Parallel Lives (a saga in so many parts)

[Reply #440 on:]

This is one of the best updates yet.  I do have a couple of points of contention though.  First, Leela reacted rather well to waking up to finding Fry standing over her and Vek.  Also, Fry and Leela seemed to clear up the confusion over who-was-leaving-who-behind really quickly. 

I was a little worried about that. I was trying to play it as Leela shutting out everything and trying to ignore what she'd done. Guess it didn't come across as well as I thought.

They never had a chance to really clear the "who's leaving whom" thing up, as such.

Oh poop, it's on the previous page folks. Read it.

[Reply #441 on:]

Ralph: I think that vision was supposed to correspond to the moment that Neena found her parents.  My guess is that Neena is now wiping the floor with a large cross section of the mutant populace, and Leela needs to get back and stop her before Neena goes all Terminator on everyone's asses.

You may be (and probably are) right.  When she says, “We have to get home! Now!”, I think of home being Universe-A.  Just the way my mind works.

As for Neena, she's now gone batshit insane.  Will she become the broken-down creature that Fry and Leela met in the previous universe, join Evila in her campaign of terror or... whatever Arch has in his fertile mind for her.

I doubt if he'll use it because it was a chapter that was pretty violent, but 6 months ago Arch wrote a chapter he floated by me where Leela has been ambushed by Evila, a very one-sided brutal fight erupted and Evila left Leela naked, battered, bruised and broken.  Evila let Leela live because being beaten so badly and humilated would be worse than death.  I think Arch decided to drop that chapter because it was brutally violent but it definitely let the readers know just how insane and brutal Evila is.

Of course I liked it but it would take a good bit of tweeking to make it fit the standards of PEEL.

Of course I have to give the entire story so far and A plus, plus!

[Reply #442 on:]

Seems like Leela is finally starting to figure out how much she's been screwing up. Fry on the other had handled the whole thing perfectly, I think.

Ralph: I think that vision was supposed to correspond to the moment that Neena found her parents.  My guess is that Neena is now wiping the floor with a large cross section of the mutant populace, and Leela needs to get back and stop her before Neena goes all Terminator on everyone's asses.

I have to agree with SO here.

[Reply #443 on:]

I doubt if he'll use it because it was a chapter that was pretty violent, but 6 months ago Arch wrote a chapter he floated by me where Leela has been ambushed by Evila, a very one-sided brutal fight erupted *snip* I think Arch decided to drop that chapter because it was brutally violent but it definitely let the readers know just how insane and brutal Evila is.

I actually wouldn't mind seeing a scene like this at some point in the actual story.  Up to now, Evila has been very hesitant to harm any of her "sisters;" I'm intrigued to learn if it's because she's done it in the past and severely regretted it (or, alternatively, what it would take to push her to this point).

[Reply #444 on:]

I'm planning on dealing with that sooner or later. It's a story all in itself.

[Reply #445 on:]

To: Leela
From: Aknightofni
Subject: Choice of partners

Epic Fucking Fail.

Thank You.
Ni!

--

Amazing update, probably one of the best so far. Leela gets zapped, Fry gets shot at, Fry shoots some stuff, lousy Scottish Russian pilot gets told, Day is saved (for a bit), and everything unravels just in time for the end! Pretty much covers every category of win. Loved the scene with Amy covering Fry, gave some frightening flashbacks to a different story, but this Amy's got some great aim! Also it should probably be occurring to Fry at this point that the kind of reception he got from Amy upon returning from the turret is considerably better than what he is used to.

Leela's reaction to her most recent failure seemed a little odd, she seemed to shrug it off pretty quick. Fry took it rather well too, but I guess he would still be bent up from her leaving him, or thinking that she was going to.

Great scene with her waking up though, poor Fry. If I had been him Leela probably would have woken up to some very deliberate and very sarcastic clapping...

All I wanted was someone who understands how I feel and it felt like he was giving me that.”

Fry blinked a few times, licked his lips and looked away without speaking. He flopped onto the lower hammock with an agility that she couldn’t entirely put down to practice, folding his hands behind his head and staring at the ceiling.

Someone give her a clue. Please. I find I have very little sympathy for her. To the point where, were it not for Evila needing to be stopped, I would rather Fry just stay put with Amy. I will feel worse for Amy when they have to leave then Leela. Speaking of which... where did Amy go? I thought she left attached to Fry. Did we miss a conversation well see later?

Hope Yancy can hold the fort till they all get home... wondering if she just had a brief glimpse into Neena going ape-shit, maybe with a bit of Evila's general insanity mixed in. I would probably spend a bit more time thinking about Evila if I were her or Fry... whatever happened Evila started as Leela, the fact that the capability for that evil is present should be mildly disconcerting. I guess we don't know what the key factor was that resulted in that change, but it wasn't Fry's presence... just something worth considering.

I doubt if he'll use it because it was a chapter that was pretty violent, but 6 months ago Arch wrote a chapter he floated by me where Leela has been ambushed by Evila, a very one-sided brutal fight erupted and Evila left Leela naked, battered, bruised and broken.  Evila let Leela live because being beaten so badly and humilated would be worse than death.  I think Arch decided to drop that chapter because it was brutally violent but it definitely let the readers know just how insane and brutal Evila is.

I'm intrigued... any chance that someone has this chapter lying around?

Absolutely amazing stuff, I think Fox got jipped, best Futurama coming out these days doesn't cost anything at all...

