Born into the ranks of the Tropos’gard , the Thunderlings’ surface army, Ph’Thorey’yn (or Rey for short) grew up with the expectation of becoming a guardian of one of SkÅigard’s prime artifacts, recovered from the age of architects. Rey’s early life, along with other Thunderlings, was a blur, as Thunderlings begin making memories late in childhood.

Ph’Thorey’yn was a warrior since his earliest memory, training with the elite of the Tropos’gard, Mesos’ern, and Stratos’gard in the ancient styles of combat his people had used for centuries to ward off all kinds of foes seeking to use the power of the artifacts for themselves, especially the hellbent Spikelings. Ph’Thorey’yn loved training, and his family encouraged him to become the principled warrior he was clearly cut out to be.

Tragedy befell Ph’Thorey’yn’s family as reports arrived that his brother, Ah’Kiney’yn, had disappeared into the midst of Kritkreon, the Spikeling homeworld. Ah’Kiney’yn had been a member of the Astros’darg, the Thunderlings’ interstellar strike force.

Though Ph’Thorey’yn desired to take up his brother’s position in the Astros’darg, he was already deeply suited to be one of SkÅigard’s most prominent members of the Tropos’gard.

Rey was at his post, guarding the Willorb, when the news of a Spikeling invasion unlike any other reached him on the military communication network. At first it seemed like any other battle, but the Spikelings had mounted a formidable offense, breaking through the ranks of the Stratos’gard. The unusually calm skies provided little defense against the Spikelings and left the Mesos’ern dangerously exposed.

Rey’s training urged him to stay and guard the vault where the Willorb was housed, but orders came to him: pilot the vault—which could be transformed into a ship—in an emergency evacuation. Though Rey’s pilot training had been marginal, he managed to blast off and take to the skies, barely outstripping the gargantuan cloud of Spikelings. The Spikelings peeled off, streaking for Rey’s vault ship as well as other vault ships. Rey watched some vault ships disappear into the metal tempest, the artifacts housed within doomed to fall under Spikeling control. Their sacrifice slowed the Spikelings’ advance, until Rey could set the vault ship into its special faster-than-light drive, powered by the Willorb itself. However, the Spikelings scraped and scarred the hull of the vault ship with their attacks before Rey entered Interspace.

The damage would soon pull apart the hull of the ship, so Rey set an emergency landing for the nearest planet in his trajectory, Iunn. Crash-landing into the top of a mountain, Ph’Thorey’yn set to work repairing the hull with his hammer, anticipating the arrival of the Spikelings and the unknown inhabitants of the blue-and-red world.

This is where Ph’Thorey’yn enters episode I.