We are all sworn to loyalty to our family by the virtue of sharing blood, and there is yet to be a bond stronger than that of siblings.
But, though this bond is nigh unbreakable, it is just as difficult to uphold, especially when the oldest sibling, the one who, by being the first to be born, must be the custodian of the family, must instead depend on them to take custody of him.
Not to protect him from the world, but the opposite.
For the three centuries that the four of us brothers have walked the earth ever since we became what we are now, we have each done our fair share of damage to the world.
But none of us compare to our eldest brother, Nikolas.
The Destroyer.
The one whose presence spells death wherever he roams.
The rest of us have tried to restrain him, but it never once worked.
Until the day it did.
It was a hundred years ago.
....
August, 1923
Town of Caldera
The First World War had ended half a decade back, and the city had just begun to recover.
The skies were perpetually clouded by the smoke from the industrial factories, disease was rampant, poverty uncommon, but the people who called Caldera their home went about the restoration of the city with joy and fervor.
Of course, with all these problems came death by scores, and underneath the layers of joy was the fear that any day could be their last.
And not all these deaths could be attributed to the state of the city, for there were other horrors that called Caldera home as well.
In an alleyway, a figure casually dropped another to the ground, and released a sigh of contentment, wiping its hands on the other's clothing.
Another person, a man, suddenly entered the alley and froze in alarm before wearing a look of scarcely masked annoyance.
"For how long are you going to continue with this madness, brother? She is the twelfth one today!" Lucas Asgeirsson asked the figure in the darkness, who turned to look at him.
"Oh! Brother! Good evening! Care to join me for dessert? I am hardly satiated myself, and from the look on your face, I'd suppose you're feeling a bit peckish."
Nikolas Asgeirsson flashed his brother a charming smile flawed only by the blood running down his chin.
Lucas looked at him sternly and said, "That will be enough for tonight, Nik. Come with me," gesturing for his older brother to follow.
Nik replied, "I don't think so, brother. You see, I can't help but feel like the lot of you don't particularly like your oldest brother and so, Lucas, I'm staying here."
With that, he bent down to the girl he had just drained, and muttered, "A few hours more, and it'll all be okay. She will feel very starved when she wakes, I did feed a bit too much," caressing her cheek.
Nikolas got up to see Lucas cross the distance between them in a blur and pin him to the wall.
"What have you done?" the younger brother hissed.
"I don't have anyone to talk to, so I decided to have a friend I can always be with for when you, Michael and Ariel inevitably decide to abandon me. I see nothing wrong," Nik replied with a smile.
That only served to rile his brother more, who in response pressed him harder into the wall, crushing Nik's chest with his arm.
" After two hundred years, have you lost your mind at last?" Lucas bridled as he asked.
"Do you not remember how we survive in this city? What do you think will happen to her if they find out?"
"I don't care about what they think about what I do, and if they so much as touch her I will slaughter them all," Nik replied, and Lucas noted that his brother's anger was rising.
But he needed to get Nik to reconsider.
"She will be killed, and we will be driven out of Caldera. And the responsibility and guilt of that will rest on your shoulders. Creating another one of us will ruin her, us, and you."
Suddenly, Lucas' hold on Nik shifted, and he felt his brother's hand on his neck before he slammed into the opposite wall, the roles reversed.
"You lecture me on each of my actions, not out of your familial attachment to me but out of fear of them. You ask me if I know how this city works? I was King! And not only of this city but of this entire country. And now, look at me. I was at the top of this nation and if you expect me to act any less, brother, then you don't know me at all."
With that, he let go, went to lift the dead girl up, and said, "If you have a problem with the way I do things, Lucas, then perhaps you should just leave me to my devices. They won't hurt you if you don't care."
The next moment, he was gone, a swoosh in the wind the only evidence he had really been there.
Lucas stood motionless for a while till his ears picked out the sound of people coming towards the alley, then he too vanished.
.....
That was my brother. Wilful, impulsive, never caring about anything but his own goals.
Our brothers loved him still, as did I, but unlike me, they had learned long ago that Nik had spiralled too far to be saved.
Neither of them blamed him.
Over the two centuries we had lived here, we had all been Kings of Argent.
Ariel had been the first, reigning forty-five years, and we had all sat on the throne till we could no longer, for we could not age.
But Nik, who out of love for us had chosen to let us rule before he did, never enjoyed the full duration of his planned fifty year reign, for the First World War happened in his eleventh year.
And the Supernaturals of the city decided to revolt in the midst of all the chaos.
Nik lost the Silver Palace and his throne, Argent becoming a Republic.
That damaged him, but not as much as when he was bound in magical chains and forced to watch as every vampire he had ever sired was burned to death.
We lost our daylight rings, left to roam only in the night.
Nikolas never forgave himself for what happened, and from the ashes of his kingdom, he was reborn a monster.
We failed to help him recover, and he refused to recover.
But if there was one thing he ever loved, it was Caldera, his city.
And we had a plan to bring our brother back.
So, I, Lucas Asgeirsson, betrayed our bond.
I have never stopped regretting it since.