Blips and Chitz; Out in Space; Dimension FH-001; Thursday Evening [12/21].

[somethingwithturquoise]

It had all started out well and fine, just a trip out to Blips and Chitz so that Summer could show Stark a ridiculous barcade in space and have him spend a stupid amount of time and money to win her some chintzy little prize that was not even worth a fraction of what they'd put into it and celebrate the semester being over. Maybe have some bar food and space drinks, especially somewhere that Stark wouldn't feel awkward or out of place like he might on Earth. In fact, someplace where most people wouldn't even believe he was an alien half the time.

But then, of course, everything went to absolute shit.

First of all, it appeared that Rick and Morty had also chosen this day, and this dimension, out of all days and all dimensions, to be at the same Blips and Chitz they Stark and Summer had gone to, and they were just about to duck out of eye sight behind a LaserLazer PewPew console when the power cut completely out. All the noise, all the flashing light, plunged into darkness and silence. Immediately panic and screaming and chaos set over the entire arcade, people were already starting to rush about in a chance to escape, and the power surged back on with an announcement that escape was futile, a rogue cell of terrorists had taken the place over, and they weren't leaving until they got what they wanted.

"Oh, no," said Summer, firmly, pulling her portal gun out of her purse and charging it up, "fuck tha--"

Pew!

Just like that, a laser bolt flew from the second floor balcony, knocking the gun out of her hand. "My portal gun!" she gasped it went flying out of her hand, skittering underneath some kind of claw machine, and she went to dive for it and grab it back, only to find out that someone had her arm and was pulling her back.

Rick	"Summer, perfect; I need your help."
Summer	"Grampa Rick!" Summer protested, trying to squirm out of his grip but she was being pulled along all the same and she let out a frustrated sigh and was about to cock her head toward the claw machine for Stark to get the gun, but then her eyes widened at the group of alien terrorists about to turn the corner, so she similarly reached out to grab Stark to pull him along to relative safety with her. "What's going on? Terrorists? Is this because you're here?"
Rick	"Not every terrorist is a terrorist because of me, Summer," said Rick irritably, punctuating it with a burp. "Just about half of them. But this has nothing to do with that. We have to help your brother. When the power went out, he was playing Roy, the game restarted, and now his identity had been splintered off into all the non-player characters. So I need to jack in as Roy, the player character, to get Morty out of the game before it's over and he dies. You--" He let go of Summer's arm, shoved a gun into her chest, and went to sit down beside the Roy console, over which a comatose Morty was slumped with drool dripping down his chin, and reach for a headset, "--keep an eye out and shoot any terrorists that get nearby until I'm done, got it?"
Summer	"Grampa Rick! I--" But Rick settled the headset onto his head and his eyes rolled back and his body slumped and Summer threw up her hands in frustration, sucking in a deep breath as she turned toward Stark. "So I guess now we're guarding these two assholes against space terrorists. So much for we'll just portal out when we see them, I guess! UGH!" For good measure, she gave Rick's unconscious body a kick, because why the fuck did this old man have to ruin everything??
Stark	Stark had been enjoying this excursion. He didn't even raise any eyebrows with his mask given the clientele here. He was spending time with his favorite person. He was playing ridiculous games to try and earn a ridiculous pink prize (or two). He was having fun. And then Rick had appeared. "You're sure he isn't tracking you, somehow?" he murmured to Summer, eyeing Rick's slumped over form with distaste. An uncharitable part of him wanted to suggest they run while they could but it was only a very small part. Rick hadn't actually done anything to him, yet, that would warrant that sort of behavior. "He keeps appearing when we try to travel." Oh no, Rick didn't know about the space spa that Summer never shut up about, did he?
