“First, you know we’re in the Cthulhu Dimension, right?”
“The most terrifying thing in this world is getting closer to the truth.
The closer you get, the more incomprehensible things you discover, until your entire understanding of reality collapses and drives you insane.”
“Hey!
I’m teaching you here.
Why’d your hands stop?
Hurry up!
That potion has to reach five hundred degrees before you pour it in!”
Beside a brown wooden table, Morty was taking the Incubation Cocoon: From Apprentice to Master, One-Hour Crash Course, holding several potion bottles in his bare hands.
He frantically processed the ingredients while listening to AI Cthulhu Rick show off everything he knew.
Morty had no idea whether Cthulhu Rick had the same personality as this AI.
But at least he knew his own Rick wasn’t the type to ramble.
Rick hated explaining why he did anything.
Just trust him.
That was all anyone needed to know.
So meeting such a talkative AI Rick for the first time was both a blessing and a curse.
After all, Morty had to build the Incubation Cocoon while memorizing everything the AI taught him.
He had barely finished the first preparation step, gathering all the ingredients for the potion, when Rick began urging him to come outside.
“Morty, when the hell are you coming out?”
“Is that magical AI Rick in there licking your balls or something?
Is that why you can’t tear yourself away?”
“Jesus!
I’ve completely failed as a grandpa!
I forgot you’re already going through puberty.
Looks like I’ll have to figure out how to help you land Jessica!”
“Come on, hurry up and get out here.
Stop hanging around with that dumbass trying to rebel!”
Morty said, “…”
AI Cthulhu Rick said, “…”
“Is the Rick you travel with always this much of an asshole?”
“What Rick isn’t an asshole…?”
After that brief exchange, Morty raised his voice and shouted, “Rick!
I’m building him an Incubation Cocoon in exchange for information about what happened during the hatching!
Either come down here and help, or shut the hell up out there!”
Outside, Rick rolled his eyes.
He had already used his X-Ray Goggles to see everything happening underground and had listened in on their entire conversation.
But Morty…
If the kid had bothered talking to Cthulhu for a few minutes, he would have learned that some universes imposed restrictions on certain laws and forms of energy.
A simple example would be this.
Universe A allowed both magical energy and technological energy.
But if someone traveled to Universe B, where technological energy was restricted, an energy gun might stop working.
However, if they found a way to extract magical energy and modified the gun, they could still fire it using ammunition infused with magic.
In other words, Morty was learning Cthulhu technology from Cthulhu Rick, but once they returned to their own universe, more than half of it would be practically useless.
Trying to pull some Unnameable bullshit in their world would only get him vaporized the next second by Galactic Federation batteries firing a billion energy blasts per second.
Still…
Morty had already stepped into the trap.
Rick grinned mysteriously, then quickly wiped the smile from his face and went back to discussing that little cross-universe problem with Cthulhu.
Underground, Morty waited several seconds, but the hot-tempered Rick never stormed in and dragged him away.
Something was clearly wrong.
Morty knew Rick well.
That controlling old bastard hated having anyone defy him, but he also loved watching people suffer the consequences after ignoring his advice.
Those two contradictory impulses somehow coexisted perfectly.
Anyone who went against Rick usually faced one of two outcomes.
Either Rick intervened immediately and forced everything back on track, or he stood off to the side and enjoyed the disaster before deciding whether the mess was worth cleaning up.
Since Rick hadn’t broken down the door and blown AI Cthulhu Rick’s head off, he had obviously chosen to watch the show.
Realizing that, Morty began working faster.
At the same time, he quietly raised his guard.
Rick might be an asshole, but his judgment was almost always right, and his actions were impossible to predict.
If he had decided to stand back and laugh, then there was definitely something wrong with this Incubation Cocoon.
Morty needed to keep something in reserve.
“Alright, that guy outside has gone back to chatting.
Let’s hurry up and finish the Incubation Cocoon.”
AI Cthulhu Rick’s impatient urging sent Morty’s suspicions through the roof.
Eventually, Morty finished mixing the potion and picked up the flask.
All he had to do was smash it against the ground, and an Incubation Cocoon would grow from the floor.
But Morty stopped.
“The potion’s finished.
Isn’t it time you gave me the information you promised?”
Desire filled AI Cthulhu Rick’s eyes.
He reluctantly looked away from the flask and swept his right hand through the air.
Dark mist gathered and formed a mirror.
The scene within it appeared to show what had happened just before the Incubation Cocoons began hatching.
Cthulhu Rick and his family of five finished mixing the potion, threw it onto the ground, and let the liquid form the Incubation Cocoons by itself.
Then the whole family climbed inside.
When they finally emerged from the Incubation Cocoons…
“What the hell is this?
You’re trying to scam me with that?!”
Morty pointed furiously at the image of Rick and his family of five, now without the octopus tentacles on their faces.
He raised the flask, ready to add other ingredients and ruin the potion.
Who could possibly accept this?
After taking an advanced crash course in magical potion-making, the potion he had worked so hard to create was only meant to remove octopus tentacles from someone’s face?
Morty had gone through all that trouble and carefully followed every step, only to learn that they had made a Physical Appearance Reshaping Potion.
In other words, cosmetic surgery in a bottle.
This asshole was taking advantage of him!
“No, wait!
It’s true!
This potion was always designed to reshape someone’s appearance!”
“I don’t believe you!
Not unless you have a book that proves it!
Show me evidence!
There’s no way a magical AI like you can move faster than my hands!”
Seeing that Morty was genuinely furious, AI Cthulhu Rick closed his eyes.
A second later, a thick book shot out from the weapon-covered wall to the left.
As soon as Morty saw the title, he set the flask on the table and picked up the book from the floor.
“The Book of Eibon?”
“This thing actually exists?”
As Morty picked it up, AI Cthulhu Rick kept urging him to smash the potion against the ground.
“Relax.
Let me study this thing first.”
Morty opened the famous book from the Cthulhu Dimension.
On the first page, he found a sentence left behind by Cthulhu Rick.
“When a Rick decides to use his brain on a minor problem, that problem is about to face the greatest disaster of its life.”