Summer Smith (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
somethingwithturquoise) wrote2017-08-21 08:50 am
somethingwithturquoise) wrote2017-08-21 08:50 am
The Smith Residence; Earth Dimension [Replacement]; 08/21.
Funny how one riled up conversation in a diner before leaving and then less than 24 hours of arriving back home was more than enough to remind Summer just how much the Galactic Federation sucked and how badly she wanted things to go back to the way they were. How oblivious and submissive to it all everyone seemed. How her Grampa Rick was probably festering away while they continued existence in a world where frequent DNA scans and eating pills for meals was totally normal. And all it took was one meal to make her snap.
"I tell ya," announced Jerry, striding into the dining room of the Smith household with a certain pep in his step, until he sank down into his chair at the table where the others were already seated and ready for dinner, "the Galactic Federation taking over Earth? Best thing that ever happened to this family! I just got my sixth promotion this week, and I still don't know what I do!"
"Who cares how high they promote you?" Summer broke away from scowling at her plate long enough to ask. "Everyone just gets paid in pills!"
"Well," Jerry countered affably, "when you're not sure what you do for a living, you can make your own rules."
"Summer," Beth intervened as she reached for her wine bottle, "show your father some respect. He's pulling down a six chewable figure income."
After Beth filled her glass, she promptly threw the bottle behind her, where it smashed on the wall, barely missing Conroy the robot butler as he wheeled his way in with a covered dish in his hands. "I'll get that in a moment," he said in his affected British robot voice. "How are everyone's pills? Oh, Morty, you've hardly touched your pills."
Which wasn't necessarily true. He had touched them, but only to fashion them into a sort of pill pyramid. "I kind of had big pills for lunch," he said, and he tried to say more, but Conroy had his head in his hands, tilting it back, upending the plate of pills into Morty's still talking mouth. What could he do after that but swallow them down in one big, reluctant gulp, followed by a very wavering, "Thank you, Conroy"?
"You spoil us, Conroy," Jerry beamed.
And that was the final straw for Summer, who bolted up to her feet, slamming her hands on the table. "Grampa Rick would never put up with this!"
Beth met Summer's protest with one of her own, banging her fist on the table as well and pointing accusingly at her daughter. "Stop saying his name!" she demanded. "He abandoned us."
Jerry banged his fist down next. "Willem Defoe! Th-that's the guy I couldn't think of this morning."
No one paid him any attention. "Don't make my mistake, Summer," Beth continued. "Don't deify the people who leave you. You'll end up a horse surgeon...in a world controlled by aliens whose medicine keeps horses..." She had to stop for a moment to hold back a sob "...healthy forever! Horses live longer tortoises now. Is that what you want for yourself?"
Summer pushed herself away from the table. "Maybe I just want you to care if I run away yelling!"
And she did just that, fleeing for the stairs and the safety of her bedroom as Conroy wheeled back into the kitchen. "Who save room for pill brûlée?"
"Oooh!"
Of course you did, Jerry.
_________________________________
Summer didn't stay in her room for long, though it had been long enough for the sun to set and a small thunderstorm to roll in. Her father's obliviousness, her mother's drunkeness and self-pity, Morty's entire weak apathy about it all, just stewed inside of her until she couldn't take it any more. Sure, she had planned to do some investigating throughout the week before heading back to school, but she needed to see what she could find now. She just had to!
So she made her way to the garage, riffling through all the boxes and the cabinets, until Morty just had to show up, already in his dumb yellow pajamas and everything, to give her shit about it. "Huh? W-what are you...what are you doing?"
Summer pulled a bunch of nothing out of a cabinet, turned down on her knees as her hands brushed across the ground, searching, searching. "Grampa Rick must have some secret lab, right? With, like, laser guns and jets packs and a space tank! And we can go break him out of prison!" She was back on her knees, turning toward one of the countertops. "Look at these dead flies! Maybe if we arrange them in a certain order, it plays a hologram or it opens a secret door!"
"Summer, you're freaking me out!" Morty said, moving forward to intercept her as she started pushing around the dead flies, pulling her away gently. "I know things have changed a lot, and I know you miss Rick, but getting him back wouldn't make things better. And, you know, we're not doing so bad. Y-you just don't see it because you're off at your new school all the time."
"It's miserable here, Morty! I can see it because of my new school. There's a mandatory curfew, their weird calendar made me 47, and they weaponized the Eiffel Tower!"
"Hey," Morty protested. "I like being 35. I-I can rent a car now."
"Because you suck!" Summer shouted. "You've been keeping your lip zipped about it since Grampa got arrested, but the fact is, you're freaking stoked to bail on him!"
