Lezo 'Gohom

Lezo 'Gohom is an influential Sangheili Commander who fought against the Covenant during the Battle of Earth. A bright and powerful strategist, Lezo was an Elite Ultra serving in the CCS-class Revealing Lance before October 23rd 2552, where he later joined the humans in the fight against the Covenant. Initially serving the Covenant dealing with pirates and opposing species of the Covenant, Lezo fought against Humanity under the command of different Covenant leaders for most of the war. He demonstrated his strategic skill and combat prowess in many battles during the war. Unlike most Covenant commanders, he would focus more on keeping his men alive than achieving total victory, a behaviour he'd gain after serving commanders with the opposite strategy and a behaviour which slowly but surely increased his reputation and popularity amongst the crew he would serve with.
==Biography==
===Early Service===
During his early years as a minor, he served against local uprisings on a small sangheili colony, demonstrating his skills and strategic mind by cleverly maneuvering his small grunt lance against enemies that outnumbered his own forces during his time on the colony. Years later, he was ordered to investigate a small sangheili village in a new sangheili colony that had lost contact with the local government. Upon arrival, he and his grunts were met by brutes that did not follow the Covenant. The brutes had exterminated the village leaving no women or childling alive. Lezo, after having notified the nearby garrison, began to prepare an ambush. With his grunt squad, he prepared traps for the brutes inside the nearby forest. The traps proved successful and whittled down the brute numbers before the local garrison arrived to eradicate them. For his actions, he was promoted to Major and was to lead his own small lance of sangheili. Although honoured by his promotion, Lezo was still distraught. The images of the dead children stayed in his mind for decades. With his promotion, came a sudden transfer to a more important post, leaving behind his grunt lance on the colony.
===Promotion and growing influence===
The war began with Humanity and five years later, Lezo was part of the Prophet of Regret’s plans at Etran Harborage and fought valiantly against the Flood and Sentinal swarms, being promoted to Ultra by the High Prophet himself after fighting off a small group of Combat forms alone at the Apex site in the initial endeavours to secure the Shield World. During his time serving under Regret and the Arbiter, Ripa 'Moramee, he began to grow uneasy with the Arbiter’s complete disregard for the safety of his fellow elites and allies in the Covenant in favor of the thrill of battle. His unspoken opinions slowly but surely attached themselves to the rest of his lance and even other elites, resulting in an insignificant but loyal following to the Sangheili Ultra over the Arbiter which persisted, grew over, and followed Lezo over the years with his numerous transfers to different fleets. His longest posting, and where he began growing a much stronger reputation amongst the crew, was aboard the CSO-class Supercarrier Long Night of Solace where his popularity amongst the Sangheili and other covenant species began to grow as a skilled, and calculating warrior who fought to save his own troops rather than achieve victory. As the years went on, he began to ponder the reason for the war and need for constant bloodshed, but never shared such heretical opinions to anyone.
===Growing reputation===
Part of the initial force on Reach, Lezo as an Ultra and his lance would accompany the initial strike force on Vizegrad. While the initial force of Grunts and Jackles were the ones to kill the local civilians, his lance was the one to encounter the humans on Vizegrad Relay. Lezo and his lance managed to defeat the garrison of Marines, allowing the Zealots to begin their search for relics. Lezo was then ordered to patrol the region with his lance, eventually stumbling into a human farmhouse and seeing the family having been executed by plasma weaponry.
Lezo and most of his lance began to grow discomfort after seeing the mother holding a small childling in one hand and a magnum in the other. Lezo specifically remembered the images he saw in the Sangheili village from when he was a simple minor. Most of Lezo’s lance knew about that event and stayed quiet. The newest arrival, a young and arrogant minor, taunted the dead humans and fired his plasma rifle onto the decomposing corpses. This enragred Lezo, who shouted that it was a disgrace to defile the corpse of a fallen warrior, even more so when it was just trying to protect its kin. The minor simply dismissed the claim, calling the humans no more than insects to be crushed by the strong. Lezo, having no more patience for the minor, activated his energy gauntlet and stabbed the minor's stomach, leaving him to whinge and bleed on the floor. The other elites in his lance sighed in relief, as they were also disgusted by the minor’s behaviour. One of the other minors suggested to bury the warriors. Although the other members of the lance were unsure, Lezo found it a nice sentiment and a means of atonement for his former subordinate’s disrespect. He and his lance would bury the family in the farmhouse’s back yard and left the farmhouse, reporting that the minor that perished was killed for spouting heresy. Sangheili that doubted Lezo’s resolve to the Great Journey were proven wrong with Lezo’s report, regardless if it was true or not. It demonstrated that nobody is above disrespecting the Ultra and his views.
