18 months after my epic confrontation with Joker at the old Arkham Asylum, Hugo Strange captured me and unleashed the rage of the Batman inside his Arkham City facility. I don't know how long it's been since that whirlwind adventure of a night when I tragically lost my arch nemesis The Joker, a night that also cost the lives of my beloved Talia al Ghul and Strange himself. My mind is a mess of adrenaline and fear toxin, but there's no better time to tell you my New Story. It's a story that involves excitement, heartbreak, and betrayal, sparked by two of my most nefarious adversaries: the master of fear, Dr. Jonathan Crane, a.k.a. the Scarecrow, and the newest addition to my rogue's gallery, a brilliant military commander known only as the Arkham Knight.
As I relate my story below, I'll be giving away plot points and spoilers relating to the events in the popular video game
Batman: Arkham Knight, the fully licensed and sanctioned public retelling of this case file. If you wish to experience that game for yourself, please navigate away from this page and check out another corner of the Internet. Might I suggest the journey of another video game protagonist,
Link the Hero of Time? The chronicle of his adventures will have to take a backseat to mine, I'm afraid, but as you'll soon see, what I have to tell you will be well worth your time.
WARNING: SPOILER ALERT!
It all started when Commissioner Gordon called me to the roof of the GCPD building using the patented Bat Signal to discuss a plan of dealing with the panic that has spread through Gotham City over the last several hours. Well, that's where
my part in this all started. The whole situation started the day before, when the Scarecrow released a five-ounce sample of his newest fear toxin in a crowded downtown diner. The results were catastrophic: people attacking one another, tearing each other to shreds while locked in the grasp of abject fear. One of the victims was a GCPD officer named Owens, who survived the attack, but who will have to deal with a case of PTSD a thousand times more intense than Tim Riggins's character on the new season of
True Detective. An interesting bit of trivia: Owens was in charge of overseeing the Joker's cremation after his autopsy. I know because I wanted to make sure that went off without a hitch, so I kept a close eye on the operation.
Scarecrow was quick to take credit for the attack, broadcasting a message soon afterward spelling out his endgame: a fear toxin bomb so large that the fallout would affect the entire eastern seaboard. He gave the city a 24-hour warning for some reason: either his plan was not quite ready (in which case, why tip his hand?) or he had something to gain from the confusion stemming from a short term citywide evacuation. The other crime bosses certainly had something to gain: with most of the police in the city focused on getting as many citizens as possible to safety, the criminal element was free to flourish.
One such element was Scarecrow's forces, some of which were engaged in a high speed chase with a GCPD officer in Chinatown, as I was told by Jim Gordon. While up on the rooftop, I gave him a special Bat Radio, tuned to the frequency of my gauntlet-mounted communicator, now with video chat functionality. But before you remark on how this could allow anyone looking over my shoulder to learn the secret identities of my allies, you should know that the holographic image is only visible through the eyes of my cowl, why not.
After updating Oracle via Bat-Facetime, I summoned the only means by which to join in a high speed chase: the Batmobile itself. This baby has state of the art armor plating, allowing it to crash into most obstacles and survive, which was useful on the rain-slicked streets of Gotham where the Power Slide feature does not behave anything like its namesake from any games in the
Mario Kart series. The GCPD cruisers were quickly outmatched, but using a specially-designed non-lethal immobilizer, I incapacitated the pursuers and interrogated the driver. Before using an Aikido-style hold to break his wrist in at least three places, I learned that Scarecrow was operating out of a safehouse nearby.
While gaining access to said safehouse, I overheard some of Scarecrow's henchmen talking about how after their boss had part of his face torn off by Killer Croc back at Arkham Asylum, Scarecrow had completed the job himself, apparently with the intention of enhancing his fearsome presence. Once inside, I found not the master of fear, but rather the mistress of plants, who was being held captive by the former villain. Upon clearing the room of Scarecrow's forces, for which task I had trained to expertly make use of objects in the environment, Ivy informed me that she was ambushed and captured during a meeting of all the preeminent supercriminals in Gotham. She agreed to return with me to the GCPD for incarceration, since the dangerous streets of Gotham, like those of Capitol City, are no place for an unescorted lady. On the way back, while safely seated in one of the Batmobile's two roller-coaster style passenger seats that fold horizontally into the trunk, she divulged the purpose of that meeting: Scarecrow had a plan to eliminate yours truly and take Gotham for himself. Looks like this was going to be one hell of a night...
Part 2: Ace Chemicals
No comments:
Post a Comment