A/N: Oooh-wheee, another chapter?! I'm still working on this fanfiction you guys, don't give up on it! Writing takes up a lot of time, which is something I'm short of a lot. If you like this chapter, please leave a comment/review! Next chapter should be up soon-ish, as I already have more than half of it written! Enjoy!

Chapter 12

Summer and Morty landed on the other side, tripping over the large amount of inventions that they had successfully pilfered from the Federation storage facility.

"You did it."

Morty looked up as he got to his feet. Adalric was standing above him and Summer, a huge grin on his face. "You actually did it."

"Y-yeah, we did, didn't we Summer?!" Morty said, turning to his sister, a shocked expression on his face. Summer looked back at him, a proud glint in her eye.

"Yeah, we did." She let out a short laugh, relieving the tension she had been holding in her body. "Yeah, we did! Morty, we, like, just broke into a Federation building and stole Grandpa Rick's stuff back! Oh, man, if they catch us, we'll be in so much trouble with them, but it feels totally worth it!" She gently put a hand on Morty's shoulder. "We're one step closer to rescuing him."

Morty smiled. Summer dropped her hand as he turned to Adalric. "Would you mind if we, um, if we put this stuff in your workplace?" Morty said, waving his hands over the pile of inventions.

"Yes, of course," Adalric said, picking up a few devices in his arms.

With Adalric's help, they managed to transfer all of the inventions to his well-lit workplace, carefully placing everything that they could on the workbench or floor.

"What do we do now?" Morty said as he set the blue Meeseeks box on the workbench. He was still in a slight state of disbelief over how quickly and easily Summer and he had retrieved Rick's items; he had been expecting some type of fight, some type of situation to arise that would have thrown off their plan. He was thankful for the relative ease of the trip, and he was still flying high on the adrenaline that pumped through his system after the success. He wanted to keep going, to continue this sense of productivity.

"I'd suggest that you reconvene with the council," Adalric said. "Maybe search through your grandfather's things, see if anything will be of use, come up with a plan, and talk to the council, see if they'll help you more. With the success that you just had, though, I think they'll be willing to give you more assistance. You two seem to be very lucky."

Summer nodded her head in agreement, a finger tapping her lips while she thought. "That sounds good, Adalric. Morty," She said, turning her attention to her brother. "What do we got here? You're more familiar with Rick's inventions than I am."

Morty turned to the conglomeration of inventions and tools, his eyes sweeping over each and every one. As he made mental notes of the inventory, memories of his adventures with Rick began to flood over him, beginning to overwhelm him.

He took a deep breath, forcing the memories down, forcing them away from his mind's forefront.

His eyes landed back on the Meeseeks box. Yeah, he thought to himself. That could work. Morty looked back at Summer. "The Meeseeks box. That's w-what'll be the most useful to us, I think."

Summer hit her forehead with the palm of her hand. "Duh! Why didn't I think of that?" Summer smiled and picked up the firm box, remembering fondly how she had used the Meeseeks box herself to become more popular at school. "They definitely know how to get a job done. We can ask them to, I dunno…" She thought for a moment. What could they use the Meeseeks box for? "Maybe we could have them break in and get Rick out? Just, like, let the Meeseeks do the actual grunt work?"

Morty nodded. "Yeah, that could work. W-we could tell them to figure out a way to break into the federation prison and get Rick out of there alive, if…if he still is," Morty hesitantly added.

"We should probably go to the council," Summer said as she flicked dust off of the Meeseeks box.

As the siblings made their way across the city to the council chambers (Adalric had elected to stay in his workshop), Summer thought about the exact logistics of not only how they would break Rick out, but how they would find him and deal with him after. They didn't even have the coordinates as to where the top-secret Federation prison was. The familiar feeling of despair was creeping in at the sides of her mind. What were they going to do? They couldn't tell the Meeseeks to just go and find the prison—the galaxy was far too big, and they didn't have that kind of time. What she really wanted was to return home, to go back to Earth; but, she knew that that would be practically impossible with the Federation consistently looming over her home planet.

