(One day after the Elements of Dark Chaos Incident)

(POV none, Abandoned(?) G.U.N. Munitions Plant)

A security guard was busy checking the security cameras for a few minutes, then after he decides to relax for a little bit, a silent alarm that wakes him up goes off. The monitor says that the motion sensors in the room that he was in were picking up movement in said room, but when he turned around to see who or what it was, all he saw was the only door out of the room. Thinking that it was a glitch or something, he taps the light that's connected to the sensors twice, then another time, which somehow made the beeping stops. After a few seconds, the beeping continued, so he checked behind himself again, and after not seeing anyone else, he tries to tap the light again only to be greeted by the punch of a Black Arm to the back of his head, rendering him unconscious after he shouts, "OW, THE BACK OF MY HEAD!"

"You set off the motion sensors, Eclipse?" An aqua Mobian hedgehog asked the Black Arm after jumping down from an air vent, then added, "You seem more like the Ultimate Amateur than the Ultimate Alien to me."

(Author's note: The image below is what Eclipse looks like. Also, I'll explain why a Black Arm is helping a Mobian in my later stories.)

The aqua hedgehog had a brown cloak, white gloves, red hover shoes with a single white stripe going through the width each, a haircut similar to Sonic's, ruby red eyes, and Power Rings on his wrists and shoe cuffs, one on each.

"As I recall, Shifter, you were supposed to disable the motion sensors," Eclipse pointed out to the Mobian.

"Well, I couldn't do that until I got into the room," Shifter argued.

"And I couldn't get you into the room without setting off the motion sensors," Eclipse said.

"Well, you could've," Shifter said, then added, "You just didn't."

"Can we hurry up and get the files that we need?" Eclipse said impatiently.

"Alright, I'm on it," Shifter said.

Two minutes later, Shifter said, "All done! Now, just put in a drive, and we'll be ready to download."

After he put a drive in, Eclipse said, "Knowing these guys, it's most likely going to be heavily encrypted."

"It is," Shifter said, then added "In fact, I spent the entire 2nd minute on the decryption process."

"It took you that long?" Eclipse asked, surprised at how intelligent Shifter was.

"It's a three-tier lockdown with a 2056 bit encryption key," Shifter said, then added, "It ain't rocket science."

"I thought you were a fighter, not a hacker," Eclipse said.

"I have an IQ of nearly 300," Shifter said, then added, "A guy can only fight so many enemies before he has to find a hobby."

"Jeez, have you ever tried target practice using guns?" Eclipse asked.

"I'm not much of a gun person, thank you very much," Shifter said, then added, "Anyways, I'm starting the download now."

"How long until we get the files?" Eclipse asked Shifter.

"About 45 seconds," Shifter answered.

"Not to sound too impatient and all, but we're not exactly in friendly territory right now, which means that you need to speed it up," Eclipse said.

"Well, that's a limitation of hardware, and don't even get me started on that," Shifter said, then stood up and turned to face the door, saying, "Besides, that should give us enough time to deal with the three cultists that are about to come through the door."

"Wha- Which door? Eclipse asked,

"There's only one door," Shifter said, walking up to the door, then stopped a few feet away from the door, saying, "By the way, they just set a breaching charge."

"WHAT!?" Eclipse exclaimed.

"Detonates in three..." Shifter said, getting into a fighting stance.

"WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME!?" Eclipse asked Shifter, shouting, then ran towards Shifter's side.

"Two," Shifter said, charging chaos energy into his right hand, then added, "I just did."

"SHIFTER!" Eclipse shouted.

"One. Oh, we'll be fine," Shifter told him.

When the door was blasted open, it was hurled straight at Shifter and Eclipse, ready to bring a large amount of pain to them, but then Eclipse thrusted his right hand forward and literally froze the door in place, shouting, "CHRONON STOP!" Then Shifter ran underneath the door that Eclipse had frozen in place, thrusted his right hand forward, shouted, "CHAOS SPEAR!" and launched a massive orb of chaos energy at the cultists, which had rendered all three of them unconscious.

"The next time you decide to fight off against a bunch of cultists, warn me," Eclipse said to Shifter.

"Fair enough," Shifter said.

After a few more seconds, the download had ended and they had managed to get the information that they needed.

"Data's here," Shifter said, pulling out the drive, then put it in his quills, saying, "Looks like our little scavenger hunt just got a little bit easier."

Just as they were about to leave the room, the alarm started to go off.

"Looks like that's our cue to start running," Shifter said.

