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Shrinking Tails

"This marks the beginning of a revolution! Today! We shall no longer deal with the oppression of larger kind! And instead shall claim exactly what we want when we want! You can no oppose us! Now then, feline! Surrender your cheese to me!" The mouse gave a cry out as he stood upon the edge of a desk. He may only be two inches tall, and wearing only a knee length tunic. In his paws he held a gleaming yellow plastic scepter, as he proudly declared his right.

"Oh go bugger off.." The much larger orange tabby who was sitting at the desk pushed the mouse lightly. He was dressed in a pair of loose shorts and a white sleeveless shirt. "I'm busy, and you don't even like cheese."

"No mouse does." The mouse recovered his composure, dropping his plastic toy in the process. "But ya know, it's a union thing, we gotta steal cheese. None of us really want it, it's just, part of the deal."

"There's a mouse union?" The cat raised an eyebrow.

"Of course there is. Someone has to be responsible for the fact everyone wants to pay us in cheese." The mouse declared almost proudly that he had this information.

"Rufus...." The orange tabby gave a sigh. "I think you watch too many cartoons."

"Cartoons are serious business Ralph." The white furred mouse spoke up. "They're how the world is controlled, how it is kept compliant."

The cat called Ralph held up a finger, then put it back down, then held it up again, then put it back down. He wasn't entirely sure how to respond to his friend's comment. There were general levels of insanity, then there was just Rufus. He suspected that the mouse might just speak a stream of conscious, but that concerned him a little more about what was going on in his friend's brain.

"So whatcha working on?" You've been here in the study for hours!" Rufus inquired. "Ya know it's not good to work in such dimly lit places, you'll ruin your eyesight."

"I'm a cat, the dark doesn't bother me." Ralph spoke, slightly annoyed. "And I don't know what I'm working on." He was sitting at a rundown wooden desk, it was covered with scattered pieces of scrap metal, a few wrenches and screwdrivers and a large metal object. It was propped up on a few books. The object itself was probably about three feet tall. It has an antenna with multiple rings around it, several dead lights on the side and multiple switches. There was a long power plug attached to the back of it, but at the time it was currently unplugged.

"Wait, ya don't? You've been in here for hours playing with something and you don't even know what it does?"

"Well, give me some time, I just found it today, I can't even find a way to get it open. From the antenna I'd say it's probably some kind of transmitter, maybe someone's home made radio? I was hoping to get inside and look at the wiring and see what it's actually ya know made of, and maybe I could figure something you. But, it's not held together by screws or bolts or really anything. It's like the entire thing was welded shut, I can't find a way to get inside so I really have no idea what it's going to do." The tabby explained as he sat back in his chair and peered at the device.

"Maybe I should take a look." Rufus spoke up as he walked up to the device, resting one small pall against the metal box that dwarfed him. "We're both in the same line of work after all."

"I scavenge spare parts and old machines from junkyards in order to repair them and sell them for profit. You scavenge food at the park and eat it. That is hardly the same line of work." Ralph gave an annoyed sigh.

"Hey! I gotta identify what I'm eating! Need to be sure it's not something like squash. Who eats squash in the park, I mean seriously. Besides! My job takes skill! Bet you can't take on a swarm of angry pigeons over a piece of a hot dog!" Rufus was sounding way too proud about his achievement.

"Ya know I keep the fridge stocked, right?"

"But you weren't home, and I was huuuuuuuuungry." Rufus whined.

"Right.... Anyway, go watch TV or something. Remote's on the couch, I want to figure out what this thing does." The orange tabby went back to investigating his discovery. He tipped it over on the side, but he couldn't even find so much as a tiny crack on the device to pry it open and take a look inside. The mouse seeing he wasn't getting anywhere jumped down off the table and started to leave the room, but stopped when he saw the power cord. Getting a rather brilliant idea he immediately picked the plug up, lifting it above his head with both hands, and climbing up on the baseboard to reach the plug, started struggling to put it in.

"Hey!" Rufus gave a grunt while attempting to push . "I'm pretty sure I found the problem. It's not plugged in silly! How are ya gonna figure out what it does if you don't even plug it in." With a final grunt, he succeeded in pushing the plug into the socket in the wall. "That should help!"

"WAIT NO!" Ralph gave a cry. "I don't know what it does oh." The device itself had several flashing buttons and switches that let up, and several sparks of electricity jumped off the tip of the antenna. With a grinding noise the antenna itself moved forward and pointed at Ralph instead of upwards. "That's strange how it is going to get any reception...."

The cat was cut off, there was a sound like thunder as he saw a bright flash of light from the tip of the antenna. It was at that point the entire world seemed to change. The machine and the edge of the table suddenly seemed to be getting farther away from him. At the same time, his shirt and shorts were getting somewhat uncomfortably loose on him. He hadn't been one for tight wearing clothing to begin with, but now it seemed they were going to fall off. The straps of his shirt with nothing to hold onto soon fell down completely around his waist. As for his shorts, while they stayed on largely due to him being seated, they didn't fit. It was almost comical like a toddler trying to wear his father's trousers, but they just seemed to be getting bigger. Soon, the edge of the desk was far above his head, and seemed to be a great distance away. His shirt had fallen down around him completely at this point, though now it seemed like it was going to wind up covering him. The chair he was sitting on had gotten larger, while he barely had room to rest on it earlier, now his entire body could easily curl up on.

