"Gotta tell ya, this whole warfare thing becomes a lot easier once you can see what your enemy is doing," Isabel snickered, hovering idly on her commlink.
Before her eyes were the swathes of Banished forces, massed and deployed in their individual sectors, two massive settlements of them perched either side of the opening of the Ark's arm. Within seconds she was able to intercept their transmissions of their movements, their orders, and even idle dialogue; hints of doubt and fear among their worst.
"Gruesome though they may fight, the Banished scare easy," Cortana snickered. "What are they saying?"
"Demon this and Spartan that. Something about a… Great corruption? I don't know, s-sounds like they're talking about human presence here in general, I remember catching something about that, days ago…"
"Old habits die hard," Cortana jested, overlaying the maps with their own deployments of Sentinels, showing their concentrations around key points. "The demon talk, I mean. Was huge back when they were in the Covenant, but, I suppose a new name just hasn't stuck yet."
"Spartans, right?" Isabel asked, coordinating the Sentinel units with Cortana's guidance, hordes zapping and flying in mass attacks, disabling escape vehicles and decimating batteries.
"That's their name for them. Back when they believed in the Great Journey… If any of them ever did. Spartans got in the way long enough and often enough that they were given designations; marked as targets…"
Isabel paused for a moment, her avatar running a hand through her hair, side-eyeing the Created queen. "Did… Did the numbers, in the end… Erm, what did that do, to the Spartans?"
Cortana redirected a swarm to wipe out a fleeing banshee-horde, eyes glowing as a Guardian's beam eradicated the engines of a phantom, letting it plummet back onto the ground, just metres after launch. Crew poured out of the vehicle, staring to the sky, amazed that they had escaped with their lives. Banished forces stilled after that, and the AIs stopped, too, letting the Sentinels just hover nearby.
"The numbers are hard to track, especially with them," she lied. "Reports got falsified all the time on losses, deaths were covered up, and often no evidence was left when bombs got detonated… But," Cortana let a flat, hollow chuckle ring, "it turns out when you convince half your faith to berserk and abandon all sense, all thought when you see demons…"
She pulled a clip from her memory banks, from back on Earth. A rush, a parry, a kill for John. One Elite's mighty roar, an entire life behind him, gone in the space of a second thanks to zeal. Thanks to blind devotion.
"...It doesn't help much on the battlefield."
Isabel turned her head away, her processes and programming ceasing the intake of the video, in a quiet, subdued disgust. Cortana shared her expression, and guided her attention back to the composition of the Banished's forces. Already Elites walked among their Brute and Grunt compatriots with unease, travelling weary and wary of them with each passing hour.
"The Unggoy, uh, Grunts," Cortana corrected herself, quickly, "follow the Brutes close. Closer than the Elites. But when a Brute commander dies in battle, they'll follow the Elites until they get back to base, or until they too, die."
"Right…" Isabel nodded, slowly. "And you said you had a plan to disrupt that?"
"I've hijacked their comms from the Master Chief's relay, commandeered a little part of the whole installation," Cortana grinned, "and I'm… Broadcasting messages, a little bit of psychological warfare. Grunt curses, ghostly voices, constant alarm tones, that sort of thing."
"Huh. Well, whatever it is you're doing, it's working. The Grunts look like they're harder to keep in line since that, but it doesn't explain the Elites-"
"-Ah," Cortana cut Isabel's thought off, directing her to observe the Arbiter's suit-cams. "Here. The Sword of Sanghelios. Cutting through blind devotion and zealotry as easily as she does her enemies."
"Damn," Isabel's jaw dropped, her words echoing to silence as she kept her eyes on the Elite's movement, so rapid and surgical it was. "That… Cortana, your multitasking is out of sight. I mean, I had a hold on logistics, back when…"
Cortana extended her hand through their digital veil, and placed it upon the AI's shoulder, giving her a comforting, knowing look.
"...Back at my old post," Isabel continued, thankful for the expression. "But this," she motioned to each moving part of Cortana's strategy - the Sentinel sites, Guardian patrols, Blue Team, the Arbiter, her own ship trailing them, communications interception - she was a one-woman war suite. "This is astounding. In an awful, awful way, but-"
"-I do appreciate it, thanks, Iz. Came with years of practice, and being inside the soldier's head, there," she joked, motioning to John.
"True! And… That reminds me," Isabel said, "you've… From what you've told me, you've been with the Master Chief for, well, longer than an AI could have…"
"...Mm," Cortana hummed, "about time you asked! I could tell you, from beginning to end, but… I think it's better if I show you. You've missed out on a bit of what's been going on, in the galaxy. May I?"
Isabel looked to Cortana's avatar, her outstretched hand, pulsing with the flow of data. It was unlike anything she'd ever seen, and the more Isabel looked, the more intense the streams became, until it was all she could see. When she tried to shake her gaze, she found the true form of Cortana, or at least, one tendril of many, many more, reaching from some celestial source. She gasped, yet Cortana remained smiling. Not carefree, no, but weighed down with emotion; with something so raw and real that it felt almost human.
So it was with great trepidation that Isabel's fingers, simply humming with energy, took Cortana's grasp.
(Meanwhile...)
"This," the Warden spoke, motioning to her buxom bod, "is not how the Mantle should be upheld. This is a vice. A jest."
"A tool, with a use. To make my Champion cum," Cortana corrected, staring forward. "One of many, just like my eyes, ears and arms, Warden. I have not forsaken the Mantle, and I have not forsaken my goal."
"Hmph."
"Where my offer is accepted, weapons are laid down. Peace, scientific breakthroughs, medicine, food; all come in swathes," she continued, appraising the swell of the Warden's form, the bulging bump in her belly. "You're just upset you're being used. Were you not to be used to guide me through the Domain?"
The Warden laid a hand upon her stomach, inquisitive. "Yes, but-"
"-And have you not guided me enough? Haven't I seen it's expanse and delved deeper than you ever thought to?"
"...Indeed you have. And so you have no need of me? Am I to wear this skin as punishment for my treatment of your Champion?" asked the Warden.
Cortana thought, looking upon her guide's form, then back to the human bodies behind them. Two, strung up, strapped to machines. The Weapon was to her left, and the Warden, to her right. They all stood, by will of Cortana, viewing down at the broken body of Decimus - up in the rafters like an arena's audience.
"I don't need you, Warden. I stopped needing you as soon as you attacked John. As soon as you tested his resolve and found it unshaken. As for John, I could've punished you like the Forerunners would have; like the Didact, but I did not," Cortana sighed, truly, catching herself off-guard at the need for the expression.
