Chapter Text
TEEN TITANS: RISE OF THE TITANS
Single Season — 10 Episodes
---
Episode 1 — THE WEIGHT OF THE LEAGUE'S FALL
Dusk over the city. Wind and distant traffic. Lights flicker on one by one.
---
The memorial hall inside Titans Tower, at night.
A bronze statue: Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Green Lantern, and Aquaman. Mounted on a black stone base. No flowers. A plaque reads: "To those who gave everything. The world goes on because they are gone."
Robin, black jacket over his suit, no mask, stands with his back to the room, facing the statue. He doesn't move.
Cyborg enters with heavy, metallic footsteps. Stops a few feet away.
CYBORG:
— You've been here an hour.
ROBIN:
— Nowhere else to be.
Cyborg looks at him. Then at the statue. A long silence.
CYBORG:
— My dad always said Superman was the best of all of them. Not for the powers. Because he could've been a god and chose to be a man instead.
ROBIN:
— Bruce used to say something like that too. But he also said Superman trusted too much. That it would kill him one day.
Pause.
CYBORG:
— And it did. But not because he trusted too much. Because he was brave.
Robin lowers his head. Finally turns around. His eyes are red, but he hasn't cried. Or maybe he's out of tears.
ROBIN:
— Where's everyone else?
CYBORG:
— Roof. Starfire wanted to see the stars. Says they've looked different since the League died.
---
Rooftop of Titans Tower, at night.
Starfire sits at the edge, legs dangling. She looks up. Her green hair drifts in the wind.
Beast Boy lies on the ground, arms crossed behind his head. Also staring at the sky.
Raven stands a few feet back, wrapped in her cloak. She's not looking at the stars. She's watching her teammates.
STARFIRE:
— On Tamaran, when a warrior dies in battle, their light stays in the sky. It becomes a new star. Since the war against Darkseid, I've seen hundreds of new stars.
BEAST BOY:
— We've got that here too. But you can't actually see new stars with the naked eye. Just the old ones.
RAVEN:
— The old ones are the ones that already died millions of years ago. Their light just kept traveling. Like the heroes who aren't here anymore. Their light still reaches us.
Beast Boy sits up. Looks at Raven.
BEAST BOY:
— You think they can see us? Wherever they are?
Raven takes a moment. Sits down next to him. Not close, but not far either.
RAVEN:
— I don't know. But if there's something after death, I doubt they're watching us. They'd be resting. They earned it.
Starfire lowers her gaze from the sky. Looks at her own hands.
STARFIRE:
— I've never seen a Tamaranean die of old age. Only in combat. But watching Superman die, Batman, Wonder Woman... that wasn't like watching warriors fall. That was like watching gods die.
---
Main room of Titans Tower, at night.
A round table. Empty chairs. A dark hologram sits at the center. The walls hold dead screens.
Robin walks in, Cyborg behind him. The others come down from the roof and gather. No one sits. Everyone stands, like a wake with no body.
ROBIN:
— Three years ago the Justice League got a warning. Darkseid had found the Anti-Life Equation. He wasn't planning to conquer the world. He was going to erase every will, every hope, every free thought in the universe.
Silence. Beast Boy crosses his arms.
ROBIN:
— The League knew they couldn't stop him on Earth. Darkseid had already sent Parademons into every city. But the heart of his power was on his mothership, out in space. Superman came up with a plan.
STARFIRE:
— A plan he knew they wouldn't survive.
Robin nods.
ROBIN:
— Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Green Lantern, and Aquaman boarded the mothership. Just the six of them. They destroyed Darkseid's power core from the inside. The explosion was massive. Nothing was left of the ship. Nothing was left of them.
RAVEN:
— It was a trade of souls. The League didn't plant a bomb. They became the bomb. Darkseid had triggered the Anti-Life Equation, and they canceled it out with the one force Anti-Life can't touch. That's why there are no bodies. It's not that the explosion killed them. It's that they stopped being matter.
CYBORG:
— Darkseid died in that explosion too. His body disintegrated. No grave. No remains. Just the void.
