A mellow undertone of static buzzed below the radio station. It was dark out with nothing more than white snow fluttering onto the wastes. Silent Hill brushed her hooves along the ashen flakes, only to jump when she finally heard a voice on the other line.

'Hello. This is Purple Heart; I'm retired and in a shitload of trouble. Me and my bunker mates have been holding our ground for days. Those New Celestia Republic assholes are waiting for the moment we let our guard down. Send help because we need it. If you're hearing this, you've got one of out WristBelles. And that means you know what's at stake. God Bless the Celestial States of Equestria. This message repeats.'

Doctor Brown swallowed a lump in his scrawny throat. When his friend decided to listen to it again, he nervously spat out 'must you really...?' His sudden enthusiasm ripped a chuckle out her lips. The only thing she asked in response was 'what..?' A moment of absolute hesitation pursed his lips and forced Doctor Brown to find their campfire. He gazed into it, admiring the vastness of the flames, as they were enough to roast anypony alive and nurture itself with the anger of their victim's. When his gruff, but understanding companion held his shoulder with her hoof, the answer melted away from him, leaving his shoulders tense.

"When you listen to it that way... it sounds like they're trapped doing the same thing over and over. Doesn't that disturb you, Senior Airmare Hill? For me, personally, it reminds me of the Boss Tin commonwealth. When I lived there, you'd hear all sorts of repeating radio messages. Some of them were fake distress signals, to lure in cryostable dwellers. There was this one chap from a cryostable that got them back, though. He had a stable suit and everything."

The sullen homesickness made Silent Hill feel... odd. It wasn’t as pronounced before, but she didn't feel at home either. Home was no wasteland, just like no wasteland was ever truly home. Home was a place that held somepony in it's arms and sang them to sleep. It was nothing like Mini Soda or the badlands in their entirety. Her tired, heavy eyes stuck against the campfire across her. It's blinding orange stung her cloudless, jade pupils. When somepony pink and happy grinned her way, she chuckled anxiously.

Bubblegum Grins was smacking her lips and licking them dry. No remains of hot sauce. A tiny, compact 'chomp' filled their ears with pleasant noise. Doctor Brown was hungry. But he wasn't that hungry. The colt stared wordlessly at his savage companion, intrigued and, frankly, disgusted. Her culinary prowess was nothing short of interesting and admirable. He could smell the hot sauce topped with tangy mustard and bits of finely minced mudonion. Mudonion was, for the most part, radioactive and mutated onion. Most came the size of somepony's hoof and could feed them a whole day. If, that is, they survived the powerful aroma. And the ticks on the geiger counter. Doctor Brown covered his lips when Bubblegum took another bite of her... special hot wings. Gryphon hot wings.

"Miss... Grins. How can you stomach such harmful biomaterial. You could replicate the wrong protein or even gain a surplus of cerebral deficiencies. And isn't your stomach made for digesting... herbivorous materials?" He inquired, plugging his nose when she stuck her food closer.

Bubblegum displayed her long, blue-white tongue. It came with her wide, crooked grin as it hung over her lips and ended at her knees. It coiled and raised till sticking against Brown's cheeks. He shivered and pushed it off, sticky with itchy, burning skin. He muffled his lips so he couldn't cough on her muzzle.

"You wanna know why I eat gryphons...? And ponies and every other animal in this god damn wasteland? Because it sure ain't good for me, but food tastes better when it's kicking and screaming~"

Silent Hill stepped between them, making sure the two stayed out of contact range. Her tone was militant and neutral, as always, only it seemed she'd taken to drinking a flask of Applejack Daniels. The golden liqueur left a dark streak of color down her chin.

"Alright, you two; you can breed later. Right now we need to rest and find Purple Heart. It sounds like he might be still alive. Apfel wants the enclave dead, remnants or not. We can't let that happen. If there's enclave that's not commiting mass genocide, we need to get our beauty sleep. Because we're gonna get messy tomorrow."

They both deferred to their leader, who was soundest in terms of strategy and philosophy. It was just the remnants that worried Doctor Brown. They might have been in a classic underdog situation, but that didn't always make the underdog good. For all he knew, the Grand Pegasus Enclave might've setup an ambush. Old world ghosts struck his mind as he remembered a very old proverb from ancient history.

'Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.'

When they left off at such an inspiring note, Silent and Brown couldn't help but sleep giddy and hopeful. They were heroes, in ways they themselves could never know. They were both avatars of causes that fought for a better Equestria. It was easy to deny that. It was easy to be cynical and say deep down, they had selfish reasons. But Bubblegum, unable to sleep and slipping out their shared tent, could never do the same. Some ponies were born to watch the world burn. And others were born to sweep up the ashes and tend the land. A pleasant swarm of butterflies infected her system. Even though she could never feel it, even though it would never fix the callouses tattooed into her broken, little muscle, it gave her purpose. Deep down, beneath all that glass and barbed wire, lay somepony who still wanted to help.

Bubblegum stared straight ahead, finding the campfire. It's form became cooling, fading embers breathing their last bit of life away. Into each other, they breathed. They breathed and suffered till the end with someone else, of kin and blood. Those two ponies sleeping behind her... had a dream to follow. Once upon a time, Equestria was a paradise for dreamers. It was a paradise for people just like her friends.

If it made them happy, happy enough to comfort a monster like herself, to not be the type of pony to shoot first and ask questions later, what right did she have to let them lose that happiness. When she finally glanced up from the dying fire, she caught a glimpse of the moon. It'd been her first time. Her lips parted in both whimsy and dwarfing, cosmic awe. Beneath such a murky and ugly sky lay such a precious light. And nopony even had the chance to tell it how amazing it was.

Nopony but her would ever see it's clandestine charm ever again.

The moonlight baptized her and absolved her of her sins. The moon must've been Cherry ascending, her Cherry Night Sky lighting up the world like she promised so long ago. A stray sob struck her throat. Remembering her kiss, of roses and cigar buds, a tear slipped away and onto the snow beneath her hooves. Bubblegum Grins wiped her tear away and whispered words to the great beyond.

"If I could do it all over... and see you smile one more time at who I used to be, I'd set the world on fire and never look back. Hate me up there, where you belong. Hate me so when I come back, you can fall for me one more time."

The world grew blurry and bathed her cheeks clean.

She saw a shooting star streak the sky with pure, supernova white.

Next Chapter: Ripper, Slasher, Teeth In The Darkness. Estimated time remaining: 59 Minutes