Gotham Knights Diaries Part Thirteen

This is my exploration of Gotham Knights where I will chronicle my playthrough like a text-based Let’s Play. I’ll point out all of the Easter Eggs that I can spot in the footnotes at the end of each part. Now let’s continue Gotham Knights…

After an attack by the League of Shadows against the Court of Owls at the Masquerade Ball, the city was on tenterhooks…

Before doing anything, I checked my emails, seeing an exchange between Penguin and Red Hood. Apparently, Constance Cobblepot had disappeared after clearing out her accounts, as well as doing something that Oswald wasn’t saying… Another email was from Tim Drake to the team, asking for their insight into past dealings with Ra’s al Ghul and his daughter Talia, to try and track changes in Ra’s’ behaviour. There were two from Barbara herself to the team, one saying that Doctor Langstrom’s assistant’s corpse had been found, and the other part of a chain talking about a TV show called Nights of our Passions. There was also an email from Encrypted Source that was full of bird puns, apologising for previous bird puns which had apparently got them blocked?

Activating a marker near the fabrication workbench began a cutscene between Barbara Gordon and Jason Todd. She angrily threw down an action figure based on her father, and stared daggers at a second one, before asking if the statue of Commissioner Gordon looked like him. Jason admitted that no it did not, causing Barbara to throw the second toy. He was glad that she finally showed some outrage; Bruce was dead, the Court of Owls was real, the League of Shadows was running amok, it was time for anger, not pretending that everything was normal!

Barbara said that wasn’t why she was angry — she couldn’t remember her father’s face, just how the statue looked. With a photographic memory (which should have remembered a three-note piano sequence…) she was irate with herself for not remembering him as he was. He encouraged her to stay angry and aim that anger at every wrong in the world, like he did. Then he emailed her to say that he was open to talk whenever.

Having a brief chat with Alfred Pennyworth about Jacob Kane’s secret identity, he mentioned that it’s likely that Catherine Kane had no idea. You can’t control who you love, he said, Bruce Wayne especially knew that. To which Barbara said “Talia”, inferring that Bruce was in love with Talia at some point…

Rather than go to meet Talia al Ghul, I decided to see what Harley Quinn was up to in the next mission involving her: Chaos in General. It began with everyone except Tim working out; Dick Grayson hitting a training dummy, Jason working his arms, and Barbara working her legs. Suddenly, she dropped the dumbbell she was holding in a startling display of lack of gym etiquette, making the other two stop what they were doing just in time for the Batcomputer to start flagging up social media posts and alerts — riots had just started breaking out!

Detective Montoya called, connecting through the Batcomputer, and reported that barricades were being set up, but something was going on that was causing people to go violent. Since it was still daylight, we waited until it got dark to head out and help the police. Montoya appeared to be coordinating things, but reported no sign of Harley, just soccer moms and yoga dads rioting. I assumed that it was something to do with the free implants that she was giving away at the Monarch Theatre, but hey, if the protogés of the World’s Greatest Detective hadn’t figured that out, who was I to get ahead of them?

Just down the street, apart from a bunch of flaming wreckage and graffiti, was a handful of Freaks and rioters near an overturned ice cream truck, which had a crate of Daggett Labs medical equipment inside. Scanning an unconscious rioter, Belfry was able to use the serial number to find out that the implant was designed to remove inhibitions. There was a limiter in the design specifications, so clearly Harley had overridden it and caused the riots using a signal of some kind. Luckily, another nearby ice cream truck had a console inside that I was able to deactivate.

Montoya called to tell me to get to the hospital as soon as possible, and on the roof I found a crashed helicopter and a few Freaks, who I knocked out. Entering the hospital, Montoya called again to say that the police were ready to storm the place, though I warned that I should deal with Harley first, to ensure the civilians were safe.

Bodies littered the floors, the lights were almost all out, and an annoying jingle played repeatedly on various screens as I explored. Alfred directed me to a security room where I should be able to locate Harley using the cameras. I beat up three Harley Devotees, then went down an elevator shaft before the doors in front of me, or maybe it was a wall, exploded. More Devotees were beaten up before I came across some Freaks in the pharmacy, then some in the adjoining hallway. Harley took offence when I suggested that the implants, and what it was causing the Devotees to do, was killing them, countering that it was Gotham that was killing them. While I was standing in an operating theatre full of corpses…

Climbing through a wall and into the chapel where I rescued two hostages from some Freaks. Down a stairwell, I finally located the security office and cleared out some more Freaks. A poster on the wall listed three contagion protocols: Tenement Protocol, Beta Protocol, and Silverlock Protocol, which I thought was interesting. Taking a look at the monitors around the corner, I spotted Harley who seemed to know that I was there, as she was quite theatrical in front of the camera.

Hopping in the nearby elevator, I headed for the floor marked with spray paint. As the lift descended, Batgirl began humming Harley’s jingle that had been playing throughout the hospital before cursing herself for doing so. As the doors opened, obviously it was a trap, as some Freaks were waiting for me. Once they were dealt with, I headed upstairs and slapped some more Freaks around before entering a door with a banner hung over it with Harley’s name. Honestly, given the amount of balloons, bunting, and spray paint decorating the hallways I was surprised at how shoddy the banner was.

The large hall that I entered was filled with Freaks to beat up, and it was honestly rough going as I was spotted almost immediately and found it difficult to recover any amount of stealth… Then I leapt through a window to get face-to-face with Harley Quinn. She held a device that was causing people to act out, as well as a big sledgehammer!

After a bit of fighting, she summoned some of her Devotees — or, more accurately, they broke through the windows above and came to her aid while she escaped. Her escape didn’t last long, as she soon returned with a now-electrified sledgehammer and more Devotees! After some more fighting, I grabbed the device and broke it, freeing her Devotees from her control. However, Harley wasn’t quite done and required a bit more violent convincing to go down.

Outside, Montoya shoved Harley into a squad car while the supervillain complained that Batman would have found her sooner, and taken her to Blackgate personally! But at least we seemed to be getting the hang of taking people off the street.

Returning to Belfry, my patrol summary said that I had defeated 89 enemies, nine of which were silent takedowns…

FOOTNOTES

Nights of our Passions, much to my surprise, I cannot find a reference to at all.
Silverlock Protocol is a reference to Sybil Silverlock, a character from 2014’s Gotham Academy.