Chapter 13
A/N: Wow, look, another chapter! We're close to the end, folks. I'm predicting maybe three more chapters. I'm so sorry it took me a while to push out this chapter; I had half of it written, but the other half I struggled with. Also, y'know, work and school and time. So, I hope you enjoy! Leave a comment/review if you liked it.
Rick knew he had been lucky when he had grabbed those nuts from the chair. His intuition had told him that the chair was made from rhudion, a type of rare metal found in deep space whose properties made it so magnetic that it could reverse the magnetic poles of planets, if used in excessive quantity. Why the Federation was using rhudion for prison furniture, he had no idea, but, quite frankly, he didn't care. What he did care about, however, was the fact that his constraints clicked together only by magnetic force.
Rick hung on his prison wall, his shoulder now reduced to a dull throbbing, the two rhudion nuts still in his palm.
Rick eyed the two Gromflomite guards carrying large plasma weapons as they sauntered past him. He could tell from their body language that they were tired, bored, and waiting for their shift change.
Alright fuckers, Rick thought as he tensely circled the nuts in his palm. I'm gettin' this show on the road.
As soon as the Gromflomites had turned the corner, Rick carefully but swiftly palmed one of the nuts up towards his wrist cuffs, massaging it with his fingers to move it upwards. As soon as he was able to, he pushed the nut against the constraint, pursing his lips in concentration.
What felt like a lifetime passed by, but in reality was a mere few moments, before Rick felt the wrist constraint begin to jiggle.
Pop!
Excitement immediately rushed its way through Rick as he lifted his hand to his face in his moment of triumph. However, he didn't waste time reveling in his own genius—using the nuts and his free hand, he swiftly released his neck, other wrist, and feet constraints.
Rick fell to the hard ground, and in a rare moment of terror, he couldn't find his legs beneath him. It had been months-a year, maybe? - since he had properly used any of his muscles. Rick could feel his old body failing him, and he cursed at it as he shakily got to his feet.
"Sanchez?"
Rick looked up, his eyes narrowed in frustration. "What?!" He hissed at the slug-like prisoner who had been held next to him this entire time.
"Where you goin'? You breakin' out, makin' a run fo' it?"
"No shit, Sherlock. And keep your voice down! I'm getting the fuck outta here," Rick said, exasperated. He spun around, looking for a sign that would direct him towards the ship hangars.
The prisoner looked away, silent for a moment. "Good luck, Sanchez. I'll miss your mutterin'." He added, as if an afterthought. "You never took no shit from them Feds, and I respect you fo' it."
Rick's eyes flickered towards the constraints holding the prisoner, rubbing the nuts in his palm. A sting of guilt suddenly manifested in his chest, as if a bee had stung him. "Do you want out? Yes or no- you have three seconds before I'm leaving," he growled, mentally cursing himself for wasting time when he could have already been running.
The prisoner let out a small but mighty deep laugh. "Nah, I'm good 'ere. Don' wanna get caught up in whateva' crimes you get yourself into."
Rick rolled his eyes but grinned. "Alright. If the Feds ask which way I went, send them in the opposite direction for me, would'ya?"
"Will do. Good luck," the prisoner repeated.
With nothing left to say, Rick took off running down one of the middle hallways, following the signs that pointed in the direction of the hangar. In a perfect world (or in a different dimension, where he's luckier), he would be able to make it to the hangar without running into a single guard. Unfortunately, Rick knew he did not live in that world nor dimension.
However, he knew he was luckier than another version of himself. Instead of running into ten, fifteen, or even twenty guards, as he had anticipated, Rick saw only two. He darted to the side, out of their sightline. Rick realized that the two Gromflomites were the same ones from earlier.
One halted. "Hey, you hear that?" He said suspiciously, tapping his buddy with the gun.
They looked down the hallway, eyes searching. Rick covered his mouth, trying to quiet his heavy breathing. Fucking hell, I'm old and out of shape…
"Nah, man, you're seein' things. C'mon," the other said dismissively. "Let's finish up our rounds. My wife is makin' wishashop tonight, wanna come over and have dinner with my family? I know things have been hard for you since your girlfriend cheated on you and dumped you for that other dude." The two Gromflomites began walking down the hallway, unknowingly towards Rick.
Fucking hell. Frustration overcame him. He knew he was going to have to ambush the guards and make a run for it.
"Oh yeah, man, thanks for the offer! I really appreciate it. Yeah, things have been-HEY!"
WHAM!
