Chapter 18:

Bran twisted and turned, his mind reeling in the midst of the horrifying dream he was having. The wolf curled around him stirred and looked at its master who writhed in his sleep. "No, stop, NO!" The kid's eyes shot open and he flew up on his butt, leaning back against Summer.

The kid was panting so hard he had to grab his chest. He didn't want to close his eyes, and the screams were still ringing in his ears. "A-Arya," the kid whispered and the wolf around him complied. Summer stood up and put his master on his furry back, calmly strutting towards the door.

Ghost awoke and watched them leave, but the white wolf remained where it was. The other wolf left with its owner and carried him down the hall and to the door of the ladies' room. The boy on top of the creature didn't say a word, but he paused at the door and hesitated, thinking about what he just saw.

The kid blinked and the image flashed in his mind again, snapping him away from his hesitation. Bran knew the women's room was off-limits, but he gulped and knocked anyway.

Inside the room, Arya and Robin were awake from the sound of the first knock. The black haired females were standing up at the same time and they glanced at each other, realizing they were both planning the same thing and smiled. Robin sat back down and Arya called out quietly, to hopefully allow Nami to keep sleeping, "Who is it?"

Bran leaned towards his wolf's head so he was closer to the door and he whispered, "It's Bran. Can we talk?"

"It's the middle of the night," Arya began. The girl stopped herself, realizing that if he was willing to come here in the middle of the night, there was probably something really wrong. "Nevermind, come in." She waited for a few seconds and then sprinted to the door and opened it herself. The girl saw her younger brother leaning off Summer, trying to reach the handle from his seat and looked to be straining himself. The sudden opening of the door startled Bran and he fell off towards the door.

The girl inside held out her arms and caught her brother, but he was falling too fast forward and knocked her down. "Oof," the girl gasped as she hit the floor.

"Sorry," Bran apologized. His wolf was still on the other side of the door, as they had not adjusted the girls' room to accommodate for large direwolves. Summer lay there, keeping watch on the room as the girl inside shifted her brother off her and closed the door.

"It's okay, what's up?" she asked as she looked down at him. The cripple boy on the ground was lying on his stomach with his arms propping him up a little and he couldn't think of a time he'd been more embarrassed in front of his sister.

Robin noticed the boy's red face as he looked up at his sister who didn't seem to realize his demeaning position. She shook her head and crossed her arms, creating a web out of hands that sprouted from the boy's back. The two children were amazed and gasped as the hands all merged into large wings and flapped once, lifting Bran off the ground and seating him at her own bed, next to the older woman who finally uncrossed her arms.

"That was amazing," Arya whispered as she walked over and sat on the other side of Bran from where Robin was sitting.

"Thank you," the woman replied with a small smile and a nod, "I can only make it last for five seconds though."

"Still, five seconds is a lot, don't you agree Bran?" Arya asked her brother.

"I will fly." The boy stated with wide eyes and stared straight at Robin. "Was that it?" He realized that the others had no idea what he was talking about and he shook his head, looking down at the bed. It can't be. Would Bloodraven really have built it up that much, for that?

"So Bran," Arya started with raised eyebrows, "what did you need to talk about?"

The child looked at Robin and considered asking if he could speak alone with his sister. He decided against it though; he didn't just have a nightmare, his dreams meant a lot more for everyone. "I had a dream," the boy whispered.

"Well what was the dream about?" Nami asked and the other three snapped their heads over to the orange haired woman sitting up in her bed. "And more importantly," she got up and her eyes looked like they were on fire as her teeth turned razor sharp, "What are you doing in here?!"

"It's okay," Arya said and held up her hands defensively as her brother cowered back, "I invited him in."

That seemed to calm Nami down a little bit and she sat back on her bed from where she jumped up to yell at the teenage boy. Bran wiped some sweat from his forehead and decided to get started before anyone else could interrupt him. "It was the most vivid dream I've ever had. My dreams, they come true, or are premonitions." The two older nodded, having heard about his powers already and kept listening. "Sometimes I'll see something that happens an entire world away, and tonight, it all felt so, real."

The women in the room sat quietly as the boy went into his dream. He talked of a dragon burning hundreds of masked people alive. He spoke of lions and snakes twirling around together, one trying to strangle the other. Then the kid hesitated and his body shook a few times as he tried to make out the right words.

