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Cassandra Cain
Be the shadow
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The daughter of David Cain and Sandra Wu-San (Lady Shiva), Cassandra Cain was conceived and trained from birth with the intention of creating the perfect bodyguard for Ra's al Ghul. After many unsuccessful attempts to train children from birth in martial arts to make them inculcate it like a native language (the most successful being the Mad Dog), David Cain, then a member of Ra's League of Assassins, decided the right genes were necessary to create this "Who Is All". With Ra's go ahead, Cain searched for the perfect mother for this child, finding her in the Wu-San sisters of Detroit, who practiced martial arts with each other nearly every moment of their childhood in a type of sister's language. Cain sympathized with the younger sister, Sandra, when he noticed that she held back out of love for Carolyn. To "help" Sandra reach her full potential, Cain murdered Carolyn, then lured Sandra into an ambush by the League of Assassins, where he defeated her. Cain spared Sandra from death on the condition that she bear his child, and leave her for him to raise. Awed by the potential heights she could reach in her physical talents now that Carolyn was gone, Sandra agreed to Cain's bargain in order that she might go on to become the unstoppable force of nature known as Lady Shiva: creator and destroyer. Shiva's hope for her child was that she might one day grow to be the force that could stop her reign of destruction.
Trained by her father to be the ultimate weapon, Cassandra was not taught to speak. Instead, he relied mostly on actions to communicate with her. Also, he cut her off from the outside world, only exposing her to anything or anyone other than him when absolutely necessary. As a result, the parts of her brain normally used for speech and language processing were trained so she could read other people's movements and body language to recognize their thoughts without verbal communication and predict, with uncanny accuracy, their next move in a fight. This also caused her brain to develop learning functions different from most, a form of dyslexia that hampers her ability to talk, read, and write.
When she was 8 years old, Cain decided his experiment had progressed far enough for him to test Cassandra's abilities in the real world and took her to a hit; the target being Faizul, a 'bookman' in Macau. At the time Cassandra had no idea what she was doing and believed it was only a game (an interpretation in keeping with her own reaction to what happened and matching the interpretation of Alfred Pennyworth, an expert on children who saw a tape of events). After striking a deathblow, she "read" the target as he died, and saw death as he saw it.
In addition to scarring her emotionally, she realized murder, like her father's profession, was wrong, and she ran away.
Cassandra spent the next nine years homeless, guilt- and fear-ridden as she traveled the world. Entering Gotham City at 17, Cassandra came to be of Oracle's agents in the No Man's Land of Gotham City. After saving Commissioner Gordon's life from her assassin father, she was given the Batgirl costume with the approval of both Batman and Oracle. She became Barbara's ward and in a sense, the Batman's adoptive daughter. As the No Man's Land wore on, the new Batgirl was introduced to the rest of the Bat-Family with varying levels of acceptance. Usually acting as the Batman's watchful eye, she was finally allowed to go on a solo mission when a petrol station needed guarding against a local gang. Near the end of No Man's Land, Batman noticed her death wish and forced her to make a decision between suicidal actions and self-preservation. She opted for self-preservation.
Despite her notable handicap of being unable to talk, read, or write, Cassandra did remarkably well. Capable of understanding others' intentions due to her ability to read body language she was a more than a capable listener, despite the fact she couldn't process their words or reply to them. It was this trait that made her one of the Batman's most loyal and trusted followers and helped her to survive when the Bat-clan became hunted by the Bloodhawks. Although the fact that she couldn't talk frustrated Barbara Gordon, she proved herself useful in other ways during a team with the spectral vigilante Ghost in tracking disappearing corpses. The running successes and final understanding of her mission as Batgirl allowed Batman to give her the privilege of running solo in Gotham City on the condition that she faced no 'costumed criminals' (Joker, Bane, Two-Face, Penguin, etc)
From going undercover in Madras with Batman to saving local heroes from the mob, Cassandra continued to impress as the new Batgirl. Especially when, despite Batman's warnings, she went face to face with a meta-human and won. She even managed to, despite her restriction to Gotham City, make it on the reserve member list of Young Justice.
