Read Online Batman 5 - Batman Begins by Dennis O'Neil - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Dennis O'Neil
Ads: Link
intelligence that he will surely come to realize that what most military and religious leaders do is to minimize individuality and maximize sameness in their charges. Indeed, that is what we do with most of those we recruit so their actions and effectiveness become both optimal and predictable.
However, for centuries the League of Shadows has known that one must deal with extraordinarily gifted individuals differently. We seek to plumb their depths and discover all the strength within them, both physical and mental. We next devise a plan to allow them to access and increase their innate powers. Most of their weaknesses we ignore, for if they are as intelligent as we know they are, they will compensate for most of their weaknesses with no help from without. Fear is always the great exception to this. Fear is usually the last enemy a man conquers and to do so he must be forced to do whatever is necessary. It is unfortunate that most men fail this ultimate test.
At noon each day, Bruce joined his fellow trainees for the day’s second and final meal, usually identical to what they had had for breakfast, but occasionally spiced with a sliver of fish or smoked meat. There was no tea at this second meal, just water from the glacier. Bruce had eaten in the world’s premier restaurants with his parents, both at home and in Europe and Asia during family vacations, had dined on the finest efforts of the finest chefs, and had never enjoyed any food so much as Rā’s al Ghūls starkly simple fare. Not because of the food itself, though it was inevitably fresh and well prepared, but because he was learning to really taste what went into his mouth.
After lunch, more exercises. At dusk, another run outside and then, as the sun was vanishing below the mountains and long shadows spread across the glacier, to bed.
Bruce was always asleep within seconds of touching the futon. If he had dreams, he did not remember them.
He sensed that nothing was done randomly—that every activity, however inconsequential, was part of a carefully planned curriculum.
He had been in the monastery for months before he was taught actual combat. His tutors were not kind. On the contrary. Ducard and the ninjas who taught Bruce were unrelentingly critical and showed absolutely no tolerance of blunders. And blunder he did. He often felt as though he were wearing cardboard boxes for shoes and concrete gloves. He had imagined himself well versed in martial arts from his shipboard ordeals and the adventures he had had in ports of call, and in fact, after the first humiliating months, he had won most of his fights. But against the opponents he faced in the monastery, he was clumsy, oafish, more clown than combatant.
But he learned. And he did not make the same mistake twice.
For a long period, he was physically challenged to his utmost, forced to defend himself until his breath exploded from his lungs and he could feel the adrenaline coursing through his veins and sweat coating his entire body. Then, abruptly, Ducard would stop the combat and have Bruce do breathing and visualization exercises. And then he would again be attacked. Eventually, Bruce decided that the purpose of this drill was to teach him to be as calm during combat as he was afterward—to train him never to allow body chemistry to impair his judgment. Ducard, as usual, neither confirmed nor denied Bruce’s conclusion.
FROM THE JOURNALS OF RĀ’S AL GHŪL
Many years past I thought I had lost my capacity for amazement at about the same time that I lost my capacity for affection. I was mistaken. Bruce Wayne amazes me every day. He has already developed far beyond any student I have ever had and there seems to be no limit to his potential.
I have begun to have thoughts that disturb me because they fill me with what I fear is a false hope. They concern my daughter Talia and Bruce Wayne. Talia is of an age to reproduce and carry my lineage forward into the new world I shall create. No man I have
However, for centuries the League of Shadows has known that one must deal with extraordinarily gifted individuals differently. We seek to plumb their depths and discover all the strength within them, both physical and mental. We next devise a plan to allow them to access and increase their innate powers. Most of their weaknesses we ignore, for if they are as intelligent as we know they are, they will compensate for most of their weaknesses with no help from without. Fear is always the great exception to this. Fear is usually the last enemy a man conquers and to do so he must be forced to do whatever is necessary. It is unfortunate that most men fail this ultimate test.
At noon each day, Bruce joined his fellow trainees for the day’s second and final meal, usually identical to what they had had for breakfast, but occasionally spiced with a sliver of fish or smoked meat. There was no tea at this second meal, just water from the glacier. Bruce had eaten in the world’s premier restaurants with his parents, both at home and in Europe and Asia during family vacations, had dined on the finest efforts of the finest chefs, and had never enjoyed any food so much as Rā’s al Ghūls starkly simple fare. Not because of the food itself, though it was inevitably fresh and well prepared, but because he was learning to really taste what went into his mouth.
After lunch, more exercises. At dusk, another run outside and then, as the sun was vanishing below the mountains and long shadows spread across the glacier, to bed.
Bruce was always asleep within seconds of touching the futon. If he had dreams, he did not remember them.
He sensed that nothing was done randomly—that every activity, however inconsequential, was part of a carefully planned curriculum.
He had been in the monastery for months before he was taught actual combat. His tutors were not kind. On the contrary. Ducard and the ninjas who taught Bruce were unrelentingly critical and showed absolutely no tolerance of blunders. And blunder he did. He often felt as though he were wearing cardboard boxes for shoes and concrete gloves. He had imagined himself well versed in martial arts from his shipboard ordeals and the adventures he had had in ports of call, and in fact, after the first humiliating months, he had won most of his fights. But against the opponents he faced in the monastery, he was clumsy, oafish, more clown than combatant.
But he learned. And he did not make the same mistake twice.
For a long period, he was physically challenged to his utmost, forced to defend himself until his breath exploded from his lungs and he could feel the adrenaline coursing through his veins and sweat coating his entire body. Then, abruptly, Ducard would stop the combat and have Bruce do breathing and visualization exercises. And then he would again be attacked. Eventually, Bruce decided that the purpose of this drill was to teach him to be as calm during combat as he was afterward—to train him never to allow body chemistry to impair his judgment. Ducard, as usual, neither confirmed nor denied Bruce’s conclusion.
FROM THE JOURNALS OF RĀ’S AL GHŪL
Many years past I thought I had lost my capacity for amazement at about the same time that I lost my capacity for affection. I was mistaken. Bruce Wayne amazes me every day. He has already developed far beyond any student I have ever had and there seems to be no limit to his potential.
I have begun to have thoughts that disturb me because they fill me with what I fear is a false hope. They concern my daughter Talia and Bruce Wayne. Talia is of an age to reproduce and carry my lineage forward into the new world I shall create. No man I have
Similar Books
