Wander and Dominator were seated before their humble little garden. During this, Dominator came very close to asking about Wander's refusal to speak.
"Well... This isn't terribly thrilling" was what left Dominator's mouth instead. "And I gotta be honest here, all this nothing happening is making me sleepy. I need my beauty sleep so I think a quick nap is in order."
Wander continued to monitor the seedlings in silence while Dominator made her way to her escape pod. Looking into the dirty interior, she does not find it too inviting. She then feels a tapping on her forearm and, turning her head, she spots Wander with cleaning supplies on hand.
Dominator steps aside instinctively and Wander gets to work: with a handheld vacuum cleaner, he sucks up copious amounts of dust and dirt out of the pod. Then with a bucket of clean water and fresh wash cloths, he began to wipe away the finer layers of dirt and dust leaving Dominator's little abode like new once more.
Wander fetches a new sleeping bag from his tent and then, with great pride, welcomes Dominator to an impeccably cleaned escape pod.
"W-wow!.." Dominator says truly impressed by Wander's persistent kindness. A "thank you" was on the tip of her tongue but Wander had tipped his hat and returned to care for their garden before she could say it.
After setting up the sleeping bag inside the pod, Dominator lies down but does not immediately fall asleep. A nagging guilt was keeping her up: Wander was back and helping her after what she had done. Briefly, a glimmer of hope shines through: maybe he didn't hate her? He wouldn't be nice to someone he hated, right? No, Wander was generally nice to everyone, friend and foe alike. And he'd surely speak to someone he liked, right?
Suffering such conflicting thoughts and emotions made getting sleep a difficult task but with some persistence, she finally manages some shut-eye after wishing she had thanked Wander moments earlier.
-=episode title=-
THE CONTINUED SILENCE
-=episode title=-
The Doom Moon was in a celebratory mood. It had bested the previous galactic menace; Lord Dominator, her Dombots, and her Domship.
Rapidly shaking a champagne bottle, a Watchdog popped the cork off the bottle sending it flying while champagne fizz exploded out of it to shower Emperor Awesome's Fist Fighters, Sourdough's Beefeaters, General McGuffin's Wingmen, other Watchdogs and other minions amid raucous celebrations in the Doom Moon's cafeteria.
"AAaaaahahahahahaha!" Commander Peepers let out after he too joined others in spraying champagne.
"Whooooo!" Lord Hater let out standing atop a table before pouring a bottle of champagne into his mouth and over his head. In the corner of the room, Emperor Awesome had set up an elaborate sound system to blast rapturous dance and party tunes, Fist Fighter Knucklehead DJing.
"How are my shipmates doing toniiight!?" Emperor Awesome exclaims into a microphone. His audience of Doom Moon crewmembers respond with loud cheering. "Sounds like we're in a great mood tonight!" Awesome notes and he is answered with more cheering. "I just wanna say that you guys earned yourselves some serious good times. Ladies and gentlemen, what we did back there was special! What we did back there was an achievement for the ages! What we did back there was off the hooook!"
"We bested Lord Dominator herself!" Commander Peepers chimes in leaning towards the microphone.
"Speak truth there Peeps. Gonna go check on the tunes" Awesome says handing over the microphone.
"Thank you Awesome" Peepers accepts as the shark-headed villain approached the DJ. "Ladies and gentlemen, believe it or not, Dominator's overthrow was supposed to be the hard part of taking over this galaxy and we made it look easy!"
The audience cheers.
"If that was supposed to be the hard part then from here on out, we're on-" Peepers says before being interrupted.
"-easy streeeet! Woooo! Hic!" Lord Hater adds walking up beside Peepers sloppily. "We're on easy street Pweepers!" Hater says before taking another deep swig from a champagne bottle.
"Sir, how much champagne have you drunk?" Peepers asks.
"Not enough! WAahahahahaha! Hic! Am I right?" Hater directs at the crowds who laugh and cheer at the answer.
"S-sir, I'm serious" Peepers says. "Th-this is a children's show!"
