Chapter 3: Saitama vs the Riddler
Jogging deeper into the warehouse, Saitama eventually reached a large shipping area that contained several massive drums of an unknown chemical. As he walked deeper into the room, he spotted a brunette-haired, middle-aged woman dangling from the ceiling by her ankles, where she screamed loudly as she swayed above an opened drum of the sizzling liquid.
“P-please! Let me go, I don’t deserve this!” the woman wailed as Saitama realized that the rope that she was dangling from was hooked to a pulley system that was slowly lowering her towards the drum.
“Nah uh uh, you’re not going anywhere until your husband, Judge Wilson, can answer this riddle,” a man who was dressed in a strange green suit and tie explained as he skipped around the room. “Riddle me this: I set people free, but I’m not a key. What am I?”
“Hmm a judge, you say? I think the answer is: a not-guilty verdict,” Saitama answered out loud as he stepped towards the drum that the woman was dangling over, nonchalantly picking his ear with his pinky finger.
“Oh come, that was such an easy one,” the mysterious man smirked from beneath a head of red hair that was topped with a bowler hat, where he skipped towards Saitama in his green suit decorated with little black question marks. “You’re correct, though. Hear that, Mrs. Wilson? I need your husband to guarantee me a not-guilty verdict for my associate, or else the good Judge isn’t going to have anything left of a wife.”
“That’s not how justice works!” the woman screeched, before looking towards Saitama. “Are you a superhero? P-please help me!”
“Let her go,” the bald hero demanded flatly as he shot a glance at the green-suited man. “Also, are you friends with that clown guy in the purple suit? You guys both dress pretty weird.”
“You’re one to talk!” the man in green growled. “And no, you’re talking about the Joker. I’m the Riddler, and we couldn’t be more different! You could say that we’re sometimes rivals, sometimes uneasy allies. It’s complicated.”
“Yeah, well unless you want to end up like him, I suggest you let this woman go,” Saitama reiterated.
“Riddle me this, baldy,” the Riddler cackled as he nimbly leapt onto a metal staircase that led to a balcony overlooking the warehouse floor. “What’s smooth, round, and full of holes?”
“Um…I don’t know, a bowling ball?” Saitama asked with annoyance.
“No…your head!!” the man cackled as several footsteps sounded out from behind. Turning around, the caped hero saw a squad of 5 men who were dressed in similar green suits that were also adorned with question marks. Each one held a pistol that was aimed at Saitama’s bald head.
Shrugging, the hero vanished just as the henchmen opened fire on him, where they looked around with bewilderment as their target was nowhere to be found.
“Oh great, he’s an actual superhero,” the Riddler groaned as he watched the screaming woman continue to lower into the vat of chemical. “Find him before Mrs. Wilson gets a skin-peeling bath, I have one more riddle for her.”
Nodding, the henchmen broke off to search for Saitama, only for a blur of motion to flash by all of them. It took a second to process, but the armed men soon realized that their guns had been snatched up.
“There, are you ready to give up now?” Saitama asked as he appeared next to the drum of bubbling liquid, his arms full of the henchmen’s weapons. Before anyone could say another word, he promptly tossed them into the vat of chemical, causing the green sludge to splash and sizzle out on the warehouse floor.
“D-dammit, forget the guns, just grab him!” Riddler demanded. The 5 henchmen nervously charged towards Saitama, where they made a half-hearted attempt at tackling him. It was futile, however, as the overpowered hero instantaneously moved to the front of the warehouse, the henchmen, the Riddler, and the woman all in full view of him. As he stood there looking at everyone, a disturbing thought again filled Saitama’s mind.
“What if I just punched straight ahead right now? Would there even be anything left of these guys?” the hero thought to himself, where to his shock, this notion caused him to again snicker loudly to himself.
“What’s so funny, baldy? Because if you don’t surrender now, then I’m just going to cut the line and let Mrs. Wilson here take a dive in my green hot tub!” the Riddler demanded. For some reason, the thought of a Human being dissolving alive brought Saitama to full laughter.
His head spinning as he found the gruesome image somehow hilarious, the bald hero wrestled with frustration as his mind grappled with thoughts that did not feel like his own. Suddenly, an impulse popped into his head, where like a strangle hankering, he was unable to ignore it.
“Consecutive normal punches!” Saitama yelled as he lurched forward and rapidly punched through the air with this right hand.
For a moment, time stood still. The Riddler, his henchmen, and the bound woman stared at the hero, until in an instant, Saitama’s all-powerful blows vaporized them and the entire warehouse.
An explosion rang out across Gotham as the building was utterly obliterated by the series of punches, reduced beyond rubble into nothing but dust as the shockwave shattered the windows of nearby houses. Emerging from the dust cloud unharmed, Saitama gripped his head as tears ran down his cheeks.
“Why the hell did I do that?” the hero stammered out loud, stumbling out of the block where the warehouse stood only a moment ago. “Everyone in that building is dead, even that innocent woman! I’m not normally this sloppy with my attacks…what’s wrong with me?”
Jogging off down the road, Saitama was too busy trying to get his mind straight to notice that he was being watched once again. Blinking in disbelief, Nightwing had observed the warehouse getting obliterated in mere seconds from the top of an adjacent apartment building, where he again brought his wrist communicator up to his mouth to relay the new info.
“Uhhh…yeah, it’s me again. I still don’t know if this guy is a hero or villain, but he just annihilated one of the Riddler’s known hideouts. Like it’s gone, completely gone. Crushed to dust. I’m going to go check it out.”
With that, the black and blue-clad hero rapidly made his way to the ground and took off towards the dust cloud to look for survivors, as an increasingly-distressed Saitama continued wandering through the streets of the unfamiliar city.
