## Month One: Foundation
The dawn bell's deep bronze voice rolled across the mountain peaks like thunder trapped in stone, its resonance bouncing between jagged cliffs in waves that seemed to shake the very foundations of the ancient monastery. In the stone-walled dormitory, carved from living rock centuries ago, most children would still be buried under rough woolen blankets, fighting the mountain cold and the cruel early hour.
Bruce Wayne wasn't most children.
He emerged from his narrow cell already dressed in the dark training clothes—rough hemp that chafed but never tore, designed to remind the body that comfort was weakness. His jaw was set like granite, blue eyes hard as winter ice, shoulders squared with the bearing of a soldier reporting for the most important duty of his life. Every movement was precise, economical, like he'd calculated the exact energy expenditure needed and refused to waste a single joule on anything unnecessary.
The corridor stretched before him like a cathedral of shadows, hewn from mountain stone that had witnessed centuries of warriors in training. Iron braziers guttered along the walls, casting dancing shadows that made the ancient carvings seem to writhe—dragons and phoenixes, warriors locked in eternal combat, reminders of those who had walked this path before. The air was thin and sharp, tasting of metal and old stone, and every breath felt like swallowing knives.
His bare feet slapped against the flagstones with metronomic precision, each step echoing down the corridor like a countdown to war. Behind him, he could hear the measured pace of another early riser.
Hadrian Wayne followed at exactly three paces back, his own movements fluid and controlled, dark hair already neatly tied back with a leather cord. Even at nine years old, everything about him whispered aristocracy—the way he adjusted his sleeves with unconscious elegance, the way his posture remained perfect despite the early hour, the way he seemed to glide rather than walk. He looked like a boy who could make exhaustion appear to be a strategic choice he was making.
"You're up early again," Hadrian said quietly. "Earlier than yesterday."
"Sleep is time wasted," Bruce replied without turning around, his voice rough with determination. "Every minute I'm not training is a minute my parents' killer stays free."
"Revenge is a dish best served competently," Hadrian observed with dry humor. "Hard to be competent when you're dead from exhaustion."
Bruce's stride never faltered. "Hard to be dead when you're too angry to quit."
Behind them both, a third voice joined the conversation—musical, theatrical, and utterly unrepentant about the early hour.
"If this were Hogwarts," Zatanna Zatara announced, her voice carrying clearly down the stone corridor as she hurried to catch up, "we'd get owls delivering our morning post, house elves bringing us porridge in bed, and maybe the occasional murderous professor trying to kill us—but at least there'd be *style* to it." She was tugging her long black braid into place as she walked, adjusting it with the kind of theatrical precision that suggested she was always performing for an invisible audience. "Here? We get frostbite, cardiac arrest, and a master who treats 'good morning' like a foreign concept."
Hadrian glanced back with amusement dancing in his dark eyes. "I suspect Dragon considers 'good morning' redundant. If you're alive to hear it, it's automatically good."
"Survival isn't good," Bruce said flatly. "It's the minimum."
"Spoken like someone who's never had to wear a corset for a stage performance," Zatanna muttered, finally falling into step beside them. Even in training clothes, she moved with the fluid grace of a dancer, every gesture slightly larger than life. "Trust me, survival can be quite the accomplishment."
They emerged into the main courtyard just as the sun crested the eastern peaks, flooding the ancient training ground with golden light that turned the morning mist into something ethereal and beautiful. The courtyard was enormous, easily a hundred feet square, surrounded on three sides by the monastery walls and open to the mountain vista on the fourth. Prayer flags snapped in the thin air, their colors brilliant against the stone.
At the center of it all stood Richard Dragon.
He was motionless as carved basalt, his massive frame wrapped in simple black training clothes that did nothing to hide the power beneath. His arms were crossed, his stance wide and rooted, like he was part of the mountain itself. His skin was dark bronze, marked with old scars that told stories of a thousand battles, and his head was shaved clean. When he looked at them, his eyes were the deep brown of rich earth—patient, implacable, and absolutely unforgiving.
