> Princess exchange program > by godzillafanboy > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Chapter 1: The Letter > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- One day in the city of Canterlot, the capital of Equestria, Princess Celestria received a royal declaration from a foreign land that she couldn't remember the last time she had even heard someone talk abut. She hurriedly opened the envelope, inside was just a normal piece of parchment with lettering that she also hadn't seen for several decades. The letter read, "私は彼女が私たちの土地の間の平和のための条約に署名しなければならないかどうかを確認するためにあなたの最新のロイヤリティとの交換プログラムに参加するために私たちの公正な土地の王女をしたいと思います。 交換はあなたのプリンセストワイライトスパークルは、それが他の国ではどのようなものか体験して3ヶ月の期間のために私たちのプリンセス夏美と場所を交換する必要があります。 プリンセストワイライトスパークルは、彼女の友人は、私たちの国はEquestriaのあなたの国に歓迎の追加であるもののために保持することができるものを体験して彼女を同行持っているに招待されています。 ずっとに関しては、 小唄Kazuraba、 Neighonの皇帝" After several hours trying to depict what the letter said she just couldn't understand and thus threw the parchment against the wall, right as it did in walked her younger sister, Luna. "Sister what troubles you?" asked Luna. "This letter, I can't understand what it reads, I know that we've read this writing before but cannot understand what it is saying." replied Celestia. Luna took a glance at said letter, and read in equestrian, "I would like the princess of our fair land to participate in an exchange program with your newest royalty to see if she should sign a treaty for peace between our lands. The exchange would have your Princess Twilight Sparkle exchanging places with our Princess Natsumi for the duration of three months to experience what it is like in the other's country. Princess Twilight Sparkle is invited to have her friends accompany her to experience what our country can hold for what would be welcome additions to your country of Equestria. With much respect, Kouta Kazuraba, Emperor of Neighon" "Luna how could you translate that chicken scratch so easily?" asked Celestia, to which Luna simply replied "We have been doing like Twilight and hitting the books while you have been hitting the cakes." At this Celestia was angered that her sister was implying that she was putting on weight, but somehow relieved that Luna had put down her video games of late, "We will need to tell Twilight and the others about this turn of events, and hope that we can go through with this deal of peace, especially after Tirek." Said the Solar princess, and quickly started writing a letter to Twilight for her and her friends to meet with her and Luna at the castle as soon as possible. "Sister, we should also invite her parents to get their opinion on matters that involve their daughter leaving the country." Luna said, to which celestia replied, "You are quite right Luna, we should also start thinking of who can assist this Princess Natsumi and act as a guard for her while she is here." Celestia quickly started to rewrite her letter to Twilight insisting that she and her friends come to the castle in a week, that way they could start to assign who would be helpful in watching over the foreign princess as well as who could successfully translate anything she wanted to know. "Sister there is a P.S.," said Luna, "It reads I've been teaching my little Natsumi to be able to read and speak your language since she was a little filly, so while a translator would be appreciated they would only need to know the basics of our language." "So he can speak and write in our language, but writes to me in a language that I haven't read nor spoken in decades?!" Asked Celestia right before she followed suit in her former student and turned into a winged Rapidash for a full twenty seconds. After her outburst Celestia decided to let Luna write the letters to Twilight and her parents, but then remembered that all the Princesses should vote on whether or not to go through with this, and thus added Princess Cadence and Shining Armor to the list of those to that should come to the castle. "Sister, We believe that this could be very beneficial to both of the countries and could even bring more peace to not just our country, but others as well." Said Luna, to which Celestia replied, "You are quite right, but I still wouldn't be surprised if the current ruler of Neighon is as bad as Discord." Suddenly a voice just suddenly came to life and said, "Hey! I'm trying to get better with the help of Fluttershy, so please stop talking behind my back." Both sisters then turned to one of the stained glass windows, and saw Discord standing there with his arms crossed and an angry smirk on his face, they could tell that he was not pleased and that he wouldn't be happy with them anytime soon. "If you have anything to say, you might want to say it to me now before I start thinking of what would be an appropriate prank for a princess of the sun." said Discord, to which Celestia replied, "My apologies