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“You’ve been wanting to say that to me for a long time,” said Parson.

“Sure have,” said Damian. “And maybe a part of you has been waiting to hear it, too.”

“Hah. I don’t think so. If there’s one thing about you that I haven’t missed, it’s your complete inability to choose your words tactfully.”

“Had to leave something for you to get good at, didn’t I?”

“Careful, now. That was almost a compliment.”

“Nothin’ ‘almost’ about it. Take it and be grateful.”

“Oh, I’m positively glowing. Can’t you tell?”

“And stop talking shit about Germal while you’re at it. You’ve never understood him half as well as you thought you did.”

“What? Why are you defending him like he was some angel? He was, quite literally, the biggest liar we’ve ever known. And he wronged you, more than anyone.”

“And yet he also gave his life in order to save your stupid neck. Have some respect, asshole.”

“Pah. While I do appreciate the two of you rescuing me, I only ended up in that position because of him. Because, foolishly, I decided to trust him again.”

“Don’t be such a wet blanket. Nothin’ foolish about what happened. Don’t you get it? We were finally able to take our shot. After all these years, thinkin’ the plan was dead and buried, we still found an opportunity in the end. And hell, we got close! Closer than anyone else has gotten in centuries. And we lived. So we can still take another crack at it, one day.”

“I think your mind must have gone again. This optimism is too out-of-character for you.”

“Been forty years. I’ve changed some. Just as you have.”

“I liked you better before.”

That made Damian snicker. “Feeling’s mutual, you piece of shit.”

Their slow, shambling trek across the landscape continued for quite a while longer. Having been walking for days already, they’d initially just picked a direction and hoped for the best. The reapers had been too exhausted to even speak, let alone provide actual guidance on where to go.

Unfortunately, even after Feromas and Overra had recovered, they weren’t much help in that regard.

They’d considered destroying their brains, of course, in order to let the reapers move more quickly, but with the regeneration stunted so badly, there was quite a heavy concern that even regenerating their whole bodies from scratch would prove problematic for the reapers.

Apparently, Damian had heard--via Germal, no less--that Jackson was currently suffering from a similar affliction and that a full body regrowth would not fix it.

The Mad Demon was such a menace. This felt much worse than the initial taste that Parson had gotten when he was first captured.