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Chapter 6 by Willow Tindersmith Willow Tindersmith

Everybody thinks you're crazy, but you're not, are you?

Enlist Yutong to help make sense of this

"Wait... it's gotta be the soda!" you stammer. "Yu! You're good with this stuff, can you take a look at the machine?"

A disbelieving Yutong comes over and starts studying the panel. "What the hell is this? Why are there so many buttons? 'Scope'? 'Potency'? Why does a soda dispenser need those?"

You sense a bit of panic in her voice, which does nothing to calm you down. "That's what I'm saying! It's not normal soda! It's doing something but I have no idea how!"

Yutong pumps the metaphorical brakes. "Okay, let's slow down for a second and assume this does change people. Do you know what buttons you pressed to make it do that?"

"I... all of those were preset when I pressed this 'TYPE' button up here. I didn't know what any of them did so I thought the defaults would be fine." You thank the heavens that BMBO is the first button in its category, so you don't have to reveal your intentions behind pressing it.

Meanwhile, Yutong is quickly analyzing the panel in front of you. "This 'Aware' group here has labels for 'SRVR', 'DRNK', 'WTNS' and 'PBLC', and currently only 'SRVR' is lit up. I assume this means only you as the 'server' are aware of the change? Holy crap, how advanced is this stuff?" Her eyes light up at the discovery. "What else can this do?"

"Whoa, hold on there, Yu!" Sully interrupts her. "If we even believe that this works, shouldn't we fix what we did to Pearl first?"

"What do you mean 'fix'?" Pearl snaps. "You wanna use some kind of alchemy we don't know about to make me wear black and stop dying my hair, just because Chase says that's the rEaL mE?"

"Actually that's not a bad idea," Yutong jumps in. "Look at it this way: if it works, you're actually back to the way you were, and if it doesn't and Chase was just hallucinating it won't affect you at all!" She punches buttons with intent and determination, and you take a look at what she's selected.

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Yutong goes on to explain her reasoning: "If my hypotheses are correct, 'ASTH' should stand for 'Aesthetics', and that's why the 'Bimbo' drink changed her clothes and hair color. So if we want to change that back to black, 'GOTH' should be the option we want. And under the 'Aware' label, there are options that look like 'Drinker' and 'Witness', so if we leave those on, all of us should be able to notice the change."

Before anyone else can contribute their thoughts, Yutong has already pressed the big, juicy JUICE button and is now holding a cracked-open can of Goth Juice Xtra Lite out to Pearl, ready to drink.

Does Pearl accept the offering?

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