The Schnee Black Sheep

A/N

Shit man this chapter.

Seriously, what did I have in me when I wrote this. I've actually had to increase the rating of this fic out of concern that it may be too dark and harsh. I'm only covering my ass there.

I've also explained Weiss' condition in this chapter so you know a bit more about what she really has.

This chapter is full of detail about who Coal really is. Literarily I've explained almost everything about his past now bar one thing which will come up in the next couple chapters. I've also re explained a few things I've already reviled about him just to confirm it to the rest of the characters. Because of this there will be a lot of speech from Coals side but I hope it doesn't throw you all off. I find it easier to explain thing's through speech as it let you guys see things from the same perspective as the rest of the characters but do not fret. I will be doing a few flashback scenes in the future to show Coal's point of view for some of them. Seriously, I could write a whole new story about just the twins growing up… wait, should I do that?

I both love and hate this chapter and I've rewrote it so many times now, that I'm actually starting to wonder if this was the best version to use…

One more week for the poll on Coal's pairing. Get voting if you haven't already. At the moment, it is very close competition so I hope you guys will sort that out.

Oh, one more thing… who should I kill off first?

Coal has already killed in this fic, you all read it. he's already nearly killed Blake and Yang in the forest. So who should he actually kill first? This will not be a poll! I've already got a few ideas in mind for a LOT of deaths in this fic. This isn't going to get pretty. Let's be fair *spoiler alert for season three of RWBY if ya aint seen it*. RWBY season 3 killed a main character so if they can do it, why can't I. I want to see what you guy's think throughout this fic. Should someone need to die, give me a reason to kill em. I dare you!

Don't own RWBY


Chapter 15: Secrets of an Executioner

"ARE YOU STUPID!" Weiss shouted as her twin was getting ready for his upcoming fight. "I don't care how cocky you are, you cannot take on an entire team of huntsmen by yourself! Even if it is Cardin's team."

Coal was focusing on fixing his newly improved gauntlet to his right arm, he had never really had a chance to fully test the improvements, but he and Ruby had done enough testing to know that it was working as well as it could be. Plus, he needed the practice with it since he had to incorporate a more complex form of ice forging.

"I'll be fine Snow Angel." Weiss knew he was not going to be talked out of this because of how he used his nickname for her. "This needs to happen."

"But why does it 'need to happen'." She asked in a mock impression of her twin.

"Because Cardin needs to be taken down a peg!" He yelled, causing his sister to wince and lower her head. It wasn't often that he raised his voice to his twin. With a heavy sigh, Coal continued. "I'm sorry for shouting… But you know that I don't like people who think they are above everyone else."

"I know Frosty." She said timidly. She felt her brother warp her in a hug and returned it herself, knowing full well that he would only fight for the right reasons. Cardin needed to be knocked off his high horse and it would be her twin who would see to making sure that he stayed down. "On a different note, when are you going to go back to your natural hair colour? Frosty doesn't have the same ring to it when you have black hair."

Coal chuckled as he released his twin, not really knowing the answer himself and headed for the arena.

(Arena Stands)

Weiss approached the rest of her friends with mixed feelings on the fight that was about to take place. On one hand, she knew her brother was right and that Cardin needed to be taught a lesson but on the other she was afraid her brother wouldn't be able to hold back against him… That made her worry about the odds of team CRDL coming out of this fight alive and her brother's sanity. She knew that he was slightly unstable, probably more so that she even realised, but he wouldn't kill another student… Would he?

Yang attempted to break the silence.

"So, we finally get to see the Executioner in action." At this, she got multiple stares from both teams, an even more confused stare from Weiss, which didn't go unnoticed by the rest of them. "I asked Junior to see what he could dig up on him. Apparently, his code name was Executioner when he was under General Ironwoods command. He was unable to find out how or when he got the name though. Actually, for some reason Junior already knew about his name." She informed.

This created even more questions for the teens which none of them voiced. Knowing that only one person can answer them and he was currently about to fight. He had a lot of explaining to do after this fight.


(Arena)

Coal stood alone in the hallway entrance to the arena deep in thought. Taking slow, rhythmic breaths to keep himself calm and not let the growing bloodlust take over. The hate and rage had been building up inside him for a while now and this was the perfect way to release it all. He was going to go wander around the emerald forest later in the week anyway to kill a few Grimm and subdue his bloodlust, yet fighting against Cardin and his team seemed a lot more… Satisfying.

You know we can just kill them, right?

