Brandi

She had ascended to godhood for this purpose. Brandi donned her helm, her golden hair cascaded down her back. Stomping nervously beside her Loki sensed that she wouldn’t be taking him to battle. The black stallion was as perceptive as his name’s sake. Thinking of Loki stirred that constant pain in her heart. They were all dead; she was the last of Odin’s realm. She channeled the sorrow to anger and shrieked to the sky. The monsters had just grown as the evil in men had grown and they had destroyed the Norse warriors one by one. The lack of faith in men had destroyed most of the heavenly bastions, the soul prisons to weak and with no one to guide the dead they plagued the mortal realm. She could not stop all the evil, but she could stop this most powerful sluagh. She grabbed her spear and walked from the barn, giving Loki one final glance as the sun disappeared behind them. Starting at a jog, she quickly lengthened her strides, then with three long bounds her wings spread behind her and she took to the sky. The lights of Raiford quickly disappeared as the clouds engulfed her and she heard the sluagh shrieking.

They met like titans in the sky. Lightning streaking from her sword as it came to bare against his steel like claws. Thunder boomed at the impact. Her lightning climbed up his arms and he pulled away. Thank Thor for his dying gift. She thought for a moment that she might be able to beat him outright. Then the darkness flitted on the edge of her vision, and she knew his 20 years of hunting he had too many souls bonded to him. They circled, darkening the clouds, pressing against her mind. If she just killed him, they would ravage Florida and beyond. Again, he came at her, claws raking at her armor slicing through the metal. She parried with her sword, flying backward just out of reach. He growled, in something that could barely be defined as speech, “I like darker haired whores, but you’ll have to do.”

She took the fleet moment he gave her to gather her courage. Charging Brandi dropped her shield and sword, “Loki, forgive me.” She sobbed. Flashing forward she impaled herself on his outstretched claws. Ice so cold it burned through her insides. With his other hand he tore at her throat and her visioned blacked. The pain was overwhelming, the cold so intense even her blood filling her mouth was like ice. So much evil, it darkened her entire soul. She wanted to scream, or run, pure terror, but she couldn’t move. She felt her body falling away and her blackened soul was stripped bare. Her mind going mad with the raw exposure, she was lost. Did she figure wrong, was she now one of the damned under his control. She could see the black spirit rope from his neck, she could feel it wrapped around hers.

The seconds stretched into eternity as she watched the sluagh defiled her broken body. She felt her mind fraying, the last bits of herself crumbling under the psychic assault. “NO,” she thought. But she had failed. Then, finally she felt the pull. A whisper, calling her by her given name, "Brynhilde". She wasn’t complete- this was only the mind of her soul. The other 3 pieces had indeed been ascended and she felt their pull. Wrapping hot golden tendrils around her ankles she felt the fight, painful against the sluaghs assault. She tried to relax, to fall with her other 3 soul parts. Niflheim always claimed a fallen god. There might not be enough left in this realm for the lost souls to find Valhalla, or the lost souls to be drug down to Hel… but she, as a Valkyrie had enough faith that she as a God would be pulled down to rest with the other Gods. The sluagh's eyes went wide with understanding. He shrieked and pulled away, but it was too late, he had bound them together. Together they fell, gaining speed and she watched as all the souls tethered to the sluagh came down with her. She took one last look at her nigh immortal body, falling like a comet to the earth, then she let her soul summon take full control as she embraced death and dragged the demonic slaugh born from Bundy to hell.