Futurama

Empty Heart
By Corvus

Authors note: There are a couple of things in the end of this fic that I've borrowed from Archonix's fic Parallel Lives (a saga in so many parts). I have asked and received his permission for that. Also a quick thank-you to soylentOrange for his proof/beta reading.

When darkness from every nook and cranny comes
And cold tendrils of fear upon your sanity strums

What refuge will you from insanity find
As the dark stains of hate infest your mind?

The notions of death upon others flick and dart
Twisting in your corrupted soul and empty heart

Outskirts of New New York

Heavy rain poured down from ink black clouds which rolled over the sky. The constant stream of water had been coming down for hours, and there was no reprieve in sight. The rain gushed and flowed like waterfalls from already overfilled gutters, bursting forth from drainpipes, leaping from rooftops in sheets, and hammering relentlessly the empty streets where the rain finally gathered, overflowing where overworked inlets couldn't swallow the enormous amounts that poured down.

Obscured and almost washed away were the familiar landmarks of New New York, which were shrouded in the dark cover of night. Living by the millisecond, jagged knives of lightning leapt from dark clouds, briefly illuminating the landscape with day-bright flashes of white-blue light and sharp-cut shadows.

In this rage of nature, there was naught moving. The city was utterly still. Animals, humans, aliens and robots alike hid in whatever pit, hovel or home that would shelter them. However, outside shelter and away from the tall, glass-smooth skyscrapers of New New York there was someone braving the ferocious storm.

On a grassy slope, not far from the HAL Institute for Criminally Insane Robots, a single person could be seen skidding and stumbling down the slope in the rain and thunder. The figure was attempting to navigate through the slippery grass but, hampered as he was by the large, metallic, bullet shaped object that lay cradled in his arms, his progress was slow and difficult. The blue hospital gown that clung to his soaked body bore a nametag. On it, printed in tiny black letters, was the figure’s name: Phillip J Fry.

After being surprised by a particularly heavy thunderclap, the delivery boy stumbled and fell. He slid and tumbled over the wet grass before he came to a stop in a small stream. The bullet-shaped object, slippery from the rain, escaped Fry’s hands just as he landed in the cold water. It disappeared with a splash into the stream.

Fry staggered slowly and clumsily to his feet. The waterlogged hospital gown had been hindering him since he had gotten outside the asylum facility. With some effort, Fry started to tear the garment from his body. After a few false starts, he finally managed to rid himself of the wet, clinging gown and threw it in the stream with a sense of relief. It had not only weighed him down physically, but morally as well. It was a symbol of his imprisonment, a constant reminder of the pain and suffering that he’d endured. And remembering was painful. Unbearable. It represented everything he had suffered through the past weeks. Getting rid of it was a fantastic feeling.

After weeks of incarceration in a confined space, with no means of cleaning himself, the cool and steady stream of water against his naked skin was a blessing. He stood silently with his face lifted towards the sky and let the rain pour over him. It ran over his body in rivulets, washing it clean of salt, sweat, dirt and oil. It was bliss. Never had he really concerned himself with personal hygiene very well but this he thought was fantastic. The water cleansed his body and mind, cleaning it from the foul reminisces of the repulsive robots. What remained of the old Fry was now flowing away; his former self would never voluntarily stand naked in a raging thunderstorm, but run away like the coward he used to be.

He closed his eyes, opened his mouth and drank heartily from the rain, satiating his thirst. He had been able to find little real food and almost nothing to drink except for an occasional juice box, which he had gotten from the coughing vending bot, during all those weeks he had been in the asylum. Feverish dreams of junk food and cool, frosty cans of Slurm had haunted him; never in his life had he experienced such malnourishment and dehydration. What he had gone through in the asylum had only served to fuel his need to escape, and that opportunity had finally presented itself when a killer storm had blanked the New New York area.

A power surge caused by the storm had really been a stroke of luck for him. All the doors had become unlocked. At first he couldn't believed it, but then, with trembling hands and with his heart beating fast from anticipation, he had tried the cell door. Jubilant euphoria had streamed through his mind and body when the massive steel door had given way for his probing touches. When it opened, he had run as fast as he could through the pitch black corridors. Despite crashing into walls, furniture, robots and other unidentifiable objects he kept running. He had no idea where he was going. The only thing that ran through his adrenaline-infested mind was the notion of escape. Escape the nightmare that his life had become. So elated and pumped with adrenaline had he been that he couldn't really remember just how he'd managed to get outside the facility, let alone how he’d gotten his hands on the prize he was carrying.

Fry frowned when he heard the distant sound of a wailing siren over the fury of the storm. A sneer swept briefly over his face. The redhead opened his eyes and looked down towards the ground, waiting for yet another lightning flash. He let the palm of his right hand slide over his face, wiping away rainwater and his bright red hair that clung to his head and face. The turbulent storm soon obliged him and illuminated his immediate surroundings.

A metallic object, half submerged in the stream, reflected the sharp light. Fry dove for it, and when he could feel the smooth, slick surface against his hands he swept it up and held it over his head.

"Ha! Gottcha!" He laughed and tucked the object under his arm. Fry then positioned himself in a crouched ready position, eyes squinted and with a determined face. Another flash stabbed across the sky and with that as a starting signal, Fry set loose over the countryside. Within a minute he had reached the tree line and was soon swallowed up by the night and the storm. His footsteps were soon obscured by the rain, leaving nothing as evidence to his passing.

Planet Express, the following morning

"Leela!" The voice of the Asian intern rang out through the hangar. "LEEEELA!" It repeated, carrying an urgent tone enveloped in the high voice. The purple haired space captain, who was in the kitchen area, finished pouring herself yet another cup of coffee. Briefly, Leela was sorely tempted to ignore the call. She was tired and not in the best mood to deal with Amy. The storm last night had presented little sleep for her and the little she had gotten had been filled with nightmares.

She stared into her cup and, through the faint wisps of steam, Leela saw her own reflection. It was a tired face, worn by long hours and little rest. Bender’s and Fry's incarceration had meant more work for her with longer hours doing maintenance on the ship, doing the deliveries Fry usually did, and other chores. This in combination with last night left her feeling a dreary tiredness weighing heavily on her body and mind.

With a sigh, Leela started to walk towards the hangar area. "LEEEEEEEELAAAAAA!" Another burst of noise from Amy reached Leela. She froze, and twisted her face into a grimace. That girl, her voice really carries. Did she get her hair stuck in the indescrimination coils again? Why does she always have to be so clumsy? Leela wondered silently as she navigated down the stairs towards the PE ship.

A brief smile lit up her face as she thought of Fry. Not even the twentieth century delivery boy managed to get himself into the situations that Amy sometimes found herself. Still, for all her faults, Leela was fond of Amy and considered her a good friend. Not many people in her life- men or women- had readily given friendship towards her they way Amy had.