Discord, but you must understand that I was just angry at what the emperor of Neighon had done to me, and in a letter no less." "I guess that will do, and if you want to know what the emperor looks like, I can show you, but it will cost you." Said Discord in a sing-song voice, to which Luna asked, "What is Thy price?" "Why just that I get permission to go with Fluttershy to this Neighon place" said Discord, to which Celestia replied, "If that is is the cost I would gladly pay it ten-fold." Suddenly in front of the sisters and discord appeared a painting of a gray stallion with black hair, black eyes, and a basket full of different fruits for a cutie mark, though surprisingly an orange was the most prominent fruit on his flank, he also appeared to be holding in his hoof what looked like a closed padlock that had the appearance of a fruit on the front instead of a combination wheel. > Chapter 2: The News & The Departure > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- A week after Celestia and Luna got the letter from the emperor of Neighon, Kouta Kazuraba, Twilight sparkle, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Rarity, Pinkie Pie, Applejack, Spike, Twilight Velvet, Night Light, Princess Cadence, and Shining Armor had gathered at Canterlot Castle to find out why they were all summoned. "Welcome one and all, I hope you all had an easy trip here," said Celestia, to which everypony said a kind welcome to the two ruling alicorn princesses and the draconequus before them. "Aunt Celestia, why would you call all of us together today?" Asked Cadence, to which Luna replied, "We have gathered you all today because one week ago Celestia recived a letter from a country that would like to sign a peace treaty with Equestria, but before we can do that we must go with something that the current ruler of that land suggested." "What is it that needs to be done before a peace treaty can be made official?" asked Shining Armor, to which Celestia replied, "We shall be doing an exchange of princesses for three months, the emperor of Neighon will be sending his daughter Princess Natsumi, and we will be sending Twilight, the emperor has even invited the rest of her friends to come along, and Discord will be acting as a 'chaperone' for the trip." "Wait, you're sending our daughter to a foreign land, which she might not know the language to at all, as well as just letting some unknown pony take her place?" asked Twilight Velvet, to which Luna replied, "We may not know this princess, but she will never take Twilight's place, also I found a spell in the royal library that will allow her and her friends to speak and read the language of whatever country they are in." "We still haven't fully decided upon doing this 'princess exchange program' or not, Twilight and Cadence need to cast their vote on whether to do it or not." said Celestia. "If you ladies are alright with this program just say yay, if you aren't say nay," said Discord. He got a grand total of four yays, thus making it official, Twilight and her friends were going to Neighon. "It is official, you all will be leaving in a month, this should be enough time to get all of your matters in hand," said Celestia, "there will be an dignitary to see you to his highness' castle when you arrive in Neighon." "I am also afraid to ask this of you Captain Armor, but I was hoping that you would have the honor of bodyguarding Princess Natsumi while she is here," asked Luna to which Shining Armor replied, "If Cadence allows it, I would be honored." "Fine," said Cadence, "just make sure you come home safely." "You don't need to worry about that, you know I wouldn't want to be away from you any longer than I need to be," said Shining Armor. "We will all see you in one month to see you all off," said Celestia, but was then cut off by Discord saying, "Wait! Don't you all want to see what the princess looks like?" "If you could Discord, that would be helpful in watching over her," said Shining Armor. In one of the empty stained glass windows appeared an image of a young white unicorn mare, with a black mane, black tail, green eyes, and what appeared to be ten film negatives for a cutie mark, as well as a tiny white female looking bat circling around her which had a yellow heart near the top of her head. One month later Twilight and her friends had taken care of all the things they needed to do to make sure that they wouldn't need to worry about them for the next three months, such as Fluttershy finding somepony to watch and take care of her animals. "Alright everypony, we just need to wait for this dignitary to show up with the ship and we'll be on our way to Neighon" said Twilight. "I'm just wondering what's taking this guy so long to get here, I mean Twilight went and checked her globe and guessed that it would take what a week to get here by sea?" said