Chapter 10

Both boats were sent flying thousands of feet in the air by the Knock-Up Stream and kept going higher after they reached the summit of the Stream by riding the water pressure. They hung suspended in the air for a long moment, the feeling of weightlessness both frightening and exhilarating.

He and Rouge were cackling in glee as the boats began to fall, their feet leaving the deck and the only thing keeping them on the boat was their grips on the railing. Rouge's three crewmembers were clinging to the mast and screaming their heads off. The vessels came to a jarring stop far sooner than they would have if they'd fallen back down to the ocean...the aquatic ocean, that is.

Marshall's boots landed back on the deck with heavy thuds as he admired the sight of the Cloud Sea for the first time. White, water-like clouds as far as the eye could see, a vision even more incredible in real life than it was on the screen. From the delighted gasp beside him, Rouge agreed, and he heard the creak of wood as the three-man crew cautiously let go of the mast and approached the railing. He admired the image of the White Sea for a long time, a peaceful silence descending over the five people.

Eventually he clapped, startling the other four as he stepped away from the railing. "Right, time to get down to business. Navigator, check the rudder. Cook, inspect the sails for any damage. Doctor, make sure there isn't any damage to the hold!" He instructed, the three addressed scrambling to follow instructions as he turned and jumped down to the deck of his own boat, a curious Rouge following. He inspected his vessel from top to bottom, even tying a rope around his waist and diving down into the sea-clouds to check the keel of not just his own boat but Rouge's as well.

Swimming in clouds was odd but fun, and he surfaced with a grin, waving at Rouge as she peered over the side of his boat. He did a backstroke just to show off, laughing along with Rouge as he swam over and pulled himself back onboard. They moved over to Rouge's boat and her crew gathered around to report their findings. He stretched, shaking out his wet hair as he announced, "Okay, good news is that both boat's keels are intact, and so are the rudders. Some minor damage to the hull of Rouge's boat, but nothing that a few boards won't fix and its not near anything vital. My boat has a few rips in the sides of the sail and one bit of railing torn off, but that looks like it. What concerns me is that crack in the mast on your boat, Rouge. If you don't try and make repairs, fast, you're going to have some major problems."

Rouge and her crew looked worried, and that reminded him, "By the way, what are your names again?" He asked the three, who blinked and then shrugged before introducing themselves.

The navigator was a lean, dark-haired man with green eyes and glasses. A little on the shorter side, though it might have just looked like it since Marshall was currently nine foot tall and counting. His name was Cumulos Clyde, but Rouge called him Claus. His main weapons were throwing darts, and he had a talent for reading wind-currents that bordered on precognition. Very handy, that. "I'm also doubling as helmsman," Claus admitted with a grimace, which was fair, considering what a typical New World sea was like.

The cook was a woman, seven foot tall and curvaceous with a pink-and-green mohawk. She had three piercings in her right ear and five in her left and used a frying pan in battle to devastating effect. Her name was Vivilon Jane.

As for the doctor, they were a matronly woman by the name of Frieda. Short and plump, she looked like she wouldn't hurt a fly, but then, appearances could be deceiving. Rouge told him in an aside that the woman could be a holy terror when one of her patients was threatened. Always a good trait in a doctor, he thought.

"We already know who you are," Jane said cheerfully, "Captain talks about you all the time!" She waved a whisk that she'd pulled from who-knows-where for emphasis.

Frieda smiled kindly, agreeing, "It's true. For awhile we honestly thought you and Captain were like that."

He blinked, raising an eyebrow as he looked at a red-faced Rouge. "What exactly did you say about me?" He wondered.

Rouge sputtered in embarrassment.

In the interest of not putting undo strain on Rouge's cracked mast (they hadn't come up with a name for the ship yet, Rouge confessed, but they were working on it) or his own boat's ripped sail, he checked to make sure his boat was still securely tied to the front of Rouge's ship, grabbed the oars and started rowing.

It was a decent warm-up if nothing else, he hummed, oblivious to the way Jane and Frieda gaped at him disbelief as he singlehandedly moved both his and their vessels as he carried on a conversation with a fascinated Claus as he rowed. "I've actually heard about groups of clouds like this," he informed the navigator, "Supposedly there are even islands with people on them floating around up here - oh, and there's Sea Kings," he added as one of the sea monsters burst out of the clouds to their left. Rouge and Jane made quick work of it, the cook gutting and cleaning it in record time.

