Joe's Note: Since everyone and their aunt seems to be getting turned into a Kara these days - including Xander in Wise's epic series New World - I decided it was time for Cordelia to get the treatment too. And, well, we all know how I like my women. She ain't gonna be no freakin' waif of a Supergirl. Oh hell no. And let me just say before anyone even starts… this is not meant to be serious. It's sorta my lampshade/response to the problems inherent in putting a Kryptonian in Sunnydale in a story and the oft-ignored need for escalation to prevent a curbstomp from resulting.
Edit Note: Sadly, Atlee appears to have fallen off the face of the multiverse and so digging up references on her is a bit tougher than I anticipated when I decided to add Kat to the story as the other half of a couple costume. If I've fucked anything up, please tell me because anything DC is not my strong suit.
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.

Floating high above the Earth's surface, Cordelia Chase found herself joining a very small and elite club, watching in awe as the sun slowly peeked up over the horizon and bathed the Atlantic coast of North America with light. It was a pity she hadn't gotten empowered a bit earlier, she mused: being the five hundred and twenty-sixth person to reach orbit was nice and all, but being the five-hundredth - or even the five hundred and twenty-fifth - would have been better. Oh well. Slowly increasing her altitude, Cordelia shot regular peeks down at the planet below her to gauge her progress. 1,220 miles up. 1,230. 1,235. 1,240. 1,242. And then… 1,250 miles above the surface of the Earth, just for good measure. While she doubted her accomplishment would ever be recognized on account of her being unable to produce proof, she was now a member of a very elite club: only the twenty-fifth person in history to leave low Earth orbit. Go her.

Slowly descending back to her previous vantage point two hundred miles above Sunnydale, Cordelia let out a chuckle rendered soundless by the vacuum. Forget the clichéd 'I can see my house from here' thing, she could see Florida from here… individual houses in Florida, even. Rao, but she really was a freak now. Cordelia shook her head, feeling the ends of her short new blonde locks brushing against her jaw. When exactly had her life taken this nosedive into the world of the weird? Granted she knew the whole series of events that had brought her to this point, but had there been some official point of no return that she'd passed? Any one thing that, had she avoided it, would have allowed her to remain just another teenage girl - albeit a rich one - living out her mostly peaceful life in southern California?

The easiest moment to blame was when she'd made that stupid bet with Xander. Then again, making the bet hadn't been nearly as stupid as intentionally losing it because she'd had no idea what to dress as for Halloween and had figured he'd have a good idea for her costume. Even then, nothing had been forcing her to go through with it, especially after he'd showed her the costume he'd picked out. But she had. And now, thanks to a magic spell that had turned her into the person she'd dressed as, she was floating in the mesophere as she watched the sun rise. Floating. Under her own power. Unbothered by the law of gravity, the frigid temperature, or the lack of oxygen.

Oh yeah, Queen C was officially Queen of the Freaks now.

Then the constant murmur of noise began to intrude on her thoughts and Cordelia found herself struggling against the memories and instincts that still remained in her brain after her brush with the mind of a genuine superheroine. Finally, the fragment of Kara Zor-L that lived on inside her won out and Cordelia scowled as she reoriented herself, her keen hearing pinning down one cry for help out of many. A second later, she was gone.

"You're a fool. No weapon forged can stop me."

"That was then. This is now."

Yes, now. As in the perfect moment for their dramatic entrance before Psycho Summers blew up a good-sized chunk of the mall with an AT4 - identification courtesy of Kara's rather exhaustive memory of things she'd been shot with in the past - for jollies. Rao. Burning down a gym, now anti-tank weaponry at the mall… what was the Slayer planning for an encore? Blowing up the school? Cordelia shook her head before letting herself drop through the skylight, the instincts from the first sixteen years of her life overriding Karen's and causing her to raise her arms and shield her face from the shards of glass her entrance created, even though she knew logically that they couldn't hurt her. She hit the floor with a thunderous crash and dropped to one knee, the cloud of dust and debris created by her arrival keeping anyone else from noticing as the floor rolled and then cracked wide open, allowing Kat McKee to ascend from beneath the earth's surface. She offered Cordelia a wide smile before raising her hands and exerting control over the dust in the air, forcing it back down to the floor and revealing their presence. "Yeah. Now there's us."

Lowering the rocket launcher she was holding, Buffy shot the pair an indignant look. "Seriously, Cordelia? Shouldn't you be out catching a jumbo jet or saving a village from a volcano or something? I thought we agreed that unless it was the end of the world or something, the supernatural was my thing."

