Cassandra Cain

* Black Bat
* Cassandra Cain

Dick Grayson, Jason Todd, Tim Drake, Hafid al Ghul, Damian Wayne (Adopted Brothers)
Aresia Prince, Athanasia al Ghul, Helena Wayne (Adopted Sisters)

### Affiliation

Titans (Member)
Bat Family (Member)
Birds of Prey (Member)
League of Shadows (Former Member)

## Biographical Information

### Residence

Wayne Manor
1007 Mountain Drive
Crest Hill, Gotham, NJ

### Education

Bachelor's Degree, Communications
(Gotham University)

League of Shadows Training
(Mentor: David Cain)

## Background

### 1994 - 1995: Background

After many unsuccessful attempts to train children from birth in martial arts to make it like a native language. David Cain decided the right genes were necessary to create this "Who Is All". With the approval of Ra's al Ghul, he began his search for the perfect mother for this child. He soon found the Wu-San sisters of Detroit, who practiced martial arts with each other in a type of sister's language. Cain sympathized with Sandra when he noticed that she held back out of love for her sister Carolyn.

To help her reach her full potential, Cain murdered Carolyn, then lured Sandra into an ambush by the League of Shadows. He swiftly defeated her but spared Sandra from death on the condition that she bear his child. In her confusion & sadness, Sandra agreed to in order that she might go on to become an unstoppable assassin.

### 1995 - 2008: Cassandra Cain

Cassandra Cain was then born to David Cain & Sandra Wu-San. From the moment of birth, she was trained with the intention of creating the perfect bodyguard for Ra's al Ghul. As a child, she not only learned from her father also from Bronze Tiger & Malcolm Merlyn, among many others.

Trained by her father to be the ultimate weapon, she was not taught to speak. Instead, he relied mostly on actions to communicate with Cassandra. He also 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 & language processing were trained so she could read other people's body language to recognize their thoughts without verbal communication & predict 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 & write. Training her in a variety of secluded locations, Cain recorded many of their sessions for Cassandra to watch later.

By the time Cassandra was 5, Cain began taking her along on his hits so she could be cultured to accept death and killing as normal. When she was eight, Cain decided his experiment had progressed far enough for him to test Cassandra's abilities & took her out for her first mission. For her first task as a shadow, he took her to a hit on a bookman named Faizul. At the time, Cassandra had no idea what she was doing & believed it was only a game. After striking the man, she "read" the target as he died & saw death as he saw it.

In addition to scarring her emotionally, she realized murder, like her father's profession, was wrong & she ran away. For the next six years, Cassandra was homeless, guilt & fearful all while being on the run from the shadows.She mentally beat herself over what she had done until she came to Gotham.

### 2008 - 2009: Batgirl

Entering Gotham at the age of fourteen, Cassandra somehow became be an agent for Oracle during No Man's Land. The city was in ruins due to the massive damage from the bombings placed by the League of Shadows. She becomes more involved with the Bat Family after learning that her father had planned to kill Commissioner Gordon. Before he could go through with it, she confronted him & beat him into submission. He soon escaped but her handiwork not only earned her gratitude from Oracle & Batman but the Batgirl mantle as well. Usually acting as the Batman's watchful eye, she was finally allowed to go on a solo mission against a local gang. During combat, Batman noticed her death wish & forced her to make a decision between suicidal actions & self-preservation. She opted for self-preservation. Shortly after, she made the Titans' new roster (without even asking) just on Batman's recommendation alone.

After the No Man's Land order was lifted by the United States government, Bruce took the steps to formally adopts Cassandra as his daughter. Over time, he & Barbara began to see that Cass had training & skill but had been abused in some way. Bruce then had Cassandra go under speech therapy while also seeing a therapist for her past trauma involving her father.

### 2009 - 2013: Batgirl

That summer, Cassandra went on a three month long search for her mother. She travelled from Rhelasia to Kahndaq to Markovia but found no evidence. Returning to Gotham, Batman set her to patrol with Red Robin. The two got along well with Tim swiftly becoming Cassandra's most trusted friend. She soon began accompanying him as he secretly met up with new crimefighter Spoiler to train her. Cassandra mostly watched but after spending every night watching them, she began teaching Spoiler herself & the two became fast friends. After six months of training, Spoiler was inducted into the Bat Family & took on the mantle of Batgirl during Batman & Nightwing's absence.

Despite her notable handicap, Cassandra quickly became remarkably crimefighter. 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 & trusted followers. From going undercover in Corto Maltese to saving local heroes from the mob, Cassandra continued to impress the team. But her career was not the only thing that was growing. In the background was the growing image of Batman as a father figure & the team as her family in Cassandra's eyes. In just a blink of an eye, Cassandra finally had what she needed.

It seemed as though Cassandra finally had what she needed in life: a family that loved her, a proper education & a healthy way to use her abilities. But it was not enough as she still continued to wonder about the identity of her mother. She went to discuss these issues with Batman, who confided that he may have a lead on her mother's identity. After doing some digging & uses the intel he had learned from his time in the Shadows, he believed her mother was none other than the infamous Lady Shiva. With his permission, he again allowed her to go on a mission to find her mother.

