Gray's hideout

"Isn't that...?" I remarked, raising an eyebrow as I sat in front of my laptop browsing the security footage from the cameras near the warehouse where Patrick and the others stayed.

"Asian, female, teenager, scarred face... Cassandra Cain..." I muttered to myself as I watched an Asian girl make her way to the warehouse, carrying a bag she wordlessly gave to Patrick before leaving.

"This is too much to be a coincidence..." I said with a sigh, scratching my head as I dismissed the security footage to start digging for information on the warehouse itself.

The warehouse used to belong to one Adam Harridan, who had inherited it from his father several years back, but he lives abroad in England, so he ignored it and left it unattended.

'Until he sold it off a month ago... and now the person who bought the warehouse is trying to sell it as well...' I mused, scratching my chin as I tried to find the buyer's identity in public records, but came up with nothing.

'The hard way it is then...' I frowned as I began digging through the city's private records and still found nothing, causing me to scratch my head in frustration.

I paused for a second and quickly came up with a solution. Getting back to work, I tracked down the former owner's address in England, intent on tracking his movements for the past month.

...

'This is taking forever...' I mused, sighing as I took a sip from my soda while watching the recordings from at least 15 cameras playing at 10X the speed, showing the warehouse's former owner doing all kinds of shit.

I'd hacked into the man's personal computer, extracted his schedule for the past month, hacked into the security network of every place he visited, and accessed their footage.

And now I was watching said footage at 10X speed for convenience's sake, which wasn't a problem thanks to my brain's evolved processing capabilities. It was still taking forever, though. I'd been staring at the laptop's monitor for four hours now.

Still, I finally managed to find something after two more hours.

"There..." I muttered, freezing the footage as I saw a woman meeting up with the former warehouse owner, offering him a piece of paper that looked like a contract of sorts.

I zoomed in on the paper. And sure enough, it was paperwork to transfer the warehouse's ownership. What's more, the woman was offering ten times the damned thing's estimated value as the buying price.

I tried to zoom on the woman's face, but she was sitting at an angle where the camera wouldn't clearly catch her face, causing me to frown as I began fast-forwarding the footage.

I still didn't get a good shot of her face, so I began tracking her movements through the street cameras after she exited the former warehouse owner's house.

The woman still avoided the cameras like a pro, but there were too many for her to do it forever, and I finally got a good shot of her face after following her movement for the next two hours, though slightly distorted.

I shrugged as I started working on enhancing the footage and sighed as I finally saw the woman's face clearly. "Fucking manipulative bitch..." I muttered, rubbing my forehead in exasperation as I activated the face recognition app to be sure, despite recognizing the visage.

'Sandra Wu-San... Lady Shiva, Cassandra Cain's mother...' I concluded as I connected the dots and quickly realized what was happening with the warehouse.

Lady Shiva went out of her way to buy the warehouse where Patrick and the others live at ten times the price to put it on sale and force Cassandra to participate in Penguin's tournament.

She would have to participate to get the prize money and buy the warehouse to let Patrick and his friends keep living there, forcing us to fight each other.

'Was Cassandra's encounter with Patrick and the others a coincidence, or did the bitch force that too somehow...?' My mind began wondering, but I shook it off as there was no use thinking about it right now.

'Jesus... and I thought I was an asshole for what I'm doing with the Hitman and Deborah...' I mused, feeling equally impressed and pissed off at the same time.

'The bitch wasn't kidding when she said she always gets what she wants that day...' I scoffed as I remembered Lady Shiva's words to my teacher before she left when I first saw her.

'But now you've gone and made it personal...' I mused, my expression darkening. My first instinct was to ruin the whole thing by buying another warehouse or a proper shelter and letting Patrick and others move there.

Thus, Cassandra would have no reason to participate in the damned tournament, and I wouldn't have to fight her, effectively running Lady Shiva's plan.

