Fortunately, quickly-expanding projectiles are a lot easier to spot.
A character has weapons, or objects that can be used as Improvised Weapons, that have been shrunk down (using either Applied Phlebotinum or Functional Magic) allowing them to carry an extremely large number of them. When attacking, the character takes one or more of the miniature weapons and throws them at their opponents. Once in the air, the shrinking effect turns off, and the opponent finds themselves being confronted by something much larger, heavier, and harder to dodge than they were expecting. Given the fantastic nature of the ability, the weapons may have other properties that only become active when enlarged.
In Superhero Stories, a character will sometimes wear these miniaturized weapons as designs on their costume.
See also Retractable Weapon.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Riruka Dokugamine of Xcution from Bleach has the ability to shrink and seal away any person or thing she adores within objects she finds cute. She weaponizes this with a cutesy water gun called the Love Gun, which allows her to fire large objects.
- Boruto: Jigen/Isshiki Ĺtsutsuki can shrink and expand any non-organic object and use it as a projectile.
- My Hero Academia: One villain, Mr. Compress, has a Quirk which lets him shrink objects into a tiny marble, then later restore it to full size. On one occasion, he threw a compressed boulder under a police car during a chase, causing it to be flipped over when the rock was uncompressed.
- Capone Bege from One Piece has the devil fruit ability of being a living fortress. This means he can shrink and store whatever he wants within himself, which in his case are armed forces. His first demonstration is having his men fire a battery of cannonballs which expand to full size once they pass a certain distance from him.
Comic Books
- Batman:
- Polka Dot Man, also known as Mister Polka Dot, is a Gotham City supervillain and an enemy to Batman. His suit is covered in spots that can be peeled off and turned into different objects to be used for a variety of purposes. The dots enlarge and transform into dangerous weapons, like spinning buzzsaws, or even bizarre vehicles, such as flying saucers.
- Zodiac Master had a costume covered in the signs of the zodiac. These symbols are gimmicked to transform themselves into weapons or distractions, similar to the Polka-Dot Man, and growing to human-sized when peeled off and activated. The zodiac signs on the Zodiac Master's costume included a ram's head (representing Aries), a scorpion (representing Scorpio), a "jet arrow" (representing Sagittarius), flaming human twins (representing Gemini), and a figure holding scales (representing Libra). All of these, with the exception of Libra, could be used as projectiles. The Scorpio projectile also functioned as a Battle Bolas.
- Fantastic Four: One of the pieces of equipment utilised by Doctor Doom is the Intensified Molecule Projector, which is small enough to be placed into one of his gauntlets. The projector allows Doom to launch molecules (the RPG Book "Machines of Doom #1" specifies these are synthetic molecules) at opponents. When these molecules come into contact with oxygen, they grow to the size of a large stone, making for dangerous projectiles. It's mentioned that the Projector isn't actually something built into his armour, rather it's optional equipment he can attach when he thinks he'll need it. Otherwise, it's not part of his armour's normal arsenal.
- The Marvel vs. Capcom series invokes the Projector with Doom's "Molecular Shield" move, which creates a rotating mass of rock-like molecules around him that offers him brief protection and can be hurled at his opponent.
- Spider-Man: One of the lesser-known functions of Spider-Man's web-shooters is the ability to shoot web balls (small, hard balls of webbing meant to give him a ranged attack). He rarely uses this function anymore, normally opting to restrain an enemy with webbing as he closes into close-quarters range. However, when Ben Reilly briefly took up the role of the Wall-Crawler, he introduced "impact webbing": a version of the web balls that would burst open upon contact with a hard surface and encase whatever it struck in webbing. One of the ways Reilly would utilise them would be to launch impact webbing at an opponent in a machine gun-like scatter pattern, and if they tried to deflect the impact webbing they'd suddenly find themselves faced with a flying mass of webbing that would be much harder to avoid. Most notably, Reilly used the impact webbing to outright defeat Venom in a straight fight, something the more experienced Peter Parker had never accomplished note .
