Back on Earth, Morty was looking for a place to hide the portal gun. He thought about just putting it back in the garage, but no – that would be the first place Rick would look once he noticed it was missing. After a few minutes of thinking and realizing there really wasn't a "good" place to hide it, he decided that under his bed was as good a place as any.
"Rick will probably be out for a while. But I think I'll need help once he wakes up. Better find Dad." the boy said to himself. He decided to get dressed for the day, since going back to bed was clearly not an option, then went to find Jerry.
"Dad? You here? You didn't listen to Rick and go next door after all, did you? Dad?" he called, walking through the house and checking anywhere he thought Jerry might be. Kitchen, no. Living room, no. Mancave, no. Bedroom, no. Then Morty heard noise coming from the attic.
"A raccoon or possum or something must've gotten in again. Perfect day for it, too. Good thing Rick made Dad immune to rabies." Morty sighed, heading up the stairs to the attic.
"Hey, Dad? I know you're having fun up here with your little friends, but it has to wait. I need a hand taking care of Rick, and… what the hell are you doing up here, exactly?" he said, puzzled by the sight in front of him. Morty had expected to find his father either playing with or being attacked by a wild animal or two, depending on the temperament of whatever had gotten into the attic this time. Instead, Jerry was sitting on the floor, surrounded by boxes, some of them tipped over, and piles of disorganized anime VHS tapes.
"Oh, hi Morty. You know what Sailor Moon is, right?" was what he received as an answer.
"Ummm, yes? Classic 90's manga and anime that's known for popularizing the magical girl genre in the U.S. And for the old dub making the questionable-at-best choice of trying to pass off two clearly lesbian characters as cousins. Why are you asking me about Sailor Moon?" an even more confused Morty replied.
Ignoring his son's question while he went through another pile of tapes, Jerry said, "That's right, Morty! I loved watching it before school as a kid, but I'd forgotten all about it. Then there was this time last year when Rick disguised me as his assistant using something he called a 'reusable Sailor Moon transformation sequence', and you see, it brought back all the good memories I had of watching that show when I was young. Along with the bad ones of the boys who liked Dragon Ball Z instead bullying me, but I digress."
"Uh-huh. That's great, Dad. Well, mostly. That last part sounds like it sucked… Anyway, nevermind the walk down memory lane right now. I need you downstairs to help me with Rick."
"Oh. Is whatever the Mimicking Disease mimicking now really bad, Morty? Am I going to come downstairs and see it's turned all his organs visible, and we can like, see the damage being done to them in real time? If it's that you'll warn me, right, Morty?" Jerry worried, getting squeamish over his own made-up scenario.
"No, it's nothing like that. Rick made up the whole Mimicking Disease thing. Well, I don't know if he made up that it exists. It might? But he definitely made up the part about him having it." Morty replied.
He was about to explain further, but was cut off by his father saying, "So it is something worse after all? I thought Rick sending your mom and sister away was a little odd. *GASP!* Morty, you've been awfully close to him this whole time, haven't you?" He quickly backed away from Morty, scooting backwards until he crashed into another box of tapes.
Morty rolled his eyes and said, "Dad, calm down. Rick just has a cold. A pretty bad one from the looks of it, but still just a cold. The thing is, he's not dealing with it well at all, and apparently store brand otc cold medicine is the only substance out there he has like, no tolerance for. Or hallucinating melting walls is what those internet weirdos meant by the expired medicine 'working too well'? I don't know. I do know he's making this whole thing a lot more of a problem than it needs to be. And it's probably going to get worse when he wakes up, so come help."
"But why would Rick lie about having some weird alien disease to hide having a cold? It doesn't make sense. Now, him lying about having one alien disease to hide having a worse one, that makes sense." Jerry continued to worry, gulping nervously.
"I don't know, and I don't get it either. I'm sure there's a reason. Probably a reason no one but Rick would understand, or maybe even he doesn't. But it's Rick - that's true for almost everything he does. Please just come downstairs. I see you've already given up on your big plan to help to do this instead." Morty replied wearily.
