Chapter 21: Rectification in the Sands

The air in the Lars garage was thick, suffocating with grief and hatred. Anakin's confession—"I killed them all"—hung between them, an indelible stain of darkness. Padmé held him, not to forgive him, but because it was all she could do to keep him from completely falling apart. Kaelen watched, his sonic rifle strapped to his back, feeling the galaxy take another step toward the abyss.

It was then that the sensor on his wrist went wild. It didn't beep. It shrieked. A piercing electronic wail that meant one thing: massive incursion.

"Padmé, get down!" Kaelen roared. "Anakin, get ready!"

The desert air tore open. Not one, but five swirling green portals ripped open in a semicircle around the farm, kicking up clouds of sand. From each portal stepped two figures: a Rick in light combat armor with an air of weary disdain, and a Morty, young, terrified, and armed with a standard Citadel laser rifle. Ten Ricks. Ten Mortys.

A Rick, with commander insignia on his armor, stepped forward. His gaze was cold, his voice devoid of the usual drunken irony. It was the voice of an enforcer.

"Genetic Anomaly K-Ror," he said, his voice echoing in Tatooine's dry air. "By order of the Council of Ricks, your unauthorized existence and that of your derivative technology will be permanently rectified. Mortys, open fire. Aim for everything but the primary anomaly. We want him alive, if possible."

The terrified Mortys raised their rifles.

"Snack, now!" Kaelen yelled.

The modified shield droid, which had been dormant in a corner, activated and rolled in front of Padmé and the Lars, projecting its particle shield just as the air filled with laser beams. The shield sputtered and groaned, absorbing the first volley.

They were the seconds Kaelen needed.

He sprinted to his workbench, his mind racing. The sonic rifle was good against Tuskens, but against Rick tech, it was a slingshot. His gaze landed on the authentic portal gun he had been studying. He couldn't create a stable portal yet—the power source was a mystery—but he could learn from it.

The Reality Shotgun

Stability is for cowards. What I need is chaos. Raw, unpredictable firepower.

I rip an energy capacitor from a broken moisture vaporator. I forcibly wire it into the portal gun's power matrix, bypassing all safety protocols. The gun begins to vibrate violently in my hand, the metal heating up. It's not going to open a portal. It's going to violently and randomly vomit pieces of other dimensions. Perfect. A reality shotgun.

Snack's shield explodes in a shower of sparks. "Anakin, to your left!"

The Last Stand

Anakin didn't need telling. Fueled by rage, grief, and a primal protective instinct towards Padmé, he became a blur of motion. His blue lightsaber was a windmill of defense, deflecting shots, slicing through the rifles of Mortys who dared to approach. He fought not with Jedi precision, but with the fury of a cornered animal.

"Eat some impossible physics, you bastards!" Kaelen roared.

He pulled the trigger of his improvised weapon. The portal gun didn't emit a beam. It belched. A momentary crack in space opened in front of the barrel, and from it burst a geyser of saltwater and a large, confused alien fish that landed on a Rick's head.

"What the fuck?" the Rick said, just before Anakin sliced him in two.

Kaelen fired again. This time, the crack spat out a burst of sharp, jagged crystals that shattered two Mortys. The third shot unleashed a swarm of fist-sized metallic insects that began to devour the weapons of nearby Ricks.

The Commander Rick watched, his disdainful expression morphing into one of genuine annoyance. "Stop firing like idiots! Use the disruptors!"

Three of the Ricks adjusted their rifles. Kaelen knew his personal shield wouldn't stop a disruptor.

"Anakin, I need cover!" he yelled.

He slammed his sonic rifle to the ground, wrenched it open, and began reconfiguring the frequency modulator, wiring it to a speeder bike battery. He was improvising a weapon on top of another weapon.

Anakin, seeing what he was doing, threw himself between Kaelen and the line of fire, becoming a human shield of fury and Force, deflecting the lethal disruptor beams with a skill that stunned the Ricks. Padmé, from her cover, fired a blaster with deadly precision, taking down a Morty attempting to flank Anakin.

"Done!" Kaelen yelled. He lifted the modified sonic rifle. "Cover your ears!"

He squeezed the trigger. There was no beam, no explosion. There was a wave. An invisible wave of pure sonic distortion that rippled across the yard. The air vibrated. The Ricks and Mortys clutched their heads, their armor and weapons rattling violently. Their personal shields flickered and died. Their portal guns destabilized, opening and closing brief, chaotic rifts at their feet.

Commander Rick, seeing his technological advantage nullified and his troops in disarray, made a decision. He aimed his own portal gun at the ground and opened an escape route.

"This isn't over, renegade!" he roared over the din. "The Citadel doesn't forget! We'll find a universe where your precious wife doesn't exist, and we'll make you watch!"

He grabbed the nearest Rick and leaped into the portal just as it snapped shut. The remaining Ricks and Mortys, in a panic, tried to follow suit. Some made it. Others were cut in half as their portals collapsed.

In seconds, silence fell, broken only by the hum of Kaelen's weapon and the crackle of battle remnants. The Lars farmyard was a graveyard of strange armor, alien weapons, and the bodies of frightened teenagers from a hundred dimensions.

Kaelen turned off the sonic rifle, which let out a final puff of smoke. He looked at the modified weapon in his other hand, the reality-spitting portal gun. Then he looked at Anakin, who was breathing heavily, lightsaber still ignited, and Padmé, who stared at him with a mix of horror and awe.

They had survived. But the attack had been a massive escalation. These weren't scouts. This was an extermination squad.

And Commander Rick had given him a new nightmare. A threat not just to him, but to the infinite versions of the woman he loved. The war was no longer just for his soul. It was for hers, across the entire multiverse.