Nami lost all of her anger at the boy when she saw how his face distorted as he recalled this portion of the dream. "I saw Stannis," the boy whispered, "the red woman was behind him, leaning over his shoulder and whispering in his ear. The flames were building higher behind him, and then, I saw h-her." The others looked at each other and wanted to ask who she was, but the young boy grabbed his head with one hand and whispered quieter, with a crack in his voice, "I can still hear her screams. She was tied to a stake. She kept screaming, 'Father! Father No! Please Mom! Stop!' But her parents weren't helping her, they were just watching. She st-started getting burned alive, and the screams changed from words to cries of agony. She was no older than Arya, and she burned so slowly."

The boy buried his face in his hands and clutched at his head, trying to forget the screams. They were so loud, he wouldn't forget them for as long as he lived. Before any of the girls sitting on the bed with Bran could say anything, Nami was across the room and pulling the cripple boy into her chest with a hug so strong it made him forget for a moment what was happening at the sudden loss of breath. "It's okay," Nami told the child in her arms. She couldn't bear to see a child in that much pain, and that was just from remembering what happened, not seeing it the first time. And that poor girl, the woman thought as she imagined the child screaming.

"It's okay Bran," Arya agreed and patted her brother on the back as Nami released the hug. The kid was holding in his tears in front of his sister, but they could all see he wanted to cry. "So this really happened? Stannis Baratheon burned his daughter alive?"

"Maybe," the boy stated, "or he will. There's a chance it hasn't happened yet."

"Then maybe we can stop it-" Nami started but the kid held up a hand to the woman standing in between the beds.

"That's not the reason I came in here," the boy spoke. "That was the end of my dream, and it was horrifying, but it didn't have to do with the plan."

They were planning on disembarking the ship tomorrow. Franky and Chopper were staying behind to protect the ship, while the others were to go to shore and make a beeline straight for Winterfell.

"How so?" Robin asked the child and became less a comforting mother to help a boy having nightmares, turning more into the serious person she usually was on the ship.

Bran nodded and was glad to get his mind off of the burning girl for a little, though he doubted he'd be able to keep her out of his mind for long. "Arya," he looked at his sister and they made eye contact, "while you were in Braavos, you knew a man who had no face. Am I right?" The girl stared at him in silence for a few seconds, wondering if maybe Luffy told him, but tossing the idea. She slowly nodded her head. "I thought so," the boy with straight black hair looked disturbed by the information.

"It wasn't that he didn't have a face," Arya began, "but that he could change it to look like anyone he wanted. I don't even know if the face I knew him as was his real face."

"That's unfortunate," the boy whispered. "I had a dream that the flayed men, Roose and Ramsey Bolton, got their hands on something powerful. The two of them were standing together, Ramsey, the younger one, cackling like a hyena while he held it above his head, and Roose, the calm collected one, holding it out in front of himself as if it was the world in his hand."

"Whatever it was," Nami started, "I'm sure we can handle it."

"That's not what I'm afraid of," the boy interrupted and shook his head. "I used to have dreams about Arya, and a man whose head had no face. All I saw was a round head-shape, and then a blur where his face should have been." He paused and took a deep breath, "Roose Bolton, had the same face."

Arya's eyes popped wide and she got off of the bed. "That doesn't make any sense," she stated and shook her head. "The man I knew, was in the order of Faceless Assassins. He could change his face at will, look like anyone. So how could Roose Bolton..."

"I don't know," the boy responded. "But when we get to Winterfell, we have to be very, very careful."

"Sir, should we fire?" One of the bowmen asked the captain with them.

The older man in a gray coat laughed and looked over the walls. "Don't waste your arrows, let the fools freeze to death. It's a much more fitting end to idiots such as themselves."

Out in front of the walls, the voice yelled one more time, "Open up now! I'll break it down if you don't!"

"Break it down with what you buffoon?!" Another man shouted off the wall and chucked a rock down at the group below. He hit the shouting man right on top of the head, on his straw hat.

Luffy felt the rock hit his hat, his precious, prized possession, and his mind blanked for a second. Rage filled his mind and his fists clenched. "Don't touch," he started and put his right thumb in his mouth, "my hat!"

