Chapter Text
Maybe he really had gone a little out of control.
Just a little.
But, in his defense, he hadn't exactly had many options. I mean, what was the alternative? Staying trapped in an endless cycle of submission and acceptance?
Rick had blown up the only thing he had built that actually mattered. The only thing that could give him any real comfort. The only thing powerful enough to get him out of that damn fate, even if, ironically, it had also drawn him toward it.
Great.
Perfect.
So, yes, maybe he had overreacted a little after that.
Following Rick. Trying to kill him. Getting himself into a situation that, looking back, increasingly seemed like a sequence of bad decisions made by someone who definitely should have known better.
And then came the trap.
Maybe he hadn't seen that coming.
Maybe.
He preferred that version.
Because the other possibility—the one where he had anticipated it, analyzed every variable, and still fallen into it—was simply too humiliating to consider.
And, as if that wasn't enough, came the slap.
From Morty Prime.
He could still feel the sting.
A slap.
Seriously?
Of all the things that could have happened, he had been hit by Morty.
There was something almost philosophically insulting about that.
He could have been shot. He could have been disintegrated. He could even have been killed by Rick, which would have been irritating, but at least it would have made some sense.
But no.
A Morty.
The same kind of Morty he'd spent years trying to leave behind.
The thought made his jaw tighten.
No.
He wasn't going to dwell on it.
The past couldn't be changed, and replaying every mistake in his head wouldn't make him any less of an idiot. It would only waste time—and time, at that moment, was the one thing he was certain he had.
Besides, he had bigger problems.
Much bigger ones.
The temporal prison.
That damn thing seemed to have been specifically designed to prevent any conventional attempt at escape. And that meant getting out would require something beyond brute force.
He needed to observe.
Wait.
Find a flaw.
Every prison had one.
Rick liked to say that any system could be broken if you knew where to hit.
Evil Morty disagreed.
You didn't need to know where to hit.
You just needed to know where the system couldn't afford to fail.
A small smile appeared on his face.
Finally, something interesting.
He was still trapped.
He had still lost.
He had still been slapped by Morty Prime.
But that didn't mean it was over.
In fact, now he had a new objective.
Escape that damn temporal prison.
And after that...
Well.
He still needed a revenge worthy of the occasion.
— You, with the eyepatch.
One of the prisoners in a nearby cube was trying to get his attention.
Pathetic.
But maybe he could get some useful information out of him. By his calculations, twenty hours had already passed since the whole incident, and he still didn't have a very clear idea of how this place worked.
Evil Morty snapped out of his thoughts and gave the man a questioning look.
— Got anything to trade for a few screws?
How convenient.
Maybe this was going to be easier than he'd thought. He still needed to understand how this place worked, but that first interaction already told him something. The man didn't seem particularly concerned about him.
Actually, no one here seemed to be.
That was probably the impression the prison had formed of him since he arrived.
A Morty.
That's all.
A lost teenager, fresh out of whatever mess had brought him here, with no understanding of the rules, no contacts, and probably desperate enough to accept whatever anyone was willing to offer him. It wasn't exactly an unfair assessment, considering the number of strange beings that probably passed through this place.
Evil Morty decided not to correct the misunderstanding.
This guy looks stupid enough to help me.
A more helpless approach would probably work better. He didn't need to reveal anything about himself. He just needed to look exactly like what this place expected a Morty to be.
— Uh... sir? I-I don't know. I just got here. I don't have a-anything.
He used the best innocent-Morty voice he could manage and shrugged, trying to look as lost as possible.
The man grunted.
— Oh, come on. I know that little game, kid. Don't think I'm gonna do you a favor.
Evil Morty remained silent.
— You're not as smart as you think you are. Most of these guys will disintegrate you just for existing next to them. If you want some resources, I'm here. But nothing's free.
The man then pressed a few buttons inside his cell. The translucent wall turned opaque, completely blocking the view.
Evil Morty stared at the wall for a few seconds.
He hadn't expected privacy to be a thing here.
Okay. Great.
So he wasn't going to get things that easily.
Who would've thought?
Still, it wasn't exactly a problem.
After all, he'd gotten himself out of trouble in one way or another before. The main difference was that this situation simply required a little more patience.
And maybe a little more... sociability.
Evil Morty made an almost imperceptible grimace at the thought. It wasn't exactly the word he'd use to describe his skills, but there was no need to be dramatic about it. He wasn't planning on making friends. They would only slow him down.
He just needed contacts.
There was an important difference.
He moved away from the wall and observed the corridor through the small section he could still see. Some prisoners talked among themselves, others remained silent, and there were those who seemed to have simply given up on expecting anything beyond their next meal.
Interesting.
This place had a hierarchy.
Not necessarily an official one, but there was one. There always was. All he had to do was observe who talked to whom, who avoided certain people, and, most importantly, who managed to get things the others couldn't.
And that man had just made one thing clear.
He had access to resources.
Maybe he wasn't as useless as he looked.
Or maybe he was exactly as useless as he looked. It was still too early to tell.
Either way, he had something Evil Morty wanted: access to information.
And not getting what he wanted wasn't exactly his style.
He looked back at the now-opaque wall of the cell beside him. There was no reason to keep pushing for the moment. The man had made it clear that he wasn't going to make things easy, and continuing to pressure him would only make him more suspicious.
Better to let him think that he didn't have much.
Which, to be fair, wasn't entirely wrong.
The old man had made sure to strip his arsenal, and the police had underestimated him enough to leave the remaining equipment with him.
It was an interesting situation.
The same guards who had put him in there apparently hadn't considered him enough of a threat to justify a more thorough search.
Evil Morty almost smiled.
Maybe that first impression was proving useful for both sides.
Besides, twenty hours was enough time to start identifying patterns, but not enough to understand an entire system. There was still plenty to observe before deciding who was worth investing in.
And, considering he'd probably be there for a while, there was no reason to rush.
Things would probably be very different when he came back.
Was Morty still alive?
Judging by Rick's relationship with him, the old man wouldn't let him go so easily.
That wasn't something he needed to worry about right now.
His revenge would be planned down to the smallest detail.
His adventure in that prison had barely begun.
He was used to solving problems quickly. Get in, understand the situation, find the way out, and disappear before anyone realized what had happened.
This prison, however, didn't seem to work that way.
Maybe that was exactly why he had an advantage.
Most people there were probably trying to get out.
He could do something different.
He could wait.
And while he waited, he could learn.
Evil Morty sat down again, resting his head against the wall.
— A few years of submission... — he muttered to himself.
It was a ridiculous phrase.
But, unfortunately, it was his life again.