He didn't greet them. He didn't ask if they'd slept well or if they were ready for training. His eyes were the greeting, and they said plainly: *Today, you will suffer. Today, you will grow. Today, you will discover what you're made of.*
"Conditioning," Dragon announced, his voice deep and resonant, each syllable carrying the weight of absolute authority. The word echoed off the stone walls like a pronouncement of doom. "Your bodies are currently adequate for children's games, casual recreation, and hiding behind your parents when trouble comes calling."
Bruce's jaw tightened, a muscle jumping in his cheek.
"We will make them adequate for war," Dragon continued, his gaze sweeping over the three children with clinical assessment. "We will forge them in fire and pain until they become weapons worthy of the minds that guide them."
Zatanna raised her hand with theatrical flourish, her dark eyes sparkling with mischief despite the intimidating surroundings. "Just a thought—and I'm only suggesting this because I care about our long-term survival prospects—but has anyone considered a middle option? Something like... adequate for community theater sword fights? Or circus tumbling? I'd even settle for 'mild peril fitness' over this whole 'forge warriors in literal fire' aesthetic you've got going."
Dragon's expression didn't flicker by so much as a millimeter. His voice remained perfectly level. "Begin."
And so began the hour that stretched into eternity.
"Push-ups," Dragon commanded. "One hundred. Begin."
They dropped to the stone courtyard in unison—well, Bruce and Hadrian dropped. Zatanna descended with a theatrical flourish that somehow made touching the cold flagstones look like a deliberate artistic choice.
Bruce attacked the exercise like the stone floor had personally murdered his parents. His body moved with mechanical precision, muscles already coiling and releasing with the rhythm of a perfectly calibrated machine. Every push-up was executed with textbook form—back straight, arms at precise angles, descent controlled and ascent explosive. Sweat began to bead on his forehead, but he didn't grunt, didn't whimper, didn't make a sound. Every rep was silent defiance, a declaration that pain was just another enemy to defeat.
Hadrian watched Dragon's stance from the corner of his eye, noted the precise angle of his feet, the distribution of his weight, then adjusted his own posture minutely. His movements were fluid and controlled, like water finding the most efficient path downhill. "You'll waste less energy if you shift your elbows inward," he told Zatanna conversationally while lowering himself with aristocratic precision. "The leverage is more advantageous."
"Sweet of you to offer coaching, darling," Zatanna gasped between reps, sweat already glistening on her olive skin, "but my form is artistic. More interpretive dance, less military tribunal. I'm exploring the emotional journey of the push-up as performance art."
Bruce didn't even glance sideways, his focus laser-sharp on the stone beneath him. "You're doing it wrong."
"I'm doing it *fabulously*," she shot back, stretching the last syllable into a theatrical trill. "There's a profound philosophical difference."
"Fabulous gets you killed," Bruce grunted, his voice tight with exertion but his pace never slowing.
"Boring gets you ignored," Zatanna countered, somehow managing to make her struggle against gravity look graceful. "And ignored people don't get stabbed."
Dragon's shadow fell across her like a storm cloud blotting out the sun. When she looked up, his massive frame blocked out half the sky, his expression as unmovable as the mountain peaks. "Fabulous collapses first in battle," he said with the kind of quiet intensity that made the temperature seem to drop ten degrees.
"Not if fabulous distracts the enemy long enough for boring to stab them in the back," she countered with a grin that was equal parts charm and steel. Despite her trembling arms, her voice never wavered.
Hadrian chuckled softly under his breath, then raised his voice without breaking rhythm. "She has a point, Master Dragon. Presentation has significant psychological value in combat situations. You've drilled us extensively on the importance of perception and misdirection, haven't you?"
Dragon's eyes flicked toward him, dark and unreadable as midnight water, but after a moment he gave the faintest nod of acknowledgment. "Perception is a tool. Tools break when used incorrectly."
