-A story route requested by another user-
Phoenix felt rather bad for police officer Maggey Byrde.
Or, rather, former police officer Maggey Byrde.
Maggey had been arrested on the charge of murdering a fellow police officer quite recently, and while Phoenix had succeeded in clearing her name in court, the incident had still cost Maggey her job on the police force. It seemed that she really was as unlucky as she always claimed.
"Thank you so much for coming over, Mr. Wright...!" she was saying, busily moving about in her small desk area in the police precinct.
It was quite late in the evening. Phoenix would normally have been settling down to relax back in his apartment above the Wright and Co. Law Offices right about now, but Maggey had called him to let him know that she'd lost her job, and he'd agreed to come down to the police station and help her with clearing out her small office space.
This would have been a simple, non-stressful activity for him, but Phoenix felt a bit strange at the moment. Earlier in the day, back in his office, he and Maya had been testing some strange new spiritual training technique Maya had picked up, after she requested his help with it. Kurain Village had no shortage of strange old scrolls with bizarre techniques scrawled on them.
The technique they'd been trying didn't seem to be doing anything initially, but by now, Phoenix felt very strange. Brief bouts of dizziness kept fading in and out in his head, and the easiest means of making them subside seemed to be reaching into his pocket to close his hand around Maya's Magatama. It was strange, but holding onto the small artifact seemed to help.
"So, if you can get all those old papers stacked up, I can sort them out once you leave..." Maggey was saying. Phoenix glanced down at the papers on the desk, and a sudden spell of dizziness suddenly set in. He wobbled on his feet, his hand going for his pocket, but before he could reach it, he felt a bizarre sensation all over his body, and his vision blacked out.
"Oof-...!!"
He'd fallen over. Surprised that there was enough room to do so, he pushed himself shakily to his feet.
Immediately, he let out a frightened yell and stumbled backward, falling over again.
A positively massive face was staring at him, eyes wide behind a familiar set of glasses.
"M-Maggey...!?" he stammered, unable to believe what he was seeing.
Maggey was still right there in front of him, like she'd been moments ago, but by all appearances, she'd suddenly gotten about a hundred times bigger. Her face was expanded in all directions, staring at him in similar shock.
"M-Mr. Wright, wh-what just happened to you...!?" she asked, her voice substantially magnified.
"Me...? Y-you're..."
Phoenix blinked, looking around.
He was lying on a very large piece of paper. Around him, he now started to recognize all the same objects that were on Maggey's desk.
... Had he just shrunk?
Maggey's enormous face suddenly backed off, and she looked around nervously.
The precinct was mostly empty, and this area was almost entirely unoccupied aside from Maggey herself, and the now-shrunken defence lawyer on her desk.
She looked back at him.
"Wh-what happened...!?" she asked again. "D-did you eat something weird? Or run into some kind of crazy scientist recently, or something...?"
Phoenix had absolutely no idea himself.
"Ohh, this is my fault...!!" Maggey groaned. "These sorts of things always happen to people who help me out...!!"
Still too shocked to think particularly clearly, Phoenix got upright again.
"M-Maggey, just take it easy for a minute..."
He reached into his pocket, digging out Maya's Magatama. He felt the same kind of soothing presence he'd gotten from holding it earlier, but unfortunately, a nice feeling wasn't enough to restore his original size.
... He needed Maya, and that weird old scroll they'd been reading.
"Maggey." he said again. "Can you get me back to my office? I can give you directions, if you need, I just-"
Maggey looked about ready to break down sobbing. Phoenix raised a hand, hoping to calm her down a bit.
"Of c-course, Mr. Wright, just let me..."
She suddenly froze, having just attempting to move a couple of her things around on her desk, only to bump her hand against an upright book by mistake.
Phoenix looked up just in time to see the book's front cover rushing down toward him. Maggey had knocked it over, and it was toppling straight toward him.
He screamed for a split-second.
-THUD-
...
Maggey stared at her desk in horror. Her old police training manual had just fallen over, coming right down on top of Mr. Wright.
It took her a few seconds to realize that she couldn't just stand there.
Wrenching the book back off the desk, she looked down at where Phoenix had been standing, horrified by what she expected to see.
An incredible rush of relief swept over her a second later, when she saw him lying on his back, dazed but somehow seeming unharmed.
Phoenix gagged, shakily getting to his feet again. He wasn't dead, somehow. The book had slammed heavily down right on him, but by whatever unknown means, it hadn't flattened him.
(... I-I guess I'll take it...)
Had he become more durable in addition to shrinking? He still didn't really know. At any rate, he now found himself very solidly hoping not to have to test the theory any more.
"M-Maggey..." he gasped, feeling short of breath. "Could you just... g-get me off of this desk...?"
Tears were visibly shining in Maggey's eyes. She nodded, moving a hand down to let him climb into her palm.
He finally had a bit of perspective on just how tiny he'd become. He doubted that he was even a full inch tall at this point.
Maggey got him outside in a hurry, keeping her hands cupped together to hide him. Once she arrived at her battered car, she opened the door, setting him down on the driver's seat and taking a glance around. She was going to be scolded pretty badly if she didn't get her desk cleared out by the morning, but this was probably a lot more important.
Relieved that no one appeared to have taken notice of her, she got into her car, sitting down. She let out a sigh, relaxing against her seat for a few seconds.
... Her police uniform felt itchy. At least she wouldn't have to wear it anymore after tonight.
She suddenly flinched, lurching forward onto the dashboard. Her left hand clawed at the seat beneath her backside until she located Phoenix.
"Oh my God, Mr. Wright, I'm so, so, sorry-...!!"
He looked OK, like before, but still, ending up underneath her rear for several seconds probably hadn't been pleasant. She looked around, but couldn't find any better spot to put him. Just setting him in her lap, against her skirt, she started the car, her face burning up with embarrassment.
She just needed to take him back to his law office. It sounded like he could fix this problem there.   indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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