Time slipped to the next day.
Bored, Maguire suddenly remembered he'd gotten Invisible Woman Sue's number yesterday. Since he had nothing better to do, he figured he'd find someone to pass the time with. He pulled out his phone and dialed Sue.
In New York, inside a large building, Mr. Fantastic Reed, Johnny, and Invisible Woman Sue were together. The Thing wasn't there.
Reed glanced at Sue. "Sue, are you free tonight? Dinner?"
Sue did have some feelings for Reed, but he'd been getting a little too friendly with another woman lately, so she'd been mad at him these past few days.
Her phone rang. Seeing an unfamiliar number, she arched a brow. "Hello? Who is this?"
A smooth, magnetic male voice came on the line. "We just met yesterday—already forgot? I've heard that big shots are forgetful, but I didn't know beautiful women could be too."
The moment she heard the familiar voice, a figure rose in Sue's mind. That cheeky kid who'd flirted with her yesterday.
Still peeved at Reed, Sue let a playful smile show. "So it's you—Maguire, right? What's up?"
Reed's face had already darkened.
Maguire's voice came again. "Miss Sue, are you free tonight? I'd like to treat you to dinner to thank you."
Sue thought, See that, Reed? I've still got it. You flirt with other women—watch me get even. "Alright. I'm free."
She hung up and, with a teasing look at Reed, said, "You heard me—I've got dinner plans tonight. We'll talk later." Then she turned and left.
Reed snorted. "A kid in a black suit—doesn't look like anything good. What if Sue gets hurt? No, I'm following them!"
With Sue's powers, Reed didn't really need to worry. Mostly, he wanted to warn that cocky kid.
Back at Maguire's home, Uncle Ben sat in the living room reading the paper—headlines about those superheroes. He smiled at Maguire. "Maguire, what these superpowered folks do is good. They protect the city. But danger's getting more common. Be careful when you go out."
Maguire nodded, then headed out. In a deserted alley, he looked up at the cloudless sky.
He'd never actually used his Rumble-Rumble Fruit powers since getting them. "Nothing urgent going on—time to get a feel for them."
He willed it—and his whole body became blue lightning, blasting into the sky. From a distance, a lance of azure thunder shot upward; in the blink of an eye he was ten thousand meters up.
The speed thrilled him. "This is even faster than the Rabbit Talisman. Not quite light speed, though."
He shifted into full elementization; his body turned completely into blue lightning. In that instant he felt like the master of electricity—tiny motions discharged massive current, and he could generate thunder out of nothing, drawing in energy at will.
He reached out and seized the electrons in the air. A clear sky turned black in a heartbeat. Clouds boiled up, blue arcs leaping within.
On the ground, pedestrians stared at the horizon, puzzled. "What the—? Didn't the forecast say sunny?" "Is it going to rain?"
Inside the storm bank, power flooded Maguire's body. As he'd suspected, conjuring thunderheads amped the Rumble-Rumble Fruit even further.
He raised both hands—and a lightning pillar as thick as a water barrel pierced the sky, blasting through Earth's atmosphere and into space.
A thought struck him: in element form he didn't even need to breathe. He moved at once, a blue bolt knifing toward outer space. In under a minute he'd punched out of the atmosphere. The moon hung ahead; the sun blazed. Maguire's heart pounded. "From now on, I can roam the star-sea too."
After one lap in space, he returned home.
S.H.I.E.L.D., meanwhile, was in a flurry. "Find the cause! What triggered that violent energy spike in the atmosphere?" "And who was that lightning figure in orbit?"
As a massive apparatus, S.H.I.E.L.D. had flagged the anomaly immediately; their satellites even caught Maguire's silhouette lingering in space. Nick Fury frowned. "What's going on? Why are so many terrifying players showing up lately?"
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