Indigo sat on a cloud high above the mountain range that the attack began from, silently regarding the carnage that was occurring below him. Powerful. Imposing. Wearing the Eye of Night pendant as a headband now fastened around his helmet that the ruler of Chiroptera would traditionally wear when out traveling the land during times of distress; a tradition that Sule revived not because he was a stickler for tradition but more because he wasn't comfortable wearing the flashy and decadent attire of Tyrannus and his immediate predecessors but without wanting to further alienate the conservative members of Sule's new power base.
With his dark velvet armor, peircing golden eyes, and the Eye of Night atop his crested helmet and largely emblazoned across his chest piece, Archon Indigo carried the demeanor expected of the newest ruler of the Malumai Kingdom.
Which only slightly mitigated the fact that Indigo had no idea what the fuck he was doing.
He needed to get off his cloud and help with the battle, but how? From his perch he could see a million different situations that he could turn to the Malumai's favor, from groups of ponies who could flank the alicorns who are dominating another group, to a group of alicorns who were just asking to be bombed with a unicorn inferno spell attack. The footsoldier, officer, and advisor in Indigo was screaming at him to get down there and save the day.
But no. If Indigo goes down and micromanages the battle, to point to every little alicorn that needs to be fought in which order and in what way, that would be horribly inefficient and a terrible waste of his position. He was the ruler, he directs the flow of the battle. Not to mention if he gets himself killed a random alicorn, the Malumai, and by extension the forces that oppose Nova will be left without a head. Indigo huffed. He was beginning to sound just like Sule.
But still, sitting up there on his fluffy little cloud where he's safe didn't sit well with him. Every minute that passes equals more dead ponies and the probability of winning the war and securing ponykind's salvation becomes longer and longer. Not to mention how could he keep up his soldier's morale by just sitting back and watching them die?
Indigo watched the battle and observed flashes of orange light rising up from the battle. Fire. There were multiple Unicorn squads that were using large-scale infernos agains the alicorns He knew the alicorns' wings were their weak point. Setting the alicorns on fire would ruin their wings and leave them grounded like earth ponies, and an effective tactic the Tyranuss-ran Malumai forces, and to Indigo's chagrin, he himself, employed against earth ponies in previous wars was to manipulate them into a kill zone with Malumai combantants entirely on one side of them and set them on fire. But how to apply the same tactic on a large scale on an open battlefield, with no choke points? Indigo couldn't come up with such a strategy while sitting on his cloud, which was surprisingly comfortable. And having such a cloud in such a position was a major advantage as well. When this war was done, Indigo would have to contract workers back home to pull large amounts of clouds over the chronically cloudless Chiroptera and-Dammit, Indigo, focus! Indigo chided himself.
Indigo detected Night Flash approach his position, most likely asking what to do.
Night Flash asked Indigo if there was anything else that needed to be done, a question Indigo did not have an answer for. Son of a mother fucking whore pig sow what the neighing fuck am I supposed to tell him- "Nothing more as of yet, until the battle turns into a different direction." Indigo replied. As Night Flash turned to leave, Indigo suddenly spoke up again. "Wait. You see that area down there? The part of the battlefield filled with alicorns with no pony to oppose them?" Indigo pointed to the ground. The troops on the battlefield were distributed unevenly, and the right flank of the battle was filled with Alicorns who were now moving to reinforce an Alicorn advance on a group of allied soldiers fighting them off on there front and rear; a situation that would almost certainly result in the division being steamrolled. If those soldiers died, the Alicorns would then control a third of the battlefield around the dome. Indigo needed to set up a kill zone on a large scale, and this development is giving him an idea. "I need all allied soldiers removed from that area. I need to give that territory to the alicorns." Indigo ordered. Before Night could say anything, Indigo interrupted. "I assure you I know what I'm doing. I can't let those soldiers get caught in we're about to do to the alicorns. Now go."
Indigo quickly produced a scroll and began to write orders into it. It is now time to begin the next stage of the battle. Indigo descended from his cloud and summoned a scout to deliver his orders to another division Indigo was keeping in backup, before alighting atop another cloud hiding his position.