It had been roughly a day since the group had arrived in Squawken, and Rainbow Dash was already both sick and bored to death of the place.

Sure, everything had started out well enough -- she, Applejack, and Pinkie Pie had all trotted up to the town gates with Svanhild. Rainbow had gotten a good laugh out of the other town guards when they showed up on the scene, ranting and raving about how ponies were all the way up here in the mountains.

Things quickly got annoying when the citizens of Squawken caught wind of their arrival. Half the town of roughly two hundred and fifty-ish or so griffons started swarming the gates trying to get a look at the odd, out-of-place spectacle that were the six friends, frustrating the cyan pony-turned-virus.

Normally Dash wouldn't have minded the attention -- if anything she would've reveled in it -- but she wanted to make sure Fluttershy, Twilight, and Rarity were okay as soon as possible. The curious griffons however, made the task that much harder.

After promising a 'get-to-know-the-strange-and-mysterious-ponies-from-a-far-away-land' party later, Pinkie had managed to finally get them all into the actual town itself. Thankfully they were lucky enough to find a doctor to take them into what passed for a hospital in Squawken -- which was more or less just a large hut near the center of town.

To Rainbow Dash's further annoyance, the doctor started getting nosy and grabby, talking about how he needed to 'examine' and 'diagnose' the patients to make sure they were okay.

Not only did Rainbow not trust this griffon in the slightest -- and Applejack was quick to back her up on that sentiment -- but she and the others also didn't want to risk the town finding out about who or what they really were.

And so it was that Rainbow Dash was left to keep the doctor himself, and any nosy griffons, from going into the hut and disturbing her friends -- a boring, frustrating, and thankless job all things considered.

It was made worse by the fact that both Pinkie and Applejack got to go out and mingle with the townsfolk. After an intervention by Applejack, the griffons had stopped swarming around them like bees and were now a lot more reasonable.

Now that they weren't all gathering like a bunch of crazy obsessed fans, Rainbow wouldn't have minded hanging out with some of the griffons, but alas here she was, stuck on guard duty.

It hadn't been all bad, though.

At some point, both Applejack and Pinkie had apparently worked together to make strudels for some of the griffon hatchlings and Pinkie had thought to share with the bored pegasus. Svanhild had also come by to see how she was doing, though it was more at Applejack's request.

Things got even better when Rarity finally woke up. After getting her up to speed on the situation, she had offered to take Dash's place and the pegasus was finally free to do whatever she wanted.

As it turned out, 'doing whatever she wanted' meant getting roped into helping prepare the party Pinkie Pie had promised the entire town. It wasn't like she didn't want to help the bouncy pink earth pony, it was just that she would've much rather been doing something else.

Up until a little bit ago, she, Rarity, Pinkie, and Applejack had all been in what Dash assumed was a town hall, working on the party. Both Pinkie and Rarity decided to go check on Twilight and Fluttershy, leaving Rainbow and Applejack to finish the work.

"Are we done yet?" Rainbow whined as she lazily flew about the large hall, "I really need to go out and do... something that isn't this."

Applejack rolled her eyes and continued stacking the tables near the walls with various snacks and desserts for the guests.

"Fer cryin' out loud, Rainbow," the cowpony chided, "a little hard work an' effort won't kill ya."

"A lot of things aren't gonna kill me, AJ," Rainbow shot back, reclining in the air with a smirk, "doesn't mean I wanna spend all day cooped up in this... what is this place anyway?"

"Beats me," Applejack replied with a shrug, "ah just assumed it was some place folks gathered in fer town meetin's an' the like."

"Oh," Rainbow replied dully, "that's... not interesting in the slightest."

"Look, RD, we're almost done," Applejack replied with a shake of her head, "would ya quit yer bellyachin' an' help me finish settin' up these here tables?"

"Ugh... fine."

With an annoyed groan, Rainbow landed and turned her disinterested gaze towards the tables. It looked like the only thing left to do was cover them with tablecloth and set the plates and plastic eating utensils.

The cyan pegasus thought for a moment -- looking from the empty wooden tables, to the folded tablecloths and unplaced utensils, to the hall entrance, and back to the empty tables again.

She grinned impishly.

Applejack's ears perked up as she heard several odd squelching sounds coming from behind her and she turned around curiously. Her eyes widened in surprise and alarm as she jumped out of the way of a stray tendril flying towards the table she was working on.

With one quick deft movement, the tendril -- and several others erupting from Rainbow's body -- started rounding up the tablecloths and utensils.

"Rainbow Dash!" Applejack cried, "what in tarnation do ya think yer doin'?"

"Making things interesting!" Rainbow yelled back as she used countless thin black tendrils to perfectly place the plastic utensils and large cloths on the tables, "seriously, how did I live without these things before? They're awesome!"

"Ya lived without em' just fine," Applejack growled, "now cut that out before somepony comes waltzin' through the--"

"RAINBOW DASH STOP!"

Applejack started and snapped her gaze towards the entrance to see a fearful and irate looking lavender unicorn flanked by three more bemused ponies standing in the doorway.

