A/N: Sorry this is out late, but I'm thinking of updating this story on Mondays or Tuesdays now instead of the weekend. I play a lot of homework catchup on the weekends, and it's also when I do a majority of the writing for this story, so I guess it only makes sense to make the update day after that time. That might also be a reason why my chapter quality has been a bit low, since I was stressed with trying to make my update deadline for this story on Saturday or Sunday. In any case, I'm sorry for the wait, and here's the chapter!

CHAPTER 8:

Breakfast at Beacon

Ruby's mind burned as she watched two figures clash amidst high-rising buildings that were tall, metallic, and glossy with glass. She found herself breathing hard as she saw spark after magical spark, clangs and booms of power, as if they were using entire crates of Dust for every hit they exchanged.

It was Saber fighting against someone who fought with chains, and it was like a dance in the air.

Rider, her mind whispered. She used nameless daggers that were more like giant nails than anything else, and Ruby found her eyes focusing and barely catching anything that they were doing from so far below them. They ran up and down buildings, bounced and struck and parried, fighting like it would be their last.

A feeling of dread washed through Ruby. Then, she found herself running into a building, and running up. Running and running and running, because the elevators wouldn't work and all she had was stairs. There was a sense of urgency she could feel. As if Ruby knew that Saber would die if she didn't go up. As if there was something Rider was still hiding, something she knew might be able to trump anything Saber did if she didn't go all out.

And Ruby somehow knew that Saber wasn't going all out, all because of her.

She was exhausted. Her lungs were burning. And when Ruby felt like giving up, she felt the building rumble, and terror gripped her heart. Run faster! Screamed Ruby, and her dreamself seemed to think the same as she ran up the stairs faster than before. She then broke through the rooftop door and stared as she saw Saber on her knees breathing heavily.

"Shirou! Why are you here?!"

"Saber–!"

Ruby froze the moment she stepped forward and looked up to see Rider on a hazy white mount. She then began speaking to Saber, and Ruby found the dream, the memory, shifting, as if it were a choppy movie. She then found herself searching for someone name Shinji, and before she knew it, she felt more than saw Rider gathering energy, enough energy to make Ruby's hairs stand on end.

"That is your Noble Phantasm, Rider?"

Noble Phantasm. That phrase echoed in Ruby's head, and she felt another wave of pressure hit her, both in the dream and in her own head as pain spiked through her brain.

"Yes, but this Pegasus is too kind. I'll have to use this to make it fight." She then did something that made her mount kick and begin to shake. "Now, disappear, Saber! Even if you survive now, your Master is a different matter altogether. Will it matter anymore if he dies? Ha!"

"Saber!" Ruby found herself shouting. Saber turned to her with ferocious eyes, and Ruby nodded. "Use it."

At that moment, even amidst the roaring wind and commanding shouts of Shinji to Rider, there was an understanding between them. Without another word, Saber, released every seal on her sword and brought up in a two-hand stance.

"BELLEROPHON!"

Rider named her weapon, her Noble Phantasm, and like a switch, she became a blazing streak of light.

But Saber wasn't to be outdone. The wind peeled, whipping around and roaring faster and faster until–!

"EX-"

A golden sword appeared, more beautiful than anything Ruby had ever seen, and one she had recognised, because she had seen it once already in that land full of swords. It was the very breath of the planet, the assembly of its light at the end of the world.

It was Excalibur, the Sword of Promised Victory, and it burned.

"-CALIBUR!"

~~RoaD~~

Ruby gasped as she opened her eyes to a warm ray of light shining over her face. Shielding her face, she sat up in her bed and squinted at the crack in the blinds that had woken her up. She crawled to the window and set next to the light, soaking in its warmth as she cuddle in her blankets.

"That dream," she murmured. "It was as real as the one from yesterday."

That sword she had seen was amazing. It was as brilliant and as inviting as the warmth Ruby could feel from the morning sun through the window. She knew its name now too, and she knew what it meant: Excalibur, the Sword of Promised Victory. It was the symbol and collection of humanity's every hope and wish, and a blade with infinite potential.

A beacon of light. A reminder of every good thing in the world.

