Shalia Flippo (Cataclysmic Gerosha)

Shalia Amaya Flippo (neé Hood) is a character in Gerosha universe who features prominently in The Battle for Gerosha. She is the daughter of Dwayne Lloyd and Marissa Hood, the wife of Stan Flippo, and the mother of several children.

Early life
After escaping India with her life, Alexis Hood, pregnant with the child of her late husband Sadasheeva Cherupara, was able to acquire a cabin in the forests of near Eskew Road and Cypress Creek, not far from the rail tracks leading into and out of Boonville, Indiana. Working various odd jobs to support herself while walking into town and back home, Alexis gave birth to her daughter Marissa on February 8th of 1923. However, while basic survival was all Alexis had at that point, Marissa sought to ensure that any child she had in the future would be allowed to pursue something more from life. Marissa sought out every chance to improve her education, in the off chance that she might teach her future children what Alexis couldn't.

After Alexis died on July 15th of 1936, ownership of the estate fell to her 21-year-old daughter. Marissa lived alone for many years; but was eventually sexually assaulted in 1956 when the fugitive Dwayne Lloyd broke into her cabin. Marissa, in spite facing social pressure from godless men to sneak away and have an abortion, adamantly refused. She instead elected to remain in the cabin, and raise the child that resulted from the rape the same way that her mother raised her - but with more emphasis on letting the child pursue his or her dreams.

Marissa's ability to put her convictions finally were put to the test, when she gave birth to her daughter, Shalia, in 1957. While a talented pianist at school, Shalia aspired to change the world. She saw underlying currents of supernatural evil infecting every level of human existence - but especially the political sphere. She therefore saw a future in politics as something worth pursuing, hoping her voice would combat the darkness. "Ultra-leftist" causes, as well as causes championed by sympathizers of the Hebbleskin Gang, were seen by her as great evils that demanded immediate response and resistance. Shalia was able to become class president in her 6th grade class; but the teachers asked her to tone down some of her anti-Hebbleskin rhetoric.

Shalia from there became interested in the affairs of the so-called "Phaelite Society of Earth," though Marissa cautioned Shalia that not all Phaelites were good. Shalia was often bothered by the fact that she and her mother were so alone. No one at Clarke Elementary School impressed her much. However, her life changed when the day came that she discovered that she wasn't alone after all.

Meeting Stan
At the age of 14, in 1971, Shalia went through the woods to make her way to Eskew Road, in the hopes of walking into town and selling some of her excess berries to a local farmer's market. That was when she ran into Stan Flippo in the woods - as he was gathering supplies to makeshift some more paint to finish a painting he was working on. The two were instantly smitten with one another. The two spent several weeks, then months, comparing notes. Shalia met Tobey, and then introduced Stan to Marissa. In spite some backlash from townsfolk, Stan and Shalia soon became inseparable. Tobey and Marissa shared everything they knew with their children about Henry Lohtz, Lord Zeras, the Order of the Oraphim, Society of the Icy Finger, the Phaelite Society of Earth, and the Hebbleskin Gang.

Alas, in 1972, at the age of 61, Tobey Flippo had a heart attack and died. Marissa started complaining of seizures, and urged the couple to get engaged. Stan's athletic performance resulted in him getting noticed quickly, and he was able to join a minor league baseball team. He used the money to save up, so he and Shalia could embark on an expedition to uncover Lohtz's treasure. Tobey believed the time was right for the lost wealth of Lohtz to once again make a difference in the world - especially with increasing Hebbleskin Gang activity in Idaho and Indiana.

