Anarchy's Mystery

Chapter 31

Thud. The sound of knives hitting targets rang through the training hall as Natalie trained. And trained. And trained. Having been trained by Alannah, the most experienced and skilled with knives, Natalie knew the proper technique and was very skilled, thanks to her friend. The sun had risen and was rising high into the sky by the time that Natalie put her knives away and stood in front of the tallest scaling wall. She tightened her ponytail and made her way up, looking down at the hall as she gained altitude. After a quick run of the obstacle course, Natalie checked the time and strapped her thigh sheath and her belt, also containing knives. An old birthday present from Alannah. She shrugged off her jacket, throwing it into the locker already containing her bag. Instead of her normal plain black jacket, she had used her last pay from the supermarket to buy a black jacket with red stripes down the sleeves, similar to the Renegade issued uniform. She'd also bought a pair of matching pants and a tank top, paired with a new pair of black Converse. Her uniform matched her hair, which was still cropped messily just below her shoulders, her unwilling to pay to get it cut professionally.

"I'm going to beat you next time! Just wait, Oscar!" Ruby boasted, retying her hair as she walked in. Oscar just nodded smugly, grabbing his cane as the two headed towards Natalie.

"Hey. You guys going to see Nova? I think she's probably going to be here soon," said Natalie, gesturing to the door.

"Just heading there now!" Ruby grabbed a pile of gray cloth - presumably a new uniform for Nova. "You coming?"

"Nah, I think I'll just wait until you bring her around here. I still have a few things that I want to do here." Natalie gestured around the room and Oscar and Ruby walked out to go greet the new teammate. Next, she pulled out a bow and quiver of arrows from the supplies, standing in front of a target. Nocking the arrow to the bow string, she pulled it up so that the feathers from the arrow were just touching her cheek. She took a breath and released it, and with it, the arrow. It whistled and then hit the target with a satisfying thud. She released another. And another. An another. She repeated the motion until the entire quiver was empty. She retrieved her arrows and started again.

"For Matt for killing Sam. For Jake for killing mom. For Ace for leaving me alone. For the Council for judging me. For Adrian for being too damn friendly. For Impaler for getting herself locked up. For the Puppeteer for getting locked up with her. For Nightmare for getting them caught. For Nightmare for making everything so much more difficult now. For my old boss for being horrible. For the weather for matching my mood. And for me. For failing." The 12 arrows all her aimed at someone - or something - different. Something for making Natalie angry. The last arrow sailed through the air gracefully before landing directly in the middle, splitting one of the other arrows. She sighed and walked over, pulling each of the arrows out gently. She then put the bow and quiver - arrows returned, minus the broken one - back with the other supplies.

Looking around the room, the obstacle course and scaling walls were all occupied, so Natalie made her way to the weights. She cracked her knuckles and grabbed the weight she wanted, setting it up and grabbing someone to spot her. One. Two. Three. After reaching 50, she stopped and headed out, looking up to see Nova, Adrian, Oscar and Ruby looking around. She grabbed her stuff from the locker and jogged over to join the conversation.

"Hey Nova." She smiled at her and Nova returned it, eyes wary. "I'm Natalie, I'm replacing Danna until she's fit enough to come back."

"Hey."

"Just say the word if you ever want a spotting partner, Ruby and I come down here all the time, and half the time Natalie lives here." Oscar laughed, and Natalie nodded. True.

"Not Adrian?" Ohhh sparks fly.

"Where does the Sentinel train?" Nova asked innocently. Everyone's eyes flickered away from the people training and looked at Nova.

"What?" Adrian asked, as if he hadn't heard her properly. His shoulders tensed more than anyone else's and it looked like he'd started to sweat. Hmm, interesting.

"The Sentinel. That Renegade that showed up at the parade? Does he train here with everyone else, or is there a special area for him? Or... Renegades like him. Are there more than one?" Nova clarified and Natalie felt her eyes widen as much as the others. Couldn't she bit a bit more subtle??

"He's an imposter." Ruby snarled and Natalie felt Adrian shrink back. What, it's not like he's the Sentinel?

"The Sentinel?" Nova repeated.

"He's pretending to be a Renegade, but he's not. He's a fake." Ruby replied.

"You all really believe that?" Nova raised her eyebrow, trying to meet everyone's eyes. Natalie shook her head at her. Stop.

"No one had ever heard of him before that day. Whoever he is, he hasn't revealed his identity to anyone here." Adrian replied, speaking for the first time about the topic. Maybe he is hiding something.

"But he's a prodigy, and a powerful one. And who other than the Renegades would have the resources to make a suit like the one he wears? Or find a way to combine multiple superpowers into one human being? If you guys don't know who he is, then... maybe he's a classified project that hasn't been revealed to everyone yet. Right?" Nova looked worried that she might not get the information which she'd come for. When she talked about the Sentinel being powerful, Natalie noticed Adrian's posture became a bit more proud and his expression a bit more worried. Maybe he could be the Sentinel? Seriously, no one saw him in the crowd at the parade at all, but the Sentinel was well seen.

"That's what I thought at first too. But when the Council heard that he'd been acting on their behalf, claiming to have acted on their orders and whatnot, they seemed livid. And I'm not sure you can fake that sort of thing. At least, not all of them. Not like that." Oscar replied.

"Huh. I guess we'll find out eventually." Nova shrugged.

"Oh look! There's Danna." Ruby changed the topic to the girl crouched on the training room floor, ready to jump, but Natalie's eyes lingered on Adrian. He's definitely hiding something. And not just that wound on his arm that he keeps holding and scratching. There's something else there. 

Hi you lovely people. I'm just going to start by saying that I'm so so so so so so sorry for the no updates. Not even kidding, I haven't updated in pretty much 9 months! :( I haven't been too busy, I've just had no motivation and I've lost all confidence in my self. I've also struggled with a  bit of mental health issues, but I think I'm doing ok at the moment. I'm at the end of my holidays at the moment but I think I've regained a bit of motivation for the time being. Someone sent me a really nice message which I saw the other day and it really made me feel good and get a bit of creativity going. I realise there's quite a few faults in this story at the moment, but I do intend to go through and fix them at some point in the near future, cause they're a bit annoying and they literally make no sense whatsoever. I don't know what I was thinking at the time haha. Anywaysss, enough of my blabbering. Thank you so much to each and every one of you who've stayed with me throughout my writers block and have sent me encouraging messages and or comments on the story. Please, please bear with me, I'll try my best to update again as soon as I can, but with motivation and school starting again in a couple days, I can't promise, but I'll try. :)

(Also just to let you know, I'm super excited at 4.8k reads!!!! :) )

xx