Friendship is Summoning

Dear Princess Celestia,

Ever since the Summer Sun Celebration, I’ve been up to my ears in old manuscripts, ancient tomes, and millennia-old scrolls looking for any information I could find on the Elements of Harmony. Aside from a few references to them in old tales, legends, and folklore, I haven’t been able to find any concrete evidence on exactly what they are, where they came from, how they were made, or any information on how they’re supposed to be used. I know my friends and I were able to successfully use them on Nightmare Moon and restore her to Princess Luna, but –to borrow a phrase from Rainbow Dash- we were ‘flying blind’.

I’ve exhausted every source I could think of trying to learn more about these artifacts that my friends and I now, apparently, represent. I fear that the next time we’ll be called on to use them, we may not be able to use them properly. That’s why I wrote you; we need to know more about the Elements. I eagerly await your response.

Your Faithful Student,

Twilight Sparkle.

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To my faithful student, Twilight Sparkle,

The origins of the Elements of Harmony have been a closely guarded secret for more than a millennia. In fact, only my sister Princess Luna and I know about their origins. Though, you need not worry about where they come from or how they were made, because their use is intent-based. It’s as simple as wanting something to happen and unleashing the Elements’ power. Though, there are a few limitations; their effects must be non-lethal and cannot be permanent. For example, instead of simply obliterating Nightmare Moon when I used the Elements of Harmony on her a thousand years ago, I was able to banish her to the moon, but only for a thousand years. That said, I’m confident that, in the event where the Elements of Harmony must be used again, you and your friends will be able to use them to great effect.

However, I know that you would not be content without knowing their origins. I only ask that you do not reveal this information to anypony save your friends, and only if they inquire about the Elements’ origins.

A long time ago, Equestria was ruled by an evil being known as Discord. He had immense and chaotic powers that were seemingly unbound by the laws of magic and the universe. His whims and fancies controlled the daily lives of everypony and everything, from when the sun rose and set to what the rain was made of (and it was not always water falling from the sky when he ruled). He changed the laws of nature to cause chaos and hardship for everypony simply because it amused him.

Luna and I were part of a small organization that was very discontent with Discord’s reign. And his rain, for that matter. I attempted to wrest control of the sun from this evil being, while Luna attempted to do the same with the moon. However, Discord soon found us and confronted us. We fought for a long time and devastated the land around us, but my sister and I were bested in the end and most of the members of our organization were captured. So, we fled.

After years on the run, Luna and I finally resolved to use ancient and forbidden magic to contact a being of great and terrible power from another realm of existence. This being was greater than Luna and I, and Discord as well, controlling an unimaginable amount of power, despite not being immortal.  This being called himself the Sage of Six Paths. We asked him to aid us in our rebellion, but he was not able to. He said to us, “I am bound by the ancient laws; I am not able to interfere with realms aside from my own.” Exactly what he meant by ‘ancient laws’, I do not know. Still, I begged and pleaded him for any aid he could provide, anything to give us an edge to overthrow that tyrant.

He again reiterated that he could not directly interfere, but he was allowed to make an equivalent exchange with us. He offered to forge a mystical contract in the form of a scroll that would allow anypony who signed it to use a powerful spell to summon Luna and I –and, by extension, any of our subjects- to the aid of the summoner. In exchange, he offered us the artifacts that came to be known as the Elements of Harmony. We agreed, on the condition that we could retain the right to strike any summoner’s name from the scroll if we did not approve of them or their actions. He agreed to the concession.

Once the contract was forged, we had the Elements in hoof, and the doorway to the other realm was sealed, Luna and I used the power of the Elements to defeat Discord and bring order and Harmony to the land.

That is everything there is to know about the Elements. I hope this has satisfied your curiosity.

Your beloved teacher,

Princess Celestia.

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Dear Princess Celestia.

Thank you for telling me the tale of how you acquired the Elements of Harmony. I promise that I won’t tell anypony except my friends, and then only if they specifically ask.

That said, now I’m curious about this ‘summoning contract’, for lack of a better name. How does it work? How does somepony know when they’re being summoned? Has there ever been a summoner? Have you ever been summoned? Do you have a copy of the contract? Oh, I have so many questions!

