Riddle Me This

"If I answer your riddle, you'll let Téa go?" The boy's voice was remarkably calm for someone with their hand hovering over a shock device with enough voltage to fry a small elephant.

The razor-sharp point of the question mark kept inching closer to the girl's head. She was bound and gagged, face as white as her leotard, but her eyes were alive with terror—though not for herself but for that little boy with the strange hair that had walked up to Nigma's podium like a lamb to the slaughter.

"If you answer correctly," said the Riddler. He glanced up at the balconies, his brow furrowing with annoyance. I knew a showdown with a middle-schooler wasn't what he was after. "If you answer incorrectly, on the other hand…" he arched an eyebrow towards the shock device.

The Gotham School of Dance's staging of Feld's "The Unanswered Question" had been like dangling a steak before a starving dog; there was no way Riddler could resist. The clues he'd left at the Batsignal had practically solved themselves. If it wasn't for Ivy's stunt at the park I would have been here from the beginning, but I was only now arriving, and I feared it was already too late. Nigma had a tight grip on the controls; I'd never wrest them from him in time. I could swing in and try to knock away the giant, deadly question mark, but if I hit it a fraction of an inch off, it would be the end of the ballerina. But if I did nothing, she'd die anyway, unless…

Unless that kid could somehow figure out Nigma's riddle.

"Fine, then. If I answer correctly, you'll let Téa go? Unharmed?"

"Yes, yes, I'll let the girl go." His voice was taut with impatience. "No more stalling. What belongs to you but is used by others?"

I'd have to risk the swing. At least the girl would have a chance of survival.

The girl struggled hard against her bonds. Her gag slipped, just enough enough for her to scream, "Yugi, no!" Tears streamed down her face. "Please, Yugi…" she sobbed. "I can't lose you! I—" A slap across the face from Query silenced her.

My gloves tightened on the grappler gun. I couldn't let this go any farther. Even if I could only save that poor kid…

The boy took a deep breath. "It's okay, Téa," he said softly. "Just have a little faith." The boy turned to face the Riddler. "Your name," he said, placing his hand on the shock device. "The answer is your name."

"My name?" sneered the Riddler. "Do you even know my name?" He was scowling. The riddle had been solved and he knew it. But would he end this peaceably? I couldn't count on it.

"No," the kid admitted. "But that's not the point, and you know it. The answer is 'your name.' Now let Téa go."

The Riddler twitched. I hadn't seen him so angry since the Cluemaster "stole his theme." He started muttering under his breath. "…spend weeks planning…writing clues…and for what? …not so much as a pointy-eared shadow…some precocious adolescent upstart…"

The boy looked back and forth between the now-pacing Riddler and the girl who was still trapped under the slowly-descending question mark. "Well?" A hint of panic was creeping into his voice. "You said you'd let her go!"

Nigma whirled on him. "You dare to presume that I, the great Riddler, criminal mastermind extraordinaire, can't even remember what I said two minutes ago?" he fumed. His fingers twitched as if longing to strangle the kid. "You must have cheated somehow!" he insisted. "There's no way a kid like you could challenge a great criminal intellect like mine!"

"Are you telling me that you won't hold up your end of the bargain?" There was a new note in the boy's voice, like a rumbling of distant thunder.

Nigma didn't seem to notice. "I want to face a superior mind," he grumbled. "Not a snotty-nosed brat." He crossed his arms. "You only completed half the challenge. Now you have to come up with a riddle that I can't solve in thirty seconds."

The boy shot a desperate glance at the question mark over the girl's head. She had barely thirty seconds to spare. He closed his eyes. "What is something you can see, but not see?"

The Riddler jerked backwards. "What?"

"What is something you can see, but not see?" the boy repeated. His fingers twitched. I realized he was counting the seconds down. "Well?" He closed his fingers into fists and opened his eyes. "Can you answer it?"

"It doesn't make any sense!" the Riddler spluttered, throwing up his arms. "It's just a string of nonsense! There's no answer!"

The rest of his rant was lost in an explosion of breath as I swung my full weight into his chest, knocking him to the floor. The controls clattered across the floor. The kid wasted no time in grabbing them. The question mark froze a bare half-inch from the girl's head. Query and Echo rushed at the kid. With a flick of my wrist, I sent a batarang to the back of Echo's head. She let a tiny moan before collapsing. Query whirled—right into my left hook.

I looked up to see the kid tugging at the girl's bonds. Her gag was off already and in a few seconds, her arms and legs were free. In an instant, she was hugging him, squeezing him so tightly I doubted he could breathe. He didn't seem to mind, though.

I tied up Riddler, Query, and Echo and disarmed the question mark and shock device. The rest could be left to the police. I lifted the grappler gun.

"Wait!"

I turned.

"Thank you," the boy said. The girl was clutching his hand. "From both of us."

I didn't normally stop to chat with the victims—that was Kent's style, not mine—but then it hadn't been a normal situation. Besides, there was something about the kid…it got under the skin. "There wasn't much to do," I said brusquely. "If the girl wants to thank someone, she can thank you." I glared. "It was incredibly dangerous and stupid to try to stand up to the Riddler like that. But if you hadn't, she'd probably be dead right now."

The boy just smiled. "I knew what I was doing," he said quietly. It wasn't insolence or arrogance. His unblinking gaze said that he had known the risks, weighed the consequences, and found it worth it. His eyes said he would do it again in an instant.

I just nodded. There was just one more thing I wanted to know.

"What was the answer?"

"What?" the boy looked confused.

"To your riddle. What is something you can see, but not see?"

"Oh." The kid smiled. "A puzzle."

The slightest hint of a smile crossed my lips. A puzzle. The Riddler was going to go into a frenzy when he figured it out.

"Or friendship," the girl said, squeezing his hand. "Friendship is another answer, Yugi."

"That's true," he said. "But sometimes they're the same thing." He looked back up, "Its—Oh."

"He's gone," the girl said. "Wow."

"Yeah," he said, looking down. She was still holding his hand. "Wow."

FIN

A/N: Yugi's riddle comes from the first issue of the manga (and the second episode of the anime).