Thunder Bat

"These upgraded Dark Bats let out a mean jolt."

- Description of the Thunder Bats in Sonic Unleashed (PS2/Wii)

The Thunder Bat (サンダーフロート) is one of the types of Dark Gaia's Minions that appear in Sonic Unleashed. Mutated from the Dark Bat, these offensive aerial troopers can generate electrical surges to shock their opponents. They only appear during the game's nighttime stages.

Overview
The Thunder Bats and the rest of Dark Gaia's Minions were created when Dark Gaia broke into several thousands of fragments in the opening of Sonic Unleashed after awakening prematurely, with fragments becoming Dark Gaia's Minions and the Thunder Bats afterwards. Specifically, a Thunder Bat is created when a Dark Bat absorbs too much of Dark Gaia's energy and mutates into a Thunder Bat. The first appear in Arid Sands Night Act II: Scorched Rock on the PS2/Wii version and Savannah Citadel Night Act 1 on the PS3/Xbox360 version.

Like the Dark Bats, the Thunder Bats are some of the most fragile members of Dark Gaia's Minions, as they have little health and can be killed with one-to-two hits.

Like the Dark Bats, the Thunder Bats can serve as a method for Sonic the Werehog to travel over bottomless pits or large gaps. By grabbing onto a Thunder Bat, Sonic can use it to pull himself over large gabs. However, the Thunder Bats can be quite dangerous to use in these situations if not timed correctly, since they can shock Sonic and cause him to lose his grip, which in most cases can cost the player a life.

In some cases, killing a Thunder Bat will only cause another one to instantly appear and take the fallen one's place at the exact same position. This is a game mechanic that prevents the player from unintentionally halting his/hers progress throughout the stages.

The remaining of the Thunder Bats and Dark Gaia's Minions were returned to Dark Gaia following the reconstruction of the entity and was, as a result of its following defeat, resealed inside the planet's core.

Physical Appearance
The Thunder Bats look much like Dark Bats and Dark Bat Snipers. They have mostly egg-shaped, paris green bodies with cyan eyes and markings. They have small horns on top of their body, and their lower body mostly consists of a large lower jaw with a horn-like growth at each jaw joint and two "antennae" in front. They also have a small, thin tail extending from their back with a tip that has thunderbolt-like appendages.

Behavior
Unlike the harmless and non-hostile Dark Bats, the Thunder Bats are quite wild and aggressive as a result of absorbing an overdose of Dark Gaia's energies, and will fight as the frontline soldiers amongst their kind.

Powers and Abilities
The Thunder Bats are able to move around by teleporting into an area in a puff of purple smoke. As a Dark Gaia minion, the Thunder Bats can possess people by latching onto the deepest, darkest part of the heart, and generate despair, negative emotions or even erratic behavior that are completely opposite to the person's personality.

The Thunder Bats are able to levitate and move through mid-air, albeit at a rather slow rate. However, they are capable of carrying a great deal of weight while flying, such as Sonic the Werehog, without straying from their path.

As their unique trait, the Thunder Bats possesses limited electrokinetic powers, allowing them to create and control electricity to a certain extend. With this ability, the Thunder Bats can either surround their bodies in a high-voltage electrical field that can briefly stunt durable beings such as Sonic the Werehog, or shoot harmful bullets of electricity from the tip of their tails over long distances, making them excellent long-range attacks.

Attack Patterns
On both versions of Sonic Unleashed, the Thunder Bats can attack the player with electrical surges when the player makes physical contact with them, stunning the player's movements for a few moments and dealing damage. To get out the paralysis quicker, the player has to peform the shown player interaction.

On the PS2/Wii version the Thunder Bats can also attack the player with bullets of electricity which can damage and stunt the player momentarily. When preparing these electrical bullets, the Thunder Bats' tails will glow before shooting them. These electrical bullets, however, can only travel in straight lines and are therefore easy to avoid on the ground.

Trivia

 * The Thunder Bats can be used for transportation in Jungle Joyride Night Act III: Deep Jungle on the PS2/Wii version.