Chapter Four, Curiosity Peaked.

"Just look around you, it's a whole new world!"

Cobalt had been examining the room of what he know knew as the World of Sparkle musuem, which he was still confused of why in the hell anyone would make a museum for it, but after some looking it also seemed to be part of a factory as well. Made sense, I guess. Not much to describe about the place, the huge glass window in the rotunda was shattered and bent pretty badly, getting near it made the geiger counter built into his armor, *tick* *tick* *tick* tick* Meaning out in that park must be irradiated as hell if it's affecting this area, though he armor also warned him that there was a low amounts of radiation further inside.

Interesting, a Cola factory with something causing radiation? Or, is there an opening to the outside? Truthfully, he didn't feel like getting irridiated, everypony in training told him if you get radiation poisioning that a mutated hoof will grow out of your stomach and you'd have to put a bullet in your brain, 'For the Enclave!' As they always said it. But this had made a general fear of radiation poisioning, despite him always being in contact with radiation. Guess the armor's geiger counter just isn't as accurate as a Pipbuck.

There had to be more raiders around here, no way that was their entire garrison. This building is too big for there to have been about, four or five raiders guarding the place. And the mutilated corpes of ponies showed it too. There had to be more.

*WHAM*

A corpse being used as a trap sent him flying back from the stairs and onto his armored ass. The corpse was opened up from crotch to throat and had it's guts ripped out of it, it was hanging on a meat hook that was put inside the body. Away from the mutilated ponies and shit, how did they get a meat hook in a Cola Factory? And since when did we have meat hooks?

Cobalt didn't eat meat, he'd lived in the wasteland for not that long but for anypony three months feels like a long time. And even through that time he had still never come around to eating meat, espescially not another pony. He just couldn't keep it in his stomach, it'd always come back up. He'd always been used to the food Pegasi grew, but of course you can't get any of that down here, so somedays when espescially covered in smog he'd of flown up to the sky and taken some of the food out of the cloud farms above. Beats not having anything to eat, and he needed to keep energy. Only problem now, he couldn't fly, so he needed to find something edible or he wouldn't last long.

Then it hit him. What did Amber feed him when he was on Morphine? Oh shit...

A knife flew by and stuck into the ground right next to his head, he quickly jumped up, ready to fight as another knife flew out of the darkness above and skidded of his armor as he coverd his head. "Damn!" He yelled running for the cover of a pillar.

"Contact...' He chuckled, remembering what he had been trained to sya every fucking time he saw an enemy. He quickly hopped out of cover and threw a plasma grenade up here. After about four or five seconds, a bright green light illuminated the dark upstairs and cry of pain pretty much shook the whole room. Well there goes the element of surprise, or what ever element he had before.

"SHHHHHIIIIIIITTTTTTTTT!"

Cobalt began to walk up the stairs again, cautious os anymore traps, or crazy knife-throwing raiders. As he got upstairs, he saw the goo pile remains of the raider with the knives. "Haha. Fuck you." He chuckled to himself looking at the goo. Always a good sight seeing you enemy turned to goo.

Hey looked around the barely illuminated second floor, the goo pile giving a soft green glow, he carefully stepped around it and the various holes and cracks in the floor. Less he wanted to fall down and hit the ground below, not the best thing to happen including if you weigh nearly a hundred and sixty with your power armor, weapons, and other various equipment.

He was very careful with the second floor balcony as he made his way to the door to another room, he could hear his geiger counter ticking away, getting somewhat annoying, but he knew what it meant, and he had to see what in the hell is irradiated in this place. As he walked into the room, he noticed conveyor belts that were holding what looked like thousands of Sparkle Cola bottles, about all of them seemed empty, though as he walked further into the building, some looked filled, but had some type o glow to them. It could just be Quantum Sparkle Cola, but instead it glowed more green rather than in a rainbow like the Quantum did. Infact, all the filled bottles had a strange green glow.

"Interesting." He mumbled to himself as he approached one of the filled, glowing bottles and picked it up. His geiger counter began clicking feriously. He quickly put the bottle back down carefully. "Damn. That's a lot of rads." He said backing away from the conveyor with large quantities of irradiated bottles.

He continued on through the hallway, keeping to the side of empty bottls to prevent from contracting unneccisary rads from the bottles. The hallway was very dark except the soft glow from bottles of the now poisonous drinks, he stopped suddenly, thinking he heard somepony talking further down the hallway in the next room, he listened closely but didn't hear anything.

"Might be a trap..." He whispered to himself and was reaching for a grenade in his saddlebag when he remembered Amber stopping him before. He groaned and instead of a frag grenade he pulled out a flash grenade and readied to throw it and move inside. He pulled the pin with his mouth and threw it into the other room and covered his eyes and looked away from the doorway.

There was a bright flash of light and a very, very loud *BANG*

Cobalt uncovered his eyes, put his mouth on the trigger for the battle saddle and quickly moved into the room and looked around. Clear. Nothing there. Then a gun fired and the bullet pinged off of the side of his armor and he dived for cover behind a crate as the room erupted in gunfire and muzzle flash from the radiers firing at him.