Summer	Honestly, Summer would have absolutely have said screw all of this if it wasn't for Morty, and seeing him attached the the video game while the game played out on the big screen in front of him only solidified that for her. Rick could fuck right off, but she couldn't just leave Morty to get potentially shot by space terrorists. And the necessity became all the more clear as a bolt came whizzing past and clipped the edge of a fighting game behind her; her head snapped toward the source, she lifted her own gun, and made a quick shot upwards, which then resulted in one of the alien invaders screaming a canned sort of scream as he careened over the railing of the second floor and landed with a thump. Summer rushed over to pull the gun out of his cold, dead hands and toss it to Stark. "Oh," she stated, "I know he is. He has us all chipped. The amount of times I've just show up in this dimension and had him call me immediately to go solve one of his dumb problems is...honestly, pretty much pathological. I do think this one might just be coincidence, though. And really shit timing!" An alien with a face full of tentacles came streaming by, waving equally tentacled arms about as one of the terrorists followed in hot pursuit. Summer waited a moment for them to pass and then put a bolt in the back of the terrorist in a splatter of blue blood.
Stark	Morty was a complication and Stark wouldn't really have left him behind. He'd only met the dead version of Summer's brother previously but the boy was just a boy and couldn't be held responsible for his grandfather's...everything. "Maybe someone at home could help with that," Stark suggested, looking over the gun in his hands and nodding once he was satisfied it would work the way he expected it to. "The chip. But this is terrible timing." He'd been accused of being a space terrorist before. It hadn't been an unfair assumption given the amount of destruction that had followed with Moya's crew. But he'd never been trapped by actual space terrorists. "What do they want?" he asked before letting out a surprised yelp when a shot hit far too close to his head for comfort. He fired back, ducking lower as he did so.
Summer	Boy, yeah, Stark was just really getting the best of Summer's brother in these encounters, wasn't he? The dead fourteen year old version, the one currently trapped in a life-sim game with his personality split between millions of NPCs.... "I don't know," Summer shrugged, shaking her head, deciding to just not even address the chip thing right now, because, really, if she'd have thought it was worth it or even helpful to have had it removed, she would have had Barry do that ages ago. But no doubt Rick would find some other way to track her again. At least with the chip, she knew. "Terrorist stuff? I mean, I guess if you want to make a statement and leave an impact, hitting up a Blips and Chits on a busy night's an easy way to do i--Oh, fuck." At this point, several of the terrorists had made it into the area they were in, although, thankfully, they didn't seem to notice the four people huddled around the Roy console. Most of their attention was going toward stopping the people trying to run away and shooting up toward the second floor and the ceiling. Summer sucked in a breath, figuring that, between her and Stark, they could blast their way out of here, but she didn't want to leave her portal gun where it had landed, and, goddammit, she shouldn't have to! She grabbed Rick's jacket and started to try and shake him out of the game.
Rick	"Do you understand," Rick seemed to be mid-thought when his eyes unrolled back to where they should be and he looked over at Summer, "time dilation? I'm losing a month a second out here!"
Summer	"There's an alien army shooting people!" Summer reminded him. "What are we doing about it?"
Rick	"It's a small group of alien terrorists," Rick corrected with a roll of his eyes. "Just....do a Die Hard."
Summer	"What?" Summer scoffed, looking at him like he was crazy. Well, crazier. "What does that mean?"
Rick	"Sneak around!" Rick said. "Use air vents! You've never seen Die Hard?"
Summer	"I mean, it's on my list," Summer informed him, "but, no, I've never seen fucking Die Hard!"
Rick	"Well," Rick stated, going back to adjust the headset and ignoring Summer to get back to trying to get Morty out of the video game, "neither did the guy in Die Hard, so...." He slid back down to the floor to get comfortable to tap back into the game, "you're nailing it. Good luck!" And, with that, his eyes rolled into the back of his head again and his body went limp again.
Stark	Stark flinched a little at Rick going limp as he was pulled back into the game. Maybe he ought to tell Summer about the video game he'd unwillingly contributed to if they got out of this. When they got out of this. "What's a Die Hard?" he asked, frowning at Rick's form before turning his attention back to looking for anyone who might be approaching them to do harm. "And why does he think a small group is less of a problem hasn't he ever seen what a small group can do? We did a lot of damage and we weren't even trying to terrorize anyone really..."
