Sorry for the wait. Life is hell. This kinda sucks but please, indulge yourselves.

Dimension: Who freaking knows?

Planet: Unknown

Year: 2000

She lands on something hard as diamond. With a pained grunt, Beth stands and brushes off her dirtied knees.

It's crazy how she could emerge onto a dead silent street from the turmoil just one step behind her. She glances behind herself, for no other reason than to really make sure she's not dreaming. She catches the portal closing up, shrinking then disappearing with a pop of green.

Beth finds the portal gun a few feet away, having clattered onto the ground upon her forceful leap between dimensions. She stumbles over to it and retrieves the precious item, sliding it into her belt next to the laser gun she'd received from E-216 Rick. It's a damn shame the stupid Gromflom-imbeciles confiscated her old weapon. That one had felt so much more… right when nestled in her fingers.

It's only after this that she actually looks up to examine her surroundings. And immediately she brings the portal gun back out to see if it will tell her where the hell she ended up. She turns it over and over in her hands, but nothing gives her any useful clues. All that's there are the random coordinates she'd mashed into the gun a little over a minute go, light years away. The black numbers are displayed on a tiny, scratched-up screen that is of no higher quality than the shitty radio that was in her dad's stupid van-turned-spaceship, three vehicles ago.

Beth lets out a sigh tinged with irritation as she nestles the gun back between her hip and belt. That is a design flaw she'll have to fix when she builds a portal gun based on her prototype. She settles for using her good ol' trusty five senses to determine her whereabouts.

Okay… sight. That's the easiest one to use. Underneath her feet is black asphalt— a plain road. On either side of said road are strips of sparse grass. Green grass, too. She hasn't seen green grass since Bird World in her youth. Grass tends to be pink or purple on most other planets. Beyond the grass is… nothingness. No mountain ranges around to disrupt the sky, no trees reaching for the fluffy white clouds. Just straight, even, uninterrupted, horizon.

Scent. She inhales, and is overwhelmed by the stench of tar. Hot, miserable, tar. There's no heat source of any kind visible in the sky, but it is disgustingly hot outside. This only encourages the tar, and she chokes for a moment before regaining her bearings.

Taste. Ugh, the air tastes like tar, too. Moving on.

Touch. Well, the atmosphere feels… damp. She would say moist, considering the heat element, but she hates that word. The clouds above do look a little heavy with precipitation.

And… sound. It seems pretty quiet to her, except for a distant roaring. It's a constant noise, and it's kinda getting louder. Wait—

Beth lets out a cry, tripping over her feet and rolling off the road into a grassy embankment. A car whizzes past her on the road, stirring up some dried-out long-ago-mowed grass that clings to her hair like clothes to sweaty skin. She smacks her forehead at her stupidity and brings herself to her feet again.

"Motherfucker… do you want to get freaking killed? Jesus," she scolds herself.

Beth knows in her mind what the logical thing to do is— she should pull out the portal gun, plug in some well-thought-through coordinates, and go the heck somewhere else. There are a few issues with that, plan, however:

1. She is unsure whether going through a portal again so soon is good for her mental and physical health. It's quite the thing to get adjusted to.

2. She has absolutely zero fucking idea what some well-thought-through coordinates could be.

Turns out that, when you want to be a lone wolf, there are some things you should think through first. Like some goddamn coordinates.

And so she walks. It's such a dull activity, she realizes after a while. Beth is so used to running for her life with half her body twisted around to aim a gun, or steering a barely-functioning space-mobile to get her and her barely-conscious-because-he-drank-so-much-alcohol-that-he-might-as-well-have-drunken-a-whole-gallon-of-bleach father to safety. Walking now just feels as boring as sleep— an annoying necessity that is more like a waste of time than anything.

After twenty minutes, it really appears that she is getting nowhere. All that greets her is more black asphalt and more grayish sky and more endless, endless road slicing through the grassy fields to her left and right.

She's damn close to reaching for the portal gun again and plugging in another arbitrary set of coordinates, but then she realizes another roar is coming up behind her.

oo0oo

Dimension: E-221

Planet: Bird World

Year: 1991

By time she hit eleven, she was completely over Lizzy. Now she wanted to be called "Just Liz." And Just Liz was an entirely different persona.

Just Liz was even moodier than her father— if that was possible— and was practically oozing angst out of her every pore. She spent most of her days inside, fretting over an enormous stack of books that fell under every last genre. Hell, she was reading textbooks for fun, not to put herself to sleep. That was something even Rick could never bring himself to do as a kid. But then again, he reminded himself, he and his daughter were growing up with very different lives. Rick grew up in the god-awful, amateur-run, mediocre system called a public school. Teachers would basically shove textbooks into students' already overloaded arms and expect them to learn the shit themselves.

But Rick— he wanted hands-on learning. He didn't want to just read about similarities and differences between prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells, he wanted to look at that shit under a microscope lens and drop Liquid A into Liquid B in a beaker and watch it fizz and all that cool stuff. He'd never gotten that.

So of course he was the last dumbass who would let his daughter anywhere near that shitty curriculum. But Just Liz was an unusual specimen. She would rather stay indoors and read up on every other unusual specimen under the Bird Sun than go out and experience that stuff in real life.

Rick wondered where that curious, outgoing five-year-old went.

"Yo, Scout," he said one afternoon as he poked his head into her room. The door was locked, but a quick paper clip hack had done the trick.

