by Lucas Flint
Holes looked the box over as if he had not heard Dad’s words. Then he looked up at Dad and said, “Very well. Have at her.”
Holes shoved Mom forward. Mom fell toward the floor, but before she hit it, a deep black hole appeared underneath her and she fell into it.
“Mary!” Dad yelled. “No! What did you do with her?”
Holes pointed toward the ceiling. “Look up.”
Another black hole appeared on the ceiling of the warehouse, not too far from where I was, and Mom fell out of it toward the floor below, her eyes wide with fear and muffled screams escaping her gagged mouth.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
I couldn’t let her fall and die. I smashed through the window, sending glass shards flying everywhere, and rocketed toward Mom, who was falling almost faster than I could fly.
With a burst of speed, I caught Mom in both of my arms when she was about halfway between the ceiling and the floor. She looked at me with a mixture of shock and confusion in her eyes, like she didn’t understand what was going on. I just smiled back at her to show her that she was safe and that she could trust that she was safe with me.
Landing on the floor, I ripped the gag out of Mom’s mouth and said, “Mom, are you okay?”
“Mom?” Mom repeated, staring at me with a dumbfounded expression. “You’re not my son … right?”
Before I could answer that, Dad rushed up to us and threw both of his large arms around Mom. “Mary! I’m so glad you’re okay! When Holes threw you into that hole, I thought you were a goner for sure.”
“Th-Thanks, Walt,” said Mom in a strained voice. “Can you please let me go? You’re squeezing the air out of me.”
Dad loosened his tight hold on Mom, but he didn’t take his arms off her. No doubt he wanted to keep her safely where she was, a feeling I agreed with given everything that had happened. “I’m just relieved that you’re all right. That bastard Holes nearly killed you. I knew he would try something like that, but I just wasn’t fast enough to stop him before he did.”
“It’s all right, Walt,” said Mom. She hugged Dad back. “You came to my rescue. That’s all that really matters to me, regardless of whether you were able to save me yourself or not.”
Dad smiled and then nodded at me once. “I couldn’t have done it without our son here. If he hadn’t saved you, then we wouldn’t even be having this conversation at all.”
Mom let go of Dad and looked at me, surprise glimmering in her eyes. “Our son? Do you mean that Trickshot is Jack?”
I nodded. “Yeah. Sorry for not telling you that sooner, Mom, but I promise I’ll explain everything later, when we get back to the house.”
Mom opened her mouth, no doubt to voice her opinion on the subject, but then I heard a cardboard box hit the floor and looked over my shoulder.
Holes still stood where he had been standing moments ago, the only difference being that the empty box was on the floor at his feet again. Only this time, it was open, revealing that it was completely empty save for some old newspaper packaging. And, while Holes’ lack of a face made it hard to read his emotions, his body language made it clear that he was far from happy.
“Very clever,” said Holes, a twinge of insanity in his voice. “I see what you did there. You never intended to give me the Trickshot Watch at all. No, you and your father deliberately worked together to make a trap to save your mother and maybe even take me down in the process. I will admit that I didn’t see that coming and that you’re much cleverer than I thought, even cleverer than the original Trickshot.”
“It’s not very difficult to trick someone as obsessed with revenge as you are,” I said, turning to face Holes. “You like to think you’re so much smarter than everyone else, but in truth, you’re just a coward who likes to run away as soon as things don’t go his way. You don’t fool me.”
“Call me what you like, but I’m not running away tonight,” said Holes “That box may not have the Trickshot Watch, but you clearly do. I’ll just kill you and take the Watch for myself, which I should have done during our first fight.”
I punched my fist into the palm of my hand. “Very well. Let’s fight, you and me, and end this here and now. How does that sound?”
“It sounds just fine to me,” said Holes. “Tonight will be the night that Trickshot finally dies for good. And it will be at my hands.”
