Well, here it is, the very first chapter of my RWBY Volume 4 fan fiction. I hope you all end up enjoying it for what it is. It might be turn to be somewhat short, but each chapter will packed full with a lot of exciting action, mysteries, and suspense. I'm not sure how long this fan fiction will go on for, considering that I have only thought of what happens up until a certain point, but it will be quite an interesting read and will probably serve as a good substitute until RWBY Volume 4 actually comes out in October.
Under the starry night sky in the village of Patch many years ago, three children were lying in the grass and staring up at the moon. Two of these children were girls, Ruby and Yang, and with them was a childhood friend of theirs, a boy with silvery-white hair name Hans. The three of them looked up at the shattered moon with wonder and awe.
"Have you ever wondered how the moon got that way?" asked the child Yang. "Has it always been like that?"
"I heard it wasn't always like that." responded the boy Hans. "It used to look different."
"Did it really?" asked Yang in return. "What happened to it?"
"Who knows." said Hans. "I've heard so many different stories about it that I don't know which is real. There are as many stories in Remnant about how it got that way as there are stars in the night sky."
"I've also heard a story about it." said the child Ruby, chiming in. "It's one my mom used to tell me all the time. It goes something like this…"
The story now begins by picking up with Ruby, Jaune, Ren, and Nora as they are travelling on the road in their journey to find answers. They are currently in the midst of discussing how they will soon be reaching the Kingdom of Mistral where their goal is.
"Mistral shouldn't be too far away now." said Ren. "A few more days and we'll have crossed the border into Mistral, and about a day or two after that we should be able to reach the city where Haven Academy is located. We'll begin our search for answers there."
"Even though it's only been a few months, what happened at Beacon still feels like it was only yesterday." said Ruby, sadly. "I've had plenty of time to process it all by now, but it still doesn't feel real to me."
"It's been hard for all of us to accept it." said Jaune. "Especially considering all the friends we've lost."
"How are you feeling though Jaune?" asked Ruby. "It must be especially hard on you, since you and Pyrrha were really close."
"I've mostly gotten over it by now." said Jaune, sounding very mellow. "If they say that there's five stages of grief that occur after you lose someone, then I'd say that right about now I'm at around the fifth stage: acceptance of loss. But the worst of it is has passed for me now. You should have seen me during the first few weeks after it happened. I was an emotional wreck. It all seems like a distant memory now, and it almost feels like it never even happened. I know I should never forget about what happened and all that we've lost, but it's also kind of a good thing, because it makes it easier for me to move on."
"That's good to hear." said Ruby, sounding relieved. "I kind of agree with you. We shouldn't forget about what happened, but we should still move on. We can't let the past distract us from our mission in the present. We have to keep moving forward, for the sake of the future."
"That's the spirit everyone!" said Nora, cheering them on and trying to motivate them. "The four of us together are the Fearsome Four! Once we set our minds to something, nothing can stop us!"
The group continued on down the road on their journey to Mistral, now filled with a renewed sense of hope and purpose. Ruby led them on, feeling as if a small weight had been lifted from her shoulders, knowing that everyone was now on their way to healing after their ordeal at Beacon. However, one thing still bothered her in the back of her mind. She couldn't help but wonder if Jaune had actually moved on from Pyrrha's death as easily as he had claimed, or if he was simply just bottling up his feelings and emotions so that they wouldn't show on the surface, all in an effort to to make himself look strong on the outside, when on the inside he was actually left feeling weak and vulnerable due to the loss of Pyrrha. Ruby knew from experience with the loss of her mother Summer Rose that this was never a good thing for anyone to do, and that it could end up causing more harm than good in the long run.
On a different part of the road leading into Mistral, a lone traveler walked along the snowy path. It was a teenage boy with silvery-white hair who was dressed head to toe in a black and grey outfit. On his back he carried a rather bizarre looking sword with an elaborate snake-like design around the hilt, and a guard shaped like a snake's mouth, from which a thin katana-like blade emerged. Lastly, engraved on the guard of the sword was a small black, skull-like crest or symbol. As the boy continued on down the road, he heard a rustling noise come from the forest at the side of the road. He immediately stopped and looked around, and as he did, three small Beowulf type Grimm emerged from the forest and surrounded him. The boy did not appear to be concerned, and just smirked slyly at the Grimm.
"Three on one?" said the boy. "That's not fair, for you. It doesn't matter anyway, your all still just weakling pups."
