Strategy Guide

[Audrey]

"A clerk at a butcher shop stands five feet ten inches tall and wears size 13 sneakers. What does he weigh?"
"How would I know that?!"

BZZZT

"How many times can you subtract the number two from the number fifty?"
"Twenty-five!"

BZZZT

"You are in a place called Jack's World and there is only one law. There is a mirror, but no reflection. There is pizza with cheese, but not sausage. There is pepper, but no salt. There is a door, yet no entrance or exit. What is the law?"
"Jack has really peculiar taste?"

BZZZT

"OH MY GOODNESS THIS IS RIDICULOUS," Stephanie groaned as she sat up from yet another jolt of electricity from one of Kwiz Kid's traps. For the daughter of a game show host, she was really terrible at riddles. It would figure that yet another thing would go wrong with another of her assignments from Batgirl. Kwiz Kid, whom Stephanie endearingly referred to as Riddler Jr., had taken someone or other hostage and held them in some building in Jump. The only way to figure out which one was to answer the many riddles he put all over the place. Seeing as this was a time-consuming endeavor for a 1st class vigilante like Batgirl who is constantly needed, it fell down the pipeline to Stephanie to take care of the matter.

Unfortunately, it was turning out to be even more time-consuming with her assigned since she kept getting the riddles wrong and having to find where they reappeared. She wasn't sure how to proceed. She had gotten one riddle right so far, and it was because she'd heard it before. She couldn't go back to Batgirl and just tell her she was terrible at riddles and needed a new assignment. She'd seem completely incompetent. If only there was a way to... cheat. Batman cheated with the Riddler, it's totally okay when you're on the side of good and all.

But how do you cheat when the riddles disappear if you walk away? Of all the times Stephanie wished she had one of those fancy smartphones that could access the internet. All her phone could do was call people. She looked through her bag for any tool she could use to hack or mess with Kwiz Kid's riddle markers and managed to pull out the mail from that day. She was about to shove it back in when she noticed the card that had come from Barbara. It was super mysterious and hardly said anything just a message and a phone number. 'Need Help? 1-800-HOT-LINE' Stephanie was gonna toss it since it wasn't in an envelope which meant whoever put it there did it by hand. Crazy business people. She thought about it though and realized if she didn't have internet, she could call someone with internet. It asked if they needed help, and she needed help! If they were mad, it was their fault for not making it clearer.

Stephanie made her way to another of the riddle markers and accessed the riddle by touching the floating green question mark. "In British Columbia you cannot take a picture of a man with a wooden leg. Why not?" it spoke in that obnoxious 'I'm so much smarter than you' one that made Stephanie sick. She took a couple steps back and pulled out her phone and began fiddling with the dial pad. 1. 8-0-0. 4-6-8. 5-4-6-3. After taking a second to translate HOTLINE into numerics, she pressed dial and pressed the phone to her ear.

[A.G.]

"Charles! Blake! For crying out loud!"

"What!?"

"Huh?"

Oh, they were just so smart. They thought they were just absolute GENIUSES. Only they could come up with something so... So evil, so diabolical, so absolutely juvenile as to sabotage the shower head, of all things! Like, seriously!? What kind of man does that? What kind of MONSTER does that!? Her heart pumping with the rage of 1000 bulls fueled by burning suns in their supernova state, Ellie Cullington came flying out of the bathroom in her robe, sporting, of all things, a new shade of dark blue hair. This was low. Sure, she'd pulled some really line-treading stunts in her years. Heck, she even set up the great pool splash of 2007. But this? No. This was unacceptable. There were many rules in the Cullington household, and one of the unspoken ones was clearly to NEVER MESS WITH SOMEONE IN THE SHOWER. Not only did they break it, but they broke it with flying colors (no pun intended).

"Ellie? Wha-- Er. Your hair?" Down the hall came a familiar voice; Little Angela had literally come running around the corner from her room in 'record speed'; The typical pace of a typical Streak, with the trademark after-blur behind her. Doubtful that she expected what she saw, though; at this point, the 'color' was dripping from Ellie's hair, and onto the back of her robe. "Your, um..." She pointed, and all too suddenly Ellie became aware of the further growing crisis. Suddenly, her white bath robe wasn't so white anymore. "...Angie? You mind covering your ears for a minute?" Ellie asked nicely, but Angela knew that tone; It was laced with a wrath she had only heard stories about, one she was DEFINITELY not about to test. The silly little girl placed her hands on her ears, singing 'la la la' as she ran back to her room, closing the door just in time to avoid the storm.

