Helena Harper: Leon's Partner in Resident Evil 6

Helena Harper is the US Secret Service agent who partners Leon S. Kennedy through his campaign in Resident Evil 6. She's the agent who helped Derek Simmons breach President Adam Benford's security at Tall Oaks, because Simmons was holding her sister hostage. The rest of her story is her trying to put that right, and getting revenge on the man who made her do it. (Resident Evil 6)

Who is Helena Harper?#

Helena is a federal agent, 24 years old at the time of Resident Evil 6 according to the game's file on her. Her younger sister Deborah is her only known living relative. The file describes her as a woman of strong convictions who feels for other people, but who lets her emotions take over. (Resident Evil 6)

She was at the top of her class and the CIA's first choice for the job, but her bosses worried that her sense of right and wrong would get in the way of the work. It did. After catching a serial killer, she used excessive force on him, saying he was making threats in front of a victim's family, and was suspended. Later, when Deborah's boyfriend put Deborah in hospital, Helena shot and wounded him. He was unarmed. Her superiors didn't want to fire her, so they moved her to the Secret Service instead. (Resident Evil 6)

That incident also cost her something else. Ingrid Hunnigan had recommended her as a candidate for the Division of Security Operations, the agency Leon works for, on the strength of her ability and conviction. After the shooting, that chance was gone. (Resident Evil 6)

Why did Helena help Simmons?#

Because Simmons had Deborah. Helena's record and her love for her sister made her easy to use. When Benford came to Ivy University in Tall Oaks to reveal the truth about Raccoon City, Helena sent an alert over the Secret Service radio saying a group had entered the campus to kill him. Agents went off to search for them, and that created the opening Simmons wanted. (Resident Evil 6)

She couldn't go through with it. She rushed to the campus and begged the other agents to drop the search and protect the President, and told them Simmons was behind it. With her record, nobody believed her. Then the C-Virus attack began, and with half the agents away, the Secret Service couldn't get Benford out in time. (Resident Evil 6)

Tall Oaks and Deborah#

Helena and Leon reached Benford together and found him already turned. Leon had to shoot his friend. Helena said she was to blame, but refused to explain until they reached the city's cathedral, because she needed him to see the proof. (Resident Evil 6)

They fought through the burning city to get there. Beneath the altar was a secret passage to a lab full of human cocoons and a tape of a woman who looked like Ada Wong climbing out of one. In the caverns beyond, Helena found Deborah alive. Then Deborah mutated in front of them into a monster that attacked them through the collapsing tunnels. At the end Helena held her sister's hand over a drop, said goodbye and let go. (Resident Evil 6)

Only then did she tell Leon everything. The real Ada, who had turned up in the caverns, warned them they were up against the people who really ran the country. Simmons got in first: he named Leon and Helena as suspects in the assassination, and a missile wiped out Tall Oaks along with the evidence. Leon chose not to hand Helena in. With Hunnigan faking their deaths, the two went after Simmons in China. (Resident Evil 6)

Lanshiang and revenge#

Simmons knew they were coming. One of his bioweapons infected the passengers and crew of their plane, and Leon crash-landed it in Lanshiang. There they met Sherry Birkin and Jake Muller, fought off the Ustanak, and saw the fake Ada, really Carla Radames, slip away while Leon and Chris Redfield faced off over her. (Resident Evil 6)

At the meeting point Simmons admitted he was behind the President's death, and Helena told him he had caused one disaster to stop another, at the cost of innocent lives. When he was infected with an enhanced C-Virus and mutated, Helena and Leon fought him across a speeding train, with Simmons taunting her about her sister. (Resident Evil 6)

He came back again at the Quad Tower. With Ada's help, Helena and Leon finally brought him down on the roof, and he died impaled on an obelisk in the courtyard below. For Helena, it was revenge for Deborah. (Resident Evil 6)

How Helena's story ends#

Ada left a compact in the helicopter with a data chip hidden inside: evidence of Simmons's crimes, enough to clear both of them. Helena didn't think it cleared her. (Resident Evil 6)

Some time later, at Deborah's graveside, she thanked Leon and said it was time to take responsibility. Leon put her gun back in her hand instead. Hunnigan told her that, after reviewing the evidence, she wouldn't be held responsible for Simmons's crimes, and Leon added that the President would have pardoned her. Before they left, she gave Leon the compact back, so he could return it to Ada the next time they met. (Resident Evil 6)

Helena as a playable character#

In Leon's campaign Helena is the second player character, controlled by a co-op partner or the AI, so her side of the story runs alongside Leon's from Tall Oaks to Lanshiang. She is also the clearest link between the Leon campaign and the game's central conspiracy, since her confession is how Leon first learns that Simmons is behind the attack. (Resident Evil 6)