"Ok, so what’s this big project that’s so important I had to cancel my plans for the entire weekend?”

Rachel asked as she took off her coat and sat down to remove her boots.

“Be patient”, Sarah replied, “You’ll find out soon enough. For now just go sit on the couch and make yourself comfortable”, then added, “and I promise, it’s safe”

Rachel did as her friend requested. Sarah was always weird but over the years she had proven herself to be a genius and someone who could always be trusted. If she said something was safe then it would be safe. Of course, her definition of “safe” was a bit different than most people’s but it still meant she’d be unharmed and unchanged by the time the experiment was over. 
As she sat and waited she looked over at the rows of books on Sarah’s shelves. There were tons of physics, biology, and types of science books she had never even heard of on the bottom and about as much anime and fantasy DVDs on the top ones. Those she DID recognize. The two had spent many nights watching them, their mutual interest in science fiction and fantasy were what started their friendship. Sarah being an actual mad genius was just a bonus as far as Rachel was concerned.

She noticed a box labelled “Time Travel Stuff” on the top of the shelf and was about to ask what that was about (knowing Sarah it was very likely an actual time machine) when she emerged from her bedroom holding what looked like a portal gun from that game they played a lot of a few years ago. 

“Is that what I think it is?” Rachel asked, excited to be able to play with real live portals.

Sarah looked confused for a moment then laughed and said, 
“No, sorry. That tech’s still a bit out of my reach. Someday though”, as she lifted the gun and aimed it at Rachel.

“WHOA! What the hell!” Rachel shouted as she jumped up and out of the path of whatever it was her friend was about to shoot her with.

Sarah recognized her faux pas immediately and lowered it again, apologizing for scaring her friend. She always found it funny to see the 5’10 Rachel afraid of something she, a petite 5 feet even, was about to do. 

“What is this thing?” Rachel asked as she approached her, reaching out to grab it as she did.

Sarah pulled back but not so quickly as to imply she didn’t want her friend handling it at some point.

“You trust me, right?” Sarah asked

“You know I do”, replied Rachel

“So you believe me when I say that whatever this does it’s completely reversible?”
Rachel hesitated for a moment before answering. She did trust Sarah unquestionably but the fact that she said it was “reversible” raised some red flags so she asked, 

“What do you mean by reversible?”

Sarah seemed hesitant to answer and when she did she only cryptically replied,

“I mean anything this ray does to you can be undone”

That was still more vague than she would have liked but she knew her friend. When she was like this there was no getting any more details. She could either walk out and never know or let her do whatever it was she was planning and hope this wasn’t the first time she screwed something up.

Sarah saw her apprehension and added, 

“Come on. I can’t use this on myself because…” she mumbled some high level science stuff at this point knowing Rachel would never understand, but ended with

“…and it will be super fun!”

“Fine!” Rachel said, standing in front of her shorter friend with her arms outstretched, “Hit me!”

Sarah raised the gun, turned a dial, and fired it at her.


Although Sarah knew what was going to happen, she wasn’t aware how it would happen. A slow moving beam shot out of the barrel, much slower than a beam of light should be (she made a note to look into that), when it struck Rachel it paused then quickly spread to cover her entire body. For a brief moment her friend looked like a human shaped pillar of light. She watched in awe as the pillar slowly began to decrease in size. Since she only had it on stage 1 she knew the reduction wouldn’t be too much, but she smiled knowing that it would be enough to freak Rachel out. She decided she’d sit on the floor to make the surprise even better and waited.

From Rachel’s point of view it looked like Sarah was shining a very bright flashlight in her eyes for much longer than she felt it was safe. She tried to say something or at least move out of the way but she couldn’t. She was just frozen in this beam of light unable to do anything except wait and pray that this wasn’t THE light she was seeing. But her fears subsided as the light cleared and the world started to slowly come back into focus.
She was still unable to talk, she felt like she had to clear her throat but couldn’t just yet, but her vision was fully back and she saw Sarah sitting against the wall where she had been standing moments earlier and went to approach her. On her way she felt like it was taking longer to reach her than it should, almost like her steps weren’t covering as much distance as they should. As she got closer she was able to clear her throat and even that felt off. Her coughing sounded lighter, more delicate than it should. 
When she reached Sarah, who had just been staring the whole time and looking like she was trying to hold in a laugh she said, 

“Well? What exactly was that about? What was it supposed to do?”
Was it her or did her voice sound higher than usual? Like she just huffed helium. Not a lot though, just slightly. She shrugged it off.

