I don't know how to begin this, so here we go.

graysean86: Um, jumping the gun a bit on your predictions there.

Zero the fox: Oh come on, they're cool.

SubZPhantomX: Slow down there. Only Cobalt's actually said a thing.

The Marvelous Mathmagician: It's mathmagical! Sorry, just wanted to say that. Dang, you have a lot of questions, and most of them will be answered this chapter. Also, Cadance? No… Also, what do you mean by 'one specifically' in your thing with the wisps?

FanFictionsSins FFS: Oh puns, you never let us down.

TheSonicGamer99: Neither can I.

Zacharythehedgehog: That's a very good observation. I must agree.

Abigail the Hedgehog: Thanks!

Inkwell Lynx: I intend to make it such an installment.

decode9: Frenzy, eh? I hadn't even considered that yet. Ooh, that's gonna be fun.

BLTSweg: It is the impossible.

"This place is epic." Cobalt said with a huge grin, looking around at the expanse of tropical colors and plants spread out before them. "Say what you want about the doc, he knows what he's doing with exterior decoration."

Rainbow mumbled something unintelligible under her breath, which effectively silenced her friend by making him wonder what exactly she'd said.

They proceeded farther into the strange space resort in silence, looking around at what was there quietly.

A few seconds later, Cobalt cleared his throat. "Uh, earlier you said that it… hurt… when I tried to make you laugh." He swallowed, his throat suddenly feeling very dry. "What exactly did you mean?"

Rainbow shook her head, not looking at him. "It doesn't matter. What matters is that we figure out what's going on here." She glanced up from the ground at her hooves, which was where she'd been resolutely staring for quite a while. "And I think we have our first clue."

Cobalt was confused for a moment about what she might've meant, but then he heard, "Git along little alien varmit!" from over the edge of the ridge he was standing on. He peered over it and frowned at what he saw.

There was mostly mass chaos, but he was able to discern individual forms in it that looked almost like parasprites that had undergone some sort of genetic experiment. As he looked closer, he noticed that all these parasprite-looking things could be categorized into distinctly different colors.

Among the mob, he also saw two robots that almost looked like three-dimensional shapes, one being almost a sphere and the other almost a cube. The round one was red and the square one was yellow. Both wielded a net and a ray gun that seemed to be firing green energy beams. The yellow one was the one that had spoken with an accent resembling Applejack's, and seemed more trigger-happy with his gun than his red companion. Larger orange robots that bore a striking resemblance to Eggman himself surrounded them like a bodyguard.

As Cobalt watched, one of the rays the yellow robot shot hit an alien, as the robot had referred to it, and said alien dissolved into a puff of smoke that quickly dissipated into nothingness, leaving no trace that the alien had ever existed in the first place.

Cobalt's expression tightened into an animal snarl, he bared his teeth, and his vision went red. He was utterly furious that the robot had gone so far as to actually kill one of these defenseless aliens, when its mission was obviously only to catch them unharmed.

He didn't remember much afterward, but from what Rainbow Dash told him, he'd gone berserk on the bodyguard robots, smashing them to pieces, ripping wires with his teeth, tearing off their heads… All he knew was that the geometrical robots had fled, and he was standing in the middle of a pile of scrap metal and sparking wires and bleeding from a cut above his eye, breathing heavily.

He must've looked frightening, because all the aliens immediately fled, except for one, who backed away fearfully when Cobalt took a few steps toward it.

"Wait," Cobalt called. "I'm not here to hurt you. I want to help."

A shell-shocked looking Rainbow Dash joined him. "H-he means it." She agreed, nodding. "I think…" she added quietly, glancing nervously at Cobalt, who wondered just how terrifying he'd been.

When the alien still looked uncertain (or, as uncertain as a creature with one eye and small tentacles can look, anyway), Cobalt went on. "Look, I only did… whatever I just did because I saw them kill one of you. I'm trying to protect you all."

The alien cautiously floated toward Cobalt and poked him in the forehead with one tentacle. Cobalt felt a rush of energy as it did this, but did nothing as a show of nonviolence. The alien then did the same thing to Rainbow Dash, who followed Cobalt's example. Then the alien looked at her mane and… hugged it.

