5: Ascend

Piper wasn't sure why she had thought that she, some loud-mouthed journalist in a wicked bind, had any of the skills or moxy needed to take down an entire gang of hardened suit-sporting goons. This curiosity struck her most as she barreled back up the steps of Park Central Station, the hollering voices of three men close behind her. "Fuck, fuck, fuck-" She huffed through the slits of her teeth as she climbed the steps faster, faster. She'd almost reached the top when she'd heard the report of automatic gunfire behind her. Her spine almost lept straight out of her back as she heard the bullets buzz past her like furious bees, pulverizing the steps around her while coating her in a fine, ancient concrete dust.

Piper stumbled, careening knee-first into the top-most step and spilling out onto the sidewalk. Lightning-white pain shot from her knee to her toes and throat, but her pace was hindered hardly a bit. She scrambled like a rat in the rain, not daring to yet lift her head. Another spray of gunfire erupted from the mouth of the station's stairwell, followed by the hoops and hollers of the three Triggermen hot on Piper's tail. Finally, Piper got to her feet and began to limp onto the street. She curled around, firing her ten-millimeter blindly. To her surprise, one of her bullets caught the first man coming up the stairs; he had emerged from the station's entrance and had begun to level his tommy gun her way before a spurt of red erupted from his shoulder. With a scream of pain and surprise, the wounded Triggerman went sprawling back down the steps. Piper hoped the mother fucker bounced all the way down to the bottom; hoped he broke his neck, too, while he was at it, thank you very much and don't come again if you please.

"Ha!" She cried out. "Yeah, don't mess with-"

The second man to reach the stairs peppered the area around her with automatic fire, cutting her glory short. She threw her hands over her head, as if that would protect her, and limp-sprinted through the street. She'd reached the other side, diving for cover behind the twisted husk of a car that had blown up god knows how long ago, when she heard something massive erupt out of the pond adjacent the station.

"Swan!" She heard one of the triggermen scream. "Fuck, back inside! Back inside!"

Piper glanced from her cover, hugging her pistol to her like it was the last cup of water in hell. She saw a massive two-story green hulk looming near the pond, painted white and armored in the nautical remnants of the swan boats that pre-war sweethearts might have utilized before the world turned into a radioactive pressure cooker. Its right arm held an anchor, its left ended in the sharp tip of what was once a canoe. It practically unhinged its jaw and roared from its lipless maw before bounding toward the station entrance.

The Triggerman who'd fired at Piper had continued to advance on her, seemingly too caught up in the excitement to hear his friend's warning of the big mean-green bounding behind him. It was only the sound of Swan's roar that got him to stop firing on Piper's covered position and turn around. "Ohhh fuck- Fuck! Wait!" He screamed toward the warning Triggerman, who now began to flee down the steps. "Wait-" The triggerman turned from Piper and made a sprint for the entrance of the station, bounding for it just as Swan did.

Piper rose her pistol and rested her elbows on the hood of the burnt out car, steadying herself. Her ironsights rested clean on the Triggerman's back. Shoot the bastard! But that didn't feel right. Then again, with that hulk coming toward him… You'd be doing him a favor- It's not about winning, no one deserves to get smashed by-

Piper's indecision won out. The Triggerman had almost reached the mouth of the station when Swan stepped in front of him, blocking the entrance with the anchor it used as a mace. The triggerman skidded to a stop, almost stumbling face first into the pavement himself. "Fuck!" He screamed, looking up at the lumbering monster. He rested his tommygun on his hip, spraying a burst into Swan's face. "Fuck- Fuck you! Fuck you, mother fucker! Fuck you!" The bullets left small black bruises wherever they landed, Swan using the canoe'd arm to block as much as it could as it raised its anchor. The triggerman screamed on; "Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck-"

Swan's anchor swung at an alarming speed for its size, cutting through the air with a gut-deep whoosh before it crunch-clanged into the triggerman's everything. The gangster's profane declarations vanished mid-scream. His body- or at least, the four parts it'd been separated into- sailed through the air. Piper watched in awe, until a deafening bang erupted right beside her face; the tommy gun, twisted and mangled, had landed on the top of the car she'd been using as cover, inches from where she'd been steadying her shot. She felt Swan's head begin to pivot toward the noise. Piper dove completely behind the car. "Oh shit-" She whispered, her voice shaking. Distantly, the splattering sound of chunked-gangster hitting the pavement accompanied the now-lumbering steps of Swan making its way over to investigate the noise it had caused.