"Yeah, I know." He said raising his head and walking out to the arena floor.

Immediately most of the crowd became terrified, as what emerged could not be seen as human. A dark shroud of bloodlust, that even the students recognised as something that only Grimm could produce, hung in the air around the white coated teen like a thick black mist. Even team CRDL, who had been waiting for the boy to appear, backed away slightly. Only Cardin seemed oblivious to the situation.

"About time you showed up." Cardin spat only to get no response from his team's opponent. It was at this point when Glynda stepped between them to begin the match. Behind her the faces of the combatants appeared on a large screen. Each face had a green bar underneath indicating the person's aura. Coal's was already slightly depleted, falling and rising, never fully reaching 100% but not dropping lower than 90%. While this struck the crowd as weird, they all payed it little mind as they turned their attention to Glynda.

"You all know the rules. There are none. Only that once someone's aura hits the red, they will be eliminated from the match. Are we clear?" Once she got nods of understanding from both parties, with Coal also equipping his headphones, she walked to the edge of the arena to stand alongside the headmaster, who wouldn't dare miss what was bound to be an amusing fight if the ex Schnee was involved. "BEGIN!"

[Battle music: Bring me the Horizon - Throne]

Cardin charged in first. Raising his mace high above his head bringing it down to cave in the boy's skull. It was obvious that he intended to end this fight with a single blow, he was angry at the person who had the never to embarrass him in front of the school during lunch and again during class. It was time for payback.

The second before the mace made contact with his head, Coal disappeared. Causing Cardin to miss and stumble forward having lost balance thinking that he was sure to hit his mark. To Cardin's eyes it looked like Coal had vanished, but in reality, he had jumped above the boy with lightning speed and was now seemingly hovering above the armoured teen. Something the rest of team CRDL noticed.

Dove, a brown-haired teen with plated armour who carried a sword which doubled as a gun, aimed at the floating boy and fired with uncanny accuracy. Coal had already accounted for at least one marksman on the team and had outstretched his left hand in order to summon a glyph to block the shots, whilst simultaneously, ice forging an estoc containing a small amount of fire dust with a flick of his other wrist. Sure, he had crafted the blade in less than a couple of seconds, but he knew it was slower because of having to avoid activating the fire dust. He never used the blade against any of the teens as he landed on Cardin's back, who had just straightened himself out, and threw the blade into the ground so that it was sticking out. Creating a new one as he jumped into the centre of the arena floor, which he also slammed into the ground.

The members of CRDL charged at once to attack the solo hunter, who quite easily began to slip through their attacks with ease whilst creating and planting more blades in the ground. Moving around the arena with grace and purpose, Coal continued playing the defensive whilst setting up his own field. It almost looked as if he was floating just above the ground due to the speed and delicacy of his movements, barely avoiding the attacks from Team CRDL by a few millimetres. Yet he seemed rather calm about the close proximity of the attacks.

In the stands, all the students but two seemed confused by Coal's fighting style. All he had done so far was dodge attacks and stab swords into the ground across the battlefield. Only Weiss and Pyrrha knew what the boy was up to yet Ruby was the only one with the nerve to question his fighting style.

"What is he doing?" She asked leaning over towards her partner.

"He's setting up his graveyard." This caught the attention of the rest of the teens, prompting her to continue. "He would normally create blades and plant them a lot faster than this. When he fought against Pyrrha in the last tournament, he created over fifty blades within the first ninety seconds of the fight, whereas now, he's only made fifteen in the same amount of time."

"Damn that's fast." Yang whistled. Pyrrha continued on from Weiss' explanation while Coal continued to embed more blades, the field looked about half full and it was easy to see that team CRDL were having trouble moving around the blades of ice in order to get to him.

"He likes to switch out between blades often, rather than hang onto one. He told me that he had a habit of breaking metal ones during training so he developed his ice forging to get by that. To speed things up, he would normally create a whole arsenal of blades around him to start with and continue on as he goes, picking them up when he needs them, sometimes he will store them in small straps and belts that are attached to his ammo bag and coat. Both times I've fought him, he started off by forging maybe ten swords in a protective circle around him like how he has planted them now. He's without a doubt the most difficult opponent I've ever tried to hit, both because of the blades and his evasiveness, which has improved greatly since our last duel." Pyrrha said with admiration.

"Buy why did Weiss call it his 'graveyard'?" Jaune asked confused.

