LET THE CEREMONY BEGIN

-POV Lauren-

After Gordan left, i entered my home which I'll have to leave in a few days. It felt so, empty without him. In the small amount of time he's been with me i felt safe, i felt like i had a family, but now, now i can finally get out of Gotham, the goal i have been working towards all this time.

But at what cost, i am losing the tiny bit of family i found here because..... i don't know why? for my safety? where the fuck is it safe in this world anyway? won't i be safe if i am with him? all these questions ate away as i packed my bags and slept in for the night.

I had another two days to myself in which i convinced myself that this is better, that this will be what my parents wanted for me, to leave my new found brother to rot in jail while i use his money to settle in metropolis, uuuuugghhhhhh this feels so wrong but i have to go, i have to leave, i thought as i climbed into the taxi.

The vehicle moved through the city towards the other side of the bridge to get to the airport but i saw that the bridge was barricaded for some reason, i got off and moved towards them after paying the taxi fare.

I saw commissioner gordan ordering an evacuation on the bridge, so i moved towards him as i asked "Mr Gordan what's happening here?" Gordan looked startled before recognising me "Wel, hello ms.lauren, i would advice you to stay away from the bridges" I frown at that and ask him "Why? What happened Mr.gordan?".

He starts "Joker escaped and before he left, he told Alex about his plan to blow up the bridges, it..." before he can continue someone speaks from his communicator "Commissioner, we have searched all around the bridge and we couldn't find any explosives." Gordan holds the communicator as he replies "Have you checked under it".

The communicator's static fills the silence before he speaks again "negative, but this bridge doesn't have any structure below it to reach under the bridge and plant a bomb" Gordan sighs for a second and says "Ok but just in case, clear the bridge".

Gordan looks at me and notices my worry, so he tried to appease me as he says "Don't worry young lady it might have been a bluff or a distraction for joker to esca...." but before he completes his sentence my ears shatter from the sound of.

BOOM!BOOM!BOOM!

The bridge infront of me gets consumed in a fiery blaze as it falls down into the ocean and rubble falls on all of us, i too fall on my back as Gordan shields me from most of the debris.

As i came to be i hear Gordan rapidly talking into his communicator "Are you sure he jumped in?" i hear a familiar voice from the other end is it?.....batman? "Yes, i don't detect any life signatures but i dont see a body either" I mumble in my sleepy state "Who's body?"

Gordan looks up and i can see a practiced sympathy on his face, the same sympathy i saw on another police officer, the one who told me that my parents died, my gut clenched and my breathing stopped as i was dreading the words he'll likely say next.

Gordan notices my face go pale as he tries to smoothen the words for me "Alex has saved the 3rd bridge by removing the bomb but he himself seems to have fallen with it into the river as the blast commenced, but you don't have to worry his body appears to be missing which suggest's that he might be alive".

I nod while tears stream on my face even as he tries to give me hope and before i know it, i see black all around and wake up to see a white seiling, i look around and realise iam in a hospital.

A nurse attends to me and says "don't worry dear you were just unconscious due to shock there isn't any other injury except a few cuts and bruises" with a kind smile which i can't seem to be able to reciprocate.

I turn to towards the T.V as it talks about the incident

;Yesterday, right before our cities first ceremony in centuries we had our city almost going into lockdown because of 3 explosions on all three bridges, but it is noted that some new vigilante who found the bomb had effectively removed it with his own hands but seems to have met his untimely demise in the further explosion, the man had saved our city from disgrace by saving atleast one entry into the city standing, now onto what the ceremony means to our cities origins and how it went out of fashion before our mayor told us to stick to our roots and restarted the ceremony, The Gotham ceremony started in 19.....;

That's it the guy who saved their lives is forgotten, jokers escape isn't mentioned and the mayor's ceremony is to be celebrated, they forgot about him, as if he did nothing for this city as if he isn't worth infront of this goddamn ceremony. I felt like crying but i held on, i still remember Gordan telling me that he might still be alive, Alex might be alive, my brother might be alive.

-POV BLACK MASK-

The last thing i remember is spilling the beans to a fucking cop, not batman, not Superman, not even fucking Robin but a honest to god cop. If it gets out that i lost to a cop, i might never have a single goon working for me.