The Gerosha Code put to the test
Marissa died from a stroke in the summer of 1974. Running out of good alternatives, Stan and Shalia immediately eloped. They took some time off from Stan's baseball career, and left the cabin behind in search of the treasure. Following the map passed down through Tobey's family's history, Stan was able to uncover a hidden cavern below some weeds near what has since become the Sea Aire Oceanfront Inn. The couple rented a motel nearby. They made several trips to the beach and back to the motel, taking about a month total, to collect everything. After they were finished, they rented a UHaul truck to load their treasure onto. The couple had their respective cabins in the woods near Boonville filled with recovered treasures. When they began to turn in the majority of the recovered treasures, they discovered themselves becoming envied by entire other nations in a hurry! The couple secured their wealth where they could, and braced for impact as the IRS and other agencies became curious of their newfound wealth. As the dust settled, the overall wealth of Stan and Shalia Flippo had suddenly climbed to $1T. Most of all, Shalia protected the Gerosha Stone - both the inspiration behind the Gerosha seal, in-turn inspired by the Gerosha Code, and a proof that Lohtz was behind the treasure.

Reily born
As Stan's baseball career took off, Shalia became involved at City Hall in Boonville. She also got involved with groups like Eagle Forum, and was quick to challenge textbook publishers that she noticed were replacing real math and history with "garbage propaganda." In spite being able to metaphorically pin the guilty to the wall, she often found herself frustrated by the masses that elected to blindly go along with psy-ops, believing that these institutions "would never" want to advance an un-American or ungodly agenda.

In 1975, Shalia gave birth to her son Reily. The boy grew interest in watching cooking shows, as well as wanting to improve his mother's home recipes.

The Hebbleskins arrive
As Shalia was making more of a difference during the Reagan years, the high crime that began in the 70s began to taper slightly. The Flippos grew less strict about their old enforcement of the Gerosha Code, and moved out of the cabins. They had plans to build a fancy new house for themselves, called the Triangulum, that could serve as a museum for the town after their deaths. Shalia even considered running for mayor, though she was unclear if the town would embrace the Gerosha Code entirely, and actually agree to be renamed.

However, her culture war prowess resulted in Shalia being invited to speak at several functions. Marxist and Hebbleskin fronts alike started promoting violence against the entire state of Indiana, as well as forging conspiracies to have her assassinated. Most of these never led anywhere. After a heated debate with a Hebbleskin sympathizer, Shalia won in a decisive manner. This irritated the Hebbleskins' chain of command to no end, leading to an attempt to launch a nuke on Boonville. Shalia's growing connections, however, resulted in the holding bay of the weapon being exposed. FBI agents quickly descended on the location, and those Hebbleskins in question were killed in a shootout. The bomb vanished, and the CIA and media outlets did their best to cover up the incident to the general public.

Duke Arfaas swore revenge, vowing to capture the entire town in order to punish the Flippos. Worse: he began to believe that one among the Flippo line was going to be the ultimate destroyer of his operation on Earth, disgracing him before the Hebbleskin Empire back on Metheel. His plants inside the Phaelite Society of Earth were able to steal the journal of Insila Murtillo, learning of the use of Grandma Centipede to ensure one of Stan's children could manifest the abilities of a Centhuen Prototype. The "Gifted One of the LiPo" prophecy was vague; but Arfaas became convinced that "Gifted Flippo" meant that a manifested Centhuen Prototype coming from the line of Stan and Shalia Flippo would be his end. As such, his paranoia and obsession with destroying the Flippos grew.

Around that same time, Stan got to meet his son Darius Philippine, half-cloned by the same scientists that infused Stan with their centipede program. The more Hebbleskin-related trouble that brewed, the more Stan became interested in helping Darius with creating a liaison organization between the Phaelite Society of Earth and the US National Guard, able to respond to Hebbleskin and Icy Finger growing threats. Shalia heard them discussing this, and noticed that the Gerosha Stone was a French scallop seashell. She suggested that they name it the "Security-Centric Alliance Lending and Learning Of Phaelites." While Stan and Darius were puzzled by this at first, she suggested that it would allow the new organization a really good excuse to call itself "SCALLOP" for short.

