He falls, and falls, and falls, until he thinks of his destination and the endless black around him breaks apart to reveal a dark and dreary neighborhood that he quickly finds… regrettably familiar. A level very much unwanted by him and yet, fate has brought him here. "Oh, great," he grumbles to himself. "Here I am… again."
Memories of traversing the dusty sidewalks and slaying eyes in the darkness flash in his mind. Of all the damn places to be. Well, of course he'd be here. If there's any level so dangerous that the call for help coming from it would be near irresistible for him, it would be this suburban nightmare.
"Well," he says to himself, hoisting his sword over his shoulder and walking around, "suppose I better start finding people to save…"
Still, he's going to get out of this place as soon as he can. Just being in this world causes shivers to crawl up his spine…
He perks up, hearing someone yelling for help. Here we go again… he mentally sighs, breaking into a sprint as he feverishly searches the streets for the human in danger. He refuses to fail anyone, no matter the cost, and he'll be damned if he fails this one like so many others before.
"Hey!" he shouts as he finds his prey. "You!"
The giant eyeball pauses, slowly turning from its target — a defenseless mortal — to face him. It stares at him, seemingly studying his strange attire and choice of weaponry without so much as a word or a grunt. It affixes him with a stare, and then, light engulfs him.
The golden beam of light very quickly dissipates as he slashes his sword at it, cleaving the front of the eye in twain and causing the creature to recoil, emitting an ungodly roar of pain as it tries to figure out what just happened to it.
Something that it won't ever get the chance to do, as he swiftly finishes it off with a horizontal slash that sends its two halves falling back down to the ground. After wiping the blood off of his faceplate with his arm, he turns to look at the mortal that he just rescued with what he hopes is a reassuring expression. "Are you alright?" he gently asks.
They're too petrified to even speak. He understands. He really does.
"…Alright then." He cuts a hole into reality with his sword next to them, ignoring the way that they tense up thinking that he's aiming for them, before pushing them through the hole and willing it shut before any horrid entity can get through. "Back home you go."
Home… He doesn't know what their home is. But he can take a guess and assume it's that sprawling city full of surprisingly docile entities and other humans. They'll be safe there, and they won't have to go through this horrid little place ever again. Not unless they want to.
He hopes that they're smarter than that.
Something runs up to him from behind. He turns around, just in time to see a massive optic nerve reach for him and coil around his body, trying to crush him in its vice grip like a snake. He simply frowns beneath his helmet and cuts through the appendage with a casual swipe of his blade, falling on his feet as the nerve's owner screeches and staggers back in pain.
"Try it," he dares the beast. "See what good it does you."
As if rising to the challenge, the now-enraged eyeball slams a pair of tentacles next to his sides before bringing them together in a sweeping motion. Clearly, it's trying to crush him a second time. It seems that the monster doesn't know what the definition of insanity is, and if it does, it doesn't care.
He lets it clasp its appendages together for about four seconds, before eviscerating them in a flurry of strikes and slashes as he jumps out of the makeshift cage that it tried to make for him. As he soars through the air and meets it on eye-level, he asks it, "Was it worth it?"
It doesn't answer. It can't answer even if it wants to anyways, because he immediately cuts a Red Knight-shaped hole through its main body and falls out the other side of the eyeball. As he hits the ground, he rolls forwards, avoiding the falling corpse as he stands back up to his feet. "That…" he says, "felt good."
He looks around, seeing the run-down and imposing silhouettes of this world's houses in the distance. He can already imagine the sheer amount of monsters lying in wait for some poor, defenseless mortals to stumble in there, for whatever horrific fate awaits them.
Grinding his teeth, he sheathes his sword and begins making his way to the neighborhood.
No, he defiantly thinks. Not on my watch. I won't let you.
He can't fail them a second time. Not like how he failed her…
Shaking the traitorous thoughts away (You're supposed to be strong both physically and mentally, otherwise, how can you say you're strong enough to save other people?), he soldiers on and enters the urban hunting grounds of the Watch. He feels his body shake in rage at the thought of them preying on innocent, helpless wanderers.
Monsters… why don't you face someone of your own caliber for once?
He shakes his hand, and his sword with it, in righteous fury as he storms through the empty streets. "Come out, beasts of the Ninth Realm!" he calls out into the darkness. His enhanced hearing allows him to pick up on the shifting of appendages and the rustling of leaves around him.
They're too quick, too numerous to be human. Humans wouldn't run to a potential threat, and even if any of them did, there would be too few of them to make a continuous noise like this. No, he knows it's them. They're coming.
His expression hardens, and he raises his blade as the noises grow louder and get closer. Let them come, he thinks, so that I may make this realm just a little bit safer for the mortals cursed to roam it.
An eyeball pops out of the darkness. Then another, and another. Eyeballs of various sizes seem to rise out of the inky blackness surrounding him to meet his challenge, to meet their ends at his blade. He cares not for the variants that they may be, nor does he take note of their appendages, or lack thereof.
They'll all fall to his blade, all the same.
He yells, "COME ON!" as a pair of massive eyes with optic nerves for limbs charge at him, veins outstretched and prepared to take hold of his limbs should they reach him.
With a war cry, he jumps into the air and swings his blade at the closest strider. The soft, bloodshot eyeball starts to cave underneath the force of his sword…
"…Is that it?" he mockingly asks, panting from exertion as he leans onto his sword, which is stabbed into the ground to help him prop himself up. Around him, the maimed and pulped eyeballs start to decay, returning the matter that made them back to the level.
Or perhaps, back to Icarus, he bitterly thinks. He doesn't know if his sister's husband even has his power of life-giving anymore, or if he still even is her husband. He doesn't know what became of them…
Although, the rumors he hears about them do not paint a pretty picture. He huffs, taking his sword out of the ground and sheathing it. He doesn't need these thoughts to plague him now, not while he's still in the hunting grounds of those wretched, rotten little beasts. He'll leave first, and then he can ruminate.
But first…
He walks around for a bit. He finds a few humans quickly enough. They seem to have been attracted by the sounds of his battle, or perhaps curious as to why there were so many of the Watch flocking to this area in particular. Still, he introduces himself with what little information they need to hear, asks them where they wish to go, and sends them off with a few flicks of his sword.
As the last hole in the fabric of reality closes, he sighs, getting on a knee and stretching his arm. "I'm so tired," he mumbles to himself. But he can't rest yet. He just needs… to go on… a few more journeys. Yes, that'll clear his head and let him rest easy. He knows he'll have earned the rest, too. It'll make it more… worthwhile.
With a tired huff, he stands up, and prepares to make another portal with his sword. He doesn't react at all to the rustling of leaves behind him, nor does he do anything about the rapidly approaching dog-sized eyeball about to pounce on him.
It does exactly that, soaring through the air and preparing to latch itself onto his back. With a flourish, he slices into the air and cuts the eyeball into two perfect halves, causing it to scrape its two separate parts on either side of him as it hits the ground in an almost morbidly comical fashion.
In the same swing, he wills a portal into existence, and the fabric of reality once again opens in front of him as he follows the call for help that seems to echo through time and space till it reaches him. Without another word, he walks into the portal, leaving the dreaded neighborhood behind.
It'll be safer now, he thinks as he's transported through the Backrooms. For a little while, at least.