Rainbow dash. Suddenly behind them a train approached them, it was a green steam train with bull horns for whatever reason. When it came to a stop just behind them a green earth pony stallion came out and pulled out a sign that read, "Twilight Sparkle and friends," the group made their way to the earth pony and giving him strange looks. "Who are you and why do you have that sign," asked Celestia, to which the green pony replied, "I was told to come and take Twilight Sparkle and her friends to Neighon, I'm just trying to do as my emperor asked of me." "What makes you think that I'm just going to let you take my little sister and her friends without making sure that you're the real deal," asked Shining Armor. The green pony simply just said, "Let me warn you now, I am fairly strong." "No, I believe that Captain Armor is asking for a form of identification," said Luna, to which the green pony then pulled out a case, the case was actually a royal seal of the emperor of Neighon. "I believe that serves as identification enough for Neighon," stated Luna. "Well, I guess this is good-bye for the next three months, I hope you will all be alright when you get over there," said Celestia as Twilight Velvet nuzzled her daughter. "Before you get on, please welcome Princess Natsumi," said the green pony. Out trotted the mare who Discord had shown in the stained glass window, complete with her pet bat. After the Neighon princess had gotten off of the train, the others got on, the train started to back up,until it got near the water, then more tracks suddenly appeared behind it, the train then got onto those tracks which kept appearing behind it, except was going upwards, the train then stopped moving backwards and more track appeared in front of it, and started moving forward never outracing the tracks that magically appeared before it, at a mile high. The royal sisters, Shining, Cadence, and Twilight's parents jaws were near the ground all the time that the train was still within view, and then it and it's passengers were gone for three months. > Chapter 3: The Arrival > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- One hour after the departure While enjoying the trip to Neighon, Rainbow Dash looks out the window of the train and notices something that was off about their situation, mainly that they were flying in the air, yet in a train, a vehicle for the ground. "Hey guys, has anypony looked out the window?" asked Rainbow dash, immediately everypony else looked out the window and saw what Dash was talking about, everypony (minus Discord) started to panic, they all seemed to think that this train was taking them to the land of the dead. Suddenly a black earth pony stallion dressed like a ninja came in and noticed this, "Why are you all freaking out?" asked said stallion to which all the mares and Spike responded with, "We're at least a mile in the air in a train, who wouldn't freak out," to which Discord raised his claw. The ninja stallion came around everypony and started trying to calm their nerves. "We're using a train that was designed to be able to travel by land, air, or the sands of time," hearing the last one Twilight then asked, "What do you mean sands of time?" "I mean that this train is also a 'time machine' and thus is able to travel through time to anytime that is allowed, now who would like some candy, and to be friends with Yuuto?" To this Pinkie jumped up and practically ripped the basket of candy from his hooves. "DENEB! I've told you to stop trying to buy me friends with candy!" said Yuuto, the green earth pony who was acting as the conductor for the train. Yuuto then jumped on top of Deneb and put him in a Sharpshooter Leg Lock. Discord seemed to be enjoying the show along with the little bit of candy he could get away from Pinkie Pie. Yuuto then explained that they would be in Neighon in thirty minutes in case any of the mares needed to use restroom for anything before they arrived, such as putting on make-up. Rarity then made a mad dash to the bathroom carrying a handbag to "put her face on" with. The others had a chuckle at this comment, except Pinkie who was too busy chowing down on more candy from the bottom of the basket. Half an hour later The train had pulled into Neighon, all the mares, Spike, and Discord disembarked, after separating Pinkie from Deneb asking for recipes for some of the more bizarre candies that had been in the basket. Neighon is an archipelago nation so there were many islands, with many cities on each island, the train had dropped them off on the main island which housed the capital of the nation. Once everypony was disembarked the train started to move to it's next destination, and the former passengers were then met by a green unicorn stallion with purple mane and tail. "Welcome to Neighon, Princess Twilight Sparkle, My name is Mitsuzane