Spike grinned and set down his bag of groceries. Slayers were generally easier to harass when one didn't have one's hands full.

He could smell her coming. Just the scent of her almost sent him into game face, but he restrained himself. He didn't want to eat her anyway. Well, he did, but...

Not that way.

She was coming around the corner now. Just a few more steps and he could swagger out in front of her, giving him the edge. One, two, three...

He turned the corner. "Hullo there, pet, out for a nice evening walk to-" And then there was a sharp whisking noise cutting through the air, and a small something-or-other cut into his neck. "Oh, bollocks," he grumbled as the world went black and he fell.

The moment the world started to fade into color and light, Spike wished it hadn't. "Not the best way to spend a night," he observed as he made an effort and pushed himself off the ground."And a damn sight away from what I had planned." He stopped. Someone was talking, and their voice was high. And rather childlike. And unfortunately, he suspected very much that that someone was him. He looked down.

"Bloody hell!" he exploded, jumping to his feet.

He didn't have to jump far. His height had been reduced dramatically - Spike was now about three feet tall. And chubby. Even had he had a mirror he couldn't have seen himself, but he could feel chubby cheeks. "Oh, hell," he emphasized.

At least his clothes had shrunk with him. He was completely outfitted with his long black-winged leather coat, mini Doc Martens, and-hey, little cigarettes. Nice. He stuck a mini cigarette in his mouth and lit it with a tiny lighter.

Now this was something new. "Does break up the tedium of things a bit," he said. And stopped. "Who am I kidding? I've damn well shrunk!" He remembered the bite of something or other in his neck. Right. So that meant that someone, or something anyway, had done this to him on purpose. "Ohhh, I'm gonna sodding kill you, whoever you are."

Buffy stepped around the corner-she was there again? "Spike, talking to yourself isn't very sane. And you sound a little strange. What's..." She looked, and didn't see him. She looked around, and then up. Spike grimaced.

"Down here," he said, sounding disgruntled. Buffy looked down. And covered her mouth. And snorted.

"Oh my God!" she exclaimed. She tried to stop laughing, without much success. "Oh my God!" she repeated.

Spike tossed his head and rolled his eyes in disgust, but it didn't escape him that this was the most he'd seen her smile since her express visit to heaven. No opportunity wasted. On the other hand, this was sort of a drawback in his get-Buffy-into-bed plans, especially as other parts of him had probably shrunk as well. Damn again.

"Somebody hit me with something, I think a couple of hours ago, and now I look...Well, look at me. I've bloody shrunk!"

Buffy exerted some control over herself. "Uh, yeah," she giggled. "I n-noticed...You're...Wow," she said finally, laughing some more.

He rolled his eyes again. "Yeah. Wow. Not the first thing coming to mind here. Think we could move somewhere - you know, like your house, full of people set and ready to research and kill?"

"Sure, we can, you know, walk there." They started off. The house wasn't too far away, just one block and a street to cross. When they reached the street, though, Buffy turned to him.

"Spike?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you want me to hold your hand to cross the street?"

"Oh-he's so cute!" Willow cried. She got on her knees to look at the miniature Spike. "Awww...Too bad Dawn doesn't get to see this," she remarked, looking up. "She'll be upset when she gets back from Janice's."

"Don't you think he's cute, Xander?" Willow asked.

"I...In an effort to retain my status as a man, I respectfully decline to answer that question," Xander answered, looking at Anya, who was peering down at Spike with great interest.

"You hug me, and I'll bite you, Harris," Spike threatened.

"Oh look, now he's threatening," Willow sighed. "Can I hug you?" she asked hopefully.

"No- no!" he said, backing off and drawing out a cigarette. "Can you please just bloody well find out what it was that did this to me, and how I can kill it?" he asked plaintively."Cos I don't think I can stand this much longer."

"Maybe we should leave him this way," Anya said in her usual brisk, direct manner. "I mean, that way even if he gets that chip out of his head he couldn't hurt us."

"Hey!" Spike looked up at her. "I may be - uh...small-no, wait..." He frowned.

"Ooh! You're chibi!" Willow said happily. Everyone turned and looked at her.

"He's what?" Buffy asked.

"You know, squished into a little mini version of him! Like on those Japanese cartoons...That I guess no one else has seen," she finished disenheartedly.

"Alright, chibi-Spike it is, but what do we do with him?" Xander asked, spreading his hands. "I mean, is there any monster that could do this?"

"Well, I don't know if it can do this, but there's a demon that looks like this," Anya piped up. The group looked at her. "The, uh, Ghasak demon. It's about the size of chibi-Spike, but not as cute. It's got tentacles that come out of its head, and it uses them to tear apart smaller animals. The tentacles have, you know, mouths on the ends with lots of little teeth. It usually doesn't go for humans or other demons because it's so small."

"Well, do you know if it can make other things tiny, um, chibi-ish?" Buffy asked.

Anya thought. "I'm not sure. I think it might have some venom..."

"Let's get on with it then," Spike said impatiently. "Have Red get on the computer, or magic up a cure, or something. Let's get on it!"

And the story will continue...After I finish it. Obviously. And obviously, none of this belongs to me. I just feed my muses...