Disclaimer : I do not own any of these characters, which are based on Christopher Nolan's TDKR.
Author's note : It's been a long absence but hopefully it made the heart grow fonder. Bane's revolution in Gotham is underway and her is yet another chapter about how badass both Bane and Talia are.
I hope you enjoy.
X. Take Control of the City
Bane and Barsad made their way down to the eastern section of the basement of City Hall. A dozen men and women were looking over consoles and about thirty television screens. Doctor Jonathan Crane, who had escaped from Blackgate Prison, was acting as the director. He was no longer wearing his orange prison garb and had found a worn-out suit that would matched nicely with the burlap bag he used to wear as a mask when he was terrorizing patients as the Scarecrow. So engrossed was Crane in coordinating the visual chaos, that he looked like a crazed maestro conducting an orchestra, and he didn't notice the two mercenaries approaching. The monitors were showing various scenes of Gotham being taken over by hordes of citizens coming down on the privileged to overtake the city. They were led and cheered on by Bane's men, but the editing made sure only to show the citizens, young and old, with their fists in the air, demanding justice and equality.
Crane stepped back a bit when the huge masked man in military clothes cast a shadow over him.
"Good work, Doctor Crane," Bane said in a deep voice. They had worked furiously to get all the necessary equipment to broadcast the footage of the population taking control of their city, for all of Gotham and the world to see.
The young, handsome man took off his glasses and started cleaning them, then put them back only to take them off again nervously, though his voice was cool and collected. "Yes, it is fascinating to see disbelief turn to dread, turn to panic, then despair…"
Bane's cheeks rose under the mask as he smiled while watching a man drag out a woman from a posh apartment complex to the streets, by pulling at her fur coat.
"The people are taking back Gotham," Barsad said from behind. Both Bane and he exchanged a complicit look.
"They will be rounded up," Bane said as he turned back towards Crane. "They are obviously guilty of oppressing the people of Gotham and enriching themselves – living in decadence while the rest starved in the cold. Have you decided on sentencing?" he asked the doctor in a calm, amused tone.
"Well, yes," said Doctor Crane, "but I thought it would be a nice experiment to give the guilty a choice." Bane looked perplexed. "Yes," Crane explained with a smile, "to see if their fear of death is greater than their fear of the unknown; I would offer them Death or Exile."
"Hmmm…." Bane pondered carefully how to best manipulate the situation. "But, there is a risk of a person making it off the island and causing the detonation, while we are trying to rebuild society. After all we must keep our word. If a person flees, the trigger man will detonate the bomb; there is no stopping that."
Whether or not Crane was being manipulated or he just played along for his own reasons was not important. This conversation was for the benefit of the faithful in the room, since these were new recruits from Gotham and they knew nothing of the entire plan.
"Of course. As I said," Crane answered, fiddling with his glasses, "I'm interested in their reaction to the unknown; we don't have to offer them the bridge as exile. The waters are already deadly cold and the distance is too great to swim to the other shore. Plus, soon enough, ice will cover the water, but it is never thick enough in the middle of the river, and by then the temperature will be instantly lethal."
If ever there was a time Bane had wanted to laugh out loud during the siege of Gotham, it was now; for it seemed that the Scarecrow had perfectly understood the importance of feeding hope during torture. He simply put his hand on the doctor's shoulder and nodded appreciatively.
"Carry on, good doctor," he told him before leaving with Barsad. They went up the stairs to the first floor and walked down a narrow, bare hallway.
"Any news?" Bane asked.
"Iraj said that Lucius Fox and Miranda Tate have left Fox's apartment building and met up with another man and they were heading further uptown," Barsad replied.
Bane's fingers flickered slightly. Barsad noticed it but continued: "There is a group of about five hundred people marching towards the townhouses where they seem to be heading; should I tell the men to divert the crowd?" the sharpshooter asked.
Bane stopped and took hold of his bulletproof vest so his hands would stop fidgeting. He had one of his henchmen follow Lucius Fox but it was really a ploy to make sure Talia was all right. He didn't want her in danger, though he knew very well she could take care of herself. However, if Lucius was killed in a riot, she could be by his side sooner, since there would be no need to fear anyone taking up the mantle of the Batman without Fox's technological wizardry to help.
"No, we…" he didn't have time to finish his sentence when a bullet flew pass Barsad's head. They turned and quickly spotted the pudgy young man, dripping in sweat, hiding behind the corner wall. Bane pushed Barsad to the side while he grabbed a smoke grenade from his man's vest and threw the canister over to the shooter, while ducking to avoid another shot.
The man started coughing and his arm went up and down as he shot randomly; his vision was now completely impaired. Barsad had regained his footing and aimed at the shadow that preceded the shot. He hit the shooter's armed hand just below the palm, almost severing his wrist. The man lost the gun and fell back against the wall, holding his bleeding hand, trying to see through the fog. The last thing he saw coming from the thick white smoke was a tall, masked devil strutting towards him. He felt a grip of steel on his neck as Bane lifted him up with one arm.
"Sometimes, there is not much difference between courage and foolishness," Bane said while looking around to see if he had accomplices.
