As the sun set over Manehatten and the stars came out in an all-new, wholly incorrect configuration, Soul Mage and Gold Heart made their way to the Silver Harness. They encountered the honor guard captain and another of the guards outside the theater, but kept their distance after their friendly greetings were met with a cold glare from the captain. "Sourpuss," Soul muttered as he went up to the box office to claim their free tickets.

"Yeah," Heart agreed, "I hope they don't try anything."

"You think they'd be that stupid?" Soul asked with a raised eyebrow. Heart shook her head. "Got the paper?" Soul asked.

"Do you want to hold it?" Heart asked testily as she raised a wing slightly to display the folded newspaper underneath it.

"No, no," Soul said, "Just checking. Come on, let's go find our seats." Heart rolled her eyes and smiled as she followed her brother inside.

The very fact that there was a show that night was a good sign, and the golden-yellow ponies waited eagerly to see how Trixie had modified her show to incorporate Luna. When Proscenium Arch stepped out to welcome the audience, he made no mention of any major changes other than to thank an "anonymous patron" for paying to repair the main curtain and broken lights from the previous night's accident. He bowed and moved aside as the lights dimmed and the curtain opened. The mist that flowed across the stage prior to Trixie's entrance had a slight but noticeable sparkle to it which added to the overall effect when the spotlight landed on Trixie and the pyrotechnics went off. As the blue unicorn went into her opening speech, Soul cast glances toward the sides of the stage, trying to catch a glimpse of somepony standing just out of sight, but couldn't see a thing.

"She's off to a good start," Heart whispered as Trixie transitioned into her first story, the vanquishing of a dragon that terrorized a small town. The dragon appeared on cue, and looked just as good as it had the previous night, although the illusory scenery looked a little wobbly and there were only two pony images running about at any one moment, whereas Trixie had managed four the last time. When it came time for the "dragon" to pick Trixie up, the aura of magic was visible around her, and the lightning bolt that vanquished the creature came from above rather than Trixie's horn, a fact that Trixie worked into her narrative without a hitch. The manticore story went smoother, since it required fewer special effects overall.

"Luna's a quick study, huh?" Soul whispered with a smile. Heart just nodded. Trixie finished chasing the manticore illusion off the stage and the scenery shifted to the Ponyville set. "Ursa time," Soul muttered.

"No comments this time," Heart said, giving him a sideways glance.

"That was Apple Bloom's fault," Soul hissed back.

"Still." The story proceeded as they recalled, with Trixie bemoaning her poor luck, blaming the attack on a bad dream, and admitting that she was unable to calm the beast by herself. However, when she mentioned the second unicorn, instead of an illusion, a tall lavender unicorn mare with black hair and a gibbous moon cutie-mark stepped out onto the stage, horn aglow as a pair of illusory flutes floated along behind her playing the lullaby. Trixie brought her story to its conclusion, pretending to concentrate as the Ursa floated into the sky, rocked gently until it fell asleep, and floated away. As the audience applauded, the illusions faded and the two unicorns took a bow.

"Thank you,' Trixie said, "The Great and Powerful Trixie would like to introduce her special guest, Stella Moon, who has provided tonight's effects." The tall unicorn took another bow to more applause. "Now," Trixie said, "Ordinarily the Great and Powerful Trixie would take this time to invite you to test your mettle against her amazing powers, but sadly she is unable to do so tonight. Instead, Stella has offered to display more of her talent for your entertainment. So sit back and enjoy." She bowed and walked off stage.

"Wow," Soul said impressed, "That was… big of her."

"Changing your opinion again?" Heart asked with a chuckle. Soul just glanced at her and turned his attention back to the stage.

"Stella Moon" wowed the audience for a solid twenty minutes with her illusions. She produced bunnies out of thin air that transformed into doves as they hopped away. She created doppelgangers of herself and challenged the audience to pick out the real pony, and then transformed herself into various famous ponies, including a slightly imperfect Princess Luna for a few seconds to Heart and Soul's secret amusement. She crowned the performance by filling the theater with a panorama of stars and summoning an illusion of the full moon to fill the stage and throw herself into silhouette. When this illusion vanished, so did Stella. She emerged from off stage with Trixie by her side and the two ponies took one final bow before bidding the crowd good night. Heart and Soul cheered as loudly as the rest of the audience before making their way out into the lobby. They were met by a theater employee who escorted them into the backstage area.

"I feel I must apologize for Trixie," he said to them, "She's so determined to make her shows just the way she likes, she's very picky about who's allowed backstage. Princess Luna managed to talk her into letting you back here once the show was over."

