"Lori Loud, putting on the eighteenth hole. If she sinks this, Royal Woods will beat Hazeltucky for the fourth year in a row." A golf announcer commentated as Lori lined up her shot.
Once she figured out how much to put into the putt, she finally took her shot. The ball rolled towards the hole, before it started slowing down. It looked like it had come to a complete stop at the edge of the hole. However, fortunately, it dropped in, causing Lori's golf team to cheer for her. Lori pumped her fist in celebration. "Yes!"
Lori's coach, a brunette haired woman wearing sunglasses, a white shirt and a lavender skirt, approached her as she clapped for her. "Nice game, Loud, I don't know what I'm gonna do next year after you graduate, you have been the heart and soul of this team for four years."
"Aw, thanks, Coach Hutch." Lori said, bashfully.
"Speaking of next year, you still got your eyes on Fairway University?"
"Yes, it's literally my dream." Lori's shoulders slumped. "I'm just not sure if I have the grades to get in."
"Well, I think you have the golf skills to get in." Coach Hutch tossed a golf ball in the air before catching it. "As a matter of fact, I've invited Coach Niblick from Fairway to come watch your next game."
Lori then made an odd honking noise like a goose in response.
Coach Hutch chuckled. ""I'll take that as a thumbs-up."
...
The next day, Lori was currently in the living room, showing her parents an intro video for Fairway University while Lincoln was sat nearby, reading a comic. The first thing they saw was a plaque for Fairway University before it faded into a view of the university buildings themselves. "Fairway University boasts a tradition of academic excellence," a female narrator said before the video transitioned to very old footage of George Washington (or at least someone dressed as him) putting a golf ball into a hole before pumping his fist. "And a golf program as old as our great nation." The video then cut to a scene of a student driving a golf cart to her outdoor lecture before taking a seat. "At Fairway, we live and breathe golf, twenty-four seven."
"And the cubed root of sixty-four is?" The professor for the lecture asked.
"Four!" One of the students yelled, causing the rest of the students to gasp and duck.
Lori paused the video, letting out a dreamy sigh. "Doesn't it look amazing?"
"Sure does!" Lynn Sr. said before getting up. "This calls for a celebration! I'll make a cake, no, wait, 'Par'-faits." He chuckled to himself, ruffling Lincoln's hair. "Get it?"
Lori rolled her eyes. "Good one, Dad, but let's not get ahead of ourselves. The coach is coming to watch my next game. If he offers me a spot, then we can celebrate."
Lori then clasped her hands as she began fantasising about her future. "Can you imagine? My life is literally going to be perfect! First, I'll graduate from Fairway. Then, Bobby and I will get married. And he'll take care of our kids. All eleven of them. While I travel the world on the professional golf tour."
"Uh, Lori?"
Lori snapped out of her fantasy, now noticing that her parents had left the room at some point while Rick and Lynn had entered. She sighed, still somewhat upset with Rick. "What is it, Rick?"
"Look, I didn't exactly know when would be a good time to bring this up so I decided it might as well be now. I thought you might want to know how exactly Lynn did what she did." Rick explained as Lynn awkwardly rubbed her arm. "Oh and uh, you might as well hear this too, Lincoln." Lincoln put down his comic to listen in on the conversation.
Truthfully, Lori hadn't even thought of how Lynn could have pulled all of that off. She had mostly focused on figuring out why she did it. Plus everything else that had been happening recently. "Ok, so how did she do it?"
"It was Tammy." Lori's eyes went wide. "At some point, she got in contact with Lynn and persuaded her to give her the portal gun she stole. In return, Tammy gave her her number so that she could call in a favour. Which Lynn did after finding out about infinity balls. She must have used my portal gun to get more of them from alternate universes." Rick explained.
When Tammy first betrayed her family, Lori couldn't help but feel hurt and distraught by it. She wanted to know why she did it more than anything else. Now that Tammy's hurt her and her family again, the only thing she could feel this time was rage. "Why would you even think about working with Tammy after what she did to us?!" Lori snapped at Lynn.
Lynn flinched. "I-I'm sorry! It's just that everything she told me...about what Grandpa Rick's done and how much Gromflom Prime is suffering...I hated Rick so much back then that I just wanted to believe her."
"How could you believe anything that she had to say?!"
