The Seventh Element

Celestia’s words echoed in Argent’s mind as he and the other ponies walked toward Ponyville’s damaged town hall.  Thanks to the help of the Royal Equestrian Army and Celestia’s Elite Guard, taking back the town took only a short while and resulted in minimal casualties.  As soon as the area was secure, Celestia ordered her troops to begin setting up treatment camps.  Ponyville’s hospital was quickly filled to the brim with injured civilians and soldiers.

Fluttershy felt that she could best be of help assisting the hurt ponies, so she and Rarity went off to help the medical effort.  Applejack voiced her concern for her family and dismissed herself to be with them for a while.  Pinkie Pie couldn’t bear to see so many sad ponies around her; she did not hesitate in doing what she did best—darting all around Ponyville to bring a quick smile to whoever may need it.  Only Twilight, Rainbow Dash, and Argent remained in the hall to hear the Princess’ news about the secret under the town hall.

“Here, under the lectern, is a switch that can only be activated by a certain spell.   I will teach it to the two of you, Twilight and Argent.”  Celestia lit her horn and touched it first to Twilight and Argent’s horns and then to the lectern, which split to reveal a button that the alicorn pressed with her hoof.  A large image of Ponyville’s town crest in the center of the floor opened up to reveal a spiral staircase.  Torches lit themselves the entire way down.

“Who else knows about this?” Twilight asked.

“Just you three, Mayor Mare, Luna, myself, and one other.  It is only me and my sister, however, who know the origin of this object.  It came here long ago during Luna’s banishment.  I hadn’t even taken Twilight under my wing yet.  That’s neither here nor there, though.  Let’s go.” Celestia said.  The four ponies descended the staircase to a cavernous hallway.  Rainbow Dash floated slightly ahead of the others, but was suddenly stopped by Celestia’s magic.

“Wait, Rainbow Dash.  I must disable some traps, first.”  Celestia walked over to a torch and pulled on it.  A panel with old-looking symbols emerged from the wall.  Celestia pressed a few in sequence and a series of clunks, scrapes, and thumps echoed throughout the hall.

“Wow.  I guess you really didn’t want anypony getting to this thing.”  Rainbow gulped.  Had she not been stopped by the Princess, who knows what disaster could have awaited her?

Celestia gave a nod to let Twilight, Argent, and Rainbow know that it was okay to continue.  They approached a huge metal door at the end of the hall.  Celestia’s horn glowed again and she inserted it into a hole in the center of the door, not unlike the vault that once held the Elements of Harmony.  It slowly swung open and a blinding light poured out.  Its source wasn’t the secret object, though.  Instead, the light came from glass bulbs and various displays on odd machines.  They were lined up along the wall of the circular room.  A massive tarp draped over something in the center.

“Are you familiar with the things in here, Argent?” Celestia turned to the brown unicorn.  Argent was still busy scanning the room when he answered,

“Hardly,” he shook his head, “Back in my world, I’m just a student.  Most humans, in fact, would probably be lucky to work with machines like this, much less understand them.”

“So you don’t know what they are?” Rainbow Dash asked.

“No, I do know what they are.  They’re computers: devices built to do all sorts of things like tests, calculations, simulations, and analyses.  They can do a lot more, too, but that’s their main function.  These computers, though, are very large and powerful ones.  The average human doesn’t even know how to use one this big, much less a room full of them.  Princess, where did these come from?"

“I believe I can help explain that.”  Before Celestia could answer Argent, a pony came from around the giant tarp-covered object.  It was a gruff but thin bluish-gray stallion with a blonde mane that was receding and had lost its luster.  His tail was cut short.  Like Argent, he had no cutie mark.  He had a hardhat with a light on it, which he switched off after coming out from under the tarp.

“The name’s Carl.  Carl Saunders.”

“Carl?  That sounds like a—” Argent began.

“Human name?  You’re right about that,” he spoke as roughly as he looked, “I’m a human, like you.  Well, at least I was.  I’ve been a pony for the last thirty years.”  Argent, Twilight, and Rainbow Dash were in shock.

“So Argent’s not the first human to come to this world?” Twilight asked Celestia.

“If what we know is correct, he won’t be the last one, either,” Celestia said, “Twilight, when you completed your dimensional window spell, you very well may have saved Equestria by bringing Argent here.”

“I don’t get it, what’s going on?” Twilight shook her head.

“I thought I said I would be explaining things,” Carl interrupted.

“I’m sorry.  Please, continue.” Twilight hushed.  Carl cleared his throat.

“As I was saying: thirty years ago I was a colonel in the United States Army.  I was part of a secret scientific branch researching the more… unorthodox side of weapons development.  We were in cahoots with the CIA on a project that could move objects from one place to another instantaneously, y’know, to help with troop deployment and stuff.  The folks in the CIA wanted a part of it to plant spies without having to drop them in locations with planes or things like that.

“The project was a huge success, but no one but the team closest to the technology, including me, knew that.  You see, we completed the technology to connect one point in space to another, but not without going through a whole bunch of other ‘spaces’ first.  We accidentally discovered the very framework of the multiverse, and while trying to find our way back to our own universe, we kept stumbling upon another that was not ours, but had developed life and its own laws of physics.”

“You mean Equestria?” Twilight asked.  Carl snorted,

“The purple one’s smart, ‘Tia.  I can see why you took her as a student.  Yeah, kid, I mean Equestria.  We thought it was the strangest thing in the world, what with the talking ponies and dragons and magic and whatnot.  The first portal opened up right in the throne room in Canterlot castle.  We thought it was just a window at first, and my team and I talked with Celestia and Equestrian scientists for hours and hours about pretty much everything.  We learned that Equestria was such a peaceful world full of wonder and things we had never seen before.  Creatures like griffons and manticores were just myths and legends in our world, but there they were very real.  My team wanted to protect it at all costs, even if we could only see into the place.”