"Aw, come on! Don't be such a party peeper, poopers!" Hater replies inducing laughter from the audience. "Hic! I mean, a party pooper, Peepers!" Hater corrects.
Peepers came close to lecturing against drinking too much. "Oh, what the heck! Just this once!" Peepers surrenders before picking up a fresh champagne bottle and spraying it about in celebration. "Let the good times roll!" he sings to the crowd.
"Atta boy Peeps! It's party tiiiime!" Emeperor Awesome exclaims through the sound system.
The tunes played on and a majority of the Doom Moon crew partied away. While most enjoyed these good times, some watched on with reservations: Sourdough and Little Bits watched on firmly while resenting the fact that there had been no confirmation that Dominator had been truly destroyed. Neither were the type to leave loose ends loose.
"Let's take it easy for a while. A little rest and relaxation is good for troop morale after all" General McGuffin reminded the evil sandwich and conniving kitten and so the latter two tolerated the loud music and bright club lights for now.
Back with Wander and Dominator, the former villainess was sound asleep.
"D-Dominator, you're better than this! You were doing so well!"
Dominator awakens abruptly at the sound of Wander's sorrowful begging denying her a full rest. She sits up to look around wondering if what she had heard was Wander or just her imagination. She concludes it had been her imagination before looking out of her pod to spot Wander still where she had last seen him.
"Wander, are you still sitting there?" Dominator asks surprised.
As many times before, Wander kept quiet. Dominator approaches the orange nomad to find him with eyes closed and in deep meditation. With a million questions swimming in her head, she rejoins him before the garden which had little changed.
Wander returns from meditation, opens his eyes, and looks Dominator's way happily.
"Wander, this is taking forever" Dominator criticizes. "We can't go on like this. Are we waiting on this to get us food? We're starving to death at this rate!"
Wander says nothing and continues his patient waiting.
"We gotta get out of here" Dominator urges looking skywards for some means of escape. It was then she spots a red ship of some sort flying nearby. "Ha! Perfect timing!"
Deploying her armor, Dominator lifts off and soars towards this new red ship. Once closer, Dominator finds it to be a pizza delivery ship for a restaurant chain named "Pizza Galaxy".
"Lunch and a way off of this dead planet. Perfect!" Dominator says through her helmet.
"AAaaaah! Lord Dominator!" the pizza delivery pilot exclaims in fright. He attempts to maneuver away but by then, it was too late: Dominator had forced her way in by crashing through the front window, had frozen the pilot from the neck down, and had maneuvered the delivery ship down back towards the planet below.
"Hey Wander, check out what I nabbed" Dominator boasts patting the side of the delivery ship.
Wander looks on shocked and dismayed rather than pleased.
"I-it's a way off this planet, Wander" Dominator reasons after her stunt is not positively received. "You don't want to stay on this planet forever do you!?"
Wander only looks on with hurt expression.
"What are you bummed out for!? We can get out of here now!... Ugh!" Dominator sighs frustrated before re-entering the delivery ship to inform the delivery man he was free to go. "Now beat it before I change my mind!"
The delivery driver did not wait and quickly sped off once Dominator gave him the chance.
That done, Dominator approached Wander with a pizza box on hand.
"I let him go" Dominator admits. "Hope you're happy. And I hope you have a way off this planet."
Wander looks at Dominator with surprise and relief.
"For my troubles, helped myself to a pizza" Dominator says. "He had stacks, I'm not letting me starve... Chicken and cheese. You want some?"
Wander gestures polite refusal with his hands.
"Oh right. You're one of those vegetarians" Dominator recalls unamused. "...Cheese pizza. I picked the chicken off, just for you" she says tempting Wander with a slice.
Wander still refuses.
"I'm trying to feed you" Dominator says, her patience tested.
Wander signals politely that he was still not interested. Dominator sighs.
"...Suit yourself" she shrugs. "Just don't come crying to me when you're starving on death's door" she adds before making quick work of the pilfered food.
Once done eating, she returned to staring at their garden. The seedlings seemed to have grown a bit but were still very much small enough to fit in one's hand.
