"Safe in the womb
Of an everlasting night
You find the darkness can
Give the brightest light.
Safe in your place
Deep in the earth
That's when they'll know
What you were truly worth."
― "Fruit Tree," Nick Drake

A man dressed in jet black armor stepped into a cave. Inside was vast and well-lit, the walls glittering with the flames from numerous torches. People milled about within the cavern, sharpening weapons and drinking strong alcohol. The dark soldier stomped through the group to a side room separated by a bead curtain, leading to another smaller hollow within the cave system. There, two guards lowered weapons to block his entry.

"I'm expected," he told them coldly.

"Mallumo is in meditation," a guard warned.

From inside the room came a voice. "It's all right, brothers. Let him pass."

The guards instantly obeyed, and the soldier brushed aside the beaded curtain, marched through a rough stone tunnel, and entered a small chamber of pale limestone. The air was rank with the smell of candle wax, and the glittering walls had been blackened from the smoke drifting up from hundreds of tiny flames. Just before coming to a handwoven black rug, he stopped and pounded his fist to his chest in salute.

"Lord Mallumo."

In the center of the room was a man in his early forties with long, straight, dark-indigo hair down to his waist. He knelt by an altar with a gold-framed photograph of an old man. His black robes edged with silver trim spread around him in a circle of darkness.

"Show respect when you enter the shrine, Daegan."

Instantly, his armor flashed, vanished, and he wore a simple black tunic with a symbol of a silver outline of a mother all black embracing a dark purple baby. It was the guild mark of the Sons of Darkness, a dark guild of Eastern Fiore.

The man named Daegan dropped to one knee in honor before the shrine. "My sincere apologies for any rudeness, my lord."

"Please," the man named Mallumo sighed, "I have told you many times, I don't go by the lofty title my predecessor deemed to take. I follow in my father's humble footsteps. Call me brother, if you wish to call me anything."

"You are master of this guild," the dark soldier called Daegan protested.

Mallumo turned around and gazed at Daegan with narrow, jet black eyes. He had a lean, pale face, a long goatee with a few silver hairs streaking through the black-indigo color, and a scar ran over his cheekbone just under his eye. This was a stark contrast to the man in front of him, with his burgundy hair, mocha skin, and a flawlessness to his youthful face that proved no enemy had yet to hurt him, let alone defeat him.

"I do not deserve to be called master yet," Mallumo said sternly, "not until I have the head of the man who murdered my father."

"About that. We have news. A group from Fairy Tail have left Magnolia on a train heading in this direction. Natsu Dragneel was with them."

Mallumo's scarred cheek twitched at the name. "Natsu!" he hissed.

"There is more, my lord. With him is the man your father fought that day: Gray Fullbuster."

"Yes, I heard he survived. Not only that, but he miraculously healed from the wounds my father gave him. Now, he has nary a scratch to show for it, whereas I only managed to recognized my father's charred remains through this ring." He held up his fist to show an onyx ring on his finger. "Both wizards are coming?"

"Yes, my lord. With them are three other wizards and two of those talking cats."

"Prepare the guild. Muster those mercenaries we hired. The one who brings me a Fairies' head gets ten million Jewels apiece. I want them dead, and I don't care how. Do not take any of them lightly. They defeated our brothers, after all. However, leave Natsu Dragneel and Gray Fullbuster to me." He looked down at the ring. "I must finish what my father started. He nearly took off that ice wizard's leg. I will cut him down limb by limb, one at a time, before I finally take his head. There will be no miraculous recoveries for him this time. And I will make my father's murderer suffer in ways he never imagined possible until he pleads for death. Daegan, you will lead the troops against the redhead swordswoman I've heard about who is always with Natsu."

"Erza Scarlet, my lord. She was indeed seen with their group, as well as a blond celestial spirit wizard and the child Dragon Slayer."

"Very well. Let the mercenaries deal with the child. Our troops should be able to keep the blond at least busy. I trust no one but you to deal with the Scarlet woman."

Daegan smirked with building excitement. "I have long wanted to cross blades with Erza, see who has the quicker Requip ability."

Mallumo chuckled proudly. "When it comes to speed, none can beat you; however, her arsenal may be larger. Take five hundred thousand Jewels, buy anything you think may give you an edge in your fight against her."

"For eight hundred thousand, I could buy a certain dark magic armor that will guarantee her defeat."

"Granted. Round it to a million and splurge to your heart's delight. Money is not my concern. The hoard my predecessor accumulated did nothing to save him, nor could my father's wealth bring him back from the grave. So use the money, prepare the troops, and crush the Fairies who made our brothers and sisters suffer."