“We’ll see about that,” I said. I looked over my shoulder at Mom and Dad. “Dad, you and Mom need to get out of here. I can’t protect you guys and fight Holes at the same time. Get into the car and get out of here, but also call the police and let them know that Holes is here. I’ll try to distract him until the police get here.”
Dad nodded again. “Sure thing, son. Give that jerk hell. Come on, Mary.”
Dad grabbed Mary and half-dragged, half-led her toward the exit. Mom kept glancing back at me, confusion still in her eyes. I could tell that she hadn’t quite grasped the fact that I was Trickshot, but she would have plenty of time to let that fact sink in later. For now, I had a supervillain to defeat.
I looked over at Holes. “All right, Holes. It’s just you and me now. Why don’t we get this party started?”
I drew three silver disks out of my pouch and hurled them at Holes. But Holes opened a hole underneath himself and vanished into it, causing my disks to fly harmlessly through the air where Holes had been standing a moment before.
But then Holes fell from the ceiling and lashed out with a kick aimed for my head. I dodged the kick and swung a fist at Holes just as he landed on the floor, but he raised his arm and my fist disappeared inside one of the holes in his arm. It immediately reappeared through a hole in his bicep and my own fist struck me in the face again, the blow sending me staggering backwards.
Holes lashed out with another kick, striking me in the chin and knocking me flat on the floor. But as I hit the floor, I suddenly found myself falling through the darkness again, watching Holes become smaller the further I fell.
Without warning, I found myself in the warehouse again falling toward the floor. I activated my flight powers and hovered near the ceiling, shaking my head to recover my senses and figure out where I was. Looking around, I did not see Holes anywhere, which troubled me, because I hated it whenever Holes disappeared like this.
“TW, can you sense Holes anywhere?” I said, turning my head this way and that as I looked for Holes.
“No,” said TW. “S-Sensors fail to pick u-up—”
TW suddenly went quiet, prompting me to say aloud, “TW? Hello, TW? Are you still there? TW—”
Abruptly, I felt two hands grab onto my cape and drag me down to the floor below. I crashed into the floor hard, but rolled back onto my feet just in time to see Holes disappear into yet another hole. I threw another disk at him and it did follow him into the hole, but then it came out of another hole above that one and flew straight toward me. I jumped out of the way, narrowly avoiding the disk, which struck the floor hard enough to embed itself in the concrete.
“Dang it,” I said under my breath. “This is not a good time for TW to glitch out. Not a good time at all.”
I looked around again, carefully searching for Holes, but he had once again disappeared. That was annoying, but not impossible to deal with. I already knew that Holes couldn’t open more than two holes at one time, not including the ones on his body that were perpetually open. With a bit of luck and effort, I could potentially turn the tide of this fight in my favor.
“Come out and show yourself, you coward!” I shouted. “Or are you afraid of a teenage boy? You can admit it if you want. I won’t judge you.”
“I fear nothing, boy,” came a voice from behind me. “It is you who should be afraid.”
I whirled around just in time to see Holes’ foot coming at my face. But I caught his foot before it could connect and whirled around and slammed Holes onto the floor as hard as I could. Holes gasped in pain upon impact, but he quickly summoned a hole underneath him that he fell into like a pool.
I jumped into the hole after him and tackled Holes’ midriff. The two of us immediately began to grapple as we fell endlessly through the darkness of his holes. I punched and grabbed at his face, while he shoved his hands into my face and tried to get me off of him, but I meant it when I said he wasn’t getting away this time. I was determined to make sure that Holes didn’t get away and if I had to follow him into his own void to do it, then so be it.
Suddenly, we rolled out of his hole back onto the floor of the warehouse. The sudden change in scenery took me by surprise, allowing Holes to kick me in the gut and knock me off him. I let go of him and rolled away, but quickly jumped to my feet just as Holes rose to his own, rubbing his abdomen where I had gotten a few good licks in while we were falling through the void.