"To be fair, she probably wasn't lying about the state of Gromflom Prime." Rick added.
"What?" Both Lori and Lynn exclaimed.
"I mean, I made their currency worthless and caused their government to collapse. Of course Gromflom Prime was gonna suffer from that. It's just what's that against liberating every planet under the Federation's control, including our own?"
Lynn sighed. "Got me there." She turned to Lori. "Look, I'm really sorry. I should have known how stupid it was to-"
Lori raised a hand to stop her. "Don't. It's...fine. Tammy's the one to blame for all of this."
"Damn right." Rick added. "Don't worry. I'll do everything I can to track that bitch down. Shouldn't be too hard since she shouldn't have a portal gun anymore."
"Right..." Lori said as she stared off into space with a troubled expression.
"So, uh...I'll just leave you to whatever it was that you were doing before." Rick said awkwardly before leaving the room. Lynn followed after him.
Lincoln noticed Lori pinching the bridge of her nose. "Are you okay, Lori?"
"This is really the last thing I need on my mind right now. I literally have practice today." Lori admitted.
"You know if it'd help, I could be your caddie for the big tournament." Lincoln offered.
Lori gave him a concerned look. "Are you sure? It seemed like you've been pretty down recently and I was wondering if it was because of...stuff like this?"
Lincoln gave her a reassuring smile. "It's fine, really. I'll admit, I've had a lot on my mind recently but the stuff that happened with Lynn kinda helped me figure myself out. It made me realise why I want to help people so much. I just like seeing you guys happy."
Lori studied his expression to try and find any cracks that may hint at he was really thinking. She couldn't exactly tell if everything was okay with Lincoln but the smile on his face seemed pretty genuine. She shrugged. "Well if things are okay with you then sure, why not?" She looked over at her laptop. "Just be careful with the clubs, they used to be Pop-Pop's."
Lori then heard a crashing sound. She looked over to see that Lincoln had picked up her golf bag upside down, causing all of the clubs to fall onto the floor. Lincoln laughed awkwardly. "Oops."
...
Tammy couldn't help but feel somewhat nervous. Why wouldn't she be? After all, she was basically in enemy territory. She never imagined that there was an entire citadel filled with alternate versions of Rick Sanchez and his family. She was currently in some kind of waiting room, now wearing her old outfit that she wore while on Earth as she waited for her meeting with President Lincoln. She wondered why exactly he wanted to meet her face to face. Especially since they could just talk via video call, which would have been much less risky than this. Though, all things considered, she wasn't exactly in a position to refuse President Lincoln.
The Lincolns working here didn't seem to be paying her much mind, much to her relief. However, things turned sour when a Rick wearing a suit noticed her as he passed by. "Hey, who the hell let a Tammy in here? Are we just letting Federation agents in here now?"
Tammy froze in fear. As she weighed up her options on what would most likely get her out of here alive, she sighed in relief as two Guard Lincoln's stepped in between her and the Rick. "This Tammy isn't affiliated with any Galactic Federation." The first Guard Lincoln stated.
"She was also personally requested by the President himself for a meeting." The second Guard Lincoln added.
The Rick gave the two guards a surprised look. "Wait, seriously?"
"There's infinite universes, Rick CL-0, surely you realise that there are Tammys out there that don't work for the Galactic Federation, right?" The first Guard Lincoln snarked.
Rick CL-0 glared at the two Lincolns before stomping off, grumbling angrily to himself. "Smug assholes..."
The second Guard Lincoln then turned to Tammy. "President Lincoln will see you now."
...
Tammy followed the two Guard Lincolns down a long corridor before stopping before a large door. One of the Guard Lincolns pressed a buzzer next to the door. After a moment, President Lincoln opened it. The last time she saw him, he was wearing a black, long sleeve shirt with an orange tie. Now, he was simply wearing an orange polo shirt and blue jeans, just like most other Lincolns. Looking into his room, lit only by a fire place, it looked to be a strange mix of high class furniture and what you'd expect from a little boy's bedroom with shelves full of comics and videogames.
"Welcome." President Lincoln greeted."
...
Lori arrived at the golf course with the rest of her team. Lincoln was trailing behind as he was struggling with dragging the heavy golf bag with him. "Ok! Let's get this practice underway." Coach Hutch announced. "Lori, you're up."
