Twilight awoke to a sharp pain in her back. She opened her eyes. It was already dark outside and the dim moonlight shown through her bedroom window. Had she really slept through the rest of the day?

She got up and looked at herself in her mirror. Her eyes widened in shock and horror at what she saw. There were a pair of small, bug-like wings growing out of her back!

She let out a scream. A few seconds later, Spike came running into the room. His eyes widened as well when he saw her wings.

"What happened to you?" asked Spike.

"I don't know. I woke up with these," said Twilight as she looked back over her shoulders at the wings growing out of her back. They were quite small, but she guessed that was because they weren't finished growing. They were like bug wings, or fairy wings. She found she could even move them at her will. It felt so strange to her, a new set of appendages growing out of her.

There had to be a reason for this… and a way to fix it. Twilight ran passed Spike out of her room. She rushed downstairs to her bookshelves. She began looking for any books she thought might help her figure out what was happening to her. She selected a number of them and levitated them off the shelves into the air to inspect them.

As she reached out her front leg to point at one of the books she wanted, she noticed the weird rash on her legs had spread even more, covering a greater portion of her legs then before, making much of her skin black and hard. She now realized that was no ordinary rash. What ever it was, it had to have something to do with all the other stuff that was happening to her.

Spike hurried downstairs after Twilight. He quickly began looking through the bookshelves with Twilight, trying to find books that might help them solve this mystery.

They were up for hours, searching through books. Twilight was currently flipping through a book called 'Super Naturals', trying to find if this book held any solutions.

Twilight and Spike considered that poison joke might be the culprit, but that only grew in the Everfree Forest and she hadn't even gone anywhere near that place recently.

Then Twilight remembered and looked up a rare species of fairy ponies she had heard about called Breezies, who had wings similar to the ones she was sprouting. Could she somehow be turning into a Breezy? But that didn't make any sense since Breezies were tiny things and she didn't appear to be shrinking. Nor did it explain what was happening to her legs the severe rash growing on her legs.

Twilight suddenly heard a loud yawn behind her. She turned around and saw Spike, tiredly dragging another pile of books to her. It was then that she realized that it was way passed his bedtime.

"Oh, Spike, you should be in bed. It completely slipped my mind how late it is for you."

"But you need help," argued Spike tiredly.

"No buts," said Twilight. "Go back up stairs and get some sleep. Owloysius will help me tonight."

The owl, perched nearby on a small table, gave a hoot at his name being mentioned.

"Twi-" began Spike.

"Now, Spike!"

"Alright," the young dragon sighed and walked out of the room to their bedroom.

Twilight got back to her books. Due to her long nap earlier that day, she didn't feel tired at all at the moment.

Twilight was still going through books by the time the first few rays of the sunrise were beginning to peak out over the horizon. She had been up all night, and she still hadn't found anything that would explain why she was suddenly growing fairy wings, or the rapidly growing black rash on her legs, or her food cravings.

Twilight began to pick up another book with her magic when her horn suddenly stopped glowing and began to just throw off small purple sparks. Then her horn stopped doing anything altogether. The book she had been levitating at the moment fell to the floor with a thud.

Twilight was confused. She tried to pick up the book again with her horn, but nothing happened. She gasped as she realized that her magic had now stopped working for some reason.

"Oh, great," she thought to herself as she brought her right front hoof up to her horn. "As if this day couldn't get any worse."

As she touched her hoof to her horn, she noticed her horn seemed to move a bit, like a loose tooth. Worried, she kept feeling her horn, dumbstruck at its wiggling, until she suddenly heard a snap, and then to her horror, her horn broke off completely and fell to the floor at her hooves. Twilight screamed, waking up Spike upstairs.

"Twilight?" shouted Spike. He jumped out of bed and hurried down the stares to her aid. Spike saw Twilight sitting on the floor and a split second later he noticed her horn was gone.

"You're horn!" Spike shouted, now noticing it lying on the floor in front of her.

