The Draconequus with the Dragon Tattoo

by A M Shark

Chapter 3. Ecclesiasties 4:9

Chapter 3

"Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor."—Ecclesiastes 4:9

---

Fluttershy stared at the huge pile of papers in the middle of the cabin's main room.

It didn't seem this big when it was in the wagon, she thought. The longer she stared at the pile, the more she began to feel that she'd taken on an impossible task.

Granny Smith's part of the plan seemed to have gone off without a hitch. Fluttershy had drunk the potion and it had turned the butterflies on her hindquarters into coral-colored apples. When Granny Smith had started introducing Fluttershy to the rest of the extended Apple family as Apple Butter—a pegasus who had just recently learned that she was distantly related to them—they had all welcomed her cheerfully. When Apple Butter had claimed that she wanted to research the family members to learn more about them, they had all been quite ready and willing to cooperate. In fact, none of them had shown any hesitation at all. None of them had acted as if they had anything to hide. Normally this sort of attitude might have helped set Fluttershy at ease, but with Applejack's murder in mind she had barely been able to suppress a chill rolling down her spine as she met pony after pony. Somewhere behind one of those smiles had been a killer, and a killer who had managed to hide his or her crime for the past ten years.

It had taken Granny Smith and Fluttershy some time to gather all the records from the different family members. It would have been quicker with Apple Bloom and Big Mac along to help, but Granny Smith hadn't wanted to tell them about her belief that a fellow family member had murdered Applejack.

"It was hard enough telling you," she'd said to Fluttershy. "Hard enough thinking about it myself."

When they'd finally gotten back to the farm and hauled the papers into the cabin, Granny Smith had gone off to rest. She had needed to lean against Fluttershy for support and it made the pegasus realize just how much the excursion had taken out of the old pony.

Now Fluttershy was alone in the cabin, apart from Angel who was sleeping in his bed. Glancing down, she saw that the apples on her hindquarters were shifting back to butterflies. Granny Smith had left the potion, extra ingredients, and the book containing the recipe with Fluttershy in case she might need to use it again or brew more of it, but Fluttershy doubted it would ever come to that. Considering how bad the upcoming storm was supposed to be, she'd probably be spending her whole visit in the cabin. Spending it looking through those papers for a lead on Applejack's killer.

Looking back at the huge pile of papers, Fluttershy felt as if she'd been charged with the task of shoveling a snow-covered field with a drinking straw. But then she thought of what Granny Smith had said about not having long left to live, and she thought of Applejack, dead these past ten years while her killer went free. She couldn't let them down. She had to at least try. She had to start somewhere.

She picked up a paper near the top of the pile and began to read.

---

Princess Twilight Sparkle and her assistant Spike were both fast asleep, completely unaware of the intruder prowling in the study.

Discord had guessed correctly that the spell keeping him imprisoned had weakened since the royal sisters were no longer connected to the Elements. He'd also been able to gather that this new princess wielded the Element of Magic, and that five other ponies now wielded the other five Elements that helped power that magic.

His first thought had been to steal the Elements and hide them where none of the ponies could find them, but after considering this, he decided against it. Better to trick the wielders of Loyalty, Laughter, Generosity, Honesty, and Kindness into being the opposite of their Elements. Then the Element of Magic would be useless. Rather than cutting off a snake's head to kill its body, this would be like cutting off an octopus's arms to incapacitate it. It should be interesting, a perfect chance to stretch his abilities after all that time alone. Plus, watching them try to imprison him only to find that their weapons were useless would be much more entertaining than just leaving them unarmed and helpless.

Yes, he decided. Take them out and there's nothing this new princess or any other can do to stop you.

---

Fluttershy let her head thump lightly on the stack of papers she'd been slogging through. Who am I kidding? I don't know how to do this.

She'd spent the past few days reading through the records, but the words, the names, everything just seemed to slip out of her head. It didn't help that she wasn't even sure what she was looking for in terms of clues. I need Twilight. I bet she'd be able to find Applejack's killer...

Fluttershy's head shot up. Why can't she come help me? I could write to her and explain what's going on. Even if she can't come, maybe she can give me some pointers. It can't hurt to check and I'm not getting anywhere on this on my own.

She quickly jotted down a letter explaining her situation to Twilight. She briefly debated whether she should tell Twilight about Granny Smith's belief that Applejack had been murdered. The old earth pony had been pretty adamant that the rest of the Apple family not know about Fluttershy's real reasons for studying their records, but it would probably be best to let Twilight know all the details, if only so that the alicorn could give her the best pointers.

As Fluttershy stepped outside, the wind whipped her mane out behind her and nearly tore the letter out of her mouth. Oh my goodness, I didn't think it would get this bad this quickly.

