“You couldn’t save me,” a voice whispered softly.

This was the lowest dungeon of Arkham Asylum, a place that didn’t even exist on the map. It was a cell the inmates had built themselves.

No one knew why the inmates had constructed this place… for an escape? No, they had a hundred other ways to break out, all leaving a trail of innocent blood. But now, the one trapped here was Batman.

“Why didn’t you save me?” The voice shifted, its tone changing but still laced with the same hopelessness.

Batman frowned, smashing his fist through the wall in front of him, then pressing his hand to his forehead.

After all, he was no god—just flesh and blood.

This cell hadn’t left any openings for escape. Sometimes, the simplest designs could trap even the world’s greatest escape artist. All it took was a chimney blueprint, a smooth-walled shaft, wider at the bottom than the top.

Then, you toss in a person who’s been doused with fear gas—a “lunatic in a bat costume.”

Could Batman feel fear?

He was always afraid. The bat was the embodiment of his childhood fears. So, he donned a bat-shaped suit of armour, seeking to understand his fear, and then conquer it. But his fear evolved constantly—

The death of his parents.

The fear that his parents would be disappointed in him.

The death of a child. The fear that a child would get hurt, or worse, die because of him.

Not saving this person. Not saving those people. Not saving everyone…

He panted, digging his fingers into the cracks in the wall, checking the moisture in the earth, before pulling out a gel bomb and applying it to the wall. With a muffled “boom,” the explosion sent murky water rushing in.

It seemed he was right. While the inmates had chosen this place, the depth was beyond their ability to construct—it was an abandoned well, which must have been connected to the groundwater.

Batman’s comms weren’t actually broken; the lunatics at Arkham had developed a new signal jammer.

As he sank into the water, the whispers in his ear turned into a muffled buzz. But Batman surfaced.

He may feel fear, but he would never succumb to it.

Now, it was time to rise.

“First,” Tim said, “I need to disable the signal jammers. That’s why we couldn’t reach Batman. Oracle’s found their locations, but all three jammers must be destroyed at the same time. She’ll destroy the third one using a drone, and if we don’t synchronize, it’ll trigger… well, the Joker bomb hanging over there.”

A grotesque, clown-faced balloon figure dangled from the spire in the centre of Arkham Asylum, grinning mockingly at everyone below.

The asylum was vast, housing not only criminally insane individuals but also regular mental patients. It had Gotham’s finest psychologists, though half of them had become new inmates themselves, like Harley Quinn.

Harley Quinn, who had once studied psychology at Gotham University, then became a psychologist at Arkham. Seduced by the Joker, she fell in love with him, transforming from Dr. Harleen Quinzel into “Harley Quinn.”

Now, both the Joker and Harley had escaped, and Oracle was still tracking them.

The three jammer locations formed a triangle, each guarded by criminals. The GCPD was battling the ones directly below, and it was up to the airborne vigilantes to handle the rest. Vivi’s arm was coiled with green vines, which rose like a snake as she nodded at Robin.

They split up.

Vivi now hovered above the Arkham Asylum cafeteria, with three gunmen below her.

This was the feeling of a team raid!

She flicked her vines, then dropped from the ceiling, kicking the leftmost gunman to the ground. The sound of shattering glass immediately drew the attention of the other two, but before one could raise his gun, Vivi’s vines shot out, snatching his weapon and stringing him up.

The man on the far right thought he had a chance—until he felt a sudden force from behind. A white horse appeared out of nowhere, kicked him to the ground, and stomped him several more times.

“I’m done here,” Vivi said over the comms, and Tim responded, “All good on my end too. Oracle, your call.”

“Attach the explosives to the jammers’ control panels, and I’ll destroy them all at once. After that, you can head to the inmate block.”

There would undoubtedly be guards at the third location, so Oracle would have to carefully control the timing of her drone strike. The next part of the mission was hers.

Oracle had hacked Arkham’s surveillance system, making it easier for them to move, though for now, the facility was controlled by regular criminals.

“This isn’t normal,” Tim said after regrouping with Vivi. “The ordinary mentally ill prisoners have been let out, but specific dangerous criminals like Joker and Bane were selectively freed.”

“Someone intentionally released them?” Vivi asked as they crouched on a beam. Her vines functioned like Tim’s grappling hook but with more convenience since they seemed to be part of her body. “What about Dean Sharp and the others?”

“The criminals locked some of the guards in cells. If they need hostages, those people are an option.”

Vivi was silent for a moment. “…They really don’t seem insane, do they?”

“Murderous psychopaths,” Tim muttered, staring at the scene below. “At least they look the same when they kill as they do when they stand in court.”

Batman’s last known location had been underground, so that’s where they needed to go.

It wasn’t difficult to deal with the criminals here. What reassured Tim was that the GCPD was right behind them, ensuring the hostages would be rescued quickly. Meanwhile, Vivi was testing her shooting skills. The abilities from different character cards worked, but they couldn’t be shared between cards. Vivi could ride a motorcycle, but Bella couldn’t use horseback riding, for instance.

Her shooting skills had already reached level 4. Though she hadn’t practiced sniping, hitting close-range targets wasn’t difficult.

“A Desert Eagle?” Tim was startled when he saw her pull out the powerful gun, which could blow an enemy’s head off in a single shot. “If you fire that thing, your shoulder and elbow won’t handle the recoil.”

Vivi paused, confused, and touched her shoulder. Her movements mirrored Bella’s, but Bella’s actions were refined through training, perfectly suited to her abilities. Vivi’s aim was precise, but anyone with experience could tell that her stance put a lot of strain on her body.

