Like in the gym, two fists struck something with a blast of lightning making a thunderous boom and blood painting the floor and teeth clattering down.
"Round one goes to Mr valentine, round two will start with anyone who wishes to spar next" glynda said watching Cardin walk away with his teeth in his fist.
"Hey, cardin?" Cole called as he handed him his mace.
"you gonna rub it in?" He snarled grabbing his weapon with a yank.
"I don't do that kind of crap Cardin, I want to apologize for what I did and give your mace back; I went too far" Cole said walking away and slammed the door rushing back to the arena.
Cardin was just standing there in stunned silence, unable to process a kind act despite the way he fought.
Cole was trying to be a better person and smile his problems away, but trying to he looked like he was being a cocky egotist. "Sorry miss goodwitch, I didn't mean to be gone for long"
"See that it doesn't happen in future classes" she tapped him on the head.
Cole took the tap to mean he'd need to sit on his knees, so he did just that. Just like he'd done in his meditation sessions for therapy with ren, Cole began the box breathing exercises while waiting.
Everyone laughed at him while jaune stood up angry "miss goodwitch I request to fight cole" but he did give her time to answer as Cole yelled "just as the wall breaks, the water rampages with reckless abandon; cure is temperance and patience" evenly.
Rising to his feet cole grabbed his arm diverting jaune's fist to the left with one hand and chipped the aura from his eyebrow with his elbow.
Jaune stumbled back holding his eye and heard glynda say "and like that today will have another student in the infirmary" with a resigned sigh.
Cole moved in with no hesitation and hit jaune with a single uppercut to the gut and backed off to watch him closely. "I don't want to hurt you, but I will if you don't. Stand. Down."
Huffing at that jaune pulled out his sword "you know what your problem is lightning rod?" he asked slashing at cole with the edge toward his chest.
Predictably, Cole blocked it with his arms but left himself wide open, "you fight like an amateur without any idea how to hit a live target with experience." Jaune emphasized that comment by kicking cole in the knee making him kneel.
Cole growled at the metal boot hitting his knee but didn't stay down however, he looked at his opponent and growled "you talk too much" and electrified his arms and clapped his hands sending jaune into the wall with a hard thump.
Normally he'd stop but Cole needed to let lose a bit so he went after jaune without restraint. Watching him slide down the wall cole stomped him in the face, yanked him to his feet, as he had cole punched him twice in the face five times in his torso and as he fell forward cole grabbed jaune by the face and slammed him into the wall and threw him to the center of the room. "nothing less than a rabid dog with little bite to his bark" jaune coughing.
Blasting behind him, Cole rocketed toward jaune gritting his teeth like an animal on a frenzy
Like a surgeon cole took jaune apart. Hit by bone cracking hit, he was losing himself to the fight. Pyrrha referred to it as battle rage, Weiss called it caveman brain, but Cole called it cathartic.
As the fight progressed cole went from jabbing and kicking jaune to just getting sick of his constant talking and jeering; jaune was pissing off cole, by the time it was too late cole had shaved almost half of jaune's aura.
All was as any spar went until cole was blindsided by the flat of jaune's sword to the side of his face. After he had, Cole's demeanor went straight to seething anger and eyes burning with electricity.
"Yang your quiet today, is something wrong?"
"he's going overboard" Yang said taking notes in class for once.
"Jaune or cole, cause that could go either way" Ren asked worried for the fight escalating the way it had been getting.
"Well," Yang, said tapping her chin with a pen as she tried to think of how to explain the situation, "you see where cole has been striking jaune?"
They all turn just as the man in question hit jaune in the chin by the top of cole's boot as he back flipped, forcing the blonde knight backwards then used his lightning to knock the wind out of him after righting himself to his feet. "Yeah, just like that. Every hit cole has landed has been to the temple, eyes, jaw, liver, kidney, diaphragm, and knees."
"All valid places to target, but why's that a problem?" Weiss asked watch jaune become overwhelmed.
"I'm not saying they're not, but each location is where you hit to either disorient or disable someone. What im trying to get at, is whoever it was that taught him to always hit those places likely let him fight like he plays for keeps. Also, a few of those spots I was told never to hit during a spar, as they could be crippling or even fatal blows."
"What?" Pyrrha, nora and Ren exclaimed in surprise.
"Temple and jaw strikes shake the brain and disorients the person on the receiving end," Yang listed each point with her fingers, "hits to the eye puff up the skin and slowly shrinks your field of vision to nothing, liver and kidney strikes make it hard to breathe and sap your strength, knee and ankle strikes lower mobility until you can't even properly stand. It's the last two I was warned about, cause if you hit them too hard the other person isn't going to walk correctly or ever again. Cole is picking jaune apart piece by piece. If he keeps this up, -despite his aura reserves- I'd be surprised if jaune can speak his own name at the end, much less stand or even walk straight" They watched as cole rolled behind the knight and sent another kick to the back of one of jaune's knees forcing him to stumble, but he didn't fall down and swung again wildly.
