The Cloak Society is a Superhero trilogy by Jeramey Kraatz, consisting of The Cloak Society, Villains Rising and Fall of Heroes.
12-year-old Alex Knight, a fourth generation member of the villainous Cloak Society, is brought on a mission, a bank robbery, on his 12th birthday. When the Rangers of Justice arrive to foil them, Alex saves the life of Kirbie, a Junior Ranger, leading to disturbing thoughts on Cloak.
Meanwhile, Cloak is plotting revenge on the Rangers for a disastrous defeat.
Tropes included
- A Birthday, Not a Break: The series opens with Alex's first mission, a bank robbery, taking place on his 12th birthday.
- Mallory's hits during the middle of the action.
- And I Must Scream: downplayed but discussed
- Animal Eye Spy: Bug. Limited to bugs.
- Annoying Younger Sibling: Misty, on occasion.
- The Baby of the Bunch: Misty, who is ten.
- Big Brother Instinct: Alex, toward Misty. Kyle also has a bit of this toward Kirbie, though they're twins.
- Boxing Lessons for Superman: the Junior Rangers were trained in acrobatics and other skills
- Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: the small children's quarters are furnished with beanbags, puzzles, lock-picking kits, and heavy duty tranquilizers in case any of them start to manifest dangerous superpowers.
- Brought Down to Normal: Lone Star and Lux
- Brought Down to Badass: Alex reminds them of their training, and they do fight in the climax, carefully targeting mooks
- The Cape: Lone Star
- Casting a Shadow: Phantom
- Child Soldiers: Carla's view of kid superheroes
- Cue the Sun: Lone Star's first comment on rescue was that he thought he would never feel the sun again.
- Curious Qualms of Conscience: Alex doesn't get why he saved Kirbie's life, but feels it was right.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Mallory.
- Dark Is Evil: Downplayed, but characters with shadow powers are evil.
- Defector from Decadence: Alex. The founder of the Rangers, too.
- Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": The Tutor
- Exactly Exty Years Ago: The battle.
- Fate Worse than Death: The Gloom. Lone Star explicitly states that Cloak's victims will die or go there and he doesn't know which is worse.
- Fighting from the Inside: Dr. Photon
- Flaw Exploitation: Cloak doesn't wear masks. Alex figures out how to defeat them.
- Flying Firepower: Lux and Lone Star.
- For Halloween, I Am Going as Myself: In the last book.Kyle: But you just get to wear that Domino Mask? That's not even a costume.
Alex: Yes it is. I'm a bank robber.
Kyle: When I met you, you were robbing a bank. That's not a costume.- For added humor, Kirbie is wearing a werewolf mask.
- Forgot About His Powers: Inverted. Depowered characters have to remember mundane skills.
- Gadgeteer Genius: Gage. His father too.
- Gaslighting: at one point, Alex doubts his sanity.
- Green Thumb: Kyle
- Gullible Lemmings: Citizens of Sterling City
- Hard Work Hardly Works: For Gage and his father
- Heel–Face Turn: Shade discusses plans to fake this.
- The Hero's Birthday: It starts on Alex's 12th birthday.
- Heroic BSoD: several characters despair at times.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Guardian and Sentry not only risk themselves to get other characters safely to a portal out of the Gloom that they can not use, they insist on standing alone against the villain there.
- Heroic Willpower: Can survive even the Gloom.
- Hero with Bad Publicity: All the heroes are mislabeled as villains by Cloak's maneuvers
- Inelegant Blubbering: How Alex can tell Misty has been crying.
- Initiation Ceremony: Cloak's means that Phantom formally marks you with her shadow energy.
- It's All My Fault: Alex, more than once.
- Jurisdiction Friction: Are the FBI or the local police to deal with the Rangers' disapperance? Police vs Deputy crops up, and ensures they get police support against Cloak.
- Kid Sidekick: Amp's backstory
- Klingon Scientists Get No Respect: Gage, and his father before him, are second-class members of Cloak because they "don't have powers." Alex notes how insane that is."Gage, look around you. There are weapons in this base that are decades ahead of anything people in the outside world have dreamed of. Same with our security system. And with our computers. And you are twelve years old. If that's not a superpower, I don't know what is."
- Laser-Guided Amnesia: One of Shade's powers
- The Leader: Lone Star
- Light Is Good: Downplayed, but only heroes have light powers.
