Hey guys,

Since my last update, some stuff happened.

I was in Colorado for a while with my best friend before we split for the school year to our respective universities (she's up north and I'm down south).

And I got into a small, minor car accident a couple days ago. I'm fine! Don't worry, but my faith in my own driving skills are a bit shaken.

Also, I got a slightly upsetting review on my Sky High fanfiction. Basically, someone accused me of being a racially biased white person (granted, I am not white) because I referred to one of the characters as a "black kid" and another, presumably white character, as "just a girl". So needless to say, I was a bit insulted and almost had the temptation to reply to the review but I did not want to say anything I regretted. Besides, I wrote that story a while ago and I just can't be bothered to change that little detail because one person doesn't like it.

Oh well.

*Sigh*

Woes aside, I am happy to bring you a new chapter.

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Onwards!

Chapter 36:

Late November—Early December

"Death or exile?"

He heard the amusement-tinged voice of Dr. Jonathan Crane presiding over the new make-shift court from atop a massive pile of paper, trash and broken furniture—a proper mad throne for a madman.

Bane did not have any complaints.

The madhouse that was the new Gotham did not deserve any less than the hampered mind of Dr. Crane.

Standing where he was, in the far back corner of the hall that was once the stock exchange, Bane found that it was like observing zoo animals all penned together in the same, tight cage with their former keepers dropped right down in the middle of it all.

Bane felt a swell of pride in his chest. At first, it seemed that the people were not too keen on his suggestion to "claim their city". Now, the once docile and subservient members of Gotham's hierarchy were baring their teeth and chomping at the bit in feral anticipation to even the scales.

Now, the foxes hunted the hounds.

If there was anything he was glad about concerning Gotham, it was that the people have come to prove him right in his every venture and he does not foresee them falling from that path anytime soon.

However, one venture remained to be seen. One truth still refused to stand.

Even as he continued to find pleasure and success in the continued unraveling of Gotham by a mere string in his right hand, there was another string completely unraveling in another direction.

He could feel it—among the few sentiments he cared to admit.

An uncomfortable, defiant tugging away from his hold that added a wrinkle to his brow or a grimace to his usually cool gaze. A string growing tauter and tauter, threatening to snap at any given moment if he wasn't careful.

And it was all his little bird's fault.

She was being disobedient, falling back into her old ways—the ways he had worked so hard to rid her of. She was drifting and wandering, ignoring everything he had built for her. The farther she continued to go made him less and less her mentor and more the cruel collector trying to cage her back up.

She will not throw everything away for some foolish dream of saving this disgusting place. Bane growled to himself, thinking so assuredly that whatever games she was playing would do nothing sustain the inevitable.

A raucous outcry jogged Bane from his thoughts. Turning his gaze towards the doors of the courtroom, he saw a group of his men escorting, or dragging really, in a fresh set of victims for judgment—obvious grounds for riling up the crowd.

At the back of the group, he spotted Barsad, who, once the group had moved onto the center of the room, peeled away and strode in his direction. There was clear purpose in his walk and a sense of trouble twisting his already serious disposition.

"Sir," Barsad greeted him once he neared. Then, he pointedly inclined his head towards the hallway behind Bane, silently requesting they continue their conversation in private.

Repressing a small sound of displeasure, Bane led them into the adjacent hallway, wondering just what could be stirring up in the city now.

"What is it?" asked Bane, once they were out of earshot and the echoes of brisk sentencings.

"On our rounds today, we came across a group of civilians hiding out in a warehouse," Barsad told him, "They were rallying—talking about rebelling and getting out of the city."

"I have no interest for silly attempts at heroics, Barsad," Bane interjected blandly.

"Understood, sir, but that is not what I need to tell you," insisted Barsad, "Breaking it up was the easy part. But all the talk they were making isn't going to be as easy to get rid of."

Bane arched his brow questioningly, "What do you mean?"

Sighing deeply, albeit nervously, Barsad dug his hand into his coat and withdrew three or four roughly folded sheets of paper.

"Once the warehouse cleared out, we found these," Barsad explained, handing over the papers to Bane, "They aren't getting these ideas alone."