But Cassandra's career was not the only thing that was growing. In the background a rift between Oracle and Batman was slowly emerging, as was the growing image of Batman as a father figure in Cassandra's eyes but the major development was David Cain's intentions to get his daughter back.
Batman learned about Cassandra's past when Cain sent a tape depicting Faizul's death to the Batcave. Nevertheless, Batman continued to accept Cassandra. Things became more strained when a run-away psychic altered Cassandra's mind so that she could understand words. As a side effect, she lost her ability to read body language and thus, her ability to fight properly. After she almost died while trying to protect the psychic from assassins, Batman took away her costume and began retraining her. The training remained ineffective, however, in part due to Cassandra dwelling on her lost ability instead of focusing on learning all over again, and Cassandra wanted to roam the streets, with or without the costume.
It was during of these 'unauthorized' vigilante outings that she encountered her mother. After Shiva attempted to kill a wealthy young girl, Cassandra intervened but was swiftly knocked out. After waking up, she immediately tracked Shiva down, despite having a dead arm, to find out why she spared. Shiva explained that she came to Gotham to lure her out and fight her, and left when she felt Cassandra was no longer a challenge.When she explained why her skills were lacking, Shiva recognized her Cassandra's missing skills and offered to train in a way that will allow her to possess them again. In exchange, they would fight to the death in a year. Knowing she had no chance of winning, but wanting her skills back, Cassandra accepted.
Cassandra began training immediately; going after every talented fighter she came across in order to gain more skills. After hearing how notorious the Joker was with the Bat-clan, she freed him in order to apprehend him again in order to gauge just how good he was. Batman and Oracle deduced that Cassandra had not given up her death wish and that it was due to guilt over her murdering Faizul. They began looking into what had brought the death wish back. Her reckless training was interrupted when an officer down was called over the frequencies. Batman's longtime ally and friend, Commissioner Gordon had been shot in cold blood.
It was during yet another training session in the Batcave that Cassandra first met her future friend Stephanie Brown (The Spoiler).
It wasn't long until Batman gave her a cave of her own to operate from. Her training continued as she found even more powerful opponents like Bizarro, Supergirl and Shadow Thief during the Joker's Last Laugh, as well as numerous villains during the aftermath of Our Worlds at War. These activities had not gone unnoticed by Batman and Oracle. Knowing about Cassandra's match with Shiva but impressed by her progress, Batman allowed Cassandra to continue -- despite Oracle's protests. When the fateful night arrived that Cassandra had to face Shiva on the rooftops of Gotham City Barbara Gordon tried to talk her out of it. In response, she used a nerve strike to paralyze her, apologized and left to face her fate. Despite her best efforts, Shiva won the battle fairly easily, killing Cassandra with a shot to a nerve cluster near the heart. After the battle, within a temple devoted to her, Shiva brought Cassandra back to life. Shiva's price: A rematch. This time, with her death wish satisfied, Cassandra won and became the first to defeat Lady Shiva in martial combat. However, she spared Shiva's life, who vowed to return to kill Cassandra.
Unfortunately, the victory would be short-lived. Bruce Wayne was in jail on suspicion of murder. Cassandra arrived back at the cave in time to see Batman leave. Cassandra's resulting investigation revealed that Batman and Bruce Wayne were, in fact, the same person. Later she, along with Spoiler and Nightwing, discovered critical clues that pointed to Bruce Wayne's innocence and, eventually, incriminating evidence to the real culprit: David Cain. Her father safely behind bars and no battle-to-the-death with Shiva to train for, Cassandra focused on her crime-fighting career.
Batgirl makes a mistake due to stress, and Oracle insists that they vacation on a cruise liner. Superboy happened to attend the same cruise, and together they stop a terrorist named Black Wind. Superboy gives Batgirl his number, and Batgirl kisses him. Batgirl goes on date with Superboy in Smallville, but they end up deciding to just be friends. Batgirl and Batman work together when Doctor Death tries to auction his chemical weapons in Gotham. They pursue him to Tarakstan, where they're forced to ally with Black Wind. Doctor Death is shot, and Black Wind sacrifices his life to contain the chemical weapons released. Before leaving the country, Cassandra, imitating a local custom, professes her feelings for him and vows to keep it a secret.
