28 Chapter 28: The Last year Dragon Grind
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"What's the point of magic, to begin with… if I can't use it to protect my friends?"
– Lucy Heartfilia, (Fairy Tail)
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"Were you this fit the last time I came here because you look like you went through a real growth spurt?" Zatanna asked with a mixture of curiosity and confusion in her eyes as she looked at Bruce who now looked like he was a really fit twelve-year-old rather than a nine-year-old kid.
"Yeah, Bruce. Tell us, how exactly did you become this fit?" Selina also repeated Zatanna's question as she squinted her eyes at him.
"It's just your imagination girls, I was always this ripped and handsome. Perhaps, you two just never noticed it till now." Bruce smiled defensively not looking into the eyes of either one of the girls.
The young witch had visited him today to rekindle back their friendship and catch up with him. Her father had dropped her at Bruce's house in the morning, promising that he would come to pick her up in the evening.
Bruce had been maintaining his distance from Giovanni as he was sure that he had cast some sort of spell on him the last time they had met. So, he didn't talk with Giovanni much, only interacting with him the minimum required amount. Bruce was trying to stay the hell away from Giovanni as much as possible.
He was even wary of Zatanna since the sorceress had a history of erasing people's memories in the comics, especially Batman's.
Anyways, after the young witch visited his home, she quickly managed to become Selina's friend as the two surprisingly had quite similar personalities. The trio was right now sitting beside a lake as they were waiting to see the sunset.
"Hey, you two wanna see a magic trick?" Zatanna asked trying to lighten the awkward atmosphere.
"Yeah, sure. I love magic." Bruce answered curious to see her magic.
"Here see an ordinary coin and now it disappears," Zatanna said as she shook her fist holding the coin to make it disappear.
"Oh, I know that trick. I can do it too. My yoga teacher taught me that. Let me guess it's inside your ear?" Selina asked with confidence.
"No, it's inside your ear." Zatanna smiled mischievously.
"What? That's not possi..." She couldn't complete her sentence as Selina suddenly found the same coin falling out from her right ear.
"Wow. Can you show us another trick?" Selina couldn't help but want to see more magic like the little kid that she was.
"Yeah, sure," Zatanna responded as she scooped some water with both of her hands from the lake and blew into it, instantly turning the entire water in her hands into numerous bubbles.
But that was not the end of the trick. The bubbles then began to project various images on themselves.
"That's my mother." Selina cried out as she quickly tried to touch one of the bubbles only for it to burst the moment she touched it.
Bruce noticed that not only Selina's mother, but the bubbles also had a lot of other different images on them including the image of Giovanni Zatara as well as the late Thomas and Martha Wayne.
"How did you do it?" Selina asked in amazement.
"A magician never reveals her secrets," Zatanna said with a proud smile on her face.
"Then you are a very good magician Zatanna. Your father should be really proud of you." Bruce praised her.
"I hope so, although I think sometimes he just forgets to show it but I cut him some slack since he really just misses my mom. But that still doesn't change the fact that he is a good dad... at least when it counts." Zatanna said as she sadly looked at a bubble that was showing the image of a beautiful young woman, probably her mother.
Bruce had already partly figured out how the trick worked. It worked on some kind of mental magic where the bubbles can read the memories of its targets and identify the people whom the targets missed the most in their memories and it showed the images of those people to its targets.
Truthfully, the trick would have been quite a good one if it were not for the fact that the bubbles could literally look into other people's memories without their permission.
However, what Bruce wondered about was why the trick didn't work on him. Because if it had, at least it wouldn't have shown the images of the dead Wayne couple to him. It would have shown something completely different, maybe something from his previous life instead.
'Perhaps, the remnants of Bruce's leftover consciousness are protecting my mind or something.' Bruce thought to himself.
The three kids passed the rest of the time till Giovanni came to fetch back Zatanna by happily talking among themselves and playing chase with each other by the lake. Zatanna was a fan of magic, both the real and the fake versions of it, so she gladly showed Bruce and Selina different magic tricks and simple spells one after the other to keep them entertained.
By the end of her visit, all three were pretty happy as they had enjoyed themselves a lot and promised to meet up again soon. Even Alfred who had kept an eye on them from the very start was glad that the kids had enjoyed themselves.
"She is cool, isn't she?" Selina said after Zatanna had happily left with her father in the evening.
"Yeah, she definitely is," Bruce said while deactivating the necklace on his neck, a small tool he had specially designed to obstruct telepaths from messing with his mind.
The necklace worked by releasing an inaudible and undetectable signal of a particular frequency which barred any brain waves or theta waves from approaching the user's brain and affecting the user's mind in any way. He had developed it after he met Mr. Zatara that day.
