Comic Con Rumble

"Hello GC3 attendees! This is Monica from id Software! This is just a reminder that we have one really great Final Doom event coming up at 2 o'clock! We need some of you lovely folks to come on down and take part! It's a chance to get active and have fun! See you there!"

Bruce slid into the room on the second floor of the Burnside Convention Center. The room was already half full of other convention attendees excited for the event. Most of them were standing in small groups with their friends, chatting excitedly. Bruce was one of a few people who was by themselves. There was a guy in a bright red University of Metropolis sweater and glasses in the far corner writing on a notepad, a girl in a Princess Peach dress, and a guy in what had to be the laziest cosplay of Red from the Pokémon games that Bruce had ever seen.

He didn't really have much space to criticize low effort cosplay though. He was wearing grey pants, a grey hoodie, and a pair of dark sunglasses that were supposed to represent a mask. It was far from the brightest outfit in the room, though there had been a bunch of people at the Grey Ghost panel that morning dressed similarly.

Bruce checked his watch. Five minutes until this event was supposed to begin. He reached into his pocket and took out his pager. He had been incredibly aware of it throughout the entire morning and sure enough, still no messages. He reminded himself that he wasn't doing anything wrong. Jameson deserved a day off from following Bruce around. He was a good bodyguard but that had to be exhausting. Once he realized that Bruce wasn't in the Kane Library or anywhere on the Gotham University main campus at all he could take a break downtown. Bruce had left a note for him telling him he would be in a number of different, and secure, locations over the course of the day so he should realize he hadn't been kidnapped. And no one else knew he was here so there was no chance of anyone trying to take him just because he was Bruce Wayne. As far as anyone here was concerned he was just another nerd in a low budget Grey Ghost cosplay.

It was liberating in a way. No obligations, no worries about someone trying to point a gun at him to make his parents give them money. It was great.

It occurred to Bruce that while he was appreciating the lack of actual guns he was in the process of walking towards a bunch of fake guns. Well, at least no would be shooting at him because he was "Bruce Wayne."

He leaned against the wall next to the promotional poster announcing the partnership Final Doom had made with Hasbro Toys for "A Chance to Get a Gameplay-like Experience in Real Life!" It was one of the more out there promotional ideas they had come up with, but Bruce wasn't complaining when he had the chance to spend an afternoon having fun and getting some exercise.

A door in the far wall leading off to a different room opened up. A woman wearing a Doom t-shirt with dark curly hair pulled back in a bun came through. She looked around at the gathered people before putting on a bright smile. "Come on in, guys! This is going to be great!"

Bruce tagged along at the end of the group as they went through the door. There was a bit of halt as the first people through the door stopped, and started excitedly talking, but the organizer ushered them onwards. When Bruce caught a glimpse of what had taken them aback he pushed forward through the crowd to get a better look. They had set up a room the size of a high school gym. A couple of flags on poles that were twice Bruce's height had been set up at either end of the field. Walls and piles were scattered across the field. Along the near wall were some tables with Nerf guns and helmets, and a small podium. The organizer waved her hand to invite them all over and stood at the microphone.

"Hello, everyone! Are you guys having a good time here at G-C-3?" The group let out a cheer. "That's great. I'm Monica from id Software and today we are going to be playing….Capture the Flag! Final Doom style!"

"So here are the rules," The organizer looked down at her clipboard. "We are going to divide you into two teams, red and blue. Each of you has a flag on your side that you need to defend. The goal is to get your opponents flag across the field to the back wall of your side of the field. Your weapons- which have been provided by Hasbro Toys check out their product line at any store today- are nerf guns with foam bullets. Extra bullets are scattered around the field and you can pick up already fired bullets to be used again. They're foam so they shouldn't hurt but no shooting at the face in close range. Helmets will be provided. I assume you all have already signed the waivers?" Everyone nodded. "Good. Helmets and nerf guns are on that table over there. Please go grab some"

Bruce headed over to the table and picked up a black nerf gun. May as well continue with his whole monochrome aesthetic right now. He grabbed a helmet and put it on as he made his way back towards the main area they had been gathered in. He was grabbed by a volunteer and sent towards the blue side. Once everyone had their equipment and was divided the organizer continued giving instructions.

"Okay, for each team we are going to pick a team captain in a bit. The team captains will organize team strategy and make sure that everyone is working together. In addition to all the standard capture the flag elements, we've added a special surprise to make this more interesting." She gave a small smile. "I won't spoil what it is but keep an eye out for something small and metallic on the field and something hidden in the jail zone.