"He bails on everybody!" Morty shouted back. "He bailed on Mom when she was a kid! He--he bailed on tiny planet! And in case I never made this clear to you, Summer, he bailed on you. He left you to rot in a world that he ruined because he doesn't care! Because nobody's special to him, Summer, not even himself. So, if you really want your grandpa back, grab a shovel." And he grabbed one himself for effect. "The one that won't let you down is buried in your backyard!"
Summer blinked, and then her eyes brightened with an undeniable spark. "You're right!" she said, reaching for the shovel's handle.
"What?" Morty was so shocked and surprised that he couldn't even begin to stop Summer as she took the shovel from his hands, rushing out the garage toward the backyward. "No, I'm not right. I-I was using ghoulish overkill! Ghoulish overkill, Summer!"
He hurried after her, and by the time he caught up, she was already digging in the wet ground, rain cascading over her but not hindering her at all. The graves of her world's Rick and Morty were shallow, but she'd still made an impressive headway. Morty covered his head and covered for a moment, overwhelmed with his inability to do anything to stop her, it seemed. "Oh, god, oh god," he murmured, until Summer's shovel threw up a skeletal hand in a dirt-covered lab coat, lightening flashing at just the right moment to illuminate the corpse's grisly shape. "W-whoa!"
As Morty covered his mouth at the grotesque sight, Summer reached in, grabbing for something softly glowing green, nestled inside the coat of her dead grandfather's emaciated body. She held it in awe for a moment before lifting it above her head in exaltation. A bolt of lightning streaked the sky again as she realized exactly what she held. Her Grampa Rick's portal gun.
"Summer," Morty warned desperately, "no one needs to know about that. We could put it right back and pretend we never saw it, like we did with Dad's mannequin leg."
"Fine," Summer said, already fiddling with it, not even understanding what Morty was so worked up about. She was practically an expert at Portals at this point. "Stay here. I'll rescue Grandpa myself."
A part of her wondered if she should wait, call up on help from her Fandom friends, but there wasn't time! She couldn't just throw away this golden opportunity that had just landed in her hands.
"And how are you gonna do that?" Morty challenged.
"I don't know yet," Summer admitted. "I'll make it up as I go. That's what Grampa Rick does. That's what heroes do."
"Y-You want to see what a hero Rick is?" Morty stuttered, reaching over and snatching the portal gun from Summer's hands. "I-I'll bring you somewhere, Summer. Um--"
For as many times as he'd seen Rick use the thing, Morty wasn't entirely sure how the gun worked, but it was too late, anyway. "My goodness, children," came a familiar, roboticly British voice from the living room doors. Conroy, coming to see what the commotion was. Conroy, noticing what they were fighting over and changing very, very quickly, glowing red and abandoning his butler skin to a much more threatening drone that hurtled toward them, hands now glowing with static electricity.
"Relinquish the illegal technology to the nearest Federation representative."
Conroy's voice was no longer so affable or so British. It was pure, 100% threat, until it faltered back slightly with a cheery, "And then we'll all play Balderdash!"
Summer and Morty began to run. They couldn't outrun Conroy's arms, though, as they shot out for them, wrapping around their ankles, pulling them down on their stomachs to the muddy ground. They screamed as they clawed at the grass, but it was useless against the powerful pull of the mechanical arms bringing them back, bringing them closer, closer. Morty turned his torso, aiming the portal gun at Conroy's feet, pushed a button, and opened one up beneath them. Conroy fell through....but so did Morty and Summer, as he still had their wrists in his steely grasp. They plummeted toward a broken-down street, but the cables caught on a light pole, stringing them up, bouncing slightly from the elasticity. Morty opened another portal before he and Summer would have smashed into the cement, plunging them briefly into a world that seemed to be filled with nothing but giant farting butts.
Conroy pulled them back out, and Summer thought maybe they'd have been better off in the farting butt world. He had them now, charging up his guns, ready to strike. Summer and Morty clung to each other; Summer had her first flicker of regret, but it was too late now.
Or was it? Oh, my goodness!" Conroy cried out. "Oh, oh! My goo--"
The rest was all crackles as Summer and Morty hit the cement, looking up to see...what looked like a grizzly version of their father, shirtless with a wild beard and a strange cloak, smashing a sword into the robot butler. And someone...very familiar rushed forward, shoving a spearpoint into their faces.
"Oh, my god," said the very familiar looking young woman with the wild red hair and the muscles subtly bulging out of her dirty blue shirt, "I have that exact same top."
"What is this place?" Summer asked Morty, hitching a thumb to her doppleganger. "And what's with Hunger Games Summer?"
"That's my sister," Morty said. "This used to be my home."
