Attilus

War Chieftain Attilus was a vicious Jiralhanae commander in the Covenant Empire during the Human-Covenant War, and later pirate and warlord following the Battle of Earth. One of only a handful of Covenant warriors ever to earn the title Demonslayer, Attilus was one of the most dangerous threats to any SPARTAN solely because of his continued survival of encounters and experience fighting them.
==Biography==
===Ancestry and Early Life===
Attilus' sire was Rugarus, an elderly warrior of the Jakas whose best days were behind him. Too old to serve his clan in battle and a notorious drunkard, Rugarus was despised by his fellow Jiralhanae and was threatened by his clansmen several times, but was protected by the express word of Hesperus, Chieftain of the Jakas, who respected a warrior of Rugarus' age for tradition's sake if nothing else. Rugarus hated Hesperus for this, as the clan came to think of him as weak and in need of the Chieftain's protection, and when the Covenant arrived on in 2492, Rugarus saw his chance to seize power for himself. Hesperus had pledged his pack to the resistance of Covenant rule led by his longtime ally Halbus of the Forbek PackReference to , a sci fi writer and game designer., but Rugarus, as he was so often overlooked, went to the Sangheili that had landed in preparation for battle and agreed to surrender if they would help him take control of the Jakas. After the bloody assassination of Hesperus, his family, and his captains with the help of a Sangheili strike team, Rugarus took the copper crown of the Jakas Pack and marched their warriors into battle against the Forbeks, killing Halbus himself and helping end the Jiralhanae War of Conversion in a swift Covenant victory.
With his position secured, Rugarus indulged in the privileges of authority and sired seven children, the first of whom was Attil. Although he was still hated by his people, Rugarus did not actually make for a bad ruler, giving up his affinity for Devil's Spit ale and introducing Covenant technologies and processes to better the Jakas Pack's quality of life. Still, as Attil grew and his mother taught him the Jiralhanae's long-held customs and traditions, he began to hate his father for betraying his Chieftain and his people, and vowed in secret to kill the traitor. He devoted himself completely to his training as a warrior, ironically much to his father's pride, and traveled to learn from some of the most skilled Jiralhanae soldiers to have survived the war. Upon his return, a ceremony was held for Attil's passing into adulthood, and once the rites were complete, Attilus' first act was to renounce his father and challenge him to a duel for leadership of the pack. Feeling betrayed himself, Rugarus held nothing back and used every ounce of his strength and cunning as an experienced warrior, but his son would not be denied. Attilus triumphed, tearing out his father's throat with his teeth. Taking the copper crown from Rugarus' near-severed head, Attilus placed it upon the grave of Hesperus rather than wear it himself, proclaiming that while he would act as Chieftain from then on, the ancient crown was in its rightful place.
With Attilus' rule came a return to tradition for the Jakas, but the young warrior knew little of leadership. As their tribe's village turned into a slum and their lands became barren of crops under his stewardship, Attilus was driven to leading his pack to war, conquering the smaller surrounding tribes and forcing his new holdings to pay tribute to his capital, bringing ruin to a wider part of their homeworld. With an alarmingly increased frequency, Attilus was challenged for the right to rule, but slew his every opponent with Riftrender, the ceremonial he had taken as his inheritance, and with each battle became even deadlier in single combat. Eventually, when he had been forced to kill several of his own instructors, there were none left within the Jakas' territory who could have dared to match him, and he became one of the youngest tyrants that Doisac had ever known. Finally, when the Covenant first made contact with humanity in 2525, Attilus was drawn off of his homeworld with as many loyal warriors as he could spare to take part in the Covenant's campaign of extermination.
===Human-Covenant War===
====Harvest Campaign====
By the time his pack was pressed into service of the Covenant military, Attilus was already an experienced warlord, and despite his resent of being given orders by a bureaucratic chain of command led not even by his own race, he quickly came to relish the opportunities for glory that were offered to him. The Jakas Pack was subordinated to Veral T’ramee, an honored veteran of the Jiralhanae War of Conversion, who despite much personal friction was able to keep Attilus content by using his unit as shock troops for the better-equipped Sangheili lances. Although it inflicted a higher casualty rate upon his pack, Attilus reveled in fighting humankind by defeating their elaborately-planned tactics with brute force, and warriors tithed from his holdings back on Doisac kept him well-supplied with fresh troops. What's more, he regularly cheated T’ramee's warriors of the honor of being first into battle by breaking ranks and attacking early, something which gave the Jiralhanae immense satisfaction.