"What the hell, Dad? I locked the door. And don't call me that," she mumbled from behind a hearty volume detailing "The Rules and Wonders of Calculus."

"W- would you rather I call you Elizabeth? And don't fucking swear under my roof."

"It's not your roof," she pointed out matter-of-factly.

Rick groaned loudly. "Fine. Don't f- fucking swear under Birdperson's roof, okay? That guy is l-l- like super sensitive, y'know."

All he got in return was a head-toss from behind that enormous book. If she was like this now, it was a long and hellish road ahead to thirteen.

"Um… do you maybe, uh, wanna… go exploring or something?" he asked after a few long moments of quiet.

"No."

"You sure?"

"Yep."

He lingered in the doorway, scanning over all the marks and flecks of old paint on the battered wood of the doorframe. He was dismissed a minute later by yet another over-exaggerated sigh.

Rick nearly ran head-on into Birdperson in the hallway. He tried to move around his friend, but Birdperson touched his shoulder with a burly feathered arm. His arm was the equivalent of a ball and chain, and Rick was suddenly rooted to the spot.

"Liz is at a difficult stage in her life, Rick," Birdperson murmured. "You know lacking a mother figure makes growing up even more of a trial for her."

"W- woah, that's it! Thanks so much for telling me that, pal. Now everything is solved. I'll just fly up to heaven or wherever and give her mother a good talking-to for being dead, and all will be well again," Rick snarled. He wrenched his shoulder free and marched past Birdperson.

It was just before dawn the next day when Rick found himself sitting in Birdperson's very wooden kitchen. His ass was planted on a wooden chair, elbows sliding along a wooden table, eyes fighting drooping eyelids while staring blankly at a wooden refrigerator.

Shuffling feet made their way down the hall and into the kitchen. A quick dart of his eyes revealed mismatched socks on the small feet— one pink, one blue— and that was enough evidence for him to keep his mouth shut.

"Hey."

A low rumbling sound scratched at his throat, which was parched and raw from numerous swallows of rum. Whatever stuff Birdperson had obtained and kept in his locked (yay for paper clips) cabinet was way stronger than anything legal on Earth.

"Dad? You alive?" For the second time, a hand settled on his shoulder. This one was much more light and gentle, like a feather, and more like a suggestion than pressure. It was the same touch her mother would give while searching his eyes and cupping the side of his jaw in her other palm—

Two pairs of blue eyes flashed to the bottle of alcohol at the same time. Two hands reached, but the smaller one was swifter. She pushed the poison away, and together they watched it slide across the table and smash on the wooden floor. Rick hoped that stupid-ass wood was gouged.

"No," he said.

"What?"

"I'm n- not— urp— alive. Since you asked an' all."

An arm rested over his shoulders and un-brushed blonde hair tickled his cheek. It was some type of half-hearted, awkward hug. For a moment he could've sworn he was with someone else. Then the different voice spoke again.

"You want eggs?"

He shrugged. The arm and hair slipped away, and with it the faded Polaroids of memories in his mind. The wooden fridge opened then closed, wooden dishes clunked against the wooden counter, and a flame sprang to life on the stove. Rick was starting to believe his face was wooden, too.

Ten minutes later, they sat across from each other at the wooden table, shoveling burned scrambled yurtschian eggs into their mouths with wooden forks. Rick ground the rubber in his mouth, his molars tiring quickly. He decided to swallow the pieces whole instead. Something flickered in his brain.

"She…"

"Hm?" Liz glanced up from her barely-touched plate. The cobalt spark was striking in that gaze even from miles away.

"She was an awful cook, e- except for her scrambled eggs. Only damn thing she could make," he told her.

His daughter nodded, and pushed the eggs around some more. Underneath the wooden table, a piece of broken glass jabbed her big toe through the blue sock.

oo0oo

Dimension: Unknown

Planet: You tell me

Year: 2000

The car's wheels roar hot against the asphalt while the wind screams in Beth's ears.

"Please!" she yells, voice battling for leverage against the angry noises. Her feet slam down on the road again and again, pain stinging them from the sudden harsh impact after many minutes spent trudging along. She jumps and waves her arms, eyes fixed on the car as it approaches.

"Stop! Please!"

The car speeds right past, her hair billowing behind her as she reels in the hot tar fumes. Then she takes up sprinting again, following after the retreating vehicle.

When it slows down some feet ahead, a smile stretches over her numb lips. She moves onward, grass poking at her ankles and sun scowling at her skin.

The car idles on the shoulder, lying in wait like a predator among the tall grass. Beth staggers up to it and raps tired knuckles on the glass of the driver's window. It rolls down to show a harried-looking young man probably close to her age. He has shaggy brown hair and brown eyes rimmed with purplish circles. He looks like he was beat up, but as shrimpy as he is, she thinks the discoloration is more from exhaustion than anything.

His jaw drops slightly when his frowning gaze lands on her. "Wha… how—"

The words dancing anxiously just behind her teeth can no longer wait, so she cuts him off. "I'm sorry, sir, but I really need some help. If you wouldn't mind giving me a ride to the nearest gas station or something, I would appreciate it a lot." He hesitates a little too long for her liking, so she tosses in a stiff smile and a few eyelash bats.

"D- do you… um, happen to have a, uh, an identical twin or something?"

That is… a different response than what she was expecting. "No," she says. "Anyway, will you help me?" Her fingers clasp the laser gun on her hip.

He lets out a slow breath, looks at his lap, then bites his lip before meeting her eyes again. "Sure." Her fingers let go.