Zahra the Hyena

Zahra is a female Mobian hyena that has the power of manipulate smoke. She is a main antagonist in Dimitri Chronicles, a series created by Chamesthehero. Introduced in Flames of Courage, the second installment in the series, she is the current empress of the fallen Sand Empire in the Scorched Dunes. Debuting in Red Roses, Black Hearts, Zahra utilizes her white Chaos Emerald to trigger the Great Chaos Sandstorm to isolate the desert from the rest of the world and, with the aid her terrorist group, the Inferno Bandits, desires to reclaim former lost territory.

A risible, driven individual, Zahra is the last blood-soaked imperial, a title given to the twelfth sibling of her people's imperial generation. She is keen on restoring her people's glory and eradicate their famine, though her methods become increasingly more gruesome as the pressure upon her shoulders escalates.

Character © to Chamesthehero/Lolcraft98/ProLuxray. In order of the usernames on Sonic Fanon Wiki, deviantART, and Youtube, respectively.

Physical Description
Zahra is a coffee-colored hyena with umber-colored skin who boasts an average height. Like the other members of her species, she has brown spots all around her torso, legs, and ears. She has a medium-sized tail and, aside from her long eyelashes, she has small, white eye.

This hyena has a long hairstyle that features two bangs and strips reaching her muzzle. She wears brown bandeau, boots, pants, and gauntlets. Zahra also wears black gloves. She wears a red-colored scarf and has red stains on her white, symmetrical hair that reaches her ankles. She wears an eye-patch and is always seen with a pipe.

When it comes to having a womanly figure, Zahra is above-average to the women her age. She has a sizable chest and hips but, as a warrior and empress, she does not show that much concern over her appearance.

Personality
Zahra is a strong-willed, risible individual that is resolute in restoring her fallen empire to its former glory. Red-blooded and eager to make the difference her predecessors were too scary to, this hyena willingly embraces the pressure of being the only remaining flame of hope her people have. Audacious as she is charismatic, her generosity and loyalty to her people are what make her confident and loved.

Being a spotted hyena, Zahra is seldom seen without expressing her emotions through laughter. This makes the tone of her voice always sound whimsical and laid-back. It is difficult to distinguish her seriousness from her attitude, though she is in actuality very maliciously manipulative. Besides being fearless in action and candid in words, she fully trusts practically no one aside from her main subordinate.

Coming from a culture of warriors, Zahra gets thoroughly interested in those that can match their might with hers and is someone that becomes excited whenever facing troublesome opponents. Although she is practicing and only shows this side to her subordinate, one of her hobbies is cracking jokes.

Although this hyena never admits it to herself, it seems this constant pressure has taken a psychological toll on her. Being the empress of a warrior-like people forces her to take difficult decisions that usually involve lives. This indifferent demeanor towards others that are no within her empire slowly progressed into an obsession to instigate its resurgence at all costs, no matter how gruesome or heartless her means are.

Strengths and Powers
The last blood-soaked imperial and the leader of the Inferno Bandits, Zahra rightfully earns her title as the strongest and most dangerous woman in the Scorched Dunes. Training under several imperial masters in her adolescence, for her people, she is the pinnacle of the spotted-hyenas in terms of power.

She has no recollection of the origins of her superpowers. However, since Zahra's power is practically unopposed, surpassing even the potency of the desert's Rainbow Dust, she has no problem inducing fear even on her allies. In addition, this hyena is also charismatic, embracing her role as an empress with utmost seriousness and reaching the hearts of her people with powerful speeches and innate generosity.

Zahra was born in a civilization where fighting is common-sight, hence the reason her fighting skills are extraordinarily better than someone else from a less belligerent culture. Her martial arts is an unique kind found only in her civilization. Aside from having an enhanced sense of smell, sight, and hearing due to being a hyena, she is rather fast on her feet and is also pretty strong, making her a force to be reckoned with.

Although arguably the strongest fighter in the desert, Zahra is not flawless. Generating smoke costs her energy so she cannot overexert herself in that regard. Her barriers of smoke made for protection are as almost fast as her mind, meaning surprise or blindingly fast attacks are effective against her.

Smoke Manipulation
Zahra has the supernatural ability to generate and manipulate smoke. With a strong affinity for this gray-colored gas, this hyena can alter its properties on a whim, creating impressive techniques for a multiple of offensive and defensive purposes. For example, she can absorb smoke from her environment to further increase the intensity of her own to create highly destructive blasts of thick, scorching hot smoke.

One notable property this hyena is able to solidify her smoke. She can compress its molecules to create weapons and barriers that can cause actual physical damage. Hitting her barriers is like hitting a brick wall, being hit by one of weapons is like being slashed by an unblockable long-sword. Considering she occasionally surrounds herself with smoke, close-range combatants find it extremely hard to approach her.

Aside from weapon construction, Zahra is able to create bursts of smoke from her limbs to thrust herself onto the air, though doing so consequently costs her energy. She can manipulate the toxicity of her smoke, allowing organic targets to become incapable of breathing through poisoning by smoke inhalation. Likewise, one of her signature techniques is teleportation through smoke to places she already visited.

Attaining a momentary link to the Chaos Force under the possession of a Chaos Emerald, the potency of Zahra's smoke is multiplied even further by Chaos energy and is granted mythical properties. An example of her feats include triggering a powerful sandstorm that covered a whole desert for several days.

== Creation and Development == The concept for this character was created during the production of what would have been the first installment of my series: a Flames of Courage that featured the events of Reign of Darkness strictly on badly-placed flashbacks. One could argue that Zahra holds the honor of being was my first main villainous female Sonic fan character. She even has a story-arc in which she is the titular character!

In terms of development, Zahra's Inferno Bandits were alarmingly similar to the Nightmare Seekers at first. Both were shady organizations based on each of their respective gods and attempted to revive them. It was then decided to leave that concept for the latter and give the Inferno Bandits a more realistically fitting goal.

Zahra has her personal foil: Ember. Their chemistry is intriguing for me since Ember was possibly the only one that stood beside this hyena in her childhood. I personally find them cute together. Like with Ember's design, Zahra also gave me troubles. The red stains on her white hair are supposed to reference her title.

This change greatly influenced this hyena's motivations and demeanor. On later iterations of the character, Zahra continued to be affable but the character itself became a lot darker. What both like and find it disturbing about Zahra, at first glance, she does not seem like the kind of person that would brutally murder all of her siblings to become the empress. The whole concept of being called "blood-soaked" fits her well.

Allies

 * The Inferno Bandits
 * Ember the Hyena
 * The Sand Empire 's residents

Neutral

 * The Brotherhood of Thieves (bullied them into submission, work together)

Enemies

 * Team Prinus
 * Dimitri Prinus the Echidna
 * Ramonna the Hedgehog
 * Maxwell the Fox
 * Tobias the Crescent

Fun Facts
(TBA)