They shot through the clouds with Luffy barely able to hang on, Luna stood behind him keeping her balance on the railing. Once they landed everyone was gasping and having a hard time gaining their breath.
"Take slow shallow breaths or you'll just make yourselves sick. The air's thinner up here, less oxygen. It may take sometime to acclimate." Luna said walking down to the others.
Luffy sat up looking out over the white sea, "hey look guys out there! What is that?"
Sanji responded, "what in the world?"
"It's solid white!" Luffy yelled excitedly.
Chopper looked over the railing, "THEY'RE CLOUDS!"
Nami stared in amazement, "but how? Why aren't we falling?"
Luna stepped up next to them, "I believe we've reached the 'White Sea' that Nolan spoke about."
It was than Chopper noticed Usopp wasn't breathing. Chopper began chest compressions to try to revive him. Luna walked over and bent down near the two, before promptly flicking Usopp's forehead. This woke the boy up with a start while Chopper and Luffy cheered, and Usopp freaking out.
Nami looked at the Log Pose, "but look the Log Pose is still pointing up."
Robin replied to the navigator, "so we must be somewhere in the cumuloregalis clouds."
Chopper looked at Robin, "wait so we need to travel even higher?"
"That's what the Log Pose says at least."
Usopp, finally losing his mind, proclaimed he was going to swim in the 'ocean.' Dawning his goggles the boy tried to jump into the 'sea' only to be brought back to Earth by Luna. Grabbing him by his overalls she through him back onto the deck.
"Are you trying to die? Those are cloud and what pray tell is under clouds?" She demanded with her hands on her hips.
"T-the sky?" Usopp questioned hopefully.
"Yes and under that is the sea. So if you were to 'swim' to deep you would come out to the sky and fall to your death. Is that what you want?"
"N-no..." Usopp muttered quietly, but it wasn't good enough for Luna.
"What was that?"
"I-I said No ma'am."
"That's what I thought. No swimming," she locked eyes with Luffy, "from any of you."
Before anything could be said several creatures broke the surface. Zoro, Sanji, and Luffy jumped into action. Zoro sliced at a large squid, only for the creature to pop. Sanji kicked his opponent allowing it to keep it's form as it landed against the railing.
"What are these things?" Sanji questioned looking over his target. Zoro was panting heavily, "I don't know but why is it so hard to breath?"
Luna moved over to the downed creature, "the air's thinner. Remember what I said slow shallow breaths. Hmmm..."
Luna looked over the edge before jumping down causing Usopp to freak out.
"Hey you just said no swimming!"
They all looked over to see Luna standing on the 'sea.' Chopper gained stars in his eyes, "Whoa! So cool!"
Luna leaned down before plunging her hand into the sea pulling out a blue fish. Standing again she jumped back onto the Merry. Holding up the fish Robin spoke.
"Wait do you know what this is? This must be the 'sky fish' Nolan spoke about in his logs. I thought it was fantastical at the time but it seems these creature evolved to survive up here in the clouds."
"Evolved? You mean they turned all flat and balloony and stuff?" Zoro questioned.
"To make themselves even lighter. The buoyancy must be several times weaker than the oceans down below." While Robin explained Luffy happily took the fish to Sanji.
"And they grew scales like freathers and carnivore like mouths."
Luffy came back with the fish cooked by Sanji, who sautéed it.
"Delicious!"
"HEY! We were still examining that!"
Chopper was looking for the sky island through the binoculars as Luna walked up behind him.
"Oh look a ship. Hey guys there's a... AHHH!" Luna caught the doctor as he fell back.
"Guys we have company."
It was sadly no good as the man took out the monster trio, before jumping back and aimed his bazooka at the Merry. Luna stood ready staring down the man. Before she could act another man appeared.
"That's enough villain!"
The masked man looked up in time to block the attack coming from the caped man. As the masked man fell into the clouds, the cape man landed on the Merry's railing.
"Oh great! Now who's this guy?" Nami cried. The caped man stepped down from the railing, "Miss you may call me... the Sky Knight." As a weird looking creature cried out from behind him.
"He's gone." The newly dubbed Sky Knight proclaimed.
"Who was that guy?" Nami questioned before giving the monster trio the side eye. "And you. Can you be anymore worthless? That was pathetic three to one."
Luna stepped in front of the guys with a glare aimed at Nami. "And what about you? Did you do anything? People in glass houses should throw stones." Turning back to the guys, "slow shallow breaths."
Chopper ran up to the Sky Knight, "thank you for saving us!"
"I'm just doing my job. This one's on the house." The man moved up to the upper deck. "You people must be blue sea people."
"'Blue sea people' what is that?"
"Probably what they call us up here. Like how we would call them sky people." Luna added.
"Yes. I'm assuming you traveled here from the blue sea?"
"Yeah, that's right." Luffy panted.
"Then that explains it. You've reached the White Sea 17,000 meters in the air. The white white sea, which I assume is where you are headed, is further up about 10,000 meters. Ordinary Blue Sea people can't possibly endure it here."
Luffy, finally catching his breath sat up, "I think I've finally getting use to it."
"Yeah, I actually feel much better already." Zoro added.
