Vale was a kingdom known for its abundance of criminals and cole was not the only teen trying to survive, but he was the only one to openly tell other thieves that if they tried to leash him, they'd get fried up like a rotisserie chicken.
Years of his threats being taken lightly, he made sure his word was more solid, so no one tried it again.
After a few minutes of searching for an easy grab, he'd spotted a faunas woman on her scroll talking and not once noticed him walk past her, swiped her wallet, and disappeared in the crowd. Ghosting past junkies shooting up dust modified drugs, Cole leaped over a fence surrounding a warehouse long abandoned.
Satisfied with himself, Cole went over to the bed and opened the backpack to see how much he had and what jewelry was worth.
In that very moment, he foolishly thought himself safe, so he'd forgotten to check if he was tailed so he didn't catch a hand grab his shoulder tightly. On instinct, he pulsed his lightning and knocked the intruder off their feet.
Cole zipped up and tightened his back bolting out the door he had opened earlier and rushed to his escape route but the woman had been faster than him and knocked him down with a kick to the back of his knee.
"L-look lady, I'm just trying to survive out here, just give me my pack, and I'll let you have your money back" he said getting back up flaring his power shaking like a dog in a blizzard.
The woman In front of him took a long look at the boy shaking before her, ashen white hair stained red and black, torn blue jeans, ragged and thin gray shirt with the entire bottom half missing in a way that looked like it was falling apart
His eyes looked at hers, and she saw that he'd not resigned himself to be taken in or more likely taken down. He stood like he was starving from days of not eating and dirty from not bathing in a long time. All the more amusing she saw, he was willing to fight her if it came to it.
Stepping forward, Cole flinched at her advance on him wasn't a kick, nor a punch. She'd hugged him and lovingly to boot. Instead of punishment, he got a tender and warm hug. Why was he getting a hug and not a beat down?
"You've had it pretty hard, haven't you?" she said.
She was holding him so tight he felt like he was being pulled back together, but even still it made him anxious and uncomfortable, so he tried wriggling out, but her grip was akin to a mother relieved to see an estranged son.
Releasing him, she grabbed his hand firmly, holding it so to keep him close by. Making sure he followed her down the street.
Everyone walking down the sidewalk gawked at the pair, but she didn't care. About an hour of walking went by and saw she'd taken him to her home
Pushing a key into a door, she ushered him inside and sat him down at her dining table, much to his chagrin.
"lady if you're going to use or kill me I'm sorry, I'll give you a cut of my haul" he said, holding his hands up, bumping against the shelf of movies behind him.
She smirked and said "neither will happen; well, deal with fencing the jewelry, but the lien we'll put in an account for you to save up for emergencies."
Taking his pack off him slow and steady as if being near a feral beas, she put his pack on the comfort chair behind her but still in view of his sight and looked at her fully.
"I'm Ezra valentine, I'm a huntres, and I think I may be able to help you as seeing that you need something more that won't just be the necessary essentials."
Is this a tric? Wass she even serious? He couldn't know for certai, so he just replied "are you testing me?"
"no, I'm not. I'm giving you the choice to live with m, and if you and I work together, we'll be a happy pair of oddballs" she smiled and backed of, tossing him an orange.
He looked down at the orange in his hands an, to her cautio, tossed to the wind with his mind screaming at him that she was drugging hi. With said orange, but he didn't care. He scarfed it down, peel and all like a starved dog.
"Never saw that before, well as it stands I'll be leaving you in my apartment so I can- oh screw it come with me" she sighed motioning him to follow her to a car parked in the garage.
He asked nothing as he got In the passenger seat and hugged himself away from her, explaining to her anything she'd planned for him would end like the last time she touched him.
She let out a cackle of a laugh and replied "all I'm doing is buying g you clothes and other essential things you'll need."
True to her word Cole was taken to an outdoor mall called valemart and bought him a wardrobe for him to use, a scroll, and anything else he had asked for and used her money to get it, despite her denial to use his money he relented to her buying it all and even defended him when he was mocked for his appearance.
He was close to tears despite being sixteen and very defensive about his feelings on himself inside and out. They left the store minutes late, and Ezra never spoke the whole way back hom. Hee put everything away in the guest room that was now his. She smirked at his sudden helping hands attitude.
"get a shower and come back to the kitchen, I'll cut a few inches off your hair and teach you how to maintain I, seeing as you prefer it long"
"Thank you ma'am, I really appreciate your kindness" he replied softly as he grabbed what she assumed were his pajamas and went right into the bathroom.
"haven't seen someone his age react to me this way, I wonder if it's cause I scare him" she mused making a few plates full of sandwiches with diced fruit bowls and bottles of fruit juice.
