Chapter 31: Thou Wouldst Make a Good Fool
SCHLESINGER STATION - NOW
Gotham City's new monorail system had a series of aboveground stations from which to pick up passengers. Being as tonight was the night for the unmanned tests, there were no passengers tonight.
What there was, however, was a media circus. The mayor, Alysia Yeoh, was there. She gave a speech. She posed for the cameras. All while an inspection crew gave the locomotive and the thirty-six cars behind it a once over.
It should be noted at this juncture that, after the events that were to follow on this chilly, foggy October evening, every last member of the inspection crew was fired.
The state-of-the-art electric engine of the locomotive roared to life. All thirty-six cars shuddered behind it. And the unmanned tests were on, and set to go all night.
Though "unmanned" is a bit of a misnomer.
As soon as the monorail was over the water of Gotham Bay, the floorboards in all thirty-six connected cars were removed by the Squires hiding beneath them. One per car…
...save for car one, which had two. A member of the Squires named Robert Dries (who had accidentally killed another Squire named Jeremy French during a fight a few days ago) had been hiding beneath the floorboards with a medically comatose Poison Ivy for hours now.
He brought her up from the depths of car one and, with assistance from the Squire who had hidden in car two, took her to the locomotive.
The equipment came next. The gas masks. Mini-keg after mini-keg of Venom compound, designed to give the whole city homicidal insanity.
Robert Dries didn't have the engineering or chemistry know-how to say how all of this worked. All he was supposed to do was put the hoses that connected to the machine that in turn connected to the mini-kegs of Venom compound into Poison Ivy's back. Then blow out the windows so the gas she produced could get to the city. And sedate her every twenty minutes. The Venom compound would flush out her system, taking the sedatives with it. A conscious Poison Ivy would be a cranky Poison Ivy, and no one wanted that.
Of course, he wouldn't need to worry about that for long. The Venom was so corrosive that, roughly two hours into the administration of the steroid to the Gotham City populace, Poison Ivy would go into cardiac arrest and die. Two hours would be enough, however, to drop this shithole town once and for all.
Oh, and set the bomb, of course. Word from the top was that Cassandra Wayne had surrendered both herself and Ra's al Ghul's granddaughter, but that didn't mean the rest of the superheroes in Gotham were lying down on this one.
The bomb was Shadow Density, and placed next to the controls of the locomotive. The yield was, in the words of the Squire who made it, "Motherfucker Unlimited."
Robert jammed the hoses that connected to the Venom machine into Poison Ivy's spine. Each hose ended in a two inch spike. But Poison Ivy was so out of it that she made no sound.
And then he just left her on the ground. The Venom compound would seep from her skin, through the open windows of the locomotive, and out into the city. Minutes after that, Gotham would be awash in its own blood.
Robert Dries shot out the windows, letting their wind in, and waited for the monorail to get to Founders Island.
That was his cue.
GOTHAM CENTRAL LOCK-UP - NOW
Time had gotten away from Stephanie. She'd been down here on the ground floor lock-up for hours. How many, she could not say.
She had taken to pacing in front of the bars, as opposed to pacing in front of the window in her hotel room at the Gotham Hilton.
Stephanie tried to assemble how this all went wrong, and she just wasn't getting there.
She had been arrested, cuffed, marched into the elevator and out the lobby at the mercy of incredulous stares from the hotel staff and her fellow guests.
Stephanie had been thrown into the back seat of an unmarked car. The only way that she knew that she'd been arrested and not kidnapped was that there was a radio up front, that the arresting officer occasionally answered.
After that…
The sound of a metal door opening and closing. Footsteps on the brown linoleum between the two rows of cells.
It was the guy who arrested her.
The cop was a handsome black man, built well enough to fill out that blue suit he was wearing.
He pulled at his black tie. The faint smile on his face only exaggerated how tired he looked.
The cop stood on the other side of the bars and scratched the back of his neck.
"You look like you have questions," he said.
Stephanie glared at him. "Yeah. Several. First being: 'What the fuck is going on here?'"
"Could you be more specific?" the cop asked.
"Okay," said Stephanie. "I was arrested, okay? That's where we start. I covered my tracks perfectly like I always do, so I shouldn't have gotten caught. Then I get here. I wasn't fingerprinted. I didn't get a mugshot. I still have my belt on, my laces are still in my shoes. I even have the nail clippers in my pocket. Not to mention the fact that I'm in my own wing of the lock-up in Gotham's Central Precinct on Founders Island. What, did everyone stop drinking? Did Gotham City's purse-snatchers just suddenly develop consciences? Eight cells in here, and I'm the only occupant. So I ask again, softly but with great emotion: What the fuck is going on here?"
That faint smile on the cop's face just got a whole lot bigger. "No one said you weren't smart, Stephanie."
Stephanie wasn't prepared for that. All she could do was blink.
"How do you know my name?"
"Because Cass told me," the cop said.
He reached his hand between the bars of her cell.
"I'm Duke Thomas," the cop said. "Also known as 'The Signal.'"
Stephanie blinked again, still shocked. But at least she shook the guy's hand.
Duke took his hand back and used it to rub his face.
"I," Duke said, "am so exhausted. While you and Cass and the rest of the Bats have been having their little soap opera, I've been out there, in costume and out, trying to keep the city safe by my damn self. You hear about that bank robbery on Exley?"
"No," Stephanie said.
"Exactly," Duke said.
He rubbed his face again, and looked at her with puffy eyes.
"Now," Duke said. "A lot of things are going to happen in a short amount of time. I've done my part, and now I get the sweetest reward I could possibly ask for. You know what that is?"
"What?" Stephanie asked.
"I get to go home and go to bed," Duke said. "If I'm not dead to the world for at least twelve hours, I will be surprised. I love my wife more than anything, but this is gonna have to be one of those times where she just has to cover for me with the kids."
Stephanie still just stared at him. But eventually the words came.
"You said you've done your part," she said. "What was your part?"
"Isn't it obvious?" Duke asked. "I brought you here. You're in the game. Not that you weren't before. Just on a whole other level now."
"Okay," Stephanie said. "So… can you let me out? Now that I'm… 'in the game ' and all?"
Duke sighed.
"I could do that," he said. "But Cass told me if I did that knowing you could get yourself out, you wouldn't forgive her or me. And I just met you, Stephanie. I can't handle the pressure of someone I just met never forgiving me."
Stephanie could not believe it. All that could come out of her mouth was:
"Ugh… Dude!"
Duke smiled again.
"Call it a show of faith," he said.
And out the door he walked.
THE BLEAKE ISLAND BASE - FOUR HOURS AGO
Harper Row was the last one to get there.
