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// Chapter 2: Infinite Power 
// Story: The Phantom Filly 
// by Lucar 
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It was quickly clear that whatever this place was, this wasn't something like in dreams where ten minutes equals an entire night. No, time passed as quickly in this place than in Equestria, and Scootaloo rapidly got bored, having nothing to do here. She tried to think of what she will do now that she merged with a powerful ruby and got stuck with some villain in her head threatening to take control of her body if she lowered her guard, but she came with nothing. If what this Infinite guy said was right, then nothing she could do could rid her of him. She was stuck with him forever. So the best she could do about this was to hold on and not let him take control.

She could go to Twilight to tell her everything, and maybe she would find something, but the situation was just so unusual that the chances were really low. And truthfully, she was scared that Twilight would go cuckoo at her new powers and would spend the next following days or weeks studying them, and her.

Speaking of powers, she could try to learn to control them, but she had absolutely no idea of what were the ruby's powers. All she knew was that the ruby seemed to have some way to teleport, which was probably also the reason why Eggman wasn't here anymore. It may also be the ruby that opened that rift, so it meant that it could travel to other dimensions, which was VERY powerful. But was that all? She could ask Infinite, but seeing how this place was made partially of her dream, then those burning buildings were probably Infinite's dream, and somepony whose dreams were to see cities burn was NOT somepony who would kindly help others when asked.

So she stopped thinking about what she will do, only to get bored. Infinite was just remaining on his side looking at her, which was really creepy, but he wasn't trying anything, so Scootaloo stopped paying attention to him. She just lied down and looked up at the purple and black sky, and at the floating red cubes.

So fuuuun...

"Uuuugh... Will this be like that every night from now?" She asked, turning to Infinite. "How can you stand it?"

Infinite chuckled. "A good mental exercise and a lot of patience. Also, I can do things here to pass time."

"Really? What?"

He didn't answer.

"Ugh! Like I thought! You won't answer just to let me suffer. So I suppose there's no use to ask you what are the ruby's powers? You would rather see me try to discover by myself so that I take the risk to screw up and to accidentally blow up Ponyville?"

"Exactly."

"Ugh!" groaned Scootaloo again. Then, she got an idea. "But you must have been very powerful with it. I mean, with this ruby, you can easily conquer the world, right?"

Infinite chuckled. "I could, and I did. I was the most powerful being in the world. Even the Chaos Emeralds were no match against me."

"Chaos Emeralds?"

"Seven gems of unlimited power that use chaos energy to do whatever the user wants, to the point of giving them invincibility. Well, thanks to the reality bending powers of the Phantom Ruby, I could bypass even this! I was the ultimate being!"

Scootaloo smiled widely. "Reality bending powers? Really? This is the power of the ruby?"

Infinite visibly frowned at Scootaloo. "Did you use my ego to make me reveal the power of the Phantom Ruby?" he asked slowly, menacingly.

Scootaloo nodded proudly. "Yup. That's, like, Bad Guy 101: bad guys will always have a big ego and will always gloat about how great they are at the first occasion."

".....I would kill you right now if I could."

"Uh... You can't?" asked hesitantly the filly.

"Now that you are part of the ruby, your mind’s trapped here. At best, I can torture you, but you would probably trigger the power of the ruby like last time and wake up."

"Oh... Well... That's nice to know..." said Scootaloo, sweating. "So... Reality bending powers?"

Infinite rolled his eye. "I might as well say this now. To be more exact, they are augmented reality manipulation based on illusions. It takes control of people's senses to feed false information to the brain, and thus create a new reality to them, and make it real. It can also create projections of those new realities that can interact with the world."

Seeing Scootaloo's look of confusion, he groaned. "Idiots... Here is an example." Infinite raised a hand, sending some energy toward the sky. The next instant, a sun appeared, so close that it was taking most of the sky!

"WHAAAAT?!!" yelled Scootaloo in panic.

"This sun is an illusion. It shouldn't be here. Yet, not only you can see it, but you can also feel it. You can feel its warmth, right?"

Scootaloo nodded, not stopping looking at the sun in awe.