[Reply #446 on:]

First off, great update as usual, Archonix.

But, Leela! Dammit, girl, do you have a permanent ad in Egotistical Jerk Monthly? "For a good time, call 0800-TURANGA"?!? What the hell were you thinking?

Arch, I hope you give her a metaphorical spanking for this. Although she really deserves a literal one...

[Reply #447 on:]

Arch, I hope you give her a metaphorical spanking for this. Although she really deserves a literal one...

He's way ahead of you. Check his page on TTP.

[Reply #448 on:]

He's way ahead of you. Check his page on TTP.

True, but I believe that relates to the chapter that Ralph mentioned above. What form Archonix releases it in, or if he does at all, remains to be seen...

[Reply #449 on:]

Arch, I hope you give her a metaphorical spanking for this. Although she really deserves a literal one...

He's way ahead of you. Check his page on TTP.

I may regret asking this, but...which page is this?

(On another subject, I'd be interested to see this 'missing' chapter. If only for the description of the fight between the two Leelas, something that hasn't happened in the story. Yet.)

[Reply #450 on:]

Arch, I hope you give her a metaphorical spanking for this. Although she really deserves a literal one...

He's way ahead of you. Check his page on TTP.

I may regret asking this, but...which page is this?

Don't ask. I knew it'd come back to haunt me one day...  It has about as much actual relation to the story as U251 has to historical reality.

(On another subject, I'd be interested to see this 'missing' chapter. If only for the description of the fight between the two Leelas, something that hasn't happened in the story. Yet.)

I can send the writing to anyone that asks. It's rather short.

[Reply #451 on:]

Don't ask. I knew it'd come back to haunt me one day...  It has about as much actual relation to the story as U251 has to historical reality.

Ah, but it is still enjoyable (to some of us sick bastards, anyway).

[Reply #452 on:]

Don't ask. I knew it'd come back to haunt me one day...  It has about as much actual relation to the story as U251 has to historical reality.

Id seen the pics mentioned elsewhere,  but being NOOB had no idea what TTP was. Curiosity got the better of me, found it... kind of wish I hadn't.

[Reply #453 on:]

Id seen the pics mentioned elsewhere,  but being NOOB had no idea what TTP was. Curiosity got the better of me, found it... kind of wish I hadn't.

[Zapp]What are you?  Gay?[/Zapp]

[Reply #454 on:]

[Zapp]What are you?  Gay?[/Zapp]

Hey! I liked Arch's pics! But kinda set a different standard for such things when it comes to characters I like.

[Reply #455 on:]

well, I dunno what rule 34 is, but I figure I'll change my post before Nixorbo clobbers me.

[Reply #456 on:]

Rule 34 my friend.

[Reply #457 on:]

Rule 34 is this: if you can think of it, there is porn of it.

[Reply #458 on:]

Rule 34 is this: if you can think of it, there is porn of it.

Rock on humanity, rock on.

[Reply #459 on:]

Don't ask. I knew it'd come back to haunt me one day...  It has about as much actual relation to the story as U251 has to historical reality.

Well, perhaps you can email me details of this with the fight chapter. Related or not, I'd be genuinely interested to see this picture...from an artistic point of view, of course.

I can send the writing to anyone that asks. It's rather short.

Please do; it certainly sounds like an interesting chapter, even if it never actually gets used in the story!

[Reply #460 on:]

You want me to e-mail it all to you? :P

[Reply #461 on:]

Well, I'd like the chapter, yes, and if you could direct me to the page on TTP where the pictures are, that'd be great; I take it that there are a lot of pictures, so it'd be impractical to send them all? (Either that, or the picture in question is really big.) In which case, just the page address will be fine.

[Reply #462 on:]

It seems that I created a monster by mentioning the "Evila vs Leela" scene.  I like it because it really shows the hatred/disgust Evila holds for all other Leela's, but the extra contempt that she holds for Leela-A.

But Evila is evil, considering the havok she's producing by her killings of Fry's wife in Blue's Universe, Neena's parents in this universe and God knows what hijinks you have planned for her in the future.

1BDI states that Evila has been reluctant to harm her "sisters" so far.  I'd say taht she is out to harm her "sisters", but in a different way.  She wants to take the things that they cherish away from them.  She wants to to suffer for a long time - killing them would be just too quick and simple.

That's my take on her.  Now watch Arch come up with a new tangent to prove me wrong...

[Reply #463 on:]

Jeez, poor Leela get zapped again, this time by Russian. But Veklerove is right in some point - she've been tricking herself for ages.
Fry still care. It's strange, that he didn't start fighting with Vek. Leela should come back to Fry.

I think that vision was supposed to correspond to the moment that Neena found her parents.

I think this vision was connected with Evila, because she punched Fry.

It was great update, but... poor Leela.
I can't wait to know, what's going on on Earth.

[Reply #464 on:]

The crowd at the end of the street was growing, slowly but surely, as whispers about the outsider spread around the mutant city. They were murmuring and milling about, curious, terrified, intrigued by the stranger in their midst but strangely un-angered by any rumour of what had happened.

Yancy spat the last of the vomit from his mouth into the runnel in front of the house and stood up, light-headed and hollow. He leaned a hand against the wall, oblivious to the faint patina of corruption across its surface that was the heritage of everything built in the sewers. He was beyond caring now. Across the street, as he turned, he saw Neena crouched in the shadows of a narrow passage between two other buildings, her unseeing eye locked on the wall in front of her, both arms wrapped around her knees for support.

