But Oscar and Ruby had both been challenged, which meant that while one team had seen their potential, other teams had questioned if they deserved a place among the Renegades. They’d each had to prove themselves in one-on-one combat against a member of a challenging team.
Oscar could have wowed the audience with an entire flock of smoke dragons and an army of vapor knights to destroy them, and someone still would have questioned if a kid with a bone disease that kept him tethered to a cane could possibly become a hero in Gatlon City. But he had surprised everyone by taking out Steamroller, a prodigy known for mowing down anyone and anything in his path. Oscar had cast a thick fog over the field, blinding Steamroller, then tricked him into chasing after him until he was only a couple of feet inside the ring. Finally, he had barraged him with a series of darts made of thick black smoke. Steamroller had choked and gagged and stumbled out of the ring—and Smokescreen joined the Renegades.
Ruby, too, had been underestimated. Though she’d been practicing martial arts for years before then, her actual ability—that when she bled, her blood crystallized into ruby-like gems—was seen as belonging more on the black market than in a life of law enforcement. She’d faced off against Guillotine, who thought she’d been handed an easy victory when she slashed open Ruby’s forearm during her first attack. Less than a minute later, though, Ruby responded in force, her arm and hand suddenly covered in red stalagmites as sharp as daggers. Guillotine suffered more than a few wounds of her own before conceding the battle.
“I’m going up for some food,” said Oscar. “What do you guys want? Pretzels? Hot dog?”
“Cotton candy,” said Ruby. “The one with both the blue and the pink mixed together.”
“On it. Sketch?”
“I’m good,” said Adrian.
“I’ll bring you some popcorn. Don’t let anything exciting happen without me.” He winked and retreated into the corridor.
“No promises,” Ruby sang after him. Then her eyes brightened as she pointed up to the stands. “Oh, look! Someone made you a sign!”
Startled, Adrian followed her gesture and spotted a woman holding up a handmade sign that read EVERHART = MY HERO 4-EVER!
“I’m pretty sure that’s referring to my dad.”
Ruby deflated. “You don’t know that.” She cocked her head to the side, as if seeing the sign from a different angle might change it. “Yeah, you’re probably right. But we can pretend someone made you a sign?”
“I’m really okay with it,” said Adrian, frowning at the crowd. He couldn’t wait for this to be over. He wasn’t nervous, exactly. More … embarrassed, in a way. To be participating in a tradition he wasn’t sure he approved of.
They were supposed to encourage every prodigy … no, every human to be as heroic as possible. How was publicly rejecting anyone going to further that goal?
Besides, it wasn’t just the contestants who were being judged today, it was the Renegades too. The public wanted to see the prodigy crusaders who were charged with protecting their city, with protecting them. They wanted to know they were in good hands.
And, okay, they also wanted an afternoon of free entertainment.
It all felt like an absurd way to handle their recruitment. Didn’t anyone have better things to be doing?
“How’s Danna?” Adrian asked, his eyes catching on another homemade sign in the bleachers that read, YOU LIGHT ME UP, BLACKLIGHT!!!
“Sad she can’t be here,” said Ruby. “She hates being cooped up.”
“So would I,” said Adrian.
Ruby suddenly tensed beside him. Adrian followed her glower. Genissa Clark, aka Frostbite, was making her way down the tunnel, surrounded by the rest of her team. They didn’t cast Adrian or Ruby a single glance as they headed onto the field, even though the teams were supposed to wait to be announced before heading to their tables.
“I hope our table is far away from hers,” Ruby muttered, crossing her arms.
Adrian’s lip twitched, remembering now that Genissa was the one who had challenged Ruby’s acceptance into the Renegades two years ago. He could understand her resentment.
Not that he cared much for Genissa or any of her teammates. He hadn’t before, and seeing how they behaved toward the Anarchists hadn’t sparked any great affection, either. Not that he held much sympathy for the Anarchists, but for Frostbite and the others to act like such power-drunk bullies was unacceptable under the code that Renegades were sworn to live by. Plus, seeing those destroyed beehives, even if they did belong to an enemy, had made Adrian’s nose curl in disgust.
The villains’ poor life choices weren’t exactly the bees’ fault, after all.
Even though he hadn’t learned anything about Nightmare or found any evidence he could use to incriminate the rest of the Anarchists, he was glad he’d decided to go into the tunnels that night. Word had quickly spread throughout headquarters that the Sentinel had made a reappearance, claiming to have been sent by the Council themselves. When the Council adamantly refused the claim, and it became clear that the Sentinel had been lying, the humiliation heaped on Genissa and her team was almost palpable.
Adrian had tricked them into abandoning their mission. He had made them look like fools, and he couldn’t help but feel a tinge of smugness every time he thought of it.
The downside, however, was that the mystery of the Sentinel was growing daily. Who was he? Where did he come from? Could he actually be a secret project undertaken by research and development, or was he somehow involved with Nightmare or the Anarchists—an enemy meant to confuse them all?
What had started out as an investigation into Nightmare was quickly becoming an investigation into him, and that made him uneasy.