"WHEN I FIND OUT WHICH ONE OF YOU DID THIS I'M GOING TO RIP YOUR BLOODY TEETH OUT, ONE BY ONE, AND USE'EM TO CLEAN MY--" She began, only to be cut short by a familiar... buzzing. A very familiar vibration, in fact, that was echoing from her pocket. The phone. "Saved by the buzz, you jerks," She muttered under her breath as she ran back in the bathroom, grabbed her clothes from the floor, and rushed to her own room on the third floor. Her revenge could come later; Her phone only vibrated when a new number was calling it. 

She made sure to lock the door behind her as she walked in the room and quickly made her way to the massive setup that was her 'baby'; An eight-screen computer that could give the top gamers and solo hackers in the world a run for their money, no doubt. Glasses on, knuckles cracked, a geeky smile of excitement brushed Ellie's lips as she placed the phone to her ear and took the call.

"Thank you for calling Hotline's Hotline, Hotline speaking! How may I help you today?" She spoke in the kindest, most friendly tone she could imagine... while triangulating the co-ordinates of the number and running a macro to lock that number to a specific hero profile she'd already set up in her computer's database. 

[Audrey]

Stephanie was a little surprised when someone picked up the phone. Hotline's Hotline? A gal with a hotline going by the name of Hotline? What kind of name was Hotline anyway, you're just ASKING to be a phone operator with a name like that. No matter. She got ahold of someone, it was time to see if they could do anything with this stupid riddle. "Hello yeah, I need a little help with something or other. I'm not exactly sure what you're actually SUPPOSED to help with, I mean the card was kind of blank, but I'm assuming you have internet so you can just look up the answer to this riddle I have," Stephanie said looking about idly as she spoke on the phone. She was kind of looking for any ambushes, but to be honest, she wasn't too worried about it. These weird Kwiz Kid things kept people far away from them since the slightest noise would set them off on their annoying tirades.

With the introduction to our problem set out, Stephanie prodded the Kwiz Question Mark and held the phone up to the strange projection.
"In British Columbia you cannot take a picture of a man with a wooden leg. Why not?" it said once more just as smug as before. She placed the phone back to her head again.
"So yeah, just Google the answer and tell me what the answer is. I may need you for a couple more too, there's like a bunch of these stupid things all over," she sighed, expecting whoever this was to just hang up since it was probably like a car salesman or romance hotline that cost a million dollars per minute to use. Well, the latter probably wouldn't, but Stephanie certainly would. Babs and in turn Batman would flip at an unexplained phone bill.

[A.G.]

A voice. A voice! Ellie's grin spread about as wide as the cat that ate the canary when, as expected, someone responded on the other end of the phone line. 'As expected' indeed; Anyone else, and this wouldn't have been so much of an amazing feat or achievement. However, for the young information broker sitting in front of a very powerful computer, it meant just about everything. There was power in words and voices; They all originated somewhere, and left plenty of 'breadcrumbs' to lead the way there. One of Hotline's signature tracing techniques involved using those very self-same breadcrumbs to match voices to a possible list of known heroes and villains in her database. The longer her dearest client spoke, the easier it would be to match her to a given set of parameters in the system and identify who-- 

'Ding'

...She was. The search had matched her to a single, particular profile. "That's silly; You can't take a picture of anyone, anywhere, with a wooden leg! You need a camera." Ellie replied to the sound of the 'question'; For some reason that she couldn't nail, it sounded familiar... Not the riddle, but the one reciting it. Huh. Oh well! "Riddles are awesome! I love a good riddle every once in a while. There's a bunch of them? Sounds like my kinda place!" She went on to say, which really wasn't helpful information no matter how you looked at it... but, yeah!

"Aaaaaanyway, since you're so curious. You might not know me, but I'm a friend! I'm a good friend. A friend that happens to know all about you; But then again, I guess I shouldn't give too many... 'spoilers', should I?" Ellie teased; The entire time, she was zeroing in further on the call, fingers hacking away at keys which may or may not have been audible in the background. "You can call me Hotline! I'm kinda-sorta your strategy guide for life," She boasted, amusing herself at the idea.

[Audrey]

As the sound in the telephone registered with the holographic question mark, it dinged, a welcome change from the loud obnoxious buzzers they'd been making so far. With a clever shuffling display, the question mark became a single number. A two. Well that was helpful. NOT. It seems more riddles would need answering. Oh well, given everything, it makes sense it wouldn't be that easy. Despite all this though, Stephanie just remained completely frozen. The silence soon became awkward, almost to the point where it could easily be believe Steph had hung up if you weren't there to see her phone still flipped open. After nearly a minute, Stephanie finally made a noise and a noise she made indeed.