All three of the Grimm rushed him, and as they did, the boy quickly drew his sword, which then started to glow with the boy's aura. As it glowed, it began to move and bend in an almost fluid-like motion, as if the blade were like a liquid. The blade then extended and became longer, and almost as if it were alive, it started to move around like a snake and pierce through the Grimm one at a time and solidifying in the process. The blade stitched the Grimm together like a needle and thread, and as it did so, the blade continually turned at sharp angles to avoid the surrounding obstacles between the boy and the Grimm. Then, in the blink of an eye, all of the Grimm were quickly sliced up by the long snake-like blade of the sword that had pierced their bodies in several places. The boy now stood behind the Grimm, seemingly having done so with incredible speed after his weapon had paralyzed the Grimm and given him the opportunity to move.
The sword then started to retract and remove itself from the bodies of the slain Grimm, and it finally shrunk back down into its original thin, sword-like shape, which he then put back into its sheath. It was quite obvious to any who would have seen this display that this is was no ordinary weapon that this boy was wielding, being very different from the ones that a Huntsmen or Huntress would be seen wielding these days after constructing them. After all of the Grimm were dead, the boy just kept on walking as if nothing happened, disappointed by how easy he had killed the Grimm, however he suddenly stopped and put his hands on his face and started to shake with fear, as if he were remembering something terrible.
"No, why do I have to remember "that" at a time like this." said the boy, sweating with fear. "Get out of my head you accursed Grimm!"
Although the three Grimm that the boy had fought were weak, they seemed to have triggered some sort of horrible and traumatic memory within the boy's mind. In this little episode the boy sliced a tree up into several pieces before it finally passed, and then he continued on walking down the road as if everything were back to normal again.
Returning to Ruby, Jaune, Ren, and Nora, they continued to travel down the road until they reached a point where two roads met and combined into one that continued on further north. Ruby, Jaune, Ren, and Nora stood at the end of the road on the left side, and on the right side they could see someone approaching from afar to the point where the two roads merged. They could see that it was teenage boy who looked to be about the same age as them, and he was dressed head to toe in a black and grey outfit, and was sporting silvery-white hair.
"Hello there fellow traveler." said Ruby, addressing the boy. "Is this road in front of us the one that leads into Mistral?"
The boy looked up towards Ruby and made eye contact with her. Upon seeing her face, something seemed to immediately spark within him upon seeing her, and he immediately drew his sword and charged towards her, as if possessed by a spirit of great anger and madness, similar to his previous episode with the three Grimm he had defeated earlier.
"It's you again!" the boy yelled in anger, directing his attention to Ruby specifically. "So you're at it again? You've found some more victims to lure to their death? What's next? When they're asleep you'll kill them and steal their essence?"
"What are you talking about?" Ruby asked confused, fighting off the boy in the process. "What's your deal? Are you some kind of crazy psychopath?"
"Don't play innocent demon, I know what you truly are!" the boy responded back. "You may have fooled these unsuspecting travelers, but you won't fool me!"
"What are you talking about?" asked Ruby, still perplexed. "Have we met somewhere before? Did I do something bad to you in the past? If I did, I'm sorry. I certainly didn't mean to."
Confused by what was going on, all Jaune, Ren, and Nora could do was watch, not sure what was happening, and debating within their minds whether then should intervene and help Ruby, or if they should just let the two fight it out, since it seemed like this fight was a personal one between Ruby and this mysterious stranger who seemingly knew her. Surprisingly, Ruby and the boy seemed to have almost equal speed, and somehow they were able to perfectly anticipate each others moves, almost as if by reflex and instinct. Another strange quality of the two fighters that was obvious to the onlookers was that the color schemes of their outfits as well as their hair colors and eye colors seemed to be almost the exact opposites of each other. This greatly contrasted the two warriors, with almost everything about their color schemes being inverted and reversed. They seemed like they were a matched pair, being mirrored versions of each other. Ruby and the boy then stopped, as if they both suddenly came to a realization as to who the other person was.
"Wait a minute, I think I do know you." said Ruby, stopping in dead silence and shock. "Hans, is that you?" Upon realizing who Ruby was, the boy immediately dropped his weapon in shock.
"Oh my... Ruby, is that really you?" asked the boy, now horrified at his actions.
"It really is you Hans!" said Ruby, now sounding somewhat cheerful. "What, you didn't recognize me?"
"Ruby, I'm so sorry." said the boy, now apologizing sincerely. "I didn't realize it was you at first. I thought you were someone else."
"Well I'm glad to see you too." said Ruby, playfully. "Seriously, we don't see each other for almost a year, and this is how you greet me after all that time?"
