Batman: Arkham Knight, Part 7 - The Root of the Problem

WARNING: SPOILER ALERT!

Part 6: Ivy and Harley

As hard as it was to suffer through fear toxin-induced hallucinations of the horrific death of Jason Todd, the real-life situation back at the quarantine cells was even more dire. Robin had brought the first two Joker patients back to their cells as we defeated them, while I scouted out our next adversaries. But before we could return the unconscious Johnny Charisma to custody, we were waylaid by Harley Quinn. Robin did a nice job of distracting the Joker's former sidekick while I swooped in for the takedown assist. But when we returned with the incapacitated villains, we were met with a disturbing sight: the other two patients who were contaminated with Joker's TITAN-infected blood, Christina Bell and Albert King, had been shot dead! And the perpetrator of this heinous act was none other than the fourth Joker patient, mild mannered Henry Adams!

Allow me to clarify the implications of what we just witnessed. I had drawn two conclusions from my work with the infected Joker patients. Since three of the four patients with Joker's blood in them started developing Joker-like attributes - green hair, white skin, homicidal tendencies, and a flare for the dramatic - I deduced that Joker's blood somehow made him who he was, and thus that anyone with Joker's blood in them would eventually BECOME just like Joker. The second conclusion was admittedly more of an assumption than a deduction, and it involved the fourth Joker patient, Henry Adams. I assumed that his lack of symptoms meant that he was somehow immune to the transformation brought along by Joker's blood, and thus that we could use something in him to pinpoint a cure. Seeing what had happened to Henry, seemingly before our eyes, disproved the second conclusion, while putting a big fat QED next to the first.

Henry explained to me that Joker's blood had indeed been affecting him from the start, but that he was able to hide the mental and physical signs from Robin and me - which is why neither of us suspected that it was Henry who sabotaged our computer systems and allowed Harley to enter the facility. He assumed - perhaps rightly so - that his ability to manipulate the Joker disease inside him meant that he was more highly evolved than the other three patients, and he considered their elimination to be "purifying the gene pool." But as Henry executed the unconscious Johnny Charisma right in front of me, something fascinating and terrifying happened. It seems that the little bit of Joker inside me was just as outraged at this senseless loss of life as the Batman part of me, and for a moment, I let the murderous rage take hold. My fists clenched, my teeth gnashed together... and my eyes turned a sickening Joker-green. This change wasn't lost on Henry, who at that moment realized that I was the fifth and by far most highly-evolved Joker patient. Then in true service of evolution, he turned the gun on himself and fired.

This change wasn't lost on Robin either, who all of a sudden realized who the fifth cell was meant for. Harley was inconsolable having lost four more versions of her beloved Mistah J., and after Robin easily locked her in a cell, he tried to convince me to submit to the same fate. His reasoning was sound: even if I successfully stopped Scarecrow, I would still eventually become a version of the Joker too powerful for anyone to stop. I considered his proposal briefly; Tim Drake was a well-trained and capable crime fighter who might very well have what it takes to stop a villainous plot of this magnitude on his own. But then I remembered what happened to Jason Todd, or as the Joker put it in the video he took of Jason's death, "what happens when you drag your friends into this little game of ours," and I realized that I could not put my friend and partner at risk again. This was my battle and I had to see it through to the end. So I pretended to acquiesce, but at the last minute pulled the old switcheroo and threw Robin into the cell.

Seeing as Tim was safely locked away, I figured this would be a good time to tell him what happened to Barbara. I knew it wouldn't make his imprisonment any easier to handle, but at least he wasn't in a position to act out of emotion and put himself in danger. But relating the night's events to Robin brought to mind a message I saw scrawled across the wall of the Clock Tower when I was investigating Oracle's capture by the Arkham Knight: "This is what happens when you drag your friends into this little game of ours." That's right, it was the same phrase used by Joker when he shot Jason Todd. The only people who could have heard Joker utter that phrase were the members of my team who watched the video... and Jason Todd himself, moments before his death. IF he was in fact killed in that old abandoned wing of Arkham Asylum where the Joker had held him captive. Wasn't the fact that he died as a result of that gunshot wound more of an assumption than a deduction?

This was my first major clue as to the identity of the Arkham Knight, but I didn't have time to follow up on it just now, as I still had to help Poison Ivy revive her tree, so that she could produce enough of her anti-fear toxin spore to save the city. While using the sonar attachment on the Batmobile to locate the roots, Pamela Isley informed me that the tree for which I was searching was sacred to the ancient Miagani people, who called her Aiyana, meaning "eternal bloom." {So I guess Miagani is supposed to be a Native American name, which actually makes more sense than Italian, given the pre-immigration history of real life New York.} Once I gained access to the excavation tunnels for the planned Gotham Subway extension and revealed the roots with a sonar blast, Ivy proved that the tree's name was accurate.

Using her ability to genetically modify plants on a molecular level, Poison Ivy caused the ancient tree to explode out of the ground and grow several stories tall. It was so powerful that one of the branches was able to wrap itself completely around the Batmobile and bring it up to the surface, eliminating the need for a return journey. But all this seismic activity also drew the attention of the Arkham Knight, who deployed a militia company on a nearby rooftop to attack the tree with RPG's and heavy machine gun fire before Ivy was able to strengthen her protective bark enough to protect it. I grappled up to the roof and dealt with the enemy force while Ivy's tree hardened. But before I had any time to savor this small victory, Scarecrow detonated the Cloudburst...