"Then let's get out of here," Eclipse said, then took a chaos emerald and shouted, "CHAOS CONTROL!" and the two teleported away.

(POV none, Pumpkin Hill Zone)

(A few hours later) 

"Looks like these guys aren't just trading Gaia Fruits and dark magic. Not only are the cultists trading in weapons and armor that only the G.U.N. should have, but the Equestrians have technology more advanced than even Eggman's robots," Eclipse said to Shifter, looking at the files that they had managed to get from the Cult of X in a holographic screen, then closed them, saying, "Where did they get this technology?"

"Well, Speak of the devil," Shifter said, closing the files pulling up two holographic screens, one showing the figure of Sugar Rush, and the other being a text box that had just one letter: X, then Shifter continued, "and he shall appear."

"You intercepted another message from X?" Eclipse asked.

"Yep, and I also picked out a clip that you might find interesting," Shifter said.

(Author's note: The sentences that are in italics will be the dialog spoken throughout the intercepted call.)

Sugar Rush: "For the love of Tirek, please tell me that there wasn't that much stolen from you that was valuable to the both of us."

X: "Just the Chronon Fruit, along with several miscellaneous files."

"Sounds like last week's raid made the headlines as well," Eclipse said to Shifter.

"Keep listening. There's something that you might want to hear," Shifter said.

Sugar Rush: "At least you didn't lose much, which is good for the both of us, but I thought that all of your cultists are supposed to reliable."

X: "They are. The individual in charge of that outpost was terminated. I saw to the matter personally."

Sugar Rush: "That's great to hear and all, but you get paid in dark magic and/or Equestrian weaponry if you give me Gaia Fruits and/or Mobian weaponry and armor, not for putting bullets through the skulls of your brain dead followers."

"By the way, this message visually told me that Amy Rose is a cultist," Shifter warned Eclipse.

(Author's note: For those of you who are living under a rock like Patrick Star, the image below shows what Amy Rose looks like.)

(Author's note: The image below this note shows what Amy looks like as a cultist.)

Eclipse chuckled a bit and said, "Like that obsessive little fan girl would ever go so far as to-"

After he said that, a holographic screen that showed Amy.exe's face appeared underneath X's.

Amy.exe: "If I could interject for a second, you're not paying us, nor are we paying you, we're just doing some trading."

"Sorry Eclipse, what were you saying?" Shifter said, smugly.

"Don't even think about making me feel like a twat," Eclipse said, annoyed.

X: "Amy. Straying away from the second in command of my army to join the conversation for once. To what do we owe the pleasure?"

Amy.exe: "Remember that pony that managed to keep Sugar Rush from getting an unlimited supply of dark magic? Well, he's starting to suspect that it was someone else that had made the spell for the ritual. If he somehow finds out that it was us that made the actual spell in the first place, then Sugar's not going to be able to stop him from proving it to the Royal Sisters, and if the Royal Sisters find out about what we've been doing lately, then those two are going to utterly and royally fuck all of our shit up."

"Seriously?" Eclipse asked.

X: "I can assure you, he will never find out the truth."

Amy.exe: "That's what I said, but a certain candy pony isn't convinced."

X: We will continue to make absolutely sure that anyone notices our presence in these worlds so that the whole operation remains a secret. Any questions?"

Sugar Rush: "Just one: What if that pony somehow manages to put the pieces together?"

X: "...Kill him."

After he said that, the call ended and Shifter said, "Eclipse, we have to get to Equestria."

"What the hell is happening right now?" Eclipse asked.

"We can wrap our heads around that later, but right now, we need to find a way to get to that place," Shifter told Eclipse.

"Do you even know where to start with this whole thing?" Eclipse asked.

"Well, I believe that if all seven of the Chaos Emeralds can teleport a Black Comet down to the surface of a planet, then the Super Emeralds might be able to use trans-dimensional travel," Shifter theorized.

"Or it could put a strain on our bodies that's so big that it might be fatal," Eclipse pointed out.

"That's just a risk that we're going to have to take," Shifter said, then added, "This could be the only chance we've got at bringing the Cult of X to justice."

"I know, but where do we start to look for the other emeralds?" Eclipse asked.

"Well, the only treasure hunter that probably isn't too busy is Rouge, but it might take a while for her to get onto our side, and thanks to your past with her, she'll most likely try to bring you to jail," Shifter said.

"Got it. I'll just hide in the shadows while you make the deal," Eclipse told him.

"Now then, let's get started," Shifter said.