The pirate bit down on his thumb and his arm became huge. "Bone Balloon! Giganto Pistol!" The men on top of the wall only had a few seconds to be afraid and run before the fist slammed into the stone wall. They were all the way on top, so they weren't blasted away, but when they looked down off the side of the stone wall, the rubble was obvious.

"Th-They've broken through the keep walls!" One of the men shouted, still in disbelief.

"Raise your bows!" The captain roared, trying to get his panicking men into action. The ones who fell over from the wall shaking stood up fast and grabbed their weapons.

"Alright! Let's go!" Luffy charged into the hole and his group followed behind him.

"Okay everyone, follow the plan!" Nami called out to the others as they sprinted into Winterfell.

Arya was running faster than any of them and got through the two layers of wall that Luffy broke through into the crowded plaza on the other side. It looked like there was a lot of activity and people walking around here, which was the main reason they chose this point to break into anyway. "People of Winterfell!" The girl shouted at the top of her lungs. "My name is Arya Stark! We are here with the true Lord of the North, Brandon Stark is alive!"

The people around were looking at each other and murmuring loudly as they stared at the girl spinning and shouting in every direction. "The Boltons betrayed your King! They killed my brother and mother! Now rise up! Fight the men who flay your neighbors, your family, your loved ones!"

"Yeah!" A few of the men in the crowd shouted. They weren't expecting this in the least, but this was the chance they'd been waiting for.

"Take back your homes!" The girl shouted and looked over at a group of teens with swords on their waists. They grabbed their swords and held them up with a loud shout.

The guards on the walls were looking down in fear at the girl rallying support. A few lifted their bows to fire, but hands appeared out of heir bodies and threw the weapons to the side. Robin smiled towards her young friend who was shouting at the top of her lungs and she would try to help her as much as possible.

"Take back your lives!" Arya screamed. Another, much louder, roar of approval shouted from the growing crowd of people.

A large squad of foot soldiers ran out of a door to a nearby tower and the two dozen were pushing through the crowd and raising their weapons. One of the people Arya encouraged tried charging at them and the guard in front rose a sword to strike him down.

Before the soldier could kill the loyal civilian, a foot came out of nowhere and slammed him back into two of his men. The blonde man who the foot beloved to, dropped in the middle of the squad on his hands and started spinning around. His feet were extended in a full split and he knocked the men out cold with his attack. "Party Table Kick Course!

"TAKE BACK WINTERFELL!" Arya screamed louder than anything else.

The people were nervous against going against the Boltons, but Arya Stark brought a friend powerful enough to take on twenty men on his own, they trusted her. Even if it wasn't the girl, which it might not be since none of them had heard anything about her in years, she was saving them from the flayed men, so she was their friend.

Arya looked around as the townspeople started running to get their weapons. The blacksmiths were handing out their stashes to the people and they were rising up. The girl grabbed the closest person to her and asked loudly, "My sister! Where is Sansa?!"

The woman whose arm was grabbed fully believed this was Arya Stark the moment she looked in the girl's eyes. Only a sister would be this concerned about Sansa Stark. "I'm sorry, she's always locked away in her room. No one knows what's happening to her since her last maid, was, flayed alive. She was trying to help your sister."

The young girl felt horrible for the woman who died for her sister, but at the same time she felt fear of what would happen to her sister if they didn't get there quick enough. "Thank you," the girl said while she was already rushing away towards the large stone keep she spent the first half of her childhood in.

Two men were running out the door of the building as Arya approached and they raised their swords. The girl kept charging at them and as they swung, she slid on the ground. Her body slid across the snow and between the two men as she drew her sword. The weapon slashed across their legs and the men fell to the ground, dropping their weapons.

She looked down at them as she stood up and rose her thin sword. Vengeance was already covered in a bit of blood and she was about to stick it through their heads. What have they done wrong? All they did was follow the wrong man.

One of them was reaching down, she thought towards his injury. The man was really reaching for the knife on his waist though and she saw it right as he drew the weapon. The girl slashed instinctively at his hand and sliced it clean off.

The guy screamed and the girl spun her sword around and through the front of the man's neck. She followed through by stabbing the other man in the crease of his chestplate and arm, going through his armpit and into his lungs. This is a battlefield, I can't hesitate, she set her mind and charged into the building with her sword drawn, dripping blood and ready for more.

