Short 50 - Tools of the Trade

I don't always get the most scenic spots.

It was certainly atmospheric, though. A town built in the arid dust of a flat desert. Square block buildings bleached white by the twin suns overhead reminded me of Tatooine, which isn't my favored tourist spot by any measure. I decided to check things out anyway, just to sate curiosity.

It wasn't like anyone was going to complain, was it? I was alone again.

Unsurprisingly, there was a tavern providing refreshments - most of them alcoholic - to residents and travelers alike. I decided to partake, just to say I did. I looked at the other patrons of the establishment and noticed that I was standing out just a bit with the suit jacket and tie, although not terribly. I got the feeling that, if anything, I was in the Old American West. Or would have if the twin suns hadn't been sort of a giveaway.

The barkeeper grumbled in irritation at my payment in gold, and it was only after a long and careful examination that he assured himself it was genuine gold. Which it was. Granted, it was genuine in that it had been created in a molecular replicator, but it was still gold. And it wasn't like a drink would inflate the local economy, you know.

So there I was, sipping away at an appreciable whiskey, when the tavern hushes. I hear the door open. The hush is replaced by only a quiet susurration of voices trying desperately not to be heard. Quiet and deliberate footsteps are made over the floor until a stool beside me is pulled away and occupied. I hear the jingle of coins and scratching of paper as the newcomer places money. The barkeep provides a drink from the same whiskey bottle I had been served from. Nothing happens for a time afterward, leaving me to my thoughts. Thoughts about Rassilon and Gallifrey and how I was going to deal with the situation.

The susurration was suddenly replaced by the patter of feet. People were leaving the establishment.

"Drama, much?", I sighed, and then I took another drink and placed the glass down. I had a feeling I wanted to be fairly sober in the next few minutes.

I turned my head to face the newcomer. His appearance was striking. Yellow glasses with a w-pattern in frame. Green eyes. Blond hair combed high, red duster coat. And what looked to be an artificial left arm.

"So much for a quiet drink," I sighed, as my mind put a name to the face.

But I wasn't the one who said it.

"Vash the Stampede!" The voice that called out was a rough one, with a rough accent to go with it. Very… rough, yes, all around. Like you'd expect. "Come on out of there or we're fillin' that place full of holes!"

Vash sighed. I could see flickers of sadness and resignation in his green eyes before he downed the rest of the glass he had and turned around. "You should stay inside. It won't be safe in the streets," he said.

"I gathered," was my reply. "Good luck."

"Another," I said to the barkeep. He refilled the small glass and I resumed my careful consumption of the whiskey. Outside gunshots began to crack in the air. I took a few sips and then another, just for some extra courage. My drinking partner Winston had once talked about how just a bit of drink bolstered courage and the senses. Of course, that was for Humans; I'm a Time Lord, and we have different tolerances.

Still. It was just about right. I took a final sip and said, "Alright. Bugger it all, I'm going out."

"You're like to get killed out there, stranger," the barkeep said. "That there is Rowdy Ronald and his gang, meanest in these parts, and they're trying to take down the Humanoid Typhoon himself for that sixty billion double dollar reward!"

I smirked. "Where does that come from anyway?", I asked. "'Double dollars'? If you don't have normal dollars anymore, what's the point in the double? An excuse to add an extra sign to everything?" I stood from the bar and threw an entire baggie full of replicated gold nuggets on the bar. "Here. I figure you'll have damages to cover before this is all over."

The barkeep made a confused noise while I turned on my heel and went to the door. I drew the sonic screwdriver and sonic disruptor out of my pocket and harness respectively.

When I stepped out of the tavern I found destruction. A series of buildings across the street were covered in bulletholes. Wounded gunmen were huddled off in one corner, inspecting bullet wounds to their limbs, many to their hands.

Given the direction they were firing, it wasn't hard to guess where Vash had run off to. I looked to the nearest gunman and held up the sonic disruptor. He never saw me coming before I sent him flying with a kinetic burst.

"Hey?!" A man with a very large beard holding what looked to be an automatic rifle turned to glare at me. "Who are you and what in the hell do you think you're doing?"

In the moment I had to reply, I confirmed the half-wrecked building that Vash was holed up in. "I'm the Doctor," I answered, "and I'm keeping you blokes from leveling the entire bloody town."

"Don't you know who I am?! I'm Rowdy Ronald Robinson and this is my gang! We run this place!"

I smirked at him. "Just how long did it take you to come up with that?"

Well, that did it. Half the gang turned their firearms on me. I got the sonic disruptor up in time to deflect their shots. The diversion in their attention allowed the creation of an open path, which I followed until I could get into an alley and then into the building Vash was trapped in. He was hiding behind metal tanks, for water collection it appeared. He looked at me as I jumped in. "No, stay back! I don't want you to get hurt!"

