Sentimentality and the name Sanchez didn't mix. We didn't do favours unless there were caveats or future payments or favours.
In the infinity of the multiverse, the lives of individual people were fragile and unimportant. That was repeated a lot in this life. Not in such words, they usually changed on Rick's alcohol level, but it was a reminder for me not to get attached.
Even still we had our vices and Arthricia and her grandmother Lynda, certainly ticked plenty of boxes in my never-ending list of rampant descent into deviancy. It's why I had set up fail-safe and protection for the duo, during the week I stuck around after the purge.
I stuck around for three reasons, two of them being the extremely horny felines who were more than happy to use me as I used them. The third was the big fat 'I told you so', I got to give Arthricia when her master plan of killing a group of the upper echelons of her planet didn't change anything.
The purge would continue on next year, and if sensing the danger, Arthricia seemed wholly one-track-minded in seducing me into staying longer and she shored up means to keep them safe, the mewling kitten and docile cougar proved the night of the purge was an appetiser compared to the depravity we got up this week.
With how much I, well to be perfectly frank, fucked about, I had plenty of preventive measures to stop me from knocking anyone up, fucking Unity and the biological changes her influences she had made on this body made it so I was wholly compatible with most sentient races, though I thankfully I was able to lean on the gifts from Rick. I'm able to make myself temporarily sterile when I want to.
Though I had a nagging suspicion that Lynda was hoping that I had impregnated either her or her granddaughter, with the constant insistent I finished in them. Feasibly it could be as a way for me to stay or take them with me, maybe the child could be used as a weapon in the future, or the very little chance of she simply wanted a child with me or a great-grandchild… boy thinking about it with post-nut clarity it was pretty fucked up… oh well not my grandmother I'm having a three-way with… ouch, back to fucked up with that thought.
Walking inside the house I was greeted by the sight of the family sitting at the table eating breakfast.
"Ryder!" Beth greeted me with a bright smile and I nodded easily enough and sat next to Rick, grabbing some pancakes.
"Hey Beth, family."
Everyone barring Rick stares at me expectedly, I take a quick and subtle whiff, "No, you don't smell like whatever sex capades you just had." I grunted my thanks to Rick and stuffed a mouthful of pancakes into my gob.
"Ryder," Beth growled, her annoyance at the forefront, and I really didn't want to deal with whatever this was, thankfully a familiar hue of green washed over us all, and three armed Ricks and a wolf-like Ryder came into the room. Seeing the alternative version of me, my hand slips into my pocket and I unlock my phone.
"Rick and Ryder Sanchez of Earth Dimension C-137. You are under arrest for crimes against alternate Ricks by the authority of the Trans-Dimensional Council of Ricks."
Jerry stands up at the sudden intrusion, "Hey! What the heck?"
"Neutralise the Jerry." One of the Ricks says and a second Rick shoots Jerry with a cold ray.
"Dad!" Summer cries out.
"Ryder!" Beth called out to me, I'm not quite sure what she was expecting me to do.
"Rick."
My Rick stood and sighed, "Everybody relax. If I know these a-holes, and I am these a-holes, they just wanna haul me to their stupid clubhouse and waste my time with a bunch of questions. Let's get it over with."
"Bring their Morty."
Before the wolf Ryder could step forward and place me or Morty in handcuffs, a high-pitched whistle escaped my phone, causing the Ryder to drop to the ground clutching his lycan ears in pain. Taking the opportunity, I jumped across the table and buried my boot into the chest of a Rick.
"Why didn't we bring in more Ryder's to deal wit-" My Rick hooked his handcuffed arms around the Rick's neck and dragged him back. Chairing the other Rick as he gave me an opening when he turned his aim from me to my Rick.
Rick nodded my way as he choked the remaining Rick, not needing to be told, I grabbed his portal gun and selected a random destination, and we walked into what appeared to be abandoned house me, Rick, hostage Rick, Morty, Beth…
"Fuck."
"What was all that!?" She demanded, and I pondered if I could open a portal back and not push, but nudge her back in, without her bitching me out when we returned.
"Don't know yet sweetie." Rick said as he dragged the unconscious hostage Rick, and laid him on the ground, "A little help Ryder."
Shooting the cuffs off him, he did the classic rubbing his wrist motion and I gave him a flat look.
He rolled his eyes and turned to the other Rick, "How do you wanna do this?"
"Ole faithful always works," I stretched my arms out and then reached for my knife.
"Woah, woah." Morty rushed forward in defence of the other Rick.
"Guys." Beth looked morbidly curious, she knew after all ole faithful wasn't going to be a pleasant thing, "no, we can figure out what's going on without, cutting up the other Rick."
