The next day, Cole awoke early in the morning to finish the bookshelf he'd been working on, but felt like something like that couldn't wait. So, he forced himself out of bed and started putting it together piece by tiny piece, Unfortunately his concentration broke in the middle of him lifting the bookshelf to the sound of a knock at his room door causing it to fall over.
Thankfully he found ruby's presence was the more tolerable of the seven other people that he'd met and that in of itself was saying something,
"hey Cole you up, it's ruby, ruby branwen. I was wondering if you wanna join me for a fun run?"
"Ruby, it's a Saturday morning at 5:30 am, he's probably asleep still" Jaune said putting his phone away.
"You don't know that, he could be an early riser like me, you just gotta have faith in me" Ruby said before knocking on a door with 0117 on the top center of the frame.
"I have faith in you rubes…just not in him; he's easily the most ill-tempered person I've ever met, plus you didn't see the blood boiling rage he has when he looks at yang and Blake." he replied pounding on the door.
"unless you're here to help me move my room around just do yourself a favor and piss off, I'm busy in here!" Cole yelled just as a loud crash could be heard from inside the room followed by "ahhhhh c'mon, I just finished-" another crash of falling furniture they both heard "FUCK" he punched and stomped the broken dresser shaking the door on impact.
"I am not gonna deal with this shit right now!" he huffed in frustration as he stomped out the door, startling Ruby and knocking jaune into the wall behind him, slammed his door and instead of apologizing he kept walking away. Jaune got up and went to confront him when Ruby stood in front of him but was ignored to follow Cole. Ruby quickly got in front of him again and said "jaune stop and think this through, he's in an awful mood, and you are far too quick to the trigger these days"
letting out a sigh jaune looked at Ruby and said "I'm just going to talk to him" Hoping she could trust him. She backed down and watched him leave down the hall.
ruby got to the gym after an hour of searching, so she decided to leave Cole be. She was on her way to the treadmill when she saw Cole lifting 35's and sweating a lot.
By the time Ruby decided to start her workout on her own, yang and the rest of her team decided to have finally left their room to go eat at the cafeteria earlier, so they could hang out with the rest of JNPR, but unfortunately when they went to knock on the door a note was left on the door for them.
"why am I not surprised" Weiss said grabbing the note, unfolding it and read it aloud:
Hey sorry guys, Ren and nora went on a date to downtown Vale, Pyrrha is at a meeting with her manager, and I went to the gym with Ruby. If I'm not with her then I'll be in the cafeteria.
-your second favorite blonde, jaune.
Weiss looked up from the paper and said, "well, that answers our question." Putting the letter under the door and turned to yang and Blake "let's go to the gym I need a good workout too"
both girls smirked and said "looks like a team workout day" yang looked to Blake and added "I'll be right back, I need to grab our gym bags, you girls go on ahead I'll catch up in a minute"
"don't take too long" Weiss said walking down the hall with Blake.
"y'know Weiss, I've noticed you've been going to the gym the moment jaune goes there; if you go running to 'exercise' near him, I'm starting to think-" the moment Blake could insinuate any further Weiss started walking faster with a frown.
Blake knew Weiss usually went from calm to angry so fast she could've sworn she was bipolar, they knew Weiss was teased relentlessly that she would snap at the smaller quips about crushing on the blonde dolt, but this was something else.
'I wonder if she actually likes jaune' she thought watching her closely.
"I'm done with everyone's baseless drivel" she huffed out leaving the situation as fast as she could "lets just go to the gym" she added still annoyed with Blake and the rest of the students who kept spreading the rumor that she and jaune were going to be a thing.
Blake snickered at the mild blush on her friend's face and by the looks of it everyone thought it was funny too.
When yang finally got to the gym to meet with the rest of her team, the three girls were in for an interesting sight, Cole was pounding the punching bag as hard as his fists could hit and was currently arguing with jaune about something.
"I said, I don't have to listen to you!" he yelled, punching the bag so hard it tore in half, spilling sand everywhere. In the middle of stopping to catch his breath, Cole was panting hard, his knuckles were raw bleeding and already beginning to slowly heal themselves. Being in a bad mood was not his intention but after his furniture falling apart, his thoughts overwhelmed him pushing his anger towards himself only intensified after jaune decided it was a good Idea to have confronted him just as he was beginning to calm down which ended up where he is now…splitting sand bags open and breaking the chain along with it.