Kureshima, I'm to escort you and your friends to the palace of the emperor," to which Twilight and company thanked him for helping to lead them to where they needed to go. While they passed through the city Twilight noticed that there was an abundance of earth ponies, but not many unicorns or pegasi out. "Um, not to be rude, but why aren't there many unicorns or pegasus ponies?" asked Twilight she got a response from Mitsuzane in the form of "You'll need to see the emperor about that, we don't really talk about things such as that out in the open." When they entered the castle, they were met by the emperor and five other ponies, one was a pink unicorn mare with slightly lighter mane and tail, with a bow and arrow for a cutie mark, one was a white unicorn stallion with black mane and tail, with a single streak of silver going through both, with a cutie mark of a notepad filled with scientific formulas, one was a red earth pony stallion with darker red mane and tail wearing a bowler hat, and a dollar symbol for a cutie mark, another was a white pegasus stallion with black mane and tail with a cantelope on a shield for a cutie mark, and the final one was a yellow pegasus stallion with white mane and tail with a spear for a cutie mark. "Welcome to Neighon Princess Twilight, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, Spike, and Discord" said the emperor of Neighon, Kouta Kazuraba. "It's an honor to be here, I hope you don't mind us being here," said Twilight to which Kouta replied, "Not at all, it was my idea for this program, I always wanted to try it with another country so my daughter could go out and see the world rather then be cooped up in the castle her whole life, as well as the added bonus of being in a good relationship with one of the more well known countries out there." "I'm glad that you met my little brother, Mitsuzane," said the white pegasus, "My name is Takatora Kureshima, his highness' general." "Yoko Minato" said the only mare alongside the emperor, "secretary of the emperor." "Sid" said the red earth pony, "treasurer of Neighon." "Ryoma Sengoku" said the white unicorn, "head scientist." "And this is Kaito Kumon, who will be your bodyguard while Micchy shows you around the various locations of Neighon" said the emperor pointing a hoof to the yellow pegasus stallion. "Your majesty, I do have one question for you," said Twilight, "why does there seem to not be many unicorns or pegasi in the city?" "Well, Ms. Sparkle, the answer to that is really quite simple, there aren't many unicorns or pegasis in the city, and even less that actually come outside of their houses much," said the emperor, "the reasons why is that we're actually going through a population deflation, most of our youths are stuck inside their houses studying or outside working jobs, and not meeting their special someponies, thus no new foals for that family, I've been trying to make it easier for them to do so, but haven't had much luck." "Before you get any ideas Kazuraba, you should at least let them have dinner and rest, they had a long journey here," said Kaito, speaking for the first time since they got to the castle, "they should also know that if I'm guarding them, I'll also be teaching them to guard themselves and will begin lessons at 6 A.M." > Chapter 4: The Training begins > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The next day at 5 A.M. A lone stallion could be seen entering the shared room of the visiting six mares. "Alright you lot time to get up and ready for training!" yelled Kumon Kaito. All of the mares in the room suddenly jumped nearly a good foot off the ground. "Ugh, I thought you said that we were doing training at six, it's still five, so we still have an hour more to sleep." said Rainbow Dash, Kaito simply laughed and asked, "Well you can go back to sleep if you want, but you won't have time to eat or stretch before your exercises." All of the mares groaned at this, Kaito then went down the hall and repeated the process for Spike and Discord. After a hearty breakfast of some of the local foods all of the mares, Spike, Discord, Kaito, and six others were in the training hall of the palace, "The first thing that you will all will be doing is running 40 laps around the training hall and then 100 push ups, and no flying allowed this is to strengthen your bodies." After they had done their laps and push ups, all of the mares and Spike were panting and out of breath for a good ten minutes. "Ok, now that we're done with our stretches it time to get to the actual hard part, assigning the training gear to the appropriate pony and/or dragon." Kaito pulled up a cart filled with wooden weapons, "When I call your name you will come up and take the tool I give you, Pinkie Pie." Pinkie then bounced up to Kaito looking as energetic as always, "Pinkie, the tool that you'll be training