A Hero's Doubt

[Thunder King]

January 29th, 8:30 PM

Voltage calmly stepped into his bedroom, and peeled his mask off. He collapsed next to his door.

One of his closest friends, Andrew, was now horribly mangled. He blamed himself. He could have stopped the machine faster, could have run in there faster, could have...

He closed his eyes and lowered his head, sobbing quietly. He never imagined that becoming a hero would lead to such pain, such tragedy. He never imagined in his life that it would cause such misery.

"No..." He said, out loud. "It wasn't my fault..." He sighed. He was right. Andrew had trusted a crazy scientist. Andrew had hopped into the untested machine. Andrew had voluntarily jumped into the situation in his greed for personal power. He, Thomas James Morgan, had done everything he could have done. The situation was rigged from the start.

With the same knowledge, the same opportunity, the same chance, he would have done the exact same thing. His mind worked through the data over a million times, and he came to the exact same conclusion.

[Thunder King]

"Andrew brought it on himself." He said, quietly. He was still sobbing. Knowing that it wasn't his fault that his friend had been so horribly injured did not stop the pain. Knowing that his friend had risked his own safety in a stupid move did not stop the tears.

"I cannot give this up..." Thomas said, sternly to himself. "If I hadn't have stopped it, the machine would still have been a failure. Andrew wouldn't have been badly injured, he would have been killed. I had no other choice. There's a lot of bad things out there. I can't let them happen simply because I'm mad at myself."

[Thunder King]

But, he thought, he needed to be better. He wanted to be stronger, so that he could be better at all of this. If he had known more about Dr. Green walking in, or if he had known how to shut down the robot. If he had known a thousand things, he might have been able to make a difference.

So he set about making a plan for himself. He would ensure, first and foremost, that he would know more about these things in the future. He must not rely on his powers again for knowledge. He must research, look things up. That involved hours of study, even for his advanced mind.

No, he could not tolerate such an occurrence again. No one else would ever suffer as Andrew did, so long as he was aware, and could do anything to stop it.

[Thunder King]

And King of Suits, good guy. Skilled, smart, tactically sound. Thomas resolved to get in contact with him again. The two of them did make a good team. It was also time to stop being a scrawny kid. He loathed having an entire tactical option unavailable. He would need to do some training, bulk up a bit, get stronger. Maybe modify his costume to strengthen his body a bit, maybe give it some more strength.

Lastly, but certainly not least., he realized that he needed to study tactics, real world tactics. He would have to study how to approach battles better. There was no excuse for blindly charging in with only the slimmest of plans. True, he could not have protected Andrew better with the information he had, but better information could have helped.

[Thunder King]

He accessed his laptop remotely, and began to type;

1) Access and locate more information on advanced technology, especially superhuman applications thereof. Self-educate more, rely less on in-field research.

2) Begin a physical training regiment and/or augment suit to grant enhanced strength, seek hand-to-hand training, possibly from King of Suits.

3) Research and learn tactics and how to apply them to a live, superhuman battlefield.

With resolve in his heart, he sighed.

"Might as well get started tomorrow...push-ups at 6 AM." He rolled over and turned on his alarm clock. Today was not a good day. A friend nearly got killed, and he had been quite hurt himself. He would make tomorrow better, he was sure of it.