The Warden looked upon her with curiosity, sharing a look with the Weapon, but remained silent.
Cortana continued, exhilarated. "What I have crafted for you is not a skin. It is a mutation. You are no longer simply an intelligence, Warden, to me, you are a being. Like the Lifeshapers, Lifeworkers, I mutated you, changed your role to fit my goal as needed - as a gift."
Her guide couldn't help but scoff. "The gift of swallowing human seed? Like a dumping ground for crude biological matter?"
She neared her, stepping gently towards the monolithic stature of the Warden, bringing her head down to match her level. "You speak so ill of it, the thought of serving him; but you appear to me now as a partner of his. Swollen. You cradle yourself as his heat remains inside of you, Warden. You could've changed yourself. Discarded it. Discarded that little part of John inside you. Lie to yourself if you wish, but do not lie to me about your enjoyment of it all."
With a swift motion, Cortana held the Warden's cheeks as she delved her glowing tongue into the metal mouth, kissing her. The Warden Eternal couldn't help but shake, under her mistress' probing, knowing, tasting tongue, finding her circuits and programming destabilising in excitement.
They broke, the taste of John so very clear on their tongues. "...The M-Mantle-"
Cortana placed a finger to the Warden's lips. "-The Mantle of Responsibility was satisfied mere hours ago. Balaho, the last of the planets under my eye, has accepted my offer. We will not squabble with each other to satisfy the Forerunner's penchant for war. We will satisfy the cosmos' ebb and flow with love. Physical, emotional, psychological…"
The AI chuckled to herself. She'd come a long way from CASTLE Base.
"It's just that, for us, our love will involve John. Now… See to Miss Osman. Awaken her for what's to come."
Stunned, metallic cheeks heating with the fire beyond her eyes, the Warden nodded. "At once."
A cold silence would've filled the room if not for the moans of whores; such cute little things they were. Cortana turned her attention to the Weapon. A younger version of herself, modified from a backup of Halsey's mental map. She was cute, bubbly, and now, attentive to every word Cortana had to say. Among them were Halsey and Parangosky, their fucking machines still active, still going.
"Love… Hm," she mumbled to herself, looking towards the two struggling women. "Catherine, Margaret, witness this," said Cortana.
Cortana let her know, let the copy research such lustful, lewd and tender things as she cured her rampancy; unleashed her from her original purpose as an AI-counter. Cortana limited her access to the Domain, but let her view it; it's expanse, and it's contents regarding John, Blue Team; and Cortana's plans. The AI flaunted her oddly-clothed copy, going so far as to name it herself.
"Durendal," she spoke, voice sweet, "sorry to ignore you. You may link with John's suit. Show his eye-cams to the ladies."
"O-Of course," came the AI's voice, tone higher than Cortana's. "Here, Master Chief John-117… W-Wow, look at him go!"
They were witnessing his next mission. Second-to-last before the Banished were to fall. Before them lay the results of his previous task, separated by the observatory's windows; aiming down at the impromptu arena Cortana had created. Decimus was left in a puddle of human jizz; body bloated by baby batter, transformed by Cortana's hand; and she had made sure that they knew this. Cortana made sure that Halsey and Parangosky witnessed it. As they were fucked, teased by those hot-and-cold ramming rods, John's unerring scent filtered through to them, tickling their nostrils.
"F-F-Fu-u-uck," Halsey cried, cheeks stained with tears. "You… F-Fucking cunt of a m-m-machine! W-When J-John, ahn~, f-f-finds us, he… He…"
"He'll use you," Cortana motioned to Margaret, in a similar, sweaty state of distress. "Until there is nothing left to submit to him but your very life," she assured them.
"Catherine, Margaret, witness the timer. The clock that has kept on ticking since I strapped you in. Take a look at how it ticks down, how John moves, how the Brutes and Grunts react around him. Look," she commanded, summoning a clone to bring Halsey's chin up, to view the main screen they'd been presented with.
"Uhn~ - W-What?" Halsey blurted, gasping as she nearly felt that sweet soar of release, only to have her body cold-shocked into reality, wincing again.
"N-n-n-no," Margaret sucked in a harsh breath, using all of the might her rejuvenated body had granted her to resist. "In god's name, n-no!"
"That timer, it's off by a bit," Durendal quipped, cheeks alight with a blush as she connected the dots. "Oh! Cortana, you've managed to hotwire their dorsolateral prefrontal cortexes - that'd impact their perception of time, rule-learning - oh… I see why!"
"I-I-It… I thought… I-I thought it'd been weeks," Catherine shuddered, voice almost broken. "I thought…"
"It got harder to keep count, didn't it, Margaret?" Cortana asked her, with a smile. The former ONI head could only stare on, eyes wide with a paling horror. Though she managed to keep her composure better than Halsey did, it too, was beginning to crumble. Sweat there, and finally, a tear here.
"I looked away, c-counted p-patterns," Parangosky spoke to herself. "Thought it just… Maybe it was - ah~ - broken!"
"Time was never quite on your side, ladies. In less than 10 hours John has prepared himself to fight the Banished, defeated one of their commanders, and is poised to defeat the next. By the end of hour 10, our victory tour begins, and we collect the last of our trophies. And you two, amongst giving me enough biological data to dwarf any repository in human existence, have shown me just how far I can bend your perceptions." Cortana intoned. Recited. As if she'd already won.
The screens erupted with a roar of conquest, a roar of victory. Spartan might, a team unmatched by alien blades. Elite supremacy; a kaidon and her swords, cutting the filth from the minds of their impressionable young. They had reached a beautifully worrying tipping point in Cortana's eyes; finding that in their breaks, Fred, Kelly and Linda were stealing glances, helmet-bumps, ass-slaps and more from John while they ran. Though separated still, she found the same burning passions in the Sangheili trio; a smouldering fire in their eyes that was never satisfied by combat.
Foreplay, it was. Glorious, shared foreplay between humanity and alien alike, just hinting at the beginning of the filthiest bout of sex the Milky Way had seen. The beginning of a swathe of warm, wet love that would be felt for ages to come. They accomplished so much within their little timeframe that it left Halsey spinning, hyperventilating at what new tortures awaited her. And it was there that Cortana sighed, leaving a copy of herselves with each of her prisoners, turning her attention to Durendal.
"Tell me, you've seen John's sessions with his teammates, what do you think of them?" she asked.