"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE" came from her mouth like some kind of bizarre small animal. With her mask on, it was impossible to tell, but the largest smile of happiness was plastered on her face. "You know who I actually am! Someone knows me!" she continued, just as high-pitched as her little scream of happiness and began wriggling in place where she was in the alley. As she did, a thug approached from behind, believing her to be in a state of weakness. With a subconscious and nonchalant punch, Stephanie quickly proved the thug's theory wrong. The attempt failed to deter her excitement though.

She'd been skeptical, but Stephanie was thoroughly enlightened on this mysterious Hotline character. "So-so-so, you're like uhm... oh, what's her face-PENNY! Penny from Inspector Gadget! You know, the blonde girl with pigtails who was the brains behind everything Gadget did! Erm, sorry. Just a little excited. So you're like uhm... some sort of super aficionado? Feel like helping me with the rest of these riddles? They're all over the city, placed by some loser called Kwiz Kid who looks like Speedy and Robin 1's long lost impossible crack child from the future. Apparently when all of them are answered, they'll lead to a warehouse with some hostages in danger. We could team up and be like Batman and Robin!... I'm Batman by the way, I'd never be caught dead in that red, yellow, and green getup," Stephanie finally spoke normally, though still quite excited. A superhero helpline. Why hadn't someone thought of that before? Better yet, why wasn't there a 'superhero' who's whole thing was just being super smart and knowledgable and helping a hero? Maybe a former hero shot down in their prime, but helping in anyway they can refusing to give up on justice. So freaking cool.

[A.G.]

"So did that do it? Was that the right answer? Um... Spoils, are you there?" A bit of silence on the other end of the phone caused one Ellie Cullington to start growing a bit concerned. Did she maybe say too much? Maybe that joke about her identity was uncalled for; Superheroes were like SUPER sensitive about that stuff (and she would know; She lived with a bunch of them). "...Y'know the whole 'Spoiler' thing was a joke, right? Like, I wasn't threatening your or anything, I was just--" She attempted to explain, feeling sort of guilty (and slightly concerned for her own safety, honestly), before suddenly losing hearing in one of her ears.

Whoa! Ellie couldn't help but giggle at the sudden excitement on the part of Ms. Spoiler, very much happy with the tiiiiny little hint dropped on her. Which, honestly, was awesome! Ellie wasn't entirely sure just how her newest client would react to being known, but she was absolutely glad (and a bit disoriented) with her response. "Hah! Penny wishes she was me-- Robin DEFINITELY wishes he was me!" She boasted, a huge smirk spreading across her face as she just attempted to imagine herself in bird boy's shoes. "But, uh, yep! That's about the half of it. I deal in information; Anything you need to know, I find out. I'm the internet! But, y'know, better!" She mused, switching from the phone's speaker to her headset. Kwiz Kid... why was that name so familiar? Geez, it was probably going to bother her for the rest of the day.

Crossing her legs, leaning back in her seat and watching as the computer finally triangulated and located Spoiler's signal, Ellie beamed with seemingly unneeded glee. "Alrighty then, we've got a city full of riddles to track down, yeah? Just let me at 'em; We'll find those hostages in no time." The secret super heroine brightly declared, absolutely thrilled to have her first 'official' client. And all she had to do was reverse pickpocket a few book bags, pockets, break into a few cars... Sneak into a couple chimneys... bribe a police officer...

...Maybe she needed to find a better way to get her name out there.

[Audrey]

"Let's save some hostages girl wonder," Steph said with renewed confidence after an awful night of zero progress at all. With her ally on cellphone, Stephanie sprung through the town knocking out Kwiz Kid's riddles with complete ease. Quickly, the letters came together, forming the address to one of an abandoned church in the residential sector of town... Why didn't she just realize that in the first place? Seriously, abandoned churches just scream villain activity. It's all perfect as a metaphor, to show how the soul has deteriorated along with the foundations of faith and all that jazz. Metaphors weren't really Stephanie's thing unless to make some sort of pun. She failed Philosophy back in Gotham, but that doesn't really count, she was positive her teacher was the secret identity of Riddler. Guy was a total creep.

Speaking of Riddler, Steph made a vocal moan of discomfort as the church came into view. There was a huge neon sign on the door advertising some sort of game show. How did she not see this. Seriously. Tunnel vision is a real pain in the butt. It didn't help that this was so cheesy. Who was this guy? He makes Bane look subtle. She popped her cellphone out of her belt and listened in again for Hotline. "Yeah, coming up on the place. Big sign that says 'Look, I'm a megalomaniacal villain and here's my lair' on the side. I really wish I was kidding about this. Why is it villain's always do this kind of stuff? Don't they ever realize that if they didn't dress garishly and act all insane, then maybe they'd actually get away with something? Erm, sorry. I'm not used to having someone to make small talk with on my little excursions. Do you think the front entrance is a trap or something? This seems way too simple,"

Stephanie approached a couple more blocks and looked over the church. The windows were all sealed with steel from the inside and the basement was concreted. The entrance has essentially been turned into a bottleneck into the building. One way in... but also one way out. If she could get past whatever trap was definitely set up here, she'd have Kwiz Kid completely trapped inside. It was cat'n'mouse at this point. The question was who would win. Thankfully, Steph had the superhero's equivalent of a cheat code on her side. She pulled the cellphone back up. "What's the sitch Wade? I mean Hotline. Sorry, I've always wanted to say that. What do we got here?"

