11125/Small Claims Court

Small Claims Court
Date of Scene:	11 May 2022
Location:	The Micro World of Jezzeret
Synopsis:	The Atom finds Jennifer Walters and her latest client stranded on a Micro World after her client's failed attempt to escape his trial via extreme shrinking.
Cast of Characters:	Jennifer Walters, Ray Palmer

---

Jennifer Walters has posed:
SOME TIME AGO

The keening whine and throbbing ball of white-hot fury rattling in Anthony Vargas' exposed, metal-lined chest cavity suggest violence.

The ripped open suit borrowed from Jen's client closet and wild, darting eyes scream desperation, just minutes after Mr. Vargas was made to face the family of his missing partner, lost due to Anthony's insistence on pushing the limits of reverse engineered Pymtech. Building the reactor into his own body was meant to make it SAFER; running containment calculations using spare neural processing power was meant to be the magic bullet that let them circumvent the otherwise intimidating financial requirements of experimenting in this field as junior AIM fellows.

One look into his partner's wife's crying eyes reminds him of how terribly wrong, how arrogant he was-- and how long of a sentence he's looking at once convicted.

Thus suit.

Thus the whine and the rattle.

Thus the blinding white field stretching beyond alloyed ribs, threatening to consume the courtroom-- until, that is, his attorney tackles him to the ground, shielding onlookers from the inevitable explosion with her own body. The field still yawns open, washing Anthony and Jennifer out of existence... only to snap back in on itself afterwards, leaving a rapidly vanishing point of white light where client and attorney once were.

NOW

"I have never," Jennifer Walters huffs, folding bare arms across her stylishly ripped court attire and frowning at the ornate table piled with gleaming weaponry being presented to her, "been asked to choose my weapon when preparing to defend a client, and I am NOT going to open that can of worms here."

Just a few dozen yards behind Jennifer, down a sand path and beyond a metal gate, the audience roars with anticipation, hungry to witness a brutal taste of law and order. The volume briefly swells when the gate's drawn open; Jennifer breaks off from telling the two robed servants presenting her with courtly armaments how she feels to glance behind her, just in time to spot the defense team from the previous case being dragged back into the bowels of the court, where they will ultimately be tossed into a pit to feed the Great Khan's warhounds.

Not a single member of the defense is intact. One in particular is just a pair of legs hooked under a brawny slave's arms.

This is Jezzeret, a microworld ruled by a brutal, skull-faced tyrant known only as the Great Khan. Despite its barbaric nature and appearances, it is a fairly advanced world: once upon a time, the Khan's arcane laboratories nearly produced a functioning portal that would have allowed him to march his armies directly onto Earth, if not for the timely intervention of a certain microscopic science hero.

It's the kind of place it pays to keep an eye on.

"... maybe /one/ weapon," Jen softly considers.

Mr. Vargas is in a cell not so far away, waiting to learn whether his attorney will succeed in winning his freedom, or-- well, not. He and Jen plowed a trench across a long stretch of Jezzeretian farmland, a crime which Vargas was ultimately assigned all of the blame for in a naked bid to get access to whatever strange technology brought them here to begin with.

Ray Palmer has posed:
In a humble science lab in ESU, Dr. Ray Palmer is about to get some lunch when a pesky beeping assaults his ears. He closes the bag of lunch he just opened and runs over to check the machinery. Huh. A comm signal from the Micro Worlds, a beacon if you would. Someone has done something best not done. He runs an analysis on the energy. "Pym radiation... this is D. Pym's work." His hand reaches for the invisible control to transform him into the Atom. He hesitates a moment, then grabs the sack on his desk.

He was going to meet the man himself! Maybe Dr. Pym needed some lunch. The Atom appears in a flash of light and orbiting electrons and quickly shrinks from sight.

He was really going to meet Dr. Pym! Maybe his whole gang!

Jennifer Walters has posed:
"The Jury," one robed servitor intones in reply to Jen, "is nearly ready to meet you.

"The Judge," adds the other, "will oversee your trial soon."

"Choose your weap--"

They must've practiced this routine, which just adds to the dismay which flashes across their pale, jaundiced features when a flash of light abruptly appears, then compresses into The Atom's spandex-clad form at Jen's side. The runes inscribed on Anthony's cell make it something of a Faraday box; the next nearest source of errant Pym radiation is thus the lawyer whose head's whipping towards Ray.