"Understood!" he said, pounding his chest again. As he stood, his black tunic flashed and changed into civilian clothes with a deep hooded cloak. "I shall inform the troops and return in three hours, my lord." Then he strode away in a hurry.

Mallumo sighed and shook his head. "I told you, don't call me lord. I'm not worthy of a title yet."

He turned back around to the altar and clasped his hands together.

"Father, I will avenge you before tomorrow's sun sets. Then, I hope your spirit may rest peacefully in the darkness. May my magic and the magic I inherited from you bring justice to your murderer."

After a few minutes of praying, he heard the distant beaded curtain swish, and a woman in all black entered the shrine. "Brother Mallumo, you asked to be informed the moment we found the traitor."

"Yes. Bring him to Execution Hill."

Mallumo rose with graceful movements and turned away from the candlelit shrine of his murdered father. As he passed through the cavern, other members of the Sons of Darkness bowed and blessed him. He wished they would stop that. Their old guild master had insisted on being practically worshiped, so many were used to thinking of their leader as a demigod. Little good it did him in the end! Mallumo had been raised in the guild. He had fought besides these people all of his life. His father had been one of the founding members, and he had lost many older brothers already.

He stepped outside, and a crowd followed behind him. A path led uphill, and high above the humble cavern where their guild now made its home, there was a hill which, since ancient times, had been used to execute criminals. The locals feared this entire place and the vengeful spirits believed to haunt it. That superstition made this area the perfect hiding place for a dark guild.

A man had been tied to an execution post and left to struggle against magic-sealing cuffs pinning his arms behind the pole. His face showed the terror he felt, and when he caught sight of Mallumo's black and silver robes, he struggled even fiercer against the restraints, willing to rip his hands off if it meant he could escape.

"Brother Ciar," Mallumo called out, and he walked up to the terrified man. His dark eyes glared down like a predator. "Why did you abandon us in our time of need?"

"P-please, Mallumo," the man sobbed. "Those Quatro Cerberus wizards were strong. I would have been killed."

"We defeated those wizards with no loss of life."

His head dropped. "You defeated them. The rest of us were fodder to their magic."

"The rest of you, as you put it, were meant to get the wizards into a specific location where I could have killed them both with ease. Because you fled, the two advanced, and I had to enter the battlefield personally in order to save the rest of my brothers. That is not ideal for someone with my sort of magic. My magic works best from the shadows."

The bound man shook his head. "I ... I would have died."

"I would not have allowed you to die. You might have been injured, but they are light wizards. They do not fight to kill."

"They killed your father," he screamed. Instantly, Ciar jolted back in terror. "I ... I'm sorry, Mallumo. I didn't mean—"

"No, Brother Ciar," he said softly. "No, you're right." Mallumo smiled at him and clasped him on the shoulder. "You are absolutely right. That Dragon Slayer killed my father. Up until now, even when we clashed with light guilds, the Sons of Darkness had nothing to fear. We could race into battle, knowing that at the very worst, we might be captured but never killed. There was a special sort of confidence that came from that one fact. That changed when we fought Fairy Tail. Most of our brothers and sisters were merely arrested, even the former guild master now sits in a prison. Only my father died that day. Over the past year, this guild has turned from a den of darkness into a cave of cowards, and it's all because of my father's death."

"N-no, Mallumo!"

"You," he shouted, "turned into a coward and a traitor, a brother whom I've fought beside for many years. After one death, you flee from battle, fearing for your life. This fear that now infects our guild will not end until the Dragon Slayer lies dead at my feet. Until that moment, I have no right to be called a guild master, and more and more of our brothers will fall to cowardliness, betraying one another in selfish mortal fear, instead of the valiant, resolute faith in one another that we once had." Mallumo cupped the man's face with both hands. "Brother Ciar, you will be the last Son of Darkness to fear death. I swear you that. I will right this grievous wrong. I will clear my father's honor and bring this guild back to the path of valor."

He gulped hard and struggled with a hopeful smile. "D-does that mean you'll let me go?"

After a silent moment, Mallumo removed his hands and turned around. "You betrayed us." He began to walk away.

"No! Mallumo, I never once betrayed—"

"You doubted my judgment, disobeyed the orders given to you, and left your brothers and sisters to be harmed by the enemy. You betrayed the trust I had in you to stand at the forefront of battle and be fearless even in the face of overwhelming power. It's an honored position, one not given to some unseasoned grunt. Perhaps that is how the magic council plans wars, but not us. Those at the front of the line are the most trusted, not the most disposable. You proved to be untrustworthy. That is what makes you ... disposable."

A few paces away, Mallumo turned back around and faced him.

"Do you know why my predecessor was called Lord?"

