Disclaimer: I get it. Bob Kane owns Batman. I own this story though! (But not Batgirl or the villains)


Chapter 2
Riddles in the Dark

The smile on her face didn't fade until she reached the wharf. Babs pulled the bike into an alley across the street from the wharfs, turned it off, set her helmet on the handlebars, pulled out a grapple and scaled the building she had parked behind. The warehouse in question resided only across the long truck lane separated from the street by a fence. In front of the warehouse and on the other side of the truck lane, red and blue flashing lights, crime scene tape, and four police cars blocked her from entering.

None of this would stop Batman.

She pondered for several minutes how to get in. Walking up to the warehouse and asking entrance certainly wouldn't get her inside. Even though she did have her unknowing father's approval, she didn't have the magical ability to make sure that he didn't get suspicious of her being really under the cowl if she got close enough. She couldn't take that risk, not now. Maybe when she got the full respect of the police department and proved herself to them.

After a few more seconds, she decided it was most prudent to attempt to enter through rooftop. She walked away from the edge of the building and questioned which side to go through. There was no way she could jump all the way across the truck lane or the all the way across the street (much less all the away across both), and there was no way that she could manage to swing line across that distance because of the absence of sufficient building for it to grab onto. She looked to her right. Perhaps it was best for her to run across the street and then travel to the warehouse over the wharf's various rooftops.

She bolted across the street and lane, hiding in the shadows of one of the buildings down the wharf from the warehouse. From there, she moved along the wharf from the backside, where she found a ladder leading to the top of one of the warehouses that lined the water. She jumped from rooftop to rooftop before reaching the warehouse in question, and peeked over the roof to make sure that the police were about to leave before slipping inside from a roof access point, making her way down the stairs that led into a darkened office overlooking the entire room of the warehouse. She watched the last of the investigators exit the room and turn off the lights while she pulled two lenses out of her pocket and fastened them to the eyes of her mask. The lenses brightened the room, creating her own, personal night vision.

She left the office, jumped off the catwalk overlooking the warehouse, landed with her hands on the railing, feet erect in the air, and held herself there, exhilarated at the thought that the tiniest slip could send her into a deathly fall. She propelled herself upwards and spun herself so that her face looked out over the entire warehouse and not a wall, still in a handstand on the small bars. After eyeing a point several feet "in front" and below her, she double flipped, landed gingerly on her feet on one of the huge stacks of boxes, throwing her hands up and then instantly back flipping into complete oblivion without looking. It exhilarated her to not look; it helped her feel alive. She rocketed towards the ground and bent her elbows as she landed and performed a handspring, land finally landing on her feet, hands up in perfect Olympic form.

"And the Olympic gold medallist," she whispered with hushed intensity. "Barbara Gordon!" She bowed to the imaginary raucous cheers and applause echoing around the dark, vacant warehouse.

Now, however, to business. She looked around. The warehouse was relatively empty save for various stacks of crates, all neatly and perfectly aligned. One stack, however, was missing two crates from the top, creating a perfect, stair-like indentation. She crept up to the spot the missing crates had resided. Nothing out of the ordinary. She prayed the investigators didn't take the evidence she needed. Removing her lenses, she clicked on a mini flashlight retrieved from her utility belt and picked up several small fibers on the ground in front of the crates with a set of tweezers she pulled from another pocket in her belt. Several were green and synthetic, while a few were orange, like her hair. To the untrained detective, this would have yielded very little aside from a probably inconclusive DNA test. When she examined the fibers closer, however, she realized that one of the fibers was purple.

She smiled. It was the Riddler after all. Couldn't he have just told her? Would it have been that difficult?

Something echoed around the warehouse and she whipped around. There was a click, a very small click, and hastily pocketed the fibers, tweezers and flashlight. She quickly snapped the lenses back into position, and fired her grapple with the other hand, rocketing her to the ceiling. The investigators had returned. Hadn't they already examined the scene?

Then she realized it didn't matter. She had what she came for and she didn't need to stay around any more. She swung on the grapple to the catwalk and carefully slunk into the office she had entered through.

"Who's there?" came a voice from the area with the missing crates.

But before the voice could even shine his flashlight onto the office area, Babs had already emerged onto the roof of the warehouse, where she moved to the ladder at the end of the warehouse and climbed down it quickly, sprinted across the trucking lane and street, vaulted over the fence, popped out her lenses, and examined the clue Batman had given her again when she reached her bike.

Where were there a lot of rocks that remained in place? And who on earth would they guard? Why would those they guard not need to be moved? Why would they need to guard people who didn't need to be moved? What would be the grim news? How would rocks convey grim news? Would they fly up and attack those who approached? How could Batman solve these without even thinking about it?

Focus Babs! She forced herself to concentrate again. Riddles were nothing more than superfluous metaphors. After staring at it, again, imagining and picturing the vague riddle/metaphor in her head for a minute, she smiled, kicked her bike into gear and revved it out of the wharf heading towards Gotham Cemetery at breakneck speed. What would The Riddler do when she got there? She knew he wouldn't go quietly and that he would have several cronies with him because there were always several cronies. She sighed. Finally, a chance to really prove to Batman that she really could handle this job.

She sped towards the cemetery, parked at the gate, hopped the fence, and headed towards a large, lighted mausoleum, listening in on the voices speaking around the room.

"-just got completely bored with Arkham as a whole. They don't let you read the newspaper, and when they do it of course has the crosswords already all filled out just for spite." The speaker made a tapping on hollow wood. "Hence the crate full of puzzles. This way I'll never run out of crosswords and life will be perfect."

