chapter 9

All four at the table had fallen into a dead silence.

'hallucinations? But... what does he see? And why does it make him so panicked?' Weiss had a similar train of thought but neo was most perplexed.

'hallucinations? Could they be similar to when my imaginary friend was just an external representation of my desires?' Neo had suspicions and they could be close.

Hans most definitely wanted his little sister back. But, to say it was his desires being externalised... would be going too far.

"details would be appreciated." This broke the two girls trains of thought and made hans visibly uncomfortable to the point he started to type with shaky hands and erratic breathing.

"do you know what its like to murder your own parents? To watch the light fade from their eyes as they die? To kill them with your own bare hands?" The mans face was blank as always. Not a single crack in the mask, while his face did not betray him, his hands did. The shaking wouldn't go unnoticed.

Ruby and weiss were speechless.

"I'll give you time to think on that. If you choose to avoid me, I won't blame you." The guilt ridden man put his coat back on, and walked away without another word.

'He didnt even touch his ice cream...'  The short women looked to the taller duo.

"I'd appreciate if you didn't tell anyone about what he said. That look he had tells me he had no choice."

"honestly, he's done good things so far... so to hear him admit to doing something so horrifying while scared and nervous... its hard to believe he had a choice in the matter." Weiss nodded her head in agreement with her leader.

"it is hard to believe and its obvious he's haunted by it. That much is easy to tell. But, it seems like he's also afraid. Afraid to..."

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"trust. Isn't that right, big brother? After all that happened in millennium, you've been craving for someone, anyone... that you can trust." The captain growled at the hallucination.

'I can't do anything to a hallucinations, but, it's quite easy to tell now... this isn't lina. I remember vividly... lina never blamed me, for anything. She always took the blame for her actions, never accused anyone... even if they were in the wrong. But this hallucination, she taunts and reminds me of my guilt.' That was when hans started to question his choices as he headed back to beacon.

'...why did I tell them? Was I truly that desperate? What will they think of me now?' A buzz could be heard from his scroll and he took it out.

'a message from neo...' He opened the message and the shock from what he read was immense.

You shouldn't feel so alone in this. And, since you trusted the three of us with that secret of yours, I shall trust you with one of mine. I killed both of my parents. While accidental, I still killed them. I was to use an explosion as a distraction so that I could get away... but, they died. The white in my hair has been there since I realised that.

The lonely man stood there in complete shock, amazed by her trust in him.

Thank you neo. Thank you for trusting me with this. I won't forget this, neo.

Neo smiled softly at his gratitude. Slipping her scroll away just before she got home.

"you seem happy." She turned to her adoptive father.

"yes, I'm very happy. I finally got something off my chest!" Roman smiled softly at his daughter.

"that's good neo. Now, a word of advice. Whoever made you that happy, don't let go of them easily. I did that... I've regretted it ever since. If they can make you that happy, i approve." After that, neo was positively glowing.

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A day had passed since oz told me about the mission. Now I'm sat here at the helipad waiting for that security guard. Hans günsche. From what I've seen, he's very effective. His eyes though, they're incredibly off putting.

I could feel the heavy thud of footsteps through the ground and looked to see hans günsche.

"damn... you're tall." The man said nothing and only walked past me. I watched him board the bullhead, not saying a word towards me.

I climbed aboard the bullhead and sat across from him.

"man of few words, eh?" He looked to me and his look was intense, it felt as if a beast was staring at its prey with me being said prey.

"all right. I'll stay quiet." He leaned back in his chair and pulled his cap over his face.

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The team of four walked through the docks, only two of them were actually focused on their trip to the docks.

"rubes? What's up? You look like you haven't slept all night." The girl quite obviously hadn't, the bags under her eyes were a dead giveaway.

As were the ones under weiss's eyes.

"I couldn't get to sleep last night. I had... a lot on my mind." Yang nodded slightly suspicious of a lie but shook her head.

"what about you weiss? Why do you have bags under your eyes?" The heiress was much more experienced in lying and said.

"I mixed up the dates for our test and spent all night revising. Nothing too special." The 3 others believed the very weiss like behaviour and she internally let out a sigh of relief.

"the white fang must have done this!" Blake scowled at the statement, weiss looked down at the ground trying to avoid eye contact.

"why do we care? We don't get paid enough to deal with a huge organisation like the white fang." Yang just nodded her head at the mans nonchalance.

Yelling could be heard and team RWBY looked over to see a monkey faunus running from the police, as he ran by, he winked at Blake.