Barbara Gordon lends her old costume to Cassandra, who briefly uses it on patrol, but decides she prefers her own costume. Later, Batgirl investigates a new drug called Soul. This leads her to the Lost Girls street gang, whom Cassandra fights, unaware that the leaders are all metahumans. Midway through the fight, she accidentally swallows a Soul pill. Because Soul's effects are determined by whether a person has a good or evil heart, she briefly hallucinates as her inner good and evil wrestle for control. When her evil side wins out, defeats the Girls under the Soul's influence. Later, Batgirl hunts and stops a serial killer named Doll Man. When she tries to stop a white slavery ring, but Batman shows up, angry because she ruined his sting operation. Batman tells Cassandra that she has been making too many mistakes recently, and forces her to suspend her activities as Batgirl. When Barbara tries to console her, Cassandra steals her Batgirl costume and takes to the streets. Investigating Soul again, she leads her to the scientist supplying the Lost Girls, who is revealed to be Doctor Death. Doctor Death doses Batgirl and Batman with concentrated Soul, and they fight to the death. When the effects wear off, Batgirl has a tender moment with Batman, and she explains that her father never let her display affection. Batman asks who she is loyal to, and Batgirl responds that she is loyal not to him but to their symbol. Robin takes Doctor Death into custody. Cassandra begins enjoying her new freedom, and Oracle takes her to a public garden. This garden is revealed to be a plot by Poison Ivy to recreate the Garden of Eden. Batgirl burns down Ivy's Tree of Knowledge, from which the entire garden grew from, stopping her.
Stephanie Brown became the new Robin when Tim Drake quit, and Batgirl teamed with her to take down the Penguin. Batman had Batgirl stage a public fight with Onyx in the Iceberg Lounge to improve Onyx's street credibility. Batgirl was later sent to protect Tim Drake when Scarab is looking to kill Robin. Later, Batgirl stopped a robot called Project Mars who was trying to destroy the public library. This revealed that her illiteracy was still a problem when she had trouble determining its self-destruct code. When Stephanie Brown was fired as Robin and told to give up crime-fighting, she approached Batgirl to thank her for their friendship.
Gotham became a war zone when the leaders of several crime syndicates were killed, leaving a massive vacuum. Batgirl was sent to deal with the Lucky Hand Triad in Chinatown when Kwan Lin was killed and later she helped Onyx and Orpheus put out a battle between the Hill Gang and the Latino Unified. Batgirl then pursued Alexandra Kosov of the Odessa Mob into an explosive firefight, but lost her. Tarantula fought Batgirl and rejected her offer to bring the Latino Unified under the protection of Orpheus. Batgirl confronted Spoiler and told her to get off the streets, but Spoiler did not listen. Soon after, Batgirl joined Batman and Nightwing to stop a shootout at Louis Grieve High School. This incident was the first time Batman was caught on film, which also revealed Batgirl's existence to the public.
Batman told Batgirl and the Bat-Family to push on when Commissioner Akins declared a curfew, and later he revealed to them that he has discovered that the gang war is one of his own contingency plans. Batgirl protected Leslie Thompkins against an attack by Lynx and the Ghost Dragons. Accidentally, Lynx was deadly injured by her own henchmen aiming at Batgirl.
Batgirl was placed on the perimeter at Robinson Park when Black Mask started a riot while posing as Orpheus. They're forced to fight every criminal in the city until the riot dispersed. Batman sent Batgirl to deal with Killer Croc and Suicide King and before leaving, she told Batman that Spoiler was responsible for the war games, but Batman already knew. Batgirl rescued Onyx, who was being tortured by Croc's henchmen. The final confrontation with Black Mask was at Gotham Clock Tower, where police were told to shoot vigilantes on sight. Batgirl helped put away Scarebeast and then escaped the law.