Her first reaction had been... not violent, but certainly ferocious. It had seemed as if all her fears and anger had sloshed out in one giant, overwhelming wave. She’d attacked them without any warning and without seeming to realise who they were until Yancy had managed to talk some sense into her. Poor Raoul was nursing a rather nasty black eye.

He crossed the street, ignoring the mummer of the mutant crowd at the sight of his brazen invasion of their secret world. Their sanctified privacy. The pictures on the walls of the room where Neena’s parents had died seemed to contradict the sentiment.

Neena didn’t acknowledge Yancy’s approach, nor did she seem to even notice when he crouched down next to her. For a moment Yancy was unsure of how to react. She seemed to have returned to the near-catatonic state she’d been in the first time he’d told her.

“This was my fault.”

Only after she reacted did he realise he’d said it out loud. Stubborn refusal to back down forced him to return her glare with a defiance he didn’t feel. She looked away again, wordless. Emotionless.

“Neena...” what could he say, in the face of something like that? “I’m sorry.”

Nothing, again. She didn’t even change her rate of breathing. The only sign she was even listening was the slight narrowing of her pupil, a stress reaction rendered blatantly obvious on her distorted face. But beautiful, some part of his mind said. Why had it said that?

“There wasn’t anything you could do...”

Footsteps. Yancy glanced up at the approaching mutant, the one called Vyolet. She was holding her hands out at an awkward angle, uncertainty clouding her face as she approached, as if she was worried Neena might lash out again. Vyolet halted a few strides short of them and cleared her throat.

“We’re about the move the bodies,” she said quietly. Yancy and Neena both looked at her, uncomprehending, leading Vyolet to scowl with more than a little frustration. “We need you to decide.”

“Decide what?”

“How they’re disposed.” she moved a little closer and knelt down, touching Neena’s bare arm with one hand. They both shivered at the touch, Neena from the touch of such mutated flesh and Vyolet, apparently, from the general taboo on close contact in the sewers.

Yancy stared across the street and then down at the distant lake, a disturbing conclusion forming in his mind. “What do you mean, disposed?”

“Oh. You don’t do this on the surface?” She took out her cigarettes and poked one into her mouth. “They can be recycled in a lot of different ways.”

“Recycled?”

“In the recycling pits on the other side of the lake. It’s where we grow a lot of our food, amongst other things.”

She lit the cigarette and took a long drag on it, brightening Neena’s face with an orange flare that appeared to linger in her eye just a little longer than it should have. Suddenly Neena seemed to snap out of her senescence. She turned to look at Vyolet. Her eye narrowed slightly.

“Cigarette,” she muttered, plucking the half-empty packet from Vyolet’s unresisting hand. She tucked one into her mouth before tossing the packet back and retrieving a steel-cased live-flame lighter that Yancy hadn’t even known she was carrying. The flare of its flame reflected in her eye seemed to enhance the sudden darkness Yancy thought he could see in there.

“Neena, you don’t smoke.”

“I do whatever I want,” she muttered, drawing hard on the cigarette. The smoke curling from her mouth and nose as she breathed out lent her an almost demonic seductiveness. “Recycling...”

“We value our bodies too much to waste them.”

She fixed another glare on Vyolet. “My parents will be buried in a proper grave.”

“But... but that isn’t the way-”

“You’ll do what I tell you to do, you god-damned freak!”

The gun seemed to appear out of nowhere, its crude metal barrel making an audible ‘thump’ as Neena jammed it against Vyolet’s head, followed by a dangerously quiet click as she thumbed back the pistol’s hammer. The mutant blinked in surprise at the sudden escalation of the situation. She held up her hands and slowly backed away.

“Sure. Sure... whatever you want,” she said, trying to sound as conciliatory as possible as she backed out into the street, before turning to run back to the mutant crowd. Neena, breathing deeply, lowered the gun a fraction, her eye narrowing and widening as if she was having trouble seeing and her lips moving slightly.

“Um...” Yancy said, only to find the gun pointing at his face. He screwed his eyes shut. There was a ringing thud, metal against soil, and then Neena started sobbing out loud again, her arms reaching out to grab his.

“I lost them, Yancy. I lost them! I was so close!” She fell against him with a loud sob, knocking Yancy back onto his haunches  so that he ended up leaning against the wall, his legs sprawled out on either side of Neena’s. She pawed at his coat, keening and sniffling without ever managing to cry. The cigarette was long gone.

“I...” he patted her back, feeling pathetically unable to deal with the situation. Neena seemed to take a little comfort from it though, snuggling up against his chest, her self-pity reduced to a barely audible moaning.

“How... how can they be so callous?” She stared across at the silent house, one hand rubbing the worst of the tears from her face. They were bringing the shrouded bodies out into the open now, preparing them to be taken to whatever passed as a morgue in the mutant city. “They recycle their own dead. How can they do that?”

“It’s probably just a reaction to the environment they live in,” Yancy said, not really thinking. Why was he defending them?

“It’s disgusting. Pitiful...” she lurched away from Yancy, grabbing the gun as she heaved herself upright, before stuffing the pistol into her belt. Yancy scrambled after Neena as she stalked across the road to the small knot of mutants gathered around the bodies of her parents. The nearest pair saw her coming, noticed the menace in her eye and quickly stepped out of the way, giving Neena a free path to her father’s side.

