Ruby knew he was bearing his soul to the eight of them and threw everything at them from what they did to him, how they directly and indirectly pushed him past the point of no return, and now using their past against them to force their medicine in their mouths.
Only Weiss got mercy from Cole 'the merciless beast' and it tore him up inside to do what he had to get his point across.
She tried forcing her emotions down as she steadied her gun at him and took aim 'sorry, but this needs to stop' she thought trying to bite down on her tears. She had to act quick, or he'd never come back from a terrible decision, and it would haunt him every waking moment.
Despite the shaking and trembling, ruby still managed to hold her aim near Cole and after a single exhale everything would forever be changed between them.
BOOM*
a bullet whizzed past his head, grazing his ear, taking a clump of his hair with it. Cole had heard both the gunshot and the whizzing of the bullet, he snapped out of it and turned to the source and froze when he saw ruby.
His eyes were met with her crying and shakily pointing her sniper at him, "I'll g-give you a fi-five minute head start...*hiccup sobbing*...af-after that we're coming after you" deep down in his heart he knew she was serious about the threat.
"Please, don't do this" he replied somber and tenderly.
"GO BEFORE I-!" she screamed squeezing the trigger back choking down her emotions "I don't want to, but I will bring you down" despite the guilt and wanting to apologize, he nodded to her, sheathed his sword, took off through the doors and went straight for his phone before jumping through a window ten stories toward a painful landing but instead of falling he noticed the electricity in his hands had created intense static electricity to burst out like engine thrusters and helped him glide down to the courtyard but to his dismay he fell five feet too soon and rolled on the ground hitting his face on the stone rolling a few feet or so in the chaos.
Seeing him bounce and roll to a stop, everyone crowded him checking to see if he was hurt when they noticed he was panting and sweating badly. a few looked up at the broken window he leapt from, some watching the shards of glass showering down like tiny daggers, while others were taking pictures and filming him.
The pain was unbearable since he was almost completely drained of lightning and didn't have anything to drain, so he shakily pushed himself to his knees and eventually shook as he stood as straight as he could considering his situation.
as soon as he stood up he took off down the courtyard hoping to steal a bullhead and get out of there, Good thing he could start feeling a source to drain into his fingers; it wasn't much, but it felt like it could be enough for a small shockwave or two.
To make matters even worse, a holographic video began playing a recording of the entire fight in the training arena causing everyone's attention to be pointed directly at him in various ways, some were impressed, some completely scared, others were angry with him, but most just watched him stop watching the hologram with wide-eyed in horror. It was like he was stuck there frozen in place, not believing that he'd snapped so completely.
Watching the video play out, he noticed it was modified to make him sound like he was targeting them for contracts on their heads and the recent abuse felt like the perfect caveat for anyone dumb enough to mess with him everyone let out a loud gasp when the recording had him saying Weiss was a high-value target and was needed alive for even bigger scores of lien.
'I did not say any of those lies, what the fuck is happening right now?!' he thought to himself looking around frantic for an escape, but when looking he was quickly interrupted as Cardin charged at him because he wasn't wearing his armor he got the full brunt of the hit, for the first time he got punched in the chest so hard it sent him five feet and skid to a stop. Cole stood up and shot Cardin in the legs with a few bolts, Unfortunately for him though people started charging him, so he decided it would be best to perform a bit of crowd control and screamed, "GET AWAY FROM ME!" and threw a huge shockwave blast with everything he had and sent everyone flying but the wall of lightning surrounding them didn't shock them, but the fall still hurt all the same.
He looked down at dulitas and went wide-eyed when he noticed it was too bent up, knicked and tattered to use anymore, so he grabbed some fire dust to heated them up and let a student's staff shatter the metal like glass and blew them back.
Taking advantage of the hesitation, he saw the opening he had created and took off like a bat out of hell jumping and vaulting over people but when he noticed an itching feeling in the back of his neck, so he whipped around and halfway into his turn his sword built flew past his face and lodged halfway into the ground. The precision that was needed only proved that only one person could have done that, but doubted it.
The moment he saw it he jumped to the side and spun around pointing his hand at Ruby but hesitated the second he saw her, letting his massive bolt vanish in an instant.