Meanwhile, Bruce had reached his seventieth push-up, sweat now dripping steadily onto the stone beneath him. His voice came out low but clear, cutting through the mountain air like a blade. "Perception doesn't stop a blade from cutting. Strength does." His push-ups never faltered, his body moving like a machine that had calculated the precise energy expenditure needed and refused to deviate from optimal performance. "Speed does. Skill does."
"Pain is temporary," he added, his voice rough with determination, "weakness is permanent."
From across the courtyard, Sandra Wu-San glided through her own set with mechanical perfection, already past her hundredth rep while the others struggled through their first fifty. Her movements were so flawlessly controlled they barely disturbed the air around her. She looked over at Bruce's declaration with clinical assessment. "Incorrect analysis," she said calmly, her voice carrying easily despite her exertion. "Pain is educational. Your body is discarding assumed limitations and discovering actual capabilities."
Zatanna collapsed sideways with theatrical flair, landing on the stone with a flourish that somehow made defeat look intentional. "My body is discarding *hope*," she announced to the sky, propping her head on one arm like she was posing for a Renaissance painting. "Along with feeling in my arms and any remaining delusions about this being fun."
Bruce's voice cut through the courtyard like a whip crack. "Get up."
"I am up," she protested from her position on the stone, gesturing airily at the mountains around them. "Up is relative. Philosophically speaking, I'm higher than sea level, therefore I am definitionally up."
Hadrian shook his head, amusement tugging at the corners of his mouth as he finished his set with surgical precision. He rolled back onto his feet in one smooth motion, not even breathing hard. "You do realize, Zatanna, that sarcasm burns significantly fewer calories than push-ups?"
"Yes, but it heals the soul," she replied with mock solemnity, dragging herself upright with exaggerated suffering. "And my soul needs more healing than my deltoids need strengthening."
"Your deltoids disagree," Bruce said flatly, already resetting his position for another set.
Dragon's voice cut through the courtyard like thunder rolling between the peaks. "Again."
A collective groan rose from the three students—except Bruce, who simply dropped back into position with the inevitability of gravity. His face was set in lines of absolute determination, blue eyes burning with an intensity that seemed to dare the mountain itself to break him.
"How many more sets?" Zatanna asked weakly.
"Until you stop asking," Dragon replied without emotion.
And so they continued, bodies screaming, sweat mixing with the morning mist, while the ancient stones bore witness to another generation learning that the path to strength was paved with suffering, determination, and the occasional theatrical complaint about proper form.
---
## Month Two: Technique
The training dummy had seen better centuries. Its leather hide was scarred with the marks of a thousand students, stuffed with sand and rice that had been compressed by decades of brutal impact. It hung from iron chains that sang with each blow, a metallic percussion that echoed off the courtyard walls like a battle hymn.
Bruce's fists were already raw from two hours of continuous assault. His knuckles were split and bleeding, dark bruises blooming across his shins from repeated kicks, and his forearms bore the geometric patterns of blocked strikes. He didn't slow down. He didn't know how.
Each punch was thrown with the desperate fury of a boy trying to fight his way through grief itself. His form was improving—Dragon saw to that with corrections delivered like surgical strikes—but there was still something wild in his attacks, something that spoke of sleepless nights and waking nightmares.
Dragon stood three feet away, unmovable as a mountain, holding heavy leather focus mitts that could absorb the impact of a sledgehammer. His voice was steady, clinical, like a professor discussing the finer points of philosophy rather than violence. "Fighting is problem-solving under pressure. Every opponent presents you with a puzzle written in movement and intent. The fighter who solves the puzzle fastest—lives longest."
Bruce drove another elbow strike into the mitt with enough force to stagger a normal man. Dragon absorbed it without moving an inch. Bruce's voice came out clipped, hard as diamond. "Then I'll solve it faster than anyone."
"You'll bleed first," Dragon corrected with the calm certainty of someone stating a law of physics. He shifted position slightly, adjusting the angle of the mitts. "But yes—if you endure the bleeding long enough, if you learn from every drop spilled, you'll develop the speed you seek. Again."
