Chapter 17: The Council of Ricks

The bags were packed. The Naboo ship, a faster, more discreet model than the royal yacht, was being prepared on the villa's private landing platform. Padmé oversaw the preparations, her face a mask of professional concern that hid the whirlwind of emotions beneath. The decision to go to Tatooine was, she knew, incredibly dangerous.

Kaelen, however, had some unfinished business before they left. He found Anakin by the lake's edge, skipping stones into the water with restrained fury. The young Jedi was clearly on the verge of an emotional collapse.

"Skywalker," Kaelen's voice was calm, but it cut through the air like a knife.

Anakin spun around, his hand instinctively going to his lightsaber. "Ror. What do you want?"

"Before we embark on this... impulsive rescue mission," Kaelen began, slowly approaching. "We need to establish some rules. Man to man. This is your last chance to listen."

"I don't take orders from you," Anakin snapped.

"It's not an order. It's a warning," Kaelen retorted, his voice dropping to an icy tone. "I know what you feel for Padmé. I've known since the moment you set foot in her apartment. And what you did yesterday... it will not happen again. Not because I forbid it, but because if you try again, you'll find my 'defensive tools' are far more persuasive than a Jedi lecture."

The threat hung in the air, unmistakable. Anakin glared at him, anger burning in his eyes. "You don't scare me."

"I'm not trying to scare you. I'm trying to educate you," Kaelen said. "She isn't a prize to be won. She is a person. My wife. And as long as she is under my protection, you will keep your emotional and physical distance. Understood?"

Before Anakin could respond, the air beside them tore open.

It wasn't an explosion. It was a fracture in reality. An oval of swirling green energy ripped open in the empty space, emitting a sickening hum. The grass near its edges withered and turned gray. From the portal, three figures stepped out.

They were identical. Older men, with messy blue hair, wearing stained white lab coats over simple clothes. One had an eye patch. Another had a notorious drool string at the corner of his lips. All held expressions of arrogant boredom and a distinct stench of alcohol. And all were unmistakably, horribly... Rick Sanchez.

A Multiversal Intervention

Oh, no.

No. No. No. No.

Panic, a primordial, absolute panic he hadn't felt since the day he died, flooded him. The System wasn't a system. The template wasn't a template. It was a tracker. They found me. They found me across dimensions.

This was the fear that underpinned all his other fears. The fear that his second chance at life was merely a loan.

"Well, well, well," said the eye-patch Rick, pulling out a portal gun. "Look what the renegade gene scanner found. One of our intellectual properties escaped to a shitty galaxy with space wizards."

"Uuuurp," belched the drooling Rick. "Looks like this jackass thinks he can use our knowledge without paying the Council fee, Morty. I mean, Anakin. Whatever."

Anakin, utterly confused, already had his lightsaber in hand. "Who are you people? How did you get here?"

"Shut up, pretty boy with a laser sword," said the third, seemingly leader Rick. "We're here for the brain thief. You've been using unauthorized intellectual property from the Interdimensional Council of Ricks, you bastard. Your brain's broadcasting our genius like an illegal antenna. We're gonna have to confiscate you."

The Reckoning

Kaelen recoiled, his mind working at dizzying speed. The 27% Rick template didn't just give him knowledge; he now understood what he was up against. The bureaucratic, omnipotent tyranny of an infinite number of the smartest, most ruthless beings in the multiverse.

"I'm not going anywhere with you," Kaelen said, his own hand discreetly reaching for the Molecular Destabilizer he had shrunk and tucked into his pocket.

"It's not a choice," said the leader Rick, aiming his portal gun.

But Kaelen was faster. He had built his weapons based on their knowledge, but he had optimized them with his own logic. He fired. A green beam, far more stable than his prototype's, impacted the leader Rick in the chest. There was no explosion. He simply... came apart. His body dissolved into a cloud of atoms that scattered with the lake breeze.

The other two Ricks stared, stunned for a fraction of a second. It was all Kaelen needed. The second shot hit the eye-patch Rick. The third, the belching one. In less than three seconds, all three interdimensional intruders had ceased to exist. The green portal snapped shut, leaving only the smell of ozone and three smoking portal guns on the ground.

A deathly silence fell over the lakeside. Anakin stared at the spots where the men had been, his lightsaber still ignited, his mind unable to process what he had just witnessed.

At that moment, Padmé came running, drawn by the commotion and the sudden surge of panic. She saw Anakin with his lightsaber drawn and Kaelen, pale and trembling, holding one of his strange weapons.

"Kaelen, what happened?" she asked, rushing to him. "Are you alright?"

He looked at her, and the mask of confidence and control he always wore had shattered. In his eyes was a pure, existential fear. He knew he could no longer hide it. The secret was too big. The threat was too real.

He picked up one of the portal guns from the ground, the metal still warm.

"They found us," he whispered, his voice barely audible.

"Who? Who were those men?" Padmé asked, taking his face in her hands.

Anakin approached, his own confusion and hostility momentarily forgotten. "How... how did you do that? What were they?"

Kaelen took a deep breath, knowing the next words would change his life forever. He looked at Padmé, the anchor who had kept him from losing himself, and then at the young Jedi who hated him.

"I'm not from this universe," he finally said. "Well, my mind isn't."

He paused, struggling to find a way to explain the impossible. "My... my father, so to speak... is a scientist from another dimension. A man who perfected interdimensional travel. His name is Rick Sanchez." He gestured to the spot where the Ricks had dissolved. "And those... they were him. They were the Interdimensional Council of Ricks, a kind of government made up of infinite versions of my father. And they've come to collect a debt. They've come to take me home."