full name cynthia sun nicknames cyn comicverse alias cassandra cain • black bat birthdate & age 10/31/1991* & 25
CYNTHIA SUN WISHES SHE COULD REMEMBER MORE OF HER CHILDHOOD. HONESTLY, SHE DOES. SHE VAGUELY REMEMBERS A PLEASANT CHILDHOOD, BUT FOR REASONS SHE CAN'T QUITE REMEMBER, HER FAMILY DISAPPEARED ONE DAY AND, WITHOUT ANY OTHER KNOWN LIVING RELATIVES LOCATED TO TAKE CARE OF HER, SHE FOUND HERSELF VERY SUDDENLY THRUST INTO BEING JUST ANOTHER STATISTIC OF THE FOSTER SYSTEM AT THE AGE OF 5.

ONE WOULD THINK THAT AN ADORABLE LITTLE LONE ASIAN GIRL WOULD BE QUICKLY SNATCHED UP FOR ADOPTION, BUT ALAS, THAT WAS NOT THE CASE FOR CYNTHIA. THE TRUTH WAS, EVEN AT AN EARLY AGE, SHE HAD A BIT OF AN ATTITUDE AND PENCHANT FOR MISCHIEF TO HER. IT ALSO DIDN'T HELP HER CAUSE THAT SHE WAS SMART AS A WHIP AND PRECOCIOUS BEYOND HER YEARS. NEEDLESS TO SAY, SHE RAN CIRCLES AROUND EVERY FOSTER FAMILY SHE WAS EVER PLACED WITH FOR THE NEXT TWO YEARS. AS SUCH, EACH TIME, SHE ALWAYS FOUND HERSELF BACK IN THE SYSTEM BEFORE TOO LONG. BUT REALLY, THAT WAS JUST FINE WITH HER, SHE WOULD SAY IF ASKED. SHE DIDN'T NEED A NEW FAMILY. SHE ALREADY HAD ONE; SHE JUST DIDN'T KNOW WHAT HAPPENED TO THEM. THIS WAS A QUESTION THAT PLAGUED CYNTHIA FOR THE NEXT 13 YEARS UNTIL SHE EVENTUALLY AGED OUT AT THE POINT OF LEGAL ADULTHOOD.

A SENSE OF RESTLESSNESS DREW YOUNG CYNTHIA TO LEAVE HER CHILDHOOD HOME NEIGHBORHOOD OF WASHINGTON HEIGHTS. HOPING TO ONE DAY FIND OUT MORE INFORMATION ABOUT HER FAMILY'S DISAPPEARANCE, SHE WAS RELUCTANT TO LEAVE THE BIG APPLE. HOWEVER, AFTER THE LAST FOSTER PLACEMENT GAVE UP ON HER, CYNTHIA RAN AWAY BEFORE THE SOCIAL WORKER COULD PICK HER UP AND CONNED HER WAY TO THE GEORGE WASHINGTON BRIDGE BUS STATION BEFORE LOCAL AUTHORITIES CAUGHT UP WITH HER.

CYNTHIA FOUND HER SAVING GRACE IN THE HOME OF JOSEPH AND MARGARET CHAMBERS. A SLIGHTLY OLDER THAN TYPICAL SET OF FOSTER PARENTS, THE COUPLE ALREADY HAD A GROWN DAUGHTER OF THEIR OWN, THOUGH MORRIGAN HAS BEEN OUT OF THE HOUSE FOR SOME TIME. THE POINT WAS, LUCKILY FOR CYNTHIA, THEY'D BEEN AROUND THE BLOCK BEFORE WHEN IT CAME TO HANDLING CHALLENGING DAUGHTERS. EVERY TEST OF ACTING OUT BEHAVIOR CYN THREW AT THEM, THE COUPLE BORE WITH PATIENCE AND TOLERANT KINDNESS. TWO MONTHS FLEW BY BEFORE CYNTHIA REALIZED THAT THIS WAS MAYBE THE LONGEST PLACEMENT SHE'D EVER HAD AND, MORE IMPORTANTLY, SHE DIDN'T FEEL KEEN ON LEAVING. TO CEMENT HER STAY, AT THE END OF THOSE TWO MONTHS, MORRIGAN CHAMBERS CAME BACK, BEGGING HER PARENTS TO BE ALLOWED TO RETURN HOME WITH THEM. THE CHAMBERS, OF COURSE, WELCOMED THEIR BIOLOGICAL DAUGHTER BACK WITH OPEN ARMS. CYNTHIA, ON THE OTHER HAND, FOUND HERSELF WORRIED FOR THE FIRST TIME ABOUT THE POSSIBILITY OF BEING KICKED TO THE CURB BY A FOSTER FAMILY. WHY ON EARTH WOULD THE CHAMBERS WANT TO KEEP HER DIFFICULT ASS AROUND IF THEY GOT THEIR REAL DAUGHTER BACK WITH THEM? BUT THE GOOD-HEARTED CHAMBERS DIDN'T DUMP HER AFTER MORRI'S RETURN. INSTEAD, THEY INSISTED THAT MORRI LEARN SOME ADULT RESPONSIBILITIES AND HELP MENTOR THE YOUNG GIRL. IN MORRI, CYN QUICKLY GAINED NOT ONLY A NEW BEST FRIEND, BUT ALSO A SURROGATE BIG SISTER FIGURE.