[[ooooo-weee! Did someone say canon catch-up? 'Cause this here's the first slice of a nice, fat canon catch-up pie. Part one of...ohgod. So many. Transcribed pretty much directly from Season 3, Episode 1 "The Rickshank Redemption," so, you know, totally spoilies and such]]
"I tell ya," announced Jerry, striding into the dining room of the Smith household with a certain pep in his step, until he sank down into his chair at the table where the others were already seated and ready for dinner, "the Galactic Federation taking over Earth? Best thing that ever happened to this family! I just got my sixth promotion this week, and I still don't know what I do!"
"Who cares how high they promote you?" Summer broke away from scowling at her plate long enough to ask. "Everyone just gets paid in pills!"
"Well," Jerry countered affably, "when you're not sure what you do for a living, you can make your own rules."
"Summer," Beth intervened as she reached for her wine bottle, "show your father some respect. He's pulling down a six chewable figure income."
After Beth filled her glass, she promptly threw the bottle behind her, where it smashed on the wall, barely missing Conroy the robot butler as he wheeled his way in with a covered dish in his hands. "I'll get that in a moment," he said in his affected British robot voice. "How are everyone's pills? Oh, Morty, you've hardly touched your pills."
Which wasn't necessarily true. He had touched them, but only to fashion them into a sort of pill pyramid. "I kind of had big pills for lunch," he said, and he tried to say more, but Conroy had his head in his hands, tilting it back, upending the plate of pills into Morty's still talking mouth. What could he do after that but swallow them down in one big, reluctant gulp, followed by a very wavering, "Thank you, Conroy"?
"You spoil us, Conroy," Jerry beamed.
And that was the final straw for Summer, who bolted up to her feet, slamming her hands on the table. "Grampa Rick would never put up with this!"
Beth met Summer's protest with one of her own, banging her fist on the table as well and pointing accusingly at her daughter. "Stop saying his name!" she demanded. "He abandoned us."
Jerry banged his fist down next. "Willem Defoe! Th-that's the guy I couldn't think of this morning."
No one paid him any attention. "Don't make my mistake, Summer," Beth continued. "Don't deify the people who leave you. You'll end up a horse surgeon...in a world controlled by aliens whose medicine keeps horses..." She had to stop for a moment to hold back a sob "...healthy forever! Horses live longer tortoises now. Is that what you want for yourself?"
Summer pushed herself away from the table. "Maybe I just want you to care if I run away yelling!"
And she did just that, fleeing for the stairs and the safety of her bedroom as Conroy wheeled back into the kitchen. "Who save room for pill brûlée?"
"Oooh!"
Of course you did, Jerry.
_________________________________
Summer didn't stay in her room for long, though it had been long enough for the sun to set and a small thunderstorm to roll in. Her father's obliviousness, her mother's drunkeness and self-pity, Morty's entire weak apathy about it all, just stewed inside of her until she couldn't take it any more. Sure, she had planned to do some investigating throughout the week before heading back to school, but she needed to see what she could find now. She just had to!
So she made her way to the garage, riffling through all the boxes and the cabinets, until Morty just had to show up, already in his dumb yellow pajamas and everything, to give her shit about it. "Huh? W-what are you...what are you doing?"
Summer pulled a bunch of nothing out of a cabinet, turned down on her knees as her hands brushed across the ground, searching, searching. "Grampa Rick must have some secret lab, right? With, like, laser guns and jets packs and a space tank! And we can go break him out of prison!" She was back on her knees, turning toward one of the countertops. "Look at these dead flies! Maybe if we arrange them in a certain order, it plays a hologram or it opens a secret door!"
"Summer, you're freaking me out!" Morty said, moving forward to intercept her as she started pushing around the dead flies, pulling her away gently. "I know things have changed a lot, and I know you miss Rick, but getting him back wouldn't make things better. And, you know, we're not doing so bad. Y-you just don't see it because you're off at your new school all the time."
"It's miserable here, Morty! I can see it because of my new school. There's a mandatory curfew, their weird calendar made me 47, and they weaponized the Eiffel Tower!"
"Hey," Morty protested. "I like being 35. I-I can rent a car now."
"Because you suck!" Summer shouted. "You've been keeping your lip zipped about it since Grampa got arrested, but the fact is, you're freaking stoked to bail on him!"
"He bails on everybody!" Morty shouted back. "He bailed on Mom when she was a kid! He--he bailed on tiny planet! And in case I never made this clear to you, Summer, he bailed on you. He left you to rot in a world that he ruined because he doesn't care! Because nobody's special to him, Summer, not even himself. So, if you really want your grandpa back, grab a shovel." And he grabbed one himself for effect. "The one that won't let you down is buried in your backyard!"
