WARNING: SPOILER ALERT!
Part 5: Gunrunners and Airships
Only now, after Scarecrow made his daring escape with the Cloudburst device and I was left staring at a gaping hole in the airship's fuselage, did the villains release the location of their hostage, Barbara Gordon. They probably just wanted to prevent me from following their helicopter, but I had no choice: I had to save Oracle. It turns out she was locked in his penthouse in Chinatown, the same place from which I rescued Poison Ivy. I watched helplessly as gas flooded the room and abject terror took over the heart of my ally. Apparently the fearsome visage I cultivate to strike fear into the hearts of my enemies was too much for Barbara to handle, drawing her to the gun that Scarecrow had left on the table in the room with her. When her shots at me took no effect due to the bullet proof glass, she turned the gun to her temple. As she pulled the trigger, my Joker hallucination drifted between us and mimicked the suicidal act on himself. When he passed, only Oracle's lifeless body was left in the room.
It was perhaps the hardest thing I had to watch in my crime fighting career - in person at least; I can think of a certain videotape sent to me by Joker regarding another former member of my team that was decidedly more disturbing. However, seeing Barbara in that isolation chamber gave me an idea stemming back to seeing Poison Ivy in that same chamber earlier in the night: Ivy was immune to Scarecrow's toxin! If I could enlist her help to somehow use that immunity to save the city, we might be able to foil Scarecrow's plan before he even got the Cloudburst online. Of course getting Ivy's cooperation was not a sure thing by any means. Poison Ivy is definitely "mono Green" to take a phrase from the popular trading card game Magic: The Gathering, and looking at
the color wheel, my two colors (Blue and Black, obvi) are in direct opposition to Green. But Gotham City's only hope depended on us putting aside our differences.
It was surprisingly easy for me to appeal to Pamela's sensibilities, rather than making empty threats: I just brought up the simple fact that if Crane was able to release his toxin, the results would not be good for plant life throughout the city. Not only would all the humans be too overcome with fear to take care of them, but the massive chemical cloud would likely block out sunlight and even rainfall. After that little talk, Ivy readily revealed that she had developed a spore to counteract the fear toxin, but that she couldn't produce enough for the whole city on her own. On her request, I took her to the Botanical Gardens so she could cast Speak with Plants on some of the old growth trees there to enlist their help (since she's apparently a Druid from Dungeons & Dragons now...). The trees were in bad shape after decades of pollution and construction, but luckily Lucius Fox had developed a sonar attachment for the Batmobile, which would allow me to locate the roots so that Ivy could revive them.
I gave Ivy the Bat Phone that was previously in Commissioner Gordon's possession, and she majestically sealed herself inside the trunk of her tree. Meanwhile, I took the Batmobile into the secure parking area below Wayne Tower to pick up Lucius's newest invention, but no sooner did I arrive on what I thought was my home turf, than I was attacked by a squadron of drone tanks. I don't know if the Arkham Knight tracked me here or if he somehow knew that this was a base of operations of mine - which wouldn't surprise me, considering he knew that Barbara would be in the clock tower. I pondered this and other mysteries (or rather, had Alfred look into them) as I methodically eliminated the drone threat, picked up my new upgrade, then locked the building down.
But before I had a chance to find the "root" of the problem, I got a call from the secret quarantine cells in the movie studios (where I had Robin working on a cure for the Joker infection). However, the call wasn't from my trusty sidekick, but from Harley Quinn, who had somehow infiltrated the facility! What is it with villains knowing all my secrets tonight!? Harley had a large armed force surrounding the entrance, including a huge brute wielding a
Team Fortress-style minigun, but I was able to use a recorded sample of Harley's voice to trick her henchmen into various traps. Using the same method to gain access to the inside of the facility, Robin and I were able to finish off the rest of Harley's goons, but not before she allowed the three infected Joker patients to escape and set up shop in various sound stages throughout the movie studio.
With Tim and I working together, and also receiving technical support from Henry Adams, the one patient who was immune to Joker's blood, we took out the other three Jokers rather easily. Christina Bell surrounded herself with armed henchmen in the haunted house set, Albert King readied himself for an all-out brawl on the western set, and Johnny Charisma made me sit through an agonizing musical performance, which was enough to hold his attention while Robin snuck around the room disarming the various explosive devices he had set up. But the real challenge was that working with Robin brought up some pretty traumatizing fear toxin-induced hallucinations involving Tim Drake's predecessor. For those of you not familiar with this case file, Jason Todd, who became the second Robin after Dick Grayson changed to the Nightwing persona, was captured by Joker and brutally tortured in an abandoned wing of Arkham Asylum. Now that Joker was inside my head, he had no qualms about forcing me to relive the experience - how he broke Jason's mind, turned my friend against me using methods that would make even Ramsay Bolton blush, then put him out of his misery just as he was about to reveal my deepest secret...
This is getting too emotional for me... I have to take a moment to regain my composure before continuing with my story. As long as we're on Spoiler Alert mode: here's
Woody Harrelson reacting to Season 5 of Game of Thrones to watch while you wait.
Part 7: The Root of the Problem
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