Authors Note: Double Update! Because I have Winter Ball this weekend (late I know x_x) and won't be able to update again until Monday! Enjoy and please review!
Disclaimer: I, in no way, shape, or form, own anything in this story besides Allison Capuano. The rest I am just borrowing.
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Part 5
The Riddler was not one for excessive homicidal anger, preferring to settle his issues in less violent, passive aggressive manners like setting up torturous death traps, or leaving unsolvable riddles for his enemies to solve. He was insulted that she believed that he committed senseless mayhem, as opposed to his carefully plotted deeds.
He practically fell into the nearest arm chair, rubbing his tired eyes under his mask. This whole thing was immensely stressful, as he had never had to leave his own fate in the hands and intellect of another person. It annoyed him, this situation he was in, to have the need for another person (even such a minor one), as he had lived so long on his own. Edward Nigma was (and is) a metaphorical island. Well except for one person… but that had ended years ago.
"Eddie!" Adrian was chasing after him, shaking a gloved fist in the air. "Stop!" She cried, but to her dismay the boy kept trudging through the snow, shuffling his feet. The new puzzle book was tucked carefully under his arm. Pushing a strand of blonde hair out of her eyes, she ran and put herself in Eddie's path.
He frowned. "What do you want?" He held his prize close to him.
Adrian lowered her voice; her eyes practically glowing. "I know what you did." Her voice squeaked.
Eddie panicked. "What?" He said, hoping his face wasn't as red as it felt. Adrian's expression never faltered.
"I know you cheated on the puzzle game!" She whispered, her arms folded across her chest.
"Did not!" Eddie mocked. Leave it to Adrian to completely see through his charade.
"Eddie, I don't know how you did it, but I know you saw that puzzle before everyone else." Eddie gulped, thinking back to his half and hour walk to the school the night before, using his mother's hair pin to pick the locks on the school, and finding the puzzle. He almost smiled to himself, thinking of how his parents hadn't even noticed he was gone. It was pretty crafty of him to think of it, but even more so for her to figure out he cheated.
He looked down at the ground. Adrian wasn't about to understand that he had to. That the one thing he had to be proud of, his intelligence, was at stake? "I didn't do anything…" He mumbled, and continued to walk.
"Eddie!" She followed him, still trying to get through to her friend. "You know you did, and you know that it's not fair to everyone else!"
How dare she suggest that someone besides him could have won! "I would have won, with or without cheating." He growled. "And why do you even care? It's not like you could have done it anyway." His words apparently hit a nerve, and her features grew dark.
"You are nothing but a cheater Edward Nygma!" Adrian yelled, stepped on his foot with impossible force, and ran off, leaving a very stunned Eddie, with a very bruised ego.
The sound of metal hitting the ground shook Eddie from his memory. His face contorted into what could only be described as a snarl as he turned to face his bumbling henchman number two. What had he decided to call him? Eddie brought a hand to his head. Conundrum! That was it!
"Conundrum, is there a problem?" The Riddler raised an eyebrow, eyeing the pieces of metal in the man's hands. Suddenly recognizing the pieces as the deathtrap he had been working on, his face turned a brilliant shade of fuchsia. "Is that… what I thinkit is?"
"It's ah- no- it was an- Quiz was the one who-" He stuttered, waving his hands madly in the air, dropping several pieces to the ground with a sickening clatter.
"I'm going to tell you something, and I'd like you to pass it on to Quiz and…" He rolled his eyes, the name escaping him again.
"You call 'im Question." Conundrum interrupted his thoughts yet again.
"I know!" He growled. "Now, the man who invented it doesn't want it. The man who bought it doesn't need it. The man who needs it doesn't know. What is it?" He grinned.
After a moment of apparent internal struggle from the man, he sighed. "I don't know boss."
"A coffin," The Riddler said slowly and softly. "And if you touch anything else of mine without my permission, you are all going to be in dire need of one." The Riddler's eyes narrowed murderously, and the henchman all but ran out of the room, leaving the rogue to plan how exactly he was going to leave those three out to be picked up by the Batman.
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Blank pieces of paper hold an entire world of possibilities. It may become a poem, homework, a prescription, a doodle, lyrics, a shopping list, a Christmas list and several other everyday things. It all depends on the person holding the pen.
A blank piece of paper lay before Allison. She knew that there was a chance that she would not leave here. Whether she never figures it out, or she angers the Riddler to the point where he breaks his five-year streak, Allison Capuano might never return to her little apartment on Brookdale Ave, or her cozy attending job at Gotham General.
She sighed, shaking her head, as she had elected to turn this blank sheet of paper into a love letter. If I get out of her, I'm going to tell James how I feel. Allison curved her fingers around the blue ballpoint pen the Riddler had left with her, and began to write.
Dear James,
She stopped, looking at her neat curvy writing, and crumbled up the paper. Way too formal…
James,
We've known each other for almost three years now, and certain… events in my life, have caused me to think in a completely different way.
She continued to write, everything and anything she had felt for the past three years, about her friend and mentor. Smiling even, as she wrote, she dotted her i's and crossed her t's carefully, and finally, when she was finally satisfied with her letter, she ended it.
Love always,
Allison
And while Allison felt much better, having her thoughts out on paper, she frowned. She took the five pages of her letter, held them before her, and tore them in half, letting the torn fragments fall to the floor, and returned to the neurology text she had been reading before.