2012-12-22 - Warehouse Smackdown

After spending the morning on patrol, Vanguard now makes his way towards Titan island. He had the opportunity to speak with Power Boy the other day and the meeting had gone pretty well. His goal today was to talk with Slobo..the little alien dude that he met while visiting Starfire. The general area was pretty quiet as he flew along, perhaps a little too quiet for the black-clad hero's tastes. At any rate, at least there wasn't some super villian who was tearing up the city at the moment... Not tearing up the city, but the little alien is tearing up a guitar. Quite literally in this case - he can be seen at a table setup far down below, on the marina. He's taking apart a guitar, but not tearing things up, but methodically piecing the instrument apart. Strings first, of course. Vanguard spots Slobo at the marina and adjusts his course so that he floats down near the little alien. He announces his arrival so he is not inadvertantly attacked. "Hi..Slobo. What are you up to, man?" He'd smile if his face wasn't covered by a mask. Slobo looks up at the black-clad hero, and he lifted a hand with a wave! "Yo! Not much, just studyin' musical instrument engineerin'. S'fun stuff. What's up?" Vanguard crosses his arms over his chest as his feet touch the ground. "First, it's good to see you again. Second..I have a small request to make of you, if you'd be willing to hear me out?" He watches him dismantle the guitar and is suddenly glad that his vintage Les Paul is safely tucked away in his apartment. Nodding, Slobo crossed his arms over his chest. "Sure. Ask away. I may do it, I may not. Shoot." Vanguard takes a seat on a crate as he explains. "As you may know, my membership into the Titans is currently being voted on. I've already gotten a yes from Arsenal, Supergirl, Kon-El, and Starfire. But Arsenal says that I'm lacking two votes. He advised me to seek out other Titans who have abstained and sway them to vote in my favor." He pauses. "Listen, I really want to be part of the team, so I was wondering if I could persuade you to vote in my favor?" Tilting his head, Slobo merely shrugged. "Sure, you got my vote. Whatevs. Tell 'em I said its cool and you got my OK." What's all this technical 'abstaining' stuff? "Long as nobody covers me in 'Vote For Me' pins again, I'm chill with whatever you wanna do. More hands on deck is good, yeah?" He didn't need convincing, apparently. Vanguard's shoulders droop slightly as he lets go of his tension. "Thanks dude, I really appreciate it." He pauses. "For some reason, I think Arsenal is making this a lot harder on me than it should be. Maybe it's a hazing thing, I dunno." Slobo shrugged once more. "Well, he's called Arse for a reason, haha! Just tell him you got my vote, I ain't got time to go kiss his boots." He chuckled and stretched, before scooping his guitar pieces in a bag - not even organizing! How awful! As Vangaurd and Slobo talk, there is a small explosion in a nearby warehouse. There is a lot of screaming and people seem to be running from that direction. When the noise happens, Vangaurd looks up sharply as people begin to scream. "That..doesn't sound good. We should probably check that out." Slobo is already on his feet and running! And boy, can he run fast! "Yeah!" he managed to say as he started to dash! The little guy tore up big spikey footprints in the ground as he ran - had some power to him. When Slobo makes it onto the scene, he is confronted by none other than Cinderblock himself. The large stone creature is pretty much wrecking the inside of a warehouse, almost as if he was looking for something. For the moment, he hasn't spotted the little alien, though he does toss a forklift behind him towards Slobo and if he doesn't move, it'll land right on top of his head. Vanguard was in the air speeding towards the disturbance right behind Slobo. However, Slobo got the jump on him and makes it there almost a full minute before Dedrick does. He comes to a landing just behind the little alien as he catches sight of Cinderblock. "Okay...I've never seen /that/ before." He comments. Slobo saw Cinderblock, but kept on running. Right for the villain. He tilted forward, picking up speed as best he could. Why? So he could barrel right into the stony monstrosity. We'll see what happens! Slobo's tactic works well. He barrels into the stone monster and crumbles it into dust. But by the time the little alien dude stops running, Cinderblock is already healing himself. The stone comes back together into a bipedal form as he takes a swing at Slobo. Vanguard notes the situation and extends both of his fists. They begin to glow with a bright white energy just before a massive beam discharges and shatters the stone monstrosity once again. He frowns as the thing already starts to heal itself. "Hey, Slobo? You okay?" He flies towards the alien. Slobo apparently barreled right THROUGH Cinderblock, trailing bits and pieces of the stony thing are coming back together. And it happened so quick that Slobo wasn't expecting it to smack him! But.. holy crap, he holds his ground, booted feet digging into the earth as he puts his hands on the rocky thing, and starts to squeeze, cracks going up along Cinderblock's arm. "M'fine! What do we do with this thing? Throw it into a volcano?" Cinderblock grunts. "Little man. Go away!" He kicks out behind him just as Vanguard gets close enough and it sends the caped hero careening into a wall. He then aims a downwards smash towards Slobo's head. From the way he speaks, he's not that smart, or that vocal for that matter. Vanguard grunts as he's knocked backwards. However, he's back on his feet almost immediately. He kneels down, punching at the ground which causes a small shockwave that knocks Cinderblock off balance, which would allow Slobo to handle him better. "The bay!" He exclaims. "If he's made out of rock, he can't swim. Throw him in the bay!" Slobo deftly jumped out of the way of the incoming fist - headbutting someone is one thing, getting smashed in the head is something else. With the earth rumbling around them with the resulting shockwave from Vanguard, Slobo did his best to bearhug Cinderblock by a leg. "You're strikin' out, brickhouse!" He grunted and hefted, before tilting, getting some running time, and then LAUNCHING the huge thing, trying to chuck it into the bay. With a screech, Cinderblock is launched and there is a telltale /splash/ as the stone monstrosity hits the water. Vangaurd moves over to where Slobo is and asks, "You alright man? I think that might slow him down at least. He'll be stuck in there for awhile, I think." Slobo dusted at his shoulders and shook out his hair. "Fine," he said, bouncing on his heels. "What about you?" he asked. Vanguard chuckles. "It'll take a lot more than that to hurt me. Man, I didn't realize you were so fast, dude. I could barely keep up with ya." The sound of sirens could be heard in the background and Vanguard sighs audibly. "Tell you what, if there's someplace you gotta be, you can go ahead. I'll stay and explain everything to the cops." "Sounds good to me. Remember to tell the arse you got my vote! You're good people." And Slobo was off! Probably back to his bag and guitar bits so he could go back to studying.