Even though Morty desperately wanted to face-plant onto the table and sleep right then and there, watching Rick roast someone had always been one of his favorite shows.
Because when Rick opened his mouth to tear into somebody, it cut deep.
The guy was basically the king of emotional damage.
Morty watched his dad get so pissed he looked ready to roll up his sleeves and throw down on the spot.
But that was all Jerry could do, puff himself up and make empty threats, trying to force Rick to shut up in the most useless way possible.
Then Morty glanced at Rick, who had zero interest in fighting his son-in-law, while Beth stood between them trying to smooth things over.
And just like that, it was over.
Seeing that no fight was going to happen and there would be no exciting little drama afterward, Morty immediately lost interest.
He went to the bathroom, splashed cold water on his face, then came back out.
He picked up his backpack and headed for the door like he didn’t give a damn.
But his unbearably annoying sister just had to say in that sarcastic tone of hers, “Morty, your backpack looks kinda flat.
Are you sure there are books in there?
Or did you pack one of Grandpa Rick’s little inventions?”
[Sum…
Summer, you bitch!
No!
Screw you!!!]
[You know damn well Jerry is pissed right now, and he’s too much of a coward to actually fight Rick, so you’re stabbing me in the back instead???]
[Keep running your mouth, and Mom, who’s been trying to play peacemaker this whole time, is gonna ban me from going on adventures with Rick!]
After cursing her out in his head, Morty felt that prickling stare on his back.
He turned around and saw the terrifying look Jerry was giving him.
Stiffening his neck, he defended himself, insisting he wasn’t taking an empty backpack to school.
Most of his books were at school!
He had only brought home a few books and some homework notebooks.
Using that barely passable excuse, Morty managed to fool Jerry and Beth.
Then he walked outside.
While he was waiting for the school bus, Summer, who also had to go to school, came out too.
Looking at her empty hands, she seemed even less serious about class than Morty.
Seriously?
Seriously?
And she had the nerve to stab him in the back just now?
“Summer, if you pull that crap again, then next time you’re drooling over some guy you like, I’m gonna take a little knife, cut a slit in your shirt, and let you embarrass yourself right in front of him!”
“I’ll show you what a cruel-ass society looks like!”
Threatened like that, Summer didn’t back down at all.
In fact, having apparently picked up at least thirty percent of Rick’s true teachings, she fired back with a sarcastic jab, followed by a threat that would have worked on the original Morty but barely did anything to the current one.
“Oh?
Really?
Which guy are you talking about?”
“Oh, and if you dare do that, I’ll pull your underwear off while you’re asleep, take pictures with your phone, and send them to Jessica so she knows what kind of little freak you really are!”
In truth, Morty only admired Jessica’s looks.
He didn’t actually care all that much about completely losing any chance of dating her.
After all, with Rick in his corner, he was living the dream.
One day it was a knight-princess from some fantasy world, the next a cyberpunk android, and the day after that, she might not even be human.
With benefits like that, why should he care about one Jessica?
Wasn’t she just a little prettier than average?
That said, this war between siblings, full of mutual resentment, still had Rick at its core.
Over the past six months, Rick had shown the whole family more than once just how insanely powerful he was.
He had even taken the entire family on adventures a few times.
But from beginning to end, Morty’s goal had been to rely on Rick and eventually get his hands on some super advanced technology, most importantly the manufacturing method for the portal gun, along with several ways to recharge its energy.
That way, if things ever went bad, he would at least have a way to escape far, far away instead of staying here and waiting to die.
As for Summer, she was just fighting for attention.
Sometimes, deep down, Morty actually felt sorry for his sister.
She looked strong-willed, but in reality, at home and even at school, she was alone.
Morty didn’t have many friends at school, not because he was being excluded, but because he barely spent any time at school in the first place.
Think about it.
If some not-very-cool classmate showed up fewer than eight times in an entire semester, who the hell would be friends with him?
Summer, on the other hand, didn’t often go out with Rick and Morty.
