Chapter Text
Of course it was just Morty’s luck that he would run into them today.
It was supposed to be a simple run. In, grab, and out. Something Morty had done countless times in the past. Paachi had contacted him three Federation weeks ago about a favor for a friend. The large Prinkian (from Sector K-14 on the planet Prinkleron) didn’t mention the “friend’s” name but explained that there was an object that needed retrieving from a nearby VAULT™ facility. As far as VAULT™ stations usually went this one was on the smaller side and had a much tinier budget than other sites the company ran across the galaxies. That meant few underpaid security guards and an easy time for anyone with a portal gun.
Paachi was a longtime friend and acquaintance. He and Morty had done business in the past before and the Prinkian was good with background checks on potential clients (the alien ran a small time smuggling business on Prinkleron and several other neighboring planets). While their meeting may have been accidental (it involved a gun that shot out miniature lions, and a copious amount of cheap cheese. Don’t ask.) the two worked out a fairly good arrangement with Morty occasionally running some jobs for Paachi and Paachi giving out a few favors in return. Morty trusted the Prinkian and usually didn’t question the alien’s judgement.
Until now that it.
Three weeks after the initial request and two weeks after constant communication, planning, and preparation the mission was a go. Paachi’s intel held up at first with few guards only performing their duties half assed. It was ridiculously easy to knockout the entire facility with an undetectable gaseous sleeping agent. A quick hack into the security system to loop the feed and cut all other security parameters (after all, it wouldn’t do to leave any evidence that it was Morty Smith who did the job. Which was the only reason he didn’t just portal in). Then it was as simple as typing in the location and zapping open a portal. Only it wasn’t that simple.
The moment Morty stepped through the portal there was a familiar (and disheartening) feeling of an anti-portal wave washing over him in a cold buzz, the green portal snapping closed behind him, and he was suddenly surrounded by all sides by a group of their hounds ( hounds being giant six foot lizard man creatures that could sniff out a bug through multiple dimensions). Clearly the mission had been compromised. Whether it was Paachi not doing a thorough enough background check on his “friend” or it was Paachi himself that sold him out. Whatever it was all that was shooting through Morty’s head was, “ I’m so fucked. ”
In front of him in the obviously empty room (the fucking item wasn’t even there, did it even exist? ) was a familiar face.
“Hello Master Morty. It’s so very good to see you again.”
The human smiled through a grimace, “H-hey there Kevin. Long t-time no see eh?” Kevin was a short (three foot) purple alien that resembled a tiny man with an octopus for a head, with tentacles running down from his mouthless face down to his sternum. Both his hands were also tentacles. He wore a brown suit with a matching brown bowler hat, had a constant unamused look on his face, and spoke in a posh British accent. The little alien was also a huge annoyance in Morty’s life as evading the thing was a struggle. “I see you’re alone today. Is your b-boss busy o-or something?”
Kevin nodded, his many tentacles bounced on his chest, “Quite so I’m afraid. The Master has a very important meeting to attend today and I’m sure if that were not the case he would most definitely be here to greet you. Sadly he will just have to settle for seeing you after we bring you in. I’m sure he will be delighted to see you through.”
“I’m sure,” Morty replied dryly. His hands fiddled with a blaster in his lab coat pocket. I have to buy time , he thought unpleasantly. “I-I-I’m surprised to see you so soon though. I-I was sure that the boss was still ticked off at me from the last time.” He bit back a groan when a bolt fell from between his fingers. Working without his eyes was so fucking annoying.
Kevin’s eyes widened, “No no. Of course not Master Morty. Boss could never be upset with you,” he consoled. “He was very upset with the situation naturally. Those that had been in charge of guarding your holdings were punished severely.” At this Morty winced, he didn’t mean for anyone to get hurt. They were probably dead if his temper was anything to go by. “I would advise against making another escape though. Master only has so much patience after all.”
