Emerl

Emerl (エメル) is a fictional character from the Sonic the Hedgehog video game Sonic Battle.

Emerl is an ancient weapon known as the Gizoid discovered by Professor Gerald Robotnik. Gerald attempted to nullify his destructive programming, but failed. In an attempt to curb it, he gave it the same qualities as his other creation, Shadow the Hedgehog, a "soul" based on that of Gerald's granddaughter, Maria Robotnik.

Emerl
Doctor Eggman takes the Gizoid in the hopes of using it to rule the world, but tosses it aside when it refuses to listen to him, due to his inability to establish a "link" with it. Sonic the Hedgehog finds it on a beach, names it Emerl, and he and his friends teach it how to fight. As the player plays the Story Mode, Emerl learns the abilities of the various other characters.

As Emerl has the ability to learn how to do anything, he is known as 'The Ultimate Being' in the Japanese version of Sonic Battle, as opposed to Shadow the Hedgehog being 'The Ultimate Lifeform'. In the Western versions of the game, Emerl is also called 'The Ultimate Lifeform'. As Emerl can learn how to do anything, it is supposedly one of the most powerful characters in the series. In the final battle against Sonic in Sonic Battle, Emerl uses all the "ultimate" skills (which is impossible for the player to do as it would exceed the maximum amount of skill points Emerl can obtain).

Emerl's gameplay is different from the other characters in Sonic Battle. When Emerl wins a fight in Story Mode, he gains a "card" depicting one attack or skill that belongs to the character(s) that he fought with or against, along with a number of "skill points" depending on how good he fights. The cards can then be equipped onto Emerl in order to let him use the attacks or skills of other characters, such as Sonic's "run" skill or Tails' "energy cannon" attack. Depending on how good these skills are (various characters are good at various skills), they cost a varying amount of skill points to equip.

Story
Emerl was originally created as the "Gizoid" more than four thousand years prior to the game by an ancient civilization referred to as "The Fourth Great Civilization" by Gerald Robotnik (although they describe it as "falling from the sky"). However, The Gizoid itself destroyed the civilization, and was lost. About fifty years prior to the game, Professor Gerald Robotnik found it in a warehouse, and took it to the Space Colony ARK for research. He managed to create a Link with the Gizoid, and figured out that it could learn how to do anything, and that it got stronger when absorbing Chaos Emeralds. He then started Project: Gizoid and equipped the robot with a "heart", a free-willed emotions-based AI. Unfortunately, the project was never finished as Gerald had to hand over the Gizoid to the government in order to buy more time for his Project Shadow, the research experiment to create the ultimate lifeform. However, the Gizoid soon absorbed a large amount of weapons, and decimated a large section of the ARK. The government then finally decided that Gerald's research was too dangerous to continue, cancelled Project Shadow, and killed or imprisoned all that knew about it.

Just prior to the game, Gerald's grandson, Dr. Eggman found the Gizoid, (most likely during his stay on the ARK in Sonic Adventure 2), and brought it to one of his bases. While experimenting with the robot, Eggman gave the Gizoid a Chaos Emerald which it absorbed. As he couldn't retrieve the jewel, Eggman got angry at the robot and threw it away on a beach, and went to create his own robots, the E-121 "Phi", from the Gizoid's blueprints, empowering them by shards of Chaos Emeralds that he had obtained and split into five pieces each. Later, Sonic the Hedgehog found the robot lying around on the beach and tried to communicate with it. The Gizoid only mumbled "Show... power... OR I sh...all ob...ey... Sha...ll conqu...r a...ll..." Sonic answered by showing off a few lightning quick moves. The Gizoid reacted to the moves, and created a Link with Sonic, without him knowing. Sonic, wondering what was up with the robot, decided to take it to Miles "Tails" Prower to ask him about it. However, he stumbled upon Shadow the Hedgehog who demanded that he was given the robot. Sonic fought him off and went to see Tails. He examined the robot and figured out that it could copy abilities and absorb Chaos Emeralds. Sonic and Tails then fought the Gizoid for a while, teaching him their moves. They then decided to give him a Chaos Emerald, and went to visit Knuckles the Echidna in order to borrow the one he currently owned. On the way they met and fought both an E-121 Phi robot and a rebuilt E-102 Gamma, who both escaped. When they finally arrived, Knuckles attacked the Gizoid due to a misunderstanding, but the Gizoid defeated him and absorbed the Emerald. After his second Emerald, the Gizoid learned how to speak, but could only say words that he had already heard, and always repeated them twice.