[A.G.]

So here she was, working side by side with her first OFFICIAL contact; Ellie-- err, 'Hotline' couldn't keep the grin on her face any smaller than that of the cat that ate the canary as she used her digital eyes to watch over Spoiler. It was a simple matter, in all honesty; Jump City's main streets and certain other areas had neat little city-wide cameras that were hooked up to a rather flimsy (in comparison to the city's more 'secure' secrets) network used to monitor traffic and such. Some called it a breech of privacy, others called it 'The Invasion of Big Brother'. Hotline called it easy pickings; especially with her untraceable programs. She could see just a fair bit of Jump City, and was able to keep track of Spoiler as she moved from marker to marker.

Eventually, the two (well, technically just Spoiler) came across a nice-sized-- Aw, c'mon. The grin on Hotline's face dropped dead as she leaned back in her comfy chair, running a hand through her slightly moist, alllllllmost dried hair. Which was blue now, thanks Blake. "Really? Like... Really?" Hotline could only just... 'admire' the handiwork that was A BIG STUPID SIGN PLASTERED ON THE FRONT OF THE CHURCH. Poor Spoils felt her pain in equal shares. "Well, criminal psychology 101: Every act of crime is a call for help. Just, y'know, in this case... more like a pitched hissyfit." She joked, still slightly taken back and the... audacity of the situation.

"Let's see what we've got here..." The helpful heroine mumbled to herself as went to work on her keyboard. Glaring design flaws aside, Hotline couldn't see INSIDE the church, and that was a problem. She'd been able to keep up with Spoils so far by tracking her phone and watching through the cameras, but if she went in as of right now, visual contact was going to be a no-go. Once more, her contact made contact, and Hotline delivered the bad news. "I'm picking up 5... no, at least 6 different IPs from inside the building, give or take a few that keep dropping out-- Your hostages are definitely in there. But I can't tell much else; Something's interfering with my connection in there, and I can't secure a connection on anything in there. If you go in, I might lose your signal."

After tapping her chin for a bit, Hotline sighed. She didn't like the look of this; Too many variables she couldn't control. "I don't suppose you wanna call in the Calvary now?" She half-joked, pretty much guessing the answer. "...Just take it step by step, and try not to do anything too reckless, yeah?"

[Audrey]

"I'm gonna go in," Stephanie eventually decide, clicking her cellphone back into place. With a great release of breath, she leaped down the cliff-side she'd spied the church from and stood in front of the hulking structure, taking one last moment to gawk at that awful neon sign. Seriously?! She could NOT get over that stupid thing. "If I'm not back in... three hours, call Robin 1. As much I hate to ask for his help, he is likely who I'd need," she gave as a one last message to Hotline, not bothering to explain why a number followed Robin's name before shutting the phone. Swallowing her definitely minor bit of fear, she pushed open the front doors. There was just another set of doors about three feet ahead. Well that ruined the suspense. Stupid front entryways. She took a step into the alcove to open the next door and was surprised when suddenly the floor collapsed underneath her.

Down, down, down she tumbled through an almost Alice in Wonderland-like tunnel in the ground. Only, rather than flying pianos and other oddball things, it was all just a bunch of obnoxious game show signs flashing like their fragile neon lives depended on it. Steph was almost a little surprised to see the sign from Ancient Pyramid; the show her dad used to host fly by in the rush. Wow, this kid is so nerdy, he even watched Ancient Pyramid. What a loser. She thought about the fact that her father hosted it though, and realized her life was really just as sad.

She eventually landed in a large chamber that put the tunnel she just passed through to shame. There were strange neon inserts all throughout the wall, wacky faces all over the wall, a huge fake revolver suspended in the center of the room, and across the way from Steph, the words 'KWIZ KID' in glowing bright green neon. She was in one of six sort of alcoves. Another of the alcoves was the one labeled Kwiz Kid, but the other four held pedestrians tied to chairs and gagged. She approached the railing of her alcove, and watched as a spotlight centered in on the kid himself emerging in his alcove.