"/Py--/" she starts, only to cut herself off and blink twice.

"-- oh. No."

"... huh."

Slowly, she lifts a hand in greeting.

"... hey."

Ray Palmer has posed:
Atom is momentarily dazed. Shrinking to the Micro Worlds is new to him. Plus, he seems to be Ray Palmer sized, six foot and still wearing his costume. His vision focusses on the obviously female form before him... no wait he must be what four, five feet tall. He peers another moment and recognizes the green She-Counselor. No he's his Ray Palmer size. He thinks. This might be another green woman. There are Martians, whatever that woman in the Guardians is... So he extends a hand and says, "Hey. I'm the Atom. Juuuust two fast questions, 1- Is Dr. Pym actually here? 2- Are you about six foot six inches?"

Jennifer Walters has posed:
"No--

"INTRUDER!"

"-- Dr. Pym is not here--"

"INTERLOPER!"

"-- and I don't--"

"INTRUUUUUUUUUDEEEEER!"

"-- think the other thing MATTERS--"

"INTERLOPEEEEEEEEEEEEEEER!"

"-- hey, what's your favorite medieval weapon?"

The servitors' shrieking alarms continue as armoured boots come thundering through stonewrought hallways, bearing down on the court's Recess Chamber. They continue through the emergence of half a dozen moderately armoured soldiers in bone and ringmail, wielding a variety of overly large, dangerously medieval weapons. For her part, Jen goes for a big, brass-coloured shield, flipping it into the air and thrusting her arm through its straps on the way down. She manages to plant and pivot just in time to catch an introductory volley of javelins from one set of guards, but there are three more coming for Palmer from the other side.

"Are you a sword guy? You seem a little like a sword guy."

Ray Palmer has posed:
Atom smirks and says, "I'm a pugilist and I fight a little dirty... but... can't you flatten these guys with like one pinky? I mean Hulk smash is a thing, right?" There's another flash of light, then another as his technology encounters some interference and overrides it. The Mighty Mite leaps into the air reducing his weight further to sail higher and then, the officer in charge gets 180 pounds of Atom dropping on top of his head. (I hope this works. Are these guys strong enough to keep She-Hulk a prisoner? Do they know about Pym Particles? My suit doesn't use them. Comparing my singularity effect to Pym particles, they're sort of like AC and DC currents. Shoot, how do I enlarge She-Hulk? Pym particles and singularity effects do not merge well.

Jennifer Walters has posed:
"Well," says Jen--

The officer leading the charge gets 180 pounds of Atom dropping on top of his head. There is some buckling; a brief, hard stop to the officer's forward progress--

"It's complicated."

-- but ultimately, the officer's left more perturbed than floored. He's wearing Ray like a 180 pound accessory tangling around his head and shoulders more than he's collapsing beneath the physicist's surprise attack.

"I /can/ flatten these guys, but 'these guys' aren't exactly human, is the thing."

They look human -- in a brawny, hyperoptimized for violence kind of way - but the one who refused to go down at Ray's insistence reaches to snare the scientist at speeds that would put an Olympic athlete to shame, seeking to seize him with a single hand and /hurl/ him away forcefully enough to leave cracks in whatever brick surface the Atom collides with if the officer succeeds.

"-- also, they'd definitely execute my client, if I let them. He tried to skip out of court with bootleg Pymtech, and we ended up HERE, surrounded by Robert E. Howard fanboys," Jen explains. "So now we're in a DIFFERENT court--"

She gestures, briskly and broadly.

"-- only this one's got a little more of a trial by lethal arena fight vibe going-- nngh--!"

Jennifer's eyes snap down to the rune-inscribed gladius buried several inches into her stomach.

"-- hold on--"

She swiftly leans into the guard struggling to pull his sword free, doubles him over by seizing him around the waist, then hauls him upwards at violent speeds, only to slam him back to the ground, sending shudders through the court and allowing him to join his unconscious fellows who also made the mistake of trying to dogpile her while she did her exposition dump.

"-- ah, fuck-- Jesus--... magic weapons, by the way-- just for them, though," she groans before gritting her teeth and setting herself to gingerly working the blade out of her body.

