They won the battle of Ponyville.
But at what price?
Almost nothing remained of the town but ruins. The townhall, Sugarcube Corner, the Golden Oak Library... Even Sweet Apple Acre got ravaged. Almost no apple trees survived. Ponyville was absolutely destroyed.
But it wasn't the worst part.
They installed tents beside the ruins to shelter the now homeless inhabitants. Celestia promised them all the help of the crown to rebuild the town as rapidly as possible. Until then, if they can't find family or friends to receive them, Celestia will ask hotels to welcome them freely. The princess of the Sun then had to return to Canterlot to continue her talk with the leaders of the other races. Thankfully, this drama seemingly opened their eyes, so they should now be able to work together. They already sent their armies to help at the frontline. Luna also went to help in the jungle beside Dodge Outpost, to keep the captured base in it.
But among the tents, there was one tent.
A tent full of covered, aligned bodies of ponies who didn't survive the attack.
The robots didn't target the civilians, but in the blind destruction they caused, especially the airships, there were many collateral victims.
Scootaloo, in her normal pegasus appearance, entered the tent, and gave an once-over, looking at the bodies, and at the ponies still alive surrounding them, mourning. It was the first time she entered the tent because, as Zero, she had to heal the injured, and there had been many. So she discovered the full extend of the horror that happened. The dead. And to think that the majority of those deaths were ponies she saw regularly when she moved around on her scooter. Her heart hurt.
Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy were walking among the mourning ponies, trying to comfort them. Pinkie wasn't even bouncing or talking excitedly. She was just walking from one group of ponies to another group of ponies, hugging them, talking calmly to them, and just being there for them. It was so surreal to see the pink mare so calm, but it was just a different way to bring back smiles when joking and being goofy would be too much. She remained a lot beside Berry Pinch, the poor filly having lost her only family, her mother, in the attack. Sadly, a few other fillies and colts lost somepony dear to them, and a few more became orphans like Berry Pinch.
She wanted to go and hug all of them, but she couldn't bear to remain in this tent, so she left, and once she was sure nopony looked at her, she teleported on a cloud above the ruins of the town, and she sat on it, looking emotionlessly at what remained.
"What do you think, Infinite? Do you like it? This is the kind of thing you dreamed."
Honestly, yes. I like it. I wasn't expecting less of Eggman. He's good. This is why I allied myself to him, or the other him, in the first place. If this one wasn't trying to use me as a power source, I would gladly join him. I would even put up with Discord if I had to.
Scootaloo frowned. "I thought so..." She sighed. "You really are a broken guy. But I don't care what you think. As long as you continue to help me to stop Eggman and his allies, it won't matter."
But once we're done with Eggman, our alliance is over. Remember this.
"Yeah, yeah. But remember what I said. Stop clinging to your past. You are seeing the world through new eyes, mines, so why don't you try to learn from this new experience and change? Like, learning what it's like to be loved. I know you aren't directly the one receiving the love when I'm hugged and all, but it should give you an idea."
I learned that love is nothing to me. I don't care about it.
Scootaloo groaned. "Such a stubborn idiot... You have some of my memories, right?"
I ignore them.
"Well, don't! I don't know what memories you got from me, but you shouldn't ignore them! I'm sure you will learn what it feels like to be loved from at least one of them!" She then thought of something. "Wait a minute. You can't ignore them. If it was like what happened to me, then you lived those memories. You already know what it's like to be loved. Are you ignoring it because you refuse to give up your 'all dark and mighty' act? Unless..." She raised an eyebrow. "Unless this is the actual reason you helped me all this time. You actually started to care, but you were too proud to show it and you gave those stupid excuses to keep up your act... and maybe even to convince yourself that you still don't care. And before you say anything, I know what it's like to be too prideful to admit something. Me and Rainbow Dash often have this problem. And I know you have a LOT of pride, so I know you will probably never admit it. But hey!" She smiled. "If you really care, then thanks for caring! That's nice of you!"
...
"Hello?"
...
"The silent treatment again?"
I saw the memory of where Rainbow Dash became your surrogate sister... Infinite said. And the one where you formed your club with your two friends...
"How did they feel?"
...
"Understood. Don't worry, it will be our little secret."
"Scootaloo!"
Scootaloo looked at the direction of the voice and saw Rainbow Dash approaching. Smiling, she waved at her. "Hey!"
Rainbow Dash landed on the cloud. "Hey. I searched you everywhere."
"Sorry. I was having a little talk with..." She chuckled. "My soulmate."
