[Now there is something I'd love to hear.]

[Tab herself is safe from Chelsa, of course, and she's got a level of opacity that's competitive with or even better than Golden even though Golden has both the vampire boost and the aura boost.]

[That was also a deciding factor, I'm sure.]

[In Chelsa not having gotten assassinated? I'm not sure, actually. We don't know what happens if a Chelsea-type actually gets at a Bell. Jokers are capable of intense mixed feelings, we know - Harley got got, the Gift Joker got got, I'm pretty sure neither of them acts in a way consistent with unambiguous Chelsa-adoration. But we haven't seen the case where a Bell has her feelings modified like that and I'm not sure what would happen.]

[I think it's safe to say we won't be experimenting.]

[Not deliberately, but now we know Chelsea's a template, and not every Bell has opacity.]

[There is that. Poor hypothetical Bell.]

[Very much so. At least Elspeth can deprogram half of it.]

[Which half?]

[She can undo any positive Chelsea-based affections. She can't put back what was taken.]

[Oh, delightful,] he sighs, snuggling her. [We kill these people when we find them, yes?]

[Golden killed hers. Tab explicitly told her not to kill the Gift one, on the grounds that she still has enough contact with the population for it to be a sharp shock.]

[Right. Never visiting Gift, then.]

[Tab is setting up on another planet that Chelsa doesn't know about, with the resurrected city of It Got Nuked This One Time Toronto, not that there's any reason you need to visit Gift.]

"The next galaxy over is not far enough for comfort."

"Okay." Nuzzle. Idly, "Which part spooks you more?"

"The irreversible one."

"Well, yeah, but what if you factor out Elspeth."

"Is there some purpose to this line of inquiry?"

"Idle curiosity. If I factor out Elspeth I'm way more freaked out by the part she can fix. You don't have to answer if you don't want."

"If I factor out Elspeth they are much less comparable. In a very 'they both lose' sort of way."

"Yes, that's a relief."

Checking, checking...

When she checks for a Lazarus, one turns up who is an interesting new kind of demon: pebbled pine-green skin with iridescent black streaks in a vaguely spiky pattern, 'hair' made of thin iridescent black spines, short tidy iridescent black claws. Controlling for obvious species differences, his face is recognizably that of a Lazarus. He's even the same height, under that spiky crown of hair.