Summer blinked, and then her eyes brightened with an undeniable spark. "You're right!" she said, reaching for the shovel's handle.
"What?" Morty was so shocked and surprised that he couldn't even begin to stop Summer as she took the shovel from his hands, rushing out the garage toward the backyward. "No, I'm not right. I-I was using ghoulish overkill! Ghoulish overkill, Summer!"
He hurried after her, and by the time he caught up, she was already digging in the wet ground, rain cascading over her but not hindering her at all. The graves of her world's Rick and Morty were shallow, but she'd still made an impressive headway. Morty covered his head and covered for a moment, overwhelmed with his inability to do anything to stop her, it seemed. "Oh, god, oh god," he murmured, until Summer's shovel threw up a skeletal hand in a dirt-covered lab coat, lightening flashing at just the right moment to illuminate the corpse's grisly shape. "W-whoa!"
As Morty covered his mouth at the grotesque sight, Summer reached in, grabbing for something softly glowing green, nestled inside the coat of her dead grandfather's emaciated body. She held it in awe for a moment before lifting it above her head in exaltation. A bolt of lightning streaked the sky again as she realized exactly what she held. Her Grampa Rick's portal gun.
"Summer," Morty warned desperately, "no one needs to know about that. We could put it right back and pretend we never saw it, like we did with Dad's mannequin leg."
"Fine," Summer said, already fiddling with it, not even understanding what Morty was so worked up about. She was practically an expert at Portals at this point. "Stay here. I'll rescue Grandpa myself."
A part of her wondered if she should wait, call up on help from her Fandom friends, but there wasn't time! She couldn't just throw away this golden opportunity that had just landed in her hands.
"And how are you gonna do that?" Morty challenged.
"I don't know yet," Summer admitted. "I'll make it up as I go. That's what Grampa Rick does. That's what heroes do."
"Y-You want to see what a hero Rick is?" Morty stuttered, reaching over and snatching the portal gun from Summer's hands. "I-I'll bring you somewhere, Summer. Um--"
For as many times as he'd seen Rick use the thing, Morty wasn't entirely sure how the gun worked, but it was too late, anyway. "My goodness, children," came a familiar, roboticly British voice from the living room doors. Conroy, coming to see what the commotion was. Conroy, noticing what they were fighting over and changing very, very quickly, glowing red and abandoning his butler skin to a much more threatening drone that hurtled toward them, hands now glowing with static electricity.
"Relinquish the illegal technology to the nearest Federation representative."
Conroy's voice was no longer so affable or so British. It was pure, 100% threat, until it faltered back slightly with a cheery, "And then we'll all play Balderdash!"
Summer and Morty began to run. They couldn't outrun Conroy's arms, though, as they shot out for them, wrapping around their ankles, pulling them down on their stomachs to the muddy ground. They screamed as they clawed at the grass, but it was useless against the powerful pull of the mechanical arms bringing them back, bringing them closer, closer. Morty turned his torso, aiming the portal gun at Conroy's feet, pushed a button, and opened one up beneath them. Conroy fell through....but so did Morty and Summer, as he still had their wrists in his steely grasp. They plummeted toward a broken-down street, but the cables caught on a light pole, stringing them up, bouncing slightly from the elasticity. Morty opened another portal before he and Summer would have smashed into the cement, plunging them briefly into a world that seemed to be filled with nothing but giant farting butts.
Conroy pulled them back out, and Summer thought maybe they'd have been better off in the farting butt world. He had them now, charging up his guns, ready to strike. Summer and Morty clung to each other; Summer had her first flicker of regret, but it was too late now.
Or was it? Oh, my goodness!" Conroy cried out. "Oh, oh! My goo--"
The rest was all crackles as Summer and Morty hit the cement, looking up to see...what looked like a grizzly version of their father, shirtless with a wild beard and a strange cloak, smashing a sword into the robot butler. And someone...very familiar rushed forward, shoving a spearpoint into their faces.
"Oh, my god," said the very familiar looking young woman with the wild red hair and the muscles subtly bulging out of her dirty blue shirt, "I have that exact same top."
"What is this place?" Summer asked Morty, hitching a thumb to her doppleganger. "And what's with Hunger Games Summer?"
"That's my sister," Morty said. "This used to be my home."
[[ooooo-weee! Did someone say canon catch-up? 'Cause this here's the first slice of a nice, fat canon catch-up pie. Part one of...ohgod. So many. Transcribed pretty much directly from Season 3, Episode 1 "The Rickshank Redemption," so, you know, totally spoilies and such]]