Ten minutes or so I, she heard him crying in the bathroo. Instinctively, she walked over to the door and spoke gently and reaffirming, "Cole, are you okay?"
The crying worsened when he heard this and then the water shut off scrambling could be hears and then the door flung open to show cole wearing his pajama bottoms, hair still wet and his entire torso to see.
She looked him over hands, grabbing him to inspect his body like a mother searching for wounds or bruises. "You don't look harmed. What happened?"
He watched her look him over and became more worked up as she asked that as she looked into her kind eyes and started having a psychotic break, then cried so hard his nose bled. This moment proved to him that this woman was a mother, and it hurt that it's what he needed desperately.
Grabbing him by his shoulders, she led him to the room she gave him freedom to and rocked him back and forth in an effort to help comfort him. She held him close to her chest as he'd cried himself asleep. Not wanting to wake him up, she chose to take a chance and used her spare collapsible sword to shut off the lights and kicked off her shoes, and went to sleep holding him.
"you needed this…you can fall apart as much as you want, I'll hold you together when you do" she said, kissing his head and going to sleep herself.
It was a bit of a touch and go for a few years, but he got comfortable living with her -in keeping with her personal promise to him, she gave him everything he needed to live comfortably and still have a sense of discipline. Some nights, he had such vivid nightmares that she flat out refused to let him sleep alone anymore.
One day at the pool in a beach house in vacuo, Ezra heard Cole talk about he'd lived before living with her and how he'd lost his family at such a young age.
Now it made sense with him and his mannerisms towards everything, so she decided to let him sleep with her since he had woken her up while he was having a hard time staying that he lost his family.
She smiled at this and said, "I may not be your mother, but I want you to treat me like I am".
He looked up into her eyes, sniffing and tearing up, "I can't tell whether this is a dream or not"
She smiled as she pulled him close and hugged him, and kissed his head.
From then on, she had taught Cole many things, from table etiquette to laundry, anything that was needed to help him become more self-sufficient.
After a few months, she decided to call a contact simply named the forger to get documents for herself and Cole, so it appeared that she'd adopted Cole and had him since he was a child and got him into a school for hunters like her; she thought friends was what he needed, so she had him put in the grade equivalent to the 10th grade seeing how smart he was.
The day she found out he had lightning powers, he was in a fight at his new school defending himself from bullies that tried taking his mask off. She was surprised and happy for both. While he was panicking, she was simply there to pick him up from after-school detention.
He was terrified of Ezra when he found out she was a huntress, and from then on, he did what she said and never disobeyed her no matter what. He was down right terrified she'd be upset or throw him out, but instead she told him there were worse things to have control of and said he was right to defend himself but not right in using his lightning to hurt a number of kids.
The superintendent and principal showed her the tape of his fight:
Five kids surrounded him in the hallway, his mask gone and scars on full display.
Cole makes a motion like he's asking for his mask back, but the kid uses his semblance to turn it to glass and dropped it, smirking wide as it went, shattering it all over the floor.
Cole clenched his fists and looked to have faked a lunge and stood there frozen. He was holding back.
The four other boys rushed him, holding him in place while the surrounding others were cheering them on while Cole took the beating,
Right hook to the jaw
Left cross to his ribs
Uppercut in the stomach
Right jab in the middle of his mouth
Three knees to his chest and a final knee aimed towards his nose when the cameras went out with a brilliant flash of dark orange and gold.
Ezra looked at the two men and at the TV, asking "what happened after?"
The security guard cleared his throat and stepped forward. "Well ma'am, after the flash of light Cole exuded power we had no knowledge about and beat those kids bloody with his lightning, he was fighting like a raged out beast. When it first started, his demeanor was not that of a mere boy".
"Whatever do you mean, sir?" Ezra asked, sitting down next to Cole.
"Well, like it's like I said, your boy wouldn't have fought like- Mr. Valentine had. He fought like a seasoned street fighter or…like a cage fighter; his eyes were feral, his movements were fast and explosive…but what I don't understand is this" he said, handing the principal a chart of some kind.
"What's this?" he said, dropping it on the desk.
"This, sir, is a chart of your strongest and smartest students, and the highlights in yellow are Cole's scores and grades from his admission to today; months of grades and scores of his performance. His test scores are second to none in the last two decades, his physical performance in my class, as well as his other classes, are near the top in such a short time"
The superintendent snatched the paper and got a cocky smirk, "not in sparring class. Nor in aura and semblance studies, they're just the worst in student history. You can't look those over, Samuel"
Cole grabbed the desk and stood up fuming in anger, but Ezra sat him down the second he opened his mouth.
"I'll handle this sweetheart" she said before scooping the paper up reviewing it and looked at him.