Summer	That last part was getting a lingering lift of Summer's eyebrow, an eyebrow that had no room to talk, considering all the carnage she and Rick and Morty had been known to leave behind them on occasion, and then she just sighed and shook her head. "Some dumb old action movie with, like, the guy from that M. Night Shyamalan movie?" she offered helpfully. "I think? Whatever. It's clear that if we're going to get out of here, it's up to me to take care of it. Of course." Already, though, her eyes were scanning for a good route to take, and then she looked over at Stark. "Can you stay here?" she asked. "It's much easier to sneak around if it's just one person, and I really don't want any of these guys shooting my brother in cold blood."
Stark	They could discuss their accidental space terrorism later. Along with Stark's very negative experience with video game development. And then maybe they could watch some classic Bruce Willis films. "Are you sure?" he asked, looking around at, well, everything. "You'll be all right? I don't...I don't want anything to happen to you." He frowned. "I trust you. I just worry. But I can stay here, if that will help you."
Summer	Summer gave Stark a soft smile at that. "I'll be fine," she assured him, lifting her gun and grinning a little more as if in proof. "I mean, it's just doing a Die Hard, how hard can it be?" She did lean in to give him a quick kiss, though. "Just keep my brother safe for me, okay?"
Stark	"I don't know how to do a Die Hard so I don't know. But you're you. You'll be fine." He believed that, absolutely, but he was also trying to reassure himself. He reached for her hand to squeeze it once when she kissed him. "I'll protect him. Of course."
Summer	"Thanks, Stark," said Summer, with a squeeze of his hand back and a small smile, before she gave a nod and rushed off. She couldn't waste any more time. She had a Die Hard to do. Whatever that meant. Apparently, it meant making her way further into the arcade. As she snuck around a couple of game cabinets, Summer noticed a few of the alien henchmen leading some poor wage slave employee toward the center of the food area, where they brought him to sit down at a table with the guy who clearly had Brains of the Operation written all over him with his nice suit and generally punchable face. Gun poised, Summer leaned against the cabinet to listen.
Jons	"What do you people want?" the poor shift manager who probably wasn't even supposed to be here today asked desperatel as he sat down, the heavy laser rifles of the henchmen pointed at him menacingly. "We have many interests," the man said, with a voice smooth and accented, leering over the laced fingers in front of him, "but right now my primary one is the location...." He paused for dramatic effect, drawing out the next words slowly, "of...your...safe." "We exchange tokens for digital currency!" the manager pointed out. "We don't have a safe!" "Correction," said the man, "what you don't have....is a head." He gestured toward one of the henchmen, who handed him a gun. A....tiny gun. Like, almost as small as Stark's little baby gun, so Summer needed to remind herself that laughing out loud as the most adorable little 'pew' sound escaped from the miniscule little pistol and shot off the cutest little ray beam into the manager's forehead would give away her position. But it was so small! It almost made Stark's gun look normal! The manager's body fell to the floor with a thump, and the man's attention turned toward the henchmen. "Is this a weapon," he asked, not at all helping with Summer's urge to laugh, "or a madical tool? Why did you give me a gun with a laser that thin? Did you hear me tell him," anger started to rise up in that previously smooth voice, "he won't have a head?" "He's dead, isn't he?" one of the henchmen shrugged. "People die in surgery--"
Don't Touch Me! game	That was when Summer, leaning forward a little more, put a hand on the back of the game she was hiding behind, a game that, unbeknownst to her, just so happened to be Don't Touch Me! "Hey!" the arcade game hopped to light, a bright angry red face showing up on the screen. "Who touched me? I don't like being touched!" Summer, quickly, fled, as the leader of the terrorist group leaned forward, narrowing his bulbous red eyes. "Check the hostages," he said. "Make sure nobody else here is doing....a Die Hard..."
Stark	Meanwhile, back at the Roy console, Stark was definitely not doing a Die Hard. Instead he was watching over Morty, hoping this game was nothing like the one he'd been involved in. Watching over Morty (and Rick though that was somewhat begrudgingly) was far less exciting than doing a Die Hard. The last time one of the space terrorists had come by Stark had slumped over next to Morty and played dead until the man left, finger on the trigger to his gun the whole time.
