The good, the bad, and the jewelry (Open)

[A.G.]

BOOM!

Villains sure did know how to make an entrance; Especially the less-than stellar ones. Common thugs, for example, probably felt like they had to overcompensate for their super counterparts, and often times did; By doing a lot of screaming, a bunch of firearm waving, and the obligatory moltov cocktail or makeshift bomb. And it was always... ALWAYS at midday, with these guys! And so, as you might expect, the 'typical' robbery in Jump City was almost always very easy to spot. Take this one for instance; Minutes after a couple of customers had managed to escape a jewelry store, a couple of gunshots sounded off from within. There was probably a bomb involved, it just hadn't gone off yet. So predictable...

The call had been sent in, and a Titan had been put on the case; The closest one being none other than Battery Girl herself, who'd been inconveniently helping a friend fix a flat tire a few blocks away. She could always do that later; Villainy was afoot at the moment! It didn't take her long to find some quiet alley to switch into her powersuit and make her way towards the jewelry shop in question where, lo and behold, as soon as she turned the corner to come into eyesight of the place, one of the three thugs threw a moltov in the window from outside. Wonderful! 

"Hey you baddies! Whaddaya think you're doing!?" Along came Battery Girl, who was very disconcerted over this development. She was at half-charge, and perhaps just by sheer emotional irritation, her hands were already coated in crackling waves of electricity. This, naturally, didn't go unnoticed by the robbers, who wisely figured that a little lady running at them with electric fists and a seemingly annoyed attitude was not a good thing. "Crap, it's a Titan! Break for it!" Said one of the thugs, and collectively, they hoisted their bags of jewelry over their shoulder and made their way down the opposite end of the street. Which, really, wasn't a nice thing; That meant Battery Girl had to chase them now! 

"H-Hey! Wait! You're not supposed to run, you're supposed to try and fight me! What kinda baddies are you guys!?" She never had this sorta trouble before toting around this communicator thingy...

[Gaunt]

It seemed Slobo couldn't even go for a walk without trouble. Here he was just trying to test his new disguise hologram in peace, and some clowns decided to rob a store and start a fire. He didn't know how to put the blaze out, but at least he could help apprehend the thieves. The Top Teen ducked down an alley, deactivating his hologram and circling around. His combat sense gave him a likely route for the getaway, and his super-strong leaps carried him ahead of the crooks with ease.

Slobo darted out of an alley, skidding to a halt in the middle of the road. The crooks stopped, looking him over. He was a new face on the scene, and his jeans and t-shirt didn't scream superhero, but he was definitely alien. His yellow eyes and chalk-white skin were proof enough of that. Slobo took a fighting stance, sizing them up. They shouldn't be too much trouble.

BANG

Slobo looked down. There was a hole in his shirt, right around the shoulder, but the wound was already closing. In a matter of seconds the bullet clinked to the pavement and there wasn't a mark on his skin. He looked up, glaring at the robbers. "That hurt." He charged the men, growling in anger.

[A.G.]

Battery Girl gave chase to the thieves who'd destroyed the jewelry store posthaste; Once she realized she was wasting electricity (the little of it that she hadn't been paying attention to) she gave her charged hands a rest. She was probably going to need them at this rate for punching the heck out of these jerks who thought it was okay to destroy public property, and with fires no less! Granted, they were smart enough to run from authority when they saw (or perceived) it, which was probably better than nothing, but it still made for some serious annoyance in the form of going after them. Why didn't she have like, some sorta long-range powers? 

No matter, because she didn't have to chase them for very long; The thieves ahead of her skidded to a stop, halted by someone Battery Girl herself hadn't ever seen before. He was a young man, probably somewhere around her age, with seriously pale skin from what she could make out beneath his very strange (but then, she was wearing a yellow jumpsuit with circuits running through it) attire. Her first instinct, given his less-than-human looking appearance, was that he was some sorta backup for these robbers; Her second, after seeing him take a bullet and shrug it off, was that he was (hopefully) on her side. "Crap! They're everywhere!" Proclaimed one of the robbers, who made the bad decision of turning on his heels and running back the way he came-- Right into an electric clothesline from the shocking super heroine. Poor guy almost did an entire flip before hitting the ground, stunned and unconscious. 