Cordelia and Kat exchanged incredulous looks and then Cordelia wrapped an arm around her girlfriend's waist, picking her up and bringing the black-haired girl along with her as she took a giant step to the right. Some vampires had put back together an unbeatable demon who could 'burn the humanity' out of people with some sort of chain lightning attack and become more powerful from it. That wasn't apocalypse-grade in Buffy's mind? What. Ever. "All righty then. Well in that case, don't mind us while we stand over here in the… figurative corner. While you, you know, fire off your anti-tank weapon at a man-sized target in the middle of a crowded mall. I mean, think about what you're about to do. That thing is made to kill tanks. Repeat after me: kill tanks. Assuming you actually hit the Judge, of course… do you know what the radius is for the blast wave or heat wave with one of those things? Or how much damage could be done by demon bits traveling at the speed of sound? And don't even get me started on how Sergeant Slick there has evidently forgotten what the word 'backblast' means and your entire collection of sidekicks will get roasted alive when you pull the trigger…"

Momentarily paling as the truth of Cordelia's words sank in, Buffy tried to rally and intensified her glare even as the self-proclaimed 'Scoobies' began backing even further away from their leader. "Well, if you had a better idea, you could have…"

"You could have invited me to the meetings where you researched the Judge and planned how to kill him, so I could have shared them with you. Just, you know, putting that out there. Anyway, as long as we're on the subject of better ideas…" Cordelia set Kat down before pointing in the direction of the Judge, redirecting the Scoobies' attention as Kat thrust both hands out before clapping them together, guiding thick slabs of rock up out of the ground and encasing the Judge in them. "Well, how about that for starters?"

Buffy let the barrel of her purloined rocket launcher dip a bit, only to jerk it back upward as the Judge roared and tore himself free of his stone prison. "Not a good idea, it turns out."

Still a better idea than shooting a rocket launcher inside a mall. Rather than point that out, Cordelia let her gaze drift from Buffy to the Judge before narrowing her eyes, unleashing a blast of heat vision at Ugly Smurf's left elbow. While she knew via Kara's memories that Kryptonians were just as vulnerable to magic as a normal human, it appeared that demons were as vulnerable to her powers as… well, everything else. The twin red beams of concentrated heat easily burned through the demon's flesh, sending his lower arm dropping to the ground as the Judge clutched at the cauterized stump with his right hand. Turning back to the Scoobies, Cordelia offered up a self-satisfied grin as she gestured to her handiwork. "Just out of curiosity, is anyone else here liking where I'm going with this?"

Letting out a screech of indignation, Buffy took two tries at breaking the AT4 over her knee before giving up and hurling it away in disgust, taking out a nearby cart full of sunglasses. "I knew I should have worn that damn Supergirl costume that Ethan had in his store! Xander! How come you didn't try and talk me into wearing that?"

Xander held his hands up in surrender, backing away as Buffy stalked towards him. "Hey, don't blame me! I pointed it out to you, but someone wanted to be Princess Puffball for her boyfriend." Xander gestured to Cordelia and then back at himself. "Besides, how do you think I feel? Ethan had Superman costumes too but I couldn't afford one. If I'd had more money or asked Willow for a loan or something, I could be Superxander right now."

"More than a little glad that you didn't, to be honest. And not just because I don't want to share the limelight with you, although that is one of the biggest reasons. But also because… well, that would make me Xander's cousin and Buffy's alternate universe twin… thingy. Both of which would probably cause me to try and figure out if Kryptonians can commit suicide." Suddenly, a far off noise caught Cordelia's attention and she cocked her head as she worked to focus her attention on it, filtering out the million and two other things her superhuman hearing allowed her to listen in on. "Kat, I think I'm going to be late for dinner. I'm getting a lot of radio chatter about Pacific Air Flight 121, and some really weird conversation onboard too. Somethings about… snakes? Snakes on a plane? Now this I've gotta see!" Kat let out a faint shudder of disgust at that, making Cordelia snicker before shooting a few quick blasts of her heat vision at the Judge, separating his head from his body and his three remaining limbs for good measure. "Do me a favor and drag these down where nobody else can get at them for now? I'll go toss them in the sun or something when I get back." Kat nodded, leaned in to give Cordelia a quick peck on the lips, and then the blonde was rocketing up through the destroyed skylight, off to save someone else's day.

Left with nothing better to do, the group watched from afar as Kat slowly and deliberately sank one piece of the Judge after another into the ground, leaving swathes of torn up flooring and earth behind as she calmly disposed of one of the greatest supernatural threats to ever walk the earth. When she was finally done, she glanced over at the trio and reached up to tuck a strand of short black hair behind her ear before shrugging. "She's right, you know. You guys are terrible at this."

Before Buffy could respond, the older girl disappeared into the ground with a faint rumbling noise, leaving the blonde to bury her face in her hands as she let out a sigh of disgust. "I fucking hate my life sometimes."