Attilus' surliness left a stain on the Field Master's prided war record as his premature attacks began costing their legion larger victories. Disgusted by the savage chieftain who would not even fall on his own sword for the failings T’ramee perceived, and lacking the authority over Jiralhanae to have him executed, the Field Master eventually sent Attilus away to lead the Jakas Pack separately from the rest of his troops, effectively giving him the right to operate independently while still technically under T’ramee's command. The chieftain took to the arrangement eagerly, and employed the raiding tactics he'd honed on his home planet to hamstring UNSC supply lines, using newly mass-produced to decimate human convoys. His repeated victories resulted in a firm belief that humans were an inferior species, and the Covenant was just in wiping them out as should perhaps be done with the . His arrogance, however, would lead him to one of the greatest defeats in his career as a warrior late in the campaign.
In September of 2529, while patrolling the which his pack had secured through their use of mechanized cavalry, Attilus' convoy of Choppers and cutting-edge transports were attacked by several Marine-driven which then fled towards the ruin of . Fascinated by their brazen attack, Attilus swiftly ordered the convoy to give chase and dole out retribution, but he was no fool; rather than lead his vehicles into the confining remains of city streets or enter a trap on foot, he took the time to coordinate his forces before entering the ruins. His caution, however, proved a mistake, as every group suddenly found themselves under attack simultaneously, with explosives underfoot and weakened buildings crumbling to cut units off from one another.
Clad in strange armor, the perpetrators revealed themselves to be the of Red Team, as Attilus discovered firsthand when Vinh-030 and Isaac-039 suddenly engaged him in close combat. Their battle was brief but furious, thunderclaps issuing from Riftrender as Attilus swung it to hurl blocks of debris towards his foes, which they returned by pinning him with rifle fire. When he managed to close the distance between them, Attilus was taken by surprise when Vinh pulled a length of rebar from the rubble and squarely blocked one of his swings, her strength matching his own. Though kept on his toes between Vinh's pressing melee strikes and Isaac taking shots at him at every opportunity, the Chieftain was able to use a gravity pulse from Riftrender to blast himself and Vinh apart, separating them long enough for Attilus to recover. At that point, however, the Spartans withdrew, having obliterated half of Attilus' forces before they could properly organize themselves to retaliate.
Despite the crushing defeat dealt to him, and the admonitions of T’ramee to worsen things, Attilus found himself reinvigorated with a new fire for battle against the UNSC. The Demons, as the Covenant had termed them, represented the greatest threat within humanity's forces, and the greatest test of his own skill Attilus had faced in years. Excited by the prospect of battling them again, Attilus was more than happy to leave Harvest when the war's front advanced beyond it, generously gifting the territory he'd claimed to his allied packs so as not to deal with its administration himself.
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By the end of the Harvest Campaign, Attilus had managed to redeem himself and rebuild his force to its previous strength, and helped Field Master T’ramee to secure many victories against human forces. He was rewarded afterward with authority over several other war packs as his commander's influence expanded, making for a symbiotically beneficial relationship despite their continued personal conflict. Upon being granted the rank of , Attilus immediately called a gathering of his new commanders, each of whom resented being told to subordinate themselves to one much younger than any of them, and gave them the chance to try and take the position from him. Of the nearly dozen chieftains, every one took up the challenge, and one by one engaged him in a duel for leadership. Attilus, however, slew his first opponent and beckoned the next forward without respite, and killed one after the other in quick succession. By the fifth elder Chieftain to fall before Attilus, the rest withdrew their challenges and submitted to him.