"And I don't want to see a fellow like you get shot up by those brutes," I replied. I slid into cover beside him as gunshots continued to go up and knock out more of the wall. "Vash, yes?" I offered my left hand, which still held my sonic screwdriver. "I'm the Doctor." After he took my hand I asked, "So, any plans?"

"Well, I was sort of hoping to lead them out of town."

"Yes. I think I might be able to help with…"

Rowdy Ronald's voice started barking again. "Alright, we've been nice! Time for you to deal with Big Howard!"

"Oi, that doesn't sound good," I muttered.

"Well, maybe Big Howard's not a bad guy?", Vash offered optimistically. "We could always…"

I peeked over the top of the metal tank. "Big Howard" was presumably the nine feet tall fellow with what looked to be a cybernetic arm and attached RPG launcher.

Aimed straight at us.

"We'd better get out of here," I said. "Grenade launcher!" I scrambled away from the cover.

Big Howard fired. The RPG went through the wall and exploded on the other end of the tank. The force of the blast still hit us with enough force to send us through the air and in for a rough landing. I lost my grip on my sonics. I even saw the sonic disruptor go flying past me and further down the building.

When I landed I saw the glint of my sonic through the dust of pulverized stone and brick and grabbed it before scrambling for cover. Just in time, too, as a storm of bullets flew by where I had been. "Vash, you all right?!"

"I'm… fine," he coughed.

"I'm guessing Big Howard isn't big on conversation." I grabbed a piece of fallen glass from a window shattered by the blast and used it as a mirror to see where Howard was. Through the plumes of dust and smoke I saw his outline coming through. In addition to the rocket launcher on his arm, two smoking gatling barrels were now sticking out from his back. "Oh, lovely. What is it with people mutilating themselves to carry weapons? Well, my sonic should…"

By now I realized something was off. Something didn't feel right in my hand. Looking into my hand made me realize what it was.

I didn't have my sonic screwdriver.

I had picked up Vash's pistol instead.

"Wait, what's this?"

I turned my head and saw that Vash was holding up my sonic screwdriver.

Well, this was an interesting turn of events.

I moved to throw him his gun back, but another barrage of fire came from Big Howard and it forced us back into cover.

I frowned. At this rate we would be overrun. We needed to deal with Big Howard.

Which meant I had to use the gun.

I'm not a big fan of guns. Silly people use them and start to see every problem as something that can be solved with a bullet. I'm not a bullet guy, I'm an ideas man.

Except… so was Vash. He wasn't a bullet guy. He solved his problems without violence whenever he could, and could be trusted upon to only use force if absolutely necessary. And I can't argue with that. I had to look beyond my dislike of the weapons and see them as Vash did.

His gun wasn't a weapon so much as it was a tool.

And that's how I had to treat it. A tool.

And I can be pretty good with tools.

I began looking about. We were in a metal foundry. There were a lot of machine tools laying about, lathes and such, and what looked like a finished church bell. I felt my mind race as I looked over everything and then considered the positions, current and future, of Big Howard. "So if I… and then off… hrm, that might…" I turned to Vash. "Vash, the sonic screwdriver! Use it on his cybernetics as soon as I give you the signal."

"How does this thing work?", he asked. "I only see the one button!"

"It's… complicated. Just point and press and it'll work, trust me!" I checked the ammunition on Vash's pistol. Yes, I had enough shots left.

Big Howard roared and more fire came our way. I had the feeling he was about to use another grenade.

No pressure, eh?

I pointed the gun at a nearby lathe. And I pulled the trigger. Moved the barrel, pulled the trigger, moved and pulled.

The bullets ricocheted off the lathe and on to their projected courses, slamming into and bouncing off of various pieces of metal from various goods around the foundry.

And then, one by one, they started striking the weapons on Big Howard.

One found the mechanism for one of his shoulder gatling guns and damaged it so that the weapon would not fire. Another bullet severed the ammunition feed from the colossal belts on his back into said weapons. The third bullet hit the RPG launcher arm and, though it didn't destroy or cripple it, the shot did knock Big Howard's aim off. His RPG spiraled beyond us and blew up the pile of scrap iron along the far street wall.

"Your turn," I said to Vash.

Vash shot out from behind cover. He found surfaces to jump off of to avoid the rifle fire from outside. Once he was close enough he jumped into mid-air, flipped, and landed on Big Howard's back. He held the sonic up to the mechanisms present there and activated it. Whirrrrrrr.

