Hellfriede Ripley

THE HELLFRIEDE FILES [1]

TW: Child soldiers

{Observation of SSC private soldier.

Name: Hellfriede Ripley. Callsign: SKYLINE.

Video File Transcribed By: ???}

The execution parades in the capital were always led by Metalmarks. The Assembly had been in bed with Smith-Shimano Corpro for a long time, and the light, easy steps of the mechs along the streets were coldly melodic. What do beauty and craftsmanship care for blood if the shedding can’t be remembered as artistic? Hellfriede stood with the other Cavaliers. They were always required to be present for the killings. Maybe it was to remind them that their uniforms were keeping them far away from the firing squad.

The people sentenced to death—the condemned—had been branded with thick, black words on their arms stating their sins. When they reached their final positions, they’d be bound to posts with their branded arms on full display for appropriate mockery. Beside Hellfriede, two Cavaliers muttered to each other about the remnants of a revolutionary cell. They sounded bored. In the heavens above, someone wept, but their tears fell to the city as nothing but a drizzle. Hellfriede closed her eyes when she felt the first drops. Two Death’s Heads mounted on opposite high rises in the central square, two Metalmarks leading the procession and two in the back, two White Witches waiting by the execution posts, invisible Dusk Wings stalking the grounds. Deaths like this had to be orderly, at least, if they couldn’t be beautiful.

A woman with the word “insurgent” on her arm was wearing red; the torn cloth draped over her was probably a cloak once. She was led by the same wrist shackles as those around her. Her clothes slumped off her body at awkward angles; she was slight and probably not older than eighteen. The person behind her hadn’t stopped staring at the back of her head. It might have been despair. It might have been hatred. The woman stopped walking. “She’ll die to the second Death’s Head,” Hellfriede said it only to herself. It was a reminder to stay still when the woman in red slipped her shackles and turned on her heel.

Previously dull voices rose in pitch. Footsteps fell out of time. Two Dusk Wings appeared and fired their Burst Launchers in sync, but the woman hit the ground fast enough for the explosive shots to collide in the air. The resulting fiery burst knocked an entire line of condemned off their feet. The woman disappeared under the wave of struggling bodies and rattling chains. The two Metalmarks in the back turned invisible. That didn’t matter because the woman emerged from the throng of bodies and shackles from a spot the pilots hadn’t thought to cover. A Shock Knife severed an entire inch from her hair, but she just kept running. Hellfriede watched like someone being forced to take an eye injection. Two Railgun shots went off. The first Death’s Head missed. The second one spread shards of the woman’s skull across the street. It was quiet again after that.

No one knew what to do with the headless corpse in the street, so it was ignored until after the executions. Hellfriede stared at the dead woman’s red rags as though she wanted to wear them herself when no one was looking. She didn’t. The Cavaliers met with the Assembly that day. They were still young—all around 13—and still training to be useful. It was their first true interaction with their planet’s leaders. The head of the Assembly was a woman with a name that sounded like her parents knew she was going to watch many people die. Hathor Grimm. It was a funny name that didn’t make anyone laugh. Ms. Grimm shook Hellfriede’s hand and Hellfriede stared down at their fingers. They both went to bed early that night. For Hellfriede, it was after vomiting and brushing her teeth.

Relevant Information

Hellfriede Ripley, the Liberation Day Champion.

Hellfriede Ripley was born on the Diasporan planet Varuvi in the confines of what is now known as the Old Capital. Her birth was part of Smith-Shimano Corpro’s secret Cavalier Program to develop ideal soldiers for private armies and classified missions. Hellfriede was immediately taken from her birth parents to be raised by a group of handlers who regularly assessed their aptitude in various areas: coordination, intelligence, obedience, etc. While in this phase of the program (which lasted for 11 years), Hellfriede befriended a girl named Dorothea. The two of them initially bonded over a mutual appreciation for quiet moments; they could often be found sitting quietly together and completing their assignments in tandem. The assessments showed that Hellfriede had great potential. As a result, she proceeded to the second phase of the Cavalier Program. Dorothea didn’t make it to the second phase. On the day of the program’s graduation ceremony, Hellfriede asked everyone where Dorothea was. No one could give her a satisfactory answer; they all just waited for her to stop asking.  

At age 11, Hellfriede started training to be a Lancer. By age 13, she had acquired her first two license levels in the SSC Monarch and had an integrated flight system in her mech. Hellfriede proved to be a terror in the sky during drills and was quickly developing a combat style adept at dispatching multiple opponents without help. Phase two of the Cavalier Program was far more openly brutal than the first. Multiple other Cavaliers were “pulled out of the program”. When this happened, a handler would list out their failures before a Dusk Wing appeared to drag them away. There was still never an explanation for what happened to them, but the threat hanging over Hellfriede’s head had become obvious. As the first series of missions for the Cavaliers approached, they were allowed a personal meeting with the Varuvian Assembly: their planet’s leaders. This meeting took place after an execution parade wherein “wannabe revolutionaries” were killed. When the head of the Assembly shook Hellfriede’s hand with all the care of someone who would sleep easily that night, Hellfriede started planning. She was going to need to climb the ranks and stay in the Assembly’s good graces.

