Dark.

Oh so very dark.

One couldn't see one's hand in front of their face if they walked with the soul eater cast now.

Fortunately, Kid had badass night vision with his glowing yellow eyes, and Z, on patty's shoulder, could see the map directly in his broken eye, so they helped, but nobody else could see a thing. Eventually, though, their eyes adjusted, to reveal a rather depressing scene.

They walked through a tunnel, like one of those sewer tunnels. They walked along the side walkway, next to the main canal. This tunnel, instead of… "sludge" running through its canal, it had various objects. Dolls. Important-looking documents. Photos. Many other things too, floating in a dull green slime, slowly.

"what are these?" asked Tsubaki to Z.

"This, boys and girls, is the canal of broken dreams.

"did you ever consider that, with every breath you take, a dream is broken, somewhere, no matter how big or how small? Hopes which have become hopeless. Wishes which could never come true. Relationships which fall apart. Families which are destroyed.

"all these broken dreams have to go somewhere. So there are certain focusing points throughout the universe. Such as here. This is where broken dreams from within a billion light years come, to pile up.

"including mine."

Maka shuddered. "and why are we walking through here again?"

"I don't want to be here any more then you do, Maka. I see a few of my dreams, right now. But this is by far the quickest way to the nearest store."

"mall! Mall!" cheered patty.

Z smiled. "no, patty, no mall. Just a small auto-store, stocked with weapons."

"weapons?" asked Kid.

"Yeah. This isn't the first time ive been kicked out of my body, so after the first time, I had various weapon stores scattered throughout the ship."

"but… you have 1-inch long limbs… you don't even have fingers…"

"You'll see better once we get there."

They walked through the sewer for what could have been a hour or a hundred years. Occasionally, they crossed a bridge over a branch of dream-sewage, or Z would tell kid to turn a direction.

Eventually, the dream artifacts in the river thinned, then stopped altogether. Now it was just black-green sludge.

"good. The dreams are dissolving. That means we're close to the end of the tunnel."

Speak of the devil, they walked out into another open cavern. Not far ahead, a tube stretched into the sky, so high that one would fall over trying to see the top of it.

They got to it, and Liz recognized it as an elevator. cylindrical and glass, it could easily fit a dozen people.

"OK, spread out. The Store should be around here somewhere." Said Z.

Liz looked around, but she didn't even see a building, let alone a store.

"Over here!" Called Tsubaki, waving. She stood in front of what looked a little like a half-circle atm machine. At its top, in flickering letters, was the word "store", slowly rotating around, a holographic image. In its center was a rectangular box-like opening, just big enough for a person.

"Good work. Patty, carry me over there, if you please."

"roger that!" Said Patty, skipping over to the store.

As the two stood in front of the store, Z directed patty to press a large blue button, which she did so. A screen pulled down, with symbols which almost looked like scribbles.

"damn these stubby limbs…" said Z, waving a stubby turtle leg. Then he stated, clearly and slowly, "voice commands."

Instantly, a woman's voice came from the store. "welcome to Zstore #8274936 W. may I take your order?"

"Hmm… so many battlesuits, so little time…" Said Z.

"suits? How the heck will you fit?"

"Ill explain in a minute." Z turned back to the store. "OK, gimme a DDSP lvl 4 combo, full weapons package."

"That will be 500,000 credits" said the store.

"Override code b987432." Stated Z calmly.

"Override accepted. Cost reduced to 0. consiousness transfer or fitting?"

"consiousness transfer."

"order has been processed. Please step into the chamber."

"patty, set me down in the box, then everyone step back."

They obliged Z's orders, wondering what would happen. As soon as the stepped back, a door closed over the box, hiding Z from sight. Then 2 doors circled out from the outside, locking him in.

There was some sizzling, like a welding torch. There were also some pained grunts from Z. "You ok?" asked Liz.

"nng… im ok… nothing I haven't done befo-OCK!" Z was cut off mid-sentence. A white light appeared at the top of the crack in the doors, and worked its way down to the bottom. A minute later, The light reached the bottom, and disappeared.

"This may come as a bit of a shock to you guys."

The doors opened, and the soul eater cast gasped. Where Z had been, A stranger stood.

The stranger was clad in strange, unearthly body armor. He wore heavy-looking boots, and a suit of unfamiliar metal. strapped to his right arm was a red bar of some kind, on the other arm was what looked like a buzzsaw. Hooked to his metal belt was some sort of three-barreled gun, one hole above the other above the last, and strapped to his back was a huge, blue, heavy-looking cannon. On his head was a metal helmet. 2 light blue lines were positioned around the forehead, and went most of the way around it. An upside-down T separated the first line into 2 segments, but left the lower line unscathed.

All and all, he looked pretty freaking badass.

"who are you? Where is Z?" Asked Soul.

"You're looking at him." Z's voice issued from the helmet of the heavily armored stranger. He reached behind his back and pulled out a turtle shell; more specifically, the turtle shell Z resided in. "This is my old body. I retracted my limbs and head, then had a consiousness transfer into this battlesuit. This way, I can defend myself, and patty doesn't have to carry me everywhere."

"aww, but you were so adorable in your old body!" said Patty.

"fine, tell you what: you can carry the old body." He handed her the shell.

"I, the godly Black*Star, demand a cool suit like that!" shouted Black star, jumping into the box.

"no way, man. This thing's so powerful, you'd wind up killing us all before we even got on the elevator. speaking of which, c'mon. we've got us a backstabbing bitch to stop." Z headed to the elevator, small crunches echoing as he crushed the pebbles beneath his feet to powder with his powerful new boots.

Black*Star moped, but followed the rest as they entered the elevator. Z pressed a button, and they shot up to the surface.