"shouldn't we go after him? I mean he's technically a criminal if he's running from the police." The group blinked at the blonde brawlers reasoning.

"after him!" The team sprinted down the streets and took a sharp turn.

Then bumped into a ginger haired girl. Weiss had fallen asleep on top of the girl upon collision, much to her confusion.

Yang pulled the heiress off of her and lugged the white haired girl onto her shoulder.

"uh, are you gonna get up?" The ginger shot up after brushing herself off.

"sal-u-tations! I am penny, it's nice to meet you!"

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It's been about two hours since i got on a bullhead with this guy, and he's completely silent. Not a word for the entire two hours.

All he did was take out a fancy halberd and has been funneling his aura into it for the past two hours. He dropped it a few times but he immediately picked it back up and continued.

The bullhead shook as we got close to the location.

*BOOM*

The whole bullhead started to spin and the door fell off. Before I could even react, he grabbed me and leapt out the bullhead with me on his right shoulder and his halberd in his left hand.

I found myself hanging from a tree because he'd stabbed his halberd into it.

"quick thinking. Nice job." The man looked at me and then at our surroundings.

We were in a dense forest with very tall trees but there was a path that seemed untouched.

The tree cracked and we started falling again, the ground was close approaching but hans didn't look worried.

A massive thud rang through my ears and I saw that hans had landed on his feet.

'how are his legs not broken?' He placed me down onto my feet and I brushed myself off.

Then I realised, my weapon was still in the bullhead. I took my flask out to take a drink, in a blink it was gone.

I looked to the mountain of a man and saw it was in his right hand.

"no drinking... on... the job..." I sighed but didn't try to get the flask back from him.

"Well my weapon was still in the bullhead so I won't be of much use." A familiar figure rose from hans shadow and my eyes narrowed.

"monsoon." He completely ignored me and ran in the direction of the smoke. I looked back to hans but he was already walking down the path.

"what about my weapon?" As I asked this, monsoon had already returned with my weapon.

I took the weapon from his hands and held it tightly. I heard growling all around us and it seems that hans did as well.

Monsoon spilt apart and spun his limbs around in a small circle, his limbs went flying and eliminated one grimm after another. It just goes to show that he hasn't gotten any weaker.

Cracking could be heard again and I looked up to see a branch falling from above, right above hans.

In the blink of an eye, he had disappeared from that spot.

A bone shaking roar rang out from the forest, I couldn't tell where it came from.

Hans stared at a specific part of the forest and I saw what I think is a black cloud.

"...dragon? Don't... know..." this is where I began to worry.

'if hans is right and its a dragon, we've no chance. Even if it is only a wyvern grimm, we still have no chance.' I looked at the black cloud which has now become much clearer.

A wyvern.

"hans! We gotta go! There's no way either of us can beat a wyvern grimm!" He turned to me, red eyes gleaming.

"don't have... a choice... bullhead's down..." I couldn't refute that.

"damn it! I still have so much alcohol I wanted to drown my misery in!" The trees began to fall as the wyvern slammed right through them.

It landed about 40ft from hans and let out a deafening roar. I could see hans' ears were bleeding.

His entire body was outlined with a white aura and he leapt into the air leaving a footprint crushed into the ground. Hans had leapt into the air, halberd raised high but I saw his mouth move.

Then, a large axehead appeared on the end of his halberd. It glowed a white shade that matched his halberd. The blade was a 180 degree angle and was the height of a bullhead.

With one swing, he brought it down.

The wyvern was dead. Decapitated.

And hans landed on the ground with a roll.

He walked over to it, clearly tired from the attack he just did. I saw him mumble something again and something started to happen to the grimm.

The wyvern started to be devoured by its own shadow and hans started to violently cough into his hand.

The creature morphed and red turned to purple, the black turned darker before the creature bowed its head to hans.

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"Tier... that... is... your... name..." The old werewolf was pale and barely conscious.

"what the fuck did I just see?" Qrow didn't have much time to be confused as a figure appeared right behind hans.

"so you killed my pet. How brutish." A tall figure appeared, it stood at 20ft tall with an 8ft tall mace.

In the blink of an eye, hans was gone... launched by its mace with a single swing. The wyvern was gone too.

Qrow suddenly found himself floating in the air, he was slammed back into the ground with a bone crushing snap ringing out.

"go little bird. I shall allow you to warn the wizard. That is, if you can make it there with your injuries." The creature was obviously taunting him but qrow wasn't about to pass on that offer.

With the last of his strength and a puff of feathers, he flew.

Like his life depended on it.

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