...vv......Cassandra Cain-Wayne
ESI SP135 LVFE
- goes by orphan, batgirl, black bat, has been called kasumi, the nothing, and mist
- currently 1/2 of the batgirls
- conceived and trained from birth to be a bodyguard for an immortal being
- an assassin from the league found a woman incredibly skilled in martial arts and threatened her with murder if she doesn't bear his child, making cass
- adopted by bruce
- her first kiss was kon
was only ever taught martial arts, not speech. the parts of her brain normally used for speech were trained so she could read other people's movements and body language and predict, with incredible accuracy, their next move. when she was 8 years old her dad decided to test cass's abilities in the real world, and took her to kill a man. she had no idea what she was doing and believed it was only a game. after killing him, she "read" the target as he died, and saw death as he saw it.
"terror and then... nothing". this scarred her emotionally, and made her realise murder is wrong, so she ran away from her dad. she spent the following 9 years homeless and mute, beating herself up over what she's done. eventually, she became one of the oracle's agents and saved oracle's father's life, which earned her oracle's approval and she became her ward before bruce adopted her. with batman's approval, she was given the batgirl costume. out of rage, her father tried to sabotage her life by showing batman footage of her killing a man. however, cass proved her devotion to protect people when she took multiple bullets to protect a hired assassin. months later, a telepath "rewired" her brain to think with words and understand english (although speaking properly took longer, and she still could not read or write) at the cost of her ability to predict and read people. this left her unable to defend herself in a fight, as that part of her style relied completely on her ability to read moves, not the "strategies, patterns, and tricks" employed by batman and most other martial artists. fearing that she would meet a fate similar to former jason, bruce refused to let cass wear the batgirl costume and patrol the city until she could learn adequate defensive skills, which he estimated would take at least a year of work. she soon discovered that an assassin called lady shiva could read people like she used to be able to, and asked her to reteach her. lady shiva accepted, on the condition that in a year they would have a duel to the death. knowing that she would never kill again and would most assuredly lose, but preferring to be "perfect for a year" rather than "mediocre for a lifetime", cass accepted and lady shiva retaught her in a night. one year later, they fought - and cass died within minutes. lady shiva restarted her heart, having realized that cass wanted to die, and wishing for a fight cass would try to win. in the ensuing battle, cass realized that lady shiva also wanted to die, and won the fight, but refused to kill her. later issues reveal that lady shiva was actually cass's biological mother.