"His birth was documented as problematic" turning her attention to the two men in front of her, "his powers are a result of such. He lived his life without a semblance and aura….but clearly there's more to him than even I knew" that last bit cause a glimpse of a smile full of love to show only to disappear behind anger "the problem isn't him…it's your school and its treatment for the bullying and the lack of any fucks to give about stopping it at the source."
"Misses valentine, he hospitalized five students and damaged school property, this incident was a product of student's clear lack of control not because of the faculty. If you don't recognize-"
Ezra slammed a fist on the desk, splitting a spider web of cracks in the wood and glass. "I do not and will not ignore those topics, you jackass! I know how all that is probably a massive inconvenience for you and your oh so cushy rolling massage chairs and five Star lunches, but my son was beaten like a dog, and he decided to take matters into his own hands; I'm proud he did. He, however, caused no damages in his fight apart from the cameras and those children you call 'upstanding students' and honestly-" she faced Cole and said "you did nothing but what you were taught to do and what you did was defending your life, nothing more."
"Ma'am if you think his punishment is over you're mistaken" the principal said abruptly.
She turned to him and let out a calming breath, staring at him.
"His after-school detention is for two months followed by three months of community service"
"no"
"Excuse me?"
"You're not, and my son isn't going to be punished for this" she said, teleporting herself and Cole out the door before slamming it behind them both.
"Ez- err…mom? Are you mad at me, cause I get it if you are" he followed her out to her car and got in. without a word more.
Ezra sighed with a smile "now why would I?" she looked at him and kissed his head, staining his hair peach pink. "You stood up for yourself for something that was private and personal. I'm rewarding you for that…but sweetie"
He looked up as quick as he could and asked, "yes?"
"Please try to make friends, it's hard seeing you alone when you don't talk to anyone, let alone interact with them beyond schoolwork."
"I try but I'm a freak to them!" he insisted, "I try talking about stuff like books, TV shows, or even the damn weather. No one seems to want to when I do all the work to interact with em"
She stopped at a light and asked, "what about that cute cat Faunas staring at you from the lockers when we left?"
His flinch caused a smile on her face to spread wide. "You got a girl crushing on you, and she's of my kind, you work fast" she said, teasing him red.
"She's in a relationship with the guy I hurt" he said, deflating into his seat.
"I'll take a guess and say you are a friend of hers, he got jealous and insecure, so he picked on you for months until you brought the thunder down on him today"
He groaned sadly at that.
"Prize goes to mom" she heard him sarcastically say, "she's also my class partner for social economics…we uh, kind of share a similar past, and he found me talking her down after her mom yelled at her for having a human friend, she cried after her mom called her something I won't repeat, but it was enough to make her break her phone and burn in her hand and cry on my shoulder."
Ezra opened the door to her car and said, "you're a good kid Cole, maybe even more, just make sure to keep the damage to a minimum next round"
He chuckled softly as he locked the doors and followed her in the house.
"You know the drill son, I'll have dinner finished in an hour or so; no dessert if your homework is not finished, okay?"
"But, mom, I don't have any homework for the week; the teachers are focusing on alternative learning as an experiment."
"Then finish your class work from the three classes you missed"
"okay"
She smiled watching him run up the stairs' bee lining for the bathroom. "He really does take after his mother from what he told me"
The next day she began to teach him to hone, control, and perfect his power. He was taught patience and to hold back unless absolutely necessary. Weeks passed, and he'd accepted Ezra and her home; instead of everyone else who had hurt him and tossed him aside, but she bore through his problems and stayed with him every step of the way to helping him be a better person.
She found out he had a bad habit of getting into fights with other kids and talking back to the faculty and leaving class when he'd finished his classwork, opting to shoot the wall outside the football field's bathroom.
Ezra was called in to elaborate on Cole's issues and how he'd repeatedly refused to remove his mask she'd given him as per his request to keep his scars hidden. But she didn't tolerate him being labeled a problem or troubled, so she decided to tear them a new one about how they ignored the problems in the school and pointed out that they only cared about the paycheck not the students. So, she taught him about restraint using food he'd probably love (which was difficult since he hated sweets with a passion) and when that didn't work she promised she would teach him every type of offensive and defensive martial art she could find but only because she saw how good he was at it, and the fact that she was training him made it all the more special to him.
After a while of this becoming a regular thing she pulled him out of school and homeschooling started becoming his new norm and with the change came him learning easier and more than ever. One morning, she came downstairs to find Cole asleep on the couch wearing an apron and covered in flour and cheesecake filling. Smiling at the scene, she decided vale might be a better option for what she had planned.
At some point, I had to post this because it needed to be expanded on, and the story needs some happiness in it, and more is better sometimes.
Comment anything you think could be worked on at:
H6pp1n355_in_misery.
Criticism is appreciated