She stopped upon reaching the end of the stairs and took in the ambience of the Planet Express hangar. Leela took a sip of coffee and let her eye run along the smooth lines of the starship that occupied the hangar floor. The smell of oil, heavy machinery, the pungent odor of burnt metal and dark matter tickled her nose. Through one of the rain washed hangar windows she saw a starship take to the sky, painting a white vapor trail against the pale, morning blue heaven as it strove to reach escape velocity. That was what she loved about her job, the freedom. The ability to fly a thousand metric ton worth of starship through the sky and the universe beyond it. That was what she lived for. Lost in an almost meditative state, Leela was yanked from her reverie when an out of breath Amy landed by her feet with a heavy thud after stumbling over her one untied shoelace.

With a sigh, Leela put her cup on a nearby tool cabinet and picked her friend from the floor. She brushed dust off Amy and looked at her with a half-closed eye and a somewhat ironic expression painted on her face. "What is it this time? Forgot your nail polish again?"

"No, worse! Look!" Amy held up a copy of The New New York Times. Robots escape Asylum! Insane Bots still at large! The blaring headline announced, accompanied by a picture of Fry and Bender from the trial that had seen both of them end up in the asylum. Leela tore the newspaper from Amy’s hands and poured over the text. The article didn't say much other than that two dangerous and malfunctioning robots by the designations of Bender and Fry had escaped from the HAL Institute for Criminally Insane Robots during the night. The New New York police was scouring the countryside with magnetic anomaly detectors in hope of detecting the escaped robots.

Leela let out another, more frustrated sigh. It was so typical for these two. They could never wait or do anything right. As soon as they were left alone they had "ideas" that invariably landed them both in trouble, and then she had to go bail them out. This was her least favorite facet of her coworkers, and it was becoming more and more of a strain for her to deal with.

"This has got to be Bender’s doing. Fry's too stupid to break out from anywhere. Idiots! We could have gotten them out eventually, but now they have made things worse. Come on Amy, we have to find Hermes and figure out what we can do." Leela sternly announced and pulled the Asian intern with her as she walked out of the hangar.

Old New York

Hidden deep under a solid steel cover which sheltered the decaying ruins of old New York, nestled amongst the rest of the destroyed buildings in a pale twilight was a small warehouse. It was a single story brick building with corrugated sheets of metal covering the roof.

At least, that was how it once had been. The past millennium had not been kind to it. The windows were long gone; one side of the building had collapsed into a heap of broken bricks. Many of the metal sheets had left their perched position on the roof, exposing the inside to the few strands of light that found their way through street inlets, access hatches and the occasional hole. Dark shadows ruled in the gloomy semi-light that persisted in the over-built ruins.

The derelict warehouse was not fit for any living or storage purpose anymore. It was, however, fit for someone on the lam. Especially for someone who knew his way around the ruins of the old city.

Fry stood inside the building among trashed machines, broken furniture, rusty metal tables and disintegrating metal sheets from the roof. Having made his long escape into the night, he had found his way to the Robot Arms Apt. complex unseen. The storm had kept any witnesses inside. Fry had made his return to his and Bender’s apartment brief.

After he had dried himself up with a semi-clean towel and rooted through his pile of dirty laundry, Fry had managed to assemble a complete outfit consisting of his usual attire; blue jeans, a white t-shirt, sneakers and one of his typical red jackets. His original clothing which he’d had when he’d been frozen had long gone missing. To his luck, and Leela's chagrin, he had found an outlet for antique clothing where he had spent a couple of months worth of his meager wages stocking up on jeans, white t-shirts, sneakers and red jackets.

Having cleared the clothing issue out of the way, there was only one more pressing need; food. Scavenging through his fridge turned up disappointingly little that was edible. The only thing that was ready to eat was a several week old pizza he had bought just prior to his arrest.

Even though it was stale and cold, he devoured it all in one take, pausing just long enough to chug a can of Slurm. It wasn’t much of a pizza, but for Fry, at that moment, it was the best pizza he'd ever had. It even tasted better than Panucci’s pizzas when they were fresh from the oven.

Panucci’s… for a moment Fry was caught up in a flood of old memories that swept over him; the smell of freshly baked pizzas, the soft touch of pizza dough, the taste of pepperoni, the sound of roaches fleeing the blow of the pizza paddle… His feelings of nostalgia gave way to anger upon remembering Panucci himself, the old bald man that always yelled at him, berated him for everything he seemingly did wrong and frequently skipped out of his pay.

The only comfort Fry felt was the fact that Panucci was long since dead. But there was others who were still alive that needed to feel just how wrongly they had treated him.

Foraging further through the sparsely populated fridge, the delivery boy had found a couple of cans of beer, more Slurm, and one package of instant Bachelor Chow soup, teriyaki style. He promptly shoved the cans into a Slurm promotional backpack which he had gotten some time ago at the local 7¹¹ when he’d bought his two-thousandth can of Slurm. With some effort he had crammed the bullet-shaped object he had brought with him into the bag. Almost as an afterthought, he had picked up a couple of things from Benders toolbox and a pair of black sunglasses.

Ready to go, he’d stood in the doorway, surveying the cluttered mess that had been his home for most of the time he had spent in the future. Light from outside the building lit the room and the rain pouring over the large windows painted a streaming pattern on the wall where the light fell, setting a lonely and depressing mood.

Fry suddenly found himself crying, crying that he had to leave the one thing he'd considered a home. A place where he could eat, sleep and enjoy himself; many a fond memory of times of joy lurked among the sparse furniture and debris that cluttered the main room. Tears streamed down his face, mimicking the fall of rain outside.

It wasn’t fair. They took everything from me, he thought. I worked so hard, and they just took it all away. “But they won’t get away with it!” He chuckled to himself when he thought about what he was planning. “But they won’t get away with it. Oh, no. And they won’t even see it coming…”

Without any more words, he had slowly walked out of the room and closed the door behind him. Upon reaching the street, Fry had deployed a Slurm-branded umbrella and made his way to what would be his new home: Old New York.

Fry shook his head, forcing the memory of his moment back at the apartment away, he didn't want that depressing feeling to creep back, and he had to stay focused on what he had to do. He had a mission. So much to do. He thought. But when it’s done, things’ll be better. Everything will be all better again.

The delivery boy put his backpack on the dusty, dirty floor and rummaged through it until he got what he wanted. With some effort he pulled Bender’s deactivated head from the pack and placed it on a nearby table. He picked up a couple other tools from the bag that he had brought from the apartment. Fry stacked them neatly in a row beside Bender’s head. Each tool was carefully placed beside another, as the delivery boy took great pains in aligning them with one another. A screwdriver proved difficult, as it persisted in rolling away over the table. After the third futile attempt at positioning the bothersome screwdriver, Fry grabbed it in a fit of anger and hurled it through a broken window. The tool disappeared into the dark ruins with a clattering noise that briefly echoed against the broken walls. The delivery boy forced himself calm.

The final item he picked up was the black sunglasses. With a fluid motion he slid them on his face. “Practice makes perfect.” Fry chuckled to himself as he recalled the many hours of practice he’d spent in front of a mirror, hoping that his skill with the glasses would somehow impress Leela. With a grimace, he also remembered that he had almost poked one of his eyes out when he’d tried to do it in her presence. He let out a sigh; he should have understood the futility of impressing the purple haired cyclops long ago, especially now, since he finally understood that she had not been worth the effort.

