Short 40 - Arguments

It had been a while since I had a Companion like Liara.

I mean, Katherine had been brilliant, but her hero worship of me meant she only gently questioned instead of arguing. Korra hadn't been in a mental framework to challenge me on anything - and there was little for her to even want to challenge during her time on the TARDIS - and Asami had proven more concerned with Korra's well-being than any problems with the itinerary I determined for us. Or which the TARDIS imposed on us, I should hasten to add.

Liara, however, was more like Jan and Cami had been. She deferred to me when the situation demanded it. But she never let me get away with doing something she considered unwise.

And eventually... well, we had our first real argument.

Since we were supposed to be taking a short vacation, I suppose I can't blame her.

"I'm just saying," Liara was, well, saying, looking a might irritated and thoroughly drenched, "that maybe you need to be more careful where you drop us."

"You're saying that like I always land us in an ocean planet," I protested, twisting a couple of knobs on the TARDIS controls before reaching for the lever. I wiped at my face to get the water out, but my sleeve was just as drenched. "It was a slight miscalculation, that's all."

"You seem to do that far too often," Liara protested. "You can be worse than Joker."

"Oi, now that's not fair at all..."

The VWORPing stopped and I went to the door. "Now, let's just dry up and..."

...well, bugger. We weren't at the station I'd planned to travel to. Instead I could see the slight haze of smoggy air, as bad as the worst examples you'd find in the 20th Century, and absolutely no sunlight above. I looked up and saw a surface above me, supported by a pillar that I was standing upon, and an even larger one in the distance, at the center of the upper surface. The plate...

Ahh... so that's where we were.

"This doesn't look like Layom Station to me," Liara said, stepping out of the TARDIS. "Forget to carry the two again?", she asked sardonically.

"Oi." I rubbed at my forehead. "Don't start. Sometimes the TARDIS does this, alright?"

"I know." She smirked slightly. "At least it isn't that planet of talking quadripeds we went to last month."

Before I could reply a voice called out, "Hey, who the hell are you?!" I turned and faced a red-haired man of light complexion with shades held up from his eyes and an electric prod of sorts. He was standing by a control. I let out a sigh, fully expecting the sight in the other direction.

Ah yes. The big fellow with the gun attached to what used to be his right hand. The attractive, but also rather, uh, curvy young lady in the sports bra, suspenders, and really high shorts. And the fellow with the sword. You know the one. The big sword.

The red-haired fellow - I believe his name was Reno - activated something. A yellow pyramid of energy settled around me. I rolled my eyes and pulled out the sonic screwdriver. "And what's your problem with the ponies anyway?", I asked Liara, looking toward her as I turned on the screwdriver. Its pleasant whir filled the air and the pyramid of energy shattered. "They're playful and friendly. Everyone likes the talking ponies, especially the girls."

Reno frowned and charged at us, aiming at Liara. She waved a hand at him. A biotic bolt shot out and slammed into him, sending him flying. "What about the one who ran into me?"

"Oh..." I shrugged, looking around at our surroundings. When I saw Reno start to recover I held up the sonic screwdriver toward him, but before I did anything that attractive young lady jumped in and starting giving him a good kicking. "...I think it's Dash's way of showing affection, honestly."

I turned to the pillar and scanned it with the screwdriver. As I did so, Liara retorted, "I thought she was going to break my neck!"

"Oh, she wasn't going that fast." I noted the results and dashed over to the controls. They were not quite locked out, but a quick scan showed an immediate detonation switch that would trigger without the proper command codes put in. It was a good thing I had a sonic screwdriver and a good idea on code-cracking.

"I couldn't turn my head without pain for a week!" Liara walked up beside me and sent another biotic bolt that knocked Reno back against the railing. He snarled at us and, undoubtedly realizing he was badly outnumbered, he jumped over the railing. I had no idea how he planned to land safely, but it wasn't my problem. I had explosives to turn off.

And, of course, an argument to resume.

