"Hey Jaune?"

"Yeah?"

"How's your training with Pyrrha going?"

Deftly handling a rag and some metal polisher she had found in the train wreck, Ruby cleaned Crescent Rose with care, much like a mother giving her baby a bath. For all her impulsiveness in combat, Ruby was extremely meticulous with her weapon, always taking time to carefully wipe off the grease, dirt and grime that got themselves in every nook and cranny. She made sure to clean her weapon at least once a week, and did general maintenance on parts at least once a month. This habit of hers wasn't going to stop even if they were stuck down underground. If anything, it helped with the monotony of waiting for rescue.

"Hmmm well I'm starting to survive fighting her for almost five minutes now when she's half serious. When we started she'd usually floor me 5 seconds into the match."

Jaune chuckled to himself as he unfurled his shield. Countless scratches and dents could be seen on its solid steel surface, most of them actually coming from matches with Pyrrha. Like Ruby he also took very real care of his weapons, though much of it comes from wanting to take care of family heirlooms more than anything. He had to, of course, as the shield was pretty much the only thing keeping him from being beheaded by Beowulf and from being given a concussion by his partner.

"What's with the sudden interest in my training?"

"I just… um… thought you looked kinda cool during that fight with the Grimm that crashed with the train last week."

"Cool?"

"Yes. Cool. As in 'Jaune was pretty cool taking those blows from that huge Ursa like they were nothing."

"The words 'cool' and 'Jaune' don't really go in the same sentence."

Ruby quietly sighed to herself on Jaune's words. For all of the bright-eyed optimism Jaune always tried to project even in the face of serious danger, he had often tempered it with a kind of self-depreciating humor that Ruby had honestly found to be annoying at times. Jaune saw no problem in humiliating himself if it made things better for everyone around him, something Ruby didn't really like. She had hated the way people were willing to lower themselves for the sake of others, more so when it involved people she was close to. Even more so when it was with Jaune, someone she considered her first real close guy friend, who did so regularly and with such willful gusto.

"Jaune… do you enjoy always putting yourself down like that? Didn't we talk about it the other day already? How you've grown to be much more capable that you give yourself credit for? Me, my team, and especially your own team wouldn't trust you with their lives if they didn't think you were capable."

Jaune closed his eyes at Ruby's words. It stung. A lot. Daggers into the heart. It stung because he knew he wasn't being completely honest with his team and with his friends. That they were placing their trust and even their lives on someone who had been lying to them the moment he came aboard the airship to Beacon. He was still lying, even now, to the first friend he had made in Beacon. The friend he was stuck with in a life or death situation. At some point he knew he would have to talk about it again. Only Pyrrha knew. She accepted it wholeheartedly. Would Ruby do the same?

"Ruby… I'm not capable. I'm not because I wasn't even capable of getting into Beacon in the first place."

"Huh? That makes no sense. You're in Beacon aren't you?"

This was it. It was now or never. He knew he owed Ruby the truth. She deserved to know. He deserved whatever Ruby decided to do from that point on.

"I faked my transcripts."

"You… what? You did what?"

"Faked it. Doctored it. Bamboozled my way through. Whatever expression fits the crime. I didn't deserve to be here, but I lied my way in."

People knew that Ruby cared for Crescent Rose into the territory of obsession. It would take something absolutely shocking and incredible to make her drop her beloved weapon. This was one of those times. Crescent Rose fell to the ground with a loud thud that echoed in the tunnel.

"So you didn't really…"

"Ruby, there's no way in hell a guy like me would even be considered for Beacon."

Jaune, suddenly feeling as if carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders, stood up, removed his weapons, and began trudging towards the door to the dining area.

"You guys really shouldn't trust your lives to someone who's been lying from the start."

He closed the door behind him even before Ruby could speak. He wanted to be alone. More alone than he already was at least. He sat himself on a dining chair, plugged his scroll into the outlet now being powered by the emergency generator, and just stared at that dark chunk of matter that was someone's meal he saw the day before. All he could do was stare at it, stewing in the negativity that had now clouded his mind. He had to compensate. Overcompensate even. If he didn't exert more effort than everyone else, if he wasn't willing to go the extra mile and sacrifice his body and dignity, he thought people would realize that he had nothing to offer beyond that. That it would finally dawn on his peers that he was simply incompetent, a clerical error by the admissions committee.

Hours felt like minutes when he finally realized what he was doing. Checking his scroll he realized that he was staring at that ancient pile of former food for almost 2 hours. Getting up and composing himself, he trudged back to the first room and sat on the cot. There on the cot, he could feel Ruby's aura through the wall. She hadn't moved from there for 2 whole hours.

"You okay now Jaune?"

"Yeah. Probably."

"So… why'd you do it?"

"Because… you know how I'm the only son with 7 sisters in my family right?"

"I heard from Pyrrha. So you're like the guy who's supposed to carry on the family name right?"

Jaune sighed behind a fake smile.

"I should have been, if I wasn't such a screw up even as a kid. I grew up in surrounded by sisters, all of whom were trained as warriors but were also brought up in the typical female fashion. It was… emasculating to say the least."