The man couldn't respond, tears were streaming down his cheeks and his voice was choked. His legs flayed widely in the air until his body finally went limp when Bane had completely cut off his supply of oxygen by crushing his neck.
"Do you think he was a policeman? Barsad ask.
"It doesn't matter," his leader responded as he dropped to body on the floor and walk over it.
Miranda and Lucius had been seeing the city start to tear itself apart on the news, and had decided to try to save as many as they could, starting with the board members of Wayne Enterprises, as they knew they would be targets. They had to find another place to hide, one that would be safer. They had to get out of this building before they would be trapped in by a mob.
Fortunately, their cells phones were still working, though they were trying to be cryptic when texting in case they were being bugged. They had decided to meet up at the house of Margaret, a vice-president of acquisitions, who apparently had a warehouse by the docks they could perhaps use. Her husband let them in and they found five other board members there, waiting nervously.
"It will be impossible to get to the docks, Bane's men control that area," Margaret anxiously told them.
"So where do we go now?" Philip, another voting member, inquired.
"What about the others?" Miranda chimed in.
"I'm not sure," answered their host, "they should be on their way".
"Let's wait a few minutes then," said Fox.
Miranda and the others nodded and tensely sat down in silence.
It was not long before the first brick went through the window and the mob forced its way in the home.
"We can't stay here," Lucius exclaimed and they started to head to the adjacent room, but a group of rioters was already coming in. The small group retreaded in another living room, closing the doors behind them. They started running to the other side, but the connecting corridor was already filled with people trashing the furniture, drinking and gleefully vandalizing everything.
"We'll have to go through them,'" Miranda declared. Lucius agreed and took off his pure wool coat. Just by their clothing, they would be identified as upper class, so they promptly ditched the designer scarves and jewelry. Miranda wore a simple navy coat (which Bane had picked out) that wouldn't seem out of place, but it was still dangerous. They went out of the room holding various things in their hands, trying to look like they were looting.
They made their way, one after the other, through the crowd. Miranda stopped to look at the anarchy and, for a moment, her mask was shed and Talia's face appeared. She smiled widely at the festive vandals; she frowned just a bit when she thought she spotted Selina Kyle, that cat burglar woman, down another hallway, following a girl with curly blond hair. Talia came out of her daze when she got bumped in the shoulder and realized she had almost lost the small group who was heading towards the dinning room. She started walking to go join them, when a man with dubious hygiene grabbed her elbow. Miranda looked terrified when she looked in the group's direction but, when she saw none of her colleagues, her head turned towards her attacker and Talia looked at him with a cold smile, She immediately used the arm he held to catapult her fist into his nose. He went for her throat, so she grabbed his head with both hands and hit a mirror with in, breaking it. Her furious assailant tried to throw a punch but she easily avoided it, then she squatted to pick up a shard of the mirror and plunged it into his groin. She grinned more widely as his eyes bulged out in shock. His screams were downed by the ruckus of the melee. Talia let him drop to the floor where he bled to death, without anyone noticing. She then made her way to the other room, where Lucius was looking for her.
She immediately portrayed a distressed air as he met her. "Are you alright Miranda?" he asked, looking at the blood on her hand.
"Yes, I just cut it on a mirror when a fight broke out," she responded, out of breath. He held on to her and led her successfully out of the townhouse, where they eventually were able to walk with the moving crowd, then dart in an alley and hide behind containers with two of their colleagues.
"Where are the others?" Miranda asked.
"I don't know," Thomas, a Financial Director, answered. "Peter texted me that he was still home I just wrote him to stay there."
"Alright, we need to get out of this part of town," Lucius Fox declared.
"Agreed" Miranda responded. "Maybe an abandoned governmental building?"
"Or a public library?" Thomas proposed.
"That's a good idea, the National Library on the Far East side; it should be near deserted," Fox proposed.
"Ok, let's meet there in three hours," Miranda said.
"What?" Lucius asked, incredulous, while her two other colleagues looked back, stunned.
"We have to try to find the others. I got a text from my assistant Lucinda. She's a few blocks from here and I can't leave her."
"Then we'll all go," Thomas declared.
"If we do that, they'll eventually identify us. We already lost people that way; who knows where they are now. We all have our phones. Lucius: you have to try to get to Peter's place before the mob get's there. They seem to be staying on this street and his house is two streets down".
Fox was extremely reluctant to let her go, but Miranda stroke his arm to reassure him.
"Be careful," Fox told Miranda. "You too Lucius... all of you," she responded before parting with them and making her way out of the alley.
Iraj, who had spotted Fox in the alley and was observing from the other side of the street radioed in to Barsad: "The Tate woman's gone out on her own, should I follow her?"
"No." was the immediate response. "Stay with Fox."
Talia had made it through a block and waited till the mercenary stopped looking towards her before she phoned the number Barsad had shown her when they last met.
Bane answered: "Where are you going?"
"To you," she responded. "I have three hours." She waited and listened to the metallic sound of his heavy breathing through his apparatus; it comforted her so much that she started almost running.
"Barsad will pick you up on 113th."
"I'm five blocks from there. I'll see you soon…" she replied, lingering on the line to listen to his breathing.
"Make haste," was all he said before he hung up. And haste, she did make.