Joe's Note: One of the lesser known perks of being a member of my is that sometimes I have too many ideas and not enough time to write them all, so I put up polls asking my patrons to decide which story I should write. I came up with eight ideas for new costumes and needed to narrow it down to three, so I put up $3+, $5+, and $10+ patron polls to get some feedback. Pokémon Go was the winner of the first round, and Mass Effect narrowly beat out Dragon Age in the BioWare Babes category. But as much fun as Cordelia Shepard might have been… I felt like that ass was better served being stuffed into Miranda's catsuit. I feel like most anyone who ran into her on Halloween would agree with me.
Dedications & Thanks: To Nicholas, Alexander, Howard, Alonsis2, Connor, MJ, Daniel, Christopher, Janne, Eric, DireSquirrel, Joseph, mpop, RileyWestfall, bloodylord, Luke, Zachary, Marc, Ziryo, Elliot, Crusifikz70, Timothy, Leigh, Jason, Chris, George, Koby, Ken, Dimitria, William, Invernos, Paul, Pat, Joel, Kentucky Fried Dragon, Warren, Mitch, and Jess for sponsoring me on , and making it easier for me to spend more of my time writing.

"Woo! Nailed it!"

Cordelia Chase shot her girlfriend an ugly look before collapsing the glowing blue barrier that she'd hastily raised around the Lexus GX 460 the moment that it'd begun to tip. After taking a few seconds to rest and center herself, she used her biotics to significantly reduce her mass before unbuckling her seatbelt, doing a graceful flip and drifting down to land on the roof of the car rather than dropping headfirst. "This was a terrible idea and I'm deeply ashamed of myself for agreeing to it. You couldn't drive before Halloween; why did I think that anything good might come of you inheriting your driving skills from the woman who is literally the worst driver in the galaxy?"

Rolling her eyes, Kat McKee did the exact thing that Cordelia had been actively trying to avoid, releasing her seatbelt and dropping onto her head with a grunt. Seemingly none the worse for wear - which really wasn't that surprising, given the extent of the cybernetic enhancements her girlfriend now had - she quickly righted herself and looked around the overturned SUV before shrugging. "Hey, I got you to school, didn't I?"

"You flipped my Lexus! My brand new Lexus!"

"Flipped it right into the drop-off lane to be precise. Because I'm just that awesome."

Muttering under her breath, Cordelia opened the passenger door and clambered out of the vehicle, turning back and using her biotics to pull her forgotten purse and messenger bag out of the overturned GX rather than crawl back in after them. The Cordettes were already waiting for her at their customary morning meeting spot beside the front doors, pointing her way as they whispered to each other. While her popularity had survived coming out, dating Kat, and her horribly geeky choice of Halloween costume among other questionable life decisions - and hopefully wouldn't take too big of a hit from her new Australian accent - Cordelia wasn't stupid enough to think that she was socially bulletproof. Bending at the knees, she crouched down and peered in the open door. "Well, how about you unflip it and head to work before the school calls for a tow truck?"

Her newfound confidence faltering, a wide-eyed Kat crawled across the inside of the SUV and peered up at Cordelia, brushing her newly red hair back out of her face. The gesture drew Cordelia's attention to her girlfriend's new hair and for the twentieth time since the spell had worn off, Cordelia found herself thanking every entity that was listening that she was kind of a bitch. Originally, Kat had been planning to wear a chin-length wig that was not only stop sign red but completely lacking in highlights and lowlights, leaving it flat and incredibly fake looking. After taking one look at it, Cordelia had promptly ordered a more realistic - and longer - red wig off of Etsy… and then burned Kat's offending original to ensure that there would be no debate over which wig she'd be wearing on Halloween. Now that Kat was stuck with Kaitlin Shepard's hair as her own? Cordelia was very certain that she'd made the right decision. "I thought that we weren't going to use our new abilities in public? At least in obvious ways? I could have sworn that was what we decided this morning… and by 'we decided', I obviously mean 'you declared that was what we were going to do and I nodded agreeably because I love your new accent and wanted you to keep talking'."

"Really? It was my accent that you were focused on? Because I seem to recall your eyes being fixated on a point seven inches south of anything that could reasonably be called my face."

"In my defense, genetic perfection combined with a low-cut tank top is kinda distracting."

…fair enough. Cordelia made a beckoning gesture, waiting impatiently for her girlfriend to crawl out of the rolled vehicle before helping the redhead to her feet. And Jesus, post-Lazarus Kat was a lot heavier than the original Kat had been. Like… a lot a lot. It was one thing to read about a synthetical skeletal reinforcement lattice and intramuscular microfiber weave on a Wiki article - and another to have Miranda's memories of designing and implementing it, then witnessing its effectiveness in the field - but personally experiencing it firsthand was something else entirely. "Yes, well, that was this morning. Now that I'm facing the prospect of social suicide because I'm far too in love with you to dump you despite the fact that you can't even drop me off at school without rolling my Lexus? I'm finding that I feel considerably less reticent about showing off than I did an hour ago. That, and I'm pretty sure that I destroyed any chance of us keeping this a secret when I made my SUV glow blue in front of half the student body. So, if you would be so kind…"

"Just remember, Kat, it could be worse: you talked her out of dressing up as the Hatefuck Special, so you still have your hair and flawless pale skin. Well, not your original hair. But you like red hair, so it could be worse…" Kat continued to talk to herself as she bent down, curling her fingers under the roof of the GX and making Cordelia's eyes widen. Before she could voice an objection - using biotics to lower the vehicle's mass would make the entire process safer, and considerably reduce the risk of further damage to the SUV - the redhead let out a loud grunt and heaved the two and a half ton Lexus up onto the driver's side, pausing for a few seconds before repeating the process and tipping the car back onto its wheels. "Happy now?"

