How does a person measure their character? Is it their affluence; their power; their ability to persuade others with the right words? Is it the way they dress or the way they act? Maybe it's either the simple matter of which they put on makeup (yes, boys too), or how they put so much on that they have a totally different face—a mask that they wear to hide those small little details they don't want others to see? Perhaps a person's character is measured in the number of diamonds inlaid in their jewelry, or how many rings they choose to wear on their fingers? Or maybe it's something far simpler than any of the former…

...maybe a person's character is measured by how many friends they have, or maybe even what kind of friend they are: the good kind.

But how does one know if they are truly being a good friend? Certainly there are a number of ways to tell this that would make sense? Maybe not a friend who uses their money and status to gain a foothold in others lives. Maybe not one that chooses to hide themselves from others, and flees when something about them is found out. Maybe not someone who takes it upon themselves to use their strength to fight others, especially when violence and use of force aren't the answer. Maybe...a good friend lies in one simple word: Hope.

Hope. The light that paves the way through darkness, a bright light of which all look towards, and see that this is their way out of the void they'd find themselves in. For what is simple life truly worth without hope? What is having friends worth without hope? Or, maybe it's the other way around.

What if a person's character is not measured by the friends they keep close, or what kind of friend they are?

What if a person's character is measured solely...by hope?

Ruby didn't know what to feel anymore. She didn't know what to think. She didn't know what to say, if she could say anything at all. All was lost to her: sight, smell, taste, touch, sound, her senses of direction and up or down, her own sense of being felt like that of jello—no definite shape. But, she was still very much in one piece, her normal shape.

For the longest time since she was inducted, Ruby couldn't catch a single, meaningful breath. Not one single spec of air when all she wanted to do was hyperventilate to the point of her lungs bursting. She'd been left in so much agonizing pain, a pain perpetually fueled by the sense of nothing else but the darkness that enshrouded her. But she wasn't the only one struggling.

The darkness had tried time and time again to find something. Time and time again it had used memories spanning from birth to mere days before this moment. So many options and more than enough time to try any of them, but there was only so much it could do—and it knew it couldn't keep her gestating forever, not if it couldn't find something that would make her drop her guard. In all the countless years it's spent turning people, it had never met someone it couldn't turn—not even from a Silver Eye bloodline—it was only a matter of time before it struck that proverbial, gilded memory.

But there was something different about this girl...even after everything that has happened—everything she has witnessed—she was still holding onto a small candle of hope. A small, flickering light that lit her way through her hardship, and down a path that she knew not where it lead. Ruby walked down this path with such certainty, and a solid sense of determination that maybe she would make it out of this, somehow, in some way or another. She just had to keep walking.

She wasn't alone on this walk, though. She had been walking with someone down a long hallway, someone with poofy red hair and very bright green eyes. The sounds of echoes from cheering men and women bounced off the walls and each other, but they weren't cheering the name of the girl who walked with Ruby, they were cheers for another girl.

"I'm sorry you didn't win, Penny," Ruby told her friend. "Pyrrha is a really good fighter, it's amazing you lasted as long as you did."

Penny smiled. "I wasn't built perfect," she said. "Besides, maybe this will something to improve on if I'm upgraded."

"Upgraded?"

"Yes," Penny explained, "this is not my first body to be in—it's my fourth, actually. Each time I lost or was destroyed, my memory is uploaded into an improved body."

"That's...actually really cool," said Ruby, then she had a wild idea. "OOH, do you think you'll get laser cannons in your arms?" Now her thoughts trailed to those of Penny blasting Grimm into oblivion with a pair of laser cannons. It was something epic to be sure.

Penny laughed...well, the closest she could get to a laugh, one that was bland and sounded forced. "I guess we'll see in the next few months."

The two continued walking out, away from the arena, and to the docking bay. It was quieter than back at the main station area for the tournament, all was more peaceful and not as demanding.

Ruby suddenly had an idea. "Hey, let's get a picture of ourselves here." Then, she brought out her scroll, and brought up the camera application.

"Oh, yes, that sounds great!" said Penny.