Replacing the fallen with Captains from his own Pack, Attilus proceeded to take part in several battles over the next seven years, each time disappointed that no demon showed itself to him, until his reputation reached the Prophets at a most auspicious time. With a lance of his own spies, the had discovered a new generation of demons would soon be unleashed, and with his fellow Hierarchs devised a plan by baiting the humans with a target of incredible strategic value, the shipyard complex of Forlorn Bounty, known to the humans as . Waiting for the humans to launch their inevitable strike using the only force that had a hope of succeeding, the Prophets drew together an elite force to execute the counter-attack. Attilus was honored with the allowance to take part, and under the command of Field Master Vract 'Aeramee, was deployed when launched its assault on the shipyards and fell into the Covenant trap.
Charged with a position of tertiary importance to help cut off Alpha Company's retreat, Attilus nonetheless had the chance to fight against demons again. Splitting his forces, Attilus left his subordinates behind to cover the Jiralhanae arc of the circle boxing Alpha Company in, and went ahead with his own pack to face the demons himself. He swiftly encountered the members of Team Wasp, and eventually his pack ran the Spartans to ground. In the battle that ensued, Attilus killed two of the Alpha SPARTAN-IIIs, but their team leader, Valerie-A391, escaped him. Though 'Aeramee was displeased, Attilus had rightfully earned for himself the title of Demonslayer, as did many others that day. Unknown to any of the Covenant, however, Attilus' negligence had allowed Valerie to slip past his Jiralhanae and reach Alpha Company's exfiltration craft with a handful of other Spartans to survive the battle.
Attilus and many other Jiralhanae returned from what they called the Great Hunt with enviable trophies, and were met with glory and tributes from their own kind. Attilus' holdings increased as lesser clans swore themselves to him, rising to become the leader of a newly-proclaimed Alpha Pack, and was granted a seat among the council of Chieftains subordinate directly to , the Chieftain of the Jiralhanae himself. His people expected no less recognition from the wider Covenant as a whole, but were appalled to find their victories downplayed as Sangheili commanders were lauded for their strategic accomplishments in masterminding the battle. Attilus' outrage was abundantly apparent, and it was only then he was brought into Tartarus' true confidence. A conspiracy lay in the making, Attilus was told in confidence, based on an agreement between Tartarus and the High Prophet of Truth—a conspiracy to cast down the Sangheili, who held themselves more to personal honors than the Great Journey, and replace them with the unquestioning loyalty and faith of the Jiralhanae. Though Attilus still secretly held to the Old Gods of the Jiralhanae, Attilus was more than eager to swear himself in service of the plot.
====Fall of Reach and Great Schism====
In the latter years of the Human-Covenant War, Truth and Tartarus spent arduous time setting their pieces in place for the eventual coup, and Attilus, though obediently playing his part, soon tired of the political games they played. Taking on the authority of various stations would further their ultimate goal, keeping hidden the vast stores of Jiralhanae weaponry being produced in the and ensuring vital resources would fall swiftly into Jiralhanae hands, but meant less time spent personally on the battlefield. At last, Attilus was rewarded with a position aboard the Devout Believer, flagship of the , as commander of all Jiralhanae throughout the fleet. He was reunited in this capacity with Veral T’ramee, now a , and again Attilus' superior as master of all ground troops within the fleet. The aging Sangheili warrior had never trusted Jiralhanae to any length, least of all Attilus, and now kept a frustratingly close eye on the Chieftain. Forced to appease him once again tested the boundaries of Attilus' already-taxed patience, but he was consoled with thoughts of the ultimate fate awaiting T’ramee.
When two signs—coordinates deciphered from the Forerunner relic found on and a rarely-successful tracking beacon placed on a UNSC vessel—pointed the way to Reach in the Epsilon Eridani system, the first surveys led to speculation it was the human homeworld, and the Fleet of Holy Respite was granted a part in cleansing the planet as part of a combined fleet under Supreme Commander . Certain there would be demons to face, Attilus spent hours of his time trapped aboard the Devout Believer in slipspace readying his weapons for war, but when they at last arrived, T’ramee denied him. In a move seemingly designed to infuriate Attilus, T’ramee supported the Fleet Master's inclination for the fleet to engage only in the naval battle. When Attilus disrespectfully voiced his objections, he was tasked with standing guard personally over the carrier's brig to occupy his time. Even when the assumption of Reach to be humanity's homeworld was revealed to be a mistake, Attilus found no comfort, as after the battle was ended, he was still forced to remain aboard while T’ramee led his own legion in hunting down stragglers and seeking relics. The only end to his eternal frustration came from shock when T’ramee returned with a most unexpected prisoner: a SPARTAN-II, one of the elder demons with whom he'd clashed on Harvest.