Summer	Summer dropped from the ceiling, with the vent squeaking open behind her as she landed and then straightened, checking for terrorists before moving further into the area she'd wound up in. "'Sneak around,'" she murmured sarcastically, 'crawl in some vents, do a Die Hard, have more bullshit interrupt perfectly normal dates..." Suddenly, a blast of pink energy blasted over her shoulder; Summer whipped around, shooting back at the henchmen who had found her there by the row of SkeeBall games; quickly, she ducked around them, behind them, slipping through the space between them and the wall. She stayed low to the ground as the henchmen fired a volley of shots all across the row, triggering the lights and alarms of the game. The henchman's eyes lit up at the spectacle, and that's when Summer had her chance to slip back out from behind the games, crouching low for a moment before leaping into him, to tackle him down...only to tackle him a little too hard, into the railing of the second floor, so they both went tumbling down to the area below. Fortunately, the henchman broke Summer's fall. Unfortunately, he exploded on impact, leaving Summer covered in and lying in a large pool of his gooey blue blood. "Ohmygod!" she said as she pushed herself up and looked at herself slathered in the stuff. "It's disgusting." She winced as some of it got into her mouth, but it was a small wince, followed by a surprised blink. "Actually? It tastes really good!" Promptly, she gagged and winced again. "Ohmygod, it's disgusting that it tastes good!" This had to be some sort of karmic retribution for some of the jello, but before she could dwell on that thought very long, there was a little squaking sound from a small, bug-like creature amid all the gooey blood.
Jons	"Frank?" a voice came through the odd little alien device. "Have you found him? Report."
Summer	"Oh! Oh!" said Summer, reaching for the unimpressed-looking little communication....slug? thing?. "Walkie talkie! That's Die Hard! Don't have to see it to know that!"
Jons	"This is Jons," the voice on the other end of the walkie-talkie said. "I repeat, have you found him?"
Summer	"Breaker, breaker!" Summer sang excitedly into the creature. "Walkie talkie! I got your walkie talkie, bitch."
Jons	"Are you...doing a Die Hard?"
Summer	"Maaaaaybeeeee," said Summer, evasively, grabbing the henchmen's gun and slinging it over her shoulders and talking over to another vent. She reached for it, pulling it open with a squeak. "Are....you? Also?"
Jons	"More or less," the voice responded, the same voice of the man at the table earlier. "And my associate? Frank?"
Summer	"Uhhh," said Summer, with a slight scoff, looking back at the gooey carnage, "your associate Frank is definitely not doing a Die Hard. You might even say he's doing a Die Easy. Because I killed him. And it wasn't difficult."
Jons	"It's not every day," said Jons, a few moments later, "that someone meets a fellow Die Hard entusiast, Ms...?" "Call me Die Hard." "Ohh-kay, Die Hard. Tell me. What do you know about Die Hard?" "What do you care?" Summer asked, inching her way through the air vents. "You writing a book about Die Hard?" "As a matter of fact," Jons scoffed lightly, "I've written several. Every sentient civilization across the galaxy eventually develops the same myth. In Centauri, it's known as 'Tower Man,' The Orionese have their 'Thornberg Cycle.' And in Andromeda, it's called 'Foolish to Have Imagined You'd Be Able to Kill.' All of them what you'd call Die Hard. The diffeence being that cultures like mine are aware of its importance, whereas I'm starting to doubt you can even recall a single line...."
Summer	By now, Summer had reached yet another area of the arcade, narrowing her eyes as she proclaimed, "Walkie Talkie, Die Hard, Motherfucker!" Of course, she'd barely gotten the words out when the doors to the elevator behind her opened and out stepped two more henchmen, immediately shooting lasers at her. She let out a surprised scream and dove, swinging around her own gun and shooting back at them as she went sailing behind a Game Hunter console, and let out a sigh, wondering how things were going over by the Roy game with Stark and Morty and Rick....