At that point, Twilight fell to the floor and broke down crying. On top of everything else, her horn falling of was her breaking point. Unicorn horns didn't grow back, and if they couldn't reattach it, she would never be able to use magic again! It would be like if Rainbow Dash lost her wings. She just couldn't live without her magic. She would be like a regular Earth pony for the rest of her life. Sure, that was okay for someone who was born an Earth pony, but for her it would be hell. "What's happening to me?" she wailed, tears streaming from her eyes. "I don't understand. Why are these awful things happening to me?" She buried her face in her hooves and continued to cry.

Spike went over to Twilight and put his hand on her head to try to comfort her. He then noticed more subtle changes that had happened to Twilight during the night. The rash on her legs had spread even more, now covering almost the entire length of her legs in hard, black skin, but not seeming to spread any further. Just her legs. And her bug-like wings had nearly doubled in size during the night, but they still weren't big enough to fly with yet.

"Um, look on the bright side," said Spike, trying to come up with something to say that might comfort her. "Soon you might be able to fly like a pegasus pony. That'd be pretty cool, wouldn't it?"

Twilight took her hooves away from her face and glared up at him, obviously not amused.

"Too soon, huh?" asked Spike.

Twilight sighed. She had literally gone through every book in the library overnight, and none of them had anything in them on this. She realized she needed help.

"Spike, I want you to go to Zecora's and bring her here. Maybe she'll know what's happening to me."

"Why don't we both go to Zecora's?" asked Spike.

"Because I don't want anypony to see me like this! It's too embarrassing. Just bring her here."

Spike decided not to argue and nodded his head in agreement. He walked out the front door and started heading to Zecora's hut out in the Everfree Forest.

Meanwhile, back inside the library, Twilight picked up her horn off the floor with her mouth, went into the kitchen, and put it in a glass of milk to keep it fresh in the hopes that it could be reattached.

An hour later, Spike and Zecora were walking up to the front door of the library. Spike had explained to their zebra friend what was happening to Twilight as best he could and Zecora was more than willing to help them.

Spike opened the front door. "Twilight, I'm back. I brought Zecora."

Twilight walked out of the kitchen into view. Spike and Zecora both gasped. In the time that Spike had been gone, Twilight's mane and tail had started falling out. Only a few thin strands hung loosely from her head and rear, leaving her looking almost bald. Her wings had grown even bigger, her eyes were all bloodshot and glazed over, and her legs were now completely furless and covered in hard, black skin. They also looked slightly misshapen and thinner then they had been.

There were some crumbs around Twilight's mouth. She had obviously been eating in the kitchen, but at the moment that didn't matter.

"Zecora," sighed Twilight with some relief. "Am I glad to see you."

Zecora immediately began examining Twilight, looking her over from head to… what was left of her tail. They told the zebra about her behavior and her appetite as of lately as she asked them questions.

"When I try to come up with a diagnosis, I'm afraid nothing comes to light," said Zecora sadly. "But if you ask me, it would seem you are taking on the characteristics of a parasprite."

"A parasprite?" thought Twilight aloud. Then she remembered. She looked over at her dragon assistant. "Spike, didn't you say you saw a parasprite the other day?"

"Yeah. It was flying around your ankles while you were-"

"Teleporting!" Twilight finished for him. In her mind, the pieces of the puzzle were starting to come together. She slapped her hoof to her forehead. "Oh dear Celestia."

"What is it?" asked Spike, confused.

"It's all starting to make sense now," said Twilight. "That particular teleportation spell works in three parts. The first part brakes down the object being teleported at the molecular level, for easier transport. That's why it allows greater distance travel. The second part is the actual teleporting, and the third part is reassembling the molecules back into their original shape. But the instructions in my book warned to not teleport more than one object at a time because the results can be unpredictable and dangerous. When I teleported the other day, I must have accidently teleported the parasprite along with me, but since I was only trying to teleport one thing, the spell went wrong and the parasprite and I must have somehow gotten… spliced together." She gulped. "And now I'm changing into some sort of… pony/parasprite hybrid."