'Sonova bitch, I was hoping it was someone else' he thought just as he hesitated to shoot, desperation mixed with overwhelming sense of self disgust cemented his legs in place unable to react to anything else.
"Nowhere to go, nowhere to hide. You have a lot to apologize for." she dropped an empty clip and locked another in the mag well, loading a round into the chamber, all without taking an eye off him. "and you can start with my team and the rest of our friends" her tone was dead serious leaving no room to argue but somehow Cole found room to do so with a fake laughter and Ruby knew all too well what it really was, "your friends aren't any friends of mine Ruby, not after they turned their backs on me, and I don't need to explain myself again." He replied as he whipped his arm toward her feet and opened his hand like a claw, electrifying his arms with blue, orange, and gold lightning.
Ruby opened her mouth to give him her retort but froze when a black bullhead landing mere meters behind Cole and out came cinder, mercury, emerald, and waiting in the craft stood a short female pilot.
Cole quickly fired a few bolts at the eight of them as a warning and successfully pushing them back a few steps, he hesitated when he saw Ruby five feet in front of him
but asked the group "who are you supposed to be, I didn't call for help"
Cinder and her minions got in between the two and pointed their weapons at the students, "we're your saviors kid, now get in" Roman ordered.
Weighing his options, he decided this was a better option and gladly accepted. "It's not like I have a choice." he said taking his short sword before he got in the bullhead, Ruby, and the others tried stopping him but was met with a swift chain whip to her feet halting her from her chase, while the others were too beaten up to get back up.
"You aren't serious about taking us on, are you? You're alone and out matched" Emerald said cockily, but the second she said it the rest of team RWBY and JNPR came in from behind her but bruised, bleeding and beaten like training dummies.
"This about evens things" jaune said, coughing up a glob of blood just as Cole's ride flew off and assumed it would get somewhere safe as fast as possible.
"That's our cue, sorry to leave so suddenly, but we are on the clock" mercury said and quickly got in another bullhead with a random goon in a suit.
"Don't let em get away" jaune said as they all shot at the two ships but missed Every. Single. Damned. Shot.
No one reacted as quick as one would have assumed since it happened so quick not many could help much.
"oh for god' sake, you guys can't aim for shit!" Ruby said under her breath and slammed the scythe in the ground and took aim at Cole's ride.
BOOM*
a high velocity .50 caliber sniper round flew right for the craft and a few seconds later it tilted to the right and went straight into the city.
"I need to disappear the moment we land-" he said just as the right engine blew up and down it went toward the city, crashing hard through a building. Alarms blaring a voice said, "warning, left engine inoperable, brace for impact"
"YOU GOTTA BE FUCKIN KIDDING!" he screamed as the plane fell out of the sky.
Ruby looked out of her sights and looked back to see everyone gathering over to the eight of them taking photos and videos. She ignored everyone and called out for the headmaster, and the look in his eyes already gave her an answer to a question he'd not yet asked.
"Oz, I'm taking the first bullhead to get Cole from those people" Ruby said before sprinting off ignoring everyone's protesting for her to wait and was stopped when Velvet grabbed her arm and said "Ruby just listen to us please, if you go alone you'll get yourself killed, I'm begging you, don't let your anger for Cole push you from what matters most" gods she hated being misunderstood, but it was a good lie to play off from for now.
"Damn it" she paused and looked at her friends, "fine, get in before I change my mind!" she called out before taking the co-pilot seat. "You guys had better patch yourselves up cause when we land we need to split up in two groups" Ruby said just before grabbing a bottle of water.
'why did everything go so wrong so fast" she muttered as she watched the world whiz by. On the outside she was worried and angry, but on the inside she was planning out how she'd separate herself from the half she chose, so she could help Cole.
