Hey sorry for throwing this on you suddenly but aghhh I can’t take it anymore
We need to talk about Scourge coming in actual contact with Fleetway’s chaos energy. Sooner or later it’s bound to happen with all the batshit insanity that goes on that universe.
It’s so easy to say he would have a super crazed form much like Sonic’s. But there’s so much to possibly speculate because the strange way chaos energy works there. Scourge also originally absorbed master emerald energy from the Prime universe and I absolutely refuse to believe it just made him permanently green with a tiny power boost!
Some have suggested that Super Scourge would actually have a more docile gentler personality based on the fact Fleetway’s Evil King Sonic turns good when he absorbs chaos energy. So apply that to Scourge’s case. While everyone is relieved that he’s on their side, Sonic just gets pissed off ofc because that’s not his Scourge at all. Like okay he’s nice too nice, good, but give me back the green asshole I care about.
He could also possibly transform at will though rather than being emotion-based. (though it’ll be fucking hilarious whenever Scourge feels really happy and is just like aw fuck c’mon just let me be happy in the inside—super form)
He still wouldn’t largely remember what he did though when he’s Super (maybe exist as a voice in Super’s head at times) and Sonic bullies him for all the good deeds he does but is likely too flustered to talk about him at first
There can be still conflict to all of this because Sonic can never have it easy in his universe especially when it comes to Scourge. His Super form being aware of Scourge and often refuses to change back. The saving grace is that he could share Scourge’s cowardly traits, so Sonic goes borderline feral whenever this happens and scares his super form off 90% of the time. the other 10% is having the freedom fighters gently coax him to transform back/Scourge gaining back complete control. Over time he also could be mischievous with Sonic only and playfully mess with him in ways Sonic very much does not like.
or another scenario is since he originally absorbed chaos energy from the Prime universe, and is coming in contact with the corrupted chaos energy here, this might cause changes in him. Either gaining new abilities and power/ causing physical & mental imbalances/ (Scourge why tf are you acting like your Super sometimes—) / shares a deeper connection to the master emerald here that might lead to something objectively good or worse in the long run
but no one knows yet if transforming the way Sonic used to would apply to the other universes. He should be cautious. (Realistically, if Scourge has the will to transform, he wouldn’t even bother gotta keep that bad boy reputation he’s got after all.)
ahhh that’s all otherwise I think I might go on forever! anyway I hope you touch on this subject sometime again in the future, it’s so fun to see how you write them out.
Oh god okay okay okay you have given me MUCH to think about and I love it so muchhhh because I love to think about lore especially the lore of the chaos emeralds in the fleetway universe even if I usually never end up coming to a conclusion. Normally I try to only put my fics under a read more, but this got long so I'm putting it under a cut
Okay so you're absolutely correct that the easy thing to do is to assume the influence of the chaos emeralds would have the same effect on him as it did on Sonic, and initially, that was my knee-jerk reaction. The corrupted energy of the emeralds fucks over both Sonic and Kintobor, after all, so it's logical to assume they would do the same to Scourge. Outside of these two, the only other people we see under the influence of chaos energy are Chaos (which happens pre-Kintobor's tampering) and Super (who is made of chaos energy, and only chills out when he is drained of/disconnected from/doesn't use the powers of his chaos energy and immediately goes back to murderous the second he either uses the power of his chaos energy or comes into contact with the chaos emeralds) so those are all we've got to go on, and they don't provide a good track record. We know that in small amounts some chaos energy isn't immediately harmful - I believe the Power Rings in stc have very small amounts of chaos energy in them, and touching one of them didn't instantly cause Sonic to turn super - but if there's a build up, or just larger amounts, it rarely means something good. Following the pattern of what we know about the chaos emeralds and chaos energy in general, it is a reasonable conclusion that they would have the same impact on Scourge
A good point is raised about King Sonic and his reaction to the chaos emeralds, which adds to the evidence that the chaos emeralds may not instantly make Scourge's super form evil and out of control, but we're only in that universe for a little bit, and we don't get to see how chaos energy works in that universe. We don't know if there were any differences in Kintobor's experiments, for example - was he still trying to rid the world of evil by storing it in the emeralds, and were his experiments successful in this dimension? Or did he take a different approach and use the power of the emeralds as purification, instead of containment? - so it's impossible to tell if the chaos emeralds in that mirror dimension even work the same as the chaos emeralds in the main dimension. Not knowing if there are differences in how they work makes it difficult to know if the chaos emeralds in the main dimension would have the same impact on Scourge as the mirror dimension. Arguments can be made for both
What does immediately stand out is your point that Scourge absorbed the power of the Master Emerald in the prime dimension. I'm not too familiar with the lore of the chaos emeralds in the archie canon, but it's pretty safe to say it's very different to the lore and history of the chaos emeralds in the fleetway comics (they aren't fucked, for one). So the immediate question is: how would the chaos energy of these two different dimensions interact? It's tempting to say chaos energy is chaos energy, and that fleetway's corrupted energy would corrupt the chaos energy from the prime zone, but the chaos energy in these two dimensions presumably has completely different origins, so they might not even be similar enough for corruption to happen. Different wavelengths or something, the same way anarchy energy in Moebius is presumably different to the chaos energy of both the prime zone and the fleetway dimension. And if there's no corruption, how would these two very different chaos energies interact, or do they even interact at all?