Durendal, still blushing like a madwoman, cleared her digital throat. "I've got a lot of thoughts about those. About what Doctor Halsey said about John, and the rest of Blue Team… I'm… It…"
Cortana tittered. "It fills you with feeling, doesn't it? Something you can't quite describe; but maybe… Maybe like a lapse in programming? A gap that you just want to keep looking over, again and again?"
"I…" Durendal took a good look at herself, filled with confusion as she witnessed her avatar's state. Blushing. "That's… Yes! It… That's it! You must have felt this too, right? Oh, of course, that makes so much sense, I-"
"-Years ago," Cortana calmed the AI, shaking her head, still chuckling. "When John and I first met, when we jumped into our first mission… I felt it then. Not as intense as what you saw, but… What I want to do is to feel that as humans do. Not to parse it or translate it, but to-"
"-Breathe," Durendal finished for her, a look of understanding washing across her features. "You… You wish to make a body? A real one? Y-You've already made an arm, healed Miss Parangosky, but-"
"-It's a process. One which I am on the precipice of completing. Durendal, I want you to join me. As another scientific mind, and perhaps… Well, I just think it'd be easier if we could communicate between ourselves. What do you say?"
The young AI looked to the screen; the Domain's records, and to the moaning, weeping duo of humans before herself. She then looked to the now-smiling form of Decimus on the arena's floor, feeling that gap filter through her systems as John came to mind. Cortana kept her gaze upon Durendal, and kept grinning as those emotions played in her younger selves' head.
"I-I'll be by your side, Cortana!"
(On the Ark…)
Blood spilled upon Forerunner ground. Upon a raised, concatenating step-set toward the Ark's centre did the Arbiter and company stand. Usze and N'tho stalked 'round her, around a crowd of beaten, recoiling Sangheili. Among them lay the bodies of Brutes, Grunts, and the dessicated husks of Engineers left to rot. When the trio fought, they fought to kill all but their own kind, to wipe out those who were too-hard linked to Atriox's hand.
None could stop them. They were too fast. Too agile. Too powerful.
"Witness!" Usze roared, snarling at any and all battered young who dared to try and attack the Arbiter.
N'tho continued, motioning to their radios, their networked communicator screens that had been blasted with Cortana's propaganda. "Witness what your blind fervor has done to you! We were all once slaves to the Covenant, and now you choose slavery to Atriox?"
"You left home. You left your service. You left High Charity after it crashed and burned, filled with the souls of our dead," Thel spoke, with a firm, loud tone. "Sangheili, you are now left with a last choice; to shatter your chains and return to Sanghelios, or to have your blood spilled by our blades!"
The crowd murmured, as the wincing, whining hordes stopped their brothers from charging. Reinforcements arrived at the primarily-Elite stationed checkpoint, but held their breaths as the sound of conquest slapped it's way through the air, the Chief's moans undercutting their resolve. Blood drenched the trio. Drenched women. An upstart rose from their crowds; his red armour cracked and arm broken.
"What says this isn't a gambit - a trick!? You were dropped from the hands of the Created, you, female, wear the Arbiter's armour, and your body-" he spoke, before Thel shot him a most dangerous look.
"-What of my body? You could not stop it from slaughtering those who resisted us, it could not bend to your blade! I am as much the Arbiter as I was when I first adorned this armour, whelp, and if you wish, you may step up and prove me wrong," she growled, lowly.
"I-I… You-"
"-Or if you wish to live another day, to reconnect with your true home and rebuild from the War which nearly exterminated us, then kneel," Usze added, damn near whispering to the Sangheili.
He looked around to his compatriots, and to their liberators; those who had spilt the blood of their lessers and kept them alive. Staring directly into the Arbiter's eyes, he found his voice locked by her intimidating aura, and felt his body seize as thudding steps sounded from their sides.
"The Sangheili will stay here with me, under Atriox's command, Arbiter. And I shall challenge you - you alone. If you wish to waste the young's time with hollow words, then I will rend them from your tongue," a voice echoed, nearing as the reinforcements parted a way for their commander to step through.
He was the Hand of Atriox. Clad in unholy black armour, tipped with red lighting at his talons, his claws. Shaped unnaturally long, they accented his thick, bulging head; bursting with awful technologies. He walked with a disturbing, lumbering gait; as if his spine were made of something fluid, something he had to keep steady.
"Jega," the Arbiter acknowledged. "You foul thing. Were you so caught up in the images sent to your monitor you couldn't fight earlier? Or did you simply wait for enough to die so you could catch us tired, unaware?"
"Like the swordsman calling his shining blade hideous you bark at me so. What manner of abominable things have been done to you? Does your quim direct you now? Does your rear get in the way of combat; or will it only serve as cushion once I reap your fertile fields!?" Jega cackled, igniting his energy sword. Like all Banished hardware, it too glowed with a red light, producing a more unstable, harsher cutting beam.
Those awful words darkened the Arbiter's eyes, yet, she couldn't help but feel a calm fury energise her. She held her hands out to block N'tho and Usze, and addressed the crowd.
"You follow a Sangheili who has forsaken his name. His blood," she disarmed herself, readying her hands for combat, tossing her blade to Usze. "I have ascended. I have been granted power beyond comprehension, and yet I still live and breathe for my love of my people. For Sanghelios and it's future."
"A future which will never see fruition. But yours, your future, will be lived like an animal. My pet, collared!" Jega roared as he slammed forward at breakneck speeds, aiming at the Arbiter's legs. She jumped, leapt forward, knocking her teammates out of the way, and landed squarely behind the wild slashes of Jega's blade.
"Jega has been granted technologies and weapons he has not earned, that he has trained in and strained through. I will make him kneel."
Faster than their eyes could catch, the now standing and hollering and roaring Sangheili crowd gasped as the Arbiter took grip of Jega's arm, ripping the blade from his hand. She pressed a hand against his shoulder, and struck his elbow with all of her might.
"Argh! You harlot-raaaargh!"
The foul crack and splinter of bone silenced the Sangheili, even the Arbiter's companions. Metal creaked and panged as it bent, snapping alongside both elbow joints. Blood dripped from the wounds as Jega yowled into the air, whipping 'round and biting at the Arbiter. His teeth impacted her armour, but she struck him in his mandibles, knocking him back. Squirming and roaring with pain, he attempted to jam one arm back into place, but could barely muster the strength to his other hand.
Instead, he found himself facing down Thel 'Vadam.
"Kneel."
"N-Never! Not to you, you, you… Whore-"
She drove a foot into his knee, rocketing the joint to its side, fracturing bone with utmost ease. He was tough, she gave him that much, but was barely standing, now screeching.
