A/N:I didn't mean to continue this. I really didn't. And then I wrote another chapter, told myself off sternly, and now here we are. I suspect I will write other chapters, so for now I'm setting the story as incomplete, but I don't intend on making anything long out of this.

The second time he meets Dominator, it's an accident. He's heard rumors of her, sure; nowadays, it's hard not to. Planet after planet crumbles beneath her, like a line of dominoes steadily, surely, falling one by one.

She's good at what she does.

Sylvia's confused that Wander doesn't want to befriend her, but her confusion is never great enough to ask: she's worried asking will incite a change of heart. She wants to keep him away from Dominator, and that's how it stays, for months.

That's how it stays, until they're on the Trrzep planet; Sylvia's hitched to a wagon full of apples and griping,

"Flarpin' farmer, and her sick horse, flab drassit, I'm not a horse…"

while Wander is perched on top of the apples, a-strummin' his banjo. "Ohhhh, up with the sun and out on the road, horizon t'horizon an' planet t'planet, we're gonna bring the help they need! Deedadeedadee da-dee a r'ree dadeedadee, deliverin' ol' farmer May's apples to the market, we're gonna-"

Something brushes his thoughts, a sense of curiosity, then surprise. His fingers fumble on the chords; a dissonant twang wrecks the song.

If it isn't the little Wanderer! His fur stands on end.

"Not the best song ending you've ever done," Sylvia commented.

Dominator's close, but it's impossible to tell where. Wander gets the impression she knows exactly where he is.

Unfair, isn't it?

"Yo, Wander, you're not falling asleep back there, are you?"

I was just going to destroy this little planet, but now that you're here, let's have a little fun.

"Wander?"

You have two hours. Go.

Huge red numbers are emblazoned into his skull: 2:00:00 and the seconds begin whizzing down:

1:59:59

1:59:58

1:59:57

1:59:56

Wander launches out of the cart and his words spill incoherently, "oh-my-flarp-we-needtagetthemouttrightnow Syvlia, ahh!"

"Whoa, whoa buddy, take a moment to breath, what are you saying?"

"DOMINATOR'S GONNA DESTROY THIS PLANET WE GOTTA GET EVERYONE OFF RIGHT NOW!"

"What? Wander, how can you know that-"

"RIGHT NOW!" and he's off, near-hyperventilation. The first native resident he comes across halfway down the path, but Wander screams incoherently at him, and the poor man gathers his traveling pack and tries to flee.

Wander grabs him and tries again, "DOMINATOR! GOING TO – DESTROY- YOUR PLANET – RUN!"

"I'm sorry," Sylvia's finally caught up, free of the cart, and she tries to drag Wander back, throwing apologetic looks at the man, "my friend is um – he's had a little too much sugar, and –"

"Sylvia, you GOTTA believe me!" he screeches.

1:57:29 says the clock.

Sylvia looks doubtful, but takes the moment to ask, "Why do you think she's going to go after this planet?" The poor traveler begins to sidle away.

Wander keens. "I CAN'T TELL YOU!"

Sylvia looks at him strange and sideways, like she knows more than he's let on – but he sure hopes not because he thinks Dominator is making a game out of this, and that if Sylvia learns about her powers, Dominator's going to kill her.

But whatever Sylvia gleans from him, it helps. She smiles. "All right, buddy. Let's save some people."

And they try. They really do try. Few people believe them, most don't, and people in both groups end up in ships in space, or in orbble bubbles. But it's hard forcing an entire planet's worth of people to evacuate. Sylvia takes to pretending they got definite intel that Dominator was on her way, but even then people are reluctant to part from their homes or believe two traveling vagabonds.

Tick tock Dominator says cheerfully, and the clock says 1:32:01. They stop asking people, and start force evacuating – Wander apologizes vehemently to every sad soul they grab.

By 00:14:52 they've got about eight hundred people off the ground. But there's about three billion on the planet, and Wander's ripping out his fur as they run between villages.

