Charmy Bee

Prince Charmy Bee is the prince of bees of the Golden Hive Colony. He felt pressured by his upcoming royal responsibilities and ran away from home, making his way to Angel Island. He found himself becoming a member of the Chaotix and assisted the group on Angel Island for time before returning home. When Golden Hive Colony was destroyed by the Eggman Empire, Charmy and his fiancée, Saffron, the two known survivors, fled to Knothole to tell the news. Together with the other Chaotix members, Charmy was taken prisoner during an attack on Knothole by Dr. Eggman that resulted in the city's destruction. Fortunately, he and the others were rescued by Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy Rose, and NICOLE. Charmy was briefly subjected to the effects of the Egg Grape Chamber before he was freed, though he appeared to be stable according to a preliminary examination with the exception of an unknown amount of memory loss.

Fleeing from Home
Charmy flew to Floating Island years ago in search of new types of flowers but also to get away from home. Feeling pressured by his status as prince, Charmy lashed out prior to a ceremony and ran from his family. His friend Saffron tried to speak with him about his problems but he ignored her, deciding to leave home for a while. Before he left, he ran into his friend Mello and told him he was running away to the Floating Island and to not tell anyone of his location. Once on the island, Charmy decided there was no harm in making new friends and soon encountered Mighty the Armadillo. (KtE: #14)

Member of the Chaotix
Eventually he joined the Chaotix when he and the others helped Knuckles save the Knothole Freedom Fighters. As a member of the team, he participated in battles with Enerjak, the Dark Legion, the Freedom Fighters, the Fearsome Foursome, and Mammoth Mogul. However, during a visit from Mello to the Happy Land Park, they were both poisoned after eating hot dogs covered in Happy Sauce. Charmy survived, however, Mello didn't make it. (KtE: #1, #2, #3, #13, #14, #15 KMS: #1, #2, #3, KCX, SMM)

Return to Golden Hive Colony
It was Mello's death that made him decide to return to his home and responsibilities, reuniting with his family and telling Mello's parents of his death. He, Saffron and others participated in the funeral before he bid farewell to his former teammates. (KtE: #13, #14, #15)

Having returned home, Charmy accepted his role as prince and allowed his relationship with Saffron to flourish. For a while, life was peaceful and slow for the young prince and his betrothed, but eventually the past caught up with Charmy yet again when Knuckles re-entered his life. Charmy and Saffron both witnessed Knuckles materialize before them as Chaos Knuckles as the Echidna was undergoing a number of mutations meant to turn him into a living Chaos Emerald and had no one else to turn to. Before Knuckles could explain what was happening to himself, they were approached by Nack the Weasel who got Knuckles to walk away with him under the threat of his sister sniping both Charmy and Saffron. The two bees decided to follow soon after and found Knuckles in the custody of the Albion Security Team and being painfully subjected to the Chaos energy draining effects of Dr. Finitevus's Chaos Siphon Suit. Hoping to save his old friend, Charmy and Saffron shrank down to flight mode and flew in to disrupt the process; however, when Saffron hit a button hoping it would stop the process, it instead reversed the flow and caused everything to begin to malfunction. After an incredible burst of energy, it was revealed that Chaos Knuckles' mutation had been accelerated, allowing him to escape.(StH: #93, #94)


 * Charmy would have no idea that the actions he and Saffron took that day would not only saved Knuckles, but also lead to the horrible transformation of Dr. Finitevus into a genocidal sociopath with the aim of nothing less than ending all life on Mobius.

Things went back to status-quo for a while longer, but tragedy struck their colony a year later, after Sonic was presumed to have died during the Xorda's attack. The ever-increasing Eggman Empire sent an army of Egg Pawns to capture the citizens of Golden Hive Colony. Few managed to escape, including Charmy and Saffron, while most were captured and sent into Egg Grape Chambers; the survivors were scattered. The two, weakened and struggling, made their way to the Kingdom of Acorn to inform them of the colony's destruction. Shortly afterward they both joined Knuckles and the Chaotix in their attack on Angel Island to free Knuckles' father. (StH: #138, #139, #140, #141)

Memory Loss
Over a year later, along with almost all the kingdom's population, Charmy was captured during the attack on Knothole that resulted in the city's destruction. While taunting the hostages, Eggman singled out Charmy, offhandedly remarking about he had destroyed the bee's home. Charmy remained defiant as Eggman selected his Egg Grape chamber for first activation. Sonic freed Charmy before it was on for long, and after everyone had been freed, Dr. Quack examined him. While he showed no physical damage, Charmy's mind appeared somewhat scattered and Quack suspected some memory loss. Tearfully, Saffron asked if Charmy remembered who she was, and he happily embraced her, saying he did. (StH: #175, #176, #177, #182)



Later Missions
Charmy spied on the Acorn Council to relay their decision concerning Enerjak to Julie-Su, and was later involved in the brief battle with Enerjak in New Mobotropolis. Afterwards, he helped with the construction of the bridge to the new Master Emerald island that had been created as a result of Enerjak battling Super Sonic. Later, when Knuckles, Charmy and Archimedes sat around the Master Emerald, Charmy made a remark that, in part, helped Knuckles get over some of his anger over the Enerjak situation.(StH: #182, #186, #191)

