Ride the Lightning

"Why don't you make someone else ride your lightning, for a change?"

— The Guardian of Metal, Brütal Legend

Using lightning or electricity as a form of travel. It can vary from turning into electricity yourself to traveling along it, using it as some sort of conduit, or even just surfing on a bolt of lightning.

May be Fast as Lightning. A Sister Trope to Electric Slide. For riding lava, see Lava Surfing.

Compare Ride the Rainbow, Shock and Awe, Sky Surfing, Elemental Shapeshifter.

Not related to Electric Torture or the album by Metallica (although the trope was named for the latter). Also not related to when a bipolar person decides No Medication for Me while in a manic phase, occasionally termed "riding the white lightning". Nor does this refer to execution via electrocution, although the trope title is a slang phrase for such an execution.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Soga spends a chapter of Ayakashi Triangle chasing around a Raijū that turns into electricity to travel through electronics and power lines, deleting the former's data. Soga captures it with a special leash that keeps it solid.
• A Certain Magical Index/A Certain Scientific Railgun: The titular Railgun, Mikoto, is capable of surfing along steel-framed concrete walls, Spiderman-style, thanks to her abilities to control electricity. When she does that, there is a visible lightning "leash" extending from her body. Taken to a more literal extreme in the OVA, where, in an alley with steel-framed concrete walls on both sides, she uses her abilities to fly through the air. The point of which was to ride the lightning fast enough to fit through a small section at the end and circle back around through the next alley to get behind whoever was following her the whole episode, who, in their inability to ride the lightning, would be forced to turn around to leave. Riding the Lightning, indeed. The SS novels show that she can use her ability over large bodies of water to induce hydrolysis in water molecules to ride the lightning as well. And later taken to an even higher extreme when she is forcibly subjected to a Level 6 Shift, gaining the ability to effectively teleport to where a beam of electricity she created had struck in the process, apparently by travelling through the electric beam itself.
• Denjin N: After shedding his mortal coil, Tadahiro's essence is transformed into pure electricity and allows him to travel throughout Tokyo instantaneously through electrical currents. This allows him to cause blackouts, spy on people through CCTV, or stage fatal accidents for anybody who wrongs him or Misaki.
• Laxus from Fairy Tail can turn himself into lightning for a time in order to dodge attacks and quickly close the distance on foes. It's also implied he can use this for high-speed travel, as shown with his Big Damn Heroes moment in the Sirius Island arc where he arrives and blasts his way into Grimoire Heart's airship in a bolt of lightning.
• Killua from Hunter × Hunter uses his electrified aura to move at high speed.
• Negima! Magister Negi Magi: When Negi masters Magia Erebea, a technique which allows him to fuse himself with offensive spells, his affinity for lightning, wind and light magic lends itself to this.
  • Jovis Tempestas Fulguriens ("Jovian Windstorm of Lightning") blasts a vortex of wind and lightning energy at opponents. When equipped, it creates the form Agilitas Fulminis ("With Lightning Speed"), which electrifies Negi's body and grants him great agility.
  • The Fantastic Nuke spell Khilipl Astrape ("Thousand Thunderbolts") can be absorbed to enter the state He Astrape Huper Ouranou Mega Dunamene, better known as Raiten Taisou ("Might of the Great Thunderclap"). Apart from fortifying Negi's body, this drastically improves his Flash Step skills, allowing him to transform into a bolt of lightning in short bursts. However, the technique has blind spots due to his human reaction time and his need to send out streamers of charged particles before the main bolt strikes. This leads to...
  • Tastrapa Huper Ouranou Mega Dunamena, or Raiten Taisou II ("Might of the Twin Thunderclaps"), activated by absorbing two Khilipl Astrape spells at the same time, which transforms Negi into a being of pure "heavenly fire", similar to a lightning genie. Not only does this allow him to maintain constant lightning-speed while retaining full awareness of his surroundings, it also makes him an Elemental Shapeshifter who can disperse parts of his body into lightning to avoid attacks.
• Enel in One Piece, who has the power to transform his body into lightning.
• Rotom in one of the Decolora Islands Pokémon: The Series episodes does this to get into appliances and eat electricity.
• Rosario + Vampire: Raika is a thunder beast, and can turn himself into electricity and travel along any conductor at blinding speed. Ruby quickly realizes that Inertia Is a Cruel Mistress and punches him as he comes out.

Comic Books

• Captain Marvel in 52 exploits his transformation method (yelling "Shazam!" and getting struck by a bolt of lightning,) and then rides the bolt of lightning down to a rampaging Black Adam (who gets his power via the same method) to strike him with it instead to force him to transform back to normal.
• The Authority: Jenny Sparks does the "transform-into-electricity-via-power-lines" variant for cross-country travel.
• Doctor Strange learned how to teleport via lightning when the Ancient One's nemesis Kaluu was his mentor, but he considered it a form of dark sorcery.
• Spider-Man foe Electro is sometimes shown traveling by surfing a lightning bolt.
• Sparx from Superboy and the Ravers loses her human shape altogether when she flies fast enough since she is an Energy Being when not in human form.
• Superman Blue could travel as a lightning bolt.
• Wonder Woman (1942): In the Silver Age Diana could lasso lightening and use it to swing herself along.

