Luffy asked her, his voice oddly emotionless.

"Because we're in trouble!" she said loudly as if it was obvious.

"So what? We're always in trouble," he said, in that same calm tone.

Nami tried reasoning with him by saying that if they didn't leave then Conis and Pagaya could get arrested to.

"But they haven't done anything!" Luffy stated coldly. "Whoever arrests them is an idiot!"

Nami was staring at Luffy, muttering that she already knew that but… however Usopp interrupted her, yelling that they could argue on the boat, and they were getting ready to leave.

Nami nodded at Usopp's words and understood that they were out of time. Glaring back at Luffy she yelled loudly and slowly so that he couldn't hope to mishear, "How many times do I have to tell you?! Staying here means more trouble for everybody!"

But Luffy was still calm, in fact he was starting to creep some of them out by how calm he was here, before he answered, "We're in trouble no matter what."

Nami was looking at him in surprise, probably just as confused by his sudden tone as they were, but then they heard Conis's voice call out behind them, "SAVE YOURSELVES! PLEASE GO!"

All of them spun around to see that the White Berets were back. McKinley was on his feet, his face heavily bruised and showed signs of former bleeding, but he was smirking at them triumphantly—as if they had just caught a bunch of kids breaking the rules—which in a way they did. But he warned Conis that if she said anything else, he'll label them as accomplishes, so they had no choice but to keep their mouths shut.

But then the White Berets began their attack on them. Luffy told Nami to head back to the ship, which she did without complaint as the White Berets created long, purple clouds for them to ride on with skates that were powered by Jet Dials.

The fight was fun to watch to say the least… if very short. Luffy jumped into the middle of the group of Berets, turning into his namesake when he landed. The monkey-man gave a cry of "Monkey Mayhem!" and he unleashed a flurry of punches and kicks of increased speed that went every direction due to his body's natural flexibility.

"As expected," Sanji laughed, before he noticed the tip of an arrow aimed for the monkey idiot, sticking through the purple clouds.

"That's dirty, attacking when your back's turned," Zoro said as he and Sanji took out the men with the arrows easily.

The 'Monster Trio' were now turned back to look at the Merry, asking how their money situation was and they learned that they were practically broke. Only enough to last them one more day at most.

McKinley was on his feet again, though barely as he smirked evilly at them all.

"Sorry criminals but you have no chance of escape!" he declared and the Straw Hats all looked back at him, "You should've behaved and done what I told you to do!

"Of all the upholders of law here in Skypiea, we White Berets are the most lenient!" McKinley went on. "However, they are not nearly as forgiving!" He laughed cruelly as he declared, "Congratulations! You are now considered second decree criminals! You can try to cry for mercy, but you will all be judged!" He pointed a finger dramatically at them, "BY THE PRIESTS OF UPPER YARD! HESO!"

Later, the Straw Hats were there with Conis and Pagaya—but the White Berets had cleared the beach, with Luffy glaring at their retreating backs. "What's wrong with those guys?"

"A lot if you ask me," Zoro yawned, wondering when they would get to see more fighting. It was starting to get boring.

"Forget them!" Nami yelled, turning them back to the matter at hand. "That old lady ratted us out! She lied to us! She said it was ok for us to pass through! But when we did, they accused us of illegal entry?! That's flat out fraud!"

"Exactly," Usopp said, "But then even if we were told we couldn't pass, we would've just forced our way through anyway. I mean, how was that little old lady gonna stop us?"

Nami told Usopp to shut up as Pagaya told them regretfully that since they were now second decree criminals, he and Conis couldn't help them anymore and moved back far away, as if afraid of catching something. But Nami didn't seem upset at them before she turned her anger to Luffy, who still wanted to go to the Upper Yard. She began giving him a pounding, telling him that they didn't know who or what Eneru was, but his powers were deadly and that she wasn't going anywhere near there again.

It was here the Straw Hats realized that they didn't know how to get back down. Usopp turned to Conis and her father, asking if there was any way back to the Blue Sea. Conis told them that there was, but that meant that they had to go to a place called Cloud End. It was far to the east of here and they had to cross the White Sea. Some of them were looking relieved at that, but naturally Luffy was whining that he didn't want to go yet.

"You're only other option is to stay here and get sentenced to death," Usopp hissed.

"What's the problem with that?" Zoro asked with a shrug.

Nami lost whatever patience she had as she snapped at Luffy that she didn't want him causing Conis and her dad anymore trouble and that even if they left now there was no guarantee that they would make a clean escape.

As the crew starts packing up to leave with Nami, Chopper, Robin, and Zoro at the ship it was decided that Luffy, Sanji, and Usopp would get food and whatever supplies from Pagaya's home. They followed the group up to the house and merely watched as they packed—Sanji was mixing box lunches and Usopp was taking some spare tools and parts that Pagaya said that he no longer needed.

Usopp was walking to the window. Conis had walked in at that moment, and Sanji was the first to present her a beautiful box lunch made just for her. But as they were getting ready to leave, Usopp was yelling from the window, screaming that there was something wrong with the ship.

Sanji and Luffy jumped to their feet, asking what was wrong as they stood together, staring out at the sea. Usopp just pointed and they could see that the ship was rocking violently back and forth.

Sanji had taken a small telescope from Usopp's bag and looked through it, screaming that he could see Nami on deck. When his face suddenly turned blue, some of them had become anxious that something happened. But instead he whispered, "Wait… why in the world is she wearing a t-shirt?"

Usopp smacked him, screaming out, "I'm pretty sure we've got more pressing concerns right now!"

"Guys look!" Luffy yelled, "The ship started moving!" He jumped up so that he was crouching on the sill, "But why?! They wouldn't just leave us here would they?"

The ship, was not only moving backwards, but a large and dark shadow appeared beneath them.

"Whoa… I don't think I've ever seen a ship sailing backwards before!" Luffy yelled.

"But…" Usopp gasped, pointing dramatically, "But they haven't even set the sails yet!"

With everyone's attention focused on the ship, most of them didn't notice how Conis sighed miserably behind them. Luffy glanced back at her for a moment before Usopp gasped. It was then that a lobster—at least twice the size of the one that brought them up that Milky Road, had burst out through the sea and beneath the ship. With the Merry on its back, they were carried off at high speeds.

Before the ship was out of their sights, they could hear Nami's familiar voice screaming out at the top of her lungs before they faded away. "LLLLUUUUFFFFFFFFFFFYYYYYYYY! HELP US!" her voice echoed, "SANJI! USOPP!"

And then they were out of their sights.

There was stunned silence all around them. No one could think of anything to say before Sanji muttered about the t-shirt again.

"YOU'RE STILL THINKING ABOUT THAT?!" Usopp screamed before he turned to Luffy and began a rant to try and rescue the others.

"I wonder…" Luffy said thoughtfully, "Where are they going?"

"Where are they going…?" Usopp repeated, trying to calm down, "Yes… right…"

"I got nothing…" Luffy said and it truly looked bad until Pagaya had a very odd choke in his throat and they looked to him as he jumped.

Pagaya informed them that the others were being taking to the sacrificial altar.

"Say what?!" Sanji gasped in horror, "You don't mean that Nami and Robin and the rest…"

"The rest?" Usopp smacked him before Sanji went on, shaking in rage, "Are gonna be sacrificed to that wanna-be god?! That creep! He better not touch a hair on my pretty Nami's head!"

Pagaya then went on, telling them the rest that in Heaven's Judgment, there were actually two types of criminal punishments. Being taken to the altar and waiting to die by a priest was the first, but the second was a challenge in which the rest of their crew were now hostages in Eneru's hands and they had to go try to rescue them before they died.

