After swallowing a metaphorical baseball, Wander was finally able to speak, albeit even more squeakily than usual.

"Well, howdy there, Emerald!" He gave a nervous sideways fist pump. "Long time no see!"

Emerald narrowed her eye. "And whose fault is that?"

Sylvia chimed in, "Somebody wanna explain to me what's goin' on?"

Emerald wrinkled her nose in response. Pointing to Sylvia, she asked Wander, "Does it have an off switch?"

"I'll show you an off switch!" Sylvia wound up a punch.

In a flash of light, Emerald pulled from her gem what looked like a miniature Destiny Destroyer on a handle, and when she pulled the trigger on the handle, the tiny ship fired four energy blasts at Sylvia, which engulfed her in a second flash. When this cleared, she was in a heap on the ground, her entire form covered in ash and smoking lightly, and her fist, which despite it all was still held up, fell down with a flatulent sound effect.

Emerald blew the steam from the end of her mini-ship-gun. Lowering it, she looked back at Wander. Her eye swept from his hat down to his shoes and back.

"You can take off that ridiculous disguise now," she said.

"Oh, this ain't a disguise!" said Wander, attempting a bright tone. "This is how I look now! See, folks in this galaxy call me Wander, and—"

Emerald groaned, cutting him off. "Fine, we'll fix it later. Just get on the ship."

Wander sagged and frowned, his meager mirth gone. Obediently, he raised his foot to take a step.

The burnt blob that was Sylvia shook, and she burst into the air, throwing off all the soot. "If you think you can just take him, you're—"

Emerald blasted her again, with the same result as before.

After the sound of her laser, however, there came a louder thunderclap in the distance, which drew Emerald's attention.

From one eye of the crashed skull ship, a yellow-gloved hand burst, cracking the glass, and from this a green lightning bolt had shot skyward. The arm pulled back in, and then more glass shards flew everywhere as a shadowy figure soared out of the eye-window and landed halfway between the ship and the onlookers. As the figure rose to his feet, his body remained wrapped in his red and black robe, but his white, bony arms and face were visible, and his eyes shone green under his pointed red hood with its yellow, lightning-bolt-shaped ear fins. Even as he began taking menacing steps toward them, his body bobbing up and down, his robe still reached to the floor, giving his movement a faux gliding appearance.

Pointing one glove at Emerald as he neared, Lord Hater rumbled, "You!"

Emerald raised half a unibrow, unimpressed.

"I don't know whoooo you think you are, with your—" he looked her over a bit— "spiky hair, and your—" he gestured to the side— "kinda cool ship, and your—" his body vibrated with rage— "fluffy neck! But you listen here, you weird, green—mmmmildly attractive lady! That little orange gremlin—" he pointed at Wander— "has been a pain in my neck—" he pointed at his neck— "for too long, so if you think you can just swoop in here and destroy him before me, you obviously don't know who you're dealing with! And that's—" he pointed to the sky— "Lord Hater, Number One—!"

Emerald blasted him with her gun. He was left sitting on the ground, legs stretched out to either side with his sneakers visible, his body and clothes singed all over. He coughed, exhaling smog.

Emerald gave a haughty, "Hmph," and turned back to Wander and Sylvia.

Except they weren't there.

Already quite distant, Sylvia looked back over her shoulder and bobbed her eyebrows tauntingly at Emerald as she ran. On her saddle, Wander stood straight up rather than sat, bouncing up and down with her footsteps. He was facing backwards toward Emerald, and gave her a sad, sympathetic look as he was carried away.

Emerald growled and aimed her gun, but before she could fire, she was zapped by a bolt of green lightning from behind, causing her weapon to dissipate into shards of light. Enraged, she spun on one high heel to face Hater again, who had himself gotten back up and hidden his shoes under his robe once more.

"You know," Emerald said as she conjured another gun from her eye, "I was under the impression that organics could no longer function when reduced to a skeleton. But if you insist, I can reduce you to mere atoms."

"And you smell!" Hater fired back.

Huge, writhing tendrils of green lightning flared from the planet's surface as Sylvia and Wander, inside an Orbble, fled into space.

Passing a small asteroid, Sylvia spotted a cave on its surface and, with a quick glance backward to make sure no one was watching, descended into it.

The Orbble popped agaisnt the rocky ground, and Sylvia wasted no time grabbing Wander from her back, setting him far enough inside that he couldn't be seen from the entrance, and then stretching her long neck out the same entrance to scan again for onlookers. Seeing none, she said, "I think we're good here for now." Retreating inside, she addressed Wander—who hadn't moved—by exclaiming, "What in flarnation was all that about?!"

Wander looked aside, grinned nervously, pulled off his hat, and twisted it in his hands. "Uh . . ." His eyes returned to hers. "Nothin'?"

Sylvia rolled her own. "Wander . . ."

He replaced his hat and frowned, closing his eyes. "Oh, Sylvia . . . I guess it's finally time for you to know . . ." With both hands, he clutched his chest. "My deepest . . ." His fur bunched up in his fists, and his eyes bulged. "Darkest . . ." Seemingly in an instant, he was at the entrance to glance shiftily one way and then the other, before doing the same further into the cave, then under a small rock that he lifted with a foot—and for good measure, he observed with great suspicion as a single bead of water collected on the end of a stalactite and slowly dripped off—and then his mouth was a millimeter from her ear, where it whispered, "Secret . . ."

