"Hey."

Crane nodded to the person he couldn't see, but could hear on his bluetooth headphone. "Hello. You usually prefer text to voice, don't you?"

"Yeah, usually," admitted the male on the line with an uneasy tone, but it brightened to excitement. "No time for that! Look, I set up a thing, to test something, and it finally paid off." He heard a fingersnap over the line. "Every night at midnight, a file was made that held the Declaration of Independence, in English. Every morning, it was converted, repeated over and over."

"Yes, yes, I know digital files are affected. What's the-- wait, did it not convert?"

"It didn't convert," giddily confirmed the speaker on the line. "Just to be sure, I made a few other files, and even dared tried typing out some, but there they are, not being converted."

"But... what changed?" He put a hand behind his head, confusion mounting. Wait... "I had a conversation that might be related." Had 'Harmony', or whatever was doing it, decided to stop blocking English?

"You did this? You, sir, are a miracle worker. Look, gotta go, but wanted you to know!"

The line went dead.

He took a soft breath, then tapped his earpiece. "Call Celestia."

Sunburst dipped his head, ears fanning out to either side. This allowed a ribbon to be placed over his head, carried by the hands of President Smith. "Thank you, for your service. You saved countless lives, and paid a heavy price for it."

He wasn't the only person there. Several others who had mounted a brave defense, the rest humans, stood at attention, each being adorned with a ribbon and given a personal thanks from the president. Cameras were watching them intently, and the audience clapped with applause as soon as the last ribbon was placed and they took their communal bow.

He had won a medal of freedom, not that he had asked for it. Sunburst reached up to trail a hoof along its blue ribbon, considering it. He would rather have heard the clapping instead of gently feeling the vibration against his hooves. The fact that he could feel the clapping like that was odd, but minds were a powerful thing, adapting. He couldn't hear, so he paid more attention to other senses he normally paid little heed to.

He would have traded it back for hearing, but he would work with what he had.

Twilight's horn glowed as she scribbled with a pen on the paper. She looked up at a knocking. "Who is it?"

"Just me," replied a male voice, a bullish snout peeking in through the door. "She's back. You asked me to tell you."

"Oh, yes!" Twilight set her pen down as she clopped her hooves excitedly. "Send her in."

Copper Bell entered, dressed simply. "I was told you wished to see me, Princess?"

"Yes." Twilight pointed to the seat across the desk from herself. "Please, relax. I was told before this that you were a low-level bureaucrat?"

Copper sank gently into the provided seat. "I administered several departments. They assigned me where they wanted someone who would take a stern eye at things that faced the public and needed things shaken up. I don't have a prestigious family, and I don't care for fame, so I was considered less corruptible than most."

"You had no desire for money either?" pressed Twilight with one raised brow.

"All I want is a roof and enough to not struggle. The rest, I give to others. There are so many that do not have even that." She snorted softly. "Please, forgive me. That trial was... I will never forget it."

Twilight inclined her head towards a television that rested in the corner. "I was able to watch some of it... It was... in some ways, far less gruesome than I had feared. They have so many guns, I admit I thought they would be used more in the judicial process."

"No, no..." Copper shook her head softly. "They are a people of laws, and the laws have specific punishments, many of them involving imprisonment, not unlike your Tartarus." She rolled a hand softly. "You two are alike."

Twilight blanched at that, jerking back with perked ears. "I wouldn't go that far! We only send the absolute worst, beyond redemption, to Tartarus."

Copper smiled faintly. "And how many have you released from Tartarus? Do you attempt to reform them, to guide their broken minds?"

Twilight glanced about. "I'm glad to report that no creature has been sent to Tartarus within my lifetime, barring one that was sent back there after rampaging across our entire country!" She suddenly coughed into a hoof. "Putting that aside, your country has need of you. I would like to see you on the new council. Do you accept my nomination?"

"Am I the first?" Her eyes were on Twilight squarely, taking measure of her.

"You are not." Twilight's horn glowed as a paper came free of a filing cabinet and settled on the desk between them. "I have secured four council members at this point. I was hoping this progress could accelerate, as five members is sufficient to reach proper quorum, meaning you and the other council members could start filling your ranks without me."

Copper's ears flattened to the sides. "That eager to be rid of us?"

"That eager to see you standing on your own hooves," corrected Twilight with a smile. "Your people are more than... this. My research implies that, had they not been... attacked..."

"Killed," she flatly countered.

"Yes, that... If not for that, the council would have stopped the war long before... a lot of things happened." She rolled a hoof softly. "While it is a pity it began to start, there were extenuating circumstances and I think the best thing that can be done is to have your people up and moving, which requires a government of your own people, not me."

Copper's ears lifted faintly, the reserve fading. "I see..." A soft smile touched her lips. "I must be growing paranoid in my age. You are, in the end, a pony, and one that has proven her benign nature at that. Very well, I would accept this nomination. Tell me this, Princess, does that mean the American soldiers are leaving?"

