Joe's Note: I decided not to promise a particular costume after Jean because I didn't know which of two or three choices I was going to go ahead with next. I actually wrote this and another one simultaneously and got this finished and polished to a level I liked first. Which means Chapter 5 won't be far behind. Huzzah.
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.

As she stared down at her left hand in disbelief, turning it back and forth as she examined the metal lattice that covered her fingers, Cordelia Chase shook her head in disbelief and tried to figure out exactly when her life had fallen off the tracks and crashed into the world of the weird. Granted she knew the whole series of events that had brought her to this point, but what was the official point of no return?

Had it been when she'd been stupid enough make the bet with Xander? Or when she'd decided to throw the quiz they were betting on because she'd had no idea what to dress as for Halloween and figured he'd have a good idea for her? When she'd allowed him to appeal to her ego, convincing her to embrace a costume she never would have gone near in a million years otherwise in an attempt to prove once and for all that she was the hottest girl in school? Or perhaps when some kind of magic spell had turned her into the television character she'd been dressed as, irrevocably altering her body and with it her future?

Irrevocably. Cordelia let out a snort as she reached up, tracing her finger over her occipital implant with one fingertip on the way to massaging her temples. While she'd always pretended to be less intelligent than she truly was, knowing that 'brainiac' and 'popular' were generally not words that went together except for when someone was gossiping about how 'that popular girl's boyfriend beat up the brainiac for staring at her', she knew that Halloween had increased her intelligence by several orders of magnitude. She was easily more intelligent than Rosenberg now. Scarily intelligent.

The question facing her was what to do with her newfound intelligence? Cordelia logically knew that while 'nothing' was indeed a valid answer, it was also unlikely to be the one she chose; she simply wouldn't be satisfied with sitting on her increased abilities and continuing to pretend that she was a vain, empty-headed little cheerleader like her peers. Although speaking of her fellow cheerleaders… Cordelia's mind flashed to Seven's memories of Lansor, P'Chan, and Marika's predicament. Would repeating such a thing be a crime or a gift when it came to the Cordettes? Ironically, it was the residual Seven in her that recoiled from the idea, even as Cordelia herself saw the logic in it. They already willingly looked to her for direction on a daily basis; giving them interlink nodes at a minimum could make that process far more efficient. And once the nanoprobes were present in their bodies for that, additional implants could be constructed on an as-needed basis to further upgrade her drones.

Although regardless of what else she might choose to do in the future, Cordelia realized, she would need to construct at least one piece of highly advanced technology in the near future: a regeneration alcove. She would be able to subsist on solid foods and 'nutritional supplements' for a considerable amount of time, but eventually she'd either need to construct a proper alcove or rig up some sort of alternative. Sooner rather than later if she actually wanted to turn her idle thoughts about establishing a miniature Collective with her friends into reality…

Rising from the chair in front of her desk, Cordelia slowly tapped her fingers along the top of her computer's tower as she thought. The black plastic box full of integrated circuits and magnetic storage drives was a physical manifestation of the biggest barrier standing in her way: the technology of this world simply wasn't advanced enough yet for her to build the majority of the things she now knew how to create thanks to the memories left behind by the spell. Conversely, if Henry Starling could launch a computer revolution by scavenging bits of technology he barely understood from a crashed timeship, then surely she could use Seven's memories to prematurely bring about the duotronic and isolinear revolutions.

Her advanced, post-silicon designs could obliterate any and all competitors.

She could bring order to chaos.

Cordelia let out a soft chuckle at that thought as she wandered her room, mind working furiously even as she prepared for her day, laying out a change of clothes before digging a clean pair of panties and a matching bra out of her dresser. She would have to accomplish a great many things before she could turn herself into the next titan of industry. Some sort of regeneration alcove, of course; her plans would come to an abrupt and rather ignoble end if she dropped dead due to her implants shutting down. Experiments to figure out how to take the ten steps backward, connecting the technology Seven knew with the technology that currently existed. To achieve both, she'd need a considerable amount of money and likely a false identity so that she could buy the basic components and raw materials she required without attracting attention. The latter would be useful in acquiring the former, she reasoned, making it the more important of the two.

