Chapter 6: Help in the Rick of Time

Annie heard those words uttered by the man that was named Rick, her body feeling numb.

"Um, excuse me!" Annie then shouted, her waving an arm to get Rick's attention. "What do you mean that this universe will fall apart?"

"Oh-" a burp in midsentence. "-God… another idiot. L-l-l-look, I don't have time to ex-explain things so you're peanut-sized b-b-brain can wrap itself around this," the drunk scientist said. He then moved toward his odd looking UFO car. "E-e-everyone pile in, we gotta get a few things before w-w-we go kill ourselves."

As Rick and Morty got into the car the drunk scientist shot his handheld device toward a wall, a large green portal with swirling energy appearing. Ford followed Rick to the car as the others stood back skeptically.

"Alright… everyone in!" Rick called, his car opening to let the others in, the glass dome opening like a child's toy.

"You have a portal gun…!" Mabel gasped as she pointed at the swirling green portal.

Rick scoffed, "Yeah?"

"Then you can take us to Dipper then!" Mabel cheered happily. "You don't need to help with this giant portal!"

"Mabel, sweetie, it's not that simple," Ford told her gently. "The way portals work is the small ones can go through the sub-dimensions of a large one, like Rick's and the Axolotl's natural opening portals."

Annie nodded, remembering how her mother explained it to her. "Yes. The only way to go to another large dimension is to use a large portal that is at the weakest part of the dimension's wall." Annie then continued for Ford. "The Axolotl does have the ability to make large portals, but only he can do it… well, Magum now."

Rick belched loudly. "T-there's your explanation, kid. Now, before we do anything I need to get some shit from back at my house… so, everyone p-p-pile in!"

Ford got in with Morty, the young teenager getting in with a worried grimace on his face, Annie following close behind. Stan reluctantly followed suit, him giving a nervous glance toward Mabel and gently held her hand, the girl's free hand holding onto George's. Pacifica got in as well, her face twisted with disapproval.

"Can this thing even move?" Pacifica jeered, her green eyes glancing around the things that made the car that had been obviously taken out of trash bins.

"S-s-sure it can," Rick belched as he typed in something on the console. "I built it."

"Um, Rick?" Morty squeaked out, his hands trembling nervously. "I d-d-d-don't think that's going to assure them."

"Why the hell not!?" Rick shouted furiously as he grabbed his flask and took a swig out of it. "I'm a d-d-d-damn genius!"

"One that's drunk…" Morty retorted as he then pushed Rick out of the driver seat. "Just let me drive… Mom and Dad will be furious if they find out you were driving through the multiverse drunk again…"

Rick snapped his fingers. "Right you are, Morty! Gotta keep your mom happy! I can care less about stupid Jerry though… W-w-w-we need to keep going on our a-a-adventures!"

Morty sighed as he pushed a button that caused the glass dome to seal the group in the car. "Yeah, whatever, Rick, whatever you say." The response was snoring, Rick passing out from being drunk.

Ford moved forward, trying to get a better angle at the slumbering drunk scientist. "Does… does he always do that?" he asked the nervous teenager.

"Pretty much," Morty replied as he piloted the car, it levitating from the ground and moving toward the portal. The car became engulfed with the swirling green portal, the world around them becoming slightly disorientated until suddenly appearing in a seemingly happy neighborhood with the sun shining brightly.

"Whoa…!" George gasped as he pressed his face to the glass. "Magum hasn't touched here…?"

"Not yet," Annie grimly responded, her brown eyes taking on the new surroundings.

As a child Annie had loved to explore. She was always sick of staying in the same room, the same building, so when she could go out with her mother she took the opportunity. A few times she would sneak out of the facility and explore on her own, often finding herself in other sub-dimensions. If it weren't for her necklace she would've been lost, it seemed the necklace always led her to where she needed to return to.

That was part of the Axolotl's essence that he put in the necklace… he was leading me back to my mother…

The thought of her mother made a surge of pain hit her heart. Annie missed her mother terribly. Being this long away from her reminded the young woman on how her mother would be gone days at a time and return severely injured and limping.

I'm okay dear… her mother's voice whispered in her mind. It was always what she would say when she returned.

Annie then shook her head and came back into reality just in time for Morty to land the car inside a typical looking garage. Morty then opened the glass dome and got out of the vehicle, him hitting a button on the side of the garage and watching as counters lowered into the floor and new ones filled with guns, parts, scrap metal, and small robots littering the tabletops.

"Welcome to the Smith-Sanchez household," Morty greeted, him gesturing to the garage. "This is Rick's workspace… he calls it his lab."

Ford had gotten out of the car and wandered around the "lab". "Hm, impressive… given on what you have around…" he commented.