"Hostages?!" Usopp gasped, getting what Pagaya was trying to say.

"I'm afraid I must tell you," Pagaya said grimly, "That the ones who are to receive the punishment… are the three of you standing before me."

"Wait, what are you trying to say?" Sanji asked, but it was clear from his tone that he did understand, though he didn't want to admit it.

"If we only had a map," Pagaya said and Usopp quickly turned to the old one that he had in his bag and showed it to them. Pagaya showed them where the altar was, and how to get there. They were to head to the Upper Yard where the priests were waiting for them. There were four of them in all, and they had to get through them to get their friends back.

Luffy was smirking, "Finally… a little action."

After a few tense minutes, the three of them all had large bags on their back with Conis was leading them through a crowded street… at least it was crowded before they arrived. The angels on either side, shied away from them as if they were all carrying something contagious, their faces held fear and anxiety.

Conis was telling them that this was called Lovely Street, and she started to go into some real details about it. Sanji was especially depressed that the girls were shunning him and was softly groaning about it. As they followed them, some of them noticed out of the corners of their eyes, several of the White Berets always following them—as if making sure that they were heading to the right place.

Luffy was fascinated by everything he saw, stopping to look at everything until Sanji snapped at them, "Hey Luffy! When you're done fooling around there's still the matter of rescuing Nami and the others! If you don't get serious, and soon, they're gonna be sacrificed you know that?"

But Luffy didn't seemed concerned at all. "You worry too much," he said, "They're fine. Don't forget, Zoro's with them."

"Yeah, like we can really count on that guy," Sanji said doubtfully.

"I just hope the ship hasn't sustain any more damage," Usopp muttered worried, "I mean, she's had more than her fair share of abuse lately."

But Luffy suddenly ran right through them, his eyes set on something a little ways ahead. It appeared to have been some kind of statue made up of mud, encased behind glass.

Conis answered for him, "This is vearth. You might say… it represents the eternal yearnings of the people of the sky."

Luffy said that it sounded crazy that they worshiped this mud statue.

Conis laughed a little. "Well, I guess it would be difficult for someone from the Blue Sea to understand." She then looked up, realizing where they were "Oh, we're almost to the docks, right this way."

They followed her past all sorts of ships, of different sizes and colors. Of course Luffy wanted the biggest gondola that he could find, but instead she led them to a tiny ship with the figurehead of a crow and a bright umbrella above their heads.

"Presenting the Crow," Conis said cheerfully.

"You're kidding me right?" Luffy asked her.

"Wait ah… crows don't even swim," Sanji said slowly.

They watched as Conis explained that she used this to get around until she learned to drive the waver. So she had no problems lending it to them now. She then led them a little further ahead, telling them to take gate number 2… that would lead them to the Upper Yard. That was when they noticed that she seemed to have a lot on her mind. Luffy seemed to have noticed this as he frowned in concern and asked, "Hey, Conis?"

"Yes?" she asked nervously.

"You've been trembling ever since we left," Luffy said, his tone now serious, "Is everything ok?"

Her whole body was trembling slightly, and she was suddenly unable to look at them as her eyes widen at Luffy's words. "Is it that noticeable?" she asked.

"Yeah," Luffy said, surprisingly soft, "It's like you're scared or something."

Sanji at once started to say how sweet it was of her to worry about them. But then Usopp brought up another good question. "Speaking of being worried…" he said, "Are you and Pagaya gonna be alright? I mean, everyone in town is avoiding us like the plague, but you're leading us around, lending us your boat, giving us directions… is helping us gonna get you in trouble? Doesn't that make you like… our accomplices?"

Luffy noticed how pale she had become. "Conis," he said gently, "Don't cry. You're gonna be fine, ok? You should've told us you were scared. Really, we could've just come here on our own."

"No," she said, unable to look at them. "It's… it's not…"

Sweat was falling from her face and she was shaking worse than ever. "It's not what you think," she whispered. "Don't you get it? Even after I told you how terrifying Upper Yard is, I still lead you here. I even got you a boat and told you which route to take. Don't you find that odd? Is it obvious what's going on here?"

Out of sight, McKinley started yelling at Conis not to say anything foolish, before hid as the Straw Hats looked around for the source of his voice. The others in town slowly began to back even farther away, as if there was a bomb about to go off.

Suddenly she fell to her knees, "Just run away, please," she begged. She started crying as she apologized over and over again. The citizens were all freaking out at her tears, yelling at her, demanding to know what she was doing.

Conis was already confessing everything. She revealed to them that she was the one who called the sky fish to take the Merry and the crew away.

"You mean that thing that took Nami and the others away?!" Sanji yelled out, "You called it Conis?!"

Conis continued to cry, telling them that while they were inside talking to her dad, she went aboard and lied to the others about a current that leads to Cloud End. And she had them raised anchor, which was the signal for that lobster and took them away.

Conis finally cried out the reason that she did it, "Once we know someone's a criminal, we must lead them to Upper Yard! If we don't… then the penalty is death!"

The boys' faces were frozen, darkened as she sobbed openly. "It's our duty…" she croaked out, "It's the duty of every citizen!"

"That's crazy!" Usopp gasped out.

"I know," Conis confessed, tears falling fast, "I'm sorry… I should've told you sooner!"

"Wait a second!" Luffy said, his voice full of anger, and now he was trembling like Conis had been—only out of fury. "You're saying… that they forced you to lead us all here?"

Too choked up to speak, she merely nodded. The three of their faces still dark, Luffy started, "If that's true…" and suddenly all three of them were yelling, "THEN WHY EVEN TELL US AT ALL?!"

Conis, stunned by their words, stopped crying and stared up at them, clearly not understanding. "Are you nuts?!" Luffy asked, grabbing her shoulder, "Now you're life's in danger!"

Suddenly all the townspeople were all running now, looking just as terrified as they cried out that the judgment was coming. Just then the skies above them opened up and there was a bright light above them. They looked up and there was a pillar of light flying down towards them.

Luffy saw it coming and his face turned deadly white as he grabbed hold of Conis as they ran for it. But it was too big… they would never hope to avoid it even when Luffy switched out for cheetah legs. The force of the impact was so great that it seemed to shake the whole island, blinding them all as they covered their faces from the brilliance of them all. But as soon as it had come, it disappeared. Shaking at the display of power they just saw, the citizens all stood there, staring at the damage that had been caused. There was so much smoke that they couldn't see anything in front of them for a moment. Sanji and Usopp were both alive and untouched, but they were screaming in horror, calling for Luffy and Conis where there was an enormous crater there…

For a horrible second, they truly thought the worse for Luffy and Conis until they heard another voice from above them call, "Do not fear! They are both safe!"

They looked up and there was Gan Fall, on the back of Pierre, with the two safely on his back.

The citizen around were staring at him as Usopp said, "The weird old man?"

"Me? Weird?" Gan Fall asked humorously, "No, I am the Sky Knight friend. And this one's on the house." He tossed Luffy down to them, but promised that he would keep Conis safe with him, that he gave them his word. Luffy stood up and gave him his thanks, and after he helped them like this, they truly believed that she would be safe for now.

But as Gan Fall looked down at them, his expression was unusually stony as he asked them, "Now that you have seen the scope of Eneru's power… and anger… what are you going to do next?"

"The same thing we were going to do from the start," Luffy called, "Go to Upper Yard and rescue our friends."

Gan Fall was looking at him with new respect as he said, "I see… may luck be with you!"

And with that, he took Conis and they headed off across the city. The three waited until they watched them fly off into the distance before they headed back over to the Crow and threw their bags into it. Usopp was already starting to give them words of farewell before Sanji pulled him into the boat and he looked ready to cry. Luffy got behind the wheel and said eagerly as he started it up, "Alright… Upper Yard here we come!"

