Ember the Hyena

Ember is a female teenage Mobian hyena that, through unnatural means, has control over fire. She is an antagonist in Dimitri Chronicles, a series created by Chamesthehero. Introduced in Flames of Courage, the second installment of the series, she is the second-in-command under the Inferno Bandits. Debuting in Red Roses, Black Hearts, Ember and her master Zahra successfully trigger the Great Chaos Sandstorm. Under the orders of her leader, Ember indiscriminately launches a terrorist attack in Red Rose Town before being confronted by Team Prinus.

Indiscriminate but extremely loyal to her master, Ember is a quirky individual whose most distinguishable features are her robotic tendencies. Despite being a spotted hyena, she has never laughed.

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

Physical Description
Ember is a carrot-orange-colored hyena with tan-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 also boasts beautiful lavender-colored eyes.

This hyena has a short hairstyle that features bangs. As the admin of the Inferno Bandits, Ember has a hickory and cedar-colored suit with a crimson-colored hooded cloak over it and boots with matching colors. She wears brown gloves and crimson-colored gauntlets filled with red-colored Rainbow Dust.

When it comes to having a womanly figure, Ember is below average to the girls her age. Since she never looked at her body that way, she shows absolutely no concern over her appearance. When she utilizes the red-colored Rainbow Dust to summon fire, her gauntlets and her cloak glow considerably.

Personality
Ember is a deadpan, eccentric individual that is different from other hyenas for not expressing emotions. Calm and extremely loyal to her leader whom she looks up to, her slow, monotone voice and methodical demeanor uncannily make her sound like a full-fledged machine. Likewise, she is frequently seen blurting out her actions and thoughts as if she was executing commands like a computer.

Unnaturally disciplined and methodical to the point of stiffness, Ember finds herself unable to understand and express most emotions, making her a misguided neutral force. Since this makes her impassive to the suffering of others, in a contrast to her fiery powers, she is a cold-blooded hyena that can blindly perform whatever atrocious crimes at the command of her supposed superiors without feeling remorse.

The minimal amount of emotion she normally expresses is a perverse interest in people who tend to be amusing to her in one way or another. Whenever encountering such a person, she always confirms that her target is locked. Despite never admitting it normally, she has an adoration for setting things on fire.

However, contrary to popular belief, no matter how much apathetic she seems to be, Ember does have suppressed emotions deep inside her heart which, whenever brought out, can make her catastrophically crack. Her personality makes an inversion as her demeanor and thoughts become explosively violent and incoherent since she is unable to contain her newfound emotions resurfacing all at once.

Background
Little is known about the history of Ember. However, from what is gathered from the annals of history regarding the fallen Sand Empire, this hyena was evidently born within the southern continent, Soumerca, its most famous desert, the barren crimson-colored Scorched Dunes.

Even as a child, this nameless hyena was notably different from the others. She was unusually strong and apathetic among warrior children her age and had a strong affinity to fire. She never had friends, never played, never participated in any competitions, never spoke, never laughed. Life was about survival under the fallen empire and she faced it with such an apathetic demeanor people wondered if she was ever in pain.

This nameless hyena survived in poverty for longer than she remembers. She never knew her parents who perished in a fire when she was very little. She does not even remember she was the one that instigated the fire while she was amusing her with red-colored Rainbow Dust. Playing with fire was an unfortunate mistake.

What the emotionless hyena remembers, however, is that it was during a fire that she first met one of the heirs to the throne of the empire, Zahra. The laughing hyena showed compassion towards the hyena and, considering how she had nowhere to go, became inseparable and became, to a degree unknown to someone like the nameless hyena, friends. It was Zahra who named her Ember.

Ember would accompany Zahra everywhere so many people began to wonder if she was her shadow. Perhaps it was curiosity or an obsession, but Ember began to take an interest in the laughing hyena and proved herself to be unnaturally loyal to her.

The so-called blood-soaked imperial would occasionally share to Ember her dream of unifying the empire so it could make her people happy. Ember continued to remain silent so she could, too, try to understand the one she considered her master. Naturally, she never agreed or disagreed, but merely followed inputs.

When Zahra became the empress after killing all her siblings with her newfound power, Ember was formally trained for some time under her in order to use the most appropriate kind of Rainbow Dust Zahra thought fit her ally best: red-colored. Ember's genius allowed her to quickly learn how to use it to its fullest potential.

Some time passes by, and Zahra uncovered the white Chaos Emerald lying down on Scorched Dunes. Using its chaotic power, the hyena felt her people's reemergence was possible and created the Inferno Bandits. Becoming its main admin and the hailed as a monster, while the regular grunts steal Rainbow Dust from Red Rose Town, Ember was in charge of causing as much collateral damage as possible...

Strengths and Powers
Ember is, undoubtedly, a dangerous individual. Possessing enough natural strength to stand out from the other hyenas of her ruined empire, this hyena shows little interest in embracing moral concepts and carries out given orders without objection. As a consequence, she always shares similar goals with Zahra, even though she does not necessarily agree or disagree with her. All is ash in her wake.

