"Everyone knows the story: the Storm Hawks won the final battle, and Cyclonis fled to the Far Side. But what happened next for Cyclonis? Trapped on Ionos with nothing, the deposed empress seeks out a precious new ally. One who just might be the death of everything that she believed in."
— Official plot summary
A Raven Under the Starlight is a Storm Hawks continuation fanfiction written by SyfyGuy2 (link
), which is available to read on Archive of Our Own here and FanFiction.Net here.
Set on the Far Side of Atmos, called Ionos, the fic centres around a post-defeat Master Cyclonis, initially seeking to rebuild a power base for herself among the Far Side's denizens, and her gradual transformation into a better person under the influence of her new subordinate, Phoenix the Orange.
A Raven Under the Starlight was written by the author as a sort of spiritual prequel to his earlier Storm Hawks/The Hobbit crossover fanfiction The Storm Hawk and the Dragon: The Daynight. Although it's not part of that fic's universe at all, it applies the same lore and worldbuilding to the Far Side of the Atmos, and it builds upon The Daynight's ambiguous references to what happened during Cyclonis' years in hiding on the Far Side, using a more canon-compliant Cyclonis.
Completed as of April 2023.
This work contains examples of:
- All There in the Manual: SyfyGuy2's take on the Far Side of the Atmos is described in even further detail beyond what this fic shows in a series of lore dumps, which can be found on his old Tumblr blog under this tag, and can also be found in a single comprehensive entry on his DeviantArt journal here.
- Bee Afraid: Cyclonis and Phoenix at one point briefly come into conflict with Crystal-Bees, which are bee-shaped crystalline security robots with offensive capabilities, engineered on Terra Gonksia.
- Big Bad: Captain Dekutizonke of the Kitanen Empire is the main antagonist, hunting Master Cyclonis and Phoenix the Orange for revenge. He causes them a lot of pain in the last act.
- Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: Different terras and locations of interest on the Far Side have differently-coloured skies, and most have a constant aurora flowing through the sky which also varies in colour depending on the terra. Terra Gonksia's sky is cerise with a sky-blue aurora, and Hliþ-Díeglod's sky is greyish-purple with a green aurora.
- Continuation: The fic is set after the ending of the Storm Hawks TV series, and it focuses on a post-series Cyclonis.
- Good Counterpart: Cyclonis eventually realises that Phoenix the Orange is a positive foil to the late Dark Ace. Phoenix and the Dark Ace both served as familial figures to Cyclonis on some level after all her family had died, but the Dark Ace nurtured all of Cyclonis' worst traits and encouraged her forebears' toxic values, whereas Phoenix instead nurtures Cyclonis' potential to be a better person and encourages her to break away from her ancestors' legacy.
- Greater-Scope Villain: The Kitanen Empire, a major fascistic and supremacistic power on the Far Side, is the empire which the Big Bad Captain Dekutizonke comes from and derives his resources from. Cyclonis observes that the Bone-Wraiths which attack her ship are apparently escaped labrats of the Kitanen Empire, as they're wearing disabled Kitanen control collars.
- How the Mighty Have Fallen: Master Cyclonis, though she's initially trying to build a new power base out of the locals on Ionos, is a shadow of the Atmos-threatening empress that she once was during the TV series' events. For a large chunk of the story, Phoenix is her only follower, and she's working out of an isolated cave.
- In the Hood: Master Cyclonis and Phoenix the Orange wear hoods and cloaks to conceal their features when they're walking in public on the Far Side's terras.
- Living Legend: Phoenix the Orange is reputed as one of the most fearsome and respected assassins and martial artists in all of Ionos.
- Multi-Armed and Dangerous: Phoenix the Orange has four arms and is a skilled martial artist, said to be fearsomely dangerous even on Ionos.
- A Nazi by Any Other Name: The Kitanen Empire is a totalitarian and isolationist regime. They promote certain hereditary characteristics as inherently superior among their species, including a specific eye colour, and they're opposed to the much freer terras and states of the Far Side.
- Oh, My Gods!: The natives of the Far Side swear on a deity called the Strato-Elf. This is an irony-laden reference to the Storm Hawks episode "Stratosphere."
- Only the Worthy May Pass: Fikutsu-shina houses a treasure called the Dual Ring, which Cyclonis believes is actually an Infinity Stone, but one must pass three magic trials to obtain the Ring.
- Pragmatic Villainy: At first, Master Cyclonis restrains herself from abusing Phoenix in front of her subordinates for his slights, because she knows that he can break her like a twig if he has to defend himself against her, and because she also knows that his reputation also carries a lot of weight in Ionos.
- Redemption Quest: Master Cyclonis begins the fic as a power-hungry, would-be conqueror-despot, hellbent on making up for her lost empire and upholding her evil imperial forebears' legacy. Under Phoenix's positive influence, Cyclonis begins reconsidering what she wants to do with her life and how she wants to live it instead of following the path that her evil ancestors laid out for her.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Cyclonis slaughters her way through Captain Dekutizonke's Kitanen forces after he attacks her and Phoenix.
- Rule of Three: The Trials of Fikutsu-shina, overseen by a spirit similar to the Storm Hawks Oracle, consist of three magic tests.
- That Man Is Dead: Cyclonis eventually reaches the point of shedding her old identity as the latest link in the Cyclonian royal line entirely.Master Cyclonis was no more. Now, she was just Cyclonis, to those she trusted with her name.
- Walking Techbane: Bone-Wraiths, which are described as the Far Side equivalent to Atmos' sky-sharks, are hostile beasts which use electromagnetic fields to create storms and disrupt airborne vessels' technology so they can feed.
- Wretched Hive: The mountainous terra archipelago Hliþ-Díeglod has its own local government and population, but they're much too small and stretched thin to physically manage all of the territory, making the excess terrain a haven for rogues, refugees and all sorts both good and bad from across the Ionos.