Piper could feel her heart trying to claw its way out of her throat. "Shit- Shit-" She looked desperately for a place to hide. In the end, she opted to simply roll under the husk of the car. The pit that'd formed underneath it from that ancient explosion was full of water, something Piper hadn't considered. In her attempt to escape Swan, Piper found herself almost entirely submerged in radioactive runoff; out of the frying pan, into the fire. She attempted to gasp in surprise, but was awarded only with a mouth-full of sludge. Her first instinct was to start hacking it up, but the booming vibration of inbound footsteps cut that idea off at its neck.

Piper was as still as could be, soaking, drowning, looking toward the approaching green feet- each about as big as Nat, Piper marveled. It was coming closer. It's going to lift the car. A sudden and horrifying thought. Distract it, Piper, for the love of god, distract that big dumb killing machine! Noise had brought it here, Piper wagered, so noise might send it away. Piper threw the first heavy thing she could think of- her gun- out from the under the back of the car. The pistol went bouncing and skidding across the road. The footsteps stopped, pivoting abruptly. A split second later, the anchor came down on the pistol, turning both it and the square foot around it into a crater of gravel and twisted metal.

Frustrated, Swan roared into the sky. Piper continued to lay still. Even as she felt the runoff she'd swallowed trickle its way through the annals of her lungs, tickling and burning her airways, she didn't make a sound; not a peep. Piper only watched Swan's feet shuffle to the remnants of what had once been a gun, then pivot over to the mostly-intact upper body of the Triggerman. Swan let out a noise that Piper assumed was grumbling as it bent over, picking up the majority of the battered dead man. A moment later, there was a crunch- then a slurp. Satisfied with its violence and its meal, Swan began to lumber back toward its pond.

The Triggerman had been shooting at Piper only moments before, yet suddenly she found herself feeling bad for the guy. She tried to lament on that pity as she fermented in the sludge, wanting very much to think about anything other than where she was. She could feel her insides tingling with the mounting radiation.

When Piper was positive Swan had settled back to rest in its pond, she crawled out from under the car. Then, at last, she coughed. She hacked, wheezed, and spat up black water mixed with fresh spatterings of red blood. Her chest burned horribly, every cough relieving her of toxic water but awarding her with fresh misery. She grabbed at her chest, disoriented. The broken pain in her knee that had hit the step on the way out of the station was miles away compared to this.

Why did I come here? Why did I think I could do this? Piper berated internally as she grabbed at the rusted husk beside her, pulling herself to her feet. She glanced at the tommygun, hoping it was operable. The fact it was more bent than a slinky proved it wasn't. She shambled hopelessly to the crater where she'd thrown her ten-millimeter. Glints of steel among the freshly-pounded gravel seemed to be all that remained of it.

Piper wanted to scream toward the rainy sky in rage and frustration, but both her decaying lungs and the nearby affront to nature slumbering in its pond gave her pause. Her mouth opened, allowing a silent cry as she shook, stomped her foot, shuddering. When she'd gotten as much of it out of her system as she could, Piper's shoulders slumped.

What the hell do I do now?

She considered just limping back to Diamond City, though that thought was short lived. If she arrived, the business with McDonough might have blown over. More likely than not, she'd just be back to pounding at the gates- now with no gun and more rads. Going back down those steps alone gave her about a snowball's chance in hell. So… That really only left one option. Piper took a deep breath, the effort causing a fresh series of hacking coughs as she spat up blackish-red gunk.

She needed a doctor. She needed caps. She needed a mercenary. She needed a gun. There was only one place left for her to find any of those things, all in one convenient chemmed-up slummy package;

Goodneighbor.