"Silver forks, spoons, and knives... Diamond-encrusted frying pan... Golden chopsticks..." Dominator lists while she and some of her Dombots sifted through the loot they had seized from champion chef Colen's home. "...Very expensive-looking bowl. No idea what it's made out of but it certainly looks and feels expensive..."
"Lord Dominator, cook book located" one of Dominator's Dombots reports presenting Dominator with a cooking book titled "Cooking Champion Colen's Championship Cuisine".
-=episode title=-
THE SPY
-=episode title=-
"Excellent! The days of eating that tube garbage are numbered!" Dominator declares before opening the book. She looks over a number of pages before snapping the book shut. "This looks too complicated. Bots 8, 11, 19!"
"Yes Lord Dominator!" Dombots 8, 11, and 19 all report simultaneously with a salute.
"You guys, get cooking!" she says shoving the book into the robotic claws of Bot 19.
"Does not compute" was the Dombot's reply before handing back the book.
"What do you mean does not compute!?" Dominator says irritated. "Get to cooking!"
"Error! Cooking protocols not found!" objected the bot once more.
"Do it! I have domination to get to!" Dominator counters.
"Exception! Robotic claws incompatible with duties assigned!" Bot 11 alerted.
"Do it or I'm ejecting you three out of my ship!" Dominator threatened. "Got it!?"
"Yes Lord Dominator!" the three Dombots agree before hurrying off to the kitchen.
"Good!" Dominator approves before turning her attention to a planet at her Domship's mercy, a planet with koala-like inhabitants. "Greetings future domination victims" Dominator said through a near planet-sized projection of herself.
"AAaaah! Lord Dominator!", "She's returned!", "Run for your lives!" shouted a number of those living on the threatened planet. Most on the planet however stood in awe at the sight.
"Prepare yourselves" Dominator's voice boomed, "your end-" WHIRRRRRR-k-kreashhh!
The last of Dominator's words had been drowned out by what sounded like a blender followed by dishes shattering.
"What was that?", "Not sure", "I think she's selling weapons!", "Self-defense IS important!", some on the planet discussed.
"I said prepare for" brrrrrrrrrr-krkrkrkrkrkrk! "keep it down over there!" Dominator's projection shouts.
"We're not being noisy", "Who died and made her queen?", "I'll be as loud as I want", "Aaaaaaaaah!" the chatter went on among Dominator's current helpless subjects.
POKPOKPOKPOKPOK-SSSSSSSSSS "GRRrrrr! Give me a second!" Dominator excuses herself and heads for her kitchen, the kitchen Wander had built for her not too long ago. "I'm trying to dominate a planet here! What's with the racket!?" she exclaims before entering her kitchen.
Upon entry, she finds a mess: flour coating several surfaces, a lump of dough stuck to the kitchen ceiling, the aftermath of an explosion of a blenderful of sauce, and the shattered fragments of a watermelon all over the floor among other mishaps.
"Bots!" Dominator shouts at bots 8, 11, and 19 who were trying to stuff a whole orange through a juicer only to have the orange pop like a balloon and splash everything nearby with orange juice. "Look at the mess you've made! Clean this up right now and this place better be SPOTLESS by the time I get back!"
"Yes Lord Dominator!" 8, 11, and 19 confirm with a salute.
"Good!" Dominator says then stomps back to make quick work of her task at hand.
After another successful domination, Dominator returns to the kitchen. She enters to find the kitchen spotless.
"You three are lucky!" Dominator told 8, 11, and 19. "Had I come in and found you three still cleaning, I'd have scrapped all three of you on the spot! Now get out!"
The three Dombots are quick to exit fearing Dominator's wrath.
"Ugh! You want something done right, you gotta do it yourself!" Dominator told herself before pulling "Cooking Champion Colen's Championship Cuisine" up in front of her. "..This doesn't sound so tough!" Dominator comments after a brief reading of a couple of recipes.
With an expertise in robotics and finding the kitchen Wander built for her very well equipped, Dominator was swiftly whipping up one of Chef Colen's excellent, championship-winning recipes with the greatest of ease. In no time, Dominator placed a hearty lasagna before herself.
"Domination and cooking, it really stirs up a hunger!" Dominator says picking up a fork and knife and with great anticipation, she cuts into the lasagna and has herself a taste but after some brief chewing, her initial smile slackened.
Somehow, there seemed to be something wrong with the food.
"I don't understand... I did everything by the letter but there's just something off about this! The taste just seems... Off..." Dominator said reviewing Colen's cook book. "Maybe I missed something?" she wondered.
After tossing the lasagna, Dominator cooked up a new lasagna only to be disappointed again. Annoyed, she tries her hand at another of Colen's dishes, a beef bourguignon. This new dish proved even more frustrating for Dominator for it too was not sitting right with her taste buds. Tossing the beef dish, she prepared chicken akbari, poppy seed curry, and various other dishes. One after the other, Dominator dumped the dishes into the trash.
