Superstar Renegades (Open)

In the early hours of the morning, a figure stumbled out of the night club. Clothes dishevelled, it was apparent to be Darius. He walked unsteadily, aimlessly. His spiked hair was messy, as if it’d been kneaded through many, many times with many fingers. Shaking his head, he leaned against the side door of a parked taxi. It was loud, noisy. The sound of tyres rumbling over concrete sounded like elephants thundering down the street. Laughter sounded like it was being sent through a megaphone, magnified at a thousand times. He could even hear his own heart thudding against his chest. And he could smell everything. The stench of alcohol, perfume and cologne, sweat even from gyrating bodies. He was thousands of years old but at times he still had some slight trouble when it came mating season to quell his primal instincts. All he could see were veins pulsing underneath and flesh and muscle, tissue and tender meat. When a woman’s skin brushed against his, he wanted to take her then and there. To press her against the wall, feel her shudder beneath him and devour her. Then the music had started, which had felt like someone had jammed a pair of speakers into his ears and turned it up to full blast. He could hear everything. Each drum beats, the trembles and vibratos and timbres in the voice and the synchronizers and digitized mechanisations pulsing through his body until the world started to blur at the edges. All in all, he felt unhinged. Then he felt a tug from behind and shoved him, sending him tumbling towards the wall. Darius reached out holding the wall with a palm and caught his balance, whirling around in time to knock away a punch that came towards him from the guy who’d thrown it. He was drunk, wild-eyed and swaying on his feet. “You want to play tough guy huh?!” The guy sneered. He threw a punch at his face. Darius blocked, with his right arm gripping the inside of his elbow and kicked the inside of his leg to make him fall with a brutal swing. The crunch of bone whipped the air. The guy screamed as his knee shattered at the joint that connected his lower leg. As he crumpled to the floor, Darius still holding onto his arm the warrior put a knee onto his torso in between his shoulders. He rested the rest of his weight on the socket and yanked viciously straining the arm at the shoulder making the guy cry out. He grinned down at him savagely, “Y’know…I’m hungry. You look like you’d make a good meal.” Darius shoved him away, just as he let out a frightened yell and spun, trying to punch him again. Darius side-stepped it, pushing his back and sending him crashing face-first into the wall. He turned, counting the creased notes he’d spied in the guy’s back pocket and nicked in the process.

He said, “But I’ll just take this instead since you gave me some fun.” Without looking he walked away, swaying slightly. He knocked over a trash-can, spraying garbage everywhere. Then into a nearby alleyway. As soon as he entered his expression cleared. He straightened, brushing the rubbish off his clothes and chuckled to himself, smirking. Slipping the crumpled notes into his jeans and leaned back against the brick wall for balance and slid down into a messy sit, legs sprawled out in front of him. Truth be told, Darius was a little drunk but he was experienced enough to exercise restraint and still sober enough not to draw that much attention to himself. The guy was just a human with human bones. Easily breakable. Darius stared up at the skies, fierce gold trickling into his brown irises. It was hard to resist changing at this time. But he wasn’t normal anyway. And his life had been anything but, even for a werewolf. Though he had served society on two separate occasions in the form of servitude to the ruling party, the vast majority of his life had consisted of deeds and acts that ranged from theft, murder and arson to reckless rebellion, an impersonation of royalty and willingly, knowingly participating in affairs. He was an outlaw, a rebel. He would never be able to bend to society’s rules because he wasn’t wired to do so. He was a renegade of the highest order and always would be.