All characters belong to Riot Games

RING RING! RING RING! RING SMASH!

"Uuurgh." Ahri dissolved the energy blast she'd prepped and managed to peel her cheek from her pillow. She really wished she'd remembered to turn off her alarm clock, because after the day she had yesterday, after the match she had yesterday, she really could do with some beauty sleep. The medics had given her the once over after the match and had diagnosed a concussion and ordered her off the roster for a week to recover; served her right for facetanking Nautilus' Riptide. If she were being honest, it felt more like she been on a massive bender with Gragas the previous night and come home with a world champion hangover. She felt absolutely awful.

"Poro?"

Ahri signed. It had been decided in some committee or other that, in order to 'promote emotional well-being amongst our champions', where practical every champion in the league would be given a pet poro. In practice, that meant 'everyone who isn't a Void or Shadow Isles champion', who'd likely just eat or kill theirs respectively. What no one saw coming was that the little devils would begin to pick up mannerisms and styling cues from the champions they were paired with. So Ahri's had taken upon itself to grown flowing black hair and whisker marks. The multiple tails were a bit beyond it, sadly. It had picked up a certain strut to its walk though, as well as a taste for slightly cheesy pop music. It didn't bare thinking about what would happen if Cho'Gath ever got one; probably wear a top hat and monacle, thinking the entire world was made out of porosnax. It ambled up Ahri's bed and began licking her face. She contemplated shooing it away, but its licking proved kind of therapeutic, so she let it continue for a couple of minutes before she mustered the gumption to throw off the quilt.

"Poro!" Her little companion was getting quite antsy and started nudging her; must be hungry.

"(sigh) Fine, let's get some breakfast." Her T-shirt and pyjama pants were heavily creased and quite sweaty from the rather restless night's sleep she'd had. Pulling on her dressing gown, pink with white polkas, and her fluffy poro slippers, she made her way to the mirror to see just how disheveled she looked.

Yep, those are going to take some time to heal. She'd picked up a few bruises from that last fight. In the old days, the healers would have fixed it all for her, but now, to promote 'champion responsibility' they would only do so much and let the rest heal in its own time; there was an awful lot of promoting stuff recently. Thankfully, matches weren't that frequent lately, so most had plenty of time to rest up, but it still sucked to have to carry this stuff and have to spend time off work. Why they had suddenly decided personal accountability in Health and Safety was so important when they spent most of their time trying to horribly maim each other in a large variety of cruel and unusual ways seemed completely insane. Must be a bit of the champions rubbing off on the summoners, given the caliber of complete fruitcake the League Of Legends seemed to attract...

The trip to the cafeteria was uneventful. Ahri shuffled her way, while her poro skipped. On some level, she was playing the sympathy card, because she knew the guys in particular were complete suckers for a cute girl in distress, and the slippers in particular were a surefire winner. She'd lost count of the number of times that trick had worked in the old days. No one was around to supply the sympathy this morning though. Well, it was kind of early, and most champions were not morning people.

Ahri found her usual spot, and slumped into the chair, letting herself fall forward and faceplant into the plastic white table; it was just too much effort to stop herself, even if it was to maintain some dignity. Besides, the cold surface of the table helped with her headache.

"Poro. Poro? Poro poro!" Another poro, this one with pigtailed blue hair bounded over. Ahri knew who it belonged to.

"?"

"Morning Sona." Ahri mumbled from her resting place.

":("

While Ahri couldn't see the Maven Of The Strings' face, she could feel the concern on it quite easily; Ahri hadn't quite developed full telepathy with Sona, like Lee Sin had once Sona told him in no uncertain terms to stop being such a martyr and he started using his summoner skills again, but she was pretty good at picking up on the gist of Sona's thoughts and mood. And right now she could tell that painkillers were on the agenda.

"That'd be great."

":D"

She was enquiring about breakfast. "Sorry, not hungry." Ahri lied.

"X("

Great, now she's in a strop. Sona pouted and walked off.

Suddenly, there was a commotion from the far end of the room; a Poro, from the looks it had to be Draven's, was being a little pest and was accosting the few other poros whose champions were up and about. Oddly, Draven himself was nowhere to be seen; he sometimes got up early to see who he could attempt to molest or, in his mind, seduce. Needless to say, his success rate was no better than any other time of the day. Privately, Ahri was quite relieved he wasn't around; it meant she was spared his advances and thus didn't have to make him fall head over heels in love with the washing machine. Again.

Sona returned with a couple of trays. Ahri managed to lift her head from the table. Ahri's contained about half a dozen segments of various fruits, a glass of orange juice, a cup of coffee and a plate of scrambled eggs. Sona knew that Ahri wasn't particularly keen on meat since she swore off consuming men's souls; to her, despite it clearly not being human meat, eating the physical stuff was no different. Eggs were included in that, and Sona knew it, but obviously thought that getting some protein in her system was more important to Ahri's short term wellbeing than her lifestyle choice. Ahri however would still each it in a pinch and understood were she was coming from and thus didn't put up much resistance "Thanks mom." she groaned and tucked into the eggs.

