“Lady Dynamo, I believe one of thy associates still is aboard the Colosseum, be she not?”

Of course he knew she was. “All-Father Odin, The Dealer runs a very popular restaurant there. Prince Thor and his companions can attest to the food.”

Vigorous calls of approval arose, with Fandral swearing loudly, “I only made it to Combicha Three! This is so unfair!”

Father Odin actually raised an eyebrow. “What is Combicha Three?” he asked with interest.

Prince Thor looked at me sharply, and I flicked up the video of Champion taking Combicha Ten...

---

The Asgardians were pretty quiet when it got done, wondering just what was going on.

“Combicha Three was an explosion of heat and cold and lightning on the tongue, like eating a storm of potent foods,” Prince Thor spoke up calmly. “I have not had the chance to try the higher grades, either...”

Odin looked quite curious himself. “Would The Dealer be willing to cook for a feast in the Palace of Asgard?” he asked, which basically was not something she could say no to.

“I’m certain she would be delighted to give the noble warriors of Asgard an introduction to worthy mortal cuisine!” I said on her behalf.

“Also, would she be willing to convey warriors of Asgard to the Colosseum?” All-Father Odin went on, and the room went quiet, suddenly realizing something clever was going on.

“As supplicants or as Students, All-Father?” I inquired thoughtfully, not expecting an answer. “The fees and costs of such thing are onerous. The followers of Champion are totally aware of how valuable their skills are. Furthermore, Dealer is not allowed to smuggle in those wishing to bypass the protocols for such things. However...”

I turned around to look around the room, at the tall and brawny warriors there, some of them likely a millennium or two old. “She CAN bring in those involved in food service. And those working in the restaurant can spend their off-time, ah, getting exercise in whatever manner they feel fit to do so, and the Students there tend to be pretty easy about it.”

The men and women were looking at one another. “Food service?” spoke up the Valiant Volstagg, a towering figure of girth displaying far too much food enjoyed and retained. His weight probably exceeded ten tons.

“Which of you valiant warriors can brew some really good ale and beer, and don’t mind pouring the nectar of Asgard to folk from all over the universe?” I asked calmly. “And don’t tell me you don’t have experience with the pouring. You were all young pups once.”

Hesitant hands went up.

“Any of you have roasting experience? And I mean something suitable to end up on the All-Father’s plate here.” Somewhat fewer hands stayed up. “Stews? Cheeses? Bread?” Hands went up and down, and I nodded. “Every man goes over with a woman who can cover for him, and who no doubt can cook better than him. I doubt the Colosseum is truly ready for proper Asgardian meals, but the All-Father wants some warriors sent over there to learn some things they can bring back to teach to the rest of you.

“If you want to get your own chance to get the crap kicked out of you by the best warriors from all over the universe, learn to brew, bake, or cook worthy of calling yourself an ASGARDIAN cook, brewer, or baker! Dealer will get you onto the Colosseum, you are going to fill their bellies, and they will teach you everything you want to learn!

“Any volunteers?!”

=========

Asgard wouldn’t have any problem supplying their cooks on the Colosseum. The Rainbow Bridge could reach anywhere, and Heimdall had no problem finding or following the ship around as needed.

The noblewomen of Asgard promptly set up cooking competitions for themselves and the men, the winners of which would get to undertake this mission for the All-Father. They included equal numbers from the younger generation as a counterbalance to the older ones who would be going, as the old dogs would most definitely be going along to learn some new tricks.

I heard Hogun got in a lot of practice with his Mace the next day from jokers commenting about his efforts against me. He broke a lot of warriors’ forearms who thought they could block it like I had, I was told by a smirking Fandral. Hogun was earning his Grim sobriquet all over again.

Dealer just rolled her eyes when I dropped her new responsibilities on her. She decided to start the Asgardian infiltration with a nightly feast of some godly beast for a limited crowd, which would undoubtedly have them slavering for more, and expand from there.

Godly quality level food, simple or otherwise. She doubted they would have any problems. For all their power, Champion’s Students were still mortal, and would swoon at the warrior’s fare of the Asgardians.

Cooking for Odin, however? She rolled her eyes at me, we swapped Valences just so I could feel all her irritation and utter confidence in doing all that, and so that she could learn the Seal Focus to the Richards and Ororo. Then we went off to do our things.

--------

I passed over his slurry, and Ben Grimm took it gratefully. He wasn’t too bad at making one, but I was definitely better and smoother. Actually, so was Peter Parker, but he rarely got in here early enough to do so.

“What did Johnny decide to do?” I asked him calmly as he took a drink of it. Even when he looked human, he still preferred the Geo stuff if he could get it.