Stark	Well, things by the Roy game were certainly quieter and had not yet involved consuming any alien blood. Stark was aware that there had been deaths but his responsibility right now was Morty's well-being and that meant staying focused on the living boy beside him, not on what might be happening with Summer, and not on any souls making their way to the Other Side. Not even the souls he might have to send there himself, like the henchman who had spotted them and tried to call out to his fellow henchpeople before Stark had (only slightly reluctantly) shot him. Hopefully he'd done so before anyone else had heard him. At least the noise of a single shot wasn't enough to draw more attention. Not yet, anyway.
Summer	Over in the party room, a henchman stood on top of a table, plugging lasers into it. "Next time you try to do a Die Hard," he said proudly, "don't hide under a long table like the guy from Die Hard." Which was, of course, when Summer, who was not at all under the table, stepped into the frame of the door and shot a blast cleanly through the guy's chest. "Okay," she said, "I won't." And then she was off again, swinging back around to where she figured she'd first seen Jons, catching him just as he was monologuing to one of his henchmen.
Jons	"She's improvising!" he insisted. "Which is how she's going to fall right into our trap. I'm going to wander the arcade unarmed, and when she comes across me, I'll pretend to be a hostage. And because she hasn't seen Die Hard, instead of handing me an unloaded gun, she'll hand me a--"
Summer	That was when Summer, up on the second floor balcony again, decided to strike, running along the railing with guns all a-blazing. "Die Hard!" she shouted gleefully with each shot, now with two laser rifles and making the most out of them as she circled the mezzanine. "Die Hard! Die Hard!" To fend off the volley of shots, Jons and his henchman dove under a table and turned it over for a shield, while Jons reached for his communication device. "What the hell was that?" he demanded. "Die Hard! Die Hard!" "You can't just keep yelling 'Die Hard!'" Jons insisted frustratedly, "into a walkie talkie and just--" He cut himself off short, as something squishy hit his head. The walkie talkie. "She threw her walkie talkie away! She hates Die Hard! Which..." A terrible realization swept over him. "...makes her the ultimate McClane."
Stark	While Summer was becoming The Ultimate McClane, Stark was still guarding the limp forms of Summer's relatives. There seemed to be fewer henchmen on the arcade floor, for now, but he was still on alert for anyone getting close. He was getting quite good at playing dead. Of course he'd had some practice with that in his past. Staying still and quiet meant you might not be noticed by those you didn't want to be noticed by. He'd worked out the best way to slump against the console, with Rick's body hiding his gun from immediate view but leaving it accessible if anyone got too close. If needed he could get a shot off without even having to move the weapon. He'd done that once already and was a little proud of himself for it if he was going to be honest.
Jons	"Why aren't you shooting higher?" Jons demanded, as a trio of his henchmen met Summer laser-for-laser in a shootout as she hid behind a claw machine. "I don't wanna shoot the glass!" the henchman complained. "Because..." "You don't have to not do things that were done in Die Hard!" Jons insisted. "You can shoot the glass! Shoot the glass! Throw grenades! Do everything! Just kill her!" And so the henchman shot the glass, and Summer dashed away, her hiding spot now compromised, and just in time, because another henchmen did throw a grenade, exploding the row of cabinets she'd just managed to clear. Another shot of a rocket launcher turned the cabinets into nothing but smoke and rubble, and Jons approached, microphone in hand so his voice echoed through the speakers all throughout the arcade. "Why are you here," he demanded, in a cold, irritated voice, "Ms. Die Hard? I want to know why you don't just leave."
Summer	"Die hard!" came Summer's voice, from some unknown location, and a henchman shot a bolt off toward his best guess.
Jons	"Wait!" said Jons. "Shhh. Shhh." It was the Roy game that Jons was overhearing, now not far away at all, bringing all of this full circle, and he listened to the voice coming from the crackling display in front of the two people hooked into it and the one person slumped around them. As he approached, he wasted no time in having the henchmen surround the three men with guns poised and ready for anything. "Awww, geez," a young woman on the screen was saying, "if we get every person on the spaceship, then what?" "And then we help your sister," Roy on the screen explained, as the static once again increased, "do her Die Hard." The visual on the screen shorted out again, flickering between snippets of conversation and action again, but Jons' attention had shifted entirely to these new hostages with a thoughtful look on his face, while another henchman closely followed, with a boombox over his shoulder playing Beethoven's 'Ode to Joy.' Jons winced. "Too much," he said. "It's too much." "Oof," the henchman switched off the music. "Sorry."