Attilus was ordered to keep perpetual watch on her, and once alone could not resist plying her with questions. He spoke at length of the first time he'd encountered her kind, how it had reinvigorated his warrior spirit, but at first was met only with silence. After T’ramee paid them a visit, however, informing his prisoner she was to be brought to High Charity for a public execution, Attilus revealed he shared in her spite of the Field Marshall, and she confirmed she had been one of the two who fought him on Harvest, Vinh-030. The other, Isaac-039, had been executed by T’ramee on Reach's surface, for which she swore vengeance on the Sangheili. Avenging a pack-mate was something Attilus understood, and with little to do but await Vinh's execution, a dialogue opened between the two. This wait dragged on longer than either had expected—with the discovery of Installation 04, High Charity moved from its system in the heart of Covenant space for the first time in centuries, preventing the Devout Believer’s return. For two months, Attilus and Vinh exchanged looks into one another's art, culture, and history. Attilus spoke of the old ways of the Jiralhanae passed down from his mother, while he himself was most interested in the martial arts of Vinh's culture which she practiced while imprisoned to stay in fighting shape.
The war would progress without them in the meantime, with the Covenant suffering a setback in losing Installation 04 only for the to stumble upon the real human homeworld of . Seeing his fellow Prophet isolated and vulnerable, Truth dispatched an entirely-Jiralhanae fleet to nominally reinforce him—and in reality eliminate him and his Sangheili guard. The Sangheili, meanwhile, readied their own fleet to assault Earth, which Truth would ensure had a more than ample Jiralhanae contingent, including those within the Fleet of Holy Respite. When word of Regret's death spread, with Truth using it as an excuse to begin the , Field Marshall T’ramee saw the move for what it was, and ordered the execution of all Jiralhanae aboard the Devout Believer before they could be usurped. Caught by surprise, Attilus' pack were slaughtered, until only the Chieftain himself remained. Returning to the cell block with Riftrender, Attilus awaited the duel T’ramee's pride would demand.
T’ramee would not be long, arriving with a lance of Minors there to witness their superior's triumph. They traded few words before engaging in combat, Attilus with Riftrender and T’ramee with an Energy Sword in each hand. In the course of their battle, Attilus suffered several small scars while T’ramee lost his helmet to a bash to the head, and the cell controls were damaged, dissipating the barriers on the prison cells. As the other Sangheili rushed to halt Vinh and a number of crazed Kig-Yar from escaping, the precision of T’ramee's aristocratic style of swordsmanship began to overcome Attilus' brute strength, and he quickly found himself at T’ramee's mercy. Before T’ramee could strike the final blow, however, Vinh tackled him to the ground, using the sharp reverse point of the Field Master's own fallen helmet to decapitate him. Taking up T’ramee's fallen swords, she then offered Attilus his hammer, and the pair joined forces to wage a guerrilla war within the confines of the ship. For three straight days, they raided shipboard armories, knocked out surveillance systems, and ambushed security teams sent to find them with a mix of Spartan tactics and Jiralhanae cunning.
Their struggle culminated in a battle on the Devout Believer’s bridge, ending in the deaths of the Sangheili Fleet and Shipmasters. Attilus then contacted the rest of the Fleet of Holy Respite to learn the coup had gone well on other vessels, leaving him in complete command. Contemplating Vinh for a tense moment, Attilus granted his erstwhile ally a slipspace-capable as reward for helping him claim his fleet, and allowed her to take it where she would. He voiced a hope she would choose a remote, uninhabited world rather than return to her doomed people, but Vinh rejected the idea of running away to hide, confirming Attilus' belief in Spartans as worthy opponents and warriors.
