The morning was given a new birth by the first rays of sunlight that shone brightly in Layda's sleeping eyes. She slammed her hooves to her eyes and screamed:

"AAAAAH! Lazers in my eyes!"

Before falling off the bed. She looked around in confusion as her eyes squinted from the amount of light managing to flash through the small window.

"Are you an idiot or something?" Cosmos roared within Layda's head.

"Well excuse me for dreaming. I didn't know that that was sunlight. You really are head-strung today."

"Whatever. Your 'pals' are at the door."

Bon-Bon opened the door in a panic, only to see Cosmos on the floor with the comforter underneath her.

"What...what happened here?" the elegant pony asked.

"Uhhh...I fell off the bed."

"Who were you talking to?"

"Just mumbling in my sleep."

"Uh-huh." she said with an eye squint. "Why not come downstairs? I have breakfast ready."

"Really? I thought I was going to make my own breakfast."

"No. You're a guest here. Therefore, we must make you a good way to wake up."

"Thanks alot."

The two left the room to reach the kitchen downstairs. The house was pretty big but also very plain. Some decorations over here, a picture frame there. It was too big for them to fill up on their own, so many parts of the wooden pieces were left as they were. The place was pretty bare, but it was homely. The table in the big kitchen was covered in muffins of diverse compositions, toast, cereal, and so on.

"Wow. This looks delicious!" Layda started to foam at her mouth from the pure excitement. Come to think of it, she hadn't eaten in several days.

"Well, you should thank Lyra for this. She's a great cook."

The turquoise mare seemed a bit jittery. She tried to blush, but was too scared of the Nightmare in front of her.

"Thank you very much. Umm...I think I'll sit on the floor. I'm a bit too big for these chairs."

"What do you mean 'too big'?"

"These ponies are one third your size! Don't you think we're a bit big for their furniture?"

"...That would be logical. My grandeur can only be held within so much."

"Yes. Because you're so special."

"You okay?" Bon-Bon asked.

"Hm? Yes. I tend to mutter to myself while thinking."

"I see..."Bon-Bon replied while sitting at the table to eat.

"Well, can we get to eating?"

"S-sure." Lyra stuttered.

A few minutes later, the whole group was satisfied, but Lyra had barely eaten anything but toast, as she kept her eyes on Cosmos the entire time.

"Well, Cosmos, if you want, we can show you around Ponyville. Perhaps, with us, everypony will be less scared of you." Bon-Bon said with a crocked eyebrow.

Layda scratched the back of her head in nervousness.

"No. We must work on your flying and magic control. Decline the proposal."

"Fine. Sorry, but I have things to do. Sorry again."

"That's okay. Just don't go too far, or you'll get in trouble."

"Will do."

Once Cosmos left the house, Lyra turned to Bon-Bon and started to speak in panic:

"What went through your mind when you brought her to our house? That's Nightmare Moon!"

"No...it isn't...I can feel it. That's her body, but there is something else."

"So you're saying she has a spark of kindness?" Lyra mocked as she pranced around.

"No. I just don't think that it's the Mare in the moon that we saw before. She's much kinder and different...and weird."

"Weird? What's weirder than being part of somepony, then getting separated and getting your own body?"

"The way you sit?"

"I...You win this round."

Bon-Bon smirked at her friend's remark.

Meanwhile, Layda had gone to the outskirts of the city while being careful not to go too far, as asked. She sat down and started to knock on her head.

"Hey. Cosmos. Helooooo. We're here."

"Hm? So we are. Apologies. I was...doing something."

"That's great. Can we get to the training? I'm eager to know how to use magic."

"Fine. But first we...where's my armor?"

"I guess I forgot to put it on."

Layda couldn't see her, but she knew that Cosmos was raging and trying to destroy everything around her before slowly calming down.

"Fine. You need a feeling to control your magic and concentrate it through the horn. Let me show you. You see that rock in front of us? I'll turn it into gold temporarily."

Layda scrunched her face as her horn began to glow quite brightly. Fom it burst a black ray with white sparkles within it. It struck the rock, which turned from its granite grey, to a glorious gold. The new Cosmos hunched over it and "oooed" at its appearance.

"Wow. That was pretty cool. That tickled and felt like...something else."

"Yes. Well, let's start then. Try and recreate the feeling. You don't need to do what I just did. Just try and recreate the feeling. Use your mind, and feel the horn. It is a simple extension of your body. Nothing more, nothing less."

"Okay. Here goes."

Layda began to concentrate without forcing herself too much. As time passed, her horn started to hum and glow with powerful magic, albeit too much magic. She opened her eyes to see that the magic swirling around her horn looked like a galaxy.

"That's beautiful."

"NO YOU FOAL! DON'T LOSE CONCENTRATION!"

"Uh-oh."

All of a sudden, Cosmos was thrust about, and the galaxy around her horn flung away like a disc into the ground, digging through the earth and spitting up dirt. Layda got back up, difficultly, and moaned.

"Ow. What happened?"

"You've summoned some shard scorpions, that's what happened!"

