It seems the reception for this story so far has been pretty good, so I'll try to keep adding more chapters to it as I feel motivated to do so. This chapter is where things should really start getting interesting in the story.
It was now night time in the land of Mistral, and the group of Ruby, Jaune, Ren, Nora, and Hans were now camped out under a cluster of trees in the forest, and they were all fast asleep. Ruby found herself awakened for some odd reason in the middle of the night, and after trying for a while, she could not seem to go back to sleep. Now bored and looking around for something to do, she see looked around and found that everyone else was still asleep. One thing seemed to catch her attention though, and she noticed that something strange seemed to be going on with Hans as he was sleeping. He was shaking in his sleep, almost as if he were having a terrible nightmare, and he seemed almost as though he were crying. From the looks of it, it would appear that Hans was suffering from some sort of deep trauma akin to PTSD, which Hans had kept hidden while he was awake, but now it was manifesting itself as he slept. Upon seeing this, Ruby felt horrified and confused, never having seen Hans act in this way. Even though she didn't say anything about it earlier, Ruby had suspected that there was probably something more to Hans' story of what happened to him on the night that Beacon fell that he had not told her about, and this only seemed to conform her suspicions.
"What's happening to you Hans?" said Ruby, speaking quietly to herself. "This isn't the same happy and cheery person I grew up with. Something has changed. Why have you never told me about this? What are you hiding? You know you can talk to me about anything and I'll listen. Just what exactly happened to you on the night that Beacon fell?"
Ruby grabbed Hans' hand and held it as he slept, noting how cold it felt. The action seemed to help somewhat, and Hans stopped shaking, as though he subconsciously recognized the familiar sensation, and it eased his pain. Ruby now felt alone and helpless, feeling as though she could not do anything to help all of those around her who had been deeply hurt by their tragic experiences at Beacon. Not only had it been Weiss, Blake, Yang, Jaune, Ren, and Nora, who had been affected, but her childhood friend Hans had also been affected as well.
As Hans dreamed, he remembered and relived the events that happened to him on the night that Beacon fell to the Grimm. He and his team were out on a mission away from Beacon when they had received the news that it was under attack, and that all the teams that were away on missions were to return immediately and help to fight off the Grimm. Hans' team, all wearing their signature Team HURT insignia of a red bleeding heart on their uniforms, consisted of himself and his teammates Ursula, Reed, and Terra, who were now rushing through the forest and trying to make their way back to Beacon as fast as they could.
"Aw man, first we miss out on front room seats to the Vytal Festival and have to watch the show remotely, and now something like this happens?" said Reed.
"How could this happen?" asked Terra. "Beacon coming under attack? This is unreal."
"The security at the event should have been top notch." said Hans. "Something must be up. I've got a really bad feeling about this, like something's not right."
"Hurry, we'll make a turn here and take a shortcut through this village." said Ursula. "I know this area very well, so after passing through this village it should be a straight shot through the forest behind it, and we'll be right at Beacon within minutes."
As the group entered the village, they found it unusually quiet and deserted, and the whole place looked as though a tornado had passed through it.
"What happened here?" asked Ursula, with a look of horror. "My hometown, it's completely in ruins. Did the Grimm do this on their way to Beacon?" They then heard a scream echoing from the woods.
"Be on your guard." said Hans. "Whatever did this might still be here." Everyone drew their weapons and got ready for battle. Then, a little girl came running out of the woods straight towards them.
"What happened here little girl?" asked Ursula, as the girl stopped next to them.
"They killed and ate everyone one." said the little girl, crying hysterically and appearing as though she were about to die from shock. "They appeared out of nowhere. It all happened so fast. My daddy held them off so I could escape, but they ate him too. It was the shadow man. He called them and commanded them. He hides in the trees and watches."
"Shadow man?" asked Hans. "What could she mean? Is it a Grimm? That doesn't sound like any Grimm I've ever heard of."
