Night Mist looked at Water Shadow's other two previous acolytes. Spiral Swirl and Sweet Eclipse were in much the same state that she was in, part metal and part flesh. Discord had saved them in the same fashion he had saved her, waiting until they had gone through much of the Bakery to the point they were finally out of sight of other ponies. They hadn't been given the mercy of having their necks broken first so they had felt every last painful cut along the way. They were not in the best of psychological states, far worse than she had been.

Her heart went out to the two, what had happened was unspeakably cruel. She understood that they couldn't have been saved any earlier, but this kind of trauma was not something a pony was likely to ever recover from mentally, even if their bodies were now fully functional. Spiral Swirl in particular had already been in an extremely bad state before getting mutilated and put back together. Night Mist couldn't even imagine what was going on in the silent stallion's mind.

"What did that monster do to us?" Sweet Eclipse sobbed. She was at least talking, that was better than Spiral Swirl. Hopefully if she was talking she could recover. Night Mist hated to have to be coldly utilitarian, especially given what these two were going through, but she needed these two to be able to assist in her plans.

"That monster saved your lives, and hopefully we can work together to save many more lives," Night Mist said.

"Night Mist, are you still you?" Sweet Eclipse asked her while still sobbing.

"I'm not sure what any of us are to tell the truth. I am as much still me as you are still you, that's the best answer I can give you," Night Mist answered sadly. She turned to the partially metal stallion next. "Spiral, are you able to talk? I know today has been very traumatic, but we have work to do."

"Work?" Spiral asked in a small voice.

"Peridot is now making deals with the necromancer," Night Mist growled. "It is time to change how things are done in Ocid. I am rallying the citizens to stand up and take our nation back. We need to put an end to perfectly good ponies being sent off to the Bakery, broken families, slave labor, and all the other injustices that Peridot has built into our society. We have the knowledge between us all, no camera can spot us, and we are much more resilient against Peridot's guards. We can lead Ocid to freedom."

"Make it so there is no more Bakery?" Spiral said in a voice that seemed almost pleading, with how much that place messed him up it wasn't surprising he was focused on it. They all had endured the horrors of the Bakery and knew it was something no pony deserved.

"Night Mist, I know how horrible the Bakery is.." Sweet Eclipse said with a shiver, "but we must be realistic. How will Ocid get enough food without it?"

"Sunset doesn't think the necromancer wants Ocid to perish for the time being. I intend to see if that is true by pushing to expand our farming. I don't think she will let us starve. I intend to push our farms towards the coast, that will provide a natural wall on one side. We can build new walls to the north and south as we go. I think the necromancer will refuse to breach the walls," Night Mist said.

"That is a monumental undertaking. What if you are wrong about the necromancer? Even if you are right that will require incredible resources and ponypower to do, all while being harassed by the undead. In the meantime we would still need to concern ourselves with feeding Ocid without the Bakery until when and if these new farms came to be," Eclipse said skeptically. At least she had stopped sobbing and was focusing, that was an improvement. Spiral seemed to have gained interest at the idea of the Bakery being shut down.

"Perhaps we only need to change what is going into the Bakery. Undead have meat on them, and there are always more of them. If we start putting undead through the Bakery perhaps we can slowly start chipping away at the Necromancer's forces. It would take many generations, but eventually she would run out of bodies to throw at us," Night Mist proposed.

"Would you believe that my mistress actually did look into the possibility of eating the undead? It doesn't work, their flesh makes ponies violently sick. It is not natural meat. Until, and if, you get extra farms running the Bakery remains necessary. I hate the fact, but it is true," Eclipse spat as she finished speaking.

Night Mist had not been aware that Water Shadow had actually conducted such research, though it made sense to have done. She was not willing to surrender the idea of shutting down the Bakery yet, but she needed Sweet Eclipse's assistance.