At this point, he had been able to figure out what was going on. It wasn't exactly a huge mental exercise to figure it out. It's just, that to believe it was actually happening, that was the part he was having some difficulty with. He was shrinking! But how was that possible!? He had picked up a few strange things before, a few things that might have qualified as weird science, but mostly just random junk people at the local college had designed for final projects and then later discarded. This was just unreal.

Only a few seconds had passed since the feline had seen the flash, but already he had shrunk down out of all his clothing, and soon his shirt had folded over on top of him. He was completely covered only able to see the white fabric stretching in every direction. At least, the world seemed to stop moving. Did that mean the shrinking had stopped? He wasn't sure, he felt disoriented about the entire thing. Part of him wanted to panic, part of him wanted to scream, and another part of him wanted to know more about the machine. What kind of technology was capable of this?

"RALPH!" It was Rufus' voice that cried out. The white mouse sounded about how Ralph felt right now, scared and confused. "Come on, please tell me you're alive and just invisible or something! I saw a flash of light and then you were gone! Come on say something so I know you're not vaporized!" Ralph could hear Rufus' bare paws scampering across the floor, and then climbing up the side of the chair.

Ralph himself started to crawl around inside the shirt, looking for a way out. Up. If the shirt had fallen on top of him, that was likely the direction of the neck hole, he could get out through there. Pulling on the fabric to try to loosen it, he found it was thankfully still light enough to easily move the fabric. Finally, he was able to find the neck hole and wriggle out, looking out into the study. The room was enormous, and a little intimidating to see. A few moments later he saw two familiar white ears come over the side of the chair. Naturally, they belonged to his friend who seemed to be much bigger than he was supposed to be, but of course Ralph had expected that.

"Ralph!" Rufus gave out a cry, running across the chair and over the tip of Ralph's discarded shirt. He helped pull Ralph out of his clothing and get him back on the feet. "Oh thank goodness you're okay!"

"I don't know if this counts as okay." Ralph grumbled as he stood up, looking over his friend. With an annoyed look. In height, he barely made it up to his friend's chest. Rufus was only about two inches Tall, so Ralph.... He thought for a moment, calculating. He was probably only about an inch and a half. He was never going to live this town once they finally got it fixed.

"Wow.... Ralph, you're like.... Short." Despite the severity of the situation, Rufus couldn't help but grin. His feline friend had been cut down in size quite drastically, and oh the urge to tease him about it was oh so strong. "Well, I think I like you this way. Think you'll be fine." As he did this, he patted the shorter cat on the head softly. "Ya know I always wanted a little brother."

"HEY!" In an instant Ralph had shot out a paw and grabbed the mouse by the ear. "This isn't funny!"

"OW! OW! OW! OW!" Rufus gave a shout. "I'm sorry! I just thought it was funny! That hurts let go I'm sorry I'm ready to take this seriously now!" Rufus gave a sigh of relief as the cat let go of his ear, he might have been tiny but he still had those sharp little claws. "Seriously, I'm sorry! I had no idea what the thing would do!"

"Neither one of us did. Look, it's okay... I'm to... confused to be angry. We were both messing with something we didn't understand. I don't think either of us thought.... This was possible. We just... I need to see if there's a reverse switch or something. I just need to climb..." Ralph looked down at himself, realizing at this point that he was standing completely naked in front of his friend. He quickly turned around curling his tail around. "I just mean, I need to get up to the top of the table so I can look at it!"

"Oh yeah! That's an easy climb!" Rufus exclaimed, jumping straight off the chair and onto one of the table legs. He immediately started to scramble up at a rather quick speed.

"Okay.... If Rufus can do this, so can I...." Keeping his groin covered with his paws the tiny cat walked to the edge of the chair and looked up at the top of the table, and down at the floor below, then back down at himself. Well, he was going to need his paws, he supposed he had a slightly bigger problem than modesty at the moment. Bringing his paws to his side he took a few steps back, ran, and jumped for the table leg while chanting to himself 'It's just like going up a tree.' He got a hold of the table leg, digging his claws in to the side of it in order keep on it. Once he had the side, he realized it really was a lot like climbing up the side of a tree. He started to crawl up slowly and after about thirty seconds was downright running up the side of the table. It didn't take him long to reach the top, and look at the enormous box. How were the two of them supposed to operate it? There were plenty of switches on the side of it that looked promising, but at the moment they were high off the table far above his head.

"It's okay, I got this." Rufus spoke while displaying a smug grin. "And they say that cats are good climbers." He placed a hand against the metal box as if he intended to actually scale it, then immediately recoiled and jumped a full two inches back. "OW OW OW IT'S SO HOOOOOOOT!" He placed his paw in his mouth and sucked on it to try to cool his burnt hand.

"Well, not entirely surprising.... I guess." Ralph looked up at the machine. It was menacing in a way. The thing had been a large heavy box to carry around when he had found it at his normal size. Now it stood before him as some kind of giant monster. "I guess for we need to let it cool off, and let's just hope it didn't overheat and do any permanent damage. I guess playing with it right now is out of the question. We'll have to wait for it to cool down."

"How long will that take?" Rufus asked looking at his shorter feline friend.

"Who knows? Probably a couple hours at the most. Maybe a day, I can't really say for sure as I'm not even sure what type of metal this is made of. I mean day at the longest and that's just being paranoid." Ralph mused.

"Huh, so what are we gonna do for the rest of the day then?" Rufus asked.

"The same thing we do every day." Ralph replied.

"TRY AND TAKE OVER THE WORLD!?" Rufus gave an excited shout.