Seeing her, Bruce knew why.
Because she had arrived in her old Bluebird costume.
The first to see her were, naturally, Tim Drake and Violet Paige. Tim was at a holographic keyboard over on the far wall, trying to interface the greater network of the Batcomputer into the base on Bleake Island beneath the old auto plant. The secret base that the late Alfred Pennyworth knew about, but Bruce Wayne did not.
Tim's mouth hung open. Violet just laughed.
"I'm just happy it still fits," Bluebird said. "We're doing superhero shit tonight, right? I need my superhero gear."
She looked off into the corner, where Huntress and Black Canary were also staring at her.
"Remember when Babs offered me a spot on the Birds?" Bluebird asked. "Think it still stands?"
"I thought you were a politician," Black Canary said.
"It's not for me," Bluebird said. "Never was. If I'm alive after this, my letter of resignation's coming in the next few days."
"I thought you had a kid," said Huntress.
"Well," said Bluebird, "I better make her proud of me, then, huh?"
Huntress and Black Canary looked at each other.
"Okay," said Black Canary. "Babs made the offer, so that's an aye from her. It's an aye from me, too."
"And I'm in costume taking hits, so I get a vote, retirement or no," said Huntress. "I vote aye."
"So it doesn't matter how Charlie or Zinda votes because they're not here," Black Canary said, before looking at Bluebird. "Congratulations."
Bluebird smiled, and said "Tight!" before walking over to them.
Bruce noticed they were all in their little fiefdoms.
Violet and Tim were over at the far wall. The Birds of Prey were on the opposite wall. Selina was at a rack of gadgets waiting for him. Carrie was sitting cross-legged on the floor playing a game on her phone. Jason and Cullen were at the back, in the shadows, speaking quietly and animatedly, yet holding hands all the while.
That… certainly answered some questions his wife had. Good for them.
But he knew why they had sequestered themselves.
The Mole.
They didn't trust each other.
Bruce knew in his bones that there was no mole, but he had no evidence to convince them.
Looking over the room, however, told Bruce that there were people missing.
He walked over to Selina, and welcomed her with an embrace and a kiss.
"Have you heard from Cassandra? Aaliyah? Stephanie?"
Cullen seemed to have heard this.
"Last time I saw Cassandra, it was this morning," he said. "Took Aaliyah for a spin in the Batmobile after she talked to her creepy-ass parents.
"Well," Bruce said, "if Aaliyah's with Cassandra, she's in good hands."
Tim called out. "Bruce? We have a problem here."
"What is it?" Bruce asked.
"I'm trying to integrate this base's system with the power grid, but there's something blocking it."
"Do you know what it is?" Bruce asked.
The Alfred VI that was in Tim's equipment decided to speak up.
"Indeed we do, Master Bruce. It's a video file. From this stage of diagnostics, the only way to achieve successful integration would be to play it."
"Do it," said Bruce.
A square image hovered above Tim's holographic keyboard.
"Can we enlarge it?" Selina asked. "So everyone can see it?"
"Sure," Tim said. "Just give me a second."
The square image enlarged, taking up half of the wall.
It was an image of Cassandra, her chest obscured by a triangular Play symbol.
There was a brief lull of silence that was broken by Carrie Kelley.
"Holy shit!" she said.
Everyone looked at her.
"What is it?" Black Canary asked.
"You see that broom next to her shoulder?" Carrie asked.
Bruce did. The handle of said broom was green.
"Yeah," said Jason.
Carrie pointed to the other side of the room… where an identical green broom was located.
"She was in here," Carrie said. "And those bruises on her face are a hell of a lot more vivid than they were when I saw her last. She made this video a couple of days ago."
"Good detective work," Violet said. "Anyone ever tell you you have a future in this game?"
"Ugh," said Jason. "Don't encourage her."
Carrie looked at Jason with fury. "Eat ass, Jason!"
Cullen giggled at this. His reply was soft and to himself, but Bruce was able to hear it.
"Too late," Cullen said.
Bruce… did not need to know this.
"Bruce," Carrie said. "How did Cass know about this place a couple of days ago when you didn't even know about it until this morning?"
That… was a good question. He remembered the envelopes he found… and all of them were unsealed. When he replied to Carrie, he was only vaguely aware of the smile that was breaking out across his face.
"When I was Batman, and someone was hiding this from me, I would have known," he said. "And… It's the job I gave her."
He felt Selina take his hand.
"Shall I play the file?" the Alfred VI asked.
"Yes," said Bruce.
The triangular Play symbol disappeared. The holographic image of Cassandra Wayne took in a breath, and let it out.
"Hello," Cassandra said. "If everything has gone according to plan, there are eleven people in this base right now. Bruce, Selina, Babs, Dinah, Helena, Violet, Tim, Harper, Jason, Cullen, and Carrie."
Bruce could feel the mood in the room ice over.
Everything had not gone according to plan.
Because Cassandra had mentioned Barbara, and Barbara was at the Thomas Wayne Memorial Clinic, medically sedated and in between surgeries.
"Which means," Cassandra continued, "that Aaliyah, Stephanie, and myself are not there. And by the time I'm done, you'll understand why."
Cassandra folded her hands at her waist and took a deep breath.
"Someone told me recently that there are two words in this language that we share that open doors and bring smiles. They gladden hearts. They rip through lost causes and turn them into fighting chances. And those words are… 'I'm sorry.'"
Cassandra took another breath.
"I owe you all an apology," Cassandra said. "I am not going to pretend that, by the time I'm done, all of you are going to be happy with me. Some of you aren't going to forgive me for what I've done. But it needed to be done. An explanation is in order, and here it is."
Another deep breath. She looked into the camera, and at all of them, with intensity.
"For the past few days, ever since all this started, someone in this room has been feeding information to Ra's al Ghul and the Arkham Knight."
ARKHAM ASYLUM - NOW
In the rear of one of the buildings on Arkham Island that made up the now-defunct Arkham Asylum, there lie the Inter-Patient Therapy Wing.
It was a collection of four cells, all facing each other, each with heavy plexiglass instead of bars.
Though she had no way of knowing it, Cassandra Wayne sat cross-legged in the very same cell in which Basil "Clayface" Karlo died, set aflame by The Undying, with an assist by a mind-controlled Zatanna Zatara.
It was weird, though. Cassandra could have sworn she smelled burnt popcorn in this cell.
Ra's al Ghul and the Arkham Knight had ferried herself and Aaliyah Ramsay to Arkham Island by helicopter. The Arkham Knight had taken Aaliyah somewhere else. Ra's had taken her here.