—But she didn’t feel pain.

If this had been before, Vivi would have simply said she was immune to pain. But now, she realized that her player status had caused NPCs to misunderstand many things. Especially Mr. C—who was accumulating so much blame he might as well start playing the role of the evil stepmother.

Considering that the person asking was a teammate, Vivi carefully replied:

“No one ever taught me…” which was true; her skills levelled up automatically whenever she captured criminals.

“Mr. C wouldn’t teach me either…” That was a given, since the so-called “beautiful failure” Mr. C didn’t know how to either.

“I’m figuring it out on my own. Maybe if I keep practising, I’ll get better?”

Fortunately, the enemies were already knocked out and didn’t hear her.

Robin nodded, seemingly accepting her explanation, but what Vivi didn’t know was that as she turned away, Tim initiated a private comms conversation with Oracle.

“She’s injuring herself,” Oracle—Barbara—said. “Every time she fires that gun, she’s hurting herself. But her wounds are healing, so she doesn’t even feel it. Can I assume that the gun was given to her by ‘Mr. C’?”

“She hasn’t hidden the fact that her special gear comes from him, and clearly, she doesn’t know magic herself,” Tim replied, ending the communication.

They descended another level, reaching Arkham Asylum’s first floor, where things were eerily quiet, though explosions could still be heard in the distance.

“They keep the patients on this floor, while the real criminals are held underground…” Tim explained as they hurried through the hallway. Vivi curiously observed the patients they passed.

She asked, “Half of Arkham has been blown up. Where will they put the criminals who escape?”

“If nothing goes wrong, the city council will propose transferring them to Warden Bettywen’s care. Blackgate Prison isn’t full yet.”

“Bettywen…” Suddenly, a pair of eyes appeared in the observation window of a nearby door. The voice inside said, “Bettywen… Is that Bella Bettywen?”

Tim instinctively stepped in front of Vivi, frowning. “Who are you?”

“Is it Bella Bettywen… Bella Bettywen, ha…” The man repeated the name, pacing back to his bed, where he sat, muttering the name over and over.

He had his own room on the first floor. He was clearly a mental patient.

Tim glanced at the room’s number, making a mental note, before telling Vivi, “I’ve unlocked the elevator. It’s made of material that can withstand missile strikes. Let’s head down.”

This particular elevator led directly to the lower levels, where Arkham’s special cells were located. It operated on an isolated network, but when the prisoners had escaped, they’d introduced a virus into the system—hence why they had to hack Arkham from the inside.

The strange patient was just a small distraction, but the team had bigger issues to deal with.

A few minutes later, Tim stood at the entrance to one of the cells, his voice grave. “Scarecrow… he’s escaped too.”

Vivi had heard of Scarecrow, the creator of fear gas who had once thrown Gotham into chaos with his terror tactics. Batman had defeated him before, but the game hadn’t listed him as an objective. Was he a hidden boss?

This level housed criminals who had all been defeated by Batman in the past. Naturally, they recognized Robin. In fact, Robin’s presence excited them—they wanted to rip him apart.

—And twist the neck of the girl standing next to him.

But Tim didn’t even flinch. He approached a cell further ahead, where a man lay casually on the bed in prison garb. Tim asked, “Nygma, who released Scarecrow?”

Edward Nygma, better known as the Riddler. A criminal mastermind obsessed with leaving riddles at the scenes of his crimes, he was a thorn in Gotham’s side with his high intellect and cunning—though, unfortunately, still a criminal.

The Riddler, reclining on his bed, glanced at Robin, then his gaze landed on the girl beside him—

She was staring at him with curious eyes.

“Who—released Scarecrow, freed the Joker, Bane, and Poison Ivy?” He tilted his head, smiling. “You’ll have to solve my riddle, little bird of Batman.”

“What creature appears at night, attacks humans, screeches loudly, and says—” Nygma gestured dramatically, “‘I am vengeance, I am the night, I…’”

“I am Batman,” a voice came from behind them, calm and commanding. “Stop your tiresome riddles, Nygma. You saw who released Scarecrow—now, give me the answer.”

The Riddler looked at Batman, who had appeared suddenly, and his grin widened. “I never give answers. I only give riddles.”

…

It was another chaotic night that the citizens of Gotham were all too familiar with—seemingly inevitable once or twice a year.

That’s just how the city was, Gotham in all its dark glory. It seemed to be a magnet for madmen and psychopaths, drawing them in. And if it gave birth to them, how could it cruelly snuff them out?

You had to accept the bad along with the good in this city.

A massive blimp floated ominously over Gotham, descending lower and lower, making onlookers nervous, and wondering when it might crash.

This was a promotional airship for Glenn Industries, but now, its pilot and crew were all dead, their necks still oozing blood from knife wounds. The man responsible stood at the window, his pale face twisted into a manic grin.

That man was, of course, the Joker.

The blimp’s spotlight swept across a tall statue ahead, and the Joker gazed at the statue’s pointed ears—and the balloons tied to them—with a twisted, eerie smile.

How amusing. After spending half a month behaving himself in Arkham, things in the city had taken such an entertaining turn.

His thoughts now mirrored those of Vivi when she had attached the balloons to the statue’s ears—but the Joker wanted even more fun!

“Oh, Puddin’!” Harley Quinn called out, rushing to his side and clinging to his arm. “That damned Batman, that damned Batman—”

She glared out the window at the statue, her eyes narrowed in fury. “He’s pointing his butt at my school!”

The Joker pinched her comically exaggerated face and burst into wild laughter.