"I still don't get it."

Cobalt stared at the leather bound book in his hands, frowning as he flicked through the yellowed, ink-stained pages. In the last couple of days, he had taken a crack at Cordelia Fesser's notes once again, but alas, her encoded entries remained a mystery to him. He was still convinced that somewhere within lay the key to breaking out of his contract, but more importantly, he wanted to find out what the Succubus scientist had discovered regarding her experiments on Incubi.

"I don't much understand it myself. But I trust she has her reasons," he said aloud, snapping his book shut as he looked up.

He was standing in a small, gloomy cave. Behind him flowed a waterfall that concealed the entrance, and mounted to the wall was a doorway, handmade from scrap and locked with a keypad.

"Still, a human willingly living in Hell?" exclaimed Lilith as he approached the door.

"I've long since given up on trying to understand her. Alison's erratic, but her intelligence is no joke. If anyone can crack this, it's her," the Incubus said, tightening his grip on the journal as he typed a code into the panel.

"And you trust this human?"

"Sort of. She doesn't have much of a reason to deceive me."

As the door hissed open, the Incubus began his long descent through the narrow tunnel leading deep beneath the park.

"Still... As futile as I think this little search is, kid, I wouldn't recommend handing this kind of knowledge off to one of... them," warned the Devil.

He frowned.

"I don't really have the time to argue about this, Lilith. The school day starts in an hour, and I still have to pick up some new binders."

"Suit yourself."

She had been getting less argumentative the longer they lived together. That was a good sign.

Reaching the laboratory proper, Cobalt was surprised to find that an actual feat of science appeared to be taking place. Much of the furniture and worktables that lay in the centre of the cavern had been shoved to the sides, leaving room for a large machine to be constructed. Most of the parts appeared to be ripped off other devices, but as the Incubus slowly circled the huge pod-like structure, he heard Lilith make an impressed humming noise in the back of his mind.

"Well shit. This human clearly knows how to weld."

Circling the entire device, the Incubus glanced over at the scientist's desk setup. It was covered in blueprints, and dozens of paper sheets laden with calculations that spilled off the pages, onto the surface of the desk and even onto the floor in some places. Each of the dozen computer screens on the wall showed different images; biological diagrams, Jump Gate schematics, medical charts, even a 3D rendering of a nervous system.

"Bluebell? That you?" called a voice from somewhere within the machine.

The Incubus heard a hiss as a panel opened on the side, allowing a grease-stained Alison Titch to crawl out on her stomach, carrying a wrench in each hand and a third between her teeth. Tossing the tools to the floor, she almost tripped on a mess of cables extruding from the device as she grinned at him.

"Hey, long time no see! You're looking better!" the human exclaimed, planting her hands on her hips.

Cobalt scratched the back of his head, remembering the rather embarrassing way he behaved the last time he saw her.

"W- Well, I suppose things have improved, in a manner of speaking. I'm feeling better than I was, in any case," he said.

"Good, good. And how's the whole dietary thing going?"

He made a waving hand gesture.

"It's... going. I was never all that into meals heavy in meat or eggs, and all the milk I've been drinking lately has been upsetting my stomach," he sighed.

Reaching into her labcoat, Alison produced a notebook and scrawled down a few observations.

"Well, you've been sticking to my advice, at least... You been taking supplements?"

Cobalt didn't tell her that he was no longer capable of eating anything that didn't come from an animal. Part of him didn't want to.

"A few," he said after a moment's consideration.

"Good. Don't want you contracting scurvy or anything like that."

"Neither do I. Alison? Could I ask you a favour?"

"Any time, bluebell," the scientist responded, not looking up from her frantic note-taking.

He handed Cordelia Fesser's experiment journal to her, which she accepted with a half-smile, one singed eyebrow raised.

"What's this?" she asked, flipping it open.

"Something I want you to take a look at. I don't know if you're any good with codes, but... Well, regardless of whether you are or not, you're a woman of science. I feel like this is better of in your hands," Cobalt explained as the human began to leaf through the journal.

As she read, Alison's smile quickly spread into an ecstatic grin, growing wider and more overjoyed as she skimmed faster and faster. Snapping the book shut, she laughed and surprised the Incubus with a tight hug, smearing grease onto his shirt.

"Hah! Holy shit, this is like all my Christmases come at once! This is a goddamn treasure trove, bluebell!" the human announced with a flourish, holding it aloft.

Lilith tutted.

"Everything here is God damned in one way or another..." she muttered bitterly, though Cobalt paid her no heed.

"I'll need to give this code a proper look later on. Run it through a few ciphers, you know? Once I find a keyword and get the whole thing decoded, I'll let you know what I find," Alison said to Cobalt, slipping the journal into her pocket.

With that weight taken off the Incubus' mind, he sighed and gave her a relieved smile.

"Thank you. Now, that's all I really-"

"Actually, bluebell, could you do a favour for me as well?" she suddenly asked, clapping her hands together.

