What I love is that so much of the original dialogue fits PERFECTLY with the characters in question, but not so much that every line is word for word the same. God, I just love this movie and these characters.
When they reached the Cliffs of Insanity that morning, the other ship was far too close for comfort, even as the criminal trio and their prisoner disembarked from their own.
"He's practically on top of us," Rose said to Saxon, who scoffed.
"Doesn't matter now," he said, a manic grin on his face. "We have Jones, only she's freakish enough to be able to climb this thing. Whoever's on that boat will have to go around and find a harbour, and by then we'll be long gone."
Rose resisted the urge to punch Saxon in the face for calling Martha freakish, and only succeeded because she had had a lot of practice. The other woman paid him and his comments no mind, but that didn't stop Rose getting furious on her behalf.
Saxon had hired someone in Skaro to pay a visit to the top of the cliff and secure a rope for them there, and sure enough, there it was waiting for them to climb. After giving it a quick tug to be sure it was secure, Martha busied herself with getting on the harness that would allow her to carry the others up the cliff.
"Are you really strong enough to carry the three of us up that rope?" John asked, watching her dubiously.
"I work out," Martha said, smirking at him.
"I don't doubt that," he said, eyeing the impressive biceps that tended to distract Rose on a daily basis, "but even so."
"Well, maybe it has more to do with a genetic anomaly," the black woman said, shrugging, "but almost no one knows what that means, so-"
John's practically non-existent eyebrows nearly disappeared into his hairline. "I know what that means," he replied, "but I'm a top student at the university of Gallifrey, where does someone like you learn about genetics when only the top natural philosophers barely understand the concept?"
"Someone like me?" Martha repeated, putting her hands on her hips.
"You know, someone working for someone like Saxon," John clarified, with a sort of confused innocence that made Rose think he genuinely had meant that and nothing else.
"Stop gabbing and get ready to climb," Saxon told them as he marched up to them.
Saxon, Rose and John hooked themselves into the harness, and Martha gripped the rope and began to climb. It didn't look easy, but the anomalous woman didn't falter and their ascent was steady, if a little slow.
Which would have been fine, if not for the other boat docking right next to theirs. A figure in black leapt out of it, hurried to their rope, and began to climb after them.
"They're climbing the rope," Rose said, staring down. "And gaining on us."
"Inconceivable!" Saxon shouted. "Jones, faster!"
"I am going faster," Martha replied tightly.
"You were supposed to be this incredible thing, this miraculous freak of nature that could scare a horde of grown men with her power, and yet, he gains," her boss said venomously, spitting the words at her.
"Actually, I think it's a she," Rose commented vaguely.
"Don't call me a thing," Martha told Saxon, voice flat.
"I'll call you whatever I like," he said, "because if you fail me, I'll have to find myself a new piece of muscle, and you'll be at the bottom of the ocean where you can't breathe a word of this plot to a single living soul."
"Harry!" Rose said with horror.
"Your life is at stake, Jones," Saxon said in a sing-song voice, despite the anger still bubbling under his skin. "I'd hurry it up if I were you."
Martha began heaving even harder, speeding up their climb by a small margin. The strain on her face made Rose worry, and Saxon's threat made her want to gut him from navel to nose.
John, after a quick look down at the woman following them, had squeezed his eyes shut and resolutely said nothing.
Once they reached the top, Saxon hurried to cut the rope. The weight of it pulled it off the side of the cliff within moments, but when Rose and Martha moved to the edge, expecting to see the woman in black's body sprawled on the beach, they instead saw their pursuer clinging to the rocks about halfway up.
"She's got impressive arms," Martha commented.
Saxon rushed to stand next to them. "She didn't fall? Inconceivable!"
Martha looked at him curiously. "I don't think that word means what you think it means, sir, so maybe stop using it in this context."
"Oh, like you'd know," he sneered.
"Oh my god, she's climbing," Rose said, eyes widening. "That's...really something."
"Whoever she is, she's seen us with the Duke and therefore needs to die." Saxon turned to Martha. "You, carry him. Blondie, we're headed for the Skaro frontier, catch us up when she's dead. If she falls, fine, if not then the sword."
"I'll have to duel her left handed," Rose said, smiling.
"We're in a hurry!" Saxon said with great exasperation.
Rose shrugged. "It's the only way it won't feel like an easy win. I have to try and challenge myself at least a little, Saxon. Or else I'm gonna get slack, and then I won't be any good to anyone."
"Oh, do what you must," Saxon muttered, "Come on, Jones, we're going."
"Be careful," Martha said to Rose as she slung a protesting John over her shoulder and ignored him. "People in masks can't be trusted."
Rose laughed. "That a fact, is it?"
"Well, they're hiding something, aren't they?" Her friend said, shrugging uncomfortably. "Besides, you should be scared of any woman with arms that can even remotely rival mine."
"Why would I be, when I have you to protect me?" Rose joked, and they shared a grin. "Besides, no woman's arms rival yours."
"Is this important flirting?" John asked incredulously, making them both jump and Rose turn scarlet.
"We weren't flirting," Martha said, looking affronted at the very thought, while Rose had to pretend not to find her reaction quite disappointing.
"Jones, now!" Saxon barked, and Martha swore under her breath and hurried to run after him, with John bouncing on her shoulders.
Rose watched them go, and then stretched her limbs to prepare herself for the duel. It didn't take too long, and impatience nagged at her when she still couldn't hear the woman in black scrambling near the top. Crossing to the edge again, she saw her soon-to-be opponent in more or less the same place she had been before.
"Hiya," Rose called down. "Slow going?"
There was a pause. Then, the woman said, rather irritably, "Look, I don't want to be rude, but this isn't actually as easy as I might be making it look, so I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't distract me."
"Sorry," Rose said, with a sheepish grin.
"Thank you."
Rose turned away and tried the patience thing, but once again came up short. She wanted to fight now, not in half an hour or a few hours or whenever this damned woman finally got to the top, if she didn't fall to her death first.
"I don't suppose you could speed things up a bit?" She asked, leaning over the edge again.
The woman snorted. "Look, Goldilocks, if you're really in such a hurry, why don't you lower a branch or a rope or find something useful to do."
"Oh, right," Rose said, glancing at the length of severed rope that remained around the rock from where Saxon had cut it. "I mean, I do have some rope up here that you could use."
"...but?"
"But since I'm only waiting around to kill ya, I feel like you probably wouldn't want my help."
To her surprise, the other woman laughed, before pulling a face. "That does put a bit of dampener on our relationship. A shame, too."
"But I promise not to kill you til you reach the top," Rose offered, with her trademark charming smile that she so often used to dazzle people.
The woman in black grinned through another snort. "That's very comforting, dear, but I'm afraid you'll just have to wait."
Rose sighed. "I hate waiting," she cursed under her breath as she walked away, only to turn back a few moments later as she got another idea. "I could give you my word as a Londoner?"
"No good," came the strained reply through clenched teeth as the woman hauled herself up to the next ledge, "I've been double crossed by no less than six Londoners."
"Shit," Rose muttered. "So there's no way I can get you to trust me?"
"Nothing comes to mind…"
New inspiration came to her, and Rose's expression became calm and even as she locked eyes with the ones shining through the holes in the mask. "I swear on the soul and sword of my father, Peter Alan Tyler, you'll reach the top alive," she said gravely.
There was a pause, and then -
"Throw me the rope."
I'm having too much fun.
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