"LADIES AND GENTLEMEN! Introducing your host! The one, the only, Kwiiiiiiiiiiiiz Kid!" some sort of announcer voice came over the intercom speakers as a non-existent crowd began cheering for the dork. Stephanie could only groan as the teen villain began to bow to said audience.
"Thank you! Thank you! And welcome everyone to Jump City Roulette, where the contestants are high and the stakes are higher! Our special guest on this episode is the one and only Spoiler! Rival of the infamous (and might I say dashing) Cluemaster! She has qualified through our quick round, and is now moving on to the main guy, aren't we excited Ms. S?" Kwiz Kid announced, smirking the entire time with glee.
"I could say something like 'Let the hostages go', but instead I'm going to say what's on my mind. Can I get Tim Burton's number? Seriously, no one else could've designed this place. You MUST've had him do it," Steph quipped in return, fully aware a villain would never just release the hostages on a simple request.

"I'm hurt, I really did design this myself. And the sign. Did you like the sign? Regardless, it's time to play Spoiler. I hope you're prepared. The rules are easy. I will ask a cryptic clue. If you answer correctly, then my platform sinks one step. Five steps, and you drop me into the loser's pit where there's nice vat of acid waiting to leave all sorts of nasty scars. I heard that stuff was what drove Joker mad. However, if you answer incorrectly, then the revolver goes spinning and whoever it lands on will instantly drop into the loser's pit. No five strikes for you all. I mean, it wouldn't be fair! There's five of you and one of me!" Kwiz Kid explained, gesturing to both the giant revolver in the center and the inserts which Stephanie now realized were not neon, but in fact the glow from the acid inside them. She gave a glare to Kwiz Kid.
"Bring it on dork," she challenged with a dorky kung-fu gesture.
"Excellent. First question. What can travel around the world while staying in a corner?" Kwiz Kid proposed, smiling as he saw Stephanie take step back. She began to panic. She didn't know the answer. She wracked her brain for everything, but it was just plain and simple, she was terrible at riddles. "Five seconds..." Kwiz Kid warned.
"A hot air balloon!" Steph guessed, unable to think fast enough.
"Wrong! Spin the wheel!" Kwiz Kid cheered, pulling a lever, and causing the giant revolver to spin. Stephanie's heart sank as she watched it, unable to bear to know where it would land.

By some miracle, the prop came to stop pointing at Kwiz Kid, sending him down a peg. Stephanie breathed a sigh of relief as Kwiz Kid looked at her with disgust. "Lucky break. The next time it won't be so lucky," he warned, picking himself up from the slight descent.
"Well next time, I'll actually get the question. Then we'll see who's lucky," Stephanie snapped back, performing a victory dance from her little alcove.
"Next question! There was a green house. Inside the green house there was a white house. Inside the white house there was a red house. Inside the red house there were lots of babies. What is it?" he shot back. Shoot! She didn't know this one either. She really wished she hadn't lost connection with Hotline. She could really use her personal strategy guide right now. The stakes were far too high for her comfort level. She began to sweat in worry as Kwiz Kid's timer counted down.

[A.G.]

Hotline didn't like the circumstances as they were presented; She didn't like them one bit. She considered herself pretty smart, and something of a chessmaster-- the term 'Control Freak' was already taken, but she was close to such. As a result, whenever something didn't go her way, or she felt as if she couldn't predict the outcome of some situation or another, she tended to... unwind, a little. No, not in the way of relaxation; It pressed at her every nerve to know everything she possibly could about someone or something, that she could control understand them better. People and things she couldn't control were a problem. Things that she couldn't control, she couldn't stop from doing something she didn't want them to. That wasn't acceptable. She couldn't control what was going on in that church, so the new plan was now to send in the Streaks-- Or at least Blake, he wasn't doing anything important. It didn't matter who; A meta was a better bet for the unknown than either of them were. "...Y'know what, on the other hand, let's just--" She began, only to be cut off by Spoiler, who'd decided on going in. That... wasn't part of the plan. She practically jumped in her seat when Spoiler said she'd go in. "W-wait, no, better idea, let's just--" She tried to begin again, before being cut off again by Spoiler, who gave her-- HER, of all people-- instructions on what to do in the worst case scenario. 

"Or, OR--" A slow building panic began to rise in Hotline, who was once more cut off-- this time not by Spoiler, but by static. That's it; She had gone inside, further verified by her disappearing off her computer screen. Static. It was annoying to be too late to make a decision, aggravating to know there is nothing you can do to change that, and scary not knowing what consequences your decision held. None of these feelings sat right with Hotline who, despite being told to wait 3 hours before looking into calling backup, raised from her seat immediately, nearly threw her headset off, and rushed to her closed door. She poked her new, blue head of hair out the doorway and yelled, quite frantically, 

"Mom, dad, I'm going to hang out with some friends for a bit! I'll be back in a little while!" 

