The other teams began dispersing across the field, too, some looking up questioningly at the Council, unsure if they were supposed to wait or not, but the Council was busy talking to one another and not paying the field much attention. The circle of tables started to fill up. The onlookers in the stands squealed, excited fans trying to catch the attention of their favorite heroes.
“Here we go!” called Oscar, appearing from the crowd in the corridor. His free hand was carrying a tray loaded with food and drinks waiter-style over his head. “Two-tone cotton candy for the lady, popcorn for my man, please help yourselves to some garlic fries or choco-crunchies, but do not touch my smoothie or I won’t hesitate to kill you and everyone you’ve ever loved.”
Ruby snagged the bag of cotton candy from the top of the pile. “Oscar, can I have a sip of your smoothie?”
Oscar fixed a cold look on her for three, four seconds, then wilted. “Yeah, all right.”
Jigging in place, Ruby took the smoothie from the tray. Oscar’s eyes followed the straw into her mouth, his Adam’s apple bobbing.
Adrian rolled his eyes, sneaking a handful of popcorn.
On the Council’s platform, Blacklight approached the microphone and held his arms open to the crowd. “Welcome to the fourth annual Renegade trials!”
The crowd cheered. The stands were full of fluttering signs, screaming fans, stomping feet.
Adrian suspected this had not been the intention when the Renegades had first risen up all those years ago. Back then, anyone who was willing to stand up and fight against the villain gangs was a hero. You didn’t need a special pin or a title to do it. You didn’t need anyone’s approval.
Now, they weren’t so much vigilantes as celebrities. Celebrities who had an important job to do, but celebrities nonetheless. And they were becoming so political, influenced not by the needs of the people, but by what would garner the most public support. What would make them more interesting.
He knew the Council was only trying to hold the city together, still trying to solidify their tenuous control. He knew it hadn’t been easy for them. They had all been in their twenties when they defeated Ace Anarchy—except Blacklight, who had been barely nineteen at the time. They had been heroes and crime fighters for years, but none of them had planned on becoming leaders and lawmakers.
They had done their best. They had built a new city on the bones of an old one, working tirelessly to heal the wounds the villain gangs had left on their society. Order and justice had come first—some sort of legal system, with the Renegades themselves both the creators and defenders of the new order. But that had been only the beginning.
The people told them they needed food, so the Renegades cleared away entire city blocks of rubble and debris to make room for community gardens and agriculture.
The people needed shelter, so they repaired countless abandoned buildings to make them habitable and safe.
The people needed education for their children, so they allocated funding for teachers and supplies and selected community centers where regular classes could take place.
The people needed security and representation, so they set up the Renegade call center and weekly appointments with the Council for citizens who wished to share their grievances.
The people needed livelihoods, so the Council fought to bring manufacturing and construction work into the city, establishing new trade deals with countries that had been cut off for decades.
When there was no funding to keep society moving forward, the Council exchanged the one resource they did have—superheroes and superpowers. In some ways, Renegades had become a commodity, one of the most valuable commodities the world over. Though prodigies came from all over the world to be trained and indoctrinated in Gatlon City, once they were a part of the ever-growing syndicate, they might be sent overseas to assist with hurricanes and floods, fight wars, vanquish crime rings, or help with extracting natural resources from the earth. Foreign governments, many of which had suffered themselves from the rise of villains and Anarchist copycat gangs, were willing to pay handsomely for the Renegades’ services, and that wealth had trickled back into the city, just enough to keep them moving forward.
The relationships had come with a side benefit too. In a short time, the Renegades had become a multinational corporation, with embassies scattered across the globe. The result was that more and more young prodigies aspired to become one of the world’s greatest heroes and would make the pilgrimage to the annual trials in hopes of being accepted into their fold.
So the Renegades grew stronger, and so did the city, and so did the Council. They had accomplished much in a decade. They had much to be proud of.
And yet, with all this fanfare, all the hoopla and ceremony, Adrian couldn’t help feeling like they’d lost sight of the entire point. They were forgetting what they were.
Not celebrities. Not politicians.
Heroes.
“Would all patrol units please come onto the field,” said Blacklight.
The teams who had opted to stay in the corridor filed forward. Adrian found their table almost directly across from the gate where prodigy contestants would enter the field. He sat in the middle, with Ruby and Oscar on either side of him. Oscar scattered his array of snacks before them, and if he or Ruby cared that they were the only team snacking on fries and candy, they didn’t show it.
Ruby grabbed the small tablet that sat on the table and began reading through the instructions on how to accept or reject a contestant, and the important responsibility each team carried to make choices that would strengthen the Renegades as a whole.