[Third Person]
With a final kiss under the starry Kyoto sky, Kaelen raised his portal gun. The peace of their honeymoon felt like a dream from which they were about to wake. "Ready to go back to the madness, my love?" he asked softly.
"With you, always," Padmé replied, taking his hand firmly.
The portal opened with a familiar hum, the green swirl contrasting with the serene atmosphere of the temple. They stepped through the threshold, passing from the tranquility of an ancient Japanese sanctuary directly into the organized chaos of Rick Sanchez's garage.
The change was a shock to the senses. The air smelled of overheated metal and Rick's favorite energy drink. The wall, which once held calculations for the "twin crisis," was now covered by a gigantic holographic star map of their home galaxy, with Republic and Separatist fleets marked in blue and red. On another wall, an even more complex and bewildering map of the multiverse showed swarms of Rick signatures moving erratically.
Rick was in the center of it all, a welding visor pushed onto his forehead and a data tablet in his hand, yelling at Morty.
"No, you idiot! You can't just bounce the signal off a pulsar! That would attract the energy eaters! Use a black hole as a dead relay! It's basic!"
He looked up as Kaelen and Padmé entered. "Vacation over? Good. Things have gotten interesting."
He pointed to the galactic map. In the center, a screen displayed HoloNet images: a massive space battle over a red, desert planet. Jedi fighters, Republic cruisers, Federation ships. It was the Battle of Geonosis, in full swing.
"Your warning worked," Rick said, without a hint of emotion. "The Jedi weren't completely annihilated in the arena. They managed to mount a halfway decent counteroffensive. But as you predicted, Kaelen, Palpatine got his war. The Clone Wars have officially begun."
Padmé watched the images with a sinking heart. She saw the destruction, the lives lost. Her fight for peace had failed.
"And as for our other friends..." Rick continued, gesturing to the multiverse map. "Summer's 'Cosmic Crystal Challenge' is a roaring success. Citadel productivity is down 90%. Most high-level Ricks are on a futile wild goose chase in the Silent Fart Dimension."
"But?" Kaelen asked, knowing there was never good news without a "but."
"But," Rick confirmed, "the Commander you took down wasn't an idiot. He operated outside standard protocol. I've detected several long-range probes with his personal encryption signature scanning border realities. He's not looking for a crystal. He's looking for you. He's persistent."
The situation was clear. They had bought a reprieve, not the war. They were fugitives on two fronts.
"We can't keep hiding," Padmé said, her voice regaining its leader's firmness. "And we can't fight two wars at once."
"She's right," Kaelen said, walking over to the maps. His mind, now rested and focused, began to work. "We need to prioritize. Palpatine is a long-term threat. His plan requires years of manipulation. The Council of Ricks, and specifically this Commander, are an unpredictable, immediate threat. They can appear anytime, anywhere. We have to deal with them first."
"Deal with them?" Rick scoffed. "How do you 'deal with' an infinite government of versions of me? You can't bomb them into submission, there are too many!"
"No," Kaelen said, and a sly smile appeared on his face. "You don't bomb them. You do something far worse." He looked at Padmé, a spark of inspiration in his eyes. "You do politics."
Rick and Padmé stared at him, confused.
"The Citadel is a bureaucracy," Kaelen explained. "And bureaucracy thrives on the perception of competence. If we show that the current Council is incompetent—that they let an anomaly (me) escape, that they were fooled by a viral meme, and that they can't control their own rogue commanders... we can instigate a vote of no confidence."
"A coup!" Rick exclaimed, his eyes lighting up with manic glee. "An interdimensional coup d'état using paperwork and scandals! It's the most twisted, passive-aggressive, beautiful thing I've ever heard!"
"It's not a coup," Padmé corrected, understanding the strategy instantly. "It's a reform. We'll support a more... reasonable faction of Ricks. One willing to negotiate a non-interference treaty in exchange for power."
"Exactly," Kaelen said. "We don't destroy them. We neutralize them. We tie them up in their own red tape."
The plan was audacious, insane, and absolutely perfect for the strange team they had formed. But before diving into multiversal politics, Padmé had one last question.
"And Anakin?" she asked quietly. "Do we know anything about him?"
Kaelen turned to a console. "I've been monitoring his comms. He's embraced his new role."
He activated a screen. It showed a grainy image from a clone trooper helmet's perspective. In the midst of battle, a blur of blue and green moved with incredible speed and fury. It was Anakin, now a Jedi General, leading a charge against a line of droids. There was no fear in him. Only a cold, focused fury.
"He's alive," Kaelen said. "And he's busy. Now, so are we."
He turned to the map of the Citadel of Ricks, his mind already formulating the first phase of history's strangest political campaign. The honeymoon was over. The true chess match, on a board with infinite dimensions, had just begun.