After repelling the UNSC assault at the main landing zone, Lezo was tasked in disabling one of the recently discovered SABER launch facilities that were revealed when their main generators of the facility was activated in preparation for Operation: UPPERCUT. Lezo was successful in defeating the ODST garrison and disabling the Saber's launch before it began. Regardless, the Operation was a success and Lezo and his lance lost their previous post as the Long Night of Solace began crashing into the planet, they would be transferred to the Fleet of Particular Justice’s command as it began arriving over the planet, and would participate in large engagements across the planet as the Covenant began to overwhelm the defences there.
After returning to High Charity after the Battle of Reach, Lezo along with many of the remaining Sangheili would be transferred to the High Prophet of Truth's fleet.
===Betrayal and Alliance===
Lezo and his lance were stationed on the CCS-class cruiser Revealing Lance which was part of Truth’s fleet for the Battle of Earth. Lezo arrived over Puerto Rico on the Revealing Lance, and shortly after the initial attack, the brutes began firing upon the sangheili. He fought back with his lance, slashing several brutes with his energy gauntlets as his lance fired upon the aggressive brutes. Noticing that most of the grunts and jackels began to fire on them as well, Lezo took over command of the nearby sangheili and ordered that they flee from the Revealing Lance. Commandeering unoccupied phantoms for their escape, he filled the several phantoms with fellow surviving sangheili and fled the Revealing Lance.  
After escaping the betrayal of the Covenant, many elites were lost and confused as to what do next and many more were wounded during the escape attempt. Lezo ordered the Phantoms to touch down at a forested area in Rio Piedras: The Rio Piedras Botanical Gardens. There, they began to mend and treat the wounded as best they could in an open area as such. They were later discovered by ODSTs who almost fired on them before Lezo pleaded to not shoot them. Lezo met with Yuki (YKI 7152-7) and after much discussion with the representative of the island’s local militia, it was agreed to leave the elites to recover and only keep a small militia garrison to watch over them.
Lezo and other sangheili were still uneasy about having humans watch over them with weapons in hand but those feelings slowly began to fade when the militia began bringing blankets and other basic necessities they believed would benefit them. A great majority of the surviving elites began to see humans in a different light, Lezo most of all. Having experienced seeing both his species' and human's dead kin made him understand that humanity was not so different than the sangheili. Lezo resolved disputes between elites and assisted in mending the wounded until he received a distress signal from an old contact in High Charity, explaining the betrayal of the Covenant and the Great Schism.
Lezo requested to talk with Yuki and after discussing the situation, Lezo and his elites were allowed to fight back against the brutes individually from the human forces. The alliance was very uncomfortable for both species but was enforced when the UNSC officially stated the alliance with the Elites. Lezo and his elites would attack small brute bases across the North of the island, weakening their hold while the humans began a final push against the Revealing Lance stationed by the west.
During Lezo’s raids in the north, he received a distress call from a Covenant base established inside an ancient United States Bunker to the far east of Aguadilla. The grunts had rebelled against the small garrison of Brutes stationed there and requested to join Lezo. Lezo arrived alone, as to not risk the other elites in the case it was a trap. To his surprise, the grunts would meet him with large amounts of munitions, re-painted Wraiths, Ghosts and Phantoms and even several Hunters that chose to join Lezo’s front as well. Once the rest of the Sangheili arrived, they established it as a main base to strike from and would assist in the final engagements of the island. 
After the battle at Rincón, Lezo and his lance accompanied an ODST squad, in a joint mission against what was believed to be the last of the island’s holdouts. While the lance and ODSTs fought against the brutes and drones, Lezo fought one on one against Rastoius, the leader of the invasion on the island and subsequently defeated him.
===After the war===
After the war, many of the sangheili survivors of Puerto Rico chose to accompany the Arbiter back to Sanghelious and join reformist factions on their homeworld. Lezo and a few other sangheili however, did not want part in the subsequent war between the Swords of Sanghelious and remaining Covenant factions. After discussing with Yuki, now the Island’s administrator, and after a difficult time with Office of Naval Intelligence and UNSC, they were allowed them to remain on the island under the condition that the Sangheili doctors that Lezo brought with him would teach the curious hospital staff about Sangheili anatomy.