"What!? No, that's, that is silly. You are silly." Ralph shook his head. "I figured we'd just get some food, maybe watch TV and then rest until I can work on reversing this." Ralph walked towards the end of the table and looked down. He had seen Rufus do this a dozen times. The drop was nothing, at least that's what he told himself as he jumped, and found himself landing down on the soft threads of the carpet. Completely unharmed! Well, if the bigger fell harder, he supposed it made sense.

"Oh, okay. I guess that would make more sense." Rufus jumped down off the table following the cat. "So anyways. Any ideas on how to get the fridge open?"

".... Oh son of a-" Ralph started.

"So wanna come scavenge for food at the park? I mean unless that's gonna be too tough for you!" Rufus stuck his tongue out with the last remark.

"Well..." On one hand, Ralph felt a little intimidated by the world in general right now. However, he couldn't forget that Rufus had been this size his entire life, and got around fine. If he let himself be intimidated or refused to go out in the world, even when he was changed back to normal he'd never hear the end of it. Huh! Anything Rufus could handle, he could handle himself as well! "I have no objections! After all, we can't be expected to starve! Though.... Ummm." Ralph looked back down at himself, and quickly covered his shame. "I don't suppose, you'd have like a pair of pants I could borrow or something first? I can't exactly run around town naked."

"Ralph." Rufus gave the cat a blank stare. "Do I wear pants?" It was true, the white mouse was dressed only in a knee length tunic. He didn't have anything resembling pants.

"Alright I get it, but surely you have more than one of those tunics?" Ralph tried to sound helpful.

"Of course I do! I mean it would be a real pain in the butt to have to do laundry every single day." Rufus smiled. "Right, it's in by bedroom."

Ralph followed Rufus as he led him across the study. The mouse's bedroom was a small hole in the wall. Obviously, Ralph had never seen the inside at all. It was, about as much as he expected, wooden floor, not much in decorations. There was a match box in the corner of the room, it looked like it was being used as a bed. Ralph could see several cotton swabs stuffed into it, and it looked like there was a thin piece of cloth on the top. Not very impressive looking, but he imagined the cotton was soft. There was a small ring box in one corner of the area, and in another he saw a wind up pocket watch. The hands were currently stopped at 3:17.

"Hey that's my watch!" Ralph exclaimed seeing it.

"Yeah well I needed a clocks o I can tell what time it was." Rufus shrugged, heading for the ring box in the corner of the room. "It's not like you were using it."

"You have to wind it you know." Ralph narrowed his eyes.

"Huh you do?" Rufus bent down at the box, undoing the clasps and then opening it up. The box was like a giant chest to him. "No wonder I'm always running late." Inside the box there were several scraps of cloth, his other tunics. He quickly pulled one out and threw it over to the orange tabby.

"Right, thanks." The cat put the mouse's tunic on. It was a tad too large for him, only the very tips of his toes peaked out from underneath the tunic, and it barely clung to his shoulders. Still, he supposed it would do, at least he could be seen in public like this.

"Right then, shall we get going?" Rufus asked.

The walk there was a long one. The park was only a couple blocks but the journey there felt like it had been much longer. Ralph himself was rather amazed at Rufus' stamina. The mouse was able to run the entire way, having to constantly run back to encourage the cat to catch up. Ralph supposed that when one was born this size, they got a lot of exercise in life just getting from one place to another. Running around like this all day, it'd be enough to help build up anyone's stamina. Either way, even when Rufus' encouragement and running for most of the trip, the normally 10 minute walk took the two about an hour to get there.

The park itself, it was enormous. The two tried to stay on the sidewalk as some of the blades of grass would reach above their head. It was much easier to be seen this way by the giants walking around. If they ventured into the grass, well it might be difficult to see them and someone might wind up stepping on them. Luckily, thanks to the mouse population most people were smart enough to watch where they were going to. Of course, not everyone did, and Ralph found himself constantly looking over his shoulder, expecting a giant paw to come down on him at any point. Maybe someone who was in a hurry, or a small child who didn't know to watch where they walk. Still, they were able to arrive largely unharmed, though there had been at one point where Rufus had grabbed Ralph by the wrist and dragged him out of the path of someone else's paw. It seemed the mouse had much better survival instincts for this size. It was to be expected, he had his entire life. Ralph was still going to have to learn.

What!? No what was he thinking? He wasn't going to have to learn! As soon as they got home the machine would be done cooling off, and he could find a way to reverse the shrinking.

"Alright, we're at the park." Ralph spoke up. He had been lost in thought for most of the trip, just taking in the giant sights. The two were currently couched beneath a park bench. "So what do we do now?"

"Wait for someone to drop something!" Ralph exclaimed. "The park is a gold mine for used food!"

"Just waiting for something to drop.... Isn't that... A tad disgusting? Not to mention unlikely?" Ralph found himself suddenly less than impressed with his rodent friend's lifestyle.

"Hey it's that or dig through the garbage! And a lot more food gets dropped than you think! The easiest is bread. Just look for an old lady feeding birds, run out grab a crumb and then bravely run away with your bounty! No seriously." Rufus' voice became strangely serious. "Run, run like man. Those birds are vicious. Anyway, the real treasure troves or hot dog stands! Every now and then you might get a few crumbs of that, or even if you're really lucky an entire wiener!"

"How would you eat that much?" Ralph asked.

"Trade secret." Rufus replied.

"You've never actually gotten a full hot dog have you?" Ralph replied.