Spike and Zecora gasped and their eyes went wide in shock.

"Half pony, half parasprite? You mean like a… pony-sprite?" said Spike.

"Yeah. I guess we could call it that," shrugged Twilight. "A ponisprite." Now it all made sense. Her unusual appetite, her wings, her horn falling off, her compulsive actions. It was because she was becoming like a parasprite. And the rash on her legs wasn't really a rash at all. The skin on her legs was turning into an exoskeleton. Her legs were mutating into bug legs.

Zecora hung her head sadly. "I know you came to me looking for a cure, but of such an ailment, I am not sure."

But to her surprise, Twilight didn't appear upset. In fact, the mutating purple unicorn was now over at her bookshelves, searching around for something with haste.

"That's okay, Zecora, because I think I might have some good news. I think I might know a spell that will remove all the parasprite DNA and turn me back to normal."

She turned away from the shelves and looked around at the books scattered on the floor, looking for a certain one. When she found the one she was looking for, she tried to pick it up with magic, but then she remembered her horn was broken off. So unable to use magic, she bent over and picked the book up in her mouth and carried it over to the table. She set it down and opened it up with her nose, flipping through the pages until she found the right page.

"Here! This spell should remove the parasprite DNA from my body. It's pretty complicated, but doable. However, we'll need another unicorn to cast it since I can't use magic anymore."

"I'll bet Princess Celestia could cure you easily," said Spike. "Why don't we send her a letter?"

Twilight shook her head. "Unfortunately, Princess Celestia is visiting Manehattan right now and she won't be back until tomorrow."

"By tomorrow it may be too late," said Zecora. "Your changes are increasing at a frightening rate."

"Exactly," said Twilight. "Well have to ask Rarity to do it."

"Rarity?" said Spike. "I don't know, Twilight. Are you sure Rarity will be able to cast such a difficult spell?" Although Rarity was a unicorn, and able to use magic, the only spells she knew were levitating objects, a spell all unicorns are able to master with ease, the gem finding spell, and a topiary art spell.

"We don't have much of a choice," said Twilight. "Rarity will have to do." Suddenly, Twilight felt a stabbing pain in her eyes. She let out a scream of pain and pressed her front hooves against her eyes. It felt as thought her eyeballs themselves were becoming too big for her sockets somehow. Like something was pushing out behind them inside her scull.

Spike and Zecora watched horrified as Twilight dug her own hooves into her eyes and actually began to scratch them out. Small chunks of eyeball and blood started falling from her eye sockets behind her hooves to the floor as she pushed her hooves into her eye sockets as deep as she could get them. She was scooping out her own eyes like they were mashed potatoes. When she finally looked up, gasping in pain and exhaustion, Spike and Zecora gasped at what they saw. Where Twilight's purple eyes had been, there were now two hard, green orbs. Twilight now had compound eyes, like a bug.

Twilight looked at Spike and Zecora with her new eyes. She couldn't see as well as she'd used to. It was like her compound eyes were made up of millions of tiny little eyes, but everything was a bit blurry and it was kind of like looking through a kaleidoscope.

Oh no, the changes are coming faster, she though to herself in despair. Twilight collapsed on the floor, going into the fetal position and hugging herself, her body shaking a little. She would have cried, but no tears came to her eyes because she no longer had tear ducts. "Oh, I don't want to be a bug!" she moaned.

Zecora turned to Spike. "Spike, hurry and go find Rarity, alright? I will stay hear and watch over Twilight."

Spike nodded and hurried over to the door. Before walking out, he looked back at Twilight. "Don't worry, Twilight. We're gonna get you back to normal. I promise."

Twilight didn't respond or make any sudden movements. Spike hurried out the door, closing it behind him, and ran off to find Rarity.