"... YOU know Pym, right? He's got a, like, a thing for this, doesn't he?"

Ray Palmer has posed:
Atom acks as the hand engulfs him and then shrinks even smaller to slip between sausage thick fingers. The officer is left with a fist of nothing. A moment later he receives an Atomic Punch! Atom regains his full height, and borrows extra mass, temporarily giving him low end super strength. rays fist connects with the officer's jaw and he desperately hopes his hand doesn't break.

He spares a glance back and, well... yikes, green blood! "Shit! You're hurt!"

He should have known these guys were not run of the mill thugs. They ripped her clothes and everything!

Jennifer Walters has posed:
"I'll live," Jen says, low and tight.

And indeed: the wound is already closing once Jen pulls the sword out and tosses it aside.

"Look if YOU don't know Pym, can you at least-- you know, grow us OUT of here? I can GET to my client. That's not the problem, this is just brickwork and, okay a LITTLE magic; I'm pretty sure I can break THAT."

Jen throws her shield at the two remaining guards, both of whom are swiftly advancing on Ray.

"The real problem is that I don't wanna have to protect my client from an entire world's worth of nebulously magical assholes with no 'out'-- augh, Jesus--"

And then she gives each of the servitors a swift blow to the back of the head to finally shut them up.

"-- okay. Yeah. Anyway: are we stuck here, yes/no?"

Ray Palmer has posed:
Atom returns to six inches in height and jumps onto Jennifer's shoulder to be heard. He thinks furiously. "I detected Pym radiation here. What caused that? My method will not work on you... in a remotely survivable way. If there's a Pym device handy well, I can probably operate that. Do you want to keep knocking skulls while I search for this device? Which I hope is present? Otherwise... I have to leave you to get Pym or his daughter. I do not want to leave you as they can obviously hurt you given time, and may kill this client." He looks down to check on the wound in her stomach. Nope can't see her stomach from here. He returns to looking in her eyes. Blushing.

Jennifer Walters has posed:
"Yeah, so," Jen says, walking past -- over -- fallen guards and servants, "the Pymtech is IN him. He's a junior AIM guy; he and his buddy were working on a way to reproduce size-changing tech, and he wound up building the prototype into himself. Really messed up stuff! But not malicious-- for an AIM guy; we give the low key ones rep when they mess up in ways that aren't too screwed up, and sometimes they remember to pay it back when the Avengers, or whoever need leads on actually-dangerous AIM bullshit."

Rather than head through the passages the guards emerged through, Jen stops about six inches short of the wall between them, sizes it up--

*THOOOOOOM!*

-- and picks her own path.

"So you're gonna have to get your hands dirty in a really weird way, is the thing," Jen concludes, marching through rubble for several feet until she encounters another wall to punch through.

Ray Palmer has posed:
Atom grabs onto Jen's hair when she throws the punch. The muscle action threw him about. "I entered a human body before! In a sciency wayI mean! Not a problem... well leukocytes are a problem at a certain size. But I can do it." He wraps a loose strand of Jen's hair around his wrist and ankle.

"Sorry for the familiarity but you're sort of an express train right now. Yeah I have worked with Pym Tech. Again similar purposes. I got some plans on my... damn. I forgot my lunch... never mind. I'm just starving."

Jennifer Walters has posed:
On the one hand, taking this direct of a route makes Atom and She-Hulk hard to swarm. The time they spend in readily accessible areas of the court - an infirmary with cots and maimed legal gladiators; a study hall alive with sparring; a law library where a necromancer's about to conjure a ghost to confirm a precedent - is minimal; within seconds of entering these spaces, they're right back between the walls again, sending earthquakes through the entire structure. Through it all, the roar of the audience is everpresent-- muffled by distance and layers of brickwork, but tangible just the same.

On the other--

"-- Miss Walters??" Anthony sputters, blinking rapidly after recovering from the shock of the slightly over six and a half foot tall figure crashing through the opposite wall of his dungeon wing. "I thought you said to--"

-- taking this direct of a route to such an easily guessed destination has its downsides, like giving a courtful of guards a convenient point to rally towards.

"Don't worry about it," Jennifer exhales to Anthony and Ray alike. This, as she reaches to pluck the latter from her shoulder. "You've done this before, right?"

