Chapter 29:

Usopp was running up the path from the shore of Pyke up towards the castles at the top of the cliff. He had his bow on his back and a quiver full of normal arrows. The inside of the ship got ransacked and it looked like some of the pirates who were in there actually escaped with some of their stuff. There was still a barrel of gunpowder in the storage room which the sniper was happy about. The enemies probably had no idea what the powder was and only tipped the barrel over.

He hadn't gotten around to making new arrows yet though. He'd been busy watching the coast with Sanji and taking out any straggler Ironborn ships that were heading back to their home. They'd been able to take a few down on their own, but he just saw twelve ships, two of them badly damaged, coming over the horizon back towards the Iron Islands. The men back in the Bay must have woken up to see their target gone and their commander missing, they were heading back home.

The man with the long nose ran all the way up to the first castle that was on the mainland of the island. It had holes all over it and looked more like ruins than an inhabited castle now, but it was still standing. Usopp sprinted in the door and Zoro and Robin were walking towards it from inside at that moment. "Help," the bowman said through staggered breaths and pointed down at shore. There would be at least a thousand men on those ships, probably more than three thousand since all the men on the broken ships would have had to pile into the working ones.

After the sniper quickly explained the situation, the other two nodded and jogged off down the path to the beach. Stupid swirly cook, Zoro thought as he imagined why Sanji wasn't able to beat them all himself. The blonde man's broken ribs were not very severe compared to some of the others' wounds, but they were still bad. He tried to hide it, but it was obvious he was wincing with every step.

Usopp watched the two of them run back down the path that he just sprinted all the way on an uphill slant. "Ee ah, ee, ah," he breathed deeply and waved his right hand after them, "yeah, you go on ahead."

So far none of them had gotten a moment's rest since the end of the battle, unless they counted the short time that a few of them were knocked unconscious by Luffy's weird power. Only the captain, and the youngest member of the crew were able to sleep.

The fourteen year old warg was currently in an empty room in the castle that Zoro hadn't completely destroyed. The enemies had completely destroyed the medical bay on the Sunny, so the doctor moved whatever working equipment he had up in the castle for now. Chopper was sitting next to Nami who had a needle sticking out of her arm. There was a tube running from her arm into Bran's, and Chopper was glad the boy's blood type matched one of theirs.

"Are you feeling alright Nami?" Chopper asked and the orange haired woman nodded. "Good, just tell me if you start feeling dizzy and I'll take it out."

"No," the woman said and shook her head at the reindeer. "Tell me when Bran's had enough, then take it out." She closed her eyes and tilted her head back. I'm not losing another nakama today. The woman's eyes were closed, but she was thinking about when she brought a few fish out to the wolves during dinner a few nights ago.

She remembered dropping one in front of Summer and petting his head while he ate it, but when she gave the one to Ghost, she stared at the large fully white wolf a little nervously, not knowing it as well as she knew the one with the gold coat. Ghost had looked up at her and the two of them made eye contact, then it leaned up and turned so that his large head brushed up against Nami's right side where her hand was down at her waist level. The woman laughed and started scratching his head like she was Summer's before, then the first wolf got up and brushed against her other hand. She wound up sitting between them and scratching both of their heads while they sat there eating fish happily.

Nami opened back up her eyes with a smile on her face and it slowly faded with the memory. Ghost was dead now. It was sad, but it was reality. She spent a few more minutes there in silence before her doctor started talking again. "Alright Nami," Chopper told her as he examined Bran closely. "I'm going to take out the IV."

"What? But you said it would take at least..."

"I know," the reindeer said softly. "But I forgot, there's not as much of- the blood doesn't need to-" Chopper was staring at the top of Bran's right leg. "I didn't account for the fact that his blood doesn't need to distribute to his right leg." The little reindeer did some surgery on the leg, but the boy cauterized it pretty well using his magic.

Chopper took out Nami's IV and at the same time, Gendry reached the door and he knocked on it a few times with his left hand. Chopper looked up at the man at the door and Gendry pulled his right arm out from behind his back. His arm didn't have a sleeve on it and his skin looked red with a large gash in the middle of his forearm. His whole arm was covered in dried blood and it was still wet near the gash. "Ahh! Why didn't you say anything sooner?!" the doctor exclaimed and turned into Heavy Point, wincing as he did. He walked over and reached for Gendry, but the man no longer wearing his armor took a step back.

