The gang continued moving toward Chicago, their chaos emeralds still drained of energy because of the fourth chaos emerald. None of them could teleport or change their appearance because of this. They were stuck doing it the old fashioned way.
Chicago is said to be the location of the fifth chaos emerald. This is why they were heading to Chicago, in order to get the fifth chaos emerald they heard was in Chicago.
Next to nothing could stop them, until a vortex opened from the sky and blaze popped out of it. Everyone was shocked except espio, who merely grunted and kept moving.
"blaze? Why are you here?" silver said ad he stepped forward.
Blaze shook her head and silver moved back, "I was told an evil spirit has awakened in this world by the light God in my dimension. Apparently someone freed him from the depths of hell."
Corys eyes went wide as he remembered his trip to hell with Kanye east. The person who freed him must have gone into hell after Cory.
Blaze grunted and stared at them, "it doesn't matter who did it, we'll figure that out later."
"who is this 'we.' Right now we already have enough losers to run the entire fashion industry," espio said, glaring.
"well then." blaze responded crossing her arms.
"do you have any special skills?" Cory asked, tipping his Fedora.
"I can conjure fire and-"
"you're in"
Espio rolled his eyes at Cory, now even more incompetence could stupidity would follow him around. But it wasn't like he had anyone else to be with.
The gang continued onward into Chicago. They were amazed by the size of the city, except for espio who doesn't get surprised, as you probably already know.
Cory walked up to someone, asking for directions, "locale uh museumoso.. Wherea?"
"uh what?" the guy said, not knowing Spanish.
"where's the museum?" espio cut in.
"oh, I don't know, I'm looking for that as well. But Im not going with the likes of you." the man said, gesturing to most of them.
"understandable." espio cut in.
They parted ways and began asking random people, no one knew where the museum was. Did the museum even exist?
Eventually, they went up the sears tower and looked for it. Using his excellent vision, espio was able to spot it.
"great, let's go," blaze said.
"hmmph, don't act like you're in charge, princess." espio responded.
Blaze crossed her arms, but shut up. The gang exited the building and headed for the museum. As they entered, Michael and silver went straight to the gift shop. The rest continued onward.
"Chris said that the u boat they're holding here was powered by a chaos emerald." Cory stated.
"yeah, we know Cory." espio stated briefly.
They walked through the exhibits, looking for the u boat, as they walked, espio felt like they were being followed. He looked around cautiously, but didn't see anyone. He kept his guard up.
As they walked toward the u boat exhibit, they saw there were lots of people in the room. This wasn't good to Cory. They couldn't have witnesses to his awesome power.
They entered the ship and searched around for the emerald, but couldn't find it. Espio kept looking around for the source of his discomfort, but couldn't see anyone. They moved on toward the driver's area of the submarine, and saw a hatch leading to the reactor. Going down, they realized that the emerald must have been removed to stop the power the ship had. They exited the ship, but were met with a familiar face.
"looking for the emerald, eh? Well I can't let you give it to sigma," the man said.
"you! You were the guy I asked for directions. Who's sigma?" Cory asked.
"don't play dumb, mavericks. You are the servants of sigma. And you're about to get destroyed by none other than zero."
The screen faded to black.
Then it faded back in.
"you're about to get destroyed by none other than zero."
Cory gasped as he pulled out his z Saber. It was zero from mega man x! Cory drew his katana.
"I knew you were following us, I sensed it." espio said.
"heh, nice try, but with my stealth features I am all but invisible."
"maybe to reploids…"
Zero was taken aback by this statement. No one should know that word in this dimension.
"how do you know that word?" zero said, menacingly. Espio merely shrugged. Zero had come from the future in another dimension. In his dimension, Hitler didn't exist and his equivalent was a man named wily.
Zero charged at espio in anger, espio knew too much. He slashed his z Saber, but espio dodged with his stealth. He ducked and dove behind zero, throwing a shrunken. Zero jumped and dashed in mid air to dodge it.
Espio did a roll and threw three shurikens. Zero effortlessly slashed them with his sword and used his gun to shoot at espio. The battle lasted a while, each dodged the others attacks and neither landed a single hit. Eventually, both were exhausted, and they stood there panting, staring at each other.
"heh, not bad for a person of the past. " zero said.
"hmph, you don't even see it yet." espio shouted, "I'm from your time."
Everyone stood there shocked as they waited for him to elaborate. Zero grunted, smirking, "so that's were you went, ninja guy who I met one time."
"heh, after dramatically killing myself, I was able to transfer my consciousness into a living body, thus creating the ultimate ninja." espio said, smirking.
"well you didn't lose your skills."
"heh, dont flatter me."
"well can we find the emerald now that you guys are friends?" Cory interrupted.
"no, I cannot allow you to give the emerald to my f- I mean to Hitler." zero said.
"well that's good because we are fighting against Hitler," Cory said.
"prove it."
Cory pulled out the three chaos emerald they had acquired. Zero swiftly snatched them and dashed away.
"I cannot let these fall into the hands of Hitler!" zero shouted behind him.
Espio chased after him through the exhibits. Zero jumped over people using his super fighting robot powers. So did espio, but with his ninja powers or whatever. He was a badass either way. Zero slashed the elevator to the mining exhibit and slid down the side of the wall, espio jumped into a free fall down the shaft, throwing his grappling hook onto a bar at the top and sliding down to the bottom.
Zero dashed through the Mines, dodging equipment everywhere.
"you might be just as fast as me, but that isn't going to help you because I'm ahead of you." zero shouted behind him.
"too bad my shurikens defy this law." espio said as he thew a shuriken at the ceiling, causing the fake rocks to fall on zero.
Espio ran past him, grabbing the emeralds. He jumped onto the shuttle train just as it began to move. Conveniently, no one was on the train.
Espio sighed in relief, but his relief was only for a moment as zero jumped onto the other train car.
"persistent spawn of Hitler, give up already."
"again, we are not part of Hitlers clique." espio said, throwing his shuriken at his helmet. Zero easily slashed it in half.
Zero pushed him back to the end of the train. Espio looked around for options, and got an idea, he jumped off, grabbing the floor of the train and swinging underneath it, holding onto the bottom of the cart. Zero gasped in exclamation.
"you'll have to come out when the train stops, silly maverick," zero said as he sat down, waiting patiently.
"how about I come out before then," espio said as he swing from the top of the cart and kicked zero straight in the face. Zero fell forward, panting in surprise.
"heh, nice one. This isn't the last you'll see of me. I'll haunt you day and night. Inside and outside. Wherever you go, you'll see me." with that, he threw down a gas canister and teleported away.
Espio coughed as he walked away. He didn't know what the gas was but it was probably just a way of disguising himself as he got away. He ran back to Cory and blaze, who were just standing there uselessly.
"well, why didn't you look for the emerald?" espio said.
"oh, " Cory replied.
Espio sighed and began walking to museum storage. Cory and blaze followed him down and into the warehouse- like room. They found the emerald easily and began walking back. Suddenly, espio sighted something up his left. He threw a shuriken at it, but it only hit a lamp.
"what was that about?" blaze asked.
"there was something there."
"i didn't see anything." Cory said, looking around.
Espio looked around suspiciously. He had seen zero.