I sat back down, a new plate piled up with various bits of stuff I’d never seen before and wanted to try. A whole tray of cocktails came down with them, some recommended for certain foods, some just for fun.

One good thing about being a living dynamo is I could burn off calories like, right now if I wanted to. So, it was digest and vanish, meaning I could eat a lot of stuff if I cared to.

It wasn’t Binging Stone level, which Lilandra was abusing and aweing everyone watching her by having sampled every single one of the hundreds of different dishes available at the feast, and probably every type of drink, too. But it was good enough for me, and Dealer was naturally doing the same thing on different spreads of stuff, adding to our combined exposure.

“What was that all about?” Gwen asked, back in her chair and nursing another purple and gold swirling cocktail thing with some type of fruit dripping scarlet beads into it. It looked every bit as silly and showy as a dozen or so of the cocktails I had spread out in front of me.

“I got to shoot up a bordello full of dire wraiths who’d done a slay-and-replace on alien prostitutes.” Everyone looked at me as I picked up some form of ultraviolet shrimp and munched away. Oh, good stuff. I tried the sauce with the next one, and it was exquisite.

See, this was why I ate Combicha Two. I could still taste and eat other stuff afterwards.

Peggy stopped in to commiserate with us, having been doing the kibitzing thing, too. The Xandarans had recommended other races and worlds to talk to, things needed to establish Terra among the stars. We were actually doing pretty good; the big thing we were lacking was our own ship production facilities.

She raided two of my cocktails unapologetically. “Galactic politics are truly annoying,” she informed us all loftily, draining one. Her eyes turned purple and a single indigo tear crept down from each of her eyes in response, leaving her blinking quickly.

“Say that again,” I challenged her, as I continued nibbling.

“Ghalahktic pawlotiksh ish trooly annoyeeng,” she repeated with a perfectly straight face, her head kind of wobbling a bit. “Oh, theesh arr gude!” she complimented her empty glass.

“They are.” I toasted her with another spiral-bound gel-swirling thing, she countered with another that looked to be full of glowing marbles, and down they went as everyone watched in amusement.

I hiccuped, and little starbursts came out my nose and popped in the air in front of me. Peggy laughed at me, and her teeth were all different colors now.

“From an academic standpoint, these are most definitely the most interesting alcoholic comestibles I’ve ever spectated,” Hank mused, watching us with a toothy grin, his hands folded in front of him.

“Steve shud be heer,” Peggy mused with a sigh, swiping another drink as golden as corn and with a deceptive bubbling to it. “Thish doesh not shmell like ale,” she murmured, as I picked up one that had worms swimming around in it, to ewwww’s all around.

“To the health of the Majestrix!” I announced to Peggy.

“Tu tha Empresh!” Peggy agreed, and down they went.

About five seconds later, a wriggling beard of parti-colored, wormlike hair erupted over my face and chin, twitching madly. Violet and blue blasts of electricity charred them all away as I smacked my lips, and now drifting worms came out of my nose and were popping away.

Peggy’s mouth was now all golden, and her lips turned the same color. She smacked her lips several times, and golden veins bubbled up through the purple of her eyes. “Girlie drink,” she sniffed, totally ignoring everyone’s stares and grins.

“Volstagg, we need a brace of your mead over here, if you would,” I Called out to the cheerfully fat warrior still at his post with Voice.

It was a big boar after all, and the meat per serving wasn’t all that big. Easily a couple thousand servings off the thing.

The barrel sitting on a Disk behind him was dutifully tapped, and a platter of foaming drinks crossed above the heads of the other tables via TK, descending loftily upon our own.

Oh, didn’t those look good. Look at the foaming head, catching the light like clouds at dusk. The sweetness of honey in the air, with an undercurrent of headiness that could make your thoughts wander just smelling it. The layers and hues of golds and browns, the hypnotic swirl of the bubbles...

“Oh mai Gawd,” murmured Peggy, staring at them. “Whatsh thish?”

“QL 40 Asgardian Mead, courtesy of Master Brewer Volstagg the Voluminous.” I floated a glass flagon to everyone at the table: Peggy, myself, Gwen, Hank, and Peter and MJ, who had turned from spectating a show of acrobatics to watch all this.

MJ was the second to grab one, even before Peggy. Her eyes were almost glowing as she hefted it. “We have to toast to something!” she warned us, holding it up. “A divine brew! Can’t defame it!” Everyone else hurriedly picked one up.

“To the Starholder! Long may she sail!” I said with spirit.

“Hear hear!” everyone called back, and took a draw.

Woooooo! “Oh my stars and garters!” murmured Hank McCoy. “I think I just became a mead snob.” Three, two, one... “Ho!” He blinked, and his head wobbled. “Oh, oh my...”

Everyone was a little wobbly here.

“Dare you drink a toast to your health and long life?!” Red MJ called out her challenge with spirit, and the mugs rose for a toast and another draw...

-----

“Wimpsh,” Peggy blinked, her eyes all back to normal, picking up the rest of McCoy’s flagon to pour into her own. “Thish ish good shtuff, Dyna, MJ.”

