In the next zone Scourge would warp to, Snively was going after Tails in a mecha, but to his surprise, a green hedgehog used a spindash to trash it and made him fly out of it. He grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and complained with his face threateningly close to his, " That was REAL nice of you to be separate from Robotnik! Would've been way faster for me if you were with him! " Then the predictable happened, as he followed through with his usual plan of getting rid of every Robotnik and Snively he found. Tails was long gone by the time he was done, having run into the forest without even seeing him, but since Scourge had already seen him, he decided to go follow him out of curiosity to see if he was okay, and potentially get some praise for saving his life.
After going through an empty village, Scourge walked into a lab, and found that planet's version of Tails. He thought, " He looks awful… " His hair was messy, his fur had some dirt and grease stains on it, he was wearing a lab coat with the same stains, and when he turned to face him, Scourge could see that he was unusually skinny, and his eyes behind the clear, large goggles were bloodshot, and had bags and stress lines under them. He gasped and hugged him immediately, and exclaimed, " Finally, someone to talk to! I've been alone on this planet for months! "
While he knew Scourge looked like a criminal, he was too lonely to care. Scourge instinctively returned the hug to get the most enjoyment out of it, and then asked him in curiosity, " Why? And what's with all the robots in your lab? I'm new to this dimension, so I need some fillin' in here! The name's Scourge the Hedgehog, by the way. ".
Tails, after reluctantly forcing himself to let him go, told him with a smile of childlike innocence, " I'm Tails. And I only built them very recently. I've been stuck here for six months, so it was the only way I could try to stop the loneliness. But I'm not finished making the program that'll become their brains and differentiating it for each individual person yet, so my plan to repopulate the planet isn't really started yet. Normally, I just used this planet as a base for the Freedom Fighters to plan our attacks on Robotnik on Mars, but my spaceship's engine started to go critical when I was entering the Mobian atmosphere, and I barely got to jump and fly out of it before it blew up! And with it, the machine that let me contact my friends blew up too! They probably all assumed I've died and don't know they have to come looking for me! Maybe Eggman put a bomb in the spaceship to trap me here. And there's gotta be a good reason my friends haven't come back here with another spaceship! What if they all got captured or roboticized by now?! "
" Why don't you just build another spaceship? " Scourge asked. Tails said sadly, " That's what I've been doing, but it was Rotor who invented it, and it's a lot harder than I thought it was gonna be, especially without all the materials I need. I'm trapped here, and I had to resort to making robots to have any sort of company. As I said before. They're just like people, though, so it's not too bad. " Scourge asked, " So on your Mars, you don't need a spacesuit to be able to walk around in any part of it, do you? 'Cause I plan to give that place a visit. "
Tails answered in confusion, " No, it was terraformed last millennium. What, how would you- " Scourge showed him the zone-link generator from his jacket, created a Warp Ring and explained with an excited smile, " I can get you back home to your pals, AND do what I came here for! You can activate your robots LATER, " as he pressed buttons on it to get the destination to where he wanted it. Tails gasped, looking stunned, and asked, " Is this a dream? Is this really happening? " while finding it ironic and suspicious that an obvious criminal was the one doing this for him.
Sure enough, he could see Robotnik in his lab through the Warp Ring, and Scourge lifted him into his arms, jumped through it with him, moved out of the lab at the speed of sound to get him into another building, and started the fight that'd get rid of Robotnik with the kid out of earshot.
Minutes later, he ran around at sonic speed until he eventually would find the kid he brought to the planet. He was sitting on the sidewalk of the street crying. " What's wrong? " Scourge asked in curiosity, and he told him, " I can't find them! I can't find them anywhere! " Scourge looked uncomfortable as he revealed, " Well, they're not in Robotnik's base, 'cause I searched all over there at sonic speed. W-Where's your house? Or maybe I can get you to some other friends of yours, like the Chaotix. " Tails nodded reluctantly, agreeing to be warped to them.
The Chaotix were naturally very surprised to see a green hedgehog with fangs in a leather jacket walk over to them with his arm around Tails, and he made sure to say the minute he saw them, " He needs help, " directing the attention to Tails right away. Espio still questioned him, " Wait a minute, hold on, what's he doing with a punk like you? "
As Tails looked sad and gave Mighty a hug, Scourge continued, " I was getting to that! Look, I think something happened to the Freedom Fighters when he was stuck on Mobius. Though you probably already know that, I'm not entirely filled in on everything about this dimension, " briefly flaunting his Warp Ring in front of them to prove he was from another zone.