"Get yourself out of here." Ursula said to the little girl. "We'll go check it out." Not even thinking twice and not wanting to stick around, the girl heeded Ursula's words and immediately bolted off in the opposite direction, getting as far away from the village as possible.
Suddenly, a horde of Grimm came rushing out of the forest and ran straight towards Hans and his team. Before they could blink, the group was swarmed and overwhelmed as they desperately tried to fight back.
"There's too many of them for us to handle." said Hans. "We have to get out of here and reach a place where we can fight them off a few at a time."
The group started to run away, but the gap between them and the Grimm began to rapidly close, and only Hans and Ursula were able to make it through, while Reed and Terra were unable to make it in time and were cut down and killed by the Grimm.
"Reed, Terra!" yelled Hans, shocked at the sudden deaths of his two teammates.
"We have to keep moving!" said Ursula. "It's too late for them now, but not for us. If we can make it back to Beacon, we can get help."
Hans and Ursula continued on, desperately running through the forest to escape the massive horde of Grimm following behind them. As they were running, Hans could see in the very corner of his eye that a black shadowy figure was jumping from tree to tree and following them, though it was too far away for him to be able to clearly make out what it was, but it looked humanoid in shape. Right as they turned a corner, a large Grimm jumped out and bit right into Ursula's side with its powerful jaws, gravely injuring her. Hans immediately killed the Grimm and grabbed Ursula before she fell to the ground. Hans held her in his arms as she was bleeding out from her massive injuries.
"It's too late for me Hans." said Ursula, coughing up blood. "This is it for me. You must get to Beacon and warn everyone about what has happened here. You must live on..."
With that, the life left Ursula's body and she died in his arms. Wiping away the tears, Hans laid her body down and left, continuing to run through the forest. He could see a light at the end, signifying the exit to the forest, but right before he could reach it, he was cut off in his tracks by the horde of Grimm, who blocked his path.
"Son of a..." said Hans. They were all the way back there behind me. They must have come around from the side to reach me here. How did they know to do that? Grimm aren't supposed to be this smart. Is that shadow man the one doing this?"
Hans drew his weapon, prepared to fight his way through and make it to Beacon no matter what. As he prepared to charge, all the Grimm suddenly did something very uncharacteristic. They all started to move away and formed two side by side rows, as if they were making a path for someone behind them to walk through. Hans' hands began to shake with fear as it held his sword, dreading what it was that he was about to see walk out from behind all the Grimm. What happened next was possibly one of the most bizarre and terrifying things Hans had ever witnessed. Out from the behind the lines of Grimm walked a dark humanoid figure, and as it approached its shape started to become more solid and visible, almost as if it were morphing into something as it left the shadows. What stood before Hans now was the figure of an adult woman with red hair, and dressed head to toe in a flowing red cloak and battle attire. Standing there now was a woman that seemed to greatly resemble Hans' childhood friend Ruby Rose. As she approached, a shadowy sword-like weapon began to form in her hands. Hans' eyes widened with shock and disbelief, and the woman charged towards him with her weapon in hand, and the two began to fight.
"How is this possible?" said Hans in shock, doing his best to defend against the woman's attacks with his sword Kusanagi.
"How is what possible?" said the woman in a sweet and innocent sounding voice. "Is this your first time fighting a woman this strong?"
"No, it can't be!" said Hans, now feeling sense of terror beginning to take hold of him. "There's no way you can be alive. You can't be her. She's been dead for a long time. I was there with Ruby the day we received the news that you died. They barely found anything left of her, but she's definitely dead. You can't be Summer Rose! Just who or what are you!?" The woman resembling Summer Rose then looked at Hans and smiled evilly.
"Ah, so you recognize this corpse?" replied a cold and inhumane voice that now came from the woman, replacing sweet and innocent one that she had used before. "I guess I've been found out."
"Corpse?" asked Hans, confused. "What are you talking about?"
