Bright Fang crouched low, staying out of sight just past the trees beyond the clearing. He growled deep in his throat, trying to resist every instinct that told him to jump in and fight alongside his new pack leader.

The monstrous wolf resisted.

A few years ago, Bright Fang wouldn't have been able to hold himself back like this. Giving into his more feral urges and charging straight into the fray to protect his pack leader would've been the first and only option.

Ever since the black monster had come and killed his old pack, everything had changed... he had changed. Bright Fang had by no means been a stupid wolf—he had been blessed with the name 'Bright Fang' for a reason—but it was only after he had changed that he was able to overcome raw instinct like this.

It was... a strange and unfamiliar thing to experience for the large wolf. He nevertheless welcomed the change, as once he got used to it, it allowed him to hunt far more effectively than he ever could before.

For a long time, he was the alpha of the forest. He was his own pack leader, and for the first time in his life, he relied on his own strength instead of relying on his kin.

At first, it was exhilarating—freeing in a way the wolf didn't know how to express. But over time, something began to eat away at Bright Fang, something he couldn't quite put a beastly paw on.

It wasn't until she came along and overpowered him, that he finally figured out what was missing—what he was missing.

Companionship.

Solidarity

Unity.

Bright Fang missed his pack. He missed being part of a family, part of a cohesive whole. Without realizing it, he found he wanted to be part of a pack again.

Then she had come.

She smelled different than Bright Fang's other prey. She smelled just like the Black Monster did, but... different somehow. The wolf felt as though there was nothing to fear from this one—not like with the Black Monster.

She smelled like kin.

For all his newfound intelligence, Bright Fang could not wrap his mind around what his instinct was telling him. She clearly wasn't a wolf like him, yet she exuded a familiar scent that made Bright Fang want to challenge her for the position of pack leader as though she was.

And so he did.

And he had been thoroughly beaten.

Bright Fang had wanted to start a new pack, and so had searched for more of his kin intending to assert his dominance, but when he stared into her eyes, something changed.

Suddenly, being the alpha of his own pack didn't seem all that important. Suddenly he was looking into the eyes of a true alpha—one who was born to lead a pack.

He had made his decision.

It didn't matter if she had the scent of the Black Monster about her, she was different. She, the rest of her pack, and Bright Fang himself may have had the scent and power of the Black Monster, but they were all worlds apart.

He wasn't quite sure how he knew, but he knew they were different, he could feel it.

Now he stood by while his alpha and a few of the other members of her pack fought in the clearing. When he had spotted the Black Monster that had killed his kin, every nerve in Bright Fang's body told him to charge in and tear out its throat.

But he resisted.

When his alpha first fell upon the lion-bird that had attacked her kin, Bright Fang nearly rushed in to join the fray. He resisted, and when his alpha had been thrown aside, his body shook with the effort of holding back.

He held himself back because he knew it wasn't the time to strike... not yet.

He had every confidence that his alpha and the rest of the pack wouldn't fall for good. Something within him told him it was not the time—something that went beyond mere instinct, and so he stood by just out of sight and listened.

He listened.

He watched

He waited.

The cyan pegasus and light grey griffon continued to stare each other down, looking for any weaknesses or openings to exploit.

Svanhild glowered at Rainbow Dash, and Rainbow gave the griffon an intense glare of her own. For what felt like an eternity, neither moved a muscle, nor did they speak a word—their eyes more or less doing the talking for them.

Then Rainbow smirked.

The distance between the two was covered in an instant and Rainbow barely managed to side step the large black claw that shot past her.

Svanhild left the pegasus no time to retaliate, twisting her body around for another strike towards Rainbow's head. Rainbow ducked the blow and launched herself backwards out of the griffon's range.

Svanhild didn't let her get far, dashing forward almost as soon as the pegasus dashed back. Rainbow frowned as she weaved her way through the relentless assault of claws.

All the while the mare continued to backstep, leading the enraged griffon further and further away from the others until the two of them were nearly at the treeline.