He continued, " Tails told me his spaceship blew up from a bomb of Robotnik's and he barely flew out of it in time, and he might have done that to fake his death so he'd be trapped there. He's been alone on a planet for months, and it shows. He needs someone taking care of him, so I'm makin' an executive decision here, the NICEST among you guys is gonna look after him from now on. "
While the Chaotix felt sorry for Tails, they were very confused about his behavior. Vector asked, " So you're the one who saved him from that place with your Warp Ring, then? But why? " Scourge replied, used to making that justification by now, " He reminds me of my zone's Tails, of course. The name's Scourge the Hedgehog, and I'm the one who took down Robotnik. Go look in his base if ya don't believe me! I've taken down so many of these guys, I've lost track! "
Naturally, everyone was shocked to hear that, with Charmy saying, " Wait, what?! You what?! Do the zone cops approve of this? " Scourge looked briefly surprised and said, " I dunno, I guess. How do you know about those guys? " Charmy admitted, " I've kind of, had a past, okay? " which implied enough for him to leave it alone. Scourge replied, " Don't sweat it, kid, they probably decided to leave ya alone. You'd think if you're a zone-hopper, the zone cops would be aware of you with all their surveillance cameras everywhere. "
Then he looked resentful, and continued, " I bet they saw what Tails was going through down there and ate popcorn while watching it. " Tails gasped, and looked sad as Scourge complained resentfully,
" Those monsters. They pretend to care about protecting the multiverse, but they make a living out of watching stuff happen and doing nothing. Might as well be zone ' bystanders. ' You know, the Prime Zone's Robotnik was replaced by a zone-hopper and they STILL haven't arrested the guy. " " You have no room to judge, Scourge, " Zonic said all of a sudden, startling them all as he appeared out of a portal.
He stood in front of the startled Scourge with his arms crossed and said, " Relax, we're not going after you, we're still busy with Eggman Nega and all. " He was careful not to say the wrong things and accidentally encourage him to stop what he was doing just to rebel against them; words of encouragement and praise from some of his worst enemies wouldn't be the most encouraging to the most rebellious Sonic alive.
Scourge scoffed, and complained, " Well that's a relief, but considering how much screwed-up shit happens that you do nothin' about, I think I'm justified here. Who knows how much I prevented from happening with all the Robotniks I killed? ' Evil Sonic ' or no, at least I'm no bystander. " He activated his Warp Ring as Zonic replied in annoyance, " It's called the ' policy of non-interference, ' and we have it for a reason! We have to let universes develop themselves naturally- "
" Like the time you let one of the Robotniks destroy all the Robians with a self-destruct switch, yeah. Might as well not even have surveillance cameras. Face it, man, you guys just pick and choose which villains to fight. You don't just protect the multiverse, you turned it into a reality show. I guarantee you if I was watching a monitor when some shit was goin' down, I wouldn't just stand there and watch! I'd go there and take down the people responsible and kick ass! " Scourge snarked bitterly, remembering how rough his father was with him and thinking that some zone cops must have stood there and watched it all happen. He knew that if he had seen that happen to someone, he'd furiously defend them.
He had always hated Kintobor for not adopting him with all the rumors of how his father was to him, but the zone cops with their surveillance cameras made him even angrier than that. The fact that they were police didn't help.
Zonic said unhappily, " Do you have any idea how many zone police would get themselves killed doing that? " Scourge admitted, " True, not everyone's as fast and awesome as me. But you could get away with it, same powers don't you? Plus with your ray guns and teleporters, you could catch 'em by surprise, get a free hit in and stun 'em. But no, then you'd just get fired for doing something. Are you dudes REALLY busy with zone-hoppers with every single cop 100% of the time, and never have the time for anyone else? Please. I'm not a hero, but at least when I do evil things, I know it. And there's nothing worse than a hypocrite. "
With that, he walked into the portal, which closed behind him as Zonic had to deal with suspicious glares from the Chaotix at what Scourge revealed. Predictably, he ran off at the speed of sound and used his own portal-generator to warp away, because he knew that if he didn't, he'd be in a lot of trouble.
