I learned a new pressure point from writing this chapter. Enjoy.
There is some gore in this chapter. You have been warned.
This is probably my favorite chapter.
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Jack sat down on one of the stools of Power Noodles, Piper sitting down next to him.
This is going to be a good day. Do not let yourself slip, Jack thought to himself. This was supposed to be a relaxing day, and no one would tell him otherwise. His own thoughts weren't going to ruin this day for him. Please don't be afraid of your own thoughts.
Piper tapped Jack on the shoulder, causing him to look her way. "Hey, Blue, how about I introduce you to my confidential informant?" Piper asked, a wry smile on her face. She turned to the broken robot. "Takahashi! Thank you for meeting me here."
"Nan-ni shimasho-ka?"
"No. But we've been traveling together for ages!" Piper continued, her hands gripping the edge of the bar.
"Nan-ni shimasho-ka?" Takahashi reiterated the Japanese phrase. Piper turned to him, her smile not leaving her face.
"Sorry, Blue," she started. "The gig is up. Takahashi told me everything." Everything?
Shush, self.
"Web of lies, gone. I mean, I bet your name isn't even Blue, is it?" Piper joked, playfully punching him in the arm. Stupid, you can calm down.
Jack took a deep breath before laughing nervously. "I'll pay," Jack breathed before pulling out a small sack of caps.
"You sure? I can pay if you want," Piper objected.
"Yeah. I've got plenty of caps," Jack answered, pulling out enough caps to pay for two noodle cups. "Here you go, Taka. Two cups." The robot took the money and quickly turned away, grabbing two cups and filling them with noodles. Takahashi hurriedly spun back around, handing the cups to them.
"Thanks, Taka," Jack thanked him and went to eating his noodles. "You know, it's a real shame we can't fix the bot."
Piper nodded in agreement. "McDonough refuses to fix him. He thinks it's a symbol to the culture of Diamond City."
Jack chucked. "A symbol to the culture, eh? Don't you mean a symbol to the corruption and how crooked Diamond City is?"
Piper laughed in response. "True. Crooked robot, crooked city."
The two sat in silence for a few minutes, both eating their noodles. They weren't nearly as good as pre-war noodles, not at all. But they were good enough. Jack swirled the noodles around with his chopsticks, tangling them around the wooden sticks. I wish I had some butter or something else to put on these. That was another thing he really missed about pre-war life. The food back then was amazing. So many different choices. And pizza! How could he forget about the pizza? Nobody would believe him if he tried to explain the old world foods. Then again, it's hard enough to believe that Jack was from before the war. He smirked, thinking of something totally cheesy. Pun intended.
He was going to say it out loud, but it came out as a mumble. "This could totally be a Lady and the Tramp moment," he spoke quietly, remembering that Piper would have no idea what the hell he was talking about.
"Hmm?" Piper asked, looking over at Jack, chopsticks in hand.
"N-Nothing," he replied, leaning into his bowl. "I just thought about something really cheesy and I said it out loud. Don't worry 'bout it. It's a pre-war thing, I don't think you'd really get it."
Piper frowned. "Aww. Alright, then."
"Sorry. It's just not really interesting," he explained. "It's stupid."
"If you say so."
It seems like yesterday I was sitting at home, with my parents and sister, watching that old damn movie, Jack thought, stuffing noodles into his mouth. He truly did miss his old life sometimes. He missed the smell of the newspaper that came every day and the hot coffee. He missed the food and the people. He missed the crickets chirping at night, right outside his window, and the cicadas buzzing in the summer. Jack missed every little tiny aspect of it. It wasn't until after he killed Kellogg that the realization actually hit him; I can't go back. I'm stuck here. This is my new life.
Jack returned to reality at the sound of a low, raspy voice near him.
"If it ain't Piper and Vaulty themselves," the security guard began. He didn't sound like a regular guard to Jack.
"I'd appreciate if you wouldn't call me that," Jack shot back. There was something off here, but Jack couldn't put his finger on it.
"I can call you whatever I want, Vaulty," the guard said, his Bostonian accent causing him to drop the 'r' on 'whatever.'
I don't feel like getting into a fight, Jack thought as he shook his head and leaned into his bowl once more.
"Ya know, Wright, McDonough doesn't want ya comin' here anymore," the guard continued on. Jack looked up from his bowl.
"What, to Power Noodles? You're crazy. I live here, I eat here," Piper objected.
"McDonough's orders, Wright. Now leave, before I'm forced to take ya down to the Suite," the guard threatened, grabbing Piper's shoulder. Jack stood up so fast that he almost had to sit back down due to the vertigo.
"Don't you dare put a hand on her," Jack growled, furrowing his brows and clenching his fists. The guard raised his pipe pistol up to Jack's head. He felt shivers run down his spine as he looked down the barrel of the weapon, but he kept his composure. The color of his eyes slowly evolved into a deeper blue as anger built up in his chest and throat.
"Shoot me. I fucking dare you," Jack spat. He squeezed Piper's arm, letting her know that she needed to move just in case. He could feel her arm shaking as he let go. She stepped back.
"You'd love that, would ya?" the guard shot back. Jack grabbed a fistful of the fabric of his jeans, trying not to let his anger get to him.
Well, he tried not to let it get to him, anyways.
The guard shot his pistol. The sound made Jack's ears ring indefinitely as he ducked out of the way, grabbing the arm of the guard and twisting his arm. He could hear another person walking up to him. He turned his head so fast he almost gave himself whiplash. The man wore DC security guard armor, and he was taller than Jack. Before he knew it, he felt the man press his thumb violently under his chin, and then passing out.
/\/\/\/\
He awoke in a poorly lighten room, his hands and feet tied together.
