The Big Top had just landed on the cloud sea, but it had already started falling.
Not fast, but fast enough that everyone aboard knew exactly how bad it would be if the ship didn't stop.
The white ocean below, if one could even call it that, billowed upward like a vast, endless cushion of mist.
"Float Dials!" Buggy shouted, voice cracking through the chaos like a whip. His limbs shot outward, detaching from his body in a flurry of painted hands and boots. "We need float dials on every inch of the hull, now!"
Cabaji blinked, gripping the rail. "We have those?!"
"Of course we have those! You sorted them, you ingrate!" Buggy snapped back.
He shot downward, his scattered limbs carrying clusters of shimmering dials salvaged long ago from the Sky Tribe ruins they'd found on that nameless Calm Belt island.
Meanwhile, his lower body immediately jumped to hold up the ship, placing even the slightest bit of additional support to prevent their heavy repurposed marine ship from just falling to the lower seas.
Dials were Buggy's prized treasures, mysterious spheres that could hold and emit air pressure. Now, they were the only thing standing between his crew and an early grave.
"Stick 'em to the keel, the stern, the rudder, anywhere it floats!" Buggy barked. "Robin! You too, dollface! I need twenty arms working overtime!"
Robin didn't even sigh—she simply placed her book aside, rolled up her sleeves, and with a soft "Clutch," sprouted a garden of arms along the ship's edge. Each one grabbed a dial from Buggy's scattered limbs and pressed it firmly to the hull with practiced precision.
The dials began to hum, glowing faintly as they absorbed and released compressed air. The ship's fall slowed, first a little, then it just stopped, the Sea of Clouds finally able to support the ship's weight.
Cabaji whooped, "It worked!"
"Of course it did!" Buggy yelled back, his floating head glaring as his hands clamped a final dial into place. "You think a clown who split a palace in half would die because of altitude problems? I have standards!"
Robin, effortlessly calm amid the chaos, gave a small smile. "A rather creative solution, Captain. You're quite the improviser."
"Improviser?" Buggy huffed, limbs snapping back into place. "Try humble genius! But I forgive you, since you've got a pretty face. Watch it though, you only get so many passes."
At last, the Big Top had steadied. The ship no longer fell; it floated. The thick, white sea beneath it held their weight, undulating gently as though made of dense fog. The crew slowly peeked over the railings, the fear in their eyes replaced by disbelief.
"...We're alive?" Mohji murmured.
"For now," Buggy said, dusting off his coat and grinning wide. "Welcome, my beautiful idiots, to the heavens themselves. Behold, the White Sea!"
The stolen Marine ship drifted over the cloud ocean, its hull reinforced by the humming of Float Dials. The sails caught gentle winds that didn't belong to the Blue Sea below, and the world around them stretched out in blinding white.
The air was cleaner, colder, and thinner. Within an hour, the crew's laughter turned into labored breathing.
Mohji slumped against the mast, gasping. "Captain… feels like I'm breathing through a straw…"
Even Buggy had to admit, his chest felt tight. Every movement took more effort; his floating limbs hung sluggish in the air. "...Right," he muttered, resting one hand against the railing. "Forgot about the whole less oxygen up here thing."
Robin's calm voice carried over the deck. "Altitude sickness. The air pressure and oxygen concentration decrease the higher we go. It's only natural you all feel weaker."
Buggy groaned. "Fantastic. Even the air wants to murder me. Just goes to show how important I am~ The world itself's trying to kill me and failing!"
"I think we should be able to just adapt to this..." Robin replied, studying the horizon with fascination. "But… this is extraordinary. To think an entire sea exists above the Grand Line…"
"Two seas," Buggy corrected, regaining his grin as he propped one boot on the railing. "This is the White Sea. And up there" -he pointed skyward "-is the White-White Sea. Sky Islands float above that. Little pieces of paradise, drifting where no sane man should go."
Her eyes flicked toward him, intrigued. "You sound rather well-informed for someone who calls himself a clown."
He winked. "A proper showman is an educated one. I can entertain scholars, pirates, and morons alike. If my audience happens to be a bunch of dusty archaeologists, I'll make sure to stimulate their bookworm brains too."
Robin chuckled softly, sipping her tea. "You may be one of the strangest pirates I've ever met."
