Joe's Note: After a close inspection of the entirety of the Digimon canon - or at least the portions that were at all accessible to me through either import and translation or available subtitled content, I decided that my original plan of doing a chapter based in any corner of that universe just wasn't feasible. Or at least it wasn't an economical use of my time at this point; I might grab some stuff to watch on the ten hour ride out to see my in-laws in a few weeks. For now, I'm going to go with something that Kat and I both love that just so happens to integrate itself well into the Buffyverse as a whole and allow me to put a new spin on one incident in particular. Enjoy.
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.

"Remember the plan to contact the spirit and talk to it?"

Crunch.

"Scrap that plan."

Crunch.

"Buffy, you were-"

Crunch.

"You were-"

Crunch.

"Will you stop eating those stupid chips so I can explain what I found?!"

Leaning against the end of her host's bed, Cordelia Chase met the fuming redhead's gaze as she placed another Pringle into her mouth before biting down on it ever so slowly to produce maximum volume. Smirking as Willow Rosenberg's hands clenched into fists at her side, Cordelia chewed and swallowed before shaking the can at her longtime nemesis. "You try saying no to these salty parabolas. It's impossible. Can't do it. Besides, they help me think."

Willow closed her eyes, taking a series of long and slow breaths before returning her attention to Buffy. "As I was trying to say, Buffy, you were right." Cordelia did her best to stifle a snort; that was probably something the bottle blonde didn't hear terrible often. Evidently enough of a noise escaped her to catch Willow's attention, the redhead shooting another irritated look down at her before continuing on. "The time for touchy-feely communication has passed. I've done some homework and found out the only solution is the final solution." And okay, maybe this was her just being overly politically correct… but was that really a good term for a Jewish girl to be throwing around?

Before Cordelia could figure out the right way to articulate her thoughts on that subject, Xander Harris decided to toss in his two cents from where he was sitting in the corner of Buffy's bedroom. "Nuke the school?" He grinned stupidly as he stared off into space, nodding slowly. "I like that." …did the poor section of town still have lead pipes for water or something? What was wrong with that boy's brain?

Willow seemed likewise taken aback by her best friend's stupidity, staring at him oddly for a few seconds before sighing and shaking her head. "Not quite, Xander. I'm talking about an exorcism."

"Are you crazy?" Xander gave an exaggerated shudder. "We watched that movie at your house last week. Even the priest died. And so as the only guy in this group - which I assume would make me the priest of your plan - I have to say that I'm really, really concerned right now."

Buffy Summers ignored the byplay as she leaned against the headboard of her bed, staring at Willow intently as the redhead went off on a tangent with Xander, discussing the movie in question. For all the issues Cordelia had with the Slayer, she had to admire how task-oriented Buffy could be when necessary. And so when she finally broke her silence, it was to turn the focus back to the matter at hand rather than contribute to her friends' stupidity. "What's the deal?"

Leaning down, Willow laid out a passably sketched floor plan of the high school's music wing, adorned with three gold stars connected with red lines to form a triangle around a fourth star. "Okay, see here, the balcony? That's where the original teacher died back in 1955 and that teacher died last night. That's the hot spot where all the bad mojo is coming from. We need to create a Mangus Tripod."

Spinning a chip between her fingers as she studied the map and incorporated the new information into the mess of information churning away in her head, slowly but surely closing in on a solution to their problem, Cordelia was pulled from her thoughts by the unfamiliar term and peered up at Willow inquisitively. "A what?"

"A Mangus Tripod." Willow tucked a stray lock of hair back behind her ear with one hand as the other tapped a finger against the star in the center of the triangle. "One person chants here on the hot spot. And the other three chant in other places around the school forming a triangle. It's supposed to bind the bad spirit and keep it from doing any more harm." Despite the fact that the four of them - and Cordelia assumed that the need for four participants was why she'd been invited over despite her waning ties to the group - had absolutely no mystical talent or training. That made tons of sense. Well, in a way that completely didn't. And honestly, did none of them remember the events of last October?

Evidently, Buffy didn't share her reservations, picking the drawing up and staring at it intently for a few seconds before letting her gaze rise to meet Willow's. "Well, I'll take the hot spot. If there's trouble, that's where it'll be."

"This ghost - this James guy - is fixating on-"

Whistling sharply, Cordelia held her hands up in a T. "Okay, time out. I hate to break it to you guys, but this isn't even twelve percent of a plan. This is so much not a viable plan that if Star-Lord was here, he'd be like 'nope, too risky for me, count me out'." Ignoring the infuriated look that Willow was shooting her, the brunette rose to her feet and gestured down at the paper in Buffy's hands. "Your so-called plan involves magic. I am not a witch. Xander is not a wizard. Buffy is not a witch. Willow… you're kinda a bitch to me but I feel like that one letter difference is going to be really important here. And so you want us to stand around in Hellmouth High, chanting our distinctly non-magical hearts out, in hopes that it'll be enough to contain a pair of class four apparitions? Seriously?"