For weeks, she searched around the globe until she came across her mother in none other than the city of Gotham. Shiva had specifically taken an assignment to assassinate a wealthy businessman knowing Cassandra would hear of this & come to stop her. During this unusual meet up/reunion, Shiva commended her daughter's skills & offered to train her in everything she knew. The two came some fort of understanding as they even worked together a few times with Shiva also training her on the side. But when Shiva accepted another assignment for assassinating a diplomat, Cassandra intervened. What could have been a simple rescue mission turned to a fight to the death. She used a nerve strike to paralyze her but refused to kill her mother, instead leaving her with the worst fate that she was no longer unbeatable in combat.

This time when she retuned home to Gotham, she decided to pass on the Batgirl mantle to Stephanie & take on the new ops moniker of Black Bat.

## Powers & Abilities

* **Peak Human Condition**: Through continuous intense training, Cassandra represents the greatest fighting weapon ever conceived. She possesses peak level strength, stamina, speed & agility comparable to the finest human athlete.
	+ ***Acrobatics*:** Orphan is an incredibly elegant & skillful acrobat.
	+ ***Hand to Hand Combat/Martial Arts***: Cassandra is schooled in all known & many unknown assassin techniques such as pressure points, killing techniques & stealth to name a few. She continues to learn with every new opponent she faces. She was trained by her father along with several other members of the League of Assassins, including Bronze Tiger & Merlyn. She was trained further by Batman, Oracle, Black Canary, & Lady Shiva. She has also invented her own styles & techniques.
	+ ***Stealth*:** Due to her excessive training she is also a master of stealth. Orphan was able to perform a disappearing act on Batman, quite similar to the ones he performs on Commissioner Gordon.
* **Body Reading Ability**: Cassandra has the advanced ability to read body language enabling her to read what people are thinking & 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 & even alien lifeforms once she is given a chance to learn their body language. This enables her to identify disguised & transformed people as well.
* **Enhanced Smell**: She can detect cyanide, a very uncommon ability.
* **Escapology:** She is an expert at escapology, as she is able to uncuff herself without anyone realizing.
* **Investigation**: She was also trained in detective methods by Tim Drake.
* **Tactical Analysis:** Due to her upbringing Cassandra can pinpoint weak spots in every opponent she faces, this also allows her to read body language very well & predicts an opponents movements.
* **Thievery**: She is a trained pickpocket, capable of using distraction & sleight-of-hand to fool people as she relieves them of her valuables.
* **Weaponry**:Cassandra is an expert in many types of melee weaponry, including axes, maces & many more.
	+ ***Marksmanship*:** She was able to hit four targets with Batarangs while performing a flip.
	+ ***Swordsmanship*:** Cassandra is an elite swordsman, being trained since birth.
	+ ***Throwing*:** She is an expert marksman when it comes to throwing projectiles.

### Weaknesses

* **Illiteracy**: Cassandra used to have limited speech due to her upbringing, in which she was taught to read body language rather then being taught any spoken language. She has extreme dyslexia but was taught how to speak, read & write properly by Barbara Gordon.
* **Over-Reliance on** **Body Reading Ability**: Her ability to read body language can work against her when she can't properly discern the intent of the opponent's actions based on body language. Generally this can be happen when an opponent is very good at disguising their intent like Deathstroke, who can keep her distracted with subtle body language that could hint at many possible actions. She stated that when Slade moves, his body "sings like a chorus. Too fast with too many voices to pick up accurately". In another instance, it could be that an opponent isn't thinking or focusing on their movements as they make them like when Cassandra tried to stop a gunshot from KGBeast but couldn't because his cybernetics took over the aiming independently. The last way in which this weakness manifests is when Cassandra is facing an opponent who is mentally unstable or ill. When Cassandra fought the Joker, he had an edge at the beginning of the fight because she couldn't understand the his body language or as Batman put it, "she can read his body language, but his body language just comes out as gibberish."

### Ratings

* **Intelligence:** 4 - Trained / Learned
* **Strength:** 5 - High / Exceptional
* **Speed:** 5 - High / Exceptional
* **Occult:** 1 - Nonexistent
* **Weapons:** 6 - Expert / Advanced
* **Range:** 5 - High / Exceptional
* **Strategy:** 6 - Expert / Advanced
* **Combat:** 8 - Paragon / Proficient
* **TOTAL:** 180 - Threat Level 4 / Moderate Threat

## Trivia

#### General

* Cassandra was completely mute & dyslexic when joining the Bat Family but has improved a lot with the help of Tim & Barbara. Sometimes, Alfred would give her lessons.
* It was very common to see her & Alfred having lunches on Sundays at the Manor.
* Her first spoken word was "stop."
* Since her adoption by Bruce, she no longer goes by Cassandra Cain.
* She has scars across her back from bullet wounds made by her father during her childhood training.
* Cassandra's favorite flavor of ice cream is chocolate.
* She knows the Falling Leaf Technique, a nerve pinch invented by 16th century Chinese monks. Only she & her father know how to use it.

#### Relationships

* Her first kiss was Conner Kent. They went on a date in Smallville but decided to just be friends.
* Cass & Jason have an unspoken relationship. They don’t bother each other & don’t need to speak to understand one another.
* Her best friend is Stephanie Brown. The two met shortly after Cass came to Gotham & became fast friends. Both Cass & Tim were crucial in Stephanie joining the Bat Family & becoming a superhero.

## Notes

* Her ability to smell cyanide is a nod to *Detective Comics* #959.