It filled her with energy thinking about it. She could envision that same majestic blade in her head down to its foreign fairy writings and ever-sharp edge. Now that she had seen it clearly in her dreams, it was like she could recreate it perfectly in her own imagination, and it was beautiful. Her brain was buzzing, her skin tingling, and she twitched her fingers at the thought of having a sword like that.

Ruby pictured herself holding Excalibur and smiled goofily. If only she could.

Snores from her left brought her out of her musings and made her remember that she was the only one out of the new Team RWBY that was currently awake. Taking one more glance out the window, Ruby wondered what time it was. She cast her eyes to her scroll next to her pillow and blinked at how early it was. 6:34 a.m.

"Huh," Ruby murmured, "It's so early…If it's so early, why do I feel so awake?"

There was nothing Ruby could think of as to why she had woken up early. She tried going back to sleep and snuggling into her cozy blankets, but after a few minutes she felt restless. With a frown, she rolled out of bed. Ruby then had the inexplicable urge to make her bed. With a strange feeling of elation, she fixed her sheets and stood proudly over her bed that now looked as crisp as when she had first seen it.

"I never knew making my bed would feel so gratifying."

Ruby then fished out her Beacon uniform, grinned madly at it, and changed into it in a flash. Fixing her skirt, she dashed over to the washroom to look herself over and nodded with a smile. Finally, her stomach rumbled, and she found herself tilting her head in thought.

"How long has it been since I last made breakfast for more than just myself?" It had only been a few days since she had made her own breakfast, but it felt like an eternity since she had made anything for more than one mouth to feed. In fact, it was somewhat of a travesty in Ruby's eyes. Breakfast was an important part of every day, and she had been taught never to miss it.

An idea popped into Ruby's head. Her eyes lit up. I've got it! Now that she was the leader of Team RWBY, she had to set an example, right? That meant team bonding moments, which meant everyone smiling and being happy. Ruby liked it when people were happy, and she knew Weiss had seemed very grumpy ever since the final ceremony.

She glanced at Weiss' sleeping form before looking over at Blake and Yang. With a nod, she smiled. "Alright then. I wonder what I'll make?" Her eyes then flickered back to Blake in particular, who seemed to like sleeping with her bow on.

It must be uncomfortable, Ruby found herself thinking. Knowing what she had under there…She might be grumpy too. She wondered if adding fish to a breakfast meal would be blasphemous to her. She then shrugged. Oh well. If it is, then I don't want to hear it. This is a team bonding experience!

Ruby set her scroll on an alarm that would tell her to wake everyone up after about half an hour. She then gently opened the door to the hall, looked left and right, and made her way to the common room's kitchen. She flicked on the light switch and beamed at the sparkling kitchen. Ruby then zoomed over and checked each cupboard for supplies. What she found made her pump her fists and immediately set out pans, a cutting board, and eight plates.

Looking into the fridge, Ruby was pleasantly surprised to see it stocked, if a little sparse, with everything she might need for a big breakfast. In fact, if Ruby was looking at it all correctly, she could maybe even make enough to have extras for Team JNPR! "Maybe I should make them some too," Ruby said. "I'm sure they'd love it!"

She took out the loaf of bread, eggs, bacon, tomato, and cheese, and what looked like a can of tuna and hummed. "I could do a lot with this, but I guess I'll make something simple for today."

She oiled her pans and let them heat up as she started to crack eggs and whisk them in a bowl. Holding her hands over her pans, she waited until they felt hot enough and laid out strips of bacon on the pan. She then poured the first half of the whisked eggs into the other pan and whirled around to open the can of tuna. She then went back to the fridge and found a single ball of lettuce which she brought out, before taking some spices from the spice cabinet she had found and seasoning the eggs.

She chopped some of the lettuce into big chunks and the tomatoes into slices, flipped the bacon, flipped the omelette, and set out eight slices of bread. Time was a non-factor to Ruby at this point, as she was having a lot of fun. Soon enough, she changed out the bacon, took out the omelette, and put the rest of the uncooked bacon and whisked eggs in their respective pans. As everything finished cooking up, she began to stack the bread slices to make BLT's with a slice of cheese to boot, and one sandwich having the tuna replace the bacon.