And the sound of expensive shoes on concrete told Cassandra that Ra's had come to Inter-Patient Therapy yet again.
A casual look up revealed that Ra's was flanked by two members of the League of Assassins, both head to toe in black, with masks covering the lower halves of their faces.
And he had a smug, imperious look on his face. Like a Deep South Evangelical about to yell "Bingo!"
"This city," Ra's said, "will murder itself. Its people will be given strength beyond measure, and madness to match. Friends will drive their fists through each others' skulls. Mothers will tear their children in half with their bare hands. And upon this bloody ruin, you will drive a dagger into Aaliyah Ramsay's heart. The final casualty in a city that has been dying in the fourteen years since Game Seven. Then you shall do your part in preserving a great lineage. My lineage. The Line of the Demon."
Cassandra went back to looking at her legs. A moment of silence followed.
"Have you nothing to say, Miss Cain?" Ra's asked. "Even The Detective was more talkative, and I would have thought he was the very limit of surliness. Surely you have something to tell me. Something about how I won't get away with this. About how your friends will come and save you."
Cassandra took a deep breath…
...let it out…
...and looked The Demon in the eye.
Early on in her acting career, Cassandra had played Goneril in a production of King Lear. A man by the name of Kevin Ulrich played Lear himself, and he imparted to her some wisdom.
He had said "About an hour before the first show, imagine yourself physically picking up all of the things you're thinking about, putting them into little boxes, and then walking away. That method shit is for the birds. You don't serve the character. You serve the situation. You can't react when you're tripping over the notes you took or the other crap you're thinking about that you brought on stage with you. Once you lock all that stuff away, then you can do the job with purity."
For the past six days, she had put the most important things she knew in little boxes and walked away. In one of the most trying times in the lives of the people she knew, the people she called friends and family, she essentially operated with half of a mind.
And now… it was over.
Now it was time to open all the boxes, take out all she knew, and start playing with it like it was Christmas morning.
Because she had forced the endgame.
So the former Orphan, the former Batgirl, the former Black Bat, the former Cassandra Cain, and the current Cassandra Wayne looked into the hypnotising green eyes of Ra's al Ghul…
...and started laughing.
It was loud. It was freeing. She could feel the blood rush to her cheeks. She felt her mind brighten, her heart swell.
Ra's just tilted his head and squinted at her.
"And what… may I ask… is so amusing?"
Just the way he said it, too. Like she brought him shrimp cocktail instead of shrimp scampi. It just made her laugh even harder.
But she knew she had to get herself under control. She stuffed her laughter back down her throat, though it took her a bit.
"T-Two things are gonna happen," Cassandra said. "I don't know in what order, but…"
She held up the index finger on her right hand.
"One," she said. "Someone is… is just gonna beat the living fuck out of you. It's gonna be glorious. It sucks I won't be here to see it. Which brings me to…"
She held up her middle finger in conjunction with the index.
"Two," she said. "Aaliyah and I are leaving this place. And when we do, we're walking out the front door."
Ra's al Ghul tilted his head to the side.
"Are you placing your faith in your friends?" he asked.
"Yeah," said Cassandra, grinning.
"Should you?"
"I don't see why not."
"I beg to differ," Ra's said. "How well can you trust them? I have it on good authority-"
Cassandra finally managed to wipe the smile off of her face.
"Stop," she said with some bass.
And Ra's stopped.
Cassandra scratched her nose.
"Is, uh… is this the part where you tell me about the mole?"
Ra's blinked. His body language screamed that he didn't see that one coming.
"You know?" he asked.
"Sure I do," Cassandra said, grinning yet again.
She stood, putting her hands in the pockets of her trench coat, still grinning.
"Ra's… I'm the mole."
BURNSIDE - SIX DAYS AGO
"Cass," The Signal said, "whoever did this? They know who we are."
A silence fell over the interior of the Batmobile as Black Bat and The Signal sped toward Wayne Manor with a brutally beaten Mother Panic in the rear of the vehicle.
Black Bat felt a tremor in her hand as she looked upon the buildings of the hipster haven of Burnside giving way… to…
"Huh," Black Bat said.
The Signal looked at her. "What is it?"
Multiple scenarios swarmed in Black Bat's head. Each more terrifying than the last.
"Duke… whoever did this… they don't have a plan."
"What do you mean?" The Signal asked.
"Violet was shot down over Burnside."
"What about it?"
"If they had a plan," Black Bat said, "they'd have shot Mother Panic down over Miagani Island."
"What makes you say that?"
"Because that's where Violet lives," Black Bat said. "The easiest way to do it would be to set up whatever the hell it was that shot her down near The Pike, wait for her to get home, and do it that way. But she was shot down over Burnside, which is nowhere near Miagani Island."
She took a deep breath, getting her thoughts in order.
"I'm guessing a missile took her glider down. Short range, surface-to-air, not a whole lot of yield, being as Violet wasn't blown to pieces. If that's the case, there will be an installation somewhere in Burnside. And if you find that, you'll find them all over the city. Placed there for coverage. Because whoever did this didn't have a plan beyond shooting Mother Panic down wherever she might be at a given moment."
The Signal didn't say anything.
"Duke," Black Bat said, "if they're just winging it, if they're impulsive enough to set up missiles all over the city just to get one target, then a lot of innocent people are gonna die."
The Signal still didn't say anything. The aura of worry emanating from his body said more than a monologue could.
Cassandra Wayne licked her lips behind her mask, weighed her options, and said:
"I have an idea."
The Signal looked at her. "Is it a good idea?"
"No," Black Bat said. "It's fucking insane."
The Signal sighed. "Given the resources we know they have, this is the first sign of supervillains in Gotham City since Game Seven. I'll take an insane idea over no idea at all."
"Okay," Black Bat said. "If they don't have a plan… then how about we give them one?"
GOTHAM CENTRAL LOCK-UP - NOW
"Okay," Stephanie said to herself. "If I were a way to break out of jail, where would I be?"
She looked down the drain of the sink in her cell. She looked up the faucet. She ran her fingers along the sides of the mirror. She looked down the toilet bowl. She looked in the toilet tank. She ran her hands beneath the soiled mattress of the cot sticking out of the wall. She looked beneath the cot itself, and…
"Hey, now," Stephanie said.
Beneath the cot was a black cylinder that was about as tall as an Academy Award statue, and about as round as a coffee cup.
And there was a note taped to it.
She wrapped her hands around the cylinder, and picked the deceptively heavy object up.
Stephanie cradled the cylinder in the crook of her left arm, and yanked off the note with her right hand.
