last week*
"yknow, despite the rumors that have been going around this isn't one of 'em I expected to be true" Weiss said sitting next to Blake watching Cole push kick a random first year into a trash can for trying to steal his breakfast
(he'd told Ruby when she asked as he passed their table)
"He picks fights with people far too often" at that time Cole had yet again rejected the position to a team and got an earful from ozpin of all people about how teams were crucial, but Cole had left the room before he'd finished his explanation.
Normally, ozpin didn't care if he lone wolf-ed it, but the missions he picked were becoming a bit much for him, so he'd decided to list Cole as an on-call-hunter-in-training for support and reinforcement purposes.
By what the other third and fourth year students reported he was a one-man army and deserved to in a league of his own, but rules were rules, so he was given the class title of 'lone wolf' and was bumped up in his rate of pay from towns and villages that need him for guard duties, an escort, or just to add another person to a temporary security force so that events could keep going without incident, but even after that many early accomplishments (R)WBY and JNPR treated him like an outcast in their ways, and it got to him when he noticed all of it (at least Ruby was doing everything to help calm things but kept falling short).
back to the present*
Sauntering over to a pile of snow covering the bots Cole had destroyed, Weiss stopped and winced at how angry he looked when he burst from the white fluff, glaring and panting.
"You really do have a serious problem with-" she froze when she quickly realized she was the one who created that blizzard in the first place and saw how fast he went from calm to pissed off in the span of a few seconds.
"You damn near gave me frostbite, you dumbass!" he yelled as he sheathed his swords
"serves you right for not paying attention sparkler" she snarked and not thinking he could hear her she muttered "you really don't get what's going on around here, you aren't going to last much longer out there and in here"
If Cole had the patience of a saint, then this was the day he gave it up 'everyone turned their backs on me, talked shit behind my back, bullied me for pointless drivel. Only this time they finally gave me a reason to let go'' he angrily thought just as he let an explosion of power erupt from his entire body spreading from his chest outward and went upward into the ceiling creating a sizeable hole.
Weiss flinched at his outburst and instinctively crouched in her battle stance, but soon saw just how slow she reacted, cause a brief gust of wind blew the snow in two different directions and cole was nowhere to be seen.
"Wh-where'd he go?" she said horrified at where he once stood he wasn't above her, below her, left nor right, only place left was-
She got her answer via the sound of bones crackling behind her just before Cole said cold and angrily "behind you snow angel" her body immediately tensed up and shakily began to turn her head but soon felt a hard sidekick to the back. Weiss felt her back pop in all the wrong places and the wind knocked out of her as she went tumbling to the ground and bounced a few times.
Cole sprinted towards her just as she shakily rose to her feet and looked up to see the tip of a plated boot high kick her into the air and Cole's bloodied fist met her cheek, sending her barreling into the wall creating webbed cracks in the wall. Her eyes went wide, aura didn't register the punch and air was ripped from her lungs, falling to the ground, Weiss saw Cole immediately being restrained by Ren and nora while Ruby tried to talk him down. jaune, yang, and Pyrrha ran over to her but by the time they caught her mid-fall she passed out in jaune's arms and let a few tears fall into his hoodie, "he's got the strength and speed of a monster" she thought before letting out a deep breath and passed out.
Looking up at his teammates, jaune gave them a look that was damn near unreadable to the two and laid Weiss gently on Pyrrha's lap, just before taking Pyrrha's sword and unsheathed his own he walked toward Cole.
"Jaune what are you-" Pyrrha said but froze mid-sentence and stopped when his eyes met hers and in his eyes was a maelstrom of emotions; rage for his hurting friend, arrogance thinking he could fight Cole and win, and sad that it came to this.
While nora was well known for her strength and power she was not strong enough to restrain Cole, even Ren had to used his aura to strengthen himself to keep Cole in place who fought their grip on him with everything in their power but knew he wasn't going down without a fight, but both hoped Ruby could calm him down and fast. Otherwise it would get messy.
"Cole, please stop! Weiss is your friend -our friend, we're all your friends. If we talk it out-"
"HEY!" jaune yelled, cutting her off before she could end it peacefully.
Everyone in the room froze at the outburst and turned to see him in full battle armor, two swords, and a bone to pick with Cole (who still fought to get out of their hold)
"Jaune shut up and let me handle this!" Ruby yelled, to watch as her words had gone right over his head and was ignored entirely.
"Cole, as leader of team juniper i challenge you to a one-on-one fight right here, right now; you've gone too far this time!" he said coldly flourishing his swords, what jaune said posed a serious problem seeing as Cole was only kept in place because of nora and Ren, but even they were losing their grip because of his power and strength.
