"It's too spicy." -Ainsley Harriott


A clang of spoons rang in a certain metallic dormitory.

"It's done!" Ahri exclaimed excitedly. "We just finished! Whew. That went well."

Like black magic, Mordekaiser's kitchen transformed from a strong-toned grey into a jet-black and ash-filled heap of junk. Everything somehow functioned normally as usual, but the small group of champions left the kitchen so dirty, they decided to clean it up as Ahri talked to Mordekaiser.

The lord of undead felt his eyes twitch at the sight of his ruined kitchen. Turning back to Ahri, who stood in front of his sofa, he raised an eyebrow as he casually asked,

"Why can't you all just screw off?"

His words meant nothing to her. Arms linking into his, she attempted to drag him out in a futile manner as she whined, "C'mooooon. It's almost dinner! If you don't eat, we're just gonna stand around and starve because of you."

"Why me? You're the ones who brought all this on yourselves-"

Bonk!

"-Ugh, okay, fine, geez! It's bad enough that Vi smacks me around like a baboon all the time…"

Sometimes, Mordekaiser wondered if there was an afterlife to look forward to. For a Shadow Isles denizen like him, the concept felt odd, especially considering how he led the undead alongside the Ruined King.

So when he got closer and took a more detailed look at his dirtied kitchen, he could only shake his head and be disappointed at how dim the chances of a wonderful afterlife greeting him was.

A few minutes later, they managed to clean almost everything up. The lord of undead grumpily cleaned some parts of the kitchen himself. Diana ended up not cooking, so she decided to clean up the rest of the kitchen before walking over to the sofa to occupy herself with a mermaid.

The white-haired woman took note of how the sofa was still warm from Mordekaiser lying on the furniture. Odd, considering how he wore armor that covered every nook and cranny of his body.

"Now that the cleaning is settled, let's get started with the foods," Ahri said. "This is certainly no Food War, but we can call this contest… the Mordecuisine."

"Muertecuisinier."

"Huh?"

The lord of undead glared at the fox-girl, who blinked at his sudden suggestion.

"You heard me," he growled. "If you're gonna make a contest under my name, you might as well decorate it with a Brazilian tone to it."

"Brazilian?" Ahri tilted her head at the Master of Metal.

"…"

"Hm. Well then! Under Morde's direct request, let's call this contest the Muertecuisinier! Even if I don't know what that means.

"Rengar said he'd like to go first, so let's see what he has."

The Master of Metal sat at his table, his movements sluggish. He neither coughed nor sniffed, but anyone could tell that he was not in his peak condition. The Pridestalker proudly marched over to the table with a covered steel platter in his hands.

"Back in the wilderness, I remembered seeing a very luxurious recipe constructed by some humans," Rengar explained. "I find this to be a good time to see if I remember the recipe correctly."

Opening the platter, Rengar revealed… a piece of cooked cow meat.

"…Huh," the Master of Metal said with a fork and knife in his hands. "Well, it's free food. Here goes nothing."

Piercing the meat with a fork, the iron man took a big bite off of the meat.

Only to feel his eyes widen instinctively before he cringed so hard, his body reacted visibly.

"W-What the…?" He whispered angrily. "It tastes like utter crap…?! Rengar, the hell did you put in this thing?!"

As the Master of Metal took a close look at the meat he was eating, Rengar coughed as he raised a finger to silently count the ingredients he put in the meat.

"Well, there's obviously the cow meat, but there's also onions stuffed into it carefully, and pieces of chicken along with the onions."

Chicken?! Mordekaiser screamed inwardly, barely preventing himself from barfing out the meat he just swallowed. Did he just feed me chicken?!

"How is it?" Ahri asked, standing next to Rengar with a tiny notepad in her hands.

The Master of Metal swallowed. Calming himself down, he politely informed the Nine-Tailed Fox,

"I think this is sh*t."

Scratching the back of his head, Rengar wondered what he did wrong as he watched Ahri kindly write down "two out of ten" rather than what the lord of undead said. "I hate chicken," Mordekaiser growled. "The cow meat made it a bit bearable, but I hate chicken."

