“Before you stands the Opera House.
Inside…”
The Riddler’s distorted voice echoed across the plaza from several digital billboards.
I stopped dead on the asphalt.
A whole carousel of possibilities flashed through my mind.
Hostages arranged in elaborate traps straight out of a Jigsaw movie?
Cute Gotham University cheerleaders hanging over a vat of acid?
A Satanist’s Bible?
Or, for fuck’s sake, a first-edition holographic Shadowless Charizard in perfect condition?!
Come on, Nygma.
Surprise me…
“A bomb!” Nygma announced with a smug grin.
I nearly choked on air.
My undead emotions were muted, but even through that mental filter, a deep sense of disappointment managed to break through.
“Fuck!
Why so damn predictable, Eddie?!”
I snapped, rudely interrupting the villain and kicking the air in frustration.
“I came up with a hundred more interesting possibilities in a single second, and a basic timed explosive wasn’t one of them!
You’re the fucking Riddler!”
The face on the screen twitched.
His smug grin cracked, replaced by the irritated expression of a perfectionist whose carefully rehearsed monologue had just been ruined.
“Don’t interrupt me!” the man grumbled, adjusting his mask.
“And the bomb is only the first challenge!
I assure you, what comes next will be much more interesting!”
“Really?
Somehow I don’t believe you.”
I raised an eyebrow skeptically and crossed my arms.
“Bombs, riddles, attempts at intellectual superiority through television screens…”
I shrugged.
“So far, this looks like a cheap production.
Predictable.
Boring.”
“You’re losing your touch, Nygma.”
“Actually, I’m starting to think you never had one.”
I deliberately lowered my voice for the last sentence.
“And that is going to change very soon,” he hissed through clenched teeth.
The muscles in his cheeks tightened.
“How am I supposed to trust you after this cheap TNT stunt?” I continued, thoroughly enjoying myself.
“Where’s the guarantee that the next challenge won’t be some tired trolley-problem bullshit?
Something like a primitive hostage rescue where I have to choose between a bunch of orphans and the woman I love?”
“Can you guarantee the quality of your show, Eddie?”
“If you can’t, then don’t pretend you’re better than you actually are!”
I pointed accusingly at the Riddler’s face on one of the screens.
Nygma couldn’t find an answer.
He simply stood there silently, breathing heavily.
His silence essentially proved my point.
The next challenges would probably follow the same worn-out comic-book formulas.
I’d complete them anyway.
I needed the Tickets.
But pissing off this green clown was a worthwhile bonus.
At this point, it was a matter of principle.
“Only amateurs jump to conclusions!”
Nygma finally spat out, desperately trying to regain control of the conversation.
“But I have no intention of arguing with you.
Your job is to complete the challenges.
My job is to provide them.”
You don’t want to argue?
Since when?
“And who said I’m even going to play your games?” I asked calmly, almost lazily.
Nygma practically choked on his own breath.
His eyes widened.
“I said I’d deal with your little gang because you keep getting in my way,” I continued, driving another nail into his ego.
“But what does that have to do with you and your childish riddles?”
“I can’t be bothered.”
“If…”
The Riddler nervously swallowed, struggling to regain his composure.
“If you don’t follow the plan, Gotham will be blown to hell!”
“This city gets blown up every weekend, Eddie.”
“Scarecrow’s gas.
Poison Ivy’s plants.
Joker deciding he wants to put on a fireworks show.”
I casually spread my arms.
“I don’t give a damn about the disposable extras who die.”
“People have always died.
They die now, and they’ll keep dying.”
“One block more or one block less.”
“But you’re Batman!”
Nygma suddenly shouted.
“Yessss!”
My fist instinctively shot into the air in triumph.
Damn Eighth-Grader Syndrome had chosen the worst possible moment to make an appearance, punching straight through my carefully constructed armor of cynicism.
“Ahem.
More precisely, you’re pretending to be him!”
Nygma quickly corrected himself, realizing what he’d blurted out.
But the word was already out.
The canon villain just admitted I’m the Dark Knight!
Yeah, he only said it to provoke me, to bait me into proving myself, but this is exactly how truly global stories begin!
My inner nerd celebrated wildly while my undead face remained completely expressionless.
I cleared my throat and returned to my serious vigilante persona.
“Batman isn’t afraid of challenges.”
“So go ahead, Riddler.
Tell me what I need to do with the bomb inside the Opera House.”