She stopped by his body, looking down at the shroud that covered his face. For a moment she hovered her hand over it, seemingly undecided whether she should draw it back or leave it be. Then she let it drop down to his chest, before brushing past his arm.

The movement dislodged something from his hand. Neena and Yancy saw the little plastic card drop to the floor at the same time and both knelt to look at it. It was Neena that picked it up, turning it over in one hand. When she looked at the functional side her face seemed to freeze, hardening into a pale, stony neutrality.

Neena stood and waved off the mutants bearing her family before pushing past them to re-enter the house. She stopped in the room, which still stank of their unique decay, and looked around the floor until her eye settled on one of the packs of shells. Neena quickly scooped the little boxes into her pocket.

“Neena? What’s going on?” Yancy touched Neena’s arm. She shrugged off his hand, intent on the gun in her grip. She seemed to be focussing all of her rage on it, as if she could imbue the mechanism itself with her anger. “Neena?”

“You said your brother probably just didn’t know his way around our sewers, right?”

“Well... well, yeah, his universe has to be different to ours, they don’t have that big underground lab for one. That’s how these things work, I think.”

“So he’d have no reason to try and stop me getting here?”

Yancy frowned. He didn’t like where this was going. “No. Why would he?”

“You tell me.” Neena held up the card, face down, and passed it to Yancy. He backed away from Neena as he turned it over, and didn’t notice her silent retreat from the room. There was a face staring out of the card, bright red hair brushed back into a spike and a friendly, slightly gormless smile underneath it.

“Why would Phil’s I.D be...”

He looked up. She was gone. Yancy stared about himself as he gathered his wits, trying to work out when she’d left. He charged out onto the street to try and spot her but she was already out of site. None of the mutants knew where she’d gone or, if they did, they weren’t telling.

“Nee... Leela! Come back!” He looked up and down the short street in the vain hope that she’d come back again or appear out of some side-street. “Dammit.”

He returned to the house, the ID card clutched in his hand, grinning morbidly at him. For a few moments he just stared at it, until curiosity set in and the memory of Raoul’s earlier remarks came back to him. Had she been here? She kept acting like she had, but that didn’t make any more sense than the idea Phil had been.

Yancy’s eyes roved over the photographs and mementos plastered across the wall, framed in cabinets and on table tops. All of Leela’s life was here laid out in stark monochrome. He wandered over the snatched fragments of her existence, looking for any hint of why she might have suddenly snapped, but there was nothing. Not a damn thing.

 Yancy gave up and stared at his feet. Then he frowned, spying a cigarette butt on the floor by the wall, discarded there for some time if he was any judge. He picked it up between finger and thumb and held it up to the dank light of the window. The pattern of the slender gold trim around the filter looked familiar.

Outside again, and Vyolet was nowhere to be seen. Yancy strolled along the street to the cowering crowd of mutants at the far end, hold his hands out in case they thought he was going to shoot them or something. He had no idea if it helped them, but it made him feel better if nothing else.

The mutants formed a solid, if somewhat sloppy wall across the street. They stared at him, the outsider, with mingling fear and curiosity. Yancy stopped a few strides short of them and looked amongst the crowd for any sign of Neena or Vyolet. He saw one very fast in the form of a nervous cloud of smoke rising two or three rows back.

“Vyolet? I know you’re there, I need to ask you something.”

The crowd murmured its surprise that any surface dweller would talk to them, let alone know the name of one of their number. It parted, like an undermined bank of mud falling apart, laving a free path for Yancy to walk toward Vyolet. She sucked on her cigarette, blowing smoke out of her gills as fast as it went into her mouth, until the little white stick was reduced to a short tuft of ash.

“What do you want,” she said, tossing the butt away and retrieving another in a single practised motion. Yancy held out the cigarette butt and the ID card.

“How did these get here?”

Vyolet took the card and frowned at it. “I don’t know, but I wouldn’t mind stumbling across him in a dark tunnel. Meow.”

“You haven’t see him down here?”

Vyolet shook her head and handed the card back. She smiled a little sadly. “I haven’t. I’d know if I had. Oh, but your friend Leela, she was down here a few nights ago. Hung around the tunnels all day and...” she paused, eyes fixed on the cigarette butt. “Where did you find that?”

“In the house, where the bodies were.”

“It’s the same as mine.” She took the butt and held it up next to her own still-lit cigarette. “I guess these belonged to your friend.”

“She can’t have been down here all day though. She was with me the last few days.”

“Yeah, well, you surface dwellers all look the same to me, what do I know between two virtually identical one-eyed alien mutant wannabes?”

It doesn’t make any sense, Yancy mused as the mutants began to disperse. He held up the cigarette. It was definitely old. Some mysterious liquid had soaked into it and dried out again which meant at least a day or two lying on the floor. He glanced around the subdued crowd and then back at the building where Leela’s parents had lived. There wasn’t much else he could do here. Pocketing the detritus, he set off back along the tunnels, hoping his memory would get him back to the surface.

--

Tunnels, it was always the tunnels and the creatures chasing after her, the monsters of her past, pursuing and taunting her and drawing her onward and pushing her forward until legs ached and heart pounded and the anger, the bitter anger, the murderers and the keepers of secrets...