"You hurt my friend, and I'm going to find out why before I kick your ass up and down this arena, you sadistic-"
Cole smirked at the accidental opening he had created for him and broke free of their hold throwing them to the ground, dodging past Ruby to grab the mech-sword as well as unsheathing his long sword that looked just like jaune's but black, silver, and red around the grip of the handle "this coming from the guy that can't last longer than a minute against me" he said clashing his long sword into dulitas until jaune pushed back enough to lock blades with him.
Jaune tried to push back but knew that he had no chance in that, so he tried talking "spoken like the unhinged monster you always were, never showing mercy to people you fight in and out of the jobs you take; Ruby for example didn't deserve that scar you gave her"
With those not-so-final words made Cole's restraint shatter like a mirror with a bullet hole in the center.
With a hard shove, he threw jaune back arms wide open and received an 11.5 boot to the chest knocking some wind out of him making him cough a bit.
"You all say that I'm evil, unhinged, or too dangerous to be around? But you're all SORELY mistaken if you think I had dictated that." Cole said lowly, seething with rage, "you of all people would know that I had no other choice!"
Pulling out crestfallen he pressed a button and out sprang a thin three and a half foot blade "especially seeing as no one ever gave me any other way of being seen" he added after he pushed jaune back and charged forward aiming for his head. When their blades continued to clash, jaune was forced to be on the defensive, pushing him to the ground crouching on one knee straining with everything he had. Sparks flew from the power Cole radiated and gave jaune a chance to see how screwed he was.
For the first time jaune was terrified of someone apart from his parents and the beacon staff, Cole saw jaune for what he truly was, and it was hilarious to say the least. "C-cole li-listen to me, wh-whatever you did can be forgiven if you just calm down and think this through-"
Without uttering a word Cole started chuckling hard, and chuckling like that quickly turned into a fit of hysterical laughter at Jaune and threw him back a few steps back and slashed at him, breaking Pyrrha's blade in half while chipping clades in a few places.
"You have no idea how dumb that sounds….do you?" Cole said in a low voice before a scoff escaped his lips when he slashed upwards and shot a bolt into his chest.
"You think those words will work when you just challenged me to a fight?!" he answered the question with a strong push kick to jaune's ribs, braking a few of them. "I knew you arcs were arrogant and idiotic, but this?" he laughed mirthfully, almost enjoying jaune gasps for air and tears rolling down his agony ridden face switching the flow of the conversation, Cole decided to fire at everyone's direction (figuratively speaking) and punctuated it by charging up and let all of him run wild no longer precise as to where or who got it. "This is a whole new level of stupidity, and after everything you and your friends put me through?" flourishing his swords Cole could finally let loose and just fight, not a care in the world for holding back this time he put crestfallen away and locked the two halves of dulitas to his vambraces and let his mothers training show by letting his emotions fly.
"Pretending to be beacons of hope, yet you carelessly kill Grimm without thinking about the casualties and environmental damage in the towns and cities you're supposed to 'protect'. But you only focus on the Grimm. And the worst thing is that you've all acted like a bunch of sniveling children; hypocrites and pretenders" of course he didn't include Ruby because she'd proven she was a good person and a competent woman with a decent moral code to keep him on the straight and narrow...well, until now anyway.
"He deserved better than this, we need to make it right!" a memory of nora's voice yelled in his head. 'Fucking hypocrite' he thought as he pushed the memory out of his head, shaking his head.
Cole paused to grab jaune by the front of his chest plate and glared hoisting him up off his feet "but you specifically…." he shook him violently "you became the disgrace you sought to never be, you let your arrogance inflate your ego because of your aura's raw potential, and when you and the others 'stopped' that breach last year, you all didn't think twice about the innocent people THAT DIED THAT DAY!" he let him go and struck the center of his chest forcing his vision to almost black out and stars danced around in his sights. When he hit the ground with a cracked chest plate, jaune choked and coughed as he rolled to his side.
"Countless buried their loved ones while you children went about your lives, like it was just another adventurous moment. But you know what the worst thing about you is?" He asked with resentment and venom dripping from every word he spoke, before grabbing jaune Cole smiled sarcastically and threw him in the air to punch him so hard in the chest it sent him five feet away with a cracked sternum and dented the piece of armor, forcing blood through his mouth and nose all over himself and the floor, "you had the audacity to call me your friend, pretended that I mattered only for you stab me in the back!"
Cole was blacking out with rage and would kill everyone in there if he wasn't stopped, and they needed to stop him, and soon.
'h-how is he hurting jaune when he's got so much aura left!?' Weiss thought, watching jaune twitch and gasp on the floor like a dying fish, involuntarily crying out in pain.
Ruby interrupted the fight and asked in desperation to make him stop, "how do you know this much about us, how do you know about the breach!?"
Her voice sounded forced and showed every ounce of dread she felt for the man.
Comment anything you think could be worked on at:
H6pp1n355_in_misery.
Criticism is appreciated
