>>5795461“Shame? Khor, despite looking at my soul, you clearly don't understand what I have become.” you tell him, powering your Energy Body down. “You saw those battles, you saw how hard I was struggling against your predecessors. And thought that, because I didn't struggle the same way against you, that you were weaker than they were. The truth is, I'm so much stronger than I was then, it isn't even a contest.”
With a thought you reach for the Energy Blade that he hadn't retrieved, pulling it to your right hand. But it's too small in your giant hand, so with a thought and a sigh power back down to your base form. You see his eyes widen in surprise, you looking over the weapon a moment before finding the trigger and activating it. He watches the blade in anticipation, perhaps expecting you to lunge and try to take his hand off, to stop him from fully activating the grenade. But, instead you raise your left arm out, clenching your fist and flexing your muscles.
“What are you-?” he starts to ask while you raise the blade overhead, then swing it down on your exposed lower arm just past your armor. You feel your eye twitch as the stinging pain comes, your arm stopping the energy blade before it can even reach down to the bone. “Wh-What?!”
“This is the difference between who I was then, and now.” you say, leaving the sword embedded in your arm and raise it up overhead, showing the whole crowd. “I'm stronger in this form than I was when I fought your predecessor at full power on my home planet of New Salda. My power has grown thousands of times over where it was back then. This doesn't mean that you're weak, the fact I didn't kill you during our fight despite how many blows you took is proof of your superior strength.”
You then reach up, pulling the blade free of your arm as blood runs down both, deactivating the weapon and offering it out to Khor 'Vadam, to his shock.
“I consider myself pretty lucky I went up against both of them back in the day, instead of you as you are now.” you tell him, the Arbiter looking from the hilt to your eyes, shocked. “Who knows? If those damned worms had chosen you instead of either of them, perhaps the war might have gone differently.”
Everyone is silent at this, the Arbiter looking from your face to the offered weapon, hilt covered in a bit of your blood back to your face, looking unsure. Then, he throws the grenade skyward, barking a word in a language you don't understand. But it must be their own, as several shots fire up from various other gathered Sangheili, detonating the explosive where it can't do any damage. He then sighs out, kneeling and raising both hands up to accept the weapon.
“You have bested me completely.” Khor 'Vadam says, sounding tired. “I yield. You win, General Karn.”
cont