The note consisted of two words:
"YOUR INHERITANCE."
Beneath those words was a kiss-print of a pair of women's lips done in black lipstick.
Why, it was almost like the note and kiss-print she herself had left for Cassandra the morning after they fought and… did other things to each other. Multiple times, in fact.
"Cass," Stephanie said softly. "You extra little shit."
What happened next was something that Stephanie found, to say the least, interesting.
It would have been strange enough that the cylinder she was cradling started talking. But when it did, it did so with the voice of the late Alfred Pennyworth.
"Voice print recognized," the Alfred VI said. "Good evening, Miss Brown."
At which point the cylinder she was cradling collapsed into a thick sludge, and started running down her forearm and up her bicep.
Stephanie wanted to scream, but for some reason, she could not will the noise.
"I am detecting an elevated heart rate," the Alfred VI said. "If it aids you, I recommend you close your eyes for the duration of the application. I shall tell you when it's done."
All at once, the urge to scream vanished.
Because Stephanie knew what this was.
It was the nanite slime. The supersuit. The thing that Stephanie called, during the conversation she had had with Cassandra at Tammy's Diner, "The Venom Symbiote."
But… she still closed her eyes, though. The nanite slime was cold and icky.
As it spread down her side and up her neck, she remembered other things about the conversations she had had with Cassandra that sweaty, bloody, painful, enchanted evening.
She remembered that Cassandra liked to read supervillain dossiers for fun.
Cassandra was particularly taken with the exploits of The Joker.
Cassandra said that The Joker's most devious plans relied on the appearance of him getting caught.
And Cassandra had wondered aloud why the good guys couldn't do that.
ARKHAM ASYLUM - NOW
"Duke Thomas has a very funny relationship with light," Cassandra said. "He can look into both the future and the past. He can also see radio waves, which is the part everyone forgets… except me."
She scratched her nose as she looked through the plexiglass at Ra's, his brows furrowed in skepticism.
"Radio waves," she said. "Arkham Asylum, which was supposed to be abandoned, was lit up like a Christmas tree with radio waves. From there, it was easy to hop on the frequency they were all using and find the person who was in charge. It was Astrid. From there, I used a modulator to disguise my voice, and guide her where I needed her to go. It was obvious from how she dealt with Mother Panic that she was too impulsive for a plan, so I gave her one, giving me enough time to feel everything out and anticipate everything."
It was hard to read Ra's al Ghul's body language. He was standing perfectly still, and held an utmost refusal to blink at present.
"The important part," Cassandra said, "was that I did what I did under anonymity. She couldn't know who the mole was, let alone that it was me. I didn't care if it kept me safe. Turns out I wouldn't have had to worry about that anyway, because you needed me alive. But my anonymity kept everyone else safe. She walked into Wayne Manor with the instructions and codes I gave her, but she couldn't kill anyone for fear of killing her only source of inside information."
She couldn't keep the smile off her face.
"Hell of a thing," she said. "With the exception of Astrid's unscripted attack on my dad and Selina yesterday morning, and what you did to Babs last night, none of us have been in any real danger at any point."
Now Ra's al Ghul elected to blink.
"None of you except Dick Grayson," he said. "None of you except Conner Kent."
He rolled his eyes, and then rubbed his face.
"This is pathetic," he said. "What did you hope to accomplish with these foolish lies?"
He took a step toward the plexiglass, fixing her with an angry glare. "Do you seriously expect me to believe that you sacrificed Conner Kent-that you sacrificed the only man you've ever loved -in a silly attempt to appear smarter than you actually are?"
Cassandra's smile warped into a sneer.
I've been waiting for this part…
She folded her arms.
"No," Cassandra said. "No, I don't."
The next second passed in silence, save for a rumble outside that, from this distance, was indistinguishable from thunder.
But Cassandra Wayne knew better.
She knew that rumble was the sound barrier being broken.
And that someone just heard their cue.
The eyes of the Assassin flanking Ra's on the right became alert in panic. He went pale and said "What?"
Ra's turned to him. The Assassin put his finger to his ear, listening to his ear piece, before turning to his leader.
"My lord," the Assassin said. "We have incoming."
Ra's al Ghul lifted his chin in incredulity. "What do you mean we have in-"
BOOOOOOOMMMMMMM!
Cassandra felt the impact in her feet. Dust fell from the ceiling. Something…
...or someone…
...just made impact with one of the buildings that constituted Arkham Asylum.
Cassandra said "You only saw what I let you see, Ra's. So did Astrid, so did Bruce, so did Tim… So did everyone."
Ra's looked at her with the kind of fury that Cassandra would have bet he thought he'd outgrown by now.
"Smart people are the easiest people in the world to fool," Cassandra said. "Wanna know why?"
BOOOOOOOMMMMMMM!
Another impact. Closer this time. Pebbles of ceiling fell on Ra's al Ghul's green cloak. He looked at the dust it left before turning his green eyes back to Cassandra.
And Cassandra had to fight off the urge to laugh.
Beaming, she spread her arms wide and cried out:
"BECAUSE THEY THINK THEY KNOW EVERYTHING!"
THE BLEAKE ISLAND BASE - FOUR HOURS AGO
There were ten people in the secret underground base beneath Bleake Island.
None of their mouths were shut.
Because, via holographic message, Cassandra Wayne had spent the last few minutes telling them all about the master plan she had hatched to stop Ra's al Ghul and the Arkham Knight.
The plan no one in this room had known about until just now.
The plan no one thought Cassandra had been capable of because… well…
She was, at this moment, getting to the part that revolved around Conner Kent.
"The morning after Dick's wake," Cassandra said in the message, "that day we all bunkered up at Wayne Manor, I arrived in the Batmobile through the entrance to Batcave South. Which means I was alone down there long enough to go into evidence, get the Kryptonite gas, and replace it with perfectly harmless green-tinted chlorine gas that I had Luke Fox over at WayneTech whip up for me… Okay, when I say chlorine gas is harmless, I mean it's harmless to Conner. It's pretty bad for everyone else. Anyway, the Arkham Knight's toys came from somewhere. I did some research on weapons and R&D labs that got hit in the past five years, and saw that there was a concentration matrix that had been stolen from a LexCorp lab in Central City. She used that to shoot Conner with the chlorine laser beam. He fell into the ocean and swam underwater until he got to a part of the shore where he'd placed a duffel bag full of clothes the night before. By the time he'd checked into a cheap motel under a fake name, the footage of Superman's apparent death had already hit the internet."
In the holographic image, Cassandra scratched behind her ear.