He took Bender’s head and mounted it with considerable effort in a table vice. Fry then paused with a can of Slurm as he pondered his next move. He wanted Bender to be active, not like he was now, nothing but an ornamental piece of scrap metal. How did Amy do it? He wondered. The redhead recalled that the Asian intern usually poked around with a metal rod of some sort in Benders neck when she was cleaning him. He knew that the clumsy Martian girl sometimes had disengaged Bender’s head by mistake when doing just that and reengaged it by the very same means.

With a shrug, he grabbed another screwdriver he’d brought from the apartment and rammed it violently up into Bender’s neck. Fry gave it a couple of good twists and, with a childish smile of anticipation, he stared at Bender’s head, waiting eagerly for the bending bot to re-activate.

A minute idled by as nothing happened. An angry expression crept over his face; he let out an irritated sigh and looked down at his sneakers. There was a piece of gum stuck to one of them. From the looks of it, it was a piece of ham flavored gum. He suddenly remembered, it had been the day he’d bought a packet of Big Pink chewing gum, when he and Bender had been stupid enough to sign up for the military. The delivery boy had stepped in the gum by accident as he’d changed from his civilian clothes into the military outfit. Those events seemed as distant and hazy as his previous life, a thousand years ago. Had it really been him?

“But that was before they locked me in that… place.” Fry couldn’t quite bring himself to say the name of the institute. He nodded to himself. “But all that stuff before I got locked up doesn’t matter. It’s all gone now. And anyways, that was before I… Understood.” He mumbled to himself.

A sudden squeak from a mutated sewer rat snapped him back to what he was doing.

Damn, why won't it work?! He thought with irritation as he stared at the inactive robot head. Feeling frustration and anger rising Fry released Bender’s head from the vice and jammed it under his arm before ramming the screwdriver inside.

This time Fry continued to stab and probe around with increasing violence until a sudden metallic shriek from the head made the delivery boy drop it in fright. It rolled and bumped over the uneven floor until it came to a sudden stop against a broken wall.

"Hey! What's going on? Why do I have filth in my mouth?" Bender demanded from his position on the floor.

"Bender?" Fry asked with a hint of delight in his voice; he hadn't expected his crude repair efforts to work this quickly.

"Where's the rest of my body, meatbag?" Bender demanded with anger, his CPU topping out at a hundred percent as the Microsoft A.N.G.E.R.10.2.6 program devoured almost all CPU resources.

"Sorry Bender, but I couldn't bring the rest of it." Fry sounded genuinely sad, his head dropped down, his feet shuffled a couple of times as if he was ashamed. Bender had seen it before and knew how to "ride" his human pet.

"You left my shiny ass behind?! You'll have to get it back!" He roared with metallic anger, expecting Fry to cave, as he always did, and do his bidding. But not this time. Instead Fry did something else. He picked up Bender’s head and brought it back to the bench. "Never mind that now, we have work to do, and, while you work you need music, right?" The redhead replied, positioning Bender’s head in the table vice and making sure that the head was secure. Then he picked up a large magnet and turned to him.

"What are you doing? What's with the magnet?" Bender asked, a hint of fear staining his perfect robot voice. Fry grinned broadly. It was the kind of smile that would make a psychologist wet his pants in joy.

"Music!" He breathed and clamped the rough shaped magnet to the side of Bender’s bullet shaped head.

"Aw crap!" Was all that Bender had time to utter before his inhibition unit malfunctioned and he started to sing she'll be coming around the mountain when she comes. Fry engaged in a wild head banging jig like dance while waving his hands in the air in tempo with Bender’s singing. Adrenaline surged through his body as the delivery boy reveled in the music.

He reached for the blernsball bat he had brought. Grinning wickedly, he thought of all of the people that had betrayed him over the years. His parents, his brother, Mr. Panucci… They’d all left him. But he couldn’t get to them. This thought made him sad, but only a little. There were plenty of others who needed to be taught a lesson. The doctors at the asylum, the judge who’d sentenced him, Roberto… They would all get their turn. He nodded to himself. Oh yes, they would see. But they could wait. First he would take care of the people who had hurt him the most. “I thought they were my friends.” He growled. “But they were against me, just like everybody else. Farnsworth, Amy, Hermes, even Leela. They were out to get me from the beginning. I understand now.” It all made perfect sense. He couldn’t help but wonder why he hadn’t seen it earlier. “They were all out to get me. And now” he told himself, “they all have to go.” It was time for work.

Planet Express

"They weren't home, either." Leela concluded, letting her lime green jacket slide off her shoulders and into her hands. With a casual motion she slipped it over one of the chairs by the conference table and sat down, glad to take the weight off her feet. She'd been searching for Fry and Bender all morning and through the lunch hour with no rest.

"I looked in the park, the 7¹¹ and the dumpster in the alley." Amy replied, already seated by the same table, looking as tired and beat as the cyclops did. The Professor was already there in his chair by the end of the table, head slumped back, mouth opened and a trail of spittle running down his cheek, a deep snoring sound emanated from him.

Leela glared at him; it was obvious that the Professor had not left his comfortable position at all, despite his promise to aid in the search for Bender and Fry. It irritated Leela how callous Farnsworth sometimes was toward his own relative. The Professor seemed to view his uncle only as a discardable servant or lab rat to be used whenever convenient. She remembered how, on one occasion, Farnsworth had tricked Fry into a radiation chamber and she had narrowly stopped the Professor from activating it, only to be yelled at by not only the Professor, but from Fry as well, who, as usual, claimed to have known what he was doing, and that she should butt out.

From that she had to admit that more than often the young delivery boy was a nuisance. Irresponsible, reckless, childish, deaf to reason; the list of Fry’s faults was a long one. Yet, there was another side to him. He cared for his friends almost to the point of naiveté, in a sweet sort of a way. His sometimes misguided confidence pared with impulsiveness and an ability to see good in people, even when it did not in fact exist, was another set of traits that made him such a good, if sometimes annoying, friend. Even though she had not mentioned it very often, she was grateful that Fry had gotten her out of her dead end job, and saved her from marrying the shape shifter Alkazar. Unfortunately, the very same ideals that defined Fry were also what usually landed him trouble, if not by his own design then by others who would take advantage of him.

"Professor!" Leela shouted, feeling her temperature rise over the lack of progress in finding Fry and Bender, and at being thwarted in her efforts by a senile old man.

"Uh-wha? Is it time to go on a search already? Well, off you go then. I'll be right with you." The wrinkled old inventor said and waived his hands in Leela and Amy's general direction before he lapsed back into sleep. Leela stared flabbergasted at the snoozing old man. She turned towards the others for help to wake him when something dawned on her; save for Farnsworth, Amy and herself, there were no other people present at the conference table.

Where were Hermes and Zoidberg? Not that she actually cared about the Decapodian doctor, but she distinctly remembered that she had seen Hermes entering the PE Building just before she had. So why wasn't he there at the conference table as they had agreed?

"Amy, could you find Hermes? I'll try and wake the Professor... again."

"Sure thing, Leela." The Martian girl offered with a smile, left her place at the conference area and disappeared into the depths of the PE building in search for the Rastafarian bureaucrat.