Sarah was losing her battle with the giggles and reached out her hand then said, 

“Help me up and I’ll show you”

Rachel did as she asked, taking Sarah’s hand in hers and immediately noticing something was very off. What should have been a tiny little thing now felt at least as big as hers, maybe even bigger. Any doubts she may have had about what was happening with her were erased she Sarah stood to her full height, and Rachel was about eye level with her neck.

“Whoa!” was all she could muster looking up at her formerly smaller friend, now suddenly a giant to her, “So, you invented shrink ray, huh?”

Sarah smirked and said, “Sort of. One of the most noticeable effects is a reduction of mass. But it’s much more than that. Here let me show you”, as she lead the now four foot tall Rachel to the bathroom so she could get a look at the other less obvious changes. 
When they entered the bathroom, Sarah put a hand over Rachel’s eyes, both girls amazed at the size of the other. 

“Ready for it?” Sarah asked. 

Rachel, trying to sound irritated but not doing very well with her slightly high pitched voice said, 
“Yeah, I can’t wait to see what else you did besides turn me into a midget”.

As the giant hand was removed and Rachel got her first look at her new self, she didn’t notice much else besides the obvious height difference between the two.
But once she got used to that she did notice some more changes. 
Her hands and feet looked smaller than they should have been, even taking into account her reduced stature. 
Her breasts, which were normally an impressive D cup were nor more like C (proportionately, that is) and looked a lot rounder than they usually were.
Those changes were strange but not as shocking as when she looked at her face. Her head was now about one size too large for her body, almost as if it didn’t get shrunk enough while her eyes were actually slightly too big for her already oversized head. She looked up at the taller girl next to her and said, 

“Well, this thing’s a bust. You made me into some kind of freak”

Sarah just looked at her and said, 

“Do you really not get what happened to you yet? I suppose it’s still too subtle to notice”

With that she grabbed the small girl by the shoulders and turned her to face the mirror one more time while telling her to take another good look and list all the differences she saw in new form.

“Ok”, Rachel agreed, “Let’s see. For starters, I’m about two feet shorter…”

“1 foot, 10 inches to be exact” Sarach corrected her.

“Oh. Well, that changes everything then. I’m only slightly less than two feet shorter than I was just ten minutes ago! Thanks for that!” she replied sarcastically while sticking out her tongue. 
An image that when she saw in the mirror helped her recognize exactly what she was. Or more accurately, what she was on her way to becoming

“Oh shit!” she exclaimed, “I think I get it now. Am I…”

“…That’s right! You’re Chibi-Rachel now! Or at least, sort of chibi. This is just the first setting, there are actually four levels”.

“Four?!” Rachel asked, “just how small will I be at setting four?”

Sarah just smiled and said, “super small. And super cute”

Rachel was hesitant but had to know, 
“I’m afraid to ask? How small?”

Sarah shook her head and said, “Nuh-uh! No spoilers!”

Rachel, a bit annoyed to not know how much smaller she’d be shrinking before the night was over decided to let it go but insisted, 

“Ok, fine! But give me this one - over or under a foot?”

Sarah thought about it for a moment before saying, 

“Nope! I’m not telling. But let’s just say your final height won’t be the biggest surprise”

That intrigued Rachel, prompting her to say, 
“Ok then. Let’s do it”

She held out her arms and said, “Round 2”, as she closed her eyes in anticipation of the beam. When it didn’t come she opened them and said, 

“Well? What are you waiting for?”

Sarah squatted just a little to bring them face to face. An act that made Rachel actually feel smaller, and answered

“Sorry, cutie. The ray needs to recharge for about an hour between blasts. Plus, your body could use the rest. You might not feel it but your inner workings have changed quite a bit more than your outer”.

“What do you mean by ‘inner workings’?” Rachel wondered.

Sarah paused, then replied

“Well, it’s a lot of, what did you call my work, ‘mumbo jumbo’? But basically you’re not only cuter on the outside, your body is becoming cuter on the inside as well”

Rachel thought about this then asked, 

“So, what does that mean? I’m turning into a kitten or something?”

Sarah was silent, prompting Rachel to ask again, this time more nervously,

“Sarah. I’m not turning into a kitten, am I?”

Sarah just laughed and said, 

“No. Of course not. I’m trying to think of how to explain this to you in a way you’ll understand. No offense.”

“Yeah, why would I be offended by my giant friend who just shrunk me and is turning me into some kind of doll thing telling me I’m not smart enough to know what’s happening?” Rachel replied sarcastically.

