Chapter 10: Arkham Games Gliding

[Batman POV]

As I take control of my body again, I realize that the alien was right. I didn't feel tired or anything. My body feels quite energetic. 

He also gave me a quick recap of what he did as Bruce so I at least know and have a general idea of what he plans to do next. Since it's already night time, it was time for me to do a first run of my patrols. 

But as I wore my temporary getup which is a military tactical gear look, Venom laughs at me and says "Looks like you haven't made a proper uniform yet so let me handle this!"

He then proceeds to use his symbiote body to mimic some sort of cloth to serve as my cowl and cape. He also changed the way my gear looked. Right now I looked like I wore a grey base suit with a Bat symbol on the chest with a deep blue cowl and cape. To be honest, I quite liked the look. It embodied the concept I was going for. To be a Symbol.

"Don't worry about bullets or knives, those aren't piercing me. But I have to remind you, Sonic attacks, or fire and you go back to looking like Solid Snake. So it's always good to wear something underneath rather than going full venom mode." He says. 

"Who's Solid Snake? You know what nevermind that. Since you said your symbiote body offers some sort of protection then it's all good. "

I don't have a car yet to specifically use for my patrols. So I use a modded motorcycle for now and head to Gotham from the batcave exit through the waterfalls. I don't even feel the water. Symbiote suit kept me dry. It felt like I went through a thin layer of cloth curtain. After reaching the edge of Gotham City, I park the bike and hide it in a metal container I placed ahead of time. 

I use my grapple gun to hook to the nearest building to climb the rooftop. But in order to travel across Gotham, I shoot my grapple, swing, climb and repeat. I haven't figured out the logistics yet but for now this was what I was doing. But apparently Venom thinks he can do a better way.

"This works fine and all for your first time but we are definitely loosing a lot of time here. Tell you what, let me take over a bit and show you." 

He then proceeds to, according to him, do the Arkham Asylum grapnel boost and dive.

He uses my lines as a means of pulling himself up very quickly, and without loosing momentum, glides down to where he wants to go, then repeat. I had to admit this was very efficient in terms of traversal. He used his symbiote body to make the cape harden into wings at will then soften when he needs them to be.

"Alright now you do it! Just remember my arms position on glide and I'll pre program that as a glide function so my symbiote body will do that automatically. Technically you can also use your will to do it, but it might be better to do it with the hands position for now since you are still getting used to it."

I then try to harden the cape first by arm position and lower my hand when I want it to soften. Then I try to will it rather than raise my arms. It also works but he was right and I needed to get used to the arm movement first so I have more confidence doing by will. He also taught me to remove the cowl on command so that was a novel feeling. 

For the next hour I keep doing the "Arkham Asylum grapnel boost and dive" to get the hang of it. Though I keep wondering why he calls it that. 

"By the way, In worst case scenario that your grapnel doesn't work or in an emergency, you can use my symbiote body as a replacement to pull you up to the building. Just point with your knuckles and imaging part of my body shooting from your fist to the target building." He exclaims.

I try it once and it was actually quite a novel feeling. Also much smoother. Then he says "It would be ideal for you to use that only on emergencies so you don't get too dependent on it. It also works as a trump card in cases of when your enemies think you have no way out."

I had to admit, this was indeed a good plan. My enemies would think my cowl, cape and whole suit is just some kind of fabric. But on a serious situation, it can really get me out and save my life.

"And before I forget, the part of your face that's exposed in the cowl isn't really your face. That's just a generic white male I picked. You don't feel it much since I'm mimicking your skin but that's also for protection. You can eat and speak and drink or whatever. But when your mouth is closed, it's still technically part of my symbiote hence bulletproof. 

And finally I will alter our voice so no one recognizes us. For other abilities, you can figure that out later if you even need or want to try those out. This should help you quite a bit already. " He finally says and proceeds to tell me he's using the Kevin Conroy voice for our batman persona, that its non negotiable then goes silent. I'll have to double check later on in case someone mistakes this Kevin Conroy for batman. Though from the sound of his statement, I got the feeling he does not exist in this world.

I think with all these, I should be able to do a lot already. Like he said, I'll figure the rest some other time. I was a little skeptical when he said "our" instead of my voice but maybe that's because he thinks we're practically one being now. 

I was considering putting his weaknesses into a contingency file but that might be something to factor in later. If this trial run goes well and we do this long term, I might want to eliminate the weakness altogether through some means or keep it there but doing so increases threats to me as well. Either way it's still too early to tell at this point. 

Since I'm getting used to the traversal already, I think its time to officially introduce Gotham to the Batman.