She thought about her parents. Summer considered taking the portal gun and having her parents return with her back to Meria and live on the rebel base with her, Rick, and her brother, but she couldn't figure out how her parents may handle the situation. Would they want to return with her and her brother? Once they knew that they had been alive this whole time, would they want Summer and Morty to live back on Earth with them?

Summer knew the answer. She knew that she and Morty couldn't go back to Earth, as long as the Federation was residing there. She looked around at the tall, Earth-like buildings, and took in the purpling evening sky with its two moons. It had been a few months of them living here, and she was already used to it and its atmosphere. It felt familiar, now.

And yet, a part of her panged for home.

She was broken out of her trance as she and Morty walked up the steps to the council chambers. They needed to discuss what measures to take next with the councilmembers.

Morty knocked three times on the huge metal door before they entered the chamber. They were greeted with courteous nods by the seven councilmen (Councilaliens? Morty thought to himself). The siblings made their way to the center of the room, their shoes click clacking together against the wooden floor.

"Well?" Said one of the members.

Summer cleared her throat. "We were successful in retrieving Rick's inventions," she said in a stately voice. Morty felt a small bubble of pride well up in his chest; his sister was one of the most mature teenagers he knew. "Now, we need your help to come up with an actual plan to retrieve him."

Another councilmember leaned back in his chair, two of his four hands behind his head. "And how do you plan to do that? You don't even know where the Federation prison is!"

A look of annoyance passed over Summer's face. "That's why we came to you. Again."

A thought suddenly struck Morty. He turned to his sister, his voice lowered. "W-wait, Summer…do you still have your phone?"

Summer glanced at the murmuring councilmembers before nodding, patting her phone's bulge in her pocket. "Yeah. I had Adalric make me a charger for it," she explained at Morty's surprised look.

"Do you still have the picture of Rick's mugshot? Y'know, when we had first found out he was in prison?"

A look of realization came over Summer's face. "Oh, my God- yes! Morty, yes!" She whipped out her phone and began scrolling through her pictures. She tapped on the photo of Rick's mugshot on the billboard, his familiar, haggard face appearing on her phone screen. He held up a board which had the numbers "00-8923-137" printed on its front.

"Wait, councilmembers! These numbers are the numbers that Rick was holding up in his mugshot—00-8923-137. Do they mean anything to you?" Summer asked, urgency weaved in her voice.

The councilmembers murmured amongst themselves quickly before one stood up, looking at Summer and Morty. "Good Gathanoop, yes! The number after 00—number 892—indicates the system that the prison is in, and the number three represents the planet within the system. For example, the planet we are currently on, Meria, is located within System 893, and is planet number seven. Of course, the Federation is unaware of Meria's existence because of our advanced cloaking mechanism, but that's beside the point.

"Rick Sanchez is located within System 892, on Planet 3. That's the system right beside us."

Morty's heart swelled. They knew where Rick was! He pursed his lips, trying not to smile too wide.

Summer grinned. "Sweet! So, now, like, we have to be able to break him out. Morty and I were thinking that we could use a Meeseeks box—"

"Where in the galaxy do you think you will find a Meeseeks box? Those are so rare and so expensive that it's pointless to even consider—"

Summer interrupted the councilmember. "Rick has one, and we currently have it with us."

The councilmembers gaped. "That man will never cease to amaze me," said one.

"Anyways," Summer continued, "we were thinking that we could use the Meeseeks box to tell them to break into the Federation and break Rick out."

The councilmembers nodded, and murmured amongst themselves once again. They reminded Morty of a flock of pestering birds.

"Yes, that sounds reasonable. We are also willing to send our ship fighter pilots out to the prison in case of some type of space combat," said one of the councilmembers.

"What if we used some of the Meeseeks to fly some of the ships? Tell them to fight any Glomflomite ship officers that come out of the prison?" said Morty.

