Word was spreading across the city. It wasn't about some grand saving the day, but a chance to exact terrible vengeance on someone who sorely deserved to experience it. Ponies weren't informed, they couldn't help. A shadow had settled over the city. Only shadows were fit for that party. That, or a really big light, and one wasn't volunteering for the job.
Speaking of that, Anik stood beside Umbra. "How can I help? I don't want to do nothing."
Umbra considered her brightest child. "I want you... to gather all the light you can. Just stock it up and have it ready, just in case. Can you do that safely?"
"It's what I normally do." With a smile, he worked on drawing in a bit more over time, increasing that rate. However dark things had become, the sun still cast its light, and Anik would greet the rays with that content expression. "I'm not sure how this will help."
"It's never obvious until it happens." She patted him lightly and gave a furtive look around. The city was falling under His sway. It was quieter by the hour, save the sound of marching soldiers, and even they didn't make sounds besides what they had to, hooves on the ground.
Umbra spotted one pony that was clearly controlled, eyes shining green, but they didn't have a mask, and they weren't marching. They were a mare, foal resting on one arm, other three hooves on the ground. The foal was equally controlled, their expressions blank. But neither were part of the armed forces.
"Twisted..." At least, perhaps, Sombra wasn't ready to use children in his army, or their mothers. That didn't mean he wouldn't control them anyway, just a tool he wouldn't draw out. Until he needed them, or so Umbra reasoned. "The dark power of shadow, right here..." It was everything she had written off, made manifest. It was all the literal reason ponies didn't really like shadow magic.
A hoof settled on her. She jumped, but quickly realized it was Anik. "Mother." He drew her back. "I'm sorry."
"No, sorry." She went with him, back into the shadows. "It just bothers me, a lot... All that work I've been doing, trying to show the kind side of shadow magic."
Anik drew her in for a firm hug. "He is the cruel one, not your magic, mother. The people will still smile, as soon as we let them smile. They won't hate you."
"From your mouth to God's ears." Despite his confusion, she sped up. "We have allies to meet with."
The umbrum of the city were not a vast number. Meeting in what had been a warehouse at some point, now darkened and abandoned, save for the umbrum forms that milled in it. They weren't enough to fight the army on a one to one basic, but that wasn't the way umbrum did their best work anyway. "Fool," muttered Umbra as she reformed on the main stage. "Fellow umbrum. The one I defeated, a fool. He could have won. He could have crushed this city." Dozens of glaring eyes were greeting her. "He called on his umbrum to betray themselves."
One umbrum thrust a hoof at Umbra. "What are you getting on about? We know you won, stop rubbing it in!"
"I only won because the loser forgot himself." Umbra paced slowly across the stage. "He thought he had the numbers, and with it, could win from the front. But we... are umbrum. We are nightmares, given form." She turned to them with a sharpened grin. "Why attack from the front? We know. We know his soldiers don't dream. They lack fear. So ignore them. Sombra isn't immune. For all his soldiers, he's given us exactly one target."
Morning Dew rose from the shadows, materializing next to Umbra. "If he falls, it all falls," she shouted out to the crowd. "He has no second in command, his hubris doesn't even allow for the idea. Let's grind his folly in his face and lick his salty tears."
The crowd was growing more interested, grumbling and shouting counter ideas for how they'd make Sombra suffer. Hurting him was an easy motivation for all of them.
"How?" asked one voice of the many. "How will we do it? It's easy to say to do it."
Umbra strode to the front of the stage. "Even Sombra needs his rest. Even we, umbrum, close our eyes from time to time. Our agents--" She paused to incline her head at a grinning umbrum near the front of the crowd. "Have found his resting place. He thinks he's secure, and he is... from ponies. We'll remind him that we aren't those, but we won't give him much chance to change his mind or his tactics, will we?" The crowd roared in the negative. "We will flow as shadows, past his defenses. We will throw aside his paltry nightmares, for what is one tremor against the mighty wave? We will attack him, alone, unguarded."
For all their rough edges, the lines had been drawn. They didn't speak of what could go wrong. they wanted to know what needed to be done. They swarmed the stage, leering grins and scowling eyes as they looked over the plans and maps. The time to leave was passing. Those who didn't plan to take part were free to leave, and be known as cowards.
Few took that option.
"How do I help?" Anik was still there, the shadows fleeing the warehouse in all directions. "Can I get past?"
Umbra imagined them, all designed to stop and stymie a pony, which Anik was... "Not easily..."
"Mother."
Umbra coiled her head to Morning. "Hm?"
"He can walk through most of them." She pointed at Anik. "He has no darkness."
Umbra blinked slowly. "Oh... Right! Right..." She remembered her own time with it, the dark corners of her mind, turned against her. "Anik, you lovely bright thing you." She went in to smooch his cheek. "Most of his traps expect some speck of dirt to cling to and enhance. You, lovely thing, are spotless."