"Look at the blades and what do you see." Weiss asked the group. Each teen looked down at the spectacle of ice made swords wondering what the girl was implying. Since the start of the fight, a low eerie mist had formed across the span of the field of ice blades, created only from the cold air radiating from Coal's creations. Ruby got it first.

"They look like crosses… The ones you would find on gravestones." She said quietly, hoping she was wrong.

"Bingo." Weiss nodded.

Back down on the arena floor, Sky Lark was growing tired of the close proximity of the forest of blades. Wielding a halberd made it difficult to attack when his strikes could be blocked from anyone of the embedded blades. The length that Coal forged his blades left them sticking far enough out the ground so that they were almost at the boy's chest height. Sure, he could swing above the blades, but after several attempts at this and nearly falling over due to rising his centre of gravity to reach above the blades, he was starting to get pissed.

Finally snapping, Sky lashed out at the closest imbedded blade and with a mighty yell, raising his halberd above his head to slam it down and knock down the blades around him with the force of his strike. Little did he know that his opponent started smirking, having seen what he was about to do.

Coal dodged another strike from Cardin and leapt high into the air to escape the battle for a moment, pulling over the hood of his coat to hide his eyes and face. Holding no sword in his hands, he waved his right hand over the area where Sky was about to smash his creations and summoned several glyphs under the blades surrounding the boy. With an evil smirk he growled in a dark unrecognisable voice.

"Burn."

*BOOM*

Several of the blades surrounding Sky exploded in a mass of fire and ice with Coal activating the stored away fire dust inside his creations. The eruption of fire was enough to shake the very school itself and even caused the remainder of team CRDL to drop to their knees having lost balance. Even Ozpin and Glynda struggled to stay upright. Sky flew out of the explosion and into the stands where the spectators sat, who were not fully aware of what happened having shielded their eyes from the fireball. The boy was completely unconscious and had almost no remaining aura.

With Sky eliminated, Cardin stood up to see Coal land back on the ground. Well, he actually landed on the pommel of one of his swords and was balancing on it with ease, arms folded and hood hiding his face. A rage built up inside Cardin at seeing one of his friends taken out by a cheap tactic.

Coal didn't say put for long as he crafted one more blade and pounced a stunned member of Cardin's team, Dove. With a swift thrust of his blade, Coal sent the boy flying back with the single exploding strike, his sword literly exploding as he made contact, and pounced once more, dropping and collecting a new blade in one fluid motion along his flight path to his target. Dove was still gliding through the air, winded by the strike to his chest, when Coal caught up and appeared beneath him. Thrusting his new blade into the Dove's back he sent the boy flying upwards this time while he crouched on the ground. Coal then crafted and threw a new blade to follow the airborne teen and collected a new blade that was sticking from the ground to his right and jumped in the air in pursuit of his prey who was still climbing in height and approaching the ceiling with speed. Catching his second blade in his left hand as he ascended, Coal continued to climb eventually reaching Dove who was still unable to move, completely in shock. Coal stabbed both his blades into Dove's shoulder plates, making sure not to actually pierce the boy through his flesh, using the momentum from his jump and proceeded to continue to ascend in height until he was able to pierce the roof of the arena, embedding both blades in the material and leaving both the blades and a pinned Dove attached to it. Eliminated.

Falling once more, Coal landed back in the centre of the arena with little trouble and picked up a new blade which he had placed earlier. His back facing his remaining opponents.

Only two left, who were completely stunned by the speed at which their friend had been eliminated. Coal's flurry of strikes had pinned Dove to the ceiling of the arena in less than a few seconds of him dashing from the pommel of his embedded blade. The sight of the state of their friend left the remainder of team CRDL struck with both fear and rage.

Why aren't we killing them?

Coal answered his counterpart in a voice which sent a chill down the spines of every person in proximity of the fight but no-one could figure out who he was talking to.

"Why kill them, when we can show them hell?"

Coal stepped to his left, just in time to dodge a summersaulting slash from Russel Thrush and his twin daggers and dropped down low to avoid a swinging strike from the mace wielder Cardin. Spinning on the ball of his foot, Coal kicked Cardin hard in the side and forced him away so that he could finish off Russel quickly. Coal thrust his weapon into the boy's side as he come to land just in front of him. Russel was able to dodge however he didn't account for the hidden explosive features that Coal had stored inside the blade. Something which Coal was thankful to Ruby for as he activated the fire dust stored away in the ice with a glyph. The first explosion sent Russel flying back and colliding with another blade which also exploded, sending the boy flying once more into range of another blade. Russel pinballed off another three blades before being launched into the air from the final explosion. The latest explosions were just as gargantuan as the first with the same earth shaking effects and resulting in Russel landing parallel with his teammate in the stands in a similar state. Coal had remained unharmed having used a protective glyph to shield him from the first point blank blast and dropped the spent blade, which was really only a handle at this point, shattering as it hit the floor.