The two girls positioned themselves on the edge for the picture. They both smiled their amiable smiles, and, once Ruby was satisfied with the angle and frame of the picture, she clicked the button, thus immortalizing the moment.

Penny examined the photograph, and she had found herself mildly surprised with how it turned out. She had seen herself in a mirror many times before, but to see herself in a photo was something unlike anything she had ever seen. She couldn't help but say, "This picture is fantastic!"

Ruby laughed, and said, "Now we can look at this, and remember our time here together." At that, they both smiled, and they resigned to looking out and onto the world beyond.

The girls could look out and onto the surface for hours as Amity Arena hovered over the surface. Everything was so serene, like a portrait of the perfect world, untouched, and every minute that passed was like a whole new moment for them...despite the fact that it was nighttime. Ruby loved moments like these, where she could look out and see the stars, the horizon, the airships flying overhead, it gave her a moment of solace that everything was as it should be: Peaceful.

After a long moment of looking out, Pyrrha had finally joined them at the ledge. She appeared excited, but the look in her eyes shone a pang of what Ruby guessed was guilt.

"Hey Pyrrha," Ruby greeted her with a sincere smile. "Congratulations on winning the match." At this, Pyrrha shrugged off the compliment with that earnest smile she would always give others.

"Thank you, Ruby," she said, then her attention moved to Penny. Pyrrha said to her, "You fought well—I've never met anyone who could last that long in a match against me."

Then Penny smiled. "You weren't so bad yourself," she told her. "I can see how you won the Mistral Regional Tournament four times."

"Thank you, I trained hard for each of those times, and now tonight it really paid off…" then her gaze fell elsewhere, like she was looking for something just out of sight, "I just wish my mother were her in person to see it, so I could find her in the crowds and see her smile for how proud she would be." She began to tear up, but then she remembered she was in the presence of the person she just fought. "Oh, I'm so sorry—I didn't mean to sound absorbed." But she also didn't realize Penny actually couldn't comprehend what she meant.

"What are you talking about?" She asked. "You won fair and square, it is nothing to be embarrassed about." Then, she gave Pyrrha another smile and said to her, "I'm certain your mom would be proud of you right now."

That drew a teary eyed grin from Pyrrha. She told Penny, "Thank you."

Then Ruby spoke up. "You were both great tonight, I'm glad you both fought hard to win." This drew smiles from both of the contenders of the match. Ruby looked around and saw an airship docked, and she asked them, "Hey, you guys wanna go down to eat? You must be starving after that match." She directed this question more towards Pyrrha than Penny, for obvious reasons that Pyrrha did not yet know.

"Of course, that would be great," said Pyrrha. "Why don't we call both our teams and invite them to join us?"

"Yeah, way ahead of you!" Ruby spouted as she brought her scroll out, dialing the profiles of her team for a group call. "Guys, meet me, Pyrrha, and Penny down at the fairgrounds, we're going to celebrate Pyrrha's victory."

"Oh yeah, I'll be there," said Yang.

"Sure thing," said Weiss.

"I'd love to join," said Blake.

Ruby ended the call, and so did Pyrrha after she called her own team. Pyrrha said, "My team will be there."

"Alright, let's go," Ruby said, and soon the three of them were off the the airship to go down to the fairgrounds.

"Penny, you're not going to eat anything?" Weiss asked. Everyone else had gotten something to eat (most of which were large noodle bowls), but Penny had requested nothing.

Penny shook her head. "I'm not...hungry." She tried to make it sound like she was sincere. How was she to explain the real reason why she didn't order anything? How would everyone around her react if they found out what she was? She knew it wouldn't be the same as how Ruby reacted when she found out, and this time there were several more people who would find out.

Everyone else was eating at their own, semi-expedient pace—Yang being the fastest out of the rest. Perhaps she felt she was entitled to a meal herself after she beat Mercury, though, she could've shown more self control, but in the end she beat Mercury fair and square, and no one was going to take that away from her. It appeared she and Nora were actually racing to reach the bottom of the bowl.