":D"

"Ah, good morning Ahri. I see you're enjoying your day." A light chuckle followed. Leona had her left arm bandaged. Ahri was kind of amazed she hadn't broken it, considering how easily Darius had cut through her shield. So amazed she didn't realise she was gawking at it.

"The arm? Oh, healers fixed the break. Just waiting on the cut to heal up." Oh, so she did break it.

So, to wit, Ahri had a concussion, Leona a broken arm, Rengar was missing a few teeth and the dentists weren't in any rush to schedule an appointment to fit replacements (mainly because of Rengar's legendary halitosis), and Graves had Tinnitus from the explosion. Somehow, Jax had walked away with only his pride hurt. Summoners spent quite a while looking for Draven's moustache after Rengar ripped his face off, but to no avail; at least they probably wouldn't be seeing him in public anytime soon, regardless of getting some new skin. Someone, somehow, had found a full body cast big enough for Nautilus. Zyra's supplies of Miracle-Gro were hard pressed regrowing that hole in her back. And Katarina would be crapping buckshot for the next week. All in all, that match had been a great advert for the new regime.

"Mind if I join you?" Leona brought Ahri out of her thoughts

"Huh? Oh, no, feel free."

"So, all joking aside, how's your head. Standing that close to Nautilus wasn't the smartest thing you've ever done." Leona's poro, sporting a sunflower on its head, leapt onto the table for Leona to start stroking it under the chin.

"Uurgh, tell me about. It's like the hangover from Hell." She began munching on a segment of melon.

":/" Sona looked quizzical.

"What'd she say?" Since she was one of the few who could understand her without requiring pen and paper, she had found herself acting as a sort-of translator for everyone else.

"She was asking if you've decided what you're going to do to get back at Darius."

"Oh, I've already got that in hand." Leona smirked. She checked her watch, "Round abooouuuut...now."

"Noooooooooooo! Kog'Maw you little..g.g...give me back my axe! Spit it out! NOW!" They could hear him even from here.

"/(^_^)\"

"I just told him there were lots of 'tasties' in Darius' room. Bless him, you should've seen the excitement on his face. He's such a cutie if you catch him at the right time." Trust Leona to see something positive in Kog'Maw, Death Breath on two legs. She started laughing, before waving at Pantheon, who was working in the kitchen. Poor Pantheon, he didn't have the luxury of being a 'not-a-morning' person; both he and Morgana had to be up at the crack of dawn every day to get the ovens warmed up and the bread made for the morning rush. And he had to put up with a fair bit of grief from other champions who were far too obnoxious. Strange how most of them, given their Rivalry, came from Demacia and Noxus.

"Poooooorooooo!" Clearly someone had had enough of Dravo's antics. Zed had picked him up by the scruff of the neck and punted the poor Poro across the room, whereupon it face planted into the wall and neatly slid down it into the trashcan. After a couple of seconds it was out of the bin and pestering Zed to do it again, like it was the most fun thing ever. It made Ahri wonder about what exactly Draven got up to behind closed doors...for all of one second before the potential horror made that sound like an extremely foolish idea.

It surprised a few people that the three got on at all; personality wise they were chalk, cheese and chitin. Ahri the fun-loving tease, Sona the cute girl next door, Leona the dutiful one. They all received their fair share of love letters from admirers Valoran over, and some seemed to think there was romantic potential between the three. Ahri thought it kind of cute, but didn't give it too much though; no one had really caught her eye up to now. She'd heard of a few people linked with Sona; Xin Zhao, Lee Sin, even Mordekaiser. Well, she was one of the few people Morde could stand being around. Leona it seemed had her eyes squarely on Pantheon, her old friend, but from what she'd heard, usually from a drunk Janna who was always a good source of gossip, Diana was poking around too. It just got a a raised eyebrow from Leona in return.

This being the League of Legends, where an ordinary day is termed a 'luxury item', no sooner had one commotion ended, than another began...

"Paper!? Plastic!? Neither! I only ever pay...in METAL!" Karthus was haranguing the cafeteria staff who were trying to get him to pay up for his breakfast, in addition to the lengthy tab he already owed.

"Regardless of paymemt method, that'll still be 20 gold, sir." While the League of Legends was full board in many respects, champions were made to pay with their own money for anything out of the ordinary. And Karthus was one of the champions with more extravagant tastes, until he had a drink, after which he had absolutely no taste at all. Gragas had been witness to the time he tried to chat up a horse. Hecarim in particular had never let him forget that one. Most champions had income from outside the league; Karthus was not one of them. The rest of Pentakill had no such money worries; Sona had more than she knew what to do with.

Karthus grumbled, pulled out his coin purse and emptied it; 55 gold. He pushed it over to the server.

