If anyone's still reading I appreciate it and hope you have enjoyed it so far and give recommendations to those who like edgy OCs or don't I can't tell you how to live.
Ruby shot up from the couch with a sudden wave of confusion and rage. "That's not what I'm saying, not by a long shot!" She was blushing hard when those images resurfaced in her head. "Gods above, why's this so damn complicated," she muttered, pressing her hands over her eyes with frustration and confused jealousy.
"Then what is it, you like him or something?" Augus asked, handing her a can of soda.
Alyx looked at the two of them and watched them in case she was needed. "It's about that girl you two arrested; it's my fault she was near the perimeter," she lied.
Alyx flinched when she heard Augus scream, "WHAT!?" which made Ruby all the more anxious. "Why would you-"
"Because she led me here!" Ruby yelled out.
The silence was palpable, all three were frozen where they stood, and for almost a full minute, no one so much as breathed. They all stood there for what felt like hours until Alyx broke the silence and asked, "Is it possible that you got lost, and this civilian knew where this base was?"
"Yes, that's precisely what I was saying," she lied, pressing her back into the couch in shame. 'Dad and Uncle Tai would be so pissed right now,' she thought as Augus smirked and soon started laughing hard, a fit of laughing that lasted for about thirty seconds until she said, "I'm- hehehe sooo hohoho sorr- hehehe ahhhh hahahahaaaa- hooooo ohh boy," taking a drink and clearing her throat. "I'm sorry, Lieutenant, but the fact that that happened to me and my partner, as well as half of us on base, is common to the point that we keep score; hehehe we'll go have her released when she gets up from her nap."
She shot her a mortified look at her like she'd killed her, so she had to clarify, "Relax, girl, I tranq-ed her and had her put in a holding cell; she'll be sent home in a day or so."
"Can we please talk about the electric hunk of muscle that is this guy?" Alyx interrupted, showing Cole in his black pants, cloth belt, and sweat-shined torso choking out a guard using the triangle choke with his bandaged arm.
By his look in his eyes alone, his eyes burned with unbridled and wild fury, reminiscent of a dozen Beowolves, baring what looked to be a mouth full of perfect and sharp teeth, giving off a sadistic vibe. For Cole, it was just a routine loss of judgment, considering his background as a brawler.
'He's certainly changed; that hold looks too tight… and he just flipped that guy to the floor,' Ruby thought.
"I got dibs on fighting him tomorrow," Alyx said after chugging another beer.
"Yeah, not happening, Private. Rookies get first picks, remember?"
"But… but I wanna feel those hard muscles against me when I beat him up."
"Are you seriously going to just ignore what Ironwood said in the briefing, or are you just lookin to grab every di-"
Ruby got in between the girls when Augus stood up and asked, "Okay, moving on! What's going on tomorrow, and why's that such a big deal?"
They both traded looks and backed off, looking curiously at her.
"What did I say?" she asked, looking at them frantically.
"You tell her… Corporal," Alyx started.
"Tell me what?" Ruby asked.
"You and the other thirty transfers are going up against the war criminal named Cole Foster, and the winner gets him assigned as a personal trainer, bodyguard, or assistant," Augus explained exasperatedly.
Alyx snatched a bottle of Atlesian Ridge Vodka from her locker and added, "and on top of that, he's obligated to do whatever the winner says and wants, and I mean anything. They. Want." Pouring herself a glass with three black olives and an ice cube.
"She's just a perv-" Augus said, handing Ruby a set of keys.
"AND PROUD OF IT!" she loudly boasted, throwing an olive at her head. Augus ushered her out of the room and stopped halfway through the door, saying, "save me some; a civie needs to go home."
She chuckled and snuggled into the couch, watching them leave.
"General Ironwood, date June 17th, 17:30. Subject ID C-013 has incapacitated nineteen of my best Atlesian operatives and still refuses to break from his habit of brutal one-strike takedowns… *sigh* and I'm quickly running thin on troops for tomorrow's event." Ironwood sat at his desk, observing all of Cole's fights and smiled with obvious pride in his new possible protégé.
Watching as Cole ran toward a 6'10" hulk of a man, he slid between the man's legs and in a crouched position jumped toward his back, kicking him in the neck and jaw with the top of his bare foot, backflipping as he watched the large man roll unconscious on the floor like a discarded bag of trash.
Landing in a crouched position, Cole took a deep breath and clenched his fists. "HEY, IRONWOOD!" Cole yelled angrily, clenching his fist. "Why don't you come down here so I can kick your tin-canned ass?"
Pressing the button on his left, he said, "Cole, I told you before, I have a shipload of reasons why I kept you from leaving. I'll tell you more about it when you're in your room-"
"Cell. It's a prisoner's cell, not a room. I know the damn difference!"