“I-i-i-is that so huh?” Morty let out a shaky laugh. Come on, just one more piece… “Well I guess all I can r-r-real-ly-ly say to that is...” Click. Got it. He pulled the finished blaster from his coat and pointed it at the small alien. “Lick lick lick my balls assholes! Haha!” He fired.
One of the hounds growled and jumped in front of Kevin and took the pink blast to the chest. It went down with a high pitched whine as the rest of its brethren turned their murderous gazes onto the human. Morty just let out of breathy chuckled, “Whoops?” And ran.
He quickly fired at the two hound’s blocking the entrance from the room. One hit the wall and went down but the other took the blast like a champ and made a furious swipe at Morty with it’s giant three inch claw. Said human “eeped” and narrowly dodged out of the way and slammed the button to open that door. When that didn’t work he quickly latched a small device to the button panel. It fried the circuits and the door opened. Morty jumped through before the exit even opened completely roars sounded close behind him. He could hear Kevin shouting.
“You idiot! Keep your claws to yourself! We want him alive you mutt. Now after him!”
It really was just his luck…
… And probably had something to do with getting involved with the wrong crowd stupidly. The interdimensional space mafia was nothing to scoff at after all. Especially since their leader had a fixation on Morty himself. He’s been running from these goons for a good few years.
Morty jumped over a sleeping guard as he made his way to the front of the VAULT™ facility. He struggled to remember the blueprint layout of the building and hoped he wasn’t getting himself more lost. The hounds were still hot on his heel. Occasionally he had to turn around and fire a blast. Fucking Paachi told him not to bring a blaster in case a backup security system kicked in from detecting it. Lies. If it turned out that the Prinkan was responsible for this little escapade then Morty was going to down that motherfucker.
Suddenly a large hound barreled into him from behind. Morty let out a shout and twisted his body to avoid the grabbing hands, but damn did that hurt like a bitch. The force of the tackle knocked Morty to the ground a few feet forwards and he was quick to turn onto his back and face the approaching hound. Morty hissed as he jolted what was most likely a broken rib (fucking genetically modified monsters were strong ) but still kept his eye on the creature. He lashed out with a hard kick, briefly stunning the monster, before firing a hot pink blast right into it’s face. The hunter stumbled back with a roar, it’s long forked tongue wiggling out of it’s maw in pain.
Morty grimaced then got to his feet and began his race down the hallways. He raced passed rooms filled to the brim with rare and highly-desired goodies that VAULT™ liked to hord. It wasn’t long before he finally made it to the VAULT™ reception room. Two shots into the glass doors, shattering fragments everywhere, and he leaped out of the trapped facility and onto a dark street (this VAULT™ quarters was situation on a densely populated planet toy, Krust, in the same solar system as Prinkleron). It was the middle of the night and the three moons of Krust shining down on the lone human.
The moment he stepped out of the building though, Morty could feel the cold buzz of the anti-portal field recede from his being. “O-oh my gosh…” He pulled replaced the blaster with his portal gun, nearly dropping it in a nervous fumble, and shot open a random portal.
The thing about the genetically modified “hounds” (slimy lizard men) that was mentioned before was their affinity for sniffing things out through dimensions. With inter-dimensional traveling becoming more popular as of late (highly regulated by the cooperation of the variations of the Galactic Federation) these hounds had been created for the sole purpose of tracking down and detaining criminals (some dumbass Rick probably released the blueprints for them). Of course that all went to shit when the interdimensional space mafia got ahold of them.
And made them larger and scarier.
The only way to lose the things was to open a crapton of random portals and to jump through as quick as possible in hopes of making them lose the trail. It wasn’t easy for sure. Luckily Morty had something a little more special.
His portal gun wasn’t just an interdimensional portal gun.
It was a interdimensional and a time manipulator portal gun. And without knowing where or even when Morty was going to be entering, he jumped through the swirling green vortex.
~*~
“Sorry Boss…” Kevin muttered to the communication device. “We've got two groups of hounds after him but it doesn’t look so good.”
“That’s not good enough Kevin. I’m not happy with this news.”
