Lightning began its life in 2017 as a Lego bot that was essentially a Hypno Disc clone but with a lightning bolt shaped bar spinner that gave it its name. A year later, the Hexbug Build Your Own Bot chassis were released. LML used the angled spinner weapon on a blue chassis, and named it after his old Lego bot.
Before the channel and LML Hexbug Battlebots, it enjoyed a good amount of success, and got a few upgrades such as a rear wedge.
It entered HB Season 1 and did well, earning the fourth seed and made it to the semifinals, only losing to eventual champions Bite Force. After that, it got a massive upgrade to its weapon system. 3 quarters and pennies were added to the disc to make it much more destructive, heavily inspired by KR’s Cyclone. However, after some giant hits in testing, the spinner base broke, and its spin-up time was massively increased. This competed in HB Season 2, and also did incredibly well, making the finals before losing to Bronco.
After that, the weapon base was replaced, fixing the spin up issue, and also got a slightly lighter but higher MOI spinner. This competed in a single video where it fought a bunch of Lego bots. It was eventually given a 3d-printed asymmetric spinner, which weighed a full 41 grams, the heaviest yet. This allowed it to self-right, and also allowed it to be called the most powerful stock-motor Hexbug by some members of the Khaotic Robotics Discord server. This version’s interior mechanics began to fail it, and reliability problems began to plague its weapon. Around the same time, it was built by Ultimate Robotics, Oof Robotics, and Random Robotics as LML’s representation on their respective channels.
Despite its combat success, Lightning’s legacy mainly comes in the form of being Living Murphy’s Law’s channel mascot, being built by many other Hexbuggers to represent him.