*December 31*

"I still have dreams about it y'know." I say as I pack up a backpack. Rainbow sits on my bed, dangling her back legs over the edge and kicking the air.

"About what?"

"Back on Christmas, when I finally got to fly with you."

"Oh, yeah! I've had dreams about that too! I would give anything to do that again."

"Yeah, too bad its a hard potion to make, so it looks like I'm grounded until Twilight can make another one. Anyway, help me pack, I need to be ready for tonight."

"What are you going to do tonight?"

"Well, its more like what are WE going to do tonight. Tonight is New Years Eve, which means they're going to drop the huge ball in New York, and I want to be there when it happens."

"Um, Matt, didn't you say that New York is on the other side of the country?"

"Well, yeah, but that doesn't matter anymore does it?" I say with a smile as I wave my phone in her face. Her eyes light up as she realizes what I'm getting at. I pause from packing and pull up a video of the ball dropping from last year. It really does look amazing, and Rainbow's expression shows that she definitely agrees.

"So, what are you packing exactly?" She asks as she trots over to the bag on the floor. She sticks a hoof in to try to open it, but I pull her away from it before she can. "Hey!"

"No touching." I say as I pull a large pocket knife out of the bag. "For protection, y'know, just in case..."

"Oh, yeah. Anyway, I'm going to go downstairs for lunch." Rainbow says as she trots out my door. I close it behind her as I fall back onto my back an sigh. I've been under a lot of stress lately, but the weird part is, I have no idea why. Whatever, I can't think about that now. I zip up my bag and head downstairs for lunch. I find my entire family, besides my dad, at the table in the kitchen. Looks like my mom made sandwiches for everyone. Of course, Rainbow just has lettuce and cheese on her's.

"You're so lame." I say as I sit down next to her. I grab a turkey sandwich and immediately dig into it. Rainbow lightly punches my shoulder and laughs.

"Not my fault I have these." She opens her mouth right in my face. I put my hand around her nose and jaw and squeeze her mouth shut.

"At least swallow first, that's disgusting." I say as I push her back into her seat. She laughs it off and continues on her sandwich. I sigh and place my face in my hands as I feel the stress coming back. I think I'm stressing over the midterm exams coming up in a week or two. I could really use something to take my mind off of it. Maybe Twilight has something that could help.

"Rainbow, wanna go visit Twilight?" I ask as I put my dishes away. "I need to get something from her."

"Sure, what are you getting?"

"Hopefully she has something that will take away stress. I feel like a ton of weights are on my shoulders right now, and I think its because of school."

"Oh, huh, I could use something like that too."

"What? What the hell could you be stressed about?" I say with a confused expression.

"I've been thinking about those guys who are out to get you lately. Its kept me up at night, and I've even had these horrible nightmares where you... Ugh, I don't even want to think about it."

"Well, looks like we're going to pay a visit to Dr. Sparkle today. Alright, stand back." I aim my phone at an empty portion of the wall and press the button to activate a portal. An image of Twilight's library appears in front of us. Twilight, on the other end, must have seen the portal open as she waves at us to come in. We step through the portal, and close it behind us once we've been teleported.

"Hey guys! What brings you guys here?" Twilight says as we rub the bright light out of our eyes.

"Just need a favor from you. Do you have any kind of potion that'll relieve built up stress?"

"Um, I think so. Hold on for a second." Twilight disappears into a door that leads to what I guess is a basement. She comes back up a few seconds later with a box in her magic. She places it down on a table and opens the top of it. Inside are a bunch of different colored potions.

"Wow, that's a lot of potions Twilight, what do they all do?" Rainbow asks as she peers into it. Twilight levitates two pink potions out of the box and puts them in front of us.

"I actually don't even know what half of these do, but these should clear your mind."

We chug down the contents, and almost immediately I feel the stress of my finals melt away like butter. Its almost as if I forgot about them completely.

"Wow, that works great!" I say as I toss the empty bottle into the box. Rainbow does the same, and I can tell by her expression that she feels better too.

