I'm new in the Storm Hawks fandom so if you have advice or tips than please feel free to pass them on! I'll try to update at least once a week but life sometimes has a habit of messing with that. Please enjoy and drop a review afterward ;)

The wastelands.

It was a very appropriate name for a monster infested, volcanic land that stretched as far as the eye could see. Then again, the volcanic fumes and plentiful mountains didn't exactly allow for an eye stretching horizon, they actually made it seem like you were always boxed in.

In other words, the wastelands was probably the most uninhabitable, horrifying and dangerous place in the entire Atmos. Therefore, no one could have ever thought that someone was actually living down there. He had been surviving for, give or take, seven years. It had been seven years since he had found out that the most important thing he had fought for was gone.

After the betrayal and the defeat the sky knights had suffered, he had been presumed dead. It had been the perfect disguise, that and one of the few crystals he had which allowed him to change his face. He had wandered topside, going from Terra to Terra to find that one place he was looking for; his home. It had taken three years to get back without being found out, but once he did…

He had been so sure that they would be able to get the Sky Knights back up, that they would defeat Cyclonia and finally give Atmos the peace it so deserved. He had been sure it would be possible, until he saw the charred and burned remains of his home and was told there had been no survivors from the vicious Cyclonian attack. The woman and child that had lived there were both dead.

He stopped wandering, stopped hoping and eventually ended up in the wastelands. His mind and heart grew bitter as he felt betrayed by life itself. At first he was angry, than there was the ever gaping hole of sorrow and finally the crushing guilt. He should have been there to protect his family, he should have never stopped fighting Cyclonia, he should have never dragged Cora into his life and put her in danger, he should have never become a Sky Knight, he shouldn't have, he shouldn't have, he shouldn't have!

The bitterness never left and the guilt ate away at him. All thoughts of defeating the Cyclonians and being a sky knight slowly but surely vanished. He still had his sword but only used it to fight off beasts. He finally began to think that the wastelands were where he belonged, what he deserved. He had failed everyone and everything he had ever sworn to protect and was now doomed to live with those thoughts until the end of his days. Forced to live with his family's faces always on his mind and know that he could not ever see them again. The thought of ending his own life had crossed his mind more than a few times, but a voice in the back of his head, a voice he was mostly unaware of, had never allowed him to actually go through with it. And after spending seven years in a hole so deep and dark no light could ever hope to reach it, a small sliver of hope suddenly reached his crippled heart as he saw the Condor, his Condor, fly overhead.

He had not seen the ship for over ten years and, even though there was no saying who could have been flying it and if they had good intentions, that small sliver became a pesky thought in his head that would not go away. So, after some months of fighting with himself, he went looking for the next mountain he could climb all the way up to the Terra's. When he finally got topside, his entire mind was shattered by what he found. Bat like humans with glowing eyes and a harness were flying around in the sky and Cyclonian troups were on every single Terra.

Cyclonia was ruling the Atmos and people lived in constant fear of losing their Terra to a flying Cyclonia. Mind made up Lightning decided to get to the bottom of this He had long ago made an oath to protect the Atmos and too many of his oaths and promises had been broken.

His long forgotten chroma crystal was once again masking his face as he made use of some garbage ships to hop his way over to the Terra where he was bound to find some answers; Terra Atmosia.

Something inside of him was stirring and waking up, something he had thought long gone, as he looked at the people and the families living in fear on Terra Atmosia. After seven years of grieving and living in the shadows he finally knew why he was still alive, he finally knew why he still had his sword and what he was fighting for.

His own family may have been taken from him, but he was a Sky Knight, more importantly, he was a Storm Hawk. He protected all of Atmos and he would make sure, until he blew out his last breath, that no other family would be torn apart like his.

The crystal that rested in the slot of his sword started humming and he could feel the familiar burn in his body as the need to draw his weapon came back full force. The chroma crystal made sure no one saw the blue shine in his eyes as he was rekindled with the strength he had possessed so many years ago. A strength that was intensified by the thought that those who had died, would not have died in vain.

His name was Lightning Strike, and he would make the Cyclonians pay for all they had done!