On June 4th of 1984, the Flippos became friends with a Japanese inventor interested in moving to the US: Imaki Izuki. He was working on special projects related to Zeran tech: Zeran wardrobes, Zeran teleporters, and Remotach pills. With help from Phaelite scientists, he hoped to one day perfect these breakthroughs, as ways to grant Lord Zeras' original abilities to almost anyone via gadgets. He could then also allow them a fighting chance to survive, even if captured and mutilated by Hebbleskins enforcing Decolarent eam, eviscerate eum.

Reily kidnapped
Reily was abducted by the Hebbleskins in the dead of night one summer day in 1989. Phaelite troops arrived to fight back against the Hebbleskin raiders, but were unable to save Reily right away. Stan and Shalia were spared from execution, but barely in the nick of time. Reily was eventually rescued by a crew that worked directly under Darius, but not allowed to return home immediately. Along the way, they discovered that Shalia supporters Geoffrey and Patricia Wyer had been brutally executed by the Hebbleskins for their political leanings. Their frail in health daughter, Erin Wyer, was being taken by the Hebbleskins in the same vehicle as Reily - presumably to be turned into a Meethex-1 Milthuen Prototype against her will. The children were kept at a safe facility near Evansville, as Darius called in reinforcements to deal with Arfaas' growing insanity and wrath.

Stan and Shalia were kept guarded inside a room at the Motel Manor. Jealous of the fact that they cared so much about Reily as their son but treated Darius as an outsider to his own family, Darius didn't update them on Reily's situation right away. He reasoned to his patrols that Shalia knowing where Reily was might lead her to do something foolish.

Captured by the regime
Darius assigned a National Guard team, led by one Mitch Brandell, to seek out any Hebbleskins in the area, fearing that the police wouldn't be able to handle the impending onslaught. In the spring of 1990, however, the Hebbleskins made their move. Stan was away playing at a game, and Shalia's guards were ambushed. The Hebbleskins put her in the Warrick County Jail, to keep her as bait to lure in more of their enemies. She and her friend Trina Sanchez began plotting how a jailbreak when they learned they'd be beheaded once they had finished serving their purpose as bait.

Trina stated that she was especially worried about her husband, Lionel, as well as fearful what would become of him as the Hebbleskins experimented on him.

The dome
The girls almost entirely lost hope of escape when the Hebbleskins activated a force field dome around Boonville. Its radius expanded to as far away as Squaw Creek Road, sending a message to the greater area that the city was under Hebbleskin occupation. Arfaas put control of "the Cleansing" in the hands of Sgt. Trobiskak Luddin, whose brutal enforcer was none other than Arfaas' younger cousin, Fantisk Hebbleskin. Stan - and the National Guard - were unable to find a way inside the city at first.

Shalia and Trina escape
The Hebbleskins continued going through the jail, tormenting and sometimes raping female inmates as they felt like. At some point, Trina was made aware of the fact that one room was being used to house the children of political prisoners - with children having some of the most horrific crimes committed against them! Trina prayed that her daughter Amelia would be spared from the violence. However, a Hebbleskin security guard suspected one day that Trina was praying in the cell, and began a session of fingernail torture. Shalia mocked the guard's blasphemous taunts on Trina; stating that if the guard really believed God weren't real, he'd have no reason to feel threatened by Trina's shows of faith. For this, Shalia was moved to solitary confinement.

The guard proceeded the following evening to insist that the next child to be tortured and killed be Amelia, so as to break Trina and Shalia's spirits and faith completely. However, the men in the torture room soon noticed Amelia becoming transparent, then invisible. They looked around, only to see what looked like a ghostly woman with blonde hair and glowing purple eyes, and a ghostly version of Amelia, no-clipping through the walls. They tried to open the door and give chase in the hallway, only for the doorknob to become red hot and unsafe to touch. Panicked, the captain tried to radio to the sheriff's office to send guards to locate the intruders, as well as the execute Trina and Shalia ahead of schedule anyway.

A large figure appeared behind them, flashing golden light. The figure had a large eye with a gray iris in its center, and was otherwise surrounded by silvery shields and maces. The figure yelled at the tarpped Hebbleskins: "Time for you to be very afraid!"