"This one here is one of my favorite puppets to use in battle." said the woman resembling Summer Rose. "You're right, she is dead. I killed her myself many years ago. I greatly enjoyed killing her and stealing her appearance and powers so that I could add them to my "collection"."
"You monster!" yelled Hans. "What kind of creature are you?"
Hans charged at the woman and the Grimm swarmed and attacked him, almost as if the woman had mentally commanded them to do so. As he fought them, Hans began to panic, as he could feel the Grim growing stronger and stronger, and he somehow grew weaker.
"That won't do you any good now will it?" said the woman. "Don't you know that the more negative emotions and energies that you let off, the stronger it makes us Grimm? All it serves to do is feed our power while sapping yours in return, especially when it's someone as powerful as me. Your despair invigorates me." The Grimm then pinned Hans down to the ground and trapped him, leaving him wide open and vulnerable. "You ask what I am? Well, I guess I can show you, since you won't live long enough to tell anyone."
As the woman approached Hans, something even more bizarre began to take place. Her skin and outer appearance began to change, and it started melt away and morph into a black shadowy substance, which stared to peel off and uncoil itself from her body, coming off of her like a black shadow-like cloak. What came out from underneath the appearance of Summer Rose was a creature that looked as though it had come out of someone's worst nightmares. Standing there now was a male Grimm with a very human-like appearance. It had a shadowy black body and white hair, as well as black lines all around its red and black colored eyes. Overall, he possessed a very vampiric looking appearance, like something straight out of a horror story.
"Boo!" said the creature mockingly, and then proceeding to laugh.
"What!?" exclaimed Hans. "You're a Grimm!? A talking Grimm!? What sort of Grimm are you? I didn't think there was any such thing as a Grimm that could possesses human intelligence and speak."
"Don't be so shocked." said the male humanoid Grimm. "My, you humans sure are ignorant. It's like with the proverbial tree falling in the forest. Just because nobody is around to see it or hear it doesn't mean that it's not real."
The Grimm brought Hans to his knees with the immense feeling of dread he emanated, and he put his hand on Hans' chin and held him up. It was if an extraordinarily powerful magical force was coming from the Grimm and was holding Hans down in place, preventing him from being able to move or escape. As the Grimm's hand touched Hans' face, he was taken aback by how cold and lifeless it felt, almost like the hand of a corpse.
"You won't be needing this anymore." said the Grimm, smiling sadistically and tossing Hans' weapon aside where it was out of reach. "Now despair for me boy, just like that woman did when I absorbed and devoured her essence."
As the Grimm proceeded to put his hand over Hans' forehead, Hans could feel himself slipping away into blackness as an overpowering and almost nauseating sense of dread and fear overcame him. It felt as though the Grimm was pulling away his very life force. This seemed to greatly please the Grimm in a twisted and sadistic way, as Hans' despair fed into him and increased his power. As this was happening, Hans could see all of his memories flashing by within his mind, as well as some memories that weren't his, being those belonging to the many victims whose essences this Grimm had taken and devoured in the past, in order to steal their appearances and powers. Within his mind, Hans could see how it was that Summer Rose had died.
Hans could see a memory of Summer Rose on her knees, defeated and with a look of fear and despair on her face, and surrounding her were several dead Grimm. Standing over her was the male Grimm, who put the palm of his hand on Summer Rose's forehead, and it started to glow black with a strange magical aura, and as this happened, Summer Rose's entire body because to crack and turn to dust, which then crumbled away and scattered to the wind. As the dust and ashes of Summer's body scattered, her bones fell to the ground into a stark white pile, along with her red and white hooded cloak. This was all that remained of her after the Grimm had devoured her essence and killed her. The Grimm then shape shifted and morphed his appearance into that of Summer Rose's, and as he did so he began to laugh maniacally at his victory over her. Then, the memory faded to black.
"Am I going to die like that?" Hans thought to himself, his vision coming back to the present. "No, it can't end like this. I still have many things left that I want to do with my life, but I can feel it all just slipping away..."