Then Rouge called down, voice eager, matching him grin for grin as she announced, "Land ho!"

Craning his neck to look behind him, sure enough, a Sky Island loomed. He ceased rowing, letting the current carry them to the shore. Jumping out and dragging his boat onto the sand, he watched as Rouge and crew dropped anchor.

"Now then, what do say we take a look around?" He asked, rubbing his hands together.

Of course, right after he said that was when the spear-wielding natives appeared and captured them.

What followed was an adventure worthy of a certain Strawhat-wearing Monkey.

The Sky Island they landed on was called Olympios, and the natives there had actual working wings. Most of them were a mix of brown, black, gray and white, but Olympios was ruled by a tyrannical King who believed that because his wings were white, that made him 'better' and he had the right to rule. All those with multi-colored wings or 'common' wings were relegated to the servant class, while those who had one-colored wings or 'greater' wings were aristocrats. Of course, the ones with white or 'pure' wings were royalty, and both the king and his children all had white wings.

The tyrant had five kids, three sons and two daughters, and it turned out that the youngest son and eldest daughter were decent enough people, but the rest were exactly like their father aka complete dicks. The eldest daughter was involved in the resistance and the youngest son actually cared about his people so yeah, nice folks.

After they were captured on the beach, they were locked in the castle dungeons on the grounds of being wingless, which was punishable by death on Olympios (of course it was, he groaned), where they then managed to escape and go on the run, generally causing havoc and confusion and maybe inspiring a few people? He wasn't clear on that, he just remembered seeing Rouge talking to one of the king's soldiers but also kind of fighting him as he ran by while pursued by other soldiers. Then he hid out in a storage shed for a few days telling stories to the two Sky Island kids who found him in exchange for food (apparently their mom worked in a bakery).

Then his hiding place was nearly discovered during a 'contraband check' and he was on the run again. He fought no less than nine royal guards, broke into the Treasury to switch the King's Crown with a fake, and set the armory on fire during the Holy Sky Festival which was the Olympiosans most sacred holiday. He then raided the kitchen and waited until the screams of panic and denial faded before he came out. Then found out the tyrant was executed upon the reveal that the crown he was wearing was a fake and the eldest daughter then crowned Queen with the real crown that had been lost for centuries.

Yeah, so it turned out he'd broken into the Treasury and swapped one fake for another because the king had already been wearing a fake crown. Whatever, he got to keep the fakes (they were still made of gold and gems and all that, just without the history) and Rouge got a marksman for her crew. It was that soldier he saw her talking/fighting with, whose name, he was informed, was Minervon. Minervon had black and gray wings, luminous blue eyes, and sleek gray hair. He had an attractive face and was around Jane's height, sleekly muscled and carrying a rifle on his back that he knew how to use, Rouge told him gleefully as she recounted her and her crew's adventures around the island.

She was the one who found the real crown, she boasted, and he pointedly ignored the glares sent his way by the guards he'd pummeled. They hadn't been expecting Moonwalk, he recalled smugly. The story boiled down to the bad guys having been beaten, the good guys winning and already the class system was being disassembled. Oh, and the deceased tyrant's other three kids were sentenced to hard labor as punishment for their actions under the old King.

Anyway, the Olympiosans were so grateful for the help that they gave them all the supplies they needed to repair their ships and basically let them loot the Treasury.

"It's mostly things that father collected," the new Queen shrugged, "We never really understood his obsession with shiny objects..."

He took his share of the treasure and spent the next week going through the markets on the island. He traded some bobcat pelts for what the Olympiosans used as money and pretty much went on a shopping spree. Some things were only made on Sky Islands, and he might have gone a little crazy stocking up on Dials. He stumbled across a new kind of vision dial in the Sky Island version of a curio shop. Very few were ever made, the owner informed him, because of how expensive they were to make compared to regular vision dials. The new version recorded sound as well as moving images in contrast to just taking pictures.

So it was like a video camera, he thought, then shrugged and bought it.