Started writing this one last week and finally got it done. Why? dunno. Increase of work maybe? Plus working on another arc that jumps around timewise. Fun times. Please enjoy!
Jason- 11 Cass-10
The Balloon Invasion
Wayne Manor was a bit crowded at the moment, but not by people. The previous day was Dick's 15th birthday party and he had many more friends than they realized. Problem was, he was also sick that weekend and other than the few hours he had with his visitors, he was confined to quarters until he was well again.
Why was this a problem? Because their house was filled with party balloons, birthday balloons (some from the circus), and get well balloons. You couldn't step into a single open room of the building without running into a set of balloons.
And honestly it was freaking Cass out.
She'd see something from the corner of her eye, tense for battle, and find out it was a balloon drifting past. She'd leave one bunch in one room, then find it again in the one next door ten minutes later. And she could swear a few sets were following her everywhere, even into her bedroom.
They had to be alive.
She eyed a group of them during dinner, somehow drifting in from the living room. There was a weight on the end of their strings, but it sure didn't stop the thing from flying around. Timmy was just suffering through a coughing fit (kid was catching what Dick had and he got his cold from Jason. It was only a matter of time before the rest of them got sick) when she finally decided to do something. Taking her fork, she flung it against the ribbons dangling from their bottoms and pinned the group against the wall.
"WHOA!" Jason's jaw dropped, his eyes popping out of his sockets, calling forth both the adults attention from the coughing child. "When did you-"
"Cassandra!" "Miss Cassandra!" Alfred and their dad gave her a reproving look, demanding answers. She continued to just glare at the balloons.
"They follow us everywhere," Cass insisted. Another set was drifting in. "They must be stopped."
"This is not time for games," Dad stated with a growl. She shook her head, her eyes not leaving the prisoner.
"Not a game. I'm serious." She pointed at the balloons, itching to grab her table knife. "They go everywhere. They must be alien invaders."
Jason held back a laugh while Timmy tried to drink some water and sooth his throat, more than a little confused by her actions. If Dick was there, he'd probably be laughing his head off, and coughing. The adults though, they just stared at her, wondering what was really the matter. "Cassandra, they're just balloons."
"Say that when they follow to the bathroom."
"Can balloons be aliens?" Timmy looked up at the balloon batch and started to wonder. The adults looked at them as if they were crazy, but Jason rolled with it.
"Who knows! Maybe they are!" He grinned like a madman looking over to their dad. "How about we call up Hal and find out?"
"How about we focus on dinner and ignore the balloons already." It was more of an order than a suggestion, but it didn't stop the boy from grinning or his girl from glaring at the offending party favor. Sighing, Dad focused on her as he reiterated what he said before. "They're just balloons. They're made of latex or nylon foil and filled with helium to make them float, nothing more. They move around like that because of wind currents, even the ones we can't feel. They are not alive."
Cass watched her father from the corner of her eye, still keeping her eyes on her prisoner. She didn't want to doubt the man, but she was sure there was something wrong about these... things... After a moment, she shrugged and went back to eating, neither agreeing nor disagreeing with the man a second more. She would get to the bottom of this after dinner.
About an hour later, Cass was slipping silently into the cave with one of the many offending balloons, determined to find out the truth for herself. Remembering how her father moved around the cave when analyzing unknown objects for the League, she put the balloon in a large scanning device. Her typing on the computer was slow going, but she found the right program and the device started working. It would take some time for it to complete its job, so she left the cave to find what was left of her homework to return to the cave and wait for the results to be done.
Wandering through the halls, she heard a yelp and stopped what she was doing. "Hello?"
"Cass! Save me!" Far down the hall, she could see Jason trying to pull himself out of the parlor. A balloon was nearby and he was struggling to leave. He really seemed to be fighting a constant pulling from inside the room. "THEY'RE ATTACKING! HWA!"
"Jason!" The lad disappeared from view, prompting her to sprint to his rescue. She turned sharply around the corner, only to see Jason limply standing in the room, head down. His arms and legs were wrapped tightly by at least a dozen balloons, with four more wrapped around his head. Doom entered her chest at the sight. "What..."
"Uhh..." Jason's head swayed side to side as it rose up to look at her. His eyes were halfway closed and his jaw slack, creeping the girl out more now than ever. His arms slowly rose towards her, his eyes becoming wide and possessed looking. "Join usss..."
"Not a chance." Without thinking, the one who was close to becoming a child assassin leapt forward, kicking the lad's stomach and knocking the wind clear out of him. The boy passed out in front of her, allowing her to reach into his pocket and retrieve his pocket knife. Cass swiftly took out the blade, grabbed each balloon, and stabbed them in turn, destroying the offending alien creatures. She yanked the ribbon off of Jason's head just as he started coming around. "Feeling better?"
"Wha..." He coughed heavily, trying to regain his breath. "What are you-"
"Balloon aliens took over your body. I eliminated them." Swiftly she returned to her feet and turned towards the next balloon trying to sneak away. They would not succeed. "Wait here. I will take care of the rest."
