Wes cowered and whimpered before Nick and Clark, their little-boy scowls having gone from endearingly adorable to downright chilling now that he was face level with them. It certainly didn't help that standing in nothing but tiny, stark-white undies kept him in constant mind of just how shrimpy he'd become. The gruff, barrel-chested cop turned trembling ten-year-old couldn't help but keep glancing down at himself even as Nick and Clark advanced on him, whimpering at the sight of his skinny chest and soft tummy and - most devastating of all - the tiny lump in the front of his tight little briefs.
"What's it like being the bullied one for a change, Wes?" Clark demanded as he and Nick backed Wes into a corner. "Does it make you feel small? Helpless? Like a naughty little boy?"
"T-this is insane." Wes stammered as he looked between his tormentors, what little confidence he had mustered failing him as soon as he heard his tiny trembling treble of a voice. "I don't know how you did this to me, or why you've done this to yourselves, but I promise that I'll be putting both of you behind bars as soon as I'm back to normal!"
"Oh yeah?" Nick sneered. "On what charges? Assault with a deadly regression?"
"Regression with intent to distribute?" A giggling Clark chimed in.
"Besides..."
Wes turned ghostly pale as the bigger boy leveled a strange-looking gun at his terrified target.
"...who's to say when you get back to normal?"
"And who's to say," Clark joined in, grinning as he leaned on his slightly older friend, "whether you'd be better off in diapers instead?"
"Y-you're bluffing..." Wes lamely countered.
Clark and Nick looked at each other. They shrugged. Nick brought his finger to the trigger.
"NO!" Wes cried, balling up his fists and biting his lip in frustrated humiliation as the pair cackle at his display of cowardice. "I...I won't cause any trouble."
"Good." Nick nodded as he lowered the device. "Because as much as I'd love to put you in Pampers, we've got a situation regarding this thing right there. As you've guessed, this is what I used on you and on me and Clark. We would've used it to grow back up before you BARGED IN HERE, but for whatever reason it can only make people younger at the moment."
"Are you serious?" Wes squealed. "Then we...then I could be stuck like this!?"
"No." Nick stoutly refused, external confidence belaying his internal fears. "Just give me some time to work on it. Clark, can you and Wes, I don't know, play videogames for a bit or something?"
"You're really asking me to hang out with this...cop?" Clark spat out the last word as he looked down disdainfully at his regressed rival. Wes bit back the urge to stick his tongue out at him.
"I'm not asking you to be best friends with the guy, just keep him busy until I can fix this thing." Nick muttered as he brought the device over to his work bench. "And Clark..."
Clark looked over his shoulder and met the pleading expression on his best friend's face.
"...please don't do anything stupid."
With what, Nick went to work - and Clark ushered Wes out of the bedroom, forcing the pouty boy to walk two steps ahead as Clark guided him into the living room.
"Get on the couch, grab a controller." Clark growled at Wes as he did exactly that, firing up the XBOX while Wes warily took hold of the other peripheral. "Pick a game."
"I don't play videogames." Wes insisted, not at all enjoying the feel of his bare and baby-smooth legs against the cool leather of the couch. "I'm a grown man."
"First off, right now you're not." Clark snickered as Wes blushed, seemingly realizing the silliness of his statement. "Second, don't be an asshole. I'm trying very hard to be good for Nick's sake, but I'm sure you know I'd much rather pay you back tenfold for what you did to me. So...pick. A. Game."
Wes shivered at the malice dripping from Clark's high-pitched demand. Mournfully he cast his eyes over the game library, looking for anything familiar from the last time he had held a joystick twenty-five years ago.
"Uhh...Mortal Kombat, I guess..." Wes lamely offered, recalling that he'd thrown an uppercut or two in his time. My God, he thought,
they're still making these? Clark grunted his approval as he fired up the franchise's most recent entry, and soon he and Wes were pitched in virtual combat to substitute for the very real combat Clark wished he could engage in.