"I came because Franky said you were done with him, and I thought Bran might have been finished too," the nineteen year old said. Before Chopper could tell him that Bran was stable for now, he held up his left hand again and pointed it at Chopper's fur. Now that the reindeer was in Heavy Point, his wounds that he received in this form were a lot more obvious.

Nami gasped and grabbed Chopper by his hand, pulling him back onto the bed that she was sitting on. "Baka," she told him as he tried fighting her and she bonked him on the head, "you're a doctor, you should know how serious these are."

"But, but," Chopper lay back on the bed and stared up at the ceiling with tears in his eyes. "But I failed my nakama," he cried out and tears started pouring down his face as Nami started to wrap him in bandages bandages and called Gendry over to her to help with the beaten up reindeer. "Everyone was hurt, but I wasn't there to help. I was too weak," he clenched his right fist and slammed it down on the bed he was lying on.

"Crying about it won't change anything," Gendry told the furry guy as he wrapped a white bandage around Chopper's left shin where he got stabbed by someone. Nami was about to scold the man for being mean, but Gendry was smiling and stood up after taping the gauze down. "Instead you have to train harder, and next time prove that you're the strong one. Got it?"

Chopper sniffled and wiped his eyes. "Got it," he said and made his face serious as he sat there. "Ouch!" he yelped in a high voice as Nami poured some hydrogen peroxide on his more serious wounds.

"Stop being a baby. You know you can't let these get infected," she scolded him. Gendry started laughing and looked out the window while he waited for his turn. He could handle the pain in his arm for now and didn't think he was in serious danger. The man looked out at a man at the foot of the castle, building a large structure made of wood.

Franky offered to help Jon, but Jon turned him away and said he had to do this himself. He was all alone outside as he dragged pieces of houses from Zoro's carnage up to the foot of the magnificent castle. He was building it on the edge of the cliff, so the ash would fly out over the water afterwards.

Jon continued to build it from the moment he got off the Thousand Sunny, through the rest of the day spent on the island of Pyke. He passed by Zoro, Usopp, Robin, and Sanji many times while they patrolled the island and stopped any Ironborn ships from docking here. There were other inhabited islands around them full of loyal Greyjoy men, but it was clear most of their navy was defeated in Ironman's Bay.

His sister came outside at one point and she watched as he lifted up another large wooden plank and rested it across the top of the pyre. "Jon, I could..."

"No," the man said harshly and turned to face her, taking a small break from picking up logs. He was already exhausted from the battle, but this was taking everything he had left out of him. His sister looked a little hurt at his words and he continued looking at her. "'You will train them yourselves, you will feed them yourselves, and if they die, you will bury them yourselves.' That's what father said when he permitted us to keep the wolves as pets."

Arya wasn't there during that time but Bran, Jon, and Robb were. They got the first pick of wolves, but she was happy with the one she got anyway. She nodded as she could imagine her father saying something like that. "Okay then," she turned and walked away, trying not to feel hurt that he didn't want her help. She stopped and looked back one more time, "Hey Jon," her brother turned and she looked at him questioningly, "why are you burning him?"

"Because," Jon said and thought of all his black brothers from the Night's Watch who he burned. It had become a ritual more than just to make sure they didn't come back from the dead. He continued, "This is the way I think he'd want it." He remembered his wolf growling at almost everyone at the Wall and scaring them, but there were a few who accepted his wolf and Ghost accepted them back. Jon knew that Ghost knew who Pyp, Grenn, and Jeor Mormont were, and he wanted to burn his wolf the same way he burned the others closest to him. At least there's still Sam, he knew out of everyone at the Wall, at least Sam didn't betray him and he was glad he sent the fat guy away from Castle Black to the Citadel.

He'd want it huh? Arya nodded and turned back around. She stared off into the distance as she walked around the side of the castle. I could have sworn I heard her. Nymeria, was that really you?


"It's starting outside," Robin peeked her head into the makeshift infirmary and told Usopp.

The sniper was sitting between two beds on either side of him and he nodded. "They're out cold, I don't think either of them will be able to..." Usopp stopped talking as he saw movement on either side of him. He turned to his left and saw his captain wrapped in bandages from head to toe, standing up and walking past towards the door. Bran looked at Usopp and despite his condition, Usopp couldn't deny the kid with the look on Bran's face.

