Strife was all clean and clothed again. She was pacing around her house thinking hard. What should she do with her new powers? How was she going to learn to control them? She flopped down on the couch and removed her goggles for a moment. She rubbed her eye sockets and replaced the goggles.

"How does one learn to control new found immense powers? They test them on inanimate objects of course!"

Strife sat up and stared at the TV remote. It started to levitate. She started twirling it around with her mind.

"Ok, so I've got that under control. What else?"

She turned her head around and looked down at her back.

"Wow, my neck is all flexible now. Yay!"

Her wings suddenly popped out of her back and spread out. She tried flapping them one at a time.

"This is a lot harder than it should be."

A while later she finally got the motion down and moved them separately.

"Yay! Go me!"

She heard a noise on her front porch and pulled her wings into her back again. She ran to the door and opened it before the man had a chance to knock. He seemed startled.

"What do you want?"

Strife checked out his clothing. He wasn't wearing a dark grey suit, no sunglasses, no tie. He was dressed in baggy pants and a black wife beater. His hair was shaggy and black. Strife calmed down a little and looked at the guys face.

"Hi, um. . .ha ha, I just moved in across the street and I'm going around meeting my new neighbors."

"Oh."

He stuck his hand out and Strife didn't immediately know what to do. She remembered and put her hand in his.

"My name is Gabriel."

"I'm Strife."

"Strife. That's a really awesome name."

"Thanks. I like the name Gabriel. As long as it isn't shortened to Gabe."

Strife wrinkled her nose and stuck her tongue out.

"Yuck."

Gabriel laughed.

"That's really funny, I usually punch people in the face when they call me Gabe."

Strife half smiled and yawned.

"I like your goggles by the way."

"Thanks."

"They make you look sort of bug eyed."

Strife was getting a little creeped out. Is he reading her mind or something? If he is then he'll know that she doesn't have eyes and that's why she has to wear the goggles.

"Well, I guess I should get going, I have a lot of other people to meet."

"Ok. Later dude."

"Bye."

Strife shut the door.

"Phew, ok, he wasn't reading my mind. That would be silly anyway, I'm the one that's supposed to read minds."

She looked at Zaz and tried to listen to his thoughts. There was nothing but dead air.

"Zazzy."

He looked at her. 'what now?'

Strife gasped and covered her mouth with her hand.

"I can read your mind."

Zaz yawned. 'that's nice. Feed me then.'

"You have food."

'Since when?'

"Since I fed you when we got home, duh."

Zaz got up and walked over to his food bowl. He started eating. Strife shook her head and sighed.

"Some cats."

'whatever.'

Strife went into her room and pulled out her electronic notepad. She was wondering if Drok'ti would ever send her a message saying he was sorry. She somehow doubted that. She had enough of his butthead attitude. She suddenly remembered when he had been really nice, overly nice. More than just friendly. What happened to suddenly turn him into such an ass hole?

"He's bipolar, that's what it is."

She said this to Zaz who was sitting on the edge of the couch cleaning himself. Zaz just looked at her for a moment and then went back to his duty. Strife felt like going for a nice flight. She walked out of the house and started down the street. She saw Gabriel in his driveway pulling a large TV out of the back of a truck. Strife walked over to him. The flight could wait a few minutes.

"Need some help?"

"Um, sure. You could grab that box right there, you should be able to lift it, it's not very heavy."

Strife huffed and grabbed one of the bigger boxes.

"Be careful with that."

Strife lifted it up easily and started carrying it inside. Gabriel was right behind her.

"Where do you want this?"

"Over in that corner is fine."

Strife carried the box over and set it down in the corner.

"You're a lot stronger than you look."

Strife nodded and laughed to herself in her head. She was stronger than he was or would be for another few million years. Maybe she shouldn't let people know. She heard the sound of a lab in her head and realized someone would have no problem with cutting her open to see what was different about her.

"Well, um. . .I'm-going-for-a-walk-now-bye."

Strife skipped out of Gabriel's house and down the street. She ended up on the edge of the woods and looked around. She walked in and went to a clearing. She let her wings out and started flapping them and running. She got up into the air and smiled down at the ground. She should stay out of the populated areas. Someone might mistake her for a goose and shoot her or something. Strife giggled and flew off towards the lake. She got there and flew straight down into the water. She was having a merry old time splashing and swimming around when she heard someone yell. She stopped splashing and looked in the direction the yell came from. She heard a gunshot and started swimming towards the noise.

Curiosity might get her killed someday, but if she didn't investigate she would miss out on something and her life would be really boring. She crawled out of the water and ran towards the old abandoned mill. It had been shut down when lots of creepy things started happening there. Strife didn't know exactly what, but she had heard some stories that people were seen walking through walls and falling through the floor. She had always wondered if maybe there had been holes in the walls and floors, but she never wanted to know that much. That wasn't as interesting as Cinnamon Toast Crunch or Velcro.

