G'day!

Here's another plot bunny that demanded I get back to work! But before that, here's the usual disclaimers.

1) I do not own any of these characters, locations, etc. or there would be much more slash out there.

2) And speaking of slash... This is all about guy on guy. Don't like, don't read, don't flame. It's as easy as that.

3) I'm Australian. My words may be spelt differently to you. I will not change them to suit you. Also, my knowledge of Americanisms is seriously lacking. I might get things wrong and I would love it if you could let me know when I do. Eg - Jello in America is called Jelly here, thus Jelly in America is called Jam. Confused yet? Now you understand my dilemmas.

4) I don't have a beta. All mistakes (which I hope to keep to a minimum) are mine. Feedback, con crit and reviews are always welcome. How else can I get better if no one tells me?

I hope you like my story and I'm trying to add at the very least, a new chapter each week. I would love it if someone out there can conquer the Tease. Confused? You'll find out at the end of the chapter!

Cheers, Jace.

From Mr E to Mr Z

Chapter One - The Birth of Mr Z

Faking his own death had been ridiculously easy. Absolute child's play for the smartest man in Gotham. Edward Nygma and the Riddler were no more. He still enjoyed a good riddle or two but his super villainous days of the past were at an end.

Naturally, the only challenge was to fool the Dark Knight. The man would obviously doubt a simple motor vehicle accident so the Riddler had to make it extremely convincing. He did. Seven years he'd been living his new life and he was still yet to run into the Batman. There were two possible explanations. One, he'd actually managed to fool Gotham's greatest detective or two, he was no longer interested in the Riddler's activities since the Prince of Puzzles wasn't perpetrating crimes anymore. In his opinion, option two was definitely the most likely.

Which was a shame. The Dark Knight was pretty much the only other intelligent being in the whole of Gotham. It had taken a few years of introspection for the Riddler to realise that the majority of his crimes were really a cry for Batman's attention. That way he could verbally spar with someone who could actually keep up with him without stumbling over his extensive vocabulary. Although he loathed to admit it, this was the difficult part of remaining anonymous. A small fragment of him yearned to garner his attention and it was a daily battle to quash that particular feeling. Then again, he'd served his time in Blackgate (bored out of his mind) and decided it would be a tragedy if his brilliance was once again incarcerated.

Originally he'd planned to return to lab work but decided against it so he'd made a new career for himself. It had taken a few years of hard work for Mr Z's Variety Puzzles to become the success that it had today. He was (still) the sole owner and employee of the monthly crossword puzzle franchise. Let's face it, it's not like creating word problems was a difficult challenge after facing the Batman on an almost weekly basis.

There were still aspects of himself that had carried over from his previous life. He was still hardworking, although this was now guided in a more positive direction. His intellect was still vastly superior to everyone else's which also meant he was pretty much a loner. The Batman was virtually the only person who could ever claim to understand him with any degree of success and since he was loathed by the detective and smarter than everyone else, he'd avoided forming any deeper connections since.

The other main link to his past was his newly fashioned name. Theodore Zerr. It made him smile, classic Ridder. Teaser (T Zerr) is another word for riddle, so that part matched up extremely well and Teddy rhymes with Eddie. That way he was less likely to miss someone calling it out (not that it ever really was since who actually knew him?) and unwittingly draw attention to the fact that it wasn't his original name.

Teddy rubbed his eyes with his fingers. He'd been daydreaming again, dredging up memories from the past. He refocussed his attention on the computer screen and quickly added the last twenty-seven words to his cryptic crossword. It was a fine balancing act, creating the puzzles easy enough that any old idiot would be able to do at least half, while making the rest challenging enough to keep him from scratching his eyes out.

When he realised the Terrible Tease was all that remained of the next issue, Teddy smiled absently to himself as he stood and stumbled to his fridge. He always left this one for last and it was the reason that his books sold so well. The simple looking crossword was anything but. Unlike regular crosswords, this one didn't have clues printed next to it under neat columns of across and down. They could be found scattered on the other pages, hidden in pictures, encoded in random blurbs and some couldn't be solved until other puzzles in the book were completed.

Really, it was the masterpiece of each issue and it was the only puzzle that he awarded prizes for. To date it hadn't yet been completed. After every issue, Teddy found himself chuckling in amusement at some of the answers that had clearly been invented just so whoever it was could send it in. There was a hall of fame on his website where Sylvia Moore still held the top spot with a completion rate of fifty-nine percent. Every month, he sent the eighty-one year old woman a bouquet of flowers (making sure they weren't some of Ivy's) and a bottle of wine. She'd remained in the top spot for thirty-seven months in succession.

Teddy would also post a complete solver's guide to the Tease on his website at the conclusion of the competition period so that everyone could see how it all fit together. There was an active blog dedicated to the answers where people crowed about how close they were to this one and if only they had blah, blah, blah. It was hilarious to browse as they often cussed him out while still praising him to the rafters for his genius. Reading the blog always cheered him up when he was feeling down.

