Enerjak

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caption=The new Enerjak, as seen on the cover of issue #181.
comic_color=background:#8080ff
character_name=Enerjak
publisher=Archie Comics
debut="Sonic the Hedgehog #35 ("March 1996")
creators= Michael Kanterovich and Ken Penders
alliance_color=background:#c0c0ff
status=
alliances=Dark Legion
aliases=
relatives=
powers=Large scale reality altering abilities derived from use of Chaos energy|

Enerjak is the name of a villainous alter ego that has been applied to two characters in the fictional universe of the Archie Sonic the Hedgehog and Knuckles the Echidna comic series. The first to be so designated was Dimitri the Echidna, who absorbed the power of eleven Chaos Emeralds using his Chaos Syphon device. He retained this identity until he was drained of his powers by Mammoth Mogul.

A second incarnation of Enerjak was introduced in issue #180, having been reborn through Knuckles the Echidna, nemesis of the original Enerjak, using the power of the Master Emerald.

Both Enerjaks have taken to wearing a ceremonial outfit created for ancient Echidna generals. It consisted of a golden faceplate, skirt, breastplate, and various bands of gold around the elbows, wrists, fingers, knees, and ankles. The rest of the outfit was blue, the rest of the helmet including a red gem in the forehead and openings that allowed the dreadlocks to stick out. Removing the faceplate allows others to see the true identity of whichever Enerjak it is, which allowed Kragok to identify the first Enerjak as Dimitri.

Identities

Dimitri

The first Enerjak was Dimitri the Echidna, a scientist from Angel Island who, together with his brother Edmund, sought to return Angel Island to the surface by using their Chaos Syphon machine to drain energy from the island's twelve Chaos Emeralds and safely cause the landmass to descend. Echidnaopolis officials rejected the plan, and an enraged Dimitri used the Chaos Syphon without authorization. Due to a malfunction, the device destroyed eleven of the Emeralds and transferred their energies into Dimitri, thus creating the nearly omnipotent being that called itself Enerjak. Maddened by the power flowing through his body, Enerjak briefly attempted to conquer Angel Island. He was stopped by his brother, who was helped by the Fire Ants which ate the foundations of his citadel, causing it to collapse and bury him. The burial site became known as Mount Fate.

Despite being buried, Enerjak surived. He reached out to his son Menniker, using a form of telepathy. Menniker then went on to forge the Dark Legion, a technocratic group of Echidnas who wished to follow in Dimitri's example and restore Angel Island to its original landsite, as well as restoring technology into Echidna society, which was banned after Dimitri's use of the Chaos Syphon. The Dark Legion, while successfully killing Edmund, were hurled into the Twilight Zone by Edmund's son Steppenwolf. They continued to thrive, each new generation of Dimitri's bloodline taking command.

Over the centuries, in the depths of the ruins, Enerjak's knowledge and insanity grew. It was during this period that he actually took his name, that of the legendary evil. All the while, he remained unaware that Edmund's bloodline, which lived on in the Brotherhood of Guardians over the generations, was continuing. Eventually escaping from his prison, Enerjak did battle with the great descendant of his late brother and his distant nephew, Knuckles the Echidna and his friends the Chaotix, brainwashing the latter into attacking the former. Rather than simply use his limitless power on his great nephew, Enerjak took a sort of sadistic pleasure in pitting him against his own friends. When this failed, he decided to use only his sheer strength in hand-to-hand combat with Knuckles. This proved to be his downfall, as it bought Knuckles' father Locke enough time to launch Enerjak's citadel into space with him still in it.

Enerjak did not stay gone long, as he was rescued and brought back to Mobius by Mammoth Mogul, where he took command of the Dark Legion from Dimitri's great-great grandson Kragok. Before he would do anything however, he took immediate steps to ensure his enemies would not stop him a third time. He immediately transported Archimedes and his grandfather Deo Volente into a small device which acted like a prison, preventing them from teleporting around and warning Knuckles of his return; then he set his sights on Knuckles himself. He first offered him the chance to accept Enerjak as his master and serve as his underling. When Knuckles refused, he forced him to endure numerous hardships, including teleporting him to the bottom of the ocean, as well as sending him to the tip of the planet's atmosphere. When his final offer to join him was declined, Enerjak literally took Knuckles apart, atom by atom. His descendant survived solely due to divine intervention by the Ancient Walkers, who had prophesied that Knuckles had a destiny yet to be fulfilled and thus saved him from destruction.