Suddenly, a luminous white light began to envelop the sky, originating from the direction of Beacon that Hans had been trying to make his way towards. The light was so powerful and bright that it caught the Grimm by surprise and made him stop what he was doing and drop Hans.
"Well, that doesn't look good." said the Grimm, frowning. "This development is quite unexpected." He turned towards the Grimm that were surrounding him. "It looks bad. Everything could be ruined if we're not careful. It's better that we play it safe. We need to retreat for now and report back on this."
The Grimm started to slowly back away and disappear into the woods as they started to flee. The male Grimm looked up to the sky and then from his back began to morph and sprout a pair of black, shadowy wings. With a great leap, he flew into the air and with his wings he began to fly away, leaving Hans behind, beaten and mentally scarred.
"I guess today's your lucky day human." said the Grimm, as he was disappearing into the horizon. "I'm sure we'll meet again someday. You can count on it. When we do, I'll be sure to steal that delicious essence of yours."
"Wait, come back here you bastard Grimm." said Hans, as the Grimm finally disappeared in the distance. "I'm not done with you yet..." Hans began to slip out of consciousness and fell to the ground, passing out.
Hans awoke in the forest several hours later, and the encounter with the intelligent and powerful, humanoid, male, shape shifting Grimm was still fresh in his mind. He collected his weapon and slowly trudged his way out of the forest, and finally emerged from the clearing into the area surrounding Beacon Academy. Upon seeing the devastated ruins of Beacon and the surrounding city, Hans dropped to his knees in hopelessness.
"No, I was too late..." said Hans, slamming his fist into the ground. "Curse that Grimm. I won't forget this. I'll find him one day, and kill him for what he's done." With this, Hans' dream and recollection of his experience at Beacon ended.
On the night that Beacon fell, in which Han's horrific ordeal with the intelligent humanoid Grimm took place, another lesser known tragedy unfolded after nearly everyone had left the area. Within the now abandoned city walked two survivors of the battle, injured and limping, slowly making their way out of the city after being left behind. One of them was Neo, who had survived her fall from the airship and suffered minor injuries, which were not as severe as they could have been, mostly due to her umbrella having acted somewhat as parachute to slow down her fall. The other survivor was Roman Torchwick, whose clothes were torn and covered in blood after he had cut his way out of the stomach of a Grimm that had swallowed him whole, using a blade that was hidden within his cane. He however had much worse injuries and had to support himself on Neo's shoulder as they made their way out of the city.
"Why did you come back for me Neo?" asked Torchwick, breathing heavily. "What use am I to you? You could have just left me behind and fled like Emerald and Mercury did and saved yourself. Yet you came back just to get me."
Neo looked at Torchwick with one of her silent looks that he was somehow always able to understand. Torchwick could understand that just now Neo was saying something like "I won't leave you behind no matter what."
What wasn't obvious to most people was that on the surface, the relationship between Torchwick and Neo was much closer than it appeared. They had a shared past and history that they didn't often speak about. Torchwick and Neo had actually first met each other as children, having grown up together in the same orphanage. What many people also didn't know was that Neo had been born mute, and as result she was unable to speak or verbally communicate at all. Many of the children at the orphanage often avoided her, unsure of what to make of her, but Torchwick was the only person there that didn't seem to be bothered by her at all. Neo had many strange ways of attempting to communicate with others, but none of the other children or adults at the orphanage seemed to be able to understand what she was trying to say, with the exception of Torchwick. He was somehow the only person who was able to understand and comprehend what she was trying to say. Torchwick himself wasn't exactly sure how it was that he could understand her. Somewhere deep down inside, he just knew what she was trying to say.