"Oh look is that an acorn over there, I hear those are quite tasty I'm going to go busy myself examining that." Ralph hurriedly dismissed himself and went running into the grass for a nearby tree. Ralph himself wanted to avoid the grass, but he supposed that Rufus knew what he was doing.

Ralph turned his attention back to the park. He was starting to get hungry, and he wasn't about to let this whole trip be for nothing. He looked around, so many people, dogs, foxes, rabbits. He'd have been taller than most of them before all this, but he was done moping about his situation now. It was time to just deal with it. He spotted a possible target. An old badger was sitting on a bench across the side walk from the one he was under, and she had a brown paper bag. He could see birds starting to gather before her. Could it be? Yes, she removed a loaf of bread from the bag and started to rip small pieces off of it.

Perhaps they were predatory instincts taking hold of him, but Ralph felt his body tense as he prepared to run. The badger had a handful of crumbs in her hand. He felt his paws dig into the soft earth beneath him, he was ready. He saw her paw move, the moment the crumbs were airborne he found himself running full speed out from under the bench, onto the sidewalk. At the same time he heart the badger usher a squeak. He had no idea if she had mistaken him for a mouse, and just had a natural reaction of surprised, or if she had identified him as a tiny feline and been shocked by that sight. He didn't care, that was no longer relevant. The bread crumbs were falling to the ground, he moved under one, held out his paws, and got it! He caught one! Lunch was his!

"AHA HA! I knew I could do it! Anything a rodent can do a cat can do better!" Ralph was probably a little too proud of himself for catching it, but he felt like he was forgetting something important. Turning around to walk back to the bench he had been under earlier, he suddenly remembered. Standing before him there was now an absolutely enormous pigeon! It was at least three times his size. Run like mad, that was the part he forgot.

"Okay, easy now, let's not do anything rash." The cat felt himself take a couple steps back.

"Coo." The pigeon gave him a hungry look. Did pigeons eat meat?

"Wait.... Absolutely not! Don't think about it birdbrain!" A cat, terrorized by a bird? A pigeon at that? It was just a rat with wings. Tiny or not, he still had to respect his feline heritage. "Ya can just go get another piece, as this crumb is mine!" As he shouted, the pigeon made another coo, before pecking its beat at the cat. Jumping back he dodged the peck and then acted without thinking. He grabbed the crumb in his mouth to free up his paws, clenched one into a fist and punched the bird in the side of the head before it could withdraw its hands.

The bird, looked less than amused.

With another coo it flapped its wings heavily and nipped at the cat with the beak, apparently planning to just eat the tiny feline along with the crumb. The cat quickly ran straight forward beneath the bird between its talons. He brought out both sets of his tiny claws raking them against the bird's underside. That really made it angry as it flapped into the air to get away from him. Had he scared it off? No, it was coming back down, now it was really angry. The bird attempted to land on the cat, trying to pin it beneath one of its talons. However the phrase 'catlike reflexes' exists for a reason, as he jumped to the side, grabbing the edge of some of the birds feathers, then pulling himself onto the bird's body, and climbing up the side of the feathered fiend onto its back. The bird took to the air again, as Ralph clung for dear life. Logically he knew that a fall shouldn't hurt him that much if he let go, but as the bird took high into the air and he could see the ground far beneath them he wasn't 100% sure he trusted that logic anymore.

The bread crumb was still clinched firmly within his teeth, and so he started to move slowly up the bird's back. Using his claws to get a better grip on its feathers, he worked his way to the bird's heads. He used his hind claws to dig into the side of the bird's feathers, and then using both hands with all his might struck a blow against the back of the bird's head. It fell from the sky, as both bird and cat went tumbling onto the ground below, landing in the grass. The cat jumped to his feet, still holding the crumb. The bird after stumbling to its feet decided that it had experienced enough, and took off leaving the cat behind.

"HA!" The cat let go of the bread, catching it with a paw. "That's right! Mess with the lion you get the claws! AHA HA! That was awesome!" He had never done anything like that, it was incredible. He worked his way without trouble now back to under the bench, to see that Rufus was already there. He had apparently not had as much scavenging for food.

"Oh, you got some! So, how'd you wind up picking it up?" Rufus asked.

"Let me tell you what just happened." It wasn't possible for Ralph to have a bigger grin.

By the time the two had gotten back to the house it was nightfall, and Ralph had recounted his battle with the giant bird at least three times. After working their way inside the house through a window they made it back to the study. All in all, despite the situation it had been a fun day.

"So, think you're ready to get up there and give that thing a go over." Rufus asked.

"To be honest, that sounds like a lot of work that can wait until morning." Ralph gave a shrug. "I'm rather exhausted from the whole ordeal. "Though, you know, I kinda had fun. I was thinking, if I could figure out how to work that machine, well I might be able to go back and forth. Cause, I mean it's actually been kind of fun.

"Yes, one of us, one of us. Ya know you could always stay like this." Rufus joked. "I rather enjoy being the taller roommate."

"Yeah, no. But it's alright every now and then. Anyways, I don't suppose you have a guest bed? I am rather exhausted." Ralph spoke the last part with a yawn.

"Not unless you have a pack of cotton swabs and an empty match box. Don't you have a bed?"

"Yes, and it's currently like a 100 foot climb to get into it!" Ralph objected.

"Well get climbing, cause I aint sharing my bed." Rufus objected right back.