USOPP

The crew busted into the wall and the first thing the sniper did was break off from the majority of the group. At least I have him, the man with the long nose thought as Gendry jumped in front of him and blocked two men's attacks by holding his sword horizontally. He pushed back and the parry was enough to throw their weapons up in the air so the knight could slash across both of their chests in one swipe.

The blood splattered against the wall and the two of them started running right away. They rounded the next corner and both pairs of eyes widened at the group of ten men standing in there, getting ready from hearing the huge explosion of the wall.

"Look!" A fat man lifting an ax shouted.

Gendry took a step forward but Usopp stopped him by lifting a hand. "I've got this," the sniper drew the bow off of his back expertly and already had the handmade arrow nocked. "The new super secret attack of Captain Usopp!" The pirate yelled as the men charged forward. "Sure Kill- Firewolf Arrow!" He released the arrow with the strange point at the end and as soon as it was mid-flight it burst into flames.

The Bolton troops screamed in horror as the flames made the shape of a wolf that seemed to charge at them in midair. It burned the men and they fell to the ground in pain as Gendry and Usopp ran past. "That was amazing!" The fully armored knight in a bull helmet praised the other man.

Usopp smirked and brushed his nose with his left index finger. He didn't put the bow away and kept it in his right hand, lifting and shooting occasionally when they rounded corners. His arrows all had round heads except for the special made ones he created.

"Exploding Arrow!" The pirate yelled as they hit the wall they were supposed to go through. The arrow blasted on the stone wall and made a small hole, so he shot another and broke the weakened wall apart.

"There it is!" Gendry shouted and pointed into the room they busted into. There were a few men in there, but they were so scared by the explosions that they ran off.

One of them got to the door and then realized what Roose or Ramsey would do to him if they learned he abandoned his post. He gulped and turned around, but the man with the long nose had already sprinted the gap between them and had a small hammer in his hand. "Usopp Hammer! Usopp Hammer!" The weapon looked like it was meant for hammering nails, but Usopp pounded the man on the top of the head a few times until the guy was out cold and the sniper could breathe easily again.

The pirate looked back and shouted, "Are you almost done over there?!"

"Almost, there," Gendry pulled the rope one more time and then tied it down to a latch on the ground. "Okay, are you ready?"

"Do it!" The sniper called out and Gendry nodded, pulling the lever next to him. A loud cranking sound was heard and both men grinned as their job was finished.

ZORO

"Here we go," the pirate with green hair stated and drew his swords, putting the newest one in his mouth for a change. He ran forward at the same speed as the large direwolves on either side of him and the boys on their wolves were only slightly stunned by the swordsman's speed.

"The Starks have returned!" Jon yelled from the back of Ghost. His wolf charged through the opening gates and the men guarding the other side of it screamed and fell back as the large white wolf roared and ran through. It was his first time riding his wolf, but the intimidation factor was obvious as most people who saw him ran the opposite direction.

His direwolf grabbed a man by the torso with its mouth and swung him across the snow covered street. Two men tried swinging swords at it from the right, but Summer flew through the gate and plowed the men into the ground with his front paws.

Zoro ran ahead of the two wolves and he looked to be flying through the air as he spun towards he nearest building in front of him where men were pouring out of. He cut through them and the men spun to the sides screaming out in pain with blood splattering from their wounds.

The pirate got inside the doors and men started piling in on him. He lifted the two swords in his hands and stopped over a dozen weapons in their tracks with a large grin on his face. More enemies is always more fun, he thought and then pushed back hard, knocking all the men off of him as he spun and shot a flying cannon with the sword in his mouth.

The brothers on their wolves outside saw a hole get blasted in the building Zoro went into, and ten men came flying out of it. Most of them were lying unconscious on the ground, but the ones who got up dropped their weapons and scooted back with their hands.

It was obvious who they were running from. Two more holes blasted in the building and then a figure started walking through the dust. His left eye looked like it was glowing red as he emerged from the rubble of the soldiers' quarters and he didn't have a scratch on him.

Jon was stunned by the swordsman's strength and Bran was amazed too, though less than his half-brother. The young boy saw a group of eight men coming towards them and four stayed back to fire their crossbows.

Zoro only saw the first four round the corner and he charged at them, liking the part of Nami's plan that started with him cutting anyone who looked like an enemy. While he clashed two of his swords against the enemies', the other four aimed at him.