with is this pair of nunchaku, your training master will be Jan, Jan raise you hoof please." A red earth pony stallion with black mane and tail as well as a tiger for a cutie mark raised his hoof. "This teaming and weapon choice goes perfect since you both seem to have an almost infinite supply of energy to use." "Next, Rainbow Dash," as Pinkie left with her nunchaku in her mane, Rainbow came up, " your tool is these pair of tonfas, you will be training with Retsu, Retsu if you would," like Jan a blue pegasus stallion with white mane and tail as well as a jaguar for a cutie mark raised his hoof, "I picked this weapon for you from confirmed sources that when you do go into a fight you emphasize attack over defense, the tonfas and Retsu will teach you to have a perfect balance of attack and defense." "Now Applejack," Rainbow rejoined the group, "I'm putting Ran in charge of your lessons with your weapon the bo staff," without being told to Ran a yellow unicorn mare with black mane and tail as well as a cheetah cutie mark raised her hoof,"thank you Ran, I chose the bo staff for you Applejack since being a farmer you use your rear legs more for bucking than your front, this will allow you to strengthen your front legs and work on developing ways to attack things out of your reach." "Rarity if you would," Applejack rejoined the group, "Rarity you are learning from Mele and your tool will be these sai," Mele raised her hoof in a fashionable way, she was a more experienced green earth pony mare with purple mane and tail as well as a chameleon for a cutie mark, "I feel that this would be a perfect fitting for you in master and weapon seeing as how you seem to have very little combat experience and what little you do is long range." "Fluttershy, you will be training in hoof to hoof combat with a former protege of mine, Zack," A chestnut earth pony stallion with black mane and tail as well as a pair of boxing gloves for a cutie mark made his way over to Fluttershy, "this is a choice I made on account of your complete lack of faith in your own strength and lack of fighting experience." "Twilight, I will be personally teaching you the art of the sword just as I had Natsumi-chan." "Spike you obviously have untapped power in your flames so you will be learning to tap into that with Ryou, who is a member of the few families that still practice energy based combat." A crimson earth pony stallion with black mane and tail as well as a flaming five point star for a cutie mark approached spike and tapped him on the shoulder. "Discord, I'd like you to stick around all groups when you can so you can perform healing when they need it, and don't say that you can only do chaotic magic, healing can be chaotic as well as beneficial." > Chapter 5: The Surprise > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Three hours later "Alright, that's enough for today, and I can already tell that you need more practice starting tomorrow," said Kaito, "We'll be having your masters coming along with us to continue your training, also Twilight I'll be training you in the art of the katana instead of the rapier, you seem to have a talent for that fighting style while Natsumi-chan was more of a rapier specialist." "Who said we wanted to train in this way?" whispered Rainbow to Applejack. "If you want to know, he did, it's just one of the many things that Kumon-kun does for the country, going around training others to defend themselves and giving Kouta-san a hard time trying to find him," said Ryou, "you ladies might want to go and wash up, we'll be going out into the city soon, and the first place we're going is my home to solve a little mystery I found interesting." "And why would we want to go to yer house? I thought we were supposed to see all that this country had to offer Equestria for a shared relationship," said Applejack. "One of the things that we must do is to show Twilight-san what family life is like here in Neighon," said Mitsuzane as he trotted into the training hall, "Ryou-san also has something that the youngest among your numbers might find interesting." Half an hour later at Ryou's house "Well, here we are at my humble abode," said Ryou. In front of the mares, stallions, dragon, and draconequus was a relatively large home which could house a family of 25 ponies with room for more if they need to add on to the foundation. as the group entered the home they saw three ponies there, one pink pegasus mare with white mane and tail and a five point star surrounded by wind cutie mark and two stallions younger than Ryou with a similar color scheme but with different cutie marks one a card and the other a ruby ring, "Meet my beautiful wife Lin, and my sons Shinji and Haruto." "Sup" said Shinji, the son with the card, "A pleasure to meet your acquaintance," said the other son Haruto. "Nice to meet you," said Fluttershy