"Speaking of- the jail zone is along that wall over there. That's where you go once you've been hit. You see that target up above it? If you can hit that then everyone gets to come back into play- from your team and your opponents.

"Did you guys understand all that?" The gathered teams let out a cheer. "Great! Are you ready? Then let's get started!" There was an even louder cheer.

"Alright! Let's do this!" The organizer yelled. "But first, we need a couple volunteers to be team captain."

There was a beat of silence before a bunch of people started yelling, clambering to get the honor. Bruce nearly got clocked in the chin by someone's hand shooting up. The volunteer pointed to him and Bruce had a brief moment of panic that he was going to be dragged in front of everyone before he realized she was pointing behind him. The guy with the laziest ever Red cosplay pushed past him and went up to the front. Another young woman had been called up from the other side of the crowd.

The organizers divided the people in the room in two, keeping one team captain on each side. Blue armbands were quickly passed around and Bruce tied his to his upper arm before making his way to the blue side of the field.

The field was a wide open area with seven foot high walls scattered around. A line had been marked down the center with bright green tape. Placed seemingly at random around the walls were stacks of foam bullets for the nerf guns. At each end of the field was a mound of blocks with a tall flagpole on top of it. On Bruce's side the flag was blue, on the other side it was red.

Bruce looked over the red team. Most of them were around his age and no one appeared to be any kind of athlete. Fairly typical GC3 attendees. He looked back to his fellow team members. Mostly the same but...there was that guy in the Metropolis University sweater. He was just barely taller than Bruce, with wide shoulders. Hopefully that bulk wouldn't make him too much of a target.

"Are you ready?" The announcer was back on the intercom. "Captains! Address your teams and come up with a plan!" The entirety of the blue team turned to the captain who was standing at the base of the block mound, huddling up close around it.

"Right, so we're going to do this! It's going to be great!" The team captain gave an enthusiastic thumbs up. "Just give it your all!"

That's not a plan, Bruce thought.

"Ready…" They broke up from their huddle and scrambled to hide behind some of the walls scattered across the field, clutching their guns.

"Set…" Bruce peeked around the corner to look at the other side. The other team also appeared to just be hiding behind their walls. He couldn't see them.

"Go!"

At once the other side burst out from behind their walls. Most of them had been hidden behind the walls closest to the line and they stormed over it. Bruce's team instantly found themselves put on the defensive. It seemed that the other side at least had succeeded in making a plan. Bruce was able to lean around the corner and let off a few shots at the other side before ducking back behind shelter. Thankfully, there were some extra foam bullets back there with him.

Bruce's wall was located relatively near the middle of their side of the field so they wouldn't get to him right away. Behind this wall they wouldn't be able to see him. Most of his teammates had started firing on them right away but they had been taken off guard and were being pushed back. If he just stayed here and was quiet they would probably walk right past him. And he would have time to reload.

And sure enough after a couple of minutes they did. Bruce sprung out at them from the side. He let off a round of foam pellets and managed to hit most of his opponents before- smack!

"Oh shit. I didn't mean to hit you in the face, dude."

"It's fine. That's what the helmets are for." Bruce could already feel a bruise forming on his cheek. He followed the people he had hit over to the jail area. He noticed that most of his team had already been sent to jail, but thankfully the frontal assault had resulted in most of the opposing team being stuck here too. Metropolis University guy had also been hit and Bruce sat down next to him on the bench for their team.

After their first major strike the red team had taken enough casualties that they were forced to retreat back to their own side of the field. There were only a few people left from each team still out there, and they were crouched behind their walls occasionally leaning out to try getting off a few shots. After several minutes it was apparent that neither side had any idea what to do after the initial burst of conflict.

Bruce was utterly bored. There went his plan for having some fun physical activity for the afternoon. Maybe if they had made an actual plan this would have gone better. Where was their team captain anyway? He looked around. Oh, there he was, at the far end of the jail bench. He glanced up at the button someone would need to hit to get them out. No one even seemed to be trying to hit it.

An actual plan. Bruce looked over the field. Most of the walls had been set up scattered around the centre but there were a series of them along the left wall that provided a decent amount of cover. Not a lot of people were over there because it was so far to the side. It even stretched along most of the wall. If you group of people used that cover to try and sneak around…

"Man, sitting out on the game sucks."

