"Maybe we can't, boss, but that hasn't stopped us before." It might have slowed them down a time or two, but hadn't ever fully stopped them.

"And Nicky and I started malicious and mellowed, so it's easy to fall back on that if we need to, different when it's for the first time." As far as he could remember they'd all had multiple instances of something pulling that maliciousness right back to the surface, and not always something big, either. The important part was that it never stuck, they could all slough it off again when it was no longer needed.