Buggy bowed with theatrical flourish. "Strange? My dear, strange is the baseline in this world~"
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As hours passed, the Big Top slowly acclimated to its bizarre new ocean. The Float Dials hissed occasionally, maintaining buoyancy. The crew, breathing heavily but alive—wandered the deck in awe.
Cabaji leaned over the edge, poking at the cloud-sea with a pole. "Feels… solid."
"Sea Cloud," Buggy explained. "Formed when ocean water gets blasted up by Knock-Up Streams, same thing that shot us up here in the first place. It all mixes with high-density air, and becomes this. A stage big enough for any fool to die on."
Mohji peered down nervously. "So if we fall through…"
"Then we plummet back down to the real ocean," Buggy finished helpfully. "You'd all probably splatter like a bad joke. Then I'd likely tire myself out trying to fly to the next island and drown on the way."
"Comforting," Robin murmured.
Not long after, a shadow passed across the ship. Something massive moved above them, a bird, or something like one, with wings that blotted out the sun.
"Gah! Sky monster!" Mohji yelped.
Robin tilted her head, utterly calm. "A large avian. Adapted to the thinner atmosphere. Fascinating."
Buggy flailed an arm toward her. "Less fascinating, more-so ugly. Can't believe a species so horrid would ever feel the need to reproduce..."
The creature seemed to almost fall out of the sky as Buggy said that, but it kept flying.
"... Should you really be saying that with... Well..." Robin blinked a few times, a hand moving up to cover her mouth.
Buggy wasn't even bothered by her words. "I'll have you know, my red nose is a unique clown gene that many ladies, preferably big-titted mermaids, will seek in the future!"
The silence that followed didn't last.
Far off, through the haze of white, something darker loomed, an outline that didn't belong to the clouds.
Another ship.
It was smaller than the 'Big Top', sleek and reinforced with cloud-pads beneath the hull that shimmered faintly with dials. Figures moved along its deck—dozens of them.
At their front stood a man.
Tall, broad, with muscles that could shame a Sea King, and wings folded neatly behind him. His grin was sharp, his eyes bright.
Robin's brow furrowed. "A Sky Islander…?"
Buggy squinted. and recognition struck him like lightning.
"Oh, hell. We got sky pirates over here."
It was Urouge.
The Mad Monk himself, though not yet infamous, still very much the bruiser Buggy knew from memory.
Urouge tilted his head, eyes narrowing at the sight of a Marine ship painted up like a circus tent. "What in the heavens…?"
He gave a booming laugh that echoed across the clouds. "Either the sky's gone mad, or that's the prettiest Marine ship I've ever seen!"
One of his men pointed. "Boss! That flag, it's the Bloody Jester!"
Recognition flickered, followed by excitement.
"Hoh…" Urouge's grin widened. "The clown who took down a Warlord. The seas below have been whispering your name, Jester. What better way to announce our arrival to the world than to crush you here?"
Buggy exhaled loudly. "Oh, for fuck's sake. The sky's barely stopped trying to kill me, and now a monk wants to pick a fight?"
Robin folded her arms, smirking faintly. "Perhaps he's just seeking… enlightenment through violence."
Buggy shot her a sideways look. "Maybe I'll find some when I'm knee-deep in his ass; I'll gladly feed some to him... "
As Urouge's ships closed in, his men began to leap forward, carried by skyboards and tiny jets of compressed air.
Buggy's grin returned, stretching wide across his painted face. "Well, boys… looks like the heavens want an encore!"
Cabaji drew his sword, still breathing hard from the altitude but grinning nonetheless. "Captain's orders?"
Buggy tossed a gleaming sphere into the air, a Buggy Ball, fuse unlit but ready. "Hmm… let's see…"
He tapped his chin thoughtfully as Urouge's laughter thundered closer.
"Do I just blow them to smithereens with these little beauties and run the risk of scattering the sea clouds around us...?"
He caught the orb, spinning it on one fingertip.
"Or do we treat this as some hands-on training?"
The crew waited, silent and tense. Even Robin's eyes glimmered with anticipation.
Buggy's grin turned razor-sharp. "Either way…" He snapped his fingers, and his hands split from his wrists, fingers pointing toward the incoming enemies.
"…the curtain's up, and the circus is open for business!"
The Big Top, afloat on the White Sea, roared to life, its guns swiveling, sails snapping, and laughter echoing into the clouds.
Far above the Grand Line, the show was about to begin anew.