Believing the Guardian to be dead, he launched an attack against Echidnaopolis and the Dingoes. As the battle began, Enerjak seemed calm, protecting his hovercraft from enemy fire using his powers to create a force field around them. Although the combined might of the Dingoes and the Echidna Security Team at first was effective against the Dark Legion forces, Enerjak used his powers to disable their weapons with an electromagnetic pulse. He then ordered the city to surrender, but while giving his speech, Enerjak was caught off guard by the arrival of Mammoth Mogul. Using the power of the Sword of Acorns, Mogul drained the power of the eleven Emeralds from Enerjak, and the persona disappeared to leave a decrepit Dimitri in its place, thus ending Enerjak's reign.

Mogul did not retain his powers long, as a battle with Hyper Knuckles, Super Sonic, and Turbo Tails, resulted in his own defeat, and Dimitri's Chaos Syphon was used to convert the energy of Mogul's Emeralds and the two that still held Angel Island aloft into the Master Emerald.

Rebirth through Knuckles

While Dimitri was no longer Enerjak, he retained some of his goals for world domination. However, as time went on, his ancient body began to fail him, and he sought to rejuvenate himself with Chaos energy. Originally, he intended to use Knuckles - who at the time was a living Chaos Emerald - as a power source, but Knuckles' temporary death and subsequent powerlessness left Dimitri without a way to return to his Enerjak form.

Doctor Finitevus, a scientist from the Dark Legion, had his own plans for the Enerjak legacy. When the Dark Legion splintered in civil war, one side led by Lien-Da and the other by an Echidna who was revealed to be Lien-Da's nephew Remington who lost his memory as a result of being held in Eggman's Egg Grapes. Finitevus became determined to bring Enerjak back to reunify the Legion and crush the Dingoes who had used the division to seize control of Angel Island with the aid of Dr. Robotnik. Recruiting a group of criminals - the Destructix, Scourge the Hedgehog, briefly Rouge the Bat, and Fiona Fox - he managed to convince Knuckles' father Locke to give him custody of the Master Emerald so that Locke could search for the absent Brotherhood. Dimitri, reduced to little more than a head in a floating glass orb, resented Finitevus taking him apart to keep him alive, and soon left to warn the inhabitants of New Mobotropolis - which at the time included Knuckles - about Enerjak's return. Unfortunately, Finitevus didn't care for the former Enerjak, and in fact seemed pleased that another Echidna would be needed to take on the identity. Even when Lien-Da and her opponent Remington, whom Finitevus had promised the Master Emerald's power to only to betray them, joined forces, the doctor pressed on and succeeded. Dimitri's warning came too late: Knuckles had departed for Angel Island before his arrival and subsequently vanished, and the new Enerjak appeared before Scourge and Fiona, reborn through the Master Emerald's powers.

The new Enerjak's first act was to attack the Dingoes in their city of Cavem Canus. Easily defeating them, Enerjak banished them to the desert region of Sandopolis for their "crimes" against the Echidna people. In addition, Angel Island responded to his powers and began moving slowly towards New Mobotropolis for the purpose of continuing his campaign by striking at the Kingdom of Acorn. He was thought to be further supporting this strategy by blocking communications between New Mobotropolis and any other location on Mobius, though in fact it was the work of Dr. Robotnik, and Sally Acorn only managed to contact Rouge the Bat in Station Square for aid. Enerjak then met the combined forces of the Flame and Frost Legions, and not only defeated them, but restored them to their normal Echidna forms - causing their cybernetic implants to disappear. With the exception of Lien-Da and a few others who rejected the idea of being returned to normal, the rest of the Legion - along with almost every Echidna on Angel Island - were transported to Albion. Enerjak then appeared in New Mobotropolis, where a vengeful Julie-Su tried to attack him. However, Enerjak thwarted her attack, and revealed that her desire to avenge Knuckles had no basis, because Knuckles... had become Enerjak.

The truth of what happened was revealed by Knuckles' mentor Archimedes, who observed Knuckles' transformation into Enerjak. When Knuckles arrived on Angel Island, he was subdued by the Destructix and turned over to Dr. Finitevus, who explained that Dr. Robotnik's attacks had wiped out 90% of the Echidna population. Furious, Knuckles flung himself at the Master Emerald, intent on using its power to avenge his fallen people. Finitevus quickly took advantage, convincing him that only one being - Enerjak - was capable of wielding the Emerald's power, and only by becoming Enerjak could Knuckles avenge the wrongs done. Archimedes desperately tried to intervene, but Finitevus' influence and the powers of the Master Emerald prevailed, and Knuckles was transformed.