"And before you ask," Cassandra said, "yes, dad, I did destroy the Kryptonite gas after I stole it. We have magic users in the Justice League who can take down an army of mind-controlled Kryptonians. We didn't need the gas, and keeping it seemed kind of hate-crimey to me."
Bruce heard someone snorting behind him. He turned to see that it was Tim Drake.
Violet Paige, who was standing next to Tim, looked at him as though he had just decided to relieve himself in the Holy Grail.
"What?" Tim asked Violet. "I told you something about Conner's death stank."
WAYNE MANOR - TWO DAYS AGO
Clark Kent looked down at the grass.
"So… Conner's not dead?"
Cassandra had gone to Bruce to say that she should be the one to break the news about Conner's apparent death to Clark. She had banked on her adoptive father's aversion to both emotion and social contact, and she had been right to do so.
It had fallen to her not to tell Clark Kent that Conner died, but to tell him that he was still alive.
But she knew that Stephanie, Carrie, Aaliyah, and Harper were watching from the windows in the foyer, so she needed Clark's help on this one.
She had asked Clark to just look down at the grass. From this distance, it would look as though he was sad.
"No," Cassandra said. "He's not. But everyone in there thinks he is. I know Tim has already called everyone in Young Justice. In an hour or two, Conner will also call them to set their minds at ease and to keep them away from here. And I need you to tell your wife, and your kids, and your cousin, and your Earth Two cousin that there's nothing to worry about, and they don't need to come down here either. Everything is under control."
Clark smiled as he kept looking down. Uncomplicated and childlike.
"This is one of those super secret Bat plans, isn't it?" Clark asked.
Cassandra struggled to keep the smile off of her face. "Yes, it is."
"After being on the receiving end of this kind of plan multiple times over the years, I approve," Clark said. "Wholeheartedly."
"I didn't think you'd approve of lying."
"I'm not lying," Clark said. "I'm acting. Just like you."
Cassandra's struggle to keep from smiling ended in savage defeat.
"Knowing how Bruce is for three decades now, I have to say it serves him right," Clark said.
"It wasn't that bad, was it?"
"Oh, it was," said Clark. "In fact, this is the first time I've ever been on the inside of one of these plans before."
"Really?"
"Yep," Clark said. "I guess your dad never trusted me enough."
"I can't imagine why," Cassandra said. "You're the nicest, most trustworthy person I know."
"I think that might be the problem," Clark said. "That… and Dick was a bigger fan of me than he was of Bruce. Neither of them knew that I know… but I know."
The smile slowly slid off of Cassandra's face, and she tried to look anywhere that wasn't Clark Kent's face.
"Of course," Clark said, "now that I'm on the inside of a Bat plan, I think it might give me a little bit more perspective. I might have looked on your pop with a little more charity if I knew then what I found out just now."
Cassandra looked back at Clark. "What did you find out?"
Clark's face was still cast down, but his blue eyes looked up over his glasses, locked on Cassandra's face.
"You love everyone in that house," Clark said. "With everything you have. So much that you'll torch their image of you right in front of them just to keep them safe."
When Cassandra had been eighteen, the Christmas night that she stopped being Orphan and started being Batgirl, Clark Kent had given her a pep talk so colossal in its warmth, so naked in its sincerity, that it had driven her to tears.
And she felt the same thing coming on now. Her breath caught and her eyes started burning.
"I know your dad's limitations," Clark said. "I know there are things he can't bring himself to say no matter how hard he tries. So if he can't say it, then I'm going to have to, and it wouldn't be the first time."
Cassandra refused to blink, for fear that a tear would fall.
"I… am so proud of you," Clark said.
Cassandra blinked. Tears fell. Her face broke. She sniffled and let out a breath that shuddered.
"Oh, dear," Clark said. "People always cry when I say nice things about them. Is it… is it the way I say them?"
"No," Cassandra said, garnishing her crying fit with a warm smile. "No, there's… You're doing just fine."
"Okay," Clark said. "If you don't mind my asking, how much longer do you need me for?"
"You can go now, if you want," Cassandra said, wiping her eyes.
"Alright," Clark said. "I can't imagine everyone in that house is going to be happy with you by the time this is all done, so if you need someone to talk to, then you know where to find me."
"Thank you," Cassandra said. "I'll keep that in mind."
"I'll see you later," Clark said, before he turned… and stopped.
"Wait," Clark said. "Tell me how I'm doing."
Clark put his hand to his face and bent over, putting his other hand to his knee.
"How good is my acting job?" Clark asked. "Do I look like I'm in grief?"
She didn't know how well it played to the folks watching from the window, but from this distance, Cassandra thought it looked like he was fighting off a spell of gas.
Cassandra was unable to refrain from chuckling, but she kept it as quiet as possible.
"Dear Lord, Clark, you're overselling it…"
GOTHAM CENTRAL LOCK-UP - NOW
"Miss Brown," the Alfred VI said, "the application is complete."
Stephanie opened her eyes.
What she saw when she did so was a heads-up display with power levels and vital sign readings over in the corners of her vision. But what caught her eye, what stopped her heart, was a line of green text right there in the middle of her vision.
CATWOMAN PROTOCOLS ONLINE
She swiftly turned to the mirror above the sink in the cell.
The suit was as black as the hide of a truly unnerving deep-sea fish. It was clingy, without being X-Rated. Stephanie particularly appreciated that the suit covered the space between her breasts, avoiding the kind of unsightly and impractical boob-socking common among the skankier third-tier female supervillains.
It left both the area around her mouth and the areas around her eye sockets open and bare, and culminated atop her head with a pair of decidedly feline ears that would be familiar to those among the super set in Gotham fourteen years ago.
"Oh," the Alfred VI said. "And one final touch."
In the blink of an eye, the color of the suit changed from black to purple.
No…
Not purple…
Eggplant.
"I trust the suit is to your satisfaction," the Alfred VI said.
And Stephanie couldn't say anything.
She had spent her years as Spoiler in a state of frustration that those with seniority kept her out of the fray. Be it out of fear for her safety, or fear of her assumed incompetence, it was hard to say, and both were indistinguishable from one another anyhow. She took fourteen years off, came back, and felt that very same yoke of frustration yet again, with Cassandra, with Black Bat shelving her in an attempt to keep her safe.
Except… it wasn't like that at all, was it?"
This was part of a plan. Something that Cass had poured her heart and soul into. Telling Stephanie to bunker up after she saved Cass from the Arkham Knight? Telling her not to leave her hotel room last night? She wasn't trying to take Stephanie off the board. She was trying to keep Stephanie on it.
She was part of the plan, now. And not in a support role either. Cassandra had given her a piece of bleeding-edge equipment that was begging to be used in a frontline skirmish.