It wasn't a good sign that both Rick and I rolled our eyes. He then fished out a coin from his lab coat and turned to me, "Call it."
"Tails."
He flipped the coin and then smirked my way and nodded his head towards Beth and Morty.
And so I explained the council, well the idea of the council, not the whole thing of Rick and I creating the Citadel.
"Ohhhh. That explains the werewolf Ryder." Beth exclaimed, and I was wondering why her mind went to that straight away, "He came from a dimension of wolf people."
"No, not necessarily. My mum of whatever dimension he was from was probably possessing a wolf-like planet when she and that Rick fucked."
"Possess?" Morty asked and nodded her head vigorously.
"Huh, I've never mentioned my mum to any of you." They nodded and I shrugged, "How about that?"
"Ryd-"
Rick crushed the data device he plucked from the other Rick, "So, turns out that someone is going around killing other Rick's and Ryder's. Twenty-seven pairs confirmed dead."
"And the Morty's?" I said knowing the answer already.
"No sign of them." Rick shook his head, his mind running a mile a minute, "What would need that much camouflage?"
"Camouflage?"
Throwing my head back I let out a long groan, "I'll explain it, while you open track down the murderer." I then take a glance at the other Rick, "But first thing, first. Let's ditch him elsewhere or we leave here," I then turn to Morty and Beth, "Unless, we could just kill him."
"No."
"What the hell, Uncle Ryder?"
"It was worth a shot, kid." Rick commiserates.
Morty pouts as he walks ahead of us, no matter how much I tried to sugarcoat it, he was still pissed that Rick's as a whole used Morty's as their personal camouflage tool.
Rick walked alongside him trying and failing to convince him otherwise, but that was going south very fast when we spotted the dome of Morty's.
"So where do I fit in?" Beth asked with a guarded expression, her initial disgust the camouflage took a backseat for a moment.
We were a stone's throw away from Rick and Morty, so there was no need to keep our voice too low, "Not much to it beyond what's obvious." I shrugged.
"And what's obvious?" There was a slight hard edge to her voice.
"You're Beth. His favourite."
"I'm-" She spluttered for a moment and then grabbed my arm and stopped. Rick and Morty not noticing walked on ahead.
"I'm clearly not his favourite. That's you." She jabbed a finger to my chest, and what I knew was a long time coming has finally arrived, fan-fucking-tastic, "I had him for eight years before he bounced when my mom…" She trailed off and aggressively rubbed the back of her hand across her eyes, "I was raised by an elderly aunt until I met Jerry and his parents. But you had Dad and his friends."
"War buddies." I corrected, "War buddies, Rick raised me as a weapon Beth." I looked over to where Rick and Morty had disappeared to and shrugged my shoulders, "I hate…" I sucked in my breath and clenched my fist, "Warzones, battle-fields, fucking shady-arse planets that saw me a five-star meal. That was my childhood, Beth." But most of all what pointed at Beth always being the favourite, the favourite to my Rick.
He didn't abandon Beth, his Beth. For him, it took losing her, losing Diane, what turned him into the Rickest-Rick.
I was an afterthought, something that didn't matter in the end.
"I-uh…" Beth bowed her head in shame, so I did the only thing sensible, I reached, brushed a strand of her hair… and I flicked her on the nose, "The fuck Ryder."
"Don't be a dumbarse, I didn't say all of that to get you to feel guilty or think you had it easy." I said honestly, "We all have our own hurts and pain, don't minimize yourself over premonitions of me having it worse." I sighed and looked forward, not seeing the two ahead of us, ah well, I bail them out if I have to, "I just don't want you thinking that Rick cares-"
"Dad adores you." She suddenly with a hand raised, "I'm sure we can argue about who's really his favourite all day long, but I don't think, you know how much Rick actually cares about you. You're the person he tru-"
"Rick and Morty are gone."
Rick's POV
Boy was he glad that Ryder and Beth were having their little pow-wow and they weren't there to see the Cyborg-Ryder lay him out.
Then again if his Ryder was there, they would've made quick work of their counterparts, so, it was really their fault that he got caught.
"Ahh, isn't it beautiful?" The scarred Rick said as showed his Morty dome.
"Yeah, yeah, looks like payday at Neverland ranch in here. Zing!" The Ryder didn't react, but the alien henchmen let out a chittering laugh.
"Ah-ah Rick, quiet. You're missing my symphony."Scarred Rick presses a button, allowing the sounds of the dome of Morty's in pain to come through. He conducts it for a bit like a complete douche-nozzle.
"Hey, I'll take it over Mumford and Sons. Zip!" The Ryder stands there, still… it's not a Ryder.