That just left Cardin.

The teen in question looked on in fear at what he was facing. The arena was covered in blades of ice that looked uncannily like gravestones, the eerie mist created by the blades hung like a hollow cloud of death and the fact that the remnants of some unused fire dust had been mixed into the mist, made it look like it was a mist made of blood. Then there were his team mates. Eliminated in merely a few strikes each and sent flying around the arena as if they were toys.

Cardin stared at the shadowed face of his opponent. The Boy who stood facing him slumping forward with his arms dangling down in front of his body. He had no formal fighting stance, in fact he looked rather like a Grimm ready to pounce on easy prey. The boy's hood covered his face in a dark shadow so that Cardin couldn't quite see his eyes, but one thing was for sure. Even though Cardin couldn't see them, he knew that his eyes contained a ravenous hunger. Cardin was face to face with nothing more than a monster.

In the stands, Coal's friends watched on in shock at his display of pure destruction. Wiess' more so than the rest. She had never heard her twin speak like that. Or fight like that. His fighting had always been compared to dancing while collecting and making blades to strike his opponents when they were weakest. But this wasn't anything like that. This was the boy's wrath in full effect. 'It's not him. That can't be him.' She prayed as she watched on in horror. When had he become so, so… Malicious.

Pyrrha, who had seen the boys original fighting style, was currently thinking something along the same lines. Yet she couldn't help remember what he had told her the month before at the end of their first mission. How he had been locked away in a mental institution and deemed a monster. Was this what he was talking about?

The rest of the teens looked on just as shocked and horrified. Not able to comprehend that the person they were watching was the same childish prankster that they were used to seeing. Blake's memory dashed back to the moment she saw him kill that man in Frostpoint and was once again questioning which Coal was the real one. The one down in the arena, or the one who she sat with fishing off the pier.

Ruby was terrified. She remembered the look in the boy's eyes when he had ordered her to shoot him on the airship bound for her first mission and matched with the atmosphere he had created below her, she could only be afraid of the person she had helped design such a weapon for. She continued to watch the fight, drawn in by both admiration of his strength and fear of the new persona.

Yang had come to a conclusion that the boy was defiantly someone she did not want to be on the bad side off as she remembered what he had asked on their night out drinking. She knew at that moment, that the boy had defiantly killed before and would easily do it again. She needed to fight him herself to see just how fierce he really was one on one.

Jaune looked on in awe at the boy's strength and power. Thinking maybe if he asked nicely that he would teach him how to fight like that. His friend's strength was beyond what Jaune had predicted. His display of hate and rage coupled with the dark presence the teen gave off was inspiring to him. If he could master that art, then Cardin would fear him rather than the other way around.

Ren showed no emotional change to the display of force. If he was effected at all by what he saw he did well in hiding it.

Nora simply enjoyed watching team CRDL get thrown around, hoping that some legs would be broken in the process.

Coal took a slow step backwards and disapeard in the growing mist that had surrounded the arena floor. Cardin could no longer see the teen. His eyes darting around the area where Coal had just been but he couldn't see him at all though the thick mist. Cardin heard movement to his left and spun around to face Coal, for him only to not be there. Cardin heard more movement behind him this time so turned a full one eighty to be met only by more mist. Coal was toying with him now.

"C-Come out and fight me you pale bastard!" Cardin shouted. Though the fear in his voice was obvious. The only response he got was a low evil laugh emulating from the mist in every direction. Cardin edged forward slowly, keeping his mace raised ready to strike, his eyes scaning the edge of the mist looking for something to hit. Then he saw him. Coal was standing at the very edge of the arena where the mist had parted slightly, giving Cardin the perfect tunnel vison on his mark. But he couldn't move. Cardin was frozen in fear at the sight of the boy's snarling, evil smile.

Coal dashed forward with uncanny speed and pressed his right palm into the unguarded chest of the fear ridden teen and simply lightly pushed him to the ground. Cardin took the chance to look for an escape route to anywhere away from the monster the loomed above him and noticed something incredibly weird about his surroundings… Everything seemed still.

