Summary: Kind of follows some of the timeline of The Dark Knight Rises. This begins after Bane has snapped Dr. Pavel's neck on the football field. In the immediate aftermath, news stations all wanted to be the most watched. Here you'll meet Gwendolyn Mourn, news anchor on a show produced by the OWL News Group. She's ambitious. Lots of offensive stuff inside, language, sex, some grey-ish in nature. I hope you enjoy, thank you for reading, xoxo.
Chapter One: Breaking News
Bane marched off the decimated football field, leaving Doctor Pavel's still warm corpse in the end zone.
In the aftermath of the unknown motivations of the hulking, masked terrorist, every news station scrambled to be on top of the ratings heap, each with a more bombastic, sensational segment.
Every news station wanted to be the one the traumatized Gothamites tuned in to for what to think, echo and regurgitate.
On many televisions across Gotham and the rest of the country, the OWL Newsgroup logo filled varying sizes of screens, each a different resolution.
The logo was a squat owl with bright orange eyes, the color reminiscent of crunchy cheese curls before the dazzling blue eyes, full, smiling ruby red lips and bright blonde-haired, Gwendolyn Mourn's face took the place of the chunky owl.
"Good morning, this is Gwendolyn Mourn. Welcome to Wednesday on The Morning Hoot. I'm joined today by our special guest Tucker C. Arlson."
Gwendolyn smiled wider as she turned to the poorly dressed, noticeably damp host of many POTUS approved, voices of the nation, a sister station to the OWL Newsgroup.
Tucker shook her hand and stated the perfunctory courtesies of being on her show, waiting patiently while she finished the introduction, tapping his small hands on the tops of his thighs.
Gwendolyn dropped her voice to the pitch of a two pack-a-day smoker who spent their nights in an iron lung.
"Destruction in the End Zone," Gwendolyn began. "As a daughter of Gotham, I felt the suffering that took place on the football field. As a citizen of this great city, I share your grief and anger at witnessing that masked terrorist who is trying to hurt us where we live. We must rise up and defend ourselves against the man who kills unarmed, innocent men with the need for an audience."
Tucker smiled proudly as Gwendolyn began to toe the line into what could be considered inciting an uprising in good ole-fashioned harmony with hate speech.
Across Gotham City in the underground tunnels of the sewer system, Bane watched "The Morning Hoot," on a tablet's screen that Barsad had brought him.
"Find out who the opiniated news anchor is," Bane directed at Barsad without taking his eyes off the screen as Gwendolyn took a deep breath and continued with her passionate report.
"And where is James Gordon while our city falls? What is James Gordon doing about the criminal uprising engulfing our great city? I'll tell you what he's doing," Gwendolyn scoffed as paparazzi photos of Gordon dining out at swanky places with the billionaire Bruce Wayne flashed on the screen in a slow, lazy montage.
Across the city, Bane smirked behind his mask as Gwendolyn detailed everything Wayne and Gordon ordered, how the appetizers had been flown in especially for the dining duo. The prices for each menu item flashed next to each photo in a bold, bright red font.
"You should create stories that bring the people of Gotham to their knees," Talia spit as she watched the HD screen of her own tablet before tossing it aside in disgust, stomping behind a Japanese silk room divider.
Her footfalls were loud before she paused to trace her fingertips along the polished wood of the antique, priceless.
Talia began to change out of her boots and heavy layers of clothing as her eyes moved over the memorized delicate pattern of each of the five panels.
Ra's al Ghul had procured the item of antiquity from a bloodthirsty warlord that committed genocide against his own people. Ra's al Ghul had used the room divider, boasting panels of bright orange koi fish, intricately scaled green dragons and robust waterfalls, to block the view of the warlord's youngest daughter from seeing her father be killed.
Ra's al Ghul had opened the warlord from stem to stern, his blood, viscera, and organs spilled to the floor, splashing bloated drops of blood onto the cream-colored silk background.
The blood drop stains remained to the present day.
One particular drop always made Talia smile. A single drop had saturated the same space as a Bonsai branch, the bloodstain resembled a little apple clinging to the tree.
"Make them afraid brother," Talia murmured as she emerged from behind the silk panels as Miranda Tate.
Bane turned and barely looked at Talia in her snug fitting dress, visible cleavage and stilettos that made her legs look even longer.
He despised the role Talia was playing as Miranda Tate, hated that she allowed Bruce Wayne to touch her.
Bane returned his attention to the tablet as he reminded himself he had no claim to her body and never had.
Talia could care less for sex, fucking, or making love. Sex wasn't for enjoyment or procreation; she'd found a doctor to sterilize her when she was fourteen.
Talia was calculated and conservative when it came to spreading her legs. Her cunt had real currency among the white tower residents of Gotham City with their manicured fingernails and five-hundred-dollar haircuts.
Talia smoothed her hair away from her face as she slipped on her delicate, gold-chained watch, close to being late to a board meeting at Wayne Enterprises.
Talia clenched her jaw as she looked up at Gwendolyn's face as it filled the screen of the tablet Bane was holding in his large hands. Talia closed her hands into fists as she made eye contact with Gwendolyn, narrowing her eyes on her luscious lips as they condemned the acts of the cowardly terrorists.
"I want her to speak my words," Talia said tersely, her words forcing Bane to turn back towards her, meet her eyes.
"I will address the world with her voice," Talia added before she nodded at Bane and abruptly walked off, her heels clicking loudly against the cement floor.