VOLTSTRIKE: DAWN OF THE STORMChapter 1: Birth of Thunder 🔹 NEONSPIRE CITY — A CITY OF LIGHTS AND LIES
Neonspire never slept. Skyscrapers pierced the clouds, and the streets below pulsed with flickering neon. A city built on innovation, run by greed. Behind every hologram was a surveillance camera. Behind every corporation, a thousand buried secrets.
Mark Draven walked alone through the glowing maze of downtown, hands buried in his jacket, eyes hollow. At 28, he was a ghost in the city—a nobody working for NovaCore Industries, the most powerful tech giant in Neonspire.
But Mark wasn't just another engineer. He was a visionary. He believed in a future powered by pure lightning—clean, endless energy that no one could control or exploit. His project, SPARK, was revolutionary. Too revolutionary.
And that made him a threat.
🔹 THE ONLY THING THAT MATTERS
Mark lived in the lower districts with his younger sister, Lia Draven, a medical student and the only light in his life. Their apartment was a quiet place filled with scrap parts, tools, and blueprints. Mark worked tirelessly in his basement lab every night, testing coils, amplifiers, and power regulators. He wasn't building just a machine—he was building hope.
Lia often told him to slow down.
"You're not responsible for the whole city," she said.
"No," Mark replied, "just for changing it."
🔹 THE WARNING
One evening, a co-worker, Jax, slipped Mark a message:
"They're pulling your funding. You've pissed off the wrong people. You've got one night."
Mark's heart pounded. He knew what it meant. NovaCore didn't just cancel projects—they buried them.
That night, thunder cracked above the city.
🔹 THE ROOFTOP EXPERIMENT
Mark climbed to the restricted roof of NovaCore Tower, the SPARK Reactor strapped to his back like a bomb. He connected it to the lightning antenna—his last, desperate shot.
"Just one bolt," he whispered. "Prove it works. Change the world."
He activated the reactor.
The city flickered.
A storm howled.
⚡ Then came the strike.
A monstrous fork of lightning slammed into the antenna and arced down into the reactor. It exploded in a blinding blast of light.
Mark screamed.
Electricity devoured him.
He fell.
🔹 THE AWAKENING
Two days later, Mark opened his eyes in his basement.
Scars ran across his chest, glowing faintly blue. Machines nearby were sparking. Lia sat beside him, eyes swollen from crying.
"You stopped breathing," she said. "Then you started glowing."
Mark couldn't speak. He was alive. But changed.
That night, when he touched a broken drone, it rebooted instantly. When he got angry, the lights above burst. He stared at his reflection and saw his irises flicker with lightning.
He wasn't human anymore.
He was a conductor of something bigger.
🔹 TESTING THE POWER
Mark began testing himself.
He could charge entire power grids with a single touch.
His reflexes were superhuman.
He could leap across rooftops using magnetic repulsion.
He ran so fast the streets blurred into tunnels of light.
But it wasn't all good. The more power he used, the more his body burned. Energy built inside him like a storm, and if he didn't release it—it could kill him.
Still, he couldn't stop.
Neonspire needed him.
🔹 THE SUIT
He built it in secret: a suit lined with insulated graphene, glowing with circuit patterns. Lightweight, armored, and powered by his own body. It had retractable energy blades and magnetic boots. A visor allowed him to see power flows, detect hidden cameras, and scramble drones.
He became VOLTSTRIKE.
And the city finally had its spark.
🔹 THE FIRST FIGHT
One night, he stopped an arms deal in the Neonspire docks. Five thugs, all armed.
They never saw him coming.
He melted their guns.
Knocked them out with charged fists.
Used electric pulses to disable their backup drones.
Word spread fast.
"A lightning ghost."
"A man made of thunder."
🔹 THE DARKNESS ARRIVES
The city celebrated its annual power festival. Neon lights danced in the sky.
Mark stood atop an abandoned tower, watching the people. For the first time, he felt… hope.
Then it happened.
Everything went black.
Lights across Neonspire died.
The music stopped. The laughter froze.
Even the lightning in the sky vanished.
A ripple of shadows moved across the rooftops. A figure stepped forward, face hidden beneath a hood. His eyes glowed violet.
"You've awakened the spark, Mark Draven," he said. "But you've forgotten—where there's lightning… there's always a shadow."
The man raised his hand, and the very air distorted.
Mark couldn't move.
"My name… is Dr. Abyss."
Then—darkness swallowed him.
⚡ END OF CHAPTER 1
TO BE CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 2: SHADOW RISING