"Look around you Cardin." Coal said in his normal childish tone as he raised his arms gesturing the entire room. "We are separate from everything here. A place where time doesn't truly exist. All because of a fucking glyph." He said as he pointed to the ground under Cardin. When the boy looked at the ground on which his was still sat, he noticed that he was sitting on a golden circle that resembled some kind of weird clock. "In here I can do anything I want."

'Don't kill him!' Coal screamed internally

"No one will be none the wiser." Coal continued unintentionally with a smirk, pulling down his hood so that he could make eye contact with Cardin and pulling out his revolver. It made and audible clicking noise as he pulled back on the hammer of the gun, indicating that he was ready to shoot.

'Please, don't kill him.'

He deserves to die

"So, next time that you decide to insult someone, especially one of my friends, I will bring you here…" He growled in a low dark tone. "I will bring you, straight. To. HELL."

'STOP IT!'

And with that, Coal lifted his revolver and aimed at the boy's chest. Forcing himself to activate his ice dust, rather than the wind dust which would surely pierce through the boy's aura and kill him instantly, encasing Cardin in a pillar of ice. Cardin would swear to the grave that in those final moments of the fight, while inside the Executioner's timeless void, he had seen a ghostly figure standing behind the boy… A second, ghostly, shadow version of Coal, covered in blood with gleaming, cobalt blue eyes and an evil malicious smirk.

No one had seen his threat. No one had seen him even push Cardin to the ground. No one had seen what Cardin had. All anyone had seen, was Coal zip and breakneck speeds up to Cardin who was a second later enclosed in a coffin of ice. As Coal lowered the gun and placed it back in its holster, he crafted a pole of ice with his other hand and stuck it to the top of Cardin's enclosure, picked it up with uncanny strength and addressed the crowd with a popsicle style Cardin.

"Anyone for a bitch-sicle?" He asked jokingly with his usual childish smile.

Everyone just stared at him with open jaws. No one should be able to do a 180 that quickly. Not after blowing up two people, pinning one to the ceiling and then freezing one. No one seemed to notice that in those last few moments, Coal's aura had dropped by about half of his original value, though he never took a hit during the whole fight.

"What, no one?" Coal shrugged as he threw Cardin in his popsicle form over his shoulder and walked out the arena like nothing was wrong. He knew that he had overdone it during the fight and that he needed to prove that he was still the same person. Sure, it was a weird joke but he hoped it worked none the less.

As soon as he was out of view from the rest of his classmates in the same corridor that he had started in, he lent against the side of the wall and clutched his still ringing head and turned up the volume of his music hoping it would drown out the noise. Pain rushing through his whole body having to half his aura and force it out his body. After an episode like that there was no way that music, fishing or studying was going to help him now. Sure, he had restrained himself enough to not exactly kill team CRDL but he didn't really go easy on them either. They would be fine after a few days in the infirmary and a lot of aura treatment but that wasn't the point. He had let things go too far. What he needed was alcohol… A lot of it.

We should have just killed them.

"Shut up." He pleaded in a quiet voice. His body shaking.

You need to start to listen to me if we are ever going to kill the ones who hurt us. Who hurt our sister!

"I SAID SHUT UP!"

"But I haven't said anything yet…"

Coal rounded instantly to the new voice. It was Ruby. This was the second time now that she had been present when his started yelling at nothing other than his own shadow. Why did it have to be her?

"Ruby… Can you ask everyone to come to my room in about an hour?" He asked timidly.

"Yeah sure, why?"

"I need to explain somethings… About my past. But could you ask Weiss to come straight away, I want her to hear it first."

"Okay." Ruby said somewhat confused as she turned to do just that, leaving Coal alone. Or so she thought anyway. As he walked away still clutching his head, could he ever truly be alone?


(1 hour later – Coal's Room.)

When teams RBY and JNPR knocked on the boy's room when instructed, they were met with an uncomfortable sight.

Weiss was sat on her brother's bed, rigid and pale. She looked like she had just seen a ghost, starting at the floor with hollow, soulless eyes. What had Coal said to her to put her in this state?

"Please sit down." Coal said having shown his friends in. Once they all had taken seats either on the sofas or on the floor, leaving Weiss alone for the moment, Coal started.

"I haven't exactly been forth coming with you all about who I really am."

"What's up with Weiss?" Ruby inquired about her partner's condition somewhat worried.

"I just told her what I'm about to tell you… It's a long story so if you don't want to hear it then now's your chance to leave. I'd rather just explain it all in one go so please don't bombard me with questions." When no one moved from their spot, Coal sighed. "Well, here goes nothing."