"Only when you have your own guards or police force." Twilight nodded softly. "Right now, they are protecting you. If one misbehaves, you have every right to report them for censure and potential removal after investigation. They're here for you, not to oppress you." She brought her forehooves together. "I look forward to when they are not required."

Copper suddenly offered a hand. "I have work to do. Where are the other council members?" She had clear goals in mind, and it wouldn't come without getting to work.

"President Crane," came the soft tones of the pony ruler. "I had not expected to hear from you."

"Not the president anymore, but good to hear from you too. I have a question I feel only a pony could possibly answer." He paced in his living room, speaking to the ruler across the world.

"If I can help, I gladly will. What is troubling you?" She could hear his worry, and sounded sympathetic. "I trust you were not harmed during... that."

"No... no." His particular town hadn't even been attacked. It was as if it never happened, for him. "It's not about that. Tell me, do you know what, or who, Harmony is?"

Unseen, she hiked a brow at her phone. "Harmony is a concept. We all strive towards it, with varying levels of success. What a curious question; may I ask what prompts it?"

"I..." Well, she was a magic horse. Magic wasn't that strange, right? "I had what you could call a 'vision', with a pony that called itself Harmony. She looked like Princess Sparkle, but she insisted she was not Twilight. What would you gather from that?"

"How very strange..." Celestia frowned softly in thought, tapping her chin. "The only physical presence of harmony we are aware of is the Tree of Harmony, wherein rests the Elements of Harmony, but they are artifacts, immobile and typically non-conversant... The very idea that they could, even if they could at all, reach you from such a distance... Unfortunately, Twilight isn't available."

Not Available? "Where is she?"

"Re-forming the council, for the minotaurs," Celestia advised gently. "She will return as soon as that is complete. Hm, ah! Another idea occurs to me. The friendship map is attached to the tree."

"Friendship... map?" Only ponies could possibly have something called that. "And where is that?"

"In Twilight's castle. I will call Starlight and inform her you're coming." There was a brief pause. "Are you coming?"

Well... "That would be one way to confirm what's going on. Putting that aside a moment, have you spoken with Queen Ruddertail recently?"

"Not immediately... We last spoke during the last EFC meeting, which I'm afraid I'm not at liberty to go into details about. You know how that is."

"I do. I'm not asking for privileged information, but... did she seem... well?"

There was a moment of quiet. "That is a heavy question."

"I ask as a friend."

He could somehow hear her smile. "That is a good way to ask... As a friend, I fear she is hurt, inside. She suffered greatly..."

"What about you?"

"I... am managing. I suffered my own losses, but none as terrible as hers. Of the nations attacked, the lutrai were the most dire. This is common knowledge, have you not been watching your news?"

He hadn't... "I'm sorry. The ponies and the otters didn't deserve that."

"No creature deserved that," she softly sighed into the phone. "I am glad it is done and hope it never is repeated. Are you coming?"

"I'll arrange a flight. There are no airports in Ponyville." He remembered that was where Twilight's castle was.

"There is not," she agreed, "But there are landing points in Manehatten and Baltimare, then you can catch the train to Ponyville. Forgive us, we're still catching up with your people's needs for global movement. It is... nice, in some ways. It's a friendship between people, and I can't fault that. Come then, and text me when and where you'll land. I'll see that you're taken care of as a friend of our people should be."

Though the infrastructure damage was considerable, it created countless sudden new positions. There simply weren't enough trained laborers to build bridges and erect buildings, and people without jobs found themselves able to secure such positions with on-the-job training being thrown in the package.

America was healing, and became the hub through which goods traveled. With the concessions agreed upon by the other nations that had participated in the war, but were not as damaged, goods were shipped to America for refinement and packaging before moving out to where they were most needed, both internally and abroad.

American planes delivered aid packages to the ailing minotaurs and the devastated lutrai. Ponies cheered when great packages of cement and building supplies arrived for them on greatly burdened ships to reconstruct their cities.

Though the formerly TSDI nations were not EFC, they were rapidly catching up to EFC codes for travel and conduct, the idea of passports and documentation spreading across the world as more nations had it than did not, applying pressure on the holdouts that had been resisting the idea.

"Wouldn't anyone cry?" posited a man, gesturing up at a screen. "However terrible she was, she was his mother."

"A mother who killed millions of people," hotly rebutted another speaker, slamming a fist down. "He was doing it for public sympathy, and it didn't even work."

"He was inconsolable long after the cameras were turned off," retorted the first. "They were already on poor terms. Maybe I'm the only person, but I've had fights with family members, they're still family. I still care about them. You don't just turn that off."

"If he cared, he should have stopped her from doing all of... that."

"Nobody even knew!" exclaimed the first throwing up his hands. "No one. He came halfway across the world just to be with her at the final moment. That's dedication, and doing what's right."

A third voice joined, the camera panning to the actual host of the show, "what more are asking is, what really happened? Never has a person 'evaporated' on being executed. Stay tuned for our theories."

Author's Notes:

The world, it is starting to move forward. Crane has things to investigate before he rushes off, but what is this, English isn't being force-translated on the Internet? How curious...

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