MJ was leaning back in her chair, feet kicked up on the table, obviously relaxed as she did the same for Gwen’s half-flagon, while I confiscated Peter’s. The three of them were all sprawled out on the table, out cold.

“Well, it was a long day for them,” I said kindly, golden bubbles still coming out my nose. “More for us!”

“To adventure, and the shtarsh!” Peggy cheered us, and we toasted and drank. She was actually sounding less drunk now. “Ah, I jusht have to get shome of thish for Shteve to try.”

“I’ll ask Volstagg for a handcask for you. Ho, MJ, how did your introduction to Vulcan go?” I had to ask, smirking.

“To His Imperial Highness’ adopted imperial arseheadedness!” she offered, and we toasted and drank. “Well, after he gave me the once-over, I let him slam to his heels as he lost the ability to fly, then he couldn’t TK or manipulate anything, even the lights, and I got up nice and close and fangirlness happy for him and put him inside my Null.

“Somewhere about him realizing he was powerless and standing next to an intergalactically recognized dangerous swordswoman, he started to panic a little bit, and actually went and hid behind his father. I made sure he couldn’t fly the whole time I was there, and his brothers and father pretended not to notice at all.”

“To the Forsaken. Keeping people grounded!” I saluted her, and we drank around our laughter.

“Anything good with the Xandarans, Peggy?” I asked her casually. She could tell me what she could tell me, but unlike her husband, Peggy was totally free to put the planet’s interest over the United States if she liked.

“The groundwork ish in place for a talk with their Queen. Deshpite ruling for sho long, she’s fairly progreshshive in her ideash, jusht limited by their own high moralsh. Being invited to shet up a colony on the moon was very intereshting to the ambashshador, and they know prechioush little of ush, shave for what Primush hash done flitting here and there about the galakshy.” She hiccuped once. “Exshcuse me!” she said politely, almost alarmed.

“And the recent videos.”

“And thoshe,” she agreed. “To the Contesht of the Champion!” she called out cheerfully, and we toasted.

The flagons were getting low, but that was fine. Mortals shouldn’t drink this much homigawdness mead.

----------

The three of us really couldn’t get drunk, even on the weirdness of alien liquors and Asgardian ale. Peggy was a super-soldier, and just metabolized it all, using her Core if she had to. Red MJ was a Null, and just burned it up with her Vajra if need be.

Me, they were all poisons, and were neutralized almost instantly in my system. With voltage, if required.

Which didn’t mean the three of us didn’t have fun. Red MJ started belting out some old drinking songs in languages six thousand years dead at some point, I started singing sea shanties with Peggy in counterpoint, Sif and Brunhilda instantly descended to add some Asgardian ballads to the whole, Kismet sat in gleefully, and in no time at all we had a rip-roaring circle of half-drunken and very dangerous women serenading one another with old songs.

The gods on hand all gathered spontaneously, and soon enough a songfest was going on that even the Majestrix was sitting in on, while gods and mortals sang back and forth at one another.

Peggy bowed out early on, while Red MJ had little problem staying in, fascinating the gods with the pure age of some of the songs she was singing, even though precious few others had any hope of understanding them. I, of course, had the Sublime Chord, and I could even sing backup to this lot and keep the whole crowd spellbound as they went to it.

It turned out Volstagg had the best singing voice of the Asgardians, an operatic set of lungpower and breath control that even Thor couldn’t equal, and he was very good at working the crowd. His grim, old songs about battle and comrades lost even had the Shi’ar weeping at the memories of those fallen long ago...

Good stuff, and a coronation to remember, all around. How many space empresses had old Norse and Greek gods singing at their crowning?

-------

We hauled the drunk and sleepy off to their chambers, me sitting up watch where I could keep them all scanned.

I flicked out the pair of Exospecs from the Slain-and-Replaced Smasher.

I’d Duplicated the original set and handed those off to Gladiator. The dark energies running through them would rapidly degrade and corrupt them visibly, and a quick Divination confirmed that they’d been fed into a fusion furnace and totally disintegrated.

This set got to go through a Cleansing at VIII+1, which, being Corrupted at V, was considerably higher than the dark magic could resist.

The technorganic lifeform was barely sentient, and by itself not at all that dangerous or powerful. Its symbiotic nature allowed it to Boost those it was attached to, which heightened its own chances of survival immensely.

The Smasher set had formed itself into a pair of goggles by choice and instruction from prior hosts. I instead had it mesh into my Mask, which it did with some trepidation, and then enthusiasm as the Soul Magic and bioelectricity surged through it.

I could feel it starting to evolve and adapt to the new energies with something approaching childlike joy. After all, the things were given to unpowered soldiers to make them superhuman, not to already enhanced beings, so getting Boosted in return was not something that they got to experience.

I instantly had a very happy and fiercely loyal set of Exospecs for my use, meshed right into my Mask of Clarity and basically indistinguishable from what I had been using already!