In her head, she heard Infinite sputtering, and she fell in laughter.
Rainbow Dash had a bewildered expression for a few seconds, then she understood. "Oh! Because you two share the same body so... Pfff... Bwahahahahaha! But wait, shouldn't it be 'bodymate' or something like that?"
"It would have been less funny."
Rainbow laughed again. "Good point. Anyway, we received a message from Princess Celestia. She and the other leaders finally decided on a plan, and frankly it was so obvious that I wonder why they took so long to decide. But it will take a few days for it to start, so we will need your help in the frontline."
"Ok. What's the plan?"
Meanwhile, in some room, somewhere.
"I don't believe it! How could we lose?!" Eggman yelled. He pointed at Tirek and Discord. They were both healed now, thanks to the draconequus. "Scootaloo was busy fighting me! You could have easily defeated the ponies! Especially you Discord! What happened?!"
"An unexpected development," Discord answered. "But really, coming from Twilight, I shouldn't be surprised. She somehow managed to make a copy of the Phantom Ruby."
Tirek looked at him. "So it really was what it was," He said. "This explains everything." He looked back at the doc. "The Element Bearers used it to turn themselves into alicorns. I was no match against all of them at once. This also probably explains the ursa major suddenly appearing and disappearing in the middle of the town."
"Yeah... It was Fluttershy giving me the bigger slap of history. I still feel it. She was probably waiting to give me one after I betrayed her."
Eggman was pulling his mustaches by now. "You're telling me they can now copy the ruby?! This is the worst scenario for us! If they produce more of them, we won't stand a chance!"
"I can try to stop the production," Discord said before he took a top hat, put his claw in it, then pulled Twilight out of the hat. However, she had now a necklace with a Phantom Ruby around her neck. Seeing this, and seeing her expression turning from shock to rage, Discord yelped and put Twilight back in the hat. "This is getting out of hand! Now there are two of them!"
"Why didn't you do that before?!" Eggman yelled.
"Because I thought it would have been too boring to win this way."
Eggman facepalmed.
"So what now?" Tirek asked.
"I will speed up the construction of the Death Egg. Meanwhile, we will return to the frontline as much as we can to slow the equestrians and their allies. We must keep them away from the Death Egg until it's launched!"
The three villains did as Eggman said. For the following days, they went to the frontline, were forced to retreat, only to return a few hours later recovered. Thousands of robots and dozens of airships were constantly coming from all over the occupied territories to continue the fights without stopping.
On the Alliance side, they didn't have a constant supply of troops despite the robot factories working at 200%, but the presence of the princesses, Chrysalis, the Element Bearers, Shining Armor, and Scootaloo/Zero almost always made up for it, especially with the addition of the Phantom Ruby Copies. Now that Twilight had created some, scientists followed in her steps to continue her work (helped by her when she could) and produce more copies while searching for ways to make said copies as perfect as the original. Their production was slow, only one every few hours, but each added Copy was a tremendous boost for the Alliance.
The problem was that the Copies needed a way to recharge their energy. Twilight had at first created a generator in her basement lab under the Golden Oak Library, but it quickly revealed to not be enough to supply all the rubies. So Twilight was forced to build a bigger, more powerful generator somewhere safe but close enough of the frontline. In the end, they built a Phantom Generator in the two outposts, building the one in Dodge Outpost first for the future assault on the Egg Fortress in the Badlands.
But first, they were waiting for something else to happen.
And it happened.
South Luna Ocean, Nightmare Cliffs.
With most of Eggman's troops going to the frontline to fight the Alliance, there weren't many robots present on the Cliffs to witness the apparition in the horizon of an armada of flying battleships. They weren't as advanced as the ones from Eggman's army or the ones that the equestrians now used; they were just normal ships of various designs, with sails and oars, somehow floating in the air. And on those ships were zebras, minotaurs, and Saddle Arabians. The cause of the ships flying was revealed when some of them raised Phantom Ruby Copies, ready to use their mighty powers.
In the Celestial Sea, in the East Coast of the Bone Dry Desert, something similar was happening. An armada of Abyssinian ships and Storm Airships, followed by a small army of dragons with at their head the Dragon Lord Torch as well as a small army of hippogryphs and some changelings, appeared too, some of them possessing Phantom Ruby Copies.
In the West, as in the East, they didn't possess any Phantom Generators, but those rubies will certainly make Eggman turn pale before they run out of energy.
The last phase of the war, the attack, began.