Finally, she set out one more pan and began toasting each sandwich on either side, letting the cheese melt into the sandwich while the bread grew crispy with each passing second. Vaguely, she felt she could hear her alarm in the distance go off, before swiftly turning off, but she paid it no mind. Did her scroll die? Oh well. Even if they didn't wake up, Ruby could just bring it all to them.

As she set out each sandwich in a presentable way on the eight plates, and positioned the omelettes just right, she turned around to grab forks and found seven pairs of eyes all sitting at the two tables in the common room and staring at her in varying degrees of wonder. Even Weiss was looking at her with confused interest, half-asleep as she still was. Ruby blinked and stared back for a few moments before she widened her eyes and made a surprised noise.

"Eep!"

"Wow, Rubes…You really outdid yourself here," Yang said.

"W-when did you all get here?" Ruby asked self-consciously. "I didn't even notice you come in!"

"Well, it started when Yang woke me up with her snoring," Blake said, to which Yang grumbled. Blake continued, "And then I smelt something so amazing I thought I would die, so I got out of bed and followed the smell to you."

"Then she came back and woke me up to ask me if I knew you could cook," said Yang, "And I, of course, said yes."

Ren coughed. "Nora smelled bacon, which she associated with the idea of pancakes."

"I'm sad there aren't pancakes!" Nora said happily.

"She woke all of us up," Jaune mumbled. "I want more sleep."

"Nora dashed out and saw Blake and Yang walking towards the common room," Pyrrha then provided. "The alarm went off after that and I saw Weiss rush across the room to turn it off and nearly went back to bed before she saw us."

"I did not 'nearly' go back to bed," Weiss said. "That is slanderous! Oh, but I'm not calling you anything, Pyrrha."

"Okay."

Weiss turned back to Ruby and said, "I just wanted to see what all the fuss was about. Then I saw it was just you. In any case, I see you're well-versed in the art of making breakfast."

"Of course she is, Ruby's my sister! She's pretty cool, you know."

"Oh shut it, you blonde buffoon. I don't need any of your comments this early in the morning."

"Hey! Can I join in on the name calling?"

"No, Nora."

A swirl of emotion bubbled from deep within Ruby as she watched her team and Team JNPR continue to talk to each other, and she felt her eyes fog up at the amazing sight. Not even an official day into her new Beacon Academy student life, and she had already made such nice friends. It made her decision to make breakfast for two teams all the more worth it. It was moments like these that she used to want–Did want to protect. Where everyone was happy and smiling.

If only she had her scroll to take a picture. Instead, she burned the image into her memory and smiled widely before disappearing in a flurry of rose petals and reappearing at the same table as the rest of her team. Ruby then watched as everyone blinked and looked down to see their breakfast was served.

"Eat up, everyone! I made it so we could all have yummy food and have a great start to our first day at Beacon!"

Despite any previous laziness or lack of energy, everyone immediately perked up and cheered. Ruby then waited and watched her new friends' faces as they each took the first bite of their sandwiches and collectively moaned at the delicious taste.

"Wow, it looks like a normal sandwich, but it tastes so good!" said Nora through a full mouth.

Ren sighed. "Chew, Nora!"

Jaune beamed from his sandwich. "It's really good, Ruby!"

Pyrrha smiled primly and nodded in agreement. "Yes, it's amazing."

"This…is the best sandwich I've ever been served for breakfast," Weiss murmured. "What did you put in this?"

"I would like to know as well," Blake said with wide eyes. She looked at her sandwich and back at Ruby. "Is that–Tuna?"

"All I did was cook the bacon and toast it a little," Ruby said. "The only other thing was I seasoned the eggs a little." Ruby then fixed Blake with a guilty look and said, "Yeah, it's tuna."

"Yours has tuna?" Yang asked. "What?"

"Hm. That's odd. It doesn't look like yours has bacon."

"I like tuna, but…" Blake looked suspiciously at Ruby. "How did you know?"

Ruby glanced at all three of teammates as they all looked at her with different emotions. She wondered, really wondered if she should tell them. Ruby wanted to know if she should tell Weiss and Blake that she knew of both of their histories, which meant knowing Blake's secret, all because she caught a glance of their weapons.