I stared into the screen with the darkest, most intimidating expression I could manage.
Despite the fact that Nygma’s face practically screamed, Seriously?
He actually fell for that cheap manipulation?, he nevertheless exhaled in relief and continued reading his conditions.
“There is a bomb inside the building.”
“It is the key to the next stage.”
“You have five minutes to find it.”
His tone became dry and professional.
Then he raised one finger.
“But there is one important condition.”
“You personally cannot enter the building.”
“Take one step across the threshold and the bomb detonates.”
“Are you suggesting I call the cops?”
“That is entirely up to you.”
He paused.
“By the way, your time has already started.”
A blood-red timer suddenly appeared in the bottom-right corner of the enormous screens.
05:00
04:59
04:58
Of course the police aren’t an option.
They’re all running around the other side of Gotham.
The bridge bombing and my recent little adventure with Lucius pulled every available patrol away from here.
“What if I just tear the entire building down?”
“There isn’t anyone inside, right?”
“Except for a couple dozen unconscious night-shift workers and janitors.”
Nygma’s lips stretched into a disgusting, triumphant smile.
“But no one else.”
“But Batman doesn’t kill.”
“Especially innocent people.”
“And the bomb itself is rather fragile, you know.
Without it…”
“Yeah, yeah.
I get it.”
I waved him off.
“The bomb is the key.”
“I’m not dumber than you, Eddie.”
So blowing the Opera House apart with the Archangel’s guns is off the table.
Shame.
Time for Plan B. This chapter was taken from novelping.com without permission.
White Bone.
I dramatically raised one hand and snapped my fingers.
The temperature around the plaza dropped several degrees.
Dark, distorted shadows twisted across the ground.
Then, accompanied by a dry, nerve-rattling clatter, figures began rising from them.
Thirty skeletal warriors gripping rusty but razor-sharp blades.
Twenty archers holding bows whose strings radiated the cold of the grave.
Fifty soldiers.
Dead.
Soulless.
Stupid.
And completely obedient to my will.
Infernal light ignited inside their empty eye sockets as they formed neat ranks at the Opera House steps.
Whatever they lacked in intelligence, they more than compensated for with blind obedience.
I issued a mental command.
The skeletal horde surged forward.
Without a sound, they disappeared through the grand entrance of the Opera House.
Their orders were simple.
Find the ticking piece of metal.
Or anything else that looked like a bomb.
Then I slowly turned my head toward the screen, clearly enjoying the sight of the Riddler’s distorted expression.
“Wh-what…
what is that?”
His voice cracked.
The sheer level of his shock was perfectly emphasized by the translucent System window that appeared before my eyes.
Feat Completed: Shock the Riddler with Your Abilities.
Reward: 1 Bronze Ticket.
Damn.
He’s easy to impress.
I actually got an entire Ticket out of that.
“Obviously they’re skeletons, Eddie.”
I looked at him like he was a mentally challenged child, casually glancing toward the timer.
Thirty seconds had passed.
“Didn’t you see them in biology class?”
“I can see that they’re skeletons!”
“It’s just…”
“What the hell?!
How?!”
His animalistic shock had now been joined by a feverish curiosity.
Yeah.
The Riddler had done his homework.
He knew I was a metahuman.
He’d probably analyzed the footage from Arkham, studied my physical characteristics, and estimated my threat level.
But summoning an entire undead army in the middle of Gotham completely shattered every piece of his analysis.
They never intended to let me survive.
That much was obvious.
The plan was simple.
Lead me around.
Distract me.
Drive me into a trap.
Kill me.
They had no idea that I was already dead, but that was just a philosophical technicality.
Their real objective was to create the illusion that they controlled the situation.
An illusion I’d just smashed to pieces.
“What do you mean, how, Eddie?”
I tilted my head slightly, studying his distorted expression like I was watching a particularly entertaining bug struggling in a puddle.
“Batman can do anything!”
“If he wants to, he can pull an army of dead men out of the ground and make them faithfully imitate Gotham’s population.”
“And if he wants to…”
I shrugged theatrically.
“I don’t know.”
“Summon riding birds that don’t even exist in nature?”
I snapped my fingers again.
The air shimmered.
The smell of grass and feathers suddenly filled the plaza.
POP!
Two enormous, fluffy, completely ridiculous bright-yellow Chocobos appeared on the cold Gotham asphalt beside me, happily chirping.
One immediately began pecking curiously at the dirt.
