Reviews:
Blaze1992 : Because he was upset he lost and decided that the only possible way that happened was if there was cheating.
Fox Boss : Same, I always thought it deserved more love.
Kairan1979 : She's a DC character, an interesting one, you'll see who she is eventually.
firereaper87 : Good, that means I'm at least doing something right, lol.
Dark Knight fan : Thanks, I will use part of that.
Chapter 40 -
The group, who were now joined by Thomas, had been able to find the episode of 'Think, Thank, Thunk' where Artie Brown lost. After losing Artie had pushed the podium over and had begun screaming and throwing a tantrum whilst screaming 'no fair' after getting a question about Jupiter and its moons wrong. The question had been 'name all thirteen of Jupiter's moons, the person who discovered them and the year of discovery'. To the kid's credit he had gotten it all right until the end when he got the year of discovery for one of the moons wrong.
"What on Earth is wrong with this kid?" Selina wondered.
"Artie Brown was practically unbeatable for thirteen weeks in a row, his great intellect surprised a lot of people, nobody expected a boy his age to be as smart as he was." Alfred responded. "In fact, until this episode he hadn't gotten a single question wrong. He was expecting an easy win, losing so suddenly must have been a big shock to him. Not that it excuses his behaviour." Alfred added with a frown.
Harry's frown was even bigger as he looked at Artie, the kid was like a combination of Ron Weasley, Draco Malfoy and Harry's former cousin, Dudley Dursley. The kid had the same build as Dudley, in fact Harry would have said that they were twins if not for the fact that Artie was slightly bigger (barely), had freckles and red hair which reminded Harry of Ron. Those three would throw tantrums whenever things didn't go their way, Ron Weasley wasn't as spoilt as the other two but he and Dudley did respond with physical violence during their tantrums.
"Artie's mother claimed that the show had been rigged to make her son lose after winning it for 13 weeks," Harry sighed. "so she tried to sue the show's producer." Harry said, once again reminded of Draco and Dudley, the second things would go wrong they would go crying to 'daddy' and 'mummy' who would of course rush over to defend their precious babies.
"That would be 'Herbert Ziegler', right?" Thomas asked, he and Martha had been caught up by Alfred and Selina.
"Yeah," Harry nodded. "that's right. The lawsuits ran for about for two and half months, Artie and his mother lost the case when an astronomer was there who showed them that the year in which the moon from the question was discovered in was indeed '1938' and not in '1937' like Artie had answered. Herbert's connections and money likely helped them. The case was dropped, Darren Ross went on to other TV shows and game shows, Herbert went back to his music career, Yelena became a world class chess champion and Artie fades away into obscurity."
"What happened?" Martha asked.
"Nobody really knows," Harry shrugged. "he hasn't been seen in years but before he lost Artie Brown was a brilliant student with a bright future ahead of him and he threw it all away, dropped out of school, dropped out of everything, all over his obsession for a game that he lost."
"I know children like their games and their toys but this is a little extreme." Selina replied. "Do you think the mother knows about all of this?"
"It's very extreme." Harry corrected. "And she might, but she might not. She was rarely seen these last few years, no longer working. No presence in the real world other than paying bills." Harry said, he was about to continue but stopped as a thought came to him.
"Oh look, he's got his thinking face on." Selina commented.
"I've worked out where he is, can't believe I didn't think about it before." Harry sighed.
"Well, where is he?" Alfred asked.
"Where would you first look for someone who never grew up?" Harry asked.
"His mother's place." Selina answered before she blinked and looked at Harry with a doubtful expression. "So instead of finding somewhere safe and secure, he's working from his mother's house?"
"I'm working from under my father's house; we're not really ones who should judge, Selina." Harry pointed out.
Deep down in his evil lair - which was actually a basement in his mother's house - Artie Brown, or 'Cluemaster' as he liked to call himself, was grinning widely. It had taken time to recreate the set of the show, but he had done so. Of course it wasn't exactly like the show, he didn't have the money for that, but he managed to set up cardboard walls that were painted to look like it. In front of him the three people he hated most of all in the world, Yelena, Herbert and Darren, were chained by their ankles to their spots right in front of the podiums he had set up. Of course he had made sure to make his own podium much bigger and nicer than theirs.
There were ten dwarves surrounding them, two of which had guns, the other eight had different weapons. Two of them had chainsaws, two of them had knives, two of them had bats and the final two were here to assist him but each had knuckle dusters in their pockets. The dwarves were a brilliant stroke of luck for Cluemaster, they had lost their jobs at the end of the show and had to return to performing in a circus. Once Artie had found them he had been able to convince them to help him.
He had given his three most hated enemies a chance to walk away with their lives, they could do that by simply beating him in a rematch, just like in the show but this time he would make sure there was no cheating. And if they didn't win...well...then these dwarves would get to use those weapons.