“It’s not that, it’s just…” she paused, “… ok. It’s like this. As you know, chibis don’t actually exist in real life so when I programmed the ray to make the changes I had to go by what I knew from anime and other cartoons. Now, I could have just made the changes entirely cosmetic but then the human body would have trouble with the proportions and, um, other changes I planned on making so I had to change your internal structure as well.”

Rachel stopped her and asked, 

“So I’m not human anymore?”

Sarah sighed and standing up, reached down for Rachel’s hand which Rachel instinctively took and led her into the living room where the two girls sat on the couch. Rachel, though smaller, didn’t have any trouble climbing up, but she did notice that her feet were nowhere near close to the floor. The barely cleared the cushion with her back against the back cushion.

Sarah continued, 

“Technically, I mean if you were to go to a hospital and have an exam done, then I guess you could say no”

She saw the look of concern on her smaller friend’s face and quickly continued, 

“But that’s not a bad thing. All I’ve done is make your body capable of existing at the size and shape you’re going to be. Which I promise you is entirely temporary. In fact, you’re only going to notice one real difference at stage one”.

When she didn’t elaborate, Rachel spoke up
“And that would be…?”

“Oh. Sorry”, Sarah replied. “Your appetite is different now. The food your body needs in this form isn’t the food you body needed when you were big.”
Just then the doorbell rang, prompting Sarah to say “Ah, perfect timing! Would you be a dear and go get the pizza?”

“What? Like this?” Rachel answered gesturing down to her newly diminished form, “I look like a freak! No way!”

“Come on, it’ll be funny to see the guy’s reaction. Besides, you don’t look too freakish. You’re just a really short girl with a big head”, Sarah laughed when she said this while Rachel grudgingly grabbed the money from her hand and went to the door.

If Sarah was tall, this guy was a giant. He had to be at least six and a half feet tall, which at her normal height was impressive but like this was just amazing to her.

“Hi!” the delivery guy said, “that’ll be…” he paused when he saw this strange looking girl answer but quickly recovered to avoid being rude, “…sorry, that’ll be $21 please”. 

Despite his efforts at hiding it, Rachel was very aware of him checking her out. It wasn’t the usual way guys checked her out though, she didn’t feel like he was mentally undressing her like they usually did, it was more like he was trying to figure out what she was. “I knew it!” she thought to herself, “Of course people will stare at me. Stupid Sarah!” as she handed the guy the money, grabbed the pizza, and quickly shut the door with her foot. An action that reminded her of her reduced strength when the door barely shut halfway. 
She saw the pizza guy reach over and after one more glance at her, shut it for her.
She was relieved that was over as she carried the unwieldy box into the kitchen where Sarah was waiting, tears running down her cheeks from laughter.

“Very funny,” Rachel scolded her, “now take this thing, it weighs a ton and…” that was when it hit her, it didn’t smell very good either. She knew it was just the normal pepperoni pizza they always ordered but something about it just didn’t smell appealing at all to her, “…and it smells gross?” she finished in a confused tone.

“Ding ding ding!” Sarah declared, “that’s right!. Like I said, your body runs on different stuff now, which means you’ll have different tastes”

Rachel didn’t like the sound of that, and the fact that pizza didn’t appeal to her anymore even less, so she asked, 

“Then what do I like now? Baby food? I swear if it’s baby food, I’ll…”

Before she could finish Sarah grabbed a chair and stood on it to reach the top shelf, “I’m gonna miss my top shelf reacher for a while apparently”, she said, and grabbed a small box.
She brought it down and placed it on the table in front of Rachel, opened it and said, 

“Your welcome!”
She was about to ask what she was talking about when she peeked over the top of the table and saw what was in the box. Chocolate! And for some reason it smelled better than any chocolate she had even smelled before. She reached up, standing on her tiptoes, and grabbed a piece and took a bit.
It tasted even better than it smelled. She felt like it was the first time she had ever eaten chocolate before, there were tastes and textures she had never noticed before. 
She climbed up in the chair to get a better view of the contents and took another piece. And another, and another until the box was empty.
When she was done she expected to feel sick to her stomach but it was the opposite. She felt great! Like she had just got done exercising and had a healthy meal. It didn’t need to be said, but she said it anyway, 

“You made my body run on chocolate?! That’s awesome!”

Sarah, who had been watching the whole thing with a smile on her face, corrected her, 

“No. Not just chocolate. Sugar in general. If you thought that was good, you’d probably love a big spoonful of plain sugar.”

The thought of that sounded great to her and she was about to go get a spoon when Sarah put her hand on her shoulder and said,