In a cluttered living room, a teenage boy sat slouched on the couch, eyes glued to the television.
His brown hair was slightly disheveled, and his expression was vacant—completely absorbed in the show playing on the screen.
Rick Sanchez strolled in, his spiky blue hair a mess, lab coat hanging loosely over his shoulders. He took one glance at the TV, then at Morty, and scoffed.
"Ugh, Morty, are you seriously still watching that lame One Piece anime?"
Morty blinked, snapping out of his trance.
"Uh—yeah, but it's actually kinda entertaining! Look at this guy—his name's Luffy. He's a rubber man who can stretch and punch people—wait, just watch."
He pointed at the screen. Luffy's hair had turned white, a swirling mass of clouds surrounding his body. His laughter rang out as he bounced around the battlefield, fighting a massive dragon with newfound energy.
Rick frowned, unimpressed.
"Meh. Not that special, Morty. I've seen plenty of these so-called 'Devil Fruits' in my time."
Rick shrugged and turned away, pulling out his portal gun. With a flick of his wrist, a swirling green rift opened before him, and he stepped through without another word.
Morty barely noticed. He was too focused on One Piece, eyes locked on the screen. For a brief second, the picture glitched but then it returned to normal.
On-screen, Luffy was moments away from delivering the final blow to the dragon. But then, out of nowhere, a portal materialized behind him. A shadowed figure stepped out.
Rick Sanchez.
He held a glowing weapon, its eerie light casting a shimmer over the battlefield.
Luffy barely had time to react before a freezing ray struck him square in the chest. Ice crawled across his body in an instant, locking him in a crystalline prison.
With a satisfied smirk, Rick broke into a little victory dance. Then, with a single tap, the frozen sculpture shattered, scattering shards of ice across the battlefield.
Luffy was dead.
The dragon—scarred from the battle—stared at Rick, its massive eyes wide with fear. Silence hung in the air. The camera panned between the characters, lingering on their stunned faces. No words were spoken.
Then, the episode abruptly ended.
As the credits rolled, the usual ending theme played—but something was different. Luffy was gone. In his place, Rick Sanchez stood at the center of it all, fighting off Marines and the World Government, a smug grin on his face.
---
Back in the living room, Morty sat frozen on the couch, eyes wide in shock as he stared at the TV.
"W-What just happened?"
Before he could process it, a portal swirled open beside him. Rick casually stepped out.
"Rick—what did you just do? Did you kill Luffy? Oh, geez!" Morty blurted out, his voice cracking.
Rick shook his head dismissively.
"Relax, Morty. That was just an anime. I didn't really kill him—I just popped over to the animation studio and swapped the episode with a fake one."
Morty let out a breath, shoulders loosening.
"Oh... okay. But—uh, you do realize you just ruined One Piece, right? No one's gonna watch it now that the main character's dead."
Rick waved a hand dismissively.
"Eh, they'll get over it. One Piece fans are like cockroaches—persistent as hell."
Rick strode back into the room, carrying a metallic box covered in wires, glowing nodes, and cryptic symbols. He dropped it onto the coffee table with a thud.
Morty eyed it warily. "Uh… what's that?"
Rick smirked. "This, Morty, is an Interdimensional Viewing Box. It lets us watch alternate realities."
Morty frowned. "So… it's like your portal gun, but on TV?"
Rick snorted. "Pfft—no, Morty. This is way more advanced. The portal gun takes you to different dimensions, but this baby? It lets you observe them from a safe distance. Think of it like an infinite cosmic DVR, except it taps into the fundamental structure of existence."
He started hooking it up to the TV.
"You see, Morty, our observable universe is just a fraction of what actually exists. There are infinite realities, but we can only access the ones that overlap with our dimensional wavelength. This device? It's powered by dimensional crystals, which resonate at hyperquantum frequencies to break past those restrictions. It doesn't just tune into parallel universes—it taps into entirely different cosmological frameworks, some that don't even follow the same laws of physics as ours."
Morty blinked. "O-Okay… so, like, magic TV?"
Rick rolled his eyes. "Yeah, sure, Morty—let's just call the most sophisticated piece of interdimensional technology in existence magic TV."
He flipped a switch, and the box hummed to life.
"Alright, take a look at this."
Rick pressed a button, and the TV screen flickered. A new scene appeared.