(A follow-up to
this. Enjoy and, hopefully, tell me what do you think. NOTE: Uplifts live a bit longer than their... more primitive predecessors)
"Humans make good shows out of their boomsticks, but they forget a major attribute every animal has: ingenuity. If we make them underestimate us, if we outwit them, if we make them lose control of the situation... they'll be more than just defeated. They will be destroyed. It'll be a small victory in terms of size, but it will be a victory nonetheless".
~ Cheche speaking to her ministers and troops, just before the Battle of Kilimanjaro.
"What is this madness?! Sister against sister, brother against brother, male against female... Disunity will only kill us, just as what man wants. If we want to bring down humanity, we must stand together and fight! Humanity alone cannot take down the colorful array that makes up our Coalition".
~ An excerpt from Cheche's famous Scavenger Hill speech, in which she responds to some hyenas' inquiries about the Coalition and the other hyenas.
Cheche was an important political figure during the Uplift Wars and the primary person of interest during the Hyena Revolutionary Wars. She was the first Leader of the Hyena Revolutionary League, one of the first Hyena political parties, and the first Chief Secretary of the United Authority of Hyena Clans. Among Hyenas and many other uplifted species (and there are
many), she is revered as the "uniter of Hyenakind". Notably, Cheche brought many reforms to Hyena society, being a staunch foe of misandry prevalent among spotted hyenas.
Cheche was born in Musoma, Tanzania, in a local zoo. Terrorized by nightmares, and eventually left orphaned when her mother suddenly passed away from an illness, Cheche was a quiet hyena of weak health. And yet, she was deeply insightful and intelligent. Unusually enough, Cheche managed to learn Swahili and English. Just as curious as any other uplift, she was overjoyed when a TV was installed in the zoo. Unfortunately, Lion King was playing at the time.
Cheche's entire life was changed when Cotton, an uplifted
blue monkey, and Panzer, an uplifted
common chimpanzee, organized an escape from the zoo. They allowed Cheche to join them. While the escape ultimately succeeded, Cotton and Panzer parted ways with Cheche, and the young hyena was left alone to search for her own kin. While Cheche was nearly booted out and killed when she was discovered in a library, reading a book while eating chicken, and was hungry for a long time, Cheche survived and thrived. She eventually discovered hyena villages in the savannah. During her life there, she has made many friends, and yet she came to be disgusted with the treatment of hyena males by hyena females (in Spotted society) as well as with the disunity of hyenakind. She enlisted as a teacher in the hyena villages, and was one of the first people to modernize the hyena education system. While distrusted by the matriarchs and the more conservative hyenas, she was beloved. In 2118, she fell in love with Zakia, a minor scavenger of Striped descent, and they became mates. In 2120, she became Chief of the so-called "Tanzanian Clandom", a large Hyena tribe in East Africa, when the previous matriarch, Dansi, gifted her the position for her many accomplishments and efforts.
As the Chief of the Tanzanian Clandom, she began her efforts to unite the Hyenas. The human authorities didn't pay much attention... until 2124. The paranoid Tanzanian administration cracked down upon the Hyenas and intervened, but this only caused a backlash as Cheche became even more radical and anti-human in her program to unite the Hyenas. In 2124, the Hyena Revolutionary League was founded; in 2126, Cheche left her position as Chief to become the Chief Secretary of the United Authority of Hyena Clans, an all-hyena organization founded thanks to her efforts, and just a few months later Cheche contacted the Global Rat Association[1]. All of this made humans of Tanzania even more scared, and, when all around the world the Uplift Wars began, Tanzania attacked first. Cheche was quick to respond. Her army, reformed just recently (in 2129), fought bravely and ferociously against the foes of Hyenakind.
While small, the
Battle of Kilimanjaro was prolonged and vicious, an example of exceptional brutality shown during the Uplift Wars. Mount Kilimanjaro was one of the Hyenas' primary hideouts. Major General David Chilemba, sent to quash Hyena resistance, deeply underestimated them, which is what Cheche expected. With 15,000 Tanzanian soldiers following Chilemba into the mountains, Cheche ordered several hyena battalions and brigades to surround Kilimanjaro, preventing the Tanzanian forces from escaping. It helped that it was an unusually misty day. Chilemba found himself cursing as he realized he has been outwitted and trapped by a mere hyena, all while Tanzania's young sons were killed by the hyenas. However, what could have been a strong, decisive victory has been foiled by American drones and help for the Tanzanians in the form of Kenyans (armed with flamethrowers), and, after a tedious battle, David Chilemba and Cheche were forced to the negotiating table.
After the end of the Uplift Wars, Cheche has become a celebrity among uplifts. With her reasonable nature and intelligence, and for her reforms and peacemaking efforts, Cheche was loved by the various uplifted species, even if she hated the spotlight, but has gotten herself many enemies. Cheche stayed the leader of both the Hyena Revolutionary League and the United Authority of Hyena Clans until her death on September 2nd of 2142. During her visit to Tanga, she stayed in a hotel. After having dinner (brought to her by an unidentified monkey bellboy), she went to sleep and never woke up. As it turns out, her dinner - raw steak - contained traces of poison.
While a controversial figure, and denounced by primarily human detractors as a torture technician, terrorist and puppet of the Global Rat Association, Cheche is still beloved by many Hyenas as the "uniter of Hyenakind".
[1]: Rats were the primary aggressors in the Uplift Wars, and some of the first species to be uplifted (alongside dogs, cats and parrots). Indeed - the uplifted rats are considered to have been the leaders of the united "Anti-Human Coalition" that fought in the Uplift Wars.