"A bit of whiplash never hurt anyone," I said coyly, which was admittedly not the smartest thing I could say. "Oh, this is tricky. Without being able to directly access the explosives, I might not be able to turn this off." I turned and faced the others. "Oi, you there!" I pointed with my sonic screwdriver. "You with the compensatory sword! Yes, you spike-hair!"

"The name's Cl-..."

"Cloud Strife, yes, I know," I answered dismissively. "Go make yourself useful. Get the area under this pillar evacuated. I'm not sure I can stop this."

His compatriot shook his fist at us. Or, well, his gun arm actually. "Hey, who da hell are you an' what makes ya think you can boss..."

"I'm the Doctor, I'm a Time Lord, and I'm trying to stop this thing from crushing everyone under this section of the upper plate," I retorted. "Now, would you please leave me to work?" I kept working at the console. "Oi. Evil corporations, they always do this. No other reason to put bombs into your bloody structure, honestly."

"You know," Liara said, "you could probably be nicer."

"Oh, come now, I'm the model of diplomacy," I protested.

"You mean when you barge into a situation, proclaim 'I'm the Doctor', and start bossing people around?", Liara asked, her tone again sardonic. "Oh yes, the very model of diplomacy and subtlety. Sometimes you remind me of Wrex, honestly."

"Could be worse, I suppose," I muttered. "I could be more like Wreav."

"Sometimes you get that bad!"

"Really?" I sighed and hit another key. "Are we really going to argue about my method of taking charge of deadly situations?"

"I think it could use some work," Liara said. "You didn't see Shepard acting like that."

I raised my eyebrows at her. "Really? What was that business with the Quarians then? I heard she flattened Hans'Gerrel with a single punch."

Liara's eyes narrowed. I had the sudden feeling I was about to experience the business end of a biotic warp attack. Before she could do so or make a protest of my words, the noise of a helicopter came from overhead. "I wouldn't do that if I were you," another man called out. "Only a Shinra Executive can set up or disarm the Emergency Plate Release System. Anyone else tries it, the device goes off."

"Really?", I asked. "Why, pray tell, would you put in bombs to blow up your own bloody city? I'm serious, even for utterly amoral greedy corporations, wasting all of that time and money sounds like something that would make shareholders get out their pitchforks and torches. Besides." I held out my sonic. "I already broke the code twenty seconds ago. Explosives are now turned off."

The figure - Tseng, I believe - reacted with stunned surprise. "You're lying," he said.

"Maybe," I conceded. I'd actually broken the code ten seconds earlier than I'd stated "Want to come down and check?"

"I'm afraid I don't have time for that," Tseng answered. He gestured toward another figure on the platform beside him. I could make out brown hair in an elegant, feminine hairstyle, just before the helicopter began to rise.

"Aerith!," a voice called out. I turned and saw Mr. Compensatory Sword and his trio storm back up the steps.

"Aren't you supposed to be evacuating?", I asked.

"Obviously they were worried about their friend," Liara pointed out to me.

"Oh, taking their side, eh?", I countered. "There are thousands of people that could get squished if I can't..."

There was an ominous beep from the board. I turned and my face fell. "Oh bloody hell," I swore. "They've reactivated the detonation counter remotely and locked this station out." I ran the sonic over it, trying to override the lockout and hijack the physical connection.

"Here, let me," Liara said. Her omnitool appeared around her left forearm.

"I don't think that's going to help."

"No? You're not exactly getting the job done quickly." Liara began tapping controls on the omnitool. "I think I can alter the network protocols..."

"No, the issue's in the main connection. Better to try..."

"I'll remind you that I am familiar with hacking systems," Liara said bluntly, continuing her own efforts.

"But the network protocols aren't going to..." I sighed and looked back to the trio of... what were they called again? "What are you lot looking at? I might not be able to hold this off for long, there are people who will get squished."

"Maybe we want to know just what the hell you are," Mr. Compensatory Sword answered. "And why we should be listening to you."

"I said it before," I sighed. "I'm a..."

"...he's a Time Lord who travels six dimensions of space-time in his timeship," Liara finished for me, rolling her eyes. "He can be a bit full of himself, but he means well and he's being really serious about the fact that if you don't get people out from under the plate section above us, they're going to get crushed when the bombs finally go off."

