Swift, Knight of the Wind Chronicles

by Windy Swift

chapter 9: Harbor Hyjinx

-2 days later-

As the sun set upon the mostly cloudy horizon the night life arose with the the rich and wild on the streets to have fun at parties or to fine dinners at the fancy restaurants. these people have to always dress up either for keeping appearances or just to make themselves feel good about themselves, being prepared for any occasion such as Rarity who had been wearing a black dress with high heels and enough makeup that evening but was not heading to any parties or restaurants but simply walking down the streets. Soon droplets of rain began to fall so she quickly grabbed a small umbrella from her purse, looking back as she did spotting three men behind her. She opened the window and picked up the pace making sure she didn’t trip on her heels, looking back she noticed the men were speeding up she wasn’t scared but had a slight smirk forming on her lips as she ran into a nearby alley with the males braking into a sprint after her. Rarity ran as far as she could until hitting a dead end, turning around as one of the men grab her and put a knife to her throat making her drop her umbrella with fear in her eyes as the man spoke in a raspy tone “give us the purse or else you’ll be going home in a body bag got it.”

Rarity was about to open her mouth before someone spoke for her . “ ‘Going home in a body bag’ really? I mean I can think of something ten times better.” Looking up both the muggers and Rarity found the origin of the voice which came from not other than Swift who was hanging from the fire escape. Leaping off he spun into a ball of green and homed in on two of the muggers knocking them aside. Landing, the Knight drew his sword out and swung at the third with as much force as he could, sending him against the alley wall with the sparks flying and leaving him unconscious. The other thugs had gotten up and charging at him both preparing to attack but the Knight grabbed both of them by their fists, squeezing them very tightly making both holler in pain. letting go the muggers rubbed their injured hands moments before Swift Kicks one in the gut, sending him to the ground. Spinning around, he then sent the other into the air with an uppercut and slashing him to the ground and into the second guy, knocking them onto his back as he tried to get up, knocking them out cold.

“That was astounding.” Rarity said in awe. causing Swift to turn towards her approaching her slowly with a menacing sneer across his mouth. she gulped as he got closer, even enough that she could make out the lining of a mask over his eyes and stood there, staring her down.. without her noticing, Swift hooked his foot under her umbrella and kicked it up ,catching it and raising it to her making her jump as she thought it was his sword. “Why, thank you Sir Swift.” she said as she took it from the Knight.

“What are you doing out here?” Swift asked, avoiding her reply.

“It is very uncouth to not be grateful to a lady.”Rarity huffed as she rolled her hair back, causing Swift to chuckle to himself .

“My apologies, you're welcome. Now would you answer my question?

“Well I was looking for you.”

“By almost getting yourself killed.”

“That's not the point, I just wanted to thank you for saving the school.”

“That’s not why I do this Mam.”

“The name is Rarity Darling, but it wasn’t just to thank you; it was to see if you were okay?”

“What do you mean?” Swift asked in curiosity.

“Well the thing is, my friend Fluttershy and I saw into your past as we were unconcious.

“yes that, I don’t mean for you to see that, it’s just beyond my control”

“I don’t mind personally.” Rarity paused momentarily. ”It must have been very hard to lose your brother huh?”

“That’s none of your concern.” he growled before turning and walking away from his friend. “I gotta get back on patrol.”

“Wait, I may have something that could help you.” Rarity pled.

“What is it?”

Rubbing her arm, she replied “Well while I was trying to find you the past few days, I overheard some ruffians speaking about some kind of deal at the docks, it may have sounded important.”

Swift grinned at the words. “Thank you,” Swift then then started to climb up the fire escape on the building walls.

“one more thing.”

He stopped climbing. ”Yes Rarity?”

“ I get that you don’t wanna let anyone in but you can trust your friends I'm sure they’ll you out of darkness and into the light.”

He looked to the side, thinking before he spoke. “I’ll consider it. Stay safe Miss. Rarity.” Was the last he said before escaping into the night.

“I will, thank you Sir Swift.” Rarity beamed before running out of the alley and back towards the place where she parked her car.

---

Swift was on the corner of the building on the block which was parallel to the docks of which he was informed by his friend about an hour or so ago, examining the area for suspicious activity as the sound of rain and thunder crackled through the night sky. “This better not be a dead lead.” He mumbled to himself. “Rarity’s heart must’ve been racing before I showed up, maybe she could’ve been in the heat of the moment and said the wrong place by mistake. Then again you probably aren’t trusting her enough as you should.” Swift shook his head as he thought “ I gotta know a bit more about them if i can trust those girls.” He had mentally concluded just as he spotted some type of speed boat with a few crates on board. “shipping crates on a speedboat, I guess Rares wasn’t mistaken.” Swift said before proceeding to climb down, grabbing onto a ledge on each story to survive the fall.

