This was the perfect timeline. The math was clean. I laid eyes on the dimension through Rick's helmet and caressed its edges with my power. Despite my lessons in finite curve multiverse mathematics, I didn't have the finesse to slip through dimensions as cleanly as a portal gun. Pressing against the dimension caused ripples.
A once clear night turned dark and stormy. Mavis was thrown off course due to the wind and took refuge in a cave. Johny doesn't go to the castle because of the storm. All I had to do was pretend to take refuge in the same cave, and it was perfect. I reached with my hand and felt reality ripple as I twisted my ki into the right frequency, but couldn't quite breach cleanly.
Several attempts later, I gave up and took notes.
Mavis gave herself a pep talk while squeezing her hair dry. She gathered some dry sticks and pointed at the pile. A flame erupted, and soon she was drying herself by a fire. Her top was off, laid to dry, and her butt took up my POV as she rolled her stockings down. I fled before I could see too much.
I might be tempted to chance a breach. The house and the world wouldn't make it.
I turned my attention back to the hotel in case I had missed anything. I didn't want to go in and find out names were pronounced through farting or something else.
I turned my attention to Dracula and found he wasn't the one from Sony. He sat on a throne of turban-worn skulls and was dressed as if he stepped out of the Victorian era. A black silk vest under a red velvet jacket was his choice of lounging clothes. A spike shot up, and Dracula caught one of the skulls and turned it over, giving me an eyeful of the nail sticking the turban to it.
Wait, that reminded me of a story about the real Prince Vlad. I paid more attention to the king of the undead.
Powerful in presence and aura, if not physically, was my initial reaction. There wasn't much goofy Adam Sandler in him. A zombie charged into the throne room and saluted the prince of Walachia.
"How is my Mavi Wavi doing out in the scary wide world?" Prince Vlad chuckled before tossing the skull. A spike ripped up from the ground and caught the flying skull. That was a power from Vlad from Fate Apocrypha.
My initial reaction was to beg Rick to open a portal for me. I could feel it like static. I had to fight him once at least. After I beat him, I would ask to court his daughter. Warlords were all about adding new warrior blood to their families.
I made a checklist of the powers different Vlad Draculas displayed. He clearly had magic, domain control, or maybe reality warping. I could feel myself powering up, time slowing by reflex, as I focused on the methodical ticking of the wall clock. Seconds seemed to have whole hours between them as I tried to form an incomplete image training simulation. There wasn't enough information on this Dracula to form a realistic simulation.
"Oh, Jeez," I wanted to fight him.
I sensed that he was powerful; the hotel was more of a castle filled with winding gears, monsters, and traps. Mavis' room was in one of the castle's many spires. There was a door on her floor that led to a hot topic in California. The whole place radiated gothic style from the decadent blood fountains to the black chandeliers. I followed the zombie bellhops to various rooms until I found one.
Blonde fur, round hips, and a pregnant belly. The ultra werewolf MILF was there. Unfortunately, her husband was there too. This wasn't a dimension when she lost him. I couldn't comfort a MILF and get lucky at the same time. No, I would have to search a few more dimensions if I wanted that. I saved this one.
"Hey, Morty, what are you doing up so late?"
I lifted the visor. "Hey, Mom, just doing some homework for Rick."
"With a hard on."
"Yeah, looking into other dimensions is better than porn hub."
"I know you like working with your grandpa, but maybe you should think about getting a part-time job. I don't want you to end up like your father when he's between jobs."
"Low blow, it's not like I'm doing nothing. I mean, I'm learning so much from Grandpa. Every time I think I made some progress, there are whole fields of study I'm missing."
It was important to blend in and make mistakes in conversation. Mistakes were human. Being honest and saying things like a 14-year-old should also keep people from looking at me like I'm something other.
I cracked the tab on a soda and offered Mom one. "Come on, it has to be healthier than wine."
"You kids got me to give up smoking, don't push your luck."
"Beth, honey, are you coming back to bed?"
"In a minute, Jerry, I'm pouring my drink." Mom didn't edge toward the kitchen. "What do you want to be when you grow up?"
"A horse rancher," Beth snorted. "Seeing them colic all the time hasn't killed my love of them yet." It was a smoke screen, a complete ruse to take advantage of my mother's loss of her dreams. I was a Saiyan down to my bones. I wanted to fight, fuck, and eat most days.
This felt like the perfect excuse to gather funds and build a little compound to stash some girls and raise a small family. Maybe this world would be fucked over like in canon. I could leave my family here, exterminate the monsters, and have it all to myself.
I checked the time; it had been 36 hours since I last slept. It wasn't that I felt tired; I felt more based.
"Well, it takes start-up money and a lot of land to do that. Your savings aren't enough."
"I was thinking about building houses for that. You know my mini homes are up to code. The only difference between building them and real houses is scale."