Ciar shivered as he struggled to rip his arms free from the restraints. "Mallumo, please!"

"When he gave an order, no one questioned it. No one flinched away. His word was law, a holy order given from on high. Our brothers and sisters trusted him."

"And now they're all rotting in the Magic Council prison! Can't you see, Mallumo? We woke up. We thought we were indestructible, that the Lord was godly and would never fall to any magic. We realized, that's just not true. Are you even planning to free the Lord, or have you forsaken him as well?"

"He proved himself too old to continue. I see this as forced retirement. The day I am captured, I hope my successor sees it the same way and leaves me to relax in a cell for the rest of my days, happy in knowing that I led the Sons of Darkness through the best years of my life, thus I can spend the twilight days finding peace within my heart. I hope you find peace in another lifetime, brother."

"It's madness!" screamed Ciar. He pulled so hard against the cuffs, blood poured from his wrists. "The rest of you," he called out desperately to the surrounding mob. "Don't you see? We could thrive for generations just how we were. The Lord made a mistake, he got caught ... it happens. When it does, we've always just hidden more in the darkness. Instead, in your lust for revenge, you called out Fairy Tail. You endangered all of us, Mallumo. They're just too powerful!"

"We've ... hidden?" Mallumo curled his lip at the man. "Is that what you think we did? We hid when times were harsh? Do you think that is what the Lord did, what my own father did through all these decades? Fight, then hide?"

He raised his hand, and a ball of blackness formed in his palm. It shot out like a massive bullet and pierced Ciar in the abdomen, blasting a hole all the way through him. He gasped, wide-eyed in the sudden pain, too shocked to even scream.

"Those are precisely the sorts of thoughts a coward and traitor would have."

Another black ball shot out, shooting Ciar in the thigh and making him almost fall in agony. This time, Ciar shrieked as a massive part of his leg was blasted away, leaving a bloody, gaping hole. Mallumo stared in cold anger, then he closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

"You were my brother, though. I don't wish to remember you like this. I will grant you one final mercy. You will feel no fear of death before the end. Only peace. Take comfort in it."

When he raised his hand again, a dark purple mist swirled around his fingers. Ciar saw it, and despite his pain, he looked even more horrified.

"No ... no, not that. Mallumo, stop this. I don't want to go like that. Just kill me!"

The dark power flew like a cloud from his fingers. Ciar howled in protest, tried to cringe away from it, but the cloud covered his face. He began to cough, but the darkness seeped in through his nose, mouth, and inside his eyes.

Mallumo watched impassively as his magic took effect in mere seconds. "A Dragon Slayer as my opponent: how unfortunate for him. I've heard they are a people of great passion who fight based on emotions, and their lungs easily ingest the magic of others, converting it and adding it to their own power. The instant my magic touches his skin and enters his lungs, those emotions that once powered him will be his downfall. I will make sure he howls in terror, so that my brothers never need to feel fear again. Ciar?"

The man looked up, his face calm and cold, no longer showing even pain despite the gaping hole in his stomach and blood pooling at his feet. His blue eyes now glinted with a blackish purple magic.

"Do you fear death?"

"I fear nothing, Brother Mallumo," he said in a flat monotone.

"Do you see now how you were a coward and endangered your brothers?"

"I see it clearly, Brother Mallumo."

He nodded to the wardens, and the magic sealing cuffs were removed.

"Do you wish to die by my hand, or by your own?"

The man stared out unflinchingly. "I dishonored myself and the Sons of Darkness. I won't put that burden on you, Brother Mallumo."

Mallumo reached his hand out, and another dark wizard handed him a long dagger. He walked forward and held the blade out to Ciar.

"Do the honorable thing, my brother, and rejoice in a better rebirth."

Ciar lifted the dagger with both hands and bellowed triumphantly, "Mother Darkness, embrace me!" His hands swung down, stabbing himself in the sternum with the blade angled up to pierce his heart. Blood seeped over his hands and poured out to the ground. "Thank you ... my brother ... and my lord." He dropped to his knees, shaking with pain but not crying out.

Mallumo placed his hand on the man's head. "Well done, my brother. Rest now, and be one with the darkness. Never fear it, for it embraces us all."

Ciar remained on his knees, convulsing as death crept over him, until at last his eyes rolled back and he collapsed to the ground.

Mallumo stepped away from the body. His sharp eyes peered around at the mob. "Do ye fear the darkness?"

They replied in eerie unison, "We fear it not, for we are its sons."

"What is darkness?"

Again as one, in a measured tempo, they answered, "It is the mother from whence we were born, and who embraces us upon death. It is the father who shelters us from blinding light, a refuge for our family. It is the brother fighting at our side, and the sister shielding our back."

