Chapter Three
Disclaimer: Everything belongs to Joss. Except for my lack of sanity. That is blamed on the bunnies. (No, Lauren, I'm not leaving them alone! They stole my sanity! Them and the penguins...)
Spike sighed heavily as he walked down the road that would lead him to Warren's house, the basis of the Nerd operations. As he found the house he banged on the door hardly before just giving it up and kicking it down. The three little boys on the other side were not about to tell him not to do something like that.
"Can we help you?" Jonathan asked as Andrew's eyes went wide and he whispered, "Dude, that was so cool."
Spike looked curiously over at the blond boy before answering Jonathan's question. "Heard you shrunk the Slayer," he stated clearly as he looked around Nerd Central.
Andrew nodded. "Yea, we did!" he yelled excitedly. "And we got Doctor Who on DVD. Well, the first season anyway. It was the second best day ever, the first being the all-day-all-night Star Trek marathon."
"That was pretty cool," added Jonathan with a smile. "We were all dressed up like--"
"Do I care?" Spike asked irritably, cutting off the little man. "I came for information about the Slayer and I expect to get that information."
"Like what information?" Warren asked as he turned around to face Spike. "You said you already heard about her, uh, height problem," he said, chuckling slightly along with Jonathan and Andrew.
"Not funny," Spike said as he rolled his eyes. "Look, what is going to happen as a result of this?"
"Listen up," Warren said as he swallowed hard. "You're in our debt so we're not telling you jack. Let yourself out already so we can go back to these episodes and our evil plans!"
"Evil plans?" Spike asked doubtfully.
Warren said nothing, just reached for the broken freeze ray. Luckily it looked like it worked and it was enough to coax Spike out the door. Warren smiled as the Trio returned to the ever-important Doctor Who.
Dawn arose early the next morning to the incessant drone coming from the small red alarm clock on her wooden night table. Odd, she thought to herself. That's Buffy's clock. Dawn's expression fell into a frown. What's going on here?
On her way out to the bathroom, Dawn stopped and poked her head inside Buffy's room. The bed was perfectly made, not a single pillow out of place. So Buffy was out all night, Dawn concluded with a heavy sigh. She knew the slaying thing was very important, but she wondered who it would honestly hurt if Buffy decided to spend a little time with her sister.
She stopped once again, peeking inside Willow and Tara's room, finding it equally as clean and tidy as Buffy's had been. Except for the black, eight-sided, open jewelry box on the dresser, right next to Willow's green hairbrush.
Dawn smiled slightly, wondering if Willow or Tara had any good jewelry that she could steal. It was not as if she meant to keep stealing things. Anya's earrings, the lipsticks from various storesÉShe had not meant to do any of those things, but she just wanted them so badly.
"Maybe for the new year I won't do it anymore," she muttered quietly before walking over to see if there was a good necklace in there perhaps.
What she found inside was far from good jewelry. "Um, what the hell?" Dawn sputtered out in obvious confusion.
The sound of her younger sister's voice awoke Buffy with a jump from her position next to Willow. "Dawn, my god, you scared me," Buffy said as she sat up on the bottom of the box.
"What's going on?" the fifteen year old asked.
"What does it look like is going on?" Anya asked irritably. She was obviously in a bad mood, most likely as a result of the three other female Scoobies forbidding her to have sex with Xander the previous night.
"What Anya is trying to say is that the Nerd Herd shrunk us last night with their latest machine," Tara said calmly from the other side of Willow.
"Spike took us home," Buffy added sheepishly, feeling slightly embarrassed about the whole concept of being five inches tall and needing help home from the vampire she hated.
"And you haven't tried to do anything to reverse the effects?" Dawn asked with a shocked look on her face.
"Dawn, by the time we realized we were short, got help, and then got home it was close to three in the morning," Buffy pointed out with a frown. "We were all tired."
Dawn's youthful face quickly lit up with excitement. "I could stay home from school and try to figure things out!" she offered eagerly.
"Nice try," Buffy said as her sister's face fell. "School is important," she added. "It's where you learn and where we will send you to keep social services off our backs," she began, her voice telling Dawn that she meant business and now was not the time for Dawn to push it.
