I saw the bronze bullet coming towards me at speeds that were unimaginable. I was frozen in shock my brain unable to process the fact that it was about to kill me. I heard a high pitched scream, my mother. I wasn't going to be able to get out of the way of the bullet that was on a path straight to my heart. I saw a flash of my mother's light tan skin. Dropping. Blood stain. Scream. Siren. Death.

I wake up with this nightmare almost every night. The bullet going through my Mom's chest, the blossom of blood staining her blouse, My scream echoing into the dark and the high pitched sirens and flashes of red and blue light. Well that nightmare is true for mom and I walked straight into the middle of a gang fight. Oh by the way I'm Thals, Thals strike and welcome to my life. As you can see it's pretty hellish.

Let me tell you about me. My full name is Thalia Strike... but I go by Thals.I can break your arm in my sleep. I am 14 years old...sorry 15 , I keep forgetting that. I live with my mom's co-workers a.k.a the wacky bunch of scientists. My mother died when I was 10. Now you might be wondering where my father is. My father left when I was 3 and If I ever did me that jerk I'd probably kick him where it counts and call if a jerk for leaving me and my mom . I'm writing this story from somewhere better but you need to know about him because he might be gone but he still has friends.

This morning it was my turn to make breakfast. "Great," I groaned to myself. I walked over to my shelf examining its contents. One dress and nothing else. I hate dresses but Lauren said I had to buy one in case they (the scientists) had a special meeting I needed to attend. Lauren: 5 feet 2 inches, ghostly white, purplish sapphire eyes, orange hair. I just summed Lauren up into one sentence. Anyway, I would not wear that dress if someone paid me fifty bucks. I absently wandered over to the dirty laundry basket and pulled out a semi clean Giant's shirt. If you don't know who the Giants are then you probably won't care about the Thursday night the way the Giants are a football team in the NFL and I'f you don't know what the NFL is are you sure your human?

I slipped on a cleanish looking pair of jeans and the semi clean Giants shirt I had found and quickly climbed down the ladder. I then walked down the maze of hallways that led to the kitchen. I'm not going to even try to explain the building that I live in. Yes, I said building, and I don't meen apartment. I mean a whole freaking building . Cool, Eh? Oh I probably forgot to mention that I live In New York. I'm going to be blunt because I don't want anybody coming after me. I opened up our huge double doored fridge and sitting there behind all the lab experiments was pop tarts in all their sugary goodness. I pulled out the box of pop tarts carefully avoiding a beaker of highlighter yellow liquid with a sticky note that said,Do not ingest may cause vomiting and/or non permanent skin discoloration a.k.a turning highlighter yellow -Joel. It was written in Joel's neat printing. Okaaaaaay. It was just like Joel to put something dangerous in the refrigerator.

"What's for breakfast?" Dani asked groggily. I jumped about 80 feet into the air.

"GOD DANI YOU'RE GOING TO GIVE ME A HEART ATTACK" , I yelled ,whirling on him with the pop tart box in hand my black hair whaping me in the face as I turned "OHHHHHHH POP TARTS!" Dani yelled excitedly. I rolled my sea green eyes in exasperation. "Thal, Dani, Thal, Dani, Thal, Dani!"

"What?" Me and Dani yelled at the exact same time after hearing Dakota's familiar voice.

"Who's making breakfast?"

"Me," I said wondering why she was so hyper.

"Oh well then um... I'm not really hungry," she muttered under her breath. I was looking over her because she was so much shorter than me. I was 6 feet and she was 4"9.

"YOU'RE GOING TO EAT IT AND YOU'RE GOING TO LIKE IT!" I said that with such force that I made Dani ha got you back for scaring me earlier, I thought triumphantly.

I'm just going to stop my ongoing story here for just a second and explain each of the 5 psycho's that I live with.

Joell: Joell is about 5 feet 9 inches. He has medium length (for a guy) brown hair and brown eyes.

Paige and Lauren I previously explained.

