Post by Mr.EdwardNigma on May 25, 2006 7:45:29 GMT -5
Batman :
Riddle me this, riddle me that…
When I arrived at the Asylum, the police was already at the scene. Gordon was standing in the light of a lantern pole. Alone. Perfect. I slid down to him. I sat down on top of the lantern pole. He didn’t see me. Few people do. He lighted a cigarette. Protecting it from the light rain with his hand. The smoke drifted up towards me. It warmed my face. In the distance I could see a stretcher being pushed this way. The guy on the stretcher had a huge bandage on his face and his blood had clotted. Because of al the blood and the bandage, I couldn’t make out who he was. The stretcher had arrived. The kid who was pushing it seemed quite young for his line of work. “Sir,” He stumbled “sir, this one is the only one that could say something usefull before he passed out” “All the others kept screaming the whole time” “It was awful, sir!”.
“Get to the point, boy” Gordon said.
“He said… h-he said that…that”.
“Spit it out, boy!”.
“He said there’s one left, sir”.
Gordon looked surprised. So did I.
“What do you mean, “there’s one left” ?”.
“A prisoner, sir”, stated the boy, “There’s a prisoner left”.
Gordon scratched his chin. He stared at the kid in disbelief. “Why, for the love of god, would one of them stick around when he has a chance to escape?!!”.
“Well, they are insane, sir…”.
“I suppose you’ve got a point there” I said.
The boy looked up. “I-i-i-it’s the-the Batman!!!” he screamed.
“Keep it down!” Gordon said strictly. But it was too late. The kid ran off. Leaving the stretcher in the flickering light of the lantern pole.
“You really shouldn’t have scared him like that” Gordon said, while shining his glasses. “I’m used to it, but, as you see, others can’t handle your sudden appearances that well”.
“I’ll try to think about it in the future”.
“What are you doing here, anyway?”
“I’ve come to drop off this pile of misery”. I tossed down Bane. He landed on the pavement. At Gordon’s feet.
“Who’s this?”, Gordon asked.
“Bane”, I answered.
“Isn’t Bane that huge, muscled monster?”.
“That’s right”. I fired my grapnel hook and swung to Arkham’s largest tower, leaving the commissioner scratching his head. I was going to find this prisoner who hadn’t escaped. He might be able to tell me who had caused this mayhem.
As I crawled through the vent shafts of the asylum I was struck with the irony of the whole matter. There used to be dangerous criminals in this building. But now that they’re gone, I’m still hiding in the vents. To make matters worse, I’m actually looking for the only maniac that ís here! I could hear faint noises ahead. I speeded up my pace. I could see a small room ahead. As I came to the end of the narrow tunnel I saw what I had been looking for. And I was disappointed. Just my luck, out of all the nuts it had to be the only one that’s actually insane enough not to make any sense at all. The riddler. When I locked him up in this place he was so devastated with this that he became even crazier then he already was. He began to think he was the Batman. Apparently he still did. He was flapping his straightjacket as if he had wings. Suddenly he noticed me. He snapped out of his joyful skipping. He looked at me and said “Riddle me this, riddle me that…”. Here we go again. “who’s afraid of the big black bat!”. He started laughing franticly and ran through the room again on an imaginary flight. I grunted. Why did it have to be him? I already knew the answer: No-one else was insane enough to stay in the Asylum. He seemed to like it here though.
Suddenly I noticed he was gone. I had let my thoughts wander too much. There was only one way he could have gone. So that’s where I went. Further up. Up, always up, through the endless vents of the Asylum. A maze within a maze. I could almost smell the riddler. He smelled of unwashed cloths, the grease on the walls of the vents and the sweat of a maniac. This will probably surprise you, but you can actually tell a maniac apart from other people by the smell of their sweat. Not that it’s something you normally pay attention too, nor is it an infallible method. d**n, I really have been in this business too long. Sweat of a maniac…
I came to a metal grating that led into the cold night’s air. Did I take a wrong turn? Did I loose the scent? Or no, wait, I can hear scurrying on the roof…Did he? No, he couldn’t have…Or could he? I checked. Yes, he did. The grating was screwed lose on all four corners. The only thing keeping it pinned down were a couple of bricks that were scattered across it. All this time, the riddler could have escaped. And yet, he didn’t. He preferred to stay here. Truly insane that man, truly insane.
