Creation began on 11-05-19

Creation ended on 11-06-19

Teen Titans Go!

You're not worthy to be heroes: Robin's Dismay

A/N: I figured this would help me to force the TTG incarnation of the Boy Wonder to realize why his TT incarnation will be his better no matter what he does, even against a person that isn't out to do any good. Here goes.

Nothing he tried appeared to have any effect upon this young man that was taking the secret identity motif of heroes and villains to a ridiculous low by wearing handmade variations over authentic ones that made them look official. His smoke bombs, Birdarangs and staff did nothing to harm this guy that claimed the people dubbed him Brightburn, after the place he started showing up in. No, even as he fell over a thousand feet in the air, Robin was left to ponder how someone like this…this Brightburn could have bested him without even trying, able to injure him without putting in any effort, despite Robin thinking that he could stop him once he challenged him. And in the process of thinking this, of trying to injure the powerful being, the Boy Wonder had caused the deaths of a pocket of survivors that Brightburn was looking for, only to eviscerate them with his heat vision in front of the Titan.

"I don't have time for someone thinking they can stop me," Brightburn had told Robin as he took him high into the sky above the ruins of his namesake. "You were never a match for me. You…are just a pathetic little boy playing dress-up."

But…how could I fail? Robin thought as he was still falling. I'm the leader of the Titans. I'm the best there is! I'm a hero!

But if he was what he claimed to be, why didn't he stop Brightburn from killing the handful of people that were trying to hide from the super-being out to kill them? Why didn't protect them from his heat vision or super-strength that could tear down steel? Why didn't…he do what a true hero would've done no matter what the cost?

"You're not worthy to be heroes!" He remembered Brother Correction telling them when they met him in the tower. "You're just kids that play dangerously around people, breaking things and causing harm to those that have to live with the repercussions of your presence! No matter what your intentions, no matter what your background, you will never deserve to be called heroes if you continued to treat it like it's nothing but child's play!"

And Brightburn…would best the Titans because he was not a hero. He would win because he took what he was doing seriously, not treating it like a game, and not trying to win the love of some girl or prove himself superior to those that were better than he'd ever be. And, as tough as Robin found it to accept, Brightburn most likely didn't even care about his outfit fitting in all the right places like his butt, just using it to mask his identity and make himself appear mysterious. There appeared to be no flaw in anything this Superman-like being was doing that Robin could see a flaw in.

He's not playing, he realized, taking off his left glove to see his hand, a regular-sized hand belonging to a regular-proportioned, teenage boy, not a baby-like hand. He knows what he's meant to do and chooses to fulfill it. He's not in it for recognition or to be a protector. He's just taking the world…and ending anyone he can find before they can stand up to him.

"You brought him here!" A man that was among the people killed yelled at Robin before Brightburn killed him. "You brought that Devil here! You killed us, boy! You did! You killed us!"

He watched pathetically as Brightburn killed a woman with a baby in her arms…then an elderly man…and a little girl…and a young man whose legs were broken. The super-being didn't discriminate between anyone.

Brother Correction was right, he came to accept as the ground below him edged closer in his fall. We're not heroes. We were never heroes. Who were we kidding? Who was I kidding? I'm just some kid that was trying to be in control. A real hero would've been able to save some of those people. I swear, Brother Correction, if I survive this, I will give up my old ways. I'll stop complaining about the others not listening to me, I'll be more in control of myself, whatever it takes to be a real hero!

He thought his last moments were going to be of the day his parents died due to criminals messing with the circus equipment, how his life changed when he got swept up into the life of vigilantism, chasing villains, working in the shadows, learning to trust others, even those that knew who he was under the mask and kept his secrets.

"Aaaaaaurgh!" A shrieking sound was heard, and Robin felt a pair of claws grip onto his shoulders. "Aaaaurgh!"

The pinches of pain snapped him back to the present as he looked up…and saw a dark green pterodactyl above him, flying him to the ground safely.

"Over here!" He heard the voice of Cyborg nearby the ruins of a clearing.

-x-

Brightburn had never expected someone that wasn't an army of tanks of jets to try and stand up to him, despite the impossibility of actually harming him, but never had he encountered a young man that was so…annoying and outright pathetic. And the yelling, he had to wonder how anyone could stand to be around him when he kept yelling, as if trying to be heard all the time, even at night, by countless people. Well, there were hardly any people left in this world now. After his four years of activity since he came into his powers of super-strength, flight, invulnerability and heat vision, he had traveled across the planet and demolished thousands of buildings in hundreds of cities and towns, racking up millions of lives, even destroying bridges to prevent people from escaping the devastation. As annoying as that boy in the costume had been, nothing had come to annoy him more…than people that lingered like a pest that wouldn't call it quits.