Your Faithful Student,

Twilight Sparkle.

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To my faithful student, Twilight Sparkle,

I do not know the exact mechanics of how the summoning contract works, only that it is the magic of the contract itself that makes it possible. I do not know how somepony will know if they are being summoned, because there has never been a summoner before. I have a copy of the contract, but nopony has ever signed it. As it has been more than a thousand years since this contract was created, I sincerely doubt that anypony will sign it at this point. Rest assured, my faithful student, there is nothing to worry about.

Your beloved teacher,

Princess Celestia.

The nighttime woods were beautiful, in a dark and dangerous way. Though the moon and stars were bright with nary a cloud to obscure them, the thick canopy cast shadows that flickered and moved with the wind blowing through the branches. The air was cool and crisp, befitting a wonderful spring night. The faint scent of wildflowers, tree sap, and rich earthy soil drifted on the breeze, teasing and tantalizing the nose of anyone who breathed deeply enough.

All this natural beauty was lost on Uzumaki Naruto. The orange and blue clad, blonde haired, hyperactive ninja-in-training was too busy to notice his surroundings.

“All right! Mission accomplished!” He crowed to himself. His already wide grin stretched in elation as he took a moment to relax and wipe the dirt and sweat off his brow. He sighed in contentment as he gently sank to the ground, resting his weary legs; it had been a long run out here, and the strain of learning a new jutsu only compounded the matter.

“Now, I just gotta wait for Iruka-sensei or Mizuki-sensei to show up, and I’ll pass the secret graduation exam for sure!” he half-shouted to himself.

Idly, he brushed the dirt off his pants, took a swig from his trusty ninja canteen, fiddled with a kunai knife, and then sighed in frustration and impatience. Barely two minutes had passed.

“Aww man, how long are they gonna take?” he whined to himself. The wind whistled through the trees, as if mocking his inaction.

He propped an elbow on his knee and rested his face in his palm. Idly, he glanced around, hoping to catch sight of one of his teachers. Eventually, his eyes came to rest on the scroll, lying partially unfurled on the ground just a short distance away. He sighed to himself and stood up, walked to the scroll, and began to wind it back up so that it wouldn’t get damaged. ‘Old Man Hokage would be upset if I damaged anything I borrow from him,’ he thought, ‘especially something as important as the Forbidden Scroll of Seals,’

Just as he was about to finish, the ink on the scroll caught the moonlight at just the right angle to reflect it perfectly into the young blonde’s eyes. This caught Naruto’s attention, drawing his eyes to the words written there.

“Hmm… Summoning Jutsu?” he muttered to himself.

‘The Summoning Jutsu’

This technique is one of the most versatile techniques ever invented. Mastery of this technique allows a ninja to summon creatures to aid him in his endeavors, be that combat, infiltration, exfiltration, assassination, or any number of other tasks. The Legendary Sanin used the summoning jutsu to great effect, leading them to be classified as some of the most powerful ninja to ever come out of Konoha. Other notable ninja from Konoha to use the summoning jutsu are The Third Hokage Sarutobi Hiruzen, The Fourth Hokage Namikaze Minato, and the Copy Cat Ninja Hatake Kakashi.’

Growing bored already, Naruto skipped the rest of the technical information in favor of reading the instructions on how to actually use the technique. “Let’s see… boar, dog, bird, monkey, ram… spread a little blood on your hand, place hand on the ground… sounds easy enough!” he thought out loud to himself. “Caution: Do Not attempt this technique without first signing a summoning contract. Aww man!” he whined. “Where am I gonna get one of those?”

He dropped the scroll and crossed his arms over his chest, pouting. ‘And it sounded like such a cool jutsu, too…’ he thought to himself.

With a sigh, he bent down to retrieve the dropped scroll, noticing that it had unrolled a little more. Just below the warning, the title of another entry caught his eye. “Unknown Summoning Contract?” he read in confusion. Below the ominous title was a bunch of squiggly lines that vaguely made a circle, with the character for ‘scroll’ in the middle. He tilted his head to the side and squinted at it; it looked so familiar.

