DC: I am Bruce Wayne

Chapter 23: A magical Birthday (1)

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"Today I will live in the moment unless it's unpleasant in which case I will eat a cookie."

– Cookie Monster

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"Are you sure young master that you don't want to invite some of the richer members of the upper echelon of Gotham to your party? Establishing a good relationship with them from early on might give you lots of benefits in the future when you take over Wayne Enterprises and kick out the board members." Alfred asked with a straight face making it clear that he hated most of the board members of the company with every bone in his body.

"No, Alfred. Not on my birthday. I can barely tolerate those stuck-up people who think that they are the most important and powerful people in the world at normal times. But inviting them and listening to their stupidity on my birthday is a big no-no." Bruce answered with a smile which Alfred returned with one of his own and left for the preparations.

It was Bruce's ninth birthday. It has been almost a year since Bruce and Selina started their training under Richard. In just one year they had improved so much that Richard still had trouble believing that two little children could really be that talented.

To Richard, Selina was a natural martial art prodigy while Bruce was a once-in-a-generation genius who was fated to dominate the martial art world one day. Of course, what he didn't know was that both of their successes were not because of their talents but because of their diligent practice through the NerveGear and Bruce's Walmart Sharingan power.

After about a month, Vicki too found out about their martial arts training when she came to play with them one morning and saw them practicing their techniques with Richard. After that day, she began pestering Bruce and Selina to let her join in too during their training sessions. Bruce had of course denied it at first but after an entire month of constant nagging, he had no choice but to agree to Vicki's request and ask Richard if he could train her as well.

He had expected Richard to deny training her but quite on the contrary, the martial art exert readily accepted her as a student the moment he brought up the topic without even asking her any of the questions he had previously asked Bruce showing that his master was a sexist of a sort.

Vicki however according to Richard's harsh opinion was an average talent in the DC world meaning that her martial art talent was not as good as his or Selina's. But that didn't stop the little girl and she made it her life's mission to be as good as Selina at least. But every time she thought she was doing well, it turned out that Selina and Bruce were doing way better than her, mainly because of their constant practice with NerveGear.

She had almost fallen into depression when Bruce could no longer bear to see this and finally revealed to her the existence of the NerveGear after making her promise not to ever tell anyone else. So, Vicki too started training in the digital simulation with time dilation and even though she wasn't as good as them, she could still be called a rare talent after she began to spend a hundred hours a day practicing.

This of course made Richard question his entire existence. He wondered if geniuses and prodigies were really that common nowadays or if Gotham was a home of hidden dragons. But then he just decided not to waste his brain cells on those thoughts and go along with the flow. He even thought that it could be fate guiding him toward a better future.

"Helena should be coming soon. She promised that she was not gonna miss your birthday for the world. Will you finally tell her about the helmet thing? I mean she is a friend of ours too. Also, we could play games together in it like the realistic racing game we played that day." Vicki said while she did her stretching exercises in her white martial arts clothes.