"That's because even if this sun is an illusion, for you, it is real. If I let it fall, it would burn you until not even ashes remain. And if I wanted, I could project it to the normal reality to burn everything." He made the sun disappear, and created then some weird black hedgehog-like animal walking on two legs, its body glitching a little before stabilizing. "Here is another example. It is a duplicate of someone... I despise. It isn't real. And yet..." The hedgehog went to pick a small rock on the ground. "It can interact with the environment. If it punched you, you would feel the punch. And you can also..." He kicked the hedgehog, sending him flying into a building that crumbled after that. "do that to them."

Scootaloo gulped at seeing Infinite sending somepony flying like that with a simple kick.

"You can even use this power to enhance your own body..." continued Infinite as in a glitching effect, his body was suddenly three times his original size. "like this for example."

"Woah... So cool... But even with all that power, you still lost? Or you wouldn't be trapped here."

Infinite almost flinched at that, but returned to his normal size. "I underestimated my enemies."

"Ah! Of course! Bad Guy 101: because of his ego, the bad guy will always underestimate the hero, or heroes, leading to his downfall."

Infinite materialized a red sword. "You really want me to behead you."

"Sorry!"

"Anyway. The Phantom Ruby only has one limit: people need to be in its control to be affected by the illusions. Outside this place, creating a sun to fall on your enemies won't work unless you have them in your power."

"And how do I do that?" asked Scootaloo.

"By doing this!" shouted Infinite before he expelled some weird glitching energy out of his body that caused the surrounding reality to take on weird colors with that same sound. It even propelled Scootaloo backwards a little. "It isn't useful to do this here, but in the real world, this is what you will have to do each time you will want to use illusions to defeat someone. However, it uses a lot of energy, so you can use another method that asks less but is less effective." At this, he gathered some of the red cubes floating around. "Like them. If someone touches those cubes, they will be in your power for a limited amount of time. With the real Phantom Ruby, you can also create other shapes. The only limit is your imagination."

"I see. Well, I don't know about fighting enemies, but I know how I will use the ruby."

"To conquer the world?"

"What? NO! I will use it to reach my dream: join the Wonderbolts with my sister Rainbow Dash! All I have to do is grow my wings."

"Mph. What a waste. You have the power to change reality, and all you will do is grow your wings to enter some team?"

Scootaloo put a hoof under her chin. "When said like that, you're right. It would be a waste. I will think of something, but no conquering the world! Until then, I will train to control this power. Wouldn't want to accidentally activate it and hurt somepony. But then, I would need to go far enough to train without risking to hurt somepony too. Wait... Of course! I can train here!" She then started laughing. "I can train in my sleep! Ah! We will see who's a chicken now!"

Infinite chuckled. "This will be interesting."

“Hmm... Maybe I should warn Twilight about this Eggman guy once I wake up, he could cause some problems"  Scootaloo thought

This got the interest of Infinite. "Eggman is here?"

"You know him? He was transported here with the ruby. I think I accidentally teleported him away with the power of the ruby."

"He was the one who gave me the power of the Phantom Ruby to help him conquer the world. Eheheheh. I would watch my back if I were you. The doctor will do everything to get back the power of the ruby."

"Yeah. Definitively gonna warn Twilight."



As soon as Scootaloo woke up once the morning came, she immediately prepared herself to visit Twilight before going to school. But before that, she had to find an excuse to explain to her aunts why she didn't eat dinner last night and entered so late only to directly go to bed. She said that she was very exhausted after her crusades and took a nap only to oversleep. Seeing that it was already almost time to go to sleep, she then decided to skip diner and to directly go to bed. To make up for it, she took a big breakfast before going out. Pretending to go to school, she eventually hid between two houses, then used the power of the Phantom Ruby to appear between two other houses not far from the Golden Oak Library, Twilight's home.

Rapidly, she went to the literal tree-house and opened the door. "Twilight! I have something to say! It's urgent!"

"I'm right here," said the lavender alicorn mare sitting on a chair reading a book not far. "What is it? Shouldn't you be on your way to school?"

"I will be once I have said what I need to say. Listen, Twilight. There's a new bad guy on the loose somewhere in Equestria!"

