9: Descend (Again)

"I still can't believe you didn't go for something bigger." Hancock griped, popping out the drum magazine on his combat shotgun to make sure he still had a full load. Piper was pretty sure that was the eighth time he'd checked since they left Goodneighbor.

Piper glanced down to the "new" ten-milimeter in her hand, no different than the last one save for two distinct features; it had a nice big fat silencer on the end, and it was notably more well taken care of. "Well… I'm not exactly ready to go cowboy-ing around getting a bunch of holes punched in me. I tried that the last time and almost died." She laid a hand on the metal plate carrier she'd picked up from the maniac assaultron that ran Goodneighbor's gun shop. It wasn't much, but boy did it make her feel heaps less allergic to bullets.

"All it's gonna take is one of them squeezing off a burst and I think our jig's gonna be up. But, no worries; that's why you're bringing me along, right?" Hancock turned and flashed a winning lipless smile Piper's way. She hated to admit it, but that smile really was starting to grow on her.

She sighed, but nodded. "Alright, well… Shut up about it because I think we're almost there."

"Yeeeees ma'am." Hancock mumbled, his focus returning to the shotgun. Piper wasn't as pleased about his encroaching desire to pump lead into a bunch of pinstriped mobsters. That kind of behavior was borderline raider. Sometimes folk needed to die, Piper got that, but this ghoul was positively jittery with anticipation to get it done. She thumbed at the safety of her pistol like a nervous tick.

The odd pair rounded into view of Park Street. Swan's lake sat looking deceptively still. The gnarled remains of the triggerman were nowhere to be seen, only blood smears disappearing into buildings and rubble remained. The gnarled remnants of his gun on the other hand remained right where it had almost crushed Piper's head; resting like a fucked up modern art piece on the hood of the car she had nearly drowned under. Having heard Piper's story of surviving Swan, Hancock had been eager to see the destruction left behind by such a creature. Piper tapped Hancock on the shoulder and gestured to the machine gun with her pistol.

Hancock tip-toed over to the car she'd hidden behind and leaned in close to look at the vaguely u-shaped thompson. Hancock laughed silently, marveling as he rocked the gun from side to side to get a better view of it all around. "God damn, I bet that fuckin' suit died instantly. You said he got hit with an anchor? Like, from a ship?"

"Shh!" Piper scolded, giving a wide-eyed stare toward Swan's lake. It remained still, for now. "Say it louder, will ya?"

Hancock's voice raised to a dull roar. "An anchor! Like from a sh- Agh!"

Piper kicked him in the shin. She looked deathly afraid and biblically pissed off. His laugh was silent, but boyishly amused, as he reached down to rub at the spot where she kicked. "Alright, alright-" He whispered. "Sheesh. Just tryin' to lighten the mood before we go and send a buncha dudes to the great two-piece tailor in the sky. Since you're not feeling particularly charming…" Hancock racked a shell into his shotgun. "Shall we do this?"

Piper grimaced. No time like the present, and there was no way she could keep putting this off. As the two crept toward the stairs to Park Street station, Piper tried to keep Nat in her mind; the reason for this absolute lunatic's errand. She peeked first, silencer sweeping the bottom of the stairs. Empty; no guards posted up outside. She glanced back to Hancock. "There was three last time, behind the doors, around the ticket booth."

Hancock nodded and took point from there. Both crept down the stairs, guns at the ready, until they stood at either side of the metal doors that led into the station. Piper reached out, opening the ancient metal door with a slow creak. Both grimaced at the noise it made.

Hancock peaked from his side of the double doors, peering the barrel of his gun down what was yet another flight of stairs; escalators that hadn't operated in centuries. He listened, tilting his head. "Voices…" He whispered. "... Three. Let me take the lead."

Piper had no qualms with letting Hancock be the first one to catch a round. She stayed behind him- partially using him as cover- as the two began to creep down the steps. The closer they got to the singular archway that led into the proper ticketbooth beyond (the farthest Piper had gotten last time she'd come here), the clearer the voices became.

A gravelly voice spoke; "I'm not sure why he hasn't killed the bastard yet."

Another voice, younger. "I think they have history."

Another voice, older. "I've killed plenty of boys I grew up with, what's your point?"

The younger one; "Just that maybe questioning the boss isn't such a hot move."