Lincoln then finally caught up with Lori. She looked at him, noticing how exhausted he looked. "Are you doing okay?"
Lincoln gave her a smile and a thumbs up. "Peachy!"
"Are you sure? You don't have to force yourself to do this if you're struggling. I can take care of the rest by myself."
"It's no problem, really." Lincoln insisted.
Lori sighed. "Well, if you say so. Could you hand me my driver, please?" Lincoln looked into the golf bag before handing her one of the clubs. "That's a putter."
Lincoln looked into the bag again. Lori rolled her eyes before picking up a club that had a moose head cover over it, taking it off. "To be fair, you didn't tell me it was hiding." Lincoln excused. Lori gave him an unimpressed look. He sighed, scratching the back of his head. "Ok, maybe I am pushing myself."
Lori placed a hand on his shoulder. "Lincoln, it's sweet that you genuinely want to help but there's really not much point if you don't know what you're doing."
Lincoln chuckled to himself. Admittedly, he still felt a little insecure about screwing things up but he wasn't going to let that get to him. He realised that he should help in ways he actually knew how to. "Some habits really do die hard I guess. You mind if I just watch and cheer you on then?"
Lori smiled, glad that this didn't put him down. "That's totally fine."
Lori then went over to take her shot. She placed the golf ball on the tee. She wiggled her hip before taking her shot. The ball flew up straight into the sir before landing merely a few feet away from her, causing her team to gasp.
Coach Hutch gave Lori a reassuring smile as she got out another golf ball and passed it to her. "Take a Mulligan, try again, we'll call that a warm up shot."
After placing the ball on the tee, Lori took her shot again. This time, the ball bounced off a tree. "Ah!" Lincoln yelled as he and Coach Hutch ducked from the ball flying past them. The rest of the team also ducked before they heard a man yell from getting hit by the ball.
"What is up with my game today?" Lori bemoaned as Coach Hutch approached her.
"Ah, don't worry about it, champ." Coach Hutch assured her. "Just keep a cool head."
As hard as Lori tried to keep cool, it did nothing to help her game as her next shot went into the lake. The one after that hit someone's golf cart and the one after that landed in a sand trap which took her multiple shots to get out off.
...
A miserable Lori let out a sigh upon returning home along with Lincoln. She immediately went into the kitchen and searched the cabinets, looking for something to eat the pain away. "Ugh, nice going, Lori." Lori chastised herself.
Nearby, Lola and Luna were sat at a table, watching Lori as she began searching through the fridge. "Uh, everything okay, Lori?" Lola asked.
"No, it's literally terrible!" She slammed the fridge door shut. "My whole future is riding on this huge tournament tomorrow and my game is falling apart!" She fell to her knees, covering her sobbing face. "There's too much pressure!"
"I can help!" Luna and Lola said at the same time.
Lori sniffled as she stood back up. "Really?"
"Yeah. Back when I still did pageants, I had to deal with pressure all the time." Lola explained.
"And I'm used to dealing with them when I do gigs." Luna added.
Lori smiled. "Wow. That would be awesome, you guys."
"So let's hit the golf course right now." Luna said, eagerly.
Lori sighed. "We can't. It's closed."
"I've got an idea!" Lincoln exclaimed.
...
Lori and the rest of her siblings (apart from Lynn who still wanted to stay away from sports. Though she still offered some talcum powder before everyone left) arrived at Hole in One-derland. Lori was currently at a windmill themed course as she contemplated how to do this. "Remember dude, if you feel like you're shaking just repeat that mantra." Luna reminded her.
Lori nodded. "Right. Don't overthink it. Relax and sink it."
"And if you feel like your hearts going a mile a minute, remember to use 4-7-8 breathing." Lola added.
Lori breathed in for four seconds, held it for three before letting it out on the eighth second. "Got it."
"You've got this, Lori!" Lincoln cheered.
Lori got ready to take her shot. She used 4-7-8 breathing again before repeating her mantra to herself. "Don't overthink it. Relax and sink it. Don't overthink it. Relax and sink it."
"Well Lori?"
Lori glanced up, only for her mouth to hang agape as Tammy was now standing on the course. "Aren't you going to take your shot?"
Lori looked down at what she was holding. Instead of a putter, she was now holding a laser gun. "GAH!!"
"Lori?"
Lori shook her head, snapping back to reality. "Huh?"
