That one question made him stop for a moment but only for that moment, he paused for what felt like an eternity but merely went by in a few seconds and slowly turning to his left he looked her in the eyes and said, "because I was there when my mentor was taken from me…."
His voice taking on a guttural hiss with a trace of despair and anguish, and they all had the feeling he was keeping his murderous intent in check for Weiss and ruby's sake. as he turned his hauntingly vibrant blue and green eyes toward Blake he seethed in rage, "she was a white fox Faunas with ears and two tails to match," his rage swelled and flashed in his eyes and lightning made them light up like a blazing inferno.
"She was like a mother to me….AND THAT BITCH WATCHED HER DIE" he bellowed firing bolt after bolt into her body only throwing her vision out of focus and caused her body to convulse around like a fish on the floor 'there's some irony in that though' he mused in his head while he savored her screams.
Everyone in the room were seemingly powerless against the force that Cole had, and it was obvious that he'd been holding on to this pain pretty tightly and worst of all they could've stopped it, but it was too late now.
in the control room*
Satisfied with the outcome, the mystery woman chuckled and began the upload just before leaving the room to regroup with the others. "Sir, the package was successfully delivered; show's bout to start so don't be late" she sent the message and quickly ran out using the rooftops to escape faster.
"I just hope he can handle the power. Out of all the subjects he just might survive this" she thought as her form disappeared after she ran towards the mountains. Her only fear was that he'd unintentionally kill someone, or at the very least send them to the infirmary.
As impressive as Cole was, he still had his terrifying moments in desperation for controlling and in even more need to focus it like a Laser in a hyperlinked lens. "Just hope he doesn't take this too badly to heart" she said before disappearing in the courtyard full of people.
back to the fight*
Remembering that day hurt more than anything else, but it needed to be brought back, lightning cracked and leaped from every inch of him.
Everyone could see he was unable to contain his fury, and it showed when the bursting of power like his threw itself out like gold and blue angry sentient needles.
"You, Blake, froze, when her arms held its maw open; I was bleeding in the snow not FOUR FEET FROM HER begging you for help, but you JUST STOOD THERE!" his tears sparked against his cheek as it burned away leaving a trail of steam behind with every tear that fell. "You stood there and watched her get bitten in half and torn apart while she screams turned to gurgling!" he ended his rant toward her with a kick to the stomach as hard as he could. Tears came like surging rivers and hit the floor hard, hitting her head, and one by one they all tried to intervene and stop him but ultimately failed.
The pressure he gave off reverberated all around them with every step he took, the ground quakes, electronics powered off and no one moved to stop his advance.
In the time he spent at beacon, no one was ready for nor expected Cole to be so good at fighting when he wanted to; most of his time was seen holding back and never actively tried hurting people if he could help it.
every hit he landed resonated through them like thunder and shook their very bones. As they grouped up and charged forward he too charged headlong into the fray meeting them halfway and chaos ensued like a storm raging on.
"you're going down!" he yelled dashing to his left, Ren went wide-eyed when he got chopped in the throat with his hand and spun around slapping him in the back with the flat of Cole's long sword. Feeling no better time for it, he chose now to tell them the rest as to why he was so pissed at them…only, that wouldn't have mattered even if all of beacon knew. 'No point in holding back anymore'.
Cole took in everyone's position and nodded to himself, launching at his first victim; towards yang, whom quickly got a small bolt to the stomach, she hunched over gasping and groaning in pain and got kneed in the nose then grasped her hair in a fist clenching it tight in his grip he smiled wickedly, "LETS JUST SEE HOW MUCH THIS REALLY MEANS TO YOU" he screamed chopping half her hair off and roundhouse kicked her in the back forcing her into the ground, and for good measure he discharged some lightning and burned the free hair to ashes on the floor filling the room with scorched hair and fried peach shampoo.