"Ummm, boss?" came another voice from inside the mausoleum. "Since you stole a whole box full of the same exact book of crosswords, wouldn't you run out after the first book?"

Brief silence. "I hired you to lift heavy things not think you simpleton," the first voice yawned. "Echo? Query?"

"Yes?" came two same-pitched voices.

"I do believe me might have a traitor in the midst. Please show our thuggee number two out of the room."

"No! Boss! I didn't mean it that way! I was only messing witchya! Don't send me away! I just thought maybe we might-"

"Too late," The Riddler rebuked maliciously and snapping his fingers.

Feet scuffled and footsteps approached the mausoleum entrance; Babs hid in the shadows on the other side of the door. The guy did have a point, though. Nigma's plan made absolutely no sense; It didn't fit him at all.

As soon as Echo and Query emerged, Babs knocked their heads together with both her hands, sending them to the floor. The nameless, muscle clad thug turned around quickly and smirked devilishly.

"I knew there would be a way to prove myself to him."

"And what would make you want to work with a guy like that?" Babs teased.

He lunged at her with his two huge hands held out, as though in an effort to grab her head and smash it in. She leap frogged over his head and pushed off his back, landing three feet away as his head smashed into the wall behind her. One down…

She walked to the doorway of the lit tomb.

"Game's up, Nigma."

"Ah, Batgirl," the Riddler grinned from his position, sitting cross-legged on a coffin, his chin resting on his cane. "I didn't think one of the Batman's crew would be here so quickly, but such it is. I still have thuggees one, three, and four to take care of you. Gentlemen? If you will?"

The three muscular thugs cracked their knuckles as they turned to face Batgirl.

"Heh," she chuckled slightly more nervous about this suddenly-not-so-brilliant-sounding plan of hers.

The first thug pulled out a knife and lunged at her. She sidestepped and pushed his arm to his inside, as she had done to Robin no more than an hour before, knocking the thug off balance as he stumbled into the marble statue nearest to him, cracking the angel in half.

"See?" she said. "That's the problem with you guys: your skulls are so thick you can even crack solid marble."

The other two thugs growled and charged her together. She used her gift for agility to circumvent around the one on the right, kicking him in the side as he skidded to a halt when he realized what she had done.

"Ow!" she cried. "Not to mention tough ribs!"

The thug she kicked roared and charged her. He threw his hand out in an attempt to grab her head in his palm. She leapt back, using her speed to perch on the wall for a split second before pushing off the wall, landing on his head, propelling herself forward by pushing the thug's head into a wall, and jumping off of it towards the second thug, taking the second completely by surprise as she whirled around as fast as she could in a spinning kick. Her foot made contact with his face and he spun into another coffin, unconcious.

"You're done, Nigma," she smirked.

"I think not little lady," he smirked back.

He sprang off the coffin and landed gracefully on his feet before bowing, putting his right arm under his chest and holding his cane out at an angle with his left.

"Give it-"

Nigma swiped his cane upwards and to Babs' chin, holding its tip to her throat. "With no crosswords what am I supposed to do?" he teased.

She executed a back handspring, careful to kick his cane as she flipped backwards. He ran towards her. She handsprung again, landing on the wall with her feet and pushing off, attempting to tackle Nigma with her momentum.

That was the plan, anyways. The Riddler easily sidestepped her body and swung the cane down as hard as he could with one hand, as though bored, making contact with her spine. Since when was he so good?

She landed on her stomach, back throbbing.

"Tsk, tsk, little girl," he said, resting his head on the top of his cane.

"What? No riddle?" she groaned, as she stood up in pain.

"I'm not feeling like that today," he yawned. "I'll just kill you."

He flew towards her and brought down his cane towards her head. She blocked it with her forearm, easily bruising from the strength of the blow, sliding her arm around his cane, grabbing it, and flinging it aside.

"I always hated that cane," she snapped as she threw her fist at him.

"Funny, I always loved it," he deftly blocked her attack.

She gaped. He was never this fast before. What was going on?

She moved in and attacked him as fast as she could, barely knowing what to do next, improvising her strokes and hits. After several seconds, it became obvious that the rapidity of his blocks were taking a toll on him. She moved so fast he had no opportunity to overtake her with his own punches.

"Wha-" he barely managed to say as she punched him across the face as hard as she could, sending him spinning to the ground.

"And stay down!" She huffed.

He rubbed his cheek tenderly, looking around. "Huh? Wha- where am I?"

She looked at him, confused. Wasn't he just fighting her and didn't he almost win? She silenced him, kicking him across his face and to the ground unconscious. How strange? She had just almost lost to someone who, as far as she knew, had the thugs do all of the fighting, never fighting directly against anyone unless he was desperate or couldn't run away. He never attacked when he didn't have to, and just there, it seemed like he wanted to fight. Still baffled, she cuffed him, the four thugs, Echo, and Query, and left the tomb.

Once back on her bike, she radioed the police and told them of the situation at the tomb conveniently leaving out the part where she almost got her butt handed to her by The Riddler. It didn't really matter in the long run. Maybe she had just heard under exaggerations from Pixie Boots. Maybe The Riddler always fought like that. Maybe the "big time super villains" always fought harder than expected, knowing more was at stake. Regardless, she figured it out, took down the Riddler, played detective, and solved one of The Riddler's puzzles.

Not bad for one night's work.