The small purple alien winced. He could almost feel the cold anger and malice radiating from across dimensions. A cold sweat would’ve broken out if his biology had been capable of such a feat. Either way, the terror the tiny man felt was heart stopping. “My apologies Master. Next time I will not be so careless.”
There was a hum of acknowledgement from the communicator.
“... Fine. Return back for now. But keep an eye out on those hounds in case they do catch up to him. Morty Smith is a capable man but even he has his moments of carelessness. Tonight was a testament to that. We will just have to wait and bide our time again. I can be patient. Afterall, he cannot run from me forever.”
Kevin nodded though no one could see him, “Very good Sir. Have a good evening Master.” The communicator clicked off and the alien let out a sigh of relief. He was lucky that he was such an important person in the boss’s system or he probably would’ve lost his head by now. The Master was known for his patience but also for his terrifying temper. People have been slaughtered for much slighter offenses, and he definitely was not happy with Kevin’s work.
The tiny alien adjusted his bowler hat and let out a nervous cough. He reached for his communicator again and signed onto a different channel. “Alright hound groups one and two. Keep up your pursuit for Morty Smith as per orders from the boss.” There was an unintelligent reply. “Cathy?”
A female voice responded, “Yes sir.”
“Prepare a shuttle to return to headquarters. Our mission here is done.”
~*~
Morty was starting to feel exhausted.
Traveling through portals was tiring enough (something about the feeling of traveling past a rip in spacetime did not bode well for the psyche) but he also had to travel through each dimension for a good bit before opening a new portal. That added up to be a lot of running and, for a man who spent a majority of his time cruising through portals and lounging in his lab, it was a rather difficult pace to keep up.
The last dimension he traveled through surprisingly happened to be Gearworld. Though it seemed that Morty’s portal gun decided to be dicks and land him in the middle of one of the major Gear Wars which was not cool. He nearly lost his head the moment he stepped through and was witness to a city on fire as enemy Gear people bombed the citizens from aircrafts above.
On the brightside, two of the five hounds that managed to follow him this far were killed in the crossfire. Morty ran as fast as he could away from the searching monsters, amidst all the fiery chaos and sounds of screaming from Gearheads, and was quick to open to new set of portals and randomly jump through one.
The next place he landed was a rural village filled with fished headed cows that walked on two feet. It was a rather strange sight. It seemed though, that the hounds must’ve gotten lost in all the confusion of the Gear Wars as nothing followed him through the portal for a good fifteen minutes. But just to be on the safeside, Morty opened another series of portals (much to the shock and confusion of the Fish-Cow villagers) and stepped through one randomly.
And stepped onto a well paved street in an obviously human inhabited city.
Morty looked around in surprise as he hadn’t expected, out of all the places he could’ve ended up in, that he landed on a version of Earth. He looked down at his modified portal gun with curiosity and was shocked again at the coordinates it showed. The little red text box read: Dimension C-130.
That was shockingly close to his own dimension of origin (C-137 that was Cronenberg-ized and C-139 that he usually resided in). The chances of him landing in a universe so similar to his own was a near astronomical impossibility (though not completely impossible as his presence would show). On top of that he also landed on Earth instead some other place in the endless expanses of this dimension’s space. And by the looks of it, he landed in some forty years past America if the clothing choices around him was anything to go by. People sporting late-1970s fashions with flaring pants and denim jackets walked around him on the sidewalk.
A hotdog cart worker stared at Morty with obvious fear in his eyes but he seemed to be the only one to notice Morty’s sudden by-portal appearance. The streets seemed fairly empty at the time. He observed the tall buildings rising up around him and concluded that he was in some metropolis, though which was debatable. Some of the buildings seemed a little run down.
Deciding that he better move on in case the hounds managed to follow him here, Morty put his portal gun away and began walking down the street. He ignored the hotdog worker who flinched away as the young scientist passed by. It wasn’t like anyone was going to believe someone spouting stories about a man appearing out of a green vortex.
