The garage door burst open, and out stepped Rick and Kaelen. Or, rather, Rick swaggered out, while Kaelen followed, blinking against the sunlight as if it were a new concept.
Kaelen had changed. The transformation was subtle but unmistakable. His left arm, up to the elbow, now gleamed with a dark chrome metal luster that seamlessly fused with his skin. One eye, his right, was no longer its natural color; it was a complex cybernetic orb that emitted a soft, barely perceptible blue glow.
"Ta-da!" Rick announced, clapping Kaelen's metal-clad back. "Look! I upgraded the bastard to version 2.0! Now he's 15% less likely to die stupidly and has direct Wikipedia access to his brain. Though I don't think there's an entry for 'space queen with questionable judgment.'"
Padmé sprang up, rushing to Kaelen, her face a mix of relief and horror. "Are you alright? Does it hurt?"
"I feel no pain," Kaelen responded, his voice a little flatter, more processed. "In fact, I don't feel much of anything in this arm. It's... efficient."
Summer's New Crush
As Padmé examined him, Summer, who had been observing the scene with calculated boredom, suddenly sat up straight. She leaned towards Morty.
"Hey," she whispered. "The space queen's friend... after Grandpa's makeover... he's actually kinda hot."
Morty looked at her in panic. "W-what? Summer, no! He just came out of Grandpa's garage! He probably has a black hole instead of a spleen now!"
"I don't know, he's got that tortured bad boy vibe," Summer insisted, ignoring him. "Like an anime hero with a bionic arm. I wonder if the queen is his girlfriend or just his boss."
The conversation in the living room resumed, now with an upgraded, quieter Kaelen. Jerry, in a desperate attempt to connect, approached him.
"Wow, great arm, fella!" he said with a friendly slap on Kaelen's metal shoulder, which resulted in a sharp sting in Jerry's hand. "Ow! That's hard! Does that... does that have Wi-Fi? Would be great for watching games in the yard."
"It has an electromagnetic pulse emitter capable of disabling a small city's power grid," Kaelen responded monotonously. "But no, Jerry, it does not have Wi-Fi."
Padmé, trying to steer the situation back to some semblance of normalcy, continued her explanation to Beth. "So, as a Senator, my main opposition is to the Military Creation Act. We believe an army will only lead us faster to war."
"Makes sense," Beth said, pouring more wine. "Giving my dad a bigger weapon has never solved anything. It's just made bigger holes in the house."
The Incestuous Revelation
It was then that Summer, who had been observing Kaelen with growing fascination, decided to interject.
"So... Kaelen," she said, testing his name. "Have you always been a... uh... tech genius or is that a new thing?"
"I've always been an engineer," he responded, his new blue eye humming almost imperceptibly as it scanned her. "But the scope of my... abilities... has recently expanded."
"Whoa. Mysterious, powerful, hot guy. And clearly with a dark past," Summer said, more to herself than anyone else. She turned to Morty. "He's definitely my type."
Beth, who overheard the comment, put her wine glass down with a thud. She massaged her temples, feeling a headache of multiversal proportions.
"Summer, for the love of everything remotely decent. Shut. Up," she said.
"What?" Summer retorted, offended. "I'm just saying he's hot! It's not a crime."
"Summer..." Beth began, her voice laden with the weight of a decade of therapy and the knowledge of her father's insanity. "He's not a 'guy.' He... shares a genetic signature with your grandfather. We don't know how, but they're... connected. Technically... according to your grandpa's fucked-up, twisted universe logic..."
She paused, bracing herself for the impact.
"...he's your uncle."
There was a second of absolute silence in the living room. Summer's eyes went wide. Her brain processed the information. Hot guy. Metal arm. Dark past. Grandpa. Uncle.
"...What?" she whispered, her face going from interest to pale horror. "The hot guy who's with Grandpa... is my UNCLE?!"
She shrieked the last word with so much disgust that Jerry jumped in his seat.
"EW! NO! GROSS! OH MY GOD, I'M GONNA PUKE!" Summer shrieked, jumping up and running towards the bathroom.
Rick, who had been observing everything with a sadistic smirk, burst into booming laughter.
"HA! You were crushing on your ghost uncle, Summer!" he cackled. "That's almost as gross as your dad still wearing socks with sandals!"
"Hey!" Jerry protested.
Morty just wished a portal would open beneath him and swallow him whole. Padmé looked around, completely bewildered by the violent reaction to a familiar term she didn't fully grasp in this context.
Kaelen, for his part, simply blinked. His new cybernetic eye analyzed Summer's reaction. Emotional response analysis: extreme disgust. Cause: social taboo related to incest. Conclusion: family dynamics in this dimension are... complicated.
"Alright," Rick said, wiping a tear of laughter from his eye. "Now that we've gotten past the interdimensional incest trauma, we can move on to the important stuff." He looked at Kaelen, his expression turning serious again. "We gotta figure out how we're gonna screw over two empires at the same time without getting ourselves killed. And for that, we're gonna need snacks."