Dakota: Dakota has caramel color hair that reaches her shoulders. She has clear blue eyes that sparkle like a gemstone and she's 4 feet 9 inches.

Dani: Dani has a buzz cut. He has dark brown eyes and hair and is very tan from growing up in Israel. Dani's only seventeen and acts like a 2 year old (not literally but close enough) but is a super genius and has already done university.

Now back to the story. I'm going to spare you the details of all the stuff that happened in my day and just say that it was uneventful. I slid into bed quietly trying not to disturb Paige who was right below me writing an essay of sorts for the study she did on microscopic parasites living in everyday household items. I grabbed my Ipod touch that was sitting on top of my book beside my bed. Slipping the earbuds into my ears I lay down hoping to fall asleep without nightmares.

I pressed the big round button on my Ipod, 2:30 AM. I thought about going down to see Paige but decided against it knowing she'd probably stayed up till 11 writing. As quietly as I could I tiptoed across the... Ok I'm just going to call it a room because it's easier than saying well what I said earlier. I tiptoed across the room as quietly as I could wincing when the sliding door made a creaking sound as I opened it. As silent as a whisper I climbed down the ladder and gently placed me feet one in front of the other relying on muscle memory to get to the kitchen as it was completely dark.

I saw a light coming out of the lounge and squinted to make sure I wasn't hallucinating. Nobody is ever up at this hour, not even Dani who stays up forever playing call of duty on our XBox. I quickly willed myself to change into a mouse despite my dislike towards rodents being one isn't so bad. Quickly I scampered down the hall to the lounge shifting myself back to a human as I neared the door. I heard muffled whispers so I pressed my ear to the door.

"Is she the one?" a tiny voice asked".It took me a minute to figure out that it was Dakota talking, her normally high pinched cheery voice was replaced with a still high pinched but tired sounding one.

"Of course she's the one," Joel said sounding reluctant to give away information as if some one might be listening...which I was.

"Wait,what if the room is bugged?" Dani asked sounding so serious you would have guessed it was Joel trying to prove string theory. There was a silence as quiet as air. I could not stand this any longer. I quickly opened the door "Hello there people who neglected to include me from this meeting. What are we talking about?" There was a silence that hung in the air.

"Thalia sit," Joel said sternly. I don't like being bossed around and I certainly don't like being called Thalia.I gave him an icy glare and if looks could kill I'd definitely have blood on my hands. "Thals," he said again this time not using my full "sit." I sat down in the hard wooden chair next to the door still ticked about him calling me by my full name. "We've got to tell you something very important," Paige said in a tight voice. "The world is going to fall," Lauren said calmly. I laughed

"Very funny guys, great prank now what's this about?"

"Thals your dad is trying to destroy the world."

My eyes flashed open. I looked directly upward to see Lauren's sapphire eyes. "What happened?" I asked my voice crackly.

"You passed out after-"

"Dani told me my dad was trying to destroy the world." I said finishing Lauren's sentence as the memory of the early morning came flooding back to me.

Lauren's face looked grim as she reached out her hand and helped me into a sitting position.

"One more thing," she whispered her face ashen. "You need to save the world." I went a little dizzy when she said that. I mean sure I'd seen all the James Bond movies and saving the world seemed so easy ,but in real life, I didn't know if I could do it. On the other hand if I didn't do what I had to do the world might fall... to my father.

"I'll do it!" I said my voice much more confident than how I felt. Lauren's bright eyes widened.
"But you might not come back alive."

"I'm going to come back and I'm also going to enjoy kicking my father's butt!"

Lauren managed a wry smile but her eyes told the whole story . She was scared.

We were meeting in the lounge again to discuss you know saving the world. It all happened so quickly like a dream well more like a nightmare. It felt as though a dark cloud was hanging over the to explode at any minute and crush us with a heavy downpour of rain. Speaking of which, I hadn't been outside since Thursday. It was now Saturday . Normally I'd go to a hockey game, but I kind of had more important things to discuss. "So how exactly do I stop the world from falling to my father?" I said the word father with so much acidity that it could have burned through titanium.

