Moth Crew

   

   She was beaming with happiness as people on the street were giving her dubious or even repulsed looks. She always found it funny and made a habit to guess what each one of them found the most disturbing.

   Today her attire was especially eye-catching with her white eyes and full black makeup. A yellow rugged short skirt that hung low on her hips, two black fanged chains that went up from it and stopped under her breast, splitting and surrounding them, then going around her neck a few times before falling on her chest like a necklace. All the fangs were the best money could buy on the digi market, not one fang was extracted without an armed to the teeth full team of hunters.

   Her upper body was naked with only small black skulls covering her nipples The legs in thigh long yellow socks paired with knee covers made from her diamond-teeth fish jaws after they died. Everyone feared them as they could chew most metals as easily as soft fatty flesh. Alara loved to keep them as pets and now their most precious remains sparkled at each step as bright as the jewels on the rich ladies passing by her, just that it didn't attract the same reaction.

   "All fools," she thought as she made her way towards the downtown plaza, the place to go if you wanted to showcase yourself and make everyone jealous with your wealth and style.

   Besides her eccentric ugly ways, father's words, she loved to decorate her body with special tattoos and trinkets. She started when she was still in her early primary learning stage and her father, after almost a year of nagging, gave up changing her mind and made a compromise. A full year of perfect scores in exchange for a small tattoo and a piercing, saying," if you want to make yourself ugly at least be the smartest one out there." She always thought that was a bargain as learning was easy.

   She also had something to show off today. It was 3 years ago, shortly after her 15th birthday restaurant meal, that she spotted that amazing lady, clothed in a crimson lace gown that left little to imagination, her presence imposing attention and even dread. But it was her nude, thin back that caught Alara's attention the most. The tattoo filling all of it was the most beautiful thing she has ever seen. The black details framed a white, bloody creature and its prey. Since then, all her perfect scores were added to pay for it, an expensive price imposed by her father.

   For the past month, she contacted almost all tattoo shops in the city, asking if they knew about it. The tattoo was very clear in her head but could not find a trace of it on digi. It was strange that some didn't reply and others even cursed her, not giving a clear reason for their attitude.

   Even odder was when she finally found an artist that knew it. He felt reluctant to make it, asking her if she was sure, telling her she was still young and can still change her ways, and so on, and so forth. She should have known then, that something fishy was going on, but her happiness at finally getting it done blinded her like a veil.

   Her wide black grin didn't show how bad her naked tattooed back hurt as she slowly made her way toward the grand plaza. The white-tailed being with milky eyes, black smudge around them, and long bloody claws, was reaching toward a delicate butterfly. Its crouched position ready to attack showed most of its back and the long, feline tail going up towards Alara's shoulders. The tattered cape flying over it covered most of her upper back, like some unique kind of broken wings.

   From time to time, as people passed her, loud yelps and shrieks could be heard and she knew her prized decoration was the cause. Alara was not the type of girl to crave attention but this time she needed to share the reason for her happiness.

   Entering the plaza, she looked at the high-end stores surrounding it. Street stands, selling all the craved merchandise this galaxy sector could offer, were gathering people around them leaving a maze of small clearings to navigate. Torak planet was the biggest economic node in the region and Tager city was its capital. A city where all the rich wanted to live, and all traders came for business to fill their digi wallets with credits.