Just as Leela stood up to wake the sleeping inventor, she saw a glint of metal in the corner of her eye. Reacting instinctively, she twisted her torso to the side and backwards. A blurry shape of grey roared past her face. The cyclops could feel the draft sweep her face. The tip of her bangs danced over the surface of the object.

Leela's quick reaction had saved her. Instead of giving her a head full of flying metal, the grey shape missed her and bounced off the conference table, leaving a deep dent in it, and slid across the floor until it came to a noisy stop in the kitchen alcove. Its trajectory suggested that it had been launched from the pool of shadows under the hulking airframe that was the PE ship.

Adrenaline surged through the young cyclops body. For a split second her mind was blank from the surprise and shock. Then it erupted into flaming anger. Leela wore a neutral face, showing no outward emotion, but she was enraged on the inside that someone had tried to take her life.

While the Professor blissfully continued to sleep, Leela made a daring jump over the railing and landed with a heavy thud on the hangar floor. She caught the movement of a shadow that disappeared up the stairs of the parked starship.

"Oh no you don't!" Leela cried after her assailant and covered the short distance to the ship with a few striding steps. She had no intention of letting anyone steal the ship. Especially not someone that just had tried to kill her. Upon reaching the lower steps of the stairs she saw what had been used to launch the object at her. It was something as mundane as a My-First-Railgun toy with the interchangeable barrel size accessory. The discovery only served to fuel her fury; she had anticipated death in many ways: air lock failure, explosive decompression, enemy fire, a rampaging invention of the Professor’s, alien monster, even Fry's old socks where on that list. But a kid’s toy? Never had she been so insulted.

After boarding the ship in hot pursuit, it didn't take Leela long to reach the bridge, which, to her surprise and dismay, lay empty and silent save for the quiet sound of the air supply and the auxiliary system idly working away. Leela could feel the airflow from a nearby air vent play with her hair, sending strands of purple dancing in random directions. She shivered slightly as the cool, dry air swept over her exposed neck. The serenity of the scene was somewhat disturbing; Leela was expecting someone sinister in the process of stealing the ship. If the person who had attacked her wasn't there, where was he? A movement outside the ship alerted Leela that whoever had launched that object at her had doubled back and was now outside.

One under-the-breath curse later, Leela was sprinting down the stairs of the PE ship, but whoever had attacked her had managed to slip away. The purple haired space captain stood silently before the PE ship with a heaving chest and clenched fists, letting her eye scan her surroundings for clues as to where the attacker had gone. Her heart as well as her mind raced.

A minute idled by as her pulse slowly receded back to normal. Having seen nothing to give her any hint as to the possible whereabouts of the intruder, she returned to the conference area. She had to warn the Professor.

Upon reaching the conference area, Farnsworth was nowhere to be seen. First Hermes and now the Professor. Leela stared at the empty seat where he had been. Whatever was happening, it wasn't good; her co-workers were disappearing at an alarming rate, and someone had tried to kill her. She had to find Amy, and fast, before she too fell prey to whatever it was that was happening. But first she had to find a weapon, and Leela knew exactly where to look for one.

As the cyclops began to look for the confiscated weaponry locker that lay by the door to the Professor’s laboratory, she noticed the object that had been thrown at her. Lying still in the shadows on the floor by the sink was a dull grey metallic object. Numerous dents and scuffs littered its exterior.

Leela ran her hands over the uneven and dented metal surface; there was no doubt about what it was. She was holding what remained of Bender’s head. Stunned by the realization, feelings of concern started to grow somewhere deep inside her. Who would do such a thing? And where was Fry? As she twisted the head, searching it for clues, she noticed that there was something written on the side of it. Die! Die! Die! The clumsily painted text said. Upon closer scrutinizing Leela realized that the brownish-red crusted paint was blood. With a scream of disgust she let the mangled head of the former bending bot fall to the floor with a loud metallic noise.

A ball of ice had started to form in her stomach. Could this be Fry’s blood? Fighting back a wave of fear for her friends, Leela realized that she couldn't wait any longer. She had to find Amy, and fast.

Arriving at the small locker that was situated in the Professor’s laboratory, the purple haired captain remembered that it was locked. Her eye flew over the messy debris strewn shelves and workbenches that filled the floor of the laboratory. There was no obvious place where the Professor kept the keys. She went for the nearest drawer and pulled it out a tad more violently than she had intended. Assorted lengths of wire scattered over the floor.

For a second, Leela stood there watching the wires before she impatiently tossed the drawer on the floor, grabbed a metal tube from a nearby table, and went to work. The cheap metal bent under the combined pressure of an irritated cyclops and a titanium alloy tube. With a creaking whimper the door fell away from the small locker and revealed its prized contents.

Leela grabbed one of the larger plasma guns and a magazine, which she rammed into the gun. One safety catch release later she could hear the soft whining sound that told her that the heating chamber was working its way towards operating temperatures. A tiny green light flickered to life on the gun, announcing that it was ready to be used for its lethal purposes. Now to find Amy, preferably before the intruder did.

Leela snuck through the empty hallways, creeping through the pools of shadow and bursts of sunlight that streamed through the occasional window. Every corner she turned, her gun was first to round it. Everywhere she looked the barrel of the plasma gun followed. Leela’s progress was slow as she carefully moved through the building. She didn't want any more nasty surprises like the one in the conference area.

The sudden sound of arguing voices made her freeze for a moment. Leela listened intently, but she couldn't hear what they said because the voices were muffled by the many twists and turns of the corridor she was in. Slowly and steady, Leela started to move towards the voices. Inching ever closer, the purple haired space captain noticed the familiar accent of Amy, but she couldn't yet make out who she was talking to.

The surprising triple cough of a plasma gun sent a stream of adrenaline surging through her body. Her mind blank, Leela burst into a run; her boots slammed the metallic surface of the corridor as she ran toward the sound. It felt like it took her an eternity to reach the open door at the end of the corridor, where Leela feverishly hoped that the Asian intern was, and yet, at the same time, wasn't.

Bursting through the door, Leela stopped dead in her tracks, trying to take in the grisly scene before her. Amy lay face down on the floor. Her position indicated that she had been trying to flee the room, but the three sizzling burn holes in her back served as evidence of her failure. Beside her right hand was a small cellphone which Fry was busy stomping to pieces. He was holding a still-smoking plasma gun- a twin to her own- in his right hand.

"Fry?! What have you done?!" Leela gasped, her face a mask of horror. She couldn't believe what she was seeing. The cyclops knew that red headed boy from the stupid ages was capable of doing many a foolish and rash thing. But she couldn’t grasp the idea that coldblooded murder was one of them.

In one smooth move Fry brought his plasma gun up and aimed it straight at her head. The cyclops reflection bounced off the jet-black sunglasses that he was wearing. Mimicking the same situation as when she had stared into her coffee cup, Leela now saw her own reflection. Bouncing back at her it was twisted into a mask of fear, surprise and sadness; it was a face that almost made her recoil in horror.

"What up, Leela?" Fry replied and grinned. It was a smile that held no warmth, only cold contempt.