Knowing himself only cared to blow off the excessive amounts of steam building up inside. But when said steam won't dissipate like he wanted, Cole opted for a more drastic approach…which he froze when he turned to jaune to beat him with his bare hands.
"jaune is right spark plug, you have a temper shorter and worse than yang, in no way is any of this ever going to be healthy!" Ruby exclaimed watching Cole put a second bag up trying to ignore her, but it was too hard when she got in his way of the bag when he tried throwing the first punch.
Looking right in her eyes he asked "are you trying to piss me off? Cause it's working"
she glared at him when he moved her aside by her shoulder and went back to punching the second bag, every muscle burned in protest with each and every hit, every punch he swung threw sweat in the air and on the floor and every punch thrown looked like it connected harder than the last.
"Cole if you keep this up I'll-"
"do nothing Blondie…i…don't…have to…explain jack shit…to you"
"acting like this, it's no wonder you were alone"
"this…coming from…a woman…that thinks…she can stop me!" Cole said with a final roar, kicking the bag so hard it was sent flying into jaune knocking it five feet back almost split in half spilling sand all over the floor.
He turned to her looking down into her eyes, he made it obvious he wasn't backing down, and she gave him the same look he did.
"Thinking anyone should listen to you because of reputation is naïve and egotistical, now get the fuck outta my way if you value your face to not be rearranged" Cole quickly walked off still angry, at the very least he's trying to take deep breaths to calm down.
While she watched Cole grow angrier the more he hit the bag, ruby knew that jaune was worsening, talking in his ear like he was, anyone and their mother would be concerned he'd hospitalize him. She also saw it was only a matter of time before Jaune became the punching bag.
So instead of watching them argue and not wanting to deal with this drama she grabbed his arm and dragged him toward the bench press, "what the hell are you doing jail bait?" he asked as she let his arm go started putting weights on the bar. He, however, knew he could've just gotten out of her grip, but couldn't place why he didn't.
"If you can do two sets of ten with my weight to the bar I will give you the prints to my latest project" she said, grabbing onto the bar. In actuality, she couldn't care less about those plans, she just didn't want Cole to sent jaune to the hospital cause of his big mouth.
Cole angrily racked the bar and said, "deal; get on it if you think you can hold yourself up for that long" ruby knew competitive and Cole was a bit competitive.
"but if your weakling arms drop me, you have to bake me a months worth of some muffins. Strawberry and peach cream.
Should be good enough for a bet right?" she said, shaking his hand, tied her shirt off at her midriff exposing her flat stomach and toned abs. "Creamy pale skin like that should be illegal" some person said as she got into the position on the bar, Cole glared at the guy who said it and started benching using his lightning to help a bit.
"oh and no lightning okay?" she added cheekily watching his gold orange hue disappear.
"fuck you too strawberry short bitch" Cole said straining a bit.
the rest of Ruby's team and JNPR came over to watch as Cole started the bet much to their excitement and worry both for the show and because Cole looked winded before the bet even started lifting.
"he's obviously not going to finish this. He's too tired" Weiss said cockily.
"well it looks like he's doing fine to me." Pyrrha said with yang nodding in agreement "he's already gotten to 13, I think he's got this"
"I thought you were with your manager?" Weiss asked with a raised brow.
"yeah, but I fired him for being a creep; mom and dad are taking over as managers" she replied nonchalantly.
"haha, there's no way he- renwhatthehell!?" jaune tried to say but was interrupted when a heavy metal started playing and the one holding the source of the music was Ren of all people, "what the- Ren!?"
"I got 120 lien on him…." He said as he turned it up with a smirk. Nora cheered for Cole to keep it up and keep going.
Weiss and Blake just watched Cole keep pushing.
Pyrrha, yang, and Ren watched exchanging lien the longer this went on.
Jaune began to feel a feeling he'd never felt and Cole was the cause, but it kept getting worse, his thoughts raced a mile a minute and that's when he had an idea.
ruby just smirked at Cole while he kept pushing her and the 60lbs of steel.
"16!" Cole strained as he lifted Ruby and the 80 pounds
"you've got four more keep going"
"17! AHHH FUCK!" he exclaimed, everyone watched him with bated breaths as the bar almost fell on his chest.
"18!"
"Two more little guy" Ruby said pissing off Cole pushing him to keep going, his anger was no longer aimed at the dresser breaking, jaune getting in his way, nor was it aimed at Ruby anymore. Now it was aimed at himself if he failed to prove a point to Ruby that he was strong enough to do just about anything.
"this cant be happening!" Weiss said adding her weight to the bar as well as slowing down Cole.