The citizens behind them were all gapping at the three of them in amazement—as if they couldn't believe what they were seeing—as they pushed off and headed off towards the gate and down the Milky Road… towards their friends… and the closer to danger.

"I really hope Conis is alright," Usopp said worriedly, looking behind them at the ever shrinking Angel Island. "You know she's going to catch grief when the White Berets catch up with her, and it's our own stupid fault. She'd be ok if she hadn't helped us. And I'm not sure we can trust that Sky Knight. He pretty much gives me the creeps."

"He's kinda old and weird, but he doesn't seem like that bad of a guy," Luffy said.

"There was no other choice," Sanji said regretfully, "I wanna protect her but it's not like we could've brought her along with us."

"Well, then she probably is in less danger without us," Usopp admitted, not able to think of anything to disagree with that. Usopp than counted off, "Sacrificial altars, ordeals… from the sound of it I wish I was the one flying off with the old geezer."

The boat continued down a little slope and they could just make out the Upper Yard. As they drew nearer, some of them gasped when they saw it.

"Hey guys?" Usopp cried out in shock, "Where did that huge forest come from?!"

"Is that the Upper Yard?!" Sanji yelled as Usopp went to the map, trying to make sense of this.

Though the Upper Yard reminded them a great deal of the Middle Forest in Goa, only the trees were easily at least twice as big. Onwards they went, Luffy admiring the foliage—and talking about how much he wanted to climb them. A little further ahead, they spotted the statues up ahead, similar to the one they saw on Lovely Street, only these seemed to be much older and made of solid stone rather than mud. There were also several torches that marked the entry. "Look! The entrance!" Luffy yelled excitedly.

"Well, this is it, Usopp," Sanji said, "If you're gonna chicken out, now's the time."

"Actually, if you don't mind," Usopp said, "I was kinda thinking I'd like to go back…"

Luffy laughed to Usopp, "Too late!"

"THEN WHY DID YOU ASK ME?!" he screamed at the two as they laughed at how freaked out he was. They soon passed the statues, Usopp's face was contorted with fear as they sailed on—the faces looking like they were leering at them the whole way. As they went further on they saw the remains of ships scattered on either side of them—each of them run aground and sliced right in half as if a giant knife had cut them. Just then they heard the sounds of a large bird somewhere in the distance that startled Usopp so much that he shrieked.

"Would you calm down?" Luffy asked him, turning the wheel a little to avoid a broken mast sticking up through the clouds.

"Yeah, take it easy," Sanji agreed.

Usopp was yelling at the other two to notice the ship wreaks and that they all looked like they had been sliced up.

They heard a slight rustle through the trees and Usopp began twitching at that, asking if they heard it. "The woods are full of noises! Just relax," Luffy told him calmly.

"I heard that!" Sanji yelled. That was finally too much for Usopp, he started screaming and broke out the two paddles that were attached to the ship and tried to go faster. It was a good thing because, out of nowhere, there was a large scythe came flying from behind the trees, its blade large and sharp.

Though the three in the boat were able to miss it by the skin of their teeth, it turned out that wasn't the only one… dozens of them started to appear and Luffy screamed out orders to start paddling like crazy, which the other two had no complaints to following. It was all they could do to keep avoiding being sliced in half… it was a good thing that they didn't take the gondola that Luffy had wanted before, because the Crow was small and nimble enough to avoid the blades… though they were still narrow misses each time.

Usopp was yelling out confusing orders, and Luffy finally yelled at him to take the wheel as he turned to the back and launched them into the air, sending them flying right passed the scythes. With Usopp at the wheel, the other two began to paddle like mad… going much faster than before. But then large wooden spears came flying at them from above.

The three in the boat did everything they could to keep the Crow from being hit. In the end, Luffy was able to use the senses his Chimera form gave him to hit them and bat them away until they were safely out of the way.

They were breathing hard, glad to have escaped that obstacle. But their bad luck didn't end there… they looked on to see something was glinting ahead of them through the trees… they found out what it was when as a large spinning buzz saw came flying right towards them.

The buzz saw narrowly avoided them.

"It's god!" Luffy cried as it fly past them.

"Not yet!" Sanji yelled, now breathing hard as Usopp screamed that it was coming right back at them and they were now struggling to stay afloat. The blade spun in the air and like it was being drawn to them like a magnetic, it hurtled back towards them.

Again and again the buzz saw kept flying at them, trying to cut them to pieces. Usopp was freaking out, wanting to go back… but there was no point right now… there was no guarantee that they would survive it. Luckily they ended up outrunning it when it slammed into one of the trees cutting it in half.

"I think we finally outran it," Usopp sighed in relief before he looked behind them and groaned out miserably, "Oh, but this is bad… now it's too late to go back! I can't even see the entrance anymore!"

"Then stay here," Luffy offered.

"I'D DIE YOU IDIOT!" Usopp screamed back at him.

Sanji agreed with what Usopp stated and pointed as a giant snake-like creature with row after row of razor sharp teeth burst through the Milky Road and attacked. But Sanji was more than ready for it. He jumped up and with a single kick, it was sent flying from them. As he looked back at it anxiously, Luffy commented on that this was the neatest forest he'd ever been in.

"Neat forest my butt!" Usopp snapped, "If this is our so-called ordeal, then I quit!"

"You can't quit yet, we just got here!" Luffy laughed.

Sanji muttered anxiously, "We've got to keep moving. We can't spend more time than necessary on this Milky Road… otherwise we're asking for certain death."

They began to talk about how they were sure that the priests were all waiting for them on the island. Usopp realized what Luffy was saying and cried out in horror, "So you're telling me that nothing that we've gone through doesn't have anything to do with our actual ordeal?"

"I don't know, I kinda doubt it," Sanji said, "Especially considering the magnitude of that attack back at the docks. I couldn't tell you how it all works, but its serious power… take even one hit and you're a goner. This Eneru shouldn't be taken lightly… and I have the feeling that he's watching us even now."

Luffy then asked Sanji in surprise if he thought that this Eneru was hiding somewhere in the trees, to which Sanji agreed, stating that he had to have been close by to have been able to attack as accurately as he did. But Usopp then pointed out that didn't have to be the case… if this really was a god, he could probably be watching them right now.

Sanji rolled his eyes at Usopp's words as he asked, "Yeah? And since when did you become such a devoted follower? You're not even from around here."

"You're missing the point completely," Usopp hissed back at him, "Everyone says that God is great right? I was taught to respect those with power. You don't have to mean it… its self-preservation."

Sanji shrugged in a bored way, letting him believe what he wanted, but also reminding him that not everything considered a god is 'good'. But he added that they could talk more about it later when another lamprey appeared, its rows of teeth bearing at them. Usopp screamed as Luffy took care of it, punching it so hard with a gorilla's fist that it was slammed into a tree branch from above and it fell back behind them with a splash.

"I hate Sky Islands…" Usopp whispered, "They're scary…"

"Wanna get out here?" Sanji asked almost teasingly.

"WHAT KIND OF QUESTION IS THAT?!" Usopp screamed, actually standing up and spinning around to glare at him, "YOU WANT ME TO DIE?! I'M ALLOWED TO BE SCARED! CUT ME SOME SLACK!"

Luffy pointing ahead of them, yelling that a giant head was blocking their way. They all looked ahead to see the giant stone face, with its hand held up to its mouth as if keeping a secret. Sanji told Luffy that it was just a sculpture, to which Luffy responded that either way it was still a dead end.

"No! Look!" Usopp yelled, "There are four entrances!"