"You... you... you killed Amy!" Leela screamed as her numb feelings turned into anger. She raised her own plasma gun and trained it a Fry, her finger tightly wound around the trigger, ready to give it that final squeeze that would send a magnetically contained bolt of plasma towards Fry's face.

The redheaded delivery boy let out a sigh, ignored the gun pointed towards him, and let his own gun drop. He turned his face towards the still body of the Asian intern. "Oh, right, Amy. She kinda got caught in the middle." Fry scratched the back of his head with his free hand with the concerned expression of someone who can't decide what to order at a restaurant.

"Didn't want to kill her but she wouldn't listen. Kept blabbing about getting me help. So I had to kill her." The delivery boy shrugged at his last statement with an indifferent look on his face.

Leela's mind raced a thousand miles a minute. A part of her wanted nothing more than to pull the trigger. She wanted him to scream, to bleed, to suffer for what he had done to Amy, to stop him right there and then. Yet she found herself unwilling to take his life. He had been a good friend, someone who willingly would put himself through all manner of things for the sake of friendship. Leela felt that she just couldn't casually kill him, despite what he had done; the fault for his madness was not his own. Then she recalled that the delivery boy had made an attempt at her life as well, and if that had succeeded, where would it end? The cyclops decided she couldn't wait any longer; she had to take down Fry before he could do any more harm.

"I'm.. I'm sorry Fry, but I can't let you go on like this." She said in a voice filled with emotion and tried to squeeze the trigger, only to find that it wouldn't move. It felt like the trigger had been fused solid, it was impossible to move. A single bead of sweat swam from her hairline down the side of her face and landed on her shoulder. Leela blinked her eye a couple of times, the light in the room had become very sharp all of a sudden and she found it hard to focus her vision.

Leela’s knees felt rubbery and weak. The plasma gun in her hand weighed heavily; it was like holding a grain of dark matter. She gritted her teeth as she fought against what had befallen her, she couldn't let Fry notice anything. Unfortunately for the cyclops, the insane delivery boy noticed her distress all too well.

Fry slapped his knee and started to laugh. "You had coffee today right? Oh, don't look so surprised Leela. I know that you always have at least two cups every day."

Leela didn't respond, but kept fighting the wave of unconsciousness that tried to crash over her. The gun trembled visibly in her hands as she tried to hold it aimed at Fry. She breathed heavily through clenched teeth as sweat now ran over her face. Fry gleefully continued his exposition.

"You know, Leela, I ran into Zoidberg today and he was very helpful; you’d be amazed what he was willing to do for a pizza roll. Like trading his medical bag. It was really interesting looking through it while he choked on the owl poison that I had added to the roll." Fry snickered to himself like it had been a boyish prank. “I found something really neat in that bag. A binary sedative. Did you know that you can look up things like that on Wikipedia?” The last statement carried the tone of genuine surprise. "There was pictures and everything on how to use it. So I sprayed one part in your coffee cup and the other part on all the guns in the locker." Fry reached into his jacket pocket and produced a key which he jingled in front of her. "I see you managed to open the locker, even though you didn't have this." His grin grew even wider. "I knew that you would find a way to open it."

To the sound of Fry's mocking laughter, Leela dropped the gun. She could no longer hold onto it. The handle was slick from her sweat and it was like trying to hold a black hole at arm’s length. Her legs fell out from under her. It felt like she spent an eternity falling. She fell and fell until, finally, the hard, unyielding embrace of the metallic floor rose up to meet her. Only one thought filled her mind. Why?

From her limp position on the floor, she saw Amy. Her face was slightly turned and her cold, dead eyes stared straight at Leela. Accusing eyes that silently screamed at her, scolding Leela for her failure to save the Martian girl from death. Leela lay there, still, unmoving, unable to rid herself from the condemning stare of her dead coworker. The cyclops’ mind screamed in rage for her muscles to move, to stand up, to beat her former friend, Fry, into a bloody pulp, but to no avail. Her body had given in to the effects of the sedative and refused her mind’s orders.

With Leela subdued, Fry started to rant and rave about how he had killed Hermes with his own automatic stapler and how he had locked up the still sleeping Professor in a wardrobe, with the intention of killing him with one of his own inventions as soon as he was finished with her.

A prickling feeling climbed over Leela’s body as she was starting to regain control over her muscles. What Fry didn't know was that Leela’s mutant antibodies were countering the sedative much faster than a normal human’s. It had been a pain, literally, when she had visited the dentist and gotten her teeth fixed as a teenager. Though, thanks to her more resilient antibodies she was rarely ill and recovered much faster from infections than a normal human.

Having grown weary of his own tirade, Fry grabbed Leela from the floor and pulled her to a sitting position, leaning her against a nearby wall. "And here's what I'm going to do to you, miss perfect Leela." He said with a mocking tone, looming over her. Fry pulled out a switchblade from one of his jacket pockets.

"See this?" He continued, waving the switchblade in the air. Leela couldn't respond since her vocal cords were also still under the effect of the drug. The cyclops wanted to yell at Fry, but she could only glare defiantly back at him. It was obvious to her that it was Fry that had been the assailant in the hangar that had launched Bender’s deformed head at her. Though hate and anger surged through her body and mind, there was a trickle of fear, flickering in her mind upon seeing the knife.

A knife wielding Fry wouldn't instill any fear at all in her normally, but she was still helpless, though Leela could feel her nerve-ends send tickling protests as they was shedding the effects of the sedative. She just had to wait until she had regained enough muscle control; until then there was nothing she could do.

Not waiting for nor expecting an answer, Fry continued. "This knife tormented me while I was locked up with that insane robot." The redhead pulled up his t-shirt, exposing his abdomen. On his body, numerous thin, white scars could be seen. "That thing made these on me. Practicing he called it. I cried and screamed for help but no-one came to save me from Roberto. And that stupid robot doc did nothing to help but, instead, he tried to shove plastic disks inside me!"

"It wasn't until I finally snatched the blade from Roberto and rammed it in his eyes, and poof, he short circuited!" Fry giggled like a child and danced around in circles. "That really showed him, and now I'm going to show you. Actually, I'm glad that I missed you with Bender’s head. This will be so much more fun!"

Fry knelt down before Leela, grabbed her purple hair with his left hand and brought the knife in his right hand towards her face. The light danced and flicked on the cold, sharp steel. The cyclops’s eye was involuntary drawn to the shining blade. Caught between Fry's hard grip and the knife, Leela felt powerless to do anything. But only for a brief moment. It felt like there was an electric surge through her body. "NO!" She screamed, closing her eye to shield it from the blinding glare that bounced off the knife, and, with a swift movement, Leela kicked him hard in the groin.

"OW! My happy tube!" The delivery boy protested as pain exploded between his thighs. Tears obscured his vision as he doubled over. His free hand sought to comfort the burning pain. While he was preoccupied, Leela took the chance and staggered to her feet. Having regained control over her aching muscles, she was still under some influence from the sedative. Leela’s motions were clumsy and uncoordinated, as her body still struggled to rid itself of the last of the poison that had invaded it. Leela felt lightheaded, and supported herself against the wall. She gave the pain-filled delivery boy a glance of pity and fear before she started towards the door. Right now she had to get away, as she was in no condition for fighting Fry.

