17: Ideal

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(General P.O.V)

(1 week later)

"It's done, Mr.Wayne."

Lucius Fox informed Bruce Wayne.

The young Gotham Billionaire stood, looking out into the city with a forlorn expression on his face.

"Tell me something Lucius, can a symbol meant for justice be absolutely corrupted?"

Lucius Fox was an older black gentleman. He was donned in a grey suit.

"Yes."

Lucius wasted no time in answering.

Bruce blinked.

"I see."

"Allow me to explain, Sir."

Lucius cleared his throat.

The younger of the two stood straighter.

"Go on."

Lucius pulled the seat before the desk of the owner of Wayne Enterprises and sat down, one leg crossed over the other.

"I'm assuming this is related to our R & D department's extracurricular activities?"

"Mmh."

Bruce gave a non-committal hum.

"Well, it's not a simple matter then, is it? You see Batman is more than just a symbol. He's an ideal."

Lucius leaned forward.

"However, when an ideal becomes too absolute, it risks becoming corrupted by the very nature of its absoluteness."

"For example, if Batman were to become too focused on instilling fear in criminals, he may begin to employ unethical or immoral tactics to achieve his goals, such as excessive violence or manipulation. In doing so, he would compromise his own ideals and become corrupted."

He paused to gauge Bruce's reaction, before ultimately continuing.

"This highlights the importance of balance and flexibility in any ideal or philosophy. The world is not black and white, and there are often shades of grey in any situation. Therefore, it is necessary to maintain a degree of flexibility in one's ideals in order to adapt to changing circumstances and avoid becoming corrupted."

Bruce chuckled.

"Batman does not kill. That is his motto. His one rule. His essence. What does it mean when he causes the deaths of 5 people? Even indirectly Lucius, surely that is unforgivable to a degree."

Bruce turned around from the view and Lucius could finally see the heavy weight in his eyes.

"In that case, I would suggest a vacation sir. Maybe a week in the Bahamas would allow the 'Batman' time to come to terms with his own mistakes, whether he's truly at fault or not relies more on his future actions than the past. Will he take responsibility and make sure their deaths were not for nothing, or will he break down, stop being the ideal that Gotham needs. That is the real battle."

Lucius stood up, looking at his watch.

"Oh dear, I'm afraid the company is in need of my time Mr.Wayne. I best be leaving."

"Of course Lucius, thank you."

Bruce shook his hand with an amiable smile.

"Say hi to Alfred."

Lucius smirked.

"Inform him, I shall avail myself on Saturday for a little golf."

Bruce snorted.

"A chance to shake his old bones? I'll make sure he's not late."

"See that you do."

Lucius replied while leaving.

"Oh and Lucius, the security overview for the CryoGen mutation Crystals...?"

"I'll have a report along with half of the safe combination code sent over to you later."

Lucius assured and left, closing the door behind him.

Bruce turned around to face the city. Despite being on the tallest building on Gotham, from here he couldn't see the destroyed docks. They were too far away. What he could see was the smog that covered parts of the industrial sector of the city.

Take away that, and the almost tangible aura of danger in the air and Gotham could be considered a beautiful city. It was a complex and multifaceted place, characterized by both darkness and light.

Bruce touched the window.

These days it seemed to be more darkness than light.

(General P.O.V)

Kent looked at the helmet. Dozens of books, lost scriptures and archaic texts laid strewn on his desk.

He stood up, feeling his body protest at the action. Kent was old and he knew it. He also knew his time was coming.

He walked forward, approaching a section of the wall, below a mural of a larger than life man, facing the children of the creature from the stars. Facing, Starro.

Next to the man were two other outstanding individuals. Both with a right to a legend just as illustrious. However, this mural in particular focused on Nabu, son of Marduk and brother to Ishtar.

Kent stopped infront of the mural, looking down at its foot. The helmet of Nabu laid on a stand, spotlessly clean from the regular dustings he gave it.

He lifted it up, running a palm across its face.

His life flashed on it's ornate golden form. And what an eventful life it had been. He'd seen everything. Well, almost everything... recently he had come across something new.

Something he needed to wear the helmet for.

"No sense stalling."

Kent told himself, bringing the helmet down to cover his head.

"It will be just like old times."

His voice echoed out through the library.

(Davian's P.O.V)

The third week begun with a bang. Kent was still doing his missing-in-action thing and I was...stuck. See, I had all this potential but without a teacher, anything I came up with was a crude imitation of what I had seen on pop culture.