"GGaaaaaahhh!" Dominator shouts, "is this really the best this galaxy has to offer!? Championship chef my foot!" the green menace exclaims before kicking the book across the floor. "Wander's cooking was a million times better than that so-called champion's!" she mocks.
Dominator's hands quickly fly up to her mouth to stop it from saying anything else. Still very much weirded out by the positive words she sometimes had to say about Wander, she has a seat.
"I-it's not like I like or care about him or anything! If not for his cooking, I'd have destroyed him long ago! Yeah! That's exactly right!" she reassured herself before wondering if Wander had a cook book of sorts and regretted never learning any recipes from him when she was feigning friendship. "...I swear, if I don't get anything decent to eat, I'm going to lose my mind!.. Bots! Scan the galaxy! Find that little orange weirdo, Wander!"
Some lightyears away were Wander and Sylvia on a planet filled with peacock-like alien life known as Piks. The two, wearing hard hats and carpenter tool belts, were waving farewell at a Pik family for which they had just built a bird bath.
"Another job well done!" Sylvia celebrates.
"Yes indeed! This calls for a celebration!" Wander replies. "How's about some root beer floats? My treat!"
"Your treat?"
"It would be my pleasure!" Wander says.
"That's mighty generous of you Wander!" Sylvia compliments. "Remind me to return the favor!"
"You already have" Wander answers, "with your friendship!"
"Dohohahahaha! Wander you are too much sometimes!" Sylvia says.
The two friends head for a shake shop but Wander is stopped in his tracks at the shop entrance. By the entrance sat a small box labeled 'free puppy' and inside it sat a small, whimpering puppy. Wander lifts the puppy up into his arms.
"Ooohh!~ Hello little fella!" Wander greets with the gentlest of voices. "Did someone abandon you here?" he asks looking around before turning back to the puppy. "Oh! I cannot stand this!.. Sylvia!" Wander calls out with puppy in arms.
"Wander? Where'd you get that puppy?" Sylvia asks while seated at a table.
"He was outside in a box and I heard him whimpering so I found him and he was abandoned and looking very sad and I got sad and just had to give him a hug and now I want to adopt him oh can we adopt him can we can we can we with sugar on top and gummy bears pretty please?" Wander asks rapidly.
"Take a breath buddy!" Sylvia urges and Wander gasps.
"Can we adopt him Syl! Pleeeeeease!"
Sylvia takes a hard look at the puppy who seemed very much to be a genuine puppy.
"...You promise to feed him?" Sylvia asked and Wander nods rapidly. "And wash him?" Sylvia questions further and Wander nods rapidly once more. "And walk and potty train him?" Sylvia asks and Wander nods still as eagerly. "Well then he's all yours!"
"Wahoo!" Wander cheers.
"As long as he's not one of those secretly-evil fake-helpless types like Little Bits was, all will be swell" Sylvia said as Wander and his new pet puppy join her at the table.
Unknown to Wander or Sylvia was the fact that the puppy in Wander's arms was a disguised Probe Dombot, Bot 98 to be exact.
Back on her Domship, Dominator could see and hear anything and everything her puppy bot saw and heard through tiny cameras in its eyes and tiny microphones in its ears.
"This was too easy" Dominator admires watching through her command room monitor, "now I just gotta get some recipes out of the orange dork and we'll be in business!.. Get recipes out of him as a stupid little puppy. This might not be easy..."
"So what're you naming him?" Sylvia asked.
"Whirry!" was Wander's immediate response.
"Whirry? That's an odd name" Sylvia says.
"He makes funny whirring sounds if you listen closely" Wander says.
"Eek!" Dominator lets out alarmed her puppy spy was making too many robotic noises. "Silence mode! Silence mode!" she says quickly clicking on the 'silence mode' button on her command room computer.
"I don't hear anything" Sylvia comments with her ear up to the puppy.
"Odd, he was making 'em moments ago" Wander says. "...Maybe that was his stomach? Whirry! You hungry!?"
"Yes! Yes!" Dominator almost shouted back at her command room. With a press of a button, her puppy spy barks happily while wagging his tail.
"I think that's a yes!" Wander says. "Not to worry! I think this place sells something a puppy could eat!" he says lifting up a small menu.
"No! No! I want you to cook it!" Dominator says before searching her computer.
Whirry starts to growl and shake his head.
"I don't think he wants that" Sylvia comments.
"What do you want then buddy?" Wander asks.
After a moment of thought, Dominator decided to break her puppy bot's silence for she saw little chance of effective communication any other way.
"H-hello" Whirry greets using a gentle and child-like voice.
"Whoa!" Wander and Sylvia both react.
"You can talk!" Wander says.
"Hello" Sylvia greets back.
"H-hello" Whirry greets back again, "I-I'm very hungry" he says very sadly. "P-please cook for me."
"C-cook for you!?" Sylvia repeats. "If you're hungry, we could just buy you something to eat."
