"Everybody stay. Nobody leave."

The speakers played the audio on repeat, and pandemonium took over the plaza as dozens of Ricks and Morty fell prey to the warped portals oozing eldritch horrors from realms beyond.

And there I was, standing in the middle, ears ringing, as caramel soaked my clutched hands, and my heart beat a mile a minute.

How did I get here?

What even was this?

Am I hallucinating?

One moment I was walking down the street snacking on a Snickers, and the next, my ears started ringing, and a migraine washed over me like a tidal wave.

And now this?

The citadel of Ricks?

I looked down at the squished and melted Snickers in my hands and gave it a lick.

Sweet.

I took in a breath of the rancid, blood soaked air.

Yup. Too realistic to be a dream.

That can only mean one thing.

"Woohooo! Baby! I am officially in the multiverse!" I cried out, jumping in joy, when a pillar came crashing down beside me, bringing me back to my senses.

"Oh right. The citadel is falling. Shit!" I said, looking around, as new portals opened and fresh bodies littered the floor.

A tv screen on the billboard above me showed a man with a scar take his seat as a warped portal ate his contemporary.

That meant it had just begun.

I can still escape. I can still survive.

Immediately, I got to work.

First things first, let's get out of the citadel.

I wiped the caramel onto my jacket as I looked around, tiptoeing past the portals, and picked up a portal gun from a dead Morty.

"If I remember right...there was a self destruct button somewhere...." I muttered, flipping it over.

There, I spotted a vague outline of a hatch.

Pressing on it, it popped open, revealing a flip switch, as the display on the gun opened up a timer.

00:03. It read.

"A three second delay?" I muttered, "Good enough."

Carefully tucking the gun into my waistband, I searched some more picking up another two of them, before walking up to a map at the edge of the plaza.

It was surprisingly simple to use, which figures I suppose.

The Mortys had to have some way to navigate the citadel after all.

"Let's see..... President, president, ah, there it is!" I said, finding the route to the presidential manor.

In the show, Rick C-137 escaped by cutting out a portion of the floor to enter the underground lair of Evil Morty, right outside the presidential manor.

Which means that the hole has to be somewhere close.

Portal guns in hand, I ran, dodging debris and flame, as the portal fluid began to seep from the drains.

I checked my mental tally again.

1. Get a portal gun. Check.

2. Kill Rick before he messes up the whole thing for me.

3. Steal the gizmo with Rick's downloaded brain for more power. I'll need all the advantages I can get if I'm going to travel the multiverse.

4. Replace tainted portal fluid. Don't wanna make sweet sweet love to Cthulu's stomach lining now do we?

5. Escape the citadel, into the multiverse!

As the presidential manor came into sight, I spotted the hole, in the middle of the road, still smoudlering red hot front Ricks escape.

They're not far now.

Walking to the edge of the hole, I entered it, gingerly thumping my foot at it's mouth.

Once I was sure the footing wouldn't just give way, I stuffed two of the portal guns in my pockets, and pulled put the first, primed for self destruction.

I took a deep breath.

This was going to be all or nothing. Death or ultimate power.

I exhaled, steeling my resolve.

"Here goes nothing." I said, placing the gun at the edge of the hole, before flipping the switch.

The countdown began, as I made a nosedive off the ledge, and jumped in headfirst, zipping past a dozen floors, hoping against hope that this would work.

Because if it doesn't, I'll become a human pancake, falling God knows how far down!

The dark stone floor of the underground caverns finally came into sight, zooming towards me at breakneck speeds, literally, and I screamed like a little girl, butterflies tickling my stomach.

"Please work pleaseworkpleasework!" I prayed to any and all gods out there.

"I don't wanna die!" I cried.

Just as the floor was about to bat a homerun on my face, the haunting green glow of the portal disappeared into a point mass.

A massive suction force exploded, pulling me in, halting my fall, as I hovered inches off the ground, and the air itself felt like it was being sucked out of my lungs.

"Kwhaaah!" I groaned, the bloody taste of iron appearing in my mouth.

Then, as quickly as it had appeared, the force dissipated.

I fell to the floor, hard and concussed, gasping for breath like a donkey.

"Heen hoon!" I intoned, pushing the air into my lungs becoming an exercise of will.

My throat felt simultaneously on fire and frozen solid.

Flash boils in vacuum.

Is this what frostfire feels like?

Wait no. Focus.

Focus.

Getting out of the citadel. Right. That's what's important right now.

I pushed off the ground, and stood back up, cracking my neck, and rubbing my sore and bruised arms.

"This is going to hurt so bad once the adrenaline rush wears off." I moaned, " But that's all the more reason to get going!"

Patting my jacket, I pulled out another portal gun.

Good thing these are built sturdy. Or else....

I shuddered.

Thank goodness it didn't break.

"Now where do I go?" I muttered, scanning my surroundings.

To my right was an area marked industrial sector. To my left was a cliff wall. Then in the distance, I spotted a set of stairs heading down, and upon them my targets.

"There we go!" I chirped happily, making a dash for them, slinking past the guards and behind rocky outcrops, until finally I reached the stairs.

Now Rick is no chump. I know I can't kill him in open combat. Thankfully, I didnt have to. Seeing as how he was still arguing with Morty, I would soon have a chance when Rick had his guard down.

When Morty asks to see his backstory.

Treading down the side of the stairs out of sight, I followed the two from afar, keeping to the shadows and as quietly as possible.

As I neared them, the stairs opened to another cliff, forcing me back onto the path, when their voices became legible.