Bruce obeyed instantly, without question, without hesitation. His forehead strike crashed against the leather with a sound like breaking wood, sending droplets of sweat flying. He reset his stance with mechanical precision, then drove his knees up in brutal succession—left, right, left again—each strike aimed to shatter bone and destroy balance.
From the weapons rack where she was supposed to be practicing sword forms, Zatanna winced dramatically. "He's nine years old," she announced to the courtyard at large, her voice carrying the theatrical projection of a stage actress. "Nine! He should be playing tag, building tree forts, maybe learning to ride a bicycle. Not... not recreating a Jason Bourne training montage with his bare hands."
Bruce didn't even glance in her direction. His focus was absolute, his world narrowed to the target in front of him and the burning in his muscles. "Tag doesn't make you strong enough to matter."
"Neither does turning yourself into ground beef," Zatanna shot back, her dark eyes flashing with genuine concern beneath the theatrical delivery. "There's a difference between tough and self-destructive, Bruce."
"Pain is weakness leaving the body," Bruce grunted, hammering another elbow strike into the mitt with enough force to make Dragon adjust his stance slightly.
From his position near the meditation stones, where he'd been practicing breathing techniques with Sandra, Hadrian looked up with one eyebrow arched in aristocratic skepticism. "Or perhaps pain is simply your nervous system providing valuable feedback about tissue damage, and you're catastrophically mislabeling the experience for psychological comfort."
Bruce paused mid-strike, turning to glare at Hadrian with eyes that burned like blue fire. "Easy to theorize when you're not bleeding yet."
"I'm not bleeding because I'm learning technique instead of trying to punch my way through childhood trauma," Hadrian replied with the kind of calm directness that only the very wealthy seemed to master. "Which, coincidentally, is why Dragon paired us differently today."
Dragon's voice cut through the brewing argument like a blade through silk. "Bruce bleeds because he insists on learning the most difficult way possible. But he does learn." He tilted his massive head slightly, studying Bruce with those deep brown eyes that seemed to see everything. "Show me the combination again. This time, focus on efficiency over fury."
Bruce wiped his bleeding knuckles on his training shirt, leaving dark stains on the rough fabric. He reset his stance, muscles coiling like springs under tension, and threw himself at the drill like the mitts had personally offended his ancestors.
Where Bruce's training looked like an assault on the fundamental nature of reality, Hadrian's resembled something closer to physics made elegant. His small hands—pale, long-fingered, aristocratic—gripped Dragon's thick wrist with surprising strength. His body shifted with fluid precision, weight transferring from one foot to the other like water finding the most efficient path, and suddenly the enormous man was redirected in a perfect arc, his own momentum controlled and released without any apparent effort from the boy.
Dragon landed lightly on the balls of his feet, immediately flowing back into attack position without missing a beat. "Better," he acknowledged, his deep voice carrying a note of genuine approval. "Timing is your primary weapon. Not muscle mass, not aggression. Timing and positioning."
Hadrian's expression remained calm and focused, though his chest rose and fell more quickly from the exertion. He brushed a strand of dark hair back from his forehead with the kind of unconscious grace that made Zatanna roll her eyes and mutter something about "ridiculously photogenic people." "So the fundamental principle isn't to fight harder," Hadrian said, working through the concept aloud. "It's to fight more intelligently."
"Not intelligence," Dragon corrected, resetting his own stance. "Clarity. See the movement before it completes its trajectory. Understand the commitment behind each attack. Then guide that commitment where you decide it should go."
Hadrian nodded slowly, his dark eyes narrowing as though he were calculating vectors and angles on some internal chessboard. When Dragon attacked again—a powerful straight punch that would have shattered ribs—Hadrian simply wasn't there anymore. He shifted his weight, redirected the strike with minimal contact, and sent the larger man flipping through the air to land controlled on the training mat.
