Morty had never realized that the Rick he’d encountered had a bit of a Pokémon Master streak.
After spending three full days lying in bed like a vegetable, he finally recovered from the Mega Fruit’s side effects.
Just as he was preparing for another adventure, his mom and dad called him and Rick into the living room, both wearing grave expressions.
“Dad, you’re always taking Morty out on adventures.
His grades have already…”
Hearing the same tired argument again, Rick covered his face in exasperation.
He had about ten thousand ways to tell his son-in-law to go fuck himself.
He didn’t even need to think to know Jerry had been stirring this shit up behind the scenes.
Rick just couldn’t understand it.
Jerry was already a complete moron, yet he insisted on making his son follow the same idiotic path and live some so-called normal life.
Unless Rick remembered wrong, Jerry had been unemployed for quite a while.
He was a jobless middle-aged man who couldn’t find work, lived entirely off his wife, and spent every day lost in stupid fantasies.
Yet he still wanted to kick Rick out?
If Rick’s own daughter hadn’t kept protecting him, Jerry would have learned what a Rick-style iron fist felt like a long time ago.
Yeah.
Rock fucking solid.
The guy couldn’t even afford to have a key copied, and he thought he had the right to accuse Rick of holding his son back?
Rick wasn’t the type to swallow his anger when someone pulled this kind of crap.
Jerry wanted a fight?
Fine.
Bring it.
They could see whose skull cracked first.
But when Rick saw the serious expression on his daughter’s face, he opened his mouth, then glanced sideways at Morty, who was pretending to be part of the furniture.
Rick proposed that if he could get Morty an A on one exam within a week, without cheating, they would stop interfering with his business.
Jerry, who didn’t want Morty going on any more adventures at all, immediately refused.
“Absolutely not!
He’s never going again!”
Rick couldn’t have cared less what Jerry thought.
He looked at his daughter.
Beth had always been the one who actually made the decisions in this family, not Jerry.
“If he gets an A, he can go out three times a week at most!”
“Ten.”
“Four!”
“Nine.”
As Morty listened to them haggle over how many adventures he would be allowed to go on each week, the corner of his mouth twitched violently.
Honestly, he wanted to drop out of school and travel around having fun with Rick.
But if he said that out loud, his mom would definitely…
For now, he would have to put up with it.
Once he found a way to upgrade the Meeseeks Box, he could climb the tech tree one step at a time until he was able to build his own portal gun.
Only then would he truly be free.
In the end, they settled on five adventures a week.
But Morty also had to earn an A on an exam within that same week.
“Alright, Morty.
Let’s go to the garage and figure out how studying works!”
Rick led Morty into the garage.
The instant the door closed behind them, his expression changed.
They had to make another trip to the Cthulhu Dimension.
He didn’t mention a single word about helping Morty get an A.
Morty had no fondness for those giant octopuses.
“What are we going back for?
That whole family tried to kill us last time.
Going back now is basically delivering ourselves right to their doorstep.”
“Morty, do you have any idea how superior my DNA is?”
Morty silently glanced at the closed door, almost able to see his mom sitting on the couch and already arguing with her husband.
Yeah, it was pretty superior.
At least outside of combat, those two had reached the absolute pinnacle of humanity when it came to tearing each other apart.
Rick lightly smacked Morty on the head.
Then he spoke with unusual gravity.
“My DNA is so exceptional that no matter how many gardens I’ve wandered through, I’ve never left a seed behind.
But this time, one slipped through.
It’s a little awkward.”
Morty said, “…”
“And this happened in the Cthulhu Dimension.
Do you have any idea what kind of horrifying child an Elder God combined with my DNA could produce?”
“So I’m getting a Cthulhu uncle or aunt?”
Rick said, “…”
He fell silent for a second or two, fighting the urge to kick Morty straight into the Cthulhu Dimension and make him solve the problem alone.
Then Rick opened a portal.
“Old people first,” Morty said.
He had no intention of being the first one back into the Cthulhu Dimension.
“For fuck’s sake, Morty.
A few octopus-faced freaks with human bodies scared you this badly?”
Rick strode through the portal.
Only then did Morty follow him.
The moment they entered the Cthulhu Dimension, the perpetually gray and hazy sky pressed down on them, making it difficult to breathe.
Even more alarming were the enormous octopuses in the distant ocean.
Their bodies were covered in wounds, and all four of them were staring directly at Rick and Morty.
They had run into the entire Cthulhu family the second they arrived.
Morty could only silently marvel at how Rick’s teleportation had become more precise than ever before.
Then he listened as the two sides started arguing.
The gist of it was simple.
The child had to be terminated.
Rick’s reasoning was that these creatures spent all their time either sleeping or putting on creepy, mystical bullshit, so they had no idea how exceptional Old Rick’s genes really were.
After the beating they had taken from the Galactic Federation, Cthulhu’s family had also realized that the wider universe contained countless beings even more vicious than they were.
Compared to that, Rick merely cutting off a tentacle while they slept last time had actually been pretty considerate.
So the two sides stood politely on the shore and negotiated.
Morty, of course, behaved exactly as he always did.
Whenever Rick wasn’t paying attention, he slipped away to explore the area and see whether there was any loot worth bringing home.
This time, though, he would be more careful.
The little statue he had taken home last time had cursed him for several days and nearly killed him.
Morty quietly followed the coastline.
Before long, he came across a large wooden house the size of a villa.
It had two floors, a two-hundred-square-meter garden in front, and a swimming pool behind it filled with dead leaves.
He pushed open the dilapidated wooden door.
The interior was dark, and the rotten floorboards looked ready to collapse under a single heavy step.
Fortunately, Morty was still a kid and weighed far less than an adult.
By deliberately stepping lightly, he managed to reach the living room safely.
The moment he entered and saw the family portrait hanging on the wall, his face twisted in horror.
That was impossible.
Cthulhu Rick, Cthulhu Morty, Cthulhu Beth, Cthulhu Jerry, and Cthulhu Summer.
All five of them were together in the family portrait.
Goosebumps spread across Morty’s entire body.
There was a Rick in this world?
Only then did Morty realize that the room’s layout was almost identical to his own house.
Which raised an obvious question.
Where were this world’s Rick and Morty?
Since the layout was practically the same as his home, the garage entrance should be beside the dining room.
Morty walked over, grabbed the doorknob, and pushed the door open.
The sight before him left him completely stunned.
[Fuck!
This is nowhere near as simple as it looks!]
[We never told them our names last time.
How the hell did they know Rick’s full name?]
[Because this world’s Rick was planning the exact same thing!]