Rezef now wore a black cloak. The hood could be drawn up during the time Nox chased whilst her Armour's spirit, Venia had found a home in the think woollen fabric. She had stolen the cloak from a dark guild she had come across, considering she did not have any jewels to trade. Once Venia had invaded her new home, a symbol had appeared on the back of the cloak; a 12. If you looked into it, it appeared very alike to the symbol of the Oracion Seis.

Rezef barely shed her cloak anymore, as she always used it to hide her identity. There is no need for any survivors to start a manhunt on her. Or woman-hunt for that matter. Nox was reaching her third black guild of the week, one that used to be under the orders of the Oracion Seis. She heard shouts and drunken laughter before she could even see the guild, and wrinkled her nose. Those parties made her sick. Men would often take women from the towns they ransacked to have some 'fun' with them, or simply enjoy a little torture. She often found herself with half clad sobbing women once her mission was finished and severely scarred men. She even once had to deal with mages who had been imprisoned and tortured.

She neared the 'Naked Mummies' by the back. Blending into the shadows with her cloak, she looked by a high up window. The room was filled with men who were drinking, partying and sharing the money of some ransom. A poor girl was attached in the middle of the guild to a chair as men surrounding her took appraising looks at her generous figure. Nox shook her head.

Aching for a good fight, she drew a blade from thin air and entered the guild through the front door.

.

There were no other words to describe what the blond girl saw. Slaughter.

The men had not stood a chance.

.

At first, she had thought the hooded person was another member of the guild, their chief even. She soon found out she was wrong when the sober half of the guild turned to the door and froze. The hooded mage lifter his sword and most of the mages present turned on their heels and ran for dear life. After a self-confident smirk, the hooded creature vanished from sight.

Blood spurted from her right as a man fell to the floor, his head severed. Another one was gutted.

He left none alive.

In less than five minutes, the 'Naked Mummies' were annihilated. Blood had marred the once white walls, and limbs were carelessly thrown onto the floor. A head rolled to her feet as silence took over the guild. The hooded mage then strode toward her. Her saviour's boots hardly made any noise on the floor, and the form bent behind her back. Soon enough, both her hands and feet were free. She stood shakily up, tearing the duck tape away from her lips. The person was already at the door. She limped to her freedom and as soon as she had passed the gateway, the building of the guild went up in ashes.

The rescuers from her village found the woman in the grass, seemingly suffering from posttraumatic shock as she stared at the embers of the fire that consumed what once was her prison. Blood was splattered on her face but she did not seem to be aware of it.

"_one person" she whispered. "All it took was one person"

Nox searched in her mind. Soon enough, a map of all the locations of her targets popped to the front of her thoughts. Smirking, she pushed it to the side again.

Seems like Hades, or should she say Precht, had left something for her to toy with nearby.

When Nox reached the village of Tenebris, she knew she had come to her destination. The pull of the darkness was very strong there. Too strong. Because of this, crops had died and people had turned violent. Animals had suffered from inexplicable illnesses and soon enough, water had turned black. Now a day, what was left of the village was a few ruined houses that seemed to exude a dark aura. She took a step inside the circle of the village.

She could sense the aura of five beasts. Demons. They did not dare attack her, for they knew who she was but as she neared the hiding place of the book, they unwillingly stood in front of her.

"_loyal to a fault, I see."

"_master Hades has us enslaved, we cannot not be loyal."

"_let me free you. Die." The force of the order struck down the beast that was in front of her like a fly. His knees gave way as his horned head fell against his torso. He fell face down into the dirt before vanishing into black smoke.

The other four followed.

Nox was rather weary of the village. She doubted Hades had merely put five demons to guide the book. Carefully stepping onto the main plaza, she neared the water fountain in the middle. The fountain's water came out of the earth black. Frowning, she dusted away the stone basin and was rewarded with small, carved runes appearing before her eyes. A curse.

Runes were one of her favourite type of magic. Partly because it was like a great enigma for her to solve and that the rules of spell casting using runes was very strict. The key had to be within the spell. Therefore, reading the runes, Nox's mind was racing for the answer. It could be a matter of letters that had to be rearranged, words that held different meanings or connotations that gave a clue. Of course, the runic sentence itself could be a riddle, in which case the form was straightforward but not the answer. She was faced with one of the hardest; a mixture of them all.

She had set camp near the water and had a small fire starting by the time her brain worked out the answer. She felt like an idiot. The answer was to drink from the spring! Of course, it made sense. As the water was tainted, no one would ever dare to which made it the best key ever. Grabbing the onyx bowl that had been placed on the edge of the fountain, she gathered enough water for a drink and swallowed it. The black water tasted like wine. Bitter and sweet at the same time. Hot and cold. She closed her eyes.