"Someone else is sowing the seeds," Bane murmured, a wrinkle appearing in his forehead as he skimmed over the simply colored, black and white newsletter. Words like "delusion", "liar", "destruction", and "coward" leaping out at him, like an ice pick to his eyes. Then, there was the affronting illustration scrawled atop the page—a slight at his character, but an empowerment to the man he broke.

"Why is it that we are finding out about this now?" Bane asked lowly, resisting the urge to tear up the pages and choosing, instead, to take a closer look. He knew that no matter how preposterous he thought these papers were, he must regard their clear affect and must see where these papers were misdirecting the people's frustrations.

"Whoever has been writing this stuff has been very good at keeping distribution locked up—no consistent delivery dates and no one's actually seen someone lurking about the neighborhoods with any connection to these papers at all."

"Or perhaps they have and they are lying about it," Bane scoffed, "These people have a large history of keeping secrets and protecting the wrong sort, Barsad."

"True as that may be, sir, considering the circumstances, I don't think they'd keep this person a secret even if they did know who it was. We all saw how the city turned on Batman during the whole Joker ordeal."

"But what other brave souls does Gotham have left to spare," Bane hummed thoughtfully, his gaze growing considerably more piercing as he continued to rake through the sentences, likely looking for an answer to his own question somewhere in between the lines on those pages.

Suddenly, he asked, "What else ails Gotham today?"

Though slightly put off by Bane's sudden digression, Barsad still answered, "Resources are running low."

"Ah, yes," Bane nodded absently, but not sparing a look away from his reading. All of a sudden it had become quite engrossing. "Communication with the United States' government forces will be set up by the end of this week for ration deliveries. Let it not be hunger that takes people before the flames."

There was a brief pause as Bane flipped to the next issue and read on. When he piped up again, he asked about Commissioner Gordon.

"He's not been found yet," Barsad told him, "He hasn't made any sort of appearance yet, not even by his known acquaintances."

"I doubt Commissioner Gordon has many friends left in the city," Bane observed off-handedly. If he was at all bothered by the fact that they had not located the missing police commissioner, he did not show it. "However, I do not doubt the old man's cheek and his penchant for far-fetched ideas. So whenever he chooses to crawl out of whatever hole he is hiding in to play hero, we shall be there to bring him in to face the people."

"Of course, sir," Barsad answered, expecting nothing different in regards to Gordon. Then, he pursed lips. There was clearly something else lingering on the tip of his tongue that he felt Bane was silently waiting to hear, yet he was ambivalent in sharing.

"What else?" Came Bane's question, clearly sensing Barsad's indecision.

Barsad chewed on his lip for a moment before finally muttering, "No one's seen…her either."

Despite Bane's clear instructions that they would leave Lucy be, it was still silently understood that everyone should be vigilant of her presence. Yet, even those endeavors still hung in the air unanswered and any displeasure taken from that was present in Bane's very brusque manner of flipping to the last of the Silencer papers and the slight tenseness in his tone.

"I see. She is much more lost than I thought."

"Sir?" Barsad uttered, the bewildered look on his face going unseen by his leader, "I thought you wished for her to come back to us on her own accord."

"And I still do," said Bane curtly, "However, she is still young and seems to require some guidance back home."

"Guidance?" Barsad echoed. The conversation was leading straight back into that grey, dangerous area of ambiguity that they had breached last time they had talked about Lucy. It was a detrimental area in which Barsad saw his leader diminish in sense, yet he worried even more about what would happen if he tried to steer Bane away from anything regarding Lucy Blake.

"A trail to follow home. Motivation to put her back on the right path." Bane explained, either unaware or simply ignoring Barsad's discomfort.

"What kind of motivation are we talking about?" asked Barsad.

"Go to the places that are familiar in her eyes…the places that she just cannot resist to visit," said Bane, his old shrewd gleam appearing in his eyes. He seemed certain that this was how to reel her back in—to infuse their presence back into the places she still holds dear to her heart. Show her that there was no end without him beside her.

"I'll take another look back into what we have on Lucy," Barsad provided, though sounding a bit half-hearted.