"Hrrr psh-rah…" Yang tried talking, but her mouth was still full, so she swallowed and, this time, said, "Hey, Pyrrha, I wonder which one of us will make it out on top next singles match."

"I think Pyrrha's got you beat there, Yang," said Nora in Pyrrha's place. "You've seen her take on Team CRDL all by herself—she'd make short work of you."

"Pssh, please, Team CRDL is full of weaklings, I could take'em without a sweat," Yang said with both parts arrogance and confidence.

"I'm sure you could," Pyrrha told Yang. "And if we do end up fighting each other, I won't go easy."

"You better not."

A moment of silence followed after that. Everyone returned to eating their various delicacies, making occasional exchanges of little degree of importance; primarily asking about how the others evening was, talking about the previous matches, gloating about the other students attires, the occasional remark about who would beat who in a fight (that part mostly led by Yang and Nora), and other whatnot for a good while.

Ruby looked across the table and noticed Jaune hadn't been talking much, nor had he eaten much of his food yet. His mind appeared to be elsewhere—and that place appeared to involve Pyrrha, as he was facing her with a sort of depressed and longing look in his eyes. Was something wrong? Surely there had been, considering he wasn't sitting next to Pyrrha like he normally decided to get up and walk over to his side of the table, taking an empty seat just next to him.

"Hey Jaune," Ruby started, Jaune turned her way, his attention now on her. "Are you doing alright, you look kinda down?" Ruby asked him, but when she did, she didn't expect him to get up and take the next empty seat to her left, further away from everyone else, secluded.

"Do you ever see someone," said Jaune, "and they look like they have a lot on their mind, but they're not saying it?"

Ruby raised a brow, somewhat confused by the question. She answered him, "Like you were just now?"

"Yeah, but…uh…" Jaune stumbled around with his words, what he meant to say at first had now been lost to him, he had no idea what he wanted to say now—and Ruby could see that.

"It's alright, Jaune, you don't have to tell me if you don't want to.

"It's about Pyrrha," Jaune finally said, trying to maintain a quiet tone so as to not alert the rest of the group. "I found her by herself; she looked like she had a lot on her mind. I offered to help, but then she started talking like she was having doubts, or something—talking about 'destiny' and something about...I don't know, things not happening the way they were supposed to or something, it didn't make any sense…"

Ruby paid attention to every word, and now she was more concerned about her friend than before, and Pyrrha too, for that matter. She could tell Jaune was hurting deeply because of the things he described to her.

Jaune continued, "Then, she said she didn't think she could do it, she talked about her feeling destined to be a huntress—to protect the world—and that she knew she would get to do that...but, even then, she didn't think she could handle the weight of that responsibility or something." Ruby could hear the pain in his voice, and she could see that pain on him as he clenched his fists against the table. "I told her that she wouldn't let anything stand in the way of her destiny, but after I said it…" he paused, a tear crept out from his eyelid and down his cheek, "she gasped, like she was...hurt by what I said—I was only trying to help, and when she started crying, I went over to comfort her, but she…" then he stopped, feeling he couldn't continue.

"What did she do?" Ruby asked, trying her best to understand what she was hearing. But everything that had been described to her so far had been completely unlike the Pyrrha she knew. The Pyrrha she knew wouldn't sound so troubled, so bothered by whatever it was she was thinking at the time, but she knew she couldn't understand or begin to help unless she knew everything Jaune knew.

"I...went up to her, and she flung me against a wall," said Jaune. "I know it was an accident, but I can't help but feel like I really hurt her somehow."

That struck a sensitive cord with Ruby, that wasn't at all like the Pyrrha she knew. She knew Jaune and Pyrrha were good about standing with each other, no matter what happened between them, but, if what Jaune was saying was true, Pyrrha was dealing with something either very difficult, or very personal.

In any case, Ruby couldn't stand by and let Jaune continue to feel like the world was on his shoulders, she had to think of something—anything—that she could say to get him out of the place he was in. But what could she possibly say?