--

Leela stalked through the darkness, one hand stretched out ahead to ward off the shadows, the other, gripping the gun tight and firm, dangling by her side, almost unused. Water and shit splashed under her feet the cloying stink burned at the back of her nose, reminding her of the pathetic wastrel scum who’d stolen her parents from her. Oh they’d pay, they’d all pay, just as soon as she’d dealt with the one they’d brought in to do it.

How could she have trusted him? The... the liar, the one who’d set it all in motion, cajoling and taunting her with the secrets that should never have been known before taking it all away again. Her life was over, that was certain. She knew what she was, what would happen to her now and that hell was almost too much to bear. To never see the sun again... but before she went she’d make sure he never saw it again either.

A junction up ahead was a convenient spot to rest her tired legs for a second. Just for a second. She leaned against the slime-covered wall and sighed. For a moment the heat of her anger subsided, letting her mind wander to questioning why this would have happened, but then she lifted up the pistol and any rational thought was banished as another bout of anger welled up inside her, fuelled by the sight of the weapon that had destroyed her life; the tool of vengeance.

Leela turned the gun from side to side. It was crude, ancient, but in perfect condition even so. Compared to the precise, clinical weaponry of her age it was brutal and inefficient but, strangely elegant in its simplicity. Point and click. The ultimate in user friendly interfaces.

Footsteps echoed briefly in the tunnels behind her, carried from god knew where but sounding close. Leela spun, heart pounding and stared back along her path. “Who’s there?”

The footsteps, if that’s what they were, stopped. Leela had the impression of a, a something standing at the far end of the tunnel though she couldn’t see anything, or hear. She stepped out into the centre of the tunnel and aimed along it, staring down the sights at the blackness that seemed to be just a shade darker than the rest. They lined up perfectly under her vision, almost as if it were designed for someone with just one eye.

“I have a gun!”

Silence. Leela’s finger tightened around the trigger, squeezing it a fraction until the hammer began to lift and the ratchets underneath began to rotate the cylinder. She stopped, staring at the mechanism, fascinated by its oily, sinuous shape and movement, and then increased the pressure, tightening her grip.

The sound the gun made in the enclosed tunnels was deafening. A thunderous roar and a bright flash of cerise light accompanied by a cloud of acrid, bitter smoke that seemed to crawl into her eyes and throat and lungs, maddening and energising all at once. Leela gasped, choked and gasped again in a bizarre parody of laughter that almost mirrored how she felt. Her whole arm tingled from the recoil of the gun. Her hand was almost completely numb. She giggled, widening her eye as she squeezed the trigger again and sent another shot cascading down the tunnel.

Leela released her finger from the trigger and held the gun up to her face. She could feel a hint of warmth from the barrel radiating against her skin. She inhaled the smoke still trailing from the gun and smiled, a lazy, sensuous sort of smile.

Licking it would have been weird. She’d been tempted for a moment, though. Giggling again, Leela let forth a few more shots until the hammer clicked against an empty chamber. She frowned and flipped out the cylinder, which automatically ejected the six spent cartridges to ring against the floor like tiny brass bells.

“Easy,” she muttered, fishing spare charges from her pocket. “Like a battery, only more fun...”

Leela cast one final glance at the tunnel. If anything had been following her it was gone for sure, now. Gun loaded, she resumed her hike down the tunnels, whistling a happy song to herself. She wasn’t sure where it came from or what it was about, just that it felt so right.

--

Yancy cowered behind an outlet pipe from Neena’s gunfire as it zipped down the tunnel, the bullets tearing past his hiding spot and thumping into the ancient brickwork of the far end junction wall. He heard her laughter as the report of the last shot echoed away in the maze of the sewers and wished, prayed he never had to hear it again. The madness behind it was terrifying. Yancy risked peering out once he heard the oily snick of the weapon being reloaded and saw Neena examining the gun with the sort of loving gaze normally reserved for a child.

She’s snapped, he thought sadly. And it’s all my fault...

He cowered back again, trying to work up the courage to confront her before she did something stupid, but then she was away again. She set off up the tunnel, whistling a song he’d never heard before, splashing her way through the muck of the sewers in a way that seemed inappropriately happy.

Yancy leaned forward to pull himself upright. A movement caught his eye then, a little closer to his pipes, but on the far side of the tunnel. A shadow detached from an alcove in the far wall and stepped out into the dim light emanating from the downflow pipes and grates. There was no mistaking the shape of her ponytail, even in the eternal twilight of the tunnels. It was Leela.

A matched flared to life, illuminating her face for just a brief moment as she lit a cigarette. She looked around, examining the tunnel in the flickering wan light of the flame before tossing it into the muck, where it hissed into darkness again. For a moment her eye rested directly on Yancy’s hiding spot and paused. He froze, unsure of whether he’d been spotted until the lazy gaze continued back, along the path they’d taken, and then around to follow the distant Neena as she disappeared into the deeper darkness of another junction.

Leela took a final drag from her cigarette and tossed it aside. She turned to follow Neena up the tunnel. Yancy counted to ten in his head and stepped out. He scampered across to the discarded cigarette and pulled it from the muck. It was identical to the one in his pocket; the same little golden band around the filter with its familiar, rope-curled pattern.

Yancy stared up at the tunnel roof, as if he could suddenly get a view of the stars. The last time he’d seen Leela she was heading off into space. How had she got here?

He had no idea what was going on.

