"Acne is caused by bacteria. If they trouble you I will annihilate them. Get butter on your face and like it."

"You're so forceful!"

"You disparaged corn! You require correction."

"Correct me, mommy."

"I will. We will get you to my lab and I will mix up a little something and paint it onto the roof of your mouth and you will be enlightened. I can probably get it to work on eggs too."

"And conveniently, this won't interfere with the pearls?"

"On a biological level it'll be very short term, you just need to be re-exposed to relevant foods while you've got the tincture on and then you'll be trained to appreciate them and your brain should do the rest. All those long term mods you were interested in would have still been present when it got to be pearl time."

"Fascinating!" She's a little unnerved at the idea of having her preferences forcibly rewired, but not much she can do. She's curious if the same method can be used for bihacking, but too afraid to ask.

Monoceros pats her on the head and pushes another slice of the Italian sausage pizza at her.

"Where did you get all these, by the way?"

"I commandeered a place with a suitable oven and the goons're using it to make pizzas."

"Isn't this supposed to be a ceasefire zone?"

"Yes, but the restaurant with the nice oven is not. - half the pizzas are going to Samsara, who has lent a teleportation box for the purpose of getting them here hot."

"Buddhist supervillain?"

"Yep, he's throwing an orgy and wanted pizza at it, so he said I could have the teleport box for half the pizza if I secured an oven and put the goons to it."

"Buddhist kinkster supervillain?"

"I don't know the details but one of the goons was invited if you want to ask him about it later."

"I do, not gonna lie."

"The goons do have names... which one was it... Hien! It was Hien."

"I'll write that down."

"Romanizes H-I-E-N."

"Got it."

"I am allowed by union rules to make them all answer to 'goon' but I am not allowed to formally strip them of their names for bureaucratic human-resources purposes."

"I mean, you need some way to identify them, and you can always give each of them a serial number or whatever in addition to their name."

"I could but I don't; I just call them all 'goon' and sometimes specify things like 'kitchen goon' or 'lab goon'."