"Your wit is lacking Rick, you're not as clever as you think you are. I wanted you to find me. We're not so different, you and I." The Scarred Rick activates a display showing all the Ricks from different timelines. Nothing I don't already have myself.
"No shit Sherlock."
"See this right here, Rick? I crunched the numbers, I created a spectrum of all the Ricks. I listed 'em out from most evil to least evil." He skimmed the list I've seen a thousand times, the one I want is beyond something asinine as the list, "Here's where I am. And look at right here's where you are," He flicked in between him and myself, "Rick. This guy right here? Super weird."
So if he knew who I was then he'd know full well why'd I get a Seal-Team Rick sent my way, yet it was pretty stupid that they sent a meat-head Ryder against mine… what else can you expect from those morons, sending a mutt against mine.
He broke the mould and those fuckers are stuck with their sub-par versions.
"Funny, I knew better than to expect you to suggest a team-up against the council, but I'm almost disappointed that you're not going there."
"Oh my god, you just going to keep flapping aren't you?"
He ignored me and kept on yapping, "I'm simply going to download the contents of your brain, and then kill you."
"You've lived quite a life, Rick. It's a real shame you're not gonna be around to see it through." The memories change theme, the kids.
My Beth before she… then to Ryder.
The time I taught him how to fly my ship, the time we built his bike, the time he saved me the first time I had lost control. The first time he called me dad.
"You're crying? For a Ryder?" He scoffed and I knew there and then, that's not a Rick. Every Rick, no matter jaded, no matter how fucked, or disconnected from the idea of family as they claimed, stuck with their Ryder's, they didn't get replaced, and they weren't produced in a lab.
The doors imploded, and with Ryder and Beth rushing guns blazing, they made quick work of the lobster aliens.
The cyborg activated and rushed Ryder. Ryder charged ahead and used a telekinesis grip to fling a large piece of machinery at him. The cyborg had dodged deftly but Ryder had seemingly expected that and got into the path of the dodging cyborg, clothes pegging the borg, Sciraian muscle against alien alloy clashed.
"Dad," Beth rushed forward taking potshots at the lobsters, it was worth noting that the fake Rick had a clear shot at the exposed Beth but he continued to attack Ryder, "Where's Morty!?" She released me from the bindings, and I flopped to the ground taking Beth with me, forcing her body behind cover.
"Safe," Probably.
I took the rifle from Beth, and with the fake's backs to me, I let loose a volley of shots at them. The fake Rick's over-shield fizzled out allowing Ryder to plunge his knife into the throat of the Rick, drag it up, cutting through the flesh and bone like it was butter, a smorgasbord of circuitry also gushed out.
Borg made its way towards my Ryder, so but it was already too for it, as I slid across the cover and pressed the barrel of the rifle into its head and let loose the rapid shot directly into the skull of possible brain-dead Ryder.
"Bots, controlled by a psychic-interface," I said easily as I reached for my shit that was confiscated and took a deep swing of my flask.
"The Morty," Ryder said and I withheld the urge to laugh, because as soon as he finished an army of Morty's came rushing in, though they took the sight of the carnage and instantly simmered down.
"Morty!" Beth seemed relieved before her confusion took over, "Morty? My Morty I mean"
"Mom," Our regular run-of-the-mill, prime Morty came rushing over, pushing through the masses of the Morty who were probably held in a dungeon. He brought Beth into a hug as Ryder stepped forward. He questioned Morty about the whereabouts of the quote-on-quote Evil Morty, but it was probably too late, in the sea of Morty, we would be hard-pressed to find the one who was actually pulling the strings.
Frankly, I didn't see what the big deal was. Smart Morty's didn't last long, they were impulsive, and lacking patience, so he was told, always a supervillain arc. Thankfully we've never had to deal with one… Oh shit, I'm fairly sure I just put it out to the universe as Ryder says, and she is going to put it forward to us.
Fuck.
A/N - Published 2024/08/12
Yo, obligatory thanks to all for the support shown to this story.
Not very happy with this one for obvious reasons but I really just wanted to get it over and done with at this point.
Ryder was excepting Beth to unload her insecurities about Rick on him for a while but he's too much of a twat to assuage her insecurities till it's in his face, Beth logically knows Ryder didn't have it easy, (at this point in canon Beth knows Rick is a chaos-incarnate but she doesn't want to lose him), but the grass is always greener on the other side. And Rick is a prick who can't tell his kids he loves them without being pressured to or being manipulative.
Always happy to read ideas or story beats you folks have for me, especially with this one, considering this story is pretty much a low-key mass cross-over, and the Rick and Morty universe is pretty much in the same boat and is ideal for zany adventures, with the endless dimensions, though can't promise anything.
