Chapter 27: The Drop of Blood and the Wrong Door

The portal gun hummed in Kaelen's hand, a passport to survival, to an exile where they could regroup. The open portal displayed a tempting landscape: a forest of crystalline trees under a violet sky, a promised world of peace.

But Anakin Skywalker didn't step towards it. He remained on the Tatooine sand, with dust and grief clinging to him like a second skin.

"No," he said, his voice a hoarse whisper, but filled with a new, terrible resolve. "I'm not running."

Padmé turned to him, her heart sinking. "Anakin, there's nothing you can do alone. It's suicide."

"My place is here," he insisted, his eyes no longer on Kaelen, but on the horizon, towards the galaxy he felt it was his duty to save, or perhaps, to dominate. "The Jedi Council needs to be warned. The Republic, what's left of it, needs a defender. I can't hide in another universe while mine burns." He looked at Kaelen, and the hostility had been replaced by a kind of condescending pity. "Hide if you want, Ror. Some of us still have a war to fight."

It was a goodbye. A divorce of paths. Padmé walked over to Kaelen, taking his hand and lacing her fingers through his. Her choice was made. Her future was with her husband, no matter what dimension he led them to.

Kaelen looked at her, his anchor, then nodded to Anakin. There was nothing left to say. He turned towards the portal, exhausted by the battle, by the improvised surgery, by the weight of his decisions. As he raised his hand to steady Padmé while crossing, a small cut on his forearm, one of the many wounds from his nightly transformation, opened slightly.

A single drop of his blood, now infused with the essence of his template and altered by his cybernetic enhancements, fell. It didn't land on the sand. It fell onto the shimmering, swirling edge of the portal.

There was an almost imperceptible hiss, a momentary fluctuation in the portal's hum. Neither of them noticed. For them, it was simply the next step. Together, they crossed the threshold, leaving behind the sand, the twin suns, and the galaxy they knew.

Anakin Skywalker watched them disappear, then turned and walked back to the ship, alone, the fate of a war on his young, tormented shoulders.

Home

The journey through spacetime was instantaneous. But the air on the other side didn't smell of the crystalline flora they expected. It smelled of freshly cut grass, hot asphalt, and the faint exhaust fumes of some vehicle. The ground beneath their feet wasn't soft and alien, but the hard concrete of a sidewalk.

Padmé looked around, confused. They weren't in a crystal forest. They were on... a street. A street lined with identical houses, manicured lawns, and cars parked in driveways. A dull, Earth-like blue sky loomed overhead. It was the image of suburban normalcy.

"Kaelen..." she said, a note of uncertainty in her voice. "Where are we? This isn't..."

Kaelen didn't answer. He was frozen, his face paler than ever. His "Rick-detector" on his wrist wasn't screaming. It was emitting a long, continuous, mournful beep. The signal wasn't nearby. It was everywhere. They were swimming in it.

His gaze swept the street until it landed on one particular house. It was like the others, except for the garage. The door was open, and inside wasn't a family minivan. There was a saucer-shaped spaceship, made of junk and genius.

And then, a man stepped out of the garage, wiping grease from his hands on his lab coat. He had spiky blue hair, a drool string on his chin, and a flask in his hand, from which he took a long swig.

"Morty!" the man yelled towards the house. "You little shit, hand me the dark matter screwdriver or I'm gonna replace your spine with disappointment-flavored spaghetti!"

Kaelen's blood ran cold. His new sub-dermal armor felt like an ice cage. The portal gun in his hand felt like a child's toy.

Padmé followed his gaze, saw the man, and then looked at Kaelen, seeing the pure, absolute terror on his face. "Is that him? Is that your father?"

Kaelen couldn't speak. He could only nod, an almost imperceptible movement. The drop of blood. His blood, now tainted with Rick's genetic signature, had acted like a magnet. He hadn't opened a portal to a random destination. He had opened a portal to his origin. To his source.

They hadn't escaped. They had been summoned.

In the desperation of fleeing a galaxy at war and an interdimensional council of tyrants, he had made the worst possible mistake. Of all the infinite places he could have gone, his own blood had betrayed him.

It had brought him home. To Rick Sanchez's house. Dimension C-137. The most dangerous place in the multiverse for anyone who called himself family.