-x-

"…So this Brightburn guy no older than we are?" Raven questioned as she, Starfire and the boys were sharing what they knew about their enemy in the clearing. "Like, twenty or so?"

"His costume's homemade," Starfire added, "but he's not a talkative person. His cruelty is insufferable. Even if he were from my world, he'd be viewed as an aberrant defect that needed to be removed from society."

"He's not like Superman, that's for certain," said Cyborg to them. "Some of his powers are similar, but he doesn't derive his energy from the sun at all. It seems that his abilities are all tied to his age; the older he gets, the stronger he becomes. My best guess, if he ever reaches the age of Superman in his prime, he'd be unstoppable. Where he is currently just feels like he's unstoppable, but he still has some limits."

"We just need to find a way to stop him first," Beast Boy uttered.

"Friend Robin?" Starfire spoke, noticing that Robin was unusually quiet, something he wasn't at any time, except for when they were asleep. "Robin?"

"He was right about us," he told them. "Brother Correction was right. We're just a bunch of kids that like to roughhouse. We're not heroes. I tried to fight Brightburn…and he wasn't even trying to fight back, no matter what I did. Nothing hurt him."

"You're only human, man," Cyborg told him. "He's not, even if he looks like one. The guy doesn't care who he hurts or who gets in his way."

"He murdered a bunch of refugees in front of me. One man even said how it was my fault that he found them before he was killed…and he was right. I led Brightburn to where they were hiding and he killed them. It didn't even matter who they were or why they were hiding. He's like…"

"Like the us?" Starfire suggested. "Only worse because he doesn't care if he's not liked by the people? Worse than the us because he doesn't care if destroys the many cities with the people living in them?"

"Yeah," he agreed with her.

"But the still, the Brightburn is who we, the Teen Titans, must face if we're to save the few that are the left and free the world. We stop the Brightburn, we become the heroes we want the Brother Correction to see us as."

"That's just one problem with that plan, Star," went Beast Boy. "It seems that when Brother Correction changed us, he changed the way our powers work; I used to be able to talk no matter which form I took, but now I can't speak in any form except this one. I tried talking as a gorilla, and nothing happened."

"He's right," added Raven. "My powers were also affected by this change. I can't produce dark energy constructs, anymore. I can manipulate pre-existing constructs, but beyond that, I can create temporary walls or barriers. It's like we're limited in our abilities."

"I still have some of my weapons," Cyborg shared, "but they're heavily reduced in their potency, including my sonic cannons. What about your powers, Star?"

"Mine all still the work," Starfire expressed, showing one of her star bolts in her left hand. "Do you think the Brother Correction did this on purpose so that we could demonstrate our worth as heroes to the him and the people?"

"No," Robin responded. "I think it was because he wanted us to be like whoever we were in other lifetimes because they had more limits put on them…and more restraint; just because we could do something others couldn't…didn't mean that we should."

"I guess you falling to your near-death shook you," Beast Boy told him.

"We need to take this serious; no jokes, no talk unless it's about something important, no laughter, no comedy. It won't help us against Brightburn."

"I think I might've found something that can help us against him," suggested Cyborg. "One of my scanners pick up a trace of an unidentifiable metallic alloy where a farm used to reside. I tried cross-referencing it with every known metal in my database, and nothing matched it. There's still some satellites hovering over the planet that still work, but all I could find when I hacked one over our heads was a site where a plane wreck occurred four years, shortly before Brightburn appeared to the public."

"Some sort of foreign metal?" Raven asked him. "What if this metal relates in some way to Brightburn? What if it's something he barely knows about?"

"There's only one way we'll find out," Robin told them. "Let's get to that site."

-x-

Something stirred within Brightburn as he sat on his throne of rubble. It was a feeling of concern, like there was something he had to do. Rising from off the rubble, he took to the air and flew across the Atlantic Ocean. Whatever was causing this feeling of concern in him, he would end it. The sooner he dealt with it, the better his chances would be of solidifying his mission to take this world.

"Take the world," he repeated his realization of his mission as his eyes flared with power.

To be continued…

A/N: Okay, maybe this chapter wasn't as impressive to some of you as I had hoped it would be, but I want you to consider how TTG Robin would be ineffective against Brightburn for any fight duration and how he'd just whine about it before falling to his would-be death, realizing how pathetic he truly is and how nothing he did worked. Another reason is how this Robin, even when he now looks like his TT counterpart, is still only human; he has no superhuman abilities or magical origins to rely upon to better his odds against someone blessed or cursed with great power and taking no responsibility for their usage of it. I believe any near-death experience of this sort, where you die and don't come back to life, where you don't wake up from a crazy dream or anything, will allow for one to come to terms, or start to, at least, with their flaws and try to overcome them.