Creation began on 04-06-20

Creation ended on 04-11-20

Teen Titans Go!

You're not worthy to be heroes: Acceptance of failure promises victory

A/N: It's only when we accept our failures do we understand what it takes to succeed.

This had to be a dream. A terrible nightmare of some sort. They were the Teen Titans. They were the heroes of the young generation, tasked with proving themselves worthy to be heroes to humanity and the world. But as he got back up, the Boy Wonder saw his teammates on the ground, defeated in ways that would haunt him.

Cyborg was in pieces all over the place. His face ruined and his facial flesh scorched beyond recognition to anyone that might've known him.

Beast Boy was impaled against the remains of a burnt tree's branch, his arms and legs gone.

Raven was reduced to nothing but the tattered remains of her cloak and leotard.

And Starfire was… There was nothing that remained of the Tamaranian princess, not even her gauntlets or hair.

"You really were fools to stand up to me," he heard the cruel voice of Brightburn, hovering above him, eyes flaring red. "Any last words?"

Robin couldn't find the will to face the alien villain again…and just fell backwards onto the…onto the…cosmos?

"Do you see where you went wrong, Robin?" He heard Brother Correction ask him, seeing that he was unharmed and floating in the abyss of space with the dark man. "Do you understand why you can't behave as you do with your team or anyone, friend or foe?"

"I do," he responded, remembering what had happened; he lost consciousness for a minute and was placed in an alternate scenario by Brother Correction to show him why his unstable methods of trying to get the Titans to follow him against Brightburn had they not found what might've been used against him. "I tried to force the others to fight him all at once instead of being strategic and being evasive while studying his abilities further. He killed them all in front of me."

But the worst part about what happened for Robin wasn't that he was forced to watch as the alien fiend murdered his friends in front of him. No, the worst part…was that Brightburn never killed him, as if needing him as a spectator, a witness to his wrath upon the world.

"We didn't even use the metal from that ship we found buried under the remains of that farm," he told Brother Correction. "Tell me, please…The ship… That's his Achilles' heel, isn't it? The metal that comprises it, it's able to harm him, like some sort of fail-safe to ensure he couldn't act out too much."

"It might be meant to serve as that, but the only way to know for sure…is to put the metal to use against Brightburn and stop him. It takes a team comprised of more than one to stand against the only one who threatens to destroy what remains of the world. And you won't win unless you truly trust in your team. You lean on your team…and they'll lean on you in return. A true leader has to be understanding and accepting of his team's individual flaws and traits, learning to adjust to their behavior and make their drawbacks into advantages. If you want your teammates to cooperate with you, you have to cooperate with them. No control-freaking, no master and servant relationships, no puppet mastering on those around you. Just a leader, a friend, and a teammate. You do that, and you get closer to becoming a hero."

Robin nodded in acceptance. During this entire fiasco they had been tasked with in order to prove that they could be real heroes, he found his inability to take control of the situation to be something that wasn't going to happen on his terms. He saw the impossibility of it when Brightburn murdered the refugees trying to hide from him. No matter what he said or did that was the wrong thing to do in a situation of this magnitude, he was going to fail.

"One of the important qualities of a hero is to be disciplined and demonstrate restraint," Brother Correction told him, something that Robin hadn't demonstrated much of since they met. "A hero must have a strong sense of justice, a willingness to do right by those around them, regardless of the danger, known and unknown, and, above all, must be willing to sacrifice their life to protect others. They do so not for recognition, not for glory, but because they have to ensure that the people they must protect live to see another day, no matter what. Even if the survivors live for less than what the hero intended, just knowing that they sacrificed themselves to save them is what gives a hero the eternal right to be recognized as a hero. Real heroes…go somewhere else in the afterlife upon their deaths. Valhalla, the Elysium Fields, places other than Heaven or Paradise where those that chose the life of a hero can be remembered and focus on what they can do next. And now, Robin, it's time for you to wake up."

Gasp! Robin awoke to the sounds of Cyborg still working on the mysterious ship they had found buried underground.

"How long was I out?" He asked, and Cyborg turned to face him, holding a fragment of the ship in his left hand.

"Just eight minutes," Cyborg told him. "I figured out how to atomize the metal into an aerosol form. This whole vessel seems to had been meant to serve as a double-edged sword for Brightburn, to bring him to another world when he was young…and to be used against him if he went too far, but only if the intelligent race that found him knew how to utilize it to their advantage against him."

"Is the metal dangerous to humans?"

"No, but it emits a special radiation when Brightburn is near, probably acting as a failsafe against him, weakening him to a degree. How much so is unknown right now."

"You have any idea why someone from another world…would send someone like Brightburn to Earth…only for him to become the stuff of nightmares for the people?"

Cyborg sighed and expressed several theories on why Brightburn ended up on Earth in the past.

"Maybe his parents were like Superman's race, trying to ensure one of their own would survive somewhere on another world," he suggested. "Maybe he was part of a failed program to send children to primitive worlds and then cause their downfall once they came of age. Or maybe…maybe Brightburn is just Superman gone bad. You?"

"Nothing. I think Brother Correction contacted me in a dream I was having a few minutes ago, trying to teach me something that I wasn't understanding until it was too late."

"What was he teaching you?"

"How my flaws would jeopardize the team if I tried to control what everyone did against Brightburn or any other enemy. In the end, I saw everyone die."

"That's terrible."

"I won't let that happen for real, though."

-x-

Brightburn searched allover the ruins of the world for these five teens that tried to stand up to him, with no such luck in finding them. Sure, he managed to find several refugees trying to hide from him and killed a few of them when they couldn't or wouldn't tell him where these teens were, but that didn't change the fact that he now felt threatened by them so long as they were out there somewhere, searching for a way to stop him. The sooner he found them and destroyed them, the better he could focus on his original purpose to take the world.

What did that cape-wearing fool call themselves? He wondered as he flew through the air. I think it was…the Teen Titans? They're not Titans. Not even close. They're just a handful of freaks that persist in trying to live in this world. My world! I will kill them once I find them!

His eyes flared once more as he unleashed his heat vision upon the ruins of Sydney, Australia, setting them ablaze again, just to vent his frustrations.

"Aaaaurgh!" He growled. "Where are you?!"

To be continued…

A/N: Once more, TTG Robin is made to understand what he must do to ensure that the Teen Titans defeat Brightburn, bringing him another step closer to being more like his TT counterpart. And Brightburn has no idea that his downfall is inching ever closer to reality. Boredom really causes people to try and pass the time doing something constructive instead of invoking the deadly sin that is sloth all the time being indoors. Peace.