She didn't wait for an answer; She couldn't. Scrambling from left to right, Ellie quickly suited up, donning her all-black leather suit and pulling the headlights over her head. She didn't even adjust them; She didn't have time. She'd do it later. She even packed a spare set of 'normal' clothes away in a little black backpack, just in case. Slapping on her utility belt, the girl gave a final look back at her slightly dirty room, before climbing out of the window. As Hotline in broad daylight, she couldn't allow herself to be distinguished to clearly, and so she stuck to the few shadows that the sun provided as she quickly made her way to the last coordinates Spoiler had given off.

It didn't take her long to find the church; Much less time than it took Spoils, anyway. The entire way, she kept trying to reconnect with her client from... where ever she was, but had no such luck. There was definitely a jammer somewhere inside or around the church; Her first objective was to find it and neutralize it. If she could connect with Spoiler again, she could get a better feel of what the situation was. She stepped out of an alleyway and moved across two streets to reach the heinous Kwiz Kid's lair. The giant sign was... well, gratingly hard to ignore, but she had more important things to worry about. Slowly, she pressed open the doors of the church... and immediately noticed the collapsed floor.

The ol' trap floor trick. "Classy, Kwiz Kid," Was her only response before withdrawing her grappling hook, and firing it at the door. She only needed to catch the doorknob on the hook, which was easily done. Pulling back on the handle, Hotline was able to open the doors to the inner sanctum and leap across the gap... to find herself in a very unholy place. "...Whoa..." Perhaps this room had been the church hall before, where the masses gathered and the preacher spoke the good word. It definitely wasn't that anymore. What remained was a largely computerized room, lightless, cold, and almost completely covered in machinery. She nearly swooned on the spot. The walls were covered in sheet metal, likely cover up the many, many cables it would have taken to run everything she saw. There were several monitors here; Three enormous-screened monitors lined both the walls to her sides, displaying several separate alcoves, each positioned rather dangerously above a large pit of... Holy cow, was that acid at the bottom?

She could see several people within said alcoves, bound to their seats-- She could also see one of the gaudiest-looking costumed villains she'd probably ever laid eyes on in whom she assumed was the infamous Kwiz Kid, grinning like a jerk as he stood and watched over the final alcove, which-- to Hotline's immediate relief-- held Spoiler. She was safe, at least for now. "...My kinda villain..." Still slightly awestruck, the girl continued to follow the path of cords, cables and sheet metal up to what the young heroine could only assume was the supercomputer that controlled just about everything she saw on the large screens. It was here that a more compact variant of the six screens sat above the terminal of the supercomputer, allowing her to get a collective view of what was going on down there. "Hello, baby... My name's Hotline," She whispered to the sophisticated computer terminal as she took her own phone, and connected it to the computer via a free port. "Shh... don't worry. Momma's not gunna hurt you; Relax, lay back, and close your eyes... I'll be very gentle."

She probably didn't have much longer until... something, happened on one of the screens. Her phone was fighting through firewalls and passwords as fast as it could, but even Hotline cringed slightly when she noticed the giant revolver in the room spin suddenly towards Kwiz Kid, and watched as his alcove sank a little closer to the acid. This guy was insane. What villain actually put their own life in danger for the sake of some fun and games!? Before she could contemplate it, her phone made an audible beep, alerting her that the computer was now accessible. "See? That wasn't so painful. Now, unless you think it's too soon to ask, I need a favor, babe..." She whispered lovingly as she went typing away at the terminal, accessing the audio for the screens around her, as well as disabling the jamming signal, and accessing the computer's built in microphone system. This thing was AMAZING.

"Next question! There was a green house. Inside the green house there was a white house. Inside the white house there was a red house. Inside the red house there were lots of babies. What is it?"

Hotline grinned, before answering clearly through what she hoped were built-in-speakers in Kwiz Kid's little underground dungeon.

"It's a watermelon! Oh, wait-- Does it count if I answer? I didn't even think about that-- Ah, geez." The super secret heroine playfully chimed in, still working on the computer terminal she'd been toying with. Fun as this little diversion might have been, this was still a grave situation; She needed to figure out how to disable the controls for those moving alcoves, on the off-hand chance the 'Cluemaster' decided to rage quit-- The bad way.