Espio said unhappily, " Mighty, give the kid a bath, I think he needs one. " Tails sighed, and apologized, " I'm sorry I haven't been taking care of myself. I was too wrapped up in my inventing. It was the only thing getting me through that dark lonely time… " He sighed.
Occasionally, every so often, Scourge would check up on the Eggman in the Prime zone by looking through his Warp Ring portal from the open end, just to see what he was planning against his old enemy next. Normally, he would just leave dealing with him to Sonic, since he was busy with his own life. But after finding out about Eggman's Genesis Wave device from the doctor bragging about it, Scourge said with a serious expression, " OK, he just moved up on my list! "
He jumped through the portal onto Eggman, punched him into the wall and said, " The minute you threaten MY universe, it's MY problem! " Fortunately for Eggman, Sonic was there at just the right time to prevent him from killing him, getting his attention immediately saying, " Scourge?! Is the time limit up already? "
Scourge, ignoring his brief panic at just hearing the one responsible for putting him in prison in the No Zone, reminded himself that it wasn't going to happen again, spindashed into the machine, and ranted, " That depends. He just made a doo-hickey that could destroy my zone and wipe me out of existence! And even if we destroy it now, he'll just make it again! What do you expect me to do, Sonic, because your way isn't working! And I just know your way won't include ' brainwashing him to never make a machine like this again! ' There's no more time to fool around, Sonic! It's time to end this! " both angry and afraid for himself and the ones who cared about him. He was still self-conscious about the fact that he was worried for Fiona and his daughter, and tried not to show it in his expression.
Before Scourge could turn around to threaten Eggman – as he was sneaking out of the lab and already almost out of it – Sonic exclaimed, " Wait, maybe it does! I mean, I'm not comfortable with it at all, but if it's just one little change, it's better than letting you kill him! " Scourge rolled his eyes saying sarcastically, " Because ' that'd make you just as bad as him. ' Sure. You really think you can get Rotor to do that? "
He left the room in a green and black blur, came back with Eggman tied up with wires while panicked, and said, " Not that hard, is it? Now here's what's gonna happen, Blue, if I find out you didn't come through on your end of the bargain, I'm gonna find where this dude is, and kill him. I'm not gonna be tricked that easily. There's an entire ' all of existence ' at stake here, and that INCLUDES my little girl! "
Trying to hide how proud he was of him for trying to save the multiverse, Sonic reluctantly said, " It's not a trick, I promise, " and started helping him destroy the machine with his spindash, with a big smile on his face because of that.
When the machine was reduced to pieces, Scourge used his super speed to bring a wagon over to the two of them and push the protesting Eggman onto it. He tied him to it with the wires, and said with a smirk, " Good thing we're both strong enough to move this lard. Come on, let's go! " before the two of them pulled it at super speed to the nanite city prison. After everything was said and done, Scourge smirked as if he wasn't annoyed at all, reminded Sonic that Eggman was on a time limit, and left through his portal.
Queen Sally told Fiona reassuringly with her arm around her back, " Look, I like you for who you are, but a lot of people like to judge you for the way you're dressed, and it'd be easier on you if you fixed that problem. You can still wear some black, it's your decision, but some color would help with the, comments. " After sighing and agreeing, " Alright, I was kind of missing color anyways, " Fiona was taken shopping, and eventually came home with a new purple and white jumpsuit, with black stripes for the edges, and a skull necklace. The whole time, she was worried about how Scourge would react when he saw her in less menacing clothes.
When she saw him again getting home to Queen Sally's castle, she asked with a nervous smile, " So how do I look? " He smiled fondly at seeing her and said, " Perfect! " kissed her, and added, " As usual! " proud of having a girlfriend as beautiful to him as her. She sighed in a mixture of relief and bliss, and replied,
" Good. It's not like I care what people think of me, but it's still annoying hearing people insult me for dressing like before. You know, in the badass way... I wish I could be more like you and just be carefree, not care about what people say. " Scourge's smirk briefly faltered, and he said with his arm around her, " Thanks. And you're right of course! I'm not ditchin' the leather any time soon! It looks better on me than anythin' else, and while I prefer your old get-up, it is pretty good-looking to have some color there, too. "
After Scourge had taken down a Robotnik warping to him, he was shocked to find someone he never thought he'd see again. " I found you! " He turned to the familiar female voice and gasped in horror at seeing Rosy the Rascal with a portable globepost. As Scourge backed away saying from being caught off guard, " Rosy?! How, how'd you… " she immediately laughed and started smashing up a Robotnik's base with her spiked hammer, before trying to chase him.