“Not running away this time?” I said. “Guess you’re a bit braver than I thought.”
Holes growled. “Don’t get so cocky, boy. I’m simply bored of dealing with you, which is why I am going to end this fight now.”
Holes raised both of his hands above his head. I expected him to try to make me fall into another one of his holes, but no matter how long I stood there, no holes appeared underneath or near me.
“Um … what are you doing?” I said. “Just standing there with your hands up?”
Holes inclined his head toward me and for some reason I thought he was smirking. “Look up.”
Puzzled, I looked up just in time to see a large black hole appear on the ceiling. It was bigger than the other holes he had created so far, about the size of a car, but I didn’t know what he was going to do with it.
That was when a huge truck fell out of the hole directly toward me.
CHAPTER TWENTY
I had just enough time to throw my arms over my head before the truck crashed down on top of me with a crash. I collapsed underneath the weight of the truck, which would have crushed me if I hadn’t been so strong. I was shocked by the fact that Holes had somehow managed to drop an entire truck on me with his powers. It made me wonder just what the full extent of his powers was.
But getting pinned underneath a full-sized truck was enough to distract me from all other thoughts. The sheer weight of the truck left me unable to do much other than lay there on the smashed concrete floor with no ability to free myself. I would have used my super strength to push the truck off me, but the truck had fallen on me in such a way that I could barely move at all. I suppose it was my durability that had saved me from being entirely crushed to powder, but that was hardly a reassuring thought, given how I couldn’t save myself.
“Jack!” said TW in my head all of a sudden. “Jack, are you okay? I was briefly offline due to my glitch and just managed to get back online a few seconds ago. What happened?”
“Holes dropped a truck on me,” I said. “A truck, by the way, I can’t lift off me because it’s got me pinned to the ground like a ribbon.”
“Ah,” said TW. “You know, I t-think Holes did this same thing to Gregory once. Guess you really c-can’t teach an old dog n-new tricks.”
“Very funny, TW,” I said. “Help me get out of this, will you? Holes is still around and I have to get him before he gets away again.”
“How am I supposed to help you get this truck off you?” said TW. “I’m just an AI program. I can’t directly interact with the physical world, even though I wish I could.”
“You’re useless, you know that?” I said in annoyance. “Guess I have to do everything myself, then.”
I managed to put both of my hands on the floor underneath me and, my super strength flowing through me, began pushing myself up. It was hard work. Although my super strength made me stronger than even the world’s strongest bodybuilders, this truck was still one of the heavier things I’d ever had to lift. It didn’t help that I was mostly using my back to push. Otherwise, it would have been a lot easier to push it off me.
Nonetheless, I could feel myself making progress, despite how heavy the truck was. Inch by inch, I pushed myself up further and further until, with a roar of triumph, I threw the truck off my back. It crashed against the floor behind me loudly, but I didn’t care about that. I rose to my feet, wincing at my aching back and hands, and looked around for Holes.
But he seemed to have disappeared yet again, which was frustrating to say the least. I realized that that dropping the truck on me had likely been a distraction so Holes could get away again.
“Hey, Holes!” I shouted. “I survived! Did you see that? I survived. Dropping a truck on me was a neat move, I’ll admit, but you seem to forget who you’re dealing with here.”
“On the contrary,” said Holes’ voice from the shadows all around me, “I know exactly who I am dealing with here, given how I’ve fought your grandfather many times in the past.”
A hole suddenly appeared nearby and Holes stepped out of it. Unlike me, he didn’t look like he was struggling at all, though I guess it must have helped that he didn’t have a huge truck dropped on him out of nowhere like I did.
“So you didn’t run away after all,” I said, rolling my shoulders and wincing slightly at the pain. “Good for you. Want a cookie?”
“I want nothing from you except the Watch,” said Holes. “Oh, and your death, too, of course.”
“You’re not going to get either,” I said. “The only thing you’re going to get is a prison cell, probably in maximum security prison once this is all over. It’s what you deserve.”