"We can explore other options, there has to be something better than the Bakery. We can find those answers together. Do you not agree that there is a lot that can be changed for the better? What about the limits on births from non-breeding mares? The way we treat unicorns? The extreme rigidness of the work demands? Forcing ponies into careers for life? The poor conditions in the factories? There is so much wrong beyond just the Bakery," Night Mist said passionately.

"I agree with you in all that, and yes, I think that there is much better administration could do to fix these things. I will help you in your little uprising, but we discuss the solutions together, and do nothing which might jeopardize all of Ocid. I won't have our citizens starving in the streets," Eclipse said evenly.

Night Mist looked to Spiral Swirl and saw him nod his head enthusiastically to her. That one would help her push for the elimination of the Bakery, she could tell. She would try to work out solutions with Eclipse, but between herself and Spiral they had Eclipse outvoted if Eclipse was unhappy with the solutions. Revolution first, then ironing out the details.

"I have been extremely busy since returning," Night Mist said. "I have already made contact with a few notable ponies in different areas of Night's Heart in just a few hours. I plan on moving into Crystal Heart tomorrow and start making contacts there. Cameras fail when they spot us, a strange side effect of our new bodies. While I start making contacts in Crystal Heart one of you can keep working here, and the other can go into Sire's Hallow and make contacts there. Then we can move on to other areas like Hallow Shades and Precipice. Within four days I want to have forces ready in every major region in Ocid."

"I say we should meet back at an area we encircle multiple times, Sire's Hollow is fairly centralized and would make the best area to work out of," Eclipse suggested, then sighed. "This is not what I pictured I would be doing when I woke up to go to work this morning."

"I can certainly concur with that sentiment, but it is what we have been pushed into doing. It is what we have a responsibility as decent ponies to do," Night Mist said with her own sigh. "We can meet up in the old warehouses there every twenty hours, starting twenty hours from now. I can give you both the lists of ponies I have already contacted and what has been discussed. Four days is our goal, and then we move to take down Peridot."

"That is moving very fast. You just went through the Bakery this morning, and you are already doing all of this in the same day as that. This might need more time and planning, Mom. Time to really think about what you are doing," Cotton Tail cautioned.

Night Mist considered her son silently without answering. She wondered if his caution came from actual consideration of what had to be done, or hope that she would abandon her course of action if she was given more time to consider. His concern for her was endearing, and no mother could hope for a more devoted colt, but his worry for her was going to cause problems. Perhaps she should find something to keep him occupied that would keep him away from any direct conflict. She didn't want him to get himself hurt trying to heroically protect her.

"We need to move quickly while Peridot is still wondering how to do anything without our mistresses to hold her hoof. There isn't time available to delay. Cotton, I want you to make preparations to provide food and shelter to any young that might be caught up in this should fighting break out. We need some pony looking out for the well being of our most vulnerable," Night Mist instructed.

"How do you intend for me to do that?" Cotton Tail asked in a defeated voice.

"That same mining area that we had our little battle in, it has a lot of side storage areas that are not in use, and you can't be tracked going into them. Start prepping those areas to receive refugees, foals and such. We will have ponies start sending you extra food to stockpile. Some might have to be going on partial rations for a bit, but we need to have some set aside for those who will need it and won't have access to the dispensers. I hate that we are still going to be feeding them meal bars, but for now that is what we have until we can get some proper fruits and vegetables growing," she answered him.

"If that is what you want, Mom," Cotton said in the same low voice.

Night Mist looked at him with sympathy. He was clearly unhappy with all of this, and still disapproving, but what needed to be done wasn't going to get done unless she took action now. She couldn't serve the purpose she had known her whole adult life anymore, but she could forge a new purpose. Ocid needed reform, and it wasn't going to come from Peridot, it would be through Night Mist. She had been reborn for this task, and soon all of Ocid would be renewed to what it should have been.

