#[[ welcome to Scotty bullshitting their way through sci-fi xD ]]

[countlessrealities]

Rick's brows furrowed a little at the comment. There were obviously plenty of events he still hadn't lived through and plenty of things he still hadn't discovered. That was a hard fact. But did he have to catch up? On one hand, letting his counterpart tell him about the future would allowed him to repeat the same mistakes, but on the other, it felt like he was being robbed of part of his free will.

Useless to say, that last thought was disturbing as fuck.

The mention of that one time he was framed for Rick-cide snapped him out of his thoughts and his eyes widened in surprise. Wait, that fucker was the president now? What the hell? Wasn't he supposed to be dead? He had witnessed a whole bunch of Mortys beating him into a pulp before the Council and their guards had stepped in.

He didn't get the chance to ask about it, though, because his other self returned with the board and started to ramble about more details of the future timeline. The Curve, the Citadel's reserve of portal fluid, Evil Morty. President Morty.

Well, holy shit. He hadn't seen that coming. Yet how ironic it was, considering what he had told his own Morty after the whole mishap with the Rick killer.

"A-Alright, alright, stop there for a second, pal," he interjected before his counterpart could keep going. "C-Can you fuckin' reduce the spoilers at minimum? I-I don't need or want to know everything y-you've gone through. I-I'd rather live my life w-without this Back to the Future bullshit messing with it. S-So...stick to what is strictly necessary, okay?"

He couldn't believe that he had to spell it out. The asshole was supposed to be him, wasn't he? He should have known that he wouldn't have liked that info dumping. ...But then again, Rick was a selfish jerk, so it was just as likely that the other had been thinking only about what was easier for him.

Or, even worse, his counterpart thought that, since he was the future, Rick would have been the one to disappear in the case the timeline was merged back together. He could see the logic behind that reasoning, and what a troubling thought that was.

Trying to distract himself from the nothingness that might be waiting ahead of him, the scientist grabbed the second erase marker.

"S-So, the little creep managed to break out of the Curve using all t-the fluid stored on the Citadel," he started, scribbling an equation on the board. His tone was neutral, but the displeased frown was still lingering on his face. "T-To do that, he basically punched a fuckin' hole into the space continuum. N-Now if we put together your Citadel portal fluid and mine, tha-that generates four time that energy...E-Enough to punch a fuckin' hole in the time continuum too."

And there they were, trapped in what he supposed was a nexus. A knot outside space and time that kept the two timelines linked together.

"O-Our portal fluids must be all messed. O-Or mixed together, or-or shit like that. I-It might be that we can't get out b-because we're missing a variable. W-We need to find a way to set n-not just the space coordinates, b-but the time coordinates too."

{ @advnterccs }

That comment went passed Rick, unfazed by it completely. He agreed with it, spending time by himself – with himself – wasn’t the most ideal thing to do. Hell, that’s why he drank most days. To get away from who and what he was. So there was no need to say anything or even think more about it.

Damn, maybe there was something to having a counterpart. Something that could help recognize the shit that that he dealt with before and to see how far he came. Now that he discovered that his counterpart was from a past timeline.

“Damn, y-you’ve got a lot of fucking catching up to do, pal,” So much had happened between a whole season. He didn’t even know where to begin to start explaining everything. “But, y-yeah, way fucking lame, even if – shit – I-I got to give it to the president, he cleaned up the place real fucking nicely a-and, uh, apparently he’s the same guy who hacked our portal gun back in season one….”

But that was a whole other story that he didn’t want to get into. Not yet, at least. They needed to figure out how to get out of this limbo.

Standing up, he quickly walked over to a closet. Then another closet. Realizing that what he needed wasn’t in the right one. Only to pull out a whiteboard and two dry erase markers. Stopping it right in the middle of the garage.

“O-Okay, so if we’re going with your theory, i-it means when you transported the Citadel, at that exact moment, I-I was gathering the mutant Mortys onto the only escape pod,” He began to explain, drawing out doodles to better illustrate what he was saying. “Shit, I-I forgot to even say this but, that president, he figured it all out. About the Curve, the schematics of the Citadel, all of it, a-and he used it, a-and all of the portal fluid on the Citadel to leave the fucking Curve so…”

He stepped back with realization. Staring at the mess of doodles on the white board. “It means that we basically shot ourselves in the foot by blowing up the Citadel at the same time the president o-or Evil Morty, decided to leave the Finite Curve.”