“Ahhh damn…” Morty shifted his body and rubbed his chest lightly, wincing at the shot of pain that ran up his torso. Now that the adrenaline was wearing down the felling of his obviously broken rib came back with a vengeance. Morty hissed and cursed his lack of insight for not bringing a healing kit. He was also exhausted and could really use a coffee.
As if something heard his prayers, the delicious scent of coffee tickled at his nose and tempted him with it’s fragrant smells. Morty frowned and weighed his options. He probably shouldn’t stay in one spot for too long, but it did seem like he had lost the hunters and that coffee was really calling out for him. He shrugged. It couldn’t hurt to pick up one cup. His legs changed directions to lead him towards the source of the aroma. Maybe they have those delicious fruit danishes too. Haven’t had one of those in a while…
He stepped up to a quaint little shop labeled “Cuppa Morning”. The bell on the door made a light tinkle when he stepped in and Morty took in the dark woods and earthy smells of the authentic coffee shop. There was a warm atmosphere as the decent number of patrons quietly sipped their javas and read their books and papers. Morty let out a low whistle and immediately thanked himself for deciding to come here. There weren’t a lot of places in the vast multiverse that provided such a wholesome environment. It was comforting and despite the pain in Morty’s side he found himself smiling.
The man walked towards the counter whilst staring at the welcoming decor of the shop. There were multiple stylish paintings hanging from the high walls and little knick knacks scattered throughout that held obvious sentimental value to the owner. The chairs and couches were in nice maroons and earthy greens and set in dark wooden frames. Morty has been witness to countless styles over the course of his travels but none quite compared to a welcoming Earth cafe (even 40 years in the past). He hummed in appreciation.
However, despite Morty’s many adventures and course of maturity the one thing that never really left him was his lack of observation and general clumsiness. Which meant that while he was distracted by the beautiful decorations he failed to look where he was walking.
And walked straight into a person.
“Ah shit-!” Morty hissed out as he stumbled backwards clutching his chest. The collision jolted his broken rib. In front of him there was a person hunched cursing up a storm. Apparently the hit had caused them to spill their cuppa all over the floor and their hand.
“What the fuck asshole,” the person slowly turned around and bared his teeth at Morty. “You owe me another coffee you dick. Look what you did!” He thrust his hand into Morty’s face, it was red, angry, burnt, and clearly hurt like a bitch. “You better fucking pay for this dickwad! Are you even listening asshole?!”
Morty was not. He was too busy trying to catch his breath and cursing himself for putting coffee before his broken rib. As pretty as the coffee shop was this was clearly a mistake.
“Hey cunt! Listen to me when I’m talking to yoooUuu!” There was a loud belch.
“Oi, Rick. Pipe it down will ‘ya? You’re gonna scare off all my customers.” Morty froze.
The person in front of Morty -Rick- whirled their head around and glared at the person at the register. “Well what am I-I supposed to do Shane? Let this dick get away with burning my hand AND ruining my perfectly good coffee?” Morty felt like hyperventilating. He was scared to look up. There’s no way… This should be statistically impossible...
There was a snort, “Common Rick. I’ll just get you another cup. On the house.”
Rick scowled and rolled his eyes. “ Fine. But this dick’s still got some explaining to do. Hey. Look at me.”
At the command Morty’s head immediately snapped up and his brown eyes clashed with hard steely gray ones. He gasped a soundless gasp as he took in the foreign yet familiar face. The wild hair (less spiky and brushed back in rumpled but smooth waves), the single uni brow furrowed down in annoyance, the young age-less face that Morty could still tell where familiar wrinkles will one day form, and a scowl that was all Rick. His Rick’s scowl. And Morty can’t speak.
“Hey asshole. Are you fucking braindead or something? Shane I think he’s brain dead.”
“If you broke him then you’re taking the blame for it. Just dispose of the body away from my shop.”
Something in Morty snapped and suddenly he could breath again. But now he’s knees were weak and he could feel his entire body shaking. Taking a shaky breath when Rick turned back to stare him in the eyes again Morty spoke.
“...Rick?” Steel gray eyes widen in surprise and suspicion.