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"How could you have failed your sparring lesson? You're a weakling."
Those were the words his mother had said in digust as he fell on his knees in front of her. His body hurt like hell, he had failed his most recent sparring lesson, and now he was going to be punished. He expected his mother to strike him with the bo staff but something was off about her. She instead turned around, and looked at his father.
"Beloved, would you please have a talk with them?" She said to her husband.
His father was a tall, muscular, and pale man. He was standing on the other side of the room, imposing as ever in his business suit. The boy stayed put where he was as he heard his father getting closer, and his mother walking away. Soon it was just the two of them in the training room. He looked up to meet Bruce's piercing blue eyes.
"Lazarus..." he said, his voice calm and collected. "There will be a time that will come when you'll have to make a choice, and that choice can be the difference between life and death. I trust that you will make the right one." With that his father struck him in the foot with the chest. Sending him flying across the room. He watched as the businessman then walked out of the room, and he was left lying down on the cold stone floor.
.
Lazarus.
That was the name given to him, a name he was always referred to, a name he resented. He was never given a normal name by his birth parents. The father he inherited his black hair from, the mother he inherited his tan skin and bright green eyes from. The parents that created him for the purpose of being a weapon.
From the day he was released from his test tube, he was relentlessly trained into becoming the perfect assassin. All he knew when he was to fight, along with learning about essentials like language and literature. He never even saw the outside world since he grew up in the caverns of the Lazarus Dragon hideout under his father's mansion. Didn't help that said mansion was on an island.
Bruce and Talia would always check on him to see how he was doing. He always feared whenever they came up to check on him since they were rather cruel parents. Both of them would give monotone praise whenever he did well in his training with the other Lazarus Dragon members, but would beat and punish him if he did poorly in their eyes. If Talia ever saw her son trying to befriend the rats that sometimes scurry around in the lair, she would stab the rat and punish the young boy for daring to not kill the vermin.
It was hard for him to say the least. He was constantly told by parents that showing emotion, specifically sadness and fear, was a sign weakness. "Emotions are weakness dear Lazarus, and you're not a weakling are you now?" That phrase from his mother was burned into his mind. He was conditioned to stay stoic and cold all the time since if he ever showed any emotion, he would be punished for it.
He was sick of killing, sick of the punishments, sick of his parents. All of his resentment and yearning for freedom peaked on a rainy evening while Bruce and Talia were at a business meeting.
.
A member of the Lazarus Dragons walked into the training room like usual, expecting the assassin in training to be there as well. A swift chop to the neck and kick to the head knocked them out. The sneaky boy made his way out of the training room and took out all of the guards one by one.
He opened a vent on the ceiling and quickly climbed in. While scouting through the vents, he was scared. He kept thinking about what would happen if Bruce and Talia came back from their business meeting early. He pushed those thoughts to the back of his mind as he continued to quickly crawl through the vents.
He followed the noise of the rain until he came to an air vent that led to the outside world. He opened the vent with his katana and watched the panel fall into the ocean. The sky was grey, the rain was pouring, and the ocean around the island was dark like the abyss. He put his katana into its sheath as he took in the scenery for a moment. "Now's my chance." He muttered to himself before he closed his eyes and dived into the water. He held his breath as he swam underwater, while occasionally coming up for air and to see where he was going.
While he came up for air, he spotted a boat from far away. He started to swim towards the boat while making sure to keep himself underwater for most of the time. As he got close to the boat, he made sure if the person on the boat wasn't near the railing. Once he made sure the person driving the boat wasn't near the railing, he quickly jumped and held onto the railing. He made sure to stay hidden from sight, and looked around to see if there were any other boats that could see him.
As the boat got closer to the pier, he stared in awe at the beautiful city lights. He's never seen anything like it before. It felt magical.
He hopped off the boat when it got close to the pier and swam under it. Once the person on the boat walked away from the pier area, he swam over to a ladder near the pier and started to climb it. He claimed over the small wall, and set foot into the sidewalk. He was officially in Gotham City. After taking in his surroundings, he quickly darted to the nearest alleyway to hide.
Once he hid in the alleyway, he once again took in the surroundings of the city, still in awe. He soon stopped when he saw a certain building that stood out to him. As he looked more at it, his heart stopped when he saw the name "Wayne" on the logo of the building.
This was his father's buisness building...
"I have to get out of here." He whispered shakily to himself. After quickly calming himself down, he decided his main goal right now was to get as far away from here as possible and to get a disguise so he could hide from his parents if he ever came across them again. He then realized he needed a name in case anyone asked him who he was. He was stumped since he couldn't come up with any name ideas. He picked up an old phone book off of the ground and started to flip through it for ideas. He eventually saw a name that caught his eye. It was a name for some pizza joint called "Damian's Pizza Plaza".
Damian. That name has a nice ring to it.
It was settled then. From now on, his name would be Damian. Damian placed the phone book down before climbing onto the ladder in the alleyway. No more Lazarus, no more killing, no more parents. It was just Damian, his jumpsuit, and his Katana in this new world. He was ready for whatever was to come.