- Locked Out of the Loop: Mallory's past
- Losing the Team Spirit: Amp is afraid that Alex's loss of hope would do this.
- Make Me Wanna Shout: Amp's powers are sound-based.
- Meaningful Name: Lone Star's real name is Victor.
- Meaningful Rename: Gage uses this on Misty.
- Mentor Archetype: Lone Star
- Mentor Occupational Hazard: Zigzagged
- Meta Origin: All the Cloak powers come from Umbra. Heroic ones do not have such an origin, though, and there are non-Cloak villains whose origins are also obscure.
- Minion with an F in Evil: Alex
- Minor Living Alone: Seven minors, but the oldest is fourteen.
- Mooks: Unibands
- Mordor: The Gloom
- Muggle Born of Mages: Not all children of Cloak gain powers.
- My God, What Have I Done?: When Alex unleashes his full powers and causes Phantom's death.
- Never Found the Body: the effect of the Umbra gun
- No Body Left Behind: Phantom
- No Infantile Amnesia: This trope does not apply to Amp — which he comments on.
- No Name Given: Misty's mother.
- No Ontological Inertia: Phantom's "mark"
- The Nose Knows: Kirbie
- Parental Abandonment: All the main characters lose their parents one way or another (or leave themselves, as with Alex). For Kirbie and Kyle it's literal—they're parents abandoned them in Victory Park, not wanting to deal with their powers anymore.
- Parental Substitute: Lone Star, Lux, and Dr. Photon, for Amp, Kirbie, and Kyle.
- Police Are Useless: Eventually subverted.
- Poor Communication Kills: Amp lets them eavesdrop, to prevent this.
- Power Incontinence: Alex can't turn off his sight, meaning everything looks bluish to him. His telekinesis also breaks things in his sleep.
- Kirbie mentions that she had this when her powers first began to develop.
- Power of Love: When Amp says he can not leave them alone in the Gloom, his parents inform him that they are not alone.
- Power-Strain Blackout: Misty, Sometimes Alex
- Prehensile Hair: Del's power.
- The Promise: Alex promises Amp that they can get the Rangers back, which is why he accepts them.
- Psychic Static: Can block out Shade, more or less
- Reformed, but Rejected: Downplayed, but Amp's attitude for a while
- Remembered I Could Fly: Alex reminds characters of their mundane skills.
- Revenge: The motive for Cloak to attack the Rangers.
- Rousing Speech: Made to inspire heroes lost in the Gloom
- Sacrificed Basic Skill for Awesome Training: The Beta Team missed out on quite a bit because of their training.
- Shapeshifting: Kirbie, specifically Animorphism.
- Sins of the Founder: They learn that the original attack was in fact inspired by the deeds of the Rangers' founder.
- Social Services Does Not Exist: No questions appear to have been raised about the custody of the Junior Rangers. Nor do social workers concern themselves with the still minor Cloak children at the end, except for the Gammas.
- So Proud of You: Hints of it at the end, when Alex talks to his imprisoned father; Volt looks proud of him.
- The Spartan Way: Cloak training
- Spell My Name with a "The": The Mist
- Superheroes Wear Capes: At one point, a character objects to the lack, because Lone Star always wore on.
- Super Intelligence: As Alex notes, Gage clearly has this, despite Cloak classifying him as not having a power.
- Telepathy: Shade
- Thicker Than Water: Lone Star gets help from his sister
- Thou Shalt Not Kill: Lone Star violated this in the defeat, which is one reason why Cloak hates him. Later, Alex learns how traumatic he found it.
- Through His Stomach: The Betas make snow cones with their powers for the Gammas. This is to encourage the Gammas to want to be like them and join their team.
- Villain with Good Publicity: Cloak when they become the New Rangers and convince the public that the actual Rangers are Cloak operatives.
- "Well Done, Son" Guy: Alex — more toward his mother than his father
- We Need a Distraction: their first mission. Also, at the opening of Fall
- Xanatos Speed Chess: Cloak improvises the New Rangers
- You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Kirbie toward Alex
- You Are Not Alone: Inverted; Amp is assured that two people that he must abandon don't feel alone because they have him.
- Your Favorite: Ice cream, for Misty.
- You Shall Not Pass!: Preventing Ghost's escape.
- Zerg Rush: the powers attempt it against the Cloak attackers in Villains Rising