Following War Games, the Gotham City Police Department declared all costumed heroes illegal. Because of this and Nightwing being injured during the War Games, Batman suggested that he and Batgirl move to Blüdhaven, as well as financially supporting them. There, she quickly made a name for herself by defeating the Society of Evil. Deathstroke later took on a contract from the Penguin to kill Batgirl and decided to let his daughter Rose Wilson (the current Ravager) do the job instead. Cassandra beat Rose by critically wounding her and giving Deathstroke no choice but to get her medical attention. It was during fathers' day that Cassandra became infatuated with knowing who her mother was. Interrogating all the contacts she had (including Batman and her father, David Cain) she eventually found her mother to be Lady Shiva.
personality
Let's start with primary motivator: Cassandra's primary motivator, much like Batman's, is Justice (capitalization intended) but with a caveat. Namely, just because someone is a murderer does not mean that they should be killed. Instead they should be captured, tried, made to face justice and imprisoned though the standard legal means; even if they cannot be captured or held by those self same standard legal means. So you know - the justice of the modern industrialized nation-state, as opposed to other, more brutal methods. Which is how non-lethal vigilante justice works, right? That doesn't mean that Cassandra is removed from the idea of using violence - far from it, actually. She's a well-trained, highly efficient fighter. People in Gotham don't exactly play around when it comes to caped crusaders, so being a pacifist in this situation would not be a good idea in light of her skills and the particular risk factors involved.
So we've got Justice. Justice for the people, mostly, in a law and order packaging but without the bureaucracy that comes with not being a vigilante in the setting of Gotham. With this sense of Justice comes a very strong moral code. Somethings are acceptable (like beating the everloving hell out of a perpetrator and incapacitating them until the police arrive) and some specific things are not (like killing them, harming civilians, etcetera). Cassandra has strong feelings about death, especially the deaths of children and civilians. She also has strong feelings about being a murderer (applied to her or anyone else in known existence). Cassandra's D&D alignment would be lawful good, as long as that law is understood to be the same one that Batman himself follows.
A secondary motivator for Cass would be Order, as in the act of reducing chaos, seeing as how most of the rogues and villains in the DC Universe are all about chaos (or order by their terms and theirs alone).
Cassandra's primary emotional disposition is one of curiosity. She wants to know, wants to solve problems and cases (primarily murder cases, in her life), and Cass tells Batman straight up that she wants to be a detective. Of course she means this in the same sense that Batman is called The Great Detective; Cassandra isn't interested in taking a detective's exam with Gotham's finest. She collects secrets and hordes them, handing out very little information in return. Even when she's being fairly forthright and honest with someone, she's going to edit, going to keep certain pieces of information out. It's just the way she is, and is connected to the way that she was raised to understand the world. She's also rather adaptable, and adjusts to new situations and new people easily. She keeps her own council in regards to fears, displeasures and concerns. She's not cryptic, not usually, nor is she evasive in general, but she's not talkative by any stretch.
Body language is it's own actual, legible language to Cass, and body language doesn't tend to do the droning equivalent to spoken small-talk. That and the fact that she didn't even possess the ability to speak until she was 18 means that she doesn't engage on that particular level. She asks direct questions and gives specific answers, but that isn't to say there isn't nuance present in her interactions with others. She's expressive with her face and small gestures when she allows herself to be - be it a smile curled up on one side of her mouth, or an eyeroll with raised eyebrows. The Batgirl costume covers her entire face and yet allows for some facial feature movement visibility and recognition, yet she only tends to use that feature when she's surprised.
Her outlook on the world is definitely more foreboding than optimistic. Granted, can you blame her? She's conscientious, very deliberate and controlled, yet also dauntless. Very little scares Cass, honestly; she's gone up against metahumans and super assassins and lived to tell the tale, after all. As far as agreeableness is concerned, Cass can be hard to read - but if she's bothering to hold a conversation with someone as opposed to simply not saying a word, she's interested.
What holds her back the most are two things: one is a dependence on using her body language reading to tell her the whole story, and the other is her dyslexia. The first becomes a hinderance when the body language isn't clear (much like any other language, a word/gesture can mean multiple things, depending on context - which the body language may not provide at all) or when someone is being purposefully obtuse in their body language and has been trained in how to mask it. The latter simply makes things more difficult, specifically reading and writing, though Cass will be taking measures to learn how to work around her learning disability until the opportunity to be done with it presents itself.