"19!" Cole roared in exasperation to the sudden extra weight, the bar fell so close to his throat a few people gasped and stepped forward but froze when he shockingly pushed them up.
"ahhh, gods Weiss what the hell have you been eating!?" he asked holding them up for a second.
Meanwhile the other students were all cheering for and against Cole while some burst into laughter at his comment others kept count for him.
"20!"
" 21!"
The sheer strength he was displaying throughout the room was incredible but still, they all cheered him on while others whined they'd lose money over him.
"22!"
Sweat glazed over his hands, face, arms, and chest soaking through his shirt onto the bench dripping onto the floor.
"23!"
To help him out Ren and coco rubbed a white chalk-like powder on his hands that worked its way to his palms and helped him grip the bar better.
"Thank you" he strained out.
"no problem Mr. Muscles" coco winked at him while Ren merely nodded with a smile.
"24."
His arms screamed at him to give up, but he just kept pushing past the strain, but halfway back up he was visibly shaking, sweating and letting out quick breaths.
Just as he hit '25' they all let out yells of anger and disappointment, others cheered for him and clapped and whistling as Cole quickly dropped the bar on the hooks he was immediately rushed by the ones rooting for him and kept cheering his name, some held him up while others were giving the bet winners their owed lien.
He, however, didn't care about the validation from them, so instead of getting a big head like most would've he pushed through the crowd and looked at Ruby with a straight face and said breathing heavily "your partner cheated on our bet and I still won…now pay up"
everyone looked at the two hunters expecting money to be given but what ruby gave him shocked everyone and left them simply dumbstruck: blueprints titled 'crest fallen' on the front page. It was a sword she'd been working on and lost them to Cole. "a deal's a deal, you earned these…despite the surprise change"
Cole smiled wide and said "I still need your help" his legs gave out unexpectedly and fell into ruby's arms "but I'd be lying if I didn't say that I owe you for that distraction"
She laughed at his unexpected fall and said "you're the one who asked me to help, you dumb spark plug"
"not to interrupt but what was that all about" Glynda asked walking up to Cole with a baggy purple and blue tracksuit.
Most of -if not all of– the students quickly went back to their workouts hoping to be spared from her supposed wrath.
'people scatter like roaches…as usual' jaune thought as he joined Pyrrha on her workout.
"oh hey Glynda, we were just settling a bet, care to explain why you're in the gym with your students?" Cole said straining to stand on his own despite ruby keeping a hand on his back just in case.
Rolling her eyes at his nonchalance she replied with a hug he knew all too well was forced "it's good to see you students are betting on each other just as us teachers do to each other" she said sarcastically.
Cole chuckled and hugged her back "still haven't answered my question." He said patting her back and quickly let her go, gently pushing her back from him.
She forced herself not to react to the sweat that now soaked her front and sighed.
"if you must know, the headmaster needed a spotter so here I am." She said going back to where ozpin was, there he sat on a bench doing bicep curls with 25 lbs in his hands.
"he looks like he hasn't been in a gym or been on a mission in decades" Cole said stretching his arms over his chest and let out a satisfied groan as his muscles and joints popped along with his back.
"you don't happen to have time to help your 'mother' out with something would you?" she asked more sarcastically.
Cole gave a deadpan stare and said, "no, I have better things to do" before walking to a treadmill and started running with music blasting in his ears with the speed set at 9 mph.
"if he was so angry this morning, why does he seem more mellowed out after an hour or so in the gym?" Weiss asked standing next to a sweaty and panting Ruby. "I mean- he literally tore two punching bags in half, finished two and a half sets of almost 300 pounds and is running like a seasoned huntsman and looks halfway in the grave, he's not even human is he?"
Ruby rolled her eyes and wiped herself off with a towel "he's a guy Weiss, just like him, there is a rare sum that just need time to blow off some steam and like Cole said, he has a lot going on too."
Weiss snorted and replied, "yeah, like there's any guy that can measure up to whatever he is" but regretted it when jaune growled angrily, giving Ren 30 lien and left to do some simulated rock climbing in a room separated by a set of double doors.
"Some people just love their isolation" Blake muttered while jogging on the treadmill nearest yang.
sorry this chapter was late guys, kinda having a hard time staying motivated and writing is going to be difficult for me to keep going once a week but I'll push to keep going.hope y'all enjoyed the read.
Comment anything you think could be worked on at:
H6pp1n355_in_misery.
Criticism is appreciated