Usopp lifted up Bran and put him over his shoulders. The boy weighed very little, less so now with the stub of a right leg. Also, Usopp was getting a little more muscular and he didn't find it as hard to carry the kid out the door and follow Robin and Luffy down the hallway to the stairs. They started walking down the stairs and the small child with black hair that now fell back down to his neck lowered his gaze to the floor.

Bran's chest hurt, not from the battle, but from the guilt. I hurt my comrades. I made Luffy push himself too far, I broke Sanji's ribs, I could have killed them all. And... and I dodged. This time he felt tears at the corners of his eyes and he shook his head, trying not to think about it and rubbing his eyes with one arm. In the battle, he made Summer dodge a flurry of arrows, and they slammed into the now-dead wolf they were going outside to burn, so in a way, it was his fault.

When they got outside, everyone else was already in a semicircle around a portion of the cliff that had a large funeral pyre on it. The four of them ignored the group of flustered Iron Islanders outside the front of the castle who were trying to figure out what was going on and scattered when they saw the powerful people leaving the hole where the front doors used to be. They walked over to the semicircle and closed it in so that there was only one opening left.

This was the only part that Jon accepted help with, and he was walking up the path with his wolf's head in his hands. Zoro was underneath the bosy holding up most of the weight, but he made sure to ease up a little so that Jon could be doing some of the work, knowing what it meant to the man. The two of them carried up Ghost's corpse from the ship and they walked the whole path while receiving terrified and confused looks from all over the path.

Most Iron Islanders knew by this point that a man with green hair ravaged their island and was now held up in the castle, but no one had gone to fight him after seeing what he did to the town and castle at the top of the cliff. They cowered away as Jon and Zoro walked past, and the men had a clear path all the way up to the cliff.

They arrived and carried Ghost between Nami and Chopper who watched them walk by slowly. Each of them looked at Ghost with pained hearts and the others were feeling the same way as the two men carried the fully white direwolf to the pyre and rested him on top. Jon nodded at Zoro who nodded back and then took the place in the semicircle that was left open for the two of them to walk through.

Jon reached down and grabbed the already lit torch sticking out of the ground, lighting up the dimly lit area as the sun was almost fully set at this point. He waited this long so that it could be dark when he lit the fire. The sun was all the way on the horizon off the Iron Islands and Jon took a deep breath as the last bit of it began dipping beneath the horizon line.

The curly haired man lifted up the torch and held it in his right hand as he dipped it towards the pyre. When it was only a foot away from the straw he had down to catch the rest of the wood, he paused. "His name was Ghost." Everyone looked over at him and they weren't expecting him to speak at this after the way he'd been keeping quiet most of the day. "He came to me in a forest outside of Winterfell. A direwolf of the North, and though it was never official, a brother of the Night's Watch. No friend was more loyal. I went beyond the Wall, and he followed. I became the Lord Commander, and he was always by my side. The blood of the North ran through his veins, but now his blood has run cold. And now his watch has ended." Jon lit the pyre and the fire spread fast from some straw to the next and covered the entire bottom of the pyre, slowly catching the wood and making the entire thing an inferno.

Everyone watched in silence as the flames rose higher and finally they couldn't see the wolf inside it anymore. Jon stood only a few feet away from the flames, staring straight into the inferno that blazed around him. He didn't move back to the semicircle, but the people in the circle could feel the heat radiating off the fire from back where they were standing, the fact that Jon was over there confused them.

The man took another step towards the flames and they didn't feel that hot to him. It was something he thought was weird for most of his life, and he just stared at his wolf through the roaring flames. Goodbye Ghost.

Robin was staring at Jon curiously, one of the only people not too occupied with mourning Ghost that she didn't notice how close to the flames he was standing.

Nami had tears in her eyes and she sniffled, but she couldn't hold them back. I should have known we were sailing into a trap. She felt an arm wrap around her from her right side and she recognized the touch of the person it belonged to. She snapped her head away from the flames and buried her face in Usopp's shoulder as the sniper continued to stare at the pyre.

Sanji wanted to be the one Nami was crying on, but his eyes darted back to the fire and he couldn't focus on the navigator right now. He saw a woman get executed right in front of him, Arya killed her, but the thought had barely crossed his mind at all. What he did think about all afternoon, while ignoring his own injuries, was how he let Ghost die. He could tell that Bran thought it was his own fault because he was there, but the chef was there too. I was too worried about that woman, our enemy. I gave my life up to her, and it was pointless as Arya killed her anyway! If I had just, turned around sooner. If I wasn't staring out over the Bay like my own problems were more important than my crew's. I could have protected the Sunny from those arrows, I could have stopped them from hitting Ghost.