"Right," Dawn began. "Only one problem."
"What?" Buffy asked with a sigh.
"Um, it's a little far to walk in the time I have and you're all not able to drive"
"Oh, right," Buffy said, frowning as she bit against her lower lip. "Um, ask Janice to take you, I guess."
Dawn sighed, rolling her eyes as she walked over to the phone, holding it for a second before she began to dial the number she knew by heart.
"But don't tell her what really happened to me!" Buffy began.
Dawn rolled her eyes. "I'm not stupid," she said with a sigh as she began to talk. "Hello, Janice?...Hey, it's Dawn. Listen, I meant to call you last night, but we got home late from the hospital...No, we're ok...It's just, last night Buffy's friend Willow fell down the stairs and broke her leg and their friend Xander overslept. They were my main ride to school and now I don't have a ride." She smiled slightly as she heard Janice talking to her mother, relieved that her lie had worked. "Oh, you can! That's great, thank you!...Alright, see you in a bit."
A triumphant smile present on her face, Dawn walked back over to the dresser. "Janice's mom will take me. I better start getting ready."
"Please eat something!" Buffy begged.
Dawn rolled her eyes again. "Alright, alright," she promised as she walked out of the room and began getting ready. "I think we still have pop tarts or frozen waffles," she said, mostly to herself as she walked back into the bathroom.
"How are we going to make it through this?" Buffy asked once Dawn had left the room. "Anywhere we might try to go could kill us."
"We can't just sit around here doing nothing," Willow pointed out. "Dawn is right though. We have to find something that might reverse the effects."
"But what?" Xander called down to them. "And how, given the fact that we are trapped inside a jewelry box?"
"That may be," Buffy began as she looked around her. She knew she had told Spike to empty the entire thing, but maybe he had gotten lazy. He does that on occasion. For the most part, she found it to be annoying, but this time it might be for the best. "Bingo!" she yelled happily, retrieving one of Joyce's necklaces that had been shoved into one of the corners.
Willow looked over at Buffy curiously. "What bingo?" she asked before catching site of the necklace.
Anya and Xander both peered over the top of the earring container. "Oh no," Anya mumbled as she caught site of the necklace. "You don't expect us to Tarzan our way out of this, do you?" she asked with a heavy sigh.
Buffy smiled slightly. "Why not?" she asked curiously. She frowned. "Do you have a better idea?" she asked. "An idea that does not include you having sex with Xander?" she added immediately.
Anya shook her head slightly. "There has to be something else. Something more sane."
"It might not be the safest way out, but it's our only shot. If we don't get out, we'll never be our normal selves again."
Anya's eyes suddenly grew wide with fear. "Oh no," she whispered, mainly to herself but as he was standing right next to her, Xander was able to hear what she had to say.
"Honey, are you afraid of heights?" Xander asked curiously as he wrapped a comforting arm around his fiancée. "It'll be ok. I'll go with you and you'll be fine."
Anya shook her head. "That's not what I meant by 'oh no'," she said. "The height doesn't bother me. The fact that I could die if I fall off this bed kinda does, but not the height."
"What did you mean?" Buffy asked curiously as she looked up over at Anya.
Anya swallowed hard. "I was just thinking about the last machine the nerd herd had used against us. With the whole pudding thing."
Xander nodded. "It was gross, but honey, that's been taken care of."
"I don't think that's what she meant Xander," Willow pointed out, the fear in her voice matching the fear on Anya's face. "Whatever caused that might also be in this machine. We could be turning into, well, pudding."
"I d-don't feel pudding-y," Tara began.
Buffy shook her head. "You don't. Someone else feels you and you feel pudding-y to them. You on your own feel perfectly normal. Or, y'know, as normal as someone in your position could feel."
"Anya doesn't feel like pudding," Xander called down after hugging his fiancée tightly.
"Good," Buffy said as she picked up the necklace. "Xander, catch!" she called out as she threw the necklace up.
"Can we start phase two?" Andrew asked as he took the Doctor Who DVD out of their DVD player and placed it back into its case.
"What is phase two exactly?" Jonathan asked as he plopped back down in the beanbag chair.
Warren smiled wickedly. "Summoning in a lot of demons to take over the town."