"cole is a multi-martial arts fighter why abandon it for a more merciless beast attacks?" Ruby asked but didn't get an answer.
Not letting anyone know her actions, weiss had been recording the entire fight using a small drone the size of a beetle.
"after a week in beacon you wasn't taught how to fight, you was taught how to destroy; to break someone so hard…" Jaune slurred as he caught a glimpse of a orange blur hitting him right in the mouth and nose.
A few more hits to the head and jaune had lost any sort of patience he once had. He came in swinging more wildly, hitting air or blowing sand aside with each miss.
Despite everything getting foggy, jaune saw his aura was still in the green and this made him smile through bloody teeth.
Cole dodged everything by a hair's breath until he got clipped in the arm and sent spinning to the floor. But recovered by rolling backwards to his feet, and dodged a downward strike and sent him flying a few feet away.
Emboldened by his first successful attack of the fight, jaune rushed toward cole with wild, powerful swings.
Deciding to end the fight cole dropped to one knee to dodge the swing. And jabbed jaune on the inside of the right thigh, striking a nerve forcing jaune to drop hard to his knees.
Taking advantage of that he uppercut him in the diaphragm, eliciting a strangled gasp as jaune doubled over, Smiling maliciously cole took the chance to grab the top his head and brought it down into a rising knee breaking his nose.
Jaune stumbled backwards, arms flailing and off balance but cole refused give him time to recover, so he jumped on his torso wrapping his legs around it wailing on his face while riding jaune to the ground where he continued to punch him. Jaune tried to ward him off with his sword but cole grabbed his right arm and spun him around into an arm lock, back on the floor, hands around the wrist and legs around the arm below the elbow.
"STOP, THIS MATCH IS OVER, BOTH OF YOU STAND DOWN" Glynda interrupted with all her frustration put into that order.
Cole and jaune didn't hear it though so they kept fighting.
Arching his back pulled at jaune's arm, he screamed out loud, fingers loosened until he dropped his weapon silently saying he gave up. Cole grabbed said sword and rolled both of them until he was sitting on jaune's back. He then wrapped his left leg around his neck, tucking the left foot under his right arm which he still had a hold of.
Smiling in knowing, Cole then arched his back once more, forcing jaune to choke himself while trying to stop Cole from breaking his arm.
Jaune's attempts at escaping slowly diminished as he fought back, becoming weaker and weaker he was left gasping for air.
Thanks to glynda, jaune was only left on the floor with three missing teeth, four cracked ribs and a puddle of blood and zero aura. She tore Cole from jaune with her semblance and held him in the air eye to eye with the angry combat instructor.
"cole valentine, what part of stop did you not understand!?" Glynda raged as she had jaune taken to the infirmary on a stretcher.
Cole had snapped out of it and looked around confused and mournful. His chest felt tight, lungs burned, and he shook in place feeling the adrenaline wearing off and looked into Glynda's eyes. "I'm…i…what happened" Looking around he saw jaune on the stretcher. Face going pale Cole watched mutely as everyone was ushered out of class and he pulled into her office getting yelled at, he heard some of it but most of it was a blur.
"Cole, be honest with me, when do you remember blacking out; I saw this many times but I can't help unless you talk to me" she said trying a different approach seeing as his silence was from shock.
"…I don't- a-after jaune hit me in the face maybe; I felt fuzzy and next thing I see is you holding my up in the air and everyone looking at me like a felon fresh from jail"
Taking it all in, she sat him down at her coffee table and gave him a book from a shelf she rummaged through for a few minutes. The cover had a rippling lake and a small figure sitting under a tree titled: battle rage or PTSD.
Sitting beside him on the couch she pat him on the shoulder "you have 6 weeks of detention and you'll be reading this, take notes on it and turn in a five page report front to back pages." She said firm but gently.
"Thanks miss goodwitch" Cole said putting the book in a bag and walked off without another word.
Exiting the double doors as if in a trance, Cole passed both (J)NPR and RWBY but didn't acknowledge them at first seeing as he was really fighting back the urge to puke, scream, and cry all at once.
