The Little Rival's "Short"-Comings

Cardcaptor Pandora
Episode XI
The Little Rival's "Short"-Comings
Lauren Phillips sat straight up in her bed. It was that horrible dream again... She shook her head and tried to get rid of the few remaining images. Though most people tried to hold on to what shards of a dream they had, Lauren wanted nothing more than to get rid of this recurring phantom.

She got out of bed and found Tu sleeping curled up next to where her head had been on the pillow. After looking around quickly to make sure no one else was awake, she picked him up and hurried down to the Common Room.

It was completely empty now. She had not seen a clock, but she was sure it had to be after midnight and before five, or someone would be doing homework or something. "What did you have to wake me up for?" Tu asked through a drowsy yawn.

"I just had that dream again..." she whispered.

"I don't know why it worries you so much," he responded dully, obviously not appreciative of being awakened at such an hour. "It's just a dream, after all."

"I know," she whispered, looking at the fire which seemed to never be out. She had become quite a fire-gazer lately... She watched as it suddenly began to weaken in brightness, then as it got smaller and smaller and smaller...

"Lauren, the fire's shrinking!" Tu cried.

"Huh? I thought it was just going out..."

"It never goes out, you know that. Besides, take a closer look! It is the same fire... just smaller...."

She walked closer and knelt next to the fireplace. "Oh my gosh, Tu, you'll never believe this!"

"What? What is it, Lauren?" he asked excitedly, fluttering closer.

"I think I sense a Hogwarts Card!"

((@.#)) "Well... it's about time..."
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Finally, her big chance to catch a card without any of the other Cardcaptors being around. All she had to do was follow the trail of shrunken items, until she found the little spirit. How hard could the Little Card be? It certainly wasn't bigger than she was...

She saw it ahead of her. It was not much bigger than a house elf, but it was certainly prettier. It looked like a little porcalain doll dressed in pale yellow. "It doesn't look so threatening," Lauren said with a grin. "I should be able to handle it."

"Yes, you should, but it is you," Tu said.

"Gee, thanks."

She approached the childish figure slowly at first, but all it did was turn around and smile innocently at her. "Aren't you going to run or something?" But it only continued its mischievous, challenging gaze. Finally Lauren stood before it, her lion-headed staff in her hand. "Alright then, going in for my first seal! Little Card! Return to..."

But suddenly the Little Card pulled out a tiny wand of some sorts and touched the end of it to Lauren's shoe. Before she knew what had happened, she was rushing downwards with air rustling all around her, as if she were falling but she still felt the hard ground beneath her feet. She closed her eyes, not wanting to see what was happening, wondering if she was going to end up dead in the next five seconds...

Her life had not been shortened, no, but everything else had. She looked around the Great Hall, everything seeming hundreds of times greater than before. "Oh no... I'm probably like three inches tall, or something! This is horrible! TUUU!!!!"

"I knew you'd find some way to mess this up, too!" he said bitterly as he floated down next to her, now bigger than a horse in comparison to her.

"I'm sorry! Can you please just help me instead of mock me for now? I feel bad enough!"

He sighed and knelt on the ground. "Get on, I'll fly you into Pandora's room, then she can come down and seal the card since she's always the one who gets the card anyway because I'm stuck with you."
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Pandora was very glad that the short scream didn't wake any of her room-mates up, because then the situation could have ended up being much worse than it already was. "What do you mean you lost Lauren on the way here?" she said angrily once she, Rangi, and Tu had made it to the empty Common Room.

"She was babbling the whole way here and I managed to tune her out! So I didn't notice when she stopped her prattle, I'm sorry! And considering her size, I couldn't even tell she was on my back... Why don't we just go back and look for her?"

"What other choice do we have...? We've got to find her before morning, or she'll get trampled! And what if Persephone found out what happened? She'd seal the Little Card and never turn her back to normal!" Pandora moaned, trying to rub the sleep out of her eyes. "Tomorrow's going to be a very long day with only this much sleep, but whatever. We've got to save Lauren..."

The search was becoming more and more hopeless as dawn came ever closer. "Rangi, we looked everywhere, but she's just too small! People are going to be waking up soon."

"Well, you know you could stop that from happening," he said with a wink. "Sometimes you seem to forget what all you're capable of with what few cards you have."

Pandora stared at him for a second, not exactly knowing what he was talking about. Then it hit her. "The Sleep Card!" She called upon it and commanded it to put everyone to sleep in the castle.

"You know it won't work on the Cardcaptors, so they'll know something's up," Tu pointed out.

