Chapter 13: The Bat-list

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The past is the past. We cannot indulge ourselves in memories and destroy the present.

-MURATA KEN, (KYOU KARA MAOU!)

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(A/N: Before you read this chapter, I just want to say that this one might be a little inconsistent with one of the previous chapters and some stuff might have been repeated from one of the chapters before. It was not because of lazy writing or because I was trying to fill up words but simply because I wrote this chapter the day my semester exams ended about a month after writing the last chapter. So I was not in the flow at that time... Don't judge me. )

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It took Cortana about 3 days to analyze almost all essential data to train itself, like the meaning of different platonic concepts, emotions, their importance, and everything else. It even chose its own gender after learning about its concept. It chose to identify itself as a 'she' simply because Cortana seemed to her to be a feminine name.

She wasn't at her full potential yet due to the lack of data on the internet but the amount of information and data available was still enough to make her a hundred times better than any other artificial intelligence ever developed on Bruce's previous world.

It could be said that Cortana right now was at the childhood stage of what she could truly be one day. She had even simulated an image of herself of what she currently perceived herself to be as a young girl on the computer screen to make it easy and more comfortable for Bruce and the others to communicate with her.

Bruce had programmed her to be a very polite, honest, and caring person with a good sense of humor and she was exactly that although the last trait would probably need time to develop since her current humor only included bad dad jokes which only Alfred found funny.

Selina was also extremely happy with Cortana as she regarded the AI as her new best girlfriend since both of them liked the same flavor of ice cream which was chocolate. Of course, Bruce didn't remind Selina that Cortana had never even eaten ice cream and her answer was just a way for the AI to appear more polite and humane to her.

Bruce was quite happy with his new creation right now. Truthfully, even he didn't completely understand how exactly he had created Cortana. He had just concentrated on his 'ability' to show him how to make an AI that was as good if not better than most AIs he had seen in fiction including Ultron and Jarvis from Marvel, Cortana from Halo, Red Queen from Resident Evil, and even the AI from that movie Eagle Eye.

His Cortana was the combination of all of them, although much much different from them as he was sure that she would never betray him or go against him later because that was the core of what he had wanted in his AI and what he had willed his ability to base Cortana on. Her entire existence and purpose was to serve, help and protect Bruce. Everything else came later.

Bruce's life was going pretty well after his transmigration. But just when he thought that almost everything was going his way, Murphy's law hit him like a speeding bullet train.

The one thing that he dreaded, the one place that he had sworn never to visit again in his life was calling him back and he had no way to defend himself. His easy life was on the verge of being ruined.

"Alfred, I am not going back there. You might as well send me there in a body bag than expect me to go there on my own. I am never going to go back to that hell." Bruce said gulping as he remembered his last experience in that place.

"Young master Bruce, please stop referring to your school as hell. And as I said before, you have to go to school to receive your education. You can't just sit at home all day like some spoiled child. You and Selina are both going there and I want no more arguments." Alfred said strictly.

"It's a waste of time. A bunch of people runnin' around bumpin' into each other got a guy up front says "2 + 2," and the people in the back say, "4." Then the bell rings and they give you a carton of milk and a piece of paper that says you can go take a dump or somethin'. I mean, it's not a place for smart people, Alfred. I know that's not a popular opinion, but that's my two cents on the issue. So I don't need to go to school to be smart. I can get homeschooled for god's sake." Bruce defended.

"Maybe Master Bruce but you need to go to school for being a proper part of the social hierarchy and be a functioning human being. You need to be around people right now, to get back to society and so does Selina. Homeschooling can't give you that." Alfred calmly replied.

"To be fair, I hate going to school as well... But I think it might be important for you tiger if Alfred is insisting on the issue." Selina said from the sides as she turned towards Bruce.

"You too kitty?" Bruce said with an expression that seemed to say that Selina just betrayed him.

"Present schooling system, although said to be not perfect, can result in the development of human behavior and result in higher functioning of a human in society in most cases." Cortana chimed in from the computer with a metallic female voice.

"And I was silly enough to believe in her loyalty and to always have my back in my arguments. I think I would have to teach the meaning of that concept to her later" Bruce said jokingly as he looked at her female image on the computer looking at him with a confused expression like she didn't know what she said wrong.

"Fine, I will go to school but I have a condition," Bruce said as he looked at Alfred.

"Sure Young Master Bruce, I am sure that we can arrange whatever we want, sports cars, toys, more machine components, whatever you wish," Alfred said, happy that he could give something to Bruce to entice him to go to school and stop this useless childish argument.