Neo was happy that someone was finally able to understand her, and the two formed a bond, becoming close friends. Torchwick in a way sort of became like and interpreter for Neo in her attempts at communication with others, and through him she was able to communicate with other people that she would not have been able to communicate with otherwise. The two became very attached, going just about everywhere together, almost becoming like a lifeline for each other. Torchwick had introduced Neo to a whole new world that she never would have been able to experience before, and this made her happier than she had ever been. He had saved her from a life of silent loneliness that she would otherwise have been destined for. The years passed and the two eventually became old enough that they could no longer stay at the orphanage, and they were thrust out on their own into a world that had rejected them, and a society that looked down upon them as outcasts.
Rejected by society, the two turned to a life of crime in order to survive and became partners in crime. Due to their close partnership in all of the crimes they committed, many people started to get the impression that the two of them were actually married, making them out to be a criminal duo similar to the real life Bonnie and Clyde. Torchwick and Neo didn't really seem to mind this publicity however, and it was possible that their relationship may have even evolved into something more, like love. The reason Neo had come back for Torchwick was because he was somewhat like her other half. He completed her, and without him she would be lost again, unable to communicate with anyone within an unfriendly world that did not think too highly of her.
The two continued limping their way through the city, and they finally reached the road that led out. Standing in their path now however was someone that they knew and had been working with. It was Adam Taurus, and he did not seem too pleased to see them.
"Adam, you're still here?" asked Torchwick, surprised. "Can you help us out here partner? As you can see, we're kind of injured." Adam just stared at them with an expression of disgust and hatred, the same look that many other people in society had given them throughout their lives.
"We're through with you Torchwick." said Adam. Adam then raised his weapon and pointed the sheath of his sword towards them. "Consider this a termination of our partnership." Adam then pulled the trigger to the gun within his sword's sheath, and it fired out a shot that pierced straight through Neo's chest, which then passed right through her and hit Torchwick who was standing right behind her, piercing his chest as well. The two fell to the ground, bleeding and dying.
"Why Adam?" asked Torchwick, as he lay dying on the ground. "I thought we were friends?"
"Partners, yes." said Adam. "But friends; no. I have no use for weakling humans like you, especially ones that try to tell us, The White Fang, what to do. Consider this a repayment for the lives of all of the White Fang members you've wasted in all of your petty human schemes and plans."
Adam began to walk away, leaving the two of them to die there. As their lives began to slip away, Torchwick could feel Neo grasp his hand and he turned to see her smiling at him.
"Together to the end huh?" said Torchwick, faintly smiling. "It's not so bad. At least I have you here with me..." With that, Torchwick and Neo both slipped into the cold embrace of death. The two of them had lived their lives together, always as a pair, and now they have both died together, having them end in the same way.
Well this turned out to be a pretty dark chapter. Now it's clear why exactly it was that Hans just randomly attacked Ruby in the first chapter. It was because he thought he was actually seeing the male Grimm in disguise as Summer Rose again, and that he was planning on doing the same thing to Jaune, Ren, and Nora that he had done to him. When Hans told the story of what happened to him on the night Beacon fell and how his team had died, he conveniently left out the part about this bizarre new Grimm. Hans didn't tell Ruby about it because he cares about her and doesn't want to expose her to the knowledge of something like that, especially since it concerns Summer Rose, which at this point she probably wouldn't be able to handle on top of all of the other stuff that has happened to her recently.
As for the last part of this chapter, I felt as though we needed some sort of solid conclusion to the story of Neo and Torchwick, and confirmation as to whether or not they died. I've always wondered what their past could have been like, especially after Torchwick was telling Ruby about how the world was cruel and will tear you down, when he was fighting her on the airship. The creators have also stated before that Neo was created almost at the last minute, mostly to compliment Torchwick as a character, so I figured that the two must have some sort of shared past or history together.
What Adam did was somewhat understandable, considering that he is a very prideful person and can't stand the thought of him and the White Fang having to follow the orders of humans and die for them. While the ensuing chaos served as a distraction, he stayed behind to make sure that there were no loose ends left behind, and figured that he would be able to get away with it because nobody would know. He could just play it off by saying that Neo and Torchwick had died during the actual battle at Beacon.