"Given up? Oh, you couldn't be more wrong, Morty. This is all a part of my plan." Jerry stated, starting to look through another pile of tapes.
"Your plan to help Rick feel better is... old anime VHS tapes? I mean... okay? Maybe it would distract him or cheer him up a little. He'd probably enjoy some, maybe even most of this stuff. That's actually not a bad idea, Dad. But it's also not a priority." Morty said.
"You misunderstand. I'm not looking for something for Rick to watch. I'm looking for something I need to watch. And once I do, then I'll know exactly how to help your grandfather." Jerry replied matter of factly.
After standing there for a moment, dumbfounded and not knowing what to say to that, Morty finally asked, "So, your big, great plan is to spend the day going through these boxes, then watching Sailor Moon? And that's supposed to teach you... something relevant to our current situation?"
"It's not going to take me all day, Morty. If your mom and I had done a better job of putting these tapes away, I'd already have what I need. And it's not as if I could watch all 200 episodes and 3 movies in a single day even if I tried. No, there's just one specific episode I need to find. I know it's technically a 'filler' episode, but it's a classic. Episode 71 of the original English dub, "No Thanks, Nurse Venus!" The bad guys infect the city with a flu virus as part of their evil plan, and all of the Sailor Scouts are down with it - except one." Jerry explained, his voice taking on a singsongy tone at the last part.
"From the title, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say it's Sailor Venus?" Morty said, the urge to scream growing by the second.
"That's right, Morty! For some reason, she and Artemis - that's her mentor/talking cat - remain completely fine, so Mina sets out to nurse the rest of the team back to health. She's honestly terrible at it, but she means so, so well." Jerry replied fondly.
"Dad, I - where do I even start listing everything that's wrong with this 'plan' of yours?! 1, that sounds more like a magic spell than an actual virus. 2, you can't learn anything about treating an illness by watching an old anime episode, and, and..." Morty sputtered.
"Oh, Morty. It's because I told you it's a filler episode, isn't it? Or maybe because I specifically need to watch the old DiC dub? For someone with only the most basic understanding of Sailor Moon, you really don't have any business being a snobby purist. And for your information, Mister, this episode is so good that even people who normally are snobs about that sort of thing enjoy it." Jerry said, shaking his head and giving his son a disappointed look.
"Dad, of everything that's wrong with your plan, which is EVERYTHING, that's easily what's the least wrong! Just because Rick told you to go be stupid upstairs, does not mean you had to take that as literally as possible! You're not going to come downstairs and help me, are you?"
"Obviously not, Morty. Until I find that tape and watch that episode, what help could I possibly be?" Jerry replied with a shrug. He was clearly annoyed his son still didn't seem to understand his plan, even after he'd explained it so well.
"I mean, you could go out to get more medicine. Or keep an eye on Rick while I go do that. Or maybe make food? There's a lot of things you could do, actually. But it's fine. Just stay up here and keep doing what you're doing, Dad." Morty sighed, deciding there was no point in further trying to talk any sense into his father. Jerry was already back to looking through tapes, humming the Sailor Moon opening theme.
As Morty walked back down the steps, he muttered to himself, "What else is going to help Rick get better? I know he needs to rest, and that we need to get more medicine. And obviously that I can't let him near more than a single dose at a time. But is that like, it? Feels like there's more I should do. Aww geez, we really don't have to deal with normal problems like this often, do we? Kinda makes it harder when they do come up. I hope Mom and Summer get home soon."
A few minutes later, Morty had made his way back to Rick's room. Expecting his grandfather to still be asleep, and not wanting to wake him, he slowly, carefully opened the door… only to discover the bed was empty.
"Rick? Are you in here?" Morty asked tentatively, stepping into the room and looking around. He checked under the bed and in the closet. No Rick.
"God dammit!" he yelled, kicking the nearest wall before going to search the rest of the house.
"Rick! Where are you?! You need to go back to bed! Rick!" he called, walking through the house. First he checked the bathroom. Empty.