The gravelly voice; "Why, you gonna tell him yourself? Rat on us? Know what we do to rats, kid?"

Hancock rounded the corner from his cover, the silhouette of a surprised and terrified looking Piper beside him. The three triggermen stopped their conversation, all looking to Hancock in a moment of tense silence. Goodneighbor's mayor smiled as he leveled the shotgun at his hip. "This, probably."

The first burst from Hancock's shotgun- two rapid blasts- cut the younger Triggerman in half. The other two, a ghoul and a salt-and-pepper ganger with a crumpled fedora- both turned and dove for separate cover. Hancock turned his barrel toward the ghoul, though a very liberal pressure on the trigger only led to Hancock chewing the hell out of the subway tile around the ghoul, who had made his reaper's sprint to dive through the opening in the cage to the ticket booth.

The older triggerman made for a pillar near where the three had been chatting. When he realized that Hancock's shotgun was more focused on his companion, he found the bravery necessary to peek from his cover, his own double barrel nested in his hands. He leveled the twin barrels on Hancock's silhouette. The older Triggerman did not hear the shot that killed him.

Piper watched from between her iron sights as a spurt of red ejected from the older Triggerman's back as the barrel of her pistol flashed. She expected a scream of surprise, but frankly, Piper couldn't hear a bomb go off over the ringing in her ears from the screaming draconic roar of Hancock's shotgun. It seemed the crazy ghoul was intent on spending every last round in his drum.

Hancock continued to lay waste to the ticket booth. He fired long enough that a fourth Triggerman had crept from a hallway leading deeper into the station to figure out what all the noise was. He hadn't gotten his answer, having caught a stray shredding cloud of pellets to the throat. Hancock fired long enough that the ghoul behind the ticketbooth had begun to scream in panic and frustration. At last, Hancock stopped firing. Gunsmoke left the station's lobby smokey, hazy, and pungent with sharp smells.

"Outta ammo!?" The final triggerman called out, his voice attempting to sound brave and goading but only coming across as what it was; horrified. "Gonna make you eat every one of those shells!" The triggerman rose from his cover, laying the submachine gun down, bracing it on the ticketbooth. "Die you fu-"

A final shell ejected itself from Hancock's shotgun with a flash. The final triggerman's head disappeared into a red chunky mist of bone, brain, and blood. "Now," Hancock said with a wicked grin. "I'm outta ammo…"

The shotgun's drum thumped to the floor almost in sync with the beheaded Triggerman's body, expended. Piper rose from her cover. While Hancock was casual-as-you-will about reloading his weapon, Piper was scanning the room as if at any moment a hundred Triggermen might pop out of the Nuka Cola machine in the corner. "Is that all of them?" Piper asked, shaking.

"In this room, probably." Hancock racked a fresh round into the tube. Gunsmoke still trailed from the barrel of the shotgun. One room down, the whole damn station to go. "You ok?"

Piper hadn't thought of that; was she ok? Had she been shot? Had she even been shot at? She glanced down and patted herself. No blood, no new holes in her coat (that she could tell). "Yeah- Yeah I think I'm good." She moved over to the man she'd squeezed a round into. His eyes still moved faintly, his chest rising and falling with shallow, final breaths. "Oh fuck, I think he's still alive…"

Hancock wandered over to stand next to her, looking down at the Triggerman. "Think I recognize this guy." Hancock squinted his eyes a bit. The Triggerman struggled to roll his head to meet Hancock's gaze. "Yeaaah, I think his name was Kyle or something."

Piper glanced over. "Was?"

A bang, and a flash. Piper practically jumped out of her skin when Hancock fired a fresh round into Kyle the Triggerman's chest, opening it like a shaken soda can when the tab's been pulled. The triggerman's body gave one incredible jerk before going still, a small cloud of blood settling on the station around them. "Jesus-!" Piper screamed as she stumbled a few steps away, grinding her teeth in anxiety, her ears ringing anew. She looked to Hancock, who only seemed to be smiling back at her with childlike amusement. "Scared the shit outta me! Are you happy now!?"

"Pretty happy." Hancock beamed. Both of them could hear a holler from the end of the hallway just beyond the fourth Triggerman's corpse, a muffled voice calling out to ask if everything was alright. Hancock produced a red inhaler of Jet from his coat pocket as he turned to face the sound of a newcomer. "But I think I'm about to be a whole lot happier."