Decimus (Earth-5875)

"The Covenant could not stop us. You have no chance."

- - Decimus

Decimus was a jiralhanae mercenary, terrorist, and pirate who, alongside Atriox, co-founded the Banished after the duo and numerous other jiralhanae rebelled against the Covenant following an assassination attempt at the hands of the Executioner.

Early life
Decimus was originally a member of the Covenant Armada, fighting many battles against humanity. Present at the Battle of Algolis, Decimus witnessed his fellow jiralhanae Atriox surviving numerous missions against UNSC forces, becoming inspired to rebel and kill all sangheili around them after a failed assassination attempt at the hands of the Executioner. After Atriox claimed the life of the Executioner, Decimus and the other jiralhanae bowed to their fellow warrior, pleading their lotality to him, becoming Atriox's right hand man.

The Banished
He became Atriox's general, helping him recruit others to their cause, which became the Banished. These included jiralhanae, but also sangheili, unggoy and many others who fell manipulated and deluded by the Covenant. Together they raided numerous locations and territories belonging to the Covenant, amassing resources such as food and weapons. One of his ventures was finding and recruiting the t'vaoan kig-yar Sig Raan for their cause, seeking to expand the Banished's fleet and technological base. There, Raan attempted to betray them with an army of controlled yanme'e, but he was able to take her down.

Second Battle of Installation 00
The Banished arrived in force at Installation 00, in November 2564, aboard the Enduring Conviction. Once they landed, Decimus took the lead on the slaughter of human scientists at the Henry Lamb Research Outpost. After the massacre, Atriox ordered Decimus to establish a power extraction and excavation process through multiple sites through the Halo ring, where he salvaged a series of equipment left from the Battle of Installation 00. He was able to access the Cartographer, allowing the Banished access to Halo's network of portals.

After the emergence of the UNSC Spirit of Fire on the installation on March 28th, 2564, Decimus tasked numerous troops with defending one of the sites he was excavating. Around the sangheili R-6029-4452, one of Decimus' bases was destroyed Jerome-092 and Strike One. He ordered Shipmaster Let 'Volir to target a Spirit of Fire firebase, but he objected duo to the risk of killing their own warriors.

Using the subsequent confusion of the SPARTAN-II and his Marines, Decimus took center stage and made his presence known, taking dozens of warriors alongside him, and ordering 'Volir to target his designated location as his mechanized armor possessed strong and durable energy shielding. After he realized he would be unable to block the attack, Decimus returned to the Enduring Conviction, with the ship bombarding the area and killing all UNSC and Banished forces present, sacrificing his own troops so that the humans would be unable to learn their tactic.

Death
"«Make the most of your victory, humans... It will be... your... last...»"

- - Decimus' last words Decimus took a step back from the battle until March 30th, when he noticed the UNSC was starting to push against their portal network. He was sent by Atriox to guard the portals and understand how much the UNSC learned of their knowledge. Enraged, Decimus stormed to the battlefield, killing many Marines. However, the combined force of several Marines, vehicles, aircraft, Jerome-092 and Douglas-042 proved too much for Atriox, with his battlesuit deteriorating. Mortally wounded, Decimus collapsed, giving his final words of insults, before he succumbed to his wounds and died.

Personality
"He is Atriox's right—hand and pledges loyalty to the Banished, but as I watched him walk among the Ark's ancient halls I recognized the awe and reverence in his eyes that I once saw among my own clan. I saw that fatal longing, that tragic need to be once more struck dumb and blind by the promise of a wondrous destiny in the Path. If we are to succeed, Decimus must purge these old conflicts from his thoughts. A warrior's heart must be certain if he is to survive, as doubt is a surer killer than the sharpest blade."

- - Orda Val 'Saham Decimus was violent, cunning, and ruthless in the battlefield, possessing much physical strength, even for a jiralhanae. He loved the thrill of battle and the glory of violence, taking delight into killing his enemies, even civilians, both during his tenure in the Covenant and the Banished. His brutality and lust for blood was the embodiment of every horror story told by the UNSC Marine Corps about their fights against jiralhanae warriors. During his servitude of the Covenant in the First Contact War, Decimus took pleasure in hand-to-hand combat against subdued humans. He respected strength above everything, believing such things to be the virtue of true warriors that "might makes right", which proved to be a vehicle of trust to Atriox, who developed absolute trust over him after he helped him rebel against the Covenant, and thus became his right hand. As one of the leaders of the Banished, Decimus commanded his own high-ranking jiralhanae warriors, although he occasionally also fought in the battlefield for the simple desire of killing enemies himself. While Atriox's Chosen shared the cunning and strategy of their leader, Decimus encouraged his soldiers to base traits.

He still harbored hate and resentment towards the sangheili, even those who served in the Banished, for the species' treatment of the jiralhanae in the Covenant. Because of this, he took sadistic pleasure in ordering his sangheili warriors into extremely dangerous, and potentially fatal missions. Much like Atriox, Decimus despised the other Covenant breakaway factions, but still held secret reverence for the forerunners, despite abandoning the Path altogether. Orda Val 'Saham, a sangheili commander who served under Decimus, noted his deep reverence and awe upon witnessing the forerunner architecture on Installation 03, which he considered "zealous idiocy", as he himself had abandoned the belief forerunners were gods since the Great Schism and his delusion towards the treachery of the san'shyuum.

Equipment
Decimus wore a massive powered exoskeleton when battling the crew of the UNSC Spirit of Fire, which severely increased his already enormous strength and granted him protection from both plasma and ballistic weaponry. After engaging Red Team for a second time, Decimus had his suit enhanced and improved by huragok; the exoskeleton was equipped with a heavily modified Type-2 gravity hammer which could pull vehicles and soldiers, killing them with ease.