Renegades

Ten years prior to the main events of the novel, a young Nova Artino collects syringes to build a makeshift elevator in her dollhouse, using principles of hydraulics. She hears her feverish sister, Evie, crying in a nearby room and wonders when her family will be able to get medicine from her Uncle Alec, who keeps them supplied with necessities as much as he can. She goes to help to her parents as Evie’s cries intensify, and they allow Nova to use her supernatural ability—touching someone and putting them to sleep—to calm Evie down.

Nova watches as her father uses his ability to craft metal strips out of energy. He makes a delicate piece but is not yet sure what it will be. She asks if the family will be okay, and he reassures her that the Renegades are trying to help everyone.

Nova falls asleep but wakes to the sound of voices in the hallway. She peeks outside and sees a man holding her parents at gunpoint. They beg for forgiveness, but the man explains that they betrayed “his” trust. As her father tries to get her mother to escape, the man shoots them both down. Nova hides in the closet, then realizes that she has abandoned Evie. She prays for the Renegades to come and rescue them, but then she hears another shot, followed by Evie’s silence. The man finds Nova and holds the gun to her head, but she sends him to sleep with one touch. She then grabs his gun and then stands there for an unknown amount of time, trying to convince herself to shoot him. Nova’s Uncle Alec eventually finds her and reassures her that he will take care of her. He tells her to call him Uncle Ace. He then shoots and kills the sleeping assailant while she cries.

Ten years later, Nova stands on the sidewalk while the Renegade Parade goes on around her. This annual event celebrates the Battle for Gatlon that occurred nine years ago. During that battle, the Renegades defeated the Anarchists and killed her uncle, Ace Anarchy. As Nova watches, the villain-themed floats go by first, consisting of intense mockeries of the Anarchists. Nova sees some of her own friends impersonated on the float, including Phobia and Queen Bee, and she teases the real Phobia and Queen Bee over her headset. When the Ace Anarchy impersonator passes by, everyone pelts him with rotten fruit and vegetables, and the sight makes Nova feel sick.

As the hero-themed floats arrive, a girl crashes into Nova, who doesn’t think much of it until a boy her age grabs the girl and hauls her over to Nova. He insists that the girl—Magpie—return Nova’s bracelet. Nova is startled because she never noticed the theft. The boy goes to reattach the bracelet to Nova’s wrist, but notices that the clasp is broken. He takes a pen and redraws the clasp on her skin, using his supernatural power to make the image real, thereby fixing the bracelet. Meanwhile, Nova’s allies voice their panic in her headset as she identifies the boy as a Renegade. However, he introduces himself as Adrian. Nova, who is now running out of time to complete her mission, leaves in a hurry to get into position.

Nova uses weighted ropes that she previously set up and climbs onto a rooftop. She then changes into her uniform for her alter-ego, Nightmare. She takes out a rifle and a poisoned dart. As a member of the few remaining Anarchists, she now oversees the group’s plan to kill Captain Chromium, the nearly indestructible leader of the Renegades. Once he has been shot, Ingrid, the Detonator, will use her bombs to destroy the parade float while Phobia tries to down the flying hero, Thunderbird, with her worst fears. If they are successful, they will eliminate the entire Renegade Council, which consists of the five original Renegades.

Nova realizes too late that she has climbed to the wrong rooftop. She jumps across a gap to the correct one, using specialized gloves that enable her to climb up walls. She disgustedly watches the Renegades go by, acting like gods as they show off their powers for the cheering crowds. Captain Chromium’s husband is the Dread Warden, an invisible superhero, and they show their mutual affection on the float, which only increases Nova’s anger, since they are happy when she isn’t. Chromium lifts his pike, upon which is skewered Ace Anarchy’s iconic helmet, and Nova flashes back to when she was six and huddled scared in her uncle’s arms. Detonator reminds her to use her anger to avenge Ace.

Nova lines up her shot to hit Chromium’s eye but struggles to will herself to pull the trigger. Before she can shoot, a butterfly lands on the rifle, and she realizes that the Renegades have found her. She shoots, but Chromium turns, and the dart bounces off his untouchable cheek. As the council snaps to attention, Nova is attacked by two teenage Renegades—a girl with a blood-red grappling hook and a girl who can turn into a swarm of butterflies (Red Assassin and Monarch, respectively). Another Renegade, Smokescreen, a boy who can summon smoke, soon appears. They immediately launch into combat; Nova turns off her communicator to ignore Detonator’s questions. Nova manages to get Red to go to sleep, then steals the superhero’s ruby knife and stabs Monarch. As she makes her escape, however, she is stopped by a strange superhero in a metallic bodysuit that does not match the young Renegades’ uniforms. Before Nova and her companions can fight him, Nova hears shrill laughter and realizes that her ally, the Puppeteer, has arrived without permission.