"You in here? Rick? Come on, this isn't funny! Are you like, hiding because you're mad about the medicine?" He checked the living room next. Still no Rick.
"He couldn't have gotten far. Kitchen, maybe?" As soon as Morty stepped into the kitchen, he realized that it was also empty, but there was noise coming from the garage.
"Dammit, I should have known!"
Morty ran into the garage and was immediately taken aback by the sight in front of him. Rick was dressed in his normal clothes again, but his labcoat was crooked and sliding down his left shoulder. He had a sock and shoe on his left foot, but a slipper on his right. His belt was unbuckled, and Morty was fairly sure his shirt was on backwards. He was trying to keep his blankets - there were now three of them - wrapped around himself while he set up another experiment and had to keep pausing to adjust them.
The experiment in question? Well, it wasn't clear exactly what Rick was trying to accomplish, but he'd gathered the petri dish containing the blood sample he took earlier, a couple of empty ones, and some used tissues, and was arranging all of them on the garage floor... in front of a large ray gun on a pedestal.
"What the hell do you think you're doing now, Rick?! Whatever it is, stop!" Morty yelled, startling Rick and causing him to stumble forward and bump into the ray gun. This led to it flipping so it was facing the roof, which it immediately shot a hole through.
"Ow! Dammit, Morty! Look what you made me do!" Rick complained, rubbing his forehead where he'd hit the ray gun.
"Uh-huh. Weird way to thank me for that hole ending up in the roof and not your head." Morty said wearily.
"Okay, so this wasn't on the right setting for what I'm *Cough!* trying to do just now. But I would've figured that out on my own without your so-called help." Rick grumbled, turning a dial on the ray gun and repositioning it so it was once again aimed at the assortment of things on the floor.
"And what exactly are you trying to do?"
"Isn't it obvious? I hate to admit it, Morty, but you were right about the idea I had before being terrible. *Sniff!* Shrinking you down to microscopic size to talk to the virus? I don't, don't know what I was thinking with that." Rick admitted as he rearranged the petri dishes. The pile of blankets slid down a little, and he started shivering again.
Noticing that, Morty helped adjust them around Rick's shoulders, saying, "Glad you realized that, but you still didn't answer my question."
"Huh? Oh, *Cough!* right. As I was saying, making you or a clone or a robot germ-sized is not the right way to handle this situation at all. In fact, the way to deal with it is the exact opposite. What I need to do for this negotiation thing to work is make the germs human-sized." Rick explained matter-of-factly.
"Rick, no! Don't you see how that's even worse than your original plan?!" Morty asked, rightfully horrified.
"Huh? How so? There was a lot that could have gone wrong with the original plan. Even though I'd send you in armed in case the little peace talk fell through, you *COUGH!* woulda been seriously outnumbered in here, Morty. And God forbid anything happened to prevent me from getting you back out. Let's face it, I am not in peak form today. And it's not like there's anyone else here to help. Shit, maybe I shouldn't have sent Summer away. Eh, I'll make it up to her once I feel better. Anyhow, *Cough!* *Cough!* if we do it this way instead, all those risks go away. We'll be face to face with the bastards and on an even playing field." Rick replied, not understanding Morty's concerns.
"No, we won't be! Instead of just me, it'll be the two of us vs… How many germs are in a person's body when they have a cold? Millions? Billions? It's at least thousands, and I'm pretty sure it's a lot more than that! If you make them all human sized, they'll overrun the house, then the neighborhood, and, and wouldn't being exposed to germs that size make everyone around really sick? How are you not seeing everything that could go wrong with this idea, Rick?!" Morty yelled.
Visibly annoyed, Rick answered, "Obviously I'm not going to make all the germs our size, Morty. I mean, to do that, I'd need to remove all of them from my body first. Which would require, among other things, a full blood replacement. Which I *Cough!* might not live through, and if I did, I'd already be cured once I was done. And then why would I waste my time talking to over – to a bunch of oversized *SNIFF!* germs, huh, Morty?" Morty was once again at a loss for words due to the crazy plan being explained to him – something that had already happened too many times for how early it still was.