"So I ask ye again: do ye fear the darkness?"

"We fear neither darkness nor death."

His arms spread out, as if he could embrace them all. "My brothers, remember that. Birth was a transition out of darkness; death is a transition back into that same darkness. There is no fear of birth, so why should there be a fear of death? We are the Sons of Darkness. I will not let you die, not yet, but if death comes to snatch you from my side, it's only our mother coming to bring us home. I don't know about you," he said with a smile, "but I'd rather be a rebellious son and stay out to play a little longer. So let us be in the light of this life as long as we can, but never—never—let us fear the darkness that will one day greet us."

"We fear neither darkness nor death," they repeated.

He nodded with satisfaction. "Let's return inside. A battle approaches. Perhaps you felt fear in your heart, like Brother Ciar did. Repent from that in the coming battle. Be without doubt in our victory. We will not die today nor tomorrow, my brothers. Fear not death! Fear not darkness!"

"We are the Sons of Darkness," the group intoned.

They returned to the cave, a massive group all dressed in dark colors. A few mercenaries who had wandered out with them to see what was going on now stood aside as the dark wizards walked past.

"They're mad," one young mercenary whispered.

His superior hushed him, watching carefully to make sure none of the wizards heard him. After they were gone, the younger one spoke again.

"They claim they don't fear death, yet they're going to battle Fairy Tail over some old guy getting torched? Wouldn't they not care that he died?"

"Fear isn't the same as anger," his superior warned. "Perhaps they honestly don't fear death—hell, I don't or I wouldn't be in this business—but they can still be pissed when someone they know gets offed in a horrible way. An angry man who doesn't fear death ... shit, I wouldn't want to face them. I'd rather take on a Ten Wizard Saint than face a grunt dark wizard who don't care about killing or being killed. So don't go sayin' shit about them. We got paid, so you just have to fight your best, or else that Mallumo guy will probably brainwash you into being just the same as that poor bastard." He nodded over to the body left out.

"By the way, what are they gonna do with him? Bury him?"

The superior shook his head. "I chatted with one of the wizards here. He said they don't bury their dead."

"Oh, cremation?"

"Nope. They leave them out right where they are ... to rot. It's a way to remind them that death is part of nature. This place is gonna reek to high heaven in a day or two. Luckily for us, by then we'll be gone."

"We're not sticking around? The wine is free and the whiskey is good."

"Hell no! I've never been so worried over a paying client as I am about that Mallumo guy."

The younger one looked up in surprise. "Is he really all that scary to you as well, captain?"

He narrowed his eyes at Mallumo's apparently benign smile as he stood by the cave entrance, accepting praise from those who entered. "I don't want him getting into my head like that. That's some scary magic, controlling how a person feels to the point where you strip away free will. I feel sorry for the wizard who offed his dad. If he can take away fear, he can instill it, probably manipulate any emotion at all."

The mercenary chuckled crudely. "That's a magic power I'd want. I'd make some rich old lady fall in love with me."

"Idiot. How do you think this guild has the funds to pay us, still has money left over for free alcohol and all of these high-quality weapons, plus that insanely high bonus? I'm betting that Mallumo has magically charmed every heiress from here to Crocus, made them adore him, at least enough to take their money."

"Then they weren't joking about ten million Jewels if we take a wizard's head? It sounded so crazy, I thought they were joking."

The older fighter coughed out a raspy, wry laugh. "I don't think these bastards even know how to joke."

"Damn!" he quietly exclaimed with a low whistle. "I'd probably never see ten million Jewels in my whole life even if I could fight until I'm wrinkled."

The mercenary captain shook his head with a scowl. "Like I said, a magic like that is a scary thing."

----

Notes:

I hope you like my villain. It took me a long time to fully visualize him and work out his abilities. Mallumo means Darkness, as do Daegan and Ciar. Also, as I've noted in other fanfics, I have an obsession with caves after a childhood trip to Carlsbad Caverns. Some places to see on my "travel bucket list" include Reed Flute Cave in China, Fingal Cave of Scotland, and the Glowworm Cave of Waitomo, New Zealand.

This is the Sons of Darkness guild symbol. It's on DeviantArt: http://fav.me/dahwjfp

I apologize for the hiatus. I PUBLISHED A NOVEL! It's available on paperback and Kindle ebook. I promise, it's safe for your parents to read as well. It's romantic, but not graphic. Even my father loved the story, and he's a picky reader.

Paperback on my estore (better royalties for me, wohoo!) - https://www.createspace.com/4917835
Paperback on Amazon (global distribution) - https://www.amazon.com/dp/1500615757
Kindle Ebook - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01KIL75Y4