"Growing up wasn't the best time for me and my sister. To really understand a few things, I'll have to go back as far as the day we were born. We were born several weeks early and while I was born fit and healthy, Weiss was not. In fact, she was born barely able to breathe at all. It's common for twins to grow at different rates and Weiss was rather undeveloped when we came into the world. Her bone structure was weak to the point where she could break a leg if she moved to fast and her muscle structure stopped her from walking for the first few years of our lives. She got around using a wheelchair and on her better days and later on growing up, crutches. Her lungs gave her trouble too, she would regularly collapse due to lack of oxygen, similar to what you all saw earlier against Pyrrha. While her body is stronger that it was previously, her lungs and some other organs are still a bit weaker… it's not often that she will collapse like that but there is always going to be that small chance that it will just happen out of nowhere. Doesn't matter what we do, she will always have that."

"Bearing that in mind you have me… Fathers perfect son. Good grades, strong body and all round perfect little boy. I used to spend a lot of time with my sister when we were kids cause I knew she was always wanting to be recognised by our father, I'd spend all my free time outside of lessons and sword practice with her and we would have fun. Eventually I started ditching classes and practice just to hang with her, much to my father's displeasure. I love my sister, we were a team even as kids. She has a lot more common sense than me and I relied on that as a kid and she relied on me to feel like part of the family."

"When we turned ten, Weiss was walking without crutches almost all the time and my farther started taking me on a few hunts to see how far my training was progressing, while he simultaneously tried to force Weiss down the path of a professional singer. She enjoyed singing don't get me wrong, hell I even took up a few instruments and sang a few times with her myself to try and help her with it and encourage her to do so. But she really wanted to train to become a huntress. It's all she's ever wanted to be, whereas my training wasn't really going so well. I could hold my own in a fight, but what our father really wanted was for me to be able to summon… So he hired some scientists. Eventually they came up with the idea that to make me more powerful they could infuse me with dust on a cellular level, to where I can call upon the dust in order to summon creatures of Grimm that I have defeated. It's already a family trait that we can summon but my father wanted me to be the strongest Schnee there ever was. The operation was painful and I had to remain awake so that the bonding process could happen naturally. They managed to form the dust into a summoning glyph which resides on my back. For a time, it didn't make much difference until I was forced into using it around five years ago. Which I'll explain in a second."

Coal stopped to remove his shirt and show his back to the group, calling upon the dust and revealing his brand to his friends. He heard a few audible gasps from a few of them as he turned around and showed them his gleaming blue eyes.

"My eyes change with the dust, it's kind of a side effect to using it. It also lets me see through the eyes of my summoned Grimm. I don't just summon them, I become them. I'm always connected to them and I get my speed and strength from them. I'm faster and stronger than the average hunter because of the dust and I gain a few other things as well. I get their bloodlust and rage which is something I constantly feel, but I also get these gut feeling which I can't really explain, but it's kind of like how an animal will react to an approaching danger… It's how I've survived this long. Another thing you should know is that when I do summon, it feels like I'm tearing my soul in two halves. Summoning shouldn't cause any pain to the caster, at least that's what Winter said, but I feel like it literally is tearing part of my mind and soul out of me and I usually pass out from the pain after a short time. However, the pain never truly goes away. It's always there, my back is constantly being burned by the dust while my aura is constantly healing the cellular damage. It's why my aura will never go back to one hundred percent. When I was younger I struggled with the pain and had to give up on fighting for a time until I got a better control over my aura so that I can actually use it properly again. I have to constantly adjust and manipulate my aura around my body to both heal the damaged cells and also still have my aura shield. If I don't, I can either pass out from the pain or be left defenceless. Because I was basically out of commission my father got even more pissed off. I had gone from my father's perfect son to his biggest mistake, something he never lets me forget." He said deactivating his eyes and redressing. "Are you with me so far?" He got nods in response from everyone, though they all did look relatively shocked. Looking over to his sister who was still on his bed he continued.