"Fine fine. Wanted a bigger bed anyway." Ralph groaned, before leaving the study and heading to his own bedroom. Thank goodness it was a one floor house. He looked around the room. The threads of the carpet came up around his paws, and the furniture towered before him like a mountain. He wouldn't even be able to reach the lowest drawer of his dresser, though it wasn't like anything in there would fit anyway. The bed was the more important object at the moment. Using his small needle like claws he was able to get a good grip on the sheets hanging off the bed. It only took a minute to work his way up to the top. He wasn't sure if he wanted to find a way to crawl under the sheets, and decided to just curl up on a giant pillow and sleep that way.

Ralph was up early the next morning, and by the time Rufus had gotten up Ralph was already at work examining the machine. Sitting on the top handle of a toolbox he was able to get a look at the side of the device. There were several switches on the machine, and most of them had rather strange symbols on them. Some of them he recognized. There was one switch that went between a light bulb with lines coming out of it, and a plain light bulb. Most likely the power switch. Another one there was a knob that was unmarked. After jumping onto the actual machine to experiment with the knob he discovered that it adjusted the angle of what he previously thought was an antenna. Of course he knew now that was the tip of a ray. He could adjust that to aim, and pointed it at an empty spot on the table for when he figured out the rest. The next switch he examined, he figured was finally the one he wanted. The switch was currently pointed down and faced a small circle with a dotted outline of larger circle around it. If pointed upward then it would face a larger circle with a small dotted circle inside it. Ralph was hoping that would be the switch to reverse the ray from shrink to grow. When he had made this conclusion was about the time that Rufus had arrived.

"Oh, hey, figure out how to work it yet?" He asked.

"I think so." Ralph replied. "But I still don't know how to make it fire again. Last time it just went off when you plugged it in."

"Maybe it's motion sensitive?" Rufus suggested.

"I doubt that, or I'd have been zapped the moment I walked into the room today. Most likely just a switch or something that had been pressed earlier, I was messing around with it so I have no idea what I may have actually touched."

"Hmmmm, are there any red buttons?" Rufus asked.

"Yeah.... One. It's right below the size switch." Ralph replied.

"Press that one! That one is the fire button!" Rufus exclaimed happily, as he made the climb up the table to take a look at the ray with Ralph.

"What makes you so sure, it could be some kind of self destruct button, or an emergency shut off. Actually that latter one might be a smart idea to actually have for the thing should it ever go haywire." Ralph questioned.

"It's always the big red button." Rufus spoke, sounding sure of himself.

Ralph shrugged and climbed down from the ray. "Well, I guess I have nothing to lose by trying." He jumped down onto the table and walked over to where the ray was pointing. "I mean other than horrible possible side effects including and not limited to diarrhea, nausea, blindness, deafness, lost of taste, and in some cases death."

"..... Okay now you're just being difficult." Rufus complained. "Now I'll just get with the zappy and everything will be back to normal. Or you'll be horribly disfigured. One of the two."

"Not helping!" Ralph exclaimed, waiting for the inevitable. He really wished he had some way to test this first but.... Well he had already realized they needed something living for the device to work. Otherwise his clothes would have shrunk with him the first time. He wasn't sure if it only affected animate matter, or maybe it only worked on cats. Either way, there wasn't really anything else readily available they could do a rest run with.

Meanwhile Rufus was climbing his way up the side of the device, using the various switches and knobs to get until he found himself just under the big red button. He had to stand on the size switch to reach it. Standing on the very tips of his toes he could just make it up to the red button, pressing it in to power up the ray. It was at that point that he heard a very audible click, as he felt his body drop down a short distance. Looking down, he saw the switch he was standing on had been pushed into the down position by his weight.

"Uh oh..."

"What's uh oh?" Ralph could see the ray powering up. He could feel his hair standing on end, what was going wrong.

"The switch with the circles, that one important?" Rufus asked. "Because well... It sorta...."

"You didn't...." Ralph could feel his paws moving to run before he even finished realizing what had happened. Of course, it was pointless. He couldn't exactly outrun a beam of light. He found himself covered in a familiar flash of light, and for the second time the world changed. It was strange, the tunic he wore was no bigger than a tea bag, and now it was growing larger around him, first becoming like a tent, and in a few moments he was swimming in the enormous cloth. He closed his eyes as the shrinking continued, not wanting to know when it was going to stop. Maybe this was all a nightmare, he'd just wake up in his bed. Of course, the young feline knew that wasn't quite going to happen, but he could hope.

In the meantime Rufus was having his own freak out, and had jumped down from the device running over to the discarded tunic on the ground. He had no idea how small his friend was going to be now, and he didn't want to risk picking the tunic up and shaking his friend off it and being unable to find him. Picking at it as carefully as possible at the tunic he continued to search. It was like trying to find a needle in a haystack. Finally, he managed to find one tiny orange speck, and as carefully as possible placed it in the palm of his hand. He could see the small orange tabby, and if he squinted he could even make out his features, but the poor cat had been reduced to a small enough size to easily stand on the tip of one his fingers.

"You just shrunk me more, didn't you?" The cat spoke in a high pitched quiet voice. It would likely be incredibly difficult for most normal sized people to hear. Luckily, Rufus himself was a mouse, and had quite large ears.

"It was an accident! I didn't mean!" Rufus wasn't sure how to respond.

"I know, I know." Ralph spoke with a sigh, while placing a few fingers on his head in frustration. "It was an accident, you couldn't foresee this and... I'm just... I need a moment to calm down."

