Everyone in the clearing stood completely silent, as if a spell had been cast to take away their vocal cords. Then, in unison, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo yelled, "What?!"

From there, things went pretty much downhill. There was a lot of yelling over each other, Discord trying to zap Xenia far away from him and failing, cause she had taken that much power, the remaining Crusaders blabbering on and on while looking between the draconequus and the human, and Xenia trying to give Discord the power back, which meant both of them going in circles as Xenia hoped touching him would reverse the process, while Discord refused to let her near him, not keen to have all his power drained again, like with Tirek.

Finally, a voice shouted, "Enough!"

All four heads snapped towards the owner, while the rest of their bodies froze. Standing there was Zecora and Apple Bloom. Zecora had a saddlebag on her this time, and a less fearful, but still hard, look in her eyes. "For a few seconds I leave, and already there is disharmony!"

Discord pointed an accusing lion paw at Xenia. "Yeah, well, she took away my power!"

While Apple Bloom gasped, her mentor sighed. "Afraid of this I was, no stopping this there appears to be." Discord's mouth dropped. "You knew this would happen?!"

Wincing at his screeching tone, Zecora lifted a hoof and turned it from side to side in a 'so, so' motion. "Suspect I did it would be true, I just wished it wasn't so soon."

Even more confused than Discord, Xenia tilted her head. "What are you talking about? And can you please stop rhyming?"

Ignoring her second question, the zebra answered, "Alchemy, it is true, will bring the future to you. It is here that I see a darker awakening."

Apple Bloom, who was simply going along with this now, for she was used to her teacher's weird antics, nodded. "She's right, you can see the future with alchemy. I haven't reached that level yet, but I should know, I have a cutie mark for it after all," she said, showing her flank, which had something that appeared to be a tattoo on it. The tattoo, or cutie mark as Apple Bloom called it, was an erlenmeyer flask with a strange green liquid inside that was giving off a red smoke. The red smoke rose from the flask and took the shape of an apple.

"Uh....cool tat- cutie mark. So, let me get this straight. You're saying I'm going to bring about some sort of Dark Age?" At Zecora's unsure look, the human girl sighed. "Oh for crying at loud. No one has a straight answer these days."

Feeling a little offended, even though she wasn't really supposed to give straight answers in the first place, Zecora said, "The future is uncertain, change it can and will, but for any case, things will not be easy."

Raising an eyebrow, Xenia looked at Zecora again. "So, there's a fifty-fifty chance I could end up destroying this place, wherever I am."

Now it was Zecora's turn to give a raised eyebrow in Discord's direction. The draconequus instantly found his twiddling talon and lion paw to be more interesting than the ponies around him. "Ah, yes. We told our names, but nothing else. Well, Xenia Mersla, welcome to the Everfree Forest, in the domain of Equestria, land of magical talking ponies. And other mythical things."

Xenia snorted, shaking her head. "Ya don't say?" she said sarcastically.

That was when another awkward pause began. Glancing around at the strange creatures surrounding her, Xenia noticed something. It was about the thing Apple Bloom mentioned earlier, she had just now noticed almost all of them had the same things. "Hey, what's with the tattoos you call cutie marks?"

This seemed to bring a more lively mood about in the clearing, at least when it came to the old Crusaders. They all were about to reply, but Discord beat them to it. "Cutie marks represent the one thing that makes a pony different from every other pony. When anypony finds that one talent they're really good at, their cutie mark will magically appear and let them and everypony else know it."

Scootaloo, although a little sour she didn't get to tell, beamed, proudly showing hers off. "Yep!" she exclaimed, grinning down at hers, which was a midnight blue scooter that seemed to have stars in it, with a moon that almost actually seemed to glow directly in the middle of the handle bars. "Not only does it show how good I am with my scooter, it also represents me as Princess Luna's personal student!"

Shrugging, Sweetie Belle stepped up next to Scootaloo, allowing Xenia a peek at hers. "It's not as interesting as Scootaloo's and Apple Bloom's, but I still love it," she informed the human with a much more gentler smile than Scootaloo's. Her cutie mark was a trio of different colored bells, one purple, one light blue, and one yellow, all tied together with a red string. The bells were obviously being rung, for a rainbow of musical notes surrounded them.

Xenia blinked and looked back at Apple Bloom's. "Huh. Very interesting. You ponies all find your purpose in life and stick to it. That never happens in the human world. Most die without knowing what they were really meant for."

Sweetie Belle gasped, shock clear on her face. "That's terrible! I cannot a imagine a world full of wandering, uncertain souls! Perhaps it really is a good thing Discord brought you here, and the dark future refers to if you go back!"

Xenia considered the thought and shrugged, saying, "Guess it doesn't matter now. Because of several peopl- I mean ponys' stupidity, Discord no longer has the power to send me back."

More silence followed as the group mulled over their options. Then Zecora sighed. "Stay here, you cannot. To town must you go till we fix this, hopefully within the next season," she said, then thought for a second more and added, "perhaps a trip to the princess may help. Her skill of knowledge might be quite a help."

Xenia shot her attention to Zecora, only having been half-listening. "Princess? Like princess, princess?"

Nodding her head in confusion, Zecora watched Xenia leaped to her feet, having taken a seat on a rock. "So, if you guys are powerful, I'm assuming this Princess is even more so. Which means she might know just what spell or whatever to use to straighten this mess out!"