Then, Jaune said, "I just feel like she carries everything on her shoulders; she puts so much of her time into us and never any for herself...I think that makes her feel like she can't allow herself to stop and choose herself for a change. Ever since I became her leader, all I've ever wanted for her was to feel like she could do anything she chose to do, because she always did the things I never could. Does that make sense?"

Ruby took a moment to consider that. She believed every word he said, for it had been true, Pyrrha did put others before herself—maybe too much so. Ruby had to figure maybe she had been faced with some kind of question that may have been impossible for her to answer, one such that maybe she was unwilling to let anyone try and help her through it, fearing she may overburden those who care. Ruby sighed, for she couldn't stand to see Jaune like this, nor could she stand to hear what Pyrrha might be going through.

Then, Ruby had an idea, but she didn't know how well it would work out. She turned to seek out Pyrrha, she had been sitting between Ren and Blake, and then she called to her:

"Pyrrha."

Pyrrha looked around to see who might've called her name, and found it was Ruby. "Yes?"

"Can you come here for a minute?"

"Of course," said Pyrrha. She noticed Jaune was sitting next to Ruby, and that made her heart sink for a moment. She got up from her seat and made her way around, sitting down across from where Ruby and Jaune sat in what was now pretty much their own little secluded part of the table.

An awkward silence filled the gap between the three. It seemed nobody could quite piece together a way to start this conversation, and Pyrrha felt somewhat betrayed, for she somehow knew Jaune told Ruby what had happened many hours ago. She only hoped maybe Ruby could help them somehow, because why else would she call her here? And Pyrrha's suspicions would be correct, once Ruby asked her the obvious question:

"Jaune told me what happened, and still don't know the whole story, but I really want to see if I can help you get through...whatever it is that's happening between you two—how can I help?" A rather wordy question, but Pyrrha could see it in Ruby's eyes that she wanted to help her and Jaune.

"I...I don't know if either of you could understand even if I told you…" Pyrrha said, weakness in her voice, fear and a sense of clear choosing of words carefully, but only for the answer to come out broken and afraid.

"Then could you just tell us—and we could try to understand for ourselves?" suggested Ruby, but despite this, Pyrrha looked away...probably feeling ashamed for not being able to answer.

Then, Jaune leaned forward, reaching to cup Pyrrha's hand in his own, then clutching it tightly with the other. Not too hard, not too loose. Just enough to show he cared enough about her to know when he might hurt her, and by that attentive thinking he would let go when she said so, not with words, but by a simple pull of her wrist. But Pyrrha allowed him to retain his grasp, and so he kept holding her hand.

Pyrrha thought this was nice, having her hand held by someone who genuinely cared about her, the silent promise that he'll protect her...now she only wished she could explain to him just how much her life has changed because of him, and how much more complicated it became after her meeting with Ozpin. She closed her eyes and tried to savor this moment while she collected herself. Then, she opened them again, and saw that Jaune had a slight grin on his face; one that also had a hint of pain underneath.

Jaune told her, "You don't have to tell me anything right now, maybe not even the next couple days. But I am the leader of this team, and I am your friend, so if there is something on any of my teams minds...I want to do what I can to help them…" he paused, his grip on Pyrrha's hand grew tighter as he finished off what he was saying. "So, if it's any consolation, I forgive you for what happened earlier...because I'll always stand by you."

Hearing that brought the smallest of tears to Pyrrha's eyes, and it was enough for her to tell him, "Jaune, I am sorry about earlier—and you're right, I can't explain it right now, not here...but now that we're sitting down, thanks to Ruby, I promise I will tell you when the time is right."

That brought a smile to Jaunes face, tears in his eyes too, and the slightest hint of something that Ruby could only read as a semblance of hope.

Jaune and Pyrrha got up from their seats, Pyrrha going around to join Jaune again, and, before they walked away, Jaune told Ruby, "Thanks for listening, Ruby—and for helping me and Pyrrha through this...you're a good friend to have."

