The streets of the suburban hellhole they called home were oddly quiet today, as if the neighborhood knew trouble had just dropped in and wanted no part of the follow-up. Rick adjusted the straps on his portal belt as he marched ahead, Summer in tow, barely keeping pace. "Seriously, Rick?" Summer huffed. "You dragged me out here to some shady black-magic antique shop to get a refund? That's your priority?"
Rick didn't even glance at her. "It's not a refund, Summer. It's a reclamation of cosmic dignity. That bastard sold me a death crystal. Tried to kill me in three days. Me! Rick Sanchez! The audacity."
They arrived at the decrepit storefront, which looked like a Gothic Hot Topic if it had been franchised by Satan himself. Over the door hung a rusty wooden sign: Needful Things. Inside, the air was thick with dust, incense, and subtle manipulation. Cursed objects lined the walls. A severed monkey paw flipped them off from a glass case. Behind the counter, the Devil himself, Mr. Needful, smiled.
"Rick! Summer! What a... cursed surprise."
Rick stormed in. "You tried to kill me, Needful. You owe me a cosmic-level apology and a goddamn store credit."
"I sold you a perfectly cursed item. Buyer beware." The Devil winked at Summer. "Though I do appreciate her punctuality. She's been quite the diligent little assistant."
Summer stood straighter. "At least he values my work."
Rick scoffed. "He values your labor while draining your soul. Welcome to late-stage capitalism." While Rick began his increasingly desperate campaign to out-devil the Devil, failing in hilarious, often explosive ways, Richard was dealing with something else entirely.
{Smith family home}
Morty Jr. sat curled in a reinforced pod, his red eyes flickering under sedation, still clutching his bamboo like a child with a teddy bear. Morty stood at the edge of the platform, fists clenched. "You can't just take him!" Morty snapped. "He's still my son! He's still... part of this family!"
Richard didn't look away from the navigational screen. "And you were gonna raise him where, Morty? In a bombed-out suburb full of trauma and microwave dinners? Be serious."
"I would've figured it out! You don't even care! Why are you suddenly so invested in him?"
At this, Richard turned, slowly, like gravity itself had to convince him to give Morty the time of day. "It's not that I don't care. It's that it's rarely worth the effort. Caring isn't binary, Morty. It's calculus. If I truly didn't care, I'd have killed him. Clean, quick. A bullet would've cost me less."
Morty paled. "But instead," Richard continued, pulling a glimmering, near-translucent bullet casing from his coat, "I used one of my rarest shots. Interdimensional genetic transmutation alloy — a substance mined from collapsing neutron stars and illegal in half the multiverse. Why? To spare you, your family, and the planet a rampaging death panda."
He slid the bullet back into his coat. "I'm sending him to a sanctuary planet where he can grow, learn, and not implode under the weight of Earth's emotional fragility."
"Then why not talk to me?" Morty shouted. "Why never say anything? Why act like none of this matters?"
Richard looked at him like a person might look at a houseplant trying to debate string theory. "Because you and I," he said flatly, "exist in two very, very distant worlds." He opened the portal and tried to send Morty Jr. through it, but Morty, who fell silent, said
"Wait"
"Oh my fucking god morty, what about finding natural habitat don't you get?" Richard turned as he said in an exasperated tone.
"It's not that I want to select the habitat he's going to live in myself," Morty said, to which Richard looked at him and said
"Morty you are not sending him to college and I am not a fucking tour guid. I am not going to take you around the universe showing you planets where you could send your son, too."
"There is more to life than just surviving, Richard. You like science, right? Would you have worried about it every day if you were busy surviving?" Morty argued
"Yes, do you know why? Because I can make weapons, infrastructure, and so many other things that can help me survive. It is what everyone in the universe ever does with their lives: survive." Richard argued back.
"But–" Morty tried to argue, but Richard continued.
"Hold your tongue and listen, you hairless monkey. I have watched time and time again where men seem to believe that they have achieved something great with their life, whether it be building an empire that stretches across the universe or something else. Do you know what happens to all of them in the end? They are all forgotten, and with enough time, everything will be lost. All the joy, pain, and suffering only till you die, and once you are gone, you will only be one being who tried to survive, just like everything else."
Morty fell silent as Richard continued to set the parameter and pointed it at Morty Jr. Morty finally held Richard's shoulder as he said, "Do it for me."
Richard heard that and sighed. Even though it takes more effort, it seems that his monkey brother is hell bent on this, and he can't do anything about it.
{Needful}
Rick was mid-lecture to a bored goth influencer when Richard stepped through a swirling portal, dusting off his coat. The shop's temperature dropped ten degrees. The Devil took one look at him and immediately slid behind Summer, using her like a human meat shield. "Ah. Hello, friend. No hard feelings about the cursed crystal, right?"
Richard didn't answer. He walked up, glanced once at the display shelves like they offended him. "Rick," he said, "I'm relocating the panda."
Rick shrugged, tapping away on his wrist device. "Cool. Less rage panda, more free time. Win-win."
Summer stepped between them, arms up. "Wait! No one asked me what I think. I'm doing something good here! I have a purpose, a job—"
"You're wrong," Richard said flatly, not even waiting for the sentence to end. "Rick is right."
Summer's face froze. Her fists balled. Her entire body trembled as years of unspoken resentment boiled over. "You arrogant, robotic, emotionally constipated jackasses!" she screamed. "You always decide what's important! What's worth it! What's smart! But guess what, I'm not some failed experiment or a sidekick or a mistake! I'm your sister, Richard! You're my brother! And you never treated me like anything more than a footnote!"
She ripped off her apron, threw it at the Devil, and stormed toward Richard. "And you know what you can do with your IQ points and your interdimensional logic and your stupid perfect hair?! SHOVE IT UP YOUR ASS!"
Richard didn't flinch. He just stared at her with something between pity and detachment. "You're angry," he said simply, "because you still want to be understood. That's your flaw."
He opened a portal and walked through it, leaving her standing there, shaking. Rick blinked. "Damn. That's cold, even by my standards."
Summer turned to the Devil, eyes raw and red. "You still need someone to organize your soul contracts?"
He smiled. "Always."