I propelled the grating into the dark and ascended the roof of the Asylum. Though the inside of the building was made up of cement and steel, the outside was still made up in Victorian style. Or at least the older parts of the building were. The tiles on the roof were still the original ones, and many of them were missing, leaving gaping holes. There was an immense amount of chimneys mounted on the roof, more than anyone would ever need, and there were also a bunch of gargoyles, weather vanes, antennas and cast-iron decorations. I followed the trail of the raving riddler and it led me to a huge hole in the roof. The riddler was standing on the other side, waving the loose flaps of his straightjacket as if they were wings. “Riddle me this, riddle me that, …”, he shouted as a bolt of lightning lit the night sky, “What do you call a bat that can’t fly, tell me that!”. I stepped onto the ancient wooden beam that spanned across the hole and I started walking, trying to stop the riddler from fleeing by talking to him. “Tell me, Riddler,”, I said, “How do you divide seventeen apples among sixteen people?”.
“The Riddler? Never fear! He’s not here!”, the riddler shouted and then he ran out of sight. When I arrived on the other side of the beam and followed the trail it led me to a small piece of flat cement roof with a bunch of chimneys on it, and in a circle of them, an antenna with a ribbon on it. The ribbon was flapping wildly in the chilly breeze and I approached to take a closer look at it. As I stepped up I saw that there was a tiny piece of metal on the white ribbon. I reached for it as I realized it. It was the cord that held the riddler in his restraints. Before I could react the riddler had jumped down on me from atop one of the chimneys. I fell down to the ground and hit the solid concrete with my face as the riddler snatched the ribbon and wound it around my neck as a noose, while crying out “Applesauce!!! Applesauce!!!”. I looked at him in surprise as he tried to strangle me with the noose. He looked me in the eye and said: “I remembered! It’s applesauce!”. Seeing that I sill didn’t know what he was talking about he said “How do you divide seventeen apples among sixteen people: you make applesauce!!!”. I was astonished the riddler had finally managed to say something that made sense and for a second I forgot to fight him off in my surprise, and that was my critical mistake. I was getting old: a weak guy like the riddler, no matter how smart he used to be, shouldn’t be able to beat the dark knight in a hand-to-hand fight! But now here I was, curled up on the merciless cement, noose around my neck and the maniac holding it on my chest, obstructing my every movement. Things were going black as I heard the riddler say “Riddle me this, riddle me that, what is the beginning of eternity, the end of time and space, the beginning of every end and the end of every race?”. “ The letter E”, I said. “What?”, the riddler shouted as he eased his grip a bit. “How about this, what letter isn’t in the alphabet?”. “The kind you put in the mailbox”, I said, as he eased his grip yet again. Making advantage of this I kicked him of my chest, before he could recite yet another riddle. The riddler was swung to the edge of the roof. He looked at me in terror as I ripped the ribbon off my neck and squeaked “Riddle me this, riddle me that, who’s afraid of the big black bat?”. I ran towards him and he fled over the rooftops, spouting incomprehensible riddles as he jumped obstacles and sped away. I was gaining on him quickly and I could hear my heart pounding in my chest like a clock at noon. My feet were beating the roofing tiles like hammers on an anvil, but I kept going, and the distance kept shrinking. I almost had him, if only I could hold on for a bit longer, and if I could avoid falling down the slippery roof and shattering every one of my bones. I could almost feel the rags the riddler was wearing flapping in my face and I reached out to grab him when suddenly…he wasn’t there anymore. I was standing in front of the huge hole in the roof I’d crossed earlier. Realizing what had happened I grabbed my grapnel hook and shot it down into the hole, where it caught on to the clothes of the falling riddler. As he reached the end of the rope the grapnel hook was almost pulled out of my hands, but I held on. Instead of pulling the riddler up I let him hang there and I asked: “Riddle me this, riddler, who let the nuts out?”. “The nutcracker?”, the riddler guessed. “Wrong answer, riddler, I though you were good at this”, I said and I dropped the riddler a couple of meters. “Ok,ok, it was the birdman!”, the riddler screamed. “Who’s the birdman”, I demanded, but all I got for an answer was “The birdman and the batman, flying up a tree, F-I-G-H-T-I-N-G, like one, two, three…”. I dropped the riddler down again, but he kept repeating his silly rhyme. I decided to take him to the batcave, to see if I could retrieve any more information from him, but I didn’t have very high hopes…
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Riddle me this, riddle me that…
When I arrived at the Asylum, the police was already at the scene. Gordon was standing in the light of a lantern pole. Alone. Perfect. I slid down to him. I sat down on top of the lantern pole. He didn’t see me. Few people do. He lighted a cigarette. Protecting it from the light rain with his hand. The smoke drifted up towards me. It warmed my face. In the distance I could see a stretcher being pushed this way. The guy on the stretcher had a huge bandage on his face and his blood had clotted. Because of al the blood and the bandage, I couldn’t make out who he was. The stretcher had arrived. The kid who was pushing it seemed quite young for his line of work. “Sir,” He stumbled “sir, this one is the only one that could say something usefull before he passed out” “All the others kept screaming the whole time” “It was awful, sir!”.