Zatanna clapped her hands slowly, her grin widening with genuine appreciation. "Bravissimo! He makes it look like a waltz. Very civilized, very elegant." She turned to Bruce with theatrical concern. "Maybe you should consider asking our resident prince for lessons in not looking like you're trying to fistfight a mountain?"
Bruce wiped sweat and blood from his face, his glare intensifying. "You don't win wars by dancing."
Hadrian rose from his stance with calm elegance, adjusting his sleeves like he'd just finished a pleasant conversation rather than throwing a grown man through the air. "No," he agreed quietly, "but one might end them by understanding exactly where to stand."
Dragon brushed imaginary dust from his training clothes, his expression thoughtful. "Both perspectives have merit. But Hadrian—" His eyes sharpened, taking on the weight of absolute seriousness. "Never forget that even the most elegant dance can kill, when the situation demands it."
Hadrian's boyish features hardened slightly, showing a glimpse of the man he might become. His voice carried new steel. "Understood, Master Dragon. Completely."
If Bruce was violence incarnate and Hadrian was precision made flesh, then Zatanna was pure kinetic poetry. She moved across the courtyard like gravity was merely a suggestion, cartwheeling into a handspring that flowed seamlessly into a spinning kick. Her leg whistled through the air with enough force to break bones, pulling back just inches from the target pad Dragon held, the control absolute and beautiful.
She landed in perfect balance, tossing her long black braid over her shoulder like she'd just finished the closing number of a Broadway show instead of a potentially lethal combat technique.
Dragon lowered the pad, studying her with the same intensity he brought to everything. "Capoeira is the art of beautiful deception. Make them look where you want them to look. Strike where they cannot predict or defend."
Zatanna bounced on the balls of her feet, dark eyes sparkling with mischief and exertion. "So essentially it's stage magic, but instead of pulling rabbits from hats, I'm pulling concussions from thin air."
"Precisely," Dragon said, his deadpan delivery making Hadrian snort with suppressed laughter.
She spun again, a blur of controlled motion, her heel snapping into the pad with enough force to drive Dragon back a step. The impact echoed across the courtyard like a gunshot. She flowed out of the strike into a graceful split, then looked up at Bruce and Hadrian with theatrical exhaustion. "Did you gentlemen witness that? Nine years old, and I'm already a weaponized prima ballerina. I'm basically deadly performance art."
Bruce muttered under his breath, "You're wasting energy on showing off."
"No," Zatanna countered, springing back to her feet in a single fluid motion that defied several laws of physics. "I'm weaponizing style. Watch—" She spun into another combination, her body becoming a whirlwind of feints and strikes. Dragon swept at her legs; she flipped over the attack and landed behind him, grinning. "See? He thought I was committed to going left. I went right instead. Fabulous *and* effective."
Hadrian clapped politely, his smile growing more genuine. "You're essentially weaponizing audience applause. It's rather brilliant."
"Don't pretend you're not jealous of my natural theatrical flair," Zatanna shot back with a wink.
Dragon's voice cut through their banter with the weight of a falling hammer. "Focus. The performance hides the strike, but the strike must still be capable of breaking bone when it connects. Beauty without lethality is merely dancing. Again."
Her smile faded slightly, replaced by the kind of determination that turned entertainers into warriors. She reset her stance, nodding once with new seriousness. "Understood, Master Dragon. Art that hurts when it needs to."
Bruce shook his head, wiping blood from his split knuckles. "Fighting isn't art. It's survival."
Zatanna shot him a grin that was equal parts playful and steel. "It is when I do it, darling."
As the session wound toward its brutal conclusion, Dragon stepped back to observe all three of his students. His massive frame cast long shadows across the courtyard, and his voice carried the weight of final judgment.
"Three distinct styles. Three different paths to the same destination. Bruce—you fight like a hammer, direct and devastating. Hadrian—you fight like a river, redirecting force and flowing around obstacles. Zatanna—you fight like shadow and misdirection, striking from unexpected angles."