"On no, I don't need more tools. What Wayne Corporations is sending us is more than enough for almost everything I am going to work on in the near future. What I want is a combat trainer. I want to be trained in martial combat and weapons usage by experts during my free hours as well as access to company decisions with you approving them as my guardian and in return, I will try to go to school at least three days a week." Bruce offered.

"... Five days, registered experts with nonlethal weapons only and you will only get access to one company to 'influence' under my guidance." Alfred countered thinking that Bruce getting some early experience in business with some small unimportant Wayne company would not be a bad thing for the conglomerate in the long run especially since he was gonna take over it one day after all.

"Okay, five days but lethal weapons should be allowed for practice under the guidance of the trainers and access to two companies one dealing with software and one dealing in capital investments," Bruce said desperately bargaining.

"*Sigh* Fine. Sometimes I really think that you would be the death of me, young master. Anyways, I'll inform the school board about your returning to school from Monday as well as contact the company board to see if they have any spare subsidiaries lying around concerning those two industries you mentioned that you can take over with me as your parent." Alfred said as he turned to leave but then remembered something and turned towards Selina, "And you Selina, is there something you want?"

Selina was confused. She didn't know what she wanted. She didn't even think she would ever have what she currently had. So anything more than this was just a luxury for her.

"Uhh, since Bruce is learning those stuff, can I learn them with him? They sounded fun. Also, I always wanted to learn gymnastics. I always loved it when I saw those women on tv bending their bodies in weird ways like nothing." Selina said doubtfully after thinking for a while. She didn't know if she had requested more than she should. She wasn't even sure that she should bargain with Alfred like Bruce just did.

"Okay, Selina. I'll make sure to contact a high-level professional gymnast for you to learn from." Alfred didn't even try to bargain with Selina at all as he just accepted her request.

'Sexist.' Bruce muttered in his mind seeing Alfred's even gentler treatment towards Selina.

"Yeaaaa." Selina clapped happily.

It seemed like Selina would become a cat-woman with a flexible body no matter what Bruce did to change her fate. It almost seemed like it was her destiny.

'Although I can eventually enjoy that flexible body one day.' Bruce smirked to himself as he went back to working on the drone he was working on leaving Selina to wonder about the reason for that happy smirk on Bruce's face.

He was currently working on different types of drones for information gathering from all over the city. He was too young to be Batman and fight crime on the streets, so right now he was going to build his power. He knew about the term, 'Knowledge is power' and he agreed with it. He wanted to collect as much information and knowledge about everyone and everything in the city as he could.

Cortana could easily observe and control any technology connected to the internet out there as she had almost unrestricted access to it but what about the places without any gadgets connected to the web, what about the more sensitive information? Bruce was going to collect those types of intel through the drones he was making.

Originally he wanted to make bat-shaped drones to go with the entire theme as he had already fallen prey to the obsession with keeping everything bat themed after he first named his muti-proto-tool as bat-tool. But he quickly figured out that bat-shaped drones while pretty good for dark areas or night-time surveillance wasn't as good during the daytime or for areas with too much light.

So he was also designing drones shaped like spiders, pigeons, and even mosquitoes along with bats. He was going all out with perfecting his surveillance drone technology to make sure that every corner of the city could be viewed by him whenever he wanted by the time criminals like Joker, Riddler or Penguin rose in power.

Right now, most of those identities didn't even exist or were just starting their criminal career somewhere and Bruce wasn't that big of a fan of DC to know about all their secret identities or histories or even remember about most villains of Batman. He only knew about the most famous ones from the movies and some animated shows that he had watched back when he was young. So he could not send an exploding package to their homes to kill them before they even become criminals although he would like to do that very much.

He wasn't a psycho to kill every bad guy he came across. He could just send some of the criminals who could be redeemed to a coma or just break their spine forever but he wasn't gonna kill every one of them. He would only kill those psychotic and truly evil ones that really deserved it like Joker or maybe Two-face or Bane or Savage or Luthor or...

'Okay, that's a long list. Wait, maybe I should actually keep a list and maybe even plan how to kill them. 'Natural deaths' would be the perfect way since that way I would not only get to keep Batman's non-killing image and not get in conflict with the cops or the other heroes but also the criminals would underestimate me. Wow, I am a genius.' Bruce thought as he quickly began to devise the best ways to kill criminals in a non-suspecting manner while crackling madly in his cave.

"He knows that I am still here, and I can hear him laughing like a maniac, right?... But he still sounds really cute for some reason." Selina muttered while standing at the entrance of the cave wondering just how and why she finds someone this geeky and crazy cute.

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