Bruce developed it for himself and even gifted one to Alfred and Selina each as well to also make sure that nobody could know his secrets by reading their minds. Although Bruce had no idea if it would be able to protect them from the mental tricks of a magic user, he still preferred some form of protection in comparison to absolutely no protection at all.
Even though it seemed that Bruce ultimately didn't need the necklace since this Zatanna appeared too sweet and childish to use mind-altering magic on him, he would still continue to wear it simply because he liked to be ready for everything including any random telepath appearing out of nowhere to try to learn his secrets by reading his mind or deciding what memories Bruce should and shouldn't remember.
"Bruce it's time to start your chi practice simulation." Cortana's voice came from his watch as it slightly vibrated on his hand.
"*Sigh* Fine. I really hate my chi practice sessions." Bruce murmured as he looked at Selina who was looking equally as distraught as him at the fact that they would have to practice their chi manipulation again.
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"That's amazing. How did the two of you improve in your chi so much in such a short time?" Vicki yelled in frustration as she saw Bruce and Selina induce cracks in a rock using their chi.
"We practice. Not unlike you who just likes to play video games on the computer." Selina retorted with a smirk on her lips.
"Hey, that's not fair. I practice everything else just as hard as you guys but the chi exercises you do are too much over the top. I don't think we need that level of practice any time sooner." Vicki mumbled while pouting.
"Okay okay, stop arguing my proteges. And Selina not everyone is talented at everything. People have different types of talents that they might excel in, so never underestimate anyone... But I do have to ask, what type of private training are you two doing to improve so much in just a few days?" Richard asked with an interested voice as he himself couldn't believe how much the two of them had improved especially Bruce since his chi even felt purer than even Richard's own quality of chi.
"Not anything severe sensei. We just follow a strict diet plan along with a strict personal training regime." Bruce replied before any of the other two girls could.
However, the truth was far from that. The training they were undergoing in simulations was much more harsh and brutal than simple exercises. They were basically trying to master something like ultra instinct to sharpen their chi by fighting with digitally simulated wild animals for hours on end until they were out of energy or they could no longer move.
Of course, they weren't fighting with lions or tigers. In fact, Selina's choice of animal sparring partner was humorously a pack of wild cats while Bruce's was mostly wolves. The two trained daily while having almost what could be called life-and-death fights in the simulations to sharpen their instincts and reflexes. That's why Vicki being mostly a normal girl compared to the two without any specific goals in mind didn't want to go through what they did.
It wasn't because she was lazy but simply because she had no reason to be as strict on herself as the other two did since Selina had the goal to take revenge against her father while Bruce wanted to grow stronger to survive what was to come in the future.
"Fine, but I want to remind you three that my two years will soon be up in a few months. So you should speed up your training if you want to learn some more tricks from me. After all, I still haven't shown you my unique dragon-style Kung Fu that I developed myself with the help of my chi techniques." Richard smiled good-naturedly as he looked at his three students sighing heavily at the mention of more training.
He himself was feeling bad for trying to pressure them to work harder but he had no choice. He had already decided to teach them everything he could since he believed that it was his fortune to be able to teach students as talented as them in his lifetime. But he also couldn't extend his stay since he had already promised to only teach them for two years, not a single day more or less and he always honored his promises.
"By the way, I was thinking about taking you three somewhere to give you a treat tomorrow. But since you guys are so tired, I guess I will have to skip that." Richard said, keeping his fingers on his chin like he was sorry for not being able to give them a treat.
"No, we are not tired. We will definitely work harder to master your Dragon Kung Fu sensei." Selina shouted with renewed vigor.
"Yeah, I can still do double the training I am doing right now," Vicki said even though her voice sounded like she could cry any time.
"Yeah, sure. You had me at treat anyways." Bruce said with a smile, not at all caring that he was a billionaire who could eat as much as he wanted anytime on his own.
"That's good. But before that, you'll have to show me all of your determination. Now, let's start with your hundred pushups of the day." Richard declared.
And just like that the ultimate grueling grind started for the trio, a grind they would survive but would forever be scarred by.
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{A big shout-out to my new pátron 'Muscab Mumin' for joining the Divine Eminence tier on my Pátreon. Thanks for the support. ≧◠ᴥ◠≦✊}
(A/N: Yo! Some readers have been complaining that some of these chapters have been feeling like fillers since they want to see Bruce quickly grow up and fight crime and evil and stuff.
I just wanna clarify that I want the same. Writing about kid Bruce and developing the base of his relationships isn't really easy, I would much rather prefer writing about adult Bruce Wayne as soon as possible. But the only reason I have been taking my time to show him solidifying his relationships and getting his early life in control is to develop his character a little bit so that readers can have a little bit more context on what is happening and why.
But I get it, it still might be getting a little boring for the action lovers out there but don't worry, a couple of time skips will be coming soon so that we can go into his teen and late teenage period of his life until his fateful meeting with the Demon Head.
So, sit back and enjoy.)
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