Trained extensively in her empire's system of combat, Ember is always methodical and pragmatic on the battlefield. She does not take risks and occasionally uses her environment to bring her to an advantage.

Ember is a talented genius whose natural affinity with the element of fire grants her complete control over it while using the red-colored Rainbow Dust on her gauntlets. This hyena has an impressive arsenal of refined fire-based techniques. Although the element's burning, ever-consuming aspect sparks a sharp contrast with her usual demeanor, after being driven to the edge, it reveals its similarity.

Despite being a feared terrorist with good reason, Ember is not without flaws. She specializes in ranged attacks, and so she shares similar unimpressive physical attributes of other regular hyenas. While her expression and tone remain unchanged, Ember's patience is not limitless and so is her Rainbow Dust.

Fire Manipulation
Ember is able to harness fire through several gauntlets she wears on her arms. Filled with fire-colored Rainbow Dust, her gauntlets allow her to freely manipulate and generate flames at will. As long as the hyena wears those gauntlets, she has complete immunity over such element and can absorb other surrounding embers to further boost her destructive capabilities. Many within her group fear her like a monster. Having mastered the art of flame weapon construction, Ember can summon pillars of fire from the ground, generate medium-sized flaming tornadoes, create flaming whips, release strong bursts of fire in all directions that consumes everything around her, and even create all-consuming fireballs of various sizes on a whim.

Ember's signature move is called Flames of Disaster. She covers herself with a fiery aura and, charging enough fire, shoots a massive dragon-like construct made of flames upwards. The dragon, soaring through the skies majestically, then descends on the target and explodes as an all-consuming sea of fire.

While this powerful technique can be used multiple times, it leaves Ember vulnerable as she charges the attack.

Berserk Form
Also known as Ember Phase Two, it is a state attained by the hyena when her emotions are unleashed full-force. Unable to control her newfound emotions, Ember goes berserk, acting upon the desires of her heart as her mechanical personality is completely inverted to hyper-aggressive one, though it can be attributed to her unbearable headache that makes her seemingly lose almost all rational thought.

Her master, instead of helping her subordinate cope with the emotions, made a deadly weapon out of her. Debuting in The Blood-Soaked Empress, through the aid of the Brotherhood of Thieves, the Inferno Bandits collected all kinds of Rainbow Dust from Red Rose Town and gave them for Ember to use. This resulted in a warrior that controls and is immune to fire, earth, water, wind, lightning, darkness, and poison.

With the combined power of all sorts of Rainbow Dust, Berserk Ember is easily able to leave large-scale craters with her powerful attacks. Even Dimitri believes it is possible that one, concentrated attack from Berserk Ember would be able to destroy the entirety of Red Rose Town in one-go.

Berserk Ember's signature attack is an upgrade of Flames of Disaster, Wings of Light. She summons massive twin omni-elemental dragon-like constructs that follow the target. Once they collide with the target, an explosion would occur that leaves a very large crater behind. The drawbacks of the technique are that it leaves Ember vulnerable as she charges the attack and it costs a lot of Rainbow Dust to perform.

Although Berserk Ember can possibly outmatch an army when it comes to firepower, her physical strength remains underwhelming, she merely acts on instinct, and the extreme emotional overload can make her faint mid-battle, making her a glass-cannon. This state cannot be voluntarily activated by her.

Creation and Development
The concept of this character was created many years ago when designing characters for what would be the first installment of Dimitri Chronicles. Back then, she was developed from the start that she would serve as Zahra's right-hand woman and a quirky admin from a bunch of terrorists. Her development was postponed when Reign of Darkness entered production, though I had some ideas already.

Fast-forward a couple of years, and what path Ember's development should go to is clear. Considering her already-established affinity with fire, she became heavily based on a character from a popular game. The idea of creating a Mobian that resembles a machine looked fun and made a contrast with risible Zahra.

Overall, what makes this character so cool to me is the idea of an inexpressive person suddenly experiencing genuine, extreme emotions despite their perpetually cold, empty mask. In terms of scariness, she definitely beats most characters in my cast. Always fear the wrath of a very patient woman.

Friends and Allies

 * The Inferno Bandits
 * Zahra the Hyena (her only friend)

Neutral

 * Everyone else that she is not affiliated with.

Enemies

 * Dimitri Prinus the Echidna (second person to make her emotions surface)

Fun Facts

 * Ember is inspired by the rendition of Courtney from the game Pokémon Omega Ruby.
 * This is the second time an admin of a villainous team of a Pokémon game inspired a character in the series.
 * Ember can calculate numbers at a rate akin to high-tech calculators. She should be your partner in Math class!
 * Many of her fire-based techniques are reminiscent of the Pyromancy used in the game Dark Souls.
 * Ember was originally a coyote, but the idea was scrapped.
 * The names of her signature moves are allusions to bosses from Sonic the Hedgehog (2006).
 * Flames of Disaster refers to Iblis, the raw power of Solaris.
 * Wings of Light refers to Solaris, the sun god worshipped by the people of Soleanna.