In a blur Swift had ran for a building right by where the boat had stopped, he scaled up to the roof with ease to get a better view without getting caught. There was about fifteen men there some had guns and knives just for self defense. There was one more person there however, their figure was of more feminine qualities wearing a brown leather jacket, pants,boots, including a slightly darkened yellow gloves white ski-mask.

“Alright boys,“ She said in a tom-boyish like tone. ”You know the i got plenty of boom sticks to go Around, for a price of course.”

“Gun Trafficking, that's all I need to know.” The knight had thought before dropping down, landing on the closest thug to him; he had placed a restraint disk on his chest when he had knocked him down. ”Hello ladies, i heard there was a sale on shoes so i thought that I’d indulge.” he joked.

“It’s Swift, he’s been watching us!” One of the thugs have shouted though he was partially correct, there was a figure standing on top of the crane was a man in a black cloak. That man snapped his fingers, doing so caused three walls of hexagon like barriers, blocking the only ways out. All of the men were shocked as this occurred, some men had pounded on the field but to no avail.

“Stop wasting energy you Dweebs!” The masked female shouted. “Obviously that overgrown action figure is doing this, kill him and we’ll be free to go and I’ll give the guy that does it an entire case, free of charge.” those words made all the thugs snap their attention on the Knight.

“Sure thing Grif.“

“Guys this isn’t me, The worst I could do is leave you dangling on a lamp post.” he had said while dodging multiple swipes from a knife wielding thug, catching it on the final swipe into giving him a head but, making him stagger, finishing it off by spinning around and slashing him down to the ground with his blade.

He got in his fighting stance as the other men surrounded him.without wasting time he slashed through the group with ease. “Who’s having a great time, raise their hand!” Swift had called out as knocked out a trio of the thugs or other things like “Done, and done.” when taking out two more in quick succession. In no time he cleared the area of thugs, the barrier going down moments later.

“I only count 15, wheres little miss sweet 16?”He had questioned himself, panting lightly. Turning to the boat he had found the person in question who had turned on the ignition and slammed on the acceleration to make her escape. “Oh no you don’t!” he ran up and grappled onto the back of the speedboat which had pulled him towards the water. He had braced himself and landed feet first but with the boat going as fast as it was, pulled him across the water as if he was on water skis. “Wooohooo!” the knight cheered as he was pulled across the water.

Grif had turned back to notice that Swift was on her tail she reached over to. The passenger seat and grabbed an assault rifle, focusing her aim she fired at him the sound of the firing weapon overcoming the sound of splashing water and rainfall. The Knight saw her aim the weapon and shifted his body left and right to avoid being shot though one of the bullets nicked his shoulder pad, scraping the green off leaving a line of silver. ”do you know how long it took to color that thing, well i don't know myself but that isn't the point. He complained as he kept swerving. This didn't last too long when the gun ran out of ammunition so Grif tossed it aside to reach for another one before Swift called out. “we're about to crash if you don't turn right now!”

Looking back up front the boat was heading straight for a much larger one which was sailing across the perpendicular direction they were headed in. In quick response she made a hard right, evading the boat however swift made a wider turn and was still going to hit the boat so before he made contact he had pushed himself up and off the water's surface, flipping himself so he landed on the side of it speeding along it so he wouldn't fall in. The Knight ran along he got even closer to the speed boat so he retracted his grapple and jumped off the large boat, grappling on Grif’s boat and reeled himself in.

The arms dealer took another look back as Swift was about to land so she reached for the the ignition and turned the key forward one mode before getting up but instead of losing control the boat continued to move straight. When he landed Swift got into a fighting stance with his weapon smirking. “an autopilot for a boat, weird but it works.”
Grif cracked her knuckles “ I'm gonna staple your mouth shut when I'm through with you.” She then threw her arms up in a boxing stance.
Swift swung at Grif but she bobbed and weaved out of the way “so you do care about me, how sweet.” He took another swing but his opponent grabbed his hand and kneed him in the gut making him drop his weapon before she gave the knight an uppercut making him stagger back.

Picking up the blade she examined it closely “you're just a kid who's too sacred to fight with his fists.” She threw it behind her and into the water. “I figured that we change that rule to even the odds.”