Scourge ran away, and smirked as he got an idea, intentionally slowing down to let her follow him while being fast enough that he'd never be caught up to, all in a successful plan to tire her out and keep her close-by.
As soon as she collapsed panting in exhaustion after all that time of chasing Scourge, he grabbed some wires and tied her up using his super speed, saying, " Super speed, remember? You don't stand a chance… "
Then he put his hand on his chain and said to the tied-up psycho, " Actually, I have a brilliant idea! That kind of violence should be used on my enemies! At the rate I'm taking down all the Robotniks, I might not get rid of them all 'till I have gray hair, but I have in front of me someone who only cares about kicking ass, as brutally as you can possibly imagine. Someone who WON'T wanna take breaks out of boredom with doing the same thing over and over again! Now, the only problem is making sure you'll only go after Robotniks and Snivelys, but I know just the guy for that. " With that, he punched her to knock her unconscious, and brought her through a portal to the dimension he called home.
The Film-Noir Rotor wasn't that enthused, saying in response in his lab, " I dunno, Scourge, brainwashing? I'm not comfortable with this. " He shifted his brown trench coat and avoided eye contact with him, focusing on his work as Rosy laid unconscious on the floor.
" You heard me, the Anti-Ring of Acorns made her a hopelessly violent nutjob! All she wants to do is attack anyone that's breathing with her spiky hammer. And Robotniks are evil, you know that! Better for her to have the best possible targets than wear herself out attacking everyone she finds. Would you rather have her have a shock collar that would shock her if she attacked the wrong people? Or rot in prison, or get the chair? That's a total waste of her hammer-smashing skills when there's millions of Robotniks out there just beggin' to get smashed, " Scourge convinced looking serious.
Then he smirked and said confidently, " Plus, there's a million different Rotors out there, so there's no point in you saying no. If you turn me down, I'll find a Rotor who won't, and if they all do, I'll get a Lien-Da to do it, she's a legionizer. " Scourge said in annoyance, and then walked over to the uneasy Rotor and put his hand on his shoulder casually with a reluctant expression at first. He continued nonchalantly,
" Look, how's about this? You make the computer chip reprogramming her brain make it so that once she's killed a certain big number of Robotniks and Snively, it makes her not violent anymore. That way, I get what I want – getting half of the work done for me – and you get an unquestionably good deed for your conscience – which is CURING Rosy so she can have a normal life. Eventually. "
He looked over at Rosy and said nervously cringing, " I mean, really, she's lucky she can take care of herself like this. At least if her violence is focused on just two people in each zone, she'll be able to think clearly and focus on getting food and stuff instead of trying to attack everything that moves. Look at her, she's all skin and bones! " demonstrating to him that at the end.
FN Rotor smiled softly and thought to himself, " Are you actually worried about her well-being? It's not like you to intentionally try to manipulate someone, you're not nearly subtle enough for that. " The only reason he didn't say it out loud, was because Queen Sally had advised her friends against openly insulting him or making it obvious to him that he had a conscience to his face. So instead, he nodded with a smile, saying,
" Okay, fine, I'll do it. Better than a shock collar, and better me than someone I don't trust. Get me the anesthesia. " He put Rosy on a lab bench and clarified to the confused Scourge, " You know, the sleeping gas. I've gotta keep her down so I can make a nanobot to carry the ' vigilante ' chip to her brain, and make the, incision in her skull in the first place. " He cringed at the end, wondering if he would feel uncomfortable for a long time about what he was going to do, and hoping that he'd see that the ends would justify the means.
Proud of him for agreeing to the pragmatic, greater good decision, Scourge said with a great big smile, " Thanks, Rotes! Knew I could count on you! You're actually pretty cool sometimes, " remembering the time he saw him shoot a giant ray gun he revealed he had and exclaimed excitedly in the heat of battle, " Okay, that's actually pretty COOL! "
He saw the alternate Rotor smile at him sweetly and felt awkward, saying, " D-Don't tell anyone I said that, " feeling like he was acting too much like Sonic by the last sentence. Rotor sighed and agreed, wishing he would only move past feeling uncomfortable about the more soft side to himself just because it wasn't what was expected of him with his image. He wishes he could fully be okay with the fact that being himself meant more than just being an Evil Sonic.