Two cheers for teamwork! Battery Girl did her best to look menacing (and pretend that wasn't at all a fluke) as she closed in on the remaining two robbers from one side, while her newest buddy did the same from the other. "We've gotcha surrounded! You'd probably better give up now!" She yelled, for some odd reason or another. They were like, almost right in front of her... Probably still adding to the intimidation thing.

[Gaunt]

Afraid. Disorganized. Unwilling to fight. Slobo's weakness sense had gone into rapid-fire with this crew. They hadn't come ready for any kind of fight, which was odd for Jump. Most criminals expected a tangle with the local heroes. You could hardly take two steps without tripping over one these days, had these guys really expected to avoid the Titans in broad daylight? Just as that crossed Slobo's mind, another alert went off. Unobservant. One man ran straight into a clothesline, instantly knocked out.

Two left. Slobo glanced over them, his senses kicking in. Information flashed through his mind, giving him a battle plan in a split second. Slobo kicked the back of one man's knee, forcing him down to all fours. The other turned to aim his gun at the pale teen again, but his movements were clunky, unpracticed. Slobo grabbed his arm, yanking him to the side and tabletopping him over his friend. The robber on the ground wasn't ready for the weight and ended up mashing his face into the carpet.

Slobo looked over them, dusting his hands off. A job well done. It was then he remembered the suited heroine in front of him. He did his best to play it cool. "Wow. They did NOT plan that through." he said with a smile, putting a foot on one's back to keep him down. "You got it from here?"

[A.G.]

Well, shoot (not literally); There wasn't much more of a question of who's side mister pale and yellow-eyed was on anymore. In an impressive (and admittedly, unexpected) display of combat expertise, her ally quite easily took down the two thugs that remained in a matter of seconds. She started to help, really she did, but there was so much emphasis the bit about 'a matter of seconds' that she didn't really see a reason... or opportunity to, for that matter. With all three men on the ground and disarmed, the girl sighed and nodded to herself. A job well done!

"Well! All that certainly was unexpected." She spoke plainly, clearly playing it a bit less cool than her comrade in arms as she went to round of the group of baddies. She doubted that the villainous crooks had expected to run into an indestructible, zombie-looking martial artist at any point in their escape plan, but then again, neither did Battery Girl, so it was all fiiiiine. "I think so, yep! Thanks for your help, there... Um... Fellow Titan?" The young blonde replied to the mysterious man, having dragged the first of the two robbers over to the sidewalk; They were a heavy lot, but not heavier than a lazy cow, that's for sure. "Really, I'm more worried about you; Didn't one of 'em shoot you? Are you alright?" She almost felt silly asking. He was standing before her in perfect condition, save for a bullet hole in his shirt that wasn't there a few seconds ago. 

Being the person she was, Battery Girl did feel a bit bad about the guy her partner was now stepping on, though. She tilted her head down to see if he was even still moving; Sure enough, he was. "Poor guy," She said-- Literally minutes after said 'poor guy' had burned a jewelry store down. "Do you think he'd try to run if you took your foot off of him?" Sure, he was a villain, they all were, but... they were such a pathetic group. 

[Gaunt]

Slobo smiled, shaking his head. "Yeah, who'd have thought some bastitches would be dumb enough to try a heist in broad daylight, smack in the middle of hero central?" That word was one of the things he liked about his namesake. It just seemed like the perfect insult, he wasn't sure why. Maybe it was a Czarnian thing.

He puffed up a bit at the idea that he might be a fellow Titan. That was still a work in progress, but he had high hopes. "Not officially. I do know Silverwing, though. You know her? We're, um, good friends." His cool facade cracked a bit when talking about the heroine. There were some feelings there that he still didn't quite understand. He definitely liked her a lot, and good friends was the best description he could come up with at the moment.

Slobo was glad when she changed the topic back to how awesome he was. That was a line of conversation he could handle. "Nah, I'm fine. I'm mostly Czarnian, so I can recover from just about anything. That was just annoying, really." He poked a finger through the brand new hole in his shirt. "Gonna have to get this replaced, that's all." He really hoped Kimber wouldn't be mad. She'd gone to a lot of trouble getting these clothes to him, and here he was getting them shot.