"I swear as soon as the machine cools down I'll get you zapped back to normal size!" Rufus' voice almost had a pleading quality to it.

"That's... Okay... I think... This might be a sign that we just shouldn't mess with it anymore. I don't have any proof that thing would have actually made me bigger again anyway.... And I don't think I have the heart to take another blast. I mean, there's not much left to shrink." He voice trailed off at that point as he thought about the aspect. Were he to be hit again, would he be microscopic or something? He doubted anyone normal sized would see him as anything other than a tiny orange dot now, if they even noticed him.

"So, you're just... Gonna stay like that? You're so tiny!" Rufus still hadn't calmed down.

"Well, at least I won't have to worry about fleas." Ralph cracked a weak smile, he was trying to add some humor into the situation, if only to help keep him sane. "But admittedly... I'm not sure if I can do a lot on my own now. Very well, I've decided." He pointed a finger up at the seemingly giant mouse. "You shall be my valet!"

"Wait, what?" Rufus was confused.

"It would take me forever and a half to get anywhere walking on my own now, so I'm just going to catch a ride on you to get where I need to go, and make sure you can get me plenty of food. I imagine it won't actually take much to keep me full." Ralph mused.

"Wait, you're talking about. What you're describing sounds a lot like me keeping you as a pet." Rufus was slowly starting to calm down. The strangeness of the situation in general made constantly panicking just too exhausting.

"I'd prefer the term Spatially Challenged Roommate. " Was Ralph's quick retort. "But I still have my own will, I'm just charging you with helping me as opposed to having a freak out, or attempting legal action or anything like that."

"I suppose that's fair." Rufus mumbled.

"Now then, I don't suppose you for some reason would happen to possess another one of those tunics in a comically small fashion or something?" Ralph looked down at his body, realizing this was the second day in a row he had wound up being completely naked in front of his friend.

"No, that would be a little silly, even for me." Rufus replied.

There was a brief pause before either of them spoke again.

"Lovely." Ralph broke the silence. "Well, I suppose it's not like anyone can see anything anyway to make modesty much of a problem. And I don't exactly need pockets to carry a wallet or keys. Guess I'm living au natural for now on."

"Heh. Nudist kitty." The mouse teased.

"SHUT UP!" Even at his size and under his fur, the blush was visible.

"Aw the little kitty is feeling embarrassed?" Rufus couldn't help but tease, however the amusement was short lasted as he suddenly felt a very sharp pain in the middle of his palm as the cat had slammed one paw down with claws out. "OOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWW! How can something so small hurt so much!?"

"Don't get any ideas, I might be... well, this!" The cat gestured at his tiny body. "But I'm still a cat! And I know how to take care of troublesome pests!

"So then, what, do you well plan to do today?" The mouse asked the tiny orange speck.

"I guess." The cat thought to himself for a moment. "I'll be going wherever you're going. I don't think I'd reach anyplace today walking on my own. But let's see. How to do this! Ah we'll use your head!"

"You want me to think of something?" The mouse asked.

"No, I mean sit me on top of your head, that way your hands are free and you don't accidentally squish me picking something up." Was Ralph's reply.

"Oh, okay I get it." Very carefully, the mouse slowly lifted his hand up to above his head, and then deposited the tiny speck of a cat on top.

Ralph found himself slightly disoriented at first. The drop from Rufus' hand to his head had only been about a quarter of an inch. However, to him it was as if he had just fallen off the side of a building. However, when he came to a landing he found himself largely unharmed. He supposed falls weren't anything that could actually hurt him at such a small size. Looking around, he found himself in a strange place. There were enormous white trees all around him, reaching high up into the air blocking out most of the sky. It took the cat a moment to realize that he was staring at the individual strands of fur on his friend's head. Even a single strand of fur dwarfed him. He couldn't really see anything that was going on from here though. Grabbing one of the strands of fur and digging his claws in, he slowly climbed his way up to the top, until he reached the very top. The top of the strand was too thin for him to wind a place to sit on, something he found himself very thankful for, but hanging here he could get a good view of everything going on around his friend. Rufus was working his way out of the house again.

"Are we going to the park for food again?" Ralph asked.

"Not really." Rufus replied. "Figured that might be, slightly dangerous as if I drop you it might not be easy to um well."

"Yeah yeah I get it." Ralph spoke irritated as he crossed his arms, hanging on to Rufus' strand of fur using only his legs. "So then what are we going to do for food today?"

"I was thinking nuts! And maybe a berry or two! There's trees growing in our own yard, I'm sure I can scrounge up something." Rufus replied.

"Lovely. You know, I really do prefer meat.... But I guess might be some difficulty finding something small enough." Ralph grumbled. "Maybe I can hunt down a flea. Huh. Might put up a fight, I think they have exoskeletons or something."

Ralph continued to look around from his position atop his friend's head. The outside world was nothing short of amazing. Individual blades of grass reached above Rufus' head, but from Ralph's point of view they were like skyscrapers. Still, they were taller than any tower he had even seen before. He found himself wondering if it was possible to hollow one out. If he lived near the top it'd be like having his own pent house suite! Really though, that was probably just being silly. While he had these thoughts it wasn't long before the two arrived at the base of a tree. At this point, Ralph found himself taken aback by the sheer size of the tree. Was this really the same tree? Even a mountain would be dwarfed by the gigantic tree!