The three survivors of... what was that group's name again? A... something? Whatever. They looked at each other. "Okay." The young lady looked back to us. "How long do we have?"

"Oh... ten minutes, Liara?"

"Maybe ten, sure," she agreed. "If you stop messing up those network protocols. The automatic detonator is going to get tripped."

I rolled my eyes in irritation. Behind us the heroes took off down the stairs to begin the evacuation. "Here, oh yes. Looks like a communication tie-in to their local emergency television network. You keep that up and I'll handle this..." I held up the sonic toward the pillar and used it to tap into the line I'd found. "Hello there! This is the Doctor speaking! I'm afraid that some corrupt fellow has triggered a detonation sequence in the Sector 7 plate. I seriously suggest everyone on or below that plate start evacuating, the bombs will probably go off in the next ten minutes. My compliments to President Shinra, by the way. You are truly the biggest case of stupid evil for the sake of evil I've seen in a while."

"Must you always taunt them?", LIara asked. "We haven't won yet."

"It's part of my charm," I protested. "And you didn't seem to mind before..."

"There's a time and a place...!" Liara frowned. "Network protocols are altered, but they're destroying the physical datalink."

"Really? Oh. Such a bother."

"What about your end?"

"Altering the detonation codes for the bombs, but it won't take long for them to override," I answered.

"We'll just have to do what we can, then," Liara said.

We worked quickly and we worked quietly, letting our argument stand to the wayside as we bought time for Cloud Strife and his merry band of eco-terrorist cohorts - Rockslide? No, I'm sure that wasn't it - to vacate the slums below the plate. I had no means of ensuring the people living above the plate were doing so, but I couldn't help that. Every code change, every network lockup, kept Shinra's own tech specialists from detonating the charges and thus bought us time.

"Some vacation this is," LIara muttered.

"I told you that you can't blame me over the TARDIS..."

"Oh, don't start," she retorted, but with her tone a bit on the playful side.

Well, it looks like we're about out of time," I said. "They just overrode all external secrity on the main device. It's going to explode within a minute."

"No other way to stop it?"

"Afraid not." I frowned and ran to the railing, overlooking the junkyard that stood at the border of Sector 7 with what I presumed to be Sector 6. I could make out the fellow with the compensatory sword and his friends gesturing at a gaggle of sluum-dwellers still running for safety. "YOU'VE GOT LESS THAN A MINUTE!", I shouted at the top of my lungs.

...at which point the first explosion went off.

I looked up and saw flame pluming from the support pillar. "Oh, that's just not fair," I muttered. "Liara, I thought you had them locked out?!"

"I did!", she protested. "But they used a wireless radio link, I couldn't block it!"

"Oi!" Another explosion went off. The pillar began to sway beneath us. "I think it's time we departed."

"You and I need to talk about what a vacation means!", Liara shouted as we returned to the TARDIS. I ran up to the controls and pulled the lever just as the pillar support catwalk collapsed.

When I stood I let out a laugh. "Ha! Nothing like a little adventure to get the old hearts pumping, right?!"

Liara fixed a glare at me that was almost murderous. "Vacation. Now."

I sighed and gave her a faux-sour look as I went to the TARDIS controls, input new coordinates, and sent us off somewherre relaxing.

The TARDIS finished VWORPing and we went to the door. Outside was a nice, sunny vista, expansive nature as far as the eye could see...

...except for the big robot standing in front of us.

A number of figures were nearby. One turned. She was quite young-looking and rather... uh... endowed, shall we say? And it was quite the strain for the dark bikini top that was the limit of clothing above her waist. She shifted the weight of the stupendously large sniper rifle slung on her arm and blinked at us. "Simon, Kamina... we have company."

I really hate it when the two doesn't get carried.

I looked away just as the fellow with the... enormously long sword and the crazy-looking sunshades glanced our way. Liara was glaring at me with her arms crossed. Just as her lips started to part I brought my right hand up. "Don't," I said in irritation. "Don't even start. I don't want to hear it."

She did.