"Well we're not exactly sure," Dani said rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly.

"Wow for a super genius you know as much as a monkey," I muttered.

"That's not an insult ,monkeys are extremely intelligent."Dani said looking a little miffed despite the fact that he just said that monkeys were smart.

"Back to the topic on hand. Why don't we just research Destroyer on the internet."

Everybody stared at me like I was nuts. To prove that I was serious I walked over to the ancient Mac that was sitting on the small cream coloured table at the back of the room. While opening the internet I realised that I didn't know 's name.

"Um guys, what's his name?"

"Sheldon Gieltish," Dakota answered trying to keep a straight face. Okay I have to admit the last name was a little bit funny. Apparently google had 8974 pages devoted to Sheldon Gieltish. I figured that looking through all the pages of google answers was not going to be efficient and what type of logical nutcase keeps their secret information on the first pages of google. So of course I went to page 8974. Here's what I found.

Search:

4DsdgATMBTA6pXObJHwugLdFEpo

SHELDON GIELTISH

CREDENTIALS:PHD, MD, DVM, LBCL, BACHELOR'S DEGREE IN ENGINEERING, BA.

BIRTH DATE:APRIL 18TH ,1967

CURRENT LOCATION:TORONTO,CANADA

AGE:45

CAREER:CHAIRMAN OF S.O.T.W SCIENCE OF THE WORLD.

WANTED:ATTEMPTED BOMBING RIGA, LATVIA ...

"I found it!" I yelled with triumph.

"You actually found something?" Dani asked looking positively shocked.

"He's in Toronto."

"Then why haven't the CIA or FBI moved in?" Dakota asked , her voice shocked.

"Apparently they don't know he's trying to destroy the world," I said. " From what it says here, he attempted a bombing in Latvia and served his sentence . The CIA kept an eye on him for about 8 years . He was a good boy ,so they pretty much stopped keeping tabs on him."

"So how exactly is this saving the world thing going to work?" Dani asked.

"I took the liberty of hacking into Sheldon Gieltish's computer and all I found was an equation trying to prove string theory, which was completely inaccurate by the way, and a journal. All the journal read was do not share plans with anybody. They could be working undercover," Joel said in a serious tone.

"So in other words we need to kill him," Dani said bluntly. I gulped and it felt as though I were trying to swallow a marble.I could gladly whip his butt without blinking an eye, but killing him just didn't feel right. On the other hand if I didn't kill him the world would fall.

"Wait can somebody remind me why I have to kill him?" I asked questioningly.

"Because psychology study's say that one will be softer on a person if that person is a family member," Paige said in her teacher voice.

"Did you ever think that it wouldn't be vice versa and that I might be soft on him because he is my family member," I said with agitation.I was met with a silence that was equivalent to Oh yeah she's right I'm going to shut up now so I don't make myself look stupid. But then I realized arguing about saving the world wasn't going to do anything. Taking action was. It's like the saying 'an eye for an eye' well in my case it was more like a father that I never really knew ,for the world. "Fine," I said, "But how am I going to get to Toronto?"

"You could take a plane," Lauren said stating the obvious.

"Or..."

I heard Dakota's terrible screech as my body fully shifted into an eagle. I Probably forgot to mention that nobody knows I'm a shape shifter except my mother and she's... in a better place. I shifted my body back to myself so that I could talk. "I could fly," I said finishing the sentence that I had started approximately 30 seconds earlier. Joel,Dani, Lauren and Paige were staring at me as if I had come down from scientific heaven whereas Dakota was eyeing me warily and keeping her distance like I was nuts. Dani shook his head coming to his sentence. "I guess you gotta go," Dani said.

"Don't be so quick to get rid of me, I still need a weapon." Joel smiled that mad scientist smile that made my skin crawl. "The weapon room," Joel said grinning like a little kid on christmas morning . Actually more like the cheshire cat.

"We have a weapon room?!" Me and Dani yelled at the exact same time. Dani was excited because it was like