After discovering how the Gizoid worked, Sonic named it "Emerl" due to its Emerald-related nature, and started fighting the robot constantly to teach him new attacks. Tails, who wanted to learn more about the mysterious robot, instead wanted to take him to Central City in order to use a large database to figure out what he was. However, the data was forbidden and Tails and Emerl were attacked by guard robots, from whom they escaped. On the way home, they ran into Shadow, who again wanted to destroy Emerl. Tails and Emerl defeated him, and Rouge the Bat arrived to take the weakened Shadow away. The heroes continued home, only to run into an angered Knuckles who again challenged Emerl, but lost. E-102 then found them again, and the trio had to fight him off. After the fight, Tails finally got home to tell Sonic about the information he had found, namely that Emerl was created to be a weapon. Sonic shrugged it off, and started teaching Emerl more moves.

Three days prior to the game, Rouge had been ordered by the president to find out all she could about the Gizoid. She went to the database, and discovered that Dr. Eggman was already accessing the information. Upon being confronted, Eggman told Rouge that he had already thrown away the robot and then sent a Phi robot to attack her. Rouge destroyed it, kept the Emerald shard and left to find the Gizoid. She found it in the hands of Sonic, and tricked him into letting Emerl listen to her. When Sonic was away, Rouge then swiped Emerl from Amy Rose, who spent time with the robot as she thought of him as a baby project between Sonic and herself. After fighting off the protective female hedgehog, Rouge took Emerl home, fighting Gamma on the way. Once home, Rouge told Emerl that he was to become the world's greatest thief robot. She trained Emerl for a while and then took him along to steal a Chaos Emerald. However, once she got her hands on the jewel, Emerl took it from her and absorbed it, much to her dismay. Sonic then arrived to take Emerl back and Rouge left, saying that the immature robot could never become a master thief. After this third Emerald, Emerl started to talk normally, but could still only use words he had heard.

Knuckles, interested in Emerl's connection to the Chaos Emeralds and doubting that Sonic could make him into a great warrior, later decided to spend some time with him. Upon arriving at Tails' lab, the two friends saw on TV that two Emerl-looking robots were out stealing jewelry. Knuckles decided to do something about it, and took Emerl with him to destroy the copies. They ran into Gamma, and beat him yet again. Rouge then appeared, and told them that Eggman was trying to get his hands on Emerl. Knuckles and Emerl then proceeded to Night Babylon, a casino/nightclub area of Central City, where they asked around to where the fake Emerls were. However, Emerl was mistaken for one of the robber robots and they were forced to fight several guard robots. Eventually they ended up in Rouge's club, where they fought Rouge herself. After that, they quickly found two Phi robots, destroyed them, and took their shards. Rouge thanked them for stopping the Phis from attacking her club, and gave them her own Emerald shard. The echidna and the robot then continued their search and ended up destroying two more robots and creating a fourth Emerald for Emerl.

On one of her usual trips searching for Sonic, Amy again scared the blue hero away, and took it as a sign that he wanted her to take care of their "baby", Emerl. While Amy was overjoyed by Sonic's decision, Emerl ran off to fight two nearby Phi robots. Amy followed suit and they ended up with two new Emerald shards. Deciding that Sonic would be very impressed if she gave Emerl a new Chaos Emerald, Amy went on a search for new Phi robots. She first decided to train some, though. Amy and Emerl went to Amy's apartment, where Cream the Rabbit and Cheese the Chao temporarily lived. Amy then taught Emerl about boxercising, which Cream disliked. The trio fought for a while, until Emerl felt Chaos Emeralds nearby and ran off. Amy followed him to Night Babylon, where he found him insulting Rouge. After fighting the disdained bat, Amy started to explain only to be interrupted by two attacking Phi robots. After the Amy and Emerl destroyed the robots and took their shards, Rouge gave them another shard as well, creating the fifth Chaos Emerald for Emerl to absorb.

Eggman finally decided to take matters into his own hands and captured Emerl, along with Cream, and took them to the Gimme Shelter. While trying to escape, Emerl destroyed four Phi robots and got their shards, but was stopped by the shard-powered Gamma, as Emerl stopped fighting since it made Cream sad. After watching Emerl getting constantly smacked around, Cream decided that fighting can be good if it is used to protect someone, and attacked Gamma. Along with Cream, Emerl managed to defeat the robot and steal take its shard as well, creating a sixth Chaos Emerald. As Eggman came there to check up on things, Cream and Emerl managed to trap him and escape.