Once again, Dominator was presented with the chance to ask why Wander had not said a word. She came close to asking about it but instead said "I'm hoping right now that you have ideas for getting off this planet."
Wordlessly, Wander nods happily as if wanting to assure her.
"You still have those bubbles you travel in, right?" Dominator asks.
Wander nods once more.
"Well bust one out and let's get off this planet already!" Dominator implores.
Wander shakes his head.
"Why not!?" Dominator asks trying to mask her irritation.
Wander approaches the garden and pats the ground.
"You're waiting on the garden?"
Wander nods again.
"We're going to be waiting a long time at the rate our little garden is growing" Dominator says testily.
Wander gestures with thumb and index finger that just a little bit more remained.
"Just a little more?" Dominator asks.
Wander nods happily before Dominator sighs again.
"Ugh!.. Fine! Can we at least do something else besides stare at these little plants then? They're not exactly putting on much of a show and if there's something you need to know about me, it's that boredom really frustrates me."
Wander thinks and several moments later, after setting up a small table, Wander was carefully assembling houses of playing cards and gesturing for Dominator to try it herself. Dominator, bored enough to give anything a go, joins in.
The construction of playing card structures required a careful and patient touch. As the gentler half of the pair, Wander built increasingly-complex constructions with little difficulty: he went from building a simple pyramid to skyscrapers, a bridge, and even The Domship.
"You're good at this" Dominator compliments before struggling to put together a simple pyramid. "...Easy now" Dominator said to herself moments later as she dropped a card atop a pyramid under construction while Wander cheered her on quietly. "...Okay! Just two more" she says while her five-story pyramid only needed the last two cards that made up the pointy top. "...Easy now..." Holding a card in each hand, Dominator places both cards down at the same time. To her surprise, she had pulled it off and a five-story pyramid now stood proudly before her and Wander. "Ahahaha! Yes!"
Looking at the time, Dominator was surprised to see how time had flown by after these projects.
"Okay, that was more fun than I expected. Now for my favorite part" Dominator says before knocking down her pyramid. "Hahahaha! Alright! I wanna try for a skyscraper now" she adds hungry for more challenge. As she readied herself, the wind around her began to pick up. "Hey! Stupid wind!.. Oh no... Don't tell me" she gasps looking around at intensifying winds.
In the distance, a giant tornado could be seen growing and getting closer.
"Not this again" Dominator says while, in near panic, an alarmed Wander began frantic work of pulling out the seedlings, soil and all, and putting them into individual pots. Dominator looks at Wander's efforts and then at the coming threat. "Hold it" Dominator says raising a hand in objection while eyeing the coming tornado vengefully. "I faced one of these things before. Seeing it again is making me crave a rematch!" she says cracking her knuckles. "And I'm not letting it blow our garden away!"
An increasingly-impressed Wander watched as Dominator stepped in between the garden and the powerful tornado that was getting closer and growing stronger by the second.
Dominator deploys her armor below the neck.
"Hey Wander, ever wonder what it would take to fight a tornado? What it would take to fight something made of rapidly spinning wind?" Dominator asks before her helmet deployed. An intrigued Wander shakes his head. "To take on a tornado, you gotta fight fire with fire!" she says, her arms transforming into two giant jet turbines, as big as her armor could muster.
The jet turbines began revving up, engines growing louder and louder as their blades spun faster and faster. Most importantly, the winds blowing out of them grew stronger and stronger and eventually crashed violently against the spinning winds of the approaching tornado.
Almost overpowered by the force of her own turbines, Dominator is pushed back some. Digging her armored feet into the ground behind her, she stabilizes herself to focus all she could against the tornado which was slowed down and eventually stopped in its tracks. After a mighty effort, Dominator stepped forwards and the tornado was pushed back. Dominator took another step and the tornado was pushed away some more.
Dominator had her doubts at first but she was actually pulling it off: a force of nature was being repelled by the might of her jet turbine arms.
Wander, his hands over his ears to protect them from the loud engines, was also very astounded watching Dominator start a steady walk towards the tornado pushing it away farther and farther.