Teddy grabbed the milk and took a quick swig from the carton before putting it on the counter. He selected some cereal and poured it into a bowl before taking the two items to his dining table. The success of his business allowed him to live in a modest two bedroom house situated in one of the nicer suburbs of Gotham. He could have bought somewhere more exclusive but that would only make him a target for the villains he was once associated with.

A quick visit to his mailbox later, he began the task of reading the Tease entries as he ate his breakfast. Today there were only seventeen; a light day. The second one had him snorting into his Lucky Charms. Only three words were answered and the rest was left blank. All three were completely wrong. What an absolute waste of postage. That wasn't the only one that caused him to almost kill himself on his cereal.

Unlike the previous entries, the first four words of the second-to-last entry were actually correct. Make that eight, twelve, sixteen... All twenty across words were right! His spoon was still raised halfway to his mouth, milk and charms dripping steadily into his lap but the genius paid no heed as he scanned the downs to realise that for the first time ever, someone out there had managed to complete his exceptionally difficult puzzle.

It was then that Teddy realised he'd made a mess of his bathrobe and gave his breakfast up as a lost cause. He cleaned up the table and was on the way to having a shower when he realised that he'd not paid the slightest attention to who had sent the entry in. The splattered robe was dumped into the laundry pile and he walked back to the table. The name there surprised him. Richard Grayson from Blüdhaven.

As he showered, the genius remembered the first adopted child of the multimillionaire Bruce Wayne. He'd grown up in the circus before his parents were killed. The trapeze if he wasn't mistaken. Why would a wealthy socialite's son move to Blüdhaven, where the crime rate was even worse than Gotham? Now there's a real teaser.

Grayson would have been a child when Teddy was the Riddler and the small flare of hope in his stomach died. He'd thought for sure that the only person who could finish the Tease would be Batman. Cleary this was not the case. It would have been amazing to meet the man, to see if he'd be recognised as his former self. To talk to the Batman without needing to threaten an entire city and without being knocked out, tied up or outclassed in some other way.

However, this Richard Grayson was definitely worth a look. He obviously had a great set of brains and he needed to give him the one thousand dollar prize for cracking the Tease. Of course, with Bruce as his guardian, the money was probably not necessary but there was no way Teddy Zerr would wimp out and sulk because someone actually displayed a glimmer of intelligence. For the first time since his rebirth, Teddy was truly excited.

Teddy showered and dressed in one of his nice red shirts and a pair of dark blue jeans. His days of donning green were unfortunately long gone. He was certain he'd be much more likely to be caught out if he wore the colour that made his eyes pop so he limited himself to luridly green underwear to make up for it. The only other green garment he owned was his original costume. It and the cane were the only nostalgic items he'd retained from his former life and he glanced at them fondly in the closet before closing the door.

After completing the rest of his hygiene routine, Teddy made his first stop of the day at the Bank of Gotham where he withdrew one thousand dollars from his Business account in five dollar bills. It barely made a dent in his takings so far so he hardly felt bad about it. He then raided a stationery store for some cardboard, a fuck ton of thumbtacks, a black marker and some clear cellophane.

Teddy returned to his house and curbed his want to draw a large question mark on the cardboard and instead drew the word 'Congratulations!' in large print. He then began the laborious task of pinning each fiver to the cardboard in an artful way that displayed the majority of the lettering and still showed every note. He was pleased with the end result and wrapped the prize in the cellophane so that if one or two of the notes managed to fall off, it would still remain with the prize. The last thing he needed was a lawsuit due to negligence of fifteen dollars.

Loading the prize into his car, Teddy committed the address on the form to memory and programmed it into his GPS. The drive was pleasant and he realised it had been a while since the man had taken the time to leave his house for an extended period of time. The gloomy scenery of Gotham gave way to a beautiful coastline. All too soon the view returned to that of urban development and the even more depressing misery of Blüdhaven loomed all around him.

The Terrible Tease Clues - Chapter One

Teddy is a very clever genius. Two of the words from the chapter above are actually answers to Teddy's latest Terrible Tease crossword puzzle. Here they are now!

17 Across - XVI (7 letters)

30 Down - Possess (3 letters)

Print out the blank crossword at the web address below and start to fill it in. It's actually quite important to the storyline in later chapters. Teddy would be ecstatic to know that fanfic readers can be just as intelligent as he!

NOTE! Don't pay for the crossword! Just save the example image or copy the design into a grid. I'm in no way affiliated with the website, I just wanted to use something already on the web to make locating it easier.

www dot 123rf dot com / photo_12374852_empty-crossword-grid dot html

Just make sure to remove the spaces and replace each dot with a full stop.