Sharla

Sharla (, Carna) is a playable character in Xenoblade Chronicles. She is a medic from Colony 6 who helped with the evacuation of the refugees after the Mechon attack. She is Gadolt's fiancée and Juju's older sister.

Appearance and personality
Sharla is a Homs of average height and build, with tanned skin, shoulder-length cool black hair, and brown eyes. Her main appearance comprises a short blue top, a brown vest, brown gloves, white shorts, and dark brown thigh-high boots.

Sharla's goal in life is to protect and heal others, both from physical and mental ailments. She freely barges into the walls people have erected around their insecurities and tries to knock them down, working to make them feel better about the situation and themselves, while not holding back on making it clear when they've made a mistake. However, her emotional loyalty is also her weakness; she is easily panicked and blinded from common sense by her devotion to loved ones, and cannot recognize when a situation should be given up.

Story arc
Sharla is a high-profile combat medic in Colony 6's Defence Force. She is fiancée of soldier Gadolt and adult sister of the teenaged Juju, and feels very strongly that it is her duty to protect both of them from themselves.

A year after the Battle of Sword Valley, Colony 6 is attacked by Mechon. The Colonel of the Defence Force, Otharon, orders Sharla to lead the evacuation of all non-fighters. Sharla resists for a moment, but is convinced by Gadolt to leave the fighting to them. She demands he promise his own safety before she hands him his rifle. The evacuation is successful, with a Refugee Camp established on Bionis' Leg, but Colony 6 is lost and almost completely destroyed.

About a month after the attack, Juju, upset with the lack of action towards retaking the colony, steals a buggy and attempts to head off on his own. He is rescued from wildlife and returned to the camp by two travellers from, Shulk and Reyn. After admonishing Juju, Sharla mistakes Reyn for being of Colony 6's force and questions him about its fate. Shulk and Reyn say they're from Colony 9, which was also attacked by Mechon, and are on a quest of revenge; their plan was to stop by Colony 6 for information. Sharla tells them that they believe Colony 6 has been occupied by the Mechon, and she believes that Gadolt and others are still fighting them. Juju wants to join the pair on their journey, but Sharla yells at him again for being foolish, and Reyn agrees. Sharla comments on how Reyn was acting just like Gadolt, but Juju has run off again, presumably to Colony 6 by himself. Shulk and Reyn are about to run off after him, but Sharla demands to know what they're talking about, and is told that Shulk has seen a vision of the future in which Juju is killed by a Mechon. Sharla doesn't entirely believe them but comes with them anyway.

Sharla guides the trio along the path she thinks Juju took, and find the buggy crashed. Shulk gets another vision that tells them where he's gone, and they follow. They reach Spiral Valley to find Juju captured by a tentacle-class Mechon. Sharla rushes in alone to save him, which was a very bad idea because of how the Mechon's tentacles can burrow out from anywhere without warning. But because Shulk foresaw this, he manages to save her by discovering a new power of the Monado, allowing its subjects to move very quickly. The trio fight the Mechon and eventually destroy it. Sharla slaps Juju and then hugs him, both upset and relieved.

Shulk is unnerved though, since this was not the Mechon in his original vision. His suspicion quickly comes true as a huge Mechon appears and unfolds - and speaks to them. The group are frazzled; this was not the Mechon that attacked Colony 9, but it also has a face and a strange immunity to the Monado. The mysterious, bronze faced Mechon grabs Juju and taunts the group while other Mechon arrive and attack. The trio cannot do anything to him and are beaten back, but the red glow across his body flickers and dies, and he suddenly becomes defensive. He then leaves, saying he's taking Juju to Colony 6 and implying he will be eaten.

Sharla has a rough time for a short bit afterward, fainting in the Refugee Camp for a few hours and having bad dreams about evacuating the colony, Juju, and Bronze Face. Once she awakes, she is desperate to go to Colony 6 immediately, and it somewhat surprised that Shulk and Reyn ask to come along. Upon nearing the colony's closed gates, it is suggested that they sneak into the colony through the Ether Mine, which Sharla believes is too complex a tunnel system for the Mechon to have taken over in just a month. However, they quickly meet Mechon inside the mine. Sharla panics, assuming this means there could have been no survivors, but Reyn calms her. Not long after, they hear gunfire, which Sharla assumes is Gadolt's. They join the fight to find Otharon instead, using Gadolt's rifle. Once the Mechon are defeated, Otharon says that Gadolt is gone along many others, them having failed an attempt to save the captured Homs, but that he is not dead, because the Mechon do not kill Homs right away. Shulk hesitates to continue because of a vision he receives, which Otharon takes as cowardice, and continues ahead without them on the plan he's been cooking up for a month.

Reyn and Sharla badger Shulk into telling them that he saw a vision of Otharon dying, and the trio continue down towards the Central Pit. It is empty and full of bloodstains. The bronze Face Mechon appears and taunts them, showing that Juju is still alive for now and that he's already eaten all the others. He calls himself Xord and sets a bunch of Mechon on the trio. Sharla, who had felt sick and distraught from the taunting, becomes enraged and leads the charge into the enemy. After a mostly ineffective battle, Otharon arrives in a piece of mobile artillery, and manages to push Xord into the ether river below. Shulk successfully acts to help Reyn save Otharon from falling in himself, and Juju is also rescued. Otharon gives Sharla Gadolt's Rifle, and the group leaves the mine, fending off Xord one last time before he is destroyed.