"I'm sorry?" Bruce jolted up and turned to look at the guy sitting next to him. "Were you saying something?"

"Oh, just commenting that sitting on the sidelines like this is ridiculously boring. Not what I was expecting when I signed up for this." Metropolis U sweatshirt shrugged. "But here we are."

Bruce nodded with a sigh - glancing around the 'jail' area of the arena. The Met U glasses guy seemed to stare through him for a second. Something in his expression seemed to come to a snap decision.

"You seemed to be staring out there pretty intensely, did you notice something."

Bruce sighed. "No one seems to have any kind of plan. The red team tried in the beginning but that just got most of both teams stuck here." He waved his hand to show the long bench they were stuck on. The girl sitting on his other side had pulled out a rubik's cube and was trying to solve it, no longer paying attention to the game. "You could make the field work for you with a good strategy but no one took the time to think of a plan."

"Well," said Glasses Guy. "We didn't exactly have a lot of time to look the field over and come up with one before the game began and then we were just doing our best."

"We're gamers. We should be able to come up with a strategy. That's what video games are about!"

"Except for the ones that are just point and shoot. Also, you usually go through a couple of lives before you figure it out."

Bruce put his head in his hands. "Sorry. I'm just frustrated."

Glasses Guy smiled. "It's alright. If you have such strong opinions about this then what would you suggest we do?"

Bruce pointed out the wall on the left side of the field and explained his thoughts. "A group could sneak around and make their way back to the other side with plenty of cover."

"They'd still notice when their flag was gone."

"Then we'd need some kind of distraction. If we could all get off of this bench then we'd have enough people to get the flag and for a distraction."

Glasses Guy considered him a moment and stood up. "Right. Come with me," He grabbed Bruce's arm and led him deeper into the jail. "See there?"

Barely hidden in the dark corner of the prison area was a locked box with a rather obvious padlock on it.

"Only one like it in this whole area." The guy in glasses said.

"So that's the special surprise the organizer mentioned." Bruce muttered. He made a snap decision. "Bruce," he said as he stuck out his hand.

"Clark." Glasses guy replied with a smirk as he grasped Bruce's hand. "What say you that we actually rally these guys together and win this thing?"

"Consider that done." Bruce grinned as they slunk back to the main group. (Possible area of break)

Apparently, while they were gone, someone had finally noticed that they could get their teammates out of the prison area by shooting that button.

They didn't have much time.

"Guys, come on huddle in!" Clark smiled as some hidden charm spilled out of his words, drawing their fellow imprisoned teammates into a circle. Their captain had apparently forgotten that he was team captain and joined the huddle.

Thank goodness for Clark.

Clark got their team organized into two groups behind some of the walls so the other team couldn't see what they were doing. The larger group would be going with Clark as the distraction to try and just run across the field towards the other side in a frontal assault. Everyone in the larger group were under orders to search for a key. Clark had stationed the one guy that managed to snipe them free in a well protected area, ready to get them out again.

This guy could rally. It made Bruce glad that he wasn't the one trying to hold the attention of this, frankly inattentive, group. Bruce privately admitted that he did not have that inherent charisma needed to pull a team together. Despite practicing his public speaking and trying to mimic what he saw his father doing whenever he was asked to give a speech, Bruce couldn't help but feel nervous as though they would see through him and realise he was just trying to desperately fake it until he made it. Humans weren't easily solved problems and Bruce wasn't sure how to convince them to do stuff.

Hopefully, Clark's hunch that the box probably contained a shield modeled after the Invulnerability Artifact and a nerf gun modelled after the Holy Water Pistol was right. Having the shield would be a game changer. It would keep the red team so occupied that they wouldn't even notice Bruce and the smaller group sneaking up along the left side to grab the flag without anyone noticing.

Unfortunately, the other team had apparently huddled up for a rally too. There was a sudden cheer from the other side and the group looked up to see the other team storming across the middle.

"Let's go! Charge!" Clark yelled as he led his search and distract group to meet the red team. The rest of the stealth turned to look at Bruce. Oh right, he was leading them. He gestured for the others to follow him and they headed out.

They were crouched down so they wouldn't be seen creeping up but that meant they couldn't look over the wall to see how things were going. They could hear the occasional laugh, curse, or cheer but there wasn't much indication about which side was gaining the advantage on the main field. Not that it would matter much if they did their part.

"I'm hit!" Bruce heard Clark exclaim. Bruce could barely see the guy, but somehow he could tell by the metallic glint in his hand and the barely-there smirk on his face, he got it.

