"What have you done to me?" Batman murmured under his breath.
Nightwing stood behind him and called him but he didn't respond. He just stood still, waiting, clearly aware of abnormalities in his body.
A series of blurry thoughts surfaced in Batman's mind. They sounded so naive and innocent, yet carried an unknown horror.
"Don't... think... he is... bad."
"Who are you?"
"I need... energy... to grow."
Great, Batman thought, first the Joker virus, then the fear gas, and now some ambiguous parasite. Do microbial colonies thrive better in harsher environments?
Which of his hallucinations are caused by the Joker virus? Which are caused by the fear gas? What reactions in his body are brought about by the symbiont? What exactly is the connection between all of them?
Batman contemplated on a former plan of his, but right now he had to find Barbara. He turned around to Nightwing and said, "Be it Harley Quinn who took Barbara away or Barbara left the base on her own, she must have had the time to leave some clues behind."
"I'll have Peter stay in the Batcave to monitor the Sky-eye system and look for Harley Quinn. You go to the Bell Tower. Contact me immediately once you find any useful clues."
After Nightwing nodded and turned to leave, Batman once again climbed into the Batmobile. He pressed the button on the communicator and said, "Peter, are you there?... Peter?"
Batman frowned as he switched channels and dialed Peter's private number.
"Hello?"
As soon as Peter opened his mouth, Batman heard the sound of wind from the other side, and Peter's voice sounding somehow not normal, as if he was undertaking some strenuous exercise.
"Peter, answer me. Where are you now?"
"I'm...I'm being chased! That lunatic known as Arkham Knight is after me!"
"You left the Batcave?"
"Yes, because Poison Ivy wanted me to help save the plants in Gotham. I figured since she saved me, I should help..."
Batman subconsciously rubbed his forehead, stayed silent for a moment, and then asked, "Can't you subdue him?"
"He seems to be losing it! He's trying to attack me like crazy. I'm afraid I won't be able to control the force if I fight back, I can't just kill him, right?!"
"What's wrong with him?"
"I have no clue!" Spider-Man looked back at the Arkham Knight chasing him. The once shining armor was now blasted into a pitch-black mess. Some of the protective linings also turned into rags, but Arkham Knight was still able to function properly, his face full of rage.
It seems that the power from seven exploding cars was not enough, Spider-Man thought. Perhaps the Red Bee inside him was thriving so well that it absorbed a lot of the impact for Arkham Knight. This would explain why he was chasing him faster than expected.
"Can you lose him?" Batman asked, and immediately added, "Head toward Chinatown. I will be waiting for you there on the rooftop."
With a swivel of the Batmobile, it didn't take long for Batman to see a red and blue figure in the skyline. A strand of spider silk attached to the rear end of the Batmobile. He heard Peter shout, "Take off!!"
The Batmobile soared into the air. Spider-Man grabbed onto the spider silk and looked down. The sound of flying bullets echoed, but the Batmobile suddenly sped up and the Arkham Knight on the ground became farther and farther.
After retracting his spider silk and hopping onto the roof of the car, Peter got into the car and removed his mask. He let out a sigh of relief and said, "Thanks. I thought he was going to chase me all the way to California."
"I told you to stay in the Batcave."
"I wanted to, but I thought Poison Ivy had a point. The plants are innocent after all."
Batman fell silent and said nothing. Peter glanced at the navigation map inside the Batmobile and asked, "Where are we going now?"
"I'm waiting for news from Nightwing. In the meantime, we have to nab Penguin Man. I have to figure out what's really going on."
But Peter suddenly said, "Um, can you drop me off first? The fear toxin still needs to be analyzed."
Batman paused the movement of his hands. He felt that Peter seemed a little unnatural, but still said, "If so, get off here. Be careful on your way back."
Peter peered outside the window, seeing that they weren't far from the Batcave. He nodded and got out of the Batmobile as it hovered over a rooftop, disappearing into the misty rainy night.
Batman watched Peter's retreating figure for a while before finally averting his gaze, driving toward Iceberg Restaurant.
But when he got to the restaurant entrance and peered inside, all the mobsters and dazed patrons he had knocked down previously were all gone.
Moving past the dance floor of the bar, heading towards the back of the restaurant, he remembered he had just broken Penguin Man's legs. Nightwing then informed him that they had discovered traces of violent breaking into the bank's vault, so Batman went to investigate.
According to Batman's usual practice, he would take Penguin Man to the Gotham Police Department first. But after he settled all the thugs here, and most people in Gotham City were unconscious, Penguin Man couldn't run after both of his legs had been broken. Leaving him here for now shouldn't be an issue.
But shortly after he left, Penguin Man miraculously appeared on the screen, alive and well. Even if he could just barely sit up and talk, the building he was in had lost power long time ago. Who restored the power? It's hard to believe that Penguin Man dragged along his broken legs to get the power reconnected, right?
Clearly, someone was helping Penguin Man behind the scenes and they possessed considerable operational capabilities and technology. Otherwise, they wouldn't have been able to grasp Batman's actions so precisely and act right under Batman's nose.
If Batman wanted to know what happened at the spot where Penguin Man was at when he left, he needed to return to investigate. Most criminal hideouts are monitored by the Sky-eye system, but Penguin Man renovates his safehouses every month. This month, Batman hadn't had a chance to install any monitoring devices.
However, Batman knew that Penguin Man would certainly install his own surveillance system. So, all Batman needed to do was to hack into that surveillance system and he could see what exactly happened back then.
Batman walked through the messy first floor and entered the safehouse whose door he had broken down, then he followed the wires to the distribution room in the rear. Going from the distribution room, he found the circuit for the surveillance cameras and then the controlling computer.
After turning on the computer, Batman easily hacked into the system, but very conveniently, the recording files were missing the dozens of minutes after he had left. Therefore, Batman began to access the visit records.
At this moment, Nightwing called.
"Batman, I found some unusual access records on Prophet's computer. Someone deleted quite a lot of surveillance video files. Who do you think could've done that?"
Batman furrowed his brow deeply.