A Mid-Summer Night's Swim

A Mid-Summer Night's Swim

By Maskedhero100

WATCHTOWER LAIR, HISTORIC LUNAR CITY DISTRICT

It was a hot August night in Lunar City.

The days sweltering heat had not diminished in the slightest, with temperatures still hot enough to roast an egg AND a chicken on the pavement. The citizens of Lunar were all inside, beating the heat the best way they knew how with air conditioning, cold showers, and ice packs.

The only good thing that could be said about the harsh summer weather was that it was too hot for the criminals of Lunar City to go out in, so for almost a week things had been crime free.

However, that did not mean that things were safe in Lunar City.

Somewhere in the city was a very dangerous metahuman supervillain known as Overflow.

Once known as Adrian Bey, an extortionist who worked for the world terrorism and espionage organization known as F.E.I.N.D who loved using poisoned water as both a weapon and a means to an end. Adrian Bey fell afoul of Detective Pierre Alvarez of the LCPD and Shadow Knight years ago when he had threatened the city with poisoned water that only he had the antidote for. During the confrontation, he fell into a vat of his own poisoned water and seemingly perished...only to resurface years later as a powerful elemental class Metahuman who was made of and could assimilate and control water itself!

He had caused a series of water related killings and nearly killed Shadow Knight's friend and ally, Detective Renee' Alvarez, in proxy for revenge against her retired father and attempted to attack Lunar City with a massive flood to claim the city as his own. A first step in establishing his own water-based empire where he would rule over the powerless as a water god. Shadow Knight had managed to stop him by evaporating him into water vapor.

Due to his cells being made of water, this unfortunately didn't kill him.

He eventually recondensed into liquid form and returned to attack Lunar City a second time, this time draining away all the water in the city causing a water shortage to rebuild his power, before transforming into a massive water monster that laid siege to Lunar. He and his allies had managed to defeat him with the help of former supervillain Killerwatt.

His water form had been reduced to a weakened state and had been kept contained in a special containment cell on Purgatory Island ever since.

Until about a week ago, when during a prison riot, his containment cell was damaged enough that he was able to escape from it as well as the island via the drainage system.

There had been no reports of anything strange regarding bodies of water, or anything involving actual Bodies of water.

One would have been hard-pressed to not think that maybe he had fled the city to go terrorize somewhere else.

But Shadow Knight knew he was out there, hiding somewhere in Lunar City.

His grudge against Shadow Knight and Lunar City was too great, and he saw Shadow Knight as a threat to his claim to 'godhood' over Lunar City's citizens and beyond since he had managed to best him twice.

He wouldn't stop until Shadow Knight and Lunar City were drowned by way of his watery hands.

He would have found him already, if city politics hadn't gotten involved.

To keep the populace from panicking, keep their already shaky belief in their public institutions stable, as well as to make it seem like they had the situation in hand. Mayor Shawn McShane had through charm, threats and bribery kept the knowledge of Overflow's escape from becoming public knowledge.

They didn't want a repeat of the Morlock attack on the beach during that solar eclipse last year, and yet they were taking the same measures and actions that had not only cost lives but had also put his daughter and his cousin Sgt. Jeremy Allen's daughter Kessie in mortal peril.

She had lost half of her leg to the creature's attack as a result.

So far, his hope for a better mayor and city government taking over after the former mayor, his Archenemy, the Brain of Crime's passing was proving to be a hopeless dream that was not worth investing faith in.

He was seriously considering running against the mayor in the next election race in a few months because of his being fed up with his cabinet corruption and incompetence putting the innocent people in the city in danger.

He knew he could solve Lunar City's problems in two weeks in office, tops.

The mayor and city government decision to keep things 'hush, hush' about Overflow's escape had kept Shadow Knight from learning about the breakout, and now that one of his agents, a security guard at Purgatory Island Penitentiary, had informed him of the coverup, he was now trying to find the water monster a week late.

Thankfully this time he had planned for just this very scenario of Overflow escaping from his containment cell.

