Fluttershy had been forgotten. It wasn't hard to do in a battle. She had been hiding and avoiding it, and the shadowlings were perfectly happy to let her, with so many more important targets around. She had watched and whimpered, but was not helping, and she hated it.
She hated being there. She hated being useless as her friends struggled without her. She hated herself for wanting to get away from it. She had a lot of negative emotions to go around in that specific moment as tears stung at her eyes.
Then the dark energy came. With a startled gasp, her fury and frustrations came to the fore, but the hesitations and weaknesses sloughed away. Her mane became jagged with crystals of dark red and purple as she gave her head a toss, seemingly alive of its own malign will. "Leave my friends alone!" Fluttershy growled out, joining the battle.
Rarity laughed. She had so much to laugh about. The crystal she had been turning from target to target was gone. Instead her face was festooned with crystals of the same color. The blasts came directly from her eyes. Wherever she cast her terrible gaze, she could bring arcane destruction. She would fix the terrible mess the shadows had brought, and she would do it with style. Oh yes, a quality day indeed.
Just as Umbra had resisted the other wave, Cadance was unaffected by the dark pulse. Tired, she did her best to keep the crystal heart away from the battle. She brooded over it like a fussy chicken over its egg. But that didn't make her any better at the job, tired and worn.
"Take it," hissed out Dry, specifying not who should take, or what should be taken.
Despite that, several shadows sprang up into the unsettling forms of the shadow ponies, teeth bared, hollow eyes trained on Cadance. She was removed from the battle, behind their lines. She was, one could be forgiven for thinking, safe, until she was suddenly not. The battle lines were firm, but they were not shadowproof. "Get away." She flared her wings out wide. "I will--"
The shadows cared little for her threats. Two jumped for her, wrenching her away with too many teeth as the third snapped up the crystal heart and ran away with it. "No," came a firm male voice just an instant before Shining's hoof came down, crushing the shadow. The crystal flew forward with the momentum, to be caught by another that was already running away.
"Shadow Wall," called out Umbra, waving the wall in a snake-like bending the barred the two sides of the battlefield off from one another, the shadow glowering with her enhanced power despite the crystal heart being taken.
"You don't have time for that." Dry was on her, slashing her with hooves that proved far more jagged than they appeared. "Priorities."
A sudden wail caught both of them. Fluttershy dove from the relatively safer side of the battle into the active fray, plunging through the wall of shadow without care for her own well being. Battered from where the hostile energies had tried to stop her, her face was that of a crying rage. "You're going to pay." She was not asking permission, leaping at the nearest knot of battle to join in. Wherever her gem-studded mane touched, shadows howled in pain, and she was all too happy to whip her mane to and fro.
"Your minions are drunk on darkness," laughed Dry. "They will soon be overwhelmed, and the battle will be ov--"
Umbra caught him, hoof to his throat. "They'll give up when you're all gone."
But his laughter returned, as if his throat were an optional requirement for that. "So you hope! So. You. Hope. Already your doom approaches me, just a matter of time."
Umbra did her best to knock that smarmy grin off his malformed face, but he could still flow despite her shadow crystals, denying her an easy win. Their fight would continue.
"I have more friends than you can even see," taunted Umbra in kind, even if she wasn't sure where that missing friend was at that moment. "They'll come through, when they're most needed."
That only brought laughter from dry. "Are you hoping? Praying perhaps? How delicious. A meek admission of failure." The room echoed with other laughs. All could hear the two of them, looming over the battlefield as they were in their clashes. "You can't handle this."
"I can't, but we can." Umbra crashed into him head first, jabbing her horn into his shadowed flesh, not that it seemed to be a telling blow. "The hell are your vitals?!"
"Now now, that's just getting... personal. We don't have that kind of relationship." Dry split in half, either half ringed with fresh teeth as he lunged for Umbra.
Bolts of arcane fury were not coming from just one. The two unicorns had found each other. Twilight and Rarity were back to back, blasting any shadow that dared to approach them. "You're a natural at this," huffed out Twilight. Her crystals had formed on her horn. Unlike when Sombra had attacked Shining, Twilight's crystals seemed to enhance and focus her powers, letting her push on despite her fatigue. "I got your back."
"Fantastic, darling." Rarity cackled as she sliced down the middle of a shadow, sending its two halves fleeing in the horror it had hoped to inspire in others. "We have this under control, hmm. Let's show them what we're made of."
Darkness came, flowing up the steps at last and rushing over the room, plunging it into the abyss. The defenders couldn't see what they were fighting. The tempo of battle stalled, then began to flow the other way as nightmarish visions and cutting hooves and teeth descended on the defenders from all sides. Those on the far side, separated by the wall of darkness, were spared.
It only allowed its own darkness. The external dark couldn't press past it, leaving that area dimly lit, which was quite the difference from complete midnight.