And he was right… the river branching off into four paths going through each finger, each labeled with a different ordeal: "Ordeal of Swamp", "Ordeal of Iron", "Ordeal of String", and "Ordeal of Spheres".

Usopp looked back to them, asking which one they should take, with Luffy pointing to the last one, saying that spheres sounded like fun. "That's your only reason?!" Usopp yelled, "They're ordeals! They're not supposed to be fun!" He then looked back to their choices and added, "Not that I'm disagreeing with you… spheres is definitely the one that doesn't sound too violent."

He then started to imagine what the other ordeals would be like, with each one worse than the other and in the end, his active imagination got the better of him and he didn't know which one to take.

"We don't have time for a debate here," Sanji stated in annoyance. They had to make a choice now. "We're right on top of it!"

"Alright! Spheres it is!" Luffy decided. Looking like he was doing this against his better judgment, Usopp turned the wheel hard and they headed to the doorway in the pinky, shutting his eyes as he did so—as if hoping that he could somehow protect himself from whatever was coming. When they entered the long tunnel and found that they were in the pitch darkness, they couldn't see anything in front of them.

Sanji then poked fun at Usopp, asking him not to shut his eyes since he was the one driving. Not that this made any difference, it was just as dark either way. Luffy suddenly had a very interesting idea and they heard his voice call out, "Hey guys… what if this is like one of those games?"

Usopp asked what he was talking about.

"You know… if you pick the right door then you get a prize?" Luffy asked, "But if you pick the wrong one…?"

"What are you talking about?! What if we picked wrong? Why couldn't you mention this before Luffy?!" Usopp yelled at him.

"Well, let's see here…" Luffy's voice said, sounding thoughtful as he thought it all over. "If you pick the wrong one… then you fall off the island?!"

Usopp lost it. "HOW CAN YOU SAY SOMETHING SO STUPID?!" he screamed out. "WE'RE THOUSANDS OF METERS IN THE AIR! I DON'T KNOW HOW MANY TIMES YOU'RE LIFE CAN FLASH BEFORE YOUR EYES DURING A FALL LIKE THAT, AND I DON'T WANNA KNOW!"

Light suddenly appeared in front of them and they spotted the exit. "You both are being idiots," Sanji said as they headed through, "Nothing like that is gonna…"

But then as they went out, they went right over the edge of a cliff…

The Crow hung in the air almost comically for several seconds before they fell, looking down to see nothing but clouds below them. The three in the boat screamed wildly as they did so with Usopp screaming at the top of his lungs, "YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!"

But when they went through one cloud and, to everyone's relief, they landed on another Milky Road that had been directly beneath them, but they hadn't been able to see it with all the clouds.

Sanji was asking, as if making sure that they weren't dead, "We're alive?!"

Usopp was twitched horribly. "I seriously thought we were falling all the way back to the Blue Sea…"

Sanji was now kicking Luffy hard in the head. "THAT'S BECAUSE SOMEONE HAD TO MAKE UP A LAME STORY TO SCARE US!"

"I was scared!" Luffy laughed, "I thought I was a goner too!"

"Idiot," Sanji hissed to himself.

Once he finished laughing and everything calmed down, Sanji pulled the traumatized Usopp from his seat at the Crow and took over at the controls this time. Here, they looked around cautiously, trying to get their bearings right. They were still in a large forest, not unlike the road they took to get here, but the Milky Roads were all crossing and overlapping with each other, even sometimes going up high in the trees and under branches. But what was really different was that this forest was filled with hundreds of large white balls. They seemed to have been made of Island Cloud, and they were simply floating… not moving, but hanging in the air, drifting around innocently.

The three in the Crow sailed around for some time, just looking around at all the balls that resembled giant flakes of snow, their eyes peeled for anything out of the ordinary. After a while though, Luffy and Usopp dropped their guards and began poking their heads into the bags for a snack. Only Sanji remained fully aware, looking around watchfully as if expecting someone to jump out and attack at any moment. Soon their captain and sniper had gotten bored, and the two of them were playing with one of the balls, passing it back and forth like a beach ball.

Sanji looked back to them and began to tell them off before a snake burst out and went for Usopp, bearing its fangs.

"A SNAKE?!" Sanji screamed out in shock as Luffy kicked at it, sending it flying away. But then Usopp pointed out another 'snake ball' in front of them, and when Sanji tried to kick it… this time, it ended up exploding, burning them all.

"FOR CRYING OUT LOUD, WHAT'S WITH THESE THINGS?!" Usopp screamed out in fear before he broke down crying—it was obvious to them all that he had finally reached his breaking point.

They then heard someone laughing. "Oh, silly children! These are Surprise Clouds! You never know what's going to come out of them!"

Luffy and the other boys were all looking around, trying to figure out where the voice was coming from when they heard that childish laugh once again. "Heso!" they all looked back and they saw him. A man, who hardly looked any different from the round cloud that he was floating on, with long, dark red hair and little wings… dressed in a white jumpsuit with a vertical line of golden rings that ran from front to back… and bright yellow sunglasses as he gave them all a stupid grin.

"I'm so glad you picked my challenge, the Ordeal of Spheres!" he said, bursting out laughing.

The Straw Hats all had sweat-drop falling as they looked at this guy.

"Yeah… is that a talking dumpling?" Sanji asked.

The talking dumpling suddenly got up and began dancing and spinning around happily on the cloud as they all stared at him.

"That's the ordeal?!" Luffy yelled out, now sounding furiously disappointed, "Ball guy?!"

"Stop with the dancing! And tell us who you are!" Sanji yelled. The dumpling didn't answer at first, still doing his dance as Usopp and Luffy whispered to each other, not really seeing him as much of a threat…

Sanji lost his temper and yelled up, "HEY! DUMPLING! NAMI AND THE OTHERS BETTER BE SAFE!"

"The sacrifices?" he asked happily as he continued to dance and spin around, "They'll escape, or they won't… doesn't really matter which. If they escape they'll die! If they're sacrificed… well they'll die then to!"

"What's that mean?!" Sanji demanded, sounding angry.

"But I would be more worried about yourselves!" the dumpling went on, "You'll have to beat me if you plan on going any further! And I really don't see that happening!" he laughed that annoying laugh once more as he jumped, heading right for them. Luffy was in front, looking ready to throw a punch.

"Oooooooh!" the dumpling said interested, "You're gonna change into an animal?"

Luffy looked startled that the dumpling had said that, but went for the punch anyway while going into his Chimera form as he did. The dumpling danced out of the way, missing it completely before he held his hand up to Luffy's lion-like face… and with some kind of shockwave from his hand, Luffy was sent flying. His hat was blown off like a kite before he was slammed right into the tree, crashing into it and for a moment his vision faded before it came back and found he was on his face… leaving a deep crater in the tree behind him. A trail of blood was dripping from his mouth as Usopp and Sanji yelled at him, trying to know if he was alright.

"LUFFY!" Usopp called in terror, "YOU'RE OK AREN'T YOU?! A HIT LIKE THAT COULDN'T HAVE HURT YOU THAT MUCH!"

The dumpling laughed as he held up his slightly smoking hand, "Well, you see… it's not what you call… a normal hit!"

Enraged, Sanji charged at him, but once again the dumpling was able to dodge it by merely stepping to the side, almost twirling around… "Only the most well trained are granted the power of… Mantra…"

Sanji was staring at the dumpling in shock, unable to believe that he was able to predict his attack, before the fat freak held up his hand and sent him crashing to the ground as well. Usopp screamed out Sanji's name, not noticing the dumpling right behind him before he was also sent flying down to join them. All three of them were bleeding and hurt, but they didn't seem to be too badly hurt because they were already starting to get back up. Luffy looked to the others, and Sanji confirmed that they were alright as he reached for his hat.