BEAST BOY:
— And the others? Shazam? Zatanna? Doctor Fate? They weren't on that ship.
RAVEN:
— They died on Earth. During the war. While the League was in space, Darkseid deployed his generals and his Female Furies. Shazam died protecting Fawcett City from an anti-life bomb. Zatanna took an Omega Beam head-on trying to seal a portal. Doctor Fate fell at the Tower of Fate, destroyed by Darkseid's own magic.
STARFIRE:
— They didn't choose to die. They just couldn't win.
ROBIN:
— That's why we call some of them heroes and others martyrs. The League knew they were going to die. It was a conscious sacrifice. The others fought to the end without knowing it was the end. That's heroism too.
---
Secondary memorial inside Titans Tower.
A corridor with names etched into metal. Not graves. Lists. Hundreds of names.
Raven walks alone. Stops in front of one name: ZATANNA ZATARA.
RAVEN:
— You taught me magic wasn't a gift. It was a responsibility. I won't let you down.
She runs her hand over the name. Keeps walking.
Stops at another: DOCTOR FATE (KENT NELSON).
RAVEN:
— Nabu's helmet is still floating out there somewhere. No one can wear it. No one's worthy. Maybe no one ever will be again.
---
Main balcony of Titans Tower, at night.
Robin and Starfire stand together, looking out at the city.
STARFIRE:
— How old are you now, Dick?
Robin smiles faintly at the sound of his real name.
ROBIN:
— Twenty-two. You?
STARFIRE:
— Twenty-four in Earth years. But on my planet, I would've been considered a mature adult five years ago already.
ROBIN:
— Sometimes I forget we didn't grow up the same way. I started training with Bruce at nine. By twenty I'd already seen more death than most soldiers.
STARFIRE:
— And Victor is twenty-five. Garfield, twenty-two. And Rachel...
ROBIN:
— Raven's nineteen. But she's not human. Her biology's different.
---
Raven's room.
Raven sits cross-legged on the floor, hovering slightly. Her eyes glow white. An ancient book lies open in front of her.
ROBIN (Voice-Over):
— Her mother was human, but her father is Trigon, an interdimensional demon. That means her sense of time, her emotional maturity, her mind—none of it is human.
Raven opens her eyes. Stops hovering. Looks at the camera, as if speaking directly to the viewer.
RAVEN:
— I'm nineteen years old chronologically. But my mind has lived through centuries. So I'm not a child. I'm not an adult like the rest of you either. I'm something else.
She stands. Closes the book.
RAVEN:
— And what I am is what's left to protect this world now that all the gods are gone.
---
Rooftop of Titans Tower, later.
The five Titans stand together. Beast Boy shifts into a gorilla, then a dog, just out of habit. Cyborg checks his systems. Starfire watches the League's statue from a distance. Robin has his hands in his pockets.
BEAST BOY:
— What about us? Will we ever be like them?
ROBIN:
— No. We won't be like them.
Beast Boy looks at him, confused.
ROBIN:
— They were symbols. We're what's left. We don't have Superman's power. We don't have Batman's strategy. We don't have Wonder Woman's strength. But we have something they don't have anymore.
CYBORG:
— What?
Robin looks at each of them.
ROBIN:
— Time. They gave everything for one moment. We have to give everything for every moment that's coming. Day after day. No rest. No applause. No statues.
He looks toward the League's statue.
ROBIN:
— That statue is there to remember what was lost. But we're what comes next. And what comes next isn't a legend. It's dirty work. It's sleepless nights. It's watching the ones we can't save.
Starfire steps closer and takes his hand. Beast Boy nods. Cyborg puts a hand on Robin's shoulder. Raven stays apart, but her eyes flicker for a moment.
RAVEN:
— Then let's start. The world's not going to wait until we're ready.
---
The five Titans walk back into the Tower. The League's statue stays centered in frame behind them. Beyond it, the city glows with flickering lights.
ROBIN (Voice-Over):
— The Justice League saved the world... but there are no graves to visit. Just a statue. And us.
Silence. Then, the distant sound of a siren.
---