I could knock out a dozen houses in an hour and sell them for cheap. That would eliminate labor costs, so I would only pay for materials. So long as I sold them quickly, I could make millions before any politicians got wise. I thought houses were for living in, not for investment.
That was the ghost talking. 14 years was a long time. For me, it was longer.
Mom poured her wine to the brim and drank it down. "Let's say I loaned you the start-up capital. How quickly could you pay me back?"
I floated off the ground and sat on the couch. "I don't need a loan. I'll sell some of my tiny homes. The ones Rick didn't burn."
"Beth, there's a spider."
"Morty, can you?" I sighed and lifted it, opened a window, and tossed it out to freedom."
"Thanks, Morty," Dad said.
"I'd better go before he finds something else to get attention." Mom said.
I checked the viser and wrote down the address for the dimension. I was tempted to sneak Rick's portal gun out, but I had patience. I was going to learn how to do it all myself.
Around four in the morning, I managed to sleep for a few hours. Rick turned on my light, and I was up and dressed before his words registered. "Morty, we're going to steal a Carbonite Crystal. I need it for a gun. But the guy who has it is strong, so we need to be careful. He takes one dump every century, and it's going to be unguarded. This might be my only chance to get ahold of one Morty. No one knows what it does; it could be a fancy rock. It's in a scan-proof field. The whole planet is crawling with salvage." Urp! Rick swayed on his feet.
"Oh, jeez, Rick, that sounds like a blast. Do we have time for breakfast?"
He tossed back his flask and vomited on my sheets. I sighed and folded them before tossing them in the hamper.
"Oh, I'm sorry, Morty." The first time it happened, I was surprised. This was the 20th time, so I was only disappointed.
"It's fine, I was going to wash them today anyway. So, which strong guy is it? I mean, there can't be that many in this universe. Or is it in another dimension?" I could sense several good fights, but reaching them was a challenge until I reached tier 8 and gained instant transmission.
"Oh, it's here. Do you want to learn how to drive? You can do a lot of stuff once you learn. The whole universe will open up to you." Rick said.
I opened the fridge door, cooked 12 steaks and 20 eggs with ki, then tore into them. I placed one steak and two eggs on Rick's plate.
"Sorry, we don't have time to cook them the old-fashioned way, or do we?"
"Steak and eggs, you weren't joking. Beth must be bringing in the moola. What about Jerry, your dad? The guy who impregnated my daughter."
"He's a good father, I don't have any complaints." I made a slight addendum. "I wish he were a little more assertive, but that's hard when Mom is so successful."
"Cut the shit, he's a failure and has to have his son defend him. Has he done anything right in his life?" Rick asked.
"He made Summer and me with mom. I consider that important. I like being here."
Rick pushed an egg into his mouth and sucked it down. "Good egg," Rick grunted.
"How much studying have you managed. Some of my notes aren't exactly reader-friendly. I'm sure some of it is encrypted and needs a cipher. Do you understand what you're reading? If you aren't making any progress in a month, you might as well stop."
"I'm doing alright. I've wanted to run a project with you and maybe get more relevant notes on it." Rick nodded. "I want to make a gravity room. A room where gravity can be increased in increments of Earth's gravity up to 500 times that of Earth or more."
"Why?"
"It sounds like good training."
"You'll black out and die."
"I want to get stronger."
"Then do it smarter. You're the grandson of the smartest man in the world, act like it. Why waste your time working up a sweat when you can cheat?" Rick stood up and tossed his plate in the sink. "Finish your breakfast, we need to leave in five."
I grabbed some snacks for the way while Rick loaded his car full of booze. There was a reason he wanted me to learn how to drive. A hand reached out of the ship, pulled the boats inside, and we were ready.
"Hey Morty, do you want to count us down. Start from ten. Go ahead, it will be great." I sighed. Urp! "Come on, you're a kid. Kids love that NASA shit."
"Fine," I started, and the ship was in orbit before a second tick of my watch.
"Ha, this is the fastest you've ever been." We passed by the moon in short order. "And away we go." Our solar system vanished behind us as we picked up speed. Everything I've ever known was behind us. At least the car seemed to be in working order. I would hate to get stranded out in space.
I looked back and focused. All the familiar energy signatures remained. Even if we got lost, I knew where Earth was. If something happened, I would sense invaders or attackers.
"Let's listen to some tunes," Rick said, and turned the radio up loud with a cassette in. A female's voice joined him, and I realized it was Diane. Somehow, a single cassette slipped through the Omega device's range.
I heard snoring, and Rick was out cold.
"Ship is the autopilot engaged."
"Yes, Morty,"
"Cool, what are my privileges? If we need to make a pit stop for Grandpa, can I command you?"
"That is acceptable." A part of me was surprised that Rick was the kind of guy who would make a mixed tape. Maybe it was Grandma Diane.
