Diabolikos passed beneath the gates of the Burning Throne as he flew, watching his personal retinue as they marched into position. Roughly two-hundred felguards stomped their boots on the stone grey ground, riling the gregarious gaggles of imps swarming around them. His shivarra commanders barely noticed him above, but his mortal warlocks waved him down nervously. They were more excitable than demons, and unbeknownst to them, there were no plans to help them ascend into demonhood themselves after the battle. His distaste for Azeroth has grown so much that he was happy to betray even his own human and orc servants simply to satiate his ire at the most resistant planet he'd ever seen.
Well, perhaps the second most resistant after Earth, though Diabolikos was likely the only member of the Burning Legion who knew about that planet. And the entire ordeal that led to that knowledge was far, far in the back of his mind at the moment in which he exited the gates and landed among his officers on the flat plain beyond the gates.
He intensely disliked walking in to a battle with such short preparation time. The mortals had lined up on the hills overlooking the plain, obviously itching for a fight in their short-sighted impetuousness. His own soldiers had only just arrived to their positions, and all around Argus there were reports of contingents being ambushed by the miserable Light and nature worshippers without warning. Even as row upon row of felguards saluted him, he couldn't quell the first sense of true worry he'd felt in a long time. The ranks passed him by, their boots sending vibrations in the ground as they reached the shivarra leading the march and ending it at a safe distance from the grey hills, should have brought him a sense of comfort. The random felbat corpses falling from the sky, however, and the exploding Legion assault ships under attack by Kirin Tor dragon hawk riders, prevented such reassurance from taking hold in his mind.
A mile to his right was the contingent of Lothros, an equally large company of felguards and satyr braying and shouting across the plain. Unlike Diabolikos, Lothros was a tactician rather than a strategist. The relatively impatient demon thrived on gut reactions and improvisation, and Diabolikos could almost discern his figure as he stood on a palanquin and dictated orders to officers. Coupled with the demon's obvious ire at having been forced to escort an uncouth Eredar to the field for Diabolikos' benefit, Lothros' general demeanor meant that he was unlikely to have anything polite to say were messengers to be exchanged. Diabolikos shooed his own warlocks away and hoped the three gathered companies would all be able to simply eliminate the mortals and move on from the whole ordeal.
Pentatharon, another of his fellow nathrezim, was commanding a similar company on the other side of the plain. A man of few words, Pentatharon was of similarly low rank in the chain of command, akin to a version of Diabolikos less plagued by doubt and more accepting of his position in the hierarchy. If Diabolikos could count on Lothros to at least ignore him, he could count on Pentatharon to send a simple message with a wave by the latter's standard bearer.
Except the group approaching him from Pentatharon's position didn't include a standard bearer. It included several wyrmtongue slaves carrying the personal affects of an Eredar.
"Seriously?" Diabolikos muttered when he recognized Decarabia floating toward his position.
Given the commanding role of her race in the hierarchy, he couldn't refuse her visitation. He shut his lips tight as he ground his molars together, failing to come up with an excuse for her to move on elsewhere.
Ever given to a sense of pomp beyond what her fundamentalist people were used to, Decarabia refused to carry her gear, which oddly consisted of a few boxes of relics, talismans, an entire sacrificial altar made of solid concrete, and what appeared to be a podium. For giving speeches.
Her exhausted wyrmtongue slaves collapsed at the back of the confounded dreadlord's company, gasping for air. Diabolikos flicked the tip of one of his wings when he noticed his own laborers - all of them mortal fools from Azeroth - moving to assist the little red slaves. The mortals understood his disapproval and waited, watching how the scene would play out.
He and Decarabia stared at each other for a few moments. The shape of her face was such that she was always smirking even when angry, and she often used her appearance to a theatric advantage. When the silence dragged on for a few seconds, she furrowed her brow angrily - with that odd, ever-present smirk on her mouth - and raised her arms outward as if to ask 'well'?
Tired of her games for at least three thousand years, Diabolikos was the first to relent. "What can I help you with?" he asked without turning to face her entirely.
"Cut the shit, you know why I'm here," she replied sharply. Her slaves nearly dropped the concrete altar, scrambling to throw themselves under it so it wouldn't fall down and break apart. The contrast between their rushed movements and her stoic, floating figure made her words sound even more final.
"No, Decarabia, I truly don't know why you're here. We have nothing to discuss."
She was already becoming irritated after a few seconds of speaking. True, they hated each other, but he assumed that her frustration at the success of the mortals must have affected her already sour mood as well. "This is not the sort of setting where failure or imperfection will be tolerated. If you do fail - which you likely will judging by your track record - I'll be on the torture rack with you. Socrethar left me here to observe all three companies on my own."
"Yet you choose to park yourself here next to me. Perhaps it is you who should cease the proverbial excrement; what's your real purpose?"