"Dude, are you okay?" Luna asked. "You kinda zoned out for a moment there."
"I-I'm fine." Lori insisted not very convincingly. Why was she still letting Tammy get to her. She wasn't going to let her control her life. She was going to get into Fairway University and become a world famous golfer. After all, that's what she wanted for her life, right?
Right?
Right?!
"Don't overthink it, relax and sink it." Lori closed her eyes, tightening her fists. "Don't overthink it, relax and sink it!" She began shouting with a forced smile on her face. "Don't overthink it, relax and sink it!" She couldn't stop herself from shaking. "It's not doing anything!"
"Lori, breathe." Lincoln gently reminded her.
"Right. Right. 2-3-4 breathing." Lori then inhaled, quickly exhaled and inhaled again. "Ugh, it's not working. Wait, was it 7-8-9?" Lori then held her breath until her face went red. She started panting as she appeared to be getting light-headed.
The siblings all exchanged concerned glances. "Lori, is there something else that's making you panic?" Luna asked.
Lincoln instantly realised what that might be. He approached Lori. "You know, maybe this wasn't the best idea. Maybe it'd help if you just went home, rested and cleared your head before tomorrow?"
Lori dropped the putter before massaging her temples. "Y-You're probably right. Leni, do you mind driving?"
...
Although Lori knew that she should be resting now, a part of her felt like she wasn't going to get this out of her mind until she got this off of her chest. Which was she stormed into the garage. "You literally had to tell me about Tammy today of all days, didn't you?"
"Hello to you too." Rick snarked as he put down the device he was working on before turning to face Lori.
"Didn't you know that I've got an extremely important golf tournament tomorrow and that my chances of getting into Fairway depend on my performance in it?"
Rick a raised an eyebrow. "Fairway? Isn't that that weird University that focuses solely on golf?"
Lori scowled. "Yes. Why? Do you have some sort of issue with it."
Rick waved his hands defensively. "No, no. It's just kind of a surprise, you know. I wasn't expecting that you wanted to be a golfer. I would've guessed that you wanted to work in business or something like that."
"Oh, let me guess, you think that I'm wasting my life away by becoming a golfer. Is that right?"
Rick gave her a baffled look. "I...didn't say that?"
Lori groaned. "And now I can't concentrate because all I can think about is Tammy trying to ruin our lives!"
Rick took a moment to let Lori calm down before saying. "Lori, do you mind if I asked you something?"
"What?"
"What is it exactly you want to do right now at this exact moment?"
"Right now?" Lori repeated. Rick nodded in response. "Right now, I...I..." She didn't exactly know what she should answer so she just said what was on her mind. "I want to find Tammy and...punch her in her stupid face!!"
Rick took a moment to let Lori calm down before saying. "So, do it then."
"W-What?"
Rick sighed. "Look, you're a smart kid, Lori. And not that there's anything wrong with being a golfer or anything like that but I know you have the potential do so much more than that."
Lori stared at Rick. Was he seriously suggesting what she thought he was? She let out an amused scoff. "Grandpa Rick, that's ridiculous. Literally, out of all us, what makes you think I'm the type to...do something like that?"
"Like I said. You're a smart kid. Problem is, you've always had to be what people wanted you to be. Whether it be your siblings expecting you to be their big sister that they can depend on or your peers at high school expecting you to conform to their social norms."
Lori glanced away from Rick. Admittedly, he wasn't wrong. The pressures of high school definitely left a mark on her. She then gave Rick a pointed look. "You know, it kinda sounds like you're projecting. Considering you have to conform to what we want from you too."
Rick chuckled. "See what I mean. You're pretty good at seeing through people too. But be honest here, do you seriously hate going on adventures? Does the idea of going out there and doing you're own thing sound horrible to you?"
"I..." Lori frowned in thought. She remembered back when she first met Rick how put off she was by all the sci-fi stuff he brought with him (though she supposed it wasn't really sci-fi stuff since this was reality but that's how she felt at the time). While she definitely never liked the danger that Rick's adventures put her and her siblings in, as well as Rick's bad attitude, she had to admit it. Part of the reason she was so against them was because she had been conditioned to do so. She greatly valued her social standing at the time and part of maintaining that was staying away from what Rick brought with him.
