questionauthority: (Tip my hat to you)
Edward Nigma | The Riddler ([personal profile] questionauthority) wrote2011-11-04 06:11 pm

Riddle 036: What is it that nobody wants to have, yet nobody wants to lose?

[A - ACTION - Hospital.

On an ordinary day, during an ordinary visit to the hospital (perhaps to see Ema), the Riddler winds up running into another familiar face. But there's something quite different about him today. He's got that cheery look in his eyes, a dopey smile that's been plastered onto his face. But unlike his ordinary childish facade, the look on Bruce Wayne's face is eerily... vacant. Empty.

Question: What happens when you discover that the man who's outwitted you, outmatched you, and beaten you to an absolute pulp more times than you can count has been turned into nothing more than a brainless automaton with no mind or free will to call his own?

Answer: Grin like a madman and gloat when nobody else is around.]


So you've failed at last. Disappointing, but not entirely unexpected. After all, who can truly hold a candle to my genius? Not you, Dark Knight. [He laughs.]

If only you could see yourself now. The World's Greatest Detective? Hardly.

Question:

"What is greater than God? More evil than the Devil himself?
The rich need it, the poor have it, and if you eat it you'll die?"

Answer: Nothing. You're nothing now. You've lost. And I, Edward Nigma, have finally---

[Won? ...no. No, he hasn't. Mayfield did this to him. Mayfield took the Batman and broke him down into nothing. Not the Riddler. This... isn't his victory. This was never a victory at all. And as soon as he realizes that, Edward's wide smirk fades into a venomous glare. Shoving the husk he once called his archnemesis out of his way, he moves to depart the hospital and put as much distance between himself and that... thing as he possibly can.]

[B - PHONE - Unfiltered. The winning edge is completely gone from his voice now. He sounds strangely empty.]

Riddle me this. What is the one thing we have all seen and will never see again?

[C - ACTION - 726 Anderson Lane / The Hall of Doom.

Whether he's sitting in the kitchen tinkering around with a strange contraption he's received in the mail or in the empty conference room of the Hall of Doom, the Riddler is uncharacteristically quiet this evening. Bother him?]

[identity profile] riastrad-ridire.livejournal.com 2011-11-12 10:17 pm (UTC)(link)
True enough. So how're you holdin' up?

[identity profile] puzzlerprince.livejournal.com 2011-11-12 10:18 pm (UTC)(link)
Shut up.

[identity profile] puzzlerprince.livejournal.com 2011-11-12 10:23 pm (UTC)(link)
You shouldn't have trusted him. Not for an instant.

[identity profile] puzzlerprince.livejournal.com 2011-11-12 10:26 pm (UTC)(link)
It isn't. While time changes by the second, it isn't as if we'll never see it again. There are certainly more seconds, minutes, days, weeks, what have you, that have yet to pass us by.

[identity profile] strike-you-out.livejournal.com 2011-11-12 10:29 pm (UTC)(link)
[There's nothing he can say to that except 'yes, they have', so he won't say anything at all and will instead pull out a chair to seat himself. But there is something else Slugger came down here to say. After a moment spent sitting quietly with his gaze fixed nowhere in particular, he'll speak.]

About last week...

[Already, he's shrinking in his seat at the thought of some of the things he'd done.]

[identity profile] puzzlerprince.livejournal.com 2011-11-12 10:30 pm (UTC)(link)
Question: What's it like, jumping from era to era and bearing witness to all things past, present, and future?

[identity profile] puzzlerprince.livejournal.com 2011-11-12 10:33 pm (UTC)(link)
[The box in Luke's hand catches his eye.]

I could ask you the same thing.

[identity profile] puzzlerprince.livejournal.com 2011-11-12 10:36 pm (UTC)(link)
...of course. This town has yet to stop me.

[identity profile] puzzlerprince.livejournal.com 2011-11-12 10:38 pm (UTC)(link)
What about it?

[It was a rather messy, complicated week. Between the evil duplicates running around, the townspeople growing and shrinking, and the whole Bela Lugosi-esque fiasco that erupted after Edward had thought his entire family to be dead...]

[identity profile] puzzlerprince.livejournal.com 2011-11-12 10:41 pm (UTC)(link)
It often flies, it often crawls, but it always passes inexorably. Think carefully, and you'll get my point and find the original answer.

[identity profile] puzzlerprince.livejournal.com 2011-11-12 10:42 pm (UTC)(link)
Correct.

[He doesn't bother saying which, though---though he was aiming for the first, he can't really dispute the second.]

[identity profile] puzzlerprince.livejournal.com 2011-11-12 10:44 pm (UTC)(link)
Batman's ultimate defeat at my hands means one less challenge for me to consider. And yet another challenge that I've finally overcome.

[identity profile] hardhat-truckie.livejournal.com 2011-11-12 10:48 pm (UTC)(link)
But the things that happen in the seconds won't always be the same, right? A second that's gone by ain't gonna be the same as one that comes later. Whatever time we've lost yesterday ain't somethin' we'll ever get again.

[identity profile] puzzlerprince.livejournal.com 2011-11-12 10:48 pm (UTC)(link)
Indeed.

[identity profile] puzzlerprince.livejournal.com 2011-11-12 10:56 pm (UTC)(link)
He is, of course. All this time he's spent here and for what? For him to just become one of Mayfield's mindless puppets?!

[identity profile] puzzlerprince.livejournal.com 2011-11-12 11:01 pm (UTC)(link)
Correct.

There's no need to concern yourself. This... whatever-this-is is sure to pass, much like yesterday, and the day before that.
fasterthan: (wait what's back there)

[personal profile] fasterthan 2011-11-12 11:04 pm (UTC)(link)
...All right. But hey, if you ever need anything, let me know, okay?

[identity profile] strike-you-out.livejournal.com 2011-11-12 11:05 pm (UTC)(link)
When we attacked you... I didn't mean to.

[There. He said it.]

[identity profile] puzzlerprince.livejournal.com 2011-11-12 11:07 pm (UTC)(link)
...

[Is Slugger... apologizing? Well, this is definitely a first.]

Of course you didn't. I'm certain you didn't intend for any of this past week to happen at all.

[identity profile] puzzlerprince.livejournal.com 2011-11-12 11:09 pm (UTC)(link)
I'll bear that in mind.

[identity profile] lunawolves10th.livejournal.com 2011-11-12 11:11 pm (UTC)(link)
... I am pleased. But there have been casualties of late.

Many just after the strangeness at the end of last month.

[identity profile] puzzlerprince.livejournal.com 2011-11-12 11:15 pm (UTC)(link)
I've been better. They threw more at us this Halloween than I had been expecting.

[identity profile] puzzlerprince.livejournal.com 2011-11-12 11:16 pm (UTC)(link)
So I've noticed. Knowing this town, I'm sure they'll bring in just as many captives to replace them, if not more.

[identity profile] riastrad-ridire.livejournal.com 2011-11-12 11:17 pm (UTC)(link)
Yeah, same here. I was starting to think I was used to this shit.
fasterthan: (concerned about you)

[personal profile] fasterthan 2011-11-12 11:38 pm (UTC)(link)
Okay cool.

...take care of yourself.

[Totally ready to hang up.]

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