Big Howard cried out in shock as his cybernetics failed on him, all at once. He flailed about for several seconds with Vash riding his back and whooping like he were a child on a toy horse. As he began to topple Vash jumped off his back and landed near me. He tossed me the sonic at the same moment I tossed him his firearm. He reloaded the weapon the moment he got it while I spun around on a foot and used the sonic screwdriver's link to my sonic disruptor to yank it over to me. I snatched the disruptor out of the air with my hand and turned back with Vash toward the entrance to the building. "Shall we?", I asked him. "If we don't put a stop to this, someone's going to be killed."

"Yeah." Vash held up his gun. "Let's get this over with as painlessly as we can make it."

And we walked out to face what was left of Rowdy Ronald's gang.

The issue was never in any doubt. Vash's non-lethal firing wounded limbs and shot weapons out of hands; the sonic disruptor let me disable many of the criminals and outlaws non-lethally. The rest fled, their courage lost when "Big Howard" went down.

It didn't take long for it to be over.

Townspeople gladly carried Rowdy Ronald and his remaining men off to jail cells while others looked to cleanup from the gun battle. Vash and I stood in the main street, where the fight had begun, and exchanged knowing looks. "Well, it was a pleasure," I said to him. "Always good to find someone like you."

"Wow, thanks Doc." Vash blushed. "You're not so bad yourself. And what are those things? I've never seen technology like that before."

"Oh, just little things I've made," I answered. "I'm not from around here."

"Oh really? Where are you from?"

"Quite a few places, but I'll settle for saying that I'm from a placed called Gallifrey."

"It must be really interesting there if they've got things like those devices."

"Oh, you've got no…"

There was a cry of horror that drew our attention down the road. A newly-arrived passenger bus was disembarking passengers, and two of them were looking towards us. One was dark-haired, cut short, and grey-eyed with a white coat, the other had long light brown hair, light blue eyes, and a light brown duster over what looked to be a business shirt and tie.

"Oh, hi insurance girls!", Vash called out.

"What… what happened?!" The shorter one looked like she wanted to faint. Given what Vash had called them, it wasn't hard to imagine why.

"A rather heated disagreement," I remarked.

The taller, bigger one walked up to us and looked me over. I still had a foot on her in terms of height, which really put me over her friend. "Oh, I've never seen you around sir. I'm Milly Thompson and this is my friend Meryl Strife, we're from the Bernadelli Insurance Society."

I responded to her friendly demeanor and smile with a smile of my own and an offered hand, which she happily accepted. "Hello Miss Thompson. I'm the Doctor."

"And what are you a doctor of?", she asked pleasantly. Her voice was on the high pitched side, certainly not what you'd expect for a young lady who looked rather fit and strong given her size and the width of her shoulders.

"Just about everything," I answered. "A pleasure to see you, Miss Thompson. I imagine the task of being insurance agents trying to deal with the collateral damage from all the tussles Vash here can get into."

"Oh, it's okay, Vash is a really sweet person and it's usually not his fault."

"That's nice of you to say," Vash said, blushing.

I smiled and nodded. "Very kind, yes. Well, I am most happy to have met you all, but I think it's about time I got going."

"Oh? Where are you going?", Milly asked. "Maybe you can travel with us too?"

I smiled gently at that. "Oh, that is a very nice offer. But I've got my own means of travel." I nodded to them all, gave a farewell, and took my leave.

That might have been it, but after I entered the TARDIS I turned back to the entrance and noticed Meryl was at the end of the alley. Her eyes were wide and she was staring in shock, barely managing to gibber in her attempts to speak. Milly and Vash rounded the corner and looked down to see me as well. "Whaaa?!" came out of Vash's mouth, a similarly-high-pitched shriek of surprise from Milly.

"Take care, everyone," I shouted back. "Tally ho!" I pulled back the TARDIS activation lever and began shifting out even before I snapped my fingers to close the TARDIS door.

I can imagine they just stood there in the opening to the alley for a bit before moving on.. Or falling over in place from shock. Either possibility, really.

Anyway, it was an interesting and exercising excursion, wasn't it? Although now I can't help but imagine that if the story gets told wrong, there will be posters of my likeness everywhere with big (double) dollar reward attached. Not as much as Vash's, obviously, but probably in the millions. At least. My ego may not take it otherwise.

Ah, Vash. Poor man follows a code not too dissimilar to my own, and he has paid a price for it as well. I knew that underneath that trademark red coat was a scarred and wounded body belonging to a man who would do anything not to kill. Nobody said doing the right thing was ever easy. And it can demand some rather weighty acts of sacrifice.

But for people like myself and Vash, those acts are entirely made up for the lives we save.

I hoped he could remain true to that despite his world's best efforts to the contrary. Just as I struggled to remain true to my code and my beliefs.

It was something I needed to keep in mind as my journey moved on toward its inevitable end.