"this is the biggest damn mall I've ever seen. And I lived in New York." Said Liz, looking all around.
"ooo! Do they have giraffe shoes here?" asked Patty.
"giraffes, frogs, crocodiles, octopuses.. whatever you desire." Said Z, clanking along.
"That's octopi." Said Maka.
"why yes, yes it is." Said Z, pointing at one of the many stands in the huge mall, which advertised "octo-pie", which was served by a huge octopus.
"ooo lets go to the perfume store first! No the shoe store! No the clothes store!" said Liz, wishing she had 12 more pairs of eyes to see all the stores with.
"clothes store first." Said Z, leading them into a store. They didn't know the name of it, due to the fact they couldn't read the letters the sign was in. still, though, the clothes were stylish, and that was all that mattered.
The four girls leapt on the racks of clothes like phirana on fresh meat.
"now what the hell are WE supposed to do?" griped soul.
"gods don't shop for clothes! Gods play video games!" shouted Black*Star.
"speaking of which, there's a mechamestop upstairs with thousands of video games, which you can try out before you even buy-" Z was cut off by Soul and Black*Star running off.
"aren't you going to go with them, Kid?" Z asked Kid, who was still staring after the girls.
"eh, I'm just making sure liz and patty buy at least two of each outfit. Symmetry, y'know." He said.
"very well. If you'll excuse me, business to attend to. Make sure the girls don't blow up the store." Z walked away, his metal boots clanking against the tiles.
After about an hour, Liz had made a pile of clothes twice her size, and showed no signs of slowing down. Fortunately, the aisles of clothes showed no signs of ending either.
"hey Liz."
Z popped out of nowhere, behind Liz. She jumped. "don't scare me like that! I mean- hey Z. what's up?" she tried to get back into her mean street girl act.
Z chuckled. "you're so cute when you act tough. Come with me. I want to show you something." He put a massive arm around her shoulders, and led her to a pair of nearby double doors, the kind which would normally lead into a back room, of storage.
They entered, and they were surrounded by pitch blackness. Then a spotlight came from above, like they were on a stage of some kind.
"Um… Z… where are we?" asked Liz nervously.
"we'll come to that in a minute. Right now, I want to ask you something." Z faced her, dead serious. "Liz… I know we just met… I know this is rather sudden… but once the twenty-four hours are up – twenty two hours, 4 minutes and 7 seconds now," he glanced at a invisible watch on his wrist, "I will never see you again, and vice versa. And so, I shall come out and ask."
"two questions. Firstly… what is your middle name?"
Liz stared. All this drama for a question like that? "Marie." She said simply.
"ah. Beautiful. Now then… my second question."
"Elizabeth Marie Thompson…" he got down on one knee, and produced a small metal box from nowhere, sleight-of-hand style.
"no way in hell…" Liz thought to herself.
"will you do me the honor… of becoming…" he opened the box, revealing a flawless ring, a spiraling purple stone in the top.
"my eternal wife?"
Liz' jaw dropped. This WAS sudden! Marriage? Here? Now?
"um… uh… um…" Liz said. "this is… rather out of the blue…"
"Please Elizabeth. You are the most beautiful creature in the history of the galaxy. Please." Said Z, almost sadly.
"um…. Um…" stuttered Liz, trying to get her feelings together.
"Liz, which would you rather stay with? A fool who doesn't care about your wants and needs, and has a seizure when something goes a hair out of place? Or be the wife of a loving god, living forever, never dying, people waiting on you hand and foot shopping and partying and manicuring and pedicuring for all eternity."
To anyone else, the choice would have been obvious. For Liz?
"can… can I think about it?" asked Liz desperately.
"think… about it?" asked Z, tilting his head to one side.
"Yeah… y'know… take a little while to get my thoughts arranged…
"Well…" Said Z, contemplating. "I suppose there's no harm in that." Then he Yelled above him, "OK BOYS! She's gonna think about it! Call it off.
Liz hears a loud , disappointed "awwww", and a loud buzzer ringing. She looks around her.
Lights have come on, revealing what was previously hidden by darkness. A huge studio audience, thousands of people, sat on her right. Looking up and to her left, she saw a huge heart-shaped pink sign, emblazoned with the fancy red words, "SHE SAYS YES!" in capital letters, of course.
"what is this?" She asked Z.
"I set all this up for you. The second you said yes, all hell would have broken loose. The sign would have lit up, and the audience would have cheered… but no point crying over what cannot be changed." Z handed her the small box. "Keep it anyways, as a reminder."
He sounded defeated, like he had just lost the most important battle of his life.
"what kind of a stone is this?" Said Liz, trying to change the subject, looking at the purple, drill-shaped stone embedded in the ring.
"Tektranite." Said Z. "one of the rarest minerals in the world."
"It requires a chunk of polished amethyst, carved exactly so that the energies would be focused. The smallest error would cause one to start over. Then it must be bound in precisely 857 the hairs of a endangered creature found only on one planet in the entire universe, who live in a single small pack. Then it must be taken to a certain ten-thousand-year-old alien, living on a single planet on the other side of the universe, who creates a brew which takes a month to ferment. Then one must dump the hair-wrapped carved amethyst into the brew, and then simmer it in lava from all of io's volcanos mixed together for precisely 6 minutes and 57 seconds. Then, when extracted and unwrapped, one is left with a tiny cube of tektranite, barely 2 inches by 2 inches by 2 inches."
"wow. This IS rare." Said Liz, staring at the tiny gem.
"and don't even ASK what the ring is made of," he said, pointing at the luminescent dark green ring.
"Um… wow." Liz said again, putting it on her finger. It tingled.
"you get back to your shopping now. I'll come back to you later, and ask you of your final decision." Said Z. Then he walked through the doors they had entered through, not looking back.
It was impossible to tell what emotions went on, due to his robotic face and mask, but one would see a single tear rolling down his right eye if he still had one.