One of the councilmembers shook his head, his tentacles wooshing around his forehead. "No, our pilots should be enough. I highly doubt that there will be any sort of battle if Sanchez is retrieved quickly and quietly, but we shall send six of our pilots to wait if anything goes wrong."

"I want to go."

Everyone's eyes landed on Morty.

Eyebrows furrowed in concern, Summer looked at him the hardest. "Morty—"

"I'm serious Summer," he said, cutting her off. "I want to be there, I-I want to be in one of the ships."

A few beats passed before a councilmember spoke. "It's much too dangerous, Morty Smith. If any type of battle ensues, even though our pilots are highly trained, there is still a chance that you could possibly be killed or—"

"Are you kidding me?" Morty barked out a laugh. "I've flown with Rick so many times in so many dogfights that I'm not even scared." He looked at Summer. "I flew with Summer, too, and we didn't die. She's an amazing pilot."

Summer looked at him with an exasperated look. "We crash-landed, Morty!"

"But we lived because of how you dealt with it!" Morty shot back. He turned back to the council. "I-I think I should be there when we get Rick back. I'm his grandson."

The councilmembers looked at each other before murmuring amongst themselves.

One of the councilmembers stood up again. "Alright. We will permit you to sit in one of the ships. However, you won't be with any of our pilots. Instead, your sister will pilot, and you two will be located on the outer atmosphere of the planet—the farthest away from any potential battle."

Morty nodded in agreement. "Alright, that sounds fair. Summer, what'd you think?"

Summer pursed her lips, clearly unsure, but she seemed to have come to a conclusion. "Okay I'll fly," she agreed.

"Fantastic. The pilots will be leaving at 7:00 AM sharp. Meet them in the main center of the city, where all the hangars are, and they'll direct you to your ship. Have your Meeseeks ready," the councilmember added.

"Thank you," Summer and Morty said together before turning on their heel and leaving the chamber.

As soon as they stepped onto the concrete steps outside of the building, the siblings screamed and wrapped their arms around each other, practically floating with elation.

"We're going to get our grandpa back!" Summer shouted into the night sky, squeezing her brother tight.

They finished their excited hugging and made their way back to their room where they had been staying for the past months, talking quickly of the next day and how eager they were to see their grandfather again. The siblings exchanged memories of Rick, laughing over the memory parasites. The night seemed to be a little bit more pleasant, a little bit warmer, as if summer was in the air.

"Even though he's a total asshole, I do miss him a lot," Summer said.

"Me too. We'll get him back tomorrow!" Morty exclaimed, as they entered their room.

Morty could barely sleep for how excited and nervous he was for the next day. Would they find Rick? Would he even be alive? What would Rick say when they finally saw each other again, after a year of no communication whatsoever, of unsureness of each other's wellbeing?

Morty tried to let the thoughts go, and quickly found himself sinking into a deep, dreamless sleep.

!

"Wake up! It's 6:50, we gotta go if we wanna go rescue Grandpa Rick!"

Morty blearily opened his eyes, seeing Summer and her ginger hair hovering above him, hurriedly shaking him awake.

"I'm up, I'm up!" He sat up quickly and pulled on his clothes as fast as he could while Summer impatiently tapped her foot, her arms folded.

The siblings half-ran to the center of the city, where the ships were located, and where the pilots were meeting. They entered the large square, seeing about twelve pilots dressed in blue flying uniforms running about.

"Ah, Summer, Morty, there you are!"

Morty and Summer turned around only to see Squanchy.

"Squanchy! Are you flying?!" Morty asked the cat-like creature.

He laughed. "No squanchin' way! I'm only here to get you on your ship! Follow me." He turned on his heel and made his way to one of the hangars, the Smith siblings following closely behind him.

"Well, here's your ride," Squanchy said, grinning as he motioned towards the spaceship.

Morty gaped. "You're kidding."

Summer grinned. "Grandpa's going to kill me when he sees that I'm flying his ship."

A/N: Next chapter should be up soon! Thanks for reading. If you liked it, leave a comment/review! Stay schwifty!