Was it going to be okay in the end? Would she fail as a team leader? Could this make or break Team RWBY before the semester even really began? Ruby bit her lip and stared at her own sandwich that was still untouched, and she closed her eyes.

"Ruby?"

"Can I talk with everyone, after?" Ruby whispered, looking at Yang first. Her gaze then fell on Weiss and Blake, who had yet to take another bite. "In the dorm. I need to say something. It's kind-of important."

Yang blinked. "I mean, off course, Rubes. Is it team stuff?" She narrowed her eyes just enough that only Ruby noticed. "Or is it something else?"

Ruby felt the warm feeling she'd had in her chest grow a little cold, and she picked up her sandwich. "Let's just enjoy breakfast for now, okay?" Ruby pleaded. "I made this for you guys. It wouldn't be nice to let it get cold, right?"

"Hey, you guys doing alright over there?" Jaune's voice asked from the other table. Team RWBY looked over to see all of JNPR watching them with slight concern.

"Fine! We're doing fine, thanks for asking. And, uh, thanks for eating my food! I'm really happy you all love it! Please keep eating!" Then, she finally took a bite of her own sandwich.

As Ruby began attacking her food with gusto, Weiss, Blake, and Yang all shared a look. One thing was for certain–Whatever Ruby had to say, it was important. Yang had an inkling as to what Ruby might be after, while Weiss and Blake could only guess at what their new team leader would want to talk about. And for Ruby, it was something she knew she needed to say, before it got out of hand any further. Before Ruby found out anything else she shouldn't know.

But for now, Ruby would joy herself in the happiness she could see in everyone's smiles.

A/N: And that's a wrap for this week! I hope this is up to my usual standards. I really was waffling a bit on how I should execute this chapter, but I finally just decided to split the talk from the breakfast because it was less stressful that way. Also, Mom Ruby! I hope I did Ruby as a cook for justice in a satisfactory way, haha. I really enjoyed writing this chapter, and I'm looking forward to completely derailing canon from here on out. Cheers!

And on to my RESPONSES!

Mewtwo is awesome:

She does know about Kanshou and Bakuya. It's just that, she hasn't seen them close enough to Archer yet, and hasn't recalled them from the RM.

merendinoemiliano:

I always thought of Aura as something that would yes, enhance your physical prowess and durability as well as heal you, but I wouldn't think it would also enhance your senses unless you were really in tune with yourself or something like that.

dwdadw33:

To answer your question: Yes

Nikkless:

I feel like Ruby would be pretty chaotic Ruler and wouldn't be very good at it haha

NightHawk the Warrior:

To also answer your question: Yes

Tiny detail:

I mean, yeah, you're nitpicking an omake that I wrote half-asleep haha. Honestly, I had an argument on this with someone irl where I was like "If you get killed, you die. But if you get killed but don't die, then you're still alive." I've always thought of being 'killed' as a mortal wound that 'should' kill you, but either does or doesn't, and thus, we get "die when they are killed". There's also the proper interpretation of the phrase, where again, mortal wounds should normally kill people, but in Shirou's case, didn't.

Wyran cost:

Sorry I didn't get to the talk, but thanks for the review, and I hope Mom Ruby was enough to satisfy!

Spellflame:

Good thought. I'll have to think on that one!

TalonScythe:

If it's stressful for you too, then don't worry! I'm glad with every review that comes my way, big or small, and honestly, I always appreciate anything, including consistency. I'm glad you really like this fic, because I really don't intend on abandoning it and want to see it through just as much as you, and I hope it continues to live up to your expectations!

Good thoughts on the Luck stat and the state of Shirou as well. I've considered that too, but I do like making my gag-omakes just full of parody-like elements haha. I'll definitely take a more serious approach to the Luck stat in the actual story, but as it stands, we're here for a good time. But yeah, I prolly won't touch what I've done with Weiss in the last two chapters until I finish this story and polish it up afterwards, if I ever get around to that. In any case, thanks as always for the review, and again, don't sweat it! I understand. But also, fanart for my fanfiction would be really cool…

And that's it. Thanks everyone for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful week! Please leave a Review on your way out if you liked it! Also, no omake this week, sorry about that!