Sanji was then demanding to know what that roly-poly did.

"I've got no idea," Luffy confessed, wiping some of the blood from his mouth, "Who is this guy anyway?"

Resuming his dance on the Crow, the dumpling answered, "My name is Satori! I am one of the four priests of the almighty Eneru who watch over the Upper Yard and see to it the judgment of criminals such as yourselves! I own the vearth in this Lost Forest!"

"The Lost Forest?" Luffy repeated, sounding just as lost.

"Why yes," Satori smiled evilly, "My forest and all its glory! Ho, ho-hooo!"

Satori stepped on the accelerator and caused the Crow to start moving once again. He went on speaking, telling them that the boat will continue going along without them until it reached the exit. If they were unable to find the boat before then, they would lose their only way to the sacrificial altar and be lost in this forest forever. That was what this trial was… to try and find the boat once again while avoiding him and his 'Surprise Clouds' which could be holding anything.

"The Ordeal of Spheres!" Satori yelled joyfully, "There's a ten percent survival rate! So good luck!" He laughed a little more, "You boys better catch up to her real soon! She's getting away!"

Luffy offered to stay behind and deal with Satori while Sanji and Usopp went looking for the boat. Sanji hesitated for only a moment before he nodded in understanding, but before he left, he warned him to be careful. Luffy jumped up and began swinging around fighting with Satori… however with his Mantra it was impossible for Luffy to be able to make a move without him already knowing it. In the end, the fight ended quickly and Luffy's head was slammed right through a thick tree, his goat horns sticking into the wood.

Luffy tried desperately to pull his head out of the tree trunk as Satori continued to laugh. "Aren't you stubborn?" he asked sweetly before he went floating away on his sphere, clearly going after the others. After several tense minutes, Luffy was able to pull his head back out—luckily, after using his bat-like wings to glide through the forest, Luffy found that he hadn't gone far. He spotted the priest tormenting the other boys and Luffy went running along the tree branches to reach him, sending a punch with the force of a speeding train right at him…

"LUFFY STOP!" Sanji screamed, "USE YOUR HEAD! YOU'RE ONLY MAKING THINGS WORSE!"

Luffy realized this as well, but it was too late. As Satori nimbly dodged out of the way of the attack, the punch made a large shockwave which had caused all the Surprise Clouds around them to start flying every which way. They would then hit other Surprise Clouds and then they would go flying in all directions as well so that it was like a snowstorm. They were soon forced to run around, avoiding them at all costs… a variety of things emerged from them. Things like spears, giant crabs, fire, Usopp even had four giant singing birds appear out of some and start punching him like a boxing match… Luffy, through a series of acrobatics while trying to avoid drowning and being eaten by Sky Fish, was forced to go into his monkey form and start swinging around on vines, his fear turned to laughter as he let out a loud jungle call.

"WILL YOU GET SERIOUS?!" Sanji roared at him.

After seeing Luffy swinging around on vines, Usopp got an idea and went to his newest invention that he called the Usopp AAaaaAAAaaaAA! A special belt that he made that could fire a grappling hook for him to swing from tree to tree with. He was able to hook onto a tree and went swinging over to the Crow… everyone thought for sure he was going to make it—even Satori was looking surprised by this… at least until they found out that Usopp forgot to put in a way to detach the rope and missed the boat.

Finally losing his temper, Sanji got them both down in front of him and beat them both black and blue. "Here's the deal," the cook said once he had cooled off and took several deep breaths on his cigarette. "I'm gonna forget what just happened… now you do what I say."

Both boys nodded, having no problems with that, and clearly not wanting to get beaten up again. "Ok then…" he said as he went on, "First thing we forget about the boat for now. Then we're all gonna charge that fat freak at once!

"I don't care what kind of powers he's got…" Sanji continued, "With all three of us attack at the same time, if there's a way to beat him we'll find it."

"Oh…?" Satori's voice called from somewhere above them, obviously having heard everything they said, "Don't be so sure…"

They all jumped up, staring around to try and find him… when Sanji turned his back to keep looking, Satori fell from the branches above and jumped behind him, hitting him with another Impact and sending him crashing to the ground.

Luffy and Usopp both tried to fight, but soon they joined Sanji as well—all three of them were lying bruised, bloody, and burned on the ground as Satori continued to jump around happily on the Surprise Clouds. By this point, Luffy was struggling to push himself back up as Satori laughed again. "You're still alive! I'm impressed! And… as a reward for good behavior… we're gonna finish off our fun today with a move I've received several awards for! Ho, ho-hooo!" He then pulled out a stripped cane like a giant candy cane… "My Super Secret Surprise… Sphere Dragon!"

And then, Satori connects several surprise balls together with a dragon head on top so that it looked like some strange kind of caterpillar. "Introducing the Sphere Dragon!" he called happily.

But Luffy looked far from impressed as he got back to his feet, now panting hard, he yelled up, "It looks like all you did was string a bunch of Surprise Clouds together! Is that the best you can do? I have to say I'm disappointed!"

"Oh, you won't be for long!" Satori promised, "You see my friend, the dragon is loaded with explosive surprises and all sorts of delightful shrapnel."

Usopp paled before he squeaked out, "But… that means…?"

"If you even touch the fireball sphere somewhere on its body it'll be over for you and your friends!" Satori said happily. "You'll be blown to bits in the incinerating inferno! Hope you like fireworks!" he then held the cane high and the dragon went straight for them.

Luffy clearly didn't care if the dragon exploded or not, he was going to attack anyway but just as the dragon went straight for him, Usopp charged in, tackling him out of the way just in time. "You idiot!" he yelled, holding Luffy down to keep him from attacking the dragon again, "That freak just told us if we touched that thing it'll explode! Do you want to die a fiery death!?"

Luffy practically threw Usopp off him, demanding, "Well how are we gonna fight it if we can't touch it?!"

"That's just it!" Usopp yelled at him in frustration, "We can't fight it! I think now is the time to run."

Satori sent the dragon after them again, and they were forced to run. "What do we do?!" Luffy yelled, jumping around wildly, the dragon head quickly catching up.

"I don't know, you're the captain!" Usopp yelled before he had an idea. "On three, we jump! THREE!"

The two did jump out of the way, missing the dragon completely, but they ended up landing onto another Surprise Cloud. They didn't realize it at once but once the dragon missed them they turned blue in the face before it exploded once again.

"Ho, ho-hooo! Well, you are quite the little survivors aren't you?" Satori asked, still as gleeful as he had been before—and they were all growing sick of listening to this guy. The two rolled over, with Usopp yelling at him that he was just toying with them. "Correct! It wouldn't be as much fun if you didn't experience the full power of the Sphere Dragon!" Satori asked, as if they were two naughty boys who were being punished for doing something stupid. "Shall we continue? There's no way you can win!" he bragged, "After all… I'm a priest! And you all look so tired! Why don't you just end this now and die?"

"My heart can't take any more of this," Usopp gasped, now looking like he was fighting to breathe, "Too many surprises… how… it… hurts…"

"You'll be out of options quite soon," Satori said, looking back up, "It's sad really… your little boat has almost reached the exit. And when that happens, it's all over for you! Ho, ho-hooo!

"You'll have nowhere to go unless you all suddenly learn to fly!" Satori went on just as Luffy was sitting up, "You'll wander around their terribly confusing forest until you die of exhaustion!"

Luffy was up again, trying to attack by becoming a rhino hybrid and attempted to gouge the man with his horn, but he might as well have just told Satori what he was going to do. He dodged it and had the dragon going after him once again. As Luffy ran, he noticed Usopp slipping off into the forest.