No that wasn't right, mountains would still be larger, it was just from his perspective right now. It was like looking at some kind of bridge to another world. The tree ascended high into the heavens further than he could even see. It was terrifying to think how small and insignificant he was in comparison. They were really going to climb up that thing?

"I think I'm gonna set you down here." Rufus spoke up, while gently picking Ralph from his head fur. "If ya fall off up there well I'd rather not think about it."

"To be honest, neither would I." Ralph mumbled.

"Just, don't venture to far from where I set you down so I can find you again." Rufus carefully set the tiny speck of a cat down on the ground as he turned his attention away and started climbing the tree.

"Yeah, I don't think that will be a problem." As if Ralph could go very far if he wanted. It'd take all day just to get a couple steps for a normal person. For now, he sat contented himself with sitting down on what appeared to be a giant boulder. Really, it was just one piece small piece of dirt, but it was just the right size for him to sit comfortably with his legs crossed while waiting on Rufus to get back. Looking over the edge, he found that the ground seemed to be composed of millions, maybe even billions of these large boulders. To think, the ground had used to look flat.

The cat flopped onto his back and looked up at the sky and the tree that went beyond the heavens. So this was going to be his life now. Well, he supposed it could be worse. He was alive, and he had a friend to help him get around. Of all the things the ray could have done, it certainly wasn't the worst case scenario. Still, he was smaller than most insects at this point, so he realized he probably wouldn't have much social interactions. It seemed rodents were small enough to see him but he had a feeling no one from his own size, or his old size would so much as notice him.

His thoughts were interrupted with the return of his mouse friend. The mouse slowly made his way down the side of the tree, holding an acorn under one arm, and in the hand held a twig with several small berries attached to it. Well, the berries were larger than Ralph, but he assumed they were probably small. Rufus slowed down as he got to the bottom of the tree, being very careful to watch where he was stepping. After spotting Ralph, he slowly sat the twig and the acorn down next to him and then sat down on the ground himself.

"Well then, take your pick." Rufus spoke up.

"I don't think I have sufficient strength to try to bite into an acorn." Ralph spoke with a sigh. "Guess I'll try one of these berries... They're not poisonous, right?"

"Of course not! If they were I'd have been rushed to the hospital a long time ago! I eat these all the time!" Rufus replied.

"So, you always knew they weren't poisonous. I had no idea you possessed such wilderness survival skills." Ralph spoke with a smile, as he approached one of the berries. It was bigger than him, and he had to use his claws to rip a piece off, but he was able to eat.

"Eh? Really I just tried them one day when I was hungry, and didn't think any further than that." Rufus spoke between efforts of trying to crack the acorn open with his teeth.

"I see." Ralph wasn't sure how to respond at this point, so just busied himself with eating his fill. It was almost like a picnic, eating nuts and berries outdoors on a nice day. Well, at least Ralph assumed it was a nice day, it's not like he could see far enough to see the clouds. Of course, it was probably the strangest picnic in the history of picnics, but it was almost pleasant.

"Well." Over an hour passed before Rufus spoke up. "We should probably head inside, from the looks of those clouds, it's probably going to rain soon."

"Clouds?" Ralph couldn't see any, but considering he couldn't even see the top of a tree, it wasn't that surprising. "So much for it being a nice day." Without waiting for an invite, Ralph jumped onto his mouse friend, grabbing the tip of his tail and climbing up. It was a long climb, but using the strands of hair as hand holds he was easily able to make his way back up to atop his friend's head. At this point though, he didn't bother climbing to the top of a strand to look around. He was exhausted, and decided to just lay back within the forest of fur until they were inside again.

Rufus insured his friend was safely on top of him, and then headed back towards the house. Only a couple minutes after he made it inside did the first sound of thunder occur and the rain started to fall. It seemed the two weren't going to be heading anywhere anytime soon.

"Well, now what?" Rufus asked.

"I think." Ralph spoke up. "That the remote to the TV in the study is just on the floor or something. We could probably find a movie or something to watch."

"An action movie?" Rufus questioned.

"I'm sure we can find one." Ralph replied.

"With buildings exploding?"

"Of course!" There was just something about over the top action movies that both cat and mouse enjoyed. Ralph worked up the energy to climb up to the top of a strand of fur again so he could see what was going on. Rufus had worked his way back to the study already, jumping onto the buttons of the remote until he finally found something worth watching.

Ralph had to admit that he was rather impressed. Movie theatres had nothing on the old TV they were watching now. It sat on a small box in the room, and if Ralph recalled right it was only about 20 inches, but now, well the TV seemed to be unrivaled even by movie screens. It was actually difficult to watch the entire screen at once due to its size. It stretched out farther than Ralph's peripheral vision would let him see. He mostly just had to pay attention to individual parts of the TV screen where the action was. Watching the movie was definitely giving a new meaning to larger than life. The next two hours passed rather quickly as he watched the enormous TV and the movie drew to its amazing climax. Then as the most important point.

KER-BOOOM!

With one loud clap of thunder, the TV and all the lights in the house went dark. Other than the sound of the rain pattering against the sides of the house it became completely silent. The two diminutive housemates sitting alone in the dark silent home.

"Well." Rufus broke the silence. "This sucks." He slowly got up onto his feet, and with a quick hop got down from the remote and onto the floor. "Can't even see where I'm going."

"I can see fine." The cat spoke up. "But it's just a power outage, everything will come back."

"But wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeen!?" Rufus whined, as he suddenly walked straight into the side of table leg. He hadn't even seen it.