Then it clicked. “It’s a seal!” he shouted. “Boy am I glad I actually paid attention!” he said to himself, referring to a lecture Iruka-sensei had given on sealing scrolls just a few weeks prior.

He drew a kunai knife and deftly nicked his thumb, drawing a small amount of blood to the surface. He swiped the bloody thumb over the seal and pumped just a little bit of chakra into it. With a ‘poof’ and a cloud of white smoke, the seal disappeared to leave a much smaller scroll in its place.

With a cry of triumph, Naruto snatched the unsealed summoning contract and let the larger Forbidden Scroll once more drop to the ground. He was so excited that he almost ripped the contract scroll in his haste to open it.

His face sunk in disappointment when he realized he couldn’t read the first few paragraphs of text on the scroll. It was in some windy, looping script, like someone had twisted a straight line into all sorts of strange shapes, with only the occasional gap between what he (correctly) assumed to be words. With dwindling hope, he began to unwind the scroll, hoping that there would be something written in a script that he could actually understand.

A gleeful smile split his face when he finally found something he could read.

Instructions: To sign this summoning contract, one must write one’s full, true name in one of the empty spaces below. The name must be written in the blood of the signee. Furthermore, a full handprint must be placed below the name, also in blood. If these steps were followed correctly, the signature and hand print will become black. In the event that the summoner is banned by the holders of the contract, the entire space the summoner’s name is written on will turn a solid black, and that person will no longer be able to summon those who hold the contract.

Sure enough, below that there were a number of rectangular spaces outlined in solid black lines. Eager to get started, Naruto pricked his already healed thumb with his kunai and deftly spelled out his name.

“U-zu-ma-ki… Na-ru-to…” he mumbled to himself. Next, he sliced open his palm and clenched his hand in a fist, partially from the pain and partially to spread the blood to his whole hand. After a moment, he pressed his palm into the scroll just below his name. Absently, he wiped his bloody –but rapidly healing- palm against his pants.

“Yes!” he crowed in excitement when his whole name and handprint faded from blood red to a deep black. He rolled up the scroll and placed it in the equipment pouch attached to his belt.

“Now,” he said to himself as he began to gather his chakra, “time to test it out. Summoning Jutsu!”

(A/N) I’d like to start off by saying that, while I’m not completely new to fanfiction and creative writing in general, I’m a few years out of practice. So, I apologize for any mistakes you might find.

That said, I decided to take my first crack at a My Little Pony fanfiction, even though it’s a crossover. Care to guess the crossover? (Joking…)

To preemptively answer some questions:

For MLP:FIM, this is set just a little bit after The Mare in the Moon, but before The Ticket Master.

For Naruto, this is set during Enter: Uzumaki Naruto!

For both, assume that everything is as canon in each series unless I say or show it differently.

I’m writing this story with the assumption that my readers are familiar with both shows.

Yes, I’m aware that the canon summons in Naruto aren’t actually from another dimension or anything, and actually live on the same planet. Just assume that the Equestrian summoning contract is different. Blame the Sage. Otherwise, they work pretty much the same.

Yes, that means that the boss summons for the Equestrian Contract are going to be Princess Celestia and Princess Luna. However, it would take a hell of a lot more chakra to summon Princess Celestia than it would to summon Gamabunta.

No, Naruto won’t be learning how to use Unicorn Magic; he doesn’t have a horn.

It’s POSSIBLE that the ponies may learn how to use chakra… with a LOT of time and dedication.

Yes, at some point or another, Naruto will be summoned to Equestria. (In canon, he gets summoned to the home of the Toads… so why not Equestria?)

Please don’t take this fic entirely seriously. It’s meant to be slightly tongue-in-cheek.

Right now, this is just to test the waters a bit, to see how well this fic would be received. Assuming I get a decent positive response, I’ll continue it. If pretty much everyone tells me to go jump in a lake, I probably won’t post any more chapters.

That said, I certainly hope you guys enjoy it. Updates will be… inconsistent. My job keeps me busy for about… hmm… 60 to 70 hours a week. I’ll try to update once a week, but I can’t make any promises.

Until next time.