The mall exit doors slid open with a soft hiss, releasing the duo into the open-air plaza beyond as they were finally ready to leave after a fun day of shopping and eating together.
The crowds had definitely ramped up, as they could spot dozens of people briskly walking through various store-fronts and street vendors, some of them being full families, finishing up their final purchases before heading him.
The sun was setting as the duo were making their way towards the car to head back home when all of a sudden.
~BOOM!~
The ground shook & jumped all around them. A violent, concussive thunderclap that punched the air out of the lungs of everyone around them and rattled the glass storefronts as far as they eye could see.
~SHATTER~SHATTER!~
The sound of some of the glasses just shattering also echoed and civilians everywhere immediately screeched in fear.
Before most of them could move anywhere meaningful.
~BOOM!~
A second explosion tore through the air farther down the street.
~BOOM!~
Followed by a third, and then a forth and then a fifth, each one louder and each one moving closer towards the mall. The very ground they were standing on shook like an earthquake as car alarms erupted in a chaotic chorus, more windows shattered somewhere nearby.
Tandy's hand snapped around Tyrone's wrist.
"That wasn't an accident," she said sharply as she looked around.
"No," Tyrone agreed, already moving.
Crowds surged in every direction, panic rippling outward as people tripped, shoved, cried out names. A mother fell to her knees clutching her child, while multiple vendors all abandoned their carts, running as far as they can immediately.
Tyrone pulled Tandy with him, cutting sideways against the flow.
"Bathroom," he said. "Now."
They ducked into a nearby department store just as another boom echoed, this one close enough to make the lights flicker violently overhead. A support beam groaned.
The public restroom was nearly empty, a miracle in itself. Tyrone slammed the door shut behind them and twisted the lock, shadows spilling instinctively along the walls, swallowing camera lenses, sensors, anything that could watch.
"Thirty seconds," Tandy said, already pulling the ring from her finger.
Tyrone didn't waste breath replying.
Shopping bags vanished into the cloak in a ripple of darkness, swallowed whole as his casual clothes dissolved into shadows and reformed into a casual black tracksuit, which was in term completely devoured by his Cloak, returning him to his SuperHero form.
The room dropped several degrees around him as Light flared beside him.
Tandy's LUMEN VEIL suit deployed seamlessly, graphene weave snapping into place, her mask sealing with a soft hiss as the lenses polarized. Her Lightforce stabilized instantly, clean and controlled.
~BOOM!~
Another explosion rocked the building, closer now. Plaster dust fell from the ceiling.
"Civilians first," Tandy said, already bracing.
"Agreed," Tyrone replied.
Darkness folded as the duo teleported away, directly towards the impact zone to get a better view of what exactly was going on.
They reappeared three blocks east of the mall, standing atop the fractured remains of a parking structure that no longer resembled anything engineered by human hands.
Concrete walls had been crushed into rubble, various cars lay overturned or even outright melted, their frames wrapped in intense heat and raw energy.
At the center of all of this chaos stood a man.
He was tall, broad-shouldered, wearing a heavy reinforced jacket that glowed faintly at the seams, veins of blinding white-blue energy crawling beneath the surface like living lightning. His hands crackled constantly, arcs snapping between his fingers and the ground.
He wore a full-head helmet that constantly emitted violent energy and a pair of gauntlets.
~BANG!~
He twisted his hand and the street lights bent towards him, the power lines vibrating as they fed the man more power.
He threw his head back and laughed loudly like a maniac, enhancing his voice so it echoed off all the ruined buildings.
"COME ON!" he shouted, "I KNOW YOU'RE OUT HERE!"
Tandy's Light flared instinctively, recognizing the sheer scale of energy output.
"…That's not street-level," she said quietly.
"No," Tyrone replied, shadows thickening around him. "Looks like our first meta-human threat, get ready,"
The man turned slowly, eyes glowing as he spotted them standing amid the wreckage and he immediately grinned.
"Finally," he said, rolling his shoulders as arcs of energy snapped outward, blowing apart a nearby storefront just from the discharge, "Cloak and Dagger. The city's new favorite bedtime stories."
"And you are?" Tyrone asked calmly, though his shadows were already spreading outward, probing this villain and the surroundings.
The man spread his arms wide, "My real name doesn't matter," he announced proudly, "But you can call me The Conduit."
The name hit with weight as Tandy, who was a huge Superhero fan, instantly recognized it from news reports she'd seen in the past, "It's you, that weirdo who's obsessed with Superman,"
"I AM NOT OBSESSED!" The Conduit roared out in anger, venomous sparks of energy leaping from his arms as he stared at Tandy.
"I outgrew that bastard," He angrily said, taking a step forward as the pavement cratered beneath his foot under the pressure.
"He flies around pretending to be a god while I actually understand power," Kenny continued, energy flaring brighter as he spoke, "I am better than that bastard in every way, but no-one seems to believe me,"
He said, his gaze locked onto the duo.
"I wanted Superman, but that bastard barely gives me attention," he said, almost petulant, "But you'll do. If I break you? If I prove I'm stronger than whatever freaky tricks you're hiding behind?"
He leaned forward slightly, eyes burning, "Then the world watches. And he won't be able to ignore me anymore."
Tyrone stepped forward, cloak unfurling behind him like a living abyss.