"It's better than the whole school out and about! Besides, Sydney can help me look for her, and Holly will probably think of some ingenious way of getting her back. The only one we'll have to worry about is..."

"...Persephone, maybe...?"

Pandora whirled around to see none other than Persephone Avaran herself, holding a jar in her hand with a very small creature inside... "Lauren! Give her back, Persephone!"

Her face was as expressionless as always with that hint of darkness which played into occasional smirks, one of which she presented to them then. "Why should I, Little Malfoy?"

"Because... you can't possibly hate her that much!"

"What do I get out of it?"

"What do you want?"

"The card, and I don't want you interfering while I capture it. Is that understood?" she asked harshly.

Pandora sighed, but saw no other way around it. "If that's the only thing I can do to save her, then yes."

Persephone placed the jar on the ground and took a few steps towards where the small porcelain doll stood. "Little Card, return to..."

...and then she, too, was three inches tall. Lauren really had a fun time laughing at her about that... from the other side of the jar.

Pandora sighed and picked the little Persephone up in her hand, which Persephone did not seem to like very much. "Look... I'll catch it... somehow...."

"Not if you keep going at it that way," a small voice said from behind her. It was Holly Daimen. "You've got to be more creative than that, or all of us will be little by the time it's over."

Pandora smiled at Holly's smug tone of voice. The little genius could get on people's nerves very easily, but she did what she needed to do. "Got any ideas, Holly?"

"Yes, actually. You need someone to distract it while another person seals it. Or if two try at once, because it can only littlize one person at a time."

"Yeah," Rangi laughed, "but who's going to be stupid enough to let themselves be littlized?"

And everybody turned their attention on Rangi.

"What? Me?! You've got to be kidding??"

"Why, Rangi? You're certainly very distracting. Look! It's staring at you right now!"

Rangi looked over at the Little Card, who's eyes were smiling at the little creature. He sighed and said, "Fine... whatever... But you'd better catch that card, Pandora! I don't want to be stuck like this forever!"

He proceeded to fly towards the Little Card, whose attention immediately snapped onto Rangi. Luckily for Pandora, it was having a rather difficult time getting a good shot at him.

"Little Card, return to the Center, you master awaits! Hogwarts Card!" she cried, before the little thing had a chance to realize what was going on. It turned slightly as the staff touched its shoulder, and smiled peacefully as it began to dissolve into a yellow-backed card on the ground. Pandora picked it up, just as a crash sounded from behind her. "What was that..."

"OOOWWWWW!!!" Lauren cried. "You did that on purpose, didn't you, Persephone!"

"How was I supposed to know you'd get bigger right away?!"

Pandora smiled. "You aren't hurt, are you, Lauren?"

"No... not really... but I could have had my eyes gouged out by shards of glass!"

"That wouldn't have happened... I'm not that lucky..." Persephone muttered.

"Okay, no more fighting!" Pandora cried. "Let's just... go back to our houses... I'll recall the Sleep Card, and everything will be fine."

Classes seemed to start far too early that morning. All five of them had circles under their eyes, except for Sydney. Sydney had slept through the entire incident, not because of the Sleep Card's spell, just because she was lazy. Pandora caught her up on everything there was to know during lunch.

"I'm still so worried about Lauren... I'm afraid of what Persephone might really do to her, you know?" Pandora said.

Sydney nodded. "I hope she'll be okay... I talk to Lauren earlier... She keeps complaining of some recurring dream she's been having. Do you think that it might have something to do with...?"

"Hey, Pandora!" a familiar voice called to her. She turned to see her brother walking over flanked by Crabbe and Goyle. Sydney's expression brightened significantly at the sight of Crabbe, whom she immediately stood up to greet before dragging off to a place where they could be alone. Goyle just crossed his arms and stood to the side while Draco spoke with Pandora. "You haven't seen Persephone around, have you?"

"She... she's not with you?"

"No, but you know I wish she was," he said, one of those grins crossing his face that no sister ever wants to see on her brother. "I haven't seen her all day as a matter of fact.... I figured you'd know where she was... I don't know, she sure hangs around you a lot for claiming not to like you."

"You could call it friends through fire, I suppose..." Pandora said, looking away. "If you find her, please tell me. You've got me worried."

"Yes, well, you do the same!" He looked around to see that Crabbe had wandered off. He walked away with only Goyle, and Pandora heard Draco whispering to Goyle, "How did that idiot get so lucky?"

((Another short one, I know! I'm sorry! . I'll get better, I promise!))