Sweet Pea watched her son as he was catching his dinner. He had his snake flying over the river ready to strike and bring him a fish. The colt would sooth the fish into sleep once it was caught and then finish it off. It was a simple, clean way of getting his food, and she was proud of him for finding a method that was distinctly him that worked.

She quietly lamented that birthdays were not something that really translated well when the day never ended. She owed him many birthday celebrations. She knew that she was about thirty now herself, and she didn't need to cast a spell to know that, she only needed to look at the sun which was now nearing when it would set. Time was about over, and they would be leaving very soon now.

She looked at her companions and thought about how different they all were since they first entered into this place. Midnight was now an alicorn, and if she survived would one day possess powerful magic. Right now Midnight was practicing trying to teleport things other than herself. She was getting better, but she needed more time.

Quiet had been but a fetus in her womb and now he was hunting for his own food. He had powers that hadn't been seen in ages. Sweet Pea was so proud at his ability to adapt himself to make his powers work for him in practical ways.

Dove had gone from a filly in a saddle bag to a preteen almost tall enough to look Sweet Pea level in the eye. Dove was definitely larger than most fillies her age, and would likely tower over Sweet Pea when she finally reached marehood, if she lived that long. They still didn't know what her powers or purpose was, and they might never now that time was about up. Dove was the hope for Sweet Pea's grandfoals if they survived, and Sweet Pea really wanted a chance to see grandfoals.

The other two alicorns looked much the same as they had, but she knew that they were changed too. Sweet Pea's current magical power far exceeded what they were capable of when they first got here, but now their power was astronomically stronger. She had watched in awe as Sunset had leveled in a matter of seconds a whole mountain like it was nothing not long ago. Sweet Pea was strong, but nothing like that kind of power. They had taught her so much about magic and how to use her growing power, and she was very grateful, but it wasn't yet enough.

She secretly yearned to have such power as they had. With that kind of power, and the skills she had developed, only the Mare of Shadows herself could be a threat to her and her friends. Peridot would have an impossible time trying to harm her now, but she wanted more. Quiet and the others were not yet safe, and still in mortal peril. Until she could protect them all she was not strong enough.

They all needed to be stronger. She didn't have any jealousy that her best friend had ascended and not her. She did wish that Midnight actually had the time to learn to use her new power, and grow in power to where she could match the two older alicorns. If there were enough powerful alicorns perhaps they could stand a chance of beating the Mare of Shadows. The necromancer was only able to rise because of the fall of Harmony and the weakening of the thirty alicorns that had been been around at that time, but what if there were more alicorns and they were strong like Sunset and Shadow were now? Surely the necromancer could be fought back then.

"Shadow? I have a question," she asked the blue alicorn.

"What do you want to know?" Shadow asked.

"You moved the mirror to your daughter's tomb. Can you move it again?" She asked.

"That is a good question. I don't know though. When I first moved it I was forced to have it shipped here and carried to this spot. My magic at the time was much as you saw it in Ocid, and the mirror disrupted it greatly. Now that my magic is stronger again so I am not sure if it will work as need be or not. I can see what you are thinking, it is an interesting idea," Water Shadow answered.

"You want to know if we can move it to Ocid," Sunset said doubtfully.

"Yes," Sweet Pea said more forcefully than she intended. "Think of what good it could do there. We could get access to much more food for every pony, we could raise up a full army of alicorns and fight against the necromancer. We could have our foals raised in this paradise instead of in a world of stone and metal. No more forced labor on farms, no more Bakery, and the ability to fight back against the necromancer."

"Expanding the number of alicorns greatly has risks," Sunset said in a stern voice. "A mad alicorn could devastate us. We would be dooming ourselves if such a thing happened, putting such a being into such a confined place like Ocid. You weren't even a thought yet during the Time of Madness, you don't know what kind of risk widespread Alicornhood brings. No offense to Midnight intended, but if Dove were to be killed by Mera, and Midnight was still alive, the first thing I would do is put Midnight down. I won't have another insane alicorn. Mera wasn't even an alicorn, and I should have done the same with her when it was clear she was unhinged when we assumed her wife dead, and see what we are dealing with now because I didn't. I want to give every pony a chance, it is at the core of who I am, but some things can't be left to chance. There has been too many mistakes made with beings of great power, mistakes that have cost untold billions of lives."

