Nightly Storm

born in one of amber's less populated suburbs, a small town known as fieldview, nightly grew up with the expectation that they were going to be their parents' perfect child, dressed in pretty dresses and a world that was perfectly curated for them by their parents. nightly, was trouble and didn't often want to cooperate- leaving their parents frusterated with them, but still forced them to participate in their perfect little family dream.

when nightly was six and a half, their older brother caleb was diagnosed with mange- a devistating illness that would basically consume the next few months of their lives. nightly's homeschooling stopped and the young child essentially had to watch their brother wither away, until he passed away shortly after their seventh birthday. their parents were devistated by their loss, and nightly ended up spending a lot of time alone, neglected while their parents greived. there were pleanty of nights where nightly packed their things up and went to spend time with their friends sam and mads, away from the emptiness of their home.

eventually, some sense of normalcy would resume, and nightly's parents started to try filling the void by making their remaining child into the perfect little angel that they had once saught out. dresses, photoshoots, anything and everything to prove that their little kid was this successful, perfect child. this would continue on until nightly turned 17, when they suddenly revealed that they had been accepted into a community college, and were moving into the city. their parents were mortified at the sudden change, and begged nightly to reconsider- to stay and continue their family image. but nightly would refuse, and took the last train out of fieldview and into the city, with nothing but what they could fit in a backpack with them.

one of the youngest students attending amber civics community college, nightly struggled to keep up with the workloads of public schools after being poorly homeschooled throughout their life. their grades dropped dramatically and nightly was placed into a recovery program before they even finished their first semester. their case manager was a man named may effer, who saw passion and potential within nightly- but believed that they were not going to be able to finish their schooling due to their dramatic setbacks. he convined them to drop out and apply for work at the city of amber police department, and train with his investigative team, in exchange for stable housing and a small, but steady income track.

nightly teamed up with senior detective annabeth wilheit to do some evaluative work throughout the city. they do mostly petty crime investigation, and follow small leads for bigger cases. one case they were following lead them to an individual they wanted to interview. when a small child by the name of orchid opened the door- the two would learn that the individual in question had taken his life within his own home, leaving his young son home alone, with no idea of what to do. while annabeth stayed with the scene, nightly removed young orchid from the site and he was taken to the doctors while they digested the situation.

no family could be located to take care of orchid, and nightly stepped up- agreeing to adopt the young child as a foster brother. orchid spent his days with nightly in peace, slowly learnign to trust them, as both a sibling and a friend. when he was ready, nightly enrolled him in school, and was approached by may once again, this time to work on a case that would end up being larger than nightly could have ever imagined.

suddenly, over the span of about two weeks, amber urban highschoolers snowball estrella, aloe ferrensa, alongside nightly's childhood friends madison downy and samantha flora are abducted without a clear clue as to where they have gone, may asks nightly to look into 'investigation divine' a largescale conspiracy that these disappearances were connected. nightly agrees to help, and begins to uncover the unreported dissapearences of multiple other children and teenagers across the amber area.

leads were far and few, with most individuals saying that their loved ones simply 'upped and dissapeared' with ittle trace. all except, for young middle schooler snowball estrella. snowball's rocky homelife had lead her to run away from home, to a outskirted location known only to her school friends who had been visiting her location. however one day, snowball stops coming to school and suddenly dissapears, her bag and laptop still found near her stayspot, a ways out of amber. nightly goes to investigate the scene, and discovers a small, metal hatch in the middle of dead field. prying it open, nightly descends the rusted ladder, and enters a world sprawling beneath the city itself.

their presence would not go unnoticed, and they would be approached by three very unique characters: a ghostly robot, a young girl donned in emeralds, and a talking cat who's voice was lain in snide. nightly would learn the girl to be torrin, and although torrin seemed excited to see nightly, she forced the manx to leave- begging them to come back at another time. that their questions would be unveiled. but it was not safe here. nightly would in fact leave, but they would tag the spot and continue to return in secret, being taught the harsh, horrific truths of what was going on beneath the surfaces of amber.

torrin taught nightly of her mother bea, and how after a terrible divorce, bea had fled the city- swearing revenge on her husband for ruining her life and taking everything she had from her. bea had stolen torrin despite losing custody of her daughter, and fled into an old abandoned fallout shelter underneath the city. there, bea worked tirelessly on project after project, hoping to find someway to dethrone her husband from his position of wealth she saw him in. originally, things weren't supposed to get to how bad as they had gotten. bea began to experiment on her daughter, trying to resequence and chance parts of her genome to remove her father's influence from every part of torrin's body. she was able to succeed, but learned she could do more than just that. she could insert new genomes entirely, and alter the ways their bodies functioned. and so- torrin became her patient zero. day after day, torrin had new genomes inserted and removed from her genetic makeup until bea had finally found something successful. something that stuck. and now, torrin lived with no memory of her father, and in a form that felt unfamiliar to her, glittered in gemstones and forced to bear visions of prophecies she never thought would come true. bea's hunger to continue her work lead to the kidnappings of multiple other individuals, and nightly would confirm the identities of all four of their main targets. although, nightly knew they could not do this alone anymore.

after months of investigation, nightly would return to may and reveal everything, and he would react erratically and strangely, telling nightly that they couldn't persue this any longer. that their work was done. confused and startled, nightly called out may's sudden cowardice, and he broke, telling them of may's previous wife and child, bea and torrin effer. startled by the news, nightly asked may if he had always known, and he admitted his ignorance, but was terrified to encounter his ex-wife again. she had been manipulative, abusive, and just horrible to him in the last years of their marriage, and he was terrified to encounter her again. he was willing to drop the whole investigation cold and forge statements of death for the children. nightly, horrified at this idea- turned away, left may in the cold, and went out on their own. if may and the capd wouldn't end this suffering, nightly would do it themselves, even if they didn't want to.

without telling a single soul, nightly descended upon the shelters below with the help of torrin and her friends, determined to end this once and for all. they silently began to free those who were trapped, and aide in the escape of those who were unable to help themselves. torrin begged nightly to leave with them, but nightly toiled with revenge, swore that bea would not get to live upon this world anymore. torrin was horrified at hearing the plans for the death of her mother, and pleaded with them to not follow through, but nightly would not back down.

forcing a confrontation with bea, nightly believed truly that they could solely bring the justice of which amber needed, but bea would prove to be much more than nightly had been expecting. bea, without hesitation fired a gunshot into nightly's neck, fatally wounding them. in a panicked reaction, nightly pulled their weapon to their paws and fired three shots into bea's head, causing an instant death for the wolf. nightly would live long enough to watch bea die, before they too slipped out of conciousness, although not into death yet. when nightly did not return and multiple gunshot sounds were heard from the hideaway point of torrin and the others, she would seek out where she knew bea would have been, and found the scene before her. fumbling nightly's phone from their pocket, she called 911, and operators arrived shortly before nightly was declared dead. nightly died a hero and was memorialized for all they had done. may ended up serving time in jail in the aftermath, and torrin, snowball, aloe, sam, and mads all were able to return to some sense of normalcy...whatever that was.