He had managed to ensure that Overflow's weakened form had been injected with a solution of nanite tracking devices. Small enough to not be able to be seen with the naked eye, and small enough to not be detected by Overflow either. These robots would attach and embed themselves inside his natural mutated cells instead of any assimilated water molecules and remain there, giving off a distinct radio signal that could only be detected by special technology.

Technology that only Shadow Knight had.

Shadow Knight worked the controls of the Nightwatch-001 supercomputer, up in orbit, one of KISHI ENTERPRISE satellites moved itself into orbit over Lunar City. It's down view camera and scanner device going over the city like an invisible fine-tooth comb looking for this very signal.

"In a few hours I should have the exact location of where Overflow is hiding in the city, the sewer, the swimming pools, the city water system. He won't be able to hide from me, not when I've got eyes in the sky...and I'm BURNING UP IN HERE!" he declared before taking of his mask, revealing the sweat soaked face of Kagae Kishi underneath.

His skin was slick with sweat and his spikey white hair was a total wet mess.

His eyes, normal in the daytime and sunlight, glowed bright red in the darkness of the Watchtower room.

Normally, this place was lit up as bright as a showroom, tonight however there was no light save for the one emanating from the Nightwatch-001 supercomputer.

The city had been going into heat related black out periods all week and to do his part to save energy he had restricted all electricity to powering only Nightwatch-001 and the Watchtower lair's air conditioning system.

Everything would have been just fine, if the Air Conditioning didn't decide to give up the ghost this morning.

He had been doing his best to stay cool by alternating between being flesh and blood which was a state that was easily affected by the heat, and his ghost like living shadow form which was immune to it.

Unfortunately, he could not stay in living shadow form as long as he wanted, it was like flexing a muscle, no matter how good a person's concentration...eventually one loses their grip on their focus and his powers only stayed active if he willed them to do so.

He thought he could soldier on through the heat, but he had found out that there are limits even Metahumans couldn't endure.

Usually his friend, gadget maker, and 'guy in the chair' Marty Osmond, also known as 'Blacksmith' was in charge of keeping things running in the Watchtower due to it mostly being his place of business while secretly working with his longtime friend helping to defend their home city from malignant forces.

He would have caught the defect long before the AC unit went kaput, except he didn't...because he was on leave.

A second honeymoon with his wife Darcy.

Shadow Knight was a master detective, a hypnotist, puzzle breaker, criminologist, and amateur inventor as well as an amateur mechanic...but fixing an AC unit, that was out of his area of expertise.

He knew he was NEVER going to hear the end of this when Marty returned.

This would be worse than losing the game of 'Clue' to his daughter Kairi.

Or...maybe not nearly as embarrassing as that.

Worlds Greatest Detective...and he couldn't beat his own daughter at a mystery board game!

"What a time for the air conditioning to be on the fritz" he said considering the current problem of excess temperature in the Watchtower, "and Marty doesn't get back from his second honeymoon trip to Prism Lake with Darcy until next week...of all the weeks they could have done this, it had to be on the week of a massive heat wave hitting the city? Phew...I need a break! I need to cool down. A cold shower maybe...if there is any cold water left in the pipes that is."

He envied his adopted daughter Kairi just as much; she was skiing with friends on a school trip to Queens Peak Ski Resort in the mountains.

Everybody had a way to beat the heat except for him.

It would probably just be his luck that the shower had no cold water to use due to the thousands of people in the city who were no doubt thinking about doing the same thing.

As he made his way to the bedroom area of his Watchtower lair, he began to strip his costume off his sweat soaked body.

He dropped his already removed black fedora hat and metal mask to the ground. This was followed soon after by his black trench coat, shirt, pants, and socks until he was in his boxer shorts.

He entered the bedroom, and just before he made the turn towards the shower of the Watchtower lairs bedroom area's bathroom door...his nose suddenly detected the smell of perfume.

Not just any perfume.

He knew this smell.

He knew who used that perfume, and his advanced sense of smell began to detect the scent of a female presence having once been in the room...by about four hours ago. His eyes caught a glimpse of something.

