What Have You Done?

Even after using the portal countless times over the past six months,

every time he stepped through that oily green portal, the world before him seemed to surpass even Morty's wildest imagination.

The world Grandpa had brought him to this time—

if he had to rank it, it was definitely among the top three most surreal worlds he'd seen in the past six months.

It was almost on par with the Chair-People World he'd visited the first time.

Beneath the grass, which was covered in deep purple blades, lay reddish-brown soil so red it was almost unsettling.

Trees shaped like doughnuts were planted everywhere.

He could see a distant metropolis that looked straight out of science fiction, built almost entirely from metal. Yet out here in the suburbs, there didn't seem to be any roads at all—not even dirt ones.

Looking up, he saw all kinds of spaceships filling the sky, proof that this planet's civilization had left its dependence on roads behind and fully embraced the age of air travel.

And serving as the sky's backdrop were other planets, so close above this one that they seemed to hang right overhead.

Even without knowing anything about astronomy, Morty could tell how close these planets were to each other.

Closer than Earth and the Moon!

At that distance, aren't they worried the planets might just crash into each other...

Morty had seen countless bizarre things across the multiverse, and his heart had long since gone numb. After a couple of sarcastic remarks, he shifted his attention back to the Mega Fruit.

But when he looked around, he couldn't see any of those Mega Trees that looked so much like upside-down jellyfish.

Grandpa, who seemed to have come up with this on a whim, was holding a bottle and swigging from it. He wasn't in any hurry to search for the Mega Fruit.

Morty, desperate to find it and gain superintelligence, hurriedly asked which way they should go.

But Grandpa's next move left him completely dumbfounded!

The guy realized he'd run out of booze and had no spare bottle on him. So he opened a portal and went to get more.

When he came back, the energy fluid in the Portal Gun was completely gone.

A cold breeze swept past.

Grandpa and grandson stared at the empty little energy-fluid canister atop the Portal Gun. Morty was so furious he wanted to pin Grandpa to the ground and rub his face in it.

Fine, you drank yourself into trouble all the time and caused a whole bunch of problems. And sure, our family owed the President of the United States a huge unpaid bill because of you.

But now you couldn't even keep track of how much energy fluid was left in the Portal Gun???

But when Morty put together how blatantly deliberate Grandpa's move seemed with the events of the first episode of the cartoon and what he'd said last night,

he calmed down and realized his probation period with Grandpa was probably over.

Ever since Grandpa had returned, he'd felt that something about the whole thing was off.

If Grandpa just wanted a Morty, he could've gone to the Citadel of Ricks and picked one.

It was this obvious effort to train him that had kept Morty excited all along.

Now it seemed they were finally getting to the real stuff, the start of a genuine adventure.

So...

Seeing his precious grandson's expression shift back and forth, Grandpa crouched down to reassure him. "Morty, don't worry. I've seen plenty of crazy stuff. In this strange world, I'll keep you safe!"

"If we run into danger, just run. I'll handle it!"

Morty's mouth twitched.

Grandpa did keep him safe every time, but by the time he got around to it, Morty had already been put through the wringer.

Now that he thought about it, maybe Grandpa had been doing it on purpose, too.

Like when a bird-headed angel with twelve wings branded him a heretical fiend, tied him to a stake, and burned half his body.

Or when he was hunted through an underwater world by an octopus more than ten times larger than twenty blue whales put together.

And then there was...

How the hell was that supposed to count as training?!

Just thinking about that giant octopus made Morty want to burst into tears right there.

After half a year of adventures, he'd finally come across a world he recognized—the Cthulhu World.

But Grandpa had insisted on cutting off one of Cthulhu's hands—well, tentacles—to see if the meat would taste good roasted with cumin.

Cthulhu had naturally been furious. Grandpa somehow managed to escape, while Morty spent two whole days cursed.

That jerk only lifted the Old Gods' curse right before Morty was about to die.

Just as Morty was about to respond, Grandpa whipped around at lightning speed and took off running.

This scene, by now all too familiar after six months, told Morty there had to be something extremely dangerous behind him.

Or maybe Grandpa was doing it on purpose...

"Morty! Run! I'm not messing with you this time! That huge thing behind you—I've never seen anything like it!!!"

The moment Grandpa said that, Morty started to panic.

Because he knew Grandpa never talked big.

So...

Damn it! One of these days, I'm going to pin that old geezer to the ground and rub his face in it!!!

But before taking off, Morty still had to see what was behind him.

And when he turned around...

Holy crap!

That octopus guy was so huge he was breaking through the planet's atmosphere...

The very Cthulhu he'd just been thinking about was actually right behind him?!!

This was the end!

Cthulhu had learned how to cross over into another universe!

And he didn't know what weird changes crossing universes had caused to Cthulhu's energy and body.

Before, Cthulhu had been only three hundred meters tall, about the height of a skyscraper. Now he was as tall as Mount Everest!

Following behind him were his two children and his cousin Hastur.

The whole family of four had come!

There was no need to think about it. This had to be Grandpa's fault!

Before Grandpa showed up, the monsters of the Cthulhu World had thought there was only one world. It was only after this weirdo who didn't fit the place appeared that they realized other worlds existed!

Morty, worn out to the core, put all his strength into sprinting. But Cthulhu—whose tentacle he and Grandpa had cut off last time—had clearly come for the two of them.

So...

Question: how do you race a monster as tall as Mount Everest?

Answer: curse out Grandpa!

Morty sprinted up alongside Grandpa and immediately started yelling at him. "Rick! Tell me what the hell is going on! Why is that giant squid behind us?"

"How the hell should I know?! I came to this planet to find a Mega Seed. Who knows why he's after me!!!"

After answering, Grandpa seemed to think of something and began to speed up.

Noticing the sudden change, Morty immediately knew Rick must have figured out the truth.

Otherwise, he wouldn't be running this fast!

"Rick! What the hell happened? We only cut off one of his tentacles. That's no reason for him to come all the way from another universe to hunt us down!"

"And how did they learn universe-tracking technology?!"

Crossing universes was, in a way, simple.

But tracking someone in another universe from your own was so much more mind-bending than crossing universes.

So Morty figured Grandpa had to have done more than one awful thing behind his back!..

Luckily, Cthulhu... was a friendly guy... and answered Morty's question himself.

"Rick Sanchez! You piece of shit! You knocked up Cthylla! Stop right there!!!"

Morty glanced back at Cthulhu's daughter, Cthylla.

He sucked in a sharp breath.

He'd been going on adventures with Grandpa across the multiverse and had never once landed a hit. And yet this rotten old geezer—

while the two of them were cutting off Cthulhu's tentacle last time, he'd actually done something like that???

No wonder Grandpa was the toughest man on Earth!

What a ruthless bastard!

He'd even gone after a giant octopus!