The cyclops was almost through the doorway when a sudden pain exploded in her left side. Her right hand, involuntary drawn to the pained area, felt wet upon touching her left side. Glancing down Leela saw that her hand was red with blood. A deep gash had appeared in her side, and, as she watched, her tank top was turning deep red. Fry had lunged forward, knife stretched out in front of him, and had managed to cut her just above her hip. In the corner of her eye she saw that Fry was about to attack again, albeit clumsily, since he still was doubled over with his free hand covering his groin. Leela managed to move out of the way just at the last minute. Stumbling forward, Fry lost his balance and fell over Leela, who didn't have a chance to dodge both the knife and delivery boy.

Caught in an involuntary embrace, they tumbled to the floor together. Fry landed on top of Leela, straddling her, while the cyclops found herself on her back. The redhead grabbed Leela’s wrists and forced her arms against the floor.

"Fry, why are you doing this?" Leela pleaded with a hoarse voice as her vocal cords were still under some of the effects of the binary sedative. A tear formed in her sole eye and ran down her cheek. For a second, his grip weakened, the cold look in his eye softened, and the harsh sneer on his face started to fade. For a moment, albeit brief, there was a confused look draped over the delivery boy’s face, as if part of him suddenly didn’t know what he was doing. Fry closed his eyes and shook his head violently, and his grip tightened again; she could feel his nails dig into her skin. ”Why? WHY? Because I hate you! You were my friend and you betrayed me!" The delivery boy screamed, his face so close to hers that she could feel tiny droplets of spit land on her cheeks. His words were like hard slaps in her face. Leela's mind reeled from the verbal assault. What could I possibly have done to him?!

Fry pushed himself from Leela with a condescending sneer and stood up; his figure loomed over her, his face shrouded in shadow from the single point source of light in the room. The wounded cyclops tried to roll onto her side and crawl away despite the pain. Fry ignored her attempts, and instead, launched into yet another tirade.

"Bender reveled in my misery, laughed at me as I begged him for help, remember when you visited me how I pleaded for all of you to get me out? You did nothing! You all just sat there and ignored me with your weak explanations why you wouldn't help me. When I was back in my cell, desperately trying to stay alive, I finally got it. You all were behind it. You never wanted me to get back out at all! You wanted me to stay forever in there, to DIE!"

"No... we..." Was the purple haired woman's weak reply. How can he believe that? She thought, despite her anger for what he had done. A small part of her felt pity for what the clearly insane delivery boy had suffered.

"Shut up Leela! You know I'm right. And you’re the worst of them all. You really wanted me to suffer in that asylum, didn't you? Oh yes, I finally figured it out! For all the things I've done for you, everything from getting you away from a job you never liked to being there when you needed me the most. I lay my feelings and my love at your feet and you trample all over them! You've always wanted to get rid of me, and now you saw your chance!"

Fry leaned down over her, face to face. "And now you will feel my pain." he breathed. Leela didn't want to hear any more of Fry's insane ramblings. With an incoherent yell, she head-butted the deranged redhead. Screaming, he stumbled backwards from her. Not wasting any time, Leela once again stumbled to her feet and started to semi-run with heavy feet. She pressed her right hand against the cut in her left side, trying to hold back the blood.

Staggering through the hallways towards the front door, Leela left a trail of blood; droplets staining the floor, blood-soaked handprints on the walls... She was easy to follow, but covering her tracks was not on her priority list. Leela had to get away, to get help for herself... and him.

She navigated towards the front doors and the possibility of an escape that they held. Dizzy, bleeding, and almost to the point of fainting, the purple haired cyclops staggered towards the empty reception area and towards the Planet Express entrance doors with almost mechanical steps. She felt like it took forever to cover the short distance. Her mind felt strange; the pain was dull and Leela felt strangely detached. She noticed the warm sunlight that poured through the doors, and the tiny specks of dust that danced in the light, turning and swaying in random ways. The purple haired woman found it soothing in her delirious state of mind.

To Leela’s dismay, the doors were locked. She banged on them with her fists, staining the laser-proof plasteel with her blood. It was no use; the Professor had designed the doors and walls of his home to be impregnable. Police, alien invaders, rival scientists, rogue experiments, even the occasional employee who had just been assigned some task that would surely take his life had tried over the years to get in or out while the building was on lockdown. None had been successful.

Unable to escape the building, Leela stumbled aimlessly through the corridors of the Planet Express building. Death stalked her on soft soled sneakers; she could hear the light pitter-patter of Fry's shoes, and every now and then, she could see his poor attempts at staying hidden as he followed her through the corridors. The mad grin that he wore was unsettling. Leela, at first didn't understand why he hadn't caught up with her yet. He could have easily taken her down in her current condition.

After a while she began to suspect that Fry was playing with her like a cat with a mouse. He wanted to "hunt" her through the Planet Express building until she couldn’t flee anymore. What would happen then, she didn't want to dwell upon.

Semi-drugged, and with her wound burning, Leela was running out of options. She leaned on a door, breathing heavily, waiting for the sound of Fry’s footsteps to turn up again. Looking up, Leela realized where she was and what door she was leaning on. Of course! The door and what lay beyond it presented a solution to her situation, albeit possibly a dangerous one. Leela glanced around the corridor before she slipped through the door; Fry was nowhere to be seen at the moment, And, with a little luck, she could slip away unnoticed. Unfortunately for the purple haired cyclops, Fry caught sight of her just as she passed through the doorway.

Grinning like a kid in a toy store, he pumped his left arm downwards while mouthing a silent "yes!" He had her cornered. It had been fun watching her flee before him. But it was time to end this once and for all.

Leela limped by the many rows of shelves, where the parallel universes in boxes stood in silent parade. Which one should she choose? Unfortunately, she didn't have the luxury to research the vehicle of her escape, as the door to the room was violently kicked open. Leela grimaced; in her half-drugged stupor she hadn't thought of locking it. "Knock knock!" Fry yelled, brandishing a plasma gun in his hand.

Knowing that she didn't have much time and that she was growing weaker by the minute, Leela had to make a decision, and fast. She grabbed a box at random from one of the many shelves and ripped the lid off of it. Without further hesitation, the cyclops threw herself inside, just as a bolt of plasma streaked past her. As she fell into the black tunnel that bridged two universes she could hear Fry’s voice tumbling down after her.

“There is no place where you can hide from me, Leela!”

Universe #5467

In the confines of the rather small and cramped storage room, with sparse lightning and a dull grey color that was peeling from the walls, there were two individuals. They were nestled in the scant space that served as narrow corridors between sturdy, steel shelves that ran from floor to the low ceiling. The shelves were jam-packed with pale green cardboard boxes, each containing an alternate universe.

Sporting red hair, a red jacket, white t-shirt and blue jeans, delivery boy Philip J. Fry was breathing heavily, his eyes wide, hands slightly trembling, and legs weak from fear and the unwanted exercise. "How- how could... she find us here?" He gasped, out of air. His lungs were still burning from the running he had had to do just moments prior to seeking shelter in the storage room. Fry was standing with his back to one shelf, and his nervous eyes sought the storage room door for their pursuer.