Relieved that there was a redeeming factor to his luxurious(?) recipe, Rengar nodded. He would have thrown a bola at Kha'Zix if his score was even lower than the one he had now.

"Next up is Kha'Zix!" Ahri exclaimed, still pumped up for the contestants' upcoming foods.

"Evolution is a part of the food chain," Kha'Zix explained in such a tone that almost convinced Mordekaiser the next food was going to be fantastic. "So I physically manifested it."

"I'm am curious as I am worried," the Master of Metal admitted as the Voidreaver brought his own covered platter. As soon as Kha'Zix opened it, Rengar almost got tilted beyond comprehension.

White lily petals surrounded a chopped salmon with creamy honey neatly poured next to the fish. Kha'Zix had clearly taken advantage of his claws for the cleanly sliced fish, but what caught the lord of undead's eye was the sauce next to the fish. Something about it looked nice.

After the platter was put down, the iron man took a bite out of the salmon after roughly dipping it in a bit of sauce. He chewed for a few seconds.

Suddenly, fire erupted out of the Master of Metal's mouth as he screamed in utter pain. "Water. GIVE ME WATER! WHERE'S THE FREAKING WATER?!" The iron man cried as the flames continued to spew out of his mouth.

"Considering how you're sick, I made this in honor of evolving your sickness to something that can sustain you," Kha'Zix grinned, proud of his own work. "It should get the sickness right out of you faster than it would now."

Surely, Kha'Zix's words were convincing. Mordekaiser felt like the sickness would go away if he just died right at that moment. As soon as Riven handed him a bottle, he snatched the entire bottle and drank it in one gulp.

But somehow, it only got worse.

"THIS ISN'T WATER, IT'S ONION JUICE!" Mordekaiser screeched right before Sona saved his life with a tiny bottle of water.

"Oh, my bad," Riven apologized with a blank look. The onion juice bottle really did resemble a regular water bottle, so she just presumed that it was water.

After the Master of Metal caught his breath, Ahri obliviously asked him, "So how's Kha'Zix's food? It was spicy, correct?"

Mordekaiser took a deep breath.

"I want to kill Kha'Zix," he simply stated. "I wanna kill him for making this crap. It tasted good for the first few seconds, though, but that's literally it. It tastes like nicotine mixed with a dose of volatile gasoline after those seconds."

The Nine-Tailed Fox wrote down "three out of ten" in her notepad. Kha'Zix grinned and nudged Rengar, pointing at the point difference between the two. The Pridestalker responded in a gentlemanly manner by chasing after Kha'Zix with a kitchen knife.

While the two ran around, Riven walked up to the panting Mordekaiser. "I made a burger," she explained simply.

The lord of undead blinked, the fiery aftertaste of Kha'Zix's salmon still lingering in his once peaceful tongue. "A burger?"

"Yes."

Taking out her platter, she opened it and put it on the table.

The visuals of the burger already conquered Mordekaiser's hopes of eating something worthwhile. A strange aura emitted from the burger, the patty being as pitch-black as the Shadow Isles itself. The vegetables stuck out like a sore sight, contrasting greatly with the depressingly dull patty. Something about the burger buns looked soggy, considering how it looked scrunched up.

She had done it. Riven already failed her food just by its intensely epic visuals.

Pointing at the burger, Mordekaiser asked the Exile, "So… You want me to eat this… thing. Right?"

"Yes."

"Go die in a fire."

Snatching the burger, the Master of Metal took a bite out of the burger. If he was to die, he would rather die a quick death from a terrible-looking thing. He closed his eyes, ready to accept his fate at any moment.

For a moment, he thought the burger actually tasted good. But alas, it had the Kha'Zix Salmon Syndrome to it.

A few seconds after chewing the food, Mordekaiser swallowed the thing and started slamming his head over and over against the table, unable to comprehend what he just ate. Was it meat? Was it actual trash? Did Riven just slip in a bagful of cyanide into the patty?

Or maybe all three at once was the case?

The lord of undead smacked his head repeatedly with his armored hands as he asked himself, "What did I just eat? How is this even worse than Rengar's Chick-Fil-A abomination?"