"You would kill my mama?" Dove all but screamed. It made every pony jump, it was rare for one of the foals to actually get angry, and Dove was clearly enraged.

"I would do what was necessary to protect lives, little one," Sunset said calmly. Sunset turned to Midnight. "Midnight, could you tell me with full honesty that you wouldn't go into an uncontrollable rage if something happened to your daughter? Could you promise me that you wouldn't just let loose your full power uncontrollably and just wreck havoc everywhere you went? A normal pony could be easily subdued, you are not a normal pony. And even if you don't have conscious control of your power you wouldn't need it to cause destruction just lashing out."

"I honestly can't say that you are wrong," Midnight said in a quiet voice and looked at Dove. The filly looked back at her mother with mouth wide open.

"Mama, don't say that! You are a good pony! You wouldn't hurt any other pony," Dove insisted.

"I can't say what I would do if I lost you. Maybe I would not hurt any pony, maybe I would hurt a lot of ponies. I don't want to even think about losing you, and I am terrified that I will," Midnight said with tears in her eyes. "She is right, Dove, it would be safer just to finish me off then, for the good of all. I am not sure I would want to live anymore anyway."

"It is not for the good of all, it is not good for you," Dove continued to rage. "And it doesn't matter anyway. You will keep me safe, you won't let anything hurt me."

Midnight looked at Dove with a stricken look. Sweet Pea's heart again went out to her friend. How is any pony supposed to tell their foal that they don't have the capability to keep them safe? How do you tell your foal it was very likely they wouldn't be alive much longer? Midnight opened and closed her mouth several times, but couldn't produce a response.

"Dove..I..I need a few minutes," Midnight choked out finally, and then quickly took off into the air and out of sight.

Sweet Pea quickly grabbed Dove up in her magic before the filly could go chasing after Midnight. The poor filly wouldn't be able to understand. She didn't know the horrors that lurked beyond in their homeworld. Sweet Pea really wanted to go chasing after Midnight herself, but she understood that her friend needed time to compose herself and get her emotions under control.

"You didn't need to be that harsh in from of the foals," she snapped at Sunset.

"They may not have reached physical maturity yet, but they may never. We are going to be all putting our lives back into jeopardy again, and they deserve to understand the weight of what is going to happen," Sunset said in the same infuriating calm voice. "Dove, you just do your best to keep yourself alive so we don't have to worry about what to do with your mother if you die. We are all going to do our best to keep you alive, along with keeping ourselves alive as well. The truth is our best might not be good enough."

"It won't be true! My mama will keep me safe and every pony will be alright," Dove asserted again.

"I think we are off track from the original discussion," Water Shadow interjected, not allowing Dove to continue with her declarations of faith. "To finish the original discussion let's just say that it will be taken under consideration if when we leave the mirror we manage to stay alive long enough to do so. I think it has merits, but Sunset is right that there is much to be concerned about. If we do anything it will have to be done with a great deal of care and planning. We cannot just have ascensions happening at a rate where we cannot properly care for the new alicorns, or having anyone mentally unstable ascending. Simply collecting food here over time can possibly lead to ascension, so even that aspect has to be carefully planned and controlled if we consider it."

"I don't understand still why the friend of mine who hated everything about alicorns for the vast majority of her life, to the point she refused to even acknowledge she was an alicorn herself most of the time, can now be alright with the idea of the creation of many new alicorns," Sunset growled over at her counterpart.

