Dwyane Wade walked up to Vince Carter after the final buzzer sounded. “Great game, old man,” he said as they briefly hugged.
Vince nodded. “Same.”
Dwyane leaned in to whisper the next thing into Vince’s ear so that they wouldn’t be overheard by prying media members who were undoubtedly eager to hear what the two veterans were saying to each other. “You know what we have to do now, right?”
The look of confusion on Vince’s face eventually gave way to a look of understanding. He nodded again. “Yeah.”
—
“He’s here. I can feel him,” Dwyane whispered as they approached the players-only parking area of the arena. A tingling sensation, accompanied by a light but intensifying pain, was spreading from his knees and ankles.
Vince, following close behind, nearly ran into Dwyane as the latter man abruptly stopped in the corridor. “I feel him too. You have second thoughts, man?”
Dwyane shook his head vigorously. “He stands no chance against us, the ones who have defied time.” He continued forward a few tens of feet until he was standing in the parking lot, obscured by a parked car. Peeking his head around the car’s bumper, he caught a glimpse of a flowing white robe being worn by a gray-bearded man holding a golden watch on a chain. Not wanting to be seen quite yet, he quickly withdrew his head back into the hiding place. “He’s there. He must be looking for us.”
“Or waiting for us,” Vince replied darkly. “Father Time never loses, remember.”
“Not until tonight, you mean,” Dwyane hissed. “You ready?”
Vince shrugged. “As ready as these 42-year-old knees will ever be.”
“On my count, then. Three…two…one.” Following the countdown, Dwyane burst out from behind the car, charging at Father Time with a tremendous roar. Vince followed close behind, fists extended, ready for a fight.
Father Time seemed caught by surprise for about one second before he returned to the staid demeanor expected of a Timelord. Holding up his golden watch, he wielded it like a shield. “Pitiful mortals! You expect to beat the master of time with brute strength alone? I am Time itself! None can thwart me!”
Dwyane was thrown to the ground by an invisible force that seemed to come from the watch. But, whatever force it was, it missed Vince, who continued to charge towards Father Time, heedless of his hubristic proclamations. There, Vince grabbed the old man’s robes and tried to throw him to the ground, but Father Time’s footing was too solid. Cackling laughter filled the air as Vince, too, was tossed aside by an unseen power and knocked unconscious as his head cracked against the concrete.
“You won’t take us,” Dwyane snarled, getting to his feet and fixing Father Time with a furious gaze. “Hand over the watch,” he commanded, having correctly determined that the mystical timepiece was the one thing that tied this man to his command over the temporal realm.
Father Time laughed at Dwyane’s bold request. “My watch? Never! It is forbidden from the touch of timebound mortals such as you two meddlers!” Dwyane made a show of looking dejected to embolden the Timelord and encourage him to continue gloating. Vince had groggily returned to consciousness, and was slowly crawling towards Father Time, who was facing the other direction.
Vince grabbed the chain of the watch, and many things happened all at once. The lights in the parking garage started to spark and malfunction. Father Time’s grip on his watch tightened, but he couldn’t pull it free from Vince’s grasp. Dwyane, seeing that Father Time was preoccupied with his watch, took another running start at him, but silently this time. Right as Vince pulled especially hard on the chain, Dwyane’s tackle connected squarely in Father Time’s back, knocking the old man off his feet and into a concrete pillar. His fingers loosened just enough for Vince to take the gold pocketwatch out of his possession.
“No…no…” Father Time moaned in pain as he feebly grasped for the watch. “Give it back…” But, having lost his control over time, his beard was becoming more ragged, his skin more wrinkled…
Dwyane looked at the hands of the watch, which were spinning much too fast, then back at Father Time, who was getting older and older in front of his eyes. “No…” Father Time croaked, but his name was no longer Father Time. He was just a pitiful old man, lying there on the floor of the parking garage, becoming more decrepit by the second.
“You are no longer the master of us,” Dwyane said as he and Vince stood triumphantly over their defeated foe. “Be gone from this existence! Be gone with you!”
The old man let out one final shuddering breath as the light of life disappeared from his eyes. It was over.