Fuck. Where is Piper? He waited for his eyes to adjust to the sudden dark of the room before searching the room. They were in a small room, Piper sitting in the opposite corner. She seemed as if she was unconscious. Jack ran through many ideas as of how to escape. My knife! He pulled his knees up to his chest and reached for his knife in his combat boots. After several failed attempts at reaching his knife, he finally got it. He placed the handle of it in his mouth and cut off the ropes around his hands before untying his feet. Idiots. Whoever brought us here didn't even make an effort at taking my stuff off of my person.
He scrambled over to Piper's side, untying her wrists and feet. He stopped for a moment to check if she was breathing. Jack watched as her chest slowly rose and fell. He sighed with relief as he looked over at her wrist. He noticed fresh blood on the cuff of her sleeve and on her glove. There were two tears on her glove, one on the cuff of her sleeve. He rolled up Piper's sleeve and rolled her glove down a bit to find three slashes on her arm, all seeming to be fresh.
Jack pulled out a stimpack and shoved it into her arm. He needed answers. So much for a relaxing day.
He pressed a kiss to her head before stalking over to the door, and tried the handle. Locked. He ducked when he heard laughter and saw a man walk by his door. Jack pulled out his box of bobby pins and his screw driver, placing them inside the lock. After a few broken bobby pins, he managed to unlock the door. He crept out of the room on the balls of his feet and eyed his bag laying down against the wall. He picked up Piper's pistol and slid it across the floor into the room behind him. Pulling out his silenced pistol, stalking through the hallways of what seemed to be like an old military outpost.
As he made his way through the endless hallways, he killed what he thought were a bunch of mercenaries. He eventually reached the main room. The two perpetrators that attacked them in Diamond City were standing there, surrounded by multiple other men. The two men standing in the center, still donning DC gear, looked extremely familiar. The stronger looking man spoke first.
"Aye, Vaulty decided to wake up. What took ya so long?" the man asked. Jack quickly looked at his pip-boy for the time. 1:56pm, January 25th, 2288.
We've been gone for two days. I hope Nat isn't fucking worried sick…
"Where's yer reporter girl? Uh… Piper! That's 'er name. Where is she?" the taller, skinnier man said.
Everything clicked at that moment.
Hey-hey, isn't that… uh, Tim and Dennis? The guys that talked trash about Piper and Nora back at the Dugout Inn?
Oh, I think it is.
Hm. Sic 'em.
Jack's eyes turned a deeper blue as he aimed his pistol at the head of Tim and shot before anyone could even think of attacking him. Tim fell with a loud thud, and the next thing Jack new, Dennis was charging towards him. Jack quickly ducked and moved out of the way, allowing him to fall to the floor as he quickly shot two men down with his pistol. He heard running footsteps coming from behind him. As the man reached Jack, he grabbed the head of the man and brought his nose down on his knee before snapping his neck. Two more men attempted to attack him, failing miserably as they ran into his outstretched arms. Jack pushed them down to the ground before grabbing the incoming fist of another incoming mercenary from behind him, and flipping him, the man landing on top of the other two.
Let your anger burn furiously! Show them who Jack the Ripper is! You are not their fool.
No, no, no, no.
Yeah. Yes. Yes.
Jack shouted as he pulled out his Ripper and began cutting down the remaining men with extreme ease. Dennis watched in horror as Jack gruesomely killed the last merc, the man on his knees. The Ripper hacked away at the man's shoulder as Jack sliced it through his body horizontally all the way down to his waste. The dead man fell to the ground, a wry and insane smile spread across Jack's face.
"L-Look, Vaulty, w-what do you want? I-I-I'll give ya anythin'! Anythin' to keep me alive!" Dennis spluttered.
"I want you dead," Jack growled, his voice deeper and raspier than he expected it to be, the crazed smile never leaving his face. He heard quiet footsteps behind him, but that wasn't of his concern at the moment.
Jack lurched forward, grabbing the mercenary by the throat and pushing him against the wall.
"V-Vaulty! W-W-We were kiddin' about all that bullshit we said 'bout ya girl," Dennis said, trying to convince Jack to let him go in any way possible. Jack was not buying it at all.
"The Ripper," Jack corrected him with a low growl. Come on, self. Snap out of it.
Ignoring his own pleading thoughts, he tightened his chokehold on the man. End him.
Giving in to his contradicting thoughts, he took out his knife and slowly pierced Dennis's chest with it. Jack watched as the word 'Killer' that was carved into the blade disappeared as the blade sank further into his chest. He let go of his chokehold on Dennis, his lifeless body falling to the ground. He pulled the knife out of his chest and wiped the blood off on the man's DC security guard armor.
Eyeing a jacket to his right, he pulled it off of the dead body and pulled it on over his blood stained flannel shirt. The jacket seemed to be a sniper jacket. It looked a lot like MacCready's duster, but he didn't really care as he buttoned it up. He grabbed a DC helmet and looked down at it, wiping off the blood that was splattered across it.
You're just Jack the Ripper, now.
Jack's eyes slowly faded back to the blue hazy color they were as he looked behind him. Piper was standing at the doorway, covering her mouth with her fist.
"Oh, god," Piper began. "Ugh, I think I'm gonna be sick…"
SHIT.
Jack fell to his knees, splashing in the blood underneath him as he realized what a massacre he just caused.
"Blue… dear god…" he heard her mumble as she walked into the room, stepping over the bodies of the fallen mercenaries.
What have I become? I'm sorry.
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Okay like I am legit sorry for how much gore is in this chapter, holy shit.
The fight scene and shit was much better in my head. That's one thing I've got to improve on; fight scenes. Try listening to Message Man by twenty one pilots while reading the fight scene. Maybe it'll make the scene better. I dunno.
Hope you enjoyed!