Chapter #4The Shrinking Spell by: Jr.Freak  
Ethan Wright had never been one for early mornings, and this particular morning felt especially disorienting. The soft, rhythmic ticking of a clock was the first sound to greet his ears, an unusual substitute for his usual alarm. As consciousness seeped in, he realized the surface beneath him was hard and cool, distinctly unlike his typically warm, plush mattress. Opening his eyes, he was met with an expansive curved surface rising above him, blurring his vision and distorting the dim light filtering into his surroundings.
Pushing himself into a sitting position, Ethan’s heart pounded with a mix of confusion and rising panic. He was in a jar—a giant glass jar, to be precise, and he was no bigger than a small doll. His clothes hung awkwardly on his newly diminished frame, feeling more like a costume than the outfit he remembered wearing to bed.
Before he could fully process his situation, a shadow loomed over the jar. A face appeared, magnified and distorted through the glass. It was Pippa, a witch whose reputation for mischief was well known in the monster community, but whom Ethan had never expected to meet in such bizarre circumstances. She was strikingly tall, her features sharp and beautiful in a way that was both alluring and intimidating.
“Good morning, Ethan!” Pippa exclaimed, her voice resonating with a vibrant enthusiasm that did little to ease Ethan’s anxiety. “You’re the perfect addition to my collection.”
Ethan recoiled, pressing his back against the glass as Pippa’s large hand lifted the jar. She carried him with an ease that reminded him just how small he had become. Across the room stood a grand dollhouse, a mansion by doll standards, filled with miniature furniture and tiny, lifeless figures. The witch's eyes sparkled with excitement as she prepared to transfer him into this miniature prison.
However, before she could open the jar, the door to the room burst open with a force that made the whole house tremble. Agent Smith, dressed in a sleek black uniform that marked her as a member of the Monster Ops: Neutralization (M.O.N.) squad, stepped through the threshold. Her presence commanded immediate attention, her face set in a stern expression that left no room for argument.
“Pippa, you are under arrest for the unauthorized use of magic and endangering a human life,” Agent Smith declared, her voice calm but authoritative. The room filled with other agents, each equipped with various magical and technological gadgets designed to restrain any form of monster mischief.
With an air of defiance, yet surprisingly little resistance, Pippa raised her hands in surrender. The agents moved quickly, securing her with magical cuffs that glowed with a faint, ethereal light. “Well, that was anticlimactic,” she remarked casually, almost amused by her own arrest.
With Pippa secured, the agents began to sweep the room. Ethan, momentarily forgotten, watched the proceedings with wide eyes from the safety of his glass prison. Zombina, a zombie agent with a punk-rock aesthetic and a no-nonsense attitude, was speaking into her communicator, presumably to coordinate with other team members.
"Alright, everyone fan out and search for the hostage. He should be around her somewhere?" Zombina said.
"Roger that, and what were you doing with these books you crazy withc?" Doppel asked as she looked at the stack of books on the witches desk.
"Careful don't touch those! They are pricesless and ancient," the curvious witch shouted.
"And stupid" Doppel finished, unable to read or understand as ingle letter in the book.
"And what is up with this doll house?" Doppel asked as she tossed the old leather book to the ground, making Pippi shout in protest.
"I don't know," Manako, the cyclops sniper said, as she joined her shorter partner by the doll house.
"But there are a lot of cute and tiny things here" she said, making everyone in the room cringe and panic.
Before anyone could utter a sentence, the wall of the room exploded inward with the rumble of shattered brick and a cloud of dust. Tio, a towering Oni with a penchant for all things adorable, burst through the debris with a gleeful shout.
“Did someone say ‘tiny and cute’?!” Her voice boomed through the room, filled with excitement and an overwhelming enthusiasm for the tiny treasures she imagined finding inside.
Her entry was so forceful that the shelf holding Ethan’s jar trembled violently. With a horror-stricken gasp, Ethan could only watch as his jar teetered and then toppled from the shelf. Time seemed to slow as he plummeted towards the ground, the jar spinning in the air. It hit the floor with a loud crash, shattering into countless pieces and sending Ethan tumbling onto the rug.
Miraculously, Ethan found himself unharmed, his body feeling oddly flexible and squishy as he picked himself off the ground. He was about to call out for help when Tio’s massive foot descended towards him. With no time to react, he was squashed flat, his body spreading out like dough under the pressure of her boot.
Everyone, including Tio heard a loud squelch sound. Tio paniciced beleving she might have crushed a toy of some kind, by the squeak it made it might have been a doll.
“Oh no, not again!” Tio exclaimed, lifting her foot to reveal Ethan stuck to the bottom like a chewed piece of gum. The room fell silent as everyone turned to look.
Manako, glanced at tio and using her acute attention to detail, noticed something odd stuck to Tio's boot.
“What on earth is that” she pointed out, stepping forward to Tio, both women looking at the oddly colored gum stuck to her shoe.
"Suddenly Pippi began to giggle and everyone looked to her, wanting to get in on her secret joke. "You mind filling us in on what that is?" Agent Smith asked, slightly twisting the wtichs arm to make ther talk.
"Ow, okay, that's who your looking for. My cutie, little itty-bitty Ethan" Pippi said with a distributing pitch to her voice.
Everyone froze in horror as they looked at the gum shaped man in horror. With gentle hands, Manako peeled Ethan off Tio’s boot, her single eye blinking sympathetically at his flattened state.
Holding the squashed Ethan between her fingers, Manako and everyone else ont he squad stared at Ethan in wonder and disbelief, while Tio’s expression softened from shock to adoration.
Ethan, still in a state of shock, managed a weak smile and a soft but painful, “Hi.”
Agent Smith, having overseen the swift containment of Pippa, approached the group, her face betraying a hint of amusement amid the professionalism. “Well, this is certainly a new one, you are going to jail for this one Pippi” she commented dryly.
Turning her attention to her team, Agent Smith said firmly, “Ladies were heading back to base, handle the victim with care and get him to medical ASAP. Maybe they can...fix him”
"Good luck with that..." Pippi murmured.
"Oh give him to me, I can take care of him!" Tio said eagerly, grabbing Ethan between her thumb and index finger, daggling him in front of her face with the biggest smile Ethan had ever seen in his life. Ethan had seen a lot of Demi-Humans since they came out of the public, and while a lot of them were pretty this one was oddly beautiful. There was something about her he immediately liked, but he didn't really like the way she was staring at him.
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