"Hey jerk you just gonna pretend you didn't nearly kill jaune?!" Yang turned Cole around to face them when raised a fist to strike him, but fresh off the adrenaline rush Cole reacted to the danger by instinct and used his palm to push her back a step and said "go threaten someone else before fucking with me; mistakes are part of being a hunter, so don't use mine against me when your semblance is a manifestation of your rage" growling as he clenched his teeth (which cracked as they grew like a badger's fangs emphasizing his anger)
Weiss got between them and pushed Cole away from yang, "calm down, both of you shouldn't be doing this right now; port isn't kind if we're late so let's get to class"
"whatever ice queen" Yang scoffed as she shoulder checked Cole, "watch your back from now on valentine"
"your only upset because its your friend I knocked around" he gently removed her hand from his shoulder and walked to professor peach's class "let her know know I got detention for six weeks if it'll make her feel better"
Ruby bound behind Cole as she said "hey, wait for me.i have dust chemistry too"
"I'm not going to be your lab partner rose, I prefer if my face isn't fried from explosions." Cole said pushing her by her face making her laugh.
"You don't have much going for you with dust either" she retorted sitting beside him, but as soon as she had, he moved close to the doorway and professor peach walked to her desk pulling a crate of dust, chemistry sets and chemicals to mess with the experiments in the hopes something new or a perfected experiment was made.
Cole didn't have an aura so his experiments were more dialed down and this upset him, he felt like a child limited to a tricycle for not being able to ride a normal bike.
"Now, students, I want all of you to push your auras to the forefront and touch your projects, nothing dangerous to yourselves will occur but be cautious nonetheless" professor peach explained watching Cole glare as he did as everyone did but he approached it differently.
Closing his eyes and taking deep breaths Cole hovered both hands over the sides of the beaker with electricity leaping through the dust and activated it by a remarkable glow like a rainbow of interchangeable lights that settled on blood red mixed with his orange gold and made a rust brown dust color.
As soon as he felt a lurching in his chest he left it alone and just like she explained, it was still possible to get volatile.
"Professor, did I make it right?" velvet asked smiling awkwardly showing a black goop with a purple ink sheen on the first layer.
"it's okay velvet, just use this and it'll solidify" peach replied handing her a cold capsule that turned the goo into an immediate crystal infused with her aura but it did nothing.
Before anything else was done with the rust orange powder he put on a mask that covered his entire face and then dumped the stuff of each dust, fire, earth and water dust respectively.
Fire dust was set off like a bunch of firecrackers, water dust became toxic by bubbling away half the dust making the air toxic so Cole used a rubber cork to seal it off…but the earth dust, it simply crumbled away and became a brown powder that did nothing.
Cole felt disappointed as he pulled off his mask and tossed it in a containment box lined with lead. Set up new beakers and sat quietly sulking over his failed work, professor peach droned on as usual students gave her their work then left class as soon as the bell rang.
Collecting his papers and box he left them both on her desk hoping she gave him a passing grade. "see you tomorrow ma'am" he said walking out of her classroom.
"a moment Mr. valentine, I have something for you" she said handing him a packet and pat his shoulder smiling "give this a read and tell me your thoughts"
"Thank you ma'am" he replied putting it in his bag without looking at it.
Next class on his schedule was after lunch so his free time was at least two hours to himself so he decided to head to the forge and went right to re making his weapon dulitas, melted it down completely and rushed the process to creating an axe without a name, having spare metal for twin daggers that resembled atlas military knives.
"approximately ten hours remaining" a voice said as he put the blades in a machine to get heat treated, sharpened and polished.
Pulling out his scroll he phoned ruby but it went straight to voice mail so he left a message on her student msg board "hey ruby, I need a favor….I know I hurt your friend but I need your help with a double sided sheath that won't fall out no matter how much I move around" then sent a bribe of 400 lien just in case.
dinner time; beacon cafeteria*
Cole wandered through the doors after no word from ruby and doing two years worth of catch-up for world history with Dr.oobleck for three hours he found his way to the line with a random person with bunny ears eyeing him like she was studying him but ignored his instinct for food to satiate his needs.
"hello Mr valentine, what can I-" the chef stopped mid sentence when Weiss handed him 400 lien and said "get him the best quality strip steak with a loaded Mistralian style potato and some of your best pasta salad on the side"
"miss Schnee, this is eight times the price" cole snarked taking the 400 from the counter and pushed it in her chest as she grasped it.
He turned to the man and gave him his card with a 3D diamond design and said "two of that meal but extra sour cream please" The chef smirked as he swiped cole's card handed his ticket and waved him goodbye.
Ten minutes of silence is all it took for chef to give him his dinner and walked over to the bunny eared girl placed the salad and fruit in front of her with a small nod.
Weiss trailed behind him and asked "velvet, why did he give you that tray for?"
Smiling with a knowing look she replied "because your leader ignored him and I handled his problems in class with him since no one would"
"Well, I should get going, thanks" she said hurriedly following Cole.