“Get to the point, boy” Gordon said.
“He said… h-he said that…that”.
“Spit it out, boy!”.
“He said there’s one left, sir”.
Gordon looked surprised. So did I.
“What do you mean, “there’s one left” ?”.
“A prisoner, sir”, stated the boy, “There’s a prisoner left”.
Gordon scratched his chin. He stared at the kid in disbelief. “Why, for the love of god, would one of them stick around when he has a chance to escape?!!”.
“Well, they are insane, sir…”.
“I suppose you’ve got a point there” I said.
The boy looked up. “I-i-i-it’s the-the Batman!!!” he screamed.
“Keep it down!” Gordon said strictly. But it was too late. The kid ran off. Leaving the stretcher in the flickering light of the lantern pole.
“You really shouldn’t have scared him like that” Gordon said, while shining his glasses. “I’m used to it, but, as you see, others can’t handle your sudden appearances that well”.
“I’ll try to think about it in the future”.
“What are you doing here, anyway?”
“I’ve come to drop off this pile of misery”. I tossed down Bane. He landed on the pavement. At Gordon’s feet.
“Who’s this?”, Gordon asked.
“Bane”, I answered.
“Isn’t Bane that huge, muscled monster?”.
“That’s right”. I fired my grapnel hook and swung to Arkham’s largest tower, leaving the commissioner scratching his head. I was going to find this prisoner who hadn’t escaped. He might be able to tell me who had caused this mayhem.
As I crawled through the vent shafts of the asylum I was struck with the irony of the whole matter. There used to be dangerous criminals in this building. But now that they’re gone, I’m still hiding in the vents. To make matters worse, I’m actually looking for the only maniac that ís here! I could hear faint noises ahead. I speeded up my pace. I could see a small room ahead. As I came to the end of the narrow tunnel I saw what I had been looking for. And I was disappointed. Just my luck, out of all the nuts it had to be the only one that’s actually insane enough not to make any sense at all. The riddler. When I locked him up in this place he was so devastated with this that he became even crazier then he already was. He began to think he was the Batman. Apparently he still did. He was flapping his straightjacket as if he had wings. Suddenly he noticed me. He snapped out of his joyful skipping. He looked at me and said “Riddle me this, riddle me that…”. Here we go again. “who’s afraid of the big black bat!”. He started laughing franticly and ran through the room again on an imaginary flight. I grunted. Why did it have to be him? I already knew the answer: No-one else was insane enough to stay in the Asylum. He seemed to like it here though.
Suddenly I noticed he was gone. I had let my thoughts wander too much. There was only one way he could have gone. So that’s where I went. Further up. Up, always up, through the endless vents of the Asylum. A maze within a maze. I could almost smell the riddler. He smelled of unwashed cloths, the grease on the walls of the vents and the sweat of a maniac. This will probably surprise you, but you can actually tell a maniac apart from other people by the smell of their sweat. Not that it’s something you normally pay attention too, nor is it an infallible method. d**n, I really have been in this business too long. Sweat of a maniac…
I came to a metal grating that led into the cold night’s air. Did I take a wrong turn? Did I loose the scent? Or no, wait, I can hear scurrying on the roof…Did he? No, he couldn’t have…Or could he? I checked. Yes, he did. The grating was screwed lose on all four corners. The only thing keeping it pinned down were a couple of bricks that were scattered across it. All this time, the riddler could have escaped. And yet, he didn’t. He preferred to stay here. Truly insane that man, truly insane.