Prior to the game, Shadow had been hearing voices. Upon investigating, he found the Gizoid in Gimme Shelter. Rouge, who was also there, explained that it was The Ultimate Being (Ultimate Lifeform in the western versions) and that it was a weapon just like Shadow had been. The duo was then attacked by guard robots. They fought back most of them, but Shadow got injured and Rouge had to drag him home. Shadow had some disturbing nightmares, and decided that the weapon of mass destruction, the Gizoid, had to be destroyed before it got all the Chaos Emeralds. After a few attempts to take the robot by force (mentioned above), Shadow decided to simply tell Sonic his point of view. Sonic told him that Emerl could be made into a peaceful being by giving him all the Chaos Emeralds and saying "bring hope to humanity". Shadow then did just that, and instead of becoming an insane world-destroyer, Emerl continued to be his usual self. Impressed by the ultimate being, Shadow fought Emerl and won. He then decided to go all-out, and let Emerl train against all of his friends before fighting Shadow again, this time winning. After this Emerl got the chance to fights his friends again, except Sonic was nowhere to be found. Upon returning to Shadow, he also found Sonic, who wanted to fight emerl again, this time with Shadow. Emerl managed to defeat the two hedgehogs, and started living a normal life with his friends.

That didn't last long, however, as Eggman had finished his Final Egg Blaster, placed on his newly rebuilt Death Egg, and threatened the Earth with it. Using a teleportation device built by Tails, Emerl travelled to the Death Egg and defeated Eggman. Thinking that the doctor had learned his lesson, Emerl turned away to leave, as suddenly Eggman fired the Final Egg Blaster towards some nearby stars, destroying them. This overwhelming power activated a part of Emerl's program that his friends did not know about: if the Gizoid is shown ultimate power, it will break its old Link to form a new one with the owner of the power. However, it did not go as Eggman had planned, as the old Link breaking also included Emerl's personality to be deleted, and allowed him to turn into the weapon of mass destruction that he was built to be. Emerl spouted out some binary (it should be noted that the binary does not actually translate into anything), knocked Eggman out, and aimed the Final Egg Blaster at Earth. Thinking that Emerl could be stopped by negating the energy of the Chaos Emeralds, Sonic brought the Master Emerald to the Death Egg. However, Emerl got annoyed by the light the large jewel produced, and shattered it. Meanwhile, Tails had deviced a theory that Emerl's initial programming could be reversed again if he took enough damage, but this would most likely destroy Emerl's body. As it was the only way out, Sonic attacked Emerl, and succedeed with the plan. As Emerl started to break down, he reverted to his old personality and thanked Sonic for all the good times they had together. Sonic desperately tried to save his friend, but Emerl disappeared in a flash of light, leaving only the shards of the Chaos Emeralds behind.

Abilities

 * Like Metal Sonic, Emerl has the ability to copy abilities from other beings and machines.
 * Like Chaos, Emerl gets stronger (and smarter) with each Chaos Emerald he gains.
 * In Sonic X, Emerl cannot copy more than one being's abilities at a time, and takes a certain amount of time to do so. However, the Emerl in Sonic Battle can equip abilities from several characters simultaneously.
 * In Sonic X, Emerl is equipped with a jetpack, and this is why he does not need to copy flight ability. Emerl had this in the game, but he didn't use it, it just comes out when he uses Ultimate Jump, Sonic jump, or Emerl jump.

Personality
Emerl has varying personalities, depending on his allies. In addition to copying moves, Emerl also copies certain traits of the characters he interacts with. This leads him to adopt a personality similar to Sonic's in the games, but with traits from several other people as well. In Sonic X, however, Emerl is a silent bystander for the most part, with no known personality.

Emerl also develops bonds with the people he meets. These bonds produce particular results, such as with female characters: Emerl refers to Amy as "Mom" (This is because in Tails' story, Tails describes Emerl as "Sonic's Pet Project, his baby", causing Amy to believe Sonic is practicing for their own "little one" and tells Emerl she is his mother) and is also very chivalrous, giving Cream flowers (in Sonic X). He also becomes a very good friend of Knuckles. When Emerl knew he was about to die he quoted:


 * "And Knuckles... we had so much fun... Even though he is too... gullible... But he is such... a good guy... So, Sonic... don't tease him too much, okay?"

Knuckles liked Emerl too, and although he gets annoyed when Emerl plays a trick on him, he makes him his battle partner. However, Emerl has one serious drawback: he forms an immediate bond with the one with the most power. Since mostly evildoers are insane enough to do this, Emerl immediately forms bonds with them, although, he also forms an immediate bond with Chaos, who is (at that time) good. This is most likely because Chaos is one of the most powerful characters in the series. He also acts very strange when he senses Shadow's Chaos Emerald in Shadow's story. However, this wasn't exactly a link since Sonic gave a direct order to him to follow and obey Shadow.

E-121 Phi
The E-121 Phi is a series of fourteen Emerl-based E-Series robots made by Dr. Eggman. Dr. Eggman took Emerl's data and copied it as he stated in Rouge's story mode. The Phi robots are powered by Chaos Emerald Shards, rather than whole Chaos Emeralds. By the end of the game, all Phis are destroyed by Emerl and his friends as they collect Chaos Emeralds for Emerl to absorb.