"I don't know, Fry." Came the terse reply from his companion, a purple haired cylops dressed in a bright white tank top and black, skin tight trousers that ended in a pair of pale grey boots. Hunched near the floor, Leela was busy scanning the boxes with her wrist computer, looking for the box that would herald the means of escape from the one who chased them, and hopefully a way home. She was in no mood for giving Fry any long answers; she was stressed out, high on adrenaline, and slightly intimidated by the foe that was hunting them.

A loud bang echoed through the storage room; someone was firing at the door mechanism in an attempt to force it open. The cheap and poorly maintained lock twisted and groaned from repeated impacts. It was clear that their hate-filled and quite-insane pursuer hadn't given up just yet.

"Leeela!" Fry whined, reflecting the fear of dying that made his heart race and his mind freeze. Death wore a pair of boots and a sexy, black leather outfit, and it was quite literally knocking on the door for him.

"I'm working on it!" Leela replied with irritation in her voice; she needed to concentrate on what she was doing. She’d lost her gun and, if the door was breached before they managed to escape… Leela had to find the right box- their lives depended on it- but, between Fry's whining, the door breaking attempts, and the poor light… well, it wasn't easy. She tried to work faster, but there wasn’t much she could do. If they jumped into a box before she’d scanned it, they risked throwing themselves into a worse situation than the one they were escaping. There were a lot of possible universes out there, not all of them pleasant. Leela had no desire to fall out of the box and discover, say, that she was standing on the surface of a star.

Another bang echoed through the cramped room, followed by a surprised yelp from Fry. The noise was not from the door this time. The box that Leela had been scanning had tumbled out of her hands seemingly of its own volition and landed on its side, spilling its contents. One bleeding and nearly unconscious Leela lay facedown, sprawled on the floor. Leela, the one that was not lying bleeding on the floor, instinctively jumped into a defensive position.

Fry could do nothing but stare; he didn't know what to make of the situation. Everything was quickly spiraling down into what could be naught but a nightmare. The sight of a blood-drenched Leela made his stomach turn to ice and an unpleasant shiver ran down his spine, chilling his body, freezing him to the spot where he was standing. Fry's moment of inactivity was soon broken by the insistent need of going to the side of the stricken Leela, it wasn't 'his' Leela but it was Leela nonetheless and he couldn't just stand idly by and see her suffer.

Before the delivery boy had any chance to react, his purple-haired companion acted with more assertiveness, and pulled her parallel self from the floor, turned her carefully over and cradled the wounded Leela in her lap. Her actions provoked a pain filled moan from her counterpart. Something that made Leela slightly wince; the sight of seeing what was essentially her own self in such a state had shaken her, though she showed no outward emotion.

"Shh, shh. You're going to be okay." Leela reassured her other self, stroking the wounded Leela’s sweat-soaked purple hair. "What happened to you? Who did this to you?"

"F... Fry... he did it." The stricken Leela mumbled without opening her closed eye.

"I didn't do nothing!" Fry quickly asserted with horror in his voice. He would never hurt Leela, not in a million years, why would this copy of her accuse him of such a thing?! The mere though made him feel sick.

Leela shot him an irritated look, as she very well knew that he wasn't the guilty one. Seeing how this Leela had come from one of the parallel universe boxes she fully understood that it was that universe’s Fry who this Leela was accusing; not hers. A sudden series of heavy thumps from the door reminded Leela that they should find an escape and soon. Her wounded parallel self had proved a distraction for both her and Fry; they had almost forgotten who was trying to break down the door.

Just as she opened her mouth to reply to Fry's defensive outburst, there were several gunshots in rapid succession and a heavy clunk as the door lock gave way. The sound of the door being kicked open followed suit. Leela's deranged interdimensional twin had finally breached the locked door and was swiftly moving into the room, the still smoking revolver in hand. It had taken her some time to break in, partly due to the fact that she had to reload her revolver but also that, once she had discovered that there was no escape from the room other than through a box, she could take her time. After all, she was very well aware that her sane twin would never jump head over heels into a box. She had tried to kick down the door but in the end, her trusty revolver had done the trick.

It did not take her long to track her prey down, and, soon enough, the delivery boy found himself yet again face to face with Evila and the ominous barrel of the revolver. The gleaming metal barrel was enormous at this close distance.

The satisfied grin on Evila’s face told him that he was seconds away from death. He couldn't move. He felt weak in the knees; it was as if his limbs were made from lead. The delivery boy opened his mouth to scream, but, to his disappointment, all he could manage was a feeble croak.

Outside the storage room

A man was standing not far from the open door in the hallway outside the storage room. The corridor itself was just as seedy as the storage room, with the same dull, peeling grey color, same cheap plastic floor, and the same sparse, flickering light. Only in a few locations was the semidarkness broken by the sharp flood of sunlight shining through narrow, dirty windows.

The man was nothing less than yet another incarnation of the delivery boy known as Fry, and not unlike his copy in the nearby room, he was in a state of agitation which was clearly shown by his demeanor. He was nervously running his hands through his dark brown hair, wiping his palms free from sweat on his dark blue jeans and picking the collar of his grey jacket.

His day had started off just as any other day in the future, with several cups of coffee and a couple of cans of his favorite, red colored, Scrum soda, followed up with some pre-lunch slouching in front of the TV. It had been around noon when things had started to go awry. First he'd had a run-in with a black haired Leela who had made, in no uncertain terms, her goal of killing him perfectly clear by repeatedly firing some kind of antique revolver at him. For some reason he still hadn’t discovered, she’d been yelling the entire time about how much she hated him and wanted him dead.

His mindless escape from the black haired and strangely leather clad Leela had brought him into a corner from where there had been no obvious escape. Death had loomed over him, when yet another Leela had made an appearance, this one more like the Leela he was used to, save for the bizarre purple hair.

The new Leela had attacked the other Leela while yelling at him to run away, advice he had been more than glad to follow. Fry's respite from weird things was short, however, as, when he was busy escaping the two fighting Leelas, he’d run straight into a redheaded copy of himself, who had given him a shocked stare before running away screaming for Leela. While he was standing dumbfounded in his parallel self’s wake, his Leela had finally shown up, wondering what he was yelling her name for. She started to berate him for not locking the door to the para-box room again. An accusation to which he had explained that he was not the guilty party and that there was all these copies running around-ostensibly from parallel universes- waving guns at each other.

His Leela had been slow to believe his wild tale. She had been in the middle of asking him just how much sugar he’d had for breakfast when a few gun blasts and a long, hysterical laugh that was clearly in Leela’s voice echoed through the building. That had been more than enough for Leela to take Fry’s claims a bit more seriously. Her eye had gone wide when she’d heard the laugh, and she’d immediately gone running away down the hall, only pausing long enough to motion that he should follow. The two of them had traced their rogue copies through the downtrodden Planet Express building to the box storage room. There they had seen the black haired Leela force the door open and disappear inside. Then his Leela had seen fit to ask him to watch the door and then disappear herself down the corridor.

Fry gave the surrounding area a quick visual scan, paying special attention to the doorway, and started to bite his nails. Where is Leela? He silently wondered.