Was she? Cordelia slowly circled the car, checking it for damage. Lucky for Kat, it appeared that Cordelia had raised a biotic barrier just in time; all of the windows were intact and there weren't even any new scratches in the paint. She opened the passenger door and planted a foot on the door sill, grabbing the frame and pulling herself up so that she could check the roof. Equally flawless. Good. The inside was a mess, obviously, but she could make Kat clean that up later. Dropping to the ground with a satisfied nod, she slammed the door before turning back to face Kat. "You got lucky. This time."

Before Kat could respond, a familiar and entirely unwanted voice entered the conversation. "You know, I used to blow off Xander and Willow when they insisted that you were such a terrible person that no human would want to date you long-term." Slowly approaching the pair with her perpetual redheaded shadow a step behind her, Buffy Summers eyed Kat suspiciously as her right hand disappeared into her purse. "I used to, but then I watched your girlfriend right a SUV with her bare hands. So… what are you, and do I need to slay you or are you going to leave town peacefully?"

Kat reached up to pinch the bridge of her nose, sighing loudly. While Cordelia knew relatively little about what went bump in the night, she'd shared everything she learned from her encounters with Buffy and her particular brand of weird with her girlfriend for the bru… err, redhead's own safety. One of those little tidbits of wisdom was what the Slayer was, and that she was was prone to punch first and ask questions later. That was if Buffy even bothered to ask questions. Sometimes she didn't. Like now. "…I'm going to do us both a favor and ignore that you're insulting my girlfriend. And I hate to break it to you, but I'm human. Mostly."

"Apparently not human enough." Buffy's gaze slid from Kat to the Lexus and back as she pulled a rather wicked-looking knife out of her purse and oh my God, why was the school resource officer not reacting to this shit? Crazy girl! Crazy girl with a knife! "Because I'm the Slayer, and even I can't do that."

"Kay?" Cordelia took a giant step backward as Kat shrugged, noting the very subtle shift in her girlfriend's stance as she assumed something that her Miranda memories identified as a very specific Shepard stance. Buffy took an aggressive step forward and Cordelia reacted on instinct, snaring Willow Rosenberg with a biotic pull and yanking her out from behind the Slayer. Before she'd even set the redhead down, Kat was bursting into motion, blue light erupting around her as she snapped forward in a biotic charge. Crossing the distance between them in a streak of light, Kat hit Buffy with the force of a speeding truck, sending the blonde flying backward and through one of the school's windows. After taking a moment to either admire her handiwork or perhaps stare in horror at the destruction she had wrought - her back was to Cordelia and the brunette had learned long ago that she sucked at trying to read her girlfriend's mind - Kat turned back to Cordelia and offered her a nod. "Lawson."

The corner of Cordelia's mouth quirked upward at the invitation to participate in Commander Shepard's iconic farewell. "Shepard."

Kat offered a faint smile of her own at that before inclining her head in the direction of Cordelia's GX. "I should go…"

"It has begun. My destiny. It's a little sooner than I expected; I had this whole section on civic pride. But I guess we'll just skip to the big finish."

Cordelia rolled her eyes as Mayor Wilkins began to groan and squirm behind the podium, his face distorting as he transformed from a ridiculously mundane-looking human into a demonic snake. A demonic snake that quickly grew to outrageous proportions, towering over them all as he let out a loud roar of triumph. As her classmates began to scream and stampede, losing their faith in Buffy's terrible plan now that they were confronted with the reality of what they'd be fighting, the brunette crossed her arms over her chest and stared up at what the mayor had become. "Congratulations, Wilkins, your destiny has rendered you something considerably less fearsome than the creature that krogran teenagers fight as part of a coming of age ritual. You should feel exceedingly proud of yourself. Kat?"

Rather than respond over the radio, Kat arrived at Cordelia's right in a rush of blue light, the N7 Crusader in her hands roaring as it spat out four massive slugs in rapid succession. The vicious shotgun was known for its vertical recoil and Kat exploited it expertly, stitching her shots up the Mayor's body and creating four separate bloody craters that send him reeling backward. Ejecting the spent thermal clip, Kat slotted a new one into place before looking over at Cordelia. "The Cain is ready and waiting, but I want to try something a little less destructive first. Especially considering-" Kat paused as Wilkins lunged forward again, heading not for his new opponent but for Principal Snyder, who he swallowed whole. The redhead let out a low whistle as the mayor cleared the rest of the stage for her, devouring all of the other dignitaries who had come to participate in the Class of 2013's graduation. Oh, and their valedictorian. Cordelia suddenly found herself exceedingly glad that the position was based on all four years' worth of grades; she'd actually had better grades than both their valedictorian and salutatorian since Halloween of the previous year, but her first two years had ruined her hopes of earning either title. "Okay, that's one less obstacle to the Cain plan. I still have to worry about nuking your entire graduating class. And you, obviously."

Snorting, Cordelia reached out and plucked a white and yellow heavy pistol from where it hung on Kat's left hip, her extensively customized M-358 Talon whirring softly as it cycled the first ammunition block into the ready position. "We may be one krogan short of a krantt, but this is no thresher maw. From how Giles and Summers were talking, I was expecting - and planning for - something much larger and far more dangerous. If we can't take this thing out without resorting to the Cain, we deserve to be eaten."

Kat opened her mouth to argue that, only to be brought up short as Cordelia arched an eyebrow and thrust her pistol in the Mayor's direction. Her blindfired shot slammed into his eye, the heavy-gauge shotgun pellet causing it to explode in a shower of gore and eliciting an inhuman howl of pain. "…have I ever told you how weirdly hot your arrogance can be?"

"Yes, but given that I never get tired of hearing it? Please, do go on."