Vell looked at the hand of Alistair Kraid, extended in an offer of alliance, and considered the opportunity for exactly zero seconds.

“No, fuck off.”

Kraid’s skeletal hand hung in the air for a second before resuming its previous villainous position, tucked behind his back.

“Well, I was expecting maybe a moment of actual consideration, but alright,” Kraid said.

“Why the fuck would I even think about working with you?”

Vell had tried teaming up with Kraid once before, to rescue Kim from the Wish Fish. It had actually gone fairly well, right up until Kraid had murdered most of Vell’s friends and tried to usurp reality. He would not be so stupid as to try again.

“Because I want to get rid of the gnome too!”

“Bee-biggle-wiggle and bee-big-”

“Shut up!”

Kraid extended his skeletal hand, pointed one burnt knuckle at Bicklebong and incinerated him with a gout of green fire. Bicklebong reappeared around the corner two seconds later. The death, albeit temporary, did at least interrupt the incoming riddle.

“And what are you supposed to be bringing to this alliance?” Vell asked. “Brains? Money? Because as per our last meeting, I can outsmart you, and you’re broke.”

“Broke? I’m still one of the richest people on the planet, Harlan,” Kraid scoffed. The rickroll stunt had briefly knocked Kraid out of the top one-hundred richest people on earth, but he had already clawed his way back to rank fifty-six, and he had no doubt he would soon reclaim his number one slot.

“Then give me two billion dollars and fuck off until I fix this,” Vell said. Kraid grunted with displeasure and shook his head.

“Fine. Be that way,” Kraid said. As much as he wanted to be rid of the gnome, the only thing he was accomplishing right now was making himself deal with Vell Harlan, which wasn’t much better. “The offer’s on the table. If you need anything, you can ask Helena. I’ll be having her check in now and then, just to make sure you don’t find a solution without me.”

“We actually did find one solution already,” Vell said. “Won’t work for me, but it should be perfect for you.”

“What is i- You’re going to tell me to kill myself, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“I liked you better when you were meek,” Kraid said, as he turned to leave.

“I’ve always hated you the same amount,” Vell said. He waved goodbye as Kraid teleported away. “Bye!”

Kraid vanished in a flash of green light, leaving behind Vell, Skye, and a deathless riddlemaster in a pointy hat.

“Bee-biggle-wiggle and-”

Skye slammed the door shut in Bicklebong’s face.

----------------------------------------

“I was kind of hoping not cleaning this place was part of the act,” Helena said. “You just live like this?”

She ran a finger along one of the dusty shelves on the edge of the lair.

“You vastly overestimate how much effort we had to put into tricking you,” Samson said. “We told like, four lies, your ego did the rest.”

“Enough,” Vell said. “We have a gnome problem we need to focus on.”

He took a seat at the head of the table, and the other loopers filed in to their places. Helena hesitated, but eventually slotted into the seat that had been hers before.

“So, Helena, I assume Kraid is testing all the lethal means of being rid of Bicklebong?”

“And torture, yes,” Helena said. “He’s proven surprisingly resistant to waterboarding, crucifixion, and the Bolivian Kazoo. That’s when you-”

“Not interested,” Vell said. “But I think we can all agree that Kraid is better at murdering people than we are, so we can stop with the plans to punt Bicklebong into orbit or disintegrate him or whatever. We need to focus on displacing him or getting him to lose interest.”

“You’ve got your interdimensional storage locker right there,” Helena said.

“That was one of the first things we tried,” Hawke said.

“We’ve also shoved him into the multiverse, displaced him through time, shot him into the center of the universe with the Theta Wave teleporter, and tried locking him in a bathroom.”

“A bathroom?”

“Cosmic entities can’t enter bathrooms without permission,” Vell said. Quenay had told Vell that once, and it had actually turned out to be true. Even Death had to wait for the souls of people who’d died in the bathroom to drift out. Apparently someone who’d written the laws of the universe valued personal privacy. “We thought we could invert the effect to trap him, but per Bicklebong showing up while Skye was showering, he apparently doesn’t follow that rule.”

“Then what’s your next move?”

“We’re going to try outsmarting him,” Vell said. “We’re workshopping a couple different strategies.”

“What, like tricking him into saying his name backwards?”

“More like seeing if we can ask him a riddle he can’t solve,” Vell said.

“We’re hoping the paradox will make his brain explode,” Kim said.

“Or just make him leave,” Vell said. No matter how annoying Bicklebong was, Vell still didn’t necessarily want him dead.

“I’ve got money on brain exploding,” Kim said.

“I think he’ll just dissolve,” Hawke said.

“What an incredibly normal thing to bet on,” Vell said.

“That’s our angle, Helena. Any suggestions?”

