A Genius Morty

The rebellion's hideout had changed over the years. What had once been a ramshackle collection of equipment and makeshift stations was now more organized, albeit still hidden beneath layers of abandoned planets and forgotten dimensions. The flickering lights and faint hum of machinery filled the quiet underground base, the soft noise blending into the routine, almost monotonous rhythm of the rebellion's daily life.

Morty stood in the command room, staring at a map of the multiverse projected before him. It was still fractured—wounds in reality left behind by Evil Morty's manipulation of the Nexus Point. Each red dot on the map represented a damaged timeline, a place where chaos had seeped in too deeply to be fully repaired. There were more red dots than ever before, but for now, at least, the spread had slowed.

For now, there was a fragile, limited peace.

But peace in the multiverse was always temporary.

Morty had tried to enjoy it, to let himself relax in the relative calm of the past few months, but it was impossible to ignore the gnawing feeling in his chest. They had won a battle, not the war, and every moment of respite only made him more aware of what they had lost along the way.

Rick was in the corner of the room, tinkering with a new piece of tech, the sharp sounds of metal against metal occasionally interrupting the low hum of the room. He hadn't spoken much since the mission to the Infinite Coil facility—at least not about anything that mattered. Rick had been grumbling, half-drunk, and disinterested in anything other than his inventions for weeks. Morty wasn't surprised. Rick had never been good at dealing with quiet moments, the stillness between battles. He thrived on the chaos, on the adrenaline of their constant dimension-hopping, and when that chaos faded, Rick was left with nothing but his thoughts and a bottle.

Morty turned back to the map, his eyes tracing the familiar lines of their rebellion's reach. They had made some progress, patching up small fractures in certain dimensions, rallying survivors, and finding ways to stabilize the Nexus Point's influence. But the multiverse wasn't what it used to be. Entire realities had been lost in the wake of Evil Morty's rise, entire timelines snuffed out as if they had never existed at all.

And with those lost realities had come personal losses.

Summer entered the room quietly, her expression tired but determined, just as it had been for years. Her rifle was slung over her shoulder, and her combat gear looked worn from constant use. She moved with a confidence and strength that Morty had come to rely on, but he could see the wear in her eyes—the toll the years of fighting had taken on her.

"How's the map looking today?" Summer asked, stepping up beside him.

"Better than it was a few months ago," Morty replied, though his tone lacked enthusiasm. "We've stabilized some of the bigger fractures, but the outer dimensions are still pretty messed up. Every time we close one tear, another opens somewhere else."

Summer nodded, her jaw tight. "At least we're keeping it from getting worse."

"Yeah," Morty said quietly. "For now."

Summer leaned in, studying the map with her arms crossed. "Have you heard from the outer team?"

Morty shook his head. "Not yet. They were supposed to check in last night, but nothing so far. I'm giving them another day before we send out a scouting party."

Summer sighed and glanced at Rick, who was muttering to himself as he worked. "You think Rick will actually leave the base if we need him?"

Morty gave a half-shrug. "He'll go if we really need him. But you know how he is."

Summer's lips thinned into a hard line. "Yeah, I know."

There was a long pause between them, the weight of everything unspoken hanging in the air. Morty could feel it—the tension, the heaviness that came from knowing how much they had sacrificed, how much they had lost over the years.

He glanced down at the small insignia tattooed on the inside of his wrist—a simple mark, barely noticeable, but one that held a world of meaning. It was a symbol for those they had lost, for the friends and allies who had fought alongside them but had never made it back. Morty traced it with his thumb, the familiar ache of loss settling in his chest.

His mind wandered back to those early days of the rebellion, when they had been full of hope, full of fight. Back when they had believed that, somehow, they could win this war and return things to the way they used to be.

Beth had been the first real loss. She had stayed behind on Earth, trying to keep their fractured family together, trying to protect what little was left of their home. But Evil Morty's influence had spread even to their own dimension. Morty could still remember the night they lost her—the panic in Rick's voice as they tried to open a portal back to Earth, the way everything had gone wrong so fast. The timeline had collapsed around them, and when they finally broke through the chaos, it was too late. Beth was gone, their home dimension erased, and with it, any hope of returning to a normal life.

Morty had never fully processed her death. He couldn't. There was no body to bury, no grave to visit. She had been erased from existence, and with her, any chance Morty had of reconciling with the family he had left behind.

Jerry, of course, hadn't lasted long after that. He had always been fragile, but without Beth, he had fallen apart. He had joined them for a while, trying to help in his own awkward, misguided way, but the battles had been too much for him. One day, he simply walked into a portal, and no one ever saw him again. Whether he had been swallowed up by the multiverse or found some dimension to live out his days in peace, Morty didn't know. He wasn't sure he wanted to.