It took the yellow-clad Titan's reminder to make him realize that keeping your boot on a downed opponent wasn't a very heroic thing to do. Slobo moved his foot off the man's back, looking down at him. "Yeah, point. They're probably not gonna try anything after that." He knelt down, picking up their guns one by one and disassembling them in a matter of seconds. It was something he'd learned at the lab, although his muscle memory was urging him to reassemble them. He set the pieces down next to the thieves. "I'm Slobo, by the way. What you go by?"

[A.G.]

"Slobo, is it? Alrighty then!" Sicily nodded with a smile, extending her hand outward after he'd removed his foot from the back of the baddie. She'd never heard of the guy; Then again, she'd not heard of a LOT of Titans, heroes, villains... She was still kinda getting used to city life, and if it weren't for her straight foward, outgoing nature, she probably wouldn't have met as many Titans (like two) as she had. "I'm Battery Girl-- I just recently joined the Titans, myself! I'm not from 'round here, actually-- But you're, uh, Zarnian? Is that like, some kinda alien thing?" Maybe she should have been a little less blunt about the question-- Maybe aliens were self-conscious about being aliens. But so far, Mr. Slobo didn't seem all that much the self-conscious type, so it didn't occur to her. "Oh well-- If it lets ya take a bullet without flinchin', must be pretty darn cool!"

Slobo did, however, mention something that Battery Girl was a bit better able to understand, though; He spoke of Silverwing (a Titan who's name she'd heard of), and how they were 'good friends'. "Oh, I've heard of her a lot! I've never met her myself, but it's probably a matter of time, y'know?" Any other day of the week, and she'd have picked up on the sudden change in his mannerisms while talking about her; Must have been Slobo's lucky day. "So you're plannin' on joinin' the Titans, yeah? You totally should-- It's real simple-like! Just show'em you can take a bullet like you just did, and you're in! Personally I don't see why you HAVE to show off your skills-- Like, I was gunna surprise 'em by showin' em I can do this," She gabbed, waving her hand in a slight show of her electro-conductive powers, "But that's the rule, I guess? Anyway, that's totally all there is to it!"

[Gaunt]

Slobo was a little hesitant to accept the handshake, but he did after a second. It seemed she could touch without shocking, so that was nice. At least, he didn't feel a jolt when they shook hands. Slobo's mind started to wander a bit. He'd heard about those Joy Buzzer things, could she do that just with her powers? That could be a pretty fun trick. He suppressed his laugh, dragging his train of thought back to the conversation at hand. "Battery Girl, got it. Maybe we could team up sometime, I could be Assault Boy." He grinned, taking her compliment in stride. "Damn right." Confidence was cool, right?

"Yeah, she's got some really cool magic stuff." He had to restrain himself from gushing more about how great she was. He'd really taken a liking to the silver-haired teen. He liked the idea of joining the Titans, though. Maybe he'd get to work with Kimber! "Yeah, I should stop by sometime. Got a couple powers, could help out and stuff." The hero thing was starting to sound like a good idea. He'd been worried about the lab coming after him, but if he was a public figure like a superhero they couldn't do much against him. Any attempt to recapture him would draw too much heat, especially if their experiments were as illegal as Kimber had said.

A thought crossed Slobo's mind and he looked down. "Say, got any cuffs or zip-ties or anything? We should probably wrap the cops' presents for when they get here."

[A.G.]

"Ah! Actually, I--" The girl began, only to stop a few moments later; Slobo asked for cuffs, and Battery Girl... did not have any. Or zip-ties, for that matter; She was still very new to this 'official super hero' thing, and wasn't really equipped yet to handle bad guys like someone like... say, Robin, or the other big-wigs. She'd only recently been given her own communicator; A day or two ago, in fact, and probably wouldn't have been able to come to this little crime outing if it weren't for her accidentally forgetting to unpack her suit. "Y'know, I don't... Gunna have to ask Auntie 'Chelle if she can buy me some. Sorry!" Well, life was all about figuring stuff out as you went along, right? "Maybe we can walk them to the nearest police station? I'd feel weird about just sorta... leaving them here." She noted with a shrug, looking at the group.

Slobo's 'assault' pun didn't go too far over her head, and Battery Girl giggled a bit in response, giving him a friendly slap on the shoulder. "Well, you've already got the skills! But I'd have to change my shtick a bit, and Auntie 'Chelle would have my goat for it, probably!" She practically begged her aunt (and all of STAR Labs) to make this suit for her, and while it was still incomplete, a lot of research went into it's development. Add to this the fact that Sicily was still figuring out her the powers she had even worked...