Rick then grunted and woke up, taking another swig of his flask. "Y-y-y-yeah, yeah, whatever…" he grunted absently as he made his way to the door that entered the house. "J-j-j-just stay here for a minute… I g-g-g-gotta get something from my room." Just as he opened the door a man was in the doorway with brown hair and eyes and wearing a green shirt with two different colored brown stripes going across his chest and him wearing simple jeans.

"There you are, Rick!" the man shouted furiously. "Where the hell have you been!? Beth and I have been so worried! We tried calling that alien phone you gave us and there was no answer! What would've happened if Morty got hurt!?"

Rick just stood there with a bored expression, him drinking from his flask occasionally.

"And you're drinking, of course you are!" the man continued with a huff. "You know, you're the reason why Beth has a drinking problem too!"

"The apple doesn't fall too far from the tree," Rick replied nonchalantly. "Now, if you w-w-w-will just step aside, I have to get some shit."

"No! You're living in my house rent free and took over my garage!" the man screamed. "I will not be belittled in my own home!"

Mabel then leaned over toward Annie and whispered, "This is like a T.V. drama…"

"Never saw one," Annie hastily whispered back.

The man then peered around Rick, seeing that there were more people in the garage. "And who the hell are these people?! Why are you always bringing strangers to my house!?"

"They're not aliens, Jerry," Rick assured. "They're humans from another dimension and they n-n-n-need my help because a magic lizard is dead and a douchebag of a demon lizard took a kid."

Jerry blinked his eyes in confusion. "Wha-?"

"I don't have time for your shit, Jerry." Rick growled as he pushed his way past the man and entered the house. Morty followed quickly behind Rick, the boy giving a soft hello before entering the house, the boy immediately going to the stairwell and ascending it, only to come down a few seconds later with a few comics and rushed back towards the garage.

Ford decided to follow in as well, him giving a greeting to Jerry, while Annie stayed close to Ford. The rest of the group followed suit, Jerry looking at each person with a blank expression. It was as if he could not process what was going on. Morty then took the others and gave them a small tour of the home, only for a few minutes and lead them back into the garage.

Once Ford and Annie entered the kitchen they saw a young redhead sitting at the kitchen table with a pink top and white pants fiddling on a cellphone, her expression bored. At the end of the table a blonde was reading off of a tablet with a glass of red wine in hand. They both looked up from their devices, the redhead giving a groan of annoyance before slouching more into her seat and tapping her phone screen.

"Um… hello…?" Ford nervously greeted, him waving a hand.

"Are you Grandpa Rick's friends?" the redhead asked, her not even bothering to look up from her phone.

"Sort of," Ford admitted, him giving the "I-Don't-Know" hand gesture.

Rick then entered the kitchen, him holding a brown sack that was no doubt filled with various items. "A-a-a-alright, I should have everything I need…" he muttered to himself as he passed the blonde.

"Dad, where were you and Morty?" the blonde questioned, her tone hard.

"Gravity Falls, Oregon in a different reality," Rick replied quickly as he tied the sack closed.

"Never heard of it," the blonde absently said as she tapped on her tablet.

Ford then gave the blonde another look over. "Beth," he said simply. "You're Beth."

Beth snapped her head up. "How do you know my name?" she demanded, her brows furrowing furiously.

Ford put his hands up in surrender. "I saw a picture of you of when you were a baby, Rick showed it to me!" he quickly explained.

Beth then glanced at her father. "Dad…?"

"Y-y-y-yeah, I did." Rick assured her as he headed toward the garage. Ford gave a wave goodbye and followed Ford, Annie following close behind.

"You lied to her," Ford hissed to Rick lowly.

"Not really…" Rick explained. "In the reality that a version of me that met you I did do that, that's how you know Beth."

Annie then remembered what Rick had said that he wasn't the same Rick that her father had met. "You had said that you're a different version that met my dad…" Annie commented, her brown eyes narrowing. "Did you kill the other version or something…?" She was suspicious of the man that was before her, how did she know that he could be trusted?

Like her mother always said: Trust no one.

Rick sighed, "I myself went to that reality to find some kind of crystal that was only in that reality of Gravity Falls and that version of me got killed terribly once he escaped Magum's dimension. What I do when I encounter something like that is that I try to transfer memories from the dead one to myself so I can gain the knowledge of the dimension I am in." The drunk scientist shrugged. "S-s-s-sounds morbid, I know, but that's how I survive."

"Then why were you back in our reality when we found you if you were there a few decades before?" Annie then asked.

"I'm tweaking my portal gun and I remembered that the Bartek house had some of my shit in it still," Rick shrugged. "M-m-m-man, kid, you're just observant aren't ya? A-a-a-always asking questions…"

"Where I grew up you had to observe or you could get killed," Annie replied flatly.