'But what's to stop her from cooking up another plan...?' I sighed, scratching my head in frustration. If Lady Shiva could go this far to get me to fight her daughter, then who's to say she wouldn't do something worst next time?

'No... I need to put the crazy bitch in her place and completely crush her if I want her to give up...' I thoughtfully hummed as I squeezed my brain to remember everything I knew about Lady Shiva from the comics.

She was basically a battle maniac, and her only purpose in life was to look for skilled martial artists to use as grinding stones to improve her skill and grow more powerful.

Lady Shiva most likely wanted her daughter to reach her full potential to have a worthy opponent or something along those dumbass lines. However, she does have a code of honor, so she will keep her words if I get her to promise something.

'Maybe I can call her out if I beat Cassandra and have a wager with her or something...?' I wondered as I tried to find a solution to deal with the crazy Asian chick and force her to stop bothering the homeless guys in the warehouse and myself.

'Ok... so beat her daughter, challenge her, and get her to promise to fuck off and leave us alone...' I couldn't help but sigh at how optimistic and honestly dumb my plan sounded when I put it into words, but it was the only thing I got.

The only alternative solution I could think of was killing her, but that would open an altogether different can of worms. I knew I could kill Lady Shiva and was not afraid of her. Not one bit.

Sure, Lady Shiva was one of the greatest martial artists in the world and could even kick Bruce Wayne's ass in a straight fight without gadgets, but she was no Batman.

She didn't have Batman's technology, his recourses, his intellect, and most importantly, his plot armor, which is why I was scared shitless of the caped crusader.

She was just a chick with fancy kung-fu moves, but I had those too, and I could bend steel and headbutt concrete walls into smithereens to boot, so no, I wasn't afraid of Lady Shiva.

However, she was part of the League of Assassins and friends with Batman. Killing her would bring the full might of the Ras Al-Ghul and his goons on my head, and let me tell you, those guys are persistent as hell.

So in the meantime, I could only go with my optimistic plan unless I wanted to deal with the League of Fucking Shadows, which I didn't want to do unless absolutely necessary, thank you very much.

'Why do things always have to be so complicated...?' I sighed, frowning as I looked down when I felt a weight pulling on my pants sleeve. My frown turned into a smile when I saw Lil Soot slowly climbing my pants, only to settle and lie down on my lab and transform into a bread loaf, like only cats could, contently closing his eyes.

"Well, at least you look carefree enough for the both of us..." I remarked with a chuckle as I scratched the little kitten's back, and he responded by hissing at me, demanding that I'd stop and let him rest from what seemed like a long arduous day of back-breaking work.

I just laughed, shaking my head as I leaned on the chair and took out my phone to pass the time.

...

The Iceberg Lounge

Oswald Copplebot couldn't help but grin in satisfaction as he flicked his expensive cigar into the ashtray while looking over his club from his office on the second floor.

Everything was going swimmingly for him for the past couple of days, despite several recent setbacks. He was slowly but surely taking over Gotham's underground, and the best thing about it is that his subordinates were doing it quietly without getting anyone's attention.

If there's one thing he'd complain about, it's that the KGbeast, a Russian mercenary The Penguin had wanted to recruit for a while, had disappeared some time ago, rumored to be killed by the new vigilante while doing a job for Black Mask.

Still, he had his own competent henchmen for every situation, and he was slowly gaining power and influence over Gotham with no one the wiser for it.

However, Oswald's good mood immediately soured when he heard a noise from behind and turned to see an Asian woman in a black trench coat standing with her hands behind her back as she looked at him.

"Oswald..." the woman blankly remarked in casual greeting as she slowly approached the mob boss with the same leisure posture, her steps slow and deliberate.

"Lady Wu-San... what I can do for you...?" Oswald cheerfully said, putting on a fake smile as he reached for his umbrella under the desk, prepared to fight back and defend himself.

"No need to be alarmed, Oswald. I'm only here to talk about your little tournament..."