"Shit!" He yelled from behind cover as bullets hit around the crate. He didn't see any hostages from his inital glance, maybe it's safe to use a grenade. He pulled one out of his saddle bag and pulled the pin, he churcked it from behind cover at the raiders.

"GRENA_" One yelled.
"HIT IT BACK YOU DUMB ASS!" Another one yelled, sounded female. Then he heard the sound of metal hitting the ground nearby him then a loud and powerful force pushed him forward and utterly ripped the crate behind him into shards of wood.

"AH SHIT!" He yelled as he was shot forward by the grenade and pieces of the crate landed on him. "Fuckfuckfuck..." He groaned as he began to push pieces off of himself and was sprayed with bullets by the raiders. "FUCKFUCKFUCK!" He yelled pushing the objects off of him, the bullets were pinging off his armor but one pieces a weak part of his armor as he dived to cover behind a nearby desk. He laid under the desk looking from under the desk trying to find where the raiders were.

Then he noticed the windows in the room in between some cubicles and desks. He had an idea, hopefully the raiders had nothing covering their hooves. He pulled out his other pistol, a really damaged 10mm pistol, mouth held. Hopefully it would hold up for this.

He hopped out of cover and began shooting the glass windows in room, they shattered and rained shards of glass down upon the floor all over the room and ontop of the raiders.

"AGH! SHIT! I HAVE GLASS IN MY EYE!"

"And my hoof in you balls if you don't shut th- AH SHIIIIIIIIIIIITTTTTTTTTTTT!" The raiders yelled in pain, some tried moving to different cover but instead stepped onto the shards of glass which stabbed and cut their hooves.

Cobalt took this chance to charge them, running at them quickly, the glass being crushed under his metal hooves, though he refrained from using his injured right hoof. He bucked one raider straight in the muzzle, then shot him with the plasma caster. He turned his attention to the other raider, who was indeed a mare, then used his armored, and quite deadly, tail to stab her right in the throat, tearing a hole straight through her windpipe. She died with a sickening gurgle, then fell limp. Cobalt dislodged his armored tail from her throat and then looked around the room.

He chuckled a little. "Good riddance, bastards." He mumbled as he continued onto the next room. "Fewer raiders defending this place than I originally thought." He mused as he walked through the room, more mutilated corpses pretty much everywhere, their guts sickeningly decorated the walls the room.

"Bad taste of decore I might say..." Cobalt mumbled to himself walking through the room to another door, this time it was locked. He guessed the raiders just aren't really good at picking locks. What was odd was that the door was the metal bulkheads that you'd usually see in the services tunnels. Must be important then, he began to pull out his tools to pick the lock.

*Click*

The sound came from directly behind him, he felt something poking the back of his head. "Don't mwove fwucker." Came a muffled, yet still harsh, voice from behind him. He stayed calm, well as calm as you could be with a gun to your head being held by a pony who'll most likely vivisect you for pleasure. Yeah, pretty damn calm.

"Say what?" Cobalt asked, still unmoving, but thinking carefully.

"I sawd don't mwove!" The muffled voice said louder, straining to say it clearly with the gun in his mouth.

"I can't really understand you very well... Speak up." Cobalt asked again getting ready to make his move.

The raider turned his head a spit out the gun. "I SAID DO-" Was all he could say before Cobalt bucked him, right in the jaw, hard. The raider flew back and landed on his back with a loud cry of agony, Cobalt kicked the pistol away and made sure it was unloaded then approached the wounded raider who was trying to regain his composure after nearly getting his jaw bucked off. Cobalt pointed his plasma caster right at the raider.

"That's what I thought you said." He chuckled a little then looked deathly serious. "Where does that door lead to?" It was a stupid question, he knew, but there was a possible chance the raider would know.

"How in tha' fuck would we know? We'd never gone in there, dumb ass!" He cackled until Cobalt stomped on one of his legs causing him to cry out in pain.

"Thanks for the useless information and insult which does nothing to change your position at the moment." He said stepping off of his leg, then shooting the raider in the face at point blank range with the plasma weapon, causing him to turn into the glowing green goo like others before him.

He went back to the door and continued to unlock it, sometimes glancing back to see if there was anypony else who'd feel the need to disturb him as he broke two bobby pins until the door finally unlocked. Just because I can pick locks, doesn't mean I'm the greatest fucking pony to do it. It's just a helpful skill when the time comes, and it's really payed off at times too.

The door slid open with it's high pitched sound of metal across metal, opening up to a large room with huge vats up high, bearing the name of 'Sparkle Cola' and bottles on conveyors below, all empty, awating to be filled. What concerned him was the amounts of rads being put off from the vats of the irradiated beverage, which could be potentially very dangerous. He almost decided to not enter it, but his curiosity got the best of him and he entered the bottling room of the factory, museum, thing.

