Roof of Some Random Hospital, DC Proper, Capitol Wasteland.
Scanned the broken skyscrapers around them, trying to picture they might have been before The War. 200 feet tall? Five? A mile tall? He had no clue. Right now though, they seemed to be on one of the taller, and obviously, less damaged ones. Which struck Johnny as odd. Even if you assumed that the nukes China sent this way were about as reliable and lethal as Chinese small arms were, there really, really shouldn't even be this much rubble. And in all of the stories, and all of the rumors he'd heard surrounding the DC area, Johnny had never heard anything approaching an explanation for how the hell any part of the city was still intact. Quite unlike Johnny's native New Vegas, where at least you had Mr. House to thank/blame for the city's continued existence. Don't ask Mr. Truant how he knows that.
Sadly, had Johnny not been musing on this, he might have kept up with the group. If he had kept up with the group, he might not have tripped on... something spongy and oozing a dark fluid out of every pore, and fallen down a dark pit. In any case, he was down there now, and could do nothing but press on as the hole he'd fallen in from had somehow sealed itself behind him. What little light there was in this new... room (for lack of a more disturbingly accurate word) had cold, dark blue sheen to it. It was as though the light itself had glare all over it.
"Or perhaps that which dwells in the dead light is glaring outward," Johnny found himself saying for no apparent reason. He chuckled to himself as he examined one of the red, glowing, bulbous masses that chaotically "lined" the ogranic-feeling walls. "Next I'll be saying crap like 'that is not dead which can eternal lie, yet with stranger eons, even death may die."
Johnny managed to get half of a laugh out before it was choked right back down at the sudden, but not entirely unexpected appearance of him.
"Oh, its you." "Oh, its you." Both characters said in unison upon spying the other. One with genuine annoyance, the other mocking.
"The hell do you want this time?" Johnny asked, letting his head drag down for a moment. He remained silent. Only now did Johnny realize that he hadn't had a chance to get a good look at his face before. And then Johnny wished he hadn't. Just after he processed... whatever it was he saw, The Editor reached up to his face and removed it, revealing a perfect copy of Johnny's face underneath. Again, shortly after Johnny was just barely able to process that, The Editor ripped the false-face off to a new one... or rather, the complete lack of one. Then the Editor seemed to grow in stature until he was well over twice Truant's comparatively paltry height. As The Editor's head ascended, Johnny found he couldn't help but stare into that blank visage, until it seemed to encompass all of his vision. Eventually, Mr. Truant managed to tear his gaze away from the featureless terror that stood before him, but when he looked back, he found that he was alone in the middle of the darkness.
Or rather, that he was all alone with the darkness, which seemed to roil and twist around him as he studied it. Johnny struggled to find a way out, or even the way he had come, but direction had become completely meaningless in this absolute, sliding pitch darkness. It did not have a beginning, and as far as Johnny could tell, it had no end. He could no longer see his own hands, or any part of himself. He could not feel the tremor of something moving near him. He could not feel even something as simple as the rustling of the wind, for there was none to be found here.
All that could be heard was the infinitesimally distant noise of a flute carrying a shrill tune - which could be more accurately described as the scream of a dying god... at least at first. Eventually, the flute stopped. And in that instant, the surrounding abyss... uncoiled itself, revealing a blazing centre filled with blind malevolence. The roiling dark melted away, revealing the strange stars beyond it, and for a moment, Johnny could see the vast beauty of distant galaxies... and then it all burned away in the face of the inferno picking up next to him until all that was, is, and would ever be was consumed in fire. Then the music started again, and the dark beat the light back into the pit to which it belonged... and as it did, Johnny saw and heard the cacophonous chaos of a new universe going through its first rattling birth-pangs.
Then the music died again, and the whole process repeated itself again and again, time after time... and Johnny witnessed the birth and death of a thousand universes, all nearly indistinguishable from each other in their impossibly brief waxing and waning cycles. And so it went on and on, in unending repetition, and Johnny's mind fractured further and further... and he found himself begging for any release from this horror.
Eventually, it came. A gloved hand appeared out of nowhere and offered to save him from his doom. Without thinking, Johnny grabbed hold of the hand, and it dragged him out of the endless vision of destruction and creation. He found himself in a much more mundane room. He was back in the hospital. Except, it was no longer abandoned. Doctors dashed back and forth through the immaculately-kept hallway. Nurses pushed wheelchair-bound patients from room to room. Relatives waited on benches that were evenly spaced between doorways filled with blinding light. All were dressed in Pre-War clothing, all still in pristine condition. Johnny looked down to find that his usual garb had been replaced with a depressingly cheery blue sweat-vest over a sunny-disposition polo shirt, both complimented with crisp khaki slacks that fit him perfectly. As he looked at his arms though, Johnny noticed that all of the various scars, burn-marks, and needle pin-pricks he'd accumulated over the years were all gone.
Scanning the crowd, Johnny noticed something extremely out of place... even more so than usual. Or rather, someone. A blue-haired young woman in an almost form-fitting red dress adorned with roses (complete with thorns). Walking towards her, Johnny noticed her nametag, which simply announced that her name was "Narla". Not... "Sylph", despite all of the obvious similarities. Regardless, Johnny pursued the strange woman, even for the simulacrum of something familiar to grasp onto. As he did so, she turned away, and the blinding light in the doorways filled the hallway. Just before the hallway, and everyone in it, vanished in a cloud of ashes formed from the flesh and bone that had vaporized before anyone even had a chance to scream.
Then... the same hallway, except this time, it had clearly been abandoned for some time. Johnny checked himself, his former injuries and scars were still gone... and he was still decked out in his cheery Pre-War outfit, which was still in good condition. Emanating from a source he couldn't pinpoint at the moment, was a bright blueish light that ebbed throughout the hallway, casting unnerving shadows on the walls at odd or even impossible angles.
Then, in a voice filled with honey, someone behind Johnny coughed to get his attention. He turned, and saw Lucy, still wearing her eyepatch. She didn't say anything, opting to simply smile sweetly at him, her eyes seeming to beckon him forward. Johnny did not even think to resist what would seem an obvious trap to someone in a more rational mode. Sadly, Mr. Truant was just so happy to see a familiar face that he immediately rushed towards Lucy and kissed her full on the lips.
Or rather, what he thought was Lucy. It turned out to be... something else entirely. Johnny tasted relief for a very short moment before he tasted blood and iron, and then nothing at all as his tongue melted into his teeth... and his clothing and hair dissolving as "Lucy" drew him closer with a tight hug. His skin quickly followed his clothing, burning away into nothing, the pain threatening to devour what little was left of Johnny's sanity by this point.
Just before not-Lucy managed to burn his bones and brain away, he woke up to find himself screaming in the middle of a rubble-filled landscape. He had never been happier to see the almost-complete desolation around him. And of course, never happier to hear the sound of nearby gunfire. Sure, it meant someone was probably going to die, but hell, it meant that for the time being, SOMEONE was still alive aside from himself.
Joyful tears scattered down his cheek as he fired his trusty rifle, which at this moment, Johnny loved more than life itself, blindly into the fray and kept firing until he realized he was the only one still shooting.
Then he saw... them. Two beings that strongly resembled Sylph and Lucy. The imitation was much better this time. If Johnny didn't know any better, he'd swear he was looking at the genuine articles again. But he wasn't going to fall for that trick again.
"G-get back!" he shouted at the obvious imposters, "Stay back! GET AWAY FROM ME!!!!"
He aimed his rifle in their general direction.
"Not again!" he yelled, firing at the air above them, "I'm not letting you trick me again!"