Her smirk actually disappeared into a legitimate scowl. The expression wasn't natural for her, making it look all the more intense. "I told you my purpose," she practically growled at him, putting his demonic jailer bodyguard on edge. "Of the three commanders here, you're the weakest link. Strategic management calls for observation. I don't desire punishment due to your shortcomings."
The measure of truth in her words stung him, but it also backed him into a corner. The last time they'd interacted significantly, she'd trapped him in a galactic prison, curses him with unending breath, and condemned him to the vacuum of the Great Dark Beyond until an outsider granted him aid. Prior to that incident, they'd framed each other for numerous infractions back and forth, slandered each other at Legion planning meetings, and once insulted each other in the presence of Archimonde, who froze them both in blocks of pressurized silicon ice for half a century as punishment. Aside from the instance when he'd thrown her into a pit of swarming insects which ate her to the bone on another conquered planet, she'd gained the upper hand over him in the long term.
Wondering what she was planning this time, he chose his words cautiously. In a technical sense, she could justify observing him to their superiors; he'd have to challenge her in other ways.
"Given our rivalry, the argument could be made that I'll perform better on the field if you leave me to my work. Your presence will only serve as a distraction to the two of us."
"Not happening," she replied without actually considering what he was saying. "You've been left to your own devices on many an occasion prior, and your record is still poor. You can rationalize all you want; I'll judge the situation empirically, thanks."
"And what do you actually plan on doing, Decarabia? You plan equipment and troop allocation. You don't operate in the field. My record might not be perfect, but your track record in this regard, as well as actual training in the finer details of regimented combat, is not existent."
She sneered. "I've been tasked with overseeing this conflict, and I WILL carry out that duty."
"So what does that duty entail? Please, do tell. Aside from carrying your entire reliquary closet around with you, what will you actually do?"
"I will...argh! I will oversee your operation!"
"So you'll stand at the back and just watch? That's what Socrethar wanted you to spend your time doing?"
"You know what an observation entails, you worm!"
"But you don't."
Diabolikos was cut off from his archenemy when his personal inquisitor floated in between them. "Lothros is attacking," the usually reserved demon interrupted urgently.
"What?!" both the dreadlord and the Eredar exclaimed.
Diabolikos spun around to face the other infantry company, immediately seeing that it wasn't in the same spot it had been in before. Lothros was no longer visible among them, and the felguards were marching quite quickly. Decarabia actually landed on the ground and galloped up next to her unwilling subordinate, their previous exchange forgotten.
"He wasn't supposed to initiate on his own!" she shouted, scaring away the mortal laborers and wyrmtongue away.
His brain working on overdrive, Diabolikos calculated odds and possibilities of survival. His running feud with the prideful logistics planner would have to wait; he might actually need her assistance. And if the Legion escaped impending doom, he could always drop her own altar on her after the war and blame it on her slaves.
"I arrived last, but I know that Lothros hasn't had time to scout the ranks of the enemy yet; he's charging into the unknown, likely under the belief that he can intimidate the mortals." Diabolikos paused, both to work out more calculations in his head and to bask in the one fleeting moment when Decarabia was allowing him to speak uninterrupted. "The ranks in front of him are Kaldorei; they're unlikely to feel intimidated, especially given the success of the mortals so far."
Incensed more by his comment than by him, Decarabia openly snarled. "No - the mortals have not succeeded. Our master has only lured them into a false sense of security so we may vanquish them on our doorstep! His will be done! Leave Lothros to his choice; his impatience can be reported and dealt with later."
"And Pentatharon? He arrived here first."
"The orcs caught his spies; they also have warlocks. He knows their tactics, however, and will deal with them swiftly. You're facing undead."
"Have you seen how many?" Diabolikos asked.
Still furrowing her eyebrows angrily along with her strangely contrasting smirk, Decarabia seemed to look right past him. Perhaps more due to her fear of being blamed for failure than true reconciliation, she spoke calmly as she offered her support as his superior.
"Lead your troops against the corpses; I will observe them from whence they cannot see. If I can assassinate their officers before I return with information, I will do so."
Out of a similar sense of self-preservation from both mortal marauders and Legion punishment, Diabolikos found answering her without a sense of rivalry rather easy. "We await your return," he said as she became invisible and abandoned her slaves and personal affects to him.
The felguards stirred uneasily as he returned his attention to their ranks, and one of the shivarra unit officers strode over to him.
"The undead have begun the march, commander. Your orders?"
There was an immediacy in the many-armed officer's voice that was worrying. The shivarra were even more fanatical than the Eredar, if less cunning and ponderous. That borderline sense of panic in the eyes of the caste he relied on to motivate the foot soldiers shook the dreadlord more than he'd ever felt.
"Raise the battle cry. We meet them in the field!"