So most of the time, she was still at school.
But in almost every American school, the walls between little cliques were seriously high.
Summer wasn’t exactly stunning, her figure was pretty average, and on top of that, she had the same ponytail she always wore, plus ordinary clothes that didn’t really catch guys’ attention.
So at school, she was basically a background character.
Only two ranks above Morty.
And right then, when Summer saw Morty suddenly stop arguing and look at her with pity, anger flared up inside her.
This little loser who hid at home watching dirty movies all the time.
What gave him the right to have Rick all to himself?
I…
“Morty, come here for a second.
Let’s talk.”
The storm that had been brewing all over again was cut off completely by Beth’s sudden words.
Morty recognized her voice and knew she was calling him.
He glared at Summer, mouthed something at her, then followed his mom off to the side.
But the first thing Beth said was, “Morty, your dad is right about some things and wrong about some things.
Rick is right about some things too, and wrong about others.”
“Mom…” Morty said.
“Are we having a philosophy discussion right now…?”
“What I mean is, you still have to go to school.
You still have to attend class.
Because I keep feeling like he’s going to leave again, and I really don’t want the most important years of your life ruined like this.”
Hearing the love in Beth’s words, Morty dropped the joking attitude.
Even as a transmigrator who had replaced the original Morty, and even though he had never personally experienced those emotional moments between mother and son and could only recall them through memories that were fading more and more, Morty could still feel the sincerity of that maternal love.
She genuinely wanted what was best for him.
One hundred percent.
Because she had once been ruthlessly abandoned by Rick for nearly twenty years.
On top of that, her mother had died very early.
You could say she was the only person in this family who, after both her parents were gone, had made it step by step to where she was today entirely on her own.
She had long since passed the age where she could rely on her father.
So when she saw Morty growing closer and closer to Rick, she began to worry that the same fate might fall on him.
That kind of thing you had.
That pain and torment of waking up one day only to find it had completely disappeared.
Thinking of that, Morty, who hadn’t slept well last night, forced himself to look alert and solemnly promised his mom that what she was worried about would not happen.
“That’s good.
Go keep waiting for the school bus.”
Beth didn’t say anything else.
She walked toward the car parked in front of the garage, since she had to go to work too.
An hour later.
In math class, Morty propped his chin in both hands, looking like he was about to fall asleep.
After finally managing to sleep all the way until lunch break and recover some energy, Morty stood by his locker in the hallway, ready to put his books away and then go eat lunch.
He had just pulled the locker door open when a guy two heads taller than him suddenly appeared and shoved him in the back.
“Well, look who it is!
If it isn’t Lord Morty himself!”
“Never see you around.
Where’ve you been making all that money?”
“How about lending me some cash today?”
Morty felt like this scene was weirdly familiar.
Without saying a word, he hid his right hand from the guy and reached into his locker for a hammer, ready to smash it into him the second he tried anything again.
He wasn’t actually the timid original host.
After traveling with Rick through countless multiverses, killing and looting all over the place, he had long since gotten ruthless.
Some school thug wanted to bully him?
Then beat the crap out of him.
But Rick arrived just in time, successfully saving the bully from his fate of ending up in the ICU.
Now he could go straight into the ground instead…
A Freeze Ray flashed, and a huge ice sculpture appeared in front of Morty.
The layer of ice looked at least three centimeters thick.
Yeah, this dude was basically done for.
“Morty, come here for a second.
I need your help picking a few Mega Seeds.”
After half a year of being bombarded by an endless flood of information, Morty finally remembered what day it was.
Today was the first episode of Season 1 of Rick and Morty!
The Mega Fruit, the one where a single seed, even a little bit of pulp, could grant the user intelligence no weaker than Rick’s, was about to appear!
His first chance to defy fate was finally here.
As Rick led Morty toward the portal, just before stepping through, Morty couldn’t shake the feeling that he had forgotten something very important.
[What the hell did I forget?]
[I keep feeling like it has something to do with the Mega Fruit…]