Something that hadn't been there before, but his keen detective skills had managed to notice it almost instantly upon seeing it out the corner of his eye.

There upon his bed, clearly set out for him to find, was a letter envelope.

It was purple colored.

This confirmed Shadow Knight's suspicious, so she had been here.

Gwen Deering.

The Spectress.

The seductive spy assassin.

The most beautiful and dangerous woman in the world.

His childhood friend, and the love of his life.

She must have snuck in when he had left hours ago to get pizza, she had access to the Watchtower after all, he had given it to her after the night they had shared together in Japan.

Their first night together.

What was she up to this time?

Curious and excited to get something from Spectress, Kagae Kishi picked up and opened the letter envelope.

Sure enough, inside was a letter.

It was from what he could deduce made from scented paper, it smelled like strawberries. Her favorite treat and was exactly how she always smelled like to him with his advanced sense of smell.

It had been purchased from one of those romantic novelty stores judging by the watermark, and the pen which she had written the message in was a ballpoint pen, and not a very good one judging by the spatter in some places as well as the missing ink in some of the words.

But the message was eligible and Kagae had a vivid enough imagination to fill in those gaps.

He read what she had written.

"Hello Kagae, it's been a while, hasn't it? Three long months. Come and meet me at the Crescent Park swimming pool for a private party for just the two of us at midnight. Bring your swim shorts. Don't keep me waiting. I've waited long enough already to have a chance to see and meet up with you again. Hopefully, so have you. Love: Gwen."

A private party, just the two of them, at Crescent Park pool?

At midnight?

On the hottest night of the summer?

"Gwen..." Kagae sighed, before smirking with amusement, "What are you up to this time?"

Crescent Park Outdoor Swimming Pool

The hot August night made the smog of the city thick, and in turn made the full moon over Lunar City, Washington glow a pale orange in the sky above Crescent Park. Kagae Kishi's dressed in his trademark hat, mask and trench coat walked his way down the park path to Crescent Park Pool was in the center of the park.

The pool was located on the top floor of the Crescent Park Recreation Center, it was open air and gave a good view of the park and the surrounding city skyline in a manner that reminded him of New York City.

He had once lived in that city when he was a member of the Heroes Legion team long ago.

His eyes glowing red behind the eyeholes of his mask, he looked up at the full moon thoughtfully.

Taking a leisurely walk through an empty city park towards an empty building to have a date with the most beautiful and deadly woman in the world.

It was a strange feeling for the metahuman vigilante, one that seemed so out of place for him. He'd never taken a break during his missions or cases before, but after receiving the mysterious invitation from his childhood friend and lover Gwen Deering, he couldn't resist.

As he approached the recreation center, Kagae couldn't help but feel a bit nervous. He hadn't seen Gwen in three months, and the thought of meeting her again after so long was both exciting and intimidating.

When he arrived, he thought nostalgically that the old place hadn't changed much over the years. He thought back to happier times when he and Gwen would swim in this pool as kids. He hadn't been here in a while,

He could sense a female presence in the building, inside the pool area to be exact.

Also, according to his Dark Sense ability and his mask's scanners, the security camera system for the pool had already been disabled.

Traces of Eldritch Field Emitter energy could be detected, someone had used such a device to shut down the security system.

As long as the device stayed active, they would stay offline.

His mask was immune to the effects of such a device, a device that only FEIND and SLEET or their agents had access to.

Shadow Knight smiled, knowing who had taken care of the security camera's, "She always did like her privacy."

After making sure there was no one, not even a curious Wino around who would see, he activated his Shadow Walking power and teleported himself to the inside the men's change room inside the building on the top floor.

It was total blackness inside, but for him it might as well have been the middle of a sunny day.

His eyes that always glowed whenever he was in the dark shone bright red as hot coals, their mutation from exposure to the liquid miasmic mutagen had granted him a night vision like ability, as well as his 'shadow vision' ability to 'see' around him anywhere he wished to through the shadows and darkness of the area.

With his ability to see in the dark, the pitch-black confines of the room were easy for him to navigate.