And /hurl/ him through the bars of Anthony's cell so he can get to work. Anthony's shirt and jacket are completely gone. Anthony is obviously cybernetic, sporting a column of interlocking containment plates from the top of his sternum down to his waist.

Anthony resumes staring down at himself, and the crackling white arcs lashing through the cracks in his shielding as he warily utters, "I-- the reactor was DEAD until a minute ago, and now--..."

Leaving the Atom to handle the scientific end of their escape, She-Hulk turns her attention towards the beating the hell out of a bunch of barbarian court officers end.

Ray Palmer has posed:
Atom is already shrinking as he is hurled. He reduces his mass enough to let air resistance slow him, so e doesn't go splat. Then he's in the chest, a quarter inch in size.

"Ow! Damn... son of a mother!!" More sparks from Anthony.

"Yeah my penetrating the Microversal membrane jump started you but you have several bits of fried wiring here. Ahhhh! Sorry! The Pym radiation hurts me. causes feedback in my tech... wait... I can probably do the same to this reactor, if I set my size and mass precisely... let me work it out. How many megawatts are we talking here, Anthony? Do I get burned or go all splodey? Aooooowwww fu..."

Several more sparks are emitted by the cyborg. Then a gentle glow begins to build abut his middle. Inside the Atom attempts a quick bit of rewiring.

Jennifer Walters has posed:
Ultimately, it's a not-that-simple matter of systematically running down and rewiring critical components of Anthony's systems. For the mad science equivalent of bootleg garage engineering, it is solid worksmanship: the Pym radiation hurts; the reactor runs hot but more or less true. Its flaw, if anything, is that it is too effective a recreation, producing particles with all the mass-shifting potential of genuine Pym energies and significantly less potential for control. If not for his internal shielding, Anthony himself would be a mess of violently transformed organic mass by now.

It probably doesn't help that everything keeps shaking every few seconds due to more and more scantily clad guards being thrown around the dungeons.

Given a few minutes of work, Ray is able to work out a way to manipulate the pirate technology by using his own to jumpstart it, leaving the task of opening a way home before they're overwhelmed on his shoulders.

Ray Palmer has posed:
Ray Palmer considers his shoulder some more. There is an inaudible snap of tiny fingers and then a tiny spark of light emerges from Anthony to enlarge into... a twelve foot tall Ray.

In a Micro World you can grow by turning down the shrink. He looks down at Jen and Anthony, a little unsure. Then he shakes it off and puts the Cyborg on one shoulder. He extends a hand to Jen when she runs temporarily short of guards. "I can jump start you guys... well, Anthony, but we have to be close. Your choice Ms. Walters, holding hands or my shoulder?" There's a little blush creeping below his mask.

"I'm like a booster stage."

Jennifer Walters has posed:
It takes a little while before Jen finds a gap between guards. By that point, there are several knives sticking out of her back.

She doesn't let them deter her from doing a quizzical doubletake up at the creeping blush before wrapping her hand around a few of Palmer's fingers, though.

"Whatever gets me out of playing gladiator," she exhales.

Ray Palmer has posed:
Ray Palmer acts quickly despite the blush and still growing picks Jen up, careful of the kitchenware she's sporting on her back. "You look like you can use a lift." He lets her sit in the crook of his arm, then the palm of his hand as he continues to grow. He puts Anthony in his hand as his head breaks through the clouds.

"You hang onto Ms. Walters, Anthony. If I have to go looking around the Micro Worlds for her... you will have trouble like you didn't know. Not to mention you'd need another lawyer." There are Kirby dots around him and the electron aura appears as he winds up as throws the glowing cyborg and the jade giantess ahead of him and through a blazing light back into the courtroom!

The Atom appears a few moments later, normal human size, holding his head between his hands.

"Biggest headache ever!"

Jennifer Walters has posed:
Jen and Anthony both hang on until it's time to tumble back into the courtroom. Promptly upon landing, Jen staggers to her feet, touches a knife embedded in her shoulder, and winces.

"The defense requests a thirty minute recess to replace her suit and avoid bleeding in the court, Your Honor," she states, looking the judge dead in the eye.

A couple beats later, recess is granted with a stunned gavel note.