Wishing to leave talk about Lucy on that note, Barsad nodded towards the insurgency papers, seeing Bane had reached a stopping point in his reading, "What am I to do about those?"

Nodding slowly and thoughtfully to himself, Bane slowly folded up the papers and tucked them in his coat, reminding Barsad of his similar treatment of the Commissioner's letter. Clearly, he had found some bit of an answer in his reading.

"Post men around the local neighborhoods and keep constant surveillance. If they see something, they must follow up on the lead. If we do indeed find those responsible for this dribble, we must attack them at the source. Besides…I feel as though we may or may not be surprised when we put a face to these…" He paused, mulling the sign off at the edge of the page with condescension, "Silencers."

Mid-December—December 21st

Gotham had always experienced seasons at their extremes.

But John couldn't quite remember a winter as blistering as this one. The air bit angrily at his cheeks and each step he took on the snow-covered ground sounded and felt like he was cracking pieces of glass underfoot. Still, he marched purposefully on, bundled up and hunched over a bit, through the deathly quiet streets of Gotham, a pair of jerry cans full of gas dangling from his hands.

He was on a bit of a schedule today—granted, he was always on a schedule.

But it was four days till Christmas, and it was not for the holidays that John had been counting the days.

Who would?

No, it was no secret that he had other things to be counting the days for.

For the last two and a half months John, Gordon, and what little manpower they had mustered together worked tirelessly to find the bomb and they were able to successfully narrow down their search to two freight trucks that were constantly moving throughout the city.

Gordon's prediction about the state of resources had also come true and Gotham soon began to see trucks rolling in from the outside carrying food, water, basic necessities, and medical supplies. Luckily, they were able to set up a tight knit, trusted line of communication with the workers on the trucks and soon got into contact with Special Forces.

Now, with their overarching plot going as planned, John turned his attentions toward their next point of interest— the police force. They were apparently faring better than John had anticipated. With the help of some kite string, scraps of paper, and an unclogged sewage grate, he had been able to get into contact with his former partner, Ross, and they had begun to trade news and information about how things were going both above and below ground.

According to Ross, Bane had provided the force with supplies and rations, but they were meagre—only enough to just keep them alive, not enough to count as an act of benevolence.

Bane wanted them to live long enough to experience the bomb's explosion.

Still, John was not going to completely begrudge the action. He and Ross had located a possible escape outlet and if they could pull off a successful escape, it would not be entirely worth it if only half the force survived.

Now, all they had to do was wait and play their cards right. Though, John had a feeling that they would not have to wait very long.

The morale of the city was starting to falter.

Despite the appearance of refreshed supplies, there was a growing displeasure among the people and strings of small civilian fueled rebellions were popping up all over the place. Talk of leaving the city and fighting back was starting to spread like wildfire—most of it on account of the Silencer papers. Meanwhile, he was starting to see more and more of Lucy and Will's provocative icon blanketing the face of the city—spray painted across alley ways, painted on windows, whipping through the cold air on a roughly made flag, or whispered between households. So paired with the headway they were already making with the bomb, their plan to save the police force, and the fact that Special Forces were meant to be coming in to help soon, the five month long time span waiting to be killed by the bomb was slowly being shaved down and the chance of stopping Bane and escaping the city was slowly becoming more and more possible.

We're hammering away at his mountain, John.

That's what Lucy had told him last night.

It sounded so easy coming from her, but her voice whistled like a warm, Christmas song in his ear, the refreshed confidence and enthusiasm in her voice making him all the more ready to drive their plans home…or drive their hammer further into Bane's mountain.

I can see the end of this, John thought hopefully to himself, as he pulled his coat tighter up around his face to block the bitter winter air and adjusted his hold on the cans of gas in his hands. He was on his way to drop them off at St. Cecilia's and St. Swithin's because the orphanages would need to fuel their buses should the opportunity for evacuation present itself.

Glancing at his watch, he realized that he needed to pick up the pace a bit for he also had a small social call to make today.