A worried smile on her face, Ahri wrote "one out of ten" for Riven's score. The Exile shrugged as she told the iron man, "It's my first time cooking."

"I hope it stays your last…" Mordekaiser heaved, his eyes feeling much heavier than before.

Now that he thought about it…

Didn't Ahri tell him that the champions were there to help him rather than destroy his organ system at its very core?

"A-Anyway," Ahri said, noticing the fiery glare the Shadow Isles general gave her, "let's move onto, uh… Thresh! Yeah. You probably know Mordekaiser's tastes the most, so I'll trust you."

As Thresh brought his platter, he froze, giving Ahri an innocently confused smile.

"What're you talking about?" The Chain Warden asked. "I don't know any of Morde's tastes."

Ahri paled as soon as Thresh opened his platter.

A normal-looking shrimp sat in the middle of the platter. It seemed decently cooked, but for some reason, Ahri looked like she knew what was so sinister about it.

"Ew, a bug," the iron man grumbled as he just ate the entire thing in one shot. The Nine-Tailed Fox opened her mouth to warn him, but it was too late.

Mordekaiser ate the shrimp Thresh had accidentally dropped in the sewers.

"I smelled it before I cooked it," Thresh said with a confident grin. "Smells like the Shadow Isles."

That also meant it smelled like death.

His temper exploding, Mordekaiser bolted up from the table as he coughed incoherently, kicking the Chain Warden from the kitchen to the living room. Landing directly against his steel television, Thresh bounced off of the thing and ricocheted onto the sofa.

"F*ckin' NORMIES," Mordekaiser seethed before he screamed, "ReeeeEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!-"

They had done it. Mordekaiser finally snapped because he took a few bites out of their terrible cooking.

"M-Morde! Easy!" Ahri beckoned as the iron man started laughing like a madman as he smacked his own head against his hands repeatedly to erase all traces of what Thresh just fed him. "We still have Garen and Sona left, s-so… maybe something you'd like would pop up?"

Garen and Sona… Ah, yes. He forgot about them. As soon as they gave him their trash as well, then he would show no mercy and just smash apart everything in his dormitory with his mace. He felt like his stomach had a bunch of butterflies being blended with the weeping angels from Dr. Who.

"Ahem," Garen cleared his throat, silencing the ongoing chase between Kha'Zix and Rengar in the process. "I'm not a great cook, so I settled for something I remember from a cookbook."

Putting his platter on the table, he opened the lid, revealing a ham sandwich. Mordekaiser glared at the food intently, and thankfully, it qualified pretty well in terms of decent visuals.

The lord of undead held the sandwich and took a brave bite, bracing for the worst.

He fell silent as he chewed.

"Soo… H-How is it?" Ahri asked, inwardly begging to all the gods of Runeterra that Garen did not screw up.

"It's…"

Mordekaiser took another bite. Everyone internally gasped. It was the first time he decided to take another bite out of anything they had made so far.

"It's good," the Master of Metal muttered before finally cackling. "It's actually edible. I commend you for your efforts, Crownguard. Seven out of ten, in my book."

The Demacian blinked before grinning cheekily at the Master of Metal's rare compliment. "Thank you," Garen said as he finally found the courage to chuckle. "It certainly is hard to cook properly. I still thought that I shouldn't rely too much on the chefs back at Demacia whenever I visit my home, though."

The lord of undead ate everything. Rengar turned to Kha'Zix, who stared back blankly. The Pridestalker promptly argued with the Voidreaver, claiming that Kha'Zix tripping over his cow meat made the scent of the chicken pieces in his food somehow too strong. Meanwhile the Voidreaver just spoke random crap as loudly as the beast.

Good job, Garen! Ahri cheered with a bright smile. Now, for the finale…

"Next up is Sona!" Ahri chirped. Give it all you got, Sona! You know what he likes the most- take advantage of it!

Walking up to the Master of Metal nervously, the Maven of Strings softly put down her platter on the table. "I… made a quesadilla."