He found a locker and began to remove his Shadow Knight costume.

He placed the hat on the top shelf, then removed his mask, revealing his handsome face and spikey white hair, before removing his black trench coat and gloves.

As Spectress had requested, he was wearing his swim trunks.

He wondered what Gwen would be wearing, then he thought that maybe the real question he should be asking himself would be what kind of swimwear was it that she had made her bodysuit armor take the form of.

Knowing Gwen, it could be either or.

He wondered if she had changed much since he had last seen her.

They had only been apart for three months, but a lot could happen in three months time.

Following the rules of swimming pool etiquette, Kagae showered himself before he entered the pool.

The cold water of the shower had provided him a temporary relief from the blistering wall of heat that waited for him outside in the open area of the rooftop pool.

He looked out at the pool in nostalgic awe, it really hadn't changed much over the years.

Save for a new waterslide and a steam room that is.

He was grateful for the fact that the recreation center had such tight security and membership exclusivity that unlike other outdoor pools in the inner city it had no discarded syringes, trash, and gratuitous graffiti sprayed on the floors and the smell of human waste in the air.

It was bad enough the park was such a mess, at least something in Lunar City from the time before The Brain of Crime's reign was still pristine and untouched by both crime and the stupidity of society.

The criminals and citizens of this city never ceased to make him disappointed with how they treated their own home, the same city he called home.

Give them a park, they turn it into a place to deal or do drugs and dump garbage in.

Sure, not everyone was like that.

There were people like him, groups even, that loved the city and what it could potentially be, who wanted and actively tried to clean up the mess.

He had even funded such groups as Kagae Kishi, while scarring the drug dealers and other thugs out of the parks as much as he could as Shadow Knight.

But it really did feel sometimes that no matter what good he did as Shadow Knight or Kagae Kishi, the city always found a way to undo it.

The city was a self harming addict, and he was starting to wonder if it was heading for an inevitable overdose of chaos and destruction akin to what had ensured during Dark Shadow's attack on the city.

The archvillain who had powers similar to his and also those of his previous archenemy The Brain of Crime had before his death had told him that there would be others like him that would appear, that Lunar City would always create its own villains and destruction, that Shadow Knight couldn't kill Lunar City's destiny...and that its destiny was to burn.

There had been more like him.

The Shogun, the immortal and Genocidal warlord from Japan's feudal era who desired to wipe out all impurity and all 'foreign devils' as he called all non-Japanese human beings.

The Mastermind, a vengeful genius who had access to hypnotic technology who specified in placing people in death traps and forcing them or Shadow Knight to play a series of deadly games to decide if the guilty deserve to live or die...and he saw everyone in Lunar City as guilty.

And now this nigh invincible maniac with a drowning fetish, Overflow!

It seemed more and more that his deceased Archenemy was right.

How could he fix the city if it insisted on heading for the iceberg despite all warnings?

He pushed the depressing thought out of his head.

He was here to relax, not think about his latest case.

He needed to let off steam, and hopefully whatever Gwen had invited him here for would be that means of release he needed.

The water of the pool glowed brightly due to the underwater lights that lined the perimeter of the pool, the smell of chlorine hung in the air almost as thick as the humid air.

Kagae scanned the area for Gwen.

He found her waiting for him on a lounge chair near the deep end of the pool.

He made his way over to where she was.

He could see she was wearing sunglasses, and he chuckled at the humor of her wearing those at night.

She appeared to be moon bathing.

He stared at her, she was in a sexy black bikini that highlighted her curves and sexy figure perfectly.

She had a model's physique, and an athletic hourglass figure.

Her black hair was in a pixie cut style; her attractive green eyes covered by the dark sunglasses she was wearing.

Those eyes could hypnotize anyone who stared into them long enough into becoming her aroused mind slaves, and even if she wasn't using her 'succubus stare' power to drive men or women into a lustful frenzy, they were naturally hypnotically attractive.

She was beautiful, with the moonlight illuminating her pale skin in a manner that made her even more desirable to gaze upon.