"Some what?"

The floor began to rumble, and from where the disc cut through, two gigantic black scorpions erupted. They had several portions of their bodies covered in a glowing green jewel, but that wasn't easily noticeable with the sun being out. The creatures snapped their pincers before starting to move towards Ponyville.

"Woops."

"HEY!" a voice yelled.

Layda looked around to try and locate the source, but she was hit by something charging into her and flopping onto the ground.

"Oh no. Are you okay?"

"Yeah. I'm- *gasp* Nightmare Moon! So you released those monsters?" spoke Rainbow Dash.

"I didn't do it on purpose! And who is Nightmare Moon? Why are you all calling me that?"

"Huh?"

"No matter. We need to stop those things."

"Right. I'm watching you, though. Do anything funny and I'll tackle you."

"Because that worked so well before?"

"I...Whatever."

The two quickly ran towards the town to see that the scorpions were climbing on buildings and destroying everything in sight, although they seemed to put pieces of food on their backs. This food stayed glued thanks to a sticky mucus secreted by the shard scorpions. There were a few ponies who were throwing things at them, but it didn't do much besides annoy them, as suggested by the strikes they perfirmed with their tails towards the source.

"Use your magic to get rid of them! You're still an alicorn." RAinbow pressed.

"But I don't know how to use magic."

"What? Then atleast hit them from the sky!"

"I..."

"You don't know how to fly either? That settles it. You aren't Nightmare Moon."

"Duh?"

"Whatever. We've got to lure them out of here somehow. Um...we need Twilight or...Fluttershy! Distract them until I get back."

Before Layda could protest, Rainbow Dash was already gone.

"Well...crap...how am I supposed to distract them?"

"*sigh* I can help, but I won't be able to talk to you for the rest of the day."

"Mmmm. I'll deal with this myself. Now let's see."

Looking around at the catastrophy, Layda noticed a bunch of wood that had now caught on fire, and a hairspray can dropped on the floor. Layda put on a bland expression and, somehow, managed to concentrate her magic in lifting the flaming plank and the can.

"Hm."

She used her make-shift flame-thrower and blasted the scorpions with the tempest. The beasts turned around to face their agressor, and were about to continue with their activities, until they noticed that the food they had collected was burnt to a crisp. At this sudden realization, they trampled after Cosmos, who turned tail and ran like hell. Everypony around left their hiding places to see the Nightmare Moon look-alike running away towards the spot said monsters escaped. When Layda reached the spot, she shouted:

"Okay, beast. I've got a flamethrower. Stay where you are and nobody gets hurt."

There was a moment of silence, but the scorpions gestured that they were looking at eachother, before roaring once more and charging towards Layda, that is, until a vanilla colored pegasus landed gently in front of them.

"Hey. What's wrong? Why are you attacking everypony?" It was Fluttershy.

The scorpions, although hesitant, started to mumble. It sounded like scraping rocks and hissing at the same time.

"Really?" Fluttershy turned towards Layda, who averted her gaze. "N-N-N-Nightmare Moon?!" she stuttered.

"Easy, Fluttershy. She only looks like her. She isn't her."

"O...kay. If you say so. Why did you wake them up?"

"What?"

"They said you woke them up and that they had to search for food now."

"I didn't do it on purpose." Layda mumbled as she started to kick the dirt."I was trying to control magic, and it backfired. I ended up sending a disc into the ground. I didn't hurt them, did I?"

Both Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash were disturbed by the Nightmare acted. Was she being sincere? Was she mocking them? They just couldn't tell.

"No. Y-you just woke them up. Now, go back home. She won't hurt you anymore. Go back to sleep."

The giant scorpions grumbled one last time, leaving Layda to her thoughts.

"Well, that was fun...I think."

"You insensitive foal! You could have destroyed my future sla-friends."

"Insensitive? That was your fault for not giving me more instructions!"

"True, but you should have known the dangers of magic."

"Because the humans have lots of magicians. Yes. Totally."

"Fine. There is a way for me to accelerate your adaptation to this body, but I'll need to parasite you."

"What?"

"It'll be like possession, but I won't steal your body. I'll just enhance your abilities. Nothing bad can come from this. We're friends after all. Right?"

"True. Fine. But do it when I fall asleep."

"Okay. Whatever you wish."

"Excuse me, but, um...If you can't fly, maybe you should ask Rainbow Dash? She is the best flyer in Equestria."

"Stop it, Fluttershy. Although it IS true." RAinbow flaunted.

"Oh great. She's egocentric too."

"Would you? I mean, we just met, and you seem to be confusing me with someone bad."

"Yeah. You can't fly, you can't use magic, and you don't talk like her."

"Don't be mean, Rainbow."

"What? I'm just telling the truth. So, you wanna learn from me or not?"

"Sure." Layda shrugged.

"Okay! FOLLOW ME! YOU TOO, FLUTTERSHY!" Rainbow Dash yelled at the vanilla pegasus trying to sneak away."

"EEP!"

"This parasiting definately won't have any side-effects. Hahahaha!"