Bran didn't have enough time to try to get Summer to save him. Instead, the boy's eyes rolled back into his head and he became his wolf.

The former member of the Night's Watch saw his brother's eyes go pure white and then Summer charged forward with incredible speed. The wolf leapt over Zoro and the attacking swordsmen, right as the bowmen were firing their crossbows.

I'm sorry Summer, the boy thought inwardly to the wolf he knew could hear him. He swatted his paw to knock the bolts away, but two of them stuck in his skin. He felt the pain but it was nothing compared to the guilt that he was really hurting Summer. One arrow was stuck in his paw, the other below the front right leg's knee.

The wolf growled deeply; Bran was pissed off. The child charged at the men and started tearing them apart as Zoro, who finished off the first four men, and Jon watched.

He's like an animal, Zoro realized as he watched the boy inside the wolf.

"Bran! Bran go back!" Jon yelled as his brother kept eating one of the men. "You're going to lose yourself! Go back!"

The child inside the direwolf heard his brother's concerned yell and stopped ripping the man below him apart. He released his hold on Summer and the child on top of the wolf rolled his eyes back. Bran's head hurt and he lifted a hand to his face, feeling liquid on it.

There was a trickle of blood coming out of his right nostril and the kid stared at the blood on his fingers for a few seconds before hearing the shouts of more men rushing to the front gates to stop them.

"Captain Hunder!" An armored soldier shouted behind himself as he ran towards the three invaders and their wolves. "We need your assistance!"

The large group of Bolton men looked like they were rallied somewhere else in Winterfell and brought here. There were well over a hundred of them and Zoro finally thought he'd get a good fight. That's when he saw the man charging through the rest of them, and he looked pissed.

The large man was a head taller than the rest of his men and had a large sword drawn. It was a broadsword twice the size of Jon's and looked impossible to wield, but the fat guy was holding it straight up as he charged. He had no hair on his head and wore a large gray cloak instead of armor like the rest of his men.

"Stannis's men?! Must be scouts that Ramsey missed." The guy shouted as he ran forward.

"No sir! They say they're the Starks!" A foot soldier shouted at the Captain barreling through their small gathered army.

"Pathetic!" The man yelled and both Jon and Bran tensed up angrily. The wolves under them felt the sudden anger and charged forward to meet the man at the front of the crowd. They pounced at him at the same time and both Ghost and Summer slashed across the man's chest as they landed.

Blood splattered out of the man through his cloak and the troops behind him gasped and took a few steps back. They shouted their captain's name a few times but the man was just standing there in front of the wolves who slashed him.

They were about to slash again, when the large man reached forward and grabbed them. He took Ghost by the left ankle and Summer by the right and roared as he lifted them up above himself. His veins looked like they were popping and Hunder yelled out one more time as he tossed the wolves to the side and they slid across the ground.

Jon jumped off of his wolf before it could land on him, but Bran's fell on top of his already useless right leg. He knew it wouldn't cause himself pain, but it still couldn't be good for his body getting crushed like that and started to panic a little.

This wasn't part of the plan. Who was this guy? Why was he able to do something like this?

"Who are you?" Hunder growled. All the troops, Jon and Bran, and the citizens hiding inside their doors fearing the large Bolton army, watched as a man with green hair held three swords and stepped forward.

"Roronoa Zoro," the pirate stated. Twenty troops charged in front of their captain and towards the man, but he swung the two swords in his hands and it was like the ground got torn apart towards the running men. He slashed two lines across the snow-covered path through the army lines and took out dozens with the two flying slashes.

The attacks went right on either side of the captain before him and the soldier figured he'd have to fight serious against such a strong man. Hunder could still feel the sting from the cuts on his chest, which weren't as shallow as he thought they'd be. He scowled and clenched his fists, his hair growing and turning black as it wrapped around all of him but his face.

"A gorilla huh?" Zoro questioned as he looked at the transformed man.

"Gorilla?" The guy asked. Neither of them noticed the panicking screams of hundreds of witnesses to this strange ability.

"The animal you just turned into," the swordsman stated like it was obvious. "Oh wait," he realized, There probably aren't any gorillas on Westeros. Actually, I wonder how many animals are really here, and how many like direwolves and dragons exist?

"Are you ignoring me?!" Hunder roared angrily and charged his opponent. The large man was even more huge now being almost twice the size of the men around him who had to dive out of the way to avoid their crazed captain.