Exiting the mine, Juju wakes, and Sharla is relieved. But everything goes right back to chaos as Metal Face appears, bringing an army of Mechon with him, including several Face Mechon just like Xord. Dunban and Dickson arrive from Colony 9 to help, but they can only hold their own for a moment, and only a flyby from a strange creature causes the Mechon to leave. Shulk has had a vision that is telling them to go to the Bionis' head, so Dickson leads them through Satorl Marsh. Upon reaching the end of the swamp, he, Otharon, and Juju turn back, while Sharla says she's continuing on for revenge and the chance to find Gadolt.

The party move up the Bionis, collecting new members Melia and Riki, and reach the Prison Island of Shulk's vision. The Giant Zanza is released from the island, freeing new power from the Monado, but is killed by Metal Face as the Mechon attack. Shulk uses the strenghened Monado to fight off Metal Face as well as a new silver Face Mechon, which he opens up to reveal a Homs that the Colony 9 people appear to recognize. In the aftermath after the Mechon quickly escape, Sharla learns that this is Fiora, the killed friend and sister of Dunban that Shulk was on this revenge quest for in the first place. Shulk wants to go and get Fiora back; Sharla, still hoping to find Gadolt, continues to follow.

Pursuing the Mechon brings the party down Valak Mountain, where they meet the Mechonis leader Egil, and towards Galahad Fortress, where Metal Face is defeated once and for all. A battle within the fortress destroys it and causes the group to wind up on the Fallen Arm, where Sharla finds herself stranded with just Reyn. Reyn is depressed that he couldn't protect Shulk in the previous battle, or in general now that Shulk has gotten much stronger. Sharla gets him back together by talking about how no one in Colony 6 ever gave up in the war against Mechonis, and it doesn't take long after that to find both Shulk and a rescued Fiora. After that, they come upon the Hidden Village of the Machina people, and eventually relocate Dunban, Melia, and Riki. Sharla helps the Machina doctor Linada aid Fiora in recovering from being removed from her Face Mechon, and joins the group in meeting their leader Miqol. The Machina are tired of what their member Egil is up to, and wish him to be stopped. Once Fiora is ready to join them, they begin a climb up Mechonis.

A ways up the Mechonis, Sharla is doing maintenance on Gadolt's rifle. She finds it difficult to disassemble, so Reyn helps. Shulk offers to make her a new and better rifle, but she declines, and Reyn prods Shulk for not seeing that it was more than a weapon to her. Sharla thinks about how Gadolt was obsessed with killing Mechon and willing to die to defend the colony, and wonders what Reyn thinks about the issue. Reyn declares that he'll both win and live, as not a desire but a fact. Sharla thinks this is admirable.

Upon reaching the Mechonis' hip, the party is attacked from out of sight by a Mechon. It quickly reveals itself as Jade Face and speaks once - Sharla immediately knows it is Gadolt inside. After the group chase down the long-ranged Face Mechon, Sharla runs up and throws herself at him. Gadolt emerges from the rear of the machine and makes it clear that he is not himself, speaking of Egil in glowing terms and firing a deadly blast without mercy. Only Meyneth, the mystery being that is sharing Fiora's body, saves them. Egil's sister Vanea appears and explains that Egil has erased Gadolt's memories, and is now doing so to all Faces in order to make them better soldiers. Sharla is in complete denial.

To reach Egil, the party must traverse Agniratha, the Mechonis capital. At the end, they meet Jade Fade once more. Sharla continues to try and get through to Gadolt while the rest of the party prepares to fight. After some battle, it becomes evident that despite his brainwashing, Gadolt is missing Sharla on purpose, and the others start to join her in attempting to free him. Speaking through Fiora, Meyneth tells the party that she can restore Gadolt's memories if they can buy time, which they successfully do. A red wave of energy flows out of Fiora's chestplace where Meyneth lives, greatly damaging Jade Face and ejecting Gadolt, who has been cured. Sharla grabs him and tries to help him up, but he refuses, and tells the group that they need to stop Egil so others do not have to go through what he did. The party agrees and leaves him to rest, with Reyn giving him some water and him appreciating it. They reache and fight Egil, but they cannot beat him, and he leaves while setting up Agniratha to be destroyed. It seems like there is no time to escape, but Gadolt arrives in Jade Face to block an explosion for just long enough to save them, and he disappears in blinding light.

It takes some effort to get to Egil once more, but after a gruelling fight he is defeated, and Shulk finally convinces him to stop fighting. Unfortunately, Dickson is a traitor, and shoots Shulk in order to release the soul of Zanza from within him. Zanza, now revealed as self-serving god of the Bionis, kills Egil, destroys the Mechonis, and ruins Alcamoth. The party manages to get away and return to Colony 6, where they can recuperate for the next challenge against the real foe. Sharla's only opinion of all this is that it's terrible, and that the things she has suffered through cannot go unpunished.

To the end, Sharla remains steadfastly protective of her friends and loved ones, even if it all seems lost.

Sharla is briefly seen again at the end of Future Connected.

As a party member
Sharla is a decicated support character, chock-full of healing and buffing arts. She has a unique mechanic where her rifle heats up the more it's used, which weakens healing but amplifies damage, and she must eventually take time to cool it off. Having Sharla in the party is guaranteed to make the team more survivable - but it comes at a cost of making enemies also more survivable, as she is significantly less able to deal damage herself than any other party member. The ideal is that the player can make more out of their own survivability than the enemy can.

Trivia

 * In Japanese, Sharla is voiced by Akeno Watanabe, who also voices Ga Buidhe in Xenoblade Chronicles X, Monica in Xenoblade Chronicles 3, and Panacea in Future Redeemed.

Sprites
Sharla