"No, no, no, that's just not possible." The Sky Knight disagreed.
"So Mr. Knight what was that guy running around in the clouds attacking people?" Chopper asked.
The Sky Knight didn't explain but tried to sell them a whistle for his service. The monster trio were confused questioning what the currency he used, confusing the Knight inturn.
"We rode the Knock-Up Stream, Sir Knight." The man jumped at Luna's appearance behind him.
"My word that monstrous current? There's still souls in the world willing to attempt?"
Nami sobbed quietly at the information there was a safer way. She turned her anger to Luffy shaking the boy.
"Did you lose any of your crew?" The Knight asked.
Luffy looked back at him from Nami's shaking, "no we all made it."
"Then you can consider yourselves fortunate. Had you taken a different route one or two of you would have survived the journey 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. That's the only two possible outcomes. Not many are willing to except that all or nothing risk. Especially during these days, if nothing else I see now you navigators are of exceptional bravery and skill."
Usopp tried to take the credit only to be beaten down by Nami. The Knight held out a small silver whistle, "this is the one whistle." He tossed it down to Nami, "it's yours to use as you see fit. Should you find yourselves in danger, you have but to blow it and I will come to your aid. I normally would charge 5million extols but today expect this as my gift to you."
Nami stepped forward, "wait we don't know your name!"
"My name is... Gan Fall and this is my partner Pierre." The weird bird this cried out again.
"Despite appearances Pierre isn't just an ordinary bird," Luna gave them a look, "trust me I would never make that mistake."
Ignoring Luna, Gon Fall continued as Pierre changed freaking Luna out more.
"Long ago he ate the Horse-Horse Fruit and gained it's powers."
Luna shivered at the noises Pierre's transformation made as Sanji asked, "what powers?"
"The powers to turn into a horse with wings!"
Nami became excited, "oh a Pegasus!"
"Yes, a Pegasus." They finally saw the bird's transformation to be sorely disappointed.
"Wow... that's... something."
"May luck be with you brave warriors!" With that Gan Fall flew off.
Luna sighed happily those two were gone. While the others discussed where to go next. Luffy suggested calling Gan Fall back but was stopped by Nami and Usopp. Chopper was looking around and spotted what looked to be a waterfall.
"Well that settles it. We go there." Zoro announced defiantly, Luna hummed in agreement.
They made their way over only the be blocked by some stranger looking clouds. Sanji suggested that they were the cloud equivalent to icebergs, as Luffy tried to grab one. When his arm bounced off Luffy became excited, before jumping on it.
"Hey! Look! I'm not sinking! It's all fluffy and bouncy! It's great! You guys got to try it!"
Chopper looked absolutely enthralled before looking back at Luna, remembering her anger about swimming. With a nod Chopper and Usopp both jumped to join Luffy, while the women discussed the logistics behind the cloud.
The three younger members bounced around having fun until Nami asked them to look for a path. Usopp called out to Luffy and they were gone for several minutes. Once Usopp returned he informed the others of the gate he saw.
"A gate?" Nami questioned.
"Yeah a big one. It's under that waterfall thingie." Luffy answered as Luna caught Chopper from his descent.
"So there's a man made structure in the middle of the clouds?" Sanji asked.
"At this point I'm not sure anything up here would surprise me." Robin answered.
They made their way through the clouds to the gate. "Hey, we're here." Nami called out. The name began freaking out Usopp, "what's with the name 'Heaven's Gate' sounds like a place you go when you die."
Luna took this chance to mess with him, "maybe we died coming up and all this is the afterlife."
"DON'T SAY THINGS LIKE THAT!"
As they neared the gate an old woman came out and started taking photos of them.
"Wait look she has wings!" Chopper yelled scared. Luna got a thoughtful look on her face, "I think I've met someone with wings like that."
They sat in silence until Nami called out, "um hello."
"I am Amazon the Heaven's Gate inspector. Sat your business. Sightseeing, war mongering, other?"
"Well I guess it's like sightseeing?" Nami said unsure.
"We want to go to the sky islands." Luffy stated blankly. "They're pass this gate, right?"
Zoro added in, "can we say all of the above?"
Luna stomped on his foot before hissing at him, "don't say that no one wants their home war mongered."
"It makes little difference, but if you wish to proceed you must pay the entrance fee of 1 billion extol a person. That is the law."
As Usopp yelled out, "1 billion?!"
"They're sure crazy about those extols." Sanji added.
"It's got to be a lot a billion anything. It sounds expensive." Chopper commented.
"And 1 billion per person. Which makes 8 billion total."
"Something's fishy. 8 billion to go through a stupid gate. I think the old bag's trying to scam us." Muttered Usopp.
Nami quickly covered Usopp's mouth, "look about the money... what if we don't have it?"
The woman explained it didn't matter and that her only job was to ask their intentions.
"So the eight of you then?" She asked.
"Yeah..." Luffy replied. "But we still need to know how to get there."
Just as he finished two large claws broke through the surface of the clouds and grabbed onto the Merry's 'wings.'
"WHAT THE HECK IS THAT?!"
"The white sea's famous... express lobster."
With that the lobster was off, going fast up the waterfall.