In hindsight, perhaps it was silly to think this considering her friends still sometimes bring up Rick's party last year to this day. Admittedly, she had gotten used to Rick's adventures over time. Sometimes, she actually had fun on them, like when she went to Mr. Poopybutthole's planet. The idea of going out there didn't sound that bad to her. It's not like the idea's never been on her mind, considering she still kept that Lori college pamphlet for whatever reason. Plus, she had been wanting to understand how Rick thought. Maybe doing something like this would help see things from his perspective?
Wait, was she actually considering this?
"W-What makes you think something bad won't happen to me out there?" Lori asked.
Rick shrugged. "If Lynn can survive out in space for three months, I'm pretty confident you'd have no problem. Especially since you'd actually be fully prepared for this."
"And what about my life here on Earth? What about Fairway? What about Bobby?"
"I can make a clone of you, a perfect instance of you, with all your memories." Lori's eyes widened at Rick's suggestion. "An exact copy in every way. It'll be there for your siblings, go to Fairway and spend it's free time texting with Bobby just like you do. You could be gone a day, a week, or the rest of your life with zero consequences. The moment you decide to come back, I flip a switch, and the clone's job is done. It feels no pain, it regrets nothing, and has zero chance of going 'Blade Runner'."
Lori realised then that this was actually possible. She could really do this. But could she really? She could feel her heart racing again. And it wasn't because of nerves. It was from excitement. "I...I...I need to think about this." She exclaimed before walking off.
"Take all the time you need. The option's always open for you." Rick said as Lori left the garage.
...
"Come on!" Tammy grunted.
President Lincoln chuckled. "Nice try but I think you're done."
"Damn it!" Tammy cursed before putting down the controller. To her surprise, President Lincoln had offered her to play a game of Muscle Fish, something that she hadn't done in years. Not since she and Lori were younger.
"Not bad." President Lincoln complimented her. "You were better than I'd thought you'd be."
Tammy gave him a baffled look. "Thanks but...why exactly did you want to play this with me?"
President Lincoln shrugged. "Thought it might help break the ice. Plus, when you've only been playing with exclusively Lincolns, it gets kinda boring considering most of them play in the exact same way."
Tammy gave President Lincoln a critical look. "You know, you're not exactly the kind of person I'd expect to be in charge of a citadel full of Ricks."
"You're not exactly who I'd expect to run a galactic federation of gromflomites." President Lincoln retorted. "How did you end up affiliated with them anyway?"
Tammy looked away. "That's...private."
"Fair enough. I suppose we all have our secrets." Granted, President Lincoln could probably guess what Tammy's secrets are. "You know, you're pretty lucky that I noticed you had a portal gun before the Ricks did. They would've hunted you down and killed you if they found out first. Good thing I've been keeping an eye on your universe, huh?"
"And, why is that exactly?" Tammy asked before something came to her. "Wait, don't tell me. Are you actually my Rick's actual grandson?"
President Lincoln stared intently at Tammy for an uncomfortably long time before he suddenly burst out laughing. "That, heh...would be quite a twist but no, that's not why."
Tammy huffed but let it slide. She didn't want to get on President Lincoln's bad side, after all. "Ok, so I'm guessing the Ricks hunting me down thing is why you wouldn't let me get in contact with other Galactic Federations?"
"Yep." President Lincoln nodded. "That would bring too much attention. The Ricks here wouldn't be able to ignore different Federations teaming up. Luckily for you, the infinity balls are worthless to us. How did you manage to find them by the way?"
"It wasn't so hard. My Rick found one in the first place because of some kind of heist robot that he made because he had some kind of grudge against heist movies or something like that. We managed to find its remains in the ruins of a giant space station it built. All we had to do was extract its memory files and we were set."
President Lincoln nodded. "Impressive. Using the infinity balls against Rick was an interesting idea, however, you left too many breadcrumbs. You probably should have given that Lynn a better alibi for when she returned home."
Tammy folded her arms. "I see that now. Not only that, but I'm guessing he's found out me having that portal gun considering it self-destructed recently."
"I suppose that brings us to that help I wanted to offer you." President Lincoln then handed her a new portal gun. "This one, he won't be able to destroy."
"Thanks, but..." Tammy's brows furrowed in concern. "Not that I'm not grateful or anything but when you said you wanted to help, I was kind of expecting an army or something like that."