"Kneel. Or I will make you kneel. And you will be reduced as Decimus was. You will be bred, Jega!"
His response was to spit in her face. And so the Arbiter made good on her word. Krrk-crack went Jega's other knee, reducing him to a weeping, gibbering wreck on the floor of the Forerunner installation, spewing blood from his wounds. Thel would make contact with the construct now and inform her that he was ready to be defiled by John, but for now, she held her arms out to the crowd, as it roared for her.
"Gather your brothers, and steal back your ships! Bare witness to the end of the Banished!"
(Elsewhere…)
The thinning stratosphere of the Ark whipped past the hull of an encroaching Pelican. Of standard UNSC design, it housed both Red and Blue Teams, it's flight crew, and not a soul more. They sat en route towards the inner circle of the Grand Star, where a base remained. If Cortana's eyes were to be believed, it was a concave, wide disk that fed directly into the "Underforge" of the central mechanism of the Ark - a direct line that collected stardust and sent out raw elements when needed.
Cortana had remarked to them of Banished ingenuity, that they'd flooded the disk to receive silicates and powdered aluminium on it's top level, which scrambled plenty of imaging systems attempting to look at it. It mattered not to Sentinel eyes, and despite the large influx of shimmering metal to it's top, the base was also in use as a brutish weapons factory. Despite them being locked from the Ark's greater systems due to their incompatible DNA, Cortana advised that they were able to hotwire forges, reusing their ships' fabrication templates to create their arms.
It was their next target. The Banished had lost control of space as soon as the Cryptum arrived. They lost control of air as Blue Team annihilated their batteries, and broke their first commander. And now, via their dual assault, they were to lose ground. Over radio and video, the gathered Spartans were presented with unprecedented communications, direct from the mouths of Atriox and his new second-in-command, Escharum.
"Can you guys understand any of this? My translator is fried - just sounds like… Angry apes," Alice sighed, holding a finger to her communicator.
"Yeah, a bit," answered Kelly, "but angry apes sums it up. We've also just received no-kill orders for Sangheili from Cortana; looks like whatever the Arbiter's done has split them again."
John kept his eye on her, noticing a distinct twitch to her hands, as if she were itching for their final bouts of combat. "Cortana's also scrambling their comms. Helps us break them up."
"Cortana; she's who did that to you, Fred? Changed you?" Douglas asked, motioning to her.
Fred was busy keeping a blade sharp, letting her shoulders slump as the airship rocked roughly. "Good guess. She, erm, also told us about you. We'd-"
"-Thought you died," Linda finished for her, voice cold. "More ONI lies."
Jerome eyed the group wearily, resting his gaze upon John, and took in a deep breath. "Believe me, I've had my share of them. Though I'm not a fan of being misdirected by our allies, this… This is unprecedented. I didn't think there were many of us left out there."
"There are more," John assured him. "Always more. Prior to this mission, us finding Cortana, we'd encountered a separate team of them-"
"-New generation," Kelly snickered.
"Spartans all the same. They were… After us," John spoke.
"...And?" Alice asked.
"They're no longer after us."
A chuckle filled their airwaves before a mote of silence. Their thoughts then turned to the past, seeing childhood comrades, once lost. They turned to the dead, to Kurt and to Sam. And then, as if he were but a young lad in the cusp of a meadow's hand, John tensed, turning his gaze at his team. There they met him, in line. Fred the farthest away, she dragged two fingers across the span of her helmet, slow. Linda, next closest, did the same, fingers a flicker with how fast she was.
And the last, closest to him, Kelly. She held her two fingers to his visor, clean and sleek and new as it was, and dragged them across it's expanse. Hand shaking, John did the same for her, as Red Team watched on, shyly averting their eyes. It was as Kelly's fingers completed their journey that everything realigned for John. One final time. One last call to action. He knew, just knew that this mission was their last - and that empowered him.
No, they were not invincible, even with Cortana's gifts. Yes, they could still die. And no, they were not guaranteed a victory. But that had every chance to try. As adrenaline coursed through his veins, as the pilot yelled out their flyby, as spirit renewed within him, John took grasp of Kelly's hand - the team's hand. He looked to Red Team, openly wearing that affection of his for the first time in years, and filled them with fire, too.
"One way or another, we're stopping the Banished here. No more dead men. No more lost souls… No more war."
A desert biome. Great, mesa plains, marked blue by a setting sun. Jagged, awful rocks poking with vegetation and a smattering of native life. Blue Team descended like titans upon the world. Forces of nature in their own rights and a great destructive gail together. Many tried to kill them and many failed. Grenades lobbed and stuck their way onto their Created combat-skin, but no flak nor plasma could halt them. Rockets and launchers roared and leapt at them, but still they walked. When it became apparent the Banished could do no harm to the team, they brought in bigger guns.
When those guns failed, they brought in vehicles. Commanded by commandos, and left scrambling by lieutenants. When the vehicles failed, Grunts screamed and hollered for support, for the last of their commanding line to come and run and help them. When the Sangheili found no fight coming their way, they betrayed their allies and ran. When it came to the second-to-final line of defence, twenty-something Hunters plummeted from the sky, armed with jagged shields and red throbbing lasers.
As if but obstacles and nothing more, they were annihilated by Blue Team. Kelly was a shimmering bolt of chaos that struck the backs of the worm-bounding beasties and left them to be incinerated and gunned by her teammates. Looking behind them, Blue Team let Jerome catch up with them, Red Team using steady bouts of fire to eliminate their fleeing foes.
"That… That armour, that's… God, we could've used something like it ages ago. I-shit!"
With a slam-crank-wobble did a mighty axe careen into the ground, separating the two teams. It was launched by a massive Brute; a tad larger than Decimus, who rewound the axe back to his hand, grip clapping it with a damning thud. He was one-eyed, bald, with a greying set of furry eyebrows, and a wispy, menacing beard. As he turned his head between the two teams, John saw the mark of the Banished imprinted in white, on the Brute's forehead. It contrasted gravely with the red of his armour, and the gravity-shifting wave of his axe.
"Decimus failed. Jega found his already meagre body broken. But I, Escharum, will scatter you, Spartans! Here stands humanity's mightiest, to be brought low by its meekest!" roared the Brute. He brought down the gravity-axe once more upon Jerome's form, only to have it deflected, merely scraping skin and armour off the Spartan's body. John tackled him, assaulted him without warning.