- West Coast Avengers: During the period when Hank Pym operated as a non-costumed adventurer, rather than shrinking himself, he used Pym particles to shrink equipment down to tiny size, allowing him to carry an arsenal of weapons and scientific equipment in the pockets of his jumpsuit. This included throwing weaponry.
Fan Works
- Lighting Up the Dark
: Naruto uses clever Loophole Abuse of the basic three academy techniques — cloning, substitution, and transformation — to pull stunts like throwing a kunai and then swapping it midair with a huge log (which retains the speed of the kunai), or throwing multiple clones of himself, transformed into kunai, which each de-transform in mid-air and start throwing more kunai. When the fox takes control of his body, it takes his techniques and goes further, such as turning a flying kunai into a five-metre-long steel pipe.
Film — Live-Action
- In Ant-Man and the Wasp, during the fight in the restaurant, Janet throws a salt shaker, then hits it with Pym Particles to make it expand and block a doorway, preventing a mook from escaping.
- Spider-Man: While fighting Spider-Man in a burning apartment, Green Goblin throws one of his pumpkin bombs... that instead pops open and expands into several wide spinning blades, forcing Spidey to dodge.
Gamebooks
- Deathtrap Dungeon sees you facing the Pit Fiend, one of the dungeons' toughest monsters, where instead of fighting it directly you can throw a Monkeybone Charm (depending if you have it or not) into its jaw as the Fiend tries chomping you down. The charm will magically expand and choke the monster, allowing you to flee without a fight by passing a LUCK test.
Tabletop Games
- Champions: A collection of Lethal Joke Characters in Adventurers Club magazine included Planet-Man, who had the ability to shrink planets down to pocket size and hold them there indefinitely. He would attack by taking a marble-sized planet out of his pocket, throwing it at his target, turning off the shrinking, and teleporting away: leaving his target to attempt to dodge a planet.
- Dungeons & Dragons: A magical item that a player can aquire is the "Robe of Useful Items" which can create two dagger and a randomized assortment of 14 to 37other items.
- Original Dungeons & Dragons, Dragon #5 article "Witchcraft Supplement for Dungeons and Dragons" magic items.
- Hill Seeds are small black spheres that, when thrown, expand until they are several yards across. Any living creature they hit is crushed and killed and any object hit takes damage as if hit by a triple bombard.
- Mountain Seeds are small black spheres that, when thrown, expand until they are the size of a castle. They can be used to smash a town or crush an army unit.
Video Games
- Touhou Kishinjou ~ Double Dealing Character: Shinmyoumaru Sukuna's Mallet spell cards: Using her magic mallet to make a reverse Shrink Ray, a.k.a a growth ray effect, she makes her danmaku bullets grow progressively bigger as they travel.
Web Animation
- ASDF Movie: The fourth movie has a dad throw a ball to his son, who gets squashed due to the ball not changing size in accordance with the perspective.
- Doctor Doom, among his various marvels of technology and magic, carries a ray gun that makes molecules grow bigger. In his DEATH BATTLE! with Darth Vader, he demonstrates this by throwing a bunch of pebbles at the Sith Lord while both combatants are falling into a volcano, then making them grow into massive boulders which knock Vader down further and push him under the lava.
Webcomics
- The Order of the Stick: One of the magic items owned by Roy is a Bag of Tricks — the user reaches into it, pulls out a small fuzzy ball, and throws it, transforming the ball into a random animal. During a fight with a bandit captain in strip #167, he tries to throw a ball, but the bandit captain rebounds it at him with his swords. The ball then transforms into a rhinoceros and squashes Roy.
Western Animation
- A Thousand and One... Americas: Halfway during the eighteenth episode, a sorcerer invites Chris and Lon to hover across the skies above the Amazon River by mounting an arrow. Chris questions how that would be possible, since the arrow is too small. The sorcerer then throws it airborne and, right after a bird that flies by grabs it, it suddenly grows to become an arrow-shaped trunk. it then positions itself next to the aforementioned characters so they can mount it.
