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Description

In the secret secondary Batcave headquarters controlled by The Batman, shadowed defender of Pittsburgh, he had brought his adversary Mr. Freeze here to discuss their plans to stop a massive breakout of the most dangerous patients of the Arkham Institute. Freeze explained how and why his wife is behind this.
Nora Schivel was actually born Nora Arkham, granddaughter of Jeremiah Arkham, founder of the Institute, and heir to the Arkham family fortune. Her birth parents, who were her only remaining family, died when she was young and Vincent Falcone, the father of crime lord Carmine ‘the Black Mask’ Falcone, manipulated the Arkham family’s lawyer into making him the trustee of the fortune, only to swindle it from young Nora and leave her destitute. She was adopted by the Fields family, and she became Nora Fields. Her trauma from what happened left her with holes in her memory. In college, Nora Fields met Victor Schivel (Mr. Freeze’s alter ego) and they soon after married. She contracted MacGregor’s Syndrome, a seemingly-incurable disease, later in life and Victor had her cryogenically preserved until he could find a cure. He became the criminal Mr. Freeze in order to fund the cure research, and another super-villain, Bane, gave him a vial of the chemical compound Lazarus in exchange for Freeze’s help in (nearly) killing Batman. Research into the Lazarus bore fruit, and Victor was able to develop a success cure for MacGregor’s. He unfroze Nora and gave it to her. However, the Lazarus’ regenerative properties in the cure restored Nora’s memories of losing her family and fortune, and she decided to exact revenge. Victor tried to talk his wife down from her mad ravings, but the Lazarus factor of the cure made her super strong, super fast, and super agile. She disappeared after beating Victor senseless, some time before the current crisis of a global pandemic. With the city of Pittsburgh weakened by the pandemic, Nora’s going to take advantage of it to break out the Arkham Institute’s dangerously-insane patients and make them into an army to destroy what’s left of the city.
Batman, hearing all of this, agreed to help Freeze stop the breakout, but warning him that there will be no second chance if he double-crosses him for Nora. The two decide to find the hideout of The Riddler, a mysterious information and technology broker for criminals. When Batman and Mr. Freeze arrived and got through the hideout’s defenses, they cornered Riddler about his involvement in Nora’s plans for Arkham. Riddler admitted his involvement, and said that Nora is now calling herself Lady Arkham. He sold to her intelligence for the Institute and a series of various weapons for the potential inmate-soldiers, including armor and weapons for herself and someone she’s calling her “Arkham Knight”. Riddler agreed to hand over where she’s setting up her base, but there’s a catch. There’s always a catch with the Riddler. He’s going to hand Batman a cipher that he needs to decode to learn the location of Lady Arkham. Batman was handed the cipher… and it just looks like a bunch of squiggles on a paper! Freeze demanded to be given the address for real, but Batman left to the Batmobile with the paper and Freeze had no choice but to follow. Back at the secondary Batcave, Batman, Freeze, and the Oracle (the super-hacker identity of Batman’s fiance Barbara Gordon), took several hours to figure out how to decode the cipher. Just when all seemed lost and were starting to think it WAS just random squiggles and Riddler was just tricking them, Batman found a common pattern and deciphered it! Batman immediately sped off in the Batmobile.
He found an abandoned apartment complex and he managed to find, within it, Lady Arkham in her piecemeal headquarters, surrounded by hired goons loading the weapons onto trucks. Batman spied on her, planning to take her down as soon as he got a chance, but a new figure attacked Batman from behind and knocked him down to the floor. It was The Arkham Knight, Lady Arkham’s right hand! With Batman distracted, Lady Arkham and her minions got into the trucks and sped off towards the Arkham Institute! Batman and Arkham Knight went toe-to-toe and the latter had the upper hand. That’s when Wayne Williams, leader of the anti-Batman vigilante group “We Are Robin”, attacked Arkham Knight from the shadows and helped Batman defeat him. Wayne helped Batman to his feet and told him he would help him defeat Lady Arkham and prevent the break out.
In the courtyard of the Arkham Institute, Lady Arkham and her minions assembled the dangerously unwell patients, after taking down the guards and security measures, and declared them The Children of Arkham. She swayed them with her words and led them to the front gates of the Institute when We Are Robin, armed with non-lethal weapons and called in by Wayne, leaped the fence and confronted the armed patients and Lady Arkham’s minions. As the so-called Children of Arkham were being held off, Batman arrived in the Batmobile, which converted into tank mode and fired non-lethal rounds at the patients to subdue them. Lady Arkham, reunited with Arkham Knight, ran off and climbed the highest tower in the Institute, which was converted from an old church bell tower. Batman grappled up as Mr. Freeze followed behind him, creating an ice slide with his suit’s cryo-weaponry. As the fighting below broke out into the streets of the city, the police were called in to detain the attackers, as they were weakened by the fighting with We Are Robin. As Batman battled the Arkham Knight, Victor tried to plead to his wife Nora to end the madness. Nora wouldn’t be reasoned with, and declared the whole city must pay for what happened to her parents and her family legacy. In the end, Freeze detonated a cryo-bomb that froze Nora and Arkham Knight in place.

