[ The Master and the Apprentice...]

Since Omen was introduced to Skeys and him in the Joe trolls, it's been mentioned more then a few times that Omen is Malice's dumb sidekick... it would appear that way but it is not true...
Omen is the one who taught Mal much of the things he needed to know to live so long and stay King...

When Soledormir was sealed away Mal was left to run wild but he wasn't the only one who was left with more freedom...

with Sol in prison Killy wasn't able to have as much privilege over controlling Omen, Judas could do more things without Killy taking over the steering wheel as much and if he did, Killy would get tried faster without feeding on his fathers power

Judas used this new flexibility to train Mal, it wasn't easy, Mal was young and wild, Judas had to beat Mal in a way that it not only displayed his power but his Intellect, he had to do this however to were Mal didn't threatened that Omen would take Mal throne...

Judas knew the /balance/ the Nightmare king was made for with his kind, It wasn't easy and took a lot of games of 'Hide the body' we're Omen would rip Mal out of his frame to teach him lesson, in more then one way, Light Eater start off really stupid but they can learn incredibly fast if their not stubbron...

Over the centuries Omen showed Mal ways to stay a live by using his assassin and coverness skills, Judas taught Mal how to hide in plain sight.

Nightmare copied the memories of their former selves so they have an idea of what people do but they don't always understand why people do certain things, Just to name a few, kindness, sincerity, flirting, courage, they all are unnatural for a Nightmare but some Nightmares as they get older they learn to fake some of these things

Been the first Nightmare and how he came into existence, Mal has both an advantage and a disadvantage compared to other Nightmares...Mal was made to be the Nightmare king, it was written in his contract but when he obtain his current frame, Mal was immature, in a Light Eater age he was only in his adolescence, unlike other Light Eater when they took over their Dreamer bodys and they become a Nightmare,the Light Eater is an adult, however Mal was not

Mal in the beginning like I said before was wild and reckless, aka he was stupid...Much like Catty but like Catty, Mal had enough awarenss and intelligence to learn but he needed help and that we're Omen come in, Mal not the type to ask for help nor did he understand he needed it but Omen had a /promise/ to keep...

After beating Maluce, Omen stared to teach him skills to stay alive, he taught Mal how to fight better, in using not only his brute force but use his head, but most of all how to survive...

Judas was trained by Alora who specialize in psychology and covert operations, Judas took those skills he leaned and try to teach Mal the same thing... The difference was, Judas is a person who was broken and made to act like a robot, Alora work to bring out his dormant personality out as Malice is pretty much a robot, he a living curse, Light Eaters only take about half of a Dreamer emotions, the negative ones, hate, anger, bitterness,spite, fear, etc...
they don't feel the positive emotions so they don't understand them

so Omen had to figure out and train Malice to fake emotions the Nightmare could't experience nor truly understand

(One examples of emotion Mal had to learn to fake was 'Blushing' it was very hard to fake because been embarrassment like flattery is foreign to Nightmares, its an emotion they can not experience and can't just simply act the body language of being embarrassed, there more to it, when a person gets embarrassed their /cheeks flush/ with color with their emotions, so if you can't experienced that emotion your not going to blush...a Nightmare has to learn a way around this, anger and frustation has a flush look, so a Nightmare has to train themselves to either control the temperature of different parts of their frame or control themseves enough to be frustrated on the inside to look flush but fake the outward appearance of being embarrassed...

it take a lot of know how and control to pull this off, its why some Nightmare struggle with mastering disguises, especially young Nightmares and the impatient ones)

Back to Mal!

with Omen traing Malice, Mal learn to observe others, to pay attention to how they act, how they talk, how they interact with one another, even though a lot of things Mal didn't understand, but he learned that if he didn't mimic certain characteristics that people do he would stand out in society and that wasn't a good thing for survival...

back in the old days of Nightmare running rampid and killing each other for more power, the Nightmare numbers droped and then groups of whole chests were coming together to hunt and push backthe dark creatures.