As Luffy continued to run, he finally caught a break when he ran up a tree, and almost ended up falling back on the dragon. But something caught him before he did and he discovered the wire that was connected to Satori's cane—and what caused him to control the dragon like a puppet. It only took him a few seconds to realize what it was and then he snapped the wire in half.

Seeing the wire break, Satori gasped in horror. "You ruined my Sphere Dragon you impudent little brat!" he yelled, and for the first time he sounded angry. "Now you die! Get over here this instant!"

But as he pulled the cane, he pulled Luffy with him—who hadn't let go of the other half the rope and was pulling the dragon with him.

Satori realized to late what was happening. "LET GO OF THE DRAGON FOOL!" he screamed, but Luffy was still hurtling towards him, still pulling the dragon behind him—perhaps having instincts holding onto the other rope. Satori screamed out just as they crashed into him and the explosion after that was enormous—a giant fireball went up around them, burning the trees as shrapnel went flying in all directions.

There was a giant black crater in the ground, blowing parts of trees away, the ground completely burnt to a crisp. It was smoking and filled with things like swords, arrows, spears… Satori was there on another Surprise Cloud as he gasped for breath and severely burned.

"That was close," Satori wheezed, "That maniac must've had a death wish! This isn't good…" he looked at the damage and added to himself, "I've got to intensify my training! I can't let a weakling like him… get the upper hand in a fight! Not even for a second! That might block me from using my Mantra."

"You're right…" Luffy's voice said and Satori was looking around anxiously, "That was close…"

Luffy was clinging to Satori's back—also burnt and injured but not nearly as bad thanks to his thick rhino hide.

"It's you?! How are you still alive?!" Satori said, finally noticing where he was, and seemed stunned that he hadn't noticed it before.

Then suddenly Satori was trying to throw Luffy off desperately, trying to get rid of him and screaming out, "GET OFF ME! YOU HORRIBLE LITTLE MAN! I'LL GET YOU FOR THIS! LET GO OF ME RIGHT NOW! I SAID LET GO!"

"Do not let him go Luffy!" called a familiar voice and Sanji was sitting on top of a dud of a Surprise Cloud that had a flower sticking out of it. Satori looked up in horror, "YOU TOO?!"

"Hey Sanji!" Luffy said, pushing Satori's head down so that he could see him. "Where have you been?"

"I WAS OUT COLD ON THE FOREST FLOOR!" he screamed, "WHERE ELSE WOULD I HAVE BEEN YOU IDIOT?!"

Sanji calmed down almost at once as he said, "But that's beside the point…" he lit a cigarette and turned his attention back to Satori, "The point is you keep saying challenge this… and challenge that, which normally wouldn't interest me. However there are two helpless ladies who are waiting for me to come to their rescue… and I refuse to let them down. So I'm proposing this… and I think you'll like it," past Sanji said as he looked up, his face dark as finished, "Ordeal… of Love."

Satori freaked out and tried to escape, but Luffy quickly transformed himself back into his human form before becoming a large anaconda and wrapping his body around the man to keep him from moving anywhere. Satori realized that he was trapped and began to scream out that they had no honor gaining up two against one.

"We have no honor?" Sanji repeated in disgust. "You creeps kidnapped our friends and tried to murder a beautiful young angel! And you accuse us of not having any honor!"

Luffy smirked as he added to Satori, "I've been thinking… it's pretty amazing you're able to predict our movements…. But what good is that…? When you can't do anything to avoid them?"

Satori turned blue in the face and began to thrash around more desperately than ever… he screamed out that they release him at once. That he was a priest and not being judged by him was a first degree crime in Skypiea—that attacking him meant declaring war on Eneru.

Sanji and Luffy couldn't have cared less what Satori said anymore. Sanji then leaped high into the air and starts flipping over rapidly to gain speed, when he fell down, he brought the heel of his foot down on Satori's head, shattering his glasses and causing a few teeth to pop out of his head as he screamed and that was the end of the fight.

After meeting up with Usopp, they were continuing on once they found the boat. They had left the forest and had entered a rich grassy field. Only there was something wrong here… there were skulls set up on stakes, scattered everywhere.

"What… is this?!" Luffy gasped, shielding his eyes from the sun as he looked ahead.

"My money is… this is where we're supposed to find the ordeal which means another priest," Sanji said, "So you two stay awake."

"Oh no…" Usopp moaned out, "I think one ordeal is enough of a nightmare today. Which one seems like it can be out here? String? Iron? Swamp? I'm so nervous!"

"Relax, it's just a grassy field!" Luffy told him.

"Open your eyes!" Usopp cried out with a strangled scream, "It's not just a field! It's a field with a thousand impaled skulls set up like trophies to scare us! And it's working!"

Luffy looked over the edge and saw that he was right as they passed the skulls. "Yeah, you're right… I wonder who did this?"

Usopp than began to cry again, gasping out that it had to be another one of those priest behind this and he was going to tear their bodies in half.

"Another priest with another ordeal? Sounds like fun!" Luffy said.

"Are you out of your mind?!" Usopp demanded, now sounding hysterical. "Those are heads on sticks back there! ON STICKS! That's gonna be us!"

"Oh don't worry so much Usopp, we'll beat 'em," Luffy said when they suddenly heard a blast a little ways of them. Looking up, several figures came bursting out and flying at them on those strange skates one again. One of them was carrying a large bazooka and noticed them as well when they flew overhead; he then flipped upside down and sent a cannonball at them, which Luffy reflected and redirected.

"WE'RE READY!" Luffy screamed at him angrily, now revved up for some action, "COME ON DOWN! WE'LL CREAM YOU! MAKE YOUR MOVE BIG GUY!"

That remark seemed to tick the man off, even at this distance. He then stood up and shouted back, "You sound and stink of Blue Sea People! Which means you're the ones causing all the chaos in Skypiea!"

Sanji then said quickly to Luffy that he was the one who attacked them when they first arrived, which only infuriated Luffy all the more. Now that they could see his face, half of it was also covered with similar tribal marks that his arm had. He was also smoking a cigarillo when he glared down at them with cold eyes. Usopp screamed in fear, cowering in his seat as he cried out to just hurry up and blow them up to get it over with.

"If you don't want to die, then go back to your Blue Sea immediately!" the man yelled, "Because I promise if you do anything stupid on this island… we'll execute you with Eneru!"

They were all startled to hear that he wanted to kill this so-called god. Sanji stated that these guys weren't like the Skypieans who didn't seem to have the nerve to stand up to him… but Usopp was now begging Luffy that if they weren't Eneru's priest there was no reason to fight them and that they should just sail on. But Luffy was too angry to listen—clearly wanting to go over there to fight him, but Usopp had to jump on him, keeping him down. But then the four of them disappeared, no longer interested in staying.

Usopp laid back as Luffy stared after them. "I wonder why they're up here…" he said softly.

"I'm not sure," Sanji said seriously, "Must be pretty serious. But they seem to be enemies of Eneru as well as us."

"You know…" Usopp whimpered softly, "I really do hate this place."

They continued to ride the Crow along the Milky Roads, only now the sun was going down. The sky was a mixture of red and gold's… and they knew that it wasn't going to be much longer before the sun set.

They took a road that was climbing over the largest tree that any of them had ever seen. Luffy's eyes were wide like a child's as Usopp began muttering that he had a bad feeling that something bad was waiting for them over that treetop, he was sure of it.

It turned out to be a right guess when they got to the top, it led to an incredibly unsafe drop. And like they were on a rollercoaster, they went into almost a free fall, sliding down at a break-neck speed. Sanji suddenly called over the rush of the wind, "Do you see them down there?!"