Then, to the astonishment of both, the tornado seemed to unwind and shrink. It was as if Dominator's turbines were tearing gusts of wind out from the tornado itself. It then only narrowed and shrank further and further and fell away farther and farther from Wander and Dominator's humble garden.
"So weak!" Dominator ridicules, the tornado pushed away and shrinking until it finally vanished into thin air.
The threat gone, Dominator's turbines slow down and eventually stop, their loud noise dying down until finally, the planet's default stillness was restored.
Dominator stood in place for a moment before her armor was withdrawn back into her person. Wander then approached in awe of Dominator's accomplishment.
Dominator examines her hands.
"...Did you see that!?" Dominator asks turning towards Wander. "That... Was... AMAZIIING!" she shouts triumphantly.
Wander holds a palm up.
"High five!" Dominator says clapping Wander's hand. "Ahahahaha! Who's the boss? I am! You got another one for me? Bring it on! I'll tear it a new one just the same!" Dominator challenges the sky. "Now THAT is what gets the blood pumping! Supreme victory! Woohoo! Yeah! Lord Dominator dominated!" she celebrates before collapsing on the ground.
Wander walks up to Dominator to check up on her.
"I admit, that took a bit out of me... But I won and that's what matters... Give me a second here, gotta catch my breath."
Dominator rested for a while satisfied by her performance but her elation did not last. It was terribly quiet again, Wander smiling broadly but still not saying a single word.
Dominator remembers how much joy and celebration there was once before when she, Wander, and Sylvia thwarted Hater and Awesome's Skull Cruiser 9001. Celebrations then were more lively and Wander was eagerly joining Dominator in that elation.
Now, there was no Sylvia and all Wander could muster was a smile and a high-five, both in a depressing silence. Getting to hear Wander's voice celebrating with her would have made her victory so much sweeter.
Increasingly, Dominator was feeling like Wander really wasn't all there. She could see Wander with his big, green hat; orange fur; and wide, uplifting smile but there was something about his jolly and upbeat voice that Dominator missed more and more.
Wander lifts Dominator's hand up and begins pulling as if wanting to get her back up on her feet.
Dominator didn't immediately sit up as she suspected once again that Wander hated her. What other explanation could there be for him still refusing to speak to her even after her defending their garden?
The very idea that Wander hated her ached her insides like nothing else before it. She places a hand over her chest.
"Wander... do you... hate me?" the green villainess finally managed to whisper faintly. She was unsure Wander heard her and even if he had, he was still keeping to himself. She sits up and breathes in and out before trying again. "Wander, do you hate me?"
Wander looks Dominator in the eye which made her tense up.
"I asked you a question, Wander. Why won't you answer?" Dominator half demands, half begs.
Dominator then feels something poking her thigh. Looking under her, she notices she had landed atop the garden and the seedlings were starting to grow rapidly. "Aah! Oh no! Why didn't you tell me I landed here!?" she chastises getting up and hurrying out of the way.
As soon as she got out, the garden almost seemed to explode. The fragile little seedlings thickened, lengthened, sprouted leaves in all directions, flower buds in a number of other directions, and the early beginnings of fruits in still others.
"Wow! Finally, they're growing" Dominator admires. "Took them long enough!"
Wander smiles her way again. Dominator could almost hear Wander's gentle voice say "with just a little bit of kindness, the frailest of seeds can grow into the mightiest of gardens!". This only amplified her desire to hear his voice again.
The flower buds then began to bloom revealing yellow petals. Dominator got closer finding the flowers strangely familiar.
A long time ago, before the destruction of her ship and armies the first time, Dominator had come across a Wander and Sylvia who were attempting to save a yellow flower from wasting away. In her usual, nasty self, she took great pleasure threatening to destroy that flower in front of a distraught Sylvia and Wander and even took a selfie with the two to commemorate the vile occasion. If not for the flower spitting pollen in her face thus sending her on a sneezing fit, Dominator would have surely burned the flower away.