[Reply #465 on:]

Okay, I assume this is Evila in the sewers with Neena and Yancy.  Granted, light is very poor and Yancy wouldn't have the night vision of any of the Leela's (complicated optics related physics, just be assured that Leela's large single eye is much better adapted for low-light situations), I'm going to assume that "Leela" is really Evila and Yancy is making a mistake because he can't see well.

Now we see that Neena is going batshit insane, will the same fate befall our beloved Leela?

[Reply #466 on:]

And now Fry has two homicidal cyclopses after him. The fun just never ends for him does it.

[Reply #467 on:]

The only thing that could make it worse for Fry is if all the Leela's are on their period.

No man can survive such anger and evil.

[Reply #468 on:]

Evila must be lonely, shes looking for a sidekick! That or shes really having some trouble with this Fry and needed to enlist some help. At some point Fry is just going to have to say "OKAY STOP, Look, I'm confused.... Every Leela who wants to kill me, go line up on the wall over there, good. Now every Leela who DOESN'T want to kill me, line up over there. Okay now let me just take count. Leela... my Leela.. PURPLE. What the hell do you mean you haven't decided yet!?!?!?..."

7 flavours of hell are about to hit Fry when he gets home, hope hes in a running mood. With any luck Leela / Amy can hold the line long enough for detective Yancy to save the day!

Awesome update, sounds like final collision course is set. Cant wait 

[Reply #469 on:]

Hmm, so now we have two Evila's running around.  Not a good day to be a Fry. 

The only thing that could make it worse for Fry is if all the Leela's are on their period.

  Dear god, no.

[Reply #470 on:]

Holy kamoley! the last 2 installments are epic Arch!

[Reply #471 on:]

Fry sat in his accustomed spot on the bridge with his back firmly set against the pacing, arguing figures behind him as he tried to think his way through what was going on. So far he’d drawn a frustrating blank. On the one hand, his brother said Leela wanted to leave him behind. On the other, Leela insisted she didn’t. And then she’d gone crazy and punched him in the face.

Amy was... he glanced over at the intern and half-smiled at the sight of her but confusion was all he felt in that direction right now.

It was all just so frustrating. He had even less idea of what was going on than usual and now, all they could talk about was getting home as fast as possible for some reason that was never really made clear, though it had something to do with Neena. And Leela had been shouting something about tunnels when she’d hit him. He just couldn’t see the pattern though.

He looked up at the forward windows. Earth was growing there, a bright blue disc about the size of his thumb. He could see the moon somewhere off to the left, about as big, but cut by a crescent of darkness. Normally the sight cheered him after a long delivery, the thought of returning home, resting up and settling down for a long evening in front of the television but, this wasn’t home. Not really. It looked like home and felt like home, and had a lot of very nice bits to it that might make it seem better than home, but it wasn’t home. There was still the nagging thought of that grave somewhere with his own bones and bits lying in it, buried under a thousand years of earth. The mere thought of it made him feel cold and dry inside, like he was almost there himself.

A shadow fell across him. Amy, sidling up to his side, her face that same placid openness he’d never been able to resist the last time around. “Hey. What’s up?”

“Oh... I was just thinking.” Fry leaned back in his chair, his mind filtering out the near-constant warble of Leela and Vek’s conversation. They’d managed to spend the last hour arguing about who was the better pilot, without resolution.

“I’ve been thinking, too. Leela was talking to me before.” She sat herself down on the console, legs splayed just enough to send his hormones bouncing. “She was acting like she’d not sent that message. It’s weird.”

“I know, she told me she’d never leave me behind...” Fry sighed and shook his head. “I don’t get it.”

“Yancy wouldn’t lie about something like this,” Amy replied. She glanced over her shoulder at the expanding disc of earth. “We’ll be able to find out soon anyhow. You wanna hang out some more when we get back?”

“Sure. We could go see a movie.” Fry shuddered as an immense cold drew over his body. “Did someone turn the heating off?”

The quaver of his voice was enough to silence the arguing pair behind him. Leela and Veklerov relaxed from their desperate fight to force each other from the pilot’s seat and slowly righted themselves. Leela moved forward, risking a glance at Amy, as if seeking approval.

“What makes you say that?”

“I’m freezing. Ow!” Fry felt his chest cramp up, as if a frozen hand had suddenly gripped his heart. He gasped for breath, wrapping his arms around his body as he tried to fight off the cold.

“Fry? What’s the matter?” Warm hands touched his skin. His teeth started chattering as if his body had suddenly realised how cold he was. “Ahh, you’re freezing! Amy, get an emergency blanket. Vek, you... turn up the heat or something.”

She wrapped her arms around Fry, who felt like he’d just been plunged into a furnace, her skin was so hot. She hissed at the touch of him and tried to push her body closer. He heard footsteps thumping across the deck but they sounded slow and distance and everything looked a long, long way away, like it was at the end of a tunnel, filled with light.

--

Sense left. He found  himself in a darkness that was something other than the mere absence of light, and then in a light that was not light at all, because there was no darkness. He remembered his family, and then found himself amongst them. But, they were confused, because he was already there...

--

Fry woke in the pits of hell, bound and covered by heat and humidity and sweaty bodies writhing in torment. He lashed out, trying to claw his way free of the anguish clutching at his heart and suddenly broke through the-

“Ow! Dammit, Fry, what the hell are you doing?”

Leela’s voice froze Fry’s mind for a brief moment, long enough to realise that he wasn’t in hell. Though, Veklerov’s cabin didn’t seem much less of a torment. He looked to one side and saw Leela staring at him with pained curiosity. That explained two of the arms wrapped around him.