...Which reminded her. She hadn't plugged STAR Labs for this young hero-to-be! "Hey, y'know, if ya ever wanna learn more about your powers and stuff, or just sorta help out some scientists and whatnot, you should come by STAR Labs! It's the really tall building, over there," She noted, pointing off a bit in the distance. She actually needed to head back soon; She had a few tests this evening.

[Gaunt]

"Well, no pro. We can just keep an eye on em." He was guessing that her Auntie Shell couldn't really help them right now. Also, what kind of name was Shell? People might think Lobo or Slobo were weird names, but wow. But his thoughts were getting away from him again. She was talking about what to do with the crooks, and here he was still thinking about shells. "Well, the cops should be here any minute to ask about the gunshot, we can hand him off then." He wondered if it would be safe to talk to them. He could try exposing the lab that had made him, but what if they had people inside the JCPD? He'd watched enough TV to know that dirty cops were a thing, was it a risk he could take?

And now she was talking about her shell again, and goats for some reason. Was this some kind of expression he'd never heard before? He knew what goats were, they were strange furry creatures that people simulated on Youtube. What they had to do with violence puns he couldn't figure out. He laughed along with her, doing a pretty okay impression of getting the joke.

The mention of a lab made Slobo nervous. He'd had enough experience with those to last a lifetime, thank you very much. "Nah, I know what my powers are. Standard Czarnian stuff, really. Not up to full-blooded levels, but hey, I got some growing to do." He shrugged it off, trying to hide how nervous he was. This girl had seemed alright, and she was a Titan too. It couldn't be a trap, could it?

[A.G.]

"Sounds like a plan! Sorry, I'm still sorta new to the whole superhero thing-- I just sorta... beat up the baddies, and usually with someone more experienced." Battery Girl rubbed the back of her neck with her right hand as she suddenly began to realize that in all honesty, she hadn't really thought out the whole 'jumping headfirst into a robbery' thing. She didn't have any means of detaining the robbers outside of... wrestling them to the ground and keeping them there, maybe; She could shock them, but shocking humans was a very fickle thing; Too much, and she'd be doing more harm than good. Too little, and they just shrugged it off. Then there was the whole issue of them having guns, and her... well, being human. She was quick, but not quicker than a bullet-- She wasn't a magic alien like her new partner in justice, either.

Speaking of, realization hit Sicily like a ton of oranges, and because oranges don't leave bruises normally, she didn't show any signs of reeling from said oranges-- Err, realization. "You keep using that word-- Sarnian, or sommat like it? What is that? Is it really like, alien stuff? Is that your race?" She didn't exactly get a straight answer out of him before-- Then again, she didn't exactly ask a straight question. Just what was he? As far as she knew, not even Starfire could shrug off bullets, although she was a flier so that's a pretty neat trade-off. "And it's like... A blood thing, yeah? You're pretty odd, huh?" She asked, shrugging a bit.

[Gaunt]

Slobo shrugged. "This is my first collar too. I've had training, but never got to bust baddies before." He skirted around the topic of what he was trained for. None of it made very pleasant combat. Sabotage, assassination, war, those weren't things that ingratiated you to most superheroes. In general, supersoldiers weren't considered too trustworthy, at least Slobo didn't think so.

His genetic father was a bit of a touchy subject. Lobo wasn't a popular sort, and with good reason. "Well, sort of. I'm part Czarnian. They were a warrior race, pretty sure there's only one full-blooded left. I'm a partial clone of him, mellowed me out a bit." He supposed there was no point in hiding it. Between the name and his Czarnian heritage, it was bound to come out eventually. "You heard of Lobo?" There was more than a passing resemblance to the space biker. Wild black hair, white skin, yellow eyes, Slobo even had a bit of his biker aesthetic in how he dressed.

"Thanks." As far as Slobo was concerned, odd was good. Normal people didn't have superpowers. "I got enough alien in me to make me a powerhouse. Not sure how tough I'll get, but I got nowhere to go but up." From what he knew, Czarnians didn't really deteriorate with age.

[A.G.]