Oh boy. Here it was. Alison's bizarre 'requests'.

"... Tell me what it is before I agree. I'm in a bit of a rush here," he said, folding his arms.

Nodding, she skipped over to the mighty machine and slapped the side of it.

"It's actually to do with this beast here. See your little problem I said I'd look into? With the horns and all the weird shit going on with you and your magic?"

"Go on."

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"Well, I've formed a hypothesis. Nowhere near perfect yet, but once I test it and ensure I didn't pull my calculations out of my ass, then I may just be able to offer you a solution. Maybe. For now, I just need you to confirm something for me," she continued, patting the side of the device.

Cobalt raised a suspicious eyebrow.

"Which is...?"

"Your dimensions. I need you to check to see if you'll actually fit inside this thing. Don't wanna add all the finishing touches just to find out I made it too narrow or something."

The Incubus sighed. Well at least she wasn't pumping him full of nanobots or jamming needles into his spinal cord. Again.

"Right, right... Where's the entrance?" he asked with a yawn, walking around the mechanical pod.

Alison pointed at the machine's front.

"See that little red button? Looks like a vending machine panel? That's the one."

Locating the button in question, Cobalt pressed it and stepped back as a great deal of steam hissed from various vents and ports bolted to the machine's exterior. A portion of the pod's shell split open and moved aside on mechanical runners, allowing him to peer inside. Within was a simple metal chair, surrounded by electrical nodes.

"This looks... dangerous," the Incubus murmured, glancing over at Alison.

"Yeah, the design's not final. I haven't wired any of those nodes yet though, so unless they poke you in the eye or something, you should be fine. Take a seat and I'll check if this thing closes properly," the human responded, typing away on a keyboard.

A little uneasy, but eager to get a move on, the Incubus clambered into the machine and sat down. His arms were pressed together a little snugly, but aside from that, it was relatively comfortable. Giving Alison a nod, she closed the exterior shell, sealing Cobalt inside the dark device.

"How is it in there? You're not crushed, are you?" she called, her voice muffled by all the machinery.

The Incubus squinted through the darkness at the mechanical walls all around him.

"It's a little claustrophobic, but I'm not really uncomfortable in any way," he answered.

"You can still move a little?"

"A bit."

"Breathing okay? Not to hot?"

"It's fine, Alison. Can you open it up now?"

"What? No, I still need to switch it on!"

The Incubus blood ran cold.

"Alison, you said you still had to test it before you'd add 'finishing touches!'"

"Well, duh! What do you think I'm doing now?"

He heard her slap something on the outside of the machine. It roared to life, forcing Cobalt to cover his ears as the mechanical innards of the device began to whir and hiss. The electrical nodes, contrary to Alison's insistence, began to glow a bright blue, electricity sparking between them as they almost blinded the Incubus.

"Okay, lemme run you through how this should work!" she called from outside, raising her voice over the rumble of machinery.

"How it 'should' work?!"

"Yeah!"

"You mean you don't know?!"

"I told you, I haven't tested it yet!"

"Alison, let me out now!"

More buttons were pressed from the outside, causing an oppressive heat to begin building up within the confines of the pod.

"Okay, so what happened to you was a magical process, right?! It affected the nervous system, which dictates magic! What else does it dictate?! How demons grow from stage to stage, which means it also has something to do with the weird shit happening to your body! Do you know about how cantic plasma works?!"

"What?!"

"It's how magic can affect a demon's body internally! Every incantation is a process, including the ones that happen autonomously!"

"What?! I can't-!"

"Long story short, bluebell, you know the process that fucked up your magic?! I'm gonna reverse it!"

His eyes widened.

"You're gonna what?!"

"Sit back and let the magic flow, bluebell!"

He heard the definitive click of a lever being pulled.

Immediately, an unholy surge of energy suddenly slammed into the Incubus. Arcs of electricity leaped from the metallic walls of the chamber into Cobalt's skin, causing him unrelenting pain. He clutched his head as he screamed, just as Lilith screamed within his mind. It felt like every single one of his muscles were contracted and strained, tearing themselves apart and reconnecting. His bones seemed to snap and refuse faster than the Incubus could blink. It was torture. It was pain. It lasted an eternity. His body was afire with overcharged magic, and as he felt his heart seize, Cobalt's eyes rolled back and he briefly lost consciousness.

~~~~~

"S- Stay away from me, you f- fucking animal..."

~~~~~

Cobalt's eyes opened a mere moment after he had shut them, but by then, everything had fallen silent. The smell of copper and smoke hung in the air, and all around him, the electrical nodes looked burned and half-melted. Some parts of the wall were glowing from the heat, and outside the pod the Incubus could hear the alarming sound of Alison brandishing a fire extinguisher as she hacked and coughed.

"Agh... You still alive in there, bluebell?" she asked.

Coughing, the Incubus rubbed his temples.

"... Kinda..." he complained, wincing as his entire body ached.