Batman’s Javelin ship air-lifted the block of ice from the destroyed tower to the streets, allowing the police to safely defrost Nora and the Arkham Knight, who was later revealed to be a former military official and Arkham patient named William Mallory, and take them into custody. With this situation adverted, the unstable patients were detained by Arkham Institute officials, Wayne Williams and We Are Robin vanished into the night, and Victor Schivel officially turned himself over to the police (his cryo-weapons and armor were disabled in the blast). Batman vanished… but not of his own accord. After defeating Lady Arkham, he found himself teleported into a mysterious room, where he met a man calling himself Doctor 13…
As for The Riddler, he learned of the foiling of the breakout and was contacted by The Scarecrow, who was enlisted into recruiting Riddler into “a team” that “Mr. Luthor” is putting together. Riddler told him that he really did scribble nonsense down on paper and convinced Batman is was an intentional cipher, but (he postulates) maybe he DID leave behind clues in the scribbles, purely unintentionally, purely subconsciously. Scarecrow said that Riddler failed to join their team “in an official capacity”, but they still have use of his brilliant mind… that’s when Ragdoll, Scarecrow’s monstrous henchman, emerged from the darkness of Riddler’s HQ and snatched him away…
Notes:
* Nora Schivel/Nora Arkham is based on Lady Arkham from the Telltale Batman video game (who is actually Vicki Vale in the game, which I found dumb).
* Arkham Knight here is based on ‘The Wrath’, a Batman villain with the same tactics and skills as Batman.
** Arkham Knight’s true name of William Mallory is based on the Wrath’s identity from “The Batman Strikes”.