He paused, letting his words sink into the mountain air.
"Each approach is valid. Each has strengths and weaknesses. But remember this—" His eyes swept over them with implacable intensity. "Whether you choose to be hammer, river, or shadow, you are all becoming the same thing: weapons. And a weapon that cannot strike true when called upon is worse than useless. It is a danger to those who depend on it."
Bruce's fists clenched at his sides, knuckles white despite the blood. Hadrian's eyes shone with thoughtful analysis. Zatanna spun once more in place, then bowed with a flourish that somehow managed to convey both respect and irrepressible spirit.
And Dragon simply waited, as patient and immovable as the mountain itself, knowing that time would forge them all into exactly what they needed to become.
---
## Month Three: Integration
The morning mist clung to the ancient courtyard like the ghost of a thousand training sessions, swirling around the weathered flagstones with ethereal beauty. The air was sharp enough to cut, carrying the metallic tang of snow from the peaks and the faint smoky sweetness of the braziers that burned throughout the night. Prayer flags snapped in the thin mountain wind, their colors brilliant against the grey stone walls.
Richard Dragon stood at the center of it all like a monument to controlled violence, his massive frame wrapped in simple black training clothes that emphasized rather than concealed the devastating power beneath. His arms were folded across his barrel chest, his stance wide and rooted, feet planted like he'd grown from the mountain stone itself. Behind him, Sandra Wu-San stretched with mechanical precision, every movement calculated and efficient, her pale practice uniform immaculate despite the early hour.
Beside Sandra, Ben Turner bounced on the balls of his feet with barely contained energy, a wide grin splitting his dark features like someone who'd been waiting all week for the chance to beat up kids a year younger than himself. His hands moved in constant small motions—shadow boxing, flexing, rolling his shoulders—like a boxer warming up for the fight of his life.
"Today," Dragon announced, his voice deep and resonant, cutting through the mountain air like the tolling of a bronze bell, "you learn to fight as one organism. Not three separate individuals pursuing personal glory, but a single weapon with three components."
Bruce's pale eyes immediately locked onto Ben and Sandra with the laser focus of a predator identifying threats. His jaw was set like granite, every muscle in his compact frame coiled and ready for violence. Even standing still, he radiated the kind of barely controlled aggression that made the air around him seem to vibrate.
Hadrian stood beside him with aristocratic composure, dark hair neatly tied back, automatically adjusting his sleeves with the unconscious elegance of someone born to command. His eyes were already calculating angles, distances, possibilities—treating the upcoming combat like a chess problem that required only the proper analysis to solve.
Zatanna twirled a strand of her long black braid around her finger with theatrical casualness, dark eyes sparkling with the kind of mischief that suggested she was already planning something spectacular and probably inadvisable.
Dragon pointed at each of them in turn with deliberate precision. "Bruce engages first—direct assault, maximum pressure. Hadrian coordinates and adapts—you are the tactical brain. Zatanna creates opportunities through misdirection and chaos." His gaze swept over them like a searchlight. "You succeed together, or you fail separately."
"Translation," Zatanna announced brightly to the courtyard at large, "Bruce smashes things, Hadrian lectures everyone about proper technique, and I make it all look fabulous while probably setting something on fire."
Bruce shot her a look that could have melted steel. "This isn't a performance, Zatanna."
"Everything is a performance when you're good enough at it," she fired back with a theatrical wink. "The question is whether you're entertaining the audience or boring them to death."
Dragon's voice snapped across the courtyard like a whip crack. "Focus." Just one word, but it carried the weight of absolute authority and dropped the temperature ten degrees.
The match began with the sudden violence of a lightning strike.
Bruce exploded forward instantly, a compact hurricane of elbows and knees aimed straight at Ben Turner like a guided missile programmed for maximum destruction. His opening combination was textbook perfect—jab, cross, hook, knee strike—each blow flowing into the next with mechanical precision. His face was set in lines of absolute concentration, pale eyes burning with an intensity that seemed to dare the universe to stand in his way.
