DC: 2011-07-24 - Walking the Bridge

After the recent debacle with a few heroes, a stolen police car, and a bunch of cops that were defeated but not harmed, Slobo's received a rather cold welcome in sunny San Francisco. It doesn't deter him though. He does the usual things that someone would do in San Fran - mostly walk around, and he's found his way out in the bay area. He was given directions by a nice soccer mom on where the Titan's Tower is, and he's been good enough at following the direction.

Of course, it doesn't exactly help that Slobo's walking along the Golden Gate bridge and obstructing traffic, either. But people recently saw him on the TV, and how he picked up a section of road. They don't wanna mess with him!

Meanwhile, Kara had been on her way back to Metropolis, having stopped in San Francisco when she heard a cry for help below. Upon helping, Nightwing had intervened with two of the three thugs when two tried to run from her. Apparently he wanted to ask her about coming to Titan's tower, so going back to Metropolis would have to hold off for a little bit. She flew over there, when she noticed familiar face down below, on one of the city's larger landmarks, the Golden Gate Bridge. She peers at the figure curiously. "Slobo?" she says to herself as she flies down, then peeks her head upside down in front of his as she flies along at his walking pace. "Er... Hi there... remember me?"

Slobo catches a glimpse of skirt and cape, and his yellow eyes widen. "Hey there!" he said jovially, as if a weight was lifted off his shoulders. He keeps on walking, however. "Yeah, 'course I remember ya. How could I forget those arms carryin' me all the way to NYC? By the way, next date we get's on me," he says proudly. "I swear, though, so many of our fellow hero-types're..." He pauses in his speech, but keeps on walking.

"Well, I'll put it this way. I was just headin' along into California, an' then Hawkgirl and two other crazy people come in after me like I did some kinda horrible thing! Which I didn't. So I told Ms. Pillowcase-Stuffin' where to stuff that mace o'hers. Sheesh, an' they say *I* got an attitude problem." He makes a face. "Anyway, what brings you to sunny San Fran, blondie?"

Kara Zor-El looks at you quizzically. "Hawkgirl. Has wings with some sort of metal in them, and a mace and -" she starts to ask, but you go on before she can finish her sentence. She listens to you talking about you not getting along with some hero types. "Ms. Pillowcase-Stuffin. Ok I havent met her yet. What a weird name. Two mace-using heroes in one city." she says, not getting the colorful nickname you use for Sheira. She shakes her head, flying along beside you. "Oh... I was just heading back from ... um... my cousin's place up north and was going back to Metropolis and sort of was jsut flying over this way. Nightwing asked me to stop by the Titan's Tower some time." She shrugs a bit. "Then I saw you down here."

She looks around, then at you. "You know, you really shouldnt be walking on the road, they have walkways on the bridge that you could use.' "No, no, I called Hawkgirl Ms. Pillowcase Stuffin', since she's got feathers, an' people stuff their pillows with feathers..." Slobo rubbed his forehead a little. He kept walking along, and then paused. "Is there?" he asked, and stopped, in front of a semi truck. Which of course, really blocks up traffic.

Tapping his foot, Slobo looked around a bit, almost intentionally biding his time even as the driver of the trunk dares to honk. "Where's the walkway?" he asked. Kara Zor-El shakes her head a bit, smiling, "What am I going to do with you." She grabs you from underneath your arms and lifts you up, flying you over to the walkways and setting you back down again. She lands on the walkways herself as well lightly. She taps the walkway of the bridge with her booted foot lightly. "Walkways. For walking." She motions then to the road on the bridge. "Roads. For driving."

Kara Zor-El pauses as she thinks of something else you said. "Um... her wings are laced with metal. That wouldnt be very comfortable pillow stuffing."

"I-hey!" Slobo almost complains as he's lightly picked up and set upon the walkway. He doesn't really complain, however. "Alrighty, I'll try to remember this," he said. That is, until he feels mischevious. "Far as her wings go, I wasn't paying atention. But usually people stuff their pillows with regular feathers. But anyway... so you saw your cousin, huh? Headed back to Metropolis? Dang. I'm tryin'a get to the Titan's Tower now. But I'm sick of askin' fer help, so I'm doin' it on my own." He's not asking, but with the expression on his face, its almost as if Slobo's trying to give Kara puppy-dog eyes. Walking alone sucks.

Kara Zor-El shrugs. "Actually he wasnt er.... home. He had to do something out in space. Said he'd be back soon." She smiles a bit, knowing that it means she can postpone having to talk to her cousin about his overprotectiveness a little longer, plus it means he's not spying on her now to 'check up on her.' She watches you as you stare at her for a while.

Finally she gets it. "Um.... want me to walk with you to Titan Tower?" she asks. "Nightwing asked me to stop by some time anyway."

"Sounds good to me. Who's Nightwing?" Slobo asked, lifting a hand to flick at one of his long spikes of hair. "Out in space, huh? Sounds either really cool, or fraggin' boring."

Kara Zor-El thinks for a second, then says "Um.... a friend of Batman. I've only met him a few times but he's sorta nice. Not very talkative though. Neither is Batman though." She looks at you while walking. "Batman said you're dangerous, but I think he was referring to that other czarnian you mentioned. Lobo?"

Slobo slows down in his step, and then he leans against a rail looking out over the water. "...Yeah." He suddenly takes a turn for the moody. "I guess you could say I *am* Lobo. Er, sorta. I'm not worthy o'the name. Y'see, when Lobo gets hurt an' he bleeds, like how he did on Apokolips, every drop o'blood grows into a new Lobo. I was one of 'em. But I was... well, I was weak. A genetic throwback. I was even startin' to break down on my first days, startin' to go blind. And then I *did* go blind. And then Darkseid zapped me. And after a while, well, I ended up gettin' zapped back, which was where ya found me."

