Chapter Text
Cassandra awakes slowly, her whole being seeming to protest the shift in state. She lies there, staring up at the opulent ceiling and sighs. Despite the urge to stay in bed she has work to do.
Effort she wishes she didn't have to spend gets her out of bed. She showers, takes her morning lithium pill, and dresses.
Leaving her chambers she spends the next few hours in the training hall, more for her students benefits than her own—she's already proven herself the best fighter in the world, what more training does she need? It's only when her body almost revolts that she goes to the kitchen to eat breakfast.
It's more out of necessity than pleasure that she eats, although she's been assured that the cook here in the compound is one of the best.
She's halfway through her breakfast—and wondering if she can make herself eat the rest—that Jale enters. "My lady," Jale bows, holding a folder to her chest.
Cassandra wonders if she'll ever get used to being called that, after the past year and a half she thought she would have. "What is it?" Jale's proven herself to be a good assistant, precise and orderly. She knows not to bother Cassandra unless she has to, it's what makes her good at her job.
"We've found Talia."
Interest is barely more than a blip in the general haze of Cassandra's life. Which doesn't stop this from being good news. "Where?"
Jale hands her the file.
Pushing her breakfast aside Cassandra opens it and flips through. There's not as much as she'd like, but the photos are clear. Talia al Ghul, in a pub outside of London—if her spy's notes are correct—with a young man. Something about him sparks as familiar, but she can't quite place it. "Who's he?" She taps his cheek. Young, fairly scruffy looking, some would perhaps call him handsome.
"We haven't been able to find a real name," it must be buried deep then. "But there are a few e-mails we've managed to intercept from Talia, combined with sightings of a man fitting his description in the company of people mentioned in said e-mails, that we believe he's called Epicyon."
She might know the value of codenames and secret identities, but that doesn't mean she likes them. "What's an Epicyon?" It has to have meaning if Talia's used it. She's an al Ghul after all, she's as poetic as her sister and father had been. Poetry might be all well and good, but it's so...fanciful and imprecise.
"A type of prehistoric dog, they're apparently the largest dogs to have ever lived, and are known for being able to crush bones with their teeth."
"So he cleans up the leftovers." Apt, if Talia considered Cassandra and Shiva's branches 'leftovers.' "Who's he taken care of?"
Jale shrugs. "Hard estimates aren't easy to come by, he's good at being undetected. Talia's e-mails only give us six confirmed deaths, three from Shiva's faction, two from Talia's own, and one from ours." Curious, Talia must be intent on cleaning house as well as getting rid of the 'riff-raff.'
"Which one of ours?"
"Thaddeus Moon, arms dealer. He sold drugs as well. We've managed to place this 'Epicyon' in Moon's company for a few months before Moon's death."
Cassandra taps the photo again. "Ready a jet for me, I want to meet him in person." He might just be the key to catching Talia and her heir. Win them to her side and Talia's assassins would follow. Then she can take out her mother for good.
"Yes my lady. You will miss your meeting with the Titans if you go however." Jale's voice is as bland as Cassandra feels, merely reciting the info.
Hmmm, Slade won't be happy about that. But he'll understand. "Send Deathstroke my apologies and arrange another day for me to visit."
"Should I tell him why?"
Shrugging Cassandra stands. "Tell him it has to do with Talia, no more." He might have opened her eyes and brought her back into this world, but she doesn't owe him an explanation. Not yet at least. "If 'Epicyon' proves useful I can explain myself." At the least she can have him followed, see if he leads her to whichever hole Talia's pulled herself into.
Jale bows and leaves.
Alone Cassandra stares at the photo again. "How do I know you?"
-
London is a sprawling ocean of chaos. It...irks Cassandra. She's grown to used to the clean order of her compound, the clear lines of the Titans. Too many people with too many selfish desires their bodies scream at her and it's tiring.
She pushes herself through it though, she won't accept less from herself. Her spies give her an address for an abandoned tower of flats, where they claim Epicyon must live.
It's easy enough to fall into the old rhythm of a stakeout. Put herself in the building across the way, good window view of the entrance, and wait. With no distractions—no voices in her ear, no flashing smiles at poor jokes—boredom threatens to set in. She has patience though, patience enough to wait it out.
Night's beginning to fall when he finally arrives. She's hungry, she missed her nightly lithium pill, and there's a faint urge to just go there now and take him.
She wants to know who he is first though, wants to know his connection to Talia, why he's niggling at the edges of Cassandra's mind. So again, patience. A light turns on in a flat on the left side of the building a few minutes after he enters. His bolt hole then.
Leaving her own vantage point she grabs baskets of food at a local corner store—none of it is remotely healthy, but it will last and it will fill her up—before finding a new vantage point with which to study him.
-
Over the next few days she tails him. It takes far more of her skill than she thought it would. Epicyon's paranoid, and he's clearly been trained in spotting tails. She's been trained all her life never to be seen on the other hand. The dance is...entertaining.
He spends most of his days with a man named Ivanko—explosives expert, his current work is with Russian mobs, but before that he worked for Shiva. His evenings he occasionally spends with Ivanko, but most times he returns to his flat. Reads books, practices katas, stares at a wall she can't see from her own vantage point—there must be something there though, to hold his attention so.
Things begin to become much clearer however when events start to pick up.
Fighting with Russians in a warehouse, threatening Ivanko with a bomb—Epicyon's definitely one of Talia's. It's only when he dives into civilian crowds, trying to save them, that it all clicks in her head.
Epicyon's been trained by Batman.
Which means there could only be one person this is—she has spies watching her former family, making sure they don't interfere with her plans and keeping an eye on Tim in particular.
Jason Todd.
The Robin who Batman claims died, beaten to death by the Joker.
Yet here he is, working for Talia, and saving people from a Russian engineered plot.
Batman hadn't lied when he took her to Jason's grave and told her what happened, but it seems not even the world's greatest detective knows everything.
Epicyon-Jason will be far more useful than she could have ever hoped.
So when he's surrounded by Russian mobsters intent on killing him. Well, she can't let that stand.
It's easy enough to crash in through the window, everyone's surprise giving her plenty of time to start killing. In the end it's only her and Jason left standing. This close she can see they're about the same age, his eyes are a worn blue and they watch her warily. His whole body's relaxed, but there's tension there too. He doesn't quite know what to make of her.
"Well thanks for the assist." He doesn't holster his gun, but he keeps his finger off the trigger. She's dodged bullets before however. "Talia send you?" There's a blandness to his voice, but the question makes his face grimace, if only a little.
She takes a step closer. "Come with me."
"If I want to live?" He jokes. She doesn't get the reference, but it hardly matters. "Thanks, but I'm not interested in fighting off T-180s. If Talia sent you tell her thanks, but I can take care of myself. Unless you're some sort of vigilante. Gotta say, costume could use some work." There's a tightness around his eyes when he brings up vigilantes, no surprise. He's starting to get suspicious however and she needs to act.
"It was not a request." She moves. Nerve cluster in his shoulder first, numb fingers dropping the gun.
He tries to fight back, but he telegraphs like a child, he's had training yet it's all to easy for her to take him down. A punch to the temple knocks him out.
Pulling out her phone she calls one of her London contacts. She rattles of the address to her location. "Send a car, and ready my jet to take me and a guest back."
It will be far safer to talk to him when he's been isolated. She will use him brutally if she has to, but she hopes it will only take a few conversations to win him over to her side. Any dog will turn on his master if you give him the right incentive.