Mgalekgolo (Earth-5875)

"They're all scary and angry and they like to smash things.."

- - Amir Kinard

The mgalekgolo (Latin Ophis congregatio, meaning "myriad of serpents"), are a a gestalt of the sapient species lekgolo, from the planet Te. The third race to join the fractured Covenant, mgalekgolo are actually the rarest and smallest of all lekgolo gestalts, but are highly valued because of their strength and size.

The Ark and reseeding
During the Forerunner-Xenomorph War, the Librarian visited Te as a part of the Conservation Measure to save lekgolo specimens for the Ecumene, and index them in the Ark so they could survive the activation of the Halo Array. After the rings were lighted and all life extinct, the lekgolo, alongside all remaining living species in the galaxy, were returned to their homeworld via Keyships, where they started rebuilding their culture.

Taming of the Lekgolo
After the founding of Covenant, the hegemony's expansion through the galaxy led them to Te, the lekgolo homeworld. Despite the best wishes of the sangheili and the san'shyuum to find forerunner artifacts, they stumbled upon lekgolo hives inside the rings that surrounded the planet, which were in fact destroyed remnants of an ancient forerunner station that orbited the gas giant, being the lekgolo's source of food for millennia.

The Covenant saw such thing as heretical and started a genocidal military campaign against the species which would be pejoratively known as the Taming of the Lekgolo. After the initial massacre proved more difficult than expected, the Covenant sent an Arbiter to Rantu in order to study the lekgolo for one year. There, the Arbiter discovered the lekgolo combining into one mgalekgolo, forming around a series of rock to support their bipedal forms. Seeing the potential of the lekgolo, the Arbiter returned to High Charity, where he suggested the Hierarchs to consider inducting the lekgolo into the Covenant, and while this was accepted, the lekgolo resisted. Despite winning most ground battles because of their immense gestalt sizes and sheer combined power, they faced extinction, and were thus forced to join the alien invaders' hegemony duo to superior technology.

Service in the Covenant
The mgalekgolo were then armed with thick armor planets, made out of the same material of Covenant starships, and assault cannons, becoming shock troopers for the hegemony. They participated in multiple conflicts through Covenant history, such as the conquering of the the kig-yar, the unggoy, the yanme'e, and the jiralhanae, as well as the First Contact War. During the Great Schism, most mgalekgolo sided with the sangheili and subsequently the Swords of Sanghelios, although many still remained at the side of the Prophets of Truth and Mercy.