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] hardhat-truckie.livejournal.com 2011-11-05 08:22 am (UTC)(link)
Thanks. Is the answer "time"?

[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] 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 2011-11-14 07:21 am (UTC)(link)
Well, there you have it. You've found the answer.

[identity profile] hardhat-truckie.livejournal.com 2011-11-14 10:03 am (UTC)(link)
(Huh, he has the answer? But didn't he technically say the same thing? Unless...it takes him a second to figure out the missing link.)

Oh, I get it now. The answer's "yesterday", ain't it? Not that bad a riddle, stranger. Ya do this often?

[identity profile] puzzlerprince.livejournal.com 2011-11-15 04:24 am (UTC)(link)
[A laugh.]

You could say that.

[identity profile] hardhat-truckie.livejournal.com 2011-11-15 04:35 am (UTC)(link)
Ya willin' ta share anymore pardner? I like solvin' problems, and it'd take mah mind off some things.