"Are those the priests?!" Usopp cried fearfully.

"No, just Sky Sharks," Sanji said and Usopp sighed in relief, "Oh thank goodness… I thought for sure that we were goners—WHOA, WHOA, WHOA! WHAT DO YOU MEAN SKY SHARKS?!"

Sharks, the size of whales, bright blue with stripes were there at the bottom of their descent, their mouths filled with razor sharp teeth, and large enough to swallow them whole, were wide open. Usopp started panicking, but Luffy took care of them all by jumping to the Crow's head and dived into the water like clouds. Suddenly, they saw a Sky Octopus like from earlier, except with Luffy's straw hat and scar, and it was using its tentacles to punch each one of them out cold. Once the danger was out of the way, they ended up skidding to a rough stop in what looked like a lake of clouds—and splashed water everywhere.

Luffy noticed something up ahead as he gasped and yelled to the other two once they got their bearings, "Check it out! We found it! There's the altar with the Going Merry sitting right on top!" He was right, on the top of a pyramid-shaped structure was the ship, and over on the shore were Nami, Robin, and Zoro… all of them alive and unscathed.

Even from this far away, they could see that the ship was a mess. She was burnt in several places and the mast was lying at the foot of the stairs that led up to it. But none of them seemed to have noticed it at first… Luffy and the others were all so glad to see them, to meet familiar faces that weren't trying to kill them, they started to cheer and celebrate. It was a touching scene. They went over to the shore to pick up the three there before they headed to the foot of the stairs and raced up to be greeted by a big hug from Chopper…

But Chopper was in just as rough shape as the boat… his fur was scorched, and there still bleeding cuts—he had covered his chest with bandages as he had treated his own injuries. Chopper told them that soon after Zoro, Nami and Robin headed off in to the woods, a priest called Shura appeared at the Sacrificial Altar to take care of the 'offering'. He was burning everything around him with his lance and bird that breathed fire—and managed to destroy parts of the Merry before he finally got bored and tried to kill Chopper.

After hugs all around, asking each other if they were alright—with Sanji particularly asking the women, who informed him that they were just fine—Usopp finally noticed what was left of the mast and asked what happened. Chopper tried to apologize… letting him know that he tried everything he could to protect the ship, but that priest kept burning everything. Usopp nodded slowly, telling Chopper not to worry about the ship, that they'll figure it out later and was just glad that he was alright.

At his words, Chopper looked ready to cry as he ran to the edge of the ship, climbed up it and began to declare to the rest of the world, "I PROMISE TO BECOME A MORE RELIABLE MAN STARTING RIGHT NOW!"

Luffy told him to stop yelling at the altar and asked how he was able to get rid of that priest. Chopper looked back and explained that he used the whistle to call Gan Fall. In the nick of time, the Sky Knight appeared and the two fought a battle in the sky. After an even match, Shura used his ordeal to trap Gan Fall and pierce him with his lance. Chopper then took them all inside the cabin to where he had been tending to his wounds, promising that though he was badly injured, he had a good chance of recovering if he rested.

"We owe him three times now," Zoro said as Luffy crouched down at Gan Fall's bedside and said softly, "He was willing to sacrifice this much for us… even though he gave us that whistle for free."

"If it wasn't for the Sky Knight, you guys probably wouldn't have a ship and I'd for sure be dead," Chopper said softly.

"I've got a bunch of questions for him," Sanji stated, but his serious tone had respect and gratitude it in. "But I guess I'll wait until he wakes up," he finished before he glanced to Pierre and added a thanks to him as well. They soon decided to move to land and make camp there for the night; with Usopp explaining to Luffy in annoyance that if they were attacked, their ship would be the first to take a beating and they couldn't risk her suffering any more damage than she had so far.

After they took the Crow over to shore, they got their camp set up. It was strange how causal everyone was acting after everything that had happened today… Luffy complained about being hungry and hauled one of the Sky Sharks out of the water so that Sanji could roast it over the fire for him. They set up the tents and Chopper made some medicine for Luffy, Sanji, Usopp and Gan Fall—before passing some medicinal herbs to Robin and Sanji, asking them to grind it up for him for the old man.

None of them said much as Usopp set up a chalkboard and turned to the others, getting their attention. "Quiet down now!" he called, "It's time to hear everyone's field reports!"

Sanji, still grinding up the medicine, spoke first, "We ran into this priest named Satori who uses spheres with different kinds of threats inside each one. Explosives, dragons, the usual… but what really hung us out to dry in the fight was that this guy kept predicting our moves with a power called Mantra or something."

"The priest who attacked me was named Shura and he used a spear that set fire to anything!" Chopper then spoke up, "He seemed like he could predict my moves just like that Satori guy and I tried and tried to attack him but he…" he trailed off, sounding ashamed, "He… he dodged me every single time. Then the bird he was riding burnt down the mast and the Sky Knight was defeated."

Nami patted Chopper's shoulder in a consoling way as he sighed.

"Sounds like you all had a rough time," Nami say sympathetically. "Well, what we found is that this island we're on is actually the missing part of Jaya! You see the City of Gold didn't sink into the ocean… but it was shot into the sky like us. We saw the other half of Cricket's house which proves this theory."

Usopp called victoriously after he finished writing it all down on the board. "Excellent work!" he cried to them all, "Now… based on your reports… we learned that the priests can predict our movements with a power they like to call Mantra! And the bird blows flames and the spear burns you! But most importantly we learned this!" he jabbed at the board with a stick at the notes, "The City of Gold is not a thousand leagues under the sea like we thought! But is hidden somewhere on this very island!"

"Wow, after all the trouble we went through to get here, who would've imagined that it'd be the City of Gold?" Nami whispered to herself.

Luffy was yelling out in shock at what Usopp said, "NO WAY!"

"That was the first thing I told you!" Nami yelled at him in frustration. But Zoro and Sanji both began a conversation, sounding civil with each other for once, about what Mantra was all about. Sanji offered that perhaps it was some kind of sixth sense that you could only learn up here, which Zoro looked highly doubtful here.

But it was clear that there was only one thing on Luffy's mind as he stood up, his eyes shining as he whispered in wonder, "This is it! An adventure with gold at the end! I can't wait!"

Nami was smiling at Luffy, and even gave him a wink as she said, "Glad to see someone on my side. I'm ready!"

"Luffy no," Usopp said, turning pale again as the excitement quickly drained out of his face. "Did you forget what the scary Guerrilla guy said about execution?"

"God will be… really mad," Chopper said nervously.

Robin giggled to herself. "Sounds like fun," she said, sounding excited for the chance to look at this ancient city with her own eyes.

"Well, we wouldn't be very good pirates if we turned our backs on gold," Sanji reasoned with a smirk, "So let's not."

"Won't be easy," Zoro added with an evil grin, "You know everyone up here already hates us. Which means I'm in."

"Come on," Usopp said tearfully, "Aren't you even a little frightened by the wrath of god? I mean… I wanna live don't you!?"

But they were all smiling, each one of them had clearly made up their minds about what they were going to do, and Luffy only confirmed it as he stood up tall, laughing his head off as he declared, "GOLD! AND IT'S ALL WAITING FOR US!"

Later, all the Straw Hats were gathered around the fire, enjoying some stew from a large cooking pot that Sanji obviously prepared for them all, and Nami had her glasses on as she was speaking to them all, "Anyway, let's review Noland's Logbook. He discovered the City of Gold four hundred years ago. However after leaving the island and returning with his king, he discovered that the gold ruins had vanished. Luckily we now know what happened to these ruins."