"Do you ever think about going back?" Summer asked suddenly, her voice quiet.

Morty blinked, pulled from his thoughts. "Going back? Where?"

"To the way things were," Summer said, her eyes distant. "Before all this. Before Evil Morty, the Nexus Point, the rebellion. Do you ever think about what it would have been like if we'd stayed with the family? If we hadn't gotten involved?"

Morty swallowed hard, the question settling uncomfortably in his chest. "Yeah," he admitted. "I think about it all the time. But… there's no going back. Not anymore."

Summer nodded, her face tight with the weight of that truth. "I know. It's just… sometimes I miss them, you know?"

"Yeah," Morty said softly. "Me too."

There was silence between them for a while, the quiet hum of the command center the only sound in the room. Morty could feel the losses more acutely in moments like this, when the fighting had stopped and there was nothing left to distract them from the emptiness that had grown over the years.

"I miss Beth too," Rick's voice came from the corner of the room, unexpectedly clear and free of his usual drunken slur.

Both Morty and Summer turned to look at him. Rick hadn't mentioned Beth's name in years. He had buried that part of his grief deep beneath layers of sarcasm, alcohol, and indifference.

"She wasn't perfect," Rick continued, not looking up from his work. "But none of us are. Still, she didn't deserve what happened. I should have been there. I should have stopped it."

Morty's throat tightened. It was rare to hear Rick talk like this—rare for him to express any kind of regret.

"You did what you could, Rick," Morty said softly. "None of us could have known."

Rick snorted, finally glancing up at Morty with tired eyes. "Doesn't matter, Morty. She's gone. And we're still here, running around like idiots, trying to stop something we'll probably never be able to fix."

Summer shifted uncomfortably, her eyes flicking to Morty. "We're still making a difference," she said quietly. "Even if it's small. We're keeping the multiverse from falling apart."

Rick shrugged and went back to tinkering with his device. "Yeah, well, small differences don't bring back the dead, do they?"

Morty clenched his fists, pushing down the anger and frustration that threatened to bubble up. He had spent years fighting alongside Rick, trying to stop the chaos that Evil Morty had unleashed, and it still never felt like enough.

But he couldn't let himself fall into the same pit of despair that Rick lived in. Not now.

"We keep going," Morty said quietly, his voice filled with determination. "We keep fighting. For Beth. For everyone we've lost."

Rick didn't respond, but Morty saw the slight nod of acknowledgment. He knew Rick cared, even if he didn't always show it.

Summer sighed, standing up straight and adjusting her gear. "I'll go check on the team. We should be ready to move out in case the outer squad doesn't report back."

Morty nodded, watching as Summer left the room, her shoulders heavy with the weight of years of battle.

As the door closed behind her, Morty returned his gaze to the multiverse map. The scars of the past few years were still visible, the damage still lingering, but as long as they were still standing, there was hope. A fragile hope, but hope nonetheless.

They had lost too much already. But they couldn't afford to stop fighting now.

Not when there was still so much left to lose.

Morty stood in the command center for a long time, staring at the multiverse map as the quiet of the room settled around him. The flickering red dots on the map, each representing a fractured timeline or collapsing dimension, seemed to pulse in time with his thoughts. The fragile peace they had managed to carve out felt like a thin layer of ice over a deep, dark abyss—one wrong move and everything would fall apart again.

He knew better than to trust in the calm. The multiverse had a way of reminding him that peace was always temporary. It had been that way ever since Evil Morty's rise to power, ever since the collapse of so many realities, the disappearance of family, and the losses that had reshaped him and those who had survived.

Memories of Beth, of Jerry, of the old days with Rick, tugged at Morty, pulling him back to moments that felt like a lifetime ago. But that life was gone, erased like the countless realities they had seen crumble. Beth had been their anchor, their connection to the family they used to be. Without her, it had all unraveled, one piece at a time.

Rick, too, had unraveled in his own way. He hadn't completely lost his edge—he was still the brilliant, volatile force that had always driven their adventures. But there were cracks now, deeper than before. The constant drinking, the withdrawal, the way he avoided eye contact when things got too real… it was all a reminder that Rick had lost more than just family. He'd lost the person who kept him tethered to the idea that they were doing this for a reason.

Morty turned away from the map, rubbing his eyes. The exhaustion from years of fighting was catching up to him, but there was no time to rest. The multiverse wasn't going to wait for them to heal. It demanded constant vigilance, constant action.

He moved to a nearby console and pulled up the latest reports from their outer teams. A few anomalies here, a minor skirmish there—it was all part of the endless cycle of maintaining what little balance they could. Morty could still feel the looming presence of Evil Morty out there, somewhere, plotting his next move. The collapse of the Nexus Point had only been a setback, not a defeat. Morty knew better than to assume Evil Morty would give up so easily.