[Audrey]

"A jawbreaker!" Stephanie finally spat out, two seconds on the clock left. It was all she could think of that even sounded remotely close. It was wrong though, someone was going to get dropped. Stephanie couldn't watch. She covered her eyes as a grin crawled onto Kwiz Kid's smarmy lips. He posed himself, ready to give a dramatic response.
"I'm sorry Spoiler. That is incor-ack!" he began, only to be interrupted as his platform dropped down a step, throwing him forward into his bench. "Wh-What?! That isn't correct! A jawbreaker? It's a watermelon! A watermelon isn't anything like a jawbreaker!" he argued, throwing a bit of a miniature fit there in his little alcove. Meanwhile, Stephanie had witnessed the shocking turn and stood up proud.
"Hmm! Seems you're the wrong one this time Kwiz Kid. Sucks to suck huh? You made the computer didn't you? Either way it's your fault then. So let's keep going and stop whining like a sore loser, huh?" Stephanie challenged, regaining her confidence once more, hiding her own surprise that her wild guess was actually correct somehow. With a grunt, Kwiz Kid pulled himself up again and regained his composure.

"No matter, this next question will stump you for sure. Who makes it has no need for it, who buys it has no use of it, who uses it can neither see or feel it. What is it?" Kwiz Kid proposed, propping himself back into that smarmy stance. Stephanie thought to herself a second before answering with a resounding reponse.
"Noise," she spoke boldly crossing her arms as if she'd already won.
"Oh man Spoiler, you are an id-" Kwiz Kid started with a laugh, only for his platform to drop once more to his surprise. Stephanie was mentally prepared to boast once more, but began to stumble a bit when she realized Kwiz Kid wasn't getting back up. Did he miscount platforms and fall into the acid already? Did he break a leg or something? What was he doing?
Kwiz Kiiiiid? You still alive over there?" she said as she leaned towards his alcove trying to get a better look and was immediately caught off guard as he jumped up to his rather tall bench in a huffing rage.
"YOU! YOU'RE CHEATING AREN'T YOU? One wrong answer I could take for a fluke, but two in a row?! This is preposterous! You're cheating somehow, I know it!" he seethed, breathing with the ferocity of an ox, and his face completely red with rage.
"No, I'm not cheating, but here, just so there aren't any hard feelings, you can have a present," Stephanie calmly responded reaching into her pocket and pulling out a plastic red ring ring with a lantern on it.

She had picked it up in a coin crank machine earlier today hoping to get a green ring, and had totally forgotten about it until now. With a lob, she tossed the ring to Kwiz Kid who apathetically caught it and gave an unamused look in return before crushing the ring in his fist. "So this is funny to you is it? You come onto my show that took me months of preparation, cheat the system, and then have the nerve to play a stupid joke on me?! I'll show you why no one leaves a Kwiz Kid performance alive," Kwiz Kid threatened before angrily smashing a red button to his right. All of a sudden, red lights began flashing all over and the revolver in the center of room spun around, homing in on Stephanie. "You didn't think it was just a prop did you?" Realizing what he meant, Stephanie quickly dove onto the barrel of the giant revolver just as an explosive shot out of the cannon, destroying her alcove and sending pieces of it down into the lower portion of the room. A large piece struck the piping containing the acid, leaving a wide crack in the glass.

"Clever. But I suppose if I can't get you, I'll get one of your precious civilians," Kwiz Kid responded as the revolver turned a bit to aim at a set of hostages. Thinking fast, Spoiler unlatched one of her Spoilerangs and climbed up the gun as fast as possible, right up to the cable holding the front portion up. With a swift whack, she tore half the cable away, leaving the gun a little unstable. She thought up a plan of action quick before striking the cable again, severing it. As the barrel swung downwards, Stephanie dove over and grabbed onto the trigger of the gun, hanging there as the explosive charge was sent right into the floor, bursting open the acid pipes and causing acid to flood into the lower portion of the room. Spoiler looked nervously between the growing pool and her own precarious position on a plastic gun trigger. She just hoped the other cable held up as well.

"No no no! You've ruined everything! The whole set is just destroyed now! I suppose you've sealed your own fate now though. That acid is direct from Jump Pharmaceutical. It won't be running dry anytime soon. And as it just so happens, I have a hot date to get to, so I hope you won't mind me leaving you hanging there Spoips. Ta ta," Kwiz Kid responded, pressing the green question mark on his wall and removing his two remaining platforms, revealing there was a secret escape tunnel underneath that would prevent him from even possibly falling into acid.
"You! You're the cheater! You were never even in danger you prissy little braaaaaat!" Spoiler screamed as the quizzical villain made his escape, leaving her alone in what was becoming a progressively more and more uncomfortable room. "Stephanie, what have you gone and done this time?" she muttered to herself as she felt the temperature in the room rise.

[A.G.]

"I'm such a bad person, what's wrong with me? I should stop. Really, I need to stop riiiiiight now. Oh wait, he's telling another one."





