For a few seconds, there was no movement on either side.

The five mares all stared at Svanhild with varying degrees of shock, and Svanhild eyed them with no small amount of malice and disdain.

It only lasted for a mere moment.

Rainbow Dash turned and charged after Fluttershy, and that's when the spell broke. Svanhild crouched, spread her wings, and shot after Rainbow, intending to cut her off.

"Oh, no you don't!" she cried, pulling back an arm and wrapping into a tendril before lashing out with a blackened whip once more, "you're the first on my list, you piece of—"

The whip made it about halfway to Rainbow before it was halted by an equally black aura mid strike. Confused, Svanhild tried to pull back, only to squawk in surprise as she herself was pulled back.

Looking behind her, she saw that Applejack had lifted herself onto her hind legs and grabbed the griffon by her tail. Applejack grit her teeth and gave a mighty yank.

"Ah, don't think so, sugarcube!" the orange earth pony growled, twisting her body and pulling a squawking Svanhild into an impromtu spin, "ah ain't too comfortable with these odds mahself, but if you mess with one of us, you mess with all of us!"

Applejack spun once, twice, three times, and on the fourth spin she released the griffon, flinging her into the trees on the side of the clearing opposite of Fluttershy.

Rarity stepped up next to Applejack as the black glow of her horn died down.

"You do realize that if she's anything like us," Rarity commented, scowling in the direction Svanhild had been thrown, "that's not going to put her down for any amount of time, don't you, darling?"

The cowpony went to answer, but was cut off by an angry shriek as Svanhild burst through the line of trees and made a charge directly for Applejack and Rarity.

Before she could get too far, a pink hoof slammed into her face mid flight and she was sent careening off to her left and back into the trees.

Both Applejack and Rarity blinked in surprise as Pinkie lowered herself back to all fours and leisurely trotted over to where Svanhild had landed, her expression once more as hard as granite.

"You okay, Flutters?"

Applejack and Rarity looked behind them to see both Twilight and Rainbow Dash over by where Fluttershy had crashed.

Fluttershy for her part, had risen to her hooves and was holding a hoof to her head. She shook it a few times before looking back to Rainbow Dash and Twilight with a slightly confused grimace that turned to dismay a moment later.

"O-Oh, I... I did it again," she said worriedly, "I got angry again, didn't I?"

"No, it's cool, Fluttershy," Rainbow Dash replied, turning to glare at the griffon who was currently trying, and failing, to rain down a flurry of vicious swipes on Pinkie with two massive black claws, "that nag deserved every punch you gave her."

"Well I don't know about all of that..."

The three mares turned to see a large griffon casually walking towards them wearing a pleasant smile. Twilight stepped forward to meet the griffon halfway, her eyes growing dark and a smile just as pleasant crossing her face.

"Svanhild and I had a... very informative conversation," Jeger continued, "if the poor dear is to be believed, it was the lot of you who slaughtered half her town and left her for dead."

"To be fair, we did try to make a run for it," Twilight replied, stopping a yard or so away from the heavy griffon, "I didn't want to start a fight, but... well..."

Her smile widened slightly.

"It all came down to self defense in the end."

Jeger barked out a laugh and shook his head, giving the mare a knowing smirk.

"You didn't leave one single griffon alive."

"Also not true," Twilight replied, matching Jeger's smirk, "the entire town chased after us, and we gave them every chance to flee."

"Oh? Did you now?" the griffon asked in genuine surprise before looking over the field, "I suppose there'd be a lot more bodies here if you had killed them all," he cast a side glance back to Twilight, "unless you consumed most of them."

"Oh I consumed plenty of them," Twilight replied without missing a beat, "but that's beside the point. The reason there's still any town left at all is because half the population was actually smart enough to heed my warning. The other half..."

She chuckled and gave Jeger a toothy grin.

"As I said, it all came down to self defense in the end."

Jeger stared at Twilight for a moment, dropping his jovial tone and pleasant smile in favor of a more calculated look.

"It seems the virus had some rather severe adverse effects on your psyche," he observed, before looking past Twilight, and over to the center of the clearing with another smirk, "it seems griffons are a far more suitable host for the virus... as I had surmised all along."

Twilight frowned and was about to respond when Rarity's cry caused her and the other two to turn towards the sound. Both Rainbow's and Fluttershy's eyes widened in horror at what had transpired while they had been distracted.

Rarity and Applejack had jumped back into the fray along with Pinkie, and—while Twilight had not been expecting much trouble due to the odds of six on two—reality, as it turned out, had been very different.

Twilight, Rainbow Dash, and Fluttershy had turned just in time to see Svanhild duck a straight from Pinkie, and side step another before using her momentum to get behind the pink mare in a flash.

Grinning madly, the griffon snapped a claw out and caught the back of Pinkie's head, slamming it into the ground with enough force to leave a small crater.

Applejack, who had suffered a particularly vicious blow to her neck, clenched her teeth in frustration as she tried to rise on shaky hooves, the heavy wound in her neck closing at an agonizingly slow rate.

She winced and glanced over to Rarity, who had three large, deep gashes in her barrel and a gaping hole in the side of her head, had fallen and wasn't getting back up.

The cowpony growled angrily before turning her attention back to Svanhild. The furious glare on her face died out and was replaced by horrified shock.

Holding Pinkie's head against the ground, Svanhild's other claw disappeared in a flurry of tendrils and was soon replaced with a large black serrated blade that she stabbed into the mare's back.