"Now comes the hard part. When we were twelve Weiss and I got kid-…" He stopped abruptly and took a long heavy breath, looking down at the ground, continuing timidly. "We had a run in with the White Fang after one of her auditions. We were heading to some dinner that my father had arranged with possible suiters for me seeing as how even I, the biggest fuck up in the family, couldn't possibly fuck up something he would be arranging himself. He needed to continue the Schnee family line after all and I was physically the strongest of our siblings. A series of events that took place at that time led me to killing two of the White Fangs operatives, using my summoned creatures. That was the first time I had ever successfully summoned and the first time I had killed. My body went into shock and I woke up inside of a hospital for the mentally insane, something that I kept hidden even from Weiss... I spent the next six months isolated, pumped with enough drugs and electrocuted to the point of unconsciousness to keep me from moving around at all. It was during that time where I developed my reflex to being waken up, due to the nurses and doctors injecting me with all kinds of stuff during my sleep. I'm not proud of that reflex and I never intend to hurt anyone who does try and wake me… I just can't help it. As to why Weiss can wake me, I can't really explain that either other than putting it down to us being twins. Eventually the doctors managed to slip a collar onto me so that if then needed to inject me with something, they can load me with enough volts to knock me out and do what they needed to do. I spent six months in that routine, alone, until Ironwood rescued me."

"He took me in and taught me how to keep calm. He gave me a job in the military alongside my older sister Winter and gave me a reason to fight. He trained me how to shoot, drive, fly bulkheads and even how to impress the ladies. Not that he was any good at the last part. But he also showed me how to fish, gave me books to read and study and gave me the headset that I always carry. Each was something I could use to keep myself calm, to keep myself as me when I feel the bloodlust building up. I may also blame him for my drinking because he never really left his cabinet locked, but he never stopped me from taking the alcohol. I think he knew that I needed something stronger for when it got really bad… It was during my time with the military that I got my code name, The Executioner. Over the few years I was under the generals command, two crime lords were murdered in cold blood, two clean shots to the head… My calling card against Grimm. Even though their deaths were never connected back to me officially, it was basically common knowledge that I was the one who took them down. No one else killed like I did. Both men were shoot on sight and shoot to kill marks, so when I found them, I followed my orders and did what needed to be done. That was about a year into my training and after the second kill, I relapsed. Badly. Enough to want to return to that same asylum and I condemned myself to another month of their 'therapy' before Ironwood came for me again."

"After that, things kind of fell into place for the next few years. I trained with Ironwood and Winter whilst I worked for the military and I had Weiss to come home to at the weekends I wasn't working. We would hang out, train together and sometimes we would even just sit in our room and sing for a day for old time sake. I was coping well with my bloodlust and rage and I finally felt like I was becoming my old self again. After the White Fang ordeal, Winter and I had convinced farther that Wiess needed to be able to defend herself in case of anything like that happening again. He accepted after much protest and we were even planning to go to Atlas when we were old enough. When the time came, father forbit Weiss from leaving home as he was forcing her into the life of a singer rather than a huntress like she wanted to be. I was so pissed off that I challenged him to a duel. No dust, no semblances or aura, just an all-out honourable duel with traditional swords, first blood wins. I lost and suffered a great deal of pain when he stabbed me through my right shoulder and froze my arm, after breaking our deal of not using dust, just to win. If Weiss hadn't gotten me to a real hospital in time, I probably wouldn't have my arm anymore. My father was so pissed at me for both defying him and being so weak that he exiled me from my home and disowned me from the family. Weiss wasn't too happy about the fight to begin with, but after seeing father cheat and then banish me, she was livid. She hurled enough abuse at him to make even a drunken sailor look like a priest, and slapped the bastard before she stated that she was leaving with me to pursue the life of a huntress like she wanted and would only return when I was taken back in the family. Something that my father had no luck arguing against as she had inherited his stubbornness. We contacted Ironwood to see if there was anywhere else we could go to and he managed to get us a place here, to which we are now caught up with."

"I've been coping with my bloodlust for a while now, but I can feel myself slipping again. It's always there. No matter what I do it will always be there so long as this thing is still on my back. The General and I have been looking into a way of extracting the dust and removing the glyph, but the procedure has a good ninety percent chance that I will die during the operation, never mind recovering from it which is already very unlikely. What you all saw today with Team CRDL was me at my tipping point. How far I can go before I almost lose control and give in to the temptation to kill. Weiss dubbed my fighting style under the name of Cold Redemption as while I set up my so called 'graveyard', another name curtesy of Weiss, I give my opponents a chance to answer for their sins before I pass judgement and kick the living shit out of them. But what I really do is break them mentally... And on occasion physically.

"That's about it. That is pretty much all you need to know about me right now."

Coal had been staring at the floor the whole time he spoke to the group of teen and refused to look up at them for his own sake. He couldn't bear to see the looks on their faces. The faces of his first real friends that were now probably riddled with hate and disgust. So, he got up and left, keeping his eyes fixated on the ground and walked out the door leaving everyone with their thoughts.