Umbra and Dry were unaffected. Both could see perfectly well in the darkest of nights and the deepest of caves. Their glowering eyes stared challengingly at they met with great thuds and slashes, undeterred by the whipping and howling winds that tore at them from all sides.
"Sir!" A shadowling held the crystal heart in their hooves.
Dry's smile was wide, too wide by about thrice. "Give it here and we will end this."
"Of course." They stepped forward.
"No!" Umbra dove for them, only for Dry to crash into her in the middle, denying her. "Give it!" She couldn't reach the shadowling with the heart.
"Well... since you asked." The shadowling casually tossed it to Umbra. Green flames rushed up, revealing a grinning crystal bat, giggling with joy.
Umbra thrust out a hoof and the crystal heart met it, just to pass into her. A strange dark flash threatened to pulse from her. The heart was reacting with her. "Nnng." And it wasn't pleasant. An echo of emotion and pathos, it was seeking out her feelings and they were a knot. "We will... not surrender." She took a strong step forward. "We will win over the night!"
The battle-weary defenders cried out in unison with the idea. They would fight on.
They would win on to happier days. Lines of light broke across Umbra's form in jagged patterns, the pain only growing. "We... will..."
Dry laughed, deep and booming. "You fool That crystal is the antithesis of us. It will destroy you before I have the pleasure of doing it myself."
"If it... keeps you from having it." She took a swing, but her hoof was far off the mark as the lines crawled across her, bulging with light so bright it cast aside the darkness that had pressed in around it. "If it keeps them safe!"
Fluttershy fixed a large shadow creature with a withering stare. Even as tears flowed silently, her glare seemed to pierce it to the core. It wasn't an animal, but in her condition, she didn't care.
"Then die for them." Dry was caught in cackles, watching Umbra suffer. "Die and end this charade. I will build a statue to your stupidity, so others can learn from your mistakes."
Umbra had a witty comeback in mind. She struggled to get it out, but she couldn't. She was too busy exploding. Light burst free of her in all directions. The darkness, banished. The shadowlings were wiped clean, as all shadows must when someone turns on the nearest lamp.
The battle was just... over. There was no fanfare. Cadance thrust a hoof against her head, suddenly pounding with a new agony. Shining listed over, grimacing in much the same pain. The rest were collapsing of fatigue, the determination that kept them going failing without Umbra there to deliver it.
Cadance flopped over to her side and seemed to just pass out, her eyes closing and her breath slowing to peace.
But she was not idle. She opened her eyes to a starry field and gasped with fresh surprise. It had been so long since last she had beheld that place. "W-what?!" But a form was coming, a wispy energy that gathered into the shape of a pony. "Umbra?!" She hurried towards them. "What did you do?!"
Umbra opened her eyes, beholding the same infinite stars that Cadance had seen. "I... Am I dead? Am I dead dead?"
"Worse." Cadance smiled gently. "You have proven to the forces of harmony that you are ready for the next step." She booped Umbra on the nose. "And proven that you are a brave fool. I went through this once before. Celestia was here to guide me. It is, perhaps, fitting that I am the one to take your hoof, if you will trust me?"
"I'm dead!" Umbra waved a hoof wildly. "Or close enough to it. Yeah, I'll follow you." She turned her wave at the stars in general. "The other option is walking off into that good night, which, no thanks."
"I wouldn't recommend it either." Cadance began to walk down the pathway that revealed itself in the starry place. "We must walk your deeds, both good and bad. It is they that explain how we got to this point. Come along."
It was then that Cadance sung a song for Umbra. It was a pity that it can't be properly translated in text, but it can be assured to have been heartfelt.
Shining rubbed at his head. He was quite conscious. "Get the injured to the medical wing. If you're not busy doing that, patrol the city. Make sure we're done with them. Somepony get the crystal heart back where it should be." It was hovering and spinning over the floor, held up by its own power. "What even happened?" None of them had seen Shifting passing the heart to Umbra, it had been too dark. The only ones that could see it were Shifting herself, Umbra, and Dry, unless a random shadowling were feeling talkative suddenly.
Despite his orders, few were moving. The defenders had won, but most were completely tapped of endurance.
Applejack was hefting a pony up. "C'mon." She still had strength, and was doing her part to get ponies to safety. "Is it over?"
Twilight and Rarity were leaning against one another. Rarity's zappy gem sat between her legs as both heaved for breath that had eluded them entirely.
Fluttershy was collapsed on the floor on her belly, hiding her face with her forelegs as she sniffled quietly.
Pinkie looked up at her straight mane. She brought up a hoof and blew into it, returning to springiness instantly. "I'll help!" She pronked to the first injured pony she could find and got them moving towards the doctors and nurses. "Wow, that was something else!"
Rainbow landed in front of shining. "Hey. Umbra just exploded. Aren't you upset at all?"
Shining smiled gently. "She's in good hooves. It'll be alright."