[A/N = The prologue is set DURING Bane's reign in Gotham. I wrote it to give background on Fiona.]
[Prologue]
The gunfire and explosions were deafening on the other side of the walls that seemed my only protection. I wouldn't have lasted this long out on the streets and was glad that this was my sanctuary.
A beautiful cathedral. I had wandered past it in my youth on my way to school. Back then I was too young to understand the cruel ways of the world and the people in it. I wasn't naive, though. I was well aware of the mob and gangsters and all the other dangers of the crime ridden city, but back then the idea of good and evil was so... It was defined, clearly stated in black and white in the most understandable and simplest terms. Now the lines were blurred. The lines were no longer so simple and bold. In the chaos it was as if nothing mattered anymore.
I did leave my sanctuary, on occasion. The need didn't arise often, and when it did I left in disguise. The once beautiful and safe streets of Gotham were no longer a safe place for any normal civilian. The government had abandoned us, Batman had disappeared again, and now we were under the reign of Bane. The beautiful streets I loved had turned dystopian, the atmosphere reminding me of the survival game-style books I would read while hiding away in my apartment on the evenings where the idea of leaving the warm safeness was utterly repulsive.
My supplies being placed in a style that reminded me of all the times I had pretended to go camping with my older brother in our living room. My brother had been eight years older than me. When our mother died - I was ten- our father wasn't involved in our lives and we were separated. In fact, our father had ran away from our family the night I was born. Mother had told me that he was in a terrible wreck on the way to the hospital, but . I was soon adopted by a decent-enough family, but my brother was too old to be adopted and had been too old to go into a home, so he was forced onto the streets. He eventually got a job and found a place of his own. He eventually lost his job and was forced back onto the streets, he disappeared and I didn't hear from him again for a long while.
I stood up and dusted myself off, having been leaning against the altar, before putting the two pistols I had scavenged into their respective holsters around my thighs and grabbed some extra amunition, putting them into a pocket in my vest. I looked into a mirror that I had found in what had appeared to be living quarters or something before the "liberation" had began. I looked in it, barely recognizing myself.
My long, dark brown, greasy, choppy hair was up in a messy ponytail. I wore black combat boots, dark blue skinny jeans, and a black tank top. As a second layer I had on a light grey, low-cut vest that had two pockets on either side that were now filled with extra ammunition for the handguns I had strapped to my legs. My arms were bare and dirty, just like the rest of me. My clothing was slightly torn in some places and I looked liked I would fit perfectly in this dystopian community. I smiled a little at the irony. If only my mother could see her little princess now. I glanced over my sleeping bag that stretched over an air mattress I had looted from one of the stores nearby. I had a couple bags of canned foods and an entire mini-living space set up. I shook my head at the patheticness of the situation and left, glancing at the stained glass windows that were somewhat intact as I walked away and exited discreetly through a side door so that no one would see me and my sanctuary would stay safe.