The isolation of Thomas's golden cage had stretched the years into a cold, unbroken wire. It was 1987, and the only purity he knew was the digital silence of the servers holding Against the Idols of Steel. He had been waiting, perpetually poised, his body coiled tight by the Discipline of the Stillness, waiting for the day Vought's malignancy would touch him so directly, so irrevocably, that his planned act of sacrifice would be justified beyond all doubt.
That day arrived with the banality of a poorly produced Vought news flash.
Thomas was in his Manhattan high-rise, preparing for a routine endorsement of Vought's new line of "Crusader-approved" energy bars. Denton had left the television on the regional affiliate for background noise. The screen, usually filled with vapid celebrity gossip, cut suddenly to a breaking report: "Midwest Mayhem: Rogue Supe Detained After Collision with Rural Township."
The Supe in question was Mind-Droid's replacement, a volatile, untested teleporter named Warp-Speed who had over-dosed on recreational Compound V and gone psychotic. Vought had deployed a small strike team not the Seven, but cheap, disposable assets to intercept him, prioritizing speed and discretion over civilian safety. The ensuing, messy skirmish culminated in Warp-Speed making a desperate, uncontrolled jump. He didn't just teleport away; he teleported a bus-sized section of the Vought containment wall directly into the atmosphere, which then fell guided by gravity and Vought's sheer, cruel indifference hundreds of miles away.
The report showed blurred footage of a catastrophic structural collapse. The reporter, slicked-back and dispassionate, spoke of "unfortunate collateral damage" and "minor civilian casualties," praising Vought's swift clean-up.
But Thomas was no longer listening to the words. The camera panned over the wreckage, lingering briefly on a familiar, terrible landmark. He saw the corner of a whitewashed meeting house the tiny church of Harmony Creek, the center of his father's devout, fragile world now reduced to a mound of splintered wood and shattered glass. The Vought containment wall had landed directly on the sanctuary, turning the Altar into a tomb.
Then came the image that severed his final tie to sanity.
A grainy, amateur photo flashed on the screen: the front of his parents' small farmhouse, the porch ripped away, and his father's old, battered pickup truck the one with the rusty bumper sticker that read "Seek Ye First" crushed flat beneath a massive, jagged section of industrial steel. The structure had failed at its weakest point, and the impact had vaporized the entire front section of the home. The reporter quickly moved on to the stock ticker, but the image was already burned into Thomas's mind.
He didn't scream. He didn't rage. The force that seized him was colder, deeper, and more terrible than any physical outburst. It was the spiritual stillness his father had taught him, but inverted not a shield against pain, but a vacuum of empathy, clearing the way for a singular, destructive purpose. His body felt like a solid block of ice, focused only on the absolute geometry of the wreckage.
He immediately tried to contact Denton, but his calls went to voicemail. He called Ingrid. She answered on the second ring, her voice tight and professionally guarded.
"Thomas, I was just about to call you. A terrible tragedy. A regrettable, but isolated, incident in the Midwest. Warp-Speed went volatile. We've already deployed the clean-up crew and the P.R. team."
"My parents," Thomas said, the word barely a whisper, a sound scraping his throat. "Are they protected? The platinum plan, the one I paid for with my service…"
Ingrid's professional mask cracked, just for a second, revealing a sliver of genuine annoyance at the inefficiency of death.
"Thomas, the plan is fantastic for illness and chronic care. But this was an Act of God... or a rogue Supe, which is practically the same thing in the insurance rider. I'm afraid this specific circumstance falls under the Vought Liability Exclusion 4-B: Catastrophic Supe-Related Incident resulting in total loss of life and property."
She continued, the sound of her voice a buzzing insect in his ear, detailing the boilerplate: "Vought extends its deepest sympathies, of course. We'll cover the cremation and a modest monument, but the policy doesn't cover death by structural failure in a terrorist-related event. We've already contacted the regional legal team. They're offering a standard $50,000 'grief stipend,' contingent upon you signing a standard non-disclosure regarding the circumstances of their death."
In that moment, Thomas realized the final, most profound level of Vought's malice.
His great, agonizing Compromise the trade of his soul, the muzzling of his faith, the years of self-hatred had been bought with a worthless piece of paper. The platinum plan was a lie, a tool used to bind him, and it dissolved the instant it was needed. He hadn't just been betrayed; he had been mocked. He had traded his eternal soul for a mortal safety net that didn't even exist.
"I won't sign it," Thomas stated, his voice now flat, devoid of human inflection.
Ingrid chuckled, a dry, dismissive sound. "You will, Thomas. You have a contract. Now, you need to be strong for the cameras. We're releasing a statement that you are 'grieving but resolute.' I need you at the studio in forty minutes. We're going to use this tragedy. It's fantastic optics: the devout hero suffers the same loss as the common man. It'll humanize you, Thomas. It'll generate ten figures in sympathy merchandising."
She hung up before he could respond.
Thomas stood staring at the muted television. The image of the fractured meeting house, the sacred place of his youth, was a final, undeniable sign. Vought had not only protected monsters and covered up murders; they had annihilated his Altar, the last anchor of his past, and nullified his sacrifice. The spiritual debt was paid. The lie was exposed.
He moved with the terrifying calm of a man who has accepted his fate. He walked to his security safe, the one embedded in concrete. He didn't use the combination; he didn't need to. He focused his mind, drawing on the immense, sheathed power he had spent twenty years controlling. He focused on the seal of the safe, reciting not a prayer, but a single, chilling phrase from his youth: "The Lord condemneth."
The kinetic energy surged, not in a chaotic burst of rage, but in a controlled, invisible, and terrifying pressure wave. The safe buckled inward like wet cardboard, the steel screws shearing off with a whisper of escaping air, the concrete fracturing into dust. He pulled the military ammo box his reliquary of damnation from the rubble. Inside, the hard drive containing Against the Idols of Steel:
An Accounting was cold, silent, and ready.
He attached the drive to the encrypted terminal. With the methodical, unfeeling precision of a man assembling a bomb, he initiated Operation Gideon's Trumpet. He started the dead man's switch, loaded the cryptographic keys, and set the timer for a simultaneous, decentralized release a viral apocalypse of data designed to bring down the whole structure. He knew Vought's forensic team would trace the leak back to him in less than forty-eight hours. He was signing his own death warrant.
Thomas stepped out of his apartment, leaving the ruined safe and the smoking wreckage of his childhood behind. He did not put on the polished titanium shield Vought had given him. Instead, he strapped on his original, heavy, scarred steel shield, the one with the rough, hand-forged cross. He headed not for the studio, but for the heart of the city, a man entirely consumed by righteous, focused vengeance. The Crusader was dead. The Wrath of God had finally found its target