Rick struck the guard hard in the face with his fist, knocking him out. Rick took advantage of the moment of surprise of both officers, quickly yanking the gun out of the guard's hands as he fell.
The other guard shook himself out of his shock and raised his gun. "DROP THE WEAPON!"
Rick cocked the gun, aiming at the guard. "No can-do, buddy."
BAM! The guard fell over besides his companion, black blood pouring out of the abdominal gunshot that Rick had inflicted upon him.
Holding the gun close to his chest, Rick took off running, his whole body pounding from the rush of adrenaline.
Quite suddenly without warning, pain erupted from Rick's abdomen as if a hot fire had been held up to his skin, forcing him to fall to the ground in anguish. "FUCK!" He yelled. He knew he had been shot by the goddamn guard. Rick lifted up his head and saw the guard lying on the floor, holding up his discarded weapon, having just clearly fired. A triumphant look, though laced with pain, emerged on the guard's insectoid face.
Through the flaming pain, Rick picked up his own gun that had fallen with him from his hand and fired at the guard, hitting him square in the head. His head flopped back down onto the ground.
He knew he only had seconds to get out. Rick clumsily got to his feet again, blood gushing from his wound. He put his hand to the injury in an attempt to stem the bleeding, grunting in pain as he did so.
Rick took off running again towards the hangars. He raced through the hallways, somehow never coming in contact with any other guards.
Finally, he came upon the entrance to the hangar. Inputting a generic, simple number combination into the code reader, the door clicked and he pushed his way through, wincing as another wave of pain hit him.
He looked around in the giant hangar, Federation ships hanging in their respective spots, waiting to transport prisoners or travel to other planets to conquer them. Right across from him was the huge exit that the ships left through, with only a thin barrier, used to keep an atmosphere contained, separating the freedom of space from the confinement of prison.
However, there were about fifteen guards inside the hangar too, meandering about. They all turned to look at him in surprise, taking in the bleeding, haggard, old human dressed in a dirty and bloody orange jumpsuit.
A beat of silence passed before Rick moved, racing towards the closest Federation ship. With his weapon raised, Rick shot at the Gromflomites, who were shooting back at him as he ran.
He threw open the door of the ship, flinging himself inside and slamming the laser-proof door shut. Breathing hard and mind racing, Rick quickly searched for the manual controls of the ship and fired it up.
He jerked forward, not quite used to the controls, and flicked on the switches for the boosters. Raising a middle finger to the Gromflomites on the ground who were still shooting at him, Rick shouted out, yelling "bye, fuckers! See you—wait, what?!"
As he looked at the scene below him, he realized that the Gromflomites had stopped shooting at him, and had started shooting at blue, humanoid aliens that were pouncing and attacking them.
Are those…Meeseeks?
Rick was dumbfounded. How the hell did Meeseeks get here, of all places?
BAM!
Rick jumped, startled, as one of the Meeseeks suddenly threw itself on his windshield. "Hi, I'm Mr. Meeseeks, look at me!" It shouted. The Meeseeks looked Rick up and down. "Ooohh, you're Rick Sanchez! Looks like you're already free! Look at me!"
And with that, the Meeseeks poofed away as if it had never been there at all.
"What the fuck," Rick said, bewildered for the first time in a long time. He shook it off, just grateful for the distraction the Meeseeks were providing. Hitting the thrusters, Rick sped out of the exit, through the barrier, finally free.
!
Morty and Summer had followed the rest of the rebel fighter pilots to the location of the prison, its large, looming figure eclipsed by a sun as they approached.
Summer expertly maneuvered Rick's ship, silently following the rebel fighters. She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel, nervous. They had already sent the Meeseeks into the prison, and she desperately hoped that they were able to do their jobs.
"I can't believe Rick's in there," Morty murmured quietly.
"Me too," Summer replied. "This is going to sound bad, but- I hope he's still alive. Because if he's dead—"
Morty folded his arms. "Then this will have been for nothing, yeah, Summer, I know. But I-I'm confident Rick's still alive. I mean, he's Rick."
Summer nodded, and drummed her fingers on the steering wheel.
"Z-12 to Smiths, over," crackled the intercom.
Morty pressed the intercom button. "Smiths to Z-12, over. Where do you want us to, to stay? So we're out of the way? Uh, over."
"Stay above, so you can watch the action, if there is any action, but you won't be in the action, over."
Summer pulled the steering wheel towards her, sending Rick's ship upwards above the rest of the small rebel fleet. Hovering way above, Morty and Summer looked down at the rebel ships and Federation prison, waiting.