Battery Girl scratched her head in open confusion as Slobo explained a bit about himself. She was right in her assumption that he was some kinda alien, which was rare; Since coming to Jump, she'd had a very low batting rate at correctly guessing anything about anyone-- Race, gender, whether they were good guys or bad guys... City life was weird. Slobo was weirder still, but as her auntie had wisely told her earlier, just roll with it. She'd have to in this case, because she had nooooooooooo idea who 'Lobo' was outside of some bedtime stories she'd been told as a little girl.


"Um, okay-- So you're kinda like an alien superhero, then? I know Starfire's an alien too, but you guys don't look anything alike... so I guess she isn't related to you..." Aliens were hard, because the girl's rather small-town understanding of life on a humane level was notably limited. All humans were related, sorta, since they kinda looked the same; But Starfire looked human, too, and she wasn't human at all... And then Slobo had a human 'form', but white skin and yellow eyes were kinda beyond the norm-- Then again, city life was still weird. "Well, you're already a pretty tough guy, so I'd hate to see you in a couple years! You'll probably be juggling mountains, yeah? Hahaha!" The yellow-clad superheroine joked, before the familiar sound of police sirens chimed in from the near distance.

"Oh, you were right about them rushing here-- Good thing, too, I'm kinda worried about the guy I hit..." She noted quietly, rubbing the back of her head in oddly-placed 'shame'. She didn't particularly like using her powers against a non-superpowered person, but sometimes it just sorta... happened. She wasn't the best at controlling her powers just yet, and she knew it. As if spurred on by this mental admonishing, a withdrawn Battery Girl stared down at her right hand, flexing her fingers slightly, and watching as slight jolts of electricity would spark from them in turn.

[Gaunt]

Battery Girl was clearly confused, but was doing her best to follow along. Maybe the average human wasn't as familiar with aliens as he thought. It made sense, now that he thought of it. There were only a few known aliens operating on Earth. "Yeah, Starfire's Tamaranean, right?" He'd been briefed on a number of superhumans at the lab, not to mention Starfire's role in his escape. She was a powerful hero, though he wasn't sure where they compared in terms of power levels.

Slobo chuckled to himself at the crack about mountains. He wasn't sure even Lobo was that strong. It was kind of a moot point, nothing that size could hold together being thrown. Except maybe megastarships. But he was getting off-track again. "Maybe, maybe."

As if on cue, the cops pulled up. Slobo stepped aside to let them work, his senses going over the downed crooks. Battery Girl was worried, might as well check on them. "Seems to be fine. Vitals are good, no sign of lasting damage. I think you're in the clear." He looked over to the heroine, realizing she might need an explanation. "Part of my Czarnian powers. I can sense weaknesses, that sort of thing. If there were a lasting effect, he'd be registering as having a compromised heart or nervous system, but it looks like he's fine." He was pretty sure he was safe revealing that much of his powers. He hadn't told they were blockable, that was the real thing he needed to keep covered up.

[A.G.]

As Slobo spoke, Battery Girl raised an eyebrow in surprise of his words. "You mean, you can-- Wow! That's gotta be super useful... Like it probably does wonders for trying to figure out if someone likes you, or if they like someone else, right? Or-- or if someone's just eaten and that's why they don't want any pie!" What a wonderful ability, to be able to sense things like that. Being a Sarnian or whatever sounded awesome! With a shrug, she jokingly extended her hand to Slobo, shrugging. "Wanna switch powers? It sounds like your powers have less problems than mine..." She was kidding, but not about the problems with her own abilities. Had she come by to stop these baddies without 'borrowing' a bit of juice from her friend's car, she would have basically just been another girl. Her suit was, thus far, all show; She could use her powers without it, and be the self-same 'heroine' that she was otherwise. Still, on the bright side, not many girls her age could survive a stray lightning strike!

"You're the heroes who took care of these guys?" One of the officers spoke, interrupting Slobo and Sicily's talk. "Um, yes!" She responded in turn, smiling brightly; She liked the idea of being recognized as a hero, and had no doubt Slobo would as well; After all, he was basically a Titan already! "Ah, well good job taking care of them. Don't worry, we've got it from here. Thank goodness for you Titans; The police force has been stretched thin lately, and if it wasn't for you guys, these villains might start thinking they could get away with anything." The officer explained, causing her to frown. "We'll do our best, sir!" She said happily, as the other officer rounded the group of thugs up and placed them into the car. Zarnian or not, she always felt special for being able to help stop crimes.