Cole watched a squad of medics leave the room with the man he'd just laid out cold on his face.
"You know I'm innocent, Glynda, Ozpin, Ruby, and hell, even Anne Wheeler knows I'm innocent, so why keep me here?" he asked, throwing a powerful lightning bolt at the glass window, creating a five-foot wide burn in the glass. "I told you, I'll explain more when I meet you in person."
'Yeah, and look at where it's gotten me,' Ironwood thought to himself. He looked at the computer with a smile and said, "training session concluded; security, escort Cole to his room. I have something for him that he'll love." He hurriedly rushed out the door of the booth and dialed a number.
"Corporal Augus speaking."
"Hello, Augus. Can you send Private Brown to the special treatment cell?"
"Oh, General Ironwood, i-it's an honor to hear from you. Uh, yes, I'll have her sent down right away."
"Thank you, and please do hurry. It's important," he said before hanging up and walked to Cole's room as slowly as he could to give them time to get there before he did, going so far as to take the stairs.
James wished he could give Cole everything, but Ozpin was watching him like a hungry Grimm, and he needed to be careful in this day and age, considering who Ozpin was to the world. Ever since Cole came into the picture, Ozpin showed a bit too much interest in the boy in his facility.
"No matter the sacrifice, I will help you, Cole," Ironwood spoke into the recorder. "If you found this, Ozpin, you'll be angry or worse. But I'm confident you'll find that I did this for you because Cole needs support, not to be controlled. The entirety of Remnant will either rally behind him or crucify him... Our time is over, and I'm ready to usher in a future where peace can last for years. These have been the best twenty years of my life, and in that time, I've learned that you need to face reality. This is James Ironwood of Atlas, over and out."
"Is something happening that I need to know?" she asked but got no answer. They quickly walked back toward the security desk and were immediately led to a room marked: 51-GM6.
"Don't do or say anything stupid, okay, Brown? Just answer questions and nothing else," she said sternly.
"Yes, ma'am," Brown replied before they were both searched for any metal and sharp objects. Augus was told by one of the guards, "Sorry, but she's the only one cleared to enter the cell."
She looked at Ruby and said reassuringly, "It's okay, I'll see you back in the room," and left her to the security personnel.
Anxiety gripped her heart and stomach, making her feel scared about what lied behind the door, but on the outside, she was calm and stoic to her current state of mind.
After she was cleared and stripped of her stolen sidearm and taser, she dressed herself in military steel-plated boots, lightweight armored white camo cargo pants, and a short-sleeved Atlas military shirt. Satisfied that she wasn't a threat, she heard from behind her, "Don't do anything stupid, Brown," and was nudged more than pushed, but it felt like a push, into the door, straight into a wall of hard muscle and soft warm skin.
Regardless of the situation, nothing had prepared her for what came next.
"What the…" a familiar voice said in surprise as muscular arms held her close but quickly let her go. The person connected to the mismatched arms rushed back and away, trying to get away from her, but tripped over the armrest and fell onto the small couch, eliciting an 'oof' noise.
"H-hey, Cole, it's… good to see you, and uhmm…" Quickly recovering from his surprise, Cole got off the couch and held his hand up, ready to shoot her if he had to.
"Why are you doing here?!" Freezing up, he demanded, "Did Ozpin send-"
Suddenly, Ruby crashed against his chest, hugging him so tight he'd assume he'd disappear if she let go and started crying.
"I'm so happy you're okay," she bellowed into his chest, crying her heart out. "I came here to get you out because… I am so sorry… *sniff*… I didn't do enough for you, and it drove you out of your only home. I know everyone else seems to feel angry with you, but I couldn't take hunting you… *HIC….HIC*… Weiss is so worried, as much as me and-" her grip got firmer with every second as she spoke and froze when he slowly hugged her back just as firmly and ran his fingers through her hair while his other hand rubbed her lower back. "I know, Ruby, you don't have to explain anything."
Letting go, they both looked each other over, and neither cared too much about the choice of clothes, but what Ruby cared about was his bandaged arm and decided not to ask about it yet.
"But you and I both know you shouldn't have come here," Cole said, trying and clearly failing to escape her bear hug and grip around his midsection. Honestly, she needed it more than he could have known, which made her internally feel better knowing some of his habits didn't disappear.
"Ironwood and the rest of Remnant want me either dead or used as a weapon. Oz was no different when you and your team rescued me that day. He saw me as a resource or worse, a pawn on a chessboard."
"You don't know that," she replied, following him to the other side of the couch. "Glynda may have faked being your adoptive mother, but the months you spent in Beacon changed everything." She paused to look at him, struggling to keep her composure. "And everyone too. Because of you, things have changed for Remnant, but they just don't know it yet." Seeing his expression soften, she bowed her head. "Well, everyone except Jaune's team, Yang, and Blake. They are getting worse each day you aren't in their view."
