The Fantastic Four had been a brotherhood since before most of the wolves now in existence had even known that there was such a place as Moladion. They were born, each of them the first born of their respective home packs, Neirin the first of any wolf.

Neirin was the first pup born on Moladion soil, the first born of is litter, the first pup born to imprinted mates, in the first pack that was established. His mother was Wilflaed (The Golden Lady, The Golden Queen, The All-Mother), and his Uncle was Siegos (The Red Baron, The Blood Alpha) -- father to Ifrit.

Ifrit was the fifth born, second born of his litter (his brother Bacchus a stillborn) but the first born alive. He was not born a prince as his cousin, nor even Fenrir his adopted brother, but became one later. He was, instead, the first killer; The Bloody Baron was the first to murder in cold blood. She had been his aunt, Silver Sister to The Golden Queen and his father. She had stayed him from feasting on her kill, the bear cub, and now she smiles at her pretty - long due - vengeance.

The world is wild, but the cousins defy their age and their long leave from war to bring the bear to it’s metaphorical knees. Neirin’s grip had wrenched back the bear’s head long enough for Ifrit’s bite before it used the strength as it teetered backwards over the other side of the dens and crushed the gold wolf with a sickening, almost wet, snap and crack of bone while seizing the red one in it’s maw.

It is clawing, it is grinding teeth, suffocating neirin’s screaming yelp beneath it’s mass and roaring around it’s opened throat and the skull in it’s mouth.

And then, suddenly the four of the brotherhood and their women find the oath of the asteraian pack held true as haziel lunges into the savaging of the bears armpit and spares the ribboning of ifrit’s body beneath mutilating claws. the bear roars, deafening the red wolf, the blood seeping around his head blending into him so well that it almost did not seem like the beast had done much more than gum about on it.

the bear is teetering with the forceful push of the large haziel, when vincent too - unknown to anyone but the gold brother and the brown with the black - arrives to take his due from the assailing beast. it is fierce, the sound, as fenrir watches the lead warrior of the pack rip into the gut through the fur and fat in near to only moments - another deafening roar making ifrit scream from around his mouthful of meat and esophagus.

the red brute tries to jerk back, to help haziels shove to roll the beast from off his brother, but it is still too hard… at least, until another arrives on the scene.

Small and yet still as savage as the sire who was bred into his bones (Bahamut will atest to the might of iblis despite his companionable nature), lucero joins them and with a swift dart, the red, black, and gold male chews and gnashes and snarls till the face of the bear is in ribbons, any freedom of his skull from the bear’s teeth leading to snapping teeth of his own higher up until the bear’s maw had captured the top of his head again.

Then they are joined by seamus’s mate and the steward herself, alice’s presence raising seamus’s heartrate to hammering as Delya asked what she might do-- only he cannot hear, he cannot see past the pain any further than the golden tail stuck out at an awful angle from beneath the great brown mass of bearflesh and the body of his mate and imprint flickering into and out of his sightline.

As Lucero and Ifrit do their damage, it is then that there is a sudden and true shove in the proper direction. It is when Reich arrives that the tables do truly turn and there is a victory in hand. Bowels spilled, flesh torn near clean from underarm to back from haziel’s surgeoning, gore spilling over the breasts of vincent and alice and even soon reich himself…

everlyse pulls ifrit back, just as lucero draws the mouth of the bear free of ifrit’s head. the bear roars as ifrit takes the innards of his throat with him, and the bear is - at long last - pushed free from the suffocation of the golden wolf. neirin snarls savagely in pain and fury, his teeth remaining stubbornly fastened to the back of the bears great neck and shoulder as he follows the body’s movement that then laid the bear on it’s opened belly.

the smell of the bowels and gore are not so devastating - for these were wolves and they hunted great beasts often - but the sight that accompanied it was.

Neirin lay across the back of the beast, forelegs swinging limply, hind end flopped in a nauseating way on the other side, as the golden maw parted and he wheezed out his panting breaths.

as his sight grows dim, the powerful blue holding onto the color with his last strength, he looks out across the bare expanse where a golden form, shadowed by red and gray, appears. A soft whine, his mouth parched and his strength well-faded, he is all but stilled in the peaceful comfort of seeing her face. Of seeing her one last time. Of knowing that she was safe (of course she was, she had never needed him for that) and well… only as he lowers his head at last, as he drops his gaze over the shoulder of his brother’s kill, he hangs nose to nose with a golden child with eyes the split colors of aquamarine and cerulean blue that left no question.

and then even the vibrancy of his blue eyes is lost.

The first of so many things, and still he had to be the first of the four to pass to oblivion.

he is not long to wait, however. he is not long as his red brother - blood of his blood and his cousin, despite all the misery the blood baron wrought in his life - lays in the embrace of his mate, of the woman he had stolen successfully from her own soul. he lays in the basking glory of his victory as shock and adrenaline stole the pain of his body… and diminished the green brilliance of his eyes without so much as diminishing one drop of his prideful, savage mind.

they all thought i was too old, but look what ‘old’ can do. he says, spewing his words from around fur and tongue cleaned white fangs. he takes her leg in his maw, mouthing with a deep, gurgling chuckle, they thought your reich would be better, but i won. i had you, and we have that army. he says as ragged breaths surge into coughs and his tongue seems redder as he says at last, you should eat it, it’s the biggest feast i’ve ever brought, little wolf--

but the green has dimmed, the pupils growing like a black hole in an emerald space.

and the first murderer, the first born of Solevion, passes with the name of his dearest and most coveted possession on his lips.