Pinkie screamed.

Applejack cried out the mare's name.

Fluttershy cried out in both rage and sorrow.

Rainbow Dash left a prismatic contrail in her wake as her own hoofblade was driven deep into Svanhild's chest an instant later.

The cyan mare didn't stop as she used her own momentum to knock Svanhild away from Pinkie who cried out again as the serrated blade was ripped from her back.

It was only once Svanhild was well clear of Pinkie that Rainbow Dash relented in her charge. With a grunt, she yanked the blade out of Svanhild and shoved her further away with the other hoof.

The griffon gave a pained grunt of her own as she hit the ground and rolled to a stop just before she hit a nearby tree. Rainbow Dash landed a few yards away, her hoofblade gone and a cyan hoof in its place once more.

Fluttershy, practically shaking with fury, flared out her wings and prepared to charge in after Rainbow, but the cyan mare's voice suddenly rang out and cut through the haze of anger.

"Don't even think about it, Fluttershy!" Rainbow Dash called out from across the field, "you stay right there!"

Fluttershy faltered, the fury in her eyes giving way to worry and confusion.

"B-But, Rainbow—"

"Nuh-uh, she's mine, Flutters," Rainbow Dash interjected, giving the recovering griffon hen a caustic glare, "and you stay outta this too, Twilight!"

"Dash, this isn't a good idea!" Twilight called back with a deep frown, her dark violet eyes locked on Svanhild, "the tables have turned. Svanhild's gotten used to her new body, and she's clearly a lot stronger than we gave her credit for! We need to—"

"No!" Rainbow shouted back, not taking her eyes off Svanhild, who now stood facing the mare with a fierce glare of her own, "if we leave, she's just gonna follow us! I'm gonna finish what I started and get some payback for Rares, AJ, Pinkie, and Fluttershy... and then we can get the buck out of here!"

"Rainbow Dash, don't be an idiot!" Twilight growled in response, "She's a superior opponent! You need to back down and at least figure out another way to—"

She cut herself off as Jeger stepped in front of her.

"Why not stay and keep me entertained for awhile?" the large griffon asked, glancing over to the pony and griffon preparing to face off with an amused grin, "after all, I'm sure you have plenty of questions for me, no?"

He turned back to Twilight, his grin still in place, and Twilight's nowhere to be seen.

"You weren't just going to leave without getting any answers, were you?" Jeger asked with a mock frown, "I confess, I had hoped to avoid running into you all again, but as a scientist I have to say, this little exchange we've all had has been very eye opening for me."

"Scientist..." Twilight muttered before her eyes widened, "You... you were one of the scientists that worked on the virus! You do know what happened to us don't you?"

"Guilty as charged," the large griffon replied, raising his claws in surrender, "though I left the project some time ago due to a few... issues that arose between myself and my colleagues... as well as an incident I'd rather not discuss here."

Jeger paused and turned back to face Svanhild and Rainbow Dash before speaking again.

"I wasn't just gloating when I said griffons were a more suitable host for the virus," he said, his tone growing serious, "they don't have the same harmonic energy that flows through the body of a pony, and thus it has no drastic corrupting effect on the mind."

He gave Twilight another side glance.

"The only thing affecting Svanhild here is her complete and utter hatred for all of you. That's what's driving her mad, and unlike the lot of you, a griffon is a much better fighter when driven by anger, hatred and revenge. Not to mention we're naturally superior fighters to begin with, what with our predatory nature and all."

Twilight said nothing in response, instead turning to watch Rainbow Dash and Svanhild stare each other down. She grimaced as she thought on Jeger's words.

She found she couldn't refute his claims.

The evidence was clear in front of them, and as much as she wanted to tear both Jeger and Svanhild limb from limb, her anger and sadism had in no way clouded her judgement.

From what she had seen so far, Svanhild's attacks had been far more effective than anything else they had been subjected to, and she was certain it had something to do with the virus.

"Wondering why Svanhild's attacks hurt so much?"

She glanced at Jeger and again said nothing as she waited for him to continue. Jeger obliged, smirking in Twilight's direction.

"I've discovered that no one infected creature is the same as the other," Jeger explained, "as it changes you, the virus develops it's own unique 'signature'. It's that difference that causes a disruption in the bonds that hold the virus together when one infected attacks another."

"And if one infected endures too much damage from another," Twilight surmised in a grave tone, "those bonds begin to break down and their 'signature' gets overwritten, making it easier to destroy and likely consume the other infected."

"Well you are a smart pony, aren't you?" Jeger replied with a proud smile, "that's precisely what happens," he chuckled and turned to face the other griffon and cyan pegasus, "I don't know about you, but I personally can't wait to see the outcome of this struggle."

Twilight didn't like this.

They had numbers, but were horribly outmatched it seemed. If they all attacked at once, and if it had been just Svanhild alone, then maybe they might've stood a chance.

But the only ones remaining were Rainbow, Fluttershy, and Twilight herself, and despite her newfound power and sadistic streak, Twilight still wasn't a fighter, she was a thinker.

She made plans.

She'd have to come up with a plan of action. The situation wasn't in their favor anymore, and they needed to retreat and regroup... but Rainbow Dash...

If Twilight didn't do something, that mare was going to get them all killed.

Next up, a cocky pegasus vs. a rightfully pissed off griffon. Place your bets now!