Like he noted earlier, it was four days till Christmas, and, while he had been counting the days for the sake of their mission, four days till Christmas is always marked on his calendar as Lucy's birthday. Now, it seemed a bit silly for anyone to be celebrating their birthday in a time like this and John was pretty sure Lucy was so caught up in things that she's forgotten the date herself, but he also found that times like these called for moments of cheer—even if they are miniscule and carefully measured out. Will agreed wholeheartedly and had taken the time to plan a small celebration for Lucy and John intended to head over soon to spend the rest of the day and hopefully the night with them. Though he had no proper gift to give Lucy and his usual gifts were rather scanty as they were, he hoped just being with her would be good enough.

Hurrying along, John decided to cut through some back alleys, but just as he stepped back out onto a main street, he heard the tell-tale sound of tumblers rolling down the street. Catching himself, he dropped to crouch behind a parked car and held his breath as he heard one of the tanks groan to a stop just beside the car he was hiding behind. Thinking they had seen him, John began to weigh his chances of darting back into the alley and out of sight. However, at the sound of the tumbler doors hissing open and pairs of feet hitting the snow covered street, John pressed himself further up against the side of the car and willed his breathing to a quiet steady pace as he listened to the mercenaries talk.

"Why did we stop?" one of them asked, "We've still got another hour on our shift out here."

The partner scoffed tiredly, "Another hour of what exactly? Staring at nothing? Come on, man, it's a dead zone…no one's out here. Can't we just cut it a bit early?"

"I feel you, but you know how the boss is. He don't like it when we take shortcuts."

"I'm sorry, remind me again…what are we even looking for?"

There was an exasperated sigh. "Any sign of the people responsible for the recent uprisings—the people who wrote those…uh newsletters."

Uh oh. John shifted uncomfortably in his spot as he felt something heavy plummet to the pit of his gut; his pleasant mood from earlier immediately sobering up.

"We've been at this for days. You would think the hard part of our job was done. But surprise, surprise, we've been upgraded from sewer rat to hunting party." The other said derisively, "Bane's got half of us out here for hours on end looking for those Silencer people and the other half is out there hunting down that…that girl of his!"

At the mercenary's outburst, John's head jerked up and his eyes widened in instant panic. There was no need for anymore explanation because he knew, to his own dread, exactly who they were referring to and John had to bite down on the inside of his cheek to muffle any of the impassioned protests bubbling up in his chest.

"Hey!" There was the sound of someone pounding a fist against the tumbler's roof, "Would you shut up? You want the boss to break your neck for not doing what you're told? Look, I can't say I know why he has us out here doing what we are doing. All I know is that guy has had a plan since the beginning and it's worked. So why question it? Besides, if we keep up on our shifts we're bound to find them soon. This city is a cage. Pretty soon, they won't have anywhere else to hide."

Through the unnerved thoughts running around his head, he heard the opposing mercenary begrudgingly agree with his partner and forced himself to stay quiet and to stay put as they got back into their tumbler. A few moments later, when he could no longer hear the tank's wheels on the snow, John pushed himself up a bit to peer over the hood of the car. When he saw the tail end of the tumbler disappear around the street corner, he shot up from the ground, his jerry cans of gas sat forgotten on the ground.

No, no, no… This can't be happening. Not today. John thought frantically to himself, pacing back and forth on the sidewalk. Lucy got away…she's supposed to be safe from all this…she can't…

Combing a rough hand through his hair, John sorted through his flustered thoughts and knew that, despite how ugly the news was, he had to tell Lucy what was going on before she was caught unawares.

"Goddamnit! Why today? Why?" John hissed to himself as he hastily unclipped the walkie-talkie at his waist.

But just as he brought it up to his lips to make the call, he stopped short.

His nose wrinkled, sniffing something odd in the air.

Is that…

Looking up towards the tops of the buildings, he looked around, a confused look on his face.

Smoke?

Uh Oh.

What's happening?!

Honestly, I'm so excited for the next upcoming chapter! Things are about to get real. Like more real than they already are…at least I think so.

Anyways! Let me know what you think in that review box down below.

Oh! Tell me if y'all like the way I'm dividing up the five month timeline of Gotham's occupation. Do you like it specified like I am doing it or do you think it seems like I'm rushing the story along?

Just let me know!

Love y'all!

Till next time!