"Robin!" Nami, who was flying in the sky, suddenly rushed down when Robin appeared on the deck of Black Pearl. "Where are Sin, Bonney, and Kuina?"
"Warlord Summit. They will be back tomorrow or the day after"
"Why tomorrow?" She cutely tilted her head.
"Sin set an appointment with Mihawk for a duel. We don't know how long it will last, and they also want to spend some time on Sabaody Archipelago and explore the place."
"Not fair!"
"Heh..." the Younger Black gently patted her head. "Let's go and explore the last part of the island today."
"It's all the same." She grumpily said.
They had ven the last last days exploring the other parts of the island as well, and now, only the last section remained.
Nami was right, however, and all three parts had been exactly the same, egen is terms of fauna.
They had not come across anything new.
"Maybe we will find some clues about this strange tower there."
"We won't." She confidently shook her head, but then sighed and smiled. "Let's go! I will draw a map of this island, so, I need to explore it."
"Oh, I thought you were not interested."
"Come on..." she grabbed her hand and lifted her up in the air, flying in the direction where the rest of the crew was. "Why did wake up so late?" She suddenly asked, and all slightly blush crept on the Black's face.
"I could not sleep last night."
"Why?" She frowned.
"I was busy."
"Studying?"
"Yes..."
Nami understandingly nodded her head and then beamed a smile when she saw Vivi flying on top of large eagle, whom Yamato had subdued.
Once they all gathered up, they started their expedition, spreading out in groups of two to explore the place.
Nami stayed in the sky, keeping a close eye on all the place and also their ship, but her focus remained on memorising the details of the Island.
At noon, she rushed to the ship and picked up her Drawing Pad and Sketching Pencils, looking herself to her work.
When the crew gathered up again in the evening, she stayed in the sky, still working, and it was only after the dinner was ready that she came down.
"Hehe..." She happily showed the map to Robin, who was genuinely surprised at the detail and beauty of it.
However, soon her eyes narrowed, and Nami curiously looked at her.
"Is it not good?"
"It's perfect." She lightly said, and pulled a Light Orb close to take an even better look at the details.
Yamato quickly stood up and came over as well, and a few seconds after looking at the map, her eyes too widened.
"What?" Nami frowned and took another look at the lap, and only after Ribin pointed at the lakes and the hill formations on each section of the islands did the Orangehead find the anomaly. "It's..."
"Too symmetrical to he naturally. The entire island is not natural. At least, it did not came into existence by natural means." Yamato said.
"Or someone modified it at some point in time," added Robin.
She then stood up, and soon everyone gathered around her.
"We are going to explore these points tomorrow." She pointed at the edged of the tear-drop lakes on each part of the island. "The hill formations, the layout of the lake itself, and even the tall trees are all pinpointing these locations in the island. If we pay attention, we will see that these arrow stones clearly points towards the lake, but they are now covered by vines and moss, so, we ignored them, thinking they were all natural...." she explained everything in detail, and all of then now only had one question on their minds.
"What are we looking for, Captain?" Gad asked, frowning a little.
"Entrances."
"To where?" Ain raised her brow.
"To the world under the seabed." Yamato grinned, and all of them, except for Robin, looked at her in disbelief.
"What?!!"
"Hehe..."
None of them could sleep that night die to sheer excitement and their curiosities. A few slept late, and Robin allowed them sleep until late in the morning.
After a breakfast, where all of them pretended to remain very calm, they rushed off towards the point that Robin had shown them yesterday.
It was the piece of elevated flat land at the edge of the teardrop lake, and she quickly placed her hands on the ground, freezing it.
Once she froze a section, she hooked her fingers in and pulled out the frozen pieces of land, and sure enough, there was a strange metallic trapdoor hidden underneath, about eight metres deep, a couple of metres higher than the lake.
Seeing the trapdoor, all of their hearts started racing in excitement, and they waited with baited breaths as Robin inspected it.
"What's written on it?" Nami could not contain her curiosity and asked.
"I am not sure. It's a language I have never seen before. But it seems like it says Gateway 3."
"How do we open it?"
"Before opening it, we need to get rid of the pressure inside it." She said as she asked them to step away, and they all obediently stepped back.
Robin then used all her strength to slide away the covered from two holes inside the gate, and instantly, a strong torrent of cold air, strong enough to blast away the human body, shot out.
She managed to get away in time, and the crew had to watch the cold pillar of air reaching high up into the sky for a good hour before Robin told them that they needed to open all four gates to make the process faster.
Leaving Bart and Augur behind, they rushed out to other three locations, and an hour later, four pillars of pressurised air were shooting out.
As the process kept taking longer and longer, they started to get worried, but by sunset, things had started to calm down.
Robin closed down the holes on three of the Gates and hit them again. Only one was left open, and they decided to go down tomorrow morning.
Next day, they all woke up early and excitedly had their breakfast, and then they rushed to Gate 3.
Robin pressed the central part of the gate in, and soon they heard a mechanism where the gate started to open, revealing a passageway with a radius of about two metres. Just big beight for even Bart to drop down.
"What could be down there?" Vivi nervously asked as she stared into the abyss.
"Only one way to find out." Yamato grinned, not in the least worried.
"Augur, Vigaro, stay here. Wait for Sin, Bonney, and Kuina to return."
"Aye, Captain." The Sniper acknowledged her command, and the Wyvern nodded his head as well.
Robin picked up Vivi in his arms, and then signalled to Lily, who turned three feet tall, grabbed Hit, who creates a large Orb of Light inside the abyss, and the Giantess jumped in, pushing the Orb of Light down with her.
Once their bodies started gaining momentum, she started to finally grow anxious about their landing, and so, she pushed her Observation Haki to its limits.
Lily kept free-falling with Hit for minutes before she finally saw some light and an opening, and she anxiously statted kicking the air, using Geppo to slow down her fall.
She heaved a sight of relief when she landed on something soft, as light as a feather, and was stunned as she looked around the beautiful chamber.
When she heard the shout from above, she quickly stepped away.
"It's safe to land!!!!" And she screamed, letting others know about it.
Half a minutes later, Robin, carrying Vivi, appeared from the tunnel, but she did not land on the landing pad and jumped next to where Lily was standing with Hit on her shoulders.
One by one, the rest came in, and Yamato, who was hugging Nojiko, playfully landed on the landing pad, that immediately stretched a little.
It almost had a vacuum effect the more it stretch, so when they were shot up, they did not get propelled back into the passage but were easily able to maneuver themselves to the side.
The highlight so far was Bart's fearful scream as he landed on the pad, and all of them laughed out loud, having never heard him sound so scared and girly before.
But they did not tease him about it.
All their eyes were soon hooked on the Icy Chamber, which was massive, enough to house a dozen giants, and then there was a large crystalline door, which attracted all their attention.
As Robin walked towards it, they all quickly followed her, and Yamato and Lily pushed the door open, revealing a scene behind it that they would forever remember in their lives.
Bepo dropped to his knees in shock, staring at the beautiful crystalline hallways, seemingly made out of the finest of emeralds, and his body started shaking in at the realisation that hit him.
"Have we found the..."
"Emerald City..." Robin finished his words, and only Nami and Vivi's excited cries helped them break out of the trance.