The falling snow was already up to her fetlocks. She picked her way over the cold fields to the farm's mailbox and shoved the letter in. She tried to run back to the cabin but it wasn't easy on the slippery ground. Once she got back inside, she let the heat wash over her. She looked out of one of the windows at the darkening landscape. It would be hard to travel in that weather, she thought. What if Twilight can't make it? What if she doesn't even get my letter?

---

Meanwhile far above the cabin, ghostly transparent figures in the rough shape of ponies circled through the air.

---

Three down, two to go. Discord thought as he materialized outside Fluttershy's cottage. He had found Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, and Rarity earlier and had psychologically manipulated them into becoming the opposite of their Elements.

The pink earth pony had been the easiest to trick. He had brought up her secret fear that her many pony friends were not really her friends, but just a lot of ponies who hung out with her and secretly laughed at her behind her back. From there it had been child's play to steamroller her mentally.

Rainbow Dash had been almost as easy to trick. All he'd had to do was start prodding at the fact that being loyal to some would require her being disloyal to others.

Rarity had resisted at first, but when he planted the idea that her generosity was wasted on those who didn't appreciate it, she had gone down as well. Now he just had to take down Applejack and Fluttershy.

The cold wind sent shivers through his long snake-like body as he peered through the cottage window. Seeing no sign of the pegasus, he teleported inside to begin searching for her. Once inside he noticed that the house wasn't much warmer than the world outside. If it weren't for the fact that there was still plenty of furniture in the cottage, Discord would have guessed that no pony had lived in it for some time.

Puzzled, he flopped down on the couch and scratched his head. Maybe this was the wrong cottage.

No, he'd looked all over Ponyville and hadn't seen any other cottages like this one.

Maybe she was staying with a friend. Maybe he'd missed something when he was looking through Twilight's report for information on her friends.

He teleported back to the outside of the Canterlot Castle and a gust of wind promptly slammed him into the side of a tower. Wincing, he snapped his talons, intending to make the wind disappear. It died down to a soft breeze for about five seconds. Then another gust suddenly surged up and took its place. Deciding that trying to make each of these gusts of wind magically go away would be about as effective as trying to destroy an ant hill by stomping on every individual insect, he did his best to ignore them as he inch-wormed his way up the tower toward Twilight's room.

Peeking in the window, he saw a gray mailmare with a letter clamped in her mouth, apparently looking around for the princess. After several seconds of fruitless searching she shrugged her withers and put the letter down on Twilight's desk before trotting out of the room.

As soon as the mailmare was gone, Discord teleported into the room and saw that the letter was addressed to Twilight, from Fluttershy. And what have we here? he mused as he flashed the letter into his paw, unfolded it, and scanned its contents.

Well, well, well. So that's where you're hiding. And you want Twilight to come help you solve this little case regarding another one of your friends. He almost laughed aloud, but managed to restrain it to his thoughts. Oh, you'll get some help, my dear. But it won't be from your princess pal.

Comments

[A M Shark]

5691744
Glad to hear you're enjoying it and don't worry. While I'm uploading the finished chapters up here I'm also at work on the next fanfiction chapter and will update as soon as I can.

[A M Shark]

5691427
Glad to hear you're looking forward to the end. I might be uploading my finished chapters here but I'm also working on the next unpublished chapter and hope to have it ready sometime in the next week or two. And thanks for commenting on my additions to Discord's appearance. I've been wondering what people thought of those so I'm glad to hear you feel they fit with the story even if they're not really essential to the plot.

[A M Shark]

5691315
Wow. That's a lot of %. I'm honored to hear you think that and that you're enjoying the story so far. Also glad to hear you feel the whole tattoo thing works for Discord here. That's one thing I've been wondering about quite a bit since like you said I just gave him the tattoos to make the title work. (Though I have had a lot more fun with them than I expected to.)

[nightwalker]

This gave me a good excuse to rewatch the original movie. I am looking forward to seeing where this goes (and, well, reading ahead on fanfiction).

The fun part about crossover fiction like this is trying to guess who gets reassigned what role. I do look forward to seeing who winds up being Martin, naturally, and hope that you manage to put an interesting twist on it. And of course what kind of sordid past you come up with for the Apples and the Oranges.

[A M Shark]

5695981
Glad to hear your looking forward to seeing where this goes. Though I should probably let you know I took a lot of liberties storywise (translation I cut a bunch of the R-rated stuff out of the story.) Still, after you've read ahead on fanfiction or I've finished up loading the rest of these chapters, please let me know what you think about how my "remake" holds up against the original book and/or movie.

[Alex Prior]

Welll well well. Windigoes? Interesting.

Also, Discord is quite an evil one still. Which is rather... different from the one his current portrayal is based on.
Interesting. I shall continue.

[A M Shark]

6384286 Yeah, he's kind of in his "Return of Harmony" phase at this point.