Are you serious right now?!
“Oh no…” Silver Chord walked down to the basement with an exasperated groan. He was working in his music room not too long ago when he was alerted by the sound of a loud, thunderous BOOM!, followed by a fit of maniacal laughter. If anything, the pegasus automatically knew who was the cause behind all of this, and it was none other than his fellow Adventure Crew companion, Sparks Intellect. In the most basic of explanations, Sparks was the ‘mad scientist’ of their group, as his cutie mark (a beaker filled with bubbling green liquid with lightning bolts at the top of the beaker) clearly, and bluntly showed, that he had a talent for mixing dangerous chemicals and creating potions. He was moved to the basement after blowing his room up more than three times, as well as setting their house on fire back in Manehatten, and the problem was solved since the basement was fireproof and blastproof. But, even so, that doesn’t mean that the other ponies residing in the Adventure Crew house didn’t experience loud disruptions of the explosive kind.
As he stepped down into the basement, Silver was greeted by the smell of smoke and a huge plume of steam. He started coughing and fanning the smoke with his wings. “Sparks! What happened in here?”
“Um… Nothing!” Silver facehoofed.
“For Celestia’s sake, Sparky!” The pegasus kept walking until he found a unicorn with an electric-blue coat and a messy dark blue mane crouched down next to a table, which was covered in an assortment of different chemicals and scientific do-dad’s here and there. What stood out the most to him, though, was a beaker filled with a glowing liquid that sat before his psychotic roommate. The mixture inside was a rather strange one, and it was something that Silver had never seen Sparks make until now. He had witnessed the scientific unicorn create concoctions and chemical solutions that could freeze whatever the liquid touched in just a matter of seconds, or even a solution that could be consumed and turn the subject invisible for an allotted amount of time. But this one was different, for it began to glow two different colors, ones that changed every two seconds; one second it was blue, and the next it was pink. Silver stepped up closer to it.
“What’s that you got there?”
Sparks shook his head and removed his safety goggles, revealing a pair of light green eyes. “I haven’t the slightest idea what caused a chemical reaction to take place inside of this beaker, nor do I know what it does when ingested or comes into contact with the body.” His horn glowed with a green aura, and he scooped the container up with his magic and floated it in the air between them. “It was rather strange how this happened though. I was experimenting with a new formula that was enclosed within a document containing an unfinished formula that a colleague of mine had sent me two days ago. Being the curious, scientific mind that I am, I followed the recipe until there was nothing left to follow, then added a few elements of my own into the process. I had just added a smidgen of Poison Joke when I suddenly became aware that my new batch of frost potions had just reached the perfect temperature.
“So, I left it unattended for exactly one minute when there was a rather explosive chemical reaction, which caused a rather large cloud of smoke, as well as causing the chemical solution inside to change colors like so. For you see, the color inside was not interchanging like it is now, and it certainly was not either blue or pink. No, the original color was white.”
Silver scratched his head in confusion. “Okay… So what does the original color have to do with the whole explosion and the changing of colors?”
“My guess?” Sparks said. “Nothing. But it really shouldn’t be that much of a problem. I mean, I don’t believe that this is a potion that causes a massive explosion upon impact. For all we know, it could merely be a colored smoke potion that I could introduce to the Royal Guard.”
“Assuming that they trust you, of course.”
“Yeah… Let’s not bring… that up again, please?”
“Hey, guys?” Said a voice coming from the stairs. “What’s going on?” Startled by the sudden interruption, Sparks accidently lost his concentration and lost his magical grip on the beaker, causing it to fall to the floor. The glass shattered, and a bright plume of pink smoke suddenly spewed forth from the mixture, shrouding over the two ponies like an impenetrable fog. They started coughing profusely.
“Dangit, Sparky!” Silver scolded. “You didn’t know what the potion does, and now we might grow a fifth leg or some…” Silver suddenly stopped talking when he noticed that his voice had changed, as in it was very feminine now. Sparks coughing stopped as he took notice of the sudden change as well.
“Well, this is… odd…” Sparks’ voice also sounded very feminine.
“Okay,” the pegasus said. “Maybe it’s just a potion that changes your voice.
“Perhaps it is, and perhaps it’s not. But we can’t be sure until…” The smoke cleared, and the two ponies were able to notice the sudden changes that had occurred. Their eyes now held very feminine lashes, and their physique’s were more slender and less bulky. Their manes were no longer short and unkempt, but longer, fuller, sleeker, and well-groomed. To some, these changes would be extraordinary. But to the two newly-transformed ponies, it was like a nightmare coming to life.