Zoro sidestepped the charging Zoan fruit eater and cut the man on his leg. Tough skin, tougher than giraffe, he was shaken from his thoughts as the gorilla man didn't charge back at him like he expected.

The Bolton captain grabbed the closest house and ripped a large chunk of stone off of it. Hunder spun and chucked the chunk at Zoro who crossed his swords and then slashed them at the approaching stone right as it was about to hit him.

Two diagonal lines cut across the stone and the pieces fell around Zoro. However, Hunder wasn't standing where he threw the house anymore. The pirate snapped his head left and right, and then felt something right above him. He looked up a second too late.

Hunder dropped down and pounded both fists on top of the swordsman's head, slamming him into the ground. "Zoro!" Bran yelled over, still struggling to push Summer off of him. The wolf was moving a little, but couldn't shift its weight quickly in fear of hurting its master.

Ghost got up much faster though and charged side by side with Jon at the mass of troops behind the fight going on. They looked like they were ready to interrupt and charge Zoro whenever the swordsman dropped his guard, so he wasn't going to let that happen. He plowed through, slashing them back and forth while his wolf caused mayhem to keep the enemies disorganized.

"Now, time for the Starks, if that's really who you are," Hunder looked back and took a step before freezing and sweating a little at the voice that spoke behind him. He turned slowly and there was the man with green hair, standing straight up as if two large fists didn't just slam into the top of his head.

"You won't hit me a second time," Zoro promised as he removed the sword from his mouth, sliding it into the nice white sheath. He put away Kitetsu as well and kept both hands on his new sword as he slowly slid it into the red sheath.

"No?!" Hunder yelled, daring the man to prove it. His Zoan fruit was obviously messing with his decision making skills and he charged at the enemy who was clearly planning something. "Just try and stop me!"

Jon stopped fighting the men and leapt on Ghost, grabbing his wolf's fur coat. "Go Ghost!" He commanded and the wolf started sprinting back towards Zoro who was a second away from being smashed by the crazed gorilla captain.

Zoro closed his eyes and kept his hands on the black and red hilt of his sword. It's time to see what my new weapon can do. Show me what you're made of, Akai Yoru! He felt, not saw, where his enemy was and at the last moment, he flew forwards with speed no one could comprehend. "ShiShi Sonson!" The pirate yelled, already sliding his sword back into his sheath on the other side of the Gorilla Man.

Hunder stumbled forward a few feet, and then the large slash up the right side of his chest and his shoulder opened. Blood exploded from the wound and the man fell to his knees, then on his face.

That was the signal the people of Winterfell needed, and everyone charged out of their houses with weapons raised. The Bolton troops were overwhelmed by the vast numbers and the fact that people were coming from every direction, there was no safe side. Quickly the men were dropping their weapons and shouting cries of surrender, making the people of Winterfell cheer in victory.

The citizens reached down and picked up the Bolton weapons lying on the ground. Some of them stayed back to tie up the Boltons' men and guard them, but the others weren't done yet. They gathered up the stronger steel swords to replace the pitchforks and knives they originally ran out with, and ran down the street towards the sound of fighting where they could help their friends and fellow Northerners.

LUFFY

"This doesn't look like the right room," Luffy stated. The pirate looked around the huge room full of bags of grain and wheat. There was a partially hidden door on the other side from where he entered and he walked over to it and tried to knob.

The door was locked tight, which was no problem for the pirate. Luffy gripped the sides of the door and squeezed, crunching the metal and ripping the door off its hinges. When he looked on the other side, he was confused by what he saw.

The tunnel looked like it was recently dug, as if the door was only put in the castle to cover it up. There was a ladder going down, but Luffy was wasting time and missing out on the action, so he dropped down into the hole without a second thought.

He dropped into the semi-dark room down below and it was cold. The pirate tried looking at the shadows and figures around him, but it was too dark.

"Who are you?" A cold, calculating voice questioned harshly from somewhere on Luffy's right.

"Monkey D. Luffy!" The pirate called out fiercely. "I'm looking for Sansa, have you seen her?"

"You will die in this room," the voice spoke again and Luffy snapped his head around. It came from the other side of the dark room this time and he was starting to get a little annoyed.