"A new bad guy?" asked Twilight with a frown. She closed her book (marking her page before) then turned fully toward the filly. "What happened? This is not a prank, I hope."

"No prank. You see, I was napping yesterday in Sweet Apple Acres when, suddenly, a rift opened in front of me and an alien dropped out of it!"

"An alien?!" shouted Spike from his ladder as he was organizing books.

Twilight raised an eyebrow. "Really? Are you sure this wasn't a dream?"

"No dream!"

"Alright..." said the mare skeptically. "Describe this alien to me."

"Uh... Tall. Very tall. Like, two times taller than you. He looked like a minotaur, but with a round body, and there was no neck between the body and the head. He had no fur, too, only a very big brown moustache. No mane or whatever. Little round glasses also hid his eyes. He was also wearing clothes, not sure what they were, but they made his upper body red with some yellow and his lower body black with two white buttons. And he called himself Eggman. Dr. Eggman."

"Pffff Eggman? Really?" asked Spike about to laugh.

"This wasn't his real name. I think he was called... Hum... Something like Robot... Robot... Just let's call him Eggman."

"Alright. But being an alien isn't enough to be a bad guy. Did he do something?" asked Twilight as she noted Eggman's description on a parchment.

"Yeah, he talked about conquering the world, and even worlds. Then he tried to attack me because I saw him, so I ran away. I wanted to warn you then, but it was late, so I didn't know if you were asleep. So I waited today. I don't know where he's now or what he's doing. But apparently, he isn't at his first try conquering worlds and even managed to conquer one once before being defeated."

"And how do you know all this?" asked Twilight with an eyebrow raised.

Scootaloo rolled her eyes. "The guy had, like, the biggest ego ever. He was going on and on about all he did, trying to convince me that it was no use to resist his attempt to conquer our world. He also seemed to be the manipulator kind, trying to convince me to join him by promising me to fix my wings. I refused, of course."

Twilight nodded. "Any powers you saw him use?"

"All I know is that he's very smart, and rather fast. Like, when I ran, he was able to keep up with me for a time despite having only two legs. Since he calls himself a doctor, I wouldn't be surprised if he can build stuff. You know, Mad Doctor style.”

"So, an alien mad scientist?" resumed Twilight. "If it's true, then this could be bad."

"Yeah! We must find him before he builds an army of robots or of mutants! In my comics, alien mad scientists are always the worst!" Spike then looked at Scootaloo in confusion. "Wait. He was alone? He didn't have robots or whatever with him?"

"No, I think he was transported here by accident," answered Scootaloo.

"Then it gives us time," said Spike. "It will probably take a few months for him to build a lair and an army."

"But if this Eggman is real, he can be anywhere now," said Twilight. "I could write to Princess Celestia about this, but I don't think she will send the entire army to search every corner of Equestria based on just the words of a filly. However, if I go to the place where the rift appeared, I may be able to find some traces of whatever energy was used to open it. I will need you to guide me."

"Mmh... But then, I will be late to school."

"I will make a word for you."

"Alright."

"Let me get something first."



A little later, Scootaloo reached the exact place where the rift appeared, not far from the clubhouse, followed by Twilight and Spike. Twilight was holding a device that could measure the quantity of magic in a place, but like she said, "Magic is a form of energy, so maybe it will be able to measure the energy of the rift."

And, indeed, as soon as she activated the device upon reaching their destination, it started reading a bigger concentration of energy than normal slowly diminishing. No way to know if that energy was magical or not however. But this was proof enough that something happened here.

"Thank you Scootaloo. I will write to Celestia about this, and maybe she will be able to do something."

"Okay. Well, I'm going to school then. Thanks for the word," said the filly before she started to walk away.

"You're welcome Scootaloo," replied the mare. But then, as she slightly turned the device toward Scootaloo while saying this, she saw that it was starting to read something. Looking at it curiously, she moved the device around. Then, when it was facing the departing filly, the reading went off the chart, and the device exploded. "What the?!" She looked back at Scootaloo, the filly disappearing between the trees.

"Something is definitely going on."