The game had started an hour ago and Cluemaster had been enjoying the time that he had spent dominating over them with his intelligence, but now it was finally time to end this.
The Batman entered the house, it was easy, the door had been left open. Once inside he spotted two dwarves, both were dressed in orange uniform with orange masks with each mask having a number on them. These two dwarves were labelled number 'ten' and 'eleven'. Batman stunned ten immediately, Eleven had surprisingly managed to dodge his second stunner and charged at him. Batman quickly dealt with him by kicking him the second he got close enough, Eleven crashed into a wall before he slid down and slipped into unconsciousness.
"Boys," A tired voice spoke. "no rough housing."
Batman walked down the hallway before he turned to his right and saw a living room with the lights off, despite this the TV was on, but no channels were playing, there was just static. Batman walked in and towards the only person in the room, she was an old woman with large glasses, she looked up when Batman stopped in front of her, the caped vigilante recognised her as Artie's mother.
"Oh, hello." She said in a warm voice. "You must be another one of young Artie's friends. He's down in the basement, playing with some new friends. Will you kids please try not to break anything?" She asked, speaking like she was talking to a ten year old. Batman tilted his head as he looked down at her, he briefly wondered if she was faking but he really didn't think she was.
"I'll do my best." Batman said before he turned around and walked away.
"I think there's something wrong with your voice. We have cough syrup in the kitchen if you need some, dear." She called.
"Well, that was laughably easy." Cluemaster chuckled while his three 'unwilling opponents' were quaking in their shoes. "This has been wonderful, but I have clearly won. It's time to end this." He made a cutting gesture to the dwarves with guns. The dwarves - labelled 'one' and 'two' - raised their guns but were stunned from behind before they could fire. "What?!" Cluemaster blurted out as he looked at the open door and saw a dark figure walk into the room. "Batman?" Cluemaster asked.
"Artie." Batman replied as he looked at Artie.
The fat boy was now a massive man, he was much, much taller and fatter than Vernon and Dursley Dudley, in fact even those two would probably say that Artie should go on a diet. He was nearly seven feet tall (vertically), Batman didn't think his chances of having a long life were very high if he was this obese. Artie, despite not winning the show, had won the consolation prize of a lifetime of chocolate, Batman wondered if he eaten it all and then brought some more. He was actually sat on a wheeled cart.
He wore a costume, which seemed to be handmade. It consisted of large orange pants, an orange jumper which had the numbers 'one', 'two' and 'three' stitched onto it, dark brown fingerless gloves, and an orange mask that doubled as a hood, it had eyeholes and a mouth hole which let Batman see both of his double chins.
"Let them go." Batman calmly said.
"Why should I?" Cluemaster demanded. "They're cheaters!" He shouted as he gestured to them.
"We're not cheaters!" Yelena cried.
"Shut it!" Cluemaster snapped at her.
"Artie..." Batman began, only to be interrupted.
"The name is 'Cluemaster'." Cluemaster told him.
"Let them go, or I free them myself." He continued as if Artie hadn't spoken.
"I'd like to see you try." Cluemaster snorted.
"Gladly." Batman flicked his wrist, throwing a batarang that managed to knock out the first dwarf with a chainsaw before he hit the second with a stunner.
"Wait!" Cluemaster suddenly shouted when the Dwarves began moving, everyone stopped and looked at him. "You want to save them, then I'm going you a chance to. We'll have a bonus round!" He announced loudly in an excited voice.
"I'm not playing games." Batman growled.
"Oh, but you will, you will play or they will be killed!" Cluemaster yelled as all the dwarves stopped next to the hostages, standing close enough to make it clear that they would attack if given enough reason. "Now play my bonus round," Cluemaster grinned. "ask me any question."
"When you say 'any question', I'm going to assume that that means there are no topics off limit." Batman calmly replied while inwardly amazed at just how Artie - or 'Cluemaster' as he was apparently called - was so confident enough to let him ask any question.
"Any topic." Cluemaster confirmed.
"Biology? Chemistry? Literature?"
"Yes, anything. Physics, mathematics, psychology if you want. Even music."
"How about sociology? Engineering? Current events?"
"Anything!" Cluemaster shouted impatiently.
"What is the true identity of the Batman?" Batman asked calmly, his cape was covering his whole body so nobody saw him reach into his belt.
"What?! No...no...trick question! Ask another!" Cluemaster said in an angry voice.
"You said I could ask any question." Batman reminded him, Cluemaster had fallen into a classic trap that many villains had fallen into, overestimating themselves and falling into the belief that they were unbeatable. If Cluemaster had been smarter then he could have taken the confirmation questions that Batman had asked as his question for the round.