“Did I just sleep through something awesome again?”

“Wuzzle,” Amy mumbled, nuzzling against his back. Leela rolled her eye and detached herself from the small pile. She brushed back a stray lock of hair clinging to her brow.

“Jeeze, it’s hot...” Fry picked at the thermal blanket half-wrapped around them. The air was still muggy and warm. “Leela? What’s going on?”

“We were saving your life.”

“Oh. Really?”

“You had some sort of weird thermal crash. It’s like all the heat leached out of your body.” She rolled her enormous eye, making her distaste obvious. “We had to keep you warm somehow. This was Amy’s idea.”

“I felt like I was dying.”

Leela nodded, making he way over to the cabin’s environmental control. The tension in her body made it obvious how she felt about being there, which gave Fry an odd, jittery thrill. Was it because of him or because of Vek?

“You looked like you were dying as well,” she said quietly. Her voice firmed up as she turned back to look at him, disapproval pulling the corners of her mouth down just slightly. “We had to keep your body temperature up somehow...”

He felt Amy’s hand crawling across his chest just as Leela turned back to look at him.

“It’s nice to know my friends wanted me to go out happy.”

“You can stop that fantasy right there, mister,” Leela replied, folding her arms. “I wanted to put you in between the dark matter reactors.”

 Fry grimaced and stuck out his tongue, which was a really childish thing to do, but he couldn’t think of anything better to say. He glanced out of the tiny porthole and was surprised to see the clear blue of an atmosphere beyond. They were skimming over the cloud-tops.

“I can’t help it! I just woke up with two hot, sweaty women wrapped around me, is it my fault if I get a little, y’know, excited?”

“You men, you’re all the same,” Leela replied, her eyebrow arching like a sinuous S. But, for all that, she was smiling just a little. “I’m glad you’re still around, Fry.”

“You and me both...” Fry carefully unwrapped Amy from around his waist and shuffled out of the bed. His clothes were soaked with sweat. Not all of it was his own. “Man. I stink.”

“We all do,” Amy mumbled from under the blanket. She poked her head out, bleary-eyed and looking exhausted from the heat.

Leela nodded. “The shower’s in the same place, at least. Try not to die again.”

“I dunno, if it means beautiful women dog-piling me... all right, all right, I’m going,” he yelped, avoiding the well-aimed boot Leela threw at him. Fry ducked out of the door and skittered around the corner as fast as frightened rat.

Amy rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Typical man.”

“Yeah, well, they all fantasise about it, but put them in a bed with two women and they’d probably just freeze up.”

“Maybe I should get Yancy in and turn the tables on him,” Amy replied, stroking her chin with a thoughtful expression. She shuffled across the bed and sat next to Leela, half-mimicking her pose. “See how he likes it.”

“Interesting idea, but... nah, I’ve never really seen the appeal.”

Leela glanced sideways at the intern, wondering if she should ask the obvious next question, though it wasn’t as if she really wanted to know the answer. She settled for staring at the wall, trying to hid her glum expression behind a neutral glare. It didn’t work.

“Leela, I’m sorry about what I said before. We thought you were going to leave Phil here.”

“Yeah, well, I wouldn’t.”

“You can always stay too, you know...”

Leela nodded slowly, pondering the thought. But no. “I can’t. I want to go home. Besides, there’s Neena here already.”

“I think I understand,” Amy said, nodding slowly. “It’d be like putting two queen bees in the same hive.”

“Oh lord, don’t mention bees. Especially not big killer space bees.” She shuddered involuntarily and tried to put the memory out of her head, but it wouldn’t quite go away. Yet another time when she’d had her life saved by Fry. “Oh, that damn kid...”

She felt Amy wrap a slightly sticky arm around her shoulders, the other stroking her arm. Leela ignored her mild disgust at the feeling, appreciating the contact, even if it was slimy and cold. They sat like that for a minute, rocking back and forth as the ship’s gravity generator tried to compensate for their turbulent atmospheric flight.

“Leela? Can I ask you something?”

“I guess.”

Amy brought her hands back to her lap, where she twisted her fingers around the hem of her pants. “Phil kept saying he wanted to make up for something he did to his... to your version of me.”

“Oh.” Leela looked into Amy’s eyes, unsure of what to say. It would be so easy to use this as a way to get Fry back. All she would have to do is tell her how much of a scumbag he’d had been in their last relationship. She shook her head and sighed at the injustice of a the world.

“Do you know what it was?”

Leela nodded slightly, displacement activity so she could work up her courage.“It was... it was something I did, not him,” she said, her voice quiet as the half-truths unfolded in her mind. It was so easy once you got started. “I broke up one of your dates because I thought you were going to end up giving each other hell. He was very attached to you at the time.”

“Right...” Amy smiled weakly, though the disquieted anger behind her fragile expression was obvious, her eyes filled with accusation as her suspicions over Leela were so blatantly confirmed. “Thanks for being honest, Leela. I appreciate it.”

“Honesty is a rare commodity these days,” Leela replied, sick to her stomach. It was as if she was committing herself to an irreversible path by the creative recounting of those events, closing off more doors until she was left with just one, lonely journey. She stood up, shivering as she realised how chilly the room had become. “Shower time.”

