{Needful Things}
The tension in the cursed boutique thickened like old soup. Rick was now chest to chest with the Devil, Mr. Needful himself, when the latter raised a small, polished wooden box and cracked it open with theatrical flair. "Before you go on another expletive laced rant about soul fraud," Needful said smoothly, "perhaps a token of reconciliation?" He held up a sleek, obsidian microscope. "For you, Rick. A gift."
Rick's eyes narrowed. "That microscope got a curse, or are you just compensating for small diabolic energy?"
"It's purely... apologetic," Needful said, smiling with enough slime to lube a Slip-N-Slide.
Rick grunted. "Yeah, and I'm purely celibate." He pulled a small device from his coat: one lens, blood-red, trimmed in shimmering chrome. "I invented this to see through spiritual deceit and tax fraud." He activated the lens and peered through it at the microscope.
A siren blared from the device. The microscope twisted before Rick's eyes, revealing a spectral aura shaped like a screaming fetus eating itself. "Nice try, Lucifer Lite," Rick growled. "Cursed with infinite recursion. You look through it once, and you see every version of yourself dying from syphilis."
With that, Rick hurled the microscope across the room, shattering a display case labeled "Soul Bonds – 20% off." The Devil shrieked and dove behind the counter. Rick wasn't done. He turned to the gathering crowd of customers: goth teens, cursed collectors, and a lich in yoga pants and shouted, "EVERYTHING IN THIS STORE IS CURSED. Touch it and you'll wake up divorced, diseased, or disemboweled. Sometimes all three!"
Gasps spread like wildfire. One by one, customers dropped their cursed dolls, venomous typewriters, and haunted pregnancy tests. They shuffled out like a reversed zombie apocalypse. Summer stood by, face twisted in frustration. "Rick, what the hell?! I had a system! Inventory spreadsheets! QR codes!"
Rick scoffed. "You were selling contracts to Satan! This isn't Etsy, Summer, it's Hell's Amazon."
She stepped forward, fury bubbling over. "You're a selfish old bastard who can't stand it when someone else finds purpose. Maybe I liked the structure. Maybe I liked being good at something. Have you ever thought of that?"
Rick's face tightened. "You done?"
"Oh, I'm starting, you smug, crusty—"
{Intergalactic Highways}
The galactic car tore through the hyperspace ribbon like a meteor through cotton. The body was deep purple, angular and sleek, lined with shimmering white streaks spelling "RICHARD" in elegant golden text. Four multidimensional boosters hummed quietly at the back, doubling as wheels, rotators, and aquatic thrusters. This wasn't just a vehicle; it was an apex predator wearing alloy skin.
Inside, the aesthetic was aggressively minimalist. Cool metals, reactive touch panels, and bio-adaptive seats. Morty sat in the passenger seat, hugging a groggy Morty Jr., the red panda hybrid. The panda nibbled on Morty's sleeve sleepily. "So," Morty said, cautiously optimistic, "you, uh... always drive around in a weaponized Bentley?"
Richard didn't look at him. "If you want to get across the stars without being digested, yes."
"I was just saying it's... cool."
Silence. Morty tried again. "Hey, Richard... I know you're not exactly the feelings type, but… doesn't it ever bug you? Y'know. The isolation? The constant cold calculation? Doesn't it get—"
"No," Richard interrupted. "My emotional bandwidth is reserved for important things. Like planetary atmospheric pressure and lethal pathogens."
Morty leaned back, defeated. "You're like an emotionally stunted Google Maps." Richard looked at morty with a raised eyebrow and said
"And you are an overly emotional, logically stunted teenager"
Morty also looked at him and then said "Add egoistic too that" with that the ride fell into silence as they arrived at their destination. The ship descended onto a soft, emerald surface. The entire planet was an endless bamboo forest, gently swaying like a world breathing in its sleep. No beasts. No predators. Just wind, wood, and sunlight.
"Whoa," Morty whispered, stepping out with Morty Jr. "It's perfect..."
He walked forward and examined the sharp edge of a broken bamboo shoot. "Wait, these, These are razor sharp. He could fall and slice himself open!"
Richard calmly pulled a sleek firearm from his side and fired a single shot at the panda. The bullet bounced harmlessly off the creature's thick, spongy hide. Morty started, mouth open. "Did... you just shoot him?!"
"Tested his durability," Richard replied. "He's fine. Tank class. Still... you're right. He might get lonely."
He pressed a button on the dash of the car. "John—deploy a fauna simulation pod. Class 3." A hatch opened and from it, spooled mechanical limbs began assembling organic matter. Within minutes, small peaceful creatures began populating the area—bamboo lemurs, soft-tusked grazers, whispering moths that played ambient tones.
Morty blinked. "You just made a biosphere?"
Richard just looked at Morty and said "Ok, dude is there something wrong with you? Let big bro look at you."
He pulled out a white cylinder with a red plus on top of it as it opened, Richard pushed Morty in it and started to discern his body to check for any sign of harmful or even dangerous creatures, devices, and damage. "Hmm…there is no sign of harmful things in his body but this doesn't make sense" Meanwhile, morty banged on the door as Richard let him out and said "Sorry about that false alarm"
Inwardly he thought 'Is he an evil morty variant? Or maybe it is him? No that is not possible with Rick C-137, he is a cannon morty but this intelligence. It is not explained…Maybe he is intelligent, just mostly overshadowed by us and it only increased due to me being involved' His mind made a theory over theory as Morty rambled on about not pushing him into weird things again.
Morty grinned. "Can we give one of them, like, a fun mutation? Like six eyes or something?" He said pointing at the creatures he created .
Richard sighed. "Fine. But no wings. Wings always lead to existential crises." 'Maybe he is just too immature' He thought.
{Back on earth}
Rick stood outside his brand-new shop, "UnNeedful Things," beneath a glowing sign that read: "Curses Removed, Refunds Optional."
Inside, he was applying a de-cursing field to an old set of haunted dentures when the Devil stormed over. "This is war, Rick!" he yelled. "I will sue you in Hell's Supreme Court!"
But as he stepped through the doorway, a metallic WHIRR echoed behind him. A knockoff Terminator: silver plating, one eye glitching, tackled Needful into a pile of broken curse jars. "ACK! MERCY!"
Rick sauntered over. "Sorry about the T-99. My grandson built it after watching two hours of robot anime and five minutes of ethics. Didn't think he'd actually deploy it."
The Terminator's eye sparked. "I... apologize... poorly."
"Great job," Rick muttered, flicking a switch on his wrist. "Now go take a nap in traffic."
As the bot clunked away, Needful groaned from beneath a pile of shattered regret mirrors. Rick lit a cigarette. "Don't worry, Beelzebore. I'll let you keep your Yelp rating."