UNDER THE CAREFUL GUIDANCE OF THE ENTIRE CHAMBERS CLAN, CYNTHIA GREW UP WALKING THE STRAIGHT AND NARROW MORE THAN SHE EVER THOUGHT SHE WOULD. FROM SCHOOL SHE DEVELOPED A PENCHANT FOR THE SCIENCES, IN WHICH HER EIDETIC MEMORY WAS SEEN AS AN ASSET FOR HER INSTEAD OF SOMETHING WEIRD AND BAD THAT SET HER APART. HER ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE ALLOWED HER A FULL-RIDE TO COLUMBIA, WHERE SHE SETTLED ON STUDYING BIOCHEM. HER PRIMARY EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES BACK IN HIGH SCHOOL HAD INCLUDED BEING PART OF THE YEARBOOK CLUB AND PHOTOGRAPHY CLUB. HER EXPERIENCE INSPIRED HER TO TAKE A CAMPUS WORK-STUDY POSITION WITH THE COLUMBIA DAILY SPECTATOR, SERVING AS THEIR SOCIAL MEDIA GURU. MOSTLY, SHE WAS INTERESTED IN UTILIZING THE RESOURCES AND CONNECTIONS TO CONTINUE HER OWN INVESTIGATION INTO THE MYSTERY OF HER FAMILY'S DISAPPEARANCE, WHICH BECAME SOMETHING OF A SIDE PROJECT FOR HER THROUGHOUT HER UNDERGRADUATE YEARS. WHILE SHE WAS ENDLESSLY GRATEFUL FOR THE CHAMBERS' LOVE AND SUPPORT, AND ALTHOUGH THEY OFFERED SEVERAL TIMES OVER THE YEARS, CYNTHIA NEVER WANTED TO BE FORMALLY ADOPTED BY THEM. THERE WAS A PART OF HER THAT LINGERED IN HOPE THAT SHE COULD STILL COME ACROSS SOME INKLING OF WHAT HAPPENED TO HER FAMILY OF ORIGIN.

BEFORE SHE KNEW IT, FOUR YEARS PASSED AND GRADUATION WAS LOOMING. WITH THE TICKING CLOCK, CYNTHIA NEEDED TO THINK ABOUT NEXT STEPS. FORTUNATELY THE LAB THAT SHE JOINED BACK IN HER JUNIOR YEAR, WHICH STUDIED SPIDERS, WAS LOOKING FOR A RESEARCH ASSISTANT BY THE TIME HER SENIOR YEAR WAS CLOSING OUT. THE TIMING OF IT WORKED OUT IN HER FAVOR AND CYNTHIA WAS HIRED AFTER GRADUATION TO CONTINUE ON AS A PAID RESEARCHER.

black bat
Born with the assassins David Cain and Lady Shiva as her parents, she was trained to become the perfect warrior. Her father deprived her of speech so she would learn movement and physicality as her first language. Batman adopted her into the Batman Family during No Man's Land, to replace Helena Bertinelli as Batgirl. Cassandra would eventually turn her Batgirl costume over to Stephanie Brown, and become a member of Batman Incorporated as Black Bat.

childhood The daughter of David Cain and Sandra Wu-San (Lady Shiva), Cassandra Cain was conceived and trained from birth with the intention of creating the perfect bodyguard for Ra's al Ghul. After many unsuccessful attempts to train children from birth in martial arts to make them inculcate it like a native language (the most successful being The Mad Dog), David Cain, then a member of Ra's League of Assassins, decided the right genes were necessary to create this "Who Is All".

Trained by her father to be the ultimate weapon, Cassandra was not taught to speak. Instead, the parts of her brain normally used for speech were trained so she could read other people's movements and body language and predict, with uncanny accuracy, their next move. This also caused her brain to develop learning functions different from most, a form of dyslexia that hampers her ability to read and write.

When she was 8 years old, Cain decided his experiment had progressed far enough for him to test Cassandra's abilities in the real world, and took her to a hit; the target being Faizul, a 'book man' in Macau. At the time Cassandra had no idea what she was doing and believed it was only a game (an interpretation in keeping with her own reaction to what happened, and matching the interpretation of Alfred Pennyworth, an expert on children who saw a tape of events). After striking a deathblow, she "read" the target as he died, and saw death as he saw it.

Batgirl

After spending the next ten years homeless, beating herself up mentally over what she'd done, Cassandra came to be one of Oracle's agents in the No Man's Land Gotham City. After proving herself by saving Commissioner Gordon's life, she was given the Batgirl costume with the approval of both Batman and Oracle. She became Barbara's ward.

Batman eventually learned about Cassandra's past when Cain transmitted a video he had made of the murder to the Batcave, but Batman nevertheless continued to accept Cassandra after she took several bullets to save the life of a hired assassin, proving her devotion to protecting human life.

A telepath "rewired" her brain to think with words and understand English (although speaking properly took longer, and she still could not read or write) at the cost of her ability to predict and read people. This left her unable to defend herself in a fight, as that part of her style relied completely on her ability to read moves, not the "strategies, patterns, and tricks" employed by Batman and most other martial artists.

Fearing that she would meet a fate similar to former Robin Jason Todd, Batman refused to let Cassandra wear the Batgirl costume and patrol the city until she could learn adequate defensive skills, which he estimated would take at least a year of work. She soon discovered that assassin Lady Shiva could read people like she used to be able to, and asked her to reteach her. Lady Shiva accepted, on the condition that in a year they would have a duel to the death. Knowing that she would never kill again and would most assuredly lose, but preferring to be "perfect for a year" rather than "mediocre for a lifetime", Cassandra accepted and Lady Shiva retaught her in a night.

One year later, Cassandra kept the appointment - and died within minutes. Then Shiva restarted her heart, having realized that Cassandra "wanted" to die (although not why), and wishing for a fight Cassandra would try to win. In the ensuing battle, Cassandra realized that Shiva had her own death wish, and defeated her, although she spared Shiva's life. Batman regards Cassandra very highly. During War Games, he relied heavily on her to help control the violence of the gang war in Gotham City.