“If that would work, wouldn’t any old paradox do?” Helena said. “If he’s ravaged entire alien worlds, surely someone’s asked him about the Raven paradox.”

“Yes, well, we’re assuming most of those other planets didn’t have time loops with giant worms and horseshit like that,” Vell said. “We’ve got to know something Bicklebong doesn’t.”

“That’s actually reasonable,” Helena said. “Alright, I’ll start brainstorming.”

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

----------------------------------------

“Bicklebong!”

Vell and the loopers caught up to Bicklebong just in time, from the looks of things. Luke looked like he was at the end of his rope.

“Please tell me you’ve got a way to get rid of this thing,” Luke said.

“I’m hoping I do,” Vell said. He squared his shoulders and stared Bicklebong down. “Bicklebong! What happens if I ask you a riddle you don’t know the answer to?”

“I go away, and me you’ll miss,” Bicklebong said. “But if I do know the answer, then I do this!”

Then he snapped his fingers, and Vell started screaming.

“Vell!”

Kim caught him before he fell, and the screaming stopped. He let out a loud groan and briefly curled in on himself before taking a deep breath and standing on his own two feet.

“I’m okay,” he grunted. “But that really hurt.”

“What’d he do to you?”

“I don’t know,” Vell said. “It’s like I stubbed my toe, but my entire body. It’s not bad, but...I mean, it sucks real bad, but I don’t think I’m actually hurt.”

He didn’t feel as if he’d been injured in any way, but his entire body felt a sharp, acute pain that was slowly fading.

“Why are you hurting him?”

“A game must have stakes to be properly defining,” Bicklebong said. “Also, you hit me with antimatter, no whining.”

“Okay, yeah, he’s got a point. I think I can handle this,” Vell said. “Alright: Where does an octopus get a gun?”

“Online shopping,” Bicklebong said. He snapped his fingers again, and Vell cringed in pain, clutching his thighs, but stayed up straight.

“Vell-”

“I got it,” Vell said. “I can handle it.”

“Vell, you dipshit,” Kim said. “I don’t feel pain.”

She pushed Vell back and then squared up with Bicklebong.

“Alright, you fucking gnome,” Kim said. “What does a robot have, if not a soul?”

“Something else.”

“That’s not an ans-”

Kim cut herself off with a loud scream as her digital face flashed different colors rapidly.

“Ow! God damn it,” Kim said. “How are you making me feel pain?”

“Magic!”

Bicklebong demonstrated by making her feel pain again. Kim hit the floor and curled up in a ball.

“Man I forgot how much that sucks,” Kim grunted.

“Okay,” Hawke said. “Maybe we take this in turns.”

“And that’s still not a real answer,” Samson said.

“Wiggle-higgle-diggle and wiggle-higgle-diddles, that’s not a real answer because these aren’t real riddles. Throw in some wordplay, at least a rhyme, otherwise just quit wasting my time.”

“Come on, man,” Samson said. “This sucks enough already without you making us do wordplay.”

“Do it right or not at all, I don’t want to hear you bawl.”

“Fine,” Vell said. “Real riddles it is. Give me a minute to think of something.”

“Actually, let me give it a try,” Helena said. “I already have one ready to go, and there’s something I want to test out anyway.”

She stepped up, made sure Luke and any other loopers were far away, and lowered her voice so only Bicklebong could hear.

“Reasoned repetition without any rhyme, what could cause looping time?”

“The power of friendship,” Bicklebong said. Then he snapped his fingers, and absolutely nothing happened. Helena took a step back and examined her arms and legs for a second.

“So what’s with that?” Samson asked. “That brace you’re wearing make you immune to pain, or something?”

“No, I just have chronic pain anyway,” Helena said. “It’s not all that different. I might feel a little better, honestly.”

“That’s depressing.”

“Yes,” Helena said. “You can route the rest of your riddles through me, it’ll reduce the time you all spend whining.”

Though they did not appreciate the insinuation they were whining, the other loopers took the opportunity to not be in pain. They took a step back and started brainstorming some riddles, which turned out to be much harder than anticipated. Once they had settled on a handful of riddles, they passed them over to Helena to get started.

“All muscles and no fear, who’s the master of the sport played on a sphere?”

“Leanne Mikkola!”

“I roar through the skies and try to eat guys, what am I?”

“A giant with a jetpack!”

“What has feathers, racism, and exposed bones?”

“An undead nazi dinosaur!”

“Are you reading our minds?” Samson demanded. “How the fuck would you guess that?”

“Wiggle-higgle-diggle and wiggle-higgle-dart, I’m very smart!”

Bicklebong never laughed, but the frantic jingling of his bells mocked Samson just the same.

“One more try,” Helena said. “There’s a lady with mismatched eyes she tries not to flaunt, who is she and what does she want?”

