Fault Insurance

The Black Canary and White Canary sisters, along with core Rogues members like Captain Cold, Heat Wave, and Golden Glider, were still just a little lacking on their own.

They needed a strategist.

Although White Canary and Captain Cold both had decent leadership skills, the team clearly still lacked a powerful scientist for technical support.

Just like Cisco on The Flash’s team.

After all, not everyone was like Batman, a super scientist himself.

And even Batman’s formidable technological prowess depended on Wayne Enterprises’ entire technology division, with assistance from people like Lucius.

Ray Palmer and Professor Martin Stein were the candidates Shimizu had chosen.

The Atom and Firestorm.

Both of them had connections to The Flash’s team.

The former had originally worked at a top university. After leaving, he relied on his technological expertise to start a business and founded Palmer Technologies.

Though its market value was nowhere near as staggering as Wayne Enterprises’, it could still provide Ray Palmer with ample research funding, allowing him to successfully develop a suit that could reduce the distance between his own atoms.

He had developed it, but lacked a powerful energy source to power the suit. Later, by some unknown means, he acquired a White Dwarf Fragment. With the help of Cisco and the other members of The Flash’s team, he successfully activated the fragment at Stellar Labs and fused it into his Atom suit.

A billionaire like that certainly would not be easy to recruit.

Even if he could not be recruited, Shimizu could still bring in The Flash and Green Arrow, both of whom were close with The Atom, and pull him into the Justice League.

Then Shimizu could still ask him to serve as outside support.

Martin Stein was also a highly accomplished physicist. When he merged with Ronald Raymond, he could become Firestorm, tremendously powerful and practically a mobile nuclear fusion weapon.

Although Raymond, Katherine’s ex-boyfriend, had died yet again, Barry had previously borrowed the processing power of Shimizu’s supercomputer and used Joe’s internal police database to find a Black high school student genetically compatible with Martin Stein. A new Firestorm could still be formed.

Though Firestorm and The Atom were only second-tier heroes, both possessed the strength and technical expertise to become first-tier heroes. As long as even one of them could be recruited, the team in Shimizu’s plan would become a formidable force.

These were the people Shimizu could think of in the short term who were relatively suitable and easier to bring in. As for the rest, once he returned, he would have Watos build a database and search slowly for promising candidates.

Or, more simply, he could just ask Batman for them. Batman would definitely have a private database on threats like this.

While Shimizu was still thinking about mooching some information from Batman, Batman in Gotham had fallen prey to a rumor.

The rumor had been started by Penguin’s son and daughter.

As early as last year, during a bout of unrest in Gotham, Penguin—Oswald—had been assassinated by Jason at Shimizu’s covert instigation.

Shimizu had actually wanted to recruit Jason, who had already become Red Hood, but he had been unable to find Jason’s whereabouts lately.

Back to the point.

Of the two children, the son was named Ethan, and the daughter Isabella.

Penguin had spent so many years in Gotham that he naturally knew how hated he was. Thus, he had protected his two children well, and few outsiders even knew of their existence.

But he had protected them too well. Ethan and Isabella had learned almost nothing from their father, making it difficult for them to survive in a city like Gotham.

Even though Gotham’s gangs were now under Shimizu’s control and the crime rate had fallen slightly compared to before, this was still that dark city of simple folkways. Without some real ruthlessness, surviving in Gotham was difficult.

If Ethan and Isabella had lived in Central City or Metropolis, their passable education would have been enough for them to live decent ordinary lives.

But they had not chosen that.

Instead, they wanted to recreate their father’s former glory in Gotham, and they harbored an intense hatred for Batman—ever since they were born, Penguin had provided the siblings with the best possible conditions, letting them enjoy a life of luxury.

They could not accept the life of ordinary wage earners, nor could they endure such an enormous fall from grace.

So, after spending more than a year burning through the wealth they had taken with them when fleeing the Iceberg Lounge—enough for an ordinary person to live comfortably for a lifetime—the siblings began taking up their father’s old trade, longing for the day they could take revenge on Batman.

They believed Batman had caused all of this.

Then reality’s coldness and Gotham’s darkness taught them a harsh lesson.

In Gotham, if you wanted to make it in the underworld, losing your life was the most common thing.

The siblings had wanted to start with a small Gotham gang. The very next day, Ethan was beaten so badly by the gang’s leader that he was left on the verge of death.

But they no longer had money to send Ethan to a hospital, so he could only remain in a small illegal clinic.

Such underground clinics were common in Gotham. If Ethan failed to pull through, the organs in his body would become the clinic’s payment.

And if they cured him, these illegal clinics had ways to make their customers create even greater value—unless the forces behind them were too powerful to provoke, in which case they could only keep their heads down.

Ethan clearly did not have that kind of luck.

Isabella was even less capable of taking revenge, so she could only humbly spread rumors online, such as that Batman had started killing people and that Penguin had been killed by him.

No one cared about the rumor, which quickly sank without a trace.

But a robot did.

Inside a hidden Batcave that not even Batman himself knew existed, the eyes of a pitch-black robot resembling a giant bat slowly lit up.

"Possible malfunction detected. Fault Insurance activated. Beginning investigation…"

The black robot shook its body, detached the data cable connecting it to a Batcomputer, and walked out of the Batcave.

It was going to investigate whether Batman had done this.

It could do most of what Batman could do, so it was also a first-rate detective. It could reconstruct the scene and method of Penguin’s death to determine whether Batman had killed him.

If he had, then it would begin correcting the malfunction.

Unfortunately, Jason had learned every bit of his skills from Batman, and mastered them thoroughly. The methods he had used to kill Penguin had all been learned from Batman and matched them closely.

And so, Batman and his sidekicks’ miserable days began.