STOP! You are about to read the sequel to The Price of Harmony By MaverickthePony if you prefer to avoid confusion while reading than the other story can be found on my profile page.
Chapter 1: The Return
A knock on the door awoke Twilight. It had been a week since she and her friends had returned from their trip to Forshan. Twilight figured it was just another visitor to try and ask her where she had gone. She and her friends had agreed not say anything about it to keep ponies from learning about the horrors that existed outside of their borders. "Go away! I'm not talking about the trip!"
"Well you ponies must move pretty damn fast if you've been on another trip since we parted ways a week ago." came a voice from outside. Twilight sprinted down the stairs and ended up falling down them but that didn't stop her. She sprinted towards the door and threw it open with her magic she threw her arms around the figure standing outside and he returned the embrace. It was Talon the Special Forces pony that saved Equestria a week ago when he took captive the leader of Forshan, a country bent on destroying Equestria. Since then his friend Whiskey had taken over the government and was currently in peace talks with Equestria. A week ago before parting ways he had promised on visiting Ponyville and had hinted on wanting to actually live somewhere instead of roaming a desert. Twilight broke the hug.
"What took you?" she asked him
"Well I just got back from my trip."
"Where did you go?" she asked him.
"I was looking for this." Talon said holding up a piece of paper.
"What is it?" said Twilight taking the paper and reading it.
"Twilight, that's my name."
Twilight's eyes came off the paper and she stared at him.
"Nails." she said to him. He nodded. "So I assume that you're going to be going by Nails then?"
"Yep, if that's what my mother wanted my name to be then that's going to be my name."
"Well then we'll have to get used to calling you Nails!" responded Twilight.
"Yep, oh and Twilight, I need your help."
What is it?... Nails." said Twilight
Nails chuckled, "I need to know where everypony else lives."
"How about you just stay here tonight and we'll go out tomorrow. They'll be sure to notice you. Besides Spike has been pestering me and I figure that having you here could freak him out a little if you know who he is before he knows you."
"Spike, a baby dragon, purple scales with green spines, arrowhead tail, magically hatched." Said Nails confidently. He noticed the shocked look on Twilight's face. "Her majesty Celestia told me."
"Oh. Well then that's perfect! The couch is over there I guess I'll see you in the morning."
"Thank you Twilight." with that they each retired to their respective beds that night.
Spike woke up the next morning. He sleepily made his way down the stairs and into the kitchen. He prepared a breakfast of eggs and grasses for Twilight and one for him. He turned to the fridge to get a drink and turned back to see both of the plates missing. He put the drink on the counter and turned back to the fridge to close it. When he turned around his drink was gone too. Now something was wrong. Twilight knew better than to take his drink. He decided that she was just pulling a prank on him. He went out into the library and didn't see her. He felt something sharp prod him in the back. He figured Twilight was hitting him with her horn. He turned around to see a stallion staring at him.
"What's up?" asked Nails
"TWILIGHT!" yelled Spike
"Oh I see you met my friend." said Twilight coming downstairs.
"But I felt something sharp touch me and he doesn't have a horn!" exclaimed Spike
"Griffon claw." said Nails holding up his claw. At this point Spike blacked out. "Is he going to be ok?" asked Nails
"He'll be fine." said Twilight. "I'll bet you're interested in seeing the rest of our friends." Twilight said as she opened the door.
"Well then let's go. Oh and I didn't eat any of that breakfast so I'm kind of hungry." said Nails.
The two ponies walked along the road towards Sugarcube Corner. Nails had never had anything sweet so Twilight figured that would be the perfect place to start. Some ponies were already coming up to meet him, well the ones that didn't see his claw first. These ponies didn't like anything different as Twilight remembered when Zecora first came around the town. However before they could make it to Sugarcube Corner Applejack spotted him while carting some apples into town with her brother Big Macintosh. She immediately broke out into a run that would have spilled her apples had she not already unhitched.
Unfortunately for Nails, he never saw her coming.
"Oof!" said Nails as Applejack tackled him from the side.
"Talon! It's so good to see ya!" she exclaimed.
"c-c-can't... breathe!" he managed to get out as Applejack's embrace choked him.
Applejack immediately loosened her grip and allowed Nails to get back up. "And by the way Applejack, my names not Talon anymore. From here on out I'm going to be going as Nails."
"Nails huh? Well that will take some gettin used to." said Applejack.
"Well I hope you can get used to It." said Nails. He picked up Applejack's Stetson which had fallen off when she tackled him. He gave it to her. "We're off to... Umm, where was that again Twilight?"
"Sugarcube Corner. We're going to see Pinkie Pie."
"That and I'm kinda hungry." said Nails
"Oh well here take a few apples free of charge!" said Applejack handing him three apples.
"Thanks," he said taking a bite out of one. His eyes instantly lit up. He quickly took another bite out of one and finished off the other two in record time.
"Don't tell me you ain't ever had an apple before?" said Applejack
"Nope, for most of my life I've lived off of grasses I found, and if I got lucky, the occasional egg." responded Nails
"Well then I'm interested to see how you'll respond to what they have at Sugarcube Corner." said Twilight
The three ponies entered Sugarcube Corner where they saw Fluttershy waiting at the counter. She turned and saw them coming.