“Easy! That’s-”

This time it was Bicklebong’s turn to let out a scream of agony. After watching the Riddlemaster shrug off disintegrations and punts into orbit for weeks, the loopers took some satisfaction in watching him scream.

“Hoo hoo hoo, I think we made her mad,” Bicklebong said. “Don’t ask more questions about that, or it could get bad.”

“Quenay does tend to get angry when people play with her toys,” Vell said. The old principal had tried to mess with Vell, and gotten his brain fried because of it. If she had set up a game this elaborate, it made sense she’d punish anyone who tried to spoil the ending.

“Doesn’t that count as a question you can’t answer?” Alex said. “Shouldn’t you leave?”

“I could answer, I just can’t say,” Bicklebong said. “I’m getting stopped by Quenay.”

“That feels like a copout.”

“Well if it’s just about questions you can’t answer,” Vell said. “Then can’t-”

He stopped himself mid-sentence, and his forehead jumped straight to four wrinkles as an idea hit him like a truck.

“Fuck me running, how did I not think of that sooner,” Vell said. “Helena, call Kraid, tell him we need a two-way teleportation ticket.”

“And?”

“And nothing,” Vell said. “That’s it.”

“And what do you plan on doing with that?”

“It’ll be better if its a surprise,” Vell said.

Helena sincerely doubted that.

----------------------------------------

“Flat as a leaf, round as a ring, has two eyes, can’t see a thing! What is it?”

“Is it me after I pull my eyes out to avoid seeing you,” Joan groaned. “And then crush myself to death to avoid being around you?”

“Weedle-deedle-geedle and weedle-deedle-go, that’s a no!”

“Want to bet,” Joan said. She kept her hands near her eyeballs just in case. If Bicklebong didn’t already know her eyes were prosthetic, maybe pulling them out of her head could buy her a few seconds of silence.

“Joan! Bicklebong still there?”

“Yes, please, god, save me,” Joan said. Vell came round the corner, followed by his gaggle of loopers. Any thoughts of riddles got blasted out of Joan’s head as soon as she spotted Helena.

“Helena-”

“Shut up,” Helena snapped. “Deal with the gnome first.”

Vell briefly considered using disposing of Bicklebong as leverage to get Helena to talk to her sister, but quickly came to the conclusion that that sort of blackmail would only make things worse. He stepped up and readied a rune he had in his hands.

“Alright, Bicklebong,” Vell said. “Hey-diddle-diddle and hey-diddle-darah-”

Vell snapped the rune in half, dispelling the invisibility field at his side. The magic withered, and revealed a young woman with jet black hair and equally dark sunglasses covering her eyes. Vell gestured to her grandly with both hands.

“What’s the deal with my friend Sarah?”

“Hello.”

Bicklebong stared at Sarah. Sarah stared at Bicklebong. A legion of riddle-tormented students held their breath.

Bicklebong started running, and the frantic jingling of bells was muted only by the bloodcurdling scream he let out as Bicklebong began to sprint in a circle. He ran frantic laps around the room, running as if every nightmare on earth was hot on his heels. The panicked screaming and running lasted exactly thirteen seconds, at which point Bicklebong violently exploded in a burst of flame, leaving behind nothing but two pointed boots with bells on the toes and smoke pouring out of the tops.

Everyone stared at the smoking shoes for a few seconds.

“Anybody have money on explosion?”

“I think Cane bet on him bursting into flames,” Hawke said. “I don’t know if that counts. We’ll have to discuss it.”

“First things first,” Vell said. “I think you owe-”

Vell turned to where Helena had been standing a few seconds ago, and found she was no longer there. Joan was staring forlornly in the same direction. Vell gave her a quick pat on the shoulder.

“Next time.”

“Yeah.”

“For now, uh, thanks for the help, Sarah,” Vell said. “Couldn’t have done it without you.”

“I have uncertainty regarding my contribution, but helping is good,” Sarah said with a shrug. “Was exploding the gnome my only reason to be here?”

“Yeah that’s all,” Vell said. “You can head back when you want. I figure I at least owe you dinner, if you want to stick around for a while.”

“The offer is nice, but I was performing an important project,” Sarah said. “Seeing you again was good. Goodbye.”

She said her goodbye’s to everyone, then stopped in front of Alex, the new face.

“Nice meeting you,” Alex said, awkwardly. She had known Sarah for roughly seven minutes and was vexed, confused, and more than a little scared of her already.

“You are more okay than you think,” Sarah said. She grabbed Alex by the cheeks and gave her a kiss on the forehead before she left, leaving the new looper stunned. Vell turned and watched Sarah go, then glanced back at Alex until she finally unfroze and asked a question.

“Why did she do that?”

“I don’t know, and we’re never going to find out.”