Admittedly, Hotline was having far more fun with the controls of Kwiz Kid's 'game show' than she should have been; She just loved the feeling of getting her hands on new technology (new to her, anyway) and giving it a spin; It was like getting a new car, with air and water capabilities. And lasers. And missiles. Gosh this computer was neat! It didn't help matters that the entire time, the poor guy down below was practically losing his head-- Though she had to be careful not to lower him too far, or... well, he might just actually lose his head. "He's so mad. It's so cute! Dance, puppet-- Err, not dance, but... get mad! Get so mad it drives you mad!" Hotline teased to no-one in particular, quoting one of her all-time favorite anime.



Eventually, however, things got a little less fun; Kwiz Kid had a trick up his sleeve that even Hotline hadn't seen coming, in the form of that enormous 'toy' gun in the center of the chamber being real. Which kinda sucked, since she did nooooot have control over that at all; Kwiz Kid demonstrated this verily by attempting to take out Spoiler with it. Fortunately, Spoiler was able to avoid it, thank goodness. She wasn't able to stop the darned thing from destroying a portion of the wall, however... And in doing so, the gun let in all sorts of nasty-looking green stuff. Well that didn't seem so great. "Spoiler, what have you gone and done this time?" She scratched the back of her head, putting two and two together as she watched the green liquid burn simmer and burn into the ground and walls below.



"Oh, it's just acid. I was worried it might be boring old jell-o... Or lime juice." Hotline muttered to herself in complaint, mentally kicking into second gear. Not only was Spoiler's life at risk, but also the lives of the other four captured victims. What was worse was the fact that unlike Spoiler's misstep, there didn't seem to be anymore trap doors leading down into the 'game room', which lead Hotline to wonder just how Kwiz Kid managed to get all those people down there... Maybe a hidden pathway she hadn't seen? Whatever the case, she didn't really have time to think it over; The level below was filling with acid. "Okay, Ellie..." She muttered to herself, pulling her grappling hook out, "Improvising is what you're good at, right? No big deal..."



So improvise she did. Ellie quickly ran around behind the computer terminal, pulling one of the metal sheets away from the wall to reveal, as she had guessed earlier, many inter-working cables. She quickly disconnected as many of them from the computer terminal as she could (leaving the power cord in tact on the off-hand chance that things below went haywire as a result) and promptly made a quick sweep around the room. Each of the cables connecting the six lage-screen monitors were disconnected, and by following them through the sheet metal (and nicking her fingers a few times as a result), Ellie managed to gather up a large array of long cords. The next step was tying them together by their ends in a long knot, which thereby produced some of the longest rope that the girl had ever dealt with personally; After wrapping it around her torso to keep it all in one place, Hotline raced back towards the entrance. Last she'd seen of the scene below, the acid was still rising; She had to be quick.



"Now, in theory... this should get me down to them..." Ellie mumbled to herself, a bit of apprehension setting in as she pierced the wooden floorboards just a foot from the trap door with the barbed end of her grappling line, and tested to make sure it'd hold against weight resistance. And then, with a deep breath, she jumped down into the tunnel below, holding tight to her grappling line just in case something went wrong. And she slid, and slid, and slid... Until a green light at the end of the tunnel alerted her to her final destination. Out of the same chute that Spoiler had come from earlier, Hotline came to a dangling stop; About five feet into the large game chamber, The Bat Automated Grappling Hook of Awesomeness had locked up on her, signaling that the cable wire had extended to it's fullest length. "I'm at the end of my rope, here." She joked to herself, despite the fact that she was hanging over a growing pool of acid. On the bright side, at least she could confirm that Spoiler and everyone else was safe, for now. Speaking of... With a rather sheepish smile, and a bit of a wave from her free hand, Hotline greeted the heroine in distress (and contemplated if that technically referred to them both, at this point).



"Y'know, typically my clients don't jump into danger head-first without consulting me a bit more..." The face might not be familiar, but the voice and that rather unfortunate nickname would probably be enough of a clue to this newcomer's identity. With a decent show of acrobatics, Hotline hoisted herself up onto the cable line she'd come down on, just enough to take the opposing end of the grappling hook, and latch it onto her utility belt (eat your heart out, Marvel) to free her hands up completely. "Remember how you said, 'If I'm not back in three hours... call Robin 1', earlier? Yeah, he was... busy doing Robin 1 things. Catch!" She lied with a shrug, before retrieving the cable from around her torso and tossing one end of it towards Spoiler. It was long-- very long. Hopefully long enough for her to use to get from the gun to the other alcoves, and give the other hostages something to hold onto. Meanwhile, she tied the other end to her utility belt as well (EAT YOUR HEART OUT, MARVEL), keeping her hands free-ish.