"Thanks," Heart said.

"It's no problem," the employee said, leading the pair to a dressing room. He nodded to them and left. After sharing a glance with Heart, Soul knocked on the door.

"Come in," a voice said from within, and the two ponies did so. They found themselves in the presence of the dark-haired lavender unicorn. "Hello Soul and Heart," she said, "Did you enjoy the show."

"Oh yes," Heart said.

"You were quite impressive, Ms. Moon," Soul said with a wry smile.

The unicorn laughed as her form faded away to be replaced by that of Princess Luna. "Thank you," she said, "but I know there are still some areas where I need to improve."

"You could start by not being quite so impressive," Trixie's voice said from the door. Heart and Soul made way as she walked up to the alicorn. "While it was awe-inspiring," she said, "That final act threatens to undermine Trixie's image as the Greatest and most Powerful."

"My apologies," Luna said, "I got rather caught up in the act. I'll come up with something less spectacular for tomorrow."

"No, you can keep it," Trixie said, "Just… tone it down a little; not so many stars, a smaller moon, and put a little hesitancy into it. Just as a suggestion of course," she added, shooting a glance at Soul, who kept his face impassive.

"How's your head?" Heart asked.

"My head feels fine," Trixie said, "My magic is coming back, but slowly. I plan to have myself checked out tomorrow to get a professional guess on how long I must work with a partner."

"That's good," Heart said, and then turned to Luna with a serious look on her face. "Princess," she said, "we have something you should see." She pulled the newspaper out from under her wing and handed it to Luna with a gesture toward the article about the stars. Luna read through the first part, and then opened the paper to read the continuation, and then folded the paper back up and gave it back to Heart.

"Thank you for letting me know," she said. Heart and Soul looked at her expectantly, so she shook her head and added, "It's only rumors so far, and I trust Celestia to find a solution without my help. I won't act until my vacation is over or my sister sends me a letter asking for help. I'm sure she'd expect the same from me." The two golden-yellow ponies sighed, each wishing they had Luna's confidence.

Gale started to get suspicious when Ash and Spike didn't return after several hours, and Twilight grew worried when they weren't back in time for dinner.

"Spike never misses a meal," she said, eyeing the bowl of rubies on the food cart, "Especially when there are gemstones on the menu."

"Perhaps they're just wrapped up in their reading," Rarity suggested, "I know that sometimes I get so wrapped up in a book the hours just slip by unnoticed."

"Ash doesn't read that much," Gale said around a bite of daisy sandwich, "I bet he's up to something, the little troll."

"If he is," Twilight said, "He'd have to have taken Spike along with him."

"Not necessarily," Gale said, "He can be very slippery when he wants to be. Dang it!" She pounded the cart with a hoof, rattling the dishes. "More of us should have gone with him!" She dropped the rest of her sandwich and marched toward the doors.

"Where are you going?" Rarity asked.

"My place," Gale said, "I suggest one of you go check the library he went to, and somepony should warn Celestia that Ash may have gone rogue." She flung the door open and ran out into the hall.

"I'll take the library," Twilight said to Rarity, "you go find the Princess."

"Right," Rarity said as her friend teleported away. As she ran out of the library, the white unicorn found herself caught in a dilemma. On the one hoof, she had her duty as a loyal Equestrian to warn the Princess of any threat she knew of, but on the other she felt he knew Ashen Blaze well enough to trust him not to do anything he knew would put anypony in danger and all he wanted to do was use PC to get another opinion on Celestia's problems with the stars. However, PC did hold a dangerous creature inside of him… The debate raged on in Rarity's mind as she sought out Princess Celestia.

Twilight searched the city library high and low and quickly found Spike lying immobilized on top of a shelf in the fiction section. After carefully bringing him down to the floor, she began to examine him. He was being held by a spell that froze his voluntary movements but allowed him to breathe and blink occasionally. Twilight knew the basic formula for the spell, but it had been cast using Ashen Blaze's method of weaving energy instead of the traditional style of focusing it through a horn while visualizing the desired effect. "Sorry Spike," she said to the baby dragon, "I'm not sure I can undo what he's done to you, but I'm going to try my best."

Gale arrived at her apartment to discover she was far too late. Nothing was broken or missing at first glance, but Ash wasn't one to be stopped by physical barriers. Cursing under her breath and wishing she'd had enough magebane to seal her apartment against teleportation spells – even though it would've taken her months to prepare that amount – Gale went straight to her desk and pulled open the top left drawer. Reaching inside, she pressed the button that opened a secret compartment on the underside of the desk. She looked inside and cursed again. The compartment was empty; the head-mounted computer she'd hidden there after Ash's first break-in was gone. "Darn it Ashen Blaze," she muttered, "You're going to get yourself banished to the moon, and that's if you're lucky!"