Judas knew Mal had to learn to blend in or he would be killed if the young Nightmare king continued his wild behavior

It took time but Mal did learn to be deceptive and the older he got the better he was. there was plentey of trial and error in learning but Omen alway had his back and got Mal out of trouble...sometime the same trouble Omen got Mal in the first place.

there came a point where Mal could mingle with society and not draw unwanted attenion to himself and Omen was there ever step of the way to help guide and look after Mal

[The wolf in sheep's clothing...]

Mal got to the point in his lessons were Omen introduced him to alias, an identity he could use in the public that would not draw unwanted attention to himself, Mal needed this alter ego to do things that his Nightmare name could not, Mal had an particular idea for his alter ego, he and Omen would hunt monster, they later joined together with another group and together made the new Shadows hunters.

In their disguise Mal and Omen both were two of the founders that formed the Shadows hunters about 10,000 years before present day Skey.

Why Malice pick his alternate ego to be a shadowhunter was for a few reasons, one was a Group was going to form anyways and what better way to gain access to information and resources? By being a part of the shadow hunters Mal would get info on rival Nightmares and other creatures of interest, he now had a group who also hunted dark creatures like potential rivals and he could keep a close eye on the group who ultimately would hunt him as the Nightmare king...by secretly being part of the group Malice the Nightmare king always stayed one step ahead of the Shadows hunters and eventually became a legendary beast, the Nightmare king was known to be very elusive, but story of cities that were wiped off the map and over hearing or interrogating other Nightmares we're the only evidence that the Nightmare king truly exist in later times.

But that not the only reason why he picked that particular alternate occupation, back before Sol was sealed away Faolan and his brother had formed a group very much like the Shadows hunters to protect the land of dreams and the people so it was more natural with Faolan's memories to do something similar as a fake identity.

It's pretty common for a deceptive Nightmare to pick an alter ego that mirrors their former self.

Other examples: Shattered dream, his former self in the old days was part of the old Shadowhunters, but joining the current Shadowhunters would be impossible so for his alter ego he usually pick guards, bounty hunters or mercenary.

Another example is Tainted dream, the most deceptive Nightmare of all, other Nightmare don't even know her alter ego because she so good at it, but she poses as a nurse, but that because her former self worked in the medical field...

Why Nightmares do this is for a few reasons, the memories of their former self is really what they have to go on, so mirroring certain things is more natural and easy, the other is by doing this things that their former self did but twisting it in a way the Nightmare is mocking their former selves.

Going back to Mal, The other is Shoji told Mal to join... At this time Shoji was a trader to her father Soledormir, she would have had Mal follow her but unfortunately Mal is a forsaken Lord so he bond to his master instead of his mother but Shoji still has some influence over her son and if she play it right she can still pull on Mal strings and get him to do things she wants. In Shoji mind with ever minion of Soledormir killed, the chaos king's horses is that much closer to being weaken ( when I do the full vampiric Nethersglade lore more of Nightmares instincts will make since ) but in her mind one less drone of her father's was one less to stand in the way of the key Hunters, but she had to be careful in using her son, she couldn't just have Mal be fully rebellious or Sol would just kill him so Shoji written in Mal contract that Nightmares are territorial

Over the centuries Malice used many different Alias and here a few of them

Beowulf, Ethelwulf, Gundulf, Lovett, Randulph, Ranndy, Sirhan, Zeev, lobo, Kona, Wolf

Mal has a pattern for his Alias names, they all mean or revolve around Wolf, his most recently alias is Urufu (which means wolf in Japanese) but wolf one of the only things these names have in common.

For each alias Mal attempted to play a different character so that it was more difficult to connect them as the same individual.

[pick the right genres of music for the occasion]

The best way to describe a Nightmare with their alter ego is like this.

Picture the Nightmare like a CD player and their 'alias' are different CD, depending on the age of the Nightmare and how well they have developed their deceptive skills they will have a larger variety of CD to pick from.

The CDs are personality the Nightmare will attempt to mimic, they usually select one for each alter ego and there are used for many different things, depending on who they're trying to impress or intimidation.

[Unfortunately I'm not able to use Mal in Skey as a good example because I never used his full deception, only a smidget ( if I can even call it that) and now in Skey he didn't even try to use his alias because why? The key Hunters know who he really is, so he doesn't have to pretend to be something he's not, its also why you don't see him use his griffin form that much now, because he feels there's no need to.]