The Sangheili that chose to leave Lezo's command had participated in many of Lezo's battles and gained far more experience and victories than normal, many would join different reformist factions in groups and their skill would benefit their allies during the civil war. Some would continue on to become keepwards in their new posts.
Jegi Haram, who was with Lezo on Etran Harborage, did not heed his call to arms since he had devoted himself to Jul 'Mdama but both agreed to maintain some form of communications and to avoid direct confrontations if possible. Their exchange of messages broke down hours before the Battle of Kamchatka began. 
===Created Crisis===
On July 16th 2557, Lezo and his lance accepted a call for aid for a small colony of sangheili displaced by the war between the Swords of Sanghelios and Jul 'Mdama's Covenant Remnant. Yuki assisted in Lezo's departure from Earth, having to circumvent various regulations in the process. After seeing the poor health and condition of those displaced, Lezo decided to send a call for arms to his former warriors during the Great Schism, to which many arrived over the colony, several of the warriors became leaders and shipmasters, bringing their men and allies to follow Lezo.
By October 28th 2558, Lezo had amassed a small armada of nine CCS-class cruisers and one ORS-class Heavy cruiser taken from other sangheili warlords. When news of Jul's death reached his fleet, Lezo decided to jump to Shrivi,a former Covenant ship graveyard, where Jul's defense fleet was in disarray. Lezo's fleet engaged their reduced defenses in an attempt to secure the junk planet. Before Lezo managed to defeat the remaining defenses, a Guardian emerged from slipspace and disabled both fleets, leaving them disabled in space, Lezo's ORS-class, the Grandiose Crusade, along with six of the nine CCS-class cruisers in his fleet, were near enough the planet to be at the mercy of its gravity well. Most of Lezo's forces survived the crash at expense of their flagship. Stranded, Lezo began fighting against the planetary garrison of the Remnant. The crash damaged his combat harness and he replaced it with an old Evocati harness from inside the mostly-repaired wreak of a CAS-class Assault Carrier called the "Eternal Servitude". Lezo and his lances were able to route a final assault from the remnant forces and repair the CAS, which they used to finally depart from the junk world and regrouped with the remainder of Lezo's fleet that were able to restore their systems soon after Lezo returned to them.
===Entreating Ingress===
Despite transferring all the surviving crew from the other ships and all usable supplies, the Eternal Servitude was running low on fuel and its slipspace drive was still inadequate for a ship of its size and magnitude. 
On January 4th 2559, Lezo intercepted a transmission from a Banished sangheili, transmitting his location aboard Jegi Haram's Brigantine heavy carrier, the "Blessed Lance". Finding it the perfect opportunity to resupply and confront his former ally, Lezo prepared his ship and crew for combat.
Three days later, The Eternal Servitude ambushed the Blessed Lance over a previously undiscovered shield world. Despite their best efforts, the brigantine was overwhelmed and Lezo deployed boarding parties. Jegi was caught completely by surprise and did not understand how his former leader found him. While Lezo’s forces boarded the ship, he ordered any and all readied transports to depart and land onto the shield world named “Entreating Ingress”.  Lezo plundered the brigantine, relieving it of many abandoned munitions and vehicles such as seven Goblin Battle Suits, Twenty four Type-58 Wraiths, sixteen Type-58 Anti-Aircraft Wraiths, fifty-five Type-54 Ghosts, seventy two Type-54 Banshees and fifty seven Morsam-pattern Seraph fighters, as well as appropriating its slipspace drive to replace his inadequate ORS-class slipspace drive.
Once Lezo found out Jegi’s purpose in the shield world through the Brigantine's data stores, he followed Jegi into Entreating Ingress and began a prolonged battle in the shield world. Jegi’s forces established themselves around a sealed entrance to the inner shield world. When Jegi landed, he began recieving messages from a Forerunner AI, telling him where to go, what to unseal and what to do to reach his goal. 
Lezo established his forces south to the entrance and later on, his forces attacked the entrance base. However, Jegi’s forces were able to open the pathway, and withdrew deeper into the shield world. Lezo began sending troops back to the Eternal Servitude as he and a handful of zealots managed to unseal the greater pathway, meant for large vessels. They later returned to the Eternal Servitude and flew into the shield world. Jegi had gotten far ahead and reached a massive temple, known as the “Gate”. There, his forces fortified their position as they prepared to defend their final objective. 
