It goes without saying that there were no guards present at the Canterlot Archives when the group arrived; the archives were no longer of any concern to them—their solitary concern now was serving Stellas Spatium! Thus, it was exceptionally easy for them to break in and venture straight to their desired wing.
Spatium is becoming lazy, sloppy, weaker, Cadance was thinking. Taking over all these landscapes without even keeping a watchful eye on them! That's certainly something we could all use to our advantage.
"Sunburst, do you have any idea exactly where the communicating with the dead spell is kept?" asked Twilight.
"No," he said sadly. "I'm afraid the book does not make precise references to where in the archives the spells are."
"No harm in doing things the old-fashioned way from time to time," she smiled.
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With everypony doing their utmost to locate the spell, it did not take all that long to do so.
"I've found it!" Fluttershy cheered, and gave one of her famous super-silent "Yay!" exclamations. The piece of parchment was as dusty as the interior of a vacuum-cleaner; Fluttershy blew on it to shake the particles off, causing the generation of a violent sneeze. It was the loudest anypony had ever heard Fluttershy be!
"Okay, Cadance," said Twilight. "Let's give this a whirl!" The pair uttered the odd-sounding incantations exactly as they were written in the book. Their eyes glowed a ghostly shade of silver, and their horns spurted magic of all different sorts of colours: at first pink, then green, then a calm, comforting blue. The entire process was incredibly prolonged, but when it was over, everything went back just the way it was—eyes, horns and sounds all as they should be. The two princesses certainly could not see, hear or sense any spirits of dead ponies!
"It didn't work, did it?" Discord scoffed. "What did I tell everypony?"
"Well, thanks for your help, Starburst," Twilight sighed. "It was well-worth an attempt. But I suppose without Starswirl the Bearded, successfully pulling it off is virtually impossible!"
"What do we do now?" Fluttershy asked worryingly.
"I honestly don't know what we can do."
"I hate to say it," said Discord. "But this was sort of our last hope at achieving redemption, wasn't it?"
"Truer words were never spoken."
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Well, Starlight Glimmer and Trixie were not just about to give up. They ventured further on into the archives, where there was little chance of being disturbed by the others.
"If my theory is correct," Starlight explained. "The spell just needs to be combined with an advanced teleportation one, similar to the one Twilight used to transport us to Discord's realm."
"Why's that?"
"Well, it's a widely accepted theory that when ponies perish, their souls are reborn in another plane of existence entirely, outside of space and time altogether. In order for anypony to speak with them if they are in this unknown realm, surely they'd need a means to see it themselves, right?"
"What else is wrong with the spell?"
"I believe a few of the words in the book are spelled incorrectly. If I can just get an ancient Equestrian-language dictionary, I could easily find out their proper spellings."
"Let's get to it!" Starlight and Trixie were suddenly very bubbly, and bursting with enthusiasm and a tendency to work as hard as they possibly could; they truly believed their alterations to the spell could work! Twilight, Fluttershy, Cadance and Discord, on the other hoof, were utterly lost and absent of any sort of positive energy, as if forever trapped in a confusing maze of failures and defeats. In a way, they were. For now.
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"WHO HERE USED TO WORK AS A BLACKSMITH?" Stellas Spatium shouted out to all his Everfree Forest slaves. They had gathered at the very centre of the forest sometime prior to his arrival at his behest. He said he had an 'important announcement'. Apparently this was it. "I NEED A GOOD BLACKSMITH TO FASHION ME SWORDS AND SHIELDS FOR EVERYPONY HERE, AND I NEED THE JOB DONE QUICKLY!" A trio of muscular stallions raised their hoofs: they had had the job of manufacturing such weapons for Canterlot and the Crystal Empire.
"We would be happy to perform any task you request of us," they said in unison as if they had rehearsed the line.
"There are roughly seventy-thousand swords and nine-thousand shields presently available in the royal areas of Equestria," said Spatium. "I command you three to all make twice as many; everypony is to follow me to the Crystal Empire. Why do we need so many weapons, you might ask. As many ponies as possible will receive one, those who don't probably won't last very long. This is the real battle, everypony; by the end of it, mark my words, the two princesses, their family, Fluttershy and Discord will all be serving us, and my grand plan will be complete!"
"And if they refuse?" An earth pony named Coco Pommel asked (curiously enough with no inkling of hesitation).
"Then they quite bluntly no longer have a purpose in this world!"
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Tirek was still sitting motionless in the exterior of the Crystal Empire! He had only moved occasionally to obtain food from ponies' abandoned homes. That aside, he had been wondering how to act with regards to Stellas Spatium. Before his meeting with Twilight and her friends, he would have pursued him with no second thoughts with the intention of beating him as ferociously as he could; however, since he had been in their presence he could not help but feel a certain admiration towards their undeniable wiseness, their tendency to plan ahead, and their wonderfully creative and efficient ways of solving problems. He had never felt that way about anypony before! I need to be patient, he decided. The time for revenge will come, but it cannot be now. Spatium would crush me in no time! No time! As he pondered on when this next move of his should materialise (for his patience still left much to be desired!), he could have sworn he could hear the distinct sound of rapid clopping in the distance. He could. The thousands, if not millions, of pony slaves to Stellas Spatium were rushing violently towards the Crystal Empire. Spatium himself flew overhead. When at last they reached the Empire, nopony appeared not to notice Lord Tirek—even if they did, very few would have dared interrupt another of Spatium's iconic speeches:
"PRINCESS TWILIGHT SPARKLE AND PRINCESS MI AMORE CADENZA!" He bellowed. "I KNOW YOU'RE IN THERE! AND I THINK IF YOU CHOOSE NOT TO SURRENDER NOW, YOU'LL LATER REALISE THAT DECISION PROBABLY WASN'T WORTH YOUR WHILE!"
"They are not here!" The fury-filled voice made many of the slaves gasp out loud in shock. Then, Spatium did notice.
"LORD TIREK?!?" He began to laugh. "YOU ARE A BOLD ONE! BUT YOU SHALL ALSO BE MADE TO PAY FOR THAT LITTLE OUTBURST!"
"It'd be my pleasure," Tirek grinned. In terms of my revenge, he thought. There's no time like the presence. If I do not do this right now, I may never acquire a second chance.
"Back off, everypony!" Spatium commanded. "This one's mine." And, in what was possibly the most foolish decision of his entire life, Lord Tirek actually ran up to Spatium and began to fight! It was an odd one, too: Spatium continually blasted every defensive spell under the sun and moon out of his jet-black horn, while Tirek used his brute strength and attempted mostly in vain to suck Spatium's magic out of his body. Ultimately, Tirek was right. He was not ready. Eventually, he was knocked cold out by Spatium, who in a moment of extreme hastiness, presumed his opponent dead.
"PRINCESSES!" He roared. "YOUR TURN!"