Batman: Arkham Knight, Part 4 - Chasing Oracle

WARNING: SPOILER ALERT!

Part 3: Enter Fear Toxin

After Commissioner Gordon stormed out in anger, I was able to use Oracle's supercomputer to hack into the CCTV cameras surrounding the clock tower to identify her kidnappers. Scrolling through the footage showed the Arkham Knight carrying her out and placing her in his personal transport vehicle. I was also able to scan the custom tires on the vehicle so that I could follow their tracks through Gotham using the Batmobile's sonar function. To make a long story short - I was sidetracked along the way by a subterranean bomb planted by Arkham Knight's forces and I also had to destroy a radio tower that was blocking Alfred from opening the bridge leading to Miagami Island {which I'm assuming is meant to be an Italian name, given the history of actual New York, but it just sounds Japanese to me} - the tire trail ended in a brutal car crash.

Anyone familiar with the underwhelming prequel to Arkham Asylum will recall that I once had the need to investigate crimes all over the city, so I developed technology that allowed me to create a holographic reconstruction of the event of a crime by scanning evidence at the scene. Using this feature, I discovered not only that the driver wasn't wearing his seatbelt, but that Barbara had caused the crash by hitting the driver with pepper spray, then jumping clear before impact. The Arkham Knight survived the crash unscathed and recaptured his prey almost immediately, but not before Oracle managed to crawl away and hide an encryption chip in the rubble. With a little work, the frequencies contained therein would surely allow me to track Arkham Knight's broadcast location. Even when under pressure, members of my organization never cease to amaze me.

I drove over to Wayne Tower to drop the chip with Lucius Fox, but since he's not half as good a cryptography expert as Barbara, it would take him some time to decode the signal. This delay was just as well, since just then I received an urgent message from one of my campiest adversaries, the Riddler. In this message, which was actually projected onto the side of a nearby skyscraper, Nigma revealed that he had captured my sometime ally Catwoman and was going to kill her if I didn't head to the abandoned Pinkney Orphanage and play one of his silly games. I decided I had better comply, since it wouldn't be fair to leave Selena to die, but as I was grappling over there, the strangest thing happened. I was charging up a grapnel boost as usual, but when I hit the side of the building to which I was attached, I was attacked by a grotesque creature, the size of a man, but with the leathery skin and wings of a bat. {I don't know if the timeline of this game is before or after or totally separate from Kirk Langstrom's escapade from the Animated Series, but for us fans, it's pretty clear that we're dealing with Man-Bat!} I filed this information away and continued to the orphanage.

It seems that Nigma took it personally when I chose not to complete his side mission back at the GCPD, so he made things a little more personal. Upon arriving at the orphanage, I found Catwoman tied to a chair. It was pretty easy to avoid the (what I assumed was) electrified floor and free her from her bonds, but that's when the real fun started. Streaming into the room was a veritable army of anthropomorphic robots - think those little bouncing guys from the Streets of Rage series. With the two of us working together, it didn't take long for Catwoman and I to clear the room, especially since we didn't have to worry about using only non-lethal tactics. After the sparks flew (in more ways than one), Catwoman explained that she met with the Riddler of her own accord (he offered her a job of the cat burgling variety), but he subsequently tricked her and fitted her with an explosive collar that would only be disarmed if I solved 10 increasingly taxing challenges.

I felt bad for the kitty, but she would have to wait for now, since at that moment Lucius informed me that he had tracked the Arkham Knight's forces to the tunnel network underneath the city. On the way there I got a call from Robin, who I had stationed at the secret quarantine cells at the movie studio (where I took Jim Gordon in last episode's flashback) to try and synthesize a cure for the Joker infection in my blood. Now it's important to note that, despite their romantic relationship, I neglected to tell Tim that Barbara had been kidnapped. I needed his attention focused on finding a cure, and if he heard what happened, he was liable to do something rash. I know it wasn't the morally correct thing to do, but in the world of costumed heroes and villains, you don't always have the luxury of taking the ethical high ground. Speaking of the Joker, I should also mention that the fear toxin-induced hallucinations of my former arch nemesis were still following me around, and needless to say, the fragmented part of Joker's psyche was thrilled to keep Robin in the dark.

Infiltrating the Arkham Knight's hideout led to our second face-to-face confrontation, only this time there was no glass between us and he managed to get the drop on me. While I was pinned under his boot and gun, the Knight spouted off some more insider info about my suit - namely that he knew both that it was titanium tri-weave fiber and exactly where it was vulnerable to point blank gunfire (spoiler alert, it's on the sides, just underneath the ribs). He put a bullet there, hoping to weaken me for the barrage of thugs he proceeded to send my way, but luckily I had stored a dose of Bullet Repellant Bat Injection in my utility belt for just such an occasion. I was of course able to stem the tide of incoming assailants, thanks in no small part to a timely assist from the Batmobile, but the Arkham Knight once again escaped, leaving the discovery of his secret identity for another time.

Part 5: Gunrunners and Airships