Because he possessed Knuckles' personality traits - though twisted - Enerjak set out to cleanse the world of technology as he worked to bring about peace. His extreme methods shocked Knuckles' friends, particularly the artificial intelligence NICOLE, and had Julie-Su begging him to stop his campaign. Despite her reminding Knuckles of his previous failed use of his own Chaos powers, Enerjak remained firm in his resolve to force peace upon his friends. He attempted to do so by reverting Julie's bionic implants back into organic material, but was interrupted by Sonic the Hedgehog's return. Sonic and Tails had just returned from their mission on Angel Island to search for Knuckles, where they had narrowly missed engaging Enerjak by themselves. However, after Sonic's initial surprise attack, he was unable to face Enerjak alone, and was fortunately saved by the arrival of G.U.N.'s newest agent Shadow the Hedgehog. Shadow faced off against Enerjak, removing his power inhibiting rings, but could only match him alone for a short while. Dr. Eggman then arrived and teleported Enerjak into newly built Egg Grape Chamber modified specifically for Enerjak, which he had prepared after learning of the threat from Sonic. Planning to use Enerjak's power for his own ends, Robotnik even remarked that he had fulfilled his part of the bargain by getting rid of Enerjak.

Little did Enerjak know that another threat existed to his power: Locke, Knuckles' father, had recruited Sonic and Julie-Su for the grim task of using a weapon created by the Brotherhood of Guardians to eliminate Enerjak's threat - and Enerjak himself. While the trio faced the Destructix in order to obtain the weapon, Enerjak recovered from the shock of being captured by the Egg Fleet and broke free of the Egg Grapes, decimating New Megaopolis with his sheer power. Robotnik's ground forces and the Egg Fleet itself were destroyed, and the tyrant - along with Snively Kintobor and Dimitri, the latter of which had come hoping to depower Enerjak before he could escape - fled to an underground bunker. Drained of power, Enerjak made his way back to Angel Island, seeking Dr. Finitevus' aid. Unfortunately for the duo, Sonic - having just deliberately destroyed the Brotherhood weapon - arrived and tapped into the Master Emerald, using its power to transform into Super Sonic for a showdown with his old friend. The battle quickly became a display of raw power so great that it could be seen and felt as far away from the site as Albion, and became a very real threat to anyone in close proximity, such as the inhabitants of New Mobotropolis.

Over the course of the battle, Super Sonic employed a variety of tactics in an effort to snap Knuckles out of the spell that Finitevus had placed on him. Unfortunately, the standard taunting and insults had little effect, and Enerjak continued to respond with more and more dangerous tactics. Super Sonic's powers, effective as they had been in the past against similar forces, were unable to undo the effects of Dr. Finitevus' hex. It was only when Locke, grief-stricken and determined to make amends for all that he had forced upon his son, sacrificed his life to break the spell on the Master Emerald. Returned to normal, Knuckles found his father dead and in a rage attacked Dr. Finitevus, eager to punish him for all his crimes. The mad doctor escaped, and Knuckles, motivated most likely by guilt at having lost his father because of his past decisions, swore that he would remain on Angel Island to guard the Master Emerald - for the rest of his life.

Personality

When Dimitri was in the role of Enerjak, he retained his genius but displayed a clear lack of respect for any other intelligent beings. Other beings were simply there to amuse him, which he was quite willing to do on a regular basis. He felt completely justified in all his actions, and was also arrogant and boastful.

The new Enerjak, his persona supplied by Knuckles, was similar to the original but with noticeable differences. While still brutal and unforgiving, he retained the feelings Knuckles had towards his closest friends and family - in particular, his love for Julie-Su and his compassion towards Remington, the latter of whom was first to be restored to a normal Echidna state in place of his Dark Legion parts, and restored his memory that was lost when he was trapped in the Egg Grapes. Rather than acting as a conqueror, Knuckles/Enerjak sees himself as a deliverer, a bringer of peace to the people of Mobius - whether they like it or not. He also has Knuckles' general dislike of technology - no doubt born from years of living without it and fighting those who relied on it for power - blown completely out of proportion, in addition to thinking himself to truly be of divine nature and thus irrevocably in the right.

Abilities

Enerjak's abilities are highly varied: he was functionally omnipotent, and claimed that he could do anything by just thinking of it. Abilities Enerjak displayed included teleportation, telepathy, mind control, levitation, control over matter and energy at a molecular level, electromagnetic pulse generation, and super strength. He also commands a number of Chaos-based attacks, including the Thunder Arrow, a technique similar to Shadow's Chaos Spear. One of his favored methods of subduing any enemy or attacker is to restrain them with an energy field, leaving them helpless - and forcing them to listen to his tirades. These abilities make Enerjak seem somewhat similar to various super forms attained by other Mobians, though the form itself has more in common with Chaos Knuckles, a similar state of being reached by Knuckles. Like Chaos Knuckles, Enerjak is permanent so long as no extenuating circumstances - such as death or being subjected to a magical artifact or siphon device - drain Enerjak's powers and reduce him to whoever he was before becoming Enerjak.

References

*Archie Sonic the Hedgehog comics
*Archie Knuckles the Echidna comics
*Archie Sonic Super Specials