Pausing in front of the mirror, her occipital implant crept upward as Cordelia arched a brow at her appearance. She would also require some form of colored contacts to correct her newfound heterochromia, it appeared. That promised to raise some truly awkward questions with her with optometrist. Although not as many as there would be if he tried to examine the ocular implant that had replaced her left eye…

Buffy frowned as she looked to her left and then her right. Each time Harmony or Aphrodesia ran their fingers through their hair, it pulled away from the back of their neck just long enough for Buffy to get a glimpse of a metal… something. What it was, she had no idea, but considering very few of her classmates wore necklaces of any kind - she'd checked, curious how many might have at least the slightest protection against vampires clasped around their neck - any metal was more metal than should have been there.

Mehh. Whatever. Maybe they'd all gone out and gotten some kind of weird neck piercing as a group solidarity thing? Not her problem. Tugging the ratty old t-shirt she wore for gym over her head, Buffy closed her locker door and turned around, slamming face-first into… "Cordelia!"

It was times like these that made Buffy wish things had unfolded differently with the cheerleader during her first days at the school. Something had happened to Cordelia on Halloween but given that Buffy was essentially persona non grata with the popular crowd - as were Willow and Xander - she could only watch from afar and make badly informed guesses. But yeah, something had happened. Because not only was Cordelia a blonde now, but her eyes had magically turned themselves blue and she had some sort of strange metal jewelry… thing… over her left eye.

And those were just the physical changes. She stood straighter, spoke more commandingly - something Buffy wouldn't have believed possible before Halloween - and was a whole lot smarter. Buffy regularly found herself treated to meandering Willow rants about the unfairness of that particular aspect of her change whenever Cordelia outscored her on a test, which was an increasingly common occurrence. Not a constant occurrence, though; Willow still didn't believe her but Buffy was certain that Cordelia was throwing lower weighted tests to keep from arousing even more suspicion while ensuring that her grades would be affected as little as possible in the process. The cheerleader's friends were different, too; they prowled the school with an almost inhuman synchronicity to their every movement, appearing to communicate amongst each other without speaking and finishing each other's sentences when they did speak aloud.

What did it all mean? Buffy had no idea. But it was weird and she wanted to know why it was happening. Because she didn't like weird. Then Cordelia cleared her throat and Buffy jerked a bit as she was pulled from her thoughts. "Summers. I require your assistance with a matter related to the disposal of the supernatural trash that infest this town. You will comply."

Chuckling nervously, Buffy looked around and found the other Cordettes slowly moving to encircle the two of them. "I, um, don't know what you're talking about? Trash pickup? I think you call city hall for that. And some kind of infestation would probably be animal control…"

Cordelia regarded her evenly for a moment and then the corner of her mouth quirked up slightly in the smallest of smiles. "There are no secrets between my drones and I." Wait, what? "Everything I know about the supernatural - as inadequate as it is - is available to them. Soon, your knowledge shall be as well. I would attempt to reassure that this 'won't hurt a bit' but lying is inefficient."

Moving with a speed that Buffy had previously only seen in vampires, Cordelia brought her left hand up and then something was pricking at her neck. Buffy tried to pull away but found herself penned in by the Cordettes, whose hands reached out to hold her in place even as additional pairs of pinpricks stabbed at her arms, the other side of her neck, her chest…

"We are the Cordettes. Existence as you know it is over. We will add your biological and aesthetic distinctiveness to our own. Resistance is futile."

In space, no one can hear you scream. The same wasn't true of the Sunnydale High girls' locker room, but it might as well have been for all the help that Buffy's pained cries attracted…

"…I think I just heard someone's death cry coming from the girls' locker room again."

"Huh. Sound like anyone we know?"

"If it was, would you go in?"

"Good point. So… wanna meet up to watch the cheerleaders practice later?"

"Sounds like a plan."

"We've got spirit, yes we do."

"Oh yeah. Loads of school spirit. We're like, the most spirited guys here."