Preface

The Inspired Inventor series is a "what-if" sidestory which takes place before the Red Sands Incident. It's me taking as many ridiculous things from Runeterra and throwing it at Earth-Bet for the lols.

Inspired Inventor 1: The Fork

Penelope Myers

2000, April 1: Phoenix, AZ, USA

We were all seated around the coffee table at headquarters. It wasn't often that everyone on Wards Team One got to hang out like this so I treasured these moments. I leaned into my boyfriend's side and enjoyed the way his breath tickled my hair. Across from us, Raquel and Yasmine were bickering over what pizza to order. I still had no idea how Raquel could stand refried beans in pizza, that was altogether too much carbs for me, but to each their own.

David and I glanced at each other before looking at our two younger Wards with fond exasperation. I'd only led them for a year and a half now, but somewhere along the way, they'd become my little sisters.

"Say, where's Andy?" he asked. His nose scrunched up a little whenever he asked a question. It was cute, and at odds with his half-ear, but that was part of his charm.

I shrugged. "In his lab. He said something about being close to a breakthrough. He'll join us when he's ready. You know what happened the last time we tried to interrupt his tinkering."

"Yeah, you almost lost a finger. Lil' fella bites like a snapping turtle."

"He does. Brat."

"Our brat."

"Yeah…"

We were drawn out of our discussion by the sound of hysterical laughter. It was loud and unhinged, echoing even through the muffled walls.

"AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

"Umm… Is Andy going to be okay?" Raquel asked gingerly, almost too afraid to touch the subject at all.

"Ehh, leave him be, chica," Yasmine snorted. She twirled a finger by her head. "Tinkers all be loco, know what I'm sayin'?" She yanked the pizza shop's menu from Raquel's hand while she wasn't paying attention and turned so the menu would be out of her line of sight. "Ha! Sausage and mushrooms. Like a normal person."

"Oh, come on! It's just beans! You like beans," Raquel whined as Jazz started dialing the store.

"MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! I. AM. A. GOD!"

"Not that I disagree, Jazz, but that ain't normal for the lil guy," David drawled, falling back into his accent. "And yeah, I'm with Jazz on this, Raq. Beans don't belong on pizza."

"Maybe someone should check on him," I admitted.

All prior disunity was forgotten. Every argument was put aside as my team mutinied against me.

"Not it," they echoed as one. It was almost impressive how synchronized that response was.

"Oh, come on!" I whined petulantly. Treason! Mutiny! There had to be a rule against this!

"Nope. You're the boss. He's your responsibility," Yasmine said, that traitor. She even had the gall to look smug about it!

I sighed and rose from my seat. "You all suck. The things I do for this team… That pizza better have caramelized onions on it, you hear me?"

X

I knocked before opening the door to his lab. "Andy?" I called. "You okay in here?"

I fully stepped in and found him rolling on the ground, cackling with laughter. Our eyes met. The laughter died. He picked himself up and cleared his throat before straightening his lab coat. Where'd he even get that?

"Ahem… Penelope, what can I help you with?" he said in his best "I'm a responsible grownup" voice.

I did my best to suppress the squeal I felt was coming at the sheer adorableness that was my youngest Ward but couldn't quite manage. Ignoring his cross glare, I grinned and lifted him into a hug. "Hey, Andy. What's got you so chipper?"

I set him down and he immediately dashed over to his table. "I've only just made the single greatest thing any tinker has ever built before or ever will," he bragged.

I followed and found… a fork.

"That's a fork," I pointed out.

"No. The Fork."

I could practically hear the capitalization. I humored him and rolled the words around. "The. Fork."

"Yeah. Isn't it amazing?"

Nope. Still sounded silly.

It was a fork. It wasn't even a decorated fork, nor was it made of any exotic material as far as I could tell. It was a generic, unpolished, gunmetal gray and had no adornments whatsoever, not even a notch or two for flair. It was a regular, plain old fork with four teeth.

"Sure…"

"You just don't understand my genius," he pouted. "This is a masterpiece, a divine masterwork you might say, the first of many."

I didn't even bother trying to resist this time and pinched his cheeks. "The fork is lovely, Andy," I said with my most indulgent smile.

He slapped my hand away. "Seriously? I make a divine artifact and you mock me for it?"

"Okay, okay, I'm sorry." I raised my hands in surrender. Since he clearly wanted to brag about his new… fork… "You have to admit, it looks rather plain. What does it do?"