"I'm starting to think you don't actually run this school, oz" Glynda joked watching the eight of them leave to get Cole. Ozpin smirked at her and said, "well, they're still students, and the best teachers are experience and making mistakes along the path to become a hunter"
However, he'd soon regret those very words, watching droids clean up the courtyard and the other places that were in need of repairs.
several hours later*
"James, I'm sorry, but he's extremely dangerous and needs to be dealt with before he hurts any more people…" he paused to calm himself and turned to the general angry and upset. "If you don't take care of him I will hire someone that will, you of all people know how dangerous my agents can really be"
Ironwood took a calming breath to collect himself and frowned at him "if you recall correctly ozpin, the council had already made aware that the mission those eight are on will take longer than a few days, I looked into it, and you're using them as an excuse to get Mr. Valentine back…but, as far as I'm aware ruby was responsible for the crash landing that his stolen ship underwent, and he was merely running off campus because he required space from his classmates, he's your student, and you have absolutely no right to intervene nor the authority to do anything in a school let alone the kingdom of Vale! You can be replaced as easily as any other headmaster, Unfortunately for us, all he did it by the means of a team of criminals" he said sternly and steeped deep in a warning. Slowly turning his back, he walked out the office toward the elevator.
ozpin stood up and strolled over to the window overlooking his school and spoke loud and coldly, "as a close friend I'm asking that you just take a second look at the evidence that is against your student, because other than his training sessions he hasn't shown any signs of violent behavior towards anyone; adult or student, and his abilities on and off the field are
exceptional to put it lightly; hmph, it's not like a real huntsman can be beaten by him, he's nowhere close to their caliber."
Oz raised a brow and asked almost taking it as a threat "what, you think he's more capable than my best fourth years, is he more capable than qrow and his sister, or my other students that graduated recently?"
ozpin looked him dead in the eye and heard ironwood say "he's a model student rivaling the likes of Pyrrha nikos and Ruby rose in terms of scholastic achievement and effectively working with others, regardless of his short temper; everything he does has a purpose, his physical strength outranked yang Xiao long when I found her pinned by the boy during one of his sparring sessions in Glynda's class. The nature of his auralessness surprised even me when he used a large amount of lightning on a mission when he came across an ancient Beringel" he smiled when oz took a step back and added "plus I've noticed you've grown quite fond of every student you allow into your academy" he said before ozpin turned walking towards his chair and smiled wider but one of mockery "your students will uncover the truth oz, best to just help buy them time; the council stays in the dark while we save the boy from himself"
Ozpin watched him leave and sat there for a full five or more minutes, angrily grinding his teeth.
"Professor?" Glynda asked just as he angrily screamed and threw his chair end over end out the window, shattering glass and splintering wood outside and stood there crazed and panting.
She simply scoffed and put everything back together and walked him through the academy to calm his nerves.
'I need him back in my academy; fortune favors the patient after all' he thought to himself.
Cole was free from the one place he felt was home but when you live on the road, you tend to keep some habits you shouldn't have, and it only gets worse when you live everywhere you lay down long enough to sleep, learn to survive any way you can think of and when you have no choice but to jump ship, you do it pretty quick without a second thought. Which in hindsight running from his problems was the worst choice he chose, the longer he thought about it the more he regretted it and after a minute….a literal minute, he realized that he didn't have a good reason why he left except that he didn't care for being around people who didn't care about him, so naturally he ran from his problems….just like he did when he was nine. (but he'd never admit it)
When Cole woke up to the sound of ringing in his ears he assumed it was because he over did his training again, but then he noticed his arm and fingers were mangled, twisted up and broken in places that weren't natural to the untrained eye, but thankfully -or not so thankfully, whatever your views are- his arm was still attached to him everything was concrete and rebar with a few this resembling what used to be a store of some kind.
Feeling no other alternatives' Cole began to dig himself out from under the ruins and gaps for air the instant he found warm air hit his lungs. Dragging his broken and bloody body towards a slab of concrete, and he lazily slammed against it gasping and groaning as he bled out under the sun and coughed a few times spilling more blood.
Looking around he saw a few destroyed buildings, fire and may sitting next to him panting and covered with dirt, blood, and ashes. Not to mention dozens of people digging in the rubble, and what surprised him most was the fact that the building was a warehouse and the remains of an apartment building.
Not far away stood a news crew.
This came over the Vale radio and news stations on the emergency broadcast.
"We come to you with sad news, the popular attraction and place for people and Faunas from all walks of life is now no longer.
Shaky Quakers fashion as well as a dozen other buildings have been demolished in an incident involving a bullhead's crash.