Ben backpedaled quickly, his grin widening as he slipped Bruce's first few strikes with fluid head movement. "Damn, little man! You're trying to take my head off!"
But Bruce's aggression had created exactly the opening Sandra needed. She flowed around the edge of the combat like liquid mercury, her movements so smooth they barely disturbed the air. As Bruce pressed his attack, Sandra slid into perfect position and swept his legs with surgical precision, sending him stumbling sideways across the flagstones.
"Angle left!" Hadrian called out sharply, his voice carrying the crisp authority of someone accustomed to being obeyed. "Control the space, don't chase into their—"
His tactical instruction turned into an undignified grunt as he had to throw himself sideways to avoid Ben's spinning back kick, which whistled through the air exactly where his head had been a split second earlier.
"—into their counters," Hadrian finished weakly from his new position flat on the ground.
Meanwhile, Zatanna cartwheeled into the melee with theatrical flair, singing out, "Distract and dazzle, gentlemen! Chaos is a ladder, and I'm climbing!" Her flashy spinning kick sliced through the air with balletic grace—and connected solidly with Bruce's shoulder instead of Ben's ribs.
Bruce staggered, his face twisting with fury and betrayal. "You kicked me!"
"It was artistic collateral damage!" Zatanna protested, pivoting into another spin that somehow made her mistake look intentional. "Very avant-garde! You're part of the performance now!"
Sandra's voice carried across the courtyard with clinical detachment as she flowed under Hadrian's desperate guard and tagged his ribs with a palm strike that folded him in half. "Your teamwork requires significant improvement."
"Appreciate the constructive feedback," Hadrian gasped, struggling to recover his breath and his dignity simultaneously. "Perhaps we could schedule a strategic review session—"
"Strategy doesn't help when someone can't tell teammates from targets!" Bruce barked, launching himself at Ben again with renewed fury. This time his attack was pure berserker rage—no technique, no planning, just overwhelming aggression fueled by frustration.
He managed to drive Ben backward several steps with the sheer intensity of his assault, fists flying in combinations that blurred together. But Sandra materialized beside him again like a pale ghost, flowing around his guard with effortless grace and countering with a series of strikes that landed with mathematical precision.
Within ten seconds of renewed combat, Bruce was flat on his back staring at the grey morning sky, Hadrian was pinned against the stone wall with Sandra's forearm across his throat, and Zatanna was sprawled dramatically across the flagstones like she'd been mortally wounded in the final act of an opera.
"Ow," she announced to the clouds overhead. "That was significantly less fabulous than intended."
"Fifth consecutive defeat," Dragon intoned, his voice carrying no emotion beyond clinical observation. "Analysis. Why do you continue to fail?"
Bruce rolled to his feet, fury radiating from every line of his compact frame. "Because someone—" he shot a withering glare at Zatanna "—can't tell the difference between an opponent and a teammate's shoulder blade."
"Oh, please," Zatanna replied airily, still sprawled on the stones in a pose that somehow managed to look graceful despite her obvious exhaustion. "Your shoulder blade loved the attention. It practically thanked me."
Hadrian, rubbing his ribs where Sandra had tagged him, sighed with the long-suffering patience of someone trying to organize cats. "Because we're still thinking like individuals pursuing separate objectives. I gave tactical guidance, but I failed to adjust when the situation changed dynamically. Bruce operates on instinct without waiting for coordination. Zatanna operates on... whatever the theatrical equivalent of instinct is."
"Inspiration," Zatanna corrected, finally sitting up and brushing stone dust from her hair. "I operate on pure artistic inspiration. Completely different psychological process."
Ben laughed, a sound like rolling thunder, as he stretched his arms over his head. "Man, this is like shooting fish in a barrel. Y'all are like three puzzle pieces from three completely different puzzles trying to force yourselves into the same box."