So my need for a training partner had seen me challenge Raven for even more spars. And she had taken to the suggestion like a fish to water, hungry to lay the beating on me. It was painful but showed results.

Already, I could move through a battle field with an almost uncanny intuition. I think this might have been a budding spirit sense. My strategy was move in, slash or punch then sidestep an attack, roll away from a pincer move (she was handy with controlling dozens of dark tentacles. I wonder where she learned it?) and then buckling down as an area of effect attack hit. I wasn't fast enough yet, to evade such attacks.

More often than not, I had my ass kicked.

Case in point,

She ducked a slash from my sword, disappearing into a portal that appeared on the ground. I immediately looked up, getting flashed accidentally as she disappeared yet again into another portal above me. The next rift had her land behind me on the ground with a resounding bang.

She stomped a foot onto the floor and caused it to ripple in a dark flood of sand and stone. I lost my balance, falling onto my back only to get hit by the wave and launched onto the sky.

My eyes caught a flash of black and I immediately crossed my hands across the chest area. The attack never came. Instead a cold wind passed by my body, causing actual black ice to form around me. My body temperature plummeted as my skin became numb. Breath came out in a mist. The cloak of Reiryoku around me failing to stave off the elemental attack.

I fell to the ground, ice shattering around me as darkness claimed me shortly after landing.

2 days later, I became conscious. I had no bandages on this time but that attack been dangerously close to killing me. I don't even think Raven understood that. Or maybe she just didn't care.

"You have a death wish?"

Speak of the devil. She was sitting next to my bed with an open book titled, 'Applications of dark healing to the physical vessel'. On the desk was another book, whose title I couldn't read due to the angle.

I raised an eyebrow.

"Man, that last attack was vicious. I almost thought you were actually trying to end me."

I told her, swinging my legs out of the bed.

"Wait..."

She had a hand up to stop me from standing and with the sheet covering me falling away, I understood why. I was naked underneath.

Raven's face flushed.

"Jesus Christ Davian! Wear some clothes!"

Then the door banged behind her as she left.

"Hey wait! You left your...book..."

I tried to tell her but she was gone.

I looked down at the book and scrunched my eyebrows.

"Effective counterattacks against close range combatants."

My eyes narrowed.

So that's how she was kicking my ass. I opened the first page, it being the introduction, there was nothing really there to help. The next few pages however, introduced a concept I was kicking myself for not having realized before. I was weak if I couldn't find a way to counter her ranged attacks.

"Beat them up with sustained energy blasts from a safe distance. In cases where an opponent can block such raw energy attacks, switch to elemental, psionic or suppression attacks."

I read out loud, face changing.

That little...

I smirked, closing the book. Now I knew what I needed to work on.

The very next day I spent time alone in the sparring room. If Raven thought she could one up me then she had another thing coming.

(2 days later)

During practice, another thing had been made apparent to me. The move I wanted to develop as a counter to Raven needed me to be great at Zanjutsu or in simpler terms, sword fighting.

I had a really sharp weapon in my arsenal and not using it properly was foolish. However, Sword training by myself was not really working out. I needed a teacher or a sword user to spar with. Raven was a Mystical practitioner and Kent was unavailable. Which meant I had to get creative and getting creative meant I unfortunately needed Raven's help.

Oh goodie.

(Later at night)

'The old scars are there...but the new ones are gone.'

I thought, looking over my body. Tonight I had decided to complete the meditation exercise earlier, so that I could talk to Raven before she fell asleep.

A little of that extra time was spent trying to spot the differences between this body and my old one.

I had been in this world for almost a month and it was still hard getting used to seeing this young version of me every time I looked in the mirror. I couldn't help but wonder the kind of person he had been and the kind of life he had lived as well.

However, the scars around his body were indication enough. My parallel self had not had an easy life either. I wiped the steam fogging the mirror, making eye contact with my reflection.

Let's try it one more time. I closed my eyes and imagined a tether of Reiryoku, connecting my mind with my inner space of being, the cemetery. Like it had been for the past 3 weeks, ever since I'd woken up in the Tower Of Fate, I couldn't go there. I couldn't access my soul space.

Anger and frustration surged up within me. I felt ready to explode. Only for a shuddering breath to escape my lips. I couldn't get mad. Getting angry brought him out. The negative side. I turned my back on the mirror. I had no choice but to keep on trying.

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Hey guys, this fic is going to have more...meat to it, so look past the obvious.