Anik smiled at the praise, even if some confusion was there. "I try to be clean, mother. Um... So I can come with you?"
"You can." She spread her wings. "But let us go ahead. Stay a step behind us." She fell to shadow, drawing Anik along. Morning dived after her and they swam away.
Filled with confidence, the umbrum swarmed on Sombra's resting place, when the palace was at its maximum stillness. That took some doing, figuring out when that was. But he had one weakness, he was, himself, a loud thing. He loved to boast and command and generally make a fuss. They waited until the echoes of his various shouts died down, and made their move.
There were doors, easily slid under and past. There were gates, even easier. But there was also an enchanted gate. Umbra had seen the like, its enchanted jewel embedded above. "Nightmare lock." She directed a hoof at it. "Open the door, welcome to nightmare town. I bet it also tells him someone opened the thing."
Morning shoved against Anik. "Your turn."
Anik looked to the many umbrum that looked at him impatiently. Not the most supportive of crowds. "If I can help..." He went for the door and grabbed the handle in his teeth. The gem flared with dark shades, reaching for the darkest recesses of his mind.
Anik was trudging through the endless gloom of his world. He would survive, until he failed that. It was cold and he was alone. But he wasn't alone. There was one other creature there. He sat down at a miserable fire, preparing to cook his final meal, and she emerged from the shade to sit next to him. They talked, and he smiled.
He might die... But he wouldn't be alone.
Anik started in place, roused from his nightmare to throw open the door. Umbrum swarmed past him in a tide of shadows, not waiting even a moment.
Umbra closed with him, not rushing past. "That looked like it hurt... You alright?"
"You saved me." He touched noses with her. "Then and now. I am fine, mother. Hm, but did that mean an alarm happened?"
"Maybe." She curled her wings around Anik and Morning, falling to shadow. "No time to run away."
"You dare?!" bellowed the dark overlord, swatting at the swarming umbrum that swirled in his chamber. "This is my kingdom! Mine!"
Umbra and her family popped free of the shadows. "You could have won this." She gestured at the door as it closed and sealed itself over with layers of crystals. "Easily."
Sombra clopped his forehooves down, sending a wave of shadow in all directions powerfully enough to slam the umbrum, Umbra and Morning included, against the nearest wall. "As if you've won. Little fools, you've just made it easier for me to find you. I will enjoy this."
But the wave was a singular event. The umbrum were quickly recovering. Sombra stomped one flat, dispersing the shadow to nothing. Another umbrum howled in fury, melting over Sombra's form.
"Pleased." Sombra peeled the shadow away and hurled it across the room. "As if my mind were open to such paltry tricks."
"I expected better of you." A pony, female, jeweled as a monarch. "Sombra... Is this what you've fallen to?"
"Amo...re..." Umbra scowled at the vision before him. "Trickery! Begone." He fired dark and terrible magic through her, but she was behind him, reaching to rest a hoof on his side.
"You were such a gentle foal," she whispered. "I saw such a bright future ahead of you."
"Lies!" He trembled with gathering power. "She is dead, and the last scrap of light with it. This world will know nothing but the pitchest of darkness, under my hooves!"
Umbra plunged the room into darkness, even the glow of her horn submerged in the inkiness.
"What is this?" Sombra glowered, a thing he had practice with. "I am a creature of the darkness. Do you think this frightens me?"
"Yes." Amore stepped from the gloom, shining gently in all directions. The darkness couldn't touch her and her pervasive glow. "Sombra... It's not too late."
Sombra directed a bolt of deadly energy at the mare. "Begone, false creature!" But the bolt couldn't quite pierce that light and it only got brighter by the moment. "What trickery is this?!"
An umbrum grabbed him at the shoulder. "Fool! There's a reason we sent you, little foal, to take care of this. None of us were stupid enough to face that mare."
Sombra took an unsure step back as Amore approached. "You died..."
"There is light ahead of you, if you accept it." Amore took a step forward, a little smile on her snout. "This cycle of pain doesn't have to continue." The umbrum swirled away from Amore, as if not daring to approach her.
Umbra's horn glowed, but she remained still, watching.
"You started this," Sombra hissed, scowling at her, but not backing away or approaching. "You could have saved me..."
"I died for it." Amore rose a hoof to her chest. "You died for your mistakes. We have paid the final price. Let it be done."
"I will not surrender!" he roared, tense as she arrived within a foot of him. "Soft mare, I am the ruler. Me! I have taken your empire, and soon, the world entire." He threw a hoof wide, laughing wildly. "None will escape me! You." He took a strong step forward. "We'll start with you. If you refuse to die, you will be mine. All good kings need a queen, and you are right there... Step aside, let me clear the room, then we can speak of our wedding." Laughing maniacally, he turned his attention on the circling umbrum. "Time to take out the trash."