"Gogogogo fasterfasterfaster-"

Sylvia grits her teeth and pours on the speed; Wander yells into the transmitter he got from the hat– if it can save even just one more person…

Your Zbornak can run fast.

They clear another village, and rush to the next.

Ohhh, but just not fast enough, is she?

Sweat crawls beneath Wander's fur. If anybody dies….

The nose of Dominator's ship begins to peek over the planet's horizon.

Ooo, it looks intimidating from your perspective! I like that. Everyone looks like ants from here. Squish.

Residents are screaming left and right now; many flee to ships, others Wander guides onto Sylvia's back. Several have followed Wander's example and set to evacuating their neighbors.

Can I confess something awful to you?

The shadow of her ship bathes the land.

One of my favorite things to do is get in the head of someone – anyone, really – and really feel what they feel when I destroy their planet. Kill all their family and friends. And then, kill them. I stay in their head, right up to the last moment.

Nononononono -

What an experience, her rapturous joy floods his mind. It's dizzying to feel both savage joy and overpowering terror.

00:03:13

00:03:12

00:03:11

00:03:10

00:03:09

Wander is nearly leaping out of his skin, shoving bottles of orbble juice into the hands of screaming families.

"WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS?" he cries to the sky.

This is what I do. She's laughing. Might as well ask why you play your banjo, or help people.

"STOP STOP GIVE ME MORE TIME YOU DON'T WANNA DO THIS!"

She makes a soft, amused noise, and opens up her emotions, just a tad more – she definitely wants to destroy the planet. She wants to very, very much.

00:00:59

He's pulling bottles of orbble juice out of his hat and chucking them left and right. In the background, Sylvia is instructing those that don't know how to use it. Large bubbles are appearing all over the surface of the planet, and drifting up, until the atmosphere is more bubble than air. They flow up and away, like a river composed entirely of large, shimmering bubbles.

By now, dozens are flocking around Wander, hands outstretched, and the screaming and begging is wrenchingly awful.

00:00:19

I'm so happy I ran across you. This makes it so much more entertaining.

He slaps orbble juice in so many hands that he doesn't have time to look at the faces. His heart is beating nearly out of his chest.

00:00:17

"HOW MANY PEOPLE LEFT?" Wander screeches.

Dominator pauses, and a stark thought bursts in – she doesn't know. A sour, displeased feeling resonates through the mental connection: Wander wasn't supposed to learn that.

Fine, I don't know. But there's enough of you little rats still running around that their lives will you keep up at night.

00:00:09

00:00:00

"N-NO, Y'SKIPPED!"

Gonna cry about it?

The drill shoots out from the hovering ship, and cracks open the planet like a walnut. Violent earthquakes wrack through its crust, and the ground bucks and rears. People are thrown this way and that, and Wander too is tossed to the dirt. He leaps up again, clinging frantically to his hat, and pulls more bottles of orbble from it.

The nearest person reaches for it, a cry at their lips – but with a horrid, screeching groan, the earth ruptures. They fly in separate directions, and Wander hits the ground hard.

A hand grabs him, "Wander, we need to leave!"

"JUST A FEW MORE!" he's near hysterics, limbs flailing, but the whirring of the drill is nearly deafening

"We're going, NOW."

Sylvia makes the last orbble bubble on this planet, and they're off.

Feels nice, doesn't it? That you couldn't save everyone. Look down, Wander. Look at them.

Dominator is right, that the image will keep him up at night. Dirt sprays, rock heaves, and screaming people fall through the cracks. And she's suffused with raw pleasure.

For several minutes, Wander's screaming in Sylvia's arms, straining to get back to the planet because maybe they could save just one more person –

The connection between his mind and Dominator's snaps.

Several minutes after that, he slumps limply in Sylvia's arms.

"I know, I know," Sylvia hugs him close, and her own eyes are haunted. "I know, buddy."