Putting his tray down at an empty table he took no time to start wolfing it down as if it was his last meal. Unbeknownst to his surroundings Weiss and ruby sat on either side of him. He was no fool, their attempt was to corner him in a forced social situation and he just ignored them…or tried to anyhow.
"you know the meal was my treat, why not just let me pay" Weiss started off with a Blunt and obvious question but he was ready for it.
"I can pay my own way for dinner weiss" he replied calm and evenly, grabbing a drink from his bag and chugged the bottle of spiced bourbon soda.
"Moving past that, you needed my help with your sheath right?" ruby asked handing him a blueprint she'd drawn up.
"Yeah, but you ghosted me so I figured you didn't want to" he replied with a fair bit of heat to that.
Soon after they started talking everyone else showed up at the table.
Yang was red in the eyes seeing ruby chum it up with Cole and more so with weiss actually talking with him about school work -her dust knowledge to be specific- and glared at him as she sat down with her food.
Jaune approached with Pyrrha helping him sit down wearing a brace over his neck, eye had stitches over his left brow, he used crutches for his right leg and bandages over the side of his head with blood soaking the spot that held a gauze pad held n place over the back of his head.
Nora and Ren were near Blake for protection in case Cole leapt for the feline for the kill.
Cole ignored it all but didn't pretend not to see it…but he couldn't ignore it for long. "Ruby, I appreciate your blueprint, Weiss I know you are doing damage control but I'm not a psychotic maniac, the rest of you can cool off about jaune" he said that part staring right at yang matching her gaze and made her look away with her eyes shifting back to lilac.
Finishing off his dinner and drinks he continued "but you?" he stood slowly and glared predatorily at blake showing his sharp teeth. "You come close to me for any reason and you'll go back to the chieftain of menagerie in Tupperware containers.
She flinched at his shift in behavior but stood up matching his gaze…albeit with fear behind a Stoic façade. "I don't know what I did, but I get this treatment for just being a faunas so do a better job you bigoted fascist."
She felt particularly good about that rebuttal when he went quiet for a moment. Cole stood there for a moment before he started to chuckle till it escalated to full blown laughter.
Yang shoved him into the back of cardin as she yelled "you keep picking fights with my friends, mock them and-"
"OH SHUT THE FUCK UP" Cole chortled as he went calmer than a fog in vale on Halloween night. He pushed through all six of them and jabbed Blake in the chest with his finger "I loathe you for watching and allowing my mother to die, torn apart by a knasher; I begged you to save her but you didn't do shit. So if you won't come off that Hugh horse in beat you off it, cause you do in fact know what you did; I am the righteous hand of your God, and I'm the devil you forgot, and I told you I'd find you again, give me a reason to burn you alive" he got close enough she felt his cold breath on her ear and neck "I dare you, give me a fucking reason"
He turned to yang and glared "that goes double for you too blonde bimbo"
Everyone watched him as he helped cole pick up cardin and helped him collect his fallen tray and everything he'd dropped. "Sorry cardin, yang pushed me"
"I-it's okay man" he replied taking 60 lien Cole held out for him. "But why-"
"for the lost dinner" he said walking to a window and hopped through it walking toward a tree overlooking the emerald forest and sat down.
Weiss took all night trying and successfully found a way to calm yang down enough that she as well as everyone else didn't follow after she said she would go talk to Cole.
"Any Idea where he'll be?" ruby asked handing her scroll to her no less happy than when Cole blew a fuse in both Glynda's class and again at dinner.
"no, but I have a good guess he'll be where we saw him last" she said seeing that cole's location hadn't changed much in two hours. It didn't take long for them to find Cole asleep under the tree grunting and growling in his sleep.
"Just like last time" she said getting on her knees and brought his head close to her lap and ran fingers through the mess of hair and said "this is a regular thing for him, but Blake being around him sets him off a bit."
"More than a bit; murderous intent has been on dad's face every time a boy my age hit on me" she joked and sat next to weiss "tomorrow is the start of our three-day weekend so I say we get him in bed so we don't catch a cold"
Weiss hummed as a glyph carried Cole behind them and to his room. It was late so both girls decided to sleep in the room with Cole, but to do so they took a collapsible cot and shared for warmth.
Waking up in the morning was gonna be awkward as all hel but they were willing to that to make sure Cole was okay, and ruby didn't trust him alone with Weiss so she stayed with her all night.
I admit I am not that good of a writer but I hope its good enough for y'all's standards for this fandom. With love and prayers for you all to be kind and not be too harsh bout my story.
Comment anything you think could be worked on at: H6pp1n355_in_misery.
Criticism is appreciated.
Ideas and tips, even advice is good too, I hope you take care of yourself. 3