“First my shoulder pad and now my sword, you sure are one for vandalism aren't you?” he asked, swinging a few times at his combatant who had blocked each strike and countered with punches to the face and gut. “ that's actually how I started my career, with an old friend of mine the shadow bolt, but we're not here to reminisce, we're here so I can kick your ass.” she gloated before running towards Swift, clenching her fist as she prepared her attack. Noticing this, Swift charged her, “Hey batter batter, swing!” just as she swung, the knight got down and slid under the punch. Before she could even turn around he had already gotten up and delivered a spin kick to her back followed by a an elbow to the back of the head, knocking her towards the back of the boat.

Swift ran up and lifted his leg to kick his foe in midair but he failed to make contact with his foot due to Grif swerving out of the way and instead he caught his shoe between the rail and the ledge of the stern. He tried to dislodged his appendage however, while doing so Grif decked him square in the face knocking him on the floor and dislodging his foot for him. Next she grabbed her hooded adversary by the collar and relentlessly threw even more punches. Once she finished she used her boot to roll him over and grabs him by the back of the back of his shirt and belt. “have a sweet dream with the fishes down there.” she smiles before throwing the knight in the water.

Swift immediately resurfaced and turned back towards the speed boat to see Grif kissing her sleeved biceps in victory as she got away. “Yeesh, egotistical much? So Grif and the Shadow bolt eh, i'll have to do some digging when I get home.” Swift thought as he began to swim back to shore before looking for at his shoulder pad which was damaged to see the color had returned to the damaged area. “I still don’t understand how this outfit does this but eh it works.” He then began to remember the first time he had ever gotten the suit.

-A few months ago in Manhattan-

The door to the bedroom flung open and Mike had stepped inside carrying the orange and green outfit from that infamously fateful night. He tossed the clothing aside, Landing among a set of boxes is both him and his mother were in in the middle of moving to the city that he now calls home. “ okay so I'm gonna do this in the city of town I'm going to have to get an actual costume this time.” he pulled out a sketchpad and pencil and began to draw but with each concept and color palette Mike just threw each one out, no consistent design coming to his head as he scratched it in frustration. “Ugh come on me, why can't you think of something creative I mean I tried everything, well everything except…” Taking a look back the original outfit that he wore and then the light in his head turned on and the gear started spinning, his hands were like a bullet, the plane the pencil making its mark each stroke the initial design which what it looks like what he wears now and with his colored pencils she began to color it using oranges greens blacks and very dark shades of red for the hooded shirt portion, pants, belt/gloves and shoes respectively.

Taking another look back he sighed, “no, no this won’t do..” he said to himself as he ripped the page out. Mike leans back in his chair taking another thought over the design choice before snapping his fingers. “I got it!” he goes back and redraws the previous design even adding a few decoration pieces such as buckles for shoes and a buckle for the belt with the Lightning bolt on it since he wasn't at properly drawing a lightning bolt it ended up looking somewhat like an ‘S’. When he got to the coloring he went with orange and green again but this time swap the arrangement of those colors while brightening up the Reds, changing the blacks to browns, and making the buckles to the shoes and belt gold, now looking exactly what he wears now.

Mike nods in satisfaction ” now that's more like it, I think I'll call it ‘the knight of the wind’.” he got up from his chair, the light reflecting the image of the design of his watch then suddenly began to tighten and glow , wincing in pain Mike tried to remove it but to no avail and just as I came the pain in light stopped the watch is back to normal except for the glowing arrow on the rim aiming in a curve. In curiosity he took the breval of the watch and twisted sideways just as the arrow had shown. Gasping in surprise, his body was engulfed in a flash of light and when the light dissipated his iconic suit was clung to his body. He carefully examine the suit before in a blur sped off to the bathroom to examine it further. He was surprised fine I looked exactly like his sketch. “The hell?!?” he thought. he had too many questions for even himself but instead of being confused he slid his sleeve back I twisted the head of the watch again returning him to his room to figure out the meaning of this.

-The present, Mike's home-

Swift climbed through the window to his room as he finished reminiscing about the past as he haven't figured out the solution to the mystery behind the watch and his suit to this day and that he got over it a month ago not even bringing up the question to himself today. “ one day I'll figure out how my watch puts on and takes off my suit, but that is for another day.” he thought as he changed back into his regular clothing followed by getting in his bed wear. “ now I gotta head to bed school starts back up tomorrow I have a feeling we're gonna have a lot of work to do.” as he drifted off to sleep, he sneezed and hoped that he didn't become sick.

-To Be Continued-