Riccardo Alighieri

Riccardo with his blade.

> *"Wendesian swordsmen like to play kings and castles, always giving speeches on chivalry and the like. Oldest trick in the book? Stick 'em between the ribs while their talking." - Riccardo on fighting Wendesians*
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**Riccardo Alighieri**, callsign **CHIMERA-3**, is the melee specialist and assassin of JSF Chimera. Alongside his Ark, the wildly maneuverable Jolly Roger, Riccardo speeds through the battlefield unseen using his monoblade to cleave enemy arks in two. Along with all JSF Chimera and Nemean members, he is classified as a Hyper Lethal Vector. The Omen most often sends Riccardo out to cripple key enemy defensive positions before an assault force arrives.

## Jolly Roger

Jolly Roger is an advanced version of the HBA-211, also called the Hullbuster.

## Appearance

### Riccardo Alighieri

Riccardo stands at somewhat short 5'7 and has been aggressively toned by years of swimming and freeclimbing, his two primary hobbies. He is covered head to toe in traditional sailor and military tattoos, the largest of which is a full backpiece of the first Merchant Marine ship he served on. Many of these tattoos are interrupted by thick and aged scars, as a swordsman is never without old wounds. Outside of his armor he has salt and pepper black shoulder-length hair and a large matching pair of muttonchops. His skin is an olive hue common to the Ambrosian Isles, and his eyes are a soul-piercing gray.

### Jolly Roger

Jolly Roger is an Ark that Riccardo has had the last five years, and his sleek gunmetal gray form is an advanced refit of the HBA-211 "Hullbuster", a Mondanian/Ambrosian collaborative design normally outfitted with an Arkslayer blade and two Arkslayer daggers, to slice open the hulls of enemy ships. Due to this, the model is designed to be watertight and can be fully submersed for 10 minutes without issue. Over their time together, Riccardo has added numerous small sigils and paintings to Jolly Roger, leaving him looking just as heavily tattooed as his pilot.

## Personality

### Riccardo

Riccardo strongly believes in the adage that actions speak louder than words. In combat he is deathly quiet, brutally cutting his way through enemy lines as he allows Jolly Roger to talk in his place. It is not uncommon for people to believe Roger's voice belongs to Riccardo, and are often jarred by the pilot's soft-spoken Ambrosian accent. He is quite friendly with the other members of Chimera, and often takes a mentor role with new recruits to the team. At their home base he is often out on short trips to the local mountain range, where he will freeclimb for hours or days on end before returning just in time for missions.

### Jolly Roger

Jolly Roger talks and acts like a pirate, and seems to think of himself as some sort of handsome swashbuckling hero. He is quite friendly with the other Arks of Chimera and Nemean, and often jokes about La Lionne's lack of sentience. Roger seems to take great pleasure in dueling other Arks, and unlike his pilot he enjoys trash-talking the opposition even as they battle.

## Military Record

* **AMBROSIAN MERCHANT MARINES [9 YEARS]:** Recruited from his fishing village at 18 to avoid poverty, Riccardo dutifully served in the Ambrosian Merchant Marines for 9 years. During this time he found exceptional skill in stealth and assassination. He would start out simply killing key targets, and by the end of his tenure with the AMM Riccardo was leaving entire pirate forts as ghost towns. Ambrosian naval officer **[REDACTED]** suggested he be brought into the Ark pilot program due to him "repeatedly showing he is a more than Hyper Lethal Vector."
	+ **Operation Red Tide:** Riccardo was sent to the pirate settlement of **[REDACTED]**, an unofficial colony off the coast of **[REDACTED]** Island. He was instructed to clear out the entire village on his own, and over the course of two weeks the entire population of 1,068 was slaughtered. *"The Ambrosian Merchant Marines have always said that in an official capacity, no civilians were killed in Operation Red Tide."* Hyper Lethal Vector status awarded and inducted into Ark Pilot Program.
* **ARK PILOT PROGRAM [2 YEARS]**
	+ *Exceptional ability with monoblades and Arkslayer tech noted.*
* **JSF Chimera [7 YEARS] [ONGOING SERVICE]**

## Loadouts

### Pilot

* **Graphene Blade (2):** Something Riccardo had custom made for him after he left the Ark Pilot program, this weapon is a substantial upgrade from the sabers and cutlasses he got used to in the Merchant Marines. The length of the blade has countless ticks carved into it along its length, demonstrating the lethality of both the weapon and its wielder.
* **Infiltrator Plating (1):** Scaled down version of Arks Infiltrator coating, utilizes light refractory waves to conceal the wearer. Rendering them nearly invisible to the naked eye.