Rainbow jerked backwards. "Hey! Stop it!"

Cobalt badly held back laughter. "I think it likes the colors. They are beautiful…" he trailed off and cleared his throat.

Rainbow gently brushed the alien off, blushing. "Er… yeah." She shook her head to clear it. "So, what's your name, little guy?"

The alien made a series of almost squeaking noises, and then shook its head, looking like it was scolding itself and proceeding to hover off toward a bench and return with a scroll and a two vials of some sort of lavender liquid.

"What's this?" Cobalt asked, taking the scroll and unrolling it. It was written in a familiar cursive script. "Uh… so this stuff is translator fluid… it'll translate the aliens… 'I don't have much time to write this… please rescue me and the rest of the elements of harmony'… hey, it's from Twilight!" he exclaimed, seeing the signature. "So she was taken here."

"That would explain why Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy were missing today." Rainbow nodded in agreement. "But are we sure about this stuff?" she took one of the vials from the alien. "What if it turns out to be a trap?"

Cobalt scowled. "So you're saying we can't trust Twilight?"

"So what if I am?" Rainbow's tone changed from suspicious to defensive, her eyes narrowing.

"What's the deal with you two?!" Cobalt demanded angrily. "Why can't you ever just get along?!"

"That's none of your business!" Rainbow retaliated.

"Oh yeah?!"

"Yeah!"

"Fine!" Cobalt snatched the other vial of translator liquid from the alien and drank it. "I don't care what you think, I'm going to find out what's going on here and save our friends!"

"Go ahead!" Rainbow turned tail and stormed away, still keeping the vial of liquid with her, whether on accident or on purpose, Cobalt couldn't tell.

Cobalt might've yelled something after her, but the words died in his throat as he realized that he'd seen tears in her eyes as she shouted those last words at him. The weight of the situation came crashing back down on him, and he sat down, feeling hollow inside.

Good. The voice inside his head spoke up. Feel that sadness and anger. Let it swell up inside of you and–

Shut up. Cobalt thought miserably.

The alien had followed the heated exchange between the two pegasi as it happened, its eye sweeping back and forth like a tennis ball. It looked horribly confused, having not exactly understood all the words of the argument, but sensing that they were both furious.

Cobalt glanced up at the alien, suddenly feeling the need to apologize. "Sorry about that, little guy. I hope we didn't frighten you too much."

The alien made some more of its strange noises, but this time Cobalt got the gist of what it was saying without having to guess. 'You didn't,' was what it now said.

Cobalt smiled weakly. "Thanks. So, what's going on up here, anyway?"

'The bad shapes are killing us and steaking us.' The alien said. Cobalt frowned, but then realized that 'steaking' must mean 'taking', and the 'shapes' had to be the geometrical robots.

"What do they want with you?" Cobalt pressed.

'Our power.' The alien explained. 'We are called wisps, and are made of a power source called diaper-go-on energy that the shapes wish to harness.'

Cobalt snorted with laughter. "Diaper-go-on energy?"

The wisp shook its head, closing its eye in what could only be taken as an exasperated expression. 'Hyper-go-on, strange horse creature.'

"That makes more sense." Cobalt agreed, realizing that the alien must be speaking fast and in a sort of dialectic way, which would make it hard for a basic, highly literal translator to understand, which was where the funny translations were coming from. "So you all are like batteries?"

'In a way, if that is how you see it.' The alien looked offended at Cobalt's frank comparison.

"And if Eggface wants batteries… then he's fueling something huge." Cobalt muttered. "Okay buddy, I'm gonna go and explore and try to figure some more stuff out." He said to the wisp. "Stick here until I get back. I shouldn't be too long."

'I will wait.' The alien consented with a nod.

Cobalt smiled and took off into the odd theme park to discover some more information, and hopefully to find Rainbow Dash while he was at it.

I'm making chapters shorter again like I did in Wind Warrior. Haters gonna hate. But at least I'll be able to think on stuff more.

Radicool223 out!