The chef cursed himself and was grinding his teeth together angrily. He didn't notice his captain and the green haired swordsman doing the same thing on different sides of him.

Luffy and Zoro both knew what they did. The two of them were the strongest, yet they ran off at the start of the battle to fight as many enemies as they could. It was almost a competition between the two of them who could destroy more enemy ships or defeat more of their enemies' men, but their comrades were hurt while they were doing this. They trusted their nakama to stay safe, but what if that was the wrong call? Not everyone is as strong as me, I can't expect them to be. Ace was strong, and he... he died. I have to protect my nakama.

Arya needs to become stronger fast, Zoro thought and stared at the girl on the edge of the cliff. She was staring at the fire, then her head lifted and turned out over the water, staring into the distance as the sky got darker and darker without a sun lighting it. Zoro watched as she lifted her left hand and stared at it, inner turmoil racking her. She has to learn to control her power too.


"Cersei listen to me," Jaime followed his sister into the next room but the blonde haired queen wouldn't turn around. She kept storming through the Red Keep with the wrath of God spread on her face. Already, ten guards had been killed for looking at her funny so anyone they passed in the whole castle looked away.

"They're all going to pay," Cersei snarled with bared teeth. It had been a week since she received the letter, and then her brother Jaime returned from Dorne. He returned with a body in his ship, the body of the person she loved most in this world. She had just returned from the great hall where the maesters were preparing her daughter's remains.

Myrcella was poisoned by the Sand Snakes right as she was finally about to leave Dorne with her betrothed Tristane. Cersei hated that boy so much and he was locked up down in the dungeons right now. The young man was so torn up by Myrcella's death that it was hard to look at the southern pig. He disgusted her, him and his entire race.

The Dornish in King's Landing were being rounded up and put in cages by guards. Tommen had come out of his room for the first time in weeks to see his sister's dead body and it only served to push him farther into his depressed state. Cersei's Uncle Kevan scolded the King for crying, but Tommen couldn't help himself. The boy King was weak, and Cersei knew it. She loved him so much, but he didn't come to visit her while she was captured by the High Sparrow and his religious freaks. He left her in there to rot and she could only hold onto the fact that one of her children was still an angel in her eyes. But now Myrcella was dead.

"Please Cersei, you need to mourn," Jaime tried grabbing her by the arm but she shook him off her and spun, glaring him dead in the eyes.

"You let our daughter die," she snarled in a vicious tone. They were alone in a room but Jaime still darted his eyes back and forth to make sure no one heard her say 'our' daughter. Incest was still a crime, even if Cersei was the one making the laws.

Jaime looked so pained by her words, but she couldn't care less about how he felt at the moment. The blonde man grabbed her though, this time with his real hand and he held her shoulder from behind. She was still turned away from him, but they were alone and he started whispering. "Before she- I was talking to her when she," he stopped and could never think of a time in his life where he'd ever been at such a loss for words. "She died in my arms," Jaime whispered and Cersei turned around, seeing her brother's arms shaking as water gathered in his eyes, threatening to fall as tears.

He looked straight into her eyes and continued, "The last thing she said though, was how she was glad. She was glad that I was her father and not that pig Robert."

"You told her?!" Cersei exclaimed in shock.

"She already knew," Jaime responded with a small shake of his head. "She was always a smart girl, we should have known she'd find out." Cersei almost cracked a smile at that and she wished so much that her daughter was still alive right now. "But those Sand Snakes," now a look of fury appeared on her brother's face that made her own anger look pale in comparison. He was thinking about those bitches back in Sunspear who he fought, who he knew hated his family, who he shouldn't have let near her!

"I'm going to kill every last one of them," the blonde man growled and bared his teeth. Cersei one hundred percent agreed with that idea, but they would need to be smart if they were going to war with the Dornish.

The sister stared at her brother for a few seconds longer and then decided their enemies weren't each other. She couldn't forgive him just yet, but they needed to focus on the Dornish, and the Faith. The High Sparrow locked her up and had her beaten, starved, and marched through the city naked while the common folk mocked and destroyed her reputation.

