"Shopping!" Danielle (formerly Jon), Karyn, and Zoe announced in unison.
"Then let's go, girls," Athena said, leading the way to the most fashionable clothing store in the mall.
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Meanwhile, Sarah had slowed down around the entrance to the mall. She was in conflict. She hated those Barbie bitches, but she used to be one of them. She hated herself for using that device on Zoe and Athena. They were so perfect before! Girls that she could have called friends, even. But she fucked that all up, being the Barbie bitch that she was. She thought about trying to get the device back and use it to undo what she did. But that gave her pause. Part of her new persona was the fact that she didn't like people being forced to become something they weren't. Like a girl changing her lifestyle, just to fit in with the popular crowd. Everyone shouldn't have to be pressured by society to do something like that. They should just be themselves.
It's funny that she used the example of a girl being forced to change her lifestyle, just to fit in, because now in her Goth persona, she recalled that many years ago, that was her. Growing up in elementary school, she wasn't really all that popular, being kind of a tomboy, actually. But due to the insistence of her mother, she made some changes to her life to make her fit in with the more popular kids, her mother even going so far as to make her feel guilty for not wanting to be popular, like she was doing harm to herself or something. Her love of sports eventually pushed her towards cheerleading, which did occasionally require acrobatics, but it wasn't the same as playing soccer, which she loved to do all those years ago. Apparently, it took being turned into a Goth (or rather, not being popular anymore) for her to recall all of this. She almost felt like she had been brainwashed, conditioned her whole life, by not just her family, but also friends, to become the most popular girl of all. But none of it was her. The real her.
Though, as she was right now, she wasn't the "real her" either. If she had grown up just being herself, she figured it would be almost impossible that she'd turn into a Goth girl. More likely an athlete of some kind.
All of this reflection had given her an idea. Yes, she knew that she had to get the personality manipulator back, but she wasn't sure what to do with it when she got her hands on it. Obviously, she'd want to return Zoe and Athena to their original selves (she had decided that she wasn't changing their identity, just returning their identities to what they already were), but then what? She didn't like the idea that Athena had so drastically changed her, taking away her identity, but Sarah also didn't want to be that Barbie bitch again. No, what she needed to do was use the device to make her into her true self, what she was before she was conditioned by her mother all those years ago, which had turned her into the Barbie bitch she was today (before becoming Goth, that was). Sarah would use the device to make herself into a tomboy.
But first she had to get that device back.