The only physical difference between Phi and Emerl is Phi's grey hue and brown eyes, as opposed to Emerl's yellow and blue. The Phis ability to copy attacks is identical to that of Emerl, but since the ability is only powered by Chaos Emerald shards, as a whole it is weaker than Emerl's. They are about as intelligent as Emerl was when he had two Chaos Emeralds, and generally just repeat one word while speaking, such as "Located! Located!".

When battling a Phi, the Phi will have all of the techniques of a specific character, or Emerl's weak "standard" abilities. Notably, according to the Greek alphabet numbering system used for the E-100 robots, E-101 is Beta, not Alpha. Therefore, Sonic Team may have made a mistake when making Phi E-121 instead of E-120.

G-mel
G-mel appeared in the Game Boy Advance game Sonic Advance 3. According to the official Japanese website of Sonic Advance 3, Dr. Eggman created G-mel from Emerl's "data", but he most likely used some of Emerl's remaining parts. G-mel had the ability to "merge" with other machines, and as such co-piloted all of Eggman's boss vehicles. He was also fought by himself in Act 3 of the "Sunset Hill", "Toy Kingdom", and "Cyber Track" stages, and as a miniboss in the "Route 99" and "Alter Emerald" stages. Unlike Emerl, G-mel often uses his jetpack, either to fly or to tackle enemies. He can also teleport, fire barrages of missiles, and create a red energy shield around himself. Fans frequently call him "Gemel" or "G-merl", though there is no official English name.

If the player collects all of the Chaos Emeralds in the game, G-mel becomes extra final boss of the game and uses the power of the Chaos Emeralds to transform into a powerful orb-shaped machine. The Chaos Emeralds caused G-mel to become destructive, like the last time he had encountered the seven Emeralds together back in Sonic Battle as Emerl, and G-mel betrays Eggman by throwing him at Sonic before escaping. Sonic takes the discarded Emeralds, turns into Super Sonic, and teams up with Eggman to defeat G-mel during the final boss stage, which is named "Nonagression".

This round form of G-mel had four extendable arms with claw-like hands that could fire energy beams and missiles. His only weak point is his gem, which is protected and impossible to harm unless Super Sonic charges Eggman with energy and throws him at G-mel.

After G-mel is defeated, Cream and her mother, Vanilla, find his broken body on the beach, and take him to Tails. Tails then proceeds to repair G-mel and apparently remove his "evil" programming. In the final scene of the game G-mel is seen playing with Cream at hers and Vanilla's house. Notably, the music that plays during the Nonagression stage is a remix of Emerl's theme from Sonic Battle.

Sonic X (anime)
In the English dub of the TV series Sonic X, Emerl was called "Emel" because of a mistranslated R. An ancient robot recovered by Dr. Eggman, Emerl is activated by Bokkun to help him distract Sonic while the Doctor is being broken out of prison. With the ability to copy the attacks of anyone he sees, Emerl is a formidable opponent. He joins Sonic and co., particularly becoming friendly with Cream the Rabbit. As he watches Sonic and the gang in action, he copies their moves.

Like several other characters, Emerl enters into a fighting tournament for the red Chaos Emerald. After winning, Emerl absorbs the Emerald. His old programming, wiped because of his defeat at Sonic's hand, is restored, and he sets about destroying the area. Despite the efforts of Sonic, Knuckles, Rouge, Tails, and Amy, Emerl is unstoppable. This is because, since he can duplicate all their moves, he can match anything they throw at him.

Finally, Cream the Rabbit and Cheese defeat Emerl by working together, alternating attack patterns too fast for Emerl to copy. Overcome, Emerl fell into the ocean and sunk. He and Cream became good friends while he was around, and it broke her heart to attack him. The last thing that Emerl captured was Cream and Cheese crying, and he learned how to cry, moments before exploding.

Aside from a name translation error, there are several other differences between Emerl from the games and Emerl in the show. For example, he can't talk, and nothing is mentioned about establishing a link or the Emerl being the Gizoid.

Sonic X (comic)
In the ongoing Sonic X comic, Emerl appears to have mistaken Dr. Eggman for his grandfather Gerald Robotnik, and considers him to be his master. Emerl is also seeking his place in the world.

Trivia

 * In the Japanese version of Sonic Battle, all of Emerl's "spoken" text is written in katakana, a Japanese alphabet that is generally used for names and loanwords, instead of the ordinary hiragana.
 * Emerl somewhat resembles Pulseman, the main character from the Pulseman game produced by Game Freak for the Sega Mega Drive released only in Japan. The only difference is that Emerl looks like Pulseman without his synthetic skin and armor, which makes him look as if he was Pulseman's robotic skeleton.