"No other way of making sure you stay on Earth where you belong." Answered Terra, her cheerful countenance no longer anywhere to be seen.
"Why should we stay on earth?" challenged Robin.
"Because I am goddess and I said so."
"Why should we listen to you?"
"Because I am a goddess."
Robin frowned. He would have to seize control of the conversation in order to win this argument. Luckily, Terra had left him the upper hand.
"But isn't there a gathering army deep in space?"
Terra's face twisted into an incomprehensible state. There is only one describe it, and that would still fail to capture the array of emotions in her expression. Try to imagine the contorted face that a politician makes when he visits a middle-school and the students start asking tough political questions. Now, keep that image in the back of your mind and try conjure up the face of a first-time parent. The parent comes home from work one day and his child greets him by asking about the birds and the bees.
Got it? Good. Now merge those two faces together and you'll have a less exaggerated example of what Terra looked like. The goddess stumbled for words.
"How... who... who told you about the Tamaranean army?"
Robin tapped his left temple with two fingers. "I'm the student of Batman. I deduced it from your behavior."
"Wow, if he can deduce that..." Mumbled the holy defender of Earth, "Then maybe he IS the one spoken of by the prophecies."
Robin stepped forward, cloaked with newly found confidence. He stared straight into the goddess' eyes and spoke with an authority that challenged even hers.
"Why are you preventing me from fulfilling my duty of defeating this army?"
"Because, that army will not threaten you."
"Do you know that for sure?"
Weakening, Terra said "No," in a soft voice.
"If this army comes to earth, will we survive it?"
Terra shut her eyes and bowed her head.
"No,"
"So why do you want us all to die?"
"I don't. The almighty powers will protect you."
"Will they? Or have you condemned us to a fate where we shall die?"
"Wait!" Interjected Cyborg, "Your going to destroy the cars AND us?!"
The two mortals stared intensely at the troubled goddess as they awaited her appeared to be on the verge of tears when she finally spoke.
"I cannot reveal that to mortals. Do not worry though. I shall do everything in my power to protect you earthlings."
Since she had nothing more to say, Terra sent a shockwave of dirt throughout the area. By the time it cleared, she had disappeared.
"She's lying!" announced Robin.
"I was thinking that too. Do you mind giving me a hand?"
Cyborg was knocked down by the blast of dirt and needed help getting up. Robin decided to give him the cold shoulder instead. The hero paced around. He was either deep in thought or trying to look at his eyebrows.
"Yes, but how can we be sure?"
Cyborg sat up and did a system analysis to find out why he couldn't stand. While punching in buttons on his arm, he noticed something that Robin would find useful.
"My mechanical ear and eye recorded the entire conversation. If you want, I can play it all back for you and have my systems analyze it."
"Nah, there's nothing that a machine can do better than a human's gut feeling." In truth, Robin just liked following his intuition and hoping it was right. It reminded him of what Batman seemed to do.
"Gee, thanks dude."
It took a moment before Robin realized that Cyborg was offended by the comment. It took longer before he realized that he should give Cyborg an apology.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that. Is there anything I can do to make up for it?"
"You sure can," replied Cyborg. "You can help me get to my feet."
Robin apologized again and lifted the tin man off the ground. Cyborg was a lot lighter than he looked.
"Must be the fancy metal he's made of," thought Robin.
Cyborg thought: "He sure is a lot stronger than he looks."
Cyborg took a few test steps and saw that everything was working fine. He then said.
"So you were gonna fly off and save the planet. Why didn't you mention something that awesome?"
Robin gave Cyborg the death stare. It didn't work though. Robots must be impervious to it or something. Any regular man would have been reduced to a puddle from sheer intimidation.
"Doesn't matter anymore," said the dejected hero. "Can't get there without a spaceship."
Robin kicked a machine fragment clear across the fallen bunker. He rested his hands in pockets and turned his back unto Cyborg. Cyborg tried to cheer the hero up.
"Hey, it could be worse," He paused to think of an example. "You could have just watched your entire livelihood be crushed to pieces."
"Yeah, but a livelihood can be rebuilt from the ashes. Did you think of that you bucket o'bolts?" Robin spat out the words. "What am I to do? I'm always going to have this failure hanging over me. Until the end, that is. When everything comes crashing down on us."
Robin kicked another machine fragment. It flew into the remnants of a red Ferrari; setting off the car's alarm.
Bleep! Bleep!
Cyborg spoke, though his soft words could hardly be heard over the alarm.
"Look dude, I really sorry. 'Bout everything."
Robin turned away again. There was deep silence between the two. Except, of course, for the unhalting screeches of the car alarm. Robin gazed blankly upon the ruined machines. A few minutes passed. Then Robin's eyes opened so wide that his mask could barely stretch enough to cover them. He looked back at Cyborg and asked.
"You said you were a mechanic, right?"
"Forget it, the spaceships are lightyears beyond repair."
Robin smirked. Cyborg had no idea what he was planning. This must be what Bruce feels when he talks to me, he thought.
"The parts still work fine though. You said yourself that you had some of your own spaceship designs; let's see them. There's an entire warehouse of parts for you to use."
Cyborg's human eye widened and the mechanical one zoomed out of focus. He rubbed the back of his chrome neck.
"Yeah about that... Um... Why should I do what you say? Who are you to give me orders?"
Robin grabbed Cyborg by the scruff of the neck. No small feat considering that he had to dig through Cyborg's metal exterior to get the grip.
"Listen dude, I'm Robin. The superhero. You heard the goddess. It is of the utmost importance that I fend off the foreign army. The earth demands that you secure me passage to the hostile planet. If you don't. We will die."
Cyborg held up his hands and kicked his feet. This 'Robin' guy had lifted him off the ground, with one hand!
Cyborg examined Robin more closely. The costumed lunatic was certainly strong enough to be a hero.
"Well, I just don't dunno if it can really be done. I've never actually gotten around to trying building one of my designs yet."
Robin furrowed his brow and brought Cyborg closer. When they were eye to eye, he demanded.
"Repeat after me, my name is robo-dude."
"Can I have a better name?" Interrupted Cyborg. This drew a stern response from Robin and Cyborg made a mental note to never interrupt the hero again.
"Fine, my name is Cyborg."
"My name is Cyborg.
"I will build a spaceship for Robin, who is an equal to Batman.
"I will build a spaceship for Robin, who needs anger management."
"And I will have it done by the end of the week."
"And I will have it done by the end of the week."
"Understood?"
"Understood!"