And that… well… that was all Stephanie Brown had ever wanted.
Sure, Cass could have told Stephanie what was up the night before. In fact, looking back on it, there was a part after the kiss they shared last night that she was pretty sure Cass wanted to say something.
But words can be taken back. Stephanie needed to be shown.
A smile spread across Stephanie's face. Her head seemed to lose most of its mass, making her feel so giddily woozy in the process, as two realizations came to her.
Cassandra Wayne knew Stephanie Brown that well…
...and Cassandra Wayne loved Stephanie Brown that much.
This was respect.
This was faith.
She'd wondered what it would take to get her back in the costume game.
And this was it.
Given a billion dollar piece of equipment by the person she loved and respected the most in this life, with the tacit agreement that she would use it to unleash Hell amongst goons and minions. And in a stolen superhero identity, to boot.
Then again, given who Selina Wayne was, maybe that identity's theft was the only way the torch could be passed.
"Miss Brown?" the Alfred VI asked.
"It's… It's boss, Alfred. Thank you."
"You are most welcome, Miss Brown."
"Now," Stephanie said. "How do I get out of here?"
"This suit," the Alfred VI said, "is equipped with adhesive capabilities, cat-claw capabilities, bullwhip capabilities, electro- bullwhip capabilities, as well as augmentations that will bring your strength and speed well above that of even the most impressive human beings… and there is a brick wall to your right."
"Gotcha," Stephanie said. "How do you activate the claws on this thing?"
"The suit is designed to read both vital signs and body language to anticipate your every need. In short, you just need to think it."
Stephanie looked down at her hands, and was surprised to see two-inch claws extend from the tips of all five fingers.
And they looked sharp.
She ran her index finger across the brick of the wall, and the concrete material fell to the floor as though it were butter that had been sitting in a hot kitchen for an hour.
"Time is of the essence, Miss Brown."
"Right," Stephanie said. She reared back her right fist, feeling a fearsome power well up in her arm… and she let fly.
The bricks crumbled into dust, revealing the damp pavement of the alley outside. And Stephanie barely felt the impact on her hand.
It also set off the alarms at Gotham Central, but Stephanie pitied the poor po-po that tried to stop her now.
She moved to wipe some of the dust from the bricks off of her shoulder, only to find the shoulder of her suit vibrating, removing the dust for her.
My God, those WayneTech kids really do think of everything…
Stephanie stepped out of the demolished jail cell and into the alley. She noticed that the suit had coalesced around her toes instead of between them, making her look like she was wearing shoes. Which was a good thing, too. If the suit manifested itself in such a way that it looked like she was wearing those Christ-awful toe shoes, she'd have to tie an anvil around her neck and throw herself into the ocean, having violated every law of decency humankind had ever crafted.
She remembered Cassandra saying that the suit compressed the clothes she'd been wearing down to a molecular level or whatever, so she was still technically wearing them. But still. Good on the WayneTech guys for being fashion-forward.
"Where do I go now?" Stephanie asked.
"Miss Wayne has taken the liberty of providing you with transportation," the Alfred VI said.
BOOM!
Stephanie jumped as, a few feet away, the black metal monstrosity of the Batmobile decloaked.
"The automatic drive program will take you to where you are needed," the Alfred VI said.
And Stephanie Brown succumbed to a fit of the giggles.
A supersuit and a ride in the Batmobile on our second date? Cass, you don't fuck around.
The giggles continued as Stephanie Brown…
...as Catwoman…
...climbed into the Batmobile.
ARKHAM ASYLUM - NOW
BOOOOOOOMMMMMMM!
"You have company, Ra's."
BOOOOOOOMMMMMMM!
"He sounds angry."
BOOOOOOOMMMMMMM!
"And Kryptonian."
Superman's full body-assault on Arkham Asylum had entered its forty-fifth second. And Ra's rounded on Cassandra with a fury in his eyes. He stepped to the plexiglass, and Cassandra could see little flecks of spittle collect on the transparent surface between them as he took gasping, angry breaths.
"You think this changes anything, Cain?" Ra's asked. "I have the Venom compound. I have Poison Ivy. In a matter of seconds, the compound will be dispersed, and Gotham City will tear itself apart. Let your Kryptonian tear these walls down! YOU'VE LOST!"
Cassandra put her hands on her hips, looked down her nose at Ra's al Ghul, and just waited for him to get it.
He got it. His shoulders slumped. He seemed to shrink.
"It makes sense that you didn't test the Venom once you got your hands on it," Cassandra said. "It's barrels full of something in the Gotham City sewers, waiting in a truck with a plate number that matches the one on the truck Selina stole twenty-one years ago. What else could it possibly be?"
Ra's folded his hands in front of him. His body language screamed. He didn't want to know what was coming next… but he still needed to know.
"I have a couple of charities that I run," Cassandra said. "The one that gets all the play is The Pennyworth Fund, providing arts educations to disadvantaged Gotham City kids. But the other one is The Effort to Map Gotham's Underground. I run it with Professor Mizoguchi over at Gotham U. We pay urban explorers with cameras to go underground and see what's down there, which is a charity in and of itself. It keeps them from ripping off old animatronics from Orlando theme parks for Youtube clicks."
Cassandra scratched her nose, relishing the slow-rolling horror spreading across the face of Ra's al Ghul.
"Ra's, one of my EMGU teams found that Venom eight months ago, completely by accident," Cassandra said. "I had to pay them more to keep them quiet. But we found it. I took that Venom... I destroyed that Venom… and with the help of Luke Fox over at WayneTech, I replaced that Venom. And I gotta say, it was hard to find a liquid that matched the consistency and color, but we managed."
A smile started wafting across Cassandra's face. "I had no idea it was gonna be you who found it, but imagine my surprise when I found out you'd been looking for it. I'm just glad I got to see the look on the face of whoever found it. Once they realized they didn't get what they thought they got."
BOOOOOOOMMMMMMM!
Ra's al Ghul straightened his posture and sucked in his stomach to make himself look taller. To sweep up the few motes of dignity left to him.
"What am I injecting into Poison Ivy?" he asked.
Cassandra tried to keep the unbridled glee from entering her voice.
She failed.
"Lemon-Lime Kool-Aid!"
The look of abject humiliation upon the face of The Demon brought to Cassandra a fit of deep laughter, not dissimilar to the braying of a donkey.
"I… I thought it'd be funny!" she said.
FOUNDERS ISLAND - NOW
Robert Dries hit the switch on the mechanism that injected the Venom compound into Poison Ivy once the monorail locomotive made it to Founders Island.