"I never thought I'd end up coming across you in a place like this." said Hans. "What are you doing all the way out here anyway?"
"Oh nothing." said Ruby, now smiling. "Just on a little adventure."
"An adventure!? What sort of adventure!?" asked Hans, now sounding excited, as his personality now changed to something akin that of a cheery and fun loving child, which was an extremely jarring change from his previous serious persona. With this change, the boy seemed much less frightening, and it now became very hard to take him seriously as the threat he had previously been about a minute ago.
"Ah, I see now." said Ren, finally pitching in. "So this was all some sort of big misunderstanding over a case of mistaken identity? Am I right?"
"Well yes, I guess you're right." said Hans, feeling himself shrinking away in embarrassment.
"Who else could I be Hans?" asked Ruby. "Did you mistake me for someone else that did something bad to you?"
"Don't worry about it." said Hans, now feeling thoroughly embarrassed after making such a fool of himself by attacking the wrong person, especially considering that the person he had attacked was someone he knew personally and had not seen in a long time. "It's a long story."
"You're still the same Hans I remember." said Ruby. "You never change. Always jumping into situations without even thinking." Almost bursting to tears, Ruby was suddenly overjoyed and tackled Hans to the ground with a hug, a move which Jaune, Ren and Nora were greatly surprised and confused by.
"It's been so long Hans!" said Ruby. "I have so much to tell you. So much has changed since the last time we last saw each other."
"Wait a minute, what's going on here?" asked Jaune, confused. "Ruby, do you know this guy?"
"Know him?" said Ruby. "I could never forget Hans. We've known each other since we were kids. The two of us along with Yang grew up together in Patch."
"So he's a childhood friend?" said Jaune. "I guess it was luck then that you two crossed paths here."
"Allow me to introduce myself." said Hans, now getting up and politely bowing to Ruby's friends. "My name is Hans Quicksilver. I was a student of Beacon Academy like all of you were. I've never met you guys before, but you might have heard about me from some of the other students at Beacon. I was part of Team HURT."
"Ah, I remember them." said Ren. "That's Ursula's team right?"
"Yes, well it was..." said Hans, now looking sad. "You probably already know this by now, but we lost some good students on the day that the Grimm attacked Beacon. My team was one of those casualties. I'm all that's left of my team. It's just me now."
Everyone stood there in shock and awe, surprised that they were only now finding out about the deaths of Hans' team members, some of which they at even met and known personally at Beacon.
"How is it that we never heard about this until now?" asked Ruby, shocked.
"It happened when we were away from the academy." said Hans, with a sad look on his face. "When we heard the news of what happened, we immediately rushed back as fast as we could to help out when all the teams that were away were called back. Right before we were about to reach Beacon, we ran into a horde of Grimm. I was the only one that made it out alive. I was knocked unconscious during the battle. The Grimm must have thought I was dead and moved on. When I came to, I made my way to Beacon, but it was completely in ruins by then. I was too late to do anything, so I just went home. Since then I've been taking on random odd jobs around Vale helping to clear out the Grimm from some of the areas they have infested, but it was all pretty pointless because they would always just come back not long afterwards."
"That's terrible." said Ruby. "We've also had it rough after what happened at Beacon."
"While we're on the subject of Beacon, would you guys mind filling me in on what exactly happened there?" asked Hans. "I wasn't there when things went south, so there's still a lot that I don't know. I'll fill you all in on what I know and what I've heard on my end. Every little bit of information that we can share with each other will help."
"Alright then, we'll exchange war stories." said Nora, somewhat jokingly.
"First of all, where did that "thing" that's frozen on top of the school come from?" asked Hans. "Secondly, are any of the teachers still around? Also, where's Yang? Is she okay too?"
"Yeah, about all that." said Ruby. "You might want to sit down somewhere. This is probably going to take a while."
I'm thinking that Hans should either be based on the fairy tale character of Hansel from Hansel and Gretel, or Johnny Appleseed, or perhaps he could even be based on the woodsman from Little Red Riding hood. As for the color meaning behind Hans' name, it's a little more obscure and harder to see than it is for other characters in the series. The name Hans originally comes from German and other northern European languages, but the name itself could also be a word that means something in other languages as well. In Hindi, Hans could also be a name (though it's pronounced very differently), and it means swan. The feathers of swans are usually a pure white color, which goes well with Hans' white and grey color scheme, which contrasts Ruby's own red and black color scheme. With this, it has now been revealed that Hans is the boy who was in Ruby and Yang's flashback, and that he is the boy in picture at the end of the hypothetical opening.