He stood up and stared at the dank and cracking ceiling. He closed his eyes to reminisce of memories he would rather keep in the back of his mind.

"My family was excited when I was finally born, a male heir to finally carry on the family's lineage of honor and strength. Imagine everyone's shock when the 'heir' couldn't even carry a sword properly until his teens while his sisters were already beating down fighters twice their size and twice their age."

He gripped the pommel of his blade.

"I was slow. I tried my best but I couldn't even become as good as my sisters. They started studying in combat schools around the country while I was still being home schooled. As I told Pyrrha before… I was never formally trained. No school would let me in. The only school that I could get into was a school for squires."

He gritted his teeth.

"Squires Ruby! The only son of a famed family of knights, training to be a knight's attendant! Even though my family never made a big deal out of it, it was still disgraceful. That's why I faked my transcripts. No way would a goofball with no real training get into a prestigious school like Beacon. Even then I thought to myself if I got in and learned how to be a real knight, I could make my family proud. Make my friends proud."

Jaune pulled out his blade and once again stared at his reflection on the cold hard steel.

"Make myself proud."

He stabbed his blade into the ground and kneeled; much like a how a knight would kneel in front of his superiors. He stood before his blade, feeling too much shame to sheath it.

"And now… can't really make anybody proud stuck here."

He laughed inside himself as he finally took back his blade and sheathed it.

"Jaune… can I be frank? Probably brutally?"

"Um… okay?"

"Jaune, honestly, I don't give a damn."

Her choice of words knocked Jaune out of his self-pitying stupor.

"Ruby! Language! You're only fifteen! Also who why what?"

"Don't get me wrong, you still faked your grades. My point is… I don't care how badly you, and pardon my words, sucked in the past. You've more than proven that you belong here like anyone else. I've told you that before."

"Like how, exactly."

Ruby immediately stood up and approached one of the fallen pillars near the broken train cars. She unfurled Crescent Rose and, with one fell slice, cut the concrete right in half. She again felt some slight pain on the right abdomen that she ignored.

"I've killed my fair share of Ursa, but I've never cut been able to cut one in half before, no matter how sharp Crescent Rose is. You cut an Ursa's head clean off in one slice. One. Slice. That's plain strength."

Ruby loaded a bullet into her weapons chamber and fired it at an angle on the tunnel wall. The bullet ricocheted around until it went back straight at her, which she promptly deflected with her weapon.

"I've always had to rely on my semblance and my aura to defend myself from attacks. You shrug off blows from giant Ursa like they were Nora's hugs. Without proper aura control. That's resilience."

Ruby began wiping the concrete dust from Crescent Rose's blade.

"You figured out to cut off that Death Stalker's tale and drop it on its head, taking it out in one move while we were still trying to figure out how to even bring that Nevermore down. That's intelligence."

Jaune didn't really know how to react to Ruby's praise. While she did praise him a few times before, and even just the other day, he's never received this much from anyone. Not even his family. It was all new to him.

"And… during the final moments on that fight on the train… the last thing I remember was you jumping between me and the blast, raising your shield to protect us both. If it wasn't for you… well… I'd probably be dead."

Ruby collapsed her weapon, sat back down by the wall, and curled herself into a little ball. She could scarcely believe what she was about to say.

"Jaune… you might not, or ever, consider yourself a knight. But… in that instant, that moment in time… you were mine. So please. Be proud of yourself."

Ruby curled up into a ball even more, and rolled her hoodie over her head. Jaune, for his part, felt his eyes grow wide. He really didn't know what to say or how to react. Eloquent and honest praise was something of an alien concept to him. Hearing these words, from a close friend no less, set off something inside him he had never felt before. For someone with a relative lack of self-esteem, these things were rare gifts. Gifts he would treasure immensely. If only he knew how to respond.

"I… I really don't know what to say. I'm… not used to this, honestly. I guess all I can say is… thanks. Thanks Ruby. From the bottom of my heart. No matter how cheesy you sounded."

Ruby, on hearing the word "cheesy", sprang to her feet and removed her hoodie with a sour looking pout on her face.

"Cheesy God Jaune you are such a dork! Then again… so am I."

Simultaneous laughter echoed through the halls of the forgotten underground world. Not that there was anyone around to hear it. It was probably the loudest and most honest laugh they've had since they've been down there. Took them both nearly a minute to finally settle down.

"Sometimes I just don't know what to do without your hilariously out of place comments Jaune"

"And I wouldn't know what to do without your infectious optimism Ruby."

Ruby reached for her canteen. Laughing out loud that much made her quite thirsty. Taking a few sips, she felt just how light her canteen had become. It likely only had a few sips more left. Probably good for one more day. She decided to forego that last sip and put it back into her pack. Jaune himself reached into his pack and found the empty bag of cookies, remembering that he ate the last remaining crumbs earlier that day.

"At least we still have some fresh air to breath. For a while at least. The air scrubber in the other room looks like it should run fine as long as we keep it juiced."

"As long as we keep electricity use at a minimum. Just lights and the scrubber. Even then the fire dust should only last for… 2 more days at the most. After that…"

"We'll be found by then. Don't worry."

"That's kind of my line you know!"

"Like I said Ruby, your optimism's pretty infectious."