Cole finally managed to wretch her grip off him and scoffed at her. Your family never taught you how to lie, beacon won't change because of me and you need to stop dreaming of the utopian future filled with sunshine and rainbow crapping unicorns made of kisses and sugar" he said with a mocking tone.
Turning to his dresser, he opened a drawer on his left, fished out a white and gray t-shirt and put it on before sitting on the far side of the couch. "It's nice to know I still have allies in Beacon… even if it's just you and Weiss." He gave her a kind of neutral gesture before sighing.
She scoffed at that tangent and glared, "you can try all you like to push me away but it won't work"
As he turned to her, he looked her in the eye, and within himself he felt anger rise from his chest into his throat. She looked at him but shoved it down, drank his beer, and sat down far from him on the couch.
"I don't understand why everyone treated you so bad. I get that you went through hell and tried to change for the better, but you have no right to give me that attitude now. I don't know what changed in them yet, but I do know that Jaune changed from a quirky blonde dunce into-"
"A cocky bitch with an ego so big and fragile he saw me as a threat to his little perfect world and got it in his head that because he has Pyrrha, has strong friends, and is somehow a team leader still, that it gives him the opportunity to try and-" He exclaimed, grabbing a beer from the table.
Ruby cut him off with a smack to his arm and sat next to him with a scowl. "For once, just shut up and listen to reason. You have plenty of people trying to dig you out of your hole, and you don't even want to see it."
Not getting a reaction, she got up, unplugged the TV, and sat on the table, annoyed. "You're not being fair to me, Cole. I have a family and a life you could be a part of, and you spit on it."
He stood up and hurried toward the door but found his arm being tugged at by the agitated Ruby. "Your feelings don't justify shit-"
"I'm trying to give you everything you need to be happy, and I'm probably the only one trying to help you in person rather than from a desk with evidence of terrible crimes labeling you a danger to everyone around you-"
He snapped at that moment and whipped around, causing her to flinch and fall to the ground. "Weiss is the only one capable of giving me the life I wanted…unfortunately I killed that future when I lost control" Standing over her, clenching his fists and shaking with fury that raced through him like a torrent of fire, he reigned in as he began lowering to her level. His aura sparked wildly with blue, gold, and orange lightning, and he said in a rumbling whisper, "Why don't you try losing the only family you had, survive homelessness for years and clawing to survive!?" His power flared like a storm around his skin, but he kept it at a small level as he started letting his voice grow louder.
"Why don't you try watching your friends turn into spiteful pieces of shit and actively avoid you, betray you, and hunt you like a rabid dog? Or better yet, go watch the only family you know get torn to ribbons, then have to sell most of yours and their stuff to buy necessities to live day by day. Then and only then will we compare notes." Letting his glare soften into a sad expression, he pulled her up as he sat down on the end of the couch. "Plus, it's not like any of that matters anymore."
Gently touching his shoulder and shifting on the couch, she asked, "Why wouldn't it matter? You still have me, Weiss, Glynda, and it may not look like it, but even Ozpin sees you as a friend as well as trying to keep you from prison." She noticed his indifference and backed away, "You do still see me as a friend… right?"
"Ozpin only cares about using others like chess pieces, Ruby. He only cares about his own goals, nothing more than trying to save the many to sacrifice the few… even if they're at their best," Cole said, standing up and walked into his kitchen. He looked right at her, letting his body somewhat relax as he continued. "But to answer your question, no, I don't see you as a friend… not anymore, Ruby."
Taken aback by his answer, she stood up and walked over to him, slamming his back against the fridge. She angrily asked, "You turned your back on me too!?" Cole said nothing, so she pushed into him and up against the fridge. "After everything I did, why would you make me and all of us like you if you weren't going to treat us the same?"
"I treated them like family, Ruby, or at least I thought they were… Until Jaune and the others proved my fears right about not believing I was able to trust people."
"YOU TURNED ON THEM TOO!" Ruby screamed after punching him in the mouth hard enough to knock him on the floor. Gritting her teeth and repressing her other emotions, she climbed on top of him, sitting on his abdomen to hold him down. "You let them drive you away and answered hate with more hate!"
Grabbing her wrists, he rolled her off him and forced her to the ground, exclaiming, "I turned my back on your friends and family. I only seriously hurt a few of them for what they did to me. I lost my family, and my life is just one home traded for another." He paused and looked at her in the eye. He picked her up by her wrists and pushed her away when she tried hugging him tightly. After a moment, she looked up at him and asked, "How come you hold your pain inside all the time and expect the people that love you to ignore it when it explodes at the worst times? Why do you let your pain freeze your heart over like this?"