Stark	Stark had his hand on his gun under Rick but he wasn't playing dead now. He was watching the henchmen surrounding them with a deep sense of dread. "Oh frell," he breathed out, trying to shift his body so he was shielding Morty more without actually letting go of the gun.
Jons	"Oh, frell," Jons repeated, with a small smile playing on his face as his gun shifted so that it conveniently had two of them in its aim instead of just the boy (who was, you know, almost twenty now, but still, oddly enough, hadn't hit that growth spurt yet), "indeed." You didn't really need to cock a laser gun, but Jons did it anyway, before calling out to his roguish little advisory through the speakers of the arcade once again. "I've got some special guests with me, Miss Die Hard," he announced. "Or should I just call you...this guy's sister? Or maybe..." His head tilted, eyes squinting as he tried to take a measure of who Stark might be in all of this. "This guy's...girlfriend?"
Summer	"Not my boyfriend!" Summer's seemingly disembodied voice chimed in, lest anyone get any ideas over here. "Die hard!"
Stark	Not even when someone was threatening his life? Hurtful, Summer! Even if it was the correct move in this sort of situation. "He hasn't done anything," Stark said, still trying his best to keep his own body between Jons and Morty.
Jons	Did Die Hard have a boyfriend? (Well, depended on the kind of sites you visited). Either way, Jons completely ignored Stark; he wasn't a part of any of this, as far as he was concerned, his attention entirely on the back and forth with his advisary. "I must say," he said, "I admire you, Ms. Die Hard. You were a genuine McClane. A most worthy yankee-doodle ruffian. But now...it's all come to an end..." Somehow, the gun cocked again, the whirr of it charging interrupted only when Summer came sneaking through a doorway behind him. Jons expected as much and quickly turned around, gun now pointed at her. Summer, clearly caught, stopped dead, tossed aside her laser rifle, and put up her hands in surrender. "And the quarterback," said Jons, and Summer slowly made her way toward him, "as they say, is toast. I don't suppose you have a gun taped to your back?"
Summer	Summer, lifting the bag she had slung over her shoulders off and depositing that, too, arms still up in the air, narrowed her eyes at him. "What the hell does that mean?" "It's how Die Hard ends," Jons explained, and stepped forward to meet her. "Doesn't matter now." "Die Hard tapes a gun to his back?" Summer asked, incredulously. "That's the end of your perfect movie that you've patterned your whole criminal life after?"
Jons	"Well," Jons said loftily, "it seems to have worked out pretty well for me, since you're the one about to die... What was it," he pulled back enough to bring a hand to his little dangling purple goatee, "you said? Ah, yes." The gun now pointed at her with new intensity. "Walkie-talkie Die Hard, mother fuckaaaaaaaahhhhrrrrrr...." He dragged it out, like his mouth was filled with marbles, in a way that meant Summer couldn't help but to start laughing, and, instantly suspicious, Jons pulled back a little. "Why are you laughing?" he asked.
Summer	"Well, it's funny!" she insisted between chuckles now turning a little giggly. "The way you said mother fucker. Just laughing." "Okay," said Jons, defensively, "it's just that..." "Ohhhhh," said Summer, "does that happen in Die Hard? Does John McClane laugh, and then Hans Gruber is confused, but then they start laughing together for a second?" "That...actually does happen," Jons frowned, "yes. Wait! You knew their names this whole time?" "Not this whole time, no," Summer admitted. "You left your book in the bathroom." She glanced toward the bag she'd tossed aside, a book titled 'The Nakatomi Paradigm' having tumbled out of it. "I read it while I took a shit. I mean..." She shrugged, unable to keep the grin off her face now, "mostly the ending. "Yiii-peeee," Summer started to reach for the gun that was absolutely strapped to her back, "dippee doo, baby!"