The figure proceeded to spin its body of weapons around violently, morphing them into an omnidirectional chainsaw matrix ball, and then promptly executing each trapped guard with extreme prejudice. A flaming skeleton guarded the door to that room, transforming into a humanoid figure in a white doctor lab coat but wearing a white firefighter helmet, with glowing red eyes. After disposing of the reinforcements, the figure disappeared after frying the CCTV cameras, then opening all the cages.

The metallic creature appeared in Trina's cell with Amelia, reuniting mother and daughter. It then assumed the form of a man in futuristc space marine armor, with a black visor on his helmet obscuring his face. Wielding a shield, the being revealed its name to be Cavalore. Cavalore urged Trina and Amelia to take his hand, as he led them to Shalia's cell.

Hebbleskin reinforcement units poured in, trying to contain the fleeing - prisoners only to be met with ever more extreme violence from an army of enraged Apthalans. Becoming aware of the crisis unfolding, Sgt. Luddin sent Fantisk to the area to investigate. However, Fantisk arrived too late. The jail had been completely vacated. Hebbleskin forces retreated for dear life, some with angry destroyer angels still in pursuit of them. Hardened by determination, a defiant Luddin ordered Fantisk and a squadron of Hebbleskins to hunt down and kill as many known escapees as possible.

Meanwhile, Cavalore led Shalia, Trina, and Amelia by foot and not well-noticed across fields, roads, and forests, until they joined a resistance camp inside a patch of woods behind a burned down Pentecostal church. Before vanishing, Cavalore instructed Trina and Amelia to lay low. He warned Trina that Lionel had escaped from the lab where he'd been tortured, but that he was being hunted by an assassin "in a rabbit-themed outfit." Shalia was informed that she was to head to a stretch of farmland and road on the northeast side just outside of town, and await a man named Mitch Brandel, who'd find a way to breach the dome. Cavalore was not seen in Gerosha ever again after that.

Darius and Mitch rescue Shalia and Trina
Jeanette Edwards, a Hebbleskin sympathizer assassin with an affinity for dressing like a rabbit, continued stalking Lionel through the woods. The moment she caught up to Lionel, however, Shalia was approaching the not-yet-burned-down Freedom Church along Crowville Road. A fight broke out, as two soldiers began hunting for Shalia and Trina. The soldiers gained the upperhand. Shalia, Trina, and Lionel were all spared. Mitch killed Jeanette, then promised to stay behind and lead others in the forest further south to new shelter at the Freedom Church. Darius urged Shalia to take "Brandel's Path" with him back outside of the city, as he needed her to rally support for the cause from outside. He also wanted her to see "a special surprise" he had in store for her.

Meeting Erin
Shalia was relieved to at first find Stan, alive and well. However, he informed Shalia that he intended to return to the city with Darius, and help reclaim it. Shalia was needed more outside the city, and at Darius' new camp in particular. As the couple parted ways, Shalia was greeted by Reily at Darius' designated location. However, Reily revealed that he wasn't alone. There with him was one Ashlee Kornsdall, whose family was dead and whose friend Jessie Menrez was still trapped somewhere inside Boonville. Also with Reily was Erin Wyer, a frail orphan whose parents were once huge supporters of Shalia's cause.

It wasn't very long before Erin grew on Shalia, leading Shalia to contact Stan with an expressed desire that they should adopt Erin.

Battling for Gerosha
True to what Shalia was asked to do, she was able to garner considerable support from grassroots organizations. She argued that since Boonville had been ravaged, and re-defined by the conflict, that the terrorist group known as the Hebbleskin Gang should not only be purged from it, and their dome destroyed; but that the town should be renamed "Gerosha," in honor of the Gerosha Code and the Gerosha Stone.