The compound made the unconscious Poison Ivy jolt, as a thick green fog emanated from her pores and started streaming out of the locomotive's shattered windows.
It should be noted that Robert Dries had no idea anything was wrong. He was wearing a gas mask. He could not tell a volatile experimental steroid from a flavored drink mix usually served to children.
The only sign he had that anything was out of the ordinary was that Poison Ivy said something. She hadn't regained consciousness, no, but she was apparently a person who talked in her sleep.
"Wowwwwwww," Poison Ivy said, her eyes still closed. "I haven't had this since I was eight…"
THE BLEAKE ISLAND BASE - FOUR HOURS AGO
"I will not pretend that my relationship with any of you will be the same after this," Cassandra said in her holographic message. " I will not pretend that all of you will look at me the same way. But this needed to be done. To protect you. To protect the city. And know that while you probably won't behave the same way around me, nothing about how I look at any of you has changed a single bit. You go out there with my hope. My faith… And my love. As simple and as broad as it's ever been."
Cassandra put her hands in her pockets.
"Except for you, Huntress. You're an asshole. Stop calling me 'Stinky-Tits.'"
With that, the message blinked out. The auxiliary lights and the computers in the base came online with quiet whirs now that there was nothing blocking them.
All ten people in the base held their silence for a few moments. And this silence was broken by, of all people, Jason.
And Jason was laughing.
"She- She really is your daughter, Bruce!"
A few feet away, Violet Paige, whose shoulders had been heaving up and down in the silence she held during the message, finally opted to vent her frustration. She walked over to the wall, picked up the green broom next to which Cassandra had been standing during the recording of her message, and broke it over her knee. She flung the pieces over at an empty corner.
This just made Jason laugh harder.
"THIS IS BULLSHIT!" Violet yelled, which quieted Jason down. Finally.
"She put us through all this stupid… pointless… fucking… God, what's the word?"
Tim, seemingly permanently caught in school forever, raised his hand in an attempt to be helpful. "Angst?"
"Thank you," Violet said. "Angst! We've been shitting ourselves blind in fear and pain for almost a fucking week, and for what? The job? I thought we mattered more to her more than that!"
It was evident to everyone that the agony and anger in Violet's voice was genuine.
But everyone looked at her as though she'd spontaneously started speaking French anyway.
Black Canary put a hand on Violet's shoulder.
"Oh, honey," Black Canary said. "You're… You're new here, aren't you?"
"I've heard about this," Tim said. "Bruce making secret plans that save the city, but almost always managing to piss everyone around him off. By the time I got here, Bruce, you were pretty much therapied out. But Dick and Babs told me stories."
Bruce nodded gravely to himself. In the bad old days, when he could leave nothing to chance, he had contingencies on top of contingencies in place with which he could trust no one. Not Alfred, not Dick, not Barbara, not Jason, no one. It was a part of his life for which he was not proud, and he had hoped, when Cassandra took over operations after his retirement, that she would not make the same mistakes that he had.
But at the very least, Cassandra apologized for her actions. At the very least, she told them all how much she loved them.
So maybe she learned something after all.
"Oh, this is vintage Bruce," Jason said. "Remember when you used me as bait to catch Mister Freeze? I didn't talk to you for, like, four days. Alfred had to pass notes between us."
Tim's quizzical expression caught Jason's eye.
"What?" Jason asked.
"I'm not gonna lie," Tim said. "I, uh… I kinda… thought you were the mole."
"Why would I be the mole?"
"Because when the Arkham Knight hit the manor, you were out of the house. You took Carrie and Aaliyah to the movies. Just, um… Just seemed awfully convenient."
"I took them to the movies because… Cass… asked me to."
Jason's prior gloating demeanor had vanished. His eyes had gone wide. His mouth had gone listless.
"She got me out of the house," Jason said. "She knew if I was there, I would either catch a beating, or be forced to throw hands, and she made sure I did neither."
He looked at all of them. His eyes had gone glassy.
He scratched the back of his head, averting his glance from everyone else. "It was, uh… It was nice of her… is what I'm saying."
Cullen put his hand on Jason's shoulder.
"This takes me back," Huntress said. "Good for her."
Black Canary looked at Huntress with shock. "You sanction this buffoonery?"
"Dinah," Huntress said, "Babs got herself hurt going cowboy on someone else's secret plan. That's my job. I will lord this over Babs for the rest of her life. I am Team Stinky-Tits. I will buy the Stinky-Tits lunchbox."
"Jesus," Bluebird said. "If Babs were just a little more patient. If she just had a little more faith in Cass… then she wouldn't be in the hospital right now."
A brief silence fell, that Huntress broke.
"What you're describing," Huntress said, "is an extremely awkward conversation that no one in this room is going to have."
"I'm just saying," Violet said, "that if she let us in on what she was doing, we'd have been a hell of a lot more effective."
"Let me ask you something," Selina said. "You ever been tortured for information?"
Violet glared at her. "If you play the pain game with me, you'll lose."
"Then it's a good thing I'm not," Selina said after she rolled her eyes. "Have you ever been tortured for information?"
"No."
"Well, I have," Selina said. "Twice. Once when I knew something, and once when I didn't. And let me tell you, I got off a hell of a lot lighter when I didn't know something than when I did. If any of us got captured, then we'd have been safer if we didn't know anything."
"I'm just saying we should have made that decision for ourselves," Violet said. "Are we that fucking untrustworthy?"
A lone voice who'd been relatively quiet finally decided to speak up.
It was Carrie.
"Yes," she said. "You are."
They all turned to her.
And Carrie Kelley, for her part, was not shy about holding a room.
"You all have a certain way of looking at Cass," she said. "See… the first time I met her, she was an unstoppable badass. She was a person who suffered from dyslexia that decided to become an actor and memorize all of Shakespeare anyway because fuck everyone and everything. The Cass I met was someone who was extremely intelligent and incredibly dangerous."
Carrie surveyed the room before she continued.
"But that Cass wasn't the Cass you all met," she said. "The Cass you met was a mute ninja who couldn't read… that or you'd been trying to get into her pants."
Violet visibly bristled at this.
"So everything she's done since then had just been fucking adorable to you hasn't it?" Carrie asked all of them. "Like she's a pomeranian walking on her hind legs, and not a person with thoughts and emotions who's had to fight and claw and suffer for all the steps she's taken. You stand there, all smug and superior because you see how hard she struggled and not how far she came. And you don't fear her like you should."
"That's enough," Violet said.