Rick	At that point, suddenly, Rick's eyes rolled back into focus and, lightning quick, he drew his gun to blast away two of the henchmen, bolting to his feet and turning toward another, who quickly dropped his gun. In the distraction, Jons had turned toward them, giving Summer the opportunity to just step forward and pluck that dopey little laser gun out of his hands and toss it aside.
Stark	Rick's distraction allowed Stark to pull his own gun back and get to his feet, still keeping himself between Morty and as many weapons as possible. He glanced over at Summer. She was very clearly in charge now.
Summer	"Nice timing, Grampa Rick," Summer complimented, and she passed a little grateful smile and an approving nod over to Stark, too. "Tochter aus Elysium," Jons murmured in a somewhat fascinated voice, hands now raised as the guns were now all certainly turned toward him and his cronies. And that should have been that, but Summer felt a nudge of something against her shoulder. "Uhhh," she asked, turning around, and frowning at the henchmen that was now there behind her.
Henchman	"Hi," he said, "remember me? You shot me on that table, and the near death experience had me reflecting. I didn't used to be like this! I, uh....I ate a kid. It was dark, and I thought he was a grown-up. Ever since then, I haven't eaten anybody at all. I think I was channeling all that pent-up eating energy into this job! But now?" Suddenly, the henchman changed. What was at one moment an alien that looked exactly like all the others in the group was now quite a bit different, transforming into something with a big giant toothy maw for a stomach, and its now tentacled arms reached out to wrap around Jons, pulling him into his mouth and consuming him in one, single, efficient slurp. "Thank you for freeing me," he said, hunching over as leathery horned wings sprung from its back, and he flew off, smashing through he glass dome of the arcade's ceiling and disappearing into the night. "Classic Tower Man," said Rick, shaking his head as he walked up next to Summer, who was then passing a worried look back over toward Morty and Stark to see how they were doing.
Stark	"What just happened?" Stark asked after a long moment of staring after the henchman. "Are you all right?" He asked, stepping towards Summer. "Is everyone all right? Nobody's hurt? Morty shouldn't be I've been right here and I wouldn't..." He wouldn't have let anything happen if he could help it.
Summer	Summer's eyes were also lingering upwards toward where the henchman had flown off, trying to think of how to explain to Stark that, yeah...yeah, that kind of thing just...happens, a lot, during these things. Instead, she just found herself reaching over to give him a reassuring pat on the shoulder. "I'm fine," she told him. "Are you?" Morty had just walked past them, then, as Rick made some sort of offhanded comment and nudged him a little and Morty gave sort of a distant, distracted, murmured response. "I'm not so sure he is, though," she admitted, her attention shifting toward her grandfather. "Rick, he's alright, isn't it?"
Rick	"Oh, yeah," Rick insisted. "He's fine. Got him all out. Every last piece....Good job on the Die Hard, sweetie. Sorry it had to interrupt your little date with your new boyfriend or whatever."
Summer	"He's not--" Summer started, but then just cut herself off with a grunt and a sigh and a shake of her head. "Never mind. Come on, Stark, let's find my portal gun and get out of here. And Rick? Please? Can you just not be wherever I am next time I come home? Just, like, once, if you see me blip back into this universe, just....change your plans to elsewhere? I think doing an unexpected Die Hard should earn me at least that much?"
Rick	"Can't guarantee anything, Sum-Sum!" said Rick, practically to do the door now after following Morty towards it, waving a hand, almost a good-bye, almost a dismissal. "Pure coincidence. I deactivated that chip months ago."
Summer	And Summer stared, rooted to the spot for a moment. "You what?" But he was already gone, and she had a portal gun to relocate, and all the rush of doing a Die Hard seemed to have drained out of her as she turned a wide-eyed, shocked look over toward Stark. "He..." she started, then shook her head. "He's...lying, right? He didn't really, he's just saying that, that's just more of his manipulation tactics, his games, his..." She trailed off, frowning as she lifted one of her arm and turned the inside of her wrist toward herself, then dropped it with a sigh. "Come on," she told Stark, "let's just go home."