I nodded and opened a tablet while listening to happier times in Grandpa Rick's life. Even with the math behind portals, it wouldn't be easy to engineer a technique. I was close, but my ki wasn't quite dense enough. The quantity was there, but I needed more quality since there weren't any pure-hearted saiyans to engineer the god transformation. I needed to come up with something on my own.
When I tried to condense my ki before my body nearly exploded. God ki was going to fight me every step of the way. A part of me wanted to cheat and search for a solution like Viltrimite smart atoms of Kryptonian cells. Maybe the company would give me a mission to Warhammer or somewhere I could snag some good genes.
Ki was spiritual, a mix of body, soul, and courage. There was more to it, but that was my basic understanding. Learning how to do more with my ki increased it. Gravity training was more of a ki exercise than a body exercise. It forced the user to enhance themselves beyond what was natural. Learning how to survive at high gravity improved my ki. Even in image training, fighting powerful opponents greatly improved my ki. I stared down at my body. I've done everything I could, but I had already reached the point of diminishing returns. So I needed to find ways to strengthen my mortal body.
Nanites were an option. If I reinforced my body, my ki would improve as well. Going beyond the human limit was dangerous but an important step. Or I could create an isolated space to smash my ki until it becomes God ki outside my body and slowly reintroduce it.
Shattered planets came into view as the cassette ended and started rewinding. Rick lurched awake.
The ship turned to avoid a drone's laser. A red alert sounded, and the ship spun and juked more fire. We neared the planet when a laser hit one of our thrusters.
"Shit, we're going down." We entered the atmosphere as a flaming wreck. The ship's shield held, but it was a close thing.
Urp! "Come on, we're almost there. The atmosphere parted, revealing a sea of lost vessels and tribes of scavengers picking over the remains."
We crashed into half a dreadnaught covered in holes, where reentry flames licked at the hull. "Are you good, Morty?"
"Well, look at the bright side."
Rick glared at me through his hangover. He upturned a bottle, drinking it down before tossing it on the floor.
"What bright side?"
"We made it. And there is plenty of salvage to repair."
"We made it two thousand klicks from the crystal. This place is swarming with anti-air missiles and lasers. How do you expect to get the crystal before its guardian returns?"
"I'll fly over and grab it while you do the repairs. What does it look like?"
"Right, you aren't a useless Morty."
"You're breaking my heart," I said.
"It's big, green, and under a gravity well. I planned to open a portal under the crystal and snatch it, but you wanted a gravity room. The crystal is being used to power a faulty wormhole generator and the civilization underground." Rick tossed me a tracking device. "This will show you where to go; it detects the crystal's energy. Be careful, it's fragile." I slid the tracker in my coat and flew up. The gravity on this planet was only 1.2 times Earth's, but it felt invigorating.
The carbonite crystal felt alive to my senses; it dwarfed all other energies on the planet, including my own. There was another power nearer to my own. It must be the guardian.
A laser fired at me, scattered against my ki-enhanced skin. It felt a little warm. Logos of silver spacecraft filled my visions, broken by faded paint jobs bleeding into rusting hulls. Men in hole-filled uniforms, from admirals to pirates, dotted the ship graveyard. I blasted forward, barreling through lasers and rockets, ignoring them as I passed through, as I approached an altar at the planet's northmost pole.
A parade of people in power armor climbed the steps leading up toward the carbonite crystal.
I landed on stone steps covered in white powder. The stuff covered my sneakers as I climbed the last steps up a black stone staircase. The reader in my pocket read the gravity had increased to 1.5, barely noticeable. It was like being teased.
Steps through the bone powder led me to a crowd of people who looked back at me.
Arrr! "It seems we are not the only ones here to steal the jewel of Salzanta."
"You mean the Jewel of Vanti."
"No, he means the Goddess's heart." I stared at the blocky aliens, then at the blocky crystal. Did its people have block-shaped hearts?
I glanced at the pile of pulverized red meat a few steps in the hallway leading to a shining green jewel the size of a sedan. Tubes attached to it drew power in waves through a series of strange mechanisms. It all looked straightforward.
Bones filled the passage leading up to the jewels. They crumbled until even the bone became dust, and the machine pushed it out down the steps. A spot almost empty of powder was in the corner where two large feet had been.
"How long before the guardian returns?"
"We have another hour. If we don't leave by then, we'll experience a century in that creature's guts."
I smiled and looked at the important-looking characters. I slipped my hands in my coat pocket and debated waiting to fight the guardian or enjoying the gravity. My Saiyan blood was boiling with anticipation for either challenge. The fight felt more appealing, but seeing all those corpses makes the gravity well feel like an incredible challenge. I sighed and felt content to let one or more of them give it a try before stepping in and snatching the jewel. Or should I wait, have an incredible fight, and then take the jewel? There were no bad choices ahead of me.
Z Fighter Morty CH4 on my P.A.T.R.e.o.n
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