Description

In the secret secondary Batcave headquarters controlled by The Batman, shadowed defender of Pittsburgh, he had brought his adversary Mr. Freeze here to discuss their plans to stop a massive breakout of the most dangerous patients of the Arkham Institute. Freeze explained how and why his wife is behind this.
Nora Schivel was actually born Nora Arkham, granddaughter of Jeremiah Arkham, founder of the Institute, and heir to the Arkham family fortune. Her birth parents, who were her only remaining family, died when she was young and Vincent Falcone, the father of crime lord Carmine ‘the Black Mask’ Falcone, manipulated the Arkham family’s lawyer into making him the trustee of the fortune, only to swindle it from young Nora and leave her destitute. She was adopted by the Fields family, and she became Nora Fields. Her trauma from what happened left her with holes in her memory. In college, Nora Fields met Victor Schivel (Mr. Freeze’s alter ego) and they soon after married. She contracted MacGregor’s Syndrome, a seemingly-incurable disease, later in life and Victor had her cryogenically preserved until he could find a cure. He became the criminal Mr. Freeze in order to fund the cure research, and another super-villain, Bane, gave him a vial of the chemical compound Lazarus in exchange for Freeze’s help in (nearly) killing Batman. Research into the Lazarus bore fruit, and Victor was able to develop a success cure for MacGregor’s. He unfroze Nora and gave it to her. However, the Lazarus’ regenerative properties in the cure restored Nora’s memories of losing her family and fortune, and she decided to exact revenge. Victor tried to talk his wife down from her mad ravings, but the Lazarus factor of the cure made her super strong, super fast, and super agile. She disappeared after beating Victor senseless, some time before the current crisis of a global pandemic. With the city of Pittsburgh weakened by the pandemic, Nora’s going to take advantage of it to break out the Arkham Institute’s dangerously-insane patients and make them into an army to destroy what’s left of the city.
Batman, hearing all of this, agreed to help Freeze stop the breakout, but warning him that there will be no second chance if he double-crosses him for Nora. The two decide to find the hideout of The Riddler, a mysterious information and technology broker for criminals. When Batman and Mr. Freeze arrived and got through the hideout’s defenses, they cornered Riddler about his involvement in Nora’s plans for Arkham. Riddler admitted his involvement, and said that Nora is now calling herself Lady Arkham. He sold to her intelligence for the Institute and a series of various weapons for the potential inmate-soldiers, including armor and weapons for herself and someone she’s calling her “Arkham Knight”. Riddler agreed to hand over where she’s setting up her base, but there’s a catch. There’s always a catch with the Riddler. He’s going to hand Batman a cipher that he needs to decode to learn the location of Lady Arkham. Batman was handed the cipher… and it just looks like a bunch of squiggles on a paper! Freeze demanded to be given the address for real, but Batman left to the Batmobile with the paper and Freeze had no choice but to follow. Back at the secondary Batcave, Batman, Freeze, and the Oracle (the super-hacker identity of Batman’s fiance Barbara Gordon), took several hours to figure out how to decode the cipher. Just when all seemed lost and were starting to think it WAS just random squiggles and Riddler was just tricking them, Batman found a common pattern and deciphered it! Batman immediately sped off in the Batmobile.
He found an abandoned apartment complex and he managed to find, within it, Lady Arkham in her piecemeal headquarters, surrounded by hired goons loading the weapons onto trucks. Batman spied on her, planning to take her down as soon as he got a chance, but a new figure attacked Batman from behind and knocked him down to the floor. It was The Arkham Knight, Lady Arkham’s right hand! With Batman distracted, Lady Arkham and her minions got into the trucks and sped off towards the Arkham Institute! Batman and Arkham Knight went toe-to-toe and the latter had the upper hand. That’s when Wayne Williams, leader of the anti-Batman vigilante group “We Are Robin”, attacked Arkham Knight from the shadows and helped Batman defeat him. Wayne helped Batman to his feet and told him he would help him defeat Lady Arkham and prevent the break out.
In the courtyard of the Arkham Institute, Lady Arkham and her minions assembled the dangerously unwell patients, after taking down the guards and security measures, and declared them The Children of Arkham. She swayed them with her words and led them to the front gates of the Institute when We Are Robin, armed with non-lethal weapons and called in by Wayne, leaped the fence and confronted the armed patients and Lady Arkham’s minions. As the so-called Children of Arkham were being held off, Batman arrived in the Batmobile, which converted into tank mode and fired non-lethal rounds at the patients to subdue them. Lady Arkham, reunited with Arkham Knight, ran off and climbed the highest tower in the Institute, which was converted from an old church bell tower. Batman grappled up as Mr. Freeze followed behind him, creating an ice slide with his suit’s cryo-weaponry. As the fighting below broke out into the streets of the city, the police were called in to detain the attackers, as they were weakened by the fighting with We Are Robin. As Batman battled the Arkham Knight, Victor tried to plead to his wife Nora to end the madness. Nora wouldn’t be reasoned with, and declared the whole city must pay for what happened to her parents and her family legacy. In the end, Freeze detonated a cryo-bomb that froze Nora and Arkham Knight in place.

Batman’s Javelin ship air-lifted the block of ice from the destroyed tower to the streets, allowing the police to safely defrost Nora and the Arkham Knight, who was later revealed to be a former military official and Arkham patient named William Mallory, and take them into custody. With this situation adverted, the unstable patients were detained by Arkham Institute officials, Wayne Williams and We Are Robin vanished into the night, and Victor Schivel officially turned himself over to the police (his cryo-weapons and armor were disabled in the blast). Batman vanished… but not of his own accord. After defeating Lady Arkham, he found himself teleported into a mysterious room, where he met a man calling himself Doctor 13…
As for The Riddler, he learned of the foiling of the breakout and was contacted by The Scarecrow, who was enlisted into recruiting Riddler into “a team” that “Mr. Luthor” is putting together. Riddler told him that he really did scribble nonsense down on paper and convinced Batman is was an intentional cipher, but (he postulates) maybe he DID leave behind clues in the scribbles, purely unintentionally, purely subconsciously. Scarecrow said that Riddler failed to join their team “in an official capacity”, but they still have use of his brilliant mind… that’s when Ragdoll, Scarecrow’s monstrous henchman, emerged from the darkness of Riddler’s HQ and snatched him away…
Notes:
* Nora Schivel/Nora Arkham is based on Lady Arkham from the Telltale Batman video game (who is actually Vicki Vale in the game, which I found dumb).
* Arkham Knight here is based on ‘The Wrath’, a Batman villain with the same tactics and skills as Batman.
** Arkham Knight’s true name of William Mallory is based on the Wrath’s identity from “The Batman Strikes”.