Preamble: Midnight In Valhalla
~BlackRoseRaven
He had never experienced a fight like this before: he'd battled countless monsters over the faces of countless worlds, and none of those battles came close to comparing to the desperation, the devastation, the sheer raw thrill of this one.
The enemy had warped once-proud Valhalla with his powers, and his ancestral home now lay in shambles, a wrecked and myopic ruin. They had been forced to fight their way through hordes of monsters to get to this point, but they had finally cornered this elusive monster, this false god. But even if this monster conjured evil shades and used powers that bent and warped reality itself around them, this wicked godling was beginning to quake and buckle before them.
Because who could stand in front of such a set of mighty warriors? He was a warrior of Asgard and Midgard both, and he fought alongside a Valkyrie and her Clockwork husband, a Lich, and a demon... and the very last, he admired most of them all. Not merely because she was his wife, but because she fought with the fury of a thousand suns and had honor enough to match... even if she always tried to hide it beneath her cocky grin, her callous attitude.
And there! As he pinned one of the conjurations, the demon leapt forwards, with such grace even as she lashes out with such raw power, striking their foe, sending him reeling back! The Lich suppresses the other vile shade, while the Valkyrie and Clockwork warrior slip in to add their own strikes, driving their foe all the way back to his damned and accursed throne!
He smiles, raising his head, proud of his friends... no, his family. That is what they are, what they shall always be to him. He shall stand and fight beside them forever, and nothing shall ever drive them apart: they will conquer this foe, take back what is rightfully theirs, and then celebrate with-
“Goodbye.”
A pulse, and a single word, hissed by the monster. And too late, he feels himself swept up in currents of energy; too late, he feels the power wrapping around him. And before he can resist, he's simply gone, thrown to the winds by the powers of the monster and sent flying across the countless worlds.
Part of him knows that his love, his phoenix, has suffered the same fate: he cries out in anguish for her, and for his sister Valkyrie. Yet he knows that even with him and his wife exiled to an unknown world, his family will still finish the fight. His family will-
And then, he begins to fall.