"No fair!" Cluemaster cried as he got up from his wheeled cart, he shook his head angrily before he picked the podium up. "Cheater!" He yelled, he tossed the podium at Batman who ducked to avoid it before he spun around. His arms came out of his cape, he had a batarang in one hand. He threw it and it cut through the chains that were holding the three hostages, he then aimed his wrists at them, deciding that now was a great time to use his bat-anchors.
A cable shot out from both wrists, one wrapped around Darren while the other wrapped around Herbert, Batman then aimed his wrists down and the second part of the cable shot into the ground next to him, the cables pulled the two away from the dwarves and towards him. Meanwhile Batman summoned Yelena who he managed to catch just as the other two rolled next to him, they would have gotten a few cuts from how they had been pulled but that was better than being killed by dwarves. Batman dropped Yelena down before he jumped into action.
Batman threw a smoke pellet at the ground by the dwarves, smoke rose up, enveloping the dwarves. Batman rushed into the smoke, not even three seconds later the sounds of grunting, punches and kicks were heard. One dwarf went flying out of the smoke and bounced off Cluemaster before falling onto the floor. Cluemaster had grunted when the dwarf crashed into him, he let out an angry cry before he charged into the smoke, he wildly threw a punch, hoping to hit Batman.
He didn't get Batman, anther unfortunate problem for him was that he had unintentionally run over the two dwarves that hadn't been knocked out yet. Cluemaster looked around as the smoke disappeared, try as he might, he couldn't see Batman.
"Where is he?!" He demanded as he looked around.
"He's behind you." Darren calmly said with the other two hostages nodding.
"Like I'm going to believe anything that comes out of your cheating mouth!" Cluemaster spat before turning around, only to be greeted by a punch to his face. He stumbled back, letting out a small cry as he felt blood pour out of his nose. It was followed by another strike to his side, and despite the protective flab he felt the impact against his ribs, he took another step back, only to end up bending forwards when another punch hit him in the stomach.
It was followed by a left uppercut to his chin, which caused him to stumble back, Batman leaped forward and twisted in the air before hitting Cluemaster in the chest with a vicious jumping roundhouse kick, knocking the big man off of his feet and onto his back. Cluemaster coughed violently for several seconds before he stared up at Batman with tears in his eyes.
"No fair." He said, tears dripping down his eyes.
"Neither is life." Batman said before he hit him with a stunner. Did he have to beat him up so much? Probably not. Did it feel good? Yes.
"Oh boys," A voice called, a second later Artie's mother had walked down the stairs whilst holding a tray full of cookies. "I….oh…" She paused when she noticed Artie lying on the floor. "aw, poor boy. I've told him not to play too much, he's all tuckered out now."
A.N: Hi guys, hope you liked the chapter. And yes, that was the end of Cluemaster, he may or may not make future appearances, but he's not what I would classify as a 'big bad' so any future chapters with him probably won't have a lot of him. This Cluemaster was taken from the 2004 'The Batman' show, which in my opinion was a great and very underrated show. Not perfect but great and was in fact my first introduction to Batman. I still love the theme music.
By the way, be real with me, is Wattpadd any good? Someone had told me to check something on it and unlike Fanfition, wattpadd made me make an account just to use it. I haven't done anything on it yet besides make an account, is it any good and should I write on there when I'm not writing here or should I stick to the fanfiction website?
Also I will put some information about Cluemaster below.
Thanks for reading, feel free to leave a review.
Cluemaster Bio:
Wiki :The Cluemaster is a fictional supervillain appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics, commonly as an adversary of the superhero Batman. Cluemaster first appeared in Detective Comics #351 (May 1966) and was created by Gardner Fox and Carmine Infantino.
A failed game show host, the character became a criminal who leaves clues to his crimes, but unlike the Riddler's clues, they are not in the form of riddles. He is also the father of Stephanie Brown who became the vigilante Spoiler and later the fourth Robin and fourth Batgirl.
Me: Cluemaster was one of the bad guys from the 2004 'The Batman' show, in that show he lost a game show as a child and recieved the consolation prize of a lifetime supply of chocolate. He got angry and vowed revenge, as an adult he along with many dwarves (who were with him for some unexplained reason) embarassed and kidnapped the three people he thought were responsible. He would eventually be stopped by Batman and as far as I'm aware he only appears once again in another season when Batman and his Dick (Robin) fight all of Batman's villain's at the same time.
He was basically an extreme version of one of those kids at school who would show off how smart they are, he was also ridiculously fat in his character design for the show, I toned it down a bit for the fic. He was a crybaby and threw tantrums when things didn't go his way, and he followed the cartoon rule of all fat people are super strong and their fat protects them from all but the most devestating attacks. In this fic I made it a bit more realistic, because fat people get hurt in fights as well. Not that I would know, I had to gain weight to go from underweight to acceptable levels.