"Uhh..." She didn't wait for her brother to regain his senses. Clearly the whole ordeal addled his brain so he could not be relied on to help. Dad and Alfred were probably busy trying to save Dick and Timmy from these creatures, being weakened by their colds, so it was up to her to save the family from these alien invaders.
Challenge accepted.
Sprinting out of the room, blood pumping through her ears, she didn't hear or see Jason groan and palmface. "Great. There goes my helium supply. Why can't she act like a normal girl?"
Dad rubbed circles over his temples, a headache growing between his thumbs. Cass didn't quite understand what she did wrong. Every alien invading balloon was eliminated in the house except the one in the scanner. The captive wasn't talking yet but she'd get the proof she needed soon. She already told him about Jason's bodily takeover.
Pressing the intercom button on his computer, he sighed and called upstairs. "Alfred, can you send Jason down stairs?"
"Of course sir."
"Thank you." Sighing again, the man looked over his daughter with some disappointment. He was exhausted and he seemed to think she was being foolish. She'd seen that look so many times when he looked at the boys, but it rarely ever happened to her. They always seemed to be on the same page, but this one time they weren't. What did she do wrong?
"Cassandra," he started, trying to figure out what to say, "balloons are not aliens. They are not invading or moving around on their own. And they cannot take over people by wrapping their strings around people's bodies. They are plastic bags filled with an element lighter than the air we breathe, which gives them their ability to float as they do. They are pushed around by the slightest air currents if they are not weighted down or tied to something. How much weight is on the other end compared to the amount of helium in the balloon determines how high it flies and if it will lift anything off the ground. Some can carry people, but the ones we had were unable to do so. In time their ability to float would diminish as the helium slipped out of the plastic and dissipated into the atmosphere. Eventually they would shrivel into useless plastic bags again, lying on the ground.
"They can be annoying," he agreed, "but they are not alien invaders. They are inanimate objects without a consciousness."
"How are you sure?" Cass wasn't sure if she could believe him. If balloons shriveled in time, wasn't it possible an old balloon was attached to him and hiding under his clothes, telling him what to do?
"Experience. Then," he gestured to the computer screens, "there's your test results. I assume you're the one who put the balloon in the multicomponent scanner?"
She nodded, then came closer to the screen to read the results. Everything on it determined it was indeed just a plastic bag filled with helium. There was no heartbeat, no brainwaves, and no DNA to speak of. There wasn't even a sign of a computer component to make it a drone. They weren't even remotely alive. "If you can't believe me, believe the facts here."
"But," she started, confused, "they took over Jason."
"He was pulling a prank." They could hear the kitchen entrance to the cave open up as they spoke, and dropped their voices a bit. "He saw how you reacted at dinner to the balloon and decided to exploit it. Instead of running and screaming like most girls would, you struck back and took out what you perceived was the enemy. Not a bad quality and one I'd encourage under other circumstances, but Cassandra," her father looked her in the eye as he drove the point home, "balloons are completely harmless. Lots of people like them. You can't go around destroying them just because they 'freak you out'."
Pouting and feeling sheepish, Cass nodded. She handed him Jason's pocket knife then turned towards the elevator leading to the kitchen. "I better go clean up my mess then."
"Alfred would appreciate it." The man watched as his children crossed paths. He didn't have to wait long.
Grinning like nothing was wrong, Jason greeted her like always. "Hey Cass! Thanks for the save earl-!"
Without warning, Cass slammed her fist across the boy's face. He was sent spinning to the ground, barely breaking his fall before he made contact to the stone floor. She smirked to herself, nodded once, then continued on her way to fix what she broke. She ignored her brother's protests shouting after her and their father's small smirk at her simple, quick revenge. Honestly, the guy should be glad she didn't drown his room in balloons. They invaded her world, may as well help them invade his.
A/N: Okay the original idea warped over time but the idea came from these balloons my roommate got for her birthday. They greeted me when I was getting out of the bathroom one time and the second time I found them drifting upstairs. I clipped them on a box to keep them in one place, but I was honestly beginning to think they were doing recon on the house. the idea was so funny, I decided to make it an issue with the kids here. Originally it was going to be Timmy, but there's enough stories of Tim being freaked out. This time I made it Cass. Then I had Jason there laughing and I decided he'd do something about it. Then I figured Cass wouldn't run away screaming at the sight of a balloon possessed Jason, she'd take out the enemy by any means necessary. And that's what happened!
Poor Bruce got a headache from this one. Those poor balloons...
Query: should I work on a Jason/Dick centered arc focusing on the fallout of sacrifice next, or move on to the next school term in the standard storyline? I'm already working on adapting other teen titan eps/arcs for the future, but those have a lot of time between them, leaving a lot of room for fluff and other side stories adapted from cannon (and seriously, tell me what will fit here and now. I'm drawing blanks outside of teen titans and it's too soon to bring in any other batfam characters). Tell me what you think, after you stop laughing at Cass' way of handling her prankster brother.