Stark	"I... have no idea if he's lying," Stark said with a sigh. "But it seems like the sort of thing he might do?" Of course, so did deactivating the chip without saying anything. "Home sounds good. Are you sure you're all right? Nothing happened when you were... doing a Die Hard?" He stepped closer, offering a shoulder as support. "I was frightened for you, you know."
Summer	But Summer didn't say anything for a moment, just sort of squinted thoughtfully at the door Rick and Morty had exited through. "You didn't have to be," she ten said, as if pulling herself back into the present, shrugging a little and finding her way over toward where she was sure the portal gun had wound up; she got down on her knees to start reaching under to console to see if she could feel it down there. "It was easy. Not even a little bit hard, like, I literally took a bathroom break in the middle of it. "I did get covered in one guy's blood at one point when I fell from the second floor," she offered. "It was pretty disgusting, but, like, I don't even see what the big deal was...this whole thing was dumb."
Stark	"I didn't know that," Stark pointed out gently as he knelt down beside her. "I just knew you were alone and there were a lot of people with guns. I'm glad I didn't know that one of them ate people..." "I'm just... I'm glad you're not hurt. You fell from another floor? What happened? Did the guy just...explode?"
Summer	"I don't think anyone could have seen that one coming," Summer admitted, close to the (gross, nasty, way too sticky for comfort) floor with her arm under the game trying to find the gun. "And we crashed through the barrier, and he exploded on me when he broke my fall." Which...rude. "Also, I've been alone around a lot of people with guns lots of times, Stark. It was nothing. Really."
Stark	"I was worried," Stark said. "I'm not now. I know you can take care of yourself. I trust you. But I still worry. Do you want me to try and get the portal gun? You don't think it went missing, do you?" What if they were stuck in a ruined space arcade with gross alien blood in Summer's hair? "I can look."
Summer	They still had their phones, they could still get home without it, but come on! That was Summer's emotional support portal gun! If she lost it, she'd have to get a new one! And to do that, she's probably have to date another super genius, and where was she going to find one of those who wasn't an ex or already taken?? "No, it's down here, I can just brush my fingers against it, but I can't actually reach it, it got way in there..."
Stark	Stark would have some objections if Summer went looking for a super genius to date at this juncture. "Do you want me to try and reach?" His arms were a bit longer. "Or...I have the gun, you could use that to try and push it out? Or we could try to move the machine?" He just wanted to help.
Summer	That's what she thought. "I feel like trying to move it with another gun is a good way to get one of us shot," Summer pointed out, letting out a grunt as she tried one more reach, but no cigar. "See if you can't reach it, and of you can't, then, yeah, let's move the machine. Put all that weighlifting to work...."
Stark	"I'd rather not have either of us shot, even a little," Stark said as he lowered himself all the way to the floor and started blindly reaching under the machine. "I think I can get it. I should be able to get it. And if not...Gladio will be very proud of us for putting our gains to good use?" Usually when the two of them were fumbling around and making these sorts of noises things were a lot more fun. More fun and less... "Ugh," he said, pulling back his hand and wiping it off on a hopefully less gross section of the floor before reaching back under the machine. "Got it!" His hand, less sticky this time, emerged from under the machine clutching the portal gun.
Summer	Summer breathed out a sigh of relief, pulling herself away and immediately holding out a hand toward Stark to take the gun from him with a soft, grateful smile. "Thanks, Stark," she said, and immediately began to put the coordinates for Fandom into it. "Now let's get the fuck out of here."
Stark	"Please," Stark said fervently, wiping a bit of something off his hand. Or trying to. "Home, with no grandparents and no terrorists."

[[ Taken very, very heavily from Rick and Morty S06E02 "Rick: A Mort Well Lived", because of course if they're gonna have Summer do a Die Hard, I gotta have Summer do a Die Hard, especially right before Christmas! Big thanks to the ever fantastic stykera for being dragged into this and adding a little extra ~flair~; NFI, NFB, but OOC is always welcome! ]]