What Used to be Seattle/Near What Used to be Seattle, Earth Dimension [Unknown], 08/23.

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The Death Stalker's camp was a place where lawlessness reigned. It was a place where meals were made of human flesh and served buffet style, and tetanus lurked around every dirty, rusty corner. Where spray paint seemed inexplicably plentiful to shoot into one's face and get high since the world surrounding them was so grim and brutal, and time was passed playing chicken in the middle of the camp with weapons fashioned out of golf clubs. It was brutal, it was stark, it was totally fucking metal. And one Smith was adapting much more easily than the other.

(Summer. It was Summer.)



"Grampa," Summer said as she walked up to Rick and Morty in the food line, "some of the Death Stalkers are going to what used to be Seattle to hunt what used to be people. I'm going."

"Sounds good," said Rick. "Stay hydrated."

What used to be Seattle was ravaged pretty bad, by whatever had hit this world to make it so post-apocalypt-y, and Summer strode through the streets while Hemorrhage and his gang shot at whatever mutated human dared to show their pock-marked, pus-infused faces. She watched in mild fascination, and had some very important questions.

"How come you guys dress like you're in a theme-park stunt show, but these guys wear khakis and hockey jerseys?"

"After the boom-boom," said Hemorrhage, "some adapted to the new truth, and some chose to huddle near the boomy holes, clinging to the lie of the before-fore times. The raidy-rays rotted them away, leaving only their love for the vert-vert-isements on billyboards."

Summer quirked an eyebrow. "Jesus Christ. Did the boomy-booms blow up all your wordy-word books?"

"You mean dictionaries?"

They approached one of the aforementioned 'billyboards,' long since knocked to the street, where a smattering of mutants pawed at the picture until the group neared. Once they were close, they turned, hissing and lifting their disease-riddled arms and staggering for the fresh meat. Summer was quick to shoot in response, just as the others were, and when they had cleared the billyboard, they moved in even closer.

"I think I was a child before the boom-booms," Hemorrhage said, kneeling before the image of a boy peering from the filth on the board. He reached out his hand. "I think I looked like this."



"Wanna piss on him?" Summer asked.

"Get outta my head," said Hemorrhage.

________________________________________

And while Summer was away shooting mutants with the Death Stalkers, Morty seemed to have gotten into his own interesting situation in the ThunderBlood Dome. They returned just in time to see Morty in the middle, his left arm somehow all jacked up and muscular, beating the snot out of some hulking dude with his overalls held up by his nipple rings.

"Morty?" Summer made her way through the crowd, trying to get a better look at what was happening.



Morty had grabbed his opponent's arm and wrenched it off, spurting blood. "Why would you want this to happen?" Morty grabbed the man's throat, threw him on the ground. "All you had to do was go away!" He started beating his muscle fist into the man's pink mohawk, then kept punching his face in time with every few words. "Stop standing in the driveway talking about custody! And either tell her you want to stay married or get on with your life, but whatever you do, stop being a baby and act like a man!"

And he ripped off the man's scalp and punched off his head, sending it flying toward the cheering crowd. He took a second to catch his breath before smiling down at the muscle arm and whispering, "Thank you." The arm responded with a bloody thumbs-up.

"Morty," Summer rushed into the ThunderBlood Dome with him, "that was amazing!" She threw her arms around him and turned to the audience, pointing at him proudly. "This is my brother! Not that family means anything!"

"This family does," said Hemorrhage, coming to join them in the center. And, sure, he wore a bucket over his head, but Summer just knew, from the softness of his voice, the intensity in the shadow of the little slit for his eyes, that he was smiling at her. She felt a flutter in her chest as she smiled back.

"All right," said Rick, as he, too, came to join them. "Good job, Champ. Um, can I talk to you kids for a second over yonder?"

"Rick, I-I-I think I'm breaking through to something here!" Morty pointed happily to his massive appendage. "C-Can we not leave just yet?"

"Leave?" asked Hemorrhage.

"I'm not leaving," said Summer, stepping closer to Hemorrhage in solidarity. Yeah, that was it. Solidarity.

"There is no leave," Hemorrhage continued. "We are united, or we are enemies."

"Whoa, big guy!" Rick threw up his hands defensively. "No. Nobody's leaving. Don't be stupid. We looooove being united." He drew the kids on each side to show it. "We love the radiation, the trichinosis. We're in it for life, which I assume is around twenty years, average? I just need a quick aside with my grandkids, about forty yards from anyone else."

"Hey," came a voice from the crowd, a straggly guy in a corset climbing through the bars of the ThunderBlood Dome, "the Green Rock is gone!"

"Uh, I know!" said Rick as the crowd began to murmur and fret and get riled up at this news. "Why don't we all split up and look for it in groups of three? Kids?"



And that's when Morty's monster arm reached for Rick's back, swiftly extracting the large glowing green rock of Isotope 322, promptly dropping it on the ground for all to see.

"Ohhhh," said Rick, pulling out his gun, then looking up and out, as if to some sort of forth wall or something. "We'll be right back."

[[Part 3 of ???. Continued from here and here. I love my dumb, stupid, cracky canon. Spoilers, violence, blah blah blah, all that good stuff]]