Nova watches in frustration as the Puppeteer, Winston Pratt, floats by in his hot air balloon, using his power to control children in the crowd below to do his bidding. While the newcomer in armor is distracted by the Puppeteer, Nova uses a netting gun to pin him and tries to make her escape. He burns through the netting with what seem to be fire powers and then chases her. Monarch appears, and the new hero introduces himself as the Sentinel. Neither Monarch nor Nova knows whose side he is on.

Sentinel and Nova fight, but in the chaos, his fire burns Monarch’s butterflies, hurting her badly. The other Renegades show up and are shocked by Monarch’s injury. Nova takes the opportunity to leap into Puppeteer’s passing balloon. Before she can, however, Sentinel grabs her elbow and demands answers for her assassination attempt. She tells him, “One cannot be brave who has no fear” (48), and this phrase stuns him long enough to let her use her power to put him to sleep.

Nova escapes with Puppeteer, but Thunderbird quickly finds their balloon. Nova’s allies refuse to help, saying that the mission is over and Puppeteer is acting without permission. Nova nets Thunderbird, but Chromium appears and stabs the balloon’s heater with a javelin. Nova throws Puppeteer off the edge, letting him get caught by the Renegades while she escapes.

The narrative switches to Adrian’s perspective, revealing that his secret alter ego is the Sentinel. He wakes up injured and sore from Nova’s attack, then realizes that he has been unconscious for several hours and has not been disturbed. He zips his super suit back into his body; it only exists due to a tattoo on his chest. He then sketches a water faucet and conjures water to clean his wounds. He also stitches up his wounds using a similar technique. He contemplates his hurt pride and wonders who Nightmare is. He wonders whether she is allied with the Anarchists, who haven’t made any show of power in years.

Adrian returns to the Renegade Headquarters, hiding his tattoos. He contemplates the history of the Renegades, reflecting that the group started in his adoptive father’s basement but now operates in an 82-story building and includes hundreds of heroes. His adopted parents are Chromium and the Dread Warden (Hugh and Simon), and his mother had once been Lady Indomitable before her tragic death when he was a child.

Now, Adrian finds Monarch—Danna—in the hospital, severely burned and unconscious, with Red and Smokescreen (Ruby and Oscar) by her side. They berate him for going missing, but he lies and claims that he was trying to save a group of kids. They discuss the strange appearance of the Sentinel, whom they do not know; they are baffled by the fact that he has multiple superpowers, which should be impossible. Ruby explains that she managed to steal Nova—Nightmare’s—gun. Adrian is seized by the overwhelming urge to find Nightmare and bring her to justice.

Adrian, anxious that his fathers haven’t returned yet, goes to check on Max, his adoptive younger brother. Max is kept in quarantine in order to control his power—the ability to absorb other people’s powers simply by being in their presence. Max’s enclosure is a beautiful, glass-walled suite that overlooks the city and the river, but he spends all his time in modifying the glass replica of the city that he has spent years constructing with Adrian’s help.

Now, Adrien helps the 10-year-old Max to use drawings to recreate the parade floats and the attack on the parade. He presses the drawings through the glass walls so that Max can add them to his diorama. Max questions him about Nightmare and Sentinel, and Adrian tries to defend the Sentinel’s actions without giving himself away. Their dads return and quickly find Adrian, hugging him. Adrian begs them for permission to go after Nightmare, but they remind him that they must stick to their own code for dealing with enemies, or they aren’t any better than the Anarchists.

Chromium tells the gathering crowd to give him any information on the Sentinel, who might be an enemy. Adrian and his dads go to the research lab, where a scientist confirms that the poison on the dart in Nightmare’s gun is traceable to another Anarchist named Leroy Flinn, or “Cyanide.” Adrian insists that they bring the Anarchists to justice. While they don’t have probable cause to arrest anyone, Chromium agrees to send someone to investigate the Anarchists anyway, but he refuses to send Adrian and his team. Adrian dislikes this peaceful approach and is afraid that things are going to spin out of control and the world will not recover.

Nova slips away from the balloon when it lands and eventually makes her way to the abandoned subway system that the remaining Anarchists now call home. The Renegades know where the surviving Anarchists live and sometimes bother them to make sure they’re not causing trouble, but otherwise, the Anarchists live in relative peace (but also in squalor).

Nova finds Ingrid loading supplies to hide from the Renegades; they briefly argue about Ingrid’s decision to abandon her and Winston. Nova hears Honey, or Queen Bee, wailing nearby and goes to check on her. Nova tells Honey that a beautiful model portrayed her in the parade; this isn’t true but makes Honey feel better.

Nova passes by Winston’s abandoned tents and takes supplies from his refrigerator, then finds Leroy’s train car, where he concocts his poisons. Leroy is her favorite of the Anarchists. When she tells him about the failures at the parade, he is unconcerned. She tells him to hide his supplies for the inevitable raid by the Renegades, but he reassures her that everything he does is legal. Leroy then tells her that she could use the upcoming Renegade trials (tryouts for people to join the Renegades) as an opportunity to spy on the Renegades. He points out that they don’t know anything about Nova herself, but she brushes off his suggestion, saying she’d have to have a death wish to go into their territory.