The other affectionately nudged my shoulder with its beak.
The contrast was so absurd that a normal person’s brain should have simply crashed.
Nygma’s brain apparently did.
The timer continued counting down, but Edward simply froze.
His mouth hung open.
His eyes darted frantically from one screen to another, from the skeletal warriors inside the Opera House to the enormous yellow birds and back again.
The shock and confusion on his face gradually faded.
They were replaced by something much more primal.
Fear.
Fear of something that didn’t fit into any calculation.
That’s right, genius.
Try to figure out what other insane shit I can pull out of nowhere.
Think.
Analyze.
And be afraid.
I mentally chuckled and dismissed the Chocobos with another snap of my fingers.
A pleasant chill of satisfaction ran through me when another System notification appeared.
Feat Completed: Terrify the Riddler.
Reward: 1 Bronze Ticket.
Shame that because this green idiot is such a secondary character, the System mostly gives me Bronze.
Still, every little bit counts.
I’d already accumulated ten Tickets.
With a familiar mental effort, I immediately fused them into a single Silver Ticket.
“Your abilities are…
quite unusual,” the Riddler finally managed to say.
He nervously adjusted his bow tie.
He narrowed his eyes, trying to hide the tremor in his voice while studying the screen as if searching for hidden holographic projectors.
“Nothing special.”
“Just basic training.”
I casually waved him off.
“All high-level metahumans can do this.”
“And as the coolest, most upgraded version of Batman, I obviously have to meet the standard.”
“Otherwise, how am I supposed to keep an eye on someone like Clark?”
“Keep an eye on…
Superman?”
Nygma had completely lost the thread of the conversation.
His supposedly legendary deductive abilities were currently spinning their wheels in the mud.
“You know.”
“Keep the world safe.”
“Containment protocols.”
“All that stuff.”
I said it with the same casual tone someone might use when talking about buying milk.
“If you give him too much freedom, or if he ever loses his mind, he could split the planet in half with a sneeze.”
“So you have to be prepared for anything.”
“I don’t think he’s that strong…”
Nygma shook his head.
I could practically see him desperately trying to rebuild his shattered worldview.
In his mind, Batman was supposed to be a rich guy with gadgets.
Not a necromancer who raised undead armies and bred giant birds.
“And I don’t think Batman should be throwing terrorists into psychiatric hospitals instead of sending them to the electric chair.”
I spread my hands, thoroughly enjoying his cognitive dissonance.
“But here we are.”
“Your limited imagination is your problem, Eddie.”
“Expand your horizons.”
I tapped my index finger against my temple several times.
The timer showed three minutes remaining.
Two of the five minutes had been spent crushing the Riddler’s ego and revealing just enough of my abilities to completely confuse him.
“Limited imagination?”
“That’s coming from a guy wearing a fucking bat costume?!”
Nygma sneered, trying to fight back.
I didn’t get the chance to tell him that my tactical armor looked a hundred times more badass than his cheap green suit. Get faster updates on g.com.
One of my skeletal warriors appeared in the open entrance of the Opera House.
In its bony hands, it carefully carried the bomb as though it were a priceless vase.
I stared at the object.
Even through my emotionless undead filter, aesthetic disappointment once again managed to break through.
“And we’re back to the tired old clichés, Eddie.”
“How vulgar.”
I grimaced in disgust as I approached the bomb.
The skeleton obediently placed it on the asphalt at my feet.
It was a fucking chunk of C4 wrapped in gray duct tape.
A cheap electronic timer had been crudely attached to it, its display synchronized with the countdown on the giant screens.
And as the final insult to good design, three wires protruded from the side.
Red.
Blue.
Green.
“This is absolutely pathetic.”
I crouched in front of the explosive.
“I could understand this if you were actually some talentless street gang.”
“But just a couple of hours ago, I nearly got blown up by Joker’s booby-trapped piñata!”
“That thing had soul!”
“It had style!”
“You guys can do better when you actually try!”
“This…”
I shook my head.
“It’s amateur hour.”
With another snap of my fingers, the skeleton carrying the bomb, along with every other skeleton searching the building, crumbled into dust and vanished.
Nygma didn’t comment on my criticism of the bomb’s design.
But the muscles in his face were twitching again.
It clearly infuriated him that I was treating his supposedly deadly trap like a pathetic craft project made by a middle-school student.
“The bomb is the key to the riddle,” the man reminded me dryly, barely suppressing his anger.