Hades had not been foolish with his hiding. He had done it as a master would. Taking the book in a parallel dimension he had created in his mind and sealing it through a water fountain was one of the most ingenious ways she had ever seen. The parallel world she was in was not very welcoming, with its threatening jungle and hot weather. Almost as soon as she had entered the place, she had gotten rid of her cloak and Rezef was now standing eyes closed in the middle of a small clearing. Setting into the forest, she trekked through the looming trees, letting her instinct lead her to the source of all the Darkness.

A book was lying on a stone table. There was no rune trap, no monster to guard it this time, which did not surprise Rezef. It must have token a lot out of Hades to create this. Grabbing the leather bound tome, she held it close to her chest and let her mind re-integer her body.

When she opened her eyes, the book was lying on her chest. The water had turned back to normal and her hood was up again. Nox could not sense the oppressing aura anymore as she looked around. Her gaze finally settled back onto to relic she held in her hands. Grabbing Vazeriel, her sword, she stabbed it one. Twice. Black light erupted from the book as a scream was heard. It burst ablaze from its own magic before exploding. The free magic in the air oscillated a little before it burst into a firework of colours and fell back to the earth. Grass sprouted from the dead ground, flowers blossomed as an old willow tree came out of the ground beside the fountain. Birds chirped not far off, and she saw a deer and its child at the edge of the forest. Turning around, she saw the magic unearth dead bodies from the ground and slowly bring them back to life.

All the life the black magic had drained was being given back.

Nox wasn't really sure when people had started calling that symbol on her back her guild mark, or even when people had named it, but she didn't really mind. The name suited her fine. Midnight Fear. She had popped into a boy's mind once to understand where the name had come from and was surprised to see that people had named her than because Midnight was the hour that proceeded the darkest hour of the night, which personalised well what the roles of dark guilds was; to prepare to world to chaos. They had chose Fear, because dark guilds had come to fear her. The idea, she had found, was silly but the words stuck and soon enough, she was known throughout all Fiore as the only member of Midnight Fear, the dark guild that takes down dark guilds.

It was a bit less than a year since Fairy Tail had slaughtered her family. A year she had spent training and gathering information on the guild, and now had come the time to strike. She had the perfect opportunity for it in the shape of the S-class exam. She had first heard of this ritual whilst in a bar. The two women behind her were talking about a certain Laxus being kicked out of Fairy Tail and that he was an S-class mage. What had really interested her was that the strongest mages of Fairy Tail were selected each year to fight to become an S-class mage and that the exam happened on the guild's island, quite far away from any land. Paying for her consummation, she left the bar to go back into the forest.

She expected at least the team that had been sent as part of the light Team to be in the exam.

.

Nox spent the following month preceding the exam training herself. She needed to regain the mobility she was used to when under her other forms and this exam was the best place to use one of them. Even if the fairies were stronger on their own islands, she didn't mind. If she didn't get them now, she would get them all later.

.

Finally, the day she had been waiting for arrived. She woke up in the morning, strangely calm. Her body felt relaxed and she had the aura of someone who is at peace with themselves. Closing her eyes, she felt the pure magic she was made of soaring through her veins, filling her every cell as wings appeared in her back. Taking off from the ground, Nox shot into the air like a bullet, flying above the skies to the sea and beyond.

From above the cloud, Nox could see the island of Tenrou. She could make out each person and laughed at seeing them fighting against one another. It seems that Grimier Heart and the Magic Council had had the same idea as her... she saw Hades' ship explode, as the Tenrou tree regained its footing. A spark of thought appeared in her mind. Had she not destroyed that book Hades had created, would he have died? She shook her head from side to side, as if to drive the question away. It did not matter. She would have killed Hades anyway.

Closing her eyes, Nox let her shape change. Where once stood a woman, now was a black dragon soaring through the skies.

Acnologia, Dragon of the Apocalypse.

The Fairy Sphere. That god damned spell had kept her trapped seven years in a blissful sleep. In hibernation. And all of that due to that First Master of Fairy Tail, Mavis Vermillion. She should have shot the woman long ago. She was currently having a staring contest with that pathetic excuse of a woman whilst the boat with her prays was sailing away.

"_Mavis..." she hissed through gritted teeth.

"_do I know you?"

"_oh, I bet you don't. But I know you. You and your pathetic little fairies."

"_oh. You don't seem to like us very much. Why?" fake tears poured from her eyes.

"_four of your fairies killed my family."

"_oh." The tears were gone, fake act forgotten. "I am sorry."

"_sorry won't fix it Mavis. Sorry won't even begin to mend it!"

"_hate and revenge won't either."

"_that's what you think. I warn you, Mavis; I give you a month. Hide, run away do whatever you want. But if after a month I find you and your fairies, I will not spare the one who hurt my nakama."

The hooded person turned on her heels. Without bothering with a goodbye or a wave, she strode toward the sea. Mavis watched her go, until she could not be seen anymore. Her back turned away from her as she walked on the water to the horizon.