====Battle of Earth====
With the Devout Believer under the control of a Jiralhanae crew, Attilus led the Fleet of Holy Respite to Earth, joining the Covenant armada in a planetwide attack on Earth. While the High Prophet of Truth's fleet neared completing the excavation of the Portal to the Ark, Attilus was bidden to complete a task the Sangheili had failed: destroying the military stockpiles on the islands of Japan supplying human resistance across the planet, and kill the heretical Elites who'd first been tasked with it. His approach would be direct and brutal; where the Sangheili rushed to do battle on foot, Attilus simply commanded the Devout Believer to annihilate the island with its glassing beam, burning away humans and Elites alike, beginning with the city of Tokyo where the UNSC had headquartered. Against all probable odds, however, a last-ditch attack made by a handful of Pelican pilots succeeded in delivering a Spartan with a Havok nuclear explosive beneath the carrier’s shields, destroying the Devout Believer’s midsection and splitting the vessel in two. As its remains fell into Tokyo Bay, Attilus evacuated aboard dropships and, to make up for lost time, dispatched Jiralhanae Kill Teams to hunt down the remaining Sangheili commanders while he regrouped the forces that had survived the carrier’s destruction.
While the Kill Teams proved mostly successful—their leader and Attilus’ new intelligence chief, the Stalker Captain Sidonus, personally delivering him the head of Field Marshal Iruini ‘Kasvallai—he was almost pleased to learn the one instance they’d failed, attempting to slay ‘Kasvallai’s second, Field Master Tor ‘Lukomee, had been due to the intervention of Spartans. Relishing his chance to face demons again, Attilus laid the beginnings of a plan to assault Ryu Base, the UNSC’s headquarters in Tokyo, where he was sure to encounter them. Enacting it, however, would have to wait, as Sidonus informed him ‘Lukomee had done the unthinkable and allied with the humans, leading a joint counterattack headed for the citadel Attilus had hastily erected to serve as the regroup point for the carrier’s survivors. As he made ready to leave, Attilus was surprised to discover the demons had come to him, attempting to sabotage the citadel’s defenses, and even more surprised to find them led by Vinh herself. As the five lesser demons hurried to complete their tasks, Vinh held her ground to delay Attilus in single combat, knowing he wouldn’t be able to resist a duel with her.
Respecting Vinh's decision to return and fight her people's doomed battle, Attilus accepted her challenge, vowing the trophy he took from her would be his most honored. They engaged bearing the same weapons each had used on the Devout Believer, neither warrior holding back as hammer and swords clashed. After her continuous weeks of imprisonment and fighting, however, Vinh’s endurance could not match a Jiralhanae’s. Disappointed by the elder demon's performance, Attilus battered through her defenses and gouged her side with the reverse blade of Riftrender’s head, grievously wounding her. By this time, however, the other Spartans of Team Machete completed their mission, bringing down the citadel's protective barrier. Artillery guided by Morgana-G018 began hammering Attilus' troops while more of the lesser demons ran to Vinh's aid, and rather than finish her, Attilus elected to take command of his troops, organizing their retreat as Sangheili forces were at last able to breach the citadel’s defenses. Taken by dropship to the staging area the fleet’s other ground forces had chosen to land, Attilus tasked the engineers at his disposal, Jiralhanae and Huragok alike, with the construction of a vast assault vehicle capable of carrying out his plan, assembled from the wreckage of the Devout Believer and other scuttled vehicles: the Dragon.