"Very good. Now that's just 6935 gold you still owe." Karthus' head sank and his shoulders sagged. He couldn't even die to get away from his creditors. He stilled espoused the method as an effective way of avoiding paying tax though. He slunk away from the canteen and flopped onto his seat with Yorrick and Hecarim. To make matters even more chaotic, Lucian blasted into the hall, pulling a wheelie on a bike...oh no, that's Thresh's bike. Please tell me this isn't happeneing.

He shouted behind him, "Oh come on, Thresh! My wife for your bike. I'd say that's more than a fair trade."

Thresh followed him in, riding on a unicycle, "GIVE ME BACK MY BIKE YOU BASTARD!" He was trying to tag Lucian with his chain sickle, without success. The two did a couple of laps of the dining hall, causing some champions and summoners to dive for cover, before head out the door they came in from.

Rammus, perhaps deciding he'd seen enough too, got up from his seat, put on his sunglasses and proceeded to leave. As he passed Shyvana, he pointed without even bothering to face her, "Dragon on the ground, and that's just your boobs." Shyvana looked confused for a second, before she caught onto the homophone, then roared and launched herself at him, Rammus rolling off at speed towards Garen, "I know one bush we'll never find you in; Katarina's."

"You scurrilous fiend! How dare you! Taste my steel. DEMACIAAAA!" Garen leapt and tried to cleave him in twain, but missed; Rammus had already made his way to his next target; Lux. "Now I know why they call you Lux, coz they're something you don't have. You know? Irony?"

"RAAAAAAAGH!". A laser beam was Rammus' answer. In her rage, her aim was poor. Heh, must be a touchy subject. Well , so far so good. Quinn was next on his list, as he zipped past and plucked Valor off his perch, and slammed him into the floor, "Told you last time, 'If that bird craps on me again, I'm eating it.' He then chucked the senseless bird into his mouth. Quinn was too slow to reach for her crossbow before Rammus was off once more, spitting Valor out as he went. Bleugh, Chicken!? Tastes more like ass!

Ahead, he saw his last target; the heir and Exemplar of Demacia, Jarvan Lightshield IV.

"Be a man! Spend your day neck deep up Jarvan's ass! Only the Lawful Stupid need apply!"

"You just sealed you doom Armordillo! DEMACIAAAAA!" Jarvan leapt into the fray, trying to trap Rammus with Cataclysm, but only succeeding in shattering the table where Shen, Alkali and Kennen were trying to enjoy their breakfast. Seemingly not concerned with the property damage and inconvenience to his fellow champions, he yanked his lance out the ground and sprinted off after his subordinates in pursuit of Rammus. Alkali and Kennen both rose from their chairs, both looking ready to 'help' Jarvan, but Shen overruled them and gestured for them to retake their seats. There was no real need for them to get involved; Rammus clearly had everything under control.

(Sigh) It's high time someone told that idiot Jarvan what we all really think of him. Note to self: Rammus, I owe you a drink...

Sona and Leona got out if their seats to see what would happen next. Ahri couldn't care less as long as everyone kept the noise down.

Champions and Summoners flattened against the wall as Rammus barrelled along with the Demacian contingent in pursuit. He was managed to keep a few yards ahead while he added up the numbers.

Got a whole team after me. All Demacians, so faction bonus applies. Add points for successful use of new material...heh 975 points, new personal best! Top that, Trundle. He and Trundle had a little competition going to see who was better at pissing people off. Rammus was ahead. By miles.

Seeing an open window, he decided to liven things up by using it as a shortcut across the courtyard. He quickly regretted I though...

Oh crap. The party-pooper in chief stood in waiting for him, resplendent in his sporting kit.

"Bases up! HUEHUEHUEHUE!"

Rammus' flight was met with the meat of Mordekaiser's club, knocking him clean out of the area. In the distance, there was the sound of a breaking window, followed by a distressed cat, because hey, sometimes you had to follow convention.

"And that's a hooooooooome run!" Mordekaiser looked very pleased with himself; hell, he was sparkling. The Demacians all fell to the ground, exhausted by the chase. Sona, having finally caught up with the commotion, gave him a frenetic wave. Morde beamed and waved back.

INTRODUCING HOME RUN HITTER MORDEKAISER! COMES IN TEAM KIT OF YOUR CHOICE! Typical, one of the PA's had taken the opportunity to try and and flog something. Morde, for his part, struck a pose and took an impromptu photo session. He looked to wearing the Noxus Maniacs kit today.

Ahri, still in the cafeteria, and now looking at the semi conscious Rammus who'd just smashed her table, planted her head in her hands. It was going to be a long day, and already she'd had enough. As had Nidalee, from the way she bolted out the cafeteria seconds ago.

"You know what, forget it. I'm going back to bed. Wake me sometime next week...if you think it's worth me getting up" She said to no one in particular. Maybe if she closed her eyes, she'd wake up and discover that none of this had actually happened. Here's to hoping.