A Short History

[her_own_rules]

Despite Barbara's mother walking out on her family early in her childhood and being born in Gotham City, with its ongoing struggle between villains and heroes, her childhood was relatively easy. At the age of five, she started taking ballet (at her mother's behest) and mixed martial arts (at her father's). A child prodigy and Mensa member, Barbara attended Gotham State University at the age of 15, intending to major in Computer Science and Data Retrieval, and, following in her father's footsteps, join the Gotham Police Academy. At least until he informed her that every application would be rejected.

This went over badly, and Barbara, playing on her father's then-current Cold War detente with 'The Batman,' dressed up in a similar costume for a party—where she found herself and everyone around her in the middle of an attack by Killer Moth. One thing led to another, and her decade of martial arts saw her defending the people around her, and that night Batgirl was born. Unsurprisingly, later, when Batman discovered her, he told her to stop and go home—and she listened just as well to him as her dad, which is to say mostly never and not at all. (At least at that time. Ah, teenagers.)

Barbara remained Batgirl, often teaming up with (and training under) Batman and (alongside) his sidekick, Pixie Boots Robin, and other superheroes of the time, such as Black Canary and Supergirl. She continued her training in mixed martial arts, which would come to include training in Boxing, Judo, Karate, Taekwondo, Muay Thai, Jujitsu, dragon style kung fu, and escrima, as well as developing extensive gymnastic ability, combat skills, peak agility, and stamina, including armed and unarmed combat. Finding a good balance between her two lives, Barbara graduated with her Master's Degree in Computer Science and Data Retrieval at 18, following up not much later with another in Forensic Psychology.

She remained at home, counting the time between her 'real life as Barbara Gordon' and her 'nightlife as Batgirl,' until tragedy struck in the form of the Joker, who came to make an example of her not as Batgirl, but as the 'helpless' daughter of Commissioner Gordon. A gunshot wound from the Joker resulted in a spinal cord injury at the L1 vertebra, leaving her paralyzed from the waist down.

In the years of her recuperation and recovery from depression, but still in a wheelchair, Barbara refused to give up the life the Joker hadn't even known he was taking. She reinvented herself through aptitude for and training in information sciences, combining it with her genius-level intellect, photographic memory, master operation of computers and electronics, and expert skills as a hacker (having even hacked into the Pentagon at 16, because someone *cough* Pixie Boots, again? said she couldn't). She instead devoted all her time to developing one of the world's most complex and powerful computer systems, which constantly gathered data from the world's top news sources, the CIA mainframe, the FBI, the NSA, and Interpol, serving as her starting point.

As Oracle, she became an all but untouchable "Ghost in the Machine," as well as the "man in the chair, mission control," providing crucial information and support to the superhero community worldwide both in and out of the field. She founded a team called "The Birds of Prey" and helped raise two other Batgirls. During these same years, she added a Bachelor's and Master of Laws from Harvard to her repertoire, which she got "in her spare time, on the side." She furthered her mixed martial arts with Richard Dragon to be just as capable a fighter from her chair. Unexpectedly, Barbara and her father were contacted about an experimental treatment that might be a workaround for her diplegia, without being a physical cure. After it, and an even more extended stint in recuperative physical therapy, Barbara returned to being able to walk, and shortly after that to being Batgirl, too.

In the next several years, Barbara establishes several bases between Gotham, Burnside, and Blüdhaven—as well as with the Titans, Birds of Prey, and Batgirls. She earned graduate hours in Library Science at Burnside College, was employed as a Librarian, owned a Green Energy Business, and took an interest in her local politics. As Batgirl & Oracle, she faced many villains, including her own brother's serial killer murder spree & death, "procured" 12 Luther statelites, continued to add to her plethora of patents, back door access to the highest dignitaries across the world, and the ability, in times of emergency, to take over all video & audio communication, as well as all personal & private sattelites, worldwide in minutes.

Most recently, before her Etrayan abduction, she's been living (in four different, simultaneous locations) with her boyfriend, Dick Grayson Yes, Pixie Boots grew up to be The Best Boy of The Second Generation, too, and their dog Haley, fighting the good fight as Batgirl, and working on a secret project as Oracle: setting up all the computers and communications for the new Justice League Watchtower Space Station.