In 1983, gamma rays hit Earth and gave superpowers to people who were predisposed to being
sociopaths. The public dubbed them “Miscreants.” Five years later, a Miscreant blows up a train and
kills many people, including the parents of Emily Stanton. She stays with her grandmother in Chicago
and starts attending a new school, where she is among the smartest students. She is picked
on by another kid named Wayne, but is defended by another girl named Lydia Berman, who punches Wayne
in the face and makes him go into a dumpster. From then on, Lydia and Emily become best friends.
As Lydia and Emily get older, Emily becomes more ambitious, but Lydia is content being a slacker.
When Lydia causes Emily to be late for an interview, they have an argument which
leads to Emily saying that Lydia is holding her back. The two stop talking after this.
In the present day, Lydia is a dock worker who lives alone. On the way home from work,
she sees a Miscreant, Laser, wreaking havoc on the city with her high-powered energy beams.
Later that night, she texts Emily about attending their upcoming high school reunion,
to which Emily responds that she is flying in for it. Lydia is excited to see her old friend again.
The reunion takes place at a bar, but Lydia can’t find Emily anywhere. She sees a news report on
how Laser attacked mayoral candidate William “The King” Stevens, as well as a report on Emily, who
is bringing her company, Stanton 4.0, to Chicago, where she hopes to take care of the Miscreant
problem. Lydia takes a cab to the building and is brought up to see Emily. They reunite,
but Lydia quickly makes a mess by spilling beer on Emily. When she goes to change, Lydia enters
a room where Emily works. She accidentally activates a chair that she gets strapped to
and injects her in the face with a bunch of needles containing a super strength serum.
Emily is upset at Lydia for messing up her long-term research project,
but figures that Lydia has to undergo constant treatments with the serum or else her body might
react violently to the first dose. Meanwhile, Emily does a treatment for her power, which is
invisibility. Lydia endures dozens of painful injections as her super strength is tested out.
They are aided by Emily’s teenage daughter Tracy and their assistant Allie. To Lydia’s horror,
she now also has a craving for raw chicken. At that time, she also bonds with Emily and Tracy.
Lydia and Emily complete their treatments and are given suits and a car, with Lydia dubbing
them “Thunder Force” and giving herself and Emily the names “The Hammer” and “Bingo” (which Emily
hates). They are tasked with going to foil a robbery by a Miscreant called The Crab and his
team of robbers. Lydia and Emily enter, with Lydia using her strength to fight the goons while Emily
goes invisible and uses a high-powered taser from Tracy to subdue the gunmen. The Crab appears to
flirt with Lydia before he and his goons leave. The public soon accepts Thunder Force as
legitimate heroes. It gets the attention of The King, who is also a Miscreant with
super-strength and is also working with The Crab and Laser, who faked the assassination
attempt on him as a publicity stunt to earn more sympathetic voters. The King and
Laser go to Emily’s company to threaten them by ordering them to back down from their heroics.
Lydia and Emily endorse Rachel Gonzales, the candidate opposing The King,
and they manage to help her score a win. The King is furious but tells the public that he is hosting
a party for Rachel and the others who voted for her to show that he is a good sport. In reality,
it is just a scheme to get them all together so he can blow up the building and kill everyone.
The team is out to the local diner to celebrate just before Laser attacks the place.
Lydia and Emily fight her, but she starts to escape. Lydia orders everyone off of a
bus as she attempts to stop Laser, but she just tosses the bus at a very far
distance and destroys a fountain, which leads to a more negative public perception of Thunder Force.
Lydia and Emily briefly split up. Emily talks to Tracy about how she admits that
she has been so focused on protecting people from the same fate as her parents that she
hasn’t spent much time with her own daughter. Meanwhile, Lydia goes on a date with The Crab,
who gives up the information on The King’s true plans.
Lydia and Emily then go to the building where The King is planning his “party.”
Tracy catches Allie talking to Laser, realizing she has been working for The King all along.
After Tracy knocks Allie unconscious, Laser shows up to attack Lydia and Emily. Emily fights her
while invisible, and Lydia subdues Laser with a dumpster. They then head up to find the bomb,
but Laser regains consciousness long enough to warn The King. He and his goons head up
to find Lydia and Emily, but The Crab turns on The King and joins the fight, as well as Tracy,
who took serum to gain super speed. She knocks Laser out before Lydia grabs a bar and slams The
King out of the building. They then find the bomb, but there is no safe way to disarm it. Lydia then
volunteers to take the bomb out herself into the river since her body can handle the blast.
Fearing she may not survive, Lydia apologizes to Emily for not always being a good friend.
She jumps into the river, and the bomb goes off, leaving Emily and Tracy sad.
Paramedics recover Lydia from the river, and she is okay after regurgitating a ton of water.
Rachel comes out to thank Lydia and Emily for saving everyone, as well as to inform them that
The King is in custody, but Laser has escaped. The onlookers then cheer on Thunder Force.
Lydia and The Crab later continue their relationship by feeding each other raw chicken.