"Hold... still!" Svanhild growled as she took another swipe and missed entirely, "let.. me... kill you!"

"Nope," Rainbow replied simply, shifting her hooves, "not happening."

Svanhild growled again and went for a straight lunge that sailed over the cyan mare as she lowered herself to the ground and practically slithered out of the way and completely outof Svanhild's sight.

The griffon's eyes widened and she looked below her, only to squaw in surprise as she was slammed face first into a nearby tree, splintering the wood.

Before she realized what was happening, she was yanked backwards and slammed into the ground instead. An odd yet familiar squelching sound caught her attention, but the sudden piercing agony in her back distracted her from looking up.

Through all of her pained screeches, Svanhild could make out a raspy voice speaking right next to her ear.

"We're right back where we started, Svanhild," came an angry voice from somewhere above the griffon, "but I'm not gonna make the same mistake twice."

At that, the griffon's eyes shrunk to pinpricks and she shook violently as black rage boiled within her. Rainbow Dash, unaware of the exponentially building fury, yanked out her hoofblade and prepared to stab it into the back of Svanhild's head.

She wasn't prepared for the thin, but countless sharp tendrils that pushed their way into both sides of her barrel. Her following scream was cut off as she was lifted into the air and smashed into the ground a short ways away from the griffon.

Choking back another cry of pain as the tendrils ripped themselves out of her, Rainbow looked up just in time to see Svanhild bearing down on her, wings outstretched and transformed into what looked like hundreds of whip-like tendrils.

They were smaller and thinner than the ones Rainbow herself used, but they were far more numerous. With a cry of rage, Svanhild charged the mare, her tendrils lashing out much farther than Rainbow had been expecting,

The cyan mare's eyes widened and she barely managed to throw herself out of the way just as several tendrils impacted, and punched through, the ground where she had been only a second before.

The griffon retracted the tendrils somewhat, and rushed after the retreating pegasus. Rainbow Dash yelped, dodging a few more lashes before taking to the sky.

Seeing this, Svanhild screeched angrily and completely retracted her tendrils before launching herself into the air and after Rainbow.

The pegasus remained where she was, watching the furious griffon approach. She winced from the lingering pain in her barrel, but smirked confidently as Svanhild got closer.

"Now we're on my turf, Svanny."

As she approached, Svanhild pulled back an arm and shot it forward, the limb becoming a black, blade tipped whip. With a twitch of her wings, Rainbow floated to the side, allowing the outstretched whip to pass her by harmlessly.

"What, is that it?" the mare teased, "if that's all you got, this is gonna be a—"

She turned to the side to avoid another whip and in a flash of tendrils, brought a hoofblade down on the limb, severing it completely.

She ignored Svanhild's agonized scream and closed the distance to the griffon in the blink of an eye. Rather than charging straight into Svanhild, Rainbow sliced into the griffon as she passed her by.

Svanhild hissed in pain and turned to face the mare, only to cry out again as a line of pain was drawn across her back, then her chest, then her neck.

Rainbow Dash zipped past Svanhild again and again, ripping into the griffon and picking up more and more speed as she passed. Soon enough, she was nothing more than a deadly prismatic blur, a storm of razors cutting into Svanhild relentlessly.

Then something changed.

Rainbow gagged as a claw snapped out and grabbed her by the neck on her next pass. The mare looked back at Svanhild through wide watery eyes and Svanhild looked back with a manic grin.

The expression was made all the more horrifying by the slowly closing wounds covering her face. Casting a glance to Svanhild's side, Rainbow could see the mare's severed limb slowly regenerating. A tight squeeze on her neck made her eyes snap back to the grinning griffon.

"I can see you, Rainbow Dash."

The bottom dropped out of Rainbow's stomach as Svanhild suddenly sped towards the ground with a beat of her wings. With a mad laugh, Svanhild threw Rainbow forward just before she hit the ground, and with an earthshaking boom, the mare impacted.

Rainbow grunted in pain, her eyes clenching shut instinctively as she hit. Claws still wrapped around Rainbow's throat, Svanhild once more turned her wings into tendrils and stabbed several of them into the mare below her.