The boy in the straw hat took a step towards a shadow on his left. The dark figure wasn't moving at all, and even as he approached, the body made no sudden movement. He was starting to get a little nervous by the motionless form.

Luffy got a few feet away when he faltered and his legs almost came out from under him. The figure was clearer now that he was close, and the pirate felt a twinge of fear at the sight. The corpse standing in front of him wasn't standing at all, but hanging from a hook on the ceiling. There was barely a body too, the corpse was flattened out and when he looked closer, he could see it was only skin.

"Who are you?!" Luffy shouted back as he heard movement on the other side of him. He looked back and his eyes were adjusting more, allowing him to see the rows of other flattened figures in the cold stone room. "What is this place?"

"A place you will be spending a long time in," someone spoke and this time it came directly from Luffy's right. The pirate snapped his head and saw one of the bodies shuffling. It was pushed aside and swung lightly in the air as a man walked out in front of it.

Shhwing, Luffy heard a familiar sound and clenched his fists. The man drew a sword from his sheath and held the weapon in front of himself. The pirate growled, "You can't tell me how long I'll be here for."

The pirate in the straw hat pulled his left foot back a little and then shot it forward. "Gum Gum Stamp," his opponent dodged out of the way and the foot slammed into the body behind him. "Ah! Sorry!" Luffy apologized as his foot broke through the skin. He didn't really know why he was apologizing, but it felt like the right thing to do after desecrating someone's remains.

"Who are you apologizing to?" The man asked Luffy from somewhere hidden behind the bodies. Telling from his voice he was old, but still strong. "Do you believe the dead care what happens to their remains? They're dead, they have no say over the actions of the living."

"That doesn't mean you can do whatever you want with them," Luffy stated angrily, looking around trying to pinpoint the voice in this room.

"Like I am now?" The man taunted and Luffy watched as one of the hanging bodies got sliced horizontally in half. The person behind it finished the sword swing and instantly dropped back into the darkness.

The pirate yelled at him when he sliced it, but when he went for a counter strike, his opponent was already hiding behind more dead bodies. "Grr, fight me!" He was never good at controlling his emotions, even when it was clear his opponent was trying to get him furious and sloppy. "You skinned all these dead bodies? You're sick," Luffy was disgusted by this man and he'd only just met him.

"Dead bodies?" The figure spoke and this time he didn't hide. He stepped between two corpses and Luffy watched the guy brush his hand down the side of one. He almost looked like he was laughing, though his voice was far too serious to imagine him even smiling. "I assure you, these people were not dead when I skinned them."

Luffy didn't understand what he meant and it took him several seconds to comprehend the statement. His eyes first grew wide and then narrowed at his foe. "It takes much precision to flay the skin in such a way that it is impossible to see where the cut marks are. It's a task impossible for all of my men, and even my son lacks the pure talent necessary for perfection."

"Your son?" Luffy asked and his eyes were still narrowed at his opponent.

The man could feel the harsh gaze of two eyes burrowing into him, but he remained calm and spoke while brushing the skin of a forty two year old blacksmith he flayed a month earlier. "Ramsey," the guy stated, "Ramsey Bolton."

"So then you're Roose," Luffy growled. He heard a lot of bad things about the son, but nothing about this man except that he killed his new crewmates' oldest brother. The Starks and Jon were all very passionate about killing this man. "I'm gonna kick your ass."

"Dig a trench here, and another three hundred yards from the keep walls," Stannis Baratheon commanded and marched forward in the snow. He was looking around and pointed at some trees, not seeing his men start to murmur behind him and stop moving. "And send out a foraging party immediately, the siege begins at sunrise."

His closest advisor that wasn't Ser Davos walked up to him. Ser Orran looked at Stannis and pointed out towards the castle in the distance. "It looks like they've come to negotiate, your Grace."

Stannis looked out over the snow covered waste and saw a sole man on a horse riding out to them. He was carrying a Bolton banner, but had no white flag with him. The horse continued to ride until it was a mere twenty feet from the front of Stannis's army, staring straight at the king himself. "Stannis Baratheon I presume," the young man on the horse chided, sounding far too mocking for a negotiator.

"And who might you be," the older man said back, putting a hand on his sword.

"Oh me?" the boy asked. He hopped off his horse and stepped forward. His curly black hair countered Stannis's short gray hair completely. "My name, is Ramsey Bolton."