Before Nami went on, there was a loud clanging noise. Apparently Sanji had hit Luffy over the head with the pot's lid for something again. Getting ticked off, Nami was telling him off before he retorted something about Luffy's manners. Looking annoyed at the boys, Nami turned back to the others and started to talk about how it had to have been the Knock-Up Stream that brought this place to the sky.

"Do you really think a whole island could've done that?" Chopper asked her as he passed several bowls to the others.

"Well, it's the only thing that makes sense," Nami answered, "Remember, Cricket said whenever this phenomenon occurs it's in a different location."

Usopp agreed with them all, stating how enormous the explosion was and he wasn't surprised that it lifted up part of an island.

Zoro looked up at the trees, muttering that he found it hard to believe that this giant forest was the same one they saw back on Jaya. Robin agreed, but also stated that there must've been something special about the environment here in the clouds that dramatically increased growth rate—just looking at the trees and animals they had seen. Chopper added that it had been a large flock of South Birds who saved him and Gan Fall; and they were at least ten times bigger than the ones they saw on Jaya. At those words, Sanji then asked Chopper why those birds saved them, and the little reindeer confessed that he wasn't sure about that, but he did say that when he woke up and saw them there, they referred to the Sky Knight as god.

They stared at him. "HE'S GOD?!" Luffy screamed out, food actually falling from his mouth as he pointed wildly over his shoulder at the sleeping knight, "SO IF WE BEAT THE CRUD OUTTA THIS GUY THEN OUR JOB HERE IS DONE?!"

Usopp began yelling at Luffy, before Nami brought them back to the matter at hand, asking if any of them remembered what Noland wrote about in his log about the City of Gold.

"The last thing he wrote in his log before he died is something odd," Robin answered, "It's something I still can't figure out, even after seeing this island. It said that the City of Gold was in the skull's right eye."

"That's it!" Nami declared before she went to the two maps with her. Nami was pulling out two maps and was spreading them out in front of her. "I matched up Robin's map of Jaya… along with the old Skypiea map that we found in the shipwreck," she said, carefully folding one of the maps and putting them together like a puzzle. As everyone got up and went over to see what she was talking about she added, "Of course, this isn't exact and there may be some incorrect overlap… but if you match up the location of Cricket house with the broken one we found up here… this is what Jaya looked like four hundred years ago!"

"Neat!" Luffy said beaming, "It's a skull!"

"It is a skull!" Chopper chirped.

The Straw Hats had a bright shine in their eyes and they were already starting to celebrate until Usopp asked exactly where in the Skull's Right eye they were supposed to look. Nami figured that out as well as she pointed to a small monument in the center of the eye. "It's the one structure that's actually inside the eye," she explained. "And no one's found it yet because of all the people who've tried, we're the ones with both maps!"

They were all getting excited, some of them looked like they were ready to go off into the forest now for it. But Nami came up with the game plan. Since they couldn't leave the ship unguarded, it was decided that in morning they would break the crew into two groups. And hopefully by this time tomorrow they would have more gold than they ever dreamed as well as finally leave this island behind.

They then went on to finish their meal and talk excitedly about their plans, each sounding as crazy as the next… but Nami was promising them that they would think of something after they fixed the ship and got her off the altar. It was funny to watch as some of the boys were starting to get into an argument with Nami about having a big bonfire or to put it out. The boys were all for the idea, but Nami was getting angry, reminding them of the danger that they were all in and that the forest didn't need any help in killing them. But as they argued, they had some more unexpected visitors… a large pack of Cloud Wolves appeared.

After a few harsh words exchanged, and Nami ended up clobbering the leader of the pack, they seemed to have developed a grudging respect. And no one was able to see how it happened, but to their amazement, it ended up becoming a party—the Straw Hats and the Cloud Wolves were all dancing, singing and laughing around the fire—the festival of the Eve of the Gold Hunt…

It hazy morning and they were standing at the foot of the stair of the altar. Usopp was pointing wildly to the ship, yelling to the others and practically crying, "It's true! I wasn't dreaming! Someone was here last night!"

They glanced up in time to see that the Merry had been repaired. They climbed the stairs to see that the ship was now full of miss-matched patches. But the mast was put back where it was before and the sides were fixed with extra boards—even the flying gear had also been taken off her so she looked as she always been.

"I knew it!" Usopp yelled out, "See guys, I told you I wasn't insane!" He was then crying as if he was relieved to know that as well just as Nami put her hand on the mast, looking pleased, and unable to believe it. "Hey, now that's service!"

Sanji said, "I hate to say it. But they did a lousy job."

Luffy laughed happily that whoever did sure was nice. Usopp was now pacing the deck, saying that he knew that he saw someone here last night. Zoro began speaking again, asking how he couldn't see how anyone would want to help them. As far as he knew, the only other people up here with them were their enemies so why would any of them want to risk crossing a river of Sky Sharks to fix their ship? As Chopper swung happily from rope called to Usopp, asking who he thought he saw, though Usopp couldn't think of an answer to that.

But for Nami, the curiosity had worn off and she told them that it didn't matter anymore and that they still had a lot of work to do. As they started to get to work they heard Usopp whisper to the ship, "How could he have possibly known? Come on Merry… just tell me who I saw."

Usopp and Chopper headed back down the stairs to the Crow to try and figure out a way to get the ship off the altar. Usopp and Chopper were in the Crow and now making their way around the altar—in the end, Usopp came up with an idea. Using his Usopp AAaaaAAAaaaAA, he was able to hook it around the Merry's bow and tried to pull it off themselves. However, the Crow just didn't have enough strength for something like this. But Usopp soon came up with another way…

Usopp hung Chopper to a large pole like a fishing line and tried to tempt a Sky Shark to eat him.

Usopp was able to hook the rope onto the shark and used its strength to heave the ship off the altar, down the stairs, and back into the water. After they took the time to untie Chopper, calm him down, and convince him that they were his friends, Nami pulled out the map and came up with the plan.

Since Luffy and Robin insisted on going to the City of Gold, and Nami had to stay on the Merry to guide it out of the Upper Yard and to the meeting place, she came up with the two teams. "Ok, let's look at the map," she said, pulling out her pencil and began drawing arrows on it. "The exploration team will be taking this route… moving south," she said, drawing an arrow directly to the right eye. "There should be some old ruins near the skull's right eye. Keep an eye out for enemies and bring back that gold!" she told them.

"Huh… you make it sound so easy," Zoro said.

"I'm looking forward to investigating those old ruins," Robin said smiling widely.

"Hold on," Luffy said, looking to Nami, "You're the one who keeps talking about gold and more gold but you're not coming?"

"Well, of course not," she said, "It's way too scary."

Nami seemed to notice the look on Chopper's face and gave him a dark look, asking if he said anything and he shook his head hurriedly as she went back to the map. "We'll be in danger too you know," she added, "We'll be taking the Merry downriver through the island. Then, we head for the beach near the ruins as fast as possible." She drew the arrows so that even a child could understand them. "We'll met up here," she finished, pointing to a spot near the right eye, "And then we can escape this stupid Sky Island." She sighed happily as she thought about it, muttering dreamily, "At long last we'll be a rich and powerful pirate crew! Able to buy anything!"

The groups were divided with Luffy, Zoro, Chopper, and Robin in the group going to get the gold—while Nami, Usopp and Sanji were to stay on the Merry with Gan Fall and Pierre and hopefully meet up with them.

"Ok," Zoro said agreeably as they all picked up their bags after Sanji packed them all box lunches, "We'll all meet safely on the east coast!"

The Merry stopped by the south shore, were the four of them jumped to land. They hung around long enough to wave the Merry off before they turned and went their separate ways for the day.