I was walking walking through the Everfree, away from Zecora's house and back to Ponyville. I'd picked up a certain potion to pull a prank on Vesper.

"Thanks! This is just the sort of thing I had in mind!"

"Just remember what I now say, first you must take DNA."

"Could you stop with the rhyming?"

"Sorry..."

I grinned. This prank is gonna be brilliant!

Before I got back to the library, I stopped by a fast food place to pick up a few pizzas and a couple of milkshakes. I poured the contents of the potion into one of the milkshakes and mixed it in until it looked normal, then teleported to the library's main room. Vesper was rolling around on the ground, looking bored. She stopped when she saw me and moved to a sitting position.

"Why the buck does it take you an hour to buy a bucking pizza?!" She exclaimed.

"I was choosing milkshakes!" I replied in defense. "There were so many choices!"

"There are six!"

"Unless I get an apple or something else and transmutate it into a milkshake, then there are even more!" Vesper sighed.

"Fine, whatever. So what film are we gonna watch while we eat these?" What?

"What's a 'film'?" Vesper looked confused for a second before realising something and facehoofing.

"For bucks sake! Past technology sucks!"

"I'm guessing you were talking about something that's not invented yet?"

"Yeah, you'll see what I mean in about ten to fifteen years depending on how different it is here." Vesper grabbed her milkshake and downed the whole thing. "It really sucks to be in the past sometimes." She blasted the empty cup to ashes and teleported the remains away. I smirked. Here we go! Vesper raised an eyebrow. "What're ya so excited about suddenly?" She coughed and rubbed her throat. "Jeez, my accent hasn't slipped out that much in a long time." There was an awkward silence. "Okay, what the buck are you waiting for?" I groaned.

"Dammit! Why isn't it working?!"

"Why isn't what working?" Vesper suddenly exploded into cloud of dark blue smoke.

"Uh... That." The smoke quickly cleared to reveal a blue and purple phoenix looking down at itself in confusion. The potion had worked. I burst out laughing so hard that fell over. Vesper opened her beak to speak, but just let out a chirp. Her eyes widened. She covered her beak with her wings as I laughed harder.

Twilight burst through the front door.

"Guys!" She called. "Princess Celestia has given me an important test to-! Wait, why is there a phoenix in here?"

"I- I-" I tried to talk but I was laughing too hard. I kicked my saddlebags and the potion bottle fell out. Twilight picked it up.

"'Physical Transformation: Phoenix'?" She read. Her eyes widened. "Wait, is that Vesper?" I managed to nod as Vesper chirped again. "Cloud! Transformation magic is really dangerous! It's nothing like shapeshifting!"

"I-I know! It's fine!"

"Did you remember to take some of her DNA before you did this?!"

"Yeah, I-" I cut off and stopped laughing. "Oh shit..."

"Please tell me you didn't forget!" Vesper squawked angrily and flared her wings at me.

"It, uh, may have slipped my mind..." Vesper jumped onto my chest and dug her talons into me.

"But-But that means Vesper can't change back!" Vesper looked to her in shock.

"I'm sure Rib Remover can-!"

"There's no way to change her back into her original form unless you have some of her DNA from when she was a Pony!"

"It'll be alright! We can just-!"

"She's stuck like that! Forever!" The silence after she said that was deafening. Vesper slowly turned her head to me, her bird-face twisted with rage. I tried sending her a psychic message. Uh... Sorry? You bucking moron... Vesper opened her mouth and blasted my face with a torrent of flames.

"Ow. Okay, I kinda deserved that." I doused and healed my face. "C'mon, Twilight's been wrong before, maybe she's wrong now."

"What's that supposed to mean?!" I ignored her. I really bucking hate you right now...

"At least we can still communicate, right?"

"What?" I threw a book on psychic magic at Twilight with levitation. "Oh." Vesper dug her talons in deeper.

"Ow! Ow! Ow! Okay, okay! Look, I'm really sorry I turned you into a phoenix. It was just supposed to be a small prank." Vesper made a sound similar to a sigh. Just hurry up and find a way to fix me. "Okay. Sorry again." I climbed to my hooves and Vesper flew onto my back. "You seem to have the hang of that pretty quickly." Let's just say this isn't the first time I've had wings, and leave it at that. "If you insist. Oh, Twilight, you were saying something about a test?"

"Uh... Yeah... A place called 'the Crystal Empire' has appeared in the north and Princess Celestia wants me to go there and make sure everything is okay."

"Oh. Do you need me to come with-?" Vesper cut me of with a caw. She'll be fine without you, just fix me. "Okay. See you whenever you get back." Twilight nodded. "Do you know any combat spells in case a fight breaks out?" Like always. Yeah, but normally we start them. Not every time...

"Yes. And even though I'm not as powerful as you two, my energy stabiliser can give me a power boost for a short time." Wait, that's just like...

"How much does it boost you?"

"About four times, but then I use up four times as much energy afterwards." That's exactly like a Support Circle... Why do you have two thought-voices? Reasons.

"Do you realise how similar that is to my Support Circles?"

"Yes, I designed the machine based on how they work."

"Well, that explains that. Have a nice trip." I walked past her and headed back through town, Vesper still perched on my back. Where are we going? "Zecora's house. You only just transformed, so maybe she can do something to reverse it." Hopefully... "Cheer up, it'll be okay." Said the Pony that's still a Pony.

Author's Notes:

Why do I keep starting seasons with weird shit?