President Lincoln shook his head. "I can't offer anything would make the Ricks here suspicious. Whether it be the ones here or the one from your universe. All I ask in return for that portal gun is that instead of killing Rick, you have him sent here."
Tammy raised an eyebrow. "You know, you never told me why you've been watching my universe. What's so special about my Rick?"
President Lincoln smirked. "This may come as a bit of a surprise to you but we're all actually trapped."
"Trapped?"
"In something called a central finite curve. There's actually multiple of them. One was initially created to separate every universe where Rick's the smartest person in it from the rest of the multiverse. However, the citadel that helped create it were really only interested in one version of Rick's family. Ones where he had a grandson named Morty. So because there's universes when Ricks have completely different families, other citadels with their own central finite curves started getting made. As you should probably be able to tell, this one's focused on universes where he can have up to eleven grandchildren.
Tammy stared at President Lincoln in shock. She knew her Rick was a genius but she didn't know he was capable of this. "Oh my God...but why would my Rick do all of this?"
"All he really did was make the curve." President Lincoln clarified. "As for why? Funnily enough, I think he did it for the same reason as that initial Rick who created the first one. But those details are unimportant so I won't bother you with those."
"So the reason you want Rick here is...?"
"Why else?" President Lincoln scowled. "I want to tear down the central finite curve. I want to escape. I hate Ricks. I hate every version of my sisters and truth be told, I hate other Lincolns too. All of them are either easily forgiving morons or think whining and complaining will make everything better." After that rant, President Lincoln chuckled as he regained his composure. "Uh, don't tell the other Lincolns I said that. I still need them to buy into the narrative that I'm a 'saviour Lincoln, here to liberate them from the tyranny of Ricks and their sisters'."
Tammy nodded slowly, somewhat disturbed by all of this. "Right..." She didn't know why but she had a feeling there was more to this that President Lincoln wasn't telling her. "Ok, well...I'll be sure to have Rick sent over here then if I'm able to."
President Lincoln raised a hand. "Hold on. I may not be able to offer you an army or anything like that but I can offer you some valuable advice."
...
The next day at the Loud house, Rick was working in his garage when Lori came in. "Oh hey." Rick greeted her. "You thought about that offer from yesterday?"
Lori appeared to be in a better mood compared to the previous day. "I have. And while I'll admit that the idea of it was tempting, I've decided against it. I just don't like the idea of lying to my siblings like that. And I can't help but think that the stuff with the clone is just gonna end up getting messy."
Rick sighed. "Yeah, to be honest, I've been thinking about it myself and you're probably right. There's a lot of possibilities for something to go wrong when clones are involved. Also, this is just me personally but I'd rather have you around than a clone." Lori smiled at that. "But, hey, as long as your happy with your decision. Though if you ever change your mind or things don't work out at Fairway, you can always come to me. Just remember, you're my granddaughter. You have options."
"Thanks, Grandpa Rick. Honestly, I think that's all I needed to hear."
...
Lori's family, including Rick surprisingly, cheered for her as she arrived at the golf course for the tournament. Shortly after, Coach Hutch drove up to her in a golf cart. With her was a blonde man wearing a white shirt with a sweater around his neck. Both of them got off the cart and approached Lori. "This is Coach Niblick from Fairway University." Coach Hutch introduced the man.
"Uh..." Was all Lori said before letting out a honking sound. She blushed in embarrassment.
Coach Hutch nudged Coach Niblick. "I think that means she's excited to meet you."
"Right back at you, Lori. Say, here's a little something from Fairway." Coach Niblick then placed a golf visor from Fairway University on Lori's head. "Look forward to seeing you play today. This could be the start of a bright future."
After the two coaches walked off, Lori stepped up to the first hole and placed her ball on the tee. Seeing Coach Niblick here made her slightly nervous but all she needed to do was remind herself that everything was ok. It doesn't matter that much if she failed this. There'll be other opportunities and she has other options. It won't be the end of the world. With this in mind, Lori took her first shot.
To her delight, she scored a hole in one.
...
Lori's family cheered for her as she putted the ball into the final hole. She looked over at the leaderboard to see her name at the top. She pumped her fist. "Yes!"
Coach Niblick clapped for her as he approached her. "Well done! Considering I've heard you've had some bad nerves going into this tournament, your performance was doubly impressive! Lori, you're a great golfer who doesn't give up, just like George Washington! I am officially offering you a spot on Fairway's golf team."