The door to the command center slid open, and Rick stepped inside, his flask in hand. He didn't say anything at first, just wandered over to the central console, glancing at the data Morty was sifting through.

"You know, Morty," Rick finally said, his voice a little slurred, "you're doing a better job of holding all this together than I ever thought you would."

Morty looked at Rick, surprised by the admission. Rick didn't usually offer compliments—especially not sincere ones. "I'm just doing what I have to," Morty replied, his voice quiet.

Rick grunted and took a long swig from his flask. "Yeah, well, that's more than a lot of people can say. Most people would've cracked by now. Hell, I thought you would've cracked by now."

Morty shrugged, unsure of what to say. The truth was, he had cracked. A long time ago. But there had been no choice but to keep going. After all the losses, all the battles, and all the fractured timelines, Morty had learned to bury the cracks deep inside, to keep pushing forward no matter what.

"I guess I've gotten used to it," Morty said after a moment. "There's no going back to the way things were."

Rick nodded, his eyes distant. "Yeah. The way things were… that's long gone."

The silence between them was heavy, filled with all the things they never talked about. The losses they both felt but never fully addressed. Morty could see it in Rick's face, the way his usual bravado faded when the room got too quiet. Rick had lost more than just his daughter—he had lost the parts of himself that had kept him connected to the world, to family. And Morty, in his own way, had lost the same thing.

The rebellion had become their new family, but it wasn't the same. It never could be.

"You think Evil Morty's gonna make another move soon?" Morty asked, breaking the silence.

Rick scratched his chin, thinking for a moment. "He's probably regrouping, waiting for the right moment. That's what I'd do. He's too smart to come at us head-on again, not after we threw a wrench in his Nexus Point plan. But he's still out there, pulling strings. He'll wait until we're distracted, until we're spread too thin, and then he'll strike. It's what I'd do if I were an evil little shit version of you."

Morty grimaced. "I know. I can feel it. It's like there's always this shadow hanging over everything, even when things seem quiet."

Rick glanced at him, his expression softening for just a moment. "Yeah, kid. That's the burden of knowing how fucked up everything is. You don't get to relax. You just wait for the next disaster to hit."

Morty didn't respond. He didn't need to. They both knew that was the truth.

Suddenly, the command center's main console beeped, and Summer's voice crackled through the comms. "Morty, Rick—we've got a situation."

Morty moved quickly to the console, pressing the button to open the communication channel. "What's going on?"

"We've lost contact with the outer team," Summer said, her voice tense. "They were scouting near the edge of the Shattered Realms, and now we're not getting any signal from them. No distress call, nothing."

Morty's heart sank. The Shattered Realms were one of the most unstable regions of the multiverse, a collection of broken dimensions that had been ripped apart by the Nexus Point years ago. It was dangerous territory, even for their best scouts.

"I'll be right there," Morty said, his voice firm. He glanced at Rick, who was already moving toward the door.

"Looks like the peace is over," Rick muttered, tossing his flask onto a nearby table. "Knew it wouldn't last."

Morty nodded grimly. "Yeah. Time to get back to work."

In the briefing room, Summer was already pulling up a map of the Shattered Realms, a jagged cluster of red dots on the multiverse map. The region was volatile, unpredictable, with timelines that fractured and reformed constantly. Morty had avoided sending their people there unless it was absolutely necessary, but they had been running out of safe places to scout.

"They were last seen here," Summer said, pointing to a spot on the map. "The region was relatively stable when they went in, but that doesn't mean much when we're talking about the Shattered Realms."

Morty stared at the map, his mind racing. "Any idea what caused the blackout?"

Summer shook her head. "No. Could be the usual instability, or it could be something else. Either way, we need to find out what happened."

Rick stepped forward, examining the data. "The Shattered Realms are unpredictable, but they're not usually this quiet. If something took out the team, it's not just dimensional instability. Something's happening out there."

"Do you think it's Evil Morty?" Morty asked, his voice low.

Rick shrugged. "Could be. Or it could be one of his leftover experiments. Hell, it could be anything at this point. But whatever it is, we need to be ready for it."

Morty nodded, his jaw set with determination. "We'll put together a team and head out there. If it's Evil Morty, we'll need to stop him before he can make his next move."

Rick grunted, already tinkering with another device on his wrist. "Let's just hope we're not walking into another multiversal clusterfuck."

Summer looked at Morty, her eyes serious. "You ready for this?"

Morty met her gaze and nodded. "Yeah. It's time."

The fragile peace they had built over the last few months was already crumbling, and Morty knew they were heading back into the chaos they had fought so hard to escape.

But this time, there was no running. There was no retreat. They had to face whatever was coming, and they had to win.

Because if they didn't, the losses they had already suffered would pale in comparison to what was still to come.

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