Suddenly, from the east hangar, about fifteen Federation ships zoomed out to face the rebel fleet. They had clearly been aware of the rebel fleet's presence, and, quite abruptly, a battle erupted. Morty's stomach dropped, nervous. What if all these people died for nothing? What if Rick was dead, and they died for no reason?
After about ten minutes of watching the battle, something caught Morty's eye. He turned his head towards the other hangar- the west hangar. A Federation ship had just zoomed out of it and was now below them.
"Shit, Summer-" Morty pointed to the Federation ship. "That one's a little too close for comfort. What if it sees us?"
Summer pursed her lips before looking at her brother. "Do you want to take it out?"
His hand hovered in response over the red button which would release the ship's plasma rays, his eyes focused on the threatening ship below.
"Alright, Morty, when you're ready….aim, and— WAIT!"
Morty recoiled back, his finger just about to press down on the trigger. He looked up at his sister, confusion clouding his eyes. Why did she stop him from firing?
"Summer! Why—"
"Morty-Morty, oh my God-" Summer let out a disbelieving laugh. "It's Grandpa Rick!"
"What?!" Morty's heart clenched so tightly in his chest that he thought it may burst.
"In the ship! Grandpa Rick is in the Federation ship, he's piloting it! He's escaped!" Summer pointed excitedly at the Gromflomite ship, a huge grin on her face. "This is going to make it way easier to rescue him!"
Morty looked at the ship's front. Sure enough, in the big front windshield, there was his grandfather and best friend. Morty could make out the wild bluish-gray hair of Rick. He grinned, his heart bursting with happiness.
"Quick, w-w-we gotta let the others know, we have to tell everyone else to not shoot that ship!" Morty fumbled around for the intercom before pressing the button. "Uh, everyone, this is the Smith pilots, we are telling you to not shoot ship number…" Morty squinted at the Rick's ship's side, "77. I repeat, do not shoot ship 77! Over." Morty turned to his sister. "Summer, we gotta get him out. We need to tell him to follow us back to base!"
Summer nodded frantically, looking over the control panels. The way her grandfather had designed them were mixed up and complicated, but she needed to find the switch that would move the transmission frequency from the rebel's frequency to the frequency that Rick's ship was on—like changing a radio station, she thought in the back of her mind. "Ugh, if only there were a way to- wait, here it is!"
!
Inside ship 77, Rick frantically searched for the radio transmission button, knowing he needed to quickly reroute it to be able to get on the intercom with the Freedom Fighters. He had been surprised by their arrival, but was thankful. However, the possibility of them mistakenly shooting him down worried him, and he was not about to open fire on his old comrades.
"This piece of shit…Aha, here it is!" Rick fumbled with the wiring on the radio intercom, but was startled to hear a familiar feminine voice on the other line before he even had the chance to do or say anything.
"Rick? Grandpa Rick? Are you there?!"
Rick stared in shock at the intercom.
No fucking way.
He hesitantly pressed the green button. "Summer?"
"YES! Grandpa, oh thank God—Morty, stop it, here, I'll let you talk to him but be fast—"
Rick squinted at the ship looming above-holy hell, is that my ship?!
Rick let out a bark of laughter. Sure enough, his grandkids were sitting in his ship made of trash, sitting in the pilot seats, the two of them visible in the ship's windshield. "Holy shit! Summer, Morty, how the hell-"
"RICK!" Morty's high-pitched scream crackled over the radio, oozing with desperate happiness. "Oh man, am I happy to see you're alive!"
"Same to you, buddy, but t-this isn't time for small-talk! What the hell is your plan? I got Gromflomite shitheads that will be on my tail soon if I don't get the fuck outta here." Rick winced as another wave of pain erupted from his abdomen, where he felt warm blood still oozing out between his fingers as he clamped it hard with his hand. "Fuck," he muttered in a low voice.
"Follow us back to the rebel base—it's on Meria-"
"Sounds good." Rick looked back at the Federation jail, Gromflomite ships leaving it like bees taking flight from a beehive. "I'll follow you, but we have to fucking get out of here now."
"On it!"
Rick watched carefully as his old ship his grandchildren were in turned around and quickly sped away from the action. Rick followed suit in the Federation ship, jumping to lightspeed behind Morty and Summer.
He was finally, truly, free.
A/N: Woohoo, freedom! Okay, the next chapters should be coming soon-ish. I have them sketched out. I hope you enjoyed! Leave a comment/review if you liked it! Stay schwifty!