After a handful of brave fighters used "Brandel's Path" to infiltrate the city, Stan Flippo and several militia men discovered that the Dome was being maintained by a device located inside of the house at 10 Lakeshore Dr. They battled the Hebbleskin operatives inside, but discovered their adversaries were already sick from radiation poisoning. The dome's infrastructure was revealed to be faulty, with radiation leaks making the house unsafe for long-term dwelling.

Brandel followed a trail of Hebbleskin resistance until he found where Fantisk was hiding. He was unable to stop Fantisk from burning Jessie Menrez to death; but he battled Fantisk and defeated him eventually - avenging Jessie. Stan's team finally disabled the sourcepoint, causing the Dome to collapse. Shalia had numerous National Guard troops and army tanks set to roll into town. In short order, the Hebbleskins retreated. Air support took out more of Arfaas' forces, even killing Luddin.

Shalia then declared that the town be renamed Gerosha, which would lead to reconstruction of whatever buildings in Boonville had been damaged. The town voted in favor of Shalia's proposal, and Boonville officially became Gerosha.

Adopting Erin
In late January of 1991, Stan and Shalia were able to adopt Erin officially. They found it interesting that she took honoring the Gerosha Code more seriously than even they did; and certainly took it more seriously than Reily seemed capable of. Around this same time, Shalia was able to resume her old work at city hall.

Shalia attempted to run for mayor in 1992, but ultimately lost the election due to sabotage from groups that felt threatened by her education agenda being "too Christian-friendly." She instead took up work for Betty J. Hermann's office as the county recorder in Vanderburgh County.

The Triangulum
In 1993, the Triangulum was finally constructed on top of the remains of 247 State Road 261. While its design was highly unusual, Shalia was determined to make the house a home. The building's construction was completed in February of 1994.

Reily married
In August of 1994, Reily finally married Ashlee. The young couple wasted little time fulfilling their common dream of creating a cooking show. As Stan was nearing retirement from minor league baseball, he began repurposing his life around assisting with the show's production. He had little idea how well Reily's popularity would take off. Shalia discussed the possibility of writing into the will that should the Hebbleskins come back for revenge, that Reily take control of the Triangulum should anything happen to Stan or to herself. Stan agreed with Shalia's decision. However, they also discussed with Reily and Ashlee what plans should be for helping Erin through college, especially with her health problems. Shalia also suggested to Reily that if she had any more children, and something should happen to her, that Reily look after his new younger siblings the same as Erin.

Arrival of SCALLOP
In September of 1994, the Phaelite Society of Earth officially became a liaison between Phaelite Universal Society and the US military. Expanding its alliance with Phaelite society to the rest of North America to give itself more jurisdiction, the organization was able to justify renaming itself according to Shalia's old suggestion: the Security-Centric Alliance Lending and Learning Of Phaelites. Darius Philippine was declared the official director, at the suggestion of then-Secretary of Defense William J. Perry. However, Shalia was concerned that Darius was beginning to stray a little from the family faith, the Gerosha Code, and other things of importance, due to all the time he was spending with government figures from Washington. Stan, eager to finalize making SCALLOP a reality, ignored Shalia's concerns.

A year later, Stan was able to take Shalia on an anniversary cruise aboard the new submarine aircraft carrier that SCALLOP had acquired: the Chen.

Appearances in other media

 * While not alive in the Legacy volume, Shalia is alluded to frequently. Her legacy's influence can be felt even into the Ciem Tomorrow timeline.


 * Shalia's Wonder AI art-generated image, seen on this article page, also appeared in the 2022 feature-length Dozerfleet Studios production The Gerosha Chronicles, According to an AI.

Trivia

 * Shalia derives her first name's inspiration form Terry Schiavo.
 * Shalia's Earth-G7 variant is the first iteration of Shalia to ever be depicted in an AI art generator.
 * Shalia has braids and dreadlocks in this iteration, whereas most previous iterations depicted her with pigtails. This is because this version was determined to not need to be quite as slavishly devoted to the original appearance of Shalia's Earth-G2 variant.