Eventually everyone left Weiss alone who remained on her twin's bed motionless and unchanged, and returned to their own beds deep in thought, seeing as they all had to process what was a lot of information about the childish joker of the group. Weiss' mind was still processing what her brother had said. She had never known about his experimentation or his stint in the mental institute and now that it had been voiced, combined with the person she saw fighting team CRDL earlier that day, could she really say that she knew her brother at all. He had hidden such a horrible thing from her for the selfish reason of not trusting her with the information. The image of the person she had looked up to since she was a child came crashing down, along with all her hopes of excelling as an experienced huntress. She didn't ever feel her own tears slide down her cheeks as she cried herself to sleep. Alone and afraid. Just like five years ago, when he never came home after they were kidnapped.


She awoke in the early hours of the morning, with red eyes and a horrible shiver that was not caused by the cold. She had fallen asleep in her twin's room and expected him to have come back by now, but looking around the dark room she couldn't seem to see him anywhere. Turning on the light, Weiss inspected every inch of the room top to bottom, wondering if he had fallen asleep on one of the couches or something along those lines. But he wasn't anywhere in the room. Maybe he had taken her bed since she had taken his?

Weiss headed into her room to see if she was right only to be proven wrong by the empty bed that lay before her. Perhaps he was still on one of his adventurous excursions. She noticed that her scroll was flashing indicating a message and picked it up to examine it. Only to drop the device upon reading the message that she had received, in another fit of tears, alerting her teammate sin the room.

"Weiss?" Ruby questioned worriedly, jumping down from her bunk. "What's wrong?" Yang also moved in to comfort the girl in any way possible.

Blake looked down at the dropped scroll and picked it up and looked over the message lit up on the screen. Her eyes widened after absorbing it. Tapping her partner on the shoulder, she handed Yang the scroll also who read the message and reacted in a similar fashion to Blake though she was more concerned about the crying girl to focus on the meaning behind the text at the moment. Blake sat back on her bed and pondered what she had just read. The message from Coal that had sent a small pang of guilt through Blake's heart, having basically said something similar herself during her first mission with the boy. Having compared him with her ex.

"I'm sorry Snow Angel. I'm just as much as a monster as him. And monsters belong in a cage."

Ruby was still cuddling her crying partner confused at what could have caused her to react like this. Ruby had yet to see the message so she didn't fully understand what was happening at this point. As she pulled away in order to say some words of encouragement to her partner in an attempt to calm her down, she was surprised to see that Weiss' makeup had run due to the number of tears she had shed. What Ruby also noticed was the beneath the layer of running makeup was a deep scar running over the girls left eye.


A/N

And there you go, there's Coal's past… well almost all of it. haha I'm such a prick aren't I. I don't intend this fic to be all light and breezy, but after seeing Weiss' father in S4, I immediately thought of him experimenting on his kids just for power.

I've used a lot of leeway with Glyphs and summons in this fic but it's never really too detailed in the anime anyway so deal with it, this is AU.

And I don't think I mentioned this earlier in the fic, that was my bad but Weiss has also been hiding her scar. I don't remember making any references to it so my bad there guys.

A little bit about Coals new gauntlet

Hephaestus:

Carbon-steel alloy gauntlet / armour

The gauntlet will be hidden by the sleeve of his coat so that it appears that he conjures swords from thin air. The gauntlet has Two slots which can store dust cartridges big enough to destroy a good portion of Beacon if it were to all go off at once. Coal will typically store Ice dust and fire dust in each of the slots. Due to the amount of dust the gauntlet contains he will never rarely need to reload it during a fight. The dust is ejected through 2 small ports at the base of the gauntlet under his palm, one for each type of dust, in a small stream which can be adjusted by a small valve which is controlled by Coal's aura. This takes a lot of aura control and manipulation which is deemed an overly complex and useless way of fighting by General Ironwood when the original gauntlet and fighting style were designed. Coal must also wear a custom designed black leather glove which is infused with dust in the form of a glyph to speed up the rate which he can forge swords. The glove also stops his hand from freezing up in ice.

The swords he will typically create are known as estocs. A long thin piercing blade that has little to no cutting edge so slashing is not typically used when using these types of blades. The outside of the blade is made purely from ice and has a small central gap where fire dust can be stored down the length of the blade which produces the explosions when activated.

Design; Coal black metal with a single white stripe running down its centre similar in design to Yang's ember celica.

Creator: Coal and Ruby Rose

Designer: Ruby Rose