Apple Bloom spoke up, shaking her head. "Twilight and the others may have a lot more magical skill than us, but I think interdimension travel is a Diacord-only thing."

Xenia rolled her eyes, turning her attention to Apple Bloom. "Who said anything me going back just yet? I meant maybe they know how to get Discord's powers out of me and back to him."

Suddenly, an arm was wrapped around her back, and she was being pushed forward. "Alright, to Twilight's we go!" exclaimed Discord, who was still forcing Xenia to move forward. The human raised an eyebrow at this. "Uh, Discord? Don't ya think it unwise to have even a clawtip on me? My brain might react again, since it clearly doesn't like you now."

The draconequus immediately backtracked, flying away from the human. "Oh, uh, yes. How about you lead the way...Zecora?" he asked, saying the name of the first pony his eyes landed on.

Huffing, the zebra silently turned and walked into the woods. Taking this as a yes, the others followed.

While they traveled, Xenia found herself at the front of the group, standing directly besides Zecora. It was then a thought occurred to her. "Hey Zecora, if you were so freaked out about me, why did you come back there to explain?"

The zebra looked up at the human, who was taller than even Celestia. "All that blabbering, you see, reached even my hut of alchemy. Shut you up, I had to, for listen to much more I wished not."

Laughter followed them all the way to Ponyville.

¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤

Of course, the first thing the ponies of the town did was open their mouths to scream. When they saw Discord, however, they shut their jaws and continued as normal. Damn, dude must be weirder than I thought.

On the outskirts of the town rose a giant crystal castle tree thing. Honestly, I had no idea what the fuck it was meant to look like. We were heading straight for it, and it was pretty clear this was our destination. However, before we could get there, a violet pony with both wings and a horn emerged, followed by some weird green and purple lizard that reminded Xenia of a dragon.

One look at us, and she forgot what she had come out here for, marching directly over and shooting daggers at Discord. "What've you done, and what is this thing?"

Xenia was about to speak, feeling greatly offended, but Scootaloo spoke first. "No, don't blame him, this one's on us. Kinda. Look, when we were fillies, there was this whole thing, and then Discord owed us, and we had to wish for something other than cutie marks...and well, here we are about ten years later, and our wish is granted!" she told the princess with an awkward laugh.

Twilight looked puzzled. "Owed you? How did he-" Discord interrupted that train of thought before it left the station. "Anyway, this a human girl named Xenia. She's here from a place called Earth in another dimension."

The princess sighed and facehoofed, then began massaging her forehead. "Discord, what have us princesses told you about bringing things from other dimensions to Equestria? Just send it back already."

Now extremely miffed, Xenia said, "Excuse me, but I am not an 'it'. And he can't send me back, cause, well...man, I'm fucked when I tell her this, aren't I?"

Nods from everyone but the confused and concerned Princess Twilight. "Ya see, Princess, I kinda, might sorta done something when Discord entered my brain to give me flashbacks about how he came to make the deal with these three. Ya know, my mind kinda reacted, and, well... I drained Discord's power," she finished flatly.

Twilight stood there a while rebooting her brain. Then she asked, "Say again?"

Xenia threw her hands up in frustration. "Oh for crying out loud! Look, it was purely accidental! I don't even know how the fuck it happened! I don't think it's exactly normal for a person's brain to conjure up a shadow-fire-shooting shadow to defend their mind and drain an all-powerful chaos being of its magic! That's why we came to you! You're supposed to be some real smart princess, and we were hoping you might find a way to figure out what's wrong with me, as well as siphon Discord's magic back to him!" she said, stomping her foot in frustration.

Pop

"Oh sweet baby Jesus..."

Floating directly over Xenia's head was a familiar pink cloud, which was already starting to drip chocolate rain. Everypony stood there gaping as a yellow flash brightened the inside of the cloud, then the sweet rain started to really pour, soaking Xenia in seconds.

Shoulders drooping, Xenia put on a very unamused and scowling face. "Well shit."

Discord could not help himself, even knowing how it was the human had come to possess the ability to make cotton candy clouds appear. His laughter filled the town, making some ponies pause to look over, then immediately away, not wanting to be part of the crazy scene going down in front of the castle.

As Discord began to calm down, he realized he had six pairs of eyes giving him their best death glares, there would have been seven had Spike not left when things got too weird for him, which was just after him and Twilight stopped in front of the odd group.

Putting on his best horrified face, Discord gasped, clutching his chest. "Oh no! Your looks are actually killing me! Ahhhhh!" he said in fake panic, his body slowly dropping toward the ground, like a flower petal that had broken off from the rest of the flower.

He then laid there, trying his best not to move while the mares and human girl continued to glare. Finally, Twilight sighed. "Ok, I'll see what I can find. In the meantime, until this whole power thing is figured out, I want you inside my castle. The last thing we need is another Tirek disaster, even if it wouldn't be on purpose this time. Agreed?"

Xenia only needed to think for a second, then she nodded. "Sounds fair. Besides, all these ponies are way too weird for me, this whole 'equine ruling the world' business will take some getting used to."

And so began Xenia's long and exhausting, yet fulfilling, stay in Ponyville. Too bad only Zecora was ready for the future they had been warned about. Had they been more prepared, many deaths could have been avoided.