Fan Fiction

• The Pronghorns use this to travel in the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fanfic, It's A Dangerous Business, Going Out Your Door. They use it to relay messages between rulers. They teach Rainbow Dash to do it as well.
• The Ponies of Olympus series has the Jupiter Lance technique, which allows pegasi to do this as a fighting technique.

Film

• In The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Electro is able to do this traveling as a bolt of lightning.
• In And You Thought Your Parents Were Weird!, ghosts can manifest as electricity to possess technology.
• One of the gremlins in Gremlins 2: The New Batch gains this ability and starts traveling through the Clamp building's phone lines.
• At the climax of Hulk, David Banner absorbs enough electricity to become a monster made of lightning. He grabs the Hulkified Bruce and they travel miles inland on his coattails, fighting in the clouds.
• Being an electric ghost, the villain of Shocker has this power, which allows him to travel between television set and electric sockets.
• War of the Worlds (2005) has the aliens using lightning to travel to their buried pods.
• In Wonder Woman 1984, Diana/Wonder Woman is seen using her Lasso of Thruth to swing in the sky using lightnings to hook the Lasso on.
• X-Men: Apocalypse has Storm arriving to fight the X-Men in a way that makes it seem she came along with a lightning bolt.◊

Literature

• The Colour of Magic: This is what Twoflower thinks Rincewind is talking about when he expresses a desire to "harness the lightning".
• In The Dreamers series by David Eddings, the Elder God Veltan has a pet lightning bolt that he rides for quick long-range transport. Disadvantages include having to avoid collateral damage, because gods are absolutely forbidden from taking life, and showing up with static-frizzed hair.
• Journey to Chaos: When Kallen receives a blessing from Ligol, the lightning goddess, one of the abilities this grants her is teleporting via this method. Her body, and that of anyone touching her, transforms into lightning and then strikes where she wants to land. This means she can't use it to go anywhere lightning wouldn't be able to reach, such as a room deep underground.
• Lightning Dust does the turn into lightning version, once winding up inside a streetlight on his first flight.

Live-Action TV

• The Psycho Rangers from Power Rangers in Space all seem to have this ability, as well as mechanical possession. One of them even uses it to take over a Megazord.
• In the first episode of Tracker (2001), Cole, in his natural energy form, travels through a power line to get to the ground.
• It's been...theorized...that all the supernatural entities in Twin Peaks travel this way. A few odd incidents (particularly in The Movie) are accompanied by shots of buzzing power lines. The same thing happens in Mulholland Dr. at one point, possibly for the same reason. Uhh, maybe.

Music

• The eponymous Tiger Rider from "Tiger Rider vs. the Time Sprinkler!" by The Aquabats! is implied to have this power.
  Grab a hold of the lightning bolt
  And you pull down the lightning
  (Ride the lightning!)

• The Metallica album is the Trope Namer but not an example.

Roleplay

• Luna from Dawn of a New Age: Oldport Blues is capable not only of controlling lightning, but turning into lightning herself and moving through power lines while in that form.

Tabletop Games

• An odd example occurs in Changeling: The Dreaming with the Hsien. Fire Alchemy originally only allowed its Path Of The Elements to be used on burning buildings and Lava. But in modern times Hsien learned how use it to travel between lightning bolts, power lines and fiber optic cables.
• Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 has the spell Lightning Leap, which inflicts electricity damage in a straight line and transports the caster to the end of the line. There's also a fire-based version in the form of Firestride Exhalation, where the caster breathes a cone-shaped stream of fire and can transport themselves to any space within the cone.
• The Simbul of Forgotten Realms, after lots of experiments with polymorphing into inanimate objects (which sane mages avoid) and self-enspelling, acquired an ability she uses when even the most powerful magic-user in her world (and not quite in her right mind) must leave in haste: she turns herself into chain lightning, thunders through the area, then the last bolt turns into a meteor and flies away.
• Ofanim of Lightning in In Nomine can become electricity in order to travel along wires between two electric devices. It's rather hard on the devices used though.
• Palladium Books features this trope in a few of its works:
  • The Nightbane from Nightbane can purchase a Talent called "Lightning Rider", which lets them turn into living electricity.
  • This is also the main special ability of the alien bug invaders in their Systems Failure RPG.
• Pathfinder has a supplement called Ultimate Magic, which features a spell called Ride the Lightning, where the user turns into a lightning bolt that blasts through enemies, ignites flammable objects and melts metal.
  • Non-casters can achieve the same effect with the magical Boots of Lightning Leaping.
  • Air kineticists from Occult Adventures can do this at 12th level. One can also ride the earth, aether, water, air or fire if lightning is not in their element.
• An entire character focus of Numenera revolves around combining this trope in special as well as Shock and Awe in general. It is, appropriately, called "Rides the Lightning".

