A cool, reviving drizzle permeated the night air, cancelling for a moment the acrid smell and littered alleyways, making lonely streets and concrete walls twinkle as if imbedded with many, small, liquid gems of congealed moonlight.

He walked slowly, cogitating with his head bent toward the wet sidewalk, subconsciously guiding his tennis shoes around the larger puddles. His hands were sheltered in his coat pockets, the collar wrapped and buttoned around his throat, while he examined his curious motives for collecting comics. Humored with himself, he involuntarily emitted a slight puff of moisture-laden air from his nostrils, then checked to make sure his comics were still dry under his jacket and walked on.

The streetlights' undefined aureole illumined an aqua haze of tropospheric descent. Above, in those aerial heights, a thundercloud eclipsed the moon. From the remnants of some primal sense, he flung his wrists over his unprotected head, foreseeing the preliminary exchange of mercurial electrons between the ionized ground and the aberrant thunderhead. Within the interval between his motions and the discharge, micro-seconds from an eternity, he wondered if Captain Marvel's golden nega-bands would be powerful enough...

Two separate flashes of crackling yellow exploded at once. Without an attempt to lower his wrists, Captain Marvel twisted his costumed torso toward the lightening bolt and launched himself through the air, striving to overtake the fiery levin. He utilized the alien resources of the nega-bands, shooting himself upward with a force that bent his back and clamped his arms to his straining sides.

Captain Marvel struck the firebolt in mid-sky, nega-bands held foremost to bear the impact. Surging, the golden manacles assimilated the transient electrons in ribbons of static energy, repolarized their charge and dispersed them into the air. But not without harm to Captain Marvel.

Enveloped in an xanthic sphere of force, Captain Marvel hovered paralyzed by the pressure of his own rigid muscles. Abruptly, the spasm ceased--and Marvel fell. As gravity pulled him earthward with increasing speed, his limp arms, being lighter than his trunk, were forced upward and together, striking both power bands simultaneously.

A momentary incandescence diminished the streetlamps' soft nimbus. He pulled his arms down and steadied himself against the lamp post, supporting his shaking knees. Regaining himself, he secured the comics between his belt and abdomen and walked on, hardly noticing a golden shimmer from beneath the jacket's cuff, or feeling the raindrops.

Don Montgomery