"P-please! I need Wander's cooking!" Whirry says. "I wish to taste Wander's cooking!"
"My cooking?" Wander asks and Whirry nods weakly. "Why my cooking?"
Dominator flinches at Wander's question. She'd now have to speak very positively of Wander's cooking to try to convince him to cook.
"They say Wander's cooking feeds both body and soul and is unrivaled in all the galaxy. I just wish to taste for myself how great of a cook he really is. Please?"
Wander and Sylvia stare for a moment which made Dominator feel very tense.
"Wow! That's an awful nice thing to say!" Wander praises. "Okay, I will cook for you! Especially since you said please!"
"Whatever" Sylvia said drawn away by the root beer floats arriving to her table.
Dominator sighs with relief and readies pencil and paper to jot down how to prepare one of Wander's dishes.
Once Wander had made quick work of his root beer float, he got down to cooking.
"First things first! Ingredients!" Wander instructs pulling out of his hat a fridge from which he pulls out various ingredients. "Second! Cooking utensils! Can't heat without a heat source!" he says pulling out a portable stove among other utensils.
"Ingredients, utensils, duh!" Dominator says while writing.
"Most important of all! And write this down now, it can make or break your dish!" Wander emphasizes.
Dominator blinks twice feeling almost as though Wander were speaking to her directly.
"The most important part of your dish, any dish" Wander says, "is L-O-V-E!"
"l-o-v-e" Dominator parrots while noting the word down.
"LOVE!" Wander reads.
"...L-LOVE!?" Dominator almost exclaims after thinking it was some sort of ingredient at first.
"Love?" Whirry voices similarly.
"That's right! Love! When you cook for someone you love, be they a close friend or beloved family or that special someone in your life" Wander says, "and you hold that special someone near and dear to your heart while you prepare that which will feed both their body and soul, THAT is when your best dishes are born!"
Dominator stops for a moment, shaken by Wander's affectionate declaration and the implication of how devoted Wander once was to her. She could feel herself turn a tiny bit red.
"Dishes that warm the coldest hearts, calm the most troubled souls, soothe the most savage beasts!" Wander says.
"...J-just get to cooking y-you orange, s-sentimental weirdo!" a slightly-red Dominator demands uneasily.
With Whirry watching closely, Wander was soon done and before him now sat a small pot of hearty soup.
"Figured I'd make soup! Soup made just for you Whirry! Should be easy on your baby puppy teeth!" Wander said.
"Bot 98, retrieve that soup!" Dominator orders and almost like a vacuum, Whirry sucked up most of the soup right after Wander served himself some in a small bowl.
"Whoa! You were hungry weren't you Whirry? Not to worry, Whirry!" he says before giggling at his own play on words. "I can always make more!"
"Be right back" Whirry says before dashing behind a series of bushes. Hidden by said bushes, an air-tight thermos holding the soup drops from underneath the puppy disguise. This is immediately picked up by nearby Dombots who then speed off.
"Whirry, erm, I mean Bot 98. Good job. Now keep an eye on Wander" Dominator orders her puppy spy.
"Yes Lord Dominator" Bot 98 agrees before returning to Wander's side.
The bots carrying the thermos of soup quickly arrive at Dominator's ship.
"Lord Dominator. Soup retrieved" the delivering bots report before placing the thermos atop Dominator's table.
"Excellent! Now" Dominator says eyeing the thermos before pouring some out into a bowl, "eating time!"
Armed with a spoon, Dominator lifted a spoonful of Wander's soup into her mouth. To her surprise, she found the soup to be good. Not delicious, not disgusting. Just good.
Dominator sat there for a moment disappointed. She expected more and wasn't sure why Wander's cooking only tasted fine this time rather than knocking her socks off like previous times.
Dominator stops thinking and downs the rest of the soup in a few gulps.
"...Well, that was that. Not as good as I expected but whatever! He'd probably excuse it by saying the 'love' wasn't right or something stupid like that" Dominator says dismissively. "Everyone has their off days but don't care anymore! Now that that's out of the way, I need to get back to what made me me!" she says turning to a display of the villain leaderboards. "Dominating this galaxy!" she announces.
Besides the leaderboards display was a display of Whirry's feed which was currently monitoring Wander.
"Welcome back Whirry!" Wander greets. "Hope you liked the soup! I made it just for you after all!"
"...F-for me?" Whirry asks.
"Yep! Especially for you! Made for no one else but you!" Wander replies petting Whirry before Dominator notices Whirry's feed was still on.
"Why is 98's feed still on?" Dominator asked herself before shutting the feed off herself. Underneath the now-closed feed sat Dominator's notes with the word "love" scribbled out.
Author's note: I sometimes worry readers will read a chapter and think the story is going nowhere. Rest assured, I am going somewhere with all this. I admit I didn't start with a skeleton for this story but so far, I like my progress on this. So far, so good!
Thanks for reading and all feedback is appreciated!