Trixie began with a series of illusions, creating images of dragons, a manticore, and an Ursa, each more impressive and life-like than the last, out of nothing but smoke and light. With each figure went a story that Trixie would act out, and even Luna and AJ found themselves impressed when an illusory dragon seemed to pick her up off the ground before she could vanquish it with a lightning bolt from her horn. The orange earth pony had to bite her lip when Trixie conjured up the Ursa image, especially since Trixie had set the scene in Ponyville.

"Trixie is ashamed to admit this was not her greatest hour," the pale blue unicorn said, looking up and covering her eyes with a front leg as the image reared up and began smashing smoke buildings, "After all, she knew that although Ponyville lies so close to the dreaded Everfree Forest, the monsters inside it almost never come out. The Great and Powerful Trixie had expected to simply spend a day or two regaling the ponies there with tricks and tales of her adventures, and she was well-received." AJ and Bloom both snorted. "However, that very night an Ursa Minor came rampaging out of the forest, probably scared by some nightmare or another."

"Eh, close enough," Applejack muttered.

"Oi," Soul hissed, "Save the commentary for later please. I'm enjoying this." Applejack looked back and gave Soul a bemused look.

"Trixie was shaken out of bed by the rampage," Trixie was saying, unaware of the commentary, "And being so tired meant she was not at her full potential." She turned toward the smoke-and-light Ursa and affected a sleepy wobble as she sent two weak-looking bolts of magic at the thing. The Ursa turned toward her and swung a paw at her, and Trixie jumped back and rolled across the stage as if she'd been sent flying by a powerful blow. Regaining her feet, Trixie's horn took on a purplish glow and the image of a purple unicorn trotted onstage from behind her. "Luckily for her," she said, resuming her narration, "there was a unicorn in Ponyville who, although not as Great and Powerful as Trixie, knew how to tame an Ursa Minor. By working together we calmed the beast and sent it home to its cave." The purple unicorn image raised its head and a flute appeared above it playing a soft melody as Trixie "lifted" the Ursa off the ground and rocked it gently before moving it off stage. The audience applauded as the illusions vanished and Trixie took a bow.

"What a load of cow patties," Apple Bloom said, just a little too loudly. The applause came to an abrupt halt as Trixie looked up from her bow, looking briefly annoyed before putting a smile back on her face.

"It would seem there is a neigh-sayer in the house," she said, and a second spotlight came on and swung out into the audience. It centered on Applejack, and Trixie's smile faltered again briefly before she regained her composure. "You question the truth of my story, do you?" she asked.

"Yeah," AJ said, "On account of me being there when it happened. Yer still all talk."

"I see," Trixie said, "Well, as luck would have it, we have reached the next part of the show, where The Great and Powerful Trixie welcomes any pony in the audience to try their hooves at outperforming her. Do you accept the challenge?"

"I'd rather not," AJ said with a wry smile, "Besides, I didn't bring mah rope this time."

"A pity," Trixie said, "Anypony else? How about… you?" She pointed and the spotlight shifted to focus on Princess Luna. To her credit, Trixie handled this third and easily biggest surprise of the night very well; her face barely twitched. "Yes," she said, her voice no longer sounding as confident, "The Great and Powerful Trixie is even willing to match spells with one of our fair leaders, Princess Luna."

"Do you think I should?" Luna asked, turning toward Heart and Soul, "I wouldn't want to embarrass her."

"She's willing to risk it," Soul noted.

"Go easy on her though," Heart advised, "All she's really got is illusions and bravado."

"Go show her what real magic's like!" Apple Bloom insisted.

"You're sure you want me?" Luna asked the magician.

"Come, come," Trixie said, "no challenger will be turned away."

"Very well then," Luna said. She vanished into a mist of stardust and reappeared on the stage to the right of Trixie. "You don't need to try and match that," she told the unicorn.

Trixie just looked up into Luna's eyes, activated her horn, and then teleported to the left end of the stage. "Easy," she said, "What else do you have?"

"Let's see," Luna said, thinking, "How about this?" Her horn glowed as several tiny balls of light materialized around her and began flying about the theater in various patterns, ending as a crown encircling her head. Trixie responded by snatching control of the lights and doing her own routine with them before extinguishing them disdainfully.

"Pathetic," she said, "You insult both yourself and the Great and Powerful Trixie with such simple parlor tricks. Come on, show us what you're capable of."

"I don't wish to upstage you," Luna said, "Besides, some other pony may wish to take your challenge." She turned to leave, but Trixie teleported in front of her with a hard glare.

"Prove yourself," she demanded, "Are you Princess Luna or not?" Luna stepped back, insulted.

"You disrespectful little… Fine. You want a display of my power? How about this?" The light of her horn was blinding as magic energy began to swirl around her. Trixie stood her ground even as the energy began creating a real whirlwind and Luna's coat started to become gradually darker.