I propelled the grating into the dark and ascended the roof of the Asylum. Though the inside of the building was made up of cement and steel, the outside was still made up in Victorian style. Or at least the older parts of the building were. The tiles on the roof were still the original ones, and many of them were missing, leaving gaping holes. There was an immense amount of chimneys mounted on the roof, more than anyone would ever need, and there were also a bunch of gargoyles, weather vanes, antennas and cast-iron decorations. I followed the trail of the raving riddler and it led me to a huge hole in the roof. The riddler was standing on the other side, waving the loose flaps of his straightjacket as if they were wings. “Riddle me this, riddle me that, …”, he shouted as a bolt of lightning lit the night sky, “What do you call a bat that can’t fly, tell me that!”. I stepped onto the ancient wooden beam that spanned across the hole and I started walking, trying to stop the riddler from fleeing by talking to him. “Tell me, Riddler,”, I said, “How do you divide seventeen apples among sixteen people?”.
“The Riddler? Never fear! He’s not here!”, the riddler shouted and then he ran out of sight. When I arrived on the other side of the beam and followed the trail it led me to a small piece of flat cement roof with a bunch of chimneys on it, and in a circle of them, an antenna with a ribbon on it. The ribbon was flapping wildly in the chilly breeze and I approached to take a closer look at it. As I stepped up I saw that there was a tiny piece of metal on the white ribbon. I reached for it as I realized it. It was the cord that held the riddler in his restraints. Before I could react the riddler had jumped down on me from atop one of the chimneys. I fell down to the ground and hit the solid concrete with my face as the riddler snatched the ribbon and wound it around my neck as a noose, while crying out “Applesauce!!! Applesauce!!!”. I looked at him in surprise as he tried to strangle me with the noose. He looked me in the eye and said: “I remembered! It’s applesauce!”. Seeing that I sill didn’t know what he was talking about he said “How do you divide seventeen apples among sixteen people: you make applesauce!!!”. I was astonished the riddler had finally managed to say something that made sense and for a second I forgot to fight him off in my surprise, and that was my critical mistake. I was getting old: a weak guy like the riddler, no matter how smart he used to be, shouldn’t be able to beat the dark knight in a hand-to-hand fight! But now here I was, curled up on the merciless cement, noose around my neck and the maniac holding it on my chest, obstructing my every movement. Things were going black as I heard the riddler say “Riddle me this, riddle me that, what is the beginning of eternity, the end of time and space, the beginning of every end and the end of every race?”. “ The letter E”, I said. “What?”, the riddler shouted as he eased his grip a bit. “How about this, what letter isn’t in the alphabet?”. “The kind you put in the mailbox”, I said, as he eased his grip yet again. Making advantage of this I kicked him of my chest, before he could recite yet another riddle. The riddler was swung to the edge of the roof. He looked at me in terror as I ripped the ribbon off my neck and squeaked “Riddle me this, riddle me that, who’s afraid of the big black bat?”. I ran towards him and he fled over the rooftops, spouting incomprehensible riddles as he jumped obstacles and sped away. I was gaining on him quickly and I could hear my heart pounding in my chest like a clock at noon. My feet were beating the roofing tiles like hammers on an anvil, but I kept going, and the distance kept shrinking. I almost had him, if only I could hold on for a bit longer, and if I could avoid falling down the slippery roof and shattering every one of my bones. I could almost feel the rags the riddler was wearing flapping in my face and I reached out to grab him when suddenly…he wasn’t there anymore. I was standing in front of the huge hole in the roof I’d crossed earlier. Realizing what had happened I grabbed my grapnel hook and shot it down into the hole, where it caught on to the clothes of the falling riddler. As he reached the end of the rope the grapnel hook was almost pulled out of my hands, but I held on. Instead of pulling the riddler up I let him hang there and I asked: “Riddle me this, riddler, who let the nuts out?”. “The nutcracker?”, the riddler guessed. “Wrong answer, riddler, I though you were good at this”, I said and I dropped the riddler a couple of meters. “Ok,ok, it was the birdman!”, the riddler screamed. “Who’s the birdman”, I demanded, but all I got for an answer was “The birdman and the batman, flying up a tree, F-I-G-H-T-I-N-G, like one, two, three…”. I dropped the riddler down again, but he kept repeating his silly rhyme. I decided to take him to the batcave, to see if I could retrieve any more information from him, but I didn’t have very high hopes…
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