--

Farnsworth heard the ship crunching to the ground outside the lab. A moment later he heard the quiet hiss of his secret elevator as it disappeared into the ground, leaving an annoying hole where he had hoped to tread on his way to top up his Buggalo cheese sample jar. The experiment he had originally intended to run with ordinary nuclear isotopes had proven surprisingly easy to adapt to the cheese, which had to be emitting some sort of radiation. But, now he was being prevented from continuing by that dratted hole. He had a toaster waiting to be tested and what seemed to be a very promising reaction from the kettle to observe. It was all very frustrating.

The hole in front of him began to blow out a gentle breeze as the elevator ascended from the basement levels. It was uncanny how it had done that all by itself. He would have to check the control mechanism. It wouldn’t do to have one of his employees stumble into it. They’d make such a mess when they got to the bottom. Still, that was what the janitor was for.

Farnsworth was just trying to remember why he felt he should be doing something about the janitor when the elevator arrived, bearing on of the Leelas, the prettier one with the nicer hair. He tilted his head to one side as he tired to determine why her face looked so different. She seemed to be angry, shouting something that he didn’t bother listening to because it was so loud and silly and not worth wasting his time with. Frankly, the odd weapon she was waving at him seemed to be so much more fascinating. Yes. And here he was without his tranquilliser gun.

Something in the way she was speaking gave him a pause. He frowned, more than usual, and held up his hand to silence her. It seemed to work. “What? I can’t understand your bizarre alien language any more.”

“Alien...? you stupid old man, I’m speaking English! Where the hell is Philip?”

“Who?”

“The one from the other universe!” She pushed the gun into his face, which Farnsworth assumed was meant to be threatening but which merely gave him a better chance to examine the mechanism up close. He sniffed at the bitter fumes leaking from the weapon’s hollow emitter.

“Interesting...” Farnsworth poked the side of the gun, twisting a mobile cylinder in its housing; it moved with a gentle clicking of a ratchet mechanism. “The entire thing seems to be mechanical. Where did you find such an antique?”

“Oh forget it.” She pushed him aside and stomped to the back wall of the lab, where she stared across his experiments and into the hangar at the ship. “He’s on the ship, isn’t he. Well that’s good. That means I can fix a few things...”

Farnsworth peered across the hangar at the ship as Neena sighted her weapon on the gangway. He supposed he should do something about it, but the entire course of events seemed so interesting that he preferred to let it play out. The weapon was one he had only ever seen in history books, an old, violently noisy sort of affair that appealed to the part of him that liked explosions. He picked up his scanometer and surreptitiously waved it at Neena’s back. The device registered an odd anomaly in addition to its display of the weapon’s vital statistics, declaring it had found NEW DATA in large bold letters, before bringing up a reference note to his earlier, more detailed scans of the pair.

“Oh my. You know, my dear, I-”

“Shut up!”

Farnsworth shrugged and continued scanning, his eyes locked on the weapon. He could sort out the quantum reality stuff later, this was going to be much more entertaining, with all the potential explosions and fire and smoke and things, oh my yes. A pair of legs appeared on the gangway, clad in pink. Amy? What was she doing wearing pink? Then someone else. Ah yes, the idiot.

“Time to leave, Philip,” Neena muttered, thumbing back the hammer.

[Reply #472 on:]

Two updates in just over two days?  Score!

[Reply #473 on:]

“It’s nice to know my friends wanted me to go out happy.”

Best. Death. Ever. Lucky SOB.

“Time to leave, Philip,” Neena muttered, thumbing back the hammer.

DUN DUN DUNNNNNNNNNNNNN!

Fry better have some matrix skillz...

So good... need next update, NEED.

[Reply #474 on:]

Two updates in just over two days?  Score!

It's an XMas season miracle!

And I know I've said this way too many times already, Arch, but I love how you write Farnsworth. “I can’t understand your bizarre alien language any more.” 

1BDI states that Evila has been reluctant to harm her "sisters" so far.  I'd say taht she is out to harm her "sisters", but in a different way.  She wants to take the things that they cherish away from them.  She wants to to suffer for a long time - killing them would be just too quick and simple.

That's my take on her.  Now watch Arch come up with a new tangent to prove me wrong...

You probably have a better idea of Evila's motives than I do since you read the "missing chapter."  My idea's just based on what I've picked up from the first two episodes.

[Reply #475 on:]

“It’s nice to know my friends wanted me to go out happy.”

Best. Death. Ever. Lucky SOB.

Second.

Reminds me of Homer's ideal death, naked girl avalanche.

[Reply #476 on:]

Two awesome updates! The last one was very well done Arch!

[Reply #477 on:]

It was as if she was committing herself to an irreversible path by the creative recounting of those events, closing off more doors until she was left with just one, lonely journey. She stood up, shivering as she realised how chilly the room had become. “Shower time.”

Wait... Leela made a decision that put Fry's happiness ahead of her own.

WHATS GOING ON!?!?!

[Reply #478 on:]

Seems Leela isn't the only one who's being affected be here alternate selves. Though I didn't know it worked if your other self is dead.

[Reply #479 on:]

I'm going to guess that Fry and Leela will have to leave this universe to stay alvie.  I would think that each universe should contain the exact same amount of material and an imbalance would make for bad things to happen.

Nice to see Leela make a sacrifice to benefit Fry that would directly affect her.  Although he drives her insane beyond belief, she knows she's fond of the red head.

And somehow Evila has made Neena think that Phillip J. Fry must die.