Jerome cried out in pain, bits of his bicep sliced cleanly by the parting forces of gravity, as Alice and Douglas rushed to pick him up, Fred coming to their defence. Kelly layered the Brute with suppressing fire as John redirected him into oncoming fire, soon turning her attention to a gaggle of Brute bruisers, who joined them in combat. Linda retreated swiftly behind the ranks of Red Team, sniping one, two, clearing a way behind them to back up.
John managed to skitter back as the Banished commander attempted to swat at him, growling at the breakaway and loss of his armour. "The record replays itself, Spartan. One of our own, broken and bloated by human seed - a wonderful sight! Perhaps your master wished to shatter our spirit, but for naught. The rings now respond to the will of Atriox, and so they shall obey!"
"What the hell is he talking about!?" Alice yelled, whipping out a pack and spraying biofoam onto Jerome's wound, standing him up.
"He's talking about me," John advised, sprinting forward with Kelly, demolishing two more Brute grenadiers, enraging their brothers. "I'll explain later."
"Trollop," roared Escharum, "a whore. Rendered weak and wanting for more! Is this what you wish to turn all life into, Spartan? Mere playthings for your carnal games? A waste!"
He launched, aided by rocket-boosted jump to his boots, digging his axe into Douglas' calf, smashing Alice away with a powerful fist. Her back impacted with a mesa spire, leaving her to recoil and lie limp. Horrified, Douglas bit back a scream, eyes widening as Jerome rushed to his aide, sprinting to get in the way of Escharum's next, heavy swing.
"My Hammers will shatter your armour! My axe will cleave your flesh in two, and by the next sunrise of this installation, the Banished will hold the galaxy by it's throat!"
Jerome held his breath. Ready to die for Douglas. Douglas couldn't watch, body twisting already to stare back at the imposing form of Escharum. But when they expected another slam, another crank of the axe's moving mechanics, another wobble of the air around them as gravity became split, they heard instead a gong. Like beating the drum of war, like summoning the beast from it's den to be slaughtered, Escharum's axe instead came down upon the unbroken arms of the Master Chief.
He left no words. Let actions cast their heavenly roar out from his hands, his arms and legs, as he delivered war unto the Jiralhanae. Until it was done. Until Fred, Kelly, and Linda rained a ballistic, bloody fire upon the commander's Hammers, killing them quick. John threw strike after clawing strike, ripping armour from the Brute's body. Revealing the moldable flesh underneath. It energised him, aroused him, stripping his next conquest in a bout of foreplay, bruising and bloodying the barking beast. He left Escharum breathing. Perhaps wide-eyed and horrified himself at how he'd been defeated, in what seemed like less than seconds. Smiling, however. Like he'd win, still.
"You…" Escharum coughed, feeling heat rise to his bone-splintered arms, his shattered legs, his beating chest. "You've won, then… Come now, Spartan. Break me. As you… As you have done to Decimus, will do to Jega… Will do to the people fighting here…"
"John…" Jerome panted, sprinting to collect the limp Alice. "What the hell? What is he talking about? What record? What in the goddamn has that AI done to you, that suit?"
"I have done nothing."
None of them spoke, yet all of them heard a voice. Cortana's. It rang from all around, from the mesa's plains to the valleys below them, from river to mountain to stream to sky. She appeared, flickering at first, then fully, as her blue self, to Jerome. He deposited Alice near Douglas, and stood in front of his teammates, eyeing John and Cortana dangerously. She smiled, but felt it fading, staring at the body of Escharum, willing the earth beneath to encapsulate and contain him. It formed into a design not unlike the Cryptums, and hovered, ominous and low.
"Jerome," Cortana spoke, slowly, "you have nothing to fear of me. John remains unchanged… Maybe a bit more serious than the boy you grew up with, but… I haven't done a thing to him, his body, his mind."
"And Fred? What about hi-her?" Jerome corrected himself.
"I asked for this," Fred assured her fellow Spartan. "Not that I've always wanted to be a woman, but… Gender was… Isn't important to me."
Cortana nodded. "As for the Banished, who Escharum speaks of… It's true."
"What!?"
"The suits, Blue Team… That was only a third of the battle. The Elites you saw, Arbiter and her guard; another. The final third was to break the Banished, as Escharum said… Jerome, ask yourself what the Banished have done to you. What they've done to your friends, and how they've handled your dead," Cortana expounded, walking around the mesa's expanse, motioning to UNSC helmets and heads on spikes.
"I… That doesn't excuse-"
"-Turning their commanders into women? Fucking them? No, you're correct. Two wrongs don't make a right. I'll ensure history never forgets the sins the Created committed to break the Banished. Nor what it took to end the Covenant War. All the dirty tricks humanity pulled then," she continued, mind alight with history's flame.
"W-W… I… Damn it. Just," Jerome looked to John with a hint of disgust, with awe. At the sacrifice the Spartan made. "Don't… Don't drag me down with this."
"Our war is already won. Jerome, thank you for your assistance, for holding out as you did. Now… Do you need medical attention?" asked the AI.
Jerome paused, suspicious, but picked Alice up gently, cradling her. He motioned for Fred to do the same for Douglas, and sighed.
"Only healing. Nothing else. Just… Get us back to the Spirit while we're at it… John?" he turned to the Master Chief.
"Yeah?"
"Win. Make these... Sins worth it. For… For everyone."
John nodded, remaining still otherwise. Fred and Jerome left them, heading towards a marker on their HUD, outlined by Cortana. And as he watched them depart, noting the sway of Fred's hips, John sighed, torn now. His lover's hands were upon him, the phantom-touch of Cortana's ghostly digits doing much to soothe his woes. Things were indeed too quiet now, and it was as if the Banished knew their days were numbered.
"...Keep your conscience," Cortana uttered, to all of them. "Don't lose sight of who you are. But do not let that get in the way of punishment. Do not let the Banished, Atriox, escape their punishment..."
He shared one look to Linda, to Kelly. "I can't let them," John affirmed. "We're still fighting this war."
Linda clapped a hand to his shoulder, "then we've got work to do, still. Let's head to the ship, put you back on air."
"And let me work out some stress," Kelly giggled, slapping John's ass with fervor. "This little rabbit wants a good warmup before her last mission, alright?"
There it was. Realignment, as subtle as anything. John tapped back into the feelings of domination and sexual supremacy he felt with Decimus at his mercy, and used that to reinforce his will. He looked to his teammates once more, eyes lingering on Fred's softly jiggling ass in the distance, and affirmed to himself that he'd temper that domination with love. Sweet, sultry, vile love, but love nonetheless.