The same kind of flower was now staring Dominator in the face as if challenging her to finish her villainous act.
Dominator turns to face Wander who looked right back at her as if he had wanted to remind her of that wrong all along. Remind her of one of the times when she was at her worst. She had defended a patch of land that now reminded her of a once-ecstatic, now-painful memory.
As usual, her first instinct to this was to get angry.
"You must think you're clever" Dominator raises her voice. "D-do you think I regret trying to burn th-that stupid flower!? Well I don't! I'm Dominator and I dominate! I don't regret the things I do! Especially at some stupid flower!.. What's one flower when the galaxy's full of 'em!? I'm supposed to feel bad or something!? I don't feel bad!.. I'm Dominator and- I-"
Betrayed by her anger, Dominator didn't mean the words leaving her mouth but they were still thrown at Wander regardless. After gazing at the hurt in Wander's eyes, the pain in her chest descends to its worst. She turns away ashamed she lashed out at someone she didn't want to lash out at anymore. Lashed out at someone she feared could disappear again.
"...Wander... Why are you here!?.. What do you want from me? I don't have anything left!" Dominator says with subsiding anger. "..Why do you put up with me?.. I've done a lot to make you hate me and I'm sure, if you were anyone else, you'd have given up on me a long time ago..."
Wander stands in place wanting to just provide Dominator an excellent listener.
"Wh-why aren't you gone like everyone else?... Like my ship. Like my bots. They're gone too, n-not that I blame them. I treated them like pawns" Dominator says trying her best to mask the emotion in her voice. "It makes sense th-they'd want to throw me away. I did just that to so many of them!.. And now I've lost so much and... it's a-all my fault..."
Wander senses Dominator wasn't done thus he remains an excellent listener.
"Wander, I made you my pawn too! A-and you must hate me now too! You won't even speak to m-me anymore and it's all my fault!" Dominator repeats, her reluctant eyes growing moist. "...Wander... I'm sorry... I'm so, so sorry!.. If I could take it all back, I would in a heartbeat!.. If I c-could redo things, I would not hesitate to do so much better! T-to not take you for granted!.. To not throw you away!.."
Wander and Dominator's eyes lock briefly, their expressions nearly breaking, before she turns away again.
"I'm scared. Scared it's too late now. Most of what I've done, I can't take back..." Dominator admits softly. "What's done is done and all I have are words... I really don't have anything else... All I can give to anyone is a-an apology and I owe you one more than anyone else... Please forgive me, Wander... I'm sorry for all I've done to you. I, I don't deserve you! You deserve so much better and I'm very, very sorry..."
Dominator fought the tears threatening to well up in her eyes. She was the fearsome Lord Dominator after all, she could not allow such a moment of weakness.
"...That's all I ever wanted to hear" Wander's quivering voice finally breaks his silence. "I accept your apology."
Dominator, relieved to finally hear Wander's gentle and soothing voice in person again after so long, turns around only to have the friendly star nomad jump up into her arms and give her a mighty hug.
"W-Wander!? I-I don't understand! I thought you hated me!" Dominator says hugging back just as fiercely. "You weren't speaking to me!.."
"I never hated you. I just w-wanted you to do all the talking" Wander reveals, tears falling freely from his eyes. "I could tell you had a lot on your mind. It's not good to bottle it all up."
"Why a-are you crying? For me of all people!?" Dominator says finally unable to hold back her own tears.
"One shouldn't b-bottle up feelings either!" Wander answers.
Crying in each other's arms, the two stand there for a while in a reassuring embrace.
"I'm so sorry" Dominator repeats.
"I forgive you" Wander returns.
Eventually, Dominator gets on her knees to allow Wander's feet to reach the ground but neither let go. Recognizing how good Wander has been to her and continues being to her, Dominator swears to herself to never lose Wander ever again.
Back on the Domship, with help of a Probe Dombot, Sylvia watched the two below through hesitantly moist eyes.
"Dominator, I swear" Sylvia says, "if he wasn't my best friend, I'd have left you there to stew in your own deserved misery!.. You have no idea how lucky you are!"