Cassandra was raised with the intention of being molded into the perfect bodyguard for Ra's Al Ghul by her father, David Cain. What this means, besides learning the body's movement as it's own language, is that Cassandra had no autonomy. No language or even the idea of a structure with which to express herself, her own desires, sate her curiosity...in other words, Cass lacked all the normal functions of childhood in which a child gets to learn who they are and how the world works. She showed curiosity and interest in dolls and pictures; David Cain handed her knives. There was no need for a spoken or written language in her father's opinion. She was a weapon in his eyes, and she was trained as one. After all, the perfect assassin could anticipate their opponent by understanding what they were going to do before they do it. While this means she's well-equipped to defend herself, Cassandra doesn't know much about the world as a result. She hasn't had a birthday party, or sleepovers, watched films or television, had a friend or a confidant before becoming a part of the Bat Family.
She's unfamiliar with holidays and common social norms, which ties into her curiosity. To better understand the world and fit into it, Cass has to be able to ask questions, to figure out why and how; the same applies to how she interacts with other people. She doesn't always understand what's expected of her when she interacts with someone new, and to that point Cass either keeps quiet (especially when in the Batgirl suit) or sticks to short words or phrases that get to her point directly. She is a bit blasé about her trauma, but in a way that shows she's come to some understanding of just how fucked up her life has been. The tools she needs to be able to do this are all connected to her ability to speak and interact with others through spoken and written language (the latter she has had more difficulty with). Cass believes in kindness, and that people can become more than the summation of their worst actions thus far - nearly everyone, in her opinion, has the potential to be a great person but more importantly, a good one.
With people she's familiar with Cass will ask questions or accept advice on how to better interact, better integrate with her peers, better live as her own person. She has a bit of a humorous streak in her, dry and maybe a little dark at times but nonetheless the girl enjoys a good laugh or smile.
Fun fact: her first word was "stop", to her father, when he was trying to assassinate Commissioner Gordon during the No Man's Land arc.
Back to her father, actually. Cass came to her strong moral code the difficult way - by overreaching it and then recoiling back, hard. When she was eight David Cain decided that she was ready for the final step in her training; namely her first assassination. Cass, prior to that point, had no real comprehension of suffering, no real understanding of death. Pain was something she flat out ignored, because she had no words for it, no real comprehension of what it meant to be in pain. She had been injured - her own father shot her from behind while she was playing with toys - but understanding pain and suffering in regards to herself eluded her. It's not like any of the assassins who trained her throughout her childhood (Cain was not the only one) were going to tell her she should understand pain. The point is, she was told to kill someone and she did it - ripped a man's throat out, actually - and in his last moments Cass realized just how much pain, suffering, and fear was tied into being brutally murdered. Since Cass is empathetic (as opposed to psychopathic like the other children who had been raised the same way she was) she was horrified by the pain and fear associated with having one's life taken by someone else. People matter to Cass, which means that their feelings matter too - and the pain and suffering of others is something to be avoided. Of course, learning that her own pain and suffering matters just as much as anyone else's, and that she is more than just a perfect weapon and a perfect fighter, is it's own difficult path she's still walking on.
abilities
Peak Human Condition: Through continuous intense training Cassandra represents the greatest fighting weapon ever conceived. She possesses peak level strength, stamina, speed and agility comparable to the finest human athlete.
Martial Arts: Due to her life long training Cassandra has a master level knowledge of all fighting arts known and unknown and continues to learn with every new opponent she faces. She was trained by her father (David Cain), along with several other members of the League of Assassins, including Bronze Tiger, Merlyn and Alpha. Upon taking the mantle of Batgirl, she was trained further by Batman, Oracle, Black Canary, and Lady Shiva. She received supplementary instruction from Onyx. She knows Dragon Style Kung Fu and the Falling Leaf Technique: a nerve pinch invented by Chinese monks in the 16th Century.
Body Reading Ability: Cassandra has the advanced ability to read body language enabling her to read what people are thinking and tell what they are going to do next before they do it. She has been shown able to read opponents far faster than herself, along with non humans lifeforms once she is given a chance to learn their body language. This enables her to identify disguised and transformed people as well. (Note: I will take care not to be god-moddy with this ability and leave her observations to things discussed/agreed upon with other players)
Investigation: She was also very briefly trained in detective methods by Tim Drake during their time in Blüdhaven.
Stealth: Due to her excessive training she is also a master of stealth.