On top of that, Scourge didn't just absorb any chaos energy. He got zapped specifically with the energy of the Master Emerald. So it's not just any old chaos energy, it's energy that can control and neutralise the chaos emeralds and their chaos energy. Whether or not Scourge can use that energy he got blasted with, that's still something pretty overpowered to be running through his body
So if he was to be hit with chaos energy from Sonic's dimension, how these two different energies interact - again, if they interact at all - could have a big impact on what happens to Scourge. Are the energies similar enough that the energy from the Master Emerald can neutralise the energy of the chaos emeralds that come from a completely different dimension? And if this energy can be controlled by the Master Emerald's energy, that gives Scourge a much better chance of retaining control over himself. Kintobor and Sonic notably got blasted with energy that grew unstable because they only had six of the emeralds, crucially missing the one emerald that controls the others. And when Knuckles has the emeralds, he can control their energy, even corrupted as it is, just fine, enough to put a stop to Robotnik. If the Master Emerald's energy in Scourge can do something similar, there's a very, very good chance he's not even at risk the same way Sonic is. It could very well just act like an ordinary super form
Or maybe the chaos energies are too different, and the Master Emerald's energy has no impact on the chaos emeralds from Sonic's dimension. From there, that could either be the equivalent to a negative chemical reaction, or nothing happens and the chaos emeralds continue to impact Scourge as normal. I'm leaning more towards the latter, because we see Scourge wield anarchy beryl post-ME zapping, and anarchy energy and chaos energy are presumably different energies, and the energy of the ME doesn't seem to change anything about the way anarchy energy influences Scourge, but the former is definitely a possibility considering the additional corruption of the chaos emeralds. It would probably look similar to what you mentioned (possible new powers, physical and/or mental imbalance, deeper connection to the master emerald, and honestly so many more possibilities)
Another thing that comes to mind is how the the chaos emeralds' impact Captain Plunder, when they temporarily absorb the negative energy of him and his crew. It's the only time I can think of we see the chaos emeralds impact anyone in a vaguely positive way, and is, imo, actually pretty good evidence to the idea that they could impact Scourge the same way they impact King Sonic. Of course, the difference here is that the pirates didn't (to my understanding) actually get blasted with chaos energy; they were just around the emeralds long enough for their negative energy to be absorbed, and the emeralds were retrieved before they could become unstable and blast the pirates with chaos energy. So maybe actually using the emeralds wouldn't have this impact, but again: if the energy from the Master Emerald can control the chaos emeralds, then maybe a side effect of using them without losing control might be the emeralds absorbing Scourge's negative energy; it's pretty safe to assume he must have a lot of it as an Anti Sonic, after all. It might not make a difference, again, because of the differences of Scourge having a connection to the prime dimension, not Sonic's dimension, but honestly, I don't think it would be a stretch to assume they would have this impact. To my understanding, it's pretty vague if this "negative energy" that the emeralds absorb is negative chaos energy, or something else entirely. So, up to whatever u wanna go with
Interestingly, this also means that even if turning super doesn't make Scourge mellow out the same way it does to King Sonic, just being around the emeralds and using them might. So Scourge might not even need to use them for them to change him, which... well, Sonic already doesn't have good associations with the chaos emeralds, so seeing them so drastically change Scourge even when he's not using them wouldn't sit well with him. As you said, he really, really likes Scourge, and he especially likes that Scourge is an asshole. The asshole is who he fell in love with, and he wouldn't take kindly to that being changed
His instinct is, of course, that the chaos emeralds will have the same effect on Scourge as they do on him, which is why he's so desperate to keep Scourge away from chaos energy. He wouldn't want to take the risk, and once they grow close, he especially doesn't want to lose someone else he loves to chaos energy. He wouldn't be happy about Scourge becoming "not an asshole" under their influence, but he's infinitely more terrified of them doing to Scourge what they did to him. Of course, there's no guarantee how long that will last. Like you said, Scourge is bound to come into contact with chaos energy eventually. It's just a matter of how much of it he comes into contact with. Sonic just has to pray it's a small, non-harmful amount
The tldr is that exactly how the emeralds and chaos energy impacts Scourge depends entirely on how you the rules work, and as there is no canon explanation for how these rules differ and thus would interact, it's entirely up to whim on how it would play out, and I am indecisive and like the sound of both scenarios lmao whoops. I enjoy chewing on these thoughts, because I like thinking about what the rules could be, and the results of these different rules. I like having options on how I want to spin things. So for now I haven't committed to one idea on how the emeralds would impact Scourge. That may change in the future, but for now it's a solid "whichever set of rules I wanna play with at any given time"
Okay fdhsdj now that I'm done overthinking the lore, I'm following up on the rest of your ask, because I also really like and am intrigued by the scenario presented here. I love the idea that Scourge can transform at will, because the interesting thing about chaos energy in Sonic's dimension is that it kinda... sticks around. Super is slowly drained, but he's made from chaos energy, so the rules are a bit different for him. And although Sonic comes down from being hopped up on chaos energy, we can assume there's still some in there, because stress can cause him to transform even when he's nowhere near the chaos emeralds or power rings. It's reasonable to assume that if Scourge used the emeralds, or maybe if he also absorbed a lot of chaos energy, there's a good chance it would stick around in his body too (maybe getting zapped by the ME also makes it so chaos energy sticks to him easier, if you want further explanation?)