Yet again, Lori made a weird honking noise.
Coach Hutch nudged Coach Niblick. "That means she'll take it."
Though she was somewhat embarrassed, Lori couldn't help but beam with delight. She was going to go to Fairway! Her future was looking pretty bright. She supposed, in the end, she made the right choice after all.
Right?
...
President Lincoln brought a machine into the room, activating it. It created a holographic display that showed multiple images of Tammy. Some looking slightly different than the others. "What is all this?" Tammy asked, somewhat creeped out.
"Something I like to do is crunch the numbers." President Lincoln explained. "See what the stats are. The thing that I've been looking into lately are Tammys. Specifically what's the most common way a Tammy dies." Tammy went tense after hearing that. "Of course, there's infinite possibilities on how you could die but I've found that the most common way for Tammys like you is this scenario. For whatever reason, you and the Federation attempt to take over Earth. Usually targeting Royal Woods first. Or Royal Oak as it is known as in some universes. This usually results in you getting set on fire in some way before getting shot. And if you survive that, you then try to confront Rick directly which usually results in you getting shot in the head. That's the most common way a Tammy dies." To drive this point home, President Lincoln then played a clip on the hologram, showing this possibility.
Rick could be seen standing over a Tammy, aiming her own gun at her. "You made me go to a wedding." He said before shooting her.
Tammy felt like she just had her own death foretold to her. "So that's...the most likely way I'll die?"
"Well, there's always scenarios where the Tammy actually sends a clone of herself to Earth or she's actually just faking her death as part of a convoluted plot that no one could have possibly foresaw. But yes, this is typically how Tammys die. And how I expected you would've died if I hadn't gotten involved."
Tammy furrowed her brow. "And what makes you think I wouldn't do things differently than those Tammys?"
"Well, you're kinda...not that different from the common Tammy."
"What makes you think that?"
President Lincoln smirked. "How's your daughter?"
Tammys eyes widened before she scowled. "So, you've been looking into me too?"
"Actually that was a total guess." President Lincoln admitted. "You see, I've been around the universe. I've seen multiple versions of my family. I've seen versions of my family where everyone is perfectly fine with one another." He then grimaced. "I've also seen versions of my family that have the most twisted kinds of relationships you've ever seen. But if there's one constant thing within this finite curve, it's that Ricks aren't to be underestimated. The reason most Tammys get killed is because they underestimate what Rick can do and what he's capable of. If you want to beat him, you need to be completely prepared for him. Luckily, you also have something no other Tammy does."
Tammy looked down at the portal gun. She sighed. "I understand. I won't let him kill me." A thought then occurred to her. "Actually, um...can I ask you something?"
"Sure."
"I'm just curious. Since you've been collecting data on all these Tammys, I was wondering. What happens to Tammys that don't join the Galactic Federation?"
There was a moment of silence before President Lincoln smirked at her. "Those Tammys typically end up living a peaceful, normal life on Earth."
"Oh..." Was all Tammy said as she had a mixed expression on her face.
"Why do you ask? Do you miss living on Earth?"
There was a moment of silence again before Tammy scoffed. "As if. The last thing I want to do is go to high school again."
President Lincoln nodded. "Of course."
Suddenly, Tammy's phone started ringing. "Oh! Uh, excuse me." She got out her phone and answered it. "What is it?"
"Sorry to bother you, ma'am' but there's been a situation here. One of our weapon factories has been attacked by a group of rebels. There appeared to be a human among them." The gromflomite soldier explained.
"A human?" Tammy repeated.
"We managed to capture an image of it. We'll send you it now."
The call then ended. After a moment, Tammy was then sent an image of this human rebel. "What the fuck?!" Tammy exclaimed as she stared at her phone in shock. This was the absolute last person she would've expected to do this.
President Lincoln took a peak at the image on Tammy's phone. Shockingly, even he seemed a little surprised. "Oh wow. Even I didn't see that one coming."
Tammy put her phone away. "Sorry about this but I'm gonna have to cut this meeting short."
President Lincoln didn't appeared to be bothered. "No problem. Just remember what I told you. Don't underestimate Rick."
Tammy nodded before making a portal and leaving. Once she left and the portal disappeared, President Lincoln couldn't help but shake his head.
He truly pitied Tammys.