“Keep telling yourself that,” said Holes. “Perhaps you will prove superior to your grandfather and will defeat me once and for all. Personally, I doubt it. You are significantly weaker than he is, younger and greener, with all of the inexperience that that implies. Taking you down will be child’s play.”
“You haven’t beaten me yet,” I said. “But you can keep talking like the big bad supervillain you are. Maybe I’ll come down with a case of the stupid and end up running away.”
“I don’t want you to run, Trickshot,” said Holes. “I want you to die.”
Holes spread his hands. As he did so, two holes appeared on either side of my body. Before I could react, the holes suddenly start sucking me toward them with equal force. It kind of felt like the time I accidentally put the vacuum cleaner hose on my nose when I was six, but this was much worse. I slammed my feet into the floor in an attempt to keep myself from being sucked into the portals, but I could tell that it wouldn’t last forever and that soon I would either be torn apart by the suction force of the portals or end up getting sucked into one or the other and end up who-knows-where.
“Surprised?” said Holes. “You shouldn’t be. I don’t just make portals that you can hop into. I can also make portals with enough power to suck in anything in their general vicinity. I won’t tell you where these portals will take you, but I can tell you it won’t be anywhere you like.”
I would have had a snappy comeback to that, but the sucking portals made it impossible for me to talk. As a matter of fact, I couldn’t breathe at all. The suction portals were not merely trying to suck me in, but they were also sucking the air out of the area around me. I didn’t have much time before I ran out of air, and once I did, I would be toast.
But there was nothing I could do to save myself. If I tried to fly, I would definitely get sucked into the portals, but sooner or later I would run out of air and die that way. And I couldn’t throw my disks at Holes, either, because they would probably just end up getting sucked into the portals as well. It didn’t help that I was still suffering from the pain I’d taken from the truck, either, which had left me weaker than I had been before.
All in all, this situation looked really bad for me, if not entirely hopeless. I wished I could see Holes’ face, because even though I figured he was smirking at me, I still preferred to see the face of my killer. That would be better than dying at the hands of someone whose face I would never see.
Already, I could feel my fee
t starting to be tugged out of the floor. My ankles were straining and the lack of air was starting to cloud my mind. My cape whipped around behind me uncontrollably. I wished I could stop it, but I was too dazed from the lack of air to care about my cape at the moment.
“It’s over, Trickshot,” said Holes, raising his voice to be heard over the howling of the sucking sounds. “Today is the day you die. Tonight, the Trickshot line finally ends, and with it, my quest for revenge. Let the last thing you see be my faceless head as you gaze into its never-ending empty—”
A gunshot suddenly rang throughout the warehouse. I thought at first that Holes had shot at me for some reason, but that was when I noticed that Holes had gone strangely quiet. He took one step forward and then collapsed onto the floor. As soon as he did, the portals on either side of me vanished and air flooded my lungs, making me gasp as hard as I could. Panting hard and taking in great, big gulps of air, I looked to see who had saved me.
It was Dad. He stood holding a gun in his hand—the same gun Holes had thrown away a few minutes prior—with an unshakable aim. I looked down at Holes and noticed a gunshot hole in his back, in one of the few spots on his body that wasn’t covered in portals. Blood was leaking out of the wound, staining Holes’ white costume, though some of the blood went into the holes on his body and disappeared like everything else.
“Dad?” I said, staring at Dad in surprise. “What are you doing here? I thought I told you to take Mom and leave.”
“Mary is safe out in the car,” said Dad. He lowered the gun. “But when I heard the sound of that truck crashing on top of you, I knew I couldn’t just abandon you. I wanted to help you. I want to shoot the man who threatened my wife and tried to kill my son.” He cracked a grin. “Looks like I got my wish.”
I rubbed my throat, which still ached from the lack of air, but said, “Thanks, Dad. You didn’t need to do this, but—”