He picked it up. Then, with a flourish, he jabbed an eraser. Except, it wasn't an eraser anymore. Sometime in that moment, it had turned into a deep, crimson orb dripping with liquid redder than blood. He popped it into his mouth and chewed before moaning with clear bliss. He spat out a seed. A… cherry…?

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

"God damn that's good," he groaned out.

I flicked his ear. "Language, buster. And what was that? Are you sure that's safe?"

"Of course it's safe," he said indignantly. "And that was a spiced cherry."

"Your 'divine artifact' can… turn anything it pokes into a… spiced cherry?"

"Yup." He looked at me with a proud smile on his face. "Isn't it great?"

I didn't have the heart to tell him otherwise. "Yeah… sure… but why cherries?"

"They're the holy food needed to appease the ram god," he said with a completely straight face.

"Right…" I decided then and there that his faith wasn't my business so long as he didn't start building a shrine to this "ram god" in the common room. If he did, I might have to call master-stranger protocols on him. Was it a Korean thing? Had to admit, I knew very little about Korean belief systems. I was under the impression most of them were Buddhist, but hey, what did I know?

"Oh!" And with another flourish, he poked a different eraser before handing me the fork. "Try one. I promise you'll love it."

I shrugged. As odd as he could be, I trusted the little guy. If he said it was safe, it was safe. I gingerly put the cherry in my mouth.

I moaned. It was obscene, a literally toe-curling moment of bliss. If he was any older, I'd feel embarrassed at making his balls drop, but it was that good. I now knew. Yes, yes it was in fact possible to have a literal food-gasm.

It tasted like no other cherry I'd ever had before. It had the snap of a freshly picked cherry with none of the sourness. It was sweet yet mild, but had a subtle heat that filled my belly with warmth, as though no winter wind could chill me. The sauce had an earthy, herby aftertaste that I couldn't even begin to describe and a scent I'd only ever associated with warm summers and lively family dinners. I'd never had such a complex piece of fruit before.

"Oh my god," I breathed.

"I know, right?"

We shared a moment of profound mutual understanding before he took The Fork, it deserved the emphasis, from me. I very reluctantly parted with the divine artifact. One way or another, he'd be making me a copy. If Communion came with this, maybe I wouldn't have found Sunday school so boring.

With a snap of his wrist, The Fork grew, becoming larger than he was. It now looked more like a trident in his diminutive hands.

"It can also change size. Neat, huh?"

"But… why?"

"Why as in 'Why does it have this feature?'"

"Yes. I mean… It's a fork. The Fork," I corrected myself, "but it's still a fork. Why does it need to be big?"

"I told you. Cherries are sacred to the ram god and this fork is how he ate them. He changes size a lot so The Fork must also change with him."

"Sure…" I trailed off. I found myself doing that a lot around him. Seriously, what did Koreans believe? "Anything else?"

"It's indestructible."

I glanced at the utensil then back at him. "Like… How 'indestructible' are we talking here?"

"It's a universal constant," he proclaimed proudly. "The Fork is a universal constant written into the fabric of destiny itself. Unless you can reweave the Grand Tapestry and alter a metaphysical, spiritual truth, you can't even begin to scratch this thing."

"Um… I'm going to go ahead and pretend I understood that…"

X

Fortuna

2000, September 15: Phoenix, AZ, USA

Path to Defeating MODEL_SCION: Acquire indestructible weapon.

The Path had been strange lately. Ever since the new Ward in Phoenix showed up, the Path had taken me all over the place. Sometimes, I wasn't even sure if left was left and right was right. I'd even ended up walking through some place called the Low Road before a purple… thing… turned me into a squirrel. The Path insisted. I still had no idea. On the upside, I no longer had a nut allergy.

That was neither here nor there. Today, the Path was simpler.

I made a Door to Rubedo's lab. Getting the "indestructible weapon" was deceptively simple. I went over to his desk and pulled out the first drawer. I paused. The Path wound on, but I lurched, the sheer incredulity of what I was looking at knocking me from the Path for a moment.

"Is… Is that a fork?"

X

Rebecca Costa-Brown

2000, September 15: Phoenix, AZ, USA

The mission was a failure. William Manton could not be contained nor reasoned with. Contessa was right, as usual. The best path Cauldron had forward was to simply allow him to roam the continent, encouraging further triggers. It left a bitter taste in my mouth. He was a Cauldron mistake, one Legend must never know about.