With the screaming pegasus pinned to the ground, Svanhild released her grip and took a few steps back. She took a few seconds to get herself under control before smirking down at Rainbow Dash.

"Doesn't feel so good, does it, Rainbow?" she asked with a chuckle, "I'm honestly surprised you fought as well as you did, but I suppose I shouldn't be, should I? I knew there was something different about you from the get go."

"Yeah... just... keep takin', Svanny," Rainbow Dash growled through clenched teeth, "we'll see... who gets to gloat... in the eaaggh!"

"Shut up, Dash!" Svanhild growled furiously as she dug the tendrils deeper into Rainbow's hide, "I swear by the Emperor if you don't shut your flocking mouth—"

A black spike shot out of the ground and impaled Svanhild.

Her eyes widened and as she opened her mouth to scream, five more black spikes rose and buried themselves into her body. For a long moment, there was only silence, save for the strained breathing of Rainbow Dash.

The griffon blinked and looked from Rainbow Dash to the other ponies behind her. At some point during the fight, Applejack, Rarity, and Pinkie Pie had recovered, and now stood with an angry yet worried looking Fluttershy , a smirking Twilight, and a scowling Jeger.

"Don't look at us," Twilight said, with a chuckle, "I'm not sure if I underestimated Rainbow, overestimated you, or both, but either way, we had nothing to do with that."

The shocked griffon turned back to Rainbow Dash, seeing that the mare was now giving her a smug, if pained grin. Unbidden, Svanhild's tendrils retracted from Rainbow's body and reverted back into regular wings.

No longer pinned to the ground, Rainbow Dash shakily rose to her hooves. It was only as Rainbow was getting up that Svanhild saw that the tips of the cyan mare's wings were buried in the ground.

"...You," Svanhild wheezed, her frame shuddering from the agony of the spikes lodged within her, "you planned—"

"Nope," Rainbow replied, pulling her wings out of the earth, and the spikes with them, "it was a spur of the moment thing. Got the idea from Twi over there."

Svanhild fell to the ground coughing and shuddering as she tried and failed to rise. Rainbow Dash's smirk fell into a grimace of pain as she made her way over to the weakened griffon.

The cyan pegasus wasn't as injured as Svanhild, but she wasn't exactly in good shape either. Svanhild watched the mare approach with a look of utter contempt, her claws clenching into shaking fists and her teeth grinding in fury.

"R-Rainbow Dash..." she muttered, "I'm not... not gonna let it..."

"Oh come on, Svanhild, you lost," Rainbow Dash grumbled before wincing in pain once more, "just face it like a—"

Tendrils upon tendrils lashed out and wrapped around Rainbow, causing her to cry out in alarm as she was suddenly pulled forward. Svanhild's arms and wings were nothing more than a mass of black tendrils, dragging the cyan pegasus towards her.

"W-What the buck?!" Rainbow cried, struggling to pull herself free, "get offa me!"

"I'M NOT GONNA LET YOU KILL ME AGAIN, DASH!" Svanhild shrieked, her eyes wild and furious, "I'M NOT LETTING ANY OF YOU GET AWAY WITH WHAT YOU DID!"

Twilight's eyes widened and she took a step forward before Jeger stepped in front of her once more, his eyes gleaming with amusement as he watched events unfold.

"Nuh-uh, Miss Sparkle," he said in a mock scolding tone, "we must see this all the way to its conclusion. This will be the first time I've gotten to see one infected consume another, and I'm not going to let you ruin that for me."

"Get out of my way, Jeger," Twilight commanded in a low, dangerous tone, "I think we've all humored Rainbow Dash long enough. I'm putting a stop to this idiocy... now."

As if to punctuate her statement, the rest of the girls charged past Twilight and the heavy griffon, making their way towards Rainbow Dash.

Or at least, they tried to.

Faster than any of them could see, four massive tentacles shot towards Pinkie, Applejack, Rarity, and Fluttershy. With varying cries of shock and pain, the mares were impaled, lifted into the air, and brought back towards Jeger.