"Talon!" Fluttershy exclaimed in her own quiet way. She began trotting towards him and he closed his eyes bracing himself for the impact he expected. What he didn't expect was for her to stop directly in front of him and wait for him to acknowledge her.
"Uhhh hey Fluttershy. It's nice to see you." said Nails
Fluttershy put her hooves around him in a short and gentle hug. Nails was surprised at her gentleness.
"Thank you Fluttershy for not going crazy and tackling me."
"Oh well you're welcome." responded Fluttershy.
"I just wonder if Pinkie Pie will do the same." said Nails
No such luck
"TALON!" a voice screamed. The next thing he knew he was on the ground with a Pink pony standing directly above him. It felt weird though he hadn't felt the impact at all and...
"What the hell?" Nails exclaimed as the pain hit him two seconds later.
"Oh my gosh! I'm so glad that you're here! I wondered when you were going to visit since the last time we saw you, you promised that you would visit. And I even baked a cake for you whenever you finally did visit and-"
Nails looked over at Twilight for advice.
"Just nod when she stops for breath." was all he heard before the assault on his ears restarted.
"And then I kept telling gummy that he looked silly but he wouldn't listen so I had to take his top hat off of him and gave him one that went better with his lollipop shirt." at this point she stopped talking and Nails took Twilight's advice and nodded. Pinkie Pie seemed to get it and got off of him.
"Well Pinkie Pie it's good to see you tw-"
He was cut off as Pinkie Pie gasped then ran off.
He looked over to Twilight for confirmation on what just happened.
"Watch out later on." was all she told him.
"I'm guessing it's a good idea I left my gun at your house then."
"Yep." she said and they were off.
They got to Carousel Boutique at around noon. "I'm hungry." said Nails as he entered the shop.
"Well, if you're lucky this won't take long."
"What do you mean if I'm lucky?" asked Nails
"Talon, Darling how very nice to see you!" said Rarity who came over and gave him a short hug.
"Nice to see you two Rarity." Nails responded, "But I've changed my name to Nails."
"Oh, is that your real name?" Nails nodded "Well than we need to make you a nice suit in celebration." Rarity said. Nails began to worry.
"What are you doing?" he asked as she grabbed him with a hoof. He tried to escape but no cigar; this unicorn had incredible strength for only walking on three legs at the moment.
After what seemed like hours the six departed Rarity's shop. As they left Nails stopped dead in his tracks. "Uh-oh."
"What is it Nails?" asked Rarity.
"I don't think I got a chance to tell Pinkie Pie my new name before she ran off." responded Nails.
"Oh, well darling you need to go see Rainbow Dash, I'll see to it that she knows." and with that Rarity trotted off towards Sugarcube Corner.
"Ok, now Nails, we just need to find Rainbow Dash and then we can show you around town." said Applejack.
"That'd be nice." responded Nails as they walked.
Rainbow Dash was busy with one of her weather teams. They couldn't do a simple task like shaping the clouds. They had gotten the amount wrong and she was most likely going to see this setback coming out of her paycheck. Ever since returning from Forshan she had been having problems managing her weather team. She also had a much shorter temper and when she got angry, they would know about it. She was already having a bad day and she didn't think anything could turn that around. Suddenly out of the corner of her eye she saw a sandy brown coat and mane. The owner of this coat was a stallion. "Talon?" she whispered to herself. It couldn't be him; he would have stayed in Canterlot with the Princesses and would have wanted to oversee Iron Foot's execution. She couldn't be certain until...
His right front leg came into view and Rainbow Dash shot off like a bullet.
"You know, I like this town. It's small and the people are really... Oof!" shouted Nails as he was tackled to the ground. He looked up to see a cyan mare pinning him down.
"Talon! It's you!" said Rainbow Dash
"Well, yes and no. It is me, but my name is not Talon anymore. My name is Nails."
Rainbow Dash let him up at this point before giving him a hug. Out of all of her friends, she had known him the best. He had kidnapped her and told her his secrets. She had kept them and in the end he saved all of Equestria. Right after they got back into the country, He had left for Canterlot and then on a trip to no one knows where. He must have just arrived in town.
"When did you get here?" asked Rainbow Dash.
"Last night. I found Twilight and stayed with her for the night and scared the crap out of that dragon assistant of hers this morning."
The seven friends made their way into the library. They agreed that they were about to talk about things that might have scared the townspeople. Twilight sent Spike on an errand before shutting the door.
"So what are they going to do about Iron Foot?" asked Twilight
"Don't know. Don't care, the last thing me and Celestia said about the matter was my word that I didn't care how they did it if they had to toss his sorry ass off a cliff. I think that's what she'll do." he said taking out a cigar and lighting it.
"You're going to have to stop that if you're going to live here." said Applejack pointing at the cigar.
"I know I know, it's just that I am quitting for now. Maybe permanently depending on how lucky I am."
"What do you mean depending on your luck?" asked Rainbow Dash.
Nails ignored the question and said, "I'm just glad that I can finally live somewhere."
8 times. 8 times. While writing this chapter I accidentally wrote Talon instead of Nails seven times. Looks like Twilight was right. Nails will take some getting used to. One time I didn't catch the mistake until a few days later.