At this, the iron man's eyes glowed. As the blue-haired Demacian opened the platter, Mordekaiser took a good look at her food.

It looked good. A bit messy, sure, but he knew that she geared the recipe to his tastes. A strange power, Mordekaiser admitted.

The power of knowing what others liked, and the small magic that occurred from it.

"Nothing's perfect, so I won't give it a ten out of ten," Mordekaiser muttered after he tasted the quesadilla. "I'll give it an eight. Thanks, Sona."

Score! Ahri grinned openly as Sona brightened immensely at his direct compliment. It was just what the Maven of Strings needed to cheer up a bit more, Ahri thought to herself. The Demacian maiden was always so busy with keeping up with the news in Demacia, and with strange events occurring recently, she seemed to feel a bit conflicted. Although Ahri did not know too much about what Sona thought about, she still wanted to help as much as she can.

And she succeeded pretty well! She also found Mordekaiser's reactions to be a wonderfully humorous thing to laugh at. Scary, yes, but admittedly humorous.

"The winner is Sona, folks!" Ahri exclaimed as the other champions clapped or cheered. "Hey, how about we all make something together? This time we'll actually have a cookbook with us."

"I'm fine with that," Rengar nodded as he slapped Kha'Zix's claws away from his neck. Kha'Zix himself seemed to agree with making dinner with the others. Riven nodded lightheadedly, and Garen crossed his arms with a small smile, still feeling proud of himself for having his sandwich ranked fairly high amongst the others.

And Sona stifled a laugh at the iron man's conflicted expression at Ahri's proposal.

Just when all seemed well, the door to the bathroom opened after remaining closed for a long time.

"Moooooorde, the shower's kinda starting to die, here," a rough, yet feminine voice called out to the Master of Metal.

Everyone except for the iron man blinked. Rolling his eyes, Mordekaiser got up and marched over to the bathroom's direction.

"Did you break the freakin' thing?"

"NO! It just broke by itself. Cold water shoots out once in a while even though I turned on the hot water. I ended up taking a bath instead of taking a quick shower because of that."

All the champions took a few steps out of the kitchen to take a look at who Mordekaiser was talking with.

Thresh's jaw fell on the ground lifelessly. As he reached over to pick his jaw back up, the other champions stared at a certain Piltover Enforcer talking with the Master of Metal.

Wrapped in a bath towel, the strong tone of the pink-haired woman's body was visible to everyone. Ahri's eyes widened as she carefully glanced at Sona's direction.

Much to her horror, Sona blushed a bit.

"SONAAAAAAAA! DON'T LOOK! YOU'RE TOO INNOCENT TO BLUSH AT THIS!" Ahri exclaimed desperately. Perking up at the sound of another person in the dorm, Vi turned to the kitchen's direction and found a whole lot of champions staring at her.

"…Eh?"

The Piltover Enforcer slowly realized the situation as her face went beet red. Gritting her teeth, she screamed at the champions- the males one in particular- as she retreated back into the bathroom.

"SCREW OFF, ALL OF YA! G-GEEZ, WHAT'RE YOU ALL DOING HERE, ANYWAY?!"

Slamming the door shut, Vi vanished into the depths of the misty bathroom.

Meanwhile, Sona tried to say something, but she was too baffled by what she saw. The sight of Mordekaiser so daringly talking face-to-face with a half-naked-

"SONA, NOOOOO!" Ahri cried as she shook the frozen Maven of Strings fervently. "STAY PURE, PLEASE! STAY PUUUUUUUUUUUURE!"

Mordekaiser ended up kicking everyone out of his dormitory for being too loud. Except for Vi. She'd kill him if he kicked her out in a bath garb.

Diana also stayed because she was literally homeless without his dorm, anyway.


Author's Notes:

Finally done with the Food War. It took around six months of going nowhere to finally finish it. :D

The reviews I'm getting are making me make more chapters! It's like an adrenaline shot for writers. Favorites and follows also feel like adrenaline shots, just an FYI for guest users out there. Trust me, reviews (and favs/follows) really help us and know what the readers enjoy.

Next chapter – "Yasuo's Wild Ride!"