Lightning Master

"While their control of lightning makes these mages a threat from afar, they resort to clumsily waving their staffs around when cornered."

- Description of the Lightning Master in Sonic Unleashed (PS3/Xbox360)

The Lightning Master (ライトニングマスター) is one of the types of Dark Gaia's minions that appear in Sonic Unleashed. These electrical wizards can generate lightning currents to stunt and harm their enemies. They only appear during the game's nighttime stages.

Overview
The Lightning Masters and the rest of Dark Gaia's minions were born when Dark Gaia broke into millions of fragments in the beginning of Sonic Unleashed as a result of its premature awakening. These fragments then spread across the world and gave birth to the Lightning Masters and the remainder of Dark Gaia's minions. They first appear in Jungle Joyride Night Act II: Restless Coastside on the PS2/Wii version and only in Jungle Joyride Night Act 2 on the PS3/Xbox360.

Like all the other members of the Master variant, the Lightning Masters are born with exceptionally high intelligence amongst their species, which allows them to take on a near-perfect humanoid appearance and utilize Dark Gaia's power in a more refined way, similar to that of magical spells.

As their names imply, the Lightning Masters' spell casting focuses on generating highly electrical energies and then shoot them as concentrated electrical currents at Sonic the Werehog, which can both damage and temporarily stunt/paralyze Sonic. While these lightning attacks can travel over long distances, they can only travel in straight lines and are therefore easy to avoid. Also, while their spells are their greatest strength, it can also be their greatest weakness, as seen on the PS2/Wii version; if the Lightning Masters are dowsed with a water barrel, it will cause them to short circuit, leading to an instant death.

When not using their spells, the Lightning Masters can also resort to close combat to damage their opponents. Their fighting style differs between the versions of the game, however. On the PS2/Wii version the Lightning Masters have very fast movements and can teleport to avoid attacks. They primarily attack Sonic by using their staffs as weapons to hit him. On the PS3/Xbox version, the Lightning Masters are much slower and cannot teleport. While they can still use their staffs to whack Sonic, they can also enlarge them for greater range and attack power.

All the Lightning Masters were later reabsorbed by Dark Gaia, following the reconstruction of the beast, which was later defeated by Super Sonic and Light Gaia resealed inside the planet.

Appearance
As a member of the Master variant, the Lightning Masters look like humanoid phantom-like wizards. They are dressed in green clothes which have a pointy hat and cape decorated with yellow-green symbols. The only things on their body that are revealed are their eyes and parts of their back faces. All of them possess a yellowish-green staff with lightning bolt-shaped points at the top.