Lost in nervous thought, Fry didn't hear the reassuring sounds of Leela’s boots echoing down the corridor at first. Only after they were almost upon him did he react. A wave of relief flowed through him. Coming around the corner was his Leela, sporting her usual black and white attire that always seemed to highlight her rye blond hair. She carried a flat disc of some sort in her hands.

"Where did you go?!" Fry asked in a semi-whisper, worried that if he spoke too loud he would attract more copies of himself and Leela.

"I had to get this." She answered in the same hushed tone. "Are they all still in there?"

Fry simply nodded. When Leela held up the device, sunlight, shining through a nearby narrow window, scattered from her golden wedding band, the four diamonds sparkled, sending reflections of the sun dancing in the delivery boy’s face.

For a second Fry was mesmerized by the light from the ring. His mind swooped back to when Leela had received it on her wedding day, an event that he was reminded about every time he saw that ring. She had been so happy that day.

The brown haired delivery boy was snapped back to reality by the blond space captain. "Fry!" Leela hissed impatiently. "Help me with this."

"Right." The delivery boy hastened to answer, a bit ashamed to let his mind wander. "So what are we doing?"

The blond cyclops gave him a reassuring smile. "Barricading the broken door for starters. That’s why I went and got this magnetic shield generator that the Professor made."

"And then?" Fry wondered, his only notions of what a magnetic shield generator could be coming from thousands of hours wasted in front of the TV watching scifi shows that had the word “Star” in them.

"Then we get guns."

“Like the last time?”

“Yes, just like the last time.”

“The purple one tried to help me, shouldn’t we help, at least her?” Fry wondered aloud, still remembering who the purple haired version of Leela had saved him from the black haired version. She had looked kind of exotic in that purple hair.

“Fry, remember what “they” tried the last time we had a visit from a parallel universe? Kill us. You know what the Professor said; all universes out there are evil. So we lock them in, get guns and if they try to escape again we shoot them.”

“Oh… okay.” Fry replied a bit disappointed, he briefly wondered if he could somehow persuade his Leela to color her hair purple. The deep purple color had made the parallel twin of his Leela look sexy. Noting an irritated glance from his very blond Leela made Fry quickly abandon thoughts of hair colors and concentrate on what he was doing.

Together they soon had the shield set in place and activated. The metal door fused solid with the metal frame. Even though the lock had been busted, the door was now as integral with the door frame as the rest of the wall.

When they were done, Leela let her right hand slide into Fry's. The warm, soft, yet confident touch of his wife’s hand was reassuring. "Come on, hunny!" She said and reinforced his feelings of confidence by firing off yet another smile. It still made his knees weak when she smiled like that.

Too bad Bender is dead. Fry thought somewhat absentmindedly. He would have loved this. His mind touched briefly on the day that he had proposed to Leela on the PE ship bridge after she’d seen what he’d written with the stars. It was also there that Bender had been sucked into the black hole created by the Professor’s doomsday weapon. It had been the happiest and saddest day of his life.

A gentle tug from his wife brought him back to reality once again, and together they disappeared down the corridor in search of heavier weaponry. Fry's wedding band sent out a final farewell glint to the few sunrays that were lingering through the narrow window before he was completely swallowed by the shadows.

Box storage room

Evila's smile grew wider; her eye gleamed with insane anticipation, her finger tightened around the trigger. Killing Fry wasn't a novelty for her, but this particular incarnation of the troublesome delivery boy had been different, and quite a nuisance to dispatch. There was no point in savoring the moment, she wanted to keep it short and sweet.

The sight of the two purple haired copies of herself was like staring at twins. The one with the deep wound in her side had at first shaken her; it stirred up memories of her own past which were best kept well buried, memories which fed her already-smoldering hatred of Fry until its intensity raged within her. She would relish killing him again for destroying everything.

The scene seemed frozen in time, Fry standing just behind his Leela and her wounded parallel twin, mouth open, eyes wide from fear as he stared into certain death. Leela on the floor, still cradling her twin, mind racing, trying to figure out what she could possibly do to stop dark mirror self from shooting Fry. She opened her mouth to shout at Evila but before she had a chance to speak, fate, yet again, played her hand.

Over the metallic click of the revolver’s cocking mechanism came the whine of a plasma gun being charged.

"What up?"

Everyone's eyes went to the spot from where the question had been posed. There he stood; Fry, in pale blue jeans, a white t-shirt, red jacket, and coal black sunglasses. And he had a plasma gun in hand, pointed straight at Evila.

Nobody moved save for Evila, who spun her own weapon in the direction of this new, sunglass-adorned threat. Unfazed by the arcane gun, insane-Fry grinned. "Great! I get three Leela for the prize of one! Hey, me-copy, wanna help me kill all the Leelas?" He asked excitedly.

"Huh, wha?" Was Fry's initial confused reply. Then the gravity of the question sank in. "No! I would never hurt Leela!" He blurted in shock and horror. His response provoked a mocking laugh from Evila.

The bespectacled Fry turned his attention from his other self to the raven haired Leela. Her facial expression and body language gave away what a small, somewhat coherent part of Fry's brain identified as insanity. Plus the fact that she dressed in a way he knew that a sane Leela never would. Those revelations, together with the fact that this Leela had been aiming her revolver at his interdimensional copy when he’d arrived, led Fry to reach a conclusion. He, or rather a version of him, had caused this Leela to slip into insanity. The very idea made him start laughing. It was just too good a thing to ignore.

Evila's smile slid off her face in an instant. Her eye turned into a narrow slit and her demeanor became feral. "Shut up!" She roared and emptied a chamber of the revolver at the laughing delivery boy. Fry reeled backwards. He had been lucky; Evila’s aim had been slightly off due to her sudden anger. The shot had only graced his shoulder, leaving a tear in his jacket.

The insane delivery boy spent no time hesitating. His response came immediately with the discharging of his plasma gun, but his intended target had already ducked away behind another set of shelves, now gleefully laughing herself.

With a firefight between an insane Fry and Evila shaping up around them, Leela swept her unconscious and wounded counterpart up into her arms as best she could, and then proceeded to grab a box at random from a nearby shelf, tearing the lid of it in manner not unlike what the now unconscious Leela had done while fleeing from her insane Fry.

Caution be damned. Leela thought to herself. Wherever they ended up, it couldn’t possibly be as bad as here.

"Get in!" She shouted at Fry. The delivery boy stared back at her, eyes blank and mouth half open. He couldn't move. He felt queasy, and his body refused to do his bidding. Fry saw Leela move her mouth but he couldn't understand what she was saying. Seeing that fear and confusion had gripped her friend, Leela put her parallel-twin down on the floor as gently as she could reasonably be expected to while trying to dodge shrapnel from stray fire, and moved the short distance to Fry. With a push from Leela, the delivery boy went headfirst into the opened box. Not wasting time, Leela grabbed her still copy yet again and followed him.

Locked in a dance of death, burning with hatred, Fry and Evila continued their fight, oblivious to the fact that their respective prey had long since escaped. Laughing like children at play, the two antagonists danced around the storage room firing their weapons at each other in the hope of finally, and at long last, satiating their unquenchable lust for revenge.

The End