In Skey there been a few times Mal has seemed to do things out of character but the question is was he really? Or was he trying to use a different CD to try and get a better result for the situation?

A Nightmare make these different CD/alternate identities from the memories of the former self mostly, but the thing is, the CDs aren't always about their former self, it's the people who interacted with their former self... Think of it like a movie The former self is the main character but the main character isn't the only character in the story, there are side characters background characters and so much more, the Nightmare has access to the memory of their former self and can watch it over and over again, some of this is done through 'echoes' but it isn't always the former self that they focus on.

Example, some of Mal alter identities are based off of other people Faolan interacted with, one such per person is Nicholas, his Noble bravery was idea to gain favor with a group who would become the Shadowhunters. Arthur Faolan uncle, has a bubbly charm that his charisma worked well with others. Judas at times has a very professional demeanor and will see a job get done, these are only just a few who inspired some of Mal CD/alter identities, but seen Mal dose not have those individuals memories and it's only from observing, he can put his own twist to them to make those alter identities at least tolerable for himself.

Sometime these alter personality work good or may end up being really bad for the situation or once you know that Nightmare personality it just seems strange. One of these times was when Mal and Alex were planning as Griffins, Mal paused and had to flip through his CD case trying to find what would work best for that situation, what he picked was Serenity's CD, he had to blow the dust off and think back on how Serenity acted in a similar situation and their you go... You got Mal making baby talk on how cute Alex was, a goofy and very strange picture, because it didn't fit the character everyone see Mal as, he also not good at that because it's a CD he doesn't use that often.

This is just one of the many reasons why an intelligent Nightmares have memories of their former self, its for them to look at the fake personalities so that way they can blend in medical society and if they did not have their former self memories they would be no different than a mindless husk.

Nightmare also make alter identities or remixes of them by observing individuals in their lives, an example of this would be Mal, he has been building a CD on Boreas, they are coworkers in the shadow hunting field and as they work together Mal has been observing him... Learning how he deals with certain situations and most importantly how other people interact with Boreas, Boreas is a captain a well-respected roll within most communities, it's not just a person skill in combat that makes them reach this title but their personality, therefore in a deceptive Nightmare mind by mimicking this individual they could get the same results or at least favorable ones, but this is a work in progress and Mal would not use this CD/alter identity until Boreas is dead.

But Boreas isn't the only person Mal has been observing and learning from, other co-workers from the Shadows hunters and even the candidates themselves, picking out personality qualities that get the best results for situations

 
By the combination of all this an intelligent Nightmare can become extremely elusive, and is why the majority of higher rank Nightmares are harder to catch.

Especially calm and collective Nightmares like Shattered Dream who very particular in how he hunts and Tainted dream who is practically a ghost and a whisper in legends.
Even Dreamwaker know when to keep her cool, higher ranks know a reckless Nightmare is a dead Nightmare.

Higher rank Nightmares generally don't attack each other on sight, like younger low level Nightmare.

Higher rank know the risks of picking a fights, and survival is one of a light Eater strongest instant, a higher rank Nightmare will generally do their research on their opponent, do they have a pack? How strong is it? What the durability of their den? Do they use traps? What is my opponents fighting style? Are they a pyro or Frost? Are they a summoner, multi shifter, Elemental or balance? Would a straightforward challenge be best or sabotage? If I win what's the outcome for me? After the I win will I be able to make it back to my den or will I be to weak and be easily pick off by other Nightmares? Will I have the strength to keep my pack in line or will they finish me off?

These are just some of the questions a higher rank Nightmare should ask themselves before challenging a creature they believe to be on equal levels or higher than themselves, survival is one of their strongest instincts and a Nightmare doesn't live long enough to make it to the higher ranks by being stupid

However Mal had many things to have give him an advantage over other Nightmare, being the Nightmare king Mal has abilities no other Nightmare has and then there Omen

(There was a lot more but Lee feeling lost it and I don't feel like rewriting it so it be in some other post)

.

( This was lore that was supposed to be posted for Mal bday a week ago but obviously I didn't have it done in time, there is also bonus lore on a couple of Mal alter identities do go along with this lore post but they will be on separate pictures)

That all!

But my cell lost it*