Once the Summer Sun Celebration was over and everypony was safely back in Ponyville where they belonged, things made another temporary return to normal, though there were still plenty of day-to-day adventures, most of which, to Discord’s irritation, he was off in Canterlot for.
He did, however, thoroughly enjoy Fluttershy’s stories. He got a kick out of the story about the supposedly ‘haunted’ castle that ended with the six girls creating their own scrapbook/journal thing.
“I’ve started a trend! Ours is still better, though, I’m sure of it!”
He was surprised to hear that the book character Daring Do was a real-life pony, and that Fluttershy and her friends had met her.
“The books are so good the characters literally walk off the page,” he joked, which was funny because he’d never actually read the books. Reading took too long and was too normal for him to consider doing for any length of time.
One of his absolute favorites, though, occurred just after the official for the Equestria Games had left and the fillies who called themselves the ‘Cutie Mark Crusaders’ had been chosen to represent Ponyville.
Fluttershy returned to the cottage one day just after Discord had returned home. She’d been gone all day fixing up the castle of the two sisters, though Discord didn’t know why, since nopony really used it anymore.
She came in with an amused smile on her face, shaking her head.
“Oh, I know that face,” Discord said. He propped his chin up with his hands. “There’s a story to tell, isn’t there? Spill!”
“Well, we got sucked into a comic book today,” Fluttershy said, laughing. “I suppose these things really ought to stop surprising me.”
“How in Equestria did that happen?” Discord asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Spike bought an enchanted comic book from a stand in Canterlot that pulled us inside to take the places of the main characters. “
“Who did you turn into?” Discord asked eagerly. Fluttershy blushed.
“Um… Saddle Rager,” she said.
“Sounds interesting,” Discord said slyly. “What were your super powers?”
“Um… well, when I lost my temper I turned into a huge monster,” Fluttershy admitted sheepishly. Discord blinked, then started laughing hysterically.
“Did you ever actually use your powers, then!?” he guffawed.
“Um… the villain sort of flicked a firefly, so…” Fluttershy said.
“Enough said,” Discord wheezed. “Oh, I wish I had a picture for the scrapbook!”
“No, it’s embarrassing!” Fluttershy squeaked.
“Well, luckily for you there’s no way for me to get a picture,” Discord huffed. “The idea of you losing your temper is rather intriguing, though. I was starting to think it wasn’t physically possible.”
“Um… yeah,” Fluttershy said nervously, thinking of the time at the gala and after her training from Iron Will, neither of which she was proud of.
“I’m assuming the experience was added to your groups own little scrapbook?” Discord asked.
“Um… yes, why?” Fluttershy asked.
“Oh, didn’t you know? I pilfer it and look it over all the time,” Discord said with a grin. “The pink one usually draws pictures, so if I’m lucky…” Fluttershy hid her face in her hooves, mortified. Discord chuckled.
The next day Discord proudly displayed the newest page of their scrapbook, which held a copy of Pinkie’s childish drawing of Fluttershy the rage monster. Fluttershy pouted adorably, but Discord stayed strong and refused to take it out.
While many of life’s day-to-day adventures made great stories, the first to have any noticeably lasting impact occurred on Apple-Bucking Day. Discord was taking the day off, or more accurately had been told by an irritated Celestia to stay away for a few days after his ideas for fun were turned down and he retaliated by turning her throne into a toilet with streamers on it labeled ‘Party Pooper’. He hid out of view when there was a knock on the door, and Fluttershy opened it to see Rainbow Dash.
“I don’t know what’s going on, but Applejack’s called a code red at Sweet Apple Acres and needs our help,” Rainbow said quickly.
“Oh dear,” Fluttershy said worriedly. “Code red? I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“I’ll meetcha there,” Rainbow Dash said, and flapped off.
“So I suppose tea time will have to be put on hold?” Discord said, causing his eclectic tea set to vanish with a snap.
“I’m sorry, Discord, but code red must mean something terrible. I’ve never seen her get higher than a yellow-ish green before,” Fluttershy said worriedly. “I promise we’ll have tea when I get back.”
“Alright. Let me know if the experience is interesting enough to make it to the scrapbook!” he requested.
“Alright,” she agreed, and ran off in the direction of Sweet Apple Acres. She came back that evening with a story, though not an overly interesting one.
“Bats attacking the orchard?” Discord asked. “And they made you use the Stare? It doesn’t work on me, but it’s effective to everypony else.”
“I didn’t want to,” Fluttershy admitted. “Taking away the thing that makes vampire fruit bats vampire fruit bats just felt… wrong. Just like I would never ask you to give up chaos. It’s who you are. All it needs is a little direction and it can be very helpful. The same is true of the bats, but I just couldn’t get Applejack to listen.”
“Well, I’m sure everything will work out in the end,” Discord said. “Shall we have tea, now?”
