Infernal Academia

Chapter 19 - Redtile's New Flame: Part 5 (The Plummet)

Cobalt ran as fast as his legs would carry him, panting with every step and ignoring the pain growing in his chest, like his heart was going to burst.  His entire body was tingling with equal parts fear and adrenaline, and as he skidded down one of Brimstone's backstreets, he felt an intense shock of pain suddenly rock through his entire body, knocking him off his feet and into a collection of recycling bins.  Gunshots rang out through the nigh, no doubt a result of Quinn fending off Elya.  He was frightened for her; the Fallen had left her alone so far, but now that Quinn had directly interfered with her, there was no telling what Elya was capable of.

As he tried to extricate himself from the discarded paper and cardboard, he heard his phone go off in his pocket.  Flipping it open, Cobalt held it to his ear.

"H- Hello?!" he gasped, struggling to catch his breath.

"Yeah, bluebell?  It's me, your best friend.  How's your date-slash-not-date going?" piped the cheery voice of Alison Titch, only further worsening Cobalt's nerves.

"Alison?  Now's not really a good time!" he cried, nervously glancing behind him for the telltale violet glint of his pursuer's eyes.

"Well, there never really is a good time for anything, you know?  Just one of the facets of modern philosiphy, if you think about it.  To live is to suffer, therefor anything that ever occurs is an inconvenience, and-"

"Why did you call me?!"

He heard the sound of water bubbling, followed by a fit of coughing from the scientist.

"Right, right, sorry.  Yeah, uh... The nanosurgeons, right?  The ones in your bloodstream?" 

"What about them?!" panted Cobalt as he turned a shady corner.

"So I did some retrospective testing of your blood - don't ask how I got the samples - and I found that, interestingly enough, demon blood has a slightly lower pH than human blood.  Who would have thought, huh?"

"Your point?!"

"Yeah, the nanosurgeons can't really handle the added acidity.  They're sensitive, you know?  So I had programmed them to undo the changes they did before they go kaput.  Just letting you know it'll probably happen sooner than later," she explained nonchalantly.

Cobalt blanched.  Having those tiny robots modify his body from the inside out was traumatising enough; just what was going to happen once they expired?!

Stopping outside a fenced-off demolitions site, he quickly glanced around for any sign of Elya before squeezing through a gap in the chain-link.  He was far enough away from her that he would be better off hiding than running.

"Lemme just get up the old calculator here... Uhh, carry the two... factor in exertion levels and adrenaline... take away... hmm..."

"Alison, please, hurry it up!  When do they expire?" he asked breathlessly, chest heaving as he planted his back against the wall of a derelict building.

"Here we go.  The nanosurgeons should begin their shutdown procedures in about... ten."

"Ten what?!  Hours?!  Minutes?!"

"Nine... eight... seven..."

The phone slipped from Cobalt's grasp as his heart suddenly gave a mighty lurch.  Crying out, he fell to his knees and clawed at his shirt as his entire body began to heat up.  It was slow at first, before his temperature rapidly spiked, to the point where he felt as though he was boiling alive in his own skin.  He could feel each individual muscle stretch, tear and reform whilst his bones felt as though they had been reduced to some kind of effluvial powder that shifted and splintered with every breath he took.  Fat deposits squirmed beneath his flesh, all the while his skin grew incredibly tight and itchy.  Stars flashed at the edges of his vision, pulsing in time to heartbeats that just kept getting faster and faster.  He could taste blood in his mouth, and the only thing Cobalt was able to hear was an incessant, high-pitched whine.  He reached a hand out, only to watch as his purple skin split open, giving way to an iridescent blue.