"..crybaby backstory? Here!" Rick shouted, his voice echoing throughout the cave, soon followed by a "No, not now!"

Now's my chance!

I sprinted down the stairway at full speed, ignoring the pain as the dull thump of Morty hitting the floor rang out.

"Dammit!" Rick cried out in annoyance, kneeling down to pick him up, when a portal opened before him.

"Wha-" was all he could utter as a mass of tentacles grappled at him tearing his throat out, leaving his decapitated corpse on the floor.

But I didn't go out just yet, instead hiding behind a rocky outcrop.

No way I'm believing it would be this easy.

Rick is basically the god of this world. No way he's going down that easy.

And as if to confirm my suspicions, a mesh popped out of his neck immediately stemming the blood flow.

Rick stood back up, now headless, and pressed onto his arm, causing it to split into eight armed appendages, lined with blasters that turned the tentacles to pudding, before falling back down and depowering.

But just to be sure, I shot another portal, this time below him, that swallowed his body whole, delivering a splattering of blood onto the pavement.

Blender dimension!

Neat. Looks like the portal guns are hacked to lead to a random dangerous world each time.

Phew!

Being patient does have it's rewards!

And now to take mine.

I walked out from behind the crag I was hiding in, and carefully, flanked the portals, picking up the spinning top in Morty's hand before kicking his corpse off the edge and into the pool of portal fluid below.

Once they were gone, I shut off the portals, and started back down the stairs, until I finally reached the lower sanctum.

Lining the walls of this green tinted room were cylinder upon cylinder of green portal fluid, ready to be juiced.

"Now where are the taps on these?" I said, peeking about, lifting tubes and opening cabinets only to find none.

"Tch! Fine then, let's do this the old fashioned way!" I said, pulling out the portal guns and laying them on a nearby table.

Then, taking off my jacket, I wrapped a rock from the cave into it, forming an amateur sling.

The jacket secured in the palm of my hand, I swung it rock side out into the glass cylinder, shattering it, causing portal fluid to leak out, as I ran away and around it to the back of the cylinder.

Carefully, I inverted a portal gun, gently removing the fluid cup, and emptying it onto the floor, before wrapping my arm in the jacket.

With a crude grasp, I dipped the cup into the liquid filling it to the brim, and reattached it to the gun.

Untainted portal fluid acquired!

"Now then, time to unhack this gun." I said, slumping to the floor, wall to my back, and putting the spinning top to my neck.

Memories flooded my mind, from Rick's first wank to his last technological high.

Everything he had ever known, done, felt, experienced, setting off another migraine in my head.

Wow. I'm literally too small brained to get anything much off of it huh?

That's humiliating. I laughed, cathartically, as I realised my first goal in this multiversal journey.

This genius. This beauty. I will surpass it!

I will become the smartest man in the multiverse!

My inventions will be sung of in ballads a million years after their end!

I will be supreme!

A vision gloated in my mind.

Galadriel holding the one ring. A meme of sorts.

A meme of....wait!

What am I...fuck!

Right. Unhacking the gun. Yes.

Yes.

I came back to my senses, leaving the delusions of grandeur in the back of my mind, and began combing Rick's memory for the portal gun manual.

The device, sensing my intent, moved to support me, as it presented a cluster of memories, nice and packaged for me to consume.

And consume I did, for when I woke up, I knew all that was to know about portal guns.

I rubbed my eyes, running my hand across my face and got back up to search the cabinets. I am sure there was a set of tools around here somewhere.

I found the tools in a drawer by the doorway, and got to work.

With my newfound knowledge backed with a lifetime of Rick's experience, my hands moved like clockwork, with blinding speed and unerring precision, as I unhacked the portal gun, and even improvised it for traveling beyond the central finite curve.

Before I knew it, the gun was ready to go and so was I.

Picking up the second unchanged portal gun off the desk, I walked down the final set of stairs to the dimension drive of the citadel.

Peeking in, I found Evil Morty busy with his final prep, back turned to the door.

Good. This will be easy then.

Priming the second portal gun for self destruction, I walked in, confidently.

"So you're here. Good job doing that." He said, without turning.

"You've been expecting me?" I asked, intrigued.

No way he knew I was here!

"Ye-wait what?! Who are you?" He panicked, seeing my reflection in his glass bowl.

"No one important." I said with a smile, as I threw the portal gun at it.

"What's that supposed to-" He mocked before the realisation hit him and his face went from smug to horrified.

In a blaze of dirty, neon green, he exploded and then imploded, before being sucked into the event horizon, along with a good chunk of his spaceship.

"Well, fuck!" I cried, seeing the damage to the ship, "Now how am I supposed to get off this death mall?!"

Then my gaze fell upon the portal gun in my pocket and I remembered the manual.

There was a way. A risky one. But now, seeing as how there was no option, perhaps it was my only choice.

I pulled out my portal gun and began coding the instructions into it, as a gurgling sizzle rang out in the cave, faint at first, and then stronger and stronger.

The portal fluid flood!

"Dammit! There's no time." I said, exasperated, typing faster and faster, as a the neon glow  approached.

"Fuck it! Let's do this!" I shouted finally,  running to the edge of the rip in the citadel, right by the spaceship, activating it's manual controls.

I pointed the gun at the dimensional rift opening up below me, opening a portal within and turned to take one final look at the room, as portal fluid flooded through the door.

I took a deep long breath.

"Here's to a new beginning."

I pressed the trigger, and held onto the ship, as it engaged it's secondary thrusters.

And off we went.

To infinity and beyond!