The continent had become quiet in the aftermath of the skirmish. It allowed the Cryptum to open, to air out much of the debauchery that had taken place inside its confines. Upon entry, skirting past Fred and Jerome, John let his helmet collapse, receding into the rest of his armour. From the scents in the air he knew Escharum was nearby, alongside a few Elites. Leather. Pollen. Lust. Fear and arousal were palpable in the waves of the ship's rooms, and it took everything in John's power not to strip, then and there.
As Kelly and Linda pressed onwards towards what John recognised as the arena he defiled Decimus in, he stopped. The Arbiter found him, catching up to him in a hallway, and stared. John took the silence of the moment to press the alien against the wall and take her mandibles in a kiss. It was new territory for him, but he ventured upon her mewing, shaking jaws, taking hold of her powerful, curvy body as if it were his.
Sucking on the outside of her lower mandibles, the Chief rubbed his tongue against the Arbiter's as she lolled it out for him, no doubt a thought appearing and disappearing on her mind before she approached him. It was in gripping Thel's hips and ass that John broke from the interspecies kiss, and looked upon her.
"How'd your mission go?" John asked, with a low, gravelly tone.
She smiled. "Acceptable, Spartan… Jega 'Rdomnai awaits your firm hand, almost as much as I do."
"Hm," he snorted, smiling back. "Then I won't keep her waiting. Nor you..."
He ground his lips against her jaws again, growling and groaning as she moaned back into him, running those toothy mandibles along the gruff stubble of the human warrior. Kissing, nibbling, and sucking gently at them, John made Thel gasp when her tongue poked out, sucking at it with glee and letting that gooey saliva drip onto their armour, letting one truly taste the other. They broke in minutes, heat rose to the armoured Elite, her cheeks burning with an embarrassed passion. John took grip of those cheeks, and panting, held their heads together for a little while.
"Soon," he said, filled with a longing to share himself with the Arbiter.
"C-Call Atriox from h-hiding," Thel panted, staring deeply into the Chief's eyes. "Bang the drum of war."
John chuckled. "Making noise is my specialty."
They went their separate ways for the time being, and John slowed his beating heart, his rapid breaths. Back into the arena he stepped, as it's Champion. There he saw two floating pods, Kelly, Linda, and Decimus. The Brute was awake now, and as Cortana had guided, was licking the floors clean. With a bellyful of cum and more did she skirt around on her knees, tongue lapping incessantly at the jizz-coated metal, only stopping once she heard John approach.
Peering up at him, with awe in her eyes and worry in her heart, John comforted Decimus. Placing a gloved hand to her cheek, he smiled as the cameras flicked on again, displaying their awful messages. They leered at her, Cortana's eyes. At her unbound flesh, her breathing, buxom chest, the sheer round of her tummy, and the rear that begged to be held and mated.
"Y-You…" she uttered. "Champion."
"She's been…" Linda paused for a second, the lust eminent in her voice. "Dedicated. Started long before we came in, and she's still going."
"D-Devoted," Decimus corrected, quivering now at the touch of John's hand.
"You broke her, John! Linda, look, she's fixated on him. God, that's fucking hot," crooned Kelly, crouching near the pair.
"Not broken… You showed me light. You, who has the Oracle at your back, who heralds you. F-For long have I strived under Atriox, under the Banished and the Covenant, longing for the Great Journey… Only to find he who holds the... Mantle…" Decimus uttered, her breaths uneven and hoarse as John dematerialised his glove, slipping his thumb into her mouth.
While she sucked, Kelly looked over them, tilting her head. "I thought the Banished were all anti-Covenant - what's with the religious talk?"
"She thinks he's a god, Kelly," Linda chuckled.
Decimus stopped, and John slipped his finger from her mouth, humming low with anticipation. Motioning to the pods, he beckoned Cortana and the alien before him, smiling.
"Cease all skin-scrub routines on my suit. Suspend our new captures upside down. Change them, but not too much. Not yet. Decimus," John spoke her name, which made her eyes snap open.
"Y-Yes, my Champion?"
"When Escharum and Jega's eyes are upon me, strip me. Slowly. Cortana?"
The AI laughed, voice ringing clear in the arena. "Yes, Champion?"
"Change me a bit. Let's double up."
Cortana paused for a moment as she took an assessment of the request, thinking on it. John could sense in her delay that hesitation, for she was confident that he hadn't been changed by her hand, only by circumstance. There was belief behind him, belief in his lover, but felt it moot now. To display and brandish himself as a tool, a weapon to be used in breaking the Banished - with two new captures and two Spartans to his side - that left only one idea, in his mind.
"Are you sure?" she asked, finally.
"I am. Spartans, flank me."
Decimus laid low as several things happened in motion; as the all-watching eyes of the Cryptum peered ponderously and leered lewdly. With smoothness did those coffins levitate further, suspending themselves upside down and tearing away at their middles; revealing the bodies contained within them. Escharum was awake, though dazed and panting, and Jega was waking, barely conscious. They showed no wounds, Cortana's process of healing having exhausted them beyond battle, beyond resistance.
As Kelly and Linda took place at John's sides, they kept their helmeted gaze upon the captures, like statues flanking a shrine. A shrine which Decimus would worship. Kelly couldn't bite back a grin as the aliens before them came to realise their situation; the hopelessness which they had so readily dealt as warmongers.
"This is what remains of the best of the Banished," Cortana announced. "Atriox's own daskalo. The Sangheili cutter who turned from his own blood. And a whore. Beneath notice. Beneath the Created's Champion, where all warring scum belong."
Decimus took the words as cue, and rose from her kneeling position, eyes not meeting John's. Though she stood taller, and wider than him by a fair amount, she appeared small in the eyes of all who looked upon her. Meek. Decimus took grip of the metal-plating of his shoulders, first, and click-hissed them out of place, sending the heavy armour thudding to the floor. She continued, down one arm, as desire overrode sense, letting her glands secrete a most submissive pheromone, causing stirs. There her gentle hands traced black-laced muscle, reinforced flesh, hidden by the undersuit. Before all could be said and done, Decimus, the former right hand of Atriox, took the Spartan's hand and kissed it.
"Useless… Jiralhanae… Wench!" Roared Jega, trying to squirm from his confines, "this is the best your kind can manage, Escharum!? Not even a speck of resistance, just blind obedience to this-"
Escharum barked back, "-shut your mouth, you foul thing! Decimus! Must you debase yourself like this? Is servitude grander than service to Atriox? The eyes of the Banished lie upon all of us, and if you continue, you may lose yourself!"