Even as Willow puffed up indignantly, preparing to launch into some sort of rant that Cordelia really had no intention of tuning in for, Buffy shot the brunette a guarded look. "What, do you have a better plan for handling… wait, what did you call them?"

"It's either a pair of class four apparitions or a class four and a class five given some of the weird shit that's been happening around the school lately. And I've been sitting here this entire time waiting for someone to rub two brain cells together so I wouldn't have to lord my superiority over you all in yet another way… but holy shit, does nobody remember what I dressed as for Halloween? You know, that funky fun night six months ago where we all got turned into our costumes?" Cordelia surveyed the room slowly, her disbelief growing as they continued staring at her blankly. Reaching up, she grabbed the glasses that she'd pushed up to rest atop her head, waving them wildly. "Seriously? I know we don't exactly run in the same social circles, but I wore the damn jumpsuit to school. So did Aura and Harmony. I've been wearing the damn glasses ever since. And my hair. It looks just like hers except brown. How dense are you people?"

Comprehension dawned on Xander first and he shot upright in his chair, his jaw dropping as he stared at her. "Get out. We're having a ghost problem… and you and your friends dressed as… did you really keep enough to..?"

Cordelia grinned widely as the girls finally caught up, Buffy's expression becoming distinctly awed even as Willow crossed her arms over her chest and shot the brunette a look of mixed jealousy and disgust. "Me, Harmony, Aura, and Kat. It's taken us most of these six months to figure out how to rebuild everything, and enough money that my parents are going to murder me if they ever actually look at their credit card statements. But as of last week? There's a 1989 Cadillac Brougham hearse sitting in the garage at my place and it's loaded for 'busting. So tell me, 'Scoobies'… if there's something strange in your neighborhood, who you gonna call?"

As one door after another slammed shut around them, trapping them inside Sunnydale High with a pair of malevolent ghosts, Cordelia calmly reached back over her shoulder and drew her proton gun before shooting her girlfriend a grin. "I take you all the best places, don't I?"

Kat McKee swatted the brunette's arm playfully before drawing her own gun and powering it up. "When I told you that I was curious about how your high school compared to the one I went to back in Connecticut, I figured that you'd invite me to watch you cheer at a basketball game or something. Buy us tickets to a theater production. Or… I don't know, do they rent out the gym for craft fairs or anything? This… this is the exact opposite of a fun walk down memory lane. Partly because I should be back at our place working on a costume right now but also because oh yeah, ghosts who like to possess and kill people."

"Wait a second. 'Our' place? As in yours and hers?" Pushing his way into place between them, Xander grinned widely as he threw an arm around both girls' shoulders, looking back and forth between them several times before letting his gaze come to rest on Cordelia's thoroughly annoyed face. "So. Cordelia. You not only have a girlfriend, but you have a live-in girlfriend? I thought this story was fascinating before, but now you two have my complete and undivided attention."

Before Cordelia could register the displeasure that she was feeling on any of a number of levels - she had no desire to be touched by Xander, the specifics of her relationship with Kat were none of his damn business, her sexuality was nobody's fap fodder - Kat decided to make her own thoughts on Xander's behavior known. Peering back over her right shoulder, the brunette nodded in Xander's direction. "Not a fan of this at all. Girls, can you loosen his grip?"

Harmony let out a cackle of laughter before lunging forward, delivering the sort of kick that would have made a football player proud as her foot slipped neatly between Xander's legs and slammed into his crotch. The boy let out a pained wheeze and collapsed to his knees before tipping over and curling into the fetal position, leaving Harmony standing over him as she looked at Kat uncertainly. "Wait. That's where you were going with that, right?"

"Yes." Kat chuckled softly as they began walking again, Harmony and then Aura stepping over Xander's fallen form as they wandered deeper into the school. "Do you think she'd like a dress? I feel like that deserves a free dress."

Cordelia snorted, shooting a glance back at Harmony before shaking her head. "If you do, remember that it's Harmony and make sure that you use a fabric that's easy to clean. If you know what I mean." Then something hit her, and she found herself looking at Kat uncertainly. Given that her girlfriend had dated a few guys while younger but hadn't done much with them, and wasn't exactly a fan of porn of the heterosexual variety? "…do you know what I mean?"

Shuddering, Kat shot the younger brunette a reproachful look. "...I'm going to pretend that this conversation is work-related and you're worried about her getting ectoplasmic residue out of it." When Cordelia opened her mouth to reply, Kat hastily clapped a hand over it. "I will put you on your own couch."

A long, slow lick to the palm of Kat's hand freed Cordelia's mouth, but seeing as how Kat had made good on that threat in the past? Cordelia wasn't really inclined to press her luck by continuing that conversational thread. Then her ears popped in a way that Jillian remembered being characteristic of experiencing an AP-XH shift, and suddenly the cheerleader was all business. "Look alive, girls. They know we're here and they've taken form for the occasion."

James Stanley was the first to appear, glaring at them malevolently as he glided toward them. While the letter jacket marked him as an athlete of at least moderate ability, his overall appearance was almost astonishingly mediocre to Cordelia's surprise. When she'd heard that the ghosts haunting the school were a former student and the teacher that he'd been involved with, she'd expected something… well, better. Who the hell would risk their career for this bland lump? The answer to her rhetorical question appeared a few steps behind James, the ghost of Grace Newman wringing her hands nervously as she trailed after him. "Why are you here? Why can't you just leave us alone?"