"Twilight! Fluttershy!" Applejack called out with a relieved smile, "thank Celestia you're both okay!"

Twilight didn't reply as she and the others rushed into the room -- Rarity having enough sense to quickly close and lock the large doors behind them. Rainbow Dash had paused her frantic efforts at the sound of Twilight's shout.

Aside from a slight sway, her tendrils remained stationary in midair -- tablecloth, forks, and plates still wrapped in their grip. She looked at her lavender friend with a sheepish grin as she slowly placed the rest of the items on the ground.

"Heya, Twi," she greeted with a nervous chuckle, "it's uh... it's good to see you awake..."

Twilight glared at Rainbow silently for a moment before turning to the pink earth pony and white unicorn behind her.

"Rarity," she commanded in an urgent tone, "I don't care how you do it, but I need you to take every single tablecloth, fork, spoon, plate, and anything else Rainbow Dash touched with her tendrils, and get rid of them in such a way that the citizens won't be able to get their claws on them... ever."

"I suppose I can do that," Rarity replied with an unsure frown, "but why do you--"

"No time, I'll explain later," Twilight interjected impatiently. She then turned to a curious Pinkie, "Pinkie Pie, I need you to get replacements for the tablecloths and utensils. If anypony asks... I don't know, just make up some kind of excuse and don't tell them about what happened here."

"Okie-dokie-lokie!" Pinkie replied with a mock salute, "you can count on me, Twilight!"

"I know I can, Pinkie," Twilight replied with a grateful smile, "just try to hurry, alright?"

Pinkie Pie nodded and unlocked the double doors before zooming back outside. Twilight watched her go for a moment before turning her attention to Fluttershy and Applejack.

"Applejack, Fluttershy, can you two go out and let the griffons in town know that the party is going to be later than scheduled and to come by in about an hour -- no, make that an hour and a half?"

"Can do, Twi," Applejack replied with a firm nod. She glanced at Rainbow Dash one last time before making her way over to the entrance, "come on, Flutters."

"Oh, um... okay then," Fluttershy replied meekly, looking from Twilight to Rainbow nervously, "I'm... I'm glad to see you're okay, Rainbow."

"Yeah," Rainbow replied with a weak smile, "it's good to see you too, Fluttershy."

The butter yellow pegasus gave Rainbow Dash a small smile before following Applejack out of the building. Rarity meanwhile, had set about gathering up all the supplies in several large trash bags using her magic.

"Now that's interesting," she mused, eyeing the numerous heavy bags held in her slightly transparent black aura with a contemplative frown, "I'm fairly sure I wasn't strong enough to carry even half of these in my magic before... and that's not even mentioning the new and rather dour color."

"Focus, Rarity," Twilight admonished, "those need to be dealt with as quickly and as thoroughly as possible."

"Oh, you don't need to worry about that, dear," Rarity replied with a dismissive wave, "I can take care of it, but if I may ask, why the sudden urgency?"

Twilight sighed heavily and decided it would be best for Rarity to understand the situation.

"You all have to remember that we're not ponies anymore, we're viruses," she gave Rainbow Dash a hard glare and the pegasus flinched slightly as Twilight continued to speak, "and what do viruses do, Rainbow?"

"Um..." Rainbow rubbed the back of her neck and gave the lavender unicorn another sheepish smile, "they uh... make really badflank warriors?"

"They infect!" Twilight cried with an angry stomp of her hoof -- heavily cracking the floor beneath her in the process, "they spread! They multiply! They can -- and usually do -- cause horrible and potentially fatal problems in the body!"

She shook her head and looked between her two friends with a deep frown.

"I know I've said it before," she continued, "but there's still a lot we don't know about our situation. We don't know what kind of effect our tendrils have on others and it'd best not to use them at all if we can help it."

"I understand the need for extreme caution," Rarity responded worriedly after a moment, "but I think it might be a bit too late to worry about that now, dear."

"Yeah, Rares is right," Rainbow Dash added with a shrug, "we already used our tentacle things on like... hundreds of ponies and griffons back at that place we woke up in."

"And some of them may have survived," Rarity finished with a nod and a grimace, "I'm sorry to say this, Twilight, but if what you're saying is true, we may already have an outbreak on our hooves soon enough whether we play it safe or not."

Twilight was momentarily at a loss for words.

She hadn't once taken into consideration the fact that they had left so many ponies and griffons infected in that facility. She still wasn't even sure where that place had been. She didn't know if it was in an isolated area of Griffonia or near some kind of populated town or city.

Twilight stood there in silent horror as she played out several possible worst case scenarios over in her head -- each one more vivid and terrible than the last. Ultimately her thoughts kept coming back to the one thing she feared the most.

She stared at Rainbow Dash and Rarity who both looked back at her with matching frowns of worry and trepidation as she spoke -- her voice coming out in a quiet shaky whisper.

"Girls... we need to find a way to stop this potential outbreak before it reaches Equestria."

Looks like the gang might have to put their journey back home on hold for the time being... and they haven't even started yet.