"Uh oh," Soul said, "This is not good. Come on Heart!" He leapt out of his seat and ran for the stage with Heart flying close behind him. The wind from Luna's spell began shaking the room, and as Soul jumped up onto the stage, the energy exploded outward and knocked him out of the air. As he lost consciousness, he thought he heard Big Macintosh's calm voice over the screams of the evacuating ponies.

"Poor filly can't seem ta catch a break, can she?"

The ponies researching Celestia's problem with the stars hadn't caught a break either. Like the Princess had said, the problem was unprecedented, so looking for instances even remotely related to scrambled stars was next to impossible. Twilight, Spike, and Gale had turned the library upside-down and come up with no leads, not even from the fiction section. Ashen Blaze had lost the fight with sleep after an hour and half of tracing out spells that would allow him to look Celestia over and detect abnormalities. The only thing he'd found before his vision became too blurry from fatigue was a variety of pollens and powders in her coat, which he figured were simply the results of moving about through a perfectly normal atmosphere on any given day. After that he'd curled up on a couch and slipped into unconsciousness. The others kept working until the Princess insisted that they stop and get some rest at midnight.

The next morning, Ash awoke with a number of cramps and decided to go for a walk to work them out before breakfast. Rarity went with him, declaring a need for some fresh morning air after spending all night in a dusty library. They ended up getting breakfast out in the city and spending fifteen minutes at a salon fixing Rarity's bed-head. As they returned to the library, Spike noted with displeasure that Rarity was laughing at Ash's satirical commentary. "I mean really," he was saying in an affected snooty voice, "how could you even think of leaving your home with less than your entire make-up kit and a set of hairbrushes?" He caught Spike's eye and grew more serious. "Excuse me a second," he said. Rarity nodded and trotted over to talk to Twilight and Princess Celestia. Ash walked up to the purple dragon and simply said, "Finish your breakfast, then let's take a walk." He walked away without waiting for a response, and Spike began eating his food a little more slowly.

There was a tense silence between the two males as they walked through the halls of the castle. "Doesn't this seem just a little silly to you?" Ash asked at last.

"What?" Spike responded, glaring up at the unicorn.

"Here I am," Ash said, "a battle-hardened, blunt, subtly disrespectful, and downright aggravating mule of a pony, and yet somehow I catch the eye of the jewel of Ponyville. Hardly seems logical, does it?"

"No, it doesn't," Spike said simply.

"I don't understand it either," Ash said, "I'm not trying to lead her on, and I don't see our relationship as anything more than a friendship." He stopped and looked Spike square in the eye. "Therefore," he said, "I'd appreciate it ever so much if you'd quit giving me the evil eye. I can't help what anybody feels about me, but I'll nurture whatever relationship they insist on, even if it's antagonistic. You don't want to be my enemy." Spike simply stood where he was, speechless. Ash smiled and patted him on the head. "Well," he said cheerfully, "now that we've cleared that up, let's get back to work, shall we? The Princess is counting on us."

"R-right…"

Gale slammed the book she was reading shut with a growl of frustration. "I am about ready to give up," she said, "The histories are useless, the astronomy books even more so, and I am having a very hard time believing nopony ever imagined this was possible, let alone cooked up a fanciful solution to it."

"Well, what other places do we have left to look?" Twilight asked, pulling another novel off the shelf and reading the synopsis.

"I dunno," Gale said, "Maybe… maybe the Princess is just sick or something?"

"Sick?" Rarity asked, poking her head out from around the end of the aisle, "Do you honestly think the Princess is the sort of being who could get sick?"

"Well, she's not perfect," Gale said, "After all, if Luna could become Nightmare Moon, why couldn't they catch a simple illness?"

"There's a big difference between illness and a rage-induced rampage of darkness," Ash said, looking up from his latest spell, "Believe me, I know. Besides, I haven't found any infections or malignant microbes in the Princess's system. At least… none that I recognize. Which is a rather small number… We need PC."

"That's a good idea," Gale said, "but, he's down in my apartment in the city. It would take while to fetch him."

"Well, we're not getting anywhere with this," Ash said, waving a hoof at a bookshelf.

"I would prefer if you did not use that thing on me," Celestia said, "The evil it houses got into my head once already and I do not wish to repeat that experience."

"Nor would I Princess," Ash said, "but I assure you-"

"No," Celestia said, giving the grey unicorn a rare hard look. Ash returned it, and the two stared at each other for several seconds before Ash turned away with a frustrated sigh.

"Royalty…" he muttered.

"Ash!" Gale and Rarity both exclaimed.

"I'm not needed here," Ash said, heading for the door, "Adieu, ladies." There was silence in the library after he left and slammed the door shut behind him.

"Oh dear," Rarity said, concerned.

"I'll follow him," Gale said, "He's up to something; I can feel it."