No one knows how it happened, but investigations are still underway by the Vale police to determine the cause of the crash, and we hope and pray no one was harmed."
"I have to get the hell out of here" he said as he quickly got up from a discarded door of the bullhead and ran off not realizing that a slip of paper fell out of his chest armor, and thanks to a strong breeze that paper flew into the bullhead just before a large amount of the building caved in burying it inside.
For about two and a half weeks' Cole wandered the mountains of Vale surviving on whatever he found edible, but he had to be smart, cause in his mangled arm he needed to be more careful than he usually was.
It made dealing with the pain and staying quiet very tricky, so he decided to fashion something for himself to bite down on if need be, which he'd be doing a lot.
Qrow morphed back into his human form when he saw Cole stumble to a stop with a crushed arm, and not far behind him, he noticed the boy was obviously being stalked by a Beowulf.
Normally, he would have tried intervening when it leapt for an easy kill, but he stopped when Cole flinched a quick bolt of gold lightning through its chest and watched it dissolve into nothingness, but when he turned around, he ended up tripping and fell on his mangled arm and screamed in agony rolling off it hoping it would alleviate some pain, but it got worse. His sight was littered with black spots and felt as if he set it ablaze from within if so much as brushed his arm against a blade of grass.
"Probably shouldn't have lost it back there" he forced out as he limped down the path toward the forest.
Qrow being qrow he wanted to help this kid but knowing he attacked his daughter, he let Cole be and decided to watch over him from a distance; otherwise he'd beat him to a pulp.
After a few days, a fever set in and made him weaker the longer he walked, not to mention he had trouble standing, his vision blurred every so often, his hearing was fading, and he'd lost track of where he was. Before he could react, an Ursa Major smacked him into a tree and bit into his arm, shaking him from side to side.
He tried fighting back but nothing was working since he couldn't fight properly, but since his armor as so strong his arm didn't come off yet but the bigger problem was that a small herd of Grimm were rushing towards the inhuman screams Cole let out, his body reacted just in time and blew the ursa's head off and caused a large explosion.
When the dust settled the ursa was dissipating in half from the top half through the arm but was excruciating all the same and passed out under a tree's shade.
Cole was left blissfully unaware that a man and woman with white hair and cat like eyes stepped in and just before he passed out, he watched the beautiful woman slice off his left arm and close off the stump within minutes. In all honesty, he didn't feel it, so it could have been a hallucination, after it was done they told Adam what they knew, got him to calm down enough to listen for a moment and in his opinion these two could have been a father and daughter Faunas, so he just let them go with the benefit of the doubt.
When he saw Adam walking toward Cole, qrow flew down as he was and landed on Cole and gently pecked the metal indicating something, but Adam just knelt down and said, "he's not dead yet little bird" just before it caw-ed at him and flew off.
Looking at Cole he felt a stabbing pain in his gut and immediately pushed his emotions down to get out of there as quickly as possible.
"Please don't make me regret this kid" he said just as he grabbed Cole and was about to take him to a village when he heard rustling in the bushes and smirked when he saw crimson.
Qrow by this point was close to beacon when he noticed Atlas ships flying over head in the same direction.
"i am not looking forward to what's coming next" he thought before landing in a tree near the courtyard and jumped down as his human self already drinking from his flask.
watching Atlesian knights walk toward the tower, he noticed they were guarding a few council members, all of whom had the resting bitch face as they took notice that he was walking to the tower already drinking.
"This is going to be fun" he said sarcastically, he knew that Cole was screwed but damn was his job annoying sometimes.
I'm not entirely sure if anyone's actually reading this but but even if you are I really am grateful it got the attention is somewhat deserved.
and for those wondering yes, Adam is still going to be somewhat of a villain figure in the story but it's gonna be done right.
Also, ironwood is not going to be a villain and isn't going to be stripped of his humanity like RT tried doing.. he's actually going to be more of a father figure to Cole moving forward.
and for those who disagree with how the story is progressing or if you think that some of my choices in narrative are in any way shape or form wrong? then you can happily stop fucking reading delete my shit off of your list and read something else.
Comment anything you think could be worked on at:
H6pp1n355_in_misery.
Criticism is appreciated
