Dateline: Friday, April 24, 1981, 4:59 PM, Pacific Daylight Time.

Violet was so glad that Kari had given her this car. Now she finally had a chance to get to the bank without fear of being kidnapped by that crazy 'Wichard', or whatever he called himself. She quickly cashed her paycheck, which was something she had intended to do for 24 hours, and drove back home. When she got there, she sought out the apartment of the building manager, Mr. Von Braun. She knocked on the door and, much to her surprise, a female opened the door.

"Can I help you?" she asked in a German accent.

"Uh, hi, I'm looking for Mr. Von Braun, is he here?"

"No, my stupid husband is away on other business," the mysterious woman answered. "Are you here to drop off your rent?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact, I am! I'm Violet Parr."

"Ah, yes, the delinquent tenant in 31A that my husband has been complaining about for the past three weeks. I assume you have three weeks' worth of rent with you."

"You assume correctly, Mrs. Von Braun, here you are," and Violet handed her the money. "Oh, hey, if you're not doing anything this Saturday, why not come over for dinner? It'll be my way of saying 'Thank you for not evicting my brother and I.'"

"I'll keep that in mind," said Mrs. Von Braun as the young super left for her own place.

Violet opened the door to the apartment that she and Dash shared. It was already unlocked, so she knew her brother was home from school. What she didn't expect to see in their living quarters was a young girl with red hair, carrying a cane and wearing sunglasses. She looked to be about Dash's age, so Violet figured that she was probably in one of his classes. After all, Dash let her in. She figured it would be smarter to ask her idiot brother who she was than it would be to chase this strange female out of the building. She found him in his bedroom, doing jumping jacks.

"Dash, who is this blind redhead sitting on the couch in the living room?"

"Fine, thanks, how was your day?" he said with as much sarcasm as he could muster.

"I'm sorry, hi," she said as she kissed him in fraternal love.

"Yeah, she's a new super looking to join Alpha Force."

Violet cast him a sideways glance. "How did she find out that Alpha Force Headquarters was this apartment?"

"She followed me home," Dash said. And just as he did, he realized that Violet would undoubtedly have more questions.

"How did she find out you were affiliated with Alpha Force?"

"I'm not sure, she just walked right up to me and told me everything that I already knew about myself. Then she asked if she could join the team." Violet gave her brother a dirty look. "Oh, come on, Vi, we talked about this!"

"We talked about letting Jack-Jack join when he got older, not about letting…strangers in!"

If you got to know me, then I wouldn't be a stranger, Violet heard someone say in her own mind. She whipped her head around to look at the girl on the couch.

Is that her power, the ability to read minds?

"And I'm telekinetic too," said the girl aloud. In an instant, Violet felt weightless. She was floating in mid-air for quite some time before the girl finally put her down. All the while, this mysterious girl didn't move a muscle.

"Dang. We need to have a little talk with her, to see if she really belongs on our team," said Violet.

The two founding members of the Force sat down on the couch, sandwiching the girl on either side. "Now we don't mean to intimidate you," Vi began, "but we at Alpha Force make it a point to know the people we work with on a deeper level."

"Are you two dating?" she asked.

"No way," Dash scoffed, "she's my sister. And from now on, we'll ask the questions, okay?"

"First things first, your name?"

"My name is Ashley Cohen."

"Do you have a codename yet?"

"Blind Tracy."

"Blind Tracy?"

"Middle name."

"Uh-huh. How did you get your powers?"

"Same way most supers do, I was born with them. I was also born blind."

"Have you done any previous hero work?"

"No."

"Were you ever a super villain?"

"No."

"Have you ever been arrested?"

"No."

"You're doing great so far," said Dash, "but we still have one last question."

"Why do you want to join Alpha Force?" asked Violet.

Ashley cleared her throat. "Well, I want to use my powers for good, be a super hero. I was going to go solo, but with my being blind, I knew it would never work out. So I figured the best thing to do would be to join a super team, and, well, Alpha Force is the only super team around."

"Okay," Dash said, "my sister and I will discuss this and we'll get back to you in less than three working days."

Despite her earlier suspicions, Violet now felt a strange sense of compassion for Ashley. "Here, let me give you a ride home," she offered. "Where do you live?"

"Oh, in a little suburb off of 41st Street," Ashley said, "Do you know where it is?"

"Yeah, it's Eastwood Valley," she responded.

The ride over there was mostly without incident. But when Violet got within sight of Ashley's neighborhood, she stopped the car in surprise.

"Are we there already?" Ashley asked as she prepared to exit the vehicle.

"NO! Stay here!" Violet screamed.

"Why? What's going on?"

"It's Herr Cannon, one of our foes. He's back, and he's destroying Eastwood Valley!"

(A/N: Does anyone see a pattern here besides me? Every third chapter is a setup for something fantastic. I'm not doing that on purpose, it just happened that way. Don't forget to review my story so I can see how I'm doing! Chapter 15 in under way! See you all next week, same Alpha time, same Alpha channel!)