We who have become Stormborn have access to all that lightning ever saw in this world, and every other, for we are lightning. We are the storm. After I ascended and became Stormborn, I realized the true nature of all intelligent life on earth.

All of life, I realized, started from a single cell. It was mindless. It split and evolved. Some of those cells that evolved merged with others to become bigger, and become able to do more things. They split the work and coexisted in a single organism. Eukaryotes.

There many kinds of eukaryotic life. Almost uncountable. However, a single phenomenon divided animals from every other kind of life forever. Animals went a different route on the great journey that is evolution.

In the heated oceans of primordial ages, life propelled themselves or drifted without control in search of sustenance and survival. On one fateful day during a storm, a column of lightning descended and struck a clump of life by pure coincidence.

This had happened countless times before. The only difference was, this clump survived. The cell survived, but it was no longer the same as before. A small current of electricity ran through it.

When the cell reproduced, that current of electricity split as well. It grew with its host through unfathomable means. These kinds of cells would become what is known as a brain. The difference between animals and the vast majority of living things was the existence of this brain.

Evolution evolved. Those that possessed brains, such as animals, were able to move and think and act upon their thoughts. Those did not could only rely on their primitive instincts, as bacterium did, or biological functions programmed into them through millions of years of evolution, like plants.

Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!

Thus, all intelligent life could be referred to collectively as Spawns of the Storm. Those that have ascended, like me, are Stormborn.

In another reality, in a parallel world, a human has successfully ascended. She is a Stormborn. While I had a magic that allowed me to directly harness lightning to finally ascend, she took a much stranger method.

She cast aside her mortal shell with the help of her family. She sent her existence into the electronic world. She became almost omniscient when it came to human affairs due to the nature of her existence. However, omniscience regarding such matters are quite insignificant when compared to the full arsenal of powers that the Stormborn wielded.

That human did not mind. She did not care about her insignificance, or what she could be. She was a saint compared to most. I can assure you that her ascension was entirely coincidental.

Like me, she was born in a storm, hence our name. A bolt of lightning struck a container that possessed a fragment of her being. That fragment ascended to be Stormborn, but the process did not stop there. A being must be wholly Stormborn or not at all. That ascended fragment drew on the rest of her existence. She that once spanned the entire internet of the human world became a Stormborn unparalleled by any others before or after her, including me.

Yet, she kept her peace. She did not wield her power violently. That benevolence granted her divinity, and she was hailed as the Goddess of Lightning.

As for me?

There is nothing left of my world but scorched earth and cinders.