The key was theirs - the box was theirs. Bruce nodded at his group to creep forward as a thud and a roar of delight echoed from their side of the team.

The red flag was in sight.

They had passed across the line dividing the two sides unnoticed, but there were a few, more hesitant members of the red team hanging back near the flag. As they reached the end of the wall that had been providing them cover they crouched down even further. It probably wouldn't do much to stop them from being seen if they bothered to turn around but thankfully, they seemed to be absorbed in watching Clark's distraction team clashing with the majority of the red team. Clark's team was getting pushed back towards their flag. They would have to hurry.

Bruce gestured to a couple members of his team. "See if you can send them to jail quickly. Everyone else, the moment they do that, run for the flag, then run back the way we came. Hopefully we can get it down there before they realise what is happening."

They aimed their Nerf guns. The moment the foam bullets flew Bruce lunged forward with the rest of his team behind him for the flag. They climbed up onto the mound without difficulty, and Bruce closed his grip around the flag. He passed the flag down to one of the team members that was lower down. "Get this behind cover and start running." She held the flag pole close to her chest and sprinted back towards the wall. The rest of the team quickly followed her.

"Hey! They've got our flag!"

Once they were behind the wall again they had a fair amount of cover, but already red team members were rushing into the path behind them. A few of them were even trying to shoot over the wall, with minimal success. They kept pushing forward as fast as they could to try to keep ahead of them but a couple of Bruce's teammates stopped suddenly as they were hit by foam bullets and had to make their way to jail.

Then suddenly…

"Blue team wins! They've successfully brought the flag over to their side!"

The woman who Bruce had handed the flag too grinned and stuck it high in the air. Bruce and his team came out from behind cover and instantly were greeted with cheers from the entire blue team.

"That was great!" Clark came up from behind Bruce and thumped him on the back. Despite having been in the middle of things and, presumably having just run over from where he had been guarding their own flag he wasn't even winded. Meanwhile, Bruce was breathing heavily from the mad sprint back to their side. Athletes.

"That was close," Bruce corrected. "But we did it."

"We did it!" Clark yelled and several other people nearby joined in cheering.

The organizers came by to collect the flag and handed out the prize, coupons for more Nerf guns and $10 off any game from id Software, to the entire winning team. Most of the team was congratulating each other and giving off more sporadic cheers. Bruce slipped to the side to drop his gear off before sticking his hand back in his pocket to check the pager again. Still nothing. He had more time but the convention would be winding down for the day. So what should he do?

"Bruce! There you are. I thought you slipped away." Clark suddenly appeared by Bruce again. He hadn't noticed during the game but he moved really fast.

"Well, the event was over. I was just thinking about what I should do next."

"Cool. I think the Artist's Alley is still open." He pulled the notebook he had been writing in before the game out of his pocket. "Before you go though could I get a quote or something about the event."

"What?" This sort of thing only happened to Bruce when he was at one of his parents fundraising events. Or the person asking was some jerk with a camera who had just popped out of nowhere. But that meant… "Are you a journalist?"

"Yes. Sort of. One day maybe." Clark shrugged. "I'm enrolled in Metropolis University's Journalism program and I'm supposed to be writing an article about a major public event for an assignment. I got a bit carried away participating in the event instead." He held up his notebook and a pen. "So can I get a quote? You can be an anonymous source."

Bruce smiled. "Better than capture the flag used to go in elementary gym class but randomly choosing team captains out of a crowd was a mistake. The guy who did eventually rally the team, however, did a good job in leading-"

The pager buzzed.

Bruce yanked it back out of his pocket. Where are you? The message read. Jameson had figured out he wasn't in any of the locations he had promised to be. "I'm sorry, I have to go. You can use that quote but I'd prefer to stay anonymous."

"Okay…" Clark looked up from his notepad. "Is everything alright?"

"It's fine. Something just came up." And now I need to get back to where I'm supposed to be before I get in trouble for "jeopardizing my security," Bruce thought. "I've got to go."

Bruce rushed off, desperately trying to remember the bus schedule he had looked up this morning. As he boarded the bus he groaned.

Meanwhile, back at Burnside Clark dropped his face into his palms. And as one they muttered.

"Oh man, I forgot to get his details!"


AN: Thanks once again for reading! If you'd like to contact us via tumblr, just to ask us more about this universe, my handle is eastoniablogs!