"I did spend six thousand years hating alicorns, that's true," Water Shadow said. "Then the fall of Harmony happened. Then I saw our world thrown into chaos and soon after that the rise of a being who wasn't even an alicorn who was slaying our ponies everywhere, to the point of driving two tribes to extinction and nearly extinguishing the alicorns as well. We have to take drastic measures to keep Ponykind alive now. We have a responsibility to do whatever can be done. If we continue as we are we are all dead, and we don't have safe options for actions to take. Raising up a new line of alicorns has its risks, but we have survived what came of that in the past. There was a lot of pain and death, but we survived as a species. We won't survive the Elder Gods as it stands. We don't have the power. This is our one chance at getting that power to hold on. I failed my ponies twice and I will not fail them again."

"Twice?" Sweet Pea asked, perplexed. She knew about Sea Swirl and the village, but what else did Water Shadow feel guilty for?

"Sunset isn't the only one with regrets about how she handled things in the past. I don't think I should have killed Mera like she did, I don't even think Sunset really would do that now in retrospect, but I should have been there when she was at her darkest hour and thought she had lost what was most important to her. I knew what she was going through, but didn't come to try to help her. And by the time any pony even realized Pearl was still alive Mera had gone insane with grief and rage. Now all the world is going to be swallowed by her madness," Water Shadow said sadly.

"Let's agree that we could have dealt with Mera any number of ways other than what we did, and it likely would have turned out better," Sunset said with a shake if her head. "Maybe you could have helped her, maybe I should have ended her, or perhaps done something to help her myself, but we can agree that letting her be left by herself was a fatally bad idea for every pony."

"She came to us disguised as Pearl and we never realized it. She cried so much about how she had killed her wife. She never said a name, just the term wife. I guess that makes sense now. Then we left her alone yet again, and she went on to serve the Elder Gods. Hindsight is a bitch," Water Shadow lamented with an uncharacteristic curse.

Sweet Pea tried to imagine anything that could make herself go that far off the deep end. They kept insisting that this Mera had been a good pony and friend, but it was kind of hard to see how that was possible. The Mare of Shadows was the worst of all monsters, and Sweet Pea couldn't contemplate the idea that the monster had been in any way like herself in the distant past. She understood grief and the toll that could take on a pony, but not to the point it would drive a pony to trying to exterminate of all life. How did the Mare of Shadows even expect her lover to survive or forgive her what she had done if she resurrected her? The necromancer was clearly beyond reason and sanity.

"If you all are set on trying to raise up more alicorns I won't fight you. I have a plan to give you a chance of accomplishing it, if that is the course you want to take," Sunset said in a barely audible whisper.

"What kind of plan?" Sweet Pea asked. They had all been preparing for being able to fight with the hope that they would only have to deal with the abomination and the necromancer would have taken off. Those preparations were useless if she were still right outside. Something about how Sunset spoke made Sweet Pea think that the golden alicorn had come up with a contingency for necromancer being there, but that it also would be something they wouldn't like.

"We should all be here to discuss this, it is unfair to Midnight to talk about this without her being present," Sunset said. "Quiet, go and bring Midnight back. Don't say anything that might upset her further, just tell her that there is a plan for our leaving that needs to be discussed."

"Why can't I go get Mama?" Dove demanded.

"Because she is in an emotional state and you might accidentally say something that might make that worse without meaning to. I am sure you don't want to do that to your mother. You two will get to sit down and talk with one another later, after she has had time to calm down. I know you are just a filly, but you need to start behaving like an adult, and that includes learning when it is best to talk about hard subjects. I wouldn't be disturbing her now if there weren't a great deal of urgency if we go with this plan," Sunset explained.

The filly looked down dejectedly, but nodded her acceptance back to Sunset. Sweet Pea hugged the filly to try to soothe her. It may be necessary, but it still felt cruel that her foalhood was being pushed to such a premature end. As Quiet took off in the direction that Midnight went, his snake flying close behind, Sweet Pea's heart took another lurch; Dove was not the only foal that was soon going to be forced into the world of adulthood too soon. Her poor colt was going to have to start being a stallion even if he was not even close to being that physically mature. Dove was at least almost the size of an adult, and therefore less physically helpless than Quiet. The world was so unfair.