* **Leg Prosthetic Augments (1):** Cybernetic leg(s), grants stability and strength.
	+ **Cliffjumper's Package (1):** Enables feats such as leaps upwards of 20 feet.
	+ **Silent Running (1):** No audio feedback from running, walking, or landing from elevated height.
* **"Lucky Bastard" TFM-454 (2):** 11.5x35mm 5 round cylinder | Single Action | 579 m/s (~1900 ft/s)
	+ Taken off the Pirate Mayor of Red Tide, this TFM-454 has stayed with Ricky throughout his service and has the wear to show for it. Its cylinder, once intricately carved with a naval battle scene, has since worn down to a smooth silver surface. Scrollwork along its barrel is interrupted by scratches and dings, but the gun itself is structurally perfect. Wrapped around its handle is a small necklace with several gold teeth on it.
* **Battery Back-up (1):** Gives yourself a backup battery to counter EMPs against yourself or your Ark.
* **Grapple Tool (1):** Grapple is mainly utilized to enhance user mobility. Can be used to effectively latch and reel individuals or mount friendly or hostile Arks with ease via adhesive claw grip.

### Ark

* **Medium Armor (25)**
* **Rocket Pack (10):** Installed boosters on the back of an Ark that allow it to rocket-jump up to 10 meters (33 feet) in a forward arc. Using it 3 times consecutively will result in a 1-minute cooldown period to prevent overheating.
* **Advanced Hydraulics (10):** Upgraded hydraulics in the legs allow the Ark to move roughly 150% faster than regular Arks of its class and allow it to pull off short-ranged (5 meter/16 feet) jumps.

* **Ark Grapple Tool (10):** A larger version of the Grapple Tool available to Ark Pilots, mainly utilized to enhance Ark mobility. Can be used to effectively latch and reel individuals or propel towards friendly or hostile Arks with ease. Can also be used as a towing cable to drag objects without using limbs.

* **Infiltrator Coating (10):** Stealth generator systems that conceal the Ark by utilizing light-refractory waves around its plating. Conceals about half of the Ark's mobility. Disables if combat is initiated, via weapon discharge or incoming damage. Ineffective against radar or thermal optics.

* **Physical Shield (5):** Gain a deployable or permanent shield on a limb to gain directional defense from incoming damage. Ammo from class 1 weapons will glance straight off the shield, with class 2 weapons dealing some damage to it though still not piercing through unless sustaining fire. Class 3 weapons and above will deal damage to the shield and eventually destroy it if fire is sustained, with class 4 weapons piercing right through it, though still reducing the damage dealt to the Ark.

* **X-ray Vision (5):** Standard X-Ray capable of seeing through solid walls and objects. Negates Infiltrator Coating. Cannot penetrate lead structures*.*

* **Monosaber (25):** A saber-shaped sword with a luminescent, blue blade edge when active. Around the blade, an invisible field is projected. This field forcibly pushes matter out of the way of the blade on a molecular level, allowing it to slice seamlessly through any material, be it sheet paper of tank armor. The saber has an additional, "last-resort" ability in which it can charge all of the power cell's stored up energy into the blade, which is then projected in a forward-moving, crescent energy slice when the wielder swings the blade. This crescent wave travels about ten meters and can cleave larger-class Arks in two, but at the cost of using up all of the Monosaber's energy. Due to the larger size of the blade, it offers more reach but less mobility than the *Monodaggers*. **Remains active for 1 minute before a recharge is required.**

## Trivia

* Riccardo's character creation also lead to the creation of the Ambrosian Merchant Marines.
* Riccardo and Jolly Roger have the same skull and crossbones tattoo on their chest.