The house suddenly shook, knocking off knick-knacks off of shelves and pictures off of walls. A loud beeping raged through the house, a red light filling the room. Beth and the redhead teenager rushed behind Rick, seemingly knowing what to do in that situation. Jerry was on the floor in the hallway that lead to the stairwell, him in the fetal position.

"What the hell did Morty do now…!?" Rick screamed as he finally pushed open the door that lead to the garage.

Once in the garage that same creatures that were at the school were crawling all over the garage, the kids and Stan inside the car while the monsters rocked it back and forth. Fire was spreading around, the flames a bright red, a demonic red.

"Oh, shit…!" Rick cried out as he dropped his sack and went inside his lab coat, grabbing some kind of laser pistol.

"Aw geez, Rick!" Morty shouted, his hands to his head. "W-w-w-what the hell are these things!?"

"They were the same creature that took Dipper…!" Ford exclaimed as he reached to his side and pulled out his interdimensional gun.

Annie did the same, her already aiming for the creatures. From her past experience with them the creatures seemed to very resilient to the blasts. She didn't have time to ponder and debate whether or not to use her weapon, the dome that covered the car was beginning to crack, her seeing Mabel's eyes widen with fear.

The three opened fire on the monsters, black ink-like blood splattering to the garage floor. One roared as it left the car and headed toward the trio. Rick managed to sidestep, the monsters claws ripping through the wooden door that lead back into the house. Beth and the redhead immediately ran the opposite way, heading toward a room at the end of the hall,

"Beth, take Summer and Jerry to my room!" Rick ordered as he ran to the back of the creature and shot a blast to the back of its head. "There is a button underneath that pullout bed, press it and it will take you to a bunker underneath the house!"

"You put another secret chamber under my house!?" Jerry screamed, his fear of the monsters suddenly evaporating.

"Jerry, shut the hell up and do what he says!" Beth shouted at her husband as she took her daughter's hand and rushed down the hallway and disappeared into a room. Jerry gave Rick another hard glare as he rushed after his wife and daughter.

Annie rushed toward the car, her jumping on the back of one of the monsters, it roaring and trying to claw at its back to get her off. Annie managed to wrap her arms around the neck, her gun pointing at the face of the monsters. She pulled the trigger furiously, the blood soaking through the sleeves of her trench coat and staining her pale skin. The monster then finally started to collapse forward, its bloodied head sliding down the glass dome of the car, leaving a streak of black blood behind.

Ford and Rick double teamed on the last one that was toward the front of the car. Rick had then pressed a button inside his lab car.

"Protect Morty and company," the car seemed to say in a female robotic voice. Guns then appeared from compartments from the side and blasted at the monster, lasers shooting through easily and hitting the walls to enter the house. "Morty and company safe. Thank you for choosing Rick's car. Goodbye."

Sprinklers then finally went off, water falling to the flames and extinguishing them. Once the monsters had been killed the red demonic flames had then turned into normal fires. In a matter of a few minutes the flames were gone, the garage littered with dead monsters and wet ashes.

"Magum must've sent them…" Annie stated, her putting her gun back to her side. "Those are direct minions of his since he ate the Axolotl's heart."

"We need to get back to your g-g-g-guy's Gravity Falls," Rick ordered, him opening the glass dome to enter, seeing the rest of the Pines family with wide eyes. "If those things were here-"

"-then they might be at the portal destroying it!" Pacifica then finished for him, her green eyes widening in panic. "We have to protect it or we can't save Mason!"

Rick raised his unibrow in confusion. "I t-t-thought the kid was 'Dipper'?" he asked confusedly.

"Mason is real name," Stan quickly explained. "Now drive this damn thing back home so we can fix the stupid portal!"

"What the hell do y-y-y-you know about portals, Fez-Head?" Rick snapped.

Stan just gave him a flat look. "Really? I'm not explaining it. Screw you." The conman deadpanned.

Rick rolled his eyes. "Whatever." He muttered as he picked up his sack that he had and threw it in the car before getting into the driver seat. "Yo, Sci-Fi and Miss Gloom and Doom, get in the d-d-d-damn car so we can go!"

Ford and Annie jumped into the car, the dome closing over them. Rick then took out his portal gun and shot it toward the wall, a large green circle appearing.

"What about your family?" Ford then asked, him suddenly remembering them running down the hallway.

Rick began driving his car to the portal. "They'll be a lot safer down in that bunker…" he assured. "There is enough supplies to last them three wars. They'll be fine."

The car then went through the portal as Rick then cheered, "And that's the waaaaay the news goes!"

"What!?" was all Stan shouted as the car left Rick and Morty's dimension.


A/N: Alright guys, hopefully this makes up for being gone for so long!

I tried to write this a little bit like a "Rick and Morty" episode, especially the way that Rick would interact with the family and some humor. I don't think I really hit the nail on the head though, but it has some elements to it.

Thank you all for reading as always! All the support is really appreciated!

~Skye Hendersen~