“So you lied to your superiors about the progress you were making to keep them from finding out about Equestria?” Argent asked.  Carl nodded,

“Sure did.  Then, one day I decided to see if I could go through the portal.  My colleagues were against it, but I had to see Equestria with my own eyes.  Little did I know that going through the portal would mean it would close right behind me and I wouldn’t be able to go back to my own universe for a while.  When I made the jump, I wasn’t the only thing that came through, though.” Carl pulled the tarp off of the machine behind him.

“Do you know what this is, Argent?” he asked.  Argent had seen this before—or at least something like it.

“It looks like a tank, but it doesn’t have a gun.” Argent guessed.

“You know what the M1 Abrams is?” Carl smirked.

“It’s the modern battle tank of the United States military, right?”

“Yep, but it used to be this.  The tank is just a by-product of the dimensional transport machine, or DTM’s development.”

“Wait,” Argent narrowed his eyes, “How the hell do you get a tank from a project about tearing a hole in space and time?”

“Lying, that’s how!  Remember how I said my team and I lied about our progress on object transport devices?  Well, we didn’t say we were getting nowhere.  To keep the generals off our backs, we slapped a gun and turret on to the transport platform we had already developed for the DTM and named it after an old dead guy to have it sound patriotic.  Then, we hid the real thing and gave the military our plans for the tank.  It was just our luck that they happened to need a new one of those at the time we did!”

“All that to keep your people from Equestria?  Why hide us in the first place?” Twilight spoke up.  The smile that Carl had put on when reminiscing about deceiving the military faded.  He walked up to Twilight and put his face in hers.

“I don’t know what Argent’s told you all about our world, but away from any apparent peace you see is not a pretty sight.  Humans are creatures capable of some of the greatest acts of kindness, compassion, and friendship in existence.  They are also, however, capable of committing the vilest, most disgusting, and destructive acts as well.  In order to keep that from you ponies, who are the good side of humans times one hundred, we had to keep you secret in order to keep you safe,” Carl finally pulled away.  Twilight gulped.

“What about the computers?” Argent asked quickly to diffuse tension, “How did they get here?”

“I had them built,” Carl responded, “They don’t put idiots on top-secret research teams, y’know.  I told Equestrians how to build computers and other inventions in exchange for being able to work on this until it was finished.  I didn’t expect a few things, though: One, I underestimated how long building a DTM alone with limited resources would take, especially with just hooves and my mouth.  What I expected to take no more than a couple months ended up being three decades.  Two, I never thought anyone—or anypony, as it were, to do what I’ve been working at for years independently with magic.  Three, I couldn’t have guessed that it would be done twice.”

“Twice?” Rainbow Dash echoed, “You mean somepony else has a dimension spell like Twilight?”

“That’s my guess, yes.  It’s the only thing that could explain the Diamond Dogs gaining access to guns and rockets.  It still doesn’t explain their sudden organization, but that’s going to have to be a bridge we’ll cross when we come to it.”

“If you being here, the Diamond Dogs’ sudden attacks, and my being here are all independent events, why am I the one who can help save Equestria?  This whole situation is becoming more convoluted by the second.” Argent shook his head.  Celestia put her hoof on his shoulder,

“Carl thinks it’s because of the way you reacted to the Elements of Harmony.  He’s been watching your presence here just as I have.  You would have been called here eventually, but with events developing the way they are, things had to be rushed a bit.  So, to make it short, his theory is that there may be more than six Elements, and you are resonant with one of them.”

“What do you mean by resonant?” Argent asked.  Carl chimed in,

“One of the first machines I built when I came here was a device to measure energy of all kinds to make sure nothing here was slowly killing me or anything.  After I made sure the environment was relatively safe, I began zeroing in on some strange frequencies lying outside of the electromagnetic spectrum we know from our world.  There were dozens that I could make out, and I’m thinking there are likely hundreds beyond them.  As waves, most of them were erratic and had nothing in common at all, but were interesting to study nonetheless.  Six of them, however, were in perfect sync.  They were distinctly different frequencies, but they were harmonic.

“I only knew they were the Elements of Harmony when Celestia showed them to me and the machine I made blew up from energy overload.  I built a new one later and monitored the wave-forms of the Elements’ energy while I wasn’t working on the DTM.  When you came into this world, though, Argent, something changed.  A seventh frequency began to line up with the other six that were already in sync.  I don’t know which one you may be, but if my theory checks out, kid, you’re one of them.”

“I’m an Element of Harmony?  Which one?” Argent asked.

“I don’t know, kid,” Carl shrugged, “Do you know of anything that makes you special?”

“I turned into a pony once,” the brown unicorn joked.  Carl rolled his eyes,

“I mean your personality, kid.  Like that apple one; she’s honest, right?  That’s why she’s the Element of Honesty.  If we can figure out what stands out with you, we’ll figure out what Element of Harmony you are, and we’ll be one step closer to moving on with this war.”  Argent thought back to when he first came through the portal to Equestria.  He remembered that as he was meeting the Mane 6 he was acting out of character, bowing and doling out compliments when he greeted each of the ponies.  Perhaps he was the Element of Kindness?

No, that was Fluttershy’s thing.  He jumped ahead to the suits of armor he had inadvertently summoned during the battle to protect Sweet Apple Acres.  What was he thinking back then?  He wanted to protect the other ponies.  They needed help, and he wanted to be there for them.  It was a noble endeavor.  Noble.  Was he the Element of Nobility?  There’s a better word for that, though.

Being kind and courteous, wanting to protect others… it wasn’t nobility, but, Argent knew it was along those lines.  Only one term came to mind,

“It’s chivalry,” Argent said, “I’m the Element of Chivalry.”