'One more wood to the pyre of our shame,' I thought bitterly.

I quashed the thought a moment later as the monochrome bitch lunged for me, the laws of physics apparently more like a suggestion to her. I shot up into the air, full well aware of what she could do. The agony of losing an eye was not one I would or could forget. Ever.

I ducked behind a building and came face to face with Contessa, her trademark fedora and suit perfectly styled. The only deviation from her typical appearance was that the fedora was tilted to give off a jaunty air. I immediately paused. Contessa did not do "jaunty." She did "quietly menacing" and "all-knowing subtly smug." Never "jaunty." She was smiling and it was the smile of Lucifer as he fed Eve her apple.

I sighed, resigned to my fate as the thinker-twelve's minion-in-chief. "What's the plan?"

"The Fork is the way," she said enigmatically before handing me… a fork…

"Conte-"

"Door, Cauldron HQ."

And with that, she was gone. The Siberian was gaining on me. I shrugged. "Listen to Contessa" was practically the Cauldron motto at this point and lacking further instructions, I did what came naturally.

I jabbed the Siberian in the eye with the fork.

There was a moment of surprise. Her expression was no doubt mirrored on my own face. The Siberian stopped. No. Rather, she was stopped. By. A. Fork.

Countless possibilities raced through my mind. Was this a prototype metamaterial designed by Hero? If so, why did he shape it into a fork? Why didn't he bring it with him? My own not insignificant thinker rating was put into overdrive as I tried to work out what the hell just happened.

Then, she popped like a soap bubble. Where the Siberian was now rested a single, crimson orb.

"Is… Is that a cherry?"

My thoughts raced within microseconds and I considered taking it in my hand but caution prevailed. Who knew what that cherry could be?

I let it fall to the ground and heard the satisfying plop. Whatever it was, physically durable wasn't it. As far as I could see, by every empirical measure, that was indeed a cherry.

I flew back to ground zero of our battle, fork still clenched in hand. I zoomed towards Manton's van and relished in the crack of the sonic boom behind me.

The Siberian manifested again. Again, The Fork answered. Another cherry fell to the ground.

Again and again did the Siberian form. Again and again did The Fork meet its foe. Soon, the square was littered with cherries, sauce dripping like blood.

I eventually caught Manton mid-summon and turned him into a cherry too. The panic in his eyes as he realized he was about to be put down by cutlery would be one I'd cherish for eternity. Surrounded by the crimson evidence of our battle, I greeted the boys.

"Eidolon. Legend. Hero," I said casually, holding out my new favorite weapon. "Can I offer you a cherry in this trying time?"

They looked at me, utterly bewildered. They did not understand, could not understand, but that was okay. They would see soon enough.

"Is… Is that a fork?"

X

Rebecca Costa-Brown

2000, September 16: Phoenix, AZ, USA

Lyons was drowning. There was rain. There were waves. There was that fucking hydrokinetic lizard.

And yet, I couldn't help but be in high spirits. For once, there was also a Path.

The Fork, the emphasis was mandatory, was the way. After yesterday, I had full confidence in my new weapon. No, even more confidence in my new weapon.

It could grow with me.

I laughed and swung my new trident like Poseidon himself, jabbing at Leviathan as we played a high-stakes game of tag. Except, only one of us could readily hurt the other.

I lifted my fork into the air. 'The Fork,' I corrected myself.

The sun peaked through breaking clouds and reflected off the cherry perfectly. Victory was truly the sweetest fruit of all.

Author's Note

I wrote this to explore another aspect of my story that I'm probably not going to touch on often.

Basically, when I look for things Andy can build, I look at Champion lore, then Legends of Runeterra lore, then other media, then and finally game mechanics. This means that unless an item gets mentioned in the lore, such as the Tear of the Goddess or Ornn's masterwork items, I'm unlikely to ever have Andy make one of them. Oracle's was a bit of an exception for narrative reasons.

I figured I'd start an omake series to explore all the funny things he could make.

As for this specific omake, it's a reference to Ornn, my favorite Champion.

Edit: Not a single cherry-popping joke? I'm so proud of myself.

Thank you for reading. To reach a wider audience, and because I enjoy a more forum-like setup to facilitate discussion, I like to crosspost to a wide variety of websites. You can find me on FFnet, Royal Road, Space Battles, Sufficient Velocity, and Questionable Questing.