"That's a fucking understatement. Hey, why do you sound so-?" Lilith began to say.

Her voice was cut off by the sound of the scientist starting up some kind of power tool outside.

"Well, two short-circuits and a small fire is manageable in my book. Hold tight, I'll get you out now; looks like all the locks melted shut."

Cobalt winced as he was treated to the delightful sound of a saw blade grinding through the slagged exterior of the device that had just put him through pure agony. He didn't feel any different; if anything, he was feeling worse.

After a few minutes, Alison finally cut through the shell of the pod, almost nicking the Incubus with the circular saw she was brandishing. Once she ripped the doors off, she lifted her goggles away from her eyes and stared at the Incubus blankly.

"Oh."

She looked him up and down.

"Oh shit."

"What? What'th wrong?" Cobalt asked, hauling himself out of the device.

He tripped over his own trousers, toppling to the floor as Alison continued to gawk. Wincing, he rubbed his head and thought for a second.

Wait. Did he just...?

"Okay, so... Good news and bad news. Except the good news isn't good. And the bad news is worse than the good news, which isn't good to begin with as previously mentioned," the human explained, going a little pale as she started to babble.

"Alithon, what did you-"

He stopped himself, almost biting his tongue. Wait...

"O- Okay, so your horns are still metal. And, uh... I'm pretty sure that means your magic is still not working right. Th- That's the not-good good news."

Cobalt looked down at his clothes. They were much, much baggier than he remembered them. In fact, his entire point of view appeared to be much closer to the ground.

"And the bad newth...?"

"Uh... one sec."

Rushing over to one of her desks, she rummaged around in a cabinet before returning with a mirror; the very same one she used to show him his horns when they first changed. She had since repaired it with tape.

Peering into the cracked mirror, Cobalt was met with the face of a young, seven-year-old Incubus boy. His horns - though still made of iron - were stubbier, and his face looked rounder. Angling the shattered mirror, he looked over his shoulder to see a pair of laughably tiny wings weakly jutting through the holes on his sagging shirt, and he could barely see his little tail poke through his trousers.

The mirror fell to the floor, breaking again.

"I just fixed that..." Alison murmured.

Cobalt raised a hand and took a breath.

"Pleathe tell me thith ith a joke," he whispered, staring dead ahead.

"Okay look, I didn't expect this to happen! It was supposed to revert the changes enacted upon your nervous system, not-"

"Not thend me back to the firtht thtage of growth," the Incubus said quietly as reality settled in.

This was happening, wasn't it? That speech impediment that had plagued him his entire childhood, that he had vague memories of attending speech therapy classes for... It was back in full force.

Alison, some way, some how, had reverted his body into that of a first stage demon's. A child.

She had made his Everlast worse.

"Alithon. I'm gonna thcream. Very loudly," Cobalt whispered, raising a finger.

"Wait, don't do that!"

"Why not?! I have clatheth to teach today! I have a job, Alithon! How the Hell am I thupothed to eckthplain thith?!" he cried, bursting into a tantrum as he gestured to his juvenile form.

She suppressed a laugh.

"It'th not funny! I had a theriouth compleckth about the lithp! Yearth of thpeech clatheth! And now you jutht give it back to me?! Jutht like that?!"

Though he felt his outrage growing, for some reason he felt like he was on the verge of tears. Doing her best not to laugh, Alison pulled out her notebook and began to flick through it.

"Okay, I'm sorry, I'm sorry! Look here, okay?! This isn't permanent!" she said, showing him a page covered in equations.

He squinted at them.

"I don't underthtand any of thith."

"Look, I'm sorry I tricked you. But I wasn't kidding when I said this was a test run. I set the machine's parameters to a temporary setting, in case of something fucking up. Like this, for example."

There was the smallest amount of relief to be found in that. At least he wouldn't be stuck this way.

"How temporary?" Cobalt asked, burying his face in his hands.

"... A day."

"A day?! I have to teach my thtudenth like-?!"

"Just say it's an Incubus thing! Surely that excuse still works, right?!"

"THAT'TH NOT THE POINT, ALITHON!"

Clenching his fists, Cobalt gasped for breath as he unexpectedly winded himself. Looking down upon him with a sympathetic gaze, the intrepid scientist hunkered down and began to adjust his clothes. She rolled up his sleeves and the legs of his trousers, pinning them in place before tightening his shoes and adjusting his tie.

"Aw, you look like a little kid playing dress-up," she cooed, tousling his hair.

"Alithon. I'm getting angry."

"Bluebell, there's nothing much else I can do. You're just gonna have to wait this out, but I promise I'll make this up to you."

Cobalt raised a finger in preparation of another outburst. But upon realise that there was no point in acting out like a child in addition to looking like one, he swallowed hard and turned around, marching towards the exit without another word. Silently fuming, he heard Lilith pipe up in the back of his mind.

"... Is this kind of thing normal with her?" she asked.

He released a long, embittered sigh.

"Unfortunately tho..."