At 14, Hellfriede went on her first mission: it was supposed to be simple reconnaissance on another planet in the same star system, but she and her allies were quickly met with resistance. Their opponents were also using mechs, though theirs looked far more scrapped together. Hellfriede took out the frontline with a series of hit and run skirmishes while others focused on the backline. The mission was a resounding success, but something didn’t feel right. With a year of subtle investigation and occasionally sucking up to those above her, Hellfriede learned that the people she had helped kill that day were the remnants of an older SSC experiment similar to the Cavalier Program. Apparently, SSC had “cut them loose” as a trial for their new Cavaliers. Hellfriede kept her head down.

By the age of 16, Hellfriede had acquired multiple more license levels. She wasn’t the best in the program, but was also far from the worst: a solidly middling soldier by program standards. Hellfriede intentionally scaled back her efficiency in combat, allowing others to have the spotlight and earn more praise. She befriended other Cavaliers and found that a good amount of them had bought into the Assembly’s rhetoric. It would have been immensely risky to try changing their minds. Hellfriede waited. She gave her formerly nameless Monarch the moniker Hell’s Sister.

When she turned 17, Hellfriede celebrated her birthday by finally requesting a TLALOC-Class NHP which she promptly shackled to her mech. Hellfriede’s limited experience with NHPs made her uncomfortable with using a sentient being in such a manner, but she needed a TLALOC for her plans to work. She acquired a Player_Two Neural Bypass to let the TLALOC have access to her body when she deemed it necessary. For two years, Hellfriede and her TLALOC discussed every possible way of killing the entire Varuvian Assembly and the other Cavaliers.

Hellfriede’s 19th birthday would go on to become Varuvi’s Liberation Day. She woke up early in the Cavalier training facility and quietly murdered every other Cavalier she could find along with their handlers. Alarms were eventually raised, but it was too late. Hellfriede had already mounted Hell’s Sister by then and launched her assault against the Assembly. The fighting lasted for 10 hours. It was 10 hours of seemingly endless skirmishing from Hellfriede and TLALOC. They picked off the Assembly’s ground soldiers and mechs with a ruthless efficiency that would come to be known as the Hellfire Style of combat. The two of them were utterly relentless, even for the final 6 hours when TLALOC was cascading. The revolution ended with one of the single most lethal uses of the Monarch’s core system—Divine Punishment—in recorded history. As the Assembly’s forces lay decimated, Hell’s Sister plummeted from the sky and crashed to the ground as a mangled scrap heap. Hellfriede had died, but miraculously, the TLALOC’s casket was able to be recovered.  

In the aftermath of Hellfriede’s revolution, SSC distanced themselves from Varuvi, unwilling to take direct control of the planet to avoid drawing Union’s full attention to their operations. The Liberation Council was formed to govern the planet with laws that abolished SSC’s genetic caste system and allowed for more personal freedoms like open critique of the government. Union’s attention was eventually drawn to Varuvi for one reason or another and plans were made to convert it into a Core World. The current planet capital of New Varuvi stands on the bones of the Old Capital and there’s a park dedicated to Hellfriede along with a statue of her in the city’s heart.

Hellfriede’s TLALOC copilot went on to become a legionnaire and take the name Torin. He joined a sect of Horizon Collective in the effort to fight for NHP rights. Torin also took the remains of Hell’s Sister and created a downsized, scrappier version of the original mech. According to him, Hellfriede had never really liked how “put together” the Monarch’s design was.

HER FINAL MESSAGE

{Subject: Hellfriede Ripley, Callsign: SKYLINE.

Video Recorded By: Torin, TLALOC-Class NHP.}

“… I thought about trying to start this with something that could inspire the people who hear it, but I wasn’t built to be a leader. I’m not going to lead anyone. I’m just going to talk instead. The reason why I’m doing this is entirely selfish. It’s not because I want to live a life outside what was chosen for me by SSC. No, ultimately, I’m just doing more of the same. It’s because I’m so, so tired. I’m tired of listening to the other Cavaliers gossip about the brands during the execution parades. I’m tired of standing between them and predicting which condemned man is going to run and lose their head for it. I’m tired of not feeling sick because of it anymore. I’m tired of this numbness that I’ve had to perform for so long because it’s not a performance anymore. I’m going to kill a lot of people. And I don’t know if I want to be praised for a lot of it. I’m just tired at the end of the day. That’s all there is. I need to do something before that goes away, too.” Hellfriede makes direct eye contact with the camera for most of the recording. There is bone deep weariness to her face as she speaks. She’s only 19. As soon as she’s done talking, the youthful exhaustion disappears, and her expression numbs into that of a murderer.