“You…”
“What are you doing here?”
Standing among the rows of pews inside the church, Morty watched a blood-soaked Rick with half an octopus face limp through the doors, supported by a priest whose eyes were filled with reverence.
The moment they spotted each other, both fell silent.
Only after the Rick sat down did he speak again.
“I’m AI Cthulhu Rick.
Cthulhu Rick came back early and caught me off guard.
I barely managed to escape with my life.”
Morty still had not figured out how time flowed in this world, so he asked how many days ago that had happened.
AI Cthulhu Rick told him it had been two weeks.
[I was gone for less than three minutes, and two whole weeks passed here?]
[Isn’t that time difference a little insane?]
[So if I stay over there for thirty minutes, twenty weeks will pass here?]
[No wonder Rick, of all people, was patient enough to let me come here by myself.]
[I could spend two weeks screwing around here, and only two or three minutes would pass for him.]
[Teaching me a lesson in the time it takes him to finish a drink is totally worth it to him.]
After quietly reeling from that realization, Morty asked whether there was anything important he needed to know about what had happened between AI Cthulhu Rick and Cthulhu Rick.
At the mention of it, AI Cthulhu Rick immediately regained some of his attitude.
He had only possessed a physical body for two weeks, and he had spent ninety-nine percent of that time running for his life.
Even so, he was still an AI modeled after Rick himself.
His presence and mannerisms were pure Rick.
“You’re a Morty.
Why the hell are you asking about stuff that has nothing to do with you?”
“Huh?
Your Rick isn’t here?”
“Then hurry up and get me some…”
Morty’s temper flared the moment he heard the guy start ordering him around.
It was one thing when his own Rick told him what to do.
But this fake Rick, an AI stuffed into a flesh-and-blood body, seriously thought he could boss Morty around too?
Morty had been desperate to get his hands on some genuinely useful knowledge from the Cthulhu Dimension.
Then he remembered that this guy had previously taught him how to create an Incubation Cocoon.
Maybe he also knew how to deal with Cthylla’s child.
AI Cthulhu Rick sat resting on a pew.
He had been about to lean back and stare at the ceiling when the look in the little brat’s eyes made him uncomfortable.
It gave him the unmistakable feeling that he was meat on a cutting board.
His brow slowly furrowed.
“What are you planning?
I’m warning you…”
“Shut the hell up!”
Morty slapped AI Cthulhu Rick across the face, then grabbed him by the collar.
Either he explained how to kill Cthylla’s child, or Morty would kill him right now.
Faced with a threat from a little Morty, AI Cthulhu Rick sneered mockingly.
He stopped smiling soon enough.
Morty pulled out the Book of Eibon, the grimoire used to communicate with the various creatures of the Cthulhu Mythos, and opened it to the page dedicated to Cthulhu.
“You want to talk this over with me first, or would you rather meet Cthulhu face-to-face?”
AI Cthulhu Rick panicked.
He knew Cthulhu very well.
Unfortunately, it was not the friendly kind of familiarity.
It was the kind born from a truly awful relationship.
Considering how many times Cthulhu Rick had raised hell in this world, if AI Cthulhu Rick ever came face-to-face with Cthulhu…
These monsters, or rather, gods, were not physical creatures to begin with.
They had plenty of ways to torment a substitute like him.
Faced with the miserable fate awaiting him, AI Cthulhu Rick wisely backed down.
He could not afford to mess with either of them.
Once AI Cthulhu Rick had settled down, Morty began asking how to deal with Cthylla’s child.
And while they were at it…
“How about teaching me a few useful little skills too?”
“I can teach you all of them, but most abilities from the Cthulhu Dimension can’t be used without Cthulhu and the others around.”
“Take Madness, for example.
It’s a spell that disrupts an enemy’s mind, but you can only cast it by borrowing power from those gods.”
“Once you leave this universe and enter a world where they don’t exist, you’d be better off doing some awkward dance in front of your enemy.
They might at least leave your corpse intact.”
Morty stared at him in silence.
Even after backing down, the bastard still had to show off his mouth.
Morty suppressed the urge to hit him again, buried his disappointment, and focused on the problem in front of him.
So the abilities could not be used without Cthulhu.
Fine.
He would learn them first.
He could figure out how to modify them later.
The two spent the entire afternoon inside the church.
That was when the real nightmare began.
Creating a potion capable of killing Cthylla’s child required nearly a hundred different ingredients, along with master-level alchemy skills.
With AI Cthulhu Rick around, brewing the potion would not be a problem.
Gathering the ingredients, however, would be a massive pain in the ass.
To collect everything, they would have to travel as far as Xoth, Cthulhu’s homeworld.
But that was no big deal.
Get to work, AI Cthulhu Rick!
Morty kicked AI Cthulhu Rick into the Space Cruiser and sent him off to build it.
Then he accepted an invitation to the priest’s home for a delicious dinner.
As for whether AI Cthulhu Rick might run away, Morty was not worried.
Right now, Morty was the only person who could keep him alive.
Even without knowing that Morty had the portal gun, AI Cthulhu Rick knew that Rick would never simply abandon his Morty.
So his best option was to finish the job.
When Rick eventually showed up, AI Cthulhu Rick might have a chance to leave with them.
Otherwise, if Cthulhu Rick got serious and built some kind of tracking device or enormous warship, AI Cthulhu Rick was completely screwed.
While the two went their separate ways, Rick was back home drinking with Cthulhu Rick and talking about life.
“Burp.
You couldn’t have given me a heads-up before showing up here?
You had me thinking the Council of Thirteen had tracked me down.”
“Burp.
You know Ricks aren’t exactly in the habit of sending messages.
Burp.
Besides, C137 Rick only stopped his killing spree a few years ago.
I don’t want him getting suspicious of me.”
“Yeah…
C137 Rick.
That lunatic.”
At the mention of C137 Rick, Cthulhu Rick’s mood grew somber.
He looked at Rick beside him and asked in an odd tone, “Why do you people in the Shadow Council keep screwing with him?
You pushed him that far, and nearly ten thousand Ricks died.
What was the point?”
“There was never any point to it.
The only thing that matters is keeping all of us Ricks alive.”
Rick’s brief answer left Cthulhu Rick silent.
After another round of drinks, Cthulhu Rick stood and prepared to return to the Cthulhu Dimension.
Before opening the portal, he looked back.
“How you deal with C137 Rick is none of my business, and I’ve got no reason to mess with the Shadow Council.
But you dumped your Morty in my world.
What exactly do you want me to do with him?”
“The same thing we did to C137 Rick.
I’m going to push this one-of-a-kind Morty until he becomes the Mortiest Morty.”
Cthulhu Rick shuddered involuntarily.
Rick’s words meant that the fate awaiting Morty would be the same as C137’s.
Everyone knew that C137 Rick was the Rickest Rick.
But very few understood that not every trial he had faced on his climb to the top had been an accident of fate.
Like the bomb dropped in front of C137’s wife and daughter.
The killer C137 had searched countless universes for, yet had never been able to find.
The Citadel that C137 eventually founded.
And the so-called Central Finite Curve.
Some people became number one without ever realizing it.
Others possessed overwhelming power, yet preferred to remain like an iceberg on the ocean, with most of their true strength hidden beneath the surface.
“You people in the Shadow Council are a bunch of sick freaks.”
“Doesn’t it feel good to control everything?”
Rick sat on the leather sofa.
The half of his face bathed in sunlight wore a smug smile, while the half concealed in shadow was as cold as an iceberg.