The large griffon's tail had expanded and split into the four tentacles that now held Twilight's friends aloft. Through the whole thing, Jeger never took his eyes off of the seething lavender mare in front of him.

"Svanhild will continue to devour the infected pony and I will observe the results as they happen, Twilight Sparkle," he intoned, ignoring the screaming, writhing ponies above him, "there's nothing you can do to stop it now, so just keep quiet and watch."

Twilight said nothing.

As it turned out, she didn't have to.

With a roar the shook the very air itself, a blur shot out of the trees and right past a stunned Jeger and Twilight. Over where Rainbow Dash was still struggling to break free of Svanhild's encroaching tendrils, the griffon laughed victoriously as the pegasus drew ever closer.

"That's right!" she shouted, still giggling like mad, "I'm gonna eat you, then I'm gonna eat your friends, then I'll—gaahh!"

The tendrils pulling Rainbow forward seized up and suddenly unwrapped themselves from the mare. Rainbow blinked in confusion, not sure what she was seeing at first, but a moment later she broke into a wide, yet pained and tired grin.

"Where the buck were you, ya big lummox?" Rainbow laughed weakly, "ah, it doesn't matter, I'm just glad you showed up when you did! Now..." she turned a malicious grin towards the struggling griffon, "...hold her for me, would ya?"

Standing over Svanhild and pinning her to the ground was Bright Fang. The massive mutated wolf raised its head and let out an ear piercing howl.

In his shock, Jeger released his grip on the five mares and they fell in a heap. The large griffon ignored them and grit his teeth in frustration.

"The wolf?!" he hissed angrily, "that was the seventh presence I sensed? I knew it felt familiar... but why? Why is it here? Why now?"

He suddenly launched himself into the sky, avoiding the black spire that shot up beneath where he was. Frowning, he looked over to Twilight, who retracted her hoof out of the ground and looked back up at him with a frosty glare in her dark violet eyes.

He scanned the scene before him.

The other girls were already making another recovery, and the wolf had the other weakened griffon under his paw. It didn't look like Svanhild would be getting out of this alive at this point.

Indeed, Rainbow Dash was slowly making her way towards the pathetically scrambling griffon, her own tendrils coming out to reverse the roles. Bright Fang paid them no attention and instead met Jeger's gaze head on, a low growl escaping the wolf throat.

A growl that promised vengeance.

Jeger made his decision.

"Well, It seems I won't be able to stick around for the results after all," he said, turning to Twilight with an irritated scowl, "a pity, but there'll be other opportunities. We'll probably cross paths again at some point, Twilight Sparkle, but I'll get out of your hair for now... till next time!"

Giving a mock salute, he turned and rocketed off in the direction of the forest below the mountains. Twilight watched him go with a grimace. The griffon was completely out of sight in a matter of moments, leaving Svanhild to her fate at the hooves of her and her friends.

"What a despicable griffon," Twilight replied, her frown lifting into a sadistic grin, "abandon the poor griffon to horrible villains like us."

She turned just in time to see Rainbow Dash completely consume the screaming griffon hen in a mess of black tendrils. She frowned once more, her brow creasing as her eyes brighten to their normal amethyst hue.

"No! NonononoNO!" Svanhild screamed, "I can't.. I didn't avenge them! I didn't... I..." she let out a heavy grunt of effort trying to pull away before screaming out one last time, tears streaming down her face, "DAMN YOU, RAINBOW DASH! DAMN ALL OF YOU TO TARTA—"

The tendrils continued to writhe and flail for another moment longer before vanishing back into Rainbow Dash. The other girls took the opportunity to gallop over to Rainbow Dash, though their concerned words died in their throats as they reached her.

Twilight broke the line of friends and slowly made her way forward, her frown deepening as she looked upon the currently catatonic cyan mare.

Yeesh this was a long one. The fact that I slept in didn't really help matters either.

Well, in any case, another chapter for your viewing pleasure!