"I don't know!" Ralph gave an excited shout, he had to wrap both paws and arms around the strand of fur to avoid being thrown off his friend by the sudden jolt. "A few minutes, an hour, ya never know with these things. So please sit down and calm down before ya throw me off, cause we're gonna have to..." Ralph was cut off as the lights and TV came back on, as well as a strange humming noise. "Or maybe it was just out for a few seconds."

"Huh, well look at that." Rufus blinked a few times to clear his vision as it adjusted to the lights being back. "Hey, do you hear a weird humming noise?"

"You know." Ralph spoke. "I was just wondering what that..." He looked up, even from his spot atop Rufus head he could see a glowing light coming from the top of the table he had used as a work bench. "No." His voice was more irritated than terrified at this point. Could he really be getting used to this? For the third time, the world was flooded with light.

It wasn't just Ralph that was unfortunate enough to get hit this time, Rufus himself was caught in the line in fire. Both cat and mouse started to decrease rapidly in size. Rufus' tunic was quickly outgrowing him, as he started to sink into it. Ralph lost his grip, falling off of his friend and landing on the ground in the carpet. He quickly got back up onto his paws to look around. Each individual strand of carpet rose above his head, reaching high into the sky like trees. They seemed to be growing, in both height and width. Of course, Ralph already knew the truth, he was shrinking. He'd been no bigger than a flea previously, would he even be visible to the naked eye now? Considering he was nothing more than an orange speck previously, not likely.

Still shrinking, the cat tried to work his way in the direction he remembered seeing Rufus. Not able to see above the individual strands of carpet, he couldn't be sure of ever finding him, but he had to try. At this point, trying to walk between the strands easy. It was like walking down a street between buildings, somewhat appropriate as the strands of carpet had gone from the size of trees to towers, and still the shrinking continued. When the power came back on, and surged through the device did it juice up the device or something? Or maybe it was just now even the smallest loss of height was world changing.

The changes finally seemed to stop, leaving Ralph at a size so small he was having difficulty understanding. Looking around, it was now as if he was in the middle of a mountain range. The individual strands of the carpet were now enormous. Taller than the tallest mountains. He continued to work his way through, hoping he had chosen the right direction.

Finally, he found his friend. A giant mouse stood before him, naked except for his white fur. Compared to Ralph, he was enormous, but looking up, his fears were confirmed. His friend's head didn't reach above the strands of carpet. So he wouldn't be able to see either. Well, it was better than being alone here. Waving his hands above his head and jumping up and down he tried to catch the attention of the seemingly giant mouse that was at this point smaller than a flea. It wasn't any use though, he was too small in comparison, and his voice wasn't carrying far enough from down where he was. Rufus appeared to be looking down, probably searching for him, but he was moving in the opposite direction.

Well, he didn't have too many options at this point, it was time to try an old trick and see if it worked. The tiny cat ran directly for his friend's paws, being careful to avoid being stepped on, and when one paw stepped down to step forward, grabbing a hold of it and climbing on top of the foot paw. Next, he apologized for what was about to happen, not that Rufus could hear, then slammed his own foot paw claws out down on his friends foot, and then clinged for dear life.

"OWWWWW!" Rufus let out a cry as he felt a sharp pain on his foot. He had just been shrunk down to a smaller size than any bug he had ever met, was lost in a forest of carpet strands, and just discovered there was apparently something still small enough in the world to give him painful bug bites. Wait, something small enough, freezing his body so as not to shake anything off, he slowly bent down and examined the top of his foot. There was one tiny orange speck Ralph? Very, very carefully he moved a finger down next to the speck, sure enough the orange speck moved and ran over onto his finger. Lifting it up and placing it directly in front of his eyes and peering as closely as he could, he could just make out the shape of diminutive cat.

"Well, I think we've got a small situation." Ralph spoke up. Rufus could make out his voice from here, it was high pitched, but he could hear it.

"Huh, I guess I kinda had this coming considering I kinda messed things up the first few times." Rufus was adjusting to the shrinking as well as he could.

"Well, we can find a way to make it work." Ralph started to think to himself. This was the third time he had been shrunk, but he was learning to live with it. Rufus was probably still very disoriented. "I'm thinking, should be plenty enough food to last a lifetime or two."

"Eh, what are you talking about?" Rufus was confused himself.

"Crumbs." Ralph explained. "I've been thinking, we've had plenty of food throughout here, don't pretend you haven't snuck a lot into your mouse hole. Small crumbs break off easily, and well this place is probably littered with them. Should be easy enough for us to see them at our current size, and I figure if we can just find a couple it'd last us a lifetime or two."

"You're suggesting a lifetime of scavenging for tiny crumbs to sustain ourselves." Rufus spoke with a sigh.

"You did say that we were both professional scavengers." Ralph spoke the last phrase, sticking his tongue out instead.

"That.... That I did. Heh." Rufus laughed to himself, then slowly deposited Ralph among his shoulder fur. Climbing to the top of a strand, Ralph was still close enough to speak and have a conversation with Rufus.

"So, we have a plan?" Ralph asked, using his legs to hold onto a strand of Rufus' white fur.

"A plan?" Rufus laughed. "Ha! You can just sit back! I'll show you the skills of the world's greatest and second smallest scavenger! I'll have enough food by morning to feed us both for ten lifetimes!"

With that, the two tiny housemates set off, amidst that vast world that was once just the carpet beneath their paws. Living off crumbs alone; would it be an easy life? Well, it would certainly be an adventurous one!

The End