"Hey... do you guys think you could try some of these out?" Twilight asks with a sheepish smile.

"Actually." I say as I look down at my watch. "I have to help my mom with some chores in a few minutes, but I can take a couple with me, and report back to you the results.

"Oh, okay. I promise that none of them are harmful, I just don't know what they do. If you could try these out, I'd be grateful." Twilight levitates two green potion over to me, and I put one in each pocket. I open the portal again, and wave to Twilight with a smile as we walk back into my house.

"Oh! Matt! Those should last twenty-four hours like the flight potion!" Twilight says just as we enter the portal. I nod in understanding before seeing the flash of light. When we get back, I help my mom clean the house and the yard for a while like I had promised I would. Rainbow just watches with an amused smile, knowing that she isn't helping at all.

"Alright, you're gonna help me, and you're gonna do it now." I say as I shove a sponge into Rainbow's hooves.

"What do you expect me to do? I can't even reach the sink."

"Well if you would stand on two legs..." I trail off. A wet sponge hits me in the back of the head. I turn around the see Rainbow looking at me with an annoyed look.

"Are you making fun of me?"

"I'm saying you aren't much help in your current state."

"Current state!? What does THAT mean?" Uh oh, I think I have officially pissed her off.

"Uh, nothing. Forget I said anything."

"You don't know how hard it is to be me Matt! I have to rely on you to do everything because of these!" Rainbow sits on her haunches as holds up her front hooves before storming off upstairs. I drop the dish I'm currently washing and head after her. I follow her into my room and close the door behind us so we can have some privacy.

"I'm sorry Rainbow, that just slipped out on accident."

"Whatever." Rainbow says as she stares down at her hooves while sitting on my bed. I sit down next to her and wrap my arms around her.

"You know I still love you for you right?" I say as I rock slowly sideways.

"I know..."

"Here, lets try these out, try to change the subject a little." I say as I pull out the two green potions. I pull the corks out of both and hand one to Rainbow. She holds it between her hooves and looks down at it. She brings it up to her lips and chugs the thing down. I do the same and swallow it with a painful gulp. Tastes like liquid fire. Damn.

"Ow, what the fuck was that?" I say as I cough the liquid down.

"Ugh, I don't know. Is it doing anything?" Rainbow asks as she looks at the large mirror in front of us.

"Nothing physically different as far as I can-" I get cut off by a painful headache. I see stars in my vision, and look over at Rainbow. Shes holding her head, and her nose is bleeding profusely. I feel a liquid against my lips and realize my nose is bleeding as well. The pain becomes too much and I fall into unconsciousness.

"Ugh... fucking..." I mumble. I try to open my eyes, but when I do I can't see anything. I can feel the bed sheets against my face. I must have flipped over when I passed out. I go to grab the sheets to flip myself over, but my hand feels... numb. I can't grab anything. Did my hand fall asleep? I guess I was laying down on it and cut the blood flow off. I lift my head up and open my eyes. The fuck is this blue thing in front of me? I push myself up as if I was doing a push-up, and the blue thing follows me. I swat at it, only for a small, sharp pain to shoot through my face. My heart stops as I look down to see what I just hit myself with.

"Ah... I... OH!" I can barely even stutter, much less talk. I let out a short, but loud scream and scramble off the bed. "No! No no no no! This is NOT happening!" I yell as I look down at my HOOVES. What the fuck!? I stumble over to the mirror and all I see is Rainbow looking back at me. This is some trippy horror movie shit. I look up at my bed, which seems so much taller now, and see MY body laying there unconscious. I feel the three new appendages on my body, twitching my wing muscles and tail.

...And then I feel the lack of an appendage. I twirl around in the mirror and lift my tail, only to see what I did not want to see. "Son of a..." And I just now realized my voice sounds high pitched and scratchy. Everything about my body feels foreign, from my mouth, to my legs, to my wings.

I'm about to freak out more when I hear my own voice scream in horror from on top of my bed. I turn around to see Rainbow, who I'm assuming is in my body, screaming while looking down at my (her?) hands. She looks down at me and gasps.

"Surprise..."