He imagined how busy this place must of been before the war, must've been very interesting to walk around. But all that's left to be interesting are the mutilated corpses that are left on display for sickening reason. Raiders to him were not just plain stupid, but had their own leauge of stupidity. If they saw something the liked, it's theirs. If they like you, they'll torture you longer and more painfully. If you aren't as amusing to them, they'll kill you in an equally as brutal manner. Along with their violent behavior, lack of general education, and over use of any drug they could find... Or anything they could find, they'd of probably tried drinking these hazardous drinks before, and that may just be the reason there are so few raiders defending the place.

"It's a hazardous location, it should be destroyed..." He said, then thinking about blowing the place until it was just rubble, but that would most likely cause all this extremely radioactive material to leak out. It's better contained in here, but something needed to be done. He just couldn't figure out what to do at the moment. For now he just passed through the room quickily and entered the next room, which had pictures and objects in shattered glass cases. It was obviously the musuem part of the building, because aged and ruined photos of ponies, old bottles, and other miscellaneous objects were either in their shattered cases or on the floor. It was an utter mess.

Cobalt walked through, fairly interested in some of the ruined photos, and set up some of the objects that had fallen over back to their correct stands. It was a thing he usually did, out of respect for the old world. He reached another window and looked outside, the burned land that he had seen pretty much everyday. The remains of what must have been a really lovely park, now a sizable crater clearly when the Balefire Bomb hit the city. There was most likely more than one that hit Canterlanta, judging by the extreme rads, but they must have not hit the city directly enough to cause too bad of collateral damage.

Though it still puzzled him, why had he not seen anypony who had been in a Stable? Infact, he hadn't seen a Stable-Tec advertisement anywhere. It's almost like Stable-Tec didn't even exist to these ponies. It was possible, however unlikely, that there are no Stables around here.

He remembered all of the skeletons of ponies hiding in the sewer tunnels, hugging their children, or close family members, hoping that it would provide suffcient protection agains the blast as their world ended around them. How terrible it must have been as many of them burned in those tunnels believing they'd be safe. He shuddered at the thought and passed it off as he sat down and looked at the glow emanating from the crater. How anypony could use such powerful weapons without a care to the thousands, maybe millions who's lives would be exterminated in a matter of seconds was beyond his understanding, even his cold heart couldn't bring him to do it.

He whistled a little as he looked at the distant crater. All was quiet, except for the occasional gun shot or explosion in the distance, he guessed the raiders and slavers must still be going at it. Fucking idiots. He picked up a cigarette that was on the desk next to him and put it in his mouth, slightly chewing on it before throwing it out the broken window. "Must've been hell." He mused still on the thought of what it was like merely minutes before the balefire explosion. Maybe he'd find a recording or something around here, or in some other building that'd enlighten him a little, but he doubted it. Maybe a ghoul who hadn't gone feral could tell him, but he hadn't met a single ghoul not trying to eat his brains, so once again, unlikely.

He sat there for who knows how long, maybe around thirty minutes. Just pondering his thoughts, he'd never really had the time and he didn't understand why in the situation he decided now would be a good time to do so. Must be what museums do to you? He just sat there and looked out the window into the smog covered sky, smoke rising from parts of the city, could be camp fires, but those are never good ideas here. Raiders flock to camp fires, so either you get over the cold of night or you get captured by raiders. Your choice completely.

He couldn't even tell what time of day it was, but by how dark it was around the place it must be night time. The nights were usually long and cold, unless you're inside a building low to the ground. But being low to the ground is often unsafe, due to raiders. He'd sleep in his armor up on the top of a tower any time.

After another thirty minutes pass, he heard hoofsteps from behind. He whipped his head around to see how was there, ready to jump to cover if he had to but only saw Amber. "Oh, hey." He said with a small nod and got a nod in reply. She walked up next to him to see what he was looking at, she shook her head.

"What'd I do this time?" Cobalt chuckled thinking she was nagging him but she lit up her horn and pulled out a small piece of metal and a marker she had found.

Nothing. Just terrible, the war. Feel bad about what happened to Equestria. She wrote down and Cobalt sighed.

"Yeah. Not the best thing that could of happened, but it did. And we're paying the price for it. Well, ya'll are." He chuckled a little. "And now I am too." He said looking back out the shattered window. "Those ponies at your place?" He asked her and she nodded. "Good. More to come, hopefully."

She nodded, though she didn't fully understand what he was meaning.

Cobalt was silently just looking outside, he felt a little tired but he knew he couldn't rest. But he just felt, really tired... Things were starting to blur over time, and he found himself dozing off a little, laying back against the desk. He tried harder to stay awake, but when it comes to sleep. You just can't fight it. And he slowly drifted to sleep next to Amber.

Footnote: Level Up!
New Perk -- Youthful Rebellion!: Your young age increases your love of breaking glass objects like windows or bottles, breaking an object made of glass nearby an enemy with light armor will cause them to suffer a -3 combat skills.

Author's Note

Long chapter, didn't take long.
So I hope you enjoyed it!

I enjoyed writing it, except when I had an anxiety attack when working on it, so I just stopped and took a couple deep breaths and walked around a little to calm down. It seems like my ADD medication causes these, might need to tell my doctor. :/

I tried to make my own Perk, I don't think I did as well so hopefully I'll write up some better ones.

As always, love you all! <3