He cleared his throat. "Lobo's one'a the most dangerous fraggin' bastiches in the universe. Only works fer top dollar, an' never goes back on his word. He doesn't. Ever. Stop. As an example, I got a lot o'his genetic memories. You know how you did science experiments in school?" he asked her.

Kara Zor-El thinks. "Well my father was a scientist and he taught me. He wanted me to actually be in the Science Council when I got older so.... I guess so yeah?" She pauses. "So he's a mercenary then?"

"Somethin' like that. But anyway, for my... his... ugh. For our high school science project we created a replicationg biomechanical micro-organism about 117 microns long. Gave ourself the antidote, and let it loose." Slobo frowned, shutting his eyes and looking down. "There's a reason Lobo calls himself 'the last Czarnian.' He killed every single other member of his species, just so he could call himself unique an' mean it. And usually when more Lobos pop up from his blood, they fight amongst each other till only one's left standin'. Some say only a Czarnian can kill another Czarnian, so that works. I dunno fer sure, but I don't wanna die. I'm like you Kryptonians, only there's more o'you around, I bet. And I'm... partially responsible fer killin' off my own species." Gave himself an A, though.

Kara Zor-El frowns. "What a horrible person." She pauses, noticing he actually seems to feel bad. "Um... you shouldnt blame yourself. You're not him. Trust me.... I've done a lot of bad things in the last 2 months and I wasn't in control of it either. I mean..... I got all split into two people and my evil self almost killed several members of the JLA. But Kal told me it wasn't my fault - even if that Kara was sort of a darker version of me. Lobo's a darker version of you. You're the good one. You're not a throwback. You're a leap ahead... because you have a conscience. Right?"

The little Czarnian shrugged. "I dunno. I have a conscience," he admits, "but little sense of, uh, morality as a bunch o'heroes would call it. Even left Young Justice fer a tiny bit before re-joinin' 'em over, uh, ideological differences." He frowned. "Here's a hypothetical. Say you had a friend who's helped you out - but they've got darkness in 'em, like all of us do. Yer friend wants ya t'do somethin' less than reputable. All their other friends have told 'em no. Its wrong. Or it doesn't seem right. Yer their las' hope. What's more important t'ya? Loyalty t'yer friends, or some 'code of honor' as I hear it called?"

Slobo clarifies, "An' yer friend needs yer help, since they need a loved one saved. But the other friends won't help."

Kara Zor-El tilts her head walking along with him. "That's a tough one. I mean... why wouldnt your friends help?"

Slobo shrugs. "As another example... say yer dad was locked away in prison, and condemned t'death. You find out at the last minute that he's innocent. And you *need* to save him since he's, well, yer dad. But nobody helps you. 'He's been convicted, its wrong,' they say. But you *know* he's innocent. What do ya do?"

Slobo also adds, "He's scheduled to be executed that evening." As an added bit of suspense to that hypothetical situation.

Kara Zor-El pauses. "I'd probably save him." She shakes her head. "No, I take that back... I'd definitely save him." she says as she continues to walk along with him.

Supergirl says, "What did you do that was 'disreputable' though?"

Walking alongside Kara, Slobo nods. "I helped my friend break her dad outta prison." He says this matter-of-factly, like he had no problems with it at all. "If a friend needs help, help 'em. Unfortunately neither of us knew this was part of an extended plan and it turned my friend nuts and she almost ate the world..." he says this as if he were talking about the weather, "but the fact is, nobody else was willing t'help her. They were all so deluded in their egos or senses of 'justice' that they were willin' t'let their friend suffer through the doubt that her dad was innocent, and was gonna die anyway." Slobo frowned. "That ain't justice... even if it was a dirty trick in the first place."

Kara Zor-El shrugs a little. "Maybe they felt there were other ways to get justice without breaking more laws?"

"It doesn't matter if they did - they just outright refused to help." Slobo continues to walk, before looking up at the sky thoughtfully. "She was desperate. She thought her dad was innocent and was gonna be executed that night."

Kara Zor-El pats his shoulder. "The world's more complicated than that sometimes. There's never just two choices. I hope you and your friends reconciled at least about it?" Then she shrugs. "Look who I am to talk, actually."

"Sometimes you don't have th'time t'think about other choices, though. Which just makes things more complicated." Slobo shrugged. "I guess we were on our way to reconcilin'... when Darkseid zapped me. I guess they thought I died or somethin'."

Kara Zor-El heads off the bridge and continues walking with him, then notices that the two of them are still causing a stir. Superman's cousin and that insane person from the news walking together on the bridge. She changes subjects. "Fly you there?" she asks.

"Nah, the walk is nice. Who cares what these people think?" The teen smiles. "I ain't trashin' anythin' or blowin' anythin' up. They can stuff it. Don't let 'em get t'you, Supergirl. We're people too."

Kara Zor-El looks at him. "Okay... " She murmurs to herself "I do care what they think though."

"Why? Isn't it what you do that's important, not how you seem?" Slobo asked inquisitively. "If I were some citizen walking around and I saw a pretty super-heroine talkin' down some guy who was on the news with cops yesterday, I'd admire her for bein' able t'bring him down without throwin' a punch." A pause. "Granted I love a good scrap, but.."

Kara Zor-El looks at him quizzically. "You were on the news with cops yesterday?" she asks.

"Yeah. I took a car that was stolen back in Arizona. Then I drove it here to Cali. I was gonna give it back, till some wackjob jumped on the windshield an' spooked me. I hit the brake too hard and shoved my foot through the car." Slobo groaned. "Then Hawkgirl showed up an' I got *lectured*. Lectured!"

Kara Zor-El nods a little. "Well, Hawkgirl does seem to be good at - Wait... you stole a car?" She asks, as they head on down to Titan's tower...