The men behind Stannis tensed up a little and many of them looked at each other questioningly. The fact that Roose Bolton's son would show up personally, without an escort or any sort of protection, was confusing at the least. There was a chance of the man lying, considering he didn't even bring any armor, but it was a small chance.

Ramsey took the flag he was holding and twirled it in his hands as he walked towards the massive army in front of him. He brought the wooden pole over his head and then slammed it in the ground ten feet in front of Stannis. "You will not pass, this point."

Stannis drew his sword immediately at the young man's remark. He couldn't tell if the boy was being serious or not, but either way, he had to die now. "I'll send your father your head," the older man stated and his army watched from behind as their leader looked like he was going at it by himself. This was the reason they stayed with their king, even after he burned his daughter and half of the men left. He was honorable and would fight in the forefront of the battle, truly leading his men to victory.

Ramsey took a step back from the flag so that he was standing behind it. "Remember, don't cross this line," he reached a foot in front of him and wiped it across the snow confidently.

Stannis charged. He lifted his sword above his head as he ran forward and his men cheered behind him. They were exhausted from marching through the snow and the North without any horses, but their leader knew how to raise morale. The king readied his sword for the final blow, and his left foot stepped on the line he wasn't supposed to cross.

"I warned you," Ramsey stated, the widest smirk Stannis had ever seen on a man's face as he plunged a sword into them. The King froze as his sword went all the way through and hit the ground. All the men behind him stopped cheering and hundreds dropped their weapons in absolute terror.

The sword went through Ramsey Bolton alright, but it had no effect on the man's body. His skin seemed to sizzle and burn red flames when Stannis's weapon went through it and the king himself was staring at his opponent like he was a monster. Ramsey rose a hand and pressed it to Stannis's face, "Goodbye," he laughed and a burst of fire shot out of his hand, through Stannis, and into the huge, screaming, retreating army behind him. "Oh, you don't think you can leave now, do you?" Two pillars of fire shot out beneath Ramsey's feet and he did a triple front flip in the air with swinging talons of flames, sending bursts of fire down at the ground burning everything, and everyone.

Screams rang out through the landscape and the man in the air twisted his body while bringing a fist behind him. "FIRE," he screamed and then punched forward, "FIST!" The fist of fire flew forward and through the entire mass of opponents, knocking hundreds out to the sides while completely burning others. Ramsey was laughing the whole time.

A/N Hey everyone, thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed the latest chapter and leave me a review below telling me what you think. A lot of different battles are going on right now around the castle, and they'll continue through the next bunch of chapters. I'm still in the middle of the Winterfell Arc right now so I don't know how it will end, but there are still more Devil Fruits to be revealed! Shireen nooo! Sorry I didn't save her, especially to you Bran, didn't mean for you to have to have a dream like that man. Now... the last part, Ramsey, has, the Flare Flare Fruit, Ace's Flare Flare Fruit. Let's see how Luffy reacts when he sees that... :)

Bobboky

Nice work.

Thanks as always!

Wolvenstrom

knew you'd be adding devil fruits sooner or later.

Yup! Time to get some harder enemies in this world. Ramsey getting a Logia could also mean Haki is on its way and the Straw Hats are going to have to keep getting stronger!

GR

Wanting to be the strongest also would have an end point for trainhing you know, wen someone reach go levl they just s5top training if there are no other same level as them

I don't think so: if Zoro gets to the top I don't think he'd assume he'd always be the strongest. He knows other people will keep training to beat him, so he has to keep going to not just be the best, but stay the best. Now having Arya working hard too, he can try to advance with her so they're pushing each other and he can reach new limits he never thought possible! YAAHHH!

Guest

I doubt Ramsay and the others will be much of a challenge, the devil fruits they have would only be had for a few days, whereas Luffy and the others have had them for years, and have mastered them.

I agree. It was clear that Hunder didn't really know how to use his Devil Fruit to his advantage very well. Really he just had an increase in strength, but with Ramsey, it's different. The Bolton Brat is very, very smart; we've seen him cripple n army with 20 men, and defeat the Ironborne army without even fighting by using Theon. He picked up on his power a little faster, though he still won't be nearly as good as Ace who had it for years. Fighting a Logia is going to be tough no matter when the Logia got his power, (unless you have Haki, which they don't so far). Thanks for the reviews mina, and I'll see you next time!