With his new command vehicle at the head of a swarm of Phantoms carrying -equipped Jiralhanae, Attilus led his assault on Ryu Base mere days after the Devout Believer’s fall. The Dragon's salvaged dealt quickly with the base's anti-air emplacements, letting his packs assault the skyscraper's rooftop and command center as Attilus worked his way up from below. He was soon faced with the challenge he'd come seeking: one of the lesser demons, Kodiak-G114, who'd been responsible for carrying the nuke which destroyed his carrier. The young Spartan had come alone to delay him and his pack, counting on Attilus' love of single combat. Recognizing the foolishness of a young warrior, Attilus accepted his challenge and used what he'd learned of the demons through Vinh to goad him. Though priding himself on close-quarters combat, Kodiak was far outmatched and was nearly slain, when Vinh herself appeared once again to defend the younger demon, without armor and still recovering from the wound Attilus had dealt her. Though again presented with the opportunity to kill her, Attilus stated he was unwilling to slay one of the few warriors he considered an equal when she was at anything less than her best. When his subordinates reported other members of the younger demon's team had destroyed his Dragon, Attilus called for an immediate retreat, leaving both Spartans alive.
Upon returning to his forces, Attilus sensed a chance in the winds. Reports reached him of Tartarus' death, and the Prophet of Truth readying to leave through a portal in East Africa. Knowing he could not reach the Prophet nor hold out against the humans if left behind, Attilus instead commanded his packs to board the cruisers and frigates still present from their assault group. Taking the CCS-class battlecruiser Altar of Sacrifice for his own, Attilus retreated from Earth before human or Separatist reinforcements could trap him on the planet, leaving the war to resolve itself.
===Post War===
With the war's end, the Covenant was left leaderless and broken. Though many Prophets and Chieftains attempted to rally the remnants to their own banners on behalf of the Covenant, Attilus recognized without a capital or the authority of Hierarchs, they would never truly rise again. Instead, Attilus swept back through conquered human space, using the favor he'd garnered among the new clans colonizing their stolen worlds—to many of which he had gifted their territories in the first place—to gather what resources he could to him, and charted a course to return his modest flotilla to Doisac. After the months his meandering journey took, however, he found his homeworld under the control of new and mysterious masters, figurehead Chieftains under the thumb of unknown, inscrutable powers. They offered him a place within their new order, but Attilus, proud warrior that he was at his core, could not bow to such weak Chieftains. Convinced he must make a show of his power to unite Doisac and draw them away from these craven forces, Attilus rejected their power plays and instead turned his fleet to the contested space between Covenant worlds and human reclamation, seeking to carve out his own power bloc.
His efforts were doomed from the start, however. The same problems which had plagued him as a young warlord soon resurfaced; he was a short-sighted leader, warlike and unprepared to deal with the governance of an empire. His fleet survived on tributes from the handful of worlds within his chosen territory, little better than an unusually large band of pirates. Challenges to his authority began to spring up, and though he crushed each one, he clung to power only by virtue of his own strength, letting what resources he had crumble so long as their ruins were his. The one thing truly keeping him ahead was the same force sabotaging his efforts at anything greater: a Jiralhanae Stalker Captain, Sidonus, whom had served him at Earth and he'd promoted to his master of spies, secretly an agent for this mysterious force. Sidonus fed information to the warlord which led him to the conclusions these masters wanted, guiding the unwieldy hammer of Attilus and his fleet in their rampage of destruction and piracy for their own ends.
====Raid on Exceeding Grasp====
====Conclave of the Feral Worlds====
==Personality and Traits==
Like most powerful Jiralhanae, Attilus was savage and cruel, delighting in exercising his power in combat or torture to inflict pain and fear upon his enemies. He was incredibly arrogant, vainly demanding his subordinates use the title War Chieftain to address him even after abandoning the Covenant, and allowed his flotilla of pirate vessels to deteriorate so long as he lived in comfort. It was this destructive nature that kept him from ever rising above a small-time warlord. But despite his shortsightedness as a leader, Attilus remained in power because of his cunning and resourcefulness as a warrior. Easily striking down any who challenged him as Chieftain, he was a master of manipulating an opponent psychologically, and went out of his way to engage powerful enemies on his own. He had an obsession with the demons of humanity, as they were among the few individuals who could challenge him in single combat. Attilus' ability to probe and quickly exploit a weakness in his opponent was the downfall of more than one Spartan with the misfortune of facing him.
==Notes and References==
*While phonetically similar to "Atlas", the name is actually derived from Attila the Hun.
Category:Ahalosniper
Category:Jiralhanae