She jumped over the fence and made her way to one of the buildings. She crawled up the wall and crouched on the windowsill. She looked down and saw a man walking around all crazy like. He had a gun in his hand. Strife listened to what he was saying to the man he had tied to a chair. Strife felt for the captive. She remembered the time when she was in that position with the FBI douche bag. When she lost her eyes.

"What have I told you before about coming around here? This is our turf, not yours."

Strife cocked her head to the side and wrinkled her nose. Turf? Maybe this is a gang thing?

"All you have to do is stick to your place and we'll stay in ours. Was that so hard? Now you have to die because you didn't follow a simple rule. Well, goodbye."

The man pointed his gun at the other man's head. Strife frowned and concentrated on the gun. She used her telekinesis to rip the gun out of the man's hand and fling it out the window. The man was looking around very confused.

"What the fuck is going on?"

Strife looked up at the crane that was hanging from the ceiling. She made it drop down and catch hold of the man's jacket in the back. The man was screaming and cussing and writhing around. Strife made the crane go back up and left the man hanging there.

"That'll teach him to tie people to chairs."

Strife crawled down the wall and walked over to the man that was tied to the chair. She felt around in her pockets for something to cut the ropes with. Then she got the idea just to use her claws. She sliced the rope and unwrapped it from the man's hand. He got up and started to say,

"Man am I glad you guys got. . . .here. . .who are you?"

"That's not really important. We'll just say I was in the neighborhood."

Strife smiled at the man.

"Well, peace out!"

She ran to the wall and climbed up, then out the window and ran across the field, hopped the fence and headed home. That was enough excitement for her for the day. She was at the end of her street when she thought of something.

"I could be a super hero! Strife the avenger! Hah hah. That's funny."

She got to her house and felt eyes on her. She turned around and saw Gabriel sitting on his front porch smoking. He smiled and waved. Strife waved back and stared at him for a second trying to pry into his head. 'Damn she's hot. I'm glad I moved into this neighborhood.' Strife did an about face and walked mechanically into her house. She closed the door and locked it. As she walked to her couch she looked like an android with a short circuit. She flopped down and grabbed her head.

"I didn't want to hear that! Why couldn't he have been thinking what everyone else does when they see me?"

Strife furrowed her eye brows and realized she didn't know what other people actually thought when they saw her. She could find out now if she wanted to. Strife went to the fridge and stood there staring into it for a long time. She closed it and shlunked down to the floor.

"There's no food."

She rolled herself across the floor to one of the cupboards and opened it.

"Cereal? How am I supposed to eat cereal with no milk?"

She rolled herself over to the next cupboard to look inside.

"And how am I supposed to make anything without food?"

She sighed and stood up.

"To the store!"

Strife got up and started frolicking into her room. Her clothes were still damp and it was getting dark outside. She changed her clothes and got her shoes on. She grabbed her backpack and took everything out and put it where it belonged. She put it on her back and went into her parent's room. She went to the safe and started turning the dial. She knew the combination very well, but she had more fun randomly spinning it. The lock popped open and Strife grabbed the stack of cash her parent's kept in it. She took out 100 dollars in 10's and put the stack back. There was over 5 thousand dollars in this safe as she had found out one day when she decided to count the money. That was 6 years ago. She knew her parents put at least a hundred dollars in it every month. So who knows how much money is in there now?

"Probably my parents have sort of a clue."

She looked in the corner and saw her birth certificate. She pulled it out. She looked at her mother's signature and the doctors signature. Her father had refused to sign it because he didn't want a daughter.

"Yeah, I was a real disappointment for him."

She folded it back up and put it exactly where it had been. She closed and locked the safe and got off the floor. She put the money in her pocket and walked towards the front door.

"Another exciting trip to the store! Wee!"

She walked out her front door and Gabriel was still sitting there, but he wasn't alone. There was another two guys sitting with him. Strife decided to pretend they weren't there. She has a mission. It was nothing like the missions she had gone on with Drok'ti, but it was a mission nonetheless. She couldn't kill anyone if they got in her way. She couldn't really hit anyone. That was battery and she could get arrested for it. They would probably just dismiss the case because she's a nutcase, but then they would probable see her as a danger to society and put her in a loony bin. Strife thought about that for a moment.

"It would be a nice reprieve. A little vacation in a nice padded room, 3 meals a day and all the prescription medication I could take! But no Zaz and no flying around."

She decided it would be best to just steer clear of the loony bins. Strife started humming and skipping down the street towards the store.