Cole groaned as he tugged at his hair and threw his arms wide and explained "I already explained all this a month ago, you of all people know what I suffered to get where I was at beacon, how many fucking times do I need to say this before it sinks in that stubborn and thick skull?!"
She put a hand on his chest, feeling his heart beat, and asked, "Can you try to change your views and try to think about the better times… for Weiss if for no one else?" He let out a small chuckle and replied, realizing how warm she was to his cold body temperature, making it perfect for them to hold each other. But she knew his questions needed to be answered, and he continued, "I'm done ruby, I've said more than necessary and Weiss and I probably aren't together after what I've done."
Looking back at her he flinched as she began to cru a bit and shook trying to keep her emotions in check. Rayla and her were so similar as sisterly figures it was easy to mistake them for each other with everything he went through.
"When I first met you, I thought nothing of you. Then you asked me about weapons and helped build my armor," he paused, staring at his arm as if hating that he knew nothing about it except how it consumed Grimm smoke and how he too was consumed in darkness and he wasn't trying to stop.
"I thought you were funny and a bit cute. But after I started going on missions with you, training with you, studying with you, laughing, crying, and confessing my every sin with you… even that day I sang to you, I realized how great you were. I started seeing you differently… I…" He trailed off and let her go, turning around to go into the bathroom. Or he would have if Ruby hadn't rushed in, grabbed his shoulder, and turned him around.
"What was that last part?" she begged with those beautiful silver eyes.
"I said I feel like your family, alright," he said quietly, blushing hot red and feeling the heat burning in his face with embarrassment.
"When did this happen?" she asked, confused, as she sat him down in a chair at the table near the window.
"When we were on the Glenn mission with your team," he replied softly. "when Weiss almost died and you kept me calm and stopped me when I tried killing that may girl"
She knew full well what mission he was referring; along with a smile of remembrance spreading over her face she also looked away ashamed she didn't prevent it from happening in the first place.
She sat there for almost a full minute until she spoke up, "the mission when we spent the night in an abandoned house near Mountain Glenn. You had to take care of her because I got careless and almost…" She froze and looked right at him, then stood up, taking her shirt off to show him her stomach. But she noticed he had looked away in pain, with tears threatening to fall as well as trying to keep his rage in check, after all, it was her near-death experience that kicked off this whole ordeal.
She gently grabbed his face and whispered, "Look at me… please, Cole," as tenderly as she could.
Reluctantly, he looked into her eyes, revealing pools of emotion she had seen many times. This was no different when she saw through him, and the real Cole was truly shown to her. It was buried behind years of pain and heartache she barely comprehended.
Nothing prepared him or anyone who'd experienced what he'd gone through, he almost lost Weiss and in an act of desperation he'd saved her but with grief came rage too. He hated himself for it all, he saved her sure but in doing so he left a scar on her for all her life and no amount of skin grafts could patch the grotesque mark up. She forgave him for that night but he couldn't forgive himself.
Although the staff of Beacon were on Cole's side, the students were out for blood. Spilling it was all but certain on their list of things they wanted to do to him. When he remembered that he held her in his arms while she had almost bled to death, he became quieter and more distant towards everyone. It was the first time she saw him cry, and still, he held the guilt. Even Weiss, of all people, consoled him.
Just to get his mind off iitshelet him use her personal cache of lightning dust directly from SDC mines.
Originally, Weiss took him to learn about all types of dust, and they both used it as an excuse to take the rarest dust crystal, called a Citrine's Charge. It was the only pure dust crystal that seemed to never run out of power. Weiss had made it into a pendant, boxed it up, and put it away in a safe only she knew about.
Pulling himself from his thoughts, he jerked his chin from her grasp, but she took her shirt off completely and grabbed his chin again, saying sternly, "This wasn't your fault." She led him to hold her hand "My dad and Uncle Tai don't blame you, Cole, just as I don't."
He couldn't take the pain anymore and let the walls break, freeing his tears as he poured out all his pain onto her smooth, peachy chest. "I don't know that, but when… when we got back to Beacon, they treated – for God's sake, Ruby, your sister beat me while Weiss was in the hospital, dying!" His pain turned to bitterness while Ruby watched him wreck the place. "Yang, Jaune, Pyrrha, and Glynda were the first to believe that I was a problem while Ren, Nora, and Blake… they did nothing."
Just before he continued, he said, "But you and Weiss stood by me through it all." He stood up, wiped his eyes, she smiled and gave him space by moving off the couch and sat at the bar counter.
Thanks for reading I hope to improve the next chapter.
I'm limiting each chapter to 4000 words from here on.
Comment anything you think could be worked on at:
H6pp1n355_in_misery.
Criticism is appreciated