Then he came for Pyrrha, before she could see where he went after disappearing in a flash of gold she felt the pommel bury itself into her gut before she got a chance to swing on him and worse of all, hit the ground wanting to cry, puke, and scream all at once but just lied there in silent pain.
Cole faltered for a second, almost regretting this and what was to come….but he knew he'd crossed a line long ago at the beginning of the fight; sometimes you can't stop once you start walking the path.
"Weiss, Ruby, For what it's worth, I'm truly sorry to both of you, but I-"
"NO, DON'T!" Ren screamed out, coughing.
Taking advantage of that hesitation, nora tried to use her hammer to take him down, but Cole heard her halfway across the arena and rushed her mid-swing.
'Thanks for the heads-up Ren' he thought sarcastically as he moved on pure instinct.
Forcing his lightning through her weapon and began draining her lightning, smiling he switched gears as he took her power and grabbed her hammer by the middle of the weapon, jumped over her and pulled it up to her throat and stopped the moment he and they all heard her choking from behind. Lifting her off the ground, Cole was forcing her to choke on air, her eyes went so wide he'd thought they'd pop out.
Everyone in the room watched nora flail and kick in desperation to breathe again, and it looked like he was going for a slow and terrifying moment of near-death experience moment.
Weiss was the only one to try ranged attacks, only for Cole to swing nora around hard enough to free her grip from her weapon and threw her into Weiss. "Just like them, you still blame me for what happened…despite my apologies, the desperation to try to reconcile, even the fact that I stayed by her side nursing her back to her feet, you all STILL held it over my head and won't forgive me"
With a fierce battle cry, he gripped the 200 pound weapon and charged toward jaune amping up his electricity, but froze mid swing inches from her head and froze when Ruby was up next she decided she'd stand in front of him to stop him from ending jaune's life. To maneuver it from her letting it fly into the wall embedding itself all the way through, for a brief moment, he choked on his breath and felt mortified with what he'd nearly gone through with.
From her perspective Cole was as unhinged as anyone could be, and she saw that he had his reasons to be angry, -it was no different right now- when she saw he was ruthlessly lashing out at everyone she now knew he couldn't keep it under control any longer. He was in an immeasurable amount of pain and was angry with everyone he, trusted betraying him, he just snapped.
"Please stop… I'm so sorry i…I wasn't a better f-friend- I tried everything to-" she struggled to get out as she hiccuped a few times, Weiss tried to call out for her apologies to reach his ears but couldn't find it in her to say a word with the pain that wracked her body.
"I know Ruby…" he replied softly as he slowly hugged her and ran his fingers through her hair. "You did everything to help; tell Weiss I'm sorry"
Letting go of her, he kissed her forehead, stepped past her and almost hesitated when he heard "please… don't do it" the pain he felt from her voice alone was immense but shoved it down as he took off running towards jaune as fast as possible.
Jaune blurrily looked up just as Cole was snatching him by the throat at the last second, and felt the vice grip squeezing his windpipe closed tight.
Feeling his body slam into the wall with the force of a truck, he heard Cole panting and said, "y-you…and the others…o-on the other hah-hand? Not as redeemable" he growled before punching him in the mouth. "You all talked about me like I was already a convicted criminal walking into prison…not even knowing nor caring if I was in the room!"
Turning his body he threw him overhead into yang whom just got back up and hit the ground hard.
Next on his agenda was to use their past against them like they did him, and he decided he'd start with jaune.
"You say I'm a fake hunter, a fake friend? Well, from where I'm standing, you're the fraud here arc; always walking around like you're an innocent and pure huntsman. at least when I told the truth about how I got to this place I told everyone you all were there!" he screamed swiping at the air creating a wave of thunder and lightning. "Not to mention how you told everyone that you could beat me, well, look where you ended up, AGAIN!"
Next, he (obviously) turned his attention to yang
"You destroyed a club, several city businesses, homes, and half of a highway, along with all that, you almost hospitalized everyone in combat class over something as shallow as your fucking hair. Yet, you talk about how Ruby needs protection from me, I get you're protective of her, but she can handle herself"
Pyrrha was up next, but to him, it was ironic, and it made him laugh pretty hard.