"Why are we here? That's kinda a loaded question, isn't it? I mean, do any of us really know why we're here?" Harmony brushed past Cordelia with her hands raised peacefully and a wide smile on her face, slowly making her way over to the pair of ghosts. Before Cordelia could open her mouth and berate the blonde for her stupidity, Harmony brushed her fingers through Grace's arm as she swept past the woman… putting her squarely behind the pair so that she could help drive them forward into the muon trap when Cordelia deployed it. Huh. Clever girl. "Grace, if I thought they might still make it, I'd ask where you got that dress. Love it. Want it. And James, if you want to be left alone? You probably shouldn't kill people. Or pull the whole Snakes on a Lunch Tray thing. Just putting that out there."

Even as realization dawned on Grace's face, the elder ghost slumping a bit as she resigned herself to her fate, energy began to crackle ominously around Jason as he let out a low growl. "Leave us be! Or else!" Strangely, that was the extent of the threat he posed; no random snakes or slamming doors or other weirdness accompanied his shouts. Perhaps constituting himself into a corporeal form for the confrontation was limiting his powers? Not that Cordelia minded… or was against exploiting that.

Seeing as how she was the only one who carried - and could operate - a muon trap, it fell to Cordelia to pull it free of the carrying rack built into the bottom of her proton pack and drop it onto the floor in front of her. With ease born of practice, she sent the trap skidding across the floor toward the ghost even as her right hand came up to swipe over the controller strapped to her left bicep, triggering the pedal release. The trap and the pedal reached their respective destinations at the exact same time, just as Cordelia had intended, and she grinned wickedly as she reached up to adjust her glasses before taking a two-handed grip on her proton gun once more. "I think I'm gonna go with 'or else'."

As Cordelia stomped on the pedal to open the trap, Aura slid forward into position on her left and opened fire perfectly in sync with the other three girls, trapping James in place even as Harmony began inching forward to drive him closer to the whirling white light of the muon trap. "Can we take a moment to talk about the white privilege we're witnessing here?" Aura reared back like she was trying to reel in a fish, a move that Kat echoed as they worked together to help Harmony shepherd the ghost closer to the trap. "Guy brings a gun to school, kills a teacher, kills himself, possesses random guys over the years to repeat his crime over and over again, but hey he's white and so we're trying to capture him instead of-"

"Not the time, Aura!" Cordelia grit her teeth as she stepped backward, opting against the fishing method in favor of physically dragging James around with her proton stream. She quickly realized the shortcomings in that plan as she stretched her leg out, the trap's pedal proving stubbornly elusive to her questing foot. If she stepped forward, the ghost might slide back out of the trap's capture range. If she stayed where she was, she couldn't operate the trap. And then it hit her. "Summers! Can I borrow your leg for a second?"

"I dunno, I'm kinda attached to it…" Cordelia shot an ugly look back over her shoulder at the bottle blonde and Buffy returned a sheepish grin before sidling up on Cordelia's right. "No, seriously, I'm guessing you need me to stomp the pedal for you. Just say when."

Cordelia took one final step backward as Harmony simultaneously lunged forward, forcing James straight into the middle of the whirling muon stream. As it began dragging him down into the depths of the trap, Cordelia nodded in the direction of the pedal. "When!" Dashing forward, Buffy somersaulted over the crackling proton stream and landed neatly atop the pedal with both feet, thrusting both arms into the air like a gymnast sticking her landing. James let out a scream as he disappeared into the trap, the top snapping shut behind him and the four girls' proton guns cutting out as they were deprived of their target. Sighing in relief, Cordelia reached back over her shoulder to holster her proton gun before raising an eyebrow at Grace inquiringly. "We only have one of those, so if you wanna start shit..?"

While Grace had stayed by James's side for the past six decades of their afterlife, that loyalty evidently came to an abrupt end when faced with the Ghostbusters. Shaking her head rapidly, she drifted forward and then knelt next to the trap as best she could. "We've been trapped all these years reliving our last moments together. Every single time, I try to push through the pain to finish our conversation and every time I fail. James? If you can hear me in there? I forgive you. And I'm sorry. You thought I stopped loving you. But I never did. I loved you with my last breath."

As the woman's form began losing cohesion, releasing what Cordelia assumed to be the woman's soul to ascend through the ceiling and out of sight, the brunette sighed in relief and looked over at her girlfriend. "You know, if you pointedly ignore the part where he went all yandere and killed her so nobody else could have her? Their story is actually kinda romantic. Kinda. Relationship goals, maybe?" Kat groaned and rolled her eyes, making Cordelia giggle and nudge the taller girl's side. "Hey Kat, can we die together someday so that we can haunt a place together for all eternity?"

Kat shook her head slowly. "Sometimes, I wonder why I'm dating you. Right now is one of those times."

"That's not a no."

"…maybe."