I mean who would want to work under someone so weak right. I hope that fucker gets a good reputation then atleast i dont have to tell people that i lost to a nobody.

But i think i should stop pretending to sleep and wake up to greet my prison, i open my eyes and see Clouds?, i look around and see that i am covered by stones on all sides, but i don't see a gate of sort.

When did the prisons start to change, it's as if they wanted to make a criminal zoo to shame us into becoming good citizens or something like that.

I start banging the glass to either break it or get an explanation from the prison gaurd or someone, someone who can tell me what the hell is happening here.

I get tired of banging the glass and step back and sit down, leaning against the wall and looking up at the clear blue sky.

I start to feel sleepy but i fight it and look around me to notice a slight detail i was missing, there isn't any opening here to give me food and my dread rises at that fact and i start hitting the glass again with a renewed fervor, screaming for help but none came.

I sit back down and thought about my sure to be lonely death and before i could noticed the sky dimmed down and i was descended into darkness, cold and lonely darkness which broke my final effort to remain sane as i screamed in fear of the dark

"AAAAAAAAAAAAARRRGGGGHHHHH"

-POV JAMES GORDAN-

The hell is the mayor smoking, he starts a fucking dead tradition back, which was stopped after the last time 18 people died in the riots that ensued and now that the cities running on a blades edge he wants us to fucking walk onto a guillotine. Marvin even asked me if the mayor wanted to secretly kill everyone.

I said that he wants to kill everyone sure but not secretly it seems.

Marvin laughed like the joker himself when i said that, now that we had a joker on the run it's just like icing on the cake.

We are trying our best to make sure the civillian's are safe, i didn't even bother with the mayor's safety until now, hoping for Alex to take his place as security but 'uuuf' sadly the kid died and i am going to respect the time he put into being a police man even when he didn't have to.

I hope he lives, but what more did i do other than hope for things to fix themselves in this city, i wanted to retire once the kid was good enough to replace me but i couldn't keep him safe until he grows.

Enough of my musings i need to check if chariot is properly bullet proofed and then talk about the mayor's security and then writeup protocols to follow incase of a riot and then once again ask the fucking mayor to postpone the ceremony.

____________________________________________

It's been a long day and i couldn't convince the mayor to stop the ceremony but all the other stuff is in check, i reach my house and park the car but before i could go inside i hear a familiar voice.

"There's been an increase in the number of people coming to the city" batman's gravelly voice voices out the concern i had been hiding "they might be tourists,coming here for the ceremony"i tell myself more than him but he counters it "the ceremony is being called the fools farce outside of Gotham" That is true too, nobody would attend a carnival in gotham even if they are given a million dollars when there's a riot going down.

"Expect more from the riots that's all" the dark knight says before leaving as silently as he came.

____________________________________________

The hour of the ceremony came and it already looks bad, too many people at one place all wearing some kind of face paint including a couple of jokers in there, i am getting the joker masks banned in gotham from tomorrow onwards.

We don't know whose a rioter and whose a normal tourist in this mob, might as well shoot everyone for all i care, my mind is just screaming at me to stop this shit aaaarrrggh.

BOOM!DOONGH!DOOOSH!

I look towards the sounds and see a truck dividing the crowd and hitting the cars in its path aside as if they were children and it's heading.....straight.....towards our perimeter "All of you brace yourselves" i shout but the truck starts to drift and comes to a stop right infront of our perimeter.

The trucks window open and we see joker inside, we immediately train our weapons on him he takes out a Mic and starts his speech "Hello, my fellow gothamites today is a very...ceremonious day to bring Gotham back to its glory of being the most chaotic city in the world. SO. i bring you the never before seen animal circus. Attention:None of the animals were hurt in the process"

Joker pulls a lever behind him after that and the tarmac on top of the truck is lifted to show cages of green coloured animals with their cages open and are jumping out attacking anything they see, they're roars drown out the jokers laugh as gunshots sound and cry's erupt from the gathered crowds but luckily our gunshots attract the green coloured beasts attention.

Bloody hell i hope batman took some lessons on hunting because we'll need it now more than ever.