"Start a (R)evolution," DC/BoP TV-verse crossover
Title: Start a (R)evolution
Author: perletwo
Prompt: "DC Comics/Birds of Prey (TV): Cassandra Cain, somehow she's ended up in an alternate universe"
Characters: Batgirl, Oracle, Dinah Lance Redmond, Huntress, Det. Jesse Reese, Alfred Pennyworth
Rating: PG
Words: 2579
Warnings: None
Summary: New Gotham's got a new Bat in town.
Barbara Gordon took a printed form slip from the outstretched hand of a young Asian girl in jeans and a light green hoodie, standing silently at her desk. She glanced at the transfer form; 'Cassandra Cain" was printed fairly legibly, though the approval signature was a horrible chicken-scratch. Typical, she thought.
"All right, Cassandra, take any seat."
"Cass," the girl muttered before slinking to a desk in back without meeting any of the other students' curious stares.
"Cass, then. We're on page 329 of the Lockhart textbook." Barbara kept her eyes on the girl until she saw her pull the appropriate book from her slouch bag and open it. Then she wheeled herself around to the board, chalked up a few key terms, and faced the class again to resume the day's lesson. Cass never volunteered an answer, and Barbara considered calling on her, but decided to cut the kid some slack on her first day.
She called out last minute instructions to the teenagers as they rushed out at the sound of the bell. The last one out, Cass Cain stopped at her desk and held out a hand again.
Barbara looked down. "Apple for the teacher? Nice of you, but I -" She looked up again and found the girl had disappeared in the two seconds it had taken her to register the apple.
"Hunh." Barbara hadn't known anyone who could do that in quite a long time. And she wondered....
At the end of the day she wheeled herself and her day's paperwork to the office of New Gotham High, and passed them all in neatly organized stacks to the secretary. "Oh, and here's my record of transfer acceptance for that new girl, Cassandra Cain," she said casually, handing over the form.
The secretary took it and shuffled through another stack of paper. "Hmm. That's odd. I don't seem to have her records here."
"Really? Wexford signed the transfer slip. It all looked right enough to me. You think something's hinky there?"
The secretary shook her head. "Ahhh, nah. I'm sure it's just gotten misfiled. I mean, whoever heard of a teenager forging a note to get in to school?" They chuckled together, and Barbara's busy brain made notes to itself for follow-up.
************************************************************************************************************
"I'm telling you, Oracle, it's the damnedest thing I've ever seen." Awe and a little pleasure shaded Huntress' voice on the comm. "I was maybe 90 seconds away from the scene max when you contacted me. Nearest cops in my eyeshot probably twice that. And the entire gang of thugs was already taken down and wrapped up with a pretty bow in jumpcord by the time I got there."
Barbara frowned. She'd tapped into the liquor store's security cams, such as they were, and an external traffic cam. "All I'm seeing on vid here is a blurry shape," she complained. "On the way out, it sticks to the shadows. Like it knows what it's doing..."
"Barbara?" Dinah came into Oracle's workstation quietly, tugging the edges of her robe together.
"Just a sec, Di." She gave the girl barely a glance before a new voice came on the comm - Det. Reese's. "Wanna hear something really bizarre, Oracle? We're getting witness statements from the cashier and one or two of the gang punks that claim it was a giant bat that took 'em down. Swooped in from outta nowhere, they're saying."
"Swooped in from the opposite rooftop, looks more like, and broke through the plate glass window. Our 'bat' is definitely a person, Detective," Barbara said.
"Down from the opposite roof on a jump cord. Through the window," Dinah recited hollowly. "Kick to the throat disables the nearest, biggest one, at the same time fire a zipcord at the second. Jump, flip and kick to the kidneys disables the third before the zipcord's finished wrapping up the second. Fire a second jump cord and out."
"Dinah?" Barbara's full attention was on the girl now.
"I had the dreams again, Barbara. I saw it all," she said. "And my shadow? It did look like a bat."
It's not him, Oracle thought. It can't be him. But a tiny spark of hope flared in her chest.
*************************************************************************************************************
"You sure you're okay with this, Dinah? If the dreams are taking too much out of you -"
"No! No, it'll be a good distraction," Dinah said with a smile. She matched her pace to Barbara's wheelchair as they made their way through the school halls. "Cass Cain. Short, thin, Asian, short black hair. Right?"
Barbara nodded. "That's the one. No record of her I can find anywhere, or I wouldn't ask. Fair warning, the kid moves like the wind, though."
Just before the bell, Dinah slipped into Barbara's classroom and stationed herself at the door. When the bell rang and students flooded out, she kept her eyes peeled and shot out a hand to catch her target by the arm.
"Hey! Cass, right? New kid? I'm Dinah, I'm Ms. Gordon's ward, new here myself but not so new," she chattered, casually sliding her hand down Cass' sleeve. "She thought maybe I could show you - - "
Dinah broke off with a gasp as her hand reached Cass' bare forearm. Images shot rapid-fire through her brain; her eyes rolled back in her head and she dropped to the floor.
Barbara wheeled quickly toward the door. "Dinah?!" She looked from Dinah's prone form back up to a horrified Cass.
"I - I don't - " Cass stammered, then turned and fled.
**************************************************************************************************************
Wade helped Barbara get a woozy Dinah into her van, earning the handsome guidance counselor a kiss from his favorite teacher, and Alfred Pennyworth helped them into the Clocktower.
"I'm all right, guys, really," Dinah assured them. "It was just an awful lot of stuff hitting me all at once. I'll tell you everything, but I need a little time to process."
"I'll fetch us some tea, Miss Dinah," Alfred said. "There's nothing that can't be helped with a good cup of tea."
Helena, in her black leather Huntress gear, sidled over to Barbara. "Think this kid you sicced Dinah on is a wrong'un?" she asked under her breath.
"My gut says no. But she ran, so what does my gut know?" Oracle hissed back.
Hel shrugged. "I'll go with your gut any day, Babs." She raised her voice to normal levels. "If you're sure you got it all under control, I'm hitting the rooftops. Maybe I can corral us a Bat-shadow."
"Helena -" Dinah started, but Huntress had already leapt from the balcony.
***********************************************************************************************************
Barbara wheeled herself up to the coffee table, facing the sofa where Alfred fussed over Dinah's tea. "I'm sorry, Di. I never should've asked you."
"Probably not, but not for the reason you mean," Dinah agreed. "I got more than I bargained for. I feel like a Peeping Tom, Barbara - I got this Cass girl's whole life in just a few seconds' contact."
"First things first - is this kid a good kid or a bad kid?" She brushed a strand of Dinah's blonde hair off her face.
"Good kid. Really good. Barb -" Helena's voice broke in through the speakers on Oracle's work console. "Reese's spotted 'em, he's in pursuit!" Dinah gasped.
All business now, Oracle wheeled back to the desk and opened a channel. "Huntress? You got eyes on this?"
"I do now," came the answer. "Flattop Building roof, corner of Kane and Adams. It's a girl," she said, voice dropping, "a Bat-girl."
Barbara gasped, and zoomed in on the video feed. Skintight black leather, full face mask with pointed ears. Familiar dark cape. And on the girl's chest -
"Damn, she's tiny," Reese said. "That little thing whupped the asses of a dozen gangbangers three nights ago, really?"
Dinah came up behind Barbara, teacup still in hand. "They wouldn't be seeing her if she didn't want them to. Not unless she let them," she murmured.
"Haven't you learned yet appearances can deceive, Reese?" Huntress mocked. "Pincer maneuver, yeah?"
"Proceed with caution, guys. We don't know what we're dealing with here, she could be meta or -"
Huntress blew a raspberry. "Stick-in-the-mud," she taunted, and leapt. The two women wrestled, traded blows.
Dinah shook her head. "Pulling her punches," she murmured, and Barbara turned to look at her curiously. By the time she looked back, Huntress had knocked her black-clad opponent unconscious. Dinah reached out to touch the image on the video screen.
************************************************************************************************************
Ten minutes later, Huntress brought the Bat-girl, tied with her own jump cord, in through the balcony. Reese followed up the elevator; Barbara used her console controls to isolate him in an anteroom with a two-way audio feed. "Sorry, Reese. It's for your protection as much as ours," she explained, and saw him shrug through the electronic eye in the ceiling.
"I've got a pain-wall stasis field cell ready," Oracle said, but Dinah held up a hand.
"That won't be necessary. I promise. Huntress, if I'm wrong you can take her back down. Right? Please. Trust me on this?"
The Bat-girl stirred and moaned lightly. Dinah stood next to her. "Can I..." She reached out a hand to the girl's jaw, and got a nod in response. Dinah pulled the cowl back to reveal Cass Cain.
"This is what I saw today, Oracle," she explained. "Cass is Batgirl." Cass' eyes fixed intently on Oracle.
"I was Batgirl," she said, voice tight.
"Yes. My teacher." Cass' voice held the rusty edge of disuse.
"Did he send you?" Cass shook her head, and Alfred stepped up. "I can verify that."
Helena took a step closer to them. "You know where he is. Don't you." Alfred stared back impassively.
Dinah shrank slightly at this conflict, stepped closer to Cass, and whispered, "Sorry. I'm still not used to these powers. But I wouldn't do, umm, you know?" At Cass' nod, Dinah turned back to her teammates.
"The first thing you've got to know, Cass isn't from here. She's from another Gotham City, another Earth - another dimension, I guess. It's like our Gotham, but not." Cass nodded again. "Two weeks ago she was chasing a minor league bad guy called, umm, the Getaway Genius? He did something, there was a flash of light, and Cass found herself in New Gotham."
Barbara shook her head. "Two weeks. If I'm your teacher, why didn't you come to me straight away?"
"Gotham. But not my Gotham. No Batman." Cass waved a hand around, then turned to Helena. "Huntress. But not my Huntress. Weapons, skills, no powers. Dinah, but not my Dinah. Older. Fighter. Canary." She pointed. "Alfred. But not my Alfred. Almost. But not."
"So you wanted to scope things out, in case I was different." Barbara nodded. "And am I?"
Cass' head tilted quizzically. "No. Same. Different home, different partners. Same Oracle."
Barbara opened her mouth to speak, closed it again, reconsidered. Reese's voice came over the speakers.
"Hadda be confusing. Why start busting heads right away?"
Cass looked up. "Gotham needs a Bat."
Helena rolled her eyes. "We got it covered, little girl."
Cass' jawline tightened and lifted, and she took a step closer to Huntress. "Gotham needs a Bat," she repeated. "They're not afraid anymore."
"That's - usually considered a good thing," Reese said, and Cass shook her head.
"He made them afraid," she said. "Not of him. Of the Bat. The Bat isn't a man. It's a symbol. It's a shape. It's the thing in the shadows that sees. Everything. You. Do. So." She lifted a hand. "Fear. If you do bad." Behind her, Alfred was nodding agreement.
Helena's lip curled. "English is not your first language, is it, little girl?"
Cass looked to Dinah, nodded, and Dinah stepped forward. "Imagine being born, raised from a baby, with no exposure to language," she began. "Just training, just fighting, just - violence. Everything a weapon, everywhere a battlefield. And it's natural to you, like the best game ever. That was Cass' world until she was eight." Cass nodded, and she continued. "Until her father sent her out to assassinate a target. She thought he'd get up, fight her some more - play some more, like everyone else always had. When he didn't -" Dinah ran a hand over her brow. "Confusion. Horror. Shame. Guilt. Knowledge. She ran. Ran for years, and thought about what she'd done, what she could do, and why she should and shouldn't. She made herself a warrior with a code - a Knight. When she got to Gotham and Batman found her, the Dark Knight filled in the missing pieces of that code."
Babs was expressionless. Alfred, horrified; Huntress, merely curious. "How come she can talk now?"
"She ran into a telepath who - he stuck his psychic fingers in her brain and rewired it," Dinah explained. "It just knocked Cass' whole foundation out from under her. She still doesn't like to talk, but she can."
Barbara wheeled herself back to the console, ran a records search. "Okay. I've got it, video of the phenomenon that brought you here. I can start analyzing it, and we can find a way to get you back -"
"NO." Cass' chin jutted up again. "Staying. You need a Bat."
"I agree," Alfred said, and Helena's head whipped around to glare at him. "No, Huntress. I do not know where he is. I have been contacted by him at intervals since he left. He is not coming back anytime soon. Batgirl is quite correct about his philosophy of the Bat as a symbol. Without it I fear you are but stemming leaks in an overstressed dam."
"Why isn't he coming back, Alfred?" An edge of pain limned Barbara's voice.
"Because he is hunting the Joker. And a larger conspiracy of master criminals he believes backed Joker's organization in Old Gotham." Barbara's breath emerged in a hiss, and Helena's eyes narrowed. "Understand. Huntress, you are a creature of impulse. Oracle, you are a creature of reason. The Batman, he is a creature of obsession. He created the persona first in a craving for vengeance, which evolved into a need for justice, which in turn evolved into a drive to protect this city from those who preyed upon it." Alfred looked from one woman to the other. "The information he has given me, and searches he has asked me to run, lead me to believe his theory that Joker had backers is credible. Moreover, I believe in pursuing this line the Batman is evolving once again - into something larger than just the Dark Knight of Gotham. Something global. So no. I do not believe he is coming back."
Cass stepped forward. "You need a Bat. You need me."
"Your secret identity is already blown," Oracle pointed out. "We trust Reese as much as we can. But once your name is out, it's out."
"Doesn't matter. Cass doesn't matter. Batgirl matters," Cass replied, and Dinah stepped up beside her.
"Guys? I know you're still not sure about me. But if you've ever trusted me, or my powers, even a little, any at all? Trust me on this now. Batgirl is one of us."
Oracle and Huntress looked at each other for a long moment.
"Guess we got ourselves a new Bird?" Hel said with a shrug.
"Welcome aboard," Barbara said, and held out a hand. Cass pulled her mask back on, then dropped her hand into Oracle's.
She was home.
#############################################
Author: perletwo
Prompt: "DC Comics/Birds of Prey (TV): Cassandra Cain, somehow she's ended up in an alternate universe"
Characters: Batgirl, Oracle, Dinah Lance Redmond, Huntress, Det. Jesse Reese, Alfred Pennyworth
Rating: PG
Words: 2579
Warnings: None
Summary: New Gotham's got a new Bat in town.
Barbara Gordon took a printed form slip from the outstretched hand of a young Asian girl in jeans and a light green hoodie, standing silently at her desk. She glanced at the transfer form; 'Cassandra Cain" was printed fairly legibly, though the approval signature was a horrible chicken-scratch. Typical, she thought.
"All right, Cassandra, take any seat."
"Cass," the girl muttered before slinking to a desk in back without meeting any of the other students' curious stares.
"Cass, then. We're on page 329 of the Lockhart textbook." Barbara kept her eyes on the girl until she saw her pull the appropriate book from her slouch bag and open it. Then she wheeled herself around to the board, chalked up a few key terms, and faced the class again to resume the day's lesson. Cass never volunteered an answer, and Barbara considered calling on her, but decided to cut the kid some slack on her first day.
She called out last minute instructions to the teenagers as they rushed out at the sound of the bell. The last one out, Cass Cain stopped at her desk and held out a hand again.
Barbara looked down. "Apple for the teacher? Nice of you, but I -" She looked up again and found the girl had disappeared in the two seconds it had taken her to register the apple.
"Hunh." Barbara hadn't known anyone who could do that in quite a long time. And she wondered....
At the end of the day she wheeled herself and her day's paperwork to the office of New Gotham High, and passed them all in neatly organized stacks to the secretary. "Oh, and here's my record of transfer acceptance for that new girl, Cassandra Cain," she said casually, handing over the form.
The secretary took it and shuffled through another stack of paper. "Hmm. That's odd. I don't seem to have her records here."
"Really? Wexford signed the transfer slip. It all looked right enough to me. You think something's hinky there?"
The secretary shook her head. "Ahhh, nah. I'm sure it's just gotten misfiled. I mean, whoever heard of a teenager forging a note to get in to school?" They chuckled together, and Barbara's busy brain made notes to itself for follow-up.
************************************************************************************************************
"I'm telling you, Oracle, it's the damnedest thing I've ever seen." Awe and a little pleasure shaded Huntress' voice on the comm. "I was maybe 90 seconds away from the scene max when you contacted me. Nearest cops in my eyeshot probably twice that. And the entire gang of thugs was already taken down and wrapped up with a pretty bow in jumpcord by the time I got there."
Barbara frowned. She'd tapped into the liquor store's security cams, such as they were, and an external traffic cam. "All I'm seeing on vid here is a blurry shape," she complained. "On the way out, it sticks to the shadows. Like it knows what it's doing..."
"Barbara?" Dinah came into Oracle's workstation quietly, tugging the edges of her robe together.
"Just a sec, Di." She gave the girl barely a glance before a new voice came on the comm - Det. Reese's. "Wanna hear something really bizarre, Oracle? We're getting witness statements from the cashier and one or two of the gang punks that claim it was a giant bat that took 'em down. Swooped in from outta nowhere, they're saying."
"Swooped in from the opposite rooftop, looks more like, and broke through the plate glass window. Our 'bat' is definitely a person, Detective," Barbara said.
"Down from the opposite roof on a jump cord. Through the window," Dinah recited hollowly. "Kick to the throat disables the nearest, biggest one, at the same time fire a zipcord at the second. Jump, flip and kick to the kidneys disables the third before the zipcord's finished wrapping up the second. Fire a second jump cord and out."
"Dinah?" Barbara's full attention was on the girl now.
"I had the dreams again, Barbara. I saw it all," she said. "And my shadow? It did look like a bat."
It's not him, Oracle thought. It can't be him. But a tiny spark of hope flared in her chest.
*************************************************************************************************************
"You sure you're okay with this, Dinah? If the dreams are taking too much out of you -"
"No! No, it'll be a good distraction," Dinah said with a smile. She matched her pace to Barbara's wheelchair as they made their way through the school halls. "Cass Cain. Short, thin, Asian, short black hair. Right?"
Barbara nodded. "That's the one. No record of her I can find anywhere, or I wouldn't ask. Fair warning, the kid moves like the wind, though."
Just before the bell, Dinah slipped into Barbara's classroom and stationed herself at the door. When the bell rang and students flooded out, she kept her eyes peeled and shot out a hand to catch her target by the arm.
"Hey! Cass, right? New kid? I'm Dinah, I'm Ms. Gordon's ward, new here myself but not so new," she chattered, casually sliding her hand down Cass' sleeve. "She thought maybe I could show you - - "
Dinah broke off with a gasp as her hand reached Cass' bare forearm. Images shot rapid-fire through her brain; her eyes rolled back in her head and she dropped to the floor.
Barbara wheeled quickly toward the door. "Dinah?!" She looked from Dinah's prone form back up to a horrified Cass.
"I - I don't - " Cass stammered, then turned and fled.
**************************************************************************************************************
Wade helped Barbara get a woozy Dinah into her van, earning the handsome guidance counselor a kiss from his favorite teacher, and Alfred Pennyworth helped them into the Clocktower.
"I'm all right, guys, really," Dinah assured them. "It was just an awful lot of stuff hitting me all at once. I'll tell you everything, but I need a little time to process."
"I'll fetch us some tea, Miss Dinah," Alfred said. "There's nothing that can't be helped with a good cup of tea."
Helena, in her black leather Huntress gear, sidled over to Barbara. "Think this kid you sicced Dinah on is a wrong'un?" she asked under her breath.
"My gut says no. But she ran, so what does my gut know?" Oracle hissed back.
Hel shrugged. "I'll go with your gut any day, Babs." She raised her voice to normal levels. "If you're sure you got it all under control, I'm hitting the rooftops. Maybe I can corral us a Bat-shadow."
"Helena -" Dinah started, but Huntress had already leapt from the balcony.
***********************************************************************************************************
Barbara wheeled herself up to the coffee table, facing the sofa where Alfred fussed over Dinah's tea. "I'm sorry, Di. I never should've asked you."
"Probably not, but not for the reason you mean," Dinah agreed. "I got more than I bargained for. I feel like a Peeping Tom, Barbara - I got this Cass girl's whole life in just a few seconds' contact."
"First things first - is this kid a good kid or a bad kid?" She brushed a strand of Dinah's blonde hair off her face.
"Good kid. Really good. Barb -" Helena's voice broke in through the speakers on Oracle's work console. "Reese's spotted 'em, he's in pursuit!" Dinah gasped.
All business now, Oracle wheeled back to the desk and opened a channel. "Huntress? You got eyes on this?"
"I do now," came the answer. "Flattop Building roof, corner of Kane and Adams. It's a girl," she said, voice dropping, "a Bat-girl."
Barbara gasped, and zoomed in on the video feed. Skintight black leather, full face mask with pointed ears. Familiar dark cape. And on the girl's chest -
"Damn, she's tiny," Reese said. "That little thing whupped the asses of a dozen gangbangers three nights ago, really?"
Dinah came up behind Barbara, teacup still in hand. "They wouldn't be seeing her if she didn't want them to. Not unless she let them," she murmured.
"Haven't you learned yet appearances can deceive, Reese?" Huntress mocked. "Pincer maneuver, yeah?"
"Proceed with caution, guys. We don't know what we're dealing with here, she could be meta or -"
Huntress blew a raspberry. "Stick-in-the-mud," she taunted, and leapt. The two women wrestled, traded blows.
Dinah shook her head. "Pulling her punches," she murmured, and Barbara turned to look at her curiously. By the time she looked back, Huntress had knocked her black-clad opponent unconscious. Dinah reached out to touch the image on the video screen.
************************************************************************************************************
Ten minutes later, Huntress brought the Bat-girl, tied with her own jump cord, in through the balcony. Reese followed up the elevator; Barbara used her console controls to isolate him in an anteroom with a two-way audio feed. "Sorry, Reese. It's for your protection as much as ours," she explained, and saw him shrug through the electronic eye in the ceiling.
"I've got a pain-wall stasis field cell ready," Oracle said, but Dinah held up a hand.
"That won't be necessary. I promise. Huntress, if I'm wrong you can take her back down. Right? Please. Trust me on this?"
The Bat-girl stirred and moaned lightly. Dinah stood next to her. "Can I..." She reached out a hand to the girl's jaw, and got a nod in response. Dinah pulled the cowl back to reveal Cass Cain.
"This is what I saw today, Oracle," she explained. "Cass is Batgirl." Cass' eyes fixed intently on Oracle.
"I was Batgirl," she said, voice tight.
"Yes. My teacher." Cass' voice held the rusty edge of disuse.
"Did he send you?" Cass shook her head, and Alfred stepped up. "I can verify that."
Helena took a step closer to them. "You know where he is. Don't you." Alfred stared back impassively.
Dinah shrank slightly at this conflict, stepped closer to Cass, and whispered, "Sorry. I'm still not used to these powers. But I wouldn't do, umm, you know?" At Cass' nod, Dinah turned back to her teammates.
"The first thing you've got to know, Cass isn't from here. She's from another Gotham City, another Earth - another dimension, I guess. It's like our Gotham, but not." Cass nodded again. "Two weeks ago she was chasing a minor league bad guy called, umm, the Getaway Genius? He did something, there was a flash of light, and Cass found herself in New Gotham."
Barbara shook her head. "Two weeks. If I'm your teacher, why didn't you come to me straight away?"
"Gotham. But not my Gotham. No Batman." Cass waved a hand around, then turned to Helena. "Huntress. But not my Huntress. Weapons, skills, no powers. Dinah, but not my Dinah. Older. Fighter. Canary." She pointed. "Alfred. But not my Alfred. Almost. But not."
"So you wanted to scope things out, in case I was different." Barbara nodded. "And am I?"
Cass' head tilted quizzically. "No. Same. Different home, different partners. Same Oracle."
Barbara opened her mouth to speak, closed it again, reconsidered. Reese's voice came over the speakers.
"Hadda be confusing. Why start busting heads right away?"
Cass looked up. "Gotham needs a Bat."
Helena rolled her eyes. "We got it covered, little girl."
Cass' jawline tightened and lifted, and she took a step closer to Huntress. "Gotham needs a Bat," she repeated. "They're not afraid anymore."
"That's - usually considered a good thing," Reese said, and Cass shook her head.
"He made them afraid," she said. "Not of him. Of the Bat. The Bat isn't a man. It's a symbol. It's a shape. It's the thing in the shadows that sees. Everything. You. Do. So." She lifted a hand. "Fear. If you do bad." Behind her, Alfred was nodding agreement.
Helena's lip curled. "English is not your first language, is it, little girl?"
Cass looked to Dinah, nodded, and Dinah stepped forward. "Imagine being born, raised from a baby, with no exposure to language," she began. "Just training, just fighting, just - violence. Everything a weapon, everywhere a battlefield. And it's natural to you, like the best game ever. That was Cass' world until she was eight." Cass nodded, and she continued. "Until her father sent her out to assassinate a target. She thought he'd get up, fight her some more - play some more, like everyone else always had. When he didn't -" Dinah ran a hand over her brow. "Confusion. Horror. Shame. Guilt. Knowledge. She ran. Ran for years, and thought about what she'd done, what she could do, and why she should and shouldn't. She made herself a warrior with a code - a Knight. When she got to Gotham and Batman found her, the Dark Knight filled in the missing pieces of that code."
Babs was expressionless. Alfred, horrified; Huntress, merely curious. "How come she can talk now?"
"She ran into a telepath who - he stuck his psychic fingers in her brain and rewired it," Dinah explained. "It just knocked Cass' whole foundation out from under her. She still doesn't like to talk, but she can."
Barbara wheeled herself back to the console, ran a records search. "Okay. I've got it, video of the phenomenon that brought you here. I can start analyzing it, and we can find a way to get you back -"
"NO." Cass' chin jutted up again. "Staying. You need a Bat."
"I agree," Alfred said, and Helena's head whipped around to glare at him. "No, Huntress. I do not know where he is. I have been contacted by him at intervals since he left. He is not coming back anytime soon. Batgirl is quite correct about his philosophy of the Bat as a symbol. Without it I fear you are but stemming leaks in an overstressed dam."
"Why isn't he coming back, Alfred?" An edge of pain limned Barbara's voice.
"Because he is hunting the Joker. And a larger conspiracy of master criminals he believes backed Joker's organization in Old Gotham." Barbara's breath emerged in a hiss, and Helena's eyes narrowed. "Understand. Huntress, you are a creature of impulse. Oracle, you are a creature of reason. The Batman, he is a creature of obsession. He created the persona first in a craving for vengeance, which evolved into a need for justice, which in turn evolved into a drive to protect this city from those who preyed upon it." Alfred looked from one woman to the other. "The information he has given me, and searches he has asked me to run, lead me to believe his theory that Joker had backers is credible. Moreover, I believe in pursuing this line the Batman is evolving once again - into something larger than just the Dark Knight of Gotham. Something global. So no. I do not believe he is coming back."
Cass stepped forward. "You need a Bat. You need me."
"Your secret identity is already blown," Oracle pointed out. "We trust Reese as much as we can. But once your name is out, it's out."
"Doesn't matter. Cass doesn't matter. Batgirl matters," Cass replied, and Dinah stepped up beside her.
"Guys? I know you're still not sure about me. But if you've ever trusted me, or my powers, even a little, any at all? Trust me on this now. Batgirl is one of us."
Oracle and Huntress looked at each other for a long moment.
"Guess we got ourselves a new Bird?" Hel said with a shrug.
"Welcome aboard," Barbara said, and held out a hand. Cass pulled her mask back on, then dropped her hand into Oracle's.
She was home.
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