“AAAAGGGHHH!” They both screamed simultaneously. Silver began to stuff his/her head in his/her hooves, mumbling something along the lines of: ‘This isn’t happening.’ Sparks was in a frenzied search for something, scattering various papers across the room.
“Nononono! Where is it?!”
“Hey! I heard a scream! What’s going on…?” A dark silver earth pony with a blue-ish grey mane came hurtling down the stairs, only for him to stop dead in his tracks when he saw the two ponies before him. At first, he held a deadpan expression on his face. But after staring for what seemed like hours, the stallion burst out laughing. “Oh, this is too rich!”
“Shut up, Stormy!” They shouted simultaneously once more, only causing the earth pony to laugh even harder. Silver, rather annoyed that his/her friend did this to him/her, he/she looked at him/her rather angrily.
“Can you fix this?” He/she asked angrily.
“I don’t know!” Sparks shouted back. “The catalysts shouldn’t have triggered a reaction on this scale! I don’t even think that there is a single potion in the world that can do something like this! The only thing that I can think of that can do something like this is...” Sparks looked up suddenly, a light bulb appearing directly above his/her head. “It’s the Poison Joke! It has to be the Poison Joke!”
Silver’s tilted his head. “Okay, we know what’s responsible for our changes, but how do we counteract the effects?”
“Princess Twilight Sparkle mentioned a case of Blue Joke before somewhere in a memo that I found at Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns. It said that the Zebra that lives in the Everfree Forest has a remedy that can cure us.”
“Wait, cure? It’s not like it’s a disease, is it?”
“Well, no, of course not. But cure is a relative term. I could have said ‘fix’, ‘reverse’, ‘solve’…”
“Forget the synonyms, man!” Silver snapped. “We have to find that Zebra so she can help us fix this!”
“In our current state, we’d be the laughing stocks of the town. Do you really want Lyra to see you like this?” A moment of silence lingered between them, save for Stormy’s laughter.
“… Okay, fair enough. But we can’t just sit here and wait this out! We have to think of some way to get to the Zebra!”
“Well…” The unicorn scratched his/her chin. “We could ask for Stormy to send for her. I mean, he’s the only one who’s seen us like this.” At that moment, Stormy Skies stopped laughing.
“What now?”
“You heard him... Or her! You have to find the Zebra from the Everfree so she can help us find a way to fix this!”
“You mean Zecora?”
“Yes, yes! Just find her, please!”
“Hm…” Stormy scratched his chin and smirked. “I don’t know. What’s in it for me?” At that moment, a potion filled with a fiery-red liquid was thrown at him, giving him little time to react as he ducked down and allowed the bottle to break on the wall behind him, the liquid inside creating a short burst of fire before quickly vanishing. “Yikes! Okay, okay! I’m going!” He went running back up the stairs, leaving Sparks and Silver to their own musings as they tried to find ways to fix their predicament.
“Phew!” Silver said in a sigh of relief, and with his normal voice. “Glad that’s over with.”
“Oh yeah.” Sparks leaned back in the large spa tub. “Who would’ve thought that the remedy to Poison Joke was just a simple bubble bath? Zecora, you truly are a genius with potions and remedies.” The zebra laughed softly.
“Do not thank me, my dear friend, for I would never let you stay gender bent. But please, my dear little pony, will you make a promise to me?”
“Anything!”
“Messing with things that you are unsure of is very unwise. For you see, Sparks Intellect, someday it will end in your demise. So I please, I beg of you now, to never do something like that again, lest it end your life.”
Silver shook his head. “Yeah, it’s probably going to happen again, but we’ll be there to help him the next time he blows up the basement.” He placed a reassuring hoof on his friend’s shoulder. “After all, I know that he’d do for the same for us.”
“Just as long as you are no longer the opposite gender, I presume?” Zecora said with a wink. The three exchanged a short bout of laughter before Silver’s expression grew serious.
“Seriously, don’t do it again.”
Sparks raised his hoof in a mock salute. “Yes, sir.”
Author's Note
This is one of my gifts to you, my followers, for tolerating me and actually enjoying what I write. Like, no joke. I was genuinely surprised that I made it to forty-three followers, and I will still be surprised if I make it to my fifty follower milestone.
Once again, thank you all so much for everything that you've done. Consider this story my gift to you. Which is kinda' ironic since today is my birthday. 