As she turned to face the spot where he had ended up, he pulled his hands—still at his chest—to either side, and his orange fur parted to reveal what appeared to be a green gemstone carved into the shape of a heart. A stray beam of starlight glinted off of it when it first emerged, creating an audible sparkle.

Sylvia bent to examine the gem, her finger to her chin and eyebrow raised. "Your heart's on the outside?" she ventured. "And it's—made of emerald?"

"Spinel, actually," Wander corrected, and he pushed his fur back together to hide the gem again.

"What's a spinel?"

"Well . . ." Sounding his usual chipper self, Wander pointed at himself with his thumb. "I'm a Spinel!" Then he deflated again. "At least, I was . . . I mean, I still am, but . . ." He sighed, his breath condensing in the cave's cold air, the cloud taking the shape of a heart which cracked down the middle before fading. "I wanna make people happy, I just . . . I couldn't take it anymore!" The last bit was delivered as a very un-Wander-like outburst.

"Take what?" Sylvia probed. "What's the deal with Miss Mean Green back there?" Folding her arms, she added angrily, "And why does she think you're her property?"

"That's how the Gems are!" Wander cried, waving his arms. "You're made to do one job, and do it forever! And if someone outranks you, ohoho, you better not speak up, you better do everything she says, and you better do it perfectly! No room for error when you're conquerin' planets!"

"Conquering?!" said Sylvia. "Like Hater, and Dominator?"

Wander hung his head and said, "Worse."

"Worse than Dominator?!" Sylvia found her own arms had flailed at that.

Eyes shut, Wander nodded, his lips wobbling.

"Oh, buddy . . ." Sylvia plodded over and hugged him tight, which produced a notable squeaking noise. "No wonder you ran away."

After a moment, he wrapped his arms around her too. Thinking about how to reassure him, she held up a fist and proclaimed with her full confidence, "Well, if Emerald wants you back, she's gonna have to go through me!"

That got a smile out of him, and he squeezed her tighter. "Thanks, Syl."

When they separated, Sylvia reflected, "So this is where you came from? Before you were Wander, and Tumbleweed, you were Spinel?"

"I'm sorry I never tolja," said Wander with a shrug. "I just didn't want Emerald to find me."

She waved him off. "Hey, I get it. You know there's stuff in my past I'd rather forget. But, uh . . ." Her eyebrow rose again. "If these Gems are bein' even bigger jerks than Dominator . . ." She looked him up and down. "Don'tcha wanna stop 'em?"

Wander put his fingertips to his mouth and looked fearful. "You mean . . . us go to them?" Lurching forward, he threw his hands onto her shoulders and let the rest of his body droop melodramatically until his face hit the floor. "But Syyyyylvia . . . !" Knowing him as she did, Sylvia could tell this wasn't as genuine as his prior displays, and her own face showed she was unimpressed. "There are hundreds—thousands of Spinels all tryin' to make other Gems happy, and they're all still just a buncha . . ."

"Sour stones?" she offered. "Grumpy gravel? Eh . . ." She scratched her head. "Rude rocks?"

He chuckled at that, causing her to do the same. A thought occurring to her, she lightly elbowed him and said, "Heh, usually it's you tryin' to talk me into doin' somethin' stupid." He gave her a playful, grinning shrug, and she continued, "And I don't wanna, but then you say how it's the right thing to do, and well . . . Stoppin' jerks from bein' jerks is kind of our thing. You even got Dominator to stop bein' evil!" Glancing aside, she admitted, "Sorta . . ."

Despite that, Wander seemed better. "You're right, Syl." He stroked his chin. "But I 'unno about just strollin' up to the Diamonds . . . it's not gonna be easy to change their minds." Narrowing his eyes in thought, he tapped his lower lip several times. "Maybe we could start with Emerald?" They both smiled toothily at the idea. "If we can get her to be our friend—and not wanna own me—then maybe there is hope!"

"Sounds like a plan to me!" Sylvia used her tail to flip Wander onto her back. Holding up her hand, she declared, "Let's go befriend—!"

The Emerald

Wander pulled out the Orbble Juice and blew them a new one, and they set off back the way they'd come.

Sylvia was glad she'd cheered Wander up, but her own cynicism was swiftly returning. As she moved them along, she recalled what they had just run from, and couldn't help saying, "So, not to bring down the mood, but—are we walkin' straight into our deaths here?"

"Technically, I can't die," said Wander brightly. "Even if my gem is shattered, the pieces will live on for all eternity, each one a prison for a broken, confused shard of my consciousness that can't do anything but silently scream to be put back together, even though there's no known way to do it." His presentation had gotten theatrically dark, but afterward he returned to a closed-eyed grin as he held the reins, evidently not upset. Sylvia, on the other hand, had gone from looking up at him to staring blankly ahead, pupils shrinking with each word.

"What did I get myself into?" she muttered.