The Riddler. Poison Ivy. Joker. Mr. Freeze. Mad Hatter. The gullible Firefly. The fat, squawking Penguin. The stupid Zsaas whose knife was bigger than his brain. The facking Ventriloquist! That annoying Harley Quinn! The dame Arkham himself. All of them so stupid, low, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid stupid stupid beautiful stupid stupid stupid stupid!...

"Hey!" And that annoying voice. Danny Wilkerson. Kill him, later. Admire the thought. "Be quiet in there!"

"Why don't you facking make me." Such a response, fire and ice behind every syllable. Poetry. Iambic triameter. Beauty in the making. Defy him more. Defy him every night.

"What did you say to me?" Ah, defiance in return, but fear tone. It stained his pronunciation. The vocal chords, of course, would have to be removed. He needed a new tie, anyway. Waylon Jones….

"Do you have a hearing problem? I said, make me be quiet." The first pawn moves out, as the dark man, silhouetted just beyond the icy bars, shifts uncomfortably, but also is trembling, because he cannot tolerate the defiance, as he cannot tolerate the thought of stepping into the cell of the madman.

"I'm going to call Dr. Peters for a shot if you don't be quiet." Ha! The volley was not so strong. The threat of an anesthetic. He smelled the fear, stronger than ever, for it was his making. The man wanted any excuse not to enter, because he knew that the caged beast wanted him to come to him. Food was so scarce, and the man was looking tasty. His fear was so deductible in its scent. Jonathon Crane…

"At least Dr. Peters knows how to touch a man. What about you, Danny? Do you remember how to touch a man?" A gay jab. He had sunk down to that level, but it was all for gain of the moment. A distraction. Something that would drive a man over the edge. The silhouette was furiously shaking now, harder than ever. Fists were clenched. The time was coming soon. Riddle me this, riddle me that, what can make this man sing? Oh that! "Ah, of course, you wouldn't remember, would you? Not since I killed Tommy Bearing. You two were close, weren't you?"

"SHUT UP!" A scream. A beautiful scream, as much as an annoyance. Did he need that scream? No. But at least it was affecting the man. He was degenerating, falling further than ever before, losing his touch. A rookie he was not. Twelve years at Arkham, a veteran. And yet the man was falling victim to the king's charms. He had a hand on the bar now, the other hand on his nightstick. The king, meanwhile, sat on his bed, calmly, still as a statue, waiting for the hammer's fall. "You hear me, you piece of vermin! Shut up! I'm not going to have you talking about Tommy! Don't you dare insult him!"

"Of course you'd say that, I gunned him down right in front of his own children. Your partner for seven years. Seven? Not so impressive. Now, tell me, did Tommy and you…you know…ever get it on? I mean, you can tell me. I'm just a maniac, no one would believe me." The implication of homosexual relations between two men who had been friends since childhood, one of whom had been brutally murdered by the very man who sat in this cell, right in front of twelve year old twins, was almost too much for Danny to bear. A card. It had flashed into being. The king smiled. That card meant one thing: Danny was going to open the door.

"You want me in there, don't you?" It was a hiss, snake-like, hating the king. Treason! Treason! Off with his head, Alice! Off with his head! Jervis Tetch…

"Oh yeah, big boy, daddy wants some sugar," the king mocked, and the guard was breathing hard now, wanting to kill. Wanting to murder. "Come and have me, I'll be good…" Pamela Isley…

"That's it, you sick fack!" spat Danny Wilkerson. The king braced himself.

"Don't be cold, Danny. Be a pal and come play a game with me. Trivia!" Aha! There it was. Edward Nygma. Yes, there it was. Oh, yes, there it was. Dame it, there it was. Yes, yes, and yes some more, there, there, there it was, it was there, right there, all around and everywhere! Edward Nygma! Edward Nygma! Scream it, everyone! Louder! LOUDER, DAME IT! His hands were positively groping himself at the sense of negative output, at the intoxicating feeling of animalistic defiance. Te guard's rage was his utter climax. Even as the bars to his cage slid open, Edward Nygma was pulsating, breathing hard. That feeling of romance before murder. That feeling of arousing pleasure before beating someone to death, before shooting them, before strangling them…yes, Edward, kill! Kill! KILL!

He was coming. Here he comes!

"I'm going to k-" were Danny's final screams. Edward Nygma…yes, Edward Nygma, not Pamela Isley, Jonathon Crane, Jervis Tetch, or Waylon Jones and yet Pamela Isley, Jonathon Crane, Jervis Tetch, and Waylon Jones sprung for the kill. Waylon Jones's hand wrapped around the nightstick and pulled it from Danny Wilkerson's grasp. Pamela Isley's hand stroked the man's hair affectionately as she…or was it he?...gave an almost flirtatious giggle. Jonathon Crane's presence smelled rank as the guard tried to step back, breathing in terror, wanting to flee, scarier than the thought of the grave was this king in the dark. And finally, Jervis Tetch's voice wrung through the darkness as the king began to hammer the nail.

"What a regrettably large head you have! I would very much like to hat it!" THWACK! Scream. Blood? Yes, blood! LOTS OF BLOOD! OH JOY, maybe he was Waylon Jones!? "I'm going to crush your skull, your worthless wad of meat!" THWACK, THWACK! More and more blood, time to bathe in it. The hunt was at the ready, beautiful, it was poetry, lots and lots of poetry! Sing me a song, Annabelle Lee, as you die by the sea, by the sea! Oh, this was so romantic. Utter lust for the kill was coming off of him, every pore in his skin bleeding out the utter obsession with murder as if it were his own lover. So then he was Pamela Isley? "Oh, baby, you've fallen to the floor. Why are you trembling? Is it me? It is, isn't it? How many tremble like that, when in my presence? How many shake like that, when swallowing that precious drink, the poison. Engulf it, baby. There's more where that came from. Let me show you. I'll join you down there. The dirty floor is so romantic!" He bent down over the shaking shadow, sobbing, it seemed, groveling in his own blood, the red paint that this artist had used for this wondrous display of craft. Arts and crafts had always been his favorite class when he was a small child. THWACK, THWACK! Danny was still. Danny was dead. Did the king know that? Did Edward Nygma know that? Riddle me this, riddle me that, what man died of blunt force trauma to the head? Him. Him! HIM! HIM! HIM! Yes, him, all him, no one but him, him, him! Dead, he's dead, yep, Edward Nygma killed him! More, gotta find more, oh, yes, but how to do so? Will it be Crane? Will he gas them and drive them mad before the killing blow? Will it be Freeze, shall he force them into one of the kitchen freezers and lock them in there for a few weeks with the setting put below? Oh, but the Joker! Giggly gas, ha ha ha ha ha! Where is it hidden? In intensive treatment, of course, under Dr. Cassidy's bookshelf. He knew it, the Joker knew it, but the Joker did not know that he knew it, no no no! Not ah, not one speck of knowledge, cause I'm the king, baby, baby, and I'm going to rule with an iron fist, boy-o!

Danny was dead. But the beginning of the question had not yet been asked. What was the question? The simple, clichéd, stereotype of them all: who am I? Edward Nygma paging…Edward Nygma paging…"I'm not sure, Eddie, who are you?

Lawrence? No. And yes. NO! NO! No, no, no, no, shut up!

Poison Ivy? Freeze? Joker? Harley? Croc? Bane? Hatter? WHO!? WHO!? Was he the Riddler?

I think the answer is obvious, Eddie…yes.

"Yes is the answer?" the king asked.

Is it?

"Time to find out."