“Look carefully.”
“And even in that role, it performs terribly.”
I shook my head, giving the bomb a quick glance.
Someone had drawn a rebus on the casing with a black marker.
A crooked house.
The letter C.
A stack of books.
And a crossed-out letter A.
The difficulty level was roughly equivalent to a children’s magazine puzzle for struggling first-graders.
“Central Library?”
“Seriously?”
“That might be the dumbest rebus I’ve ever seen.”
I sighed.
I reached out and grabbed all three colored wires at once with my Kevlar-covered hand.
Then, with one sharp, bored movement, I ripped all three of them straight out.
The timer beeped.
Then immediately went dark.
No tension.
No dramatic choice between the blue and red wires.
Just pure pragmatism.
Considering the level of craftsmanship they’d demonstrated so far, I hadn’t expected anything more complicated.
Feat Completed: Defuse the Riddler’s Bomb by Solving His Rebus.
Reward: 1 Silver Ticket.
Brute force and contempt for clichés rarely let you down.
I smirked inwardly as I watched the Riddler’s face on the screen turn the color of an overripe eggplant.
“See you at the Central Library, Eddie.”
I casually waved goodbye, turning my back to the screens.
“If you’ve got the balls to show up there personally, I might even consider killing you quickly.”
“Otherwise…”
I shrugged.
“Well, hopefully the scenery there won’t be as pathetic as this.”
I walked away from the plaza in front of the Opera House at a steady pace.
The Library wasn’t very far.
By my estimate, it was maybe a five-minute walk straight ahead.
There was no timer this time.
Nobody was rushing me.
Using the Archangel for such a short trip would have been a waste.
Rooftops.
A little walking.
Some time to think.
Exactly what I needed.
“It really will be more interesting there!”
“You’ll regret those words!”
Nygma’s hysterical promise followed me from the speakers.
“I don’t believe you!”
I shouted without turning around.
Then I disappeared into a dark alley and broke into a run.
A final System notification appeared before my eyes.
Feat Completed: Complete the Riddler’s First Challenge.
Reward: 1 Silver Ticket.
Jesus Christ, farming these little rewards is exhausting…
I mentally grimaced as I effortlessly jumped from a dumpster and grabbed a fire escape.
The metal groaned beneath my enhanced undead grip.
But whatever.
Scarecrow, Joker, Bane, and this green clown…
First of all, I’m doing all this for their own good.
More precisely, for the loot I can get from their corpses.
And second…
Gotham needs a new Dark Knight.
A real one.
Someone brutal.
Someone who actually gets shit done.
And what could possibly be better publicity than saving the city from an entire gang of famous psychopaths during my very first night on the job?
Although, if I was being honest with myself, Gotham had plenty of entertainment even without these costumed idiots.
The Court of Owls and their feathered assassins.
The mobsters.
Corrupt government officials.
And all the other metahumans, some of whom happened to be very, very attractive.
Girls with serious attitude problems who could be punished without consequence.
Harshly.
Dominantly.
Heh-heh-heh.
Okay, stop.
What the hell am I thinking?!
My heart belongs only to Barbara!
My righteous outrage at my own dirty thoughts burned in my chest.
Well…
maybe Raven too.
Yeah, a goth sorceress is pretty damn cool.
Or Starfire with all that alien exoticism.
Or Supergirl, just so I can wipe that smug Kryptonian grin off Clark’s face.
And Harley…
Well, just because she’s Harley.
I slapped myself across the cheek while running, knocking the stupid harem fantasy out of my head.
Damn Eighth-Grader Syndrome.
It regularly filled my brain with cheap dramatic fantasies and hormonal nonsense straight out of the worst Japanese fiction imaginable.
With a couple of long, physically impossible jumps, I reached the roof of a five-story building.
From here, through Gotham’s eternal layer of smog, I could already see the towers of Central Gotham, where the Library was located.
The wind caught my cape, transforming it into black wings behind me.
Hopefully this gang of losers can actually give me something worthwhile this time.
I narrowed my eyes, staring toward the distant rooftops.
Otherwise, I’m done playing around.
I’ll stop being Batman.
I’ll become the Riddler’s worst fucking nightmare.
I’ll become…
The Riddlebreaker!
I immediately grimaced and spat onto the roof.
The pun was so fucking stupid that even I wanted to slap myself for it.
But my body had already launched forward, clearing the gap between the buildings in a single leap.
The game continued.