Chapter Text
“FUCK, shit shit shi-“
Our screams could barely be heard over the sound of crunching metal and shattering glass. Rick’s ship made brutal impact with the earth, flinging up mounds of dirt and shrapnel as it tumbled down the hillside.
I wasn’t sure how long I’d been knocked out, but when I finally was able to open my eyes, I tried my best to piece together what just happened. I was flung onto the ground about 10 feet from the ship. My clothes were stained with black soot and dirt, and I could feel tiny bits of rock embedded into the back of my arms.
Obviously, we crashed. Judging by the thick smoke, the debris… we must have hit hard. I can’t remember exactly what happened. We were getting chased, I know that… The last thing I remember was the ship’s interface alerting us about an “incoming sonic pulse”… I can’t remember who was-
“Fucking stupid fucking piece of shit insect bastards, li-little fruitfly fucks sniffing ‘round my balls,” I heard a rough, gravely voice mutter under its breath.
That’s right, the Gromflomites. We had broken into their Federal Records Bureau to destroy a safety deposit box when we tripped a wire. Their security had gotten a whole lot better since the last time Rick infiltrated, and within seconds we were caught up in a high-speed interstellar evasion. They pulled a bunch of weapons on us that Rick had never seen before, and in an attempt to deter them from using their new-found mass weapons of destruction, Rick flew the ship down into Earth’s atmosphere, staying only a few thousand miles above the ground.
When I heard the alarm from the ship’s radar and felt a rumble quickly approaching us, I worriedly turned to Rick. My blood froze when I saw his face. He looked terrified; his eyes were in a panic and his arms were stiff. He made no saving movement and I knew that if I didn’t act right then, we would be dead. I yanked the steering column down as hard as I could, narrowly missing the shockwave that rushed by overhead. The pulse of it was still strong enough to knock the ship off its trajectory and send us barreling towards the ground below.
After my recollection, I blinked a few more times, slowing clearing my clouded vision. I made out the image of Rick hunched over a computer console housed on the exterior of the ship. Despite the holes burned into his clothes and the blood streaked across his forehead, he was alive and whole. I felt a wave of relief wash over me and made a move to stand up.
Immobilizing pain shot through me as soon as I contracted the muscles in my leg. I gutturally cried out and saw Rick striding over to me, reaching into his lab coat and extracting something that looked like an Epipen. He looked at my face for a split-second before directing his attention to my thigh. I followed his gaze and instantly felt lightheaded: I saw my thigh bone snapped cleanly in two, one jagged end protruding outward through several layers of muscle and fat.
“Oof, ho-hold still. Compound femoral fracture. This is gonna take a minute, okay? Just hold still.”
Rick squatted down next to me and injected the device directly into the exposed meat of my wound. I reflexively opened my mouth to scream, but no sound came out. I lurched forward and took a sharp gasp in, letting out shuttering breaths as I felt my leg rebuilding itself. I listened to the horrid squelching sounds as my tissues fused back together and the bloody wound slowly closed itself. After a few moments, the pain faded and I looked down at my thigh to see no evidence of the injury, save for some dried blood speckling my skin.
Rick stood and held his hand out to me. I took it and he hoisted me up, providing me stability as I wobbled on top of tired muscles. As soon as I regained my footing, he walked back over to the computer panel, eyes scanning the screen fervently while his fingers punched in more commands. I stood in place for a moment, wincing as I pulled rock fragments out of my arms. Soon, I heard Rick yell from the panel.
“AaaGHH! I swear to god I’m gonna turn the sun into a giant fucking, bug-zapping-lantern-fucking thing and watch those stupid fucks fly into it!” he shouted, slamming his hands down hard onto the keyboard and hanging his head. As I approached, he turned his face to me, head still hung but speaking quieter:
“Ship’s fucked. They must have had a kernel scrambler o-or s-something. It’ll take a week to reprogram. M-maybe longer” Rick groaned.
I looked up from him and studied our surroundings. We had landed in a clearing next to the nearby woods. Around us was nothing but a few dead bushes and some larger chunks of rock. I thought briefly before trying to offer a solution.
“I saw you do something remotely with the ship before, can’t we just portal home and you can fix it from there?” I asked, holding a hand over the raw skin on my arm.
“Would love to,” Rick replied, pulling the portal gun off of the console and tossing it at my feet. The entire thing had been smashed in the wreck, the glass vial empty of portal fluid and the body of the gun a mangled mess of wiring. Rick stood slowly, eyes closed in frustration.
“Hope your leg’s good to go. We’re walking.” he announced, shutting the hatch on the ship and starting off in the opposite direction. I hurried to catch up to him. Even though my legs were in working order, I always had a hard time keeping up with his long strides. As I managed to get next to him, he quickly answered the question I had barely begun to ask.
“We flew over a highway about half a mile back; I saw a nasty-looking motel right off of it. We’ll camp for the night and figure out our next move. Plus, I’ve been meaning to get my hands on some bedbug specimens for an experiment.” He tossed a glance my way and cracked a small smile at my face of disgust. “Kidding.”
Exhausted, we both trudged in silence through the brush towards the lodging.