Her hate at the entire world had never been higher. "Come with me," she said and looked back away from her brother/lover. She walked in a much more calm manner this time and as she walked out the next door, a man was waiting for her and starting walking at her right as Jaime followed behind them, confused at who this man was.

"Forget the Faith for now," Cersei told her advisor who nodded, accepting her wishes whenever he was told. "The Dornish killed my daughter, now I want them dead."

"As you wish your majesty," the man in a black cloak replied and kept walking.

Cersei started talking while she walked to fill in her clueless brother. "My spies are everywhere in Westeros," the woman started and her brother already knew this. "Perhaps if one or two of them told me, I would think they were both crazy, but there were far too many rumors to believe them to be just rumors." Now Jaime was intrigued and he followed her down another hallway and into a door that led to a spiral staircase downstairs into a lower floor. "Magic fruits, with magical properties. Eat one and you'll obtain unimaginable powers."

"And you have one?" Jaime asked, to which his sister didn't reply. "Give it to me," he stated in a cold voice, stopping his movement and the two in front of him paused too.

Cersei chuckled and turned back around to look up the stairs at her brother. She shook her head at him with a sarcastic smile, "Even if someone hadn't already eaten it, I wouldn't give it to you. You're half the man you used to be. I have no doubt you want your revenge, but we made a much better choice."

They kept walking down the stairs and Qyburn opened up the door for Cersei to walk through. "The Mountain is alive," she stated and Jaime was surprised; last he'd heard Clegane was poisoned and heading for his deathbed.

The man who was walking with Cersei continued, "The modifications I made on him, made him even stronger than he was before. He could decapitate a horse in one swing, but he was much, much stronger than that when I was finished with him. He also only obeys the Queen's commands." Jaime couldn't imagine someone that powerful, but the little man in black wasn't finished talking and he kept going in an excited tone, "We gave him the fruit."

"And?" Jaime asked as he walked out of the staircase and into the next room as well. It was a dark hallway leading to the dungeons, and the Mountain was waiting there for them, wearing a gold cloak. "Did it work?"

"Oh yes," Qyburn said and Cersei looked at her advisor wondering what had happened. She heard about them getting the fruit the same time she heard about her daughter, so she left Qyburn to the experimental work on their favorite test subject. "It worked very well."

"Ser Gregor Clegane," Cersei was tired of waiting and she walked right up to the front of the massive man mountain. "I have an order for you," she waited for a response, but all she heard was heavy breathing from inside the helmet.

The Queen's voice was laced with malice and her and her brother were so angry right now they didn't care about the rest of Westeros. All they cared about was their daughter, and getting revenge for her. Cersei stared her servant straight in the eyes and said, "Kill the Dornish. Every last man, woman, and child. Make them pay for what they've done," Cersei was panting hard and she watched as Gregor turned around and started walking away from her.

Jaime and Qyburn were surprised by the order, but more so that the Mountain was seemingly ignoring her and walking away. "What are you doing?!" Cersei shouted furiously, not expecting that to go so wrong.

The Mountain stopped at the sound of a question from the Queen and he turned back around to face her. In a low voice that didn't even sound human, they heard him speak, "There's a Dornish boy down here." He turned back around and took another step before facing the stone wall on his right.

"What is he..." Jaime started and then dropped his jaw as the Mountain punched the wall and it blasted apart making a huge hole into the individual dungeon room beside it.

"Who are you?!" a freaked out teenager's voice shouted from inside the room.

Qyburn, Jaime, and Cersei all walked up to the hole in the wall and stared inside as the Mountain slaughtered the Prince of Dorne. Tristane screamed in horror as the Mountain lifted him above his head and pulled in either direction, ripping him in half. Blood even got on the spectators, but Cersei didn't care, she was smiling too wide and started laughing as she imagined the Sand Snakes meeting their deaths the same way. "Good! Kill them! Kill them all!"

A/N Hey everyone! Hope you enjoyed the last chapter of the Iron Islands arc, and are ready for the next arc of excitement for our crew! Next chapter we set sail again, and who knows where the crew will head next, and who may join them? What Devil Fruit did Qyburn give the Mountain? How strong is he now after already being modified by the mad scientist?! Find out soon! Haha, alright, so I'm going to my first formal for this spring this weekend, just wanted to get this chapter up before I left. Hope you're enjoying the story so far and leave me a review below telling me any comments/predictions you may have. Well, 'till next time!