“You can have tea, but what really sounds good right now…” she trailed off and wandered into the kitchen. Discord shrugged and followed to see her grabbing some apples out of her fruit bowl. He wasn’t overly concerned until instead of eating them like a normal pony, she bit down with- were those fangs!?- and sucked the juices out, one apple at a time until they were all gone.
“Fluttershy?” he asked cautiously. She turned to look back at him and he noticed that her eyes had gone red and her ears were jagged. She hissed at him and flew out the window into the evening sky.
“Well that can’t be good,” Discord said worriedly. He followed her to Sweet Apple Acres and after a few hours of chasing finally pried her from one of the trees, though by now her wings had changed into bat wings, too. “Fluttershy, snap out of it! You are not a vampire fruit bat! Just imagine what Applejack would say if she found out you were sucking her apples dry!” Fluttershy blinked a few times disorientedly and gradually shifted back to normal.
“Wh-what happened?” Fluttershy asked dazedly.
“I think something went wrong with that spell,” Discord said. Fluttershy looked around the orchard and gasped just as Discord teleported them back to the cottage.
“Did the fruit bats start sucking the apples dry again?” she asked worriedly. ‘She can’t remember?’ “Oh dear…” ‘Well, I guess the effects were temporary, since she’s back to normal, now. There’s no reason to worry her.’
“You can deal with it tomorrow,” Discord said. “Go get some sleep.”
She was completely normal the next day at breakfast, so Discord left for Canterlot, putting the odd bat transformation at the back of his mind. When he got home, there was a note left on the inside of his door that Fluttershy was going to be out late with her friends and not to worry, but Discord decided to stay up to wait for her, just in case.
She came back with a frown on her face.
“What’s wrong?” he asked immediately.
“Um, Discord?” she asked. “Yesterday, when we turned up at Sweet Apple Acres and I couldn’t remember how… Was I turning into a bat?”
“Did it happen again!?” Discord demanded. “Once you went back to normal I thought it was done with. Will it happen again? Do you need help?”
“It should be fine, now,” Fluttershy said. “Twilight reversed the spell and the bats are all back to normal, and I should be too. Tomorrow we’re building the sanctuary I suggested.”
“Well, that’s good, then,” Discord sighed. Soon his face morphed into an evil grin. “And I managed to get an actual photograph of this transformation, so I’ve got some scrapbooking to do!”
“Oh dear,” Fluttershy sighed. “I was afraid of that.”
The next day the Vampire Fruit Bat Sanctuary was sectioned off, and the ponies all gathered at Fluttershy’s to write up a journal/scrapbook entry on the experience.
“Stand back!” Pinkie exclaimed. “I vant to suck its juice!” She pounced on the apple that Applejack had offered and sank her plastic fangs into it. Everypony laughed.
“Well, I’m glad you’re back to normal, now, Fluttershy,” Twilight said with a smile. “We’ll see you tomorrow?”
“Of course,” she replied with a nod. Her friends all returned to their own homes, and she settled onto the couch, ready to take a nap and sleep off the last few exhausting days. She was woken up by Discord returning home.
“Oh, sorry Fluttershy. Didn’t mean to wake you,” he said.
“It’s alright,” she assured him. She yawned widely. Once she’d recovered she saw Discord staring at her. “What?” she asked self-consciously.
“Your fangs are back,” he said with a deep frown.
“Really!?” Fluttershy asked worriedly, clapping her hooves over her mouth and feeling the tell-tale fangs with her tongue. “Oh no! Maybe the spell didn’t really work! What if I turn back into Flutterbat!?”
“I thought you said that the bats went back to normal. So their desire to be vampire fruit bats must be at least mostly gone out of you, right?” Discord asked. “Maybe this is just an after-effect.”
“I don’t think that’s all it is,” Fluttershy said miserably. “I’m craving apples.”
“Maybe if we just keep you away from apples it’ll go away?” Discord suggested. Within a few days it became evident that this was not the answer, because not only was Fluttershy more desperately craving apples with each coming day, but bat-like traits were slowly manifesting again. Finally, it got to be too much, and she flew off to the orchard again, though luckily she landed in the Sanctuary, anyway. Discord chased her down again, but it turned out to be unnecessary, because after draining a tree full of apples she was completely back to normal.
“I guess if I make sure to get my apple a day it’ll keep the vampire fruit bat away,” Fluttershy joked. “As long as I keep my cravings under control, I guess I’ll be fine.”
“You don’t want to go to Twilight to see if she can fix it?’ Discord asked worriedly.
“Oh, I wouldn’t want her to feel responsible,” Fluttershy said quickly. “She’d just blame herself that the spell didn’t work, and it won’t be any trouble now that I know how to handle it. There’s no need.”
“If you say so,” Discord shrugged. So, from that day on, Fluttershy had an apple every day with breakfast, and the problem never surfaced again, though Applejack was a bit confused about Fluttershy’s increasingly common visits to the market stand.