"You're hurting people," Tyrone said, voice cold and absolute, "That's all the reason we need."
Kenny laughed again, manic and thrilled.
"Good," he said. "Then let's make this fun."
Energy exploded outward from his body in a blinding wave, tearing up asphalt and sending shockwaves racing down the street.
Tandy leapt instinctively, Lightforce stabilizers flaring as she landed beside Tyrone, daggers forming at her fingertips.
Tyrone meanwhile de-solidified himself as the attack was about to reach him, causing the energy to just tear through where he stood, ripping chunks of asphalt free and hurling debris skyward.
Tandy's Lightstep soles flared, kinetic fibers screaming as they absorbed and redistributed the impact. She slid back several feet, boots carving shallow grooves into the concrete before she dug in and stopped.
Her heart hammered from calculation, "From what I remember, he can absorb all kinds of energy, even residual kinetic output,"
~BANG~BANG!~
Tyrone wrapped Tandy in his Cloak and teleported with her to the other side of the street to dodge another one of Conduit's attacks, causing the SuperVillain to laugh as arcs of power crackled up his arms and into his helmet.
"You like that?" he shouted, "That was nothing."
Tandy didn't look away as she stepped out of the Cloak, immediately continuing what she was saying, "If we just throw our energy at him blindly, we'll charge him like a battery,"
"Understood," Tyrore said calmly, "So we don't fight him at range."
She glanced at him, "You're thinking close combat."
"I'm thinking inside his guard," Tyrone corrected.
Conduit slammed his fists together, and the air screamed.
A huge ray of white-blue energy erupted outward, arcing wildly as it tore through parked cars and vaporized a fire hydrant in a violent plume of steam.
Tandy reacted instantly.
She hurled herself sideways, Lightforce daggers flashing into existence, not to strike Conduit, but to redirect.
She drove them into the ground in rapid succession, creating hard-light anchors that caught the worst of the energy surge and shunted it upward, away from the nearby street where civilians were still fleeing.
"Tyrone, left side!" she called.
"I see it." Tyrone responded as he opened his Cloak, devouring all of the energy Conduit threw at him into the DarkForce Dimension, banishing that energy to nothingness.
"WHAT?" Conduit snarled as he felt his energy output dim noticeably, and before he could react, Tyrone emerged inches away from him.
"GET OVER HERE BASTARD!" Conduit roared out as he swung on instinct, a brutal haymaker wrapped in crackling power, but his fist passed straight through Tyrone's chest as if striking smoke.
Tyrone's eyes burned white behind the darkness as his dark power pressed into Conduits mind, pusing an immense amount of pressure and claustrophobia into him, the sensation of being trapped inside his own power with no way out.
Kenny staggered back, helmet flickering as his thoughts fractured.
"Get out of my head!" he roared, firing a point-blank energy blast but Tyrone let it pass through him, swallowed into the Cloak and converting the destructive energy into a deadened void.
The streetlights dimmed continuously as the power lines feeding Conduit sagged, sparks dying out.
Tandy seized the opening, her Lightstep soles flared as she vaulted high, kinetic fibers releasing stored momentum in a single explosive burst. She came down hard, spinning, heel-first into Conduit's side.
~CRACK!~
Conduit's reinforced jacket cracked audibly as he was sent skidding across the pavement, tearing a trench through concrete before slamming into the side of a bus.
He growled, struggling to rise as his energy began flaring erratically.
Tandy landed lightly, already forming new constructs, but smaller this time. Before Conduit could regain his bearings, Tandy flicked her wrist, a hard-light dagger buried itself into one of his gauntlets, disrupting his energy flow and causing sparks to burst violently.
"ARGGG WHY YOUUU!!" Conduit screamed out in frustration as Tyrone appeared behind him once more, ready to exploit his obsession and inferior to Superman.
Tyrone whispered, voice echoing unnaturally in Conduit's mind, "He doesn't think about you."
Conduit froze, "You could level this city," Tyrone continued softly, shadows tightening like chains, "And you'd still just be noise to him."
"No, " Conduit snarled, not thinking straight due to Tyrone's influence as his energy spiked wildly and his control slipped. "I'm stronger, I am!"
The Conduit howled as his energy output destabilized, arcs snapping wildly into the sky instead of feeding him.
Tandy moved instantly, slamming another Light construct into the pavement to shield fleeing civilians as a lightning bolt tore past them and detonated harmlessly overhead.
"His output's going critical!" she warned.
"I know," Tyrone replied, already disengaging. "Which means, "
"He's about to overdraw," Tandy finished
"I'll handle it," Tyrone said, levitating as he grasped Conduit's arms, redirecting all of that overdrawn energy towards his Cloak, devouring it into the DarkForce Dimension.
He continued to devour all the energy he could until Conduit was weak, before he finally smashed a brutal fist into Conduit's helmet, cracking it and hitting him with multiple more haymakers until the Villain was knocked out cold.
"Nice Job," Tandy said, arriving next to him as she looked down at the knocked out Conduit.
"What do we do with this guy? Not like we have a personal jail yet," She then asked.
"How about I sick him into my Cloak until further notice? I'll make sure he doesn't go insane," Tyrone said and Tandy nodded.
Tyrone's Cloak billowed as he leaned down to touch Conduit and send him to his Cloak when..
"HEY, STOP THERE!"