They all waited patiently in silence for the two to return. After several minutes of this silent waiting the two did return. Quiet came back over to Sweet Pea and nuzzled close to her. Midnight had bloodshot eyes, but wasn't crying for the moment. Dove went back over to her mother, but simply nuzzled up close to her rather than saying anything. The young alicorn gave a small smile and wrapped her wing around her daughter. Then they all turned their attention to the eldest of them all.

"Now, much as I am uncomfortable with Sweet Pea's suggestion, I am forced to admit it has the best chances of producing a solution to our ongoing peril," Sunset said. "It requires there to be enough time for the mirror to be teleported to Ocid and then brought into the Dome along with the rest of you. I think pure curiosity over the emergence of another alicorn will be enough to get Peridot to let you in. She is as desperate as the rest of us, and will be eager to hear what you have to say."

"You are referring to us without including yourself," Water Shadow said in a sad voice.

"I am indeed," Sunset said in a voice that matched her counterpart. "You need time, which means some pony has to buy you that. I will be distracting Mera if she is still present outside. I do have some small hope I can still possibly reason with her, now that I know who I am dealing with, but that is a small hope. She is clearly insane, and if reason fails I may still be able to keep her preoccupied long enough for you all to get away and get back into Ocid. I am confident that Shadow is now strong enough that she can teleport you all and the mirror."

"You are telling us that you are going to be committing suicide then," Water Shadow all but snarled. "Distracting Mera can only end in her standing over your corpse in the end. We can all teleport to Ocid and get in together."

"Shadow, you know as well as I she could track the teleport if she is close by, and be on us before we could get inside Ocid's teleport block. The only thing that could stop her from doing this in time is if she is preoccupied. No, I cannot win against her, and will most likely die, but I can buy you all the time you need. I am the strongest of us, and the best fighter. That makes me the one capable of buying the most time, even if it is just a few minutes," Sunset said evenly, her face turned down towards the ground.

"We can find another way! You don't have to throw your life away," Shadow yelled at her oldest friend.

"If she is not close at hoof, and I only have to deal with her abominations, then I will follow behind and be alright. If she is close we have to accept that we aren't going to escape without some pony dying. I am making the choice that it will be me so it is only one of us instead of all of us," Sunset explained. She seemed so calm about discussing her own imminent demise.

"There has to be another way," Shadow now sobbed.

"Maybe, but we are out of time. We need to exit out while there are still minutes the mirror is still lit and holding our enemies at bay. While you all are getting to safety with it still lit up I will do my part to make that time count. She will find a way to circumvent the mirror if we are on the outside of it. She has to be too busy dealing with me. Again, she might have taken off and I will follow after you then, but we have to expect the worst," Sunset continued to explain.

"I don't know if I can stand to lose you. I have lost every other ancient pony," Shadow kept sobbing.

"If your plan works then you will have a new generation of alicorns to watch over, and you will know the care that they need. You won't be alone and you will still have purpose. I need to do my part and give that what chance it can have," Sunset said. The golden alicorn now looked at Water Shadow, in Sunset's eyes was pure resolve.

"I don't even know what to say," Midnight said. Sweet Pea's thoughts echoed that. Sunset made sense, but it was a really bitter truth that she spoke. Sweet Pea knew that she would be willing to do the same, if she had the capability. If she had the capability she would offer to do this herself instead, she was far less valuable than Sunset to the world. But she wasn't on that kind of level, not yet.

Sweet Pea steadied her resolve about ascension for herself and others. They would have a new alicorn race, and she would make sure that they grew strong and numerous enough to push back the necromancer and make her pay for her crimes. Sunset would not die in vain.