Sandra gave him a sideways look that could have frozen flame. "Overconfidence is tactically inadvisable. Dragon isn't training them for our entertainment."
"Nah, but watching them figure it out is pretty entertaining anyway," Ben replied with unrepentant good humor.
Dragon's voice cut through their byplay like a blade through silk. "Correct assessment. You are not three fighters. You are components of a single weapon. A sword that cannot maintain its edge is useless." He let the silence hang between them like a challenge. "A sword whose components work against each other becomes a danger to those who wield it."
Bruce's hands clenched into fists, his knuckles white with tension. "We'll sharpen the blade."
Hadrian straightened his sleeves with deliberate precision, his expression hardening with aristocratic determination. "We can adapt. We simply need to stop colliding with each other like particles in a poorly designed experiment."
Zatanna jumped to her feet with theatrical flair, brushing stone dust from her training clothes. "Fine, fine. I'll turn down the sparkle. Just a little. Maybe. Possibly." She paused. "Actually, no promises on the sparkle. But I'll aim it better."
Dragon's massive head tilted slightly—the closest thing to approval they were likely to get. "Again."
And again, they failed. Bruce's rage ran into Sandra's perfect timing. Hadrian's tactical brilliance crumbled when Ben ignored the plan entirely. Zatanna's chaos helped everyone except her own team.
Again. Bruce threw himself into a berserker frenzy that left him isolated and vulnerable. Hadrian over-thought the problem until the moment for action had passed. Zatanna's misdirection misdirected everyone.
Again. And again. And again.
Slowly—painfully—something began to shift.
It started small. Bruce learned to hold his attack for exactly two seconds, just long enough for Hadrian to call out Sandra's position. Hadrian learned to give fewer orders, choosing instead the single command that mattered most in each moment. Zatanna's theatrical chaos found a rhythm that pulled Sandra off-balance just as Bruce struck, or drew Ben's attention away just long enough for Hadrian to sweep his legs.
By the seventh attempt, Bruce wasn't fighting alone anymore. When he pressed forward with his mechanical combinations, Hadrian was already positioning himself to cut off Sandra's counter-attack. When Zatanna spun into her elaborate feints, Bruce adapted his timing to strike from the blind spot she created.
By the tenth attempt, Hadrian's tactical calls were being answered before he finished speaking them. Bruce would shift left on the first syllable of "angle," Zatanna would cartwheel right when she heard "distract."
By the twelfth attempt, something beautiful and terrible was taking shape.
Bruce launched himself at Ben with his usual berserker intensity, but this time Hadrian was already moving to intercept Sandra's attempted sweep. Zatanna's spinning kick created exactly the opening Bruce needed, while her theatrical flourishes kept Ben's attention divided at the critical moment.
When Bruce finally landed the combination that would have put Ben on the ground—a perfect sequence of strikes that flowed like deadly music—Hadrian was already redirecting Sandra's desperate counter-attack, and Zatanna's final spin had masked the entire movement so perfectly that their opponents never saw the finishing blow coming.
For the first time in three months of training, they didn't collapse in a heap of mutual recrimination. They stood together in the center of the courtyard, breathing hard, bruised and bloodied, but together.
Dragon's gaze swept over them like a measuring instrument, taking in their stance, their positioning, the way they automatically oriented toward each other rather than away. His nod was almost imperceptible—barely a millimeter of movement—but it carried the weight of mountains.
"Better."
Zatanna threw her arms wide despite her obvious exhaustion, gasping for breath but grinning like she'd just pulled off the performance of her career. "See? Told you we'd get there. Fabulous *and* effective."
Bruce muttered, "Still not a performance."
Hadrian, smiling faintly despite his bruises, replied, "And yet, we're still standing."
Ben rubbed his jaw, wincing. "Yeah. Now you're dangerous."
Sandra adjusted her stance, her cool gaze flicking to Dragon. "More dangerous every day."
Richard didn't smile, but his voice carried something close to approval. "Now you begin to understand."
---
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