Video Games

• The Electrical Melee powerset in City of Heroes has "Lightning Rod" as its final power. It works very similarly to the Guild Wars "Ride the Lightning" already mentioned. The user teleports to a targeted location, damaging any enemies near the landing point.
• Ghosts in Ghost Trick can travel through phone lines.
• One of Ky Kiske's Overdrives in the Guilty Gear is named this because it, too, was named after the song "Ride the Lightning."
  • His son Sin uses the version called "R.T.L".
• In Guild Wars, there is an Air Magic spell called Ride the Lightning that warps you next to a targeted enemy, dealing lightning damage to the enemy.
• Cole of inFAMOUS and inFAMOUS 2 can travel extremely quickly by sliding along electrified wires - and they do have to be electrified. Amusingly, this works of something similar to the principle of a railgun. The sequel introduces the Lightning Tether, which is essentially a grappling hook made of lightning.
  • He can do this across any normal platform in his playable appearance in PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale.
• The Mechanical Lifeforms of Wiral from Meteos can turn their bodies into electricity to travel across their planet via it's vast network of wires.
• Raiden's I NEED MY MONEY teleport attack in Mortal Kombat.
• Pulseman's array of electricity-based powers includes the Volteccer, which turns him into a flying ball of electricity. This also allows Pulseman to travel along power lines. In addition, he can transform himself into an electrical signal to travel through Cyberspace.
  • In the Super Smash Bros. series of games, Pikachu inherits this ability as its Final Smash, Volt Tackle (which actually is called Volteccer in Japan). As of Ultimate, Pichu also has access to it.
• In an old hilarious DOS game Space Dude one of the environmental stages literally made you ride the lightning - that is, the Surfer Dude had to keep shocking himself, otherwise he would fall.
• Mario can capture spark pylons in Super Mario Odyssey, turning him into an electric ball that can quickly move across electricity lines.
• The protagonist of Teslagrad finds a pair of boots that allow him to do this over short distances early on.

Web Animation

• Dreamscape: Soya can skate across the ground at high speeds by channeling lightning through the soles of his feet.

Webcomics

• George of Bob and George, among his other lightning-based powers, has this ability. He seems to be turning himself to lightning to do it.
  • In an earlier example, Elec Man the robot master as well. This is actually what Megaman takes advantage of to beat both Bomb Man and Elec Man. David Anez in previous commentary stated that the idea of becoming "fast" lightning is absurd and that as we all should know electrons only move as fast as the medium they're in conducts them. He's a physics professor, but he essentially admits he's not above putting in something cool for the purposes of the plot
• Powerful electricity mage "the Maestro" does this in Dominic Deegan. As a side-effect, he's constantly undergoing mild electrocution, which leaves him stuttering.
• In Grrl Power, the hero Jiggawatt has many lightning-based abilities - including the ability to turn into lightning for near-instant travel.
• In Hero Oh Hero, Mable's Pandemonium power is absorbing and using electricity. This incudes Power Floats, being lightning-fast and carrying other people.

Western Animation

• Adventure Time: Jake's hybrid granddaughter, Bronwyn, can summon storm clouds to teleport as a lightning bolt.
• Ben 10: Ultimate Alien gives Ben a new alien form, Ampfibian, an Electric Jellyfish that can, among many other things, transform into pure energy and travel through power lines and circuitry.
  • Ben 10: Omniverse: In a flashback, we see that Feedback could run along power lines.
• Darkwing Duck's foe Megavolt can "skate" along power lines.
• Juice, the member of the Ultimen, in Justice League Unlimited can do this.
• Dragons: Riders of Berk: The Skrill, the first electric dragon seen in the series, is able to call down a lightning strike and travel across it to get into the sky in the blink of an eye.
• Freakazoid! sometimes travels as a head on a zig-zag bolt of electricity/lightning.
• In Static Shock, Static can rail-slide on power lines, but his typical mode of travel is surfing on a collapsible metal disc.
• SWAT Kats villain Hard Drive can travel through phone lines and electrical and computer systems and steal data from the latter while wearing his Surge Coat. The Kats actually take advantage of this by using a specially designed missile that cuts off the cable segment he was in, and forcibly sticks him in a containment unit.
• Xiaolin Showdown had the Shard of Lightning, a Shen Gong Wu that let its user travel at the speed of light for the brief seconds in which the lightning struck, as well as the Denshi Bunny, another Wu that turns the user into electricity so that they can travel through wires and other electrical circuitry.

Real Life

• This is approximately how a railgun works - although it does require a metallic rail (or two) as a medium, it's the closest thing to this trope that exists in reality.

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