"You once told me you were tired of being treated like you were unattainable or portrayed as though you were more than what you were, yet despite that, you did that exact same thing to me, I'm hated by everyone because of it because of you!" he lashed out by throwing a bolt at her, which blasted her back a few feet.
Cole turned to Blake and glared like Adam did when she betrayed him.
"You were a terrorist coming into a school filled with white fang purists and wounded thousands over the past 3 years before leaving for beacon, and you accused me of being the man who murdered his entire village and family!"
In a desperate need to use a calmer voice, he ended up sounding menacing towards Ren and nora.
"But you two?…*sigh*….quite honestly, you both don't deserve this, but you got in the way, and I am sorry, but regardless of what you both went through, you two still didn't even try defending me." He gave pause to point at the redhead "at least when Ruby tried to clear my name -no matter how many times she failed- she kept trying to fix it, but even still, she tried her best" he said before grabbing Weiss by the front of her shirt hoisting her up to meet her at eye level.
"and you….you pretend to have been doing your family and the reputation of the SDC a favor by becoming a huntress, but all you've really done is bitch like a toddler!" He threw her four feet away and continued his rant.
"Granted you were treating me better after a while, I can't fully hate you" switching things up he wiped the sweat from his face near his eyes and stalked toward them all.
"Be that as it may, you never had to suffer in poverty and steal for food, you never had to worry about when you'd run out of water or your money, never had to wonder if you'd lose your life while you slept, nor having to worry if they bleached the food scavenging for food"
Grabbing her by the front of her shirt he added, "you never had to suffer losing people you loved" tightening his grip he took a deep breath to refocus his point "you talk about the ins and outs of your father's company, but I bet everything that you never attended board meetings, planned any charity events, you didn't once try to speak out about the crimes of what your father committed against the Faunas and how he'd closed down other businesses involving dust as a whole" when he finished he let her hair go and roundhouse kicked her in the stomach sending her careening into the console and ended up breaking it in half along with a few of her bones, inside he felt so horrible for what he did, but he had to prove his point.
"All seven of you -somewhere down the road- stopped treating me fairly and went out of your way to exclude me everywhere from anything you did!" he roared with tears running down his cheeks as his lightning swarmed his body like a raging inferno and turned a light orangish gold color and grew in intensity. "at least you're working together for once" he added quietly, smiling sarcastically from the irony.
"But now the table's turned, and now I'm a lion to a pack of sheep; thank you for making me stronger than I could ever be….thank you for hating me"
But out of the blue, a memory of him Weiss and ruby sitting together came up. Cole comfortably slept near the edge of the cliff, head rested on Weiss' lap with her fingers running through his hair, ruby her head on a rolled up blanket playing a game on her scroll.
at the bottom was a large man-made lake, a few cabins and a fire pit two meters from the river.
He had asked Weiss that day why happiness was so sporadic and short-lived, the answer to his odd and random question "I don't know… but remember Cole, it's important to feel everything to its fullest when it comes; you deserve the same amount of happiness just like everyone on remnant" he smiled at her as she kissed his head.
Cole fell asleep letting her hold him in her arms, this allowed him to forget about the mission for the night.
His happiness was knowing Weiss and ruby were there for him when he had a breakdown a month into beacon and seeing her happy felt right in that moment. Cole had a small soft spot for Weiss, and it was rewarded and since they both shared the pain of abuse and neglect.
Cole didn't have a family like everyone else had, so he felt comfortable enough to try for his own with ruby and Weiss, but society said it was wrong, so he figured he'd need to choose one of them eventually, Weiss was drifting away and ruby was too but slower.
"You can't have anything you want"
Comment anything you think could be worked on at:
H6pp1n355_in_misery.
Criticism is appreciated