Ashen Blaze normally came across as impatient, preferring action to sitting around, but when it came to stealth he could wait for hours. It probably helped that Celestia ordered a city-wide search for him after his plan had been discovered. He hadn't counted on Gale realizing the mistake of letting him leave her sight with only a featherweight of a dragon for company as quickly as she had, but he'd still had more than enough time to grab PC and begin planning his next move. After the guards were sent out, he split his time between muffling his mirth as they fell victim to his subtle misdirection spells that kept them from looking at his hiding spots, changing said hiding spots when the guards had gone, and investigating the security measures being placed around Princess Celestia. Gale had donated her meager supply of magebane to line the door into the Princess's study and the balcony outside her bedroom on the thought that Ash would wait until Celestia went to sleep before making his move. They weren't wrong about that, but they hadn't counted on the Princess's own magical aura being slowly absorbed by the magebane until it broke down around 2:30 in the morning, at which point Ash slipped into the bedroom and aimed PC's scanner at the sleeping alicorn.

Another thing Ash hadn't counted on was that Celestia was a very light sleeper. The moment he stopped moving, Celestia's eyes flew open and she raised her head to regard the intruder and his fire-like mane. Ash kept his face neutral as Celestia's eyes narrowed at him. "Evening," he said, "Don't mind me, I'll be gone in a moment."

"Leave this instant," Celestia said, "And take that thing with you."

"Sorry your highness," Ash said, "but no." Celestia's horn began to glow with magic and Ash began to feel a pressure shoving him in the direction of the door. He responded by teleporting to the other side of the room and saying, "PC, widen the scope. I'll need to be on the move."

"Do you really think you can defy me?" Celestia asked, standing up and facing the unicorn.

"In my life, I have only met three people I cannot stand against," Ash said. He teleported as Celestia flung a magic restraint in his direction. "The first is Soul Mage," Ash said as he rematerialized to the Princess's left, "Because his power has always been able to strike me right to the core of my tainted soul." He teleported again as Celestia whirled to face him. "The second is Gold Heart, because she is Soul's sister and you can't have one without the other." Teleport. "The last is Gale because of that awful magebane she always seems to be able to find the ingredients for, no matter where we've wound up."

"What makes you think you could defeat my power?" Celestia said, growing more annoyed as Ash teleported away from her spells again.

"I never said I could defeat you," Ash said from his new position, "If we were to go at each other with all our strength, I'm sure you'd overpower me. Oh." He teleported again and reappeared next to a vase of flowers. "Need to borrow these for a sec," he said, "See you in the library" He grabbed the vase and blinked away again before Celestia could react.

Ashen Blaze made sure his arrival in the royal library was particularly noisy by creating a simulated thunderclap after materializing; he needed witnesses for his next move, and was glad to see that Twilight Sparkle, Rarity, Gale, and Spike were all present and had been awakened. "Answer might be in here," he said, placing the vase of flowers next to Twilight as he ran past her, skidding to a stop by a bookcase as Celestia teleported in, her eyes aglow with fury. Ash saluted the princess and said, "Princess, I am honored you chose to grant me the funds I required for my studies into magic, but I must now inform you I am no longer in need of your grants, so I humbly request you remove my name from future considerations. Adieu." He stamped the pattern he'd scratched into the floor earlier that day, which began to glow along with his horn and gemstone necklace. With a cry of "Destulf juri cosh, transport!" he vanished in a flash of orange light. The ponies and Spike watched the scene in confused silence, and then turned as one to look at Celestia.

"Where did he go?" Celestia demanded, turning her gaze on Gale.

"I… don't know," Gale admitted, "Soul has a better knowledge of Ash's magic words. I think that was a way-point transport though. Somewhere there's a spot that he set up as a way-point he can teleport to from anywhere. I didn't know he even had one set up, so I can't guess where he went."

Celestia snorted in frustration. "He can't have gotten far," she said, "He's hardly left Canterlot since starting his studies. Did he say anything to you before I got here?"

"He just gave me this," Twilight said, looking at the vase. She took a closer look at it and began sorting through the blooms with a hoof. Suddenly, she gasped and backed away from the vase.

"What?" Gale, Celestia, and Rarity all asked, worried.

"Poison Joak," Twilight said, using her magic to lift a blue flower out of the arrangement, "Princess Celestia, somepony slipped Poison Joak into your flowers!"