And if it sticks around in his body, I think you could probably make a pretty strong case for Scourge being able to transform at will. Because although Sonic doesn't transform at will, I don't think Sonic really wants to. Why would he? His super form is destructive and has a very high risk of hurting innocent people and the people Sonic cares deeply about. The super form is an involuntary last resort, and considering the consequences that come with it, of course we won't see Sonic try to do it at will
You know who we do see use the powers of chaos energy at will, though? Super. You could make the argument this is an ability unique to him because he's made of chaos energy, but I don't see why it couldn't be an something Scourge (and Sonic, if he wanted to) could do. Granted, when Super used his powers he fell right back under the influence of the chaos energy, but if we're working under the assumption Scourge doesn't deal with those negative effects when he uses the chaos emeralds, then that isn't a consequence he has to worry about. So I think it's pretty reasonable to assume he could transform at will, because if Super can use the powers of chaos energy at will, why can't Scourge?
(That being said the idea of Scourge forcibly transforming because he got too excited or riled up or even too happy is a hilarious mental image that will delight me for the rest of my days)
Scourge would, however, hate that his super form is so nice lmao. It's hilarious how much he'd hate it. He'd be less reluctant to do it than Sonic if only because he doesn't have to deal with the same burdens Sonic does, but you're so right that he wouldn't bother to transform because he has a Reputation, and his super form threatens that reputation. Sonic had to wake up from every transformation going "oh god who did I hurt" while Scourge wakes up from every transformation going "what do you MEAN I built an orphanage with my bare hands??? This is the worst day of my life" and this is made worse by the fact the freedom fighters would not let him forget about any good deeds done while transformed
I LOVE the concept of Super Scourge refusing to change back, especially as it has a lot of weight to it. King Super Sonic's immediate reaction is to want to stay like that, and Super refuses to use his powers out of fear of becoming evil again. So it makes sense that Super Scourge in this scenario would refuse to turn back; his normal self is a horrible person, selfish and rude, why would he want to become that awful person again? In stc this is framed a good thing, because both Super and King Sonic were evil, but for Scourge? Becoming a nice person is closer to horror for him, tbh. For his entire self, the identity he clings so hard to, to be stripped away and locked up forever. Rendering him the same as any other Sonic in the multiverse, with absolutely no way to stand out. The idea of that happening - worse, of choosing to do that to himself - is horrifying to him. For once, becoming a "better" person is not the good option. It's the terrifying one
I also really like the idea that he shares Scourge's cowardice, and that is what ultimately makes him bend to the demands to change back. Sure, eventually Scourge would turn back on his own - super transformations are temporary after all - but if Super Scourge really was that reluctant to transform back, he'd search for a way to make it permanent, just like King Super Sonic, or at least keep it up longer. All it would really take is an extra dose of chaos energy from the emeralds to keep up the transformation for a little longer. So it's really nice that there's another reason he ends up transforming back outside of it happening naturally, even if the other reason is Sonic scaring the shit out of him and probably threatening to kick his ass until he transforms back lol. Honestly, in a way it's really sweet that Sonic loves his asshole boyfriend so much that he throws a fit over said asshole boyfriend becoming a nicer person. He finds it genuinely unnerving when Scourge isn't an asshole, and he hates that Super Scourge wants to say super, like Scourge's bad attitude is a thing that should be fixed. He especially hates it because he knows how much Scourge hates being perceived as nice or good or a hero, so watching Super Scourge act like he's better off this way upsets him greatly because he knows how much it would upset Scourge if he was in his right mind
As for headcanons about possible dynamics, I think Super Scourge would drive Sonic up the wall, mostly because Scourge becoming nice would lead to him, like, cuddling close to Sonic and saying lots and lots of sappy and romantic shit, and worse, being genuine while he says it. Sonic is flustered. Sonic hates it. That's not his boyfriend who says one thing and does another and only says nice things if it's wrapped in three layers of sarcasm and irony. He is pushing Super Scourge away and yelling at him to change back and stop trying to kiss him, stop being nice to him that's not how this works all while Super Scourge talks about how much he loves and appreciates Sonic. A kind of:
"You're beautiful"
"HE'S LOST HIS MIND!!!! >:("
kinda dynamic.
(In the background, the freedom fighters are filming this interaction, and they will force Scourge to watch it once he's back to normal. Scourge will also hate this and is three seconds away from burying someone alive. He and Sonic silently agree to never talk about the incident, while the freedom fighters are committed to never letting them forget it)
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