Later, Charmy and the rest of the Chaotix launched an assault on New Mobotropolis to take out the Dark Egg Legion and destroy one of Dr. Eggman's communications relays. He, along with Saffron and Ray, were responsible for setting explosives while the rest of the team attempted to kept the Legion busy. (StH: #189, #190)



Days later, after the Suppression Squad were returned to Anti Mobius, Charmy and the rest of the Chaotix aided the Knothole Freedom Fighters in their assault against the crumbling Eggman Empire. First flanking the Dark Egg Legion, Charmy, Saffron and Ray later played a key role in the fight against the Egg Phoenix. While Sonic distracted Eggman, the three placed Tails' Neutralizing Mines onto the ship's hull. Charmy said it was like "planting flowers", and Saffron dryly told him to hurry up. Once the mines were placed, Tails was able to disable the Egg Phoenix and force it to crash. Later, during the fight in the Eggdome, Charmy, with the help of Saffron and Ray, managed to save Espio and Mighty, who were under attacked and pinned before the trio intervened. After Mighty and Bunnie finished beating down the barricade the DEL set up, Charmy and the two teams entered to find Eggman defeated and they all returned to New Mobotropolis to celebrate.(StH: #196, #198, #199, #200)

Afterwards, Charmy and Saffron went to look for more of their people, and were thus absent as Angel Island came under attack by the Platypus division of the Dark Egg Legion and Dr. Finitevus. Later, they rejoined the other Chaotix on Angel Island as Espio returned to join his old comrades, having left them on orders from the evil Iron Dominion, who had gained the loyalty of Espio's people, Shinobi Clan of the Dragon Kingdom. After hearing of Espio's mission to observe Knuckles and Vector's Downunda origins, Charmy sought to be included. Espio attempted to jog his lost memories by revealing that Charmy had been a prince of the destroyed Golden Hive Colony, and that Eggman had nearly erased his mind. Unfortunately, that very incident left Charmy unable to recall the truth of Espio's words, which he blew off in disbelief. (SU: #11, StH: #212)

Personality
Growing up in the Golden Hive Colony, the responsibility involved in being a prince scared Charmy; eventually, the pressure and self-doubt caused him to run away from home. Having decided that there was no reason to not make new friends, he quickly befriended the other members of what would originally become the Chaotix and was generally friendly and fun-loving. He could be serious when need be, and possesses a true sense of duty that eventually brought him back home to reclaim his royal title and responsibilities. His demeanor became more serious following the loss of Golden Hive Colony, leading to a demonstration of serious defiance in the face of being captured by Dr. Eggman. After having a large portion of his memory erased by the Egg Grapes, however, Charmy became much more laid back and scatterbrained, reverting to a more childish state of mind. Despite this, he retained his dedication to opposing evil and his strong commitment to his friends.

Romance
Charmy's only known romantic interest and constant companion is Saffron, his only known fellow survivor from the Golden Hive Colony. The two have been together since their colony's destruction, first traveling to Knothole and then rejoining the Chaotix together. Even after Charmy was affected by the Egg Grapes, his affection for Saffron remained, one of the few memories apparently left relatively intact.

Abilities
Charmy's natural size is a little shorter than the average character, but he usually stays in "flight mode", his bee-sized form. Able to switch back and forth from small flight mode to large walk mode. This however seems to have been largely ignored since its introduction and seemed a way to explain inconsistencies in the way he was drawn, as his height is consistent in all other media.

Background Information
When Charmy was originally designed, he was portrayed as a teenager, as his age as of Knuckles Chaotix was 16. However, Charmy was portrayed as a 6-year old from Sonic Heroes onward. SEGA has not given much explanations for this continuity flub (it should be noted, however, that his age was not given in the original Japanese manual, but rather added for the releases outside of Japan). Because of this, the Egg Grape treatment was meant to cause him to act like the scatterbrained funny-kid he now is in the games. However, he already had his Sonic Heroes design by StH #138.

Appearance
Charmy is a black-and-yellow striped bee. His design initially mirrored that of the early video games; he wore a black flight helmet with red trim and goggles, white gloves, and white and red sneakers. His shoulders were red. He typically had a single black stripe on each antenna, though this varied between artists. With the release of Sonic Heroes, his character was reintroduced with a new design and the comic followed suit; Charmy now wore an orange vest with a bee emblem on the left, white and orange shoes, and white gloves cuffed with black. The red shoulders became black and the antennae now sport three black stripes each. Like many in the early days of the comic, Charmy was given light blue eyes; these later changed to yellow-orange.

Charmy is generally smaller than average in height; while more consistent in later years, early on his size would vary wildly from one appearance to the next. To explain this inconsistency, he was said to have the ability to change between his normal size and a much smaller mode for flight; however, this itself was inconsistently used and later largely ignored as his game redesign better established his height.

For a period of time, Charmy was drawn without his helmet; however, he was drawn with the same red trim of the helmet around his eyes, usually taken as a mistake in the interpretation of the design. Many other bees at the time were given the same odd treatment. For his coronation, Charmy wore a red cape, red boots, white gloves with wide cuffs, and a small crown. He retained the cape in a later appearance. For Bunnie and Antoine's wedding, he wore a tuxedo jacket and red cummerbund.