shyly. "I hope that you enjoy your tour through our country," said Lin. "Thank you," said Twilight. "Ok, now that we've met the family, now we can meet the other family that lives with us," said Ryou, " they're in the further away part of the house." As they walked Twilight and Haruto started to have a conversation of what it was like to live in Neighon. "So, is it true that everypony is too busy with school or work to find friends and more?" asked Twilight. "You could say that for the adults, but that's because of the higher rents around the country, seems that every time that Kouta-sama raises minimum wages the landlords increase how much they charge for you to live in the house, and not everypony can afford to own their own home and still pay taxes and monthly bills," said Haruto. "Haruto and I work outside of the house," said Shinji trying to get in on the conversation, "he's a guidance counselor for one of the local high schools and coaches the local soccer team for the youth league and I work as a freelance photographer as well as help find evidence when I can to prove somepony's innocence in the local courts, mom and dad teach the foals around town how to defend themselves from some of the more messed up stallions and mares out there who would love to find a little colt or filly out in the street and take them away from their families." After the conversation suddenly got weird the group found themselves in a large clearing with several high rocks. "Here we are, we just need to wait a little bit and they should be here," said Lin. as everypony/dragon/draconequus from Equestria was wondering what she meant they heard the large flap of wings near them and saw a group of three dragons, except two were more serpentine with no wings at all, but was still in the air. "Are those the other family you wanted us to meet?" asked Spike. "Yep, those are Ryuuseioh, the head of the family, Dragredger, his daughter, and her husband from near Griffonstone, Wizardragon," said Ryou, "How are you doing old Drag?" The elderly dragon started to chuckle and replied, "Pretty well Ryou-kun, these two just got back from one of their dates after leaving me watching the nest." "They seem friendly enough," said Discord. Suddenly Dragredger got close to the group, her eyes on Spike, when suddenly she started to cry and pulled him into a hug. "I'm so happy to see you, we thought we had lost you forever." Everypony except those that lived in the house were left with a "what-in-tartarus" look. Wizardragon then flew down to get a better look at Spike and noticed a certain scale on his body and joined his wife in giving Spike a hug. "I think I should give you all an explanation as to why they seem so focused on hugging your little friend there," said Ryuuseioh, "over a decade ago my daughter and son-in-law were expecting their first child, another of Wizardragon's kind, what we call a western dragon, attacked to try to prove that he was stronger than him, Wizardragon was easily beating the other when the cheat got dirty clawed and took their egg in his claws and threatened to crush it if Wizardragon didn't throw the fight. He did, but the other did worse than crush the egg, he pitched the egg into the air and it landed into a river, Dragredger and Wizardragon would've killed this other dragon except they were more focused on their egg, the next five years they searched for first the egg, then the dragon that would come out of said egg, they couldn't find either so they returned and spent the next four years mourning the dragonling they would never see, but you all have let them see him after all this time, so I thank you for that." "Wait, how do you know that Spike is their son?" asked Twilight. "His family scale, near where his snout meets his throat, they act like a family crest, each is automatically like their mothers family scale, and so forth," said Ryou. "So, you lot are Spike's biological family?" asked Applejack to which all three fully grown dragons nodded. "We may be his biological family, but we can see that you are all his adopted family, and we're just happy that he's alive, we won't be forcing him to decide to live with us or you, he can chose of his own free will," said Dragredger with tears still in her eyes. "Son, there's someone that we want to introduce you to," said Wizardragon as he picked up and put the group on his back and took off for one of the high mountain like rocks, on top of said rock was a nest and in the middle of said nest was an egg, "this is your little sister, she hasn't hatched yet..." As Wizardragon was saying that a crack started to appear on the egg "It's hatching right now," said Dragredger as she watched with her eyes trained on the egg and encouraging the little life inside to keep going. Finally after fifteen minutes the egg had been escaped by the newly born dragon.