Lezo managed to deploy his forces and lead them to the Gate, where a bloody fight ensued as his forces tried to assault the temple that Jegi fortified with barriers, Shades and even forerunner turrets he had managed to reactivate. Lezo reached Jegi in the sub-level of the temple where he tried to activate the temple, which was supposed to open a portal to the Domain. Instead, the AI that guided him had deceived him, and led to a massive Flood containment field to be completely deactivated. The Flood was released and the sentinel defenses roared to life. Jegi roared in frustration, slicing the control panel used to release the flood with his energy sword. A single flood tentacle burst from the ground, towering over the fleetmaster. Jegi roared, charging towards the large tentacle and slashing his blade against it. The tentacle did not recoil in pain, and simply pulled backwards, then slammed downwards onto the fleetmaster before burrowing back into the ground. Lezo didn't have time to react on the death of Jegi, and quickly led his forces out of the temple and regrouped on-board the Eternal Servitude.
Lezo knew from his experience in Etran Harborage that the flood would overwhelm him and his forces if given the chance. Sentinals were still slowly reactivating across the shield world and would be overwhelmed if they were not helped. Lezo directed his flagship to begin selective bombardment on large flood formation with light munitions to avoid damage to the installation as he knew damage might anger the defending sentinels.  He managed to destroy large flood formations and organisms near the Gate and managed to cause medium damage to the Gravemind that had formed inside the containment field before the flood activated several forerunner shield emitters to protect the Gravemind. In a desperate final attempt, the Gravemind spun its tentacles and threw flood pods against the CAS’ hull, using the gaps created to fire their plasma to hit the ship directly. Later on, He also took over and fired forerunner particle cannons against the CAS, weakening the shield to provide more gaps. Despite its best efforts, the flood were unable to breach the thick CAS hull with the organic dispersal pods and the captured phantoms being obliterated when the shields reactivated. Sangheili Ranger groups were deployed along with Banshees to rid the flood that did deploy from the hull while the carrier continued its bombardment. 
The sentinels were eventually able to contain the outbreak with a new barrier. Soon after the the flood were eliminated from the Eternal Servitude’s hull, the sentinels began assaulting the carrier, angered by the damage Lezo caused. Lezo quickly ordered his forces back inside and departed from the inner core of the shield world. Despite ferocious assaults from the sentinel enforcers bombarding through the shield world passage, the carrier managed to escape the shield world mostly intact.
===Evacuation of Earth===
Owing a debt to Yuki, Lezo returned to Earth upon her request with the Eternal Servitude. He engaged a small Human fleet controlled by Created AI and filled with Promethean forces. Despite overpowering the defense fleet, Lezo had his hands full as Promethean forces began teleporting into his ship. All decks across the ship were in a chaotic defense from all sides. Lezo ordered the priority to secure the engine room, hangers and bridge. All the crew regrouped to their closest objective and held off the approaching Created forces. Once the evacuation transports began landing, the tide began to turn as Human reinforcements arrived. 
Once the Promethean forces were routed and before Created reinforcements could arrive, the Eternal Servitude activated its slipspace drive and escaped from the system.
==Personality==
Although initially as stubborn and arrogant as many Sangheili are at the beginning, Lezo began to silently question the Covenant and it's actions over the long bloody years of the war. His experience and years of command garnered admiration from his fellow sangheili and unggoy, mostly for caring for his lances more than many predecessors did. His personal lance, which had been with him since serving under the High Prophet of Regret, began understanding where Lezo's morals lied even without asking him directly but by this point, they trusted Lezo much more than they did the Covenant and the Heirarchs, keeping their knowledge secret from their superiors. Lezo remained as an Ultra for the duration of the Human-Covenant war, refusing several promotions in favor of the position he currently was, which was to serve and lead which he believed was the best use of his skills and disliked sending in soldiers to battle from the rear command line.
Lezo's open-mindedness accidentally spread to other sangheili and unggoy under his command, resulting in many of his Sangheili subordinates to follow his steps in making ammends for their actions against Humanity and the innocent they might have slayed, and several Unggoy would rebel against their Brute leaders, choosing to fight for Lezo even if the likelyhood of victory was slimmer under his command. His open-mindedness did not extend as far as the brutes however, having fought against non-Covenant brutes which he thought disloyal, and being betrayed by the Covenant's brutes further enforced the idea that Brutes fight on whims and care not for allies.