“He took yer shortcut to the Shi’ar ship, and Primus escorted him down to the photosphere. He’s burning out there right now, a little white-hot light out in the void where it’s a million degrees, Piotr told me,” Ben replied with a sigh. “Maybe he’ll come back all grown up, finally.”

I looked at him, he looked at me. “Nahhhh!” we said together, and I tunked my coffee to his big jug.

“How long you figuring on Reed and Suzie?” Ben asked carefully.

I held up three fingers. “Three months at least. They found a really good place. If they had to stay on Terra here, they’d’ve been working to get things done before the baby came.”

He mumbled to himself, doing some quick calculations and looking around. “Well, money isn’t a problem. Reed’s floating in the stuff, and I’ve got power of attorney. Since he’s not doing any hijinks, that should cut down on the random nonsense coming around, right?”

I gave him a look, he returned it. “Nahhhh!” we said together, clunking again and drinking. “You and Alicia set a date yet?” I asked him.

“Ten’atively!” he smiled, a big thing on his rugged face, but it faded slightly. “We just gotta find her dad, or you can guarantee there’s going to be trouble.”

I hooded my eyes slightly. That was true. The Puppetmaster was a mind-controlling sociopath with the empathy of a dead plank. He loved only his daughter, and only because he had controlled her completely since she was a child. He hated Ben Grimm with a passion, but it had been a lot harder to do anything about that hate since Ben got enough magnapsium into him and he couldn’t mind-control The Rock anymore.

“I’ll put the Spiders on it. Three days, tops,” I told him. Cindy was a cyber-sniffer and Gwen, despite her complaints, had an uncanny knack for social sleuthing. Peter was just hyperanalytical about stuff and brought them together. Throw in McCoy for some tech, and yeah, the mind-controlling bastard was going to be brought down.

Missed having Jean here. A good telepath could probably find him in an hour or two. There was no doubt he was out there living vicariously through some dominated pawns. The best thing that could be said was that most of the victims didn’t know they were being controlled, and didn’t remember any of it.

Divination magic tracing a bloodline could also find the bastard pretty quickly, too.

I took another sip of coffee. Damn, I hated mindbenders...

“Hey, Dyna!” Richard Ryder called out, stepping through the window quick access where he’d just zipped up.

“How’s married life, kid?” Ben asked him, instantly reducing him to splutters before Jewel could get through the lock behind him.

“Morning, Mr. Grimm,” he managed to get out as Jessica stepped through, a happy smile on her face.

The coffee pot moved over and poured two cups with creamer in their preferred ratios. “We’re just on our way to the office...” Rich began, sighed, and accepted the coffee, as did Jessica. “And now we’ll be late.”

“Peggy uses the same excuse,” I assured him, taking a sip with him. A breath later they both sidled up to the island with us. “You had a ‘I’ve got a message’ vibe, buckethead.”

He actually tapped the helm. “We got a verified message from Xandar through the High Guard yesterday.” His voice had an odd combination of excitement and trepidation.

“Someone finally pointed out the Nova Corpsman in the Colosseum vids to them,” I nodded. “What’s up?”

“Well, they want me to report to Xandar immediately, of course.”

I considered that as I took another drink. “Well, that’s easy enough. Can get there in a few minutes, if we need to.” Both of the lovebirds blinked at me. “Anything else?”

“Yes.” He swallowed. “Apparently there’s an Xandaran ship in cloaked orbit around Terra, been there for years, and they think the Centurion who died giving me his Nova Core is on it. I’m probably the only one who can open it.”

“Oh. So instead of sending out a prize crew to reclaim their ship and paying a salvage claim or fee, they want you to fly it back to them free of charge as a native of the planet and Corpsman returning their property.”

He blinked. “Mentor?” he asked.

“Ah, that is standard galactic law,” the AI in his helm admitted.

“What’s the value on the ship?” I asked calmly, and got a number from the AI. It wasn’t a small number. “Even minimal drifting secure status is going to be ten percent of value. Terra happens to very shy on Galactic Credits right now. Have the Lantern up at LaGrange do the proper paperwork and release the ship upon proper payment of orbital fees and forgiveness of salvage rights.”

Rich pursed his lips, but didn’t say anything. It was only fair, after all. “You want to fly it back, or take the short route?” I asked him.

“I was getting kinda excited over my first hyperspace flight,” he managed to joke wryly.

“Got a command crew in mind, Captain?” I asked him, and he blinked despite himself.

“Uh, wow! Captain...”

“Small crew,” I advised him.

“Would you like to go?” he asked me immediately, arm coming around Jewel automatically, probably had already asked her before, as he looked at me.