Arnold had convinced Amanda that she needed to have her strength reduced. He had even managed to convince his own conscious mind that he wanted to reduce her strength. But one has to wonder, if that was his intent, then why didn't he already have the gun set to make her weaker before she'd even arrived? In fact, one had to wonder why he hadn't at least changed the setting prior to pointing the gun at her. Why had Arnold waited so long before switching the setting to weaken if it was what he wanted to do?

Because it was Arnold. Arnold liked strong women - we knew that. After his initial experiments with his first gun, Arnold had discovered how intensely arousing female power could be - we knew that. How could Arnold's subconscious possibly condone the act of weakening a woman? It was his subconscious that had kept the gun set at strengthen until the last possible moment, in the hopes that something might intervene to prevent Arnold's conscious mind from carrying out it's plans.

And lo and behold, something did - the arrival of the SHR squad had been so timely as to happen the moment before Arnold adjusted the dial - and so the gun had been taken on it's maximum strength setting, by someone who believed it's owner intended to weaken his target. Since Agent Thompson didn't know Arnold's subconscious mind as well as we do, he never once bothered to check the settings before unleashing a blast into Amanda's body.

As her muscles visibly seemed to shrink before his eyes he never suspected what was going on even as he pumped the guns energy into her body. When the decrease in size seemed to be slow, and decreasing in pace he figured that holding the gun on her would eventually complete the process. What he didn't know was that the initial apparent reduction in muscle size was her muscles becoming more dense in the early stages of the gun's effect. Amanda didn't notice the changes at first, until she realized that what had felt like a tight grip from Captain Marvel Jr. now felt much more gentle.

Frustrated at having lost all this power - and still being harrassed by the SHR anyway, she yanked her arm away from his apparent half hearted grip. But his grip hadn't been half hearted, he had been seriously trying to hold on, and thus when her arm was jerked suddenly away, it had the effect of yanking him off his feet with such force that he could not maintain his grip and went hurtling across town into the air.

Agent Thompson watched this in shock and concern. Captain Marvel watched this with shock and alarm. Arnold watched it with shock and admiration. Amanda watched it with shock and unhidden glee. She then turned her eyes to the man still holding her other arm.