Ruby said nothing, her answer being only a solemn nod which was joined with a wholesome and cheery gaze from her silver eyes. As Jaune and Pyrrha walked away, she looked to find Penny making conversation with Weiss (the subject of which Ruby knew not what), and she appeared to be enjoying herself, Weiss too. Blake and Yang appeared to have made off somewhere else, as their bowls were empty and there was some Lien stacked in front of them...maybe off on some activity by themselves—and it seemed the whole of Team JNPR was finished eating too, as they all brought forth some of their own money to pay for their meal and left the table. Now it was just Penny, Weiss, and Ruby.

Now that her audience had been reduced to two, Ruby got up and made her way to her two other friends. As she got closer she heard them talking about economics and dust sales, much to her surprise.

"If the workforce were paid fourteen percent more, it would greatly increase the output of Dust and increase profits—all without overburdening anyone involved," said Penny.

Weiss nodded at that, and said, "I agree, our workers do deserve to be paid their fair share…" Then she noticed Ruby come on up to her right. "Ruby, how nice of you to join us—you never told me Penny was so well versed in economics."

"Oh, yes," said Penny. "I was pr- taught by my father—he's something of an economist as well…" *hiccup*

Ruby laughed, picking up the true nature of the hiccup where Weiss seemed to remain oblivious. She told them, "I'm glad you two are enjoying each other's company."

Then Weiss said, "How could I not? It's not everyday I meet someone who's father works closely with the SDC and the Atlesian Military Robotics Division." At that, both Ruby and Penny looked at her with confused and surprised glances. Weiss chuckled and said to Ruby, "You didn't think I would not look into who Penny is—did you?"

"I...uh…" she looked to Penny, and she too appeared to be at a loss. "I didn't...how did you know?"

"Well," Weiss explained to her, "for one: we've been talking for twenty minutes and she never blinked the entire time, and two: she hiccups whenever she says very particular things—and her correcting herself before her latest one proves my theory there."

Ruby blankly looked to Penny, who shrugged, then back to Weiss, and said to her, "Wow, uh, okay...I guess that makes sense."

Weiss nodded, then said to Penny, "Don't worry, Penny, soon enough everyone in Remnant will know about you—and they'll be so excited to see what you can bring to the world." With that, Weiss put down some Lien in front of her, and walked away, leaving Ruby and Penny by themselves.

"I meant to tell her earlier," said Penny, just a few moments after Weiss left. "I wanted to stand up and tell everyone at this table what I am—but something kept me from doing it." She looked down, twiddling her fingers every which way. Ruby saw her nervous twiddling and rest her hand on Penny's, silently telling her to stop.

"It's okay, Penny," said Ruby. "I think I know what that is you felt…"

Penny looked at her, just as confused as she was when Weiss revealed she knew what she was.

Ruby continued, "You are kind, curious, loyal to a fault; this new feeling...is fear."

"'Fear'?" Penny repeated. "Could you explain?"

That gave Ruby a moment of pause, for she had no idea how to properly explain what her definition of fear was, but she had to to think of something that would meet Penny's standards, because she knew Penny would have a never ending list of questions to feed her curiosity.

Without much to really say, Ruby just said the first thing that came to mind, "Fear is like…" but she couldn't continue, knowing full well that what she was about to say would've been an open-ended and vague diatribe of the definition of fear that a toddler could recite. She needed to say something more meaningful—something more profound. She needed to…

...And it was then that she finally had an answer:

"My mom described fear as this part of ourselves that we hide from—the worst part of ourselves that has no emotion, no remorse, nothing but the darkness that follows us everywhere we go, like a shadow. She knew becoming a Huntress meant living every single day of her life facing that fear, many times over, again, and again until the end of time…" then, the strangest thing happened: Everything suddenly began to melt away, back into black, leaving herself and Penny standing alone in the void. Ruby now knew what was happening—none of this was real, not one ounce of it, and with that knowledge, she continued, "fear is what makes the Grimm—and it's fear that I will always fight."

Then, Penny's expression darkened. Her face, body, and whole figure had completely lost color, and faded into black. But it did not do anything; it couldn't do anything, but say:

"Then we shall take this somewhere else."

And just like that, Ruby's mind faded. She had not lost, but she had not won either. As far as she was concerned, she was going back into the darkest recesses of her mind…

...She was returning to the void.