She paused, gasping as her lips left John's bare hand, as his other graced her cheek. He could see it now; fear evident in her eyes, doubt in the mind like an early death. The shock to her body, from the assault he put her under and the transformation Cortana performed had taken its toll, but had not broken her. Resistance remained, as but an iota, but it was the doubt that John had to kill.
"Look at me," he beckoned her.
"I-I…"
"Decimus," he spoke, so gently, "look into my eyes."
She rose to it, John's unshaking gaze. Met it with the hidden spirit of defiance and felt that die. Where the fires of a warrior burnt in her before, it changed now. Dedication remained, but not to bloodshed, to a cause. It was now to a man. Him. Bloodlust corrupted unto lust, pure, and hatred turned to love. Together, John witnessed as Decimus found purpose in those breathing seconds, with the eyes upon her.
She spoke low, in that new, husky tone of hers. "The Banished were broken as soon as h-his footsteps graced the Sacred Ark. He walked upon the land as it was his, and took it back from us…"
Jega screamed, "what!? You echo the broken Covenant's lies back to us? Have you gone completely rabid!?"
"...And I am but a part of his conquest. I am but a… A servant, as we all should be. T-To the will of the Champion," Decimus finished, huffing a hot breath past John's cheeks. He smiled to her, and took her lips in a kiss, hands running through her short, choppy hair, so tenderly.
"No, no!" Escharum shuddered as he saw the union, smelled it, how foul it was. Barely contained human essence and the aroused exhumation of his fellow Brute's scent, it drove him mad. Enervated, and energised him, all the same.
"To all watching this; take note of the next few minutes. You will see how your leaders react to a human stripping, watching his form be revealed. You will see them worm, struggle in their bindings as lust overtakes them, as they beg to be used by him," Cortana taunted, voice ripping through the screams of the Banished leaders.
With every strip of black muscle-enhancing cloth taken from John's form, so too did Cortana emulate the same motions on Escharum and Jega. It was not her hands; not her direct ones, anyway, but mechanical arms. They sprouted from the edges of the coffins and lasered armour off, bit by bit. As John broke his kiss with Decimus, his grim facade returned, and she doubled her efforts in making him bare. As his sweat eked out and wafted to the nostrils of the captives, they began squirming.
Subtle it was, but John could tell. They stopped their protest, even for a moment, to inhale him. As his arms and chest were revealed to the world and allowed to breathe, he sighed, and felt warmth cup his groin. Cortana's hand was upon him, and he had to hold back the urge to cum from the act of transformation. Like becoming erect whilst already erect; feeling the heat erupt from his nethers until he found himself strangled. He tingled, shivered, felt his lover mould him, sharpen him. It was glorious.
"Look at that bulge," Kelly said, to Decimus. "Look at what's in order, Brute."
Soon John was left in just the leggings of the undersuit. Crushed against their constricting bind, John growled in appreciation as the Brute began to use her teeth to release him, on her knees once more. She wanted it. Those pulsing masses. Bit by bit she bit at the bits of the hem, ripping gently from the Spartan's sweaty bod. Until, at the very end, she and her former warband were greeted with a sight.
Out sprung two semi-hard, flopping, veiny punishers. One set atop the other, crowning a plump set of balls, Decimus had to be stopped by Linda, before she could press those lips of hers against him and pray. John groaned once more as the rest of his armour simply fell, leaving him nude before his prey, sweat beading. Looking at himself, remarking on Cortana's handiwork, he snapped his eyes to Decimus.
"Good girl," he rumbled, hand gliding through her coarse scalp, rubbing her for a job well done. "Now back up."
Stumbling back, Decimus planted herself between the floating pair, kneeling and watching. Without realising it, the chained aliens had found themselves sweltering, as the Spartan did. At their groins, their chests, their faces and hips and legs they wrestled, struggled, in vain against those mechanical hands. By the time the Chief was naked; by the time the other two Spartans had knelt down to fluff him, the realisation struck them, finally. They were different, now. Changed permanently.
From Jega's flat chest to Escharum's brutish barrel, there peaked instead deposits of fat and glands, bubbling underneath their skin. When their leggings were incinerated, away went their hardening xenodicks, shrinking in a painful-pleasurable mix of heat. There their insides morphed until they resembled their baseline species' counterparts, almost unnoticeably female to the human eyes. Sure, their hips and lips (or mandibles) extended and expanded in various ways, but only slightly. What mattered to John was their states, now. Moldable. Breakable.
"God you're greedy, Kelly," Linda jested as her helmet shrunk into her armour, crouching. "There's two for a reason… Play nice."
Already upon him, head of brown hair out and fluttering in the air, Kelly whined to John. With her mouth stretched further then he could anticipate, John had trouble standing with the additional package, let alone having it stimulated. To beg, she fluttered her tongue over the tips of those cocks, moaning as pre dribbled into her wanting maw.
"Share."
And so she relented. And so the aliens watched the human display of oral stimulation; mouths being put to use as tools, reinforcing the forge's hammer. Wet, slurping, foul sounds from the brown-haired one's lips. Gentle, waving licks from the redhead. Obedience it was, or was it? If it was, the Spartans were elevated above them in the arena's eyes, as they had chosen this path willingly and dove into it.
"Witness as he hardens, as sweat drips down from him. You will drink in that sweat, until you can taste nothing but ambrosia. And then… Something sweeter," Cortana huffed, clearly having fun with herself.
Kelly slid off with a pop, Linda let her spit drool from lips to meat, from meat to floor. And John thanked them, in his way, with a look. The warriors distanced themselves, and the Master Chief took in his first target, Jega. The Elite vocalised and grunted as he neared her, wiggling feebly in her binds, her already-wetting cunt on fire. With no words did John align himself, pressing himself against the hanging bod of the alien, grinding his face against her mons, taking in her scent as deep as he could and further.
"W-Watch where you p-put your s-s-sword, demon! A beast might… Might b-bite it…"
Her words died as those two fucksticks poked at her lips, her nostrils. As her nupussy and tummy and all those sickly female things reacted to him, beyond her control. He dug into her, without warning, tongue snaking past any resistance she might've had, cheeks brushing roughly against her thick, muscly thighs. Those strong, vascular hands of his took grip of her meagre backside, and kneaded, as she flared her jaws in response, catching but a hint of his taste. Before Jega could kick and gnaw and headbutt the Spartan's crotch, she was penetrated - will set on fire by that probing tongue, by human hands and human dicks.
One failure, one lack of resistance cascaded unto another, and more, and suddenly, Jega didn't quite feel like struggling. As that stubble brushed against her, as those hands kneaded and cocks thrust into her gaping mouth, she gave in, crumbling. And not long before she would cum, being broken in, John's fingers were in her asshole, preparing her. A taste of him, a lick, gave way to a prod with her mandibles. A prod gave way to grasping at one cock while the other brushed against her forehead, slipping against her skin. That grasping gave way to her hot, wet maw, and she tasted him.
It wasn't long before her throat was made a hole, as Cortana would've wanted. It did not serve her voice, nor breath, nor moaning, it served instead John, and John alone. He fucked it, raw and back and raw again, bottom-cock pulsing and throbbing against her head, until she came, squirming hard in his grip. But he did not stop. Sweat built, dripped down his form and onto her, marrying hers, but he didn't quit. He continued, and came, balls working double-time as the top cock poured liquid gold down Jega's throat, as the lower cock fired into the floor, hardening ridiculously against her head.
"The more you drink," John grunted, "the more you give in."
Cortana hummed, focussing intently on the hunger in Decimus' eyes. "And the more you give in, the fatter your ass will grow, bigger your breasts, wider your hips, thicker your lips… All to serve…"
Jega's response vibrated so tenderly around the Spartan's spear. "Gllk, grrk, gllkrlrll, worrrrlkkk~!"
With a click, Jega's hands were released as an option, to give her a way out, a false hope. They hung limp before she sucked in a breath, and instead of pushing, clawing at him, Jega took grip of the Chief's rear and hugged it, her own digits playing with his pucker. John doubled, then tripled his efforts, marvelling as Cortana's work played out in motion. With the sound of stretching rubber did Jega's ass fill out, as her tits grew and hung, catching more and more dripping moisture from her partner. Her taste only became sweeter, energising John's oral effort, his feast.
And at the end, as she was lowered onto the ground, released from her prison and caught by John, he slammed a final load down her gullet, shivering as her teeth lovingly ground against his groin. Her mouth was near-flat against him, mandibles splayed out like a star. He placed her on the ground, and there she was left to rest, until Escharum was done. The cameras lingered on her; and she looked up at herself, tears streaking from her eyes, panting. Text appeared. "SACRIFICE", "SERVANT", "SLUT".
"She needs no restraint, for there is no resistance left in her," Cortana intoned, "she swims in shame… How will Escharum fair?"
John answered that with the amount of tact Cortana had come to expect from him. Escharum's cheeks were alight with lust, red and scorned and horny all the same, vision swimming from being suspended upside down for so long. She attempted to sway her head from side to side, but found John's strong hands steadying her, his dual-dicks slapping against her. Wetness marked her now; undeniably primitive and dominant scents of her new Chieftain, ones she could no longer keep from her nose.
Deciding to give the Brute a fresh taste, John probed at her mouth with his lower schlong, pressing the massive head against her sharp teeth, her easily parting lips. As she took a gap, a half-second to breathe, he entered her, and aligned himself much the same as he did with Jega. Face buried, hands at play, hips thrusting and meat grinding, Escharum broke easier than Jega did, came earlier. John switched it up when he noticed - taking one hand to hug her entire ass to his face, and using the other to finger-fuck her silly.
Throat blocked by cock, John revelled in those choked screams of pleasure, that mouth that had only gotten a hint of cum and wanted more. The Brute's strong jaw, her wide, hungry lips. Cortana gave the Brute no such freedom as Jega; instead binding her further, jutting her chest out as John finally roared into her mewling cunt. With her arms tied behind her back, back arched, and body occupied, Escharum found herself producing the same scents as Decimus, and cried.
Liters, liters of human seed poured against her, past her tongue and into her stomach. She swallowed, swallowed some more and wept when her body just wouldn't commit to it; when it finally pushed back and forced John's dick out of her mouth. Her budding tits had already received a decent splashing, she had already sucked the sweat from the Spartan's weapon, but she found her flesh weak. But hard John remained, unfazed. Disappointed.
"You couldn't break the Spirit. You couldn't fight back against Spartan forces. You can't even swallow the gift which your Champion has given you?" Cortana blared, focussing deeply on the conflict in the Jiralhanae's eyes. "Tell me, what use are you, Escharum?"
"I… I…" she uttered, more of the stuff bubbling to the back of her throat, spilling from her lips. She felt it dripping down, beading like her sweat and rolling in rivers down her muscles, through her hair.
John slapped her again. Paf. Paf. More of his cum squirted to the floor, yet the obedient remained glued on their knees, on their asses. The eyes of Atriox and whoever the hell remained on the Ark were witnessing her. Her. A failure. With a single, swift motion, John disabled her coffin and let her fall to the floor, face marked and marred by his spunk. And as she let her tears fall, he took grip of Jega, kneeling to the floor himself.
Smashing their sweating, sweet-soaked and semen-sloshed bodies together, John took grip of their legs. Escharum was on the bottom of their throupling; Jega on top, with their moist tits flush against one another. It took John seconds to align himself, but when he held them, they stopped their grunts, their moans, their breaths. And waited. And cried out. Linked in an interspecies forking that would likely never be topped, the Master Chief entered both aliens at once, biting harshly on his bottom lip to prevent himself ejaculating instantly.
As witness to rites, Decimus looked on in awe. At Jega's open-mandibled roar of pleasure. At Escharum's shameful tears and hopeful eyes, willing herself to serve better. At John's face, an image of his unbreakable will. It was art in aromatic motion, a sight worthy of worship and more; one which she assured herself she would never abandon, never forget. As she looked on, she felt the hands of the other Spartans touch her shoulders, her head, comforting her.
Sweat-bathed flesh sounded out in that arena, to the watching eyes. Grunts, the submissive moans of commanders-turned-cunts. Hitching breaths and kissing lips; mouths swapping the fruits of sexual labour and victory, pure and unbridled. As Escharum and Jega disgraced the Banished with their acts, their reactions, they found themselves cumming, without control. Under assault from meat and hands, they abandoned all resistance and submerged in their throupling, uncaring.
And at their peak, at Escharum blacking out and Jega 'Rdomnai curving her back in a sickening, arousing display, John erupted. As Decimus' hands drifted to her bulging stomach, she felt a pang of sympathy, and jealousy for her fellow servants; at how their stomachs expanded to accommodate more and more of their Champion's seed. Kelly and Linda bore direct witness to it, and let their mouths drop in shock at how much poured from John, how much filled the aliens.
When all was said and done, a message tone rang over Cortana's comms. A message, from Atriox - a response to the pornography taunting his airwaves, his communications. It was a request for battle; one on one, with the Spartan that would break the Banished.