"No, it fucking isn't!" Carrie bellowed. "You think this is something she came up with on the fly? Something on this level, she's had to have had in her back pocket for years! You think this is just for the bad guys? This is for you! Because the thing I know, and the thing she knows, you all need an active fucking demonstration to get through your heads. And this is it!"
"And what's the thing you know?" Cullen asked.
Carrie spread her arms wide.
"This is her town," she said. "She took it while you weren't looking. Us? We just live here."
The room fell into silence once again as Carrie wrapped up her speech. Bruce knew she was right, and she had the feeling everyone else knew it as well. And there they stood, trying to reckon with Cassandra Wayne's claim on Gotham City, staked by subterfuge, intelligence, and force of will.
"In any case," Black Canary said, "not everything she planned came to pass. Babs isn't here. Not like it's Cass' fault, but still, we're short a body."
"Did any of your plans come into any hitches like this?" Tim asked Bruce.
"Yes," Bruce said.
Jason perked up, seemingly taken off-guard. "Really?"
"All the time," Bruce said. "People are unpredictable. The only reason you didn't know anything went wrong was because I didn't tell you. From someone who knows, Cassandra's done a great job for her first time out."
"Can we focus, please?" Black Canary asked. "We don't have a lot of time left. Do we go in with what we have, or do we call an audible and get someone else?"
Selina rubbed her face, sighed, and said "I can find someone."
They all looked at her.
"Who?" Cullen asked.
She looked at all of them as though she had just been handed a death sentence, before she turned her green eyes toward her husband.
"Just so you know," Selina said, "I really… really… don't want to do this."
THE DEKKER BUILDING - TWO HOURS AGO
The elevator opened on the forty-fifth floor of the Dekker Building on the mainland. Selina dragged her husband out by the hand.
The lobby of the forty-fifth floor was near-palatial, done in red carpet with walls that were a comforting hue of beige. The lobby was lorded over by a girthy woman with red hair sitting at a polished oak desk.
Selina did not know this woman. But of course Bruce did.
"Hello, Denise," Bruce said.
"Mister Wayne," Denise said, smiling. "This doesn't seem…"
Selina held out a hand to silence her, before she pointed to the door next to the desk.
"Anyone in there?" Selina asked.
"There aren't any appointments sch-"
"Thank you," Selina said, cutting her off and opening the door.
The office into which the Waynes stepped bore the same burgundy carpeting and the same beige paint job. The walls were bedecked with thick, leather-bound volumes, as well as photos of the rich and famous and various certificates of achievement.
Sitting at a similar oak desk as the one outside was a blonde woman, her station in life at the mid-forties doing nothing to dispel Selina's estimation of her attractiveness. Her blonde hair was pulled into a tight bun. Glasses with circular frames were the only buffer-zone that the world at large had from her rich blue eyes. She had on a pink blouse beneath a gray jacket.
She arose, revealing a gray skirt. And when she spoke, her pitch and intonation were perfect.
"Bruce," the blonde woman said. "Selina. I'm afraid I-"
Selina held up the same silencing hand that had been used on Denise the receptionist outside.
The woman standing before Selina had come far since the last time she'd seen her. She regretted having to do this, but times were tight.
"Ra's al Ghul has Pammy," Selina said.
The jaw of the blonde woman hung open, her eyes going wide. She slowly took off her glasses and set them on the desk next to her, before bringing her hand to her mouth.
She turned, and stared at the closet next to her desk. A shudder came over her, before she yanked out the bobby pins that held her bun in place, sending rapids of blonde hair haphazardly down her shoulders.
The blonde woman opened the closet.
Inside was a baseball bat, painted red and white like a candy cane. Like its owner kept it in there just in case, for reasons that only made sense to her.
She took it out of the closet, and turned to Bruce and Selina.
Her collected blue eyes from a moment before now held the telltale glimmer of barely restrained pants-shitting mania. When she had spoken mere moments prior, her voice was calm, professional, bereft of accent. What came out of her mouth now was a screechy sonic woodpile with a Bensonhurst, New York mailing address.
"Awright," Harley Quinn said as she hefted her bat over her shoulder. "Whose ass I gotta beat to get Red back?"
ARKHAM ASYLUM - NOW
"Look at you," Cassandra said. "There hasn't been a point in the past few days that you haven't been completely fucked into the ground without knowing it. I thought the look on your face was gonna be priceless, but my God…"
BOOOOOOOMMMMMMM!
More dust and plaster fell from the ceiling of Inter-Patient Therapy. It lent The Demon a snowy look as it descended to his hair and clothes. The two members of the League of Assassins flanking him were fidgeting, wanting to panic, but not daring to.
And all the while, Ra's looked at Cassandra, fury flirting with fright.
Cassandra, for her part, just folded her arms and took his measure beyond the plexiglass.
"I know what you're thinking," Cassandra said. "You're gonna bet everything on Astrid. But I have to tell you, Ra's, it's not gonna work."
She took a step forward.
"You know what the most important question anyone can ever ask is?" Cassandra asked.
Ra's didn't seem to have an answer.
"'Says Who?"' Cassandra said. "Astrid Arkham is destined for failure if she tries to tangle with me. Because she doesn't have the depth or imagination to ask 'Says Who?' She didn't know that no option was better than the options you gave her. Or she just didn't care, which makes it worse. She's going to lose, Ra's. And if, after all this is over, she dusts herself off and tries to contend with me again, then she will lose again. And again. And again. Forever. Until we both return to the dirt."
She took another step forward.
"My victory over Astrid Arkham is eternal," Cassandra said. "Because unlike her, I chose what I am."
Another step forward. Her breath was now fogging the plexiglass between them.
She looked at Ra's beneath hooded brows.
"Do you know… what I am?"
Ra's didn't say anything. His face twitched in his anger and his uncertainty.
"I am the one monster beneath the bed of every monster," Cassandra said. "I shine my brightest when all the lights go out. And whenever something dark and scary hides in the shadows, aiming to prey on the innocent, the defenseless, the weak, then I am the darker and scarier thing that stops them."
She held his gaze.
And Ra's al Ghul blinked.
It was all the time she needed.
In the brief instant it took for Ra's al Ghul to open and close his eyes, Cassandra slammed both of her hands on the plexiglass between them…
WHAM!
...causing all three men on the other side to start, and step back.
There was no more anger in the eyes of Ra's al Ghul.
All that was left… was fear.
And Cassandra Wayne smiled.
She turned thirty-four years old this coming January, and she knew that every breath she'd taken, every punch she'd thrown, every time she put one foot in front of another had led, inexorably to this point.
This was the meaning of her life.
She beheld the quivering, terrified Demon on the other side of the plexiglass, and said:
"I…
"...am…
"...Batman!"