Batman: Arkham Asylum (Pre-Edit)

Chapter 3 - Blood and Instruments

Batman's alternate route was grappling up onto the roof of the Facility, and searched for a weakened wall. It wasn't too hard to find one, as Arkham Asylum itself was a very old building. Batman prepared his Explosive Gel, and sprayed it on the wall in a Bat-shape. He stood back, knowing the explosion would be a big one, and looked backward for protection as he pulled the trigger. The wall collapsed inwards, covering the flooring on the inside. Conveniently, as Batman entered the hole in the roof, was a door, which Batman walked casually through. He found himself in the attic, with air vents snaking in all different directions. Batman found an opening to an air vent at an appropriate level to crawl through, and did so. "I want all the doctors rounded up." yelled the Joker through speakers. "Search every inch of the medical building. I mean it! Search every room, every office, and every trash can. If another doctor tries to run and gets out of the building, then you WON'T," he directed to his henchmen. "then I'll just flood the rooms with Happy Gas, and leave ya to die. Hell, I may do that anyway. Sounds fun."Batman dropped from the vent into a corridor... leading to another vent... leading to the Sanitorium of the building. Several armed men wandered through the Sanitorium, keeping an eye on doctors being held hostage. He grappled onto a gargoyle, hanging over a henchman. Batman dropped down after him, and performed a Silent Takedown. Using his Detective Vision, Batman spotted a guard underneath a weakened ceiling, Batman dropped onto it carefully, and sprayed Explosive Gel onto it. To prevent capture, Batman grappled up to the gargoyle above him again, and triggered the explosion while sitting uncomfortably on a concrete structure mounted into the wall. While a man went to inspect the scene, and to check if the victim was conscious or not, Batman performed another Silent Takedown."Hello?" commentated Joker. "Is there a doctor in the house? No? I seem to have a pile of wounded henchmen that need medical attention."Batman found the doctors. "You're safe now." he assured to them. "I don't know what happened." said the first doctor to Batman. "One minute we were doing our evening rounds, and the next, armed thugs broke into the room and took us hostage.""Did they have anyone with them?" asked Batman."They took someone into the elevator. I couldn't tell who it was.""They obviously didn't want to be followed. The elevator appears to have been powered down. You're going to be OK here."Aaron Cash and another doctor came into the room. "We've got another problem," said Cash. The female doctor accompanying Cash approached Batman. "I need to get back to the Mansion. All my research notes are there. I can't risk Joker getting his hands on them.""It's not safe, Doctor." said Batman. "The island's a war zone, you won't stand a chance.""It's my life's work!" she insisted "You really don't have the authority to-""I'll get her there, Batman." interrupted Cash. "If you ask me, i think it's about time for a little payback.""I don't like it, but-"The elevator siren went off, indicating someone was climbing it. This siren was probably used for an emergency patient, who needed medical attention, and to alert the doctors. "Who called the elevator?" asked Batman. "Wasn't us! It's coming from the lower floor." said Doctor Rachel Cassidy"Cash! Take Doctor Young, get her notes and then find somewhere safe to hold up. Everyone else go to the Observation Room. Barricade yourselves in. Just as Batman grappled onto a gargoyle and the doctors went to hiding, more armed thugs burst through the elevator and into the room. Using Silent Takedown several times, and taking a few painful bullets to the arm, Batman took them all out. Gliding off a gargoyle, and directly into the elevator the thugs came up in, he landed roughly, and noticed the sign to where the elevator was leading. the Arkham Morgue. The doors behind him closed eerily before he could inspect the small space for Joker traps. "Too easy!" said Joker through the television in front of him. "Oh, think about it! You're trapped in a little metal box, hanging precariously over a deadly drop. What say I just blow the emergency brakes and drop you like a sack of puppies! Say Goodnight, Bats!"Batman prepared for the worst but only heard "Boom! Ha ha ha ha! Only kidding." he giggled."I've got a few more surprises in store for you! Prepare to face your FEARS. All of them!"All of a sudden, Batman couldn't breathe, he coughed and choked a little, and his throat burned like he just drank a cupful of hydrochloric acid, but his lungs soon breathed air again, and his throat went back to normal. Although, he started seeing strange things and colours dancing around the elevator. Finally, the elevator doors opened.In front of him was a room. A room that seemed miles away, but yet only a few metres ahead. "Please, Doctor Crane! Don't do this!""There is no Crane." said a bone-chilling voice. "Only SCARECROW."Inside the room, several orderlies of the asylum were swatting off creature hallucinations all over their body. All of a sudden, a crazed patient threw his arms and face up onto the glass and yelled "Get me outta here!", and was dragged by a hallucination. Lightning flashed, displaying a silhouette of a strange figure, in this case the Scarecrow. Taunted and bullied in his youth, Dr. Jonathan Crane vowed to overcome his fears through the study of psychology and biochemistry. Kicked out of his university for experimenting on human subjects, Crane adopted the identity of Scarecrow and armed himself with a specialized fear-inducing gas that made a person's deepest fears come frighteningly real. His ongoing criminal reign of terror makes him one of Batman's most physically dangerous foes. Next to Batman, were iron bars, built like a prison cell, showed a figure run down a hallway at the other end of the blocked corridor. He removed his hands from the bars, and looked to the left of him, and saw a weakened wall. Without hesitating, he pulled out his explosive gel and sprayed it on the wall, and detonated. He followed a mix of up, downs, lefts and rights, passing over unaccessible air vents in the floor. He reached the Lower Corridor, and through grates at the other end, he saw Gordon getting dragged away by something. "Please!" said Gordon. "Help me, Batman!" he was pulled away, and his grief was heard around Arkham. "Noooooooo!" he called. Batman saw and air vent that was accessible, and crawled through it immediately. When he reached the end of the vent, he could see Gordon's body slouching on the wall, immobile. Shoe polish marks marked on the floor where he was dragged. Batman checked for a pulse, but was not successful. Gordon had died. He closed Gordon's eyes for respect, and looked to his left again, noticing light trails of footprints. He decided contacting Oracle is the best thing to do. "Barbara," he said. "I- I'm sorry. I was too late.""I'm sorry, the number you have dialed isn't available.""Barbara?" insisted Batman. "Are you there?""Please hang up your phone."Lights through the hallways flickered, and cockroaches crawled along the floor, and onto Batman's boots.