The Rise of Renegade X is a YA novel by Chelsea M. Campbell. Damien Locke is the son of single mother and supervillainess, the "Mistress of Mayhem", Marianna Locke. The book opens on Damien at his sixteenth birthday event, a gala where he will reveal his thumb changing to show a "V" to indicate his villainous heritage. The catch? Instead he gets an "X", which indicates that he has the potential to be heroic or villainous depending on his actions. It seems his mother had a clandestine one-night-stand with a superhero and Damien was the product of that union. Damien figures out who his father is, and reintroduces him to Damien's mother, but his plan for revenge backfires because his mother decides that he'll spend six weeks with his father.
Damien is devoted to the idea of being a villain, and resents his father's attentions, especially since his father is convinced Damien will become a hero like him. Complicating things, he is befriended by a classmate, Sarah Kink, who's convinced that he will become a superhero and that she will be his sidekick. His ex-girlfriend, Kat, wants to reconcile with him after cheating on him with his best friend. Oh, and his mother may be involved in a villainous plot to turn the city's superheroes into zombies... needless to say, he has a lot on his mind.
It was followed by seven sequels in the Renegade X series covering Damien's attempt to navigate his new status as a tweener.
This book exhibits the following tropes:
- Academy of Evil: Damien plans to attend Vilmore, which is restricted to attendance by villains. It apparently includes teaching torture and interrogation.
- Babysitting Episode: The third interquel, The Persistence of Renegade X, is this as it deals with Damian having to babysit his half-siblings from both sides of his family at once over an increasingly chaotic evening.
- Betty and Veronica: Damian's villainous ex-girlfriend Kat serves as the Veronica and the Mad Scientist wannabe Sarah serves as the Betty during the course of the first book. This situation is resolved by the end of the first book when Damian and Kat get together as the Official Couple and by the start of the next book Sarah is happily dating Riley as the Beta Couple.
- Birthday Beginning: The marking of heroism or villainy happens promptly on one's sixteenth birthday, although powers sometimes develop a few months before or after. The series starts on the eve of Damien's birthday.
- Bratty Half-Pint: Xavier is this in spades.
- Briar Patching: In the first book, Pete tries to torture Damien by making him torture Kat, and Damien mocks him as a coward who is too scared to hurt Kat himself or kill Damien, even though they are standing right by the ledge of a skyscraper and Damien has a well-known fear of heights. Pete buys it and makes Damien jump off the roof, certain he is subjecting his foe to the cruelest death possible for him. Unfortunately for Pete, Damien has recently developed the power of flight.
- Extreme Doormat: In the fifth book, Kat is initially envious of how her Alternate Self seems like The Ace, before realizing that she just does everything her parents tell her to (even get engaged) without any reflection of whether it is the right thing to do and/or what she really wants.
- Eye Beams: Marianna has laser eyes, a trait that Damien years to develop himself.
- Fantastic Racism: Heroes and villains have a massive dislike for each other for obvious reasons, up to one scene where a hero (admittedly in bad shape after saving most of the people in a building fire), states opposition to going back into the burning building to save the one remaining person there because their parents are Supervillains, and the child is likely to grow up evil.
- Flight: This a stereotypically heroic trait. As of the first book, this is Damien's only power, inherited from his father, the Crimon Flash.
- Gene Hunting: When Damien learns his dad is a superhero, he runs around collecting the hairs of the three most likely candidates for a DNA test. This becomes unnecessary when he ends up calling his mother with a phone belonging to one of his suspects and his mother thinks he has already found out the truth and goes into a rant about how that guy is indeed his dad.
- Good Powers, Bad People: Played with. There are stated to be stereotypically heroic and villainous powers. As Damien puts it at point point, villains don't fly unless it involves a jetpack. He does also bring up at least one (possibly apocryphal) case of a "Hero" with healing powers who it turns out was beating his wife, and then curing her injuries to avoid any evidence.
- Halloween Episode: The first Interquel, The Haunting of Renegade X, is this as it takes place between the second and third books in the series and deals with Damian and his former rival turned new best friend Riley having to deal with the ghost of ,Pete, Damians LAST best friend who is possessing an office building and is understandably out for revenge.
- Kidnapped Scientist: In the first book, Damien's Mad Scientist mom kidnaps Sarah’s dad to force him to make a hypnotism device for her after reading about how "Dr. Kink" has invented such a device. Actually, Sarah herself is the one who invented that device and her dad has no idea how to duplicate her experiment. Damien points out to his mom that she really should have realized that sooner, as the elder Kink is a biologist and not an engineer.
- Mad Scientist: Damien's mother is a villainous scientist who focuses on poisons and diseases. Super-science is a trait that appears on both the heroic and villainous spectrums. And, based on Sarah's lack of thumbprint marking and super-science inventions, it appears this may not even be a "super" ability.
- Mark of the Supernatural: Many years back, a scientist superhero realized that particular genetic traits associated with villainy could be readily detected, and so he engineered a virus that causes villains to develop a V on their thumbprint on the 16th birthday to ensure they could not hide. The villains took it up as a badge of pride, and created a corresponding virus that tags Heroes with an H thumbprint. Damien, being the son of a hero and a villain, has an X, which may develop to an H or a V depending on how he acts. A minor trend in high school culture is for people to wear gloves on one or both hands to imply that they have powers, and fake thumbprints are available in catalogs for who wish to hide more discreetly. The genetics is also apparently distinct enough that chemical agents can be engineered to only affect heroes or villains, to only affect people without powers, or the like.
- Not-So-Harmless Villain: Xavier may be
The Scrappy and a Spoiled Brat in the eyes of the other characters, but he is generally harmless (due to his age if nothing else). His alternate dimension self, The Red Demon, is emphatically **not**. - Replacement Goldfish: Damian's artificially aged half-brother Xavier is explicitly stated to be his mother's attempt to "do it right this time".
- Superhero School: Heroesworth is not elaborated on in the first book other than Damien fearing he'll be forced to attend.
- Trigger Phrase: An early attempt at mind control results in the town of Ruthersford turning violent whenever they hear the word "superhero".
- Two-Timer Date: At one point, Damien is simultaneously on a Supervillain date to steal an heirloom ring back from an antique shop and a Superhero date to keep his stepmom's antique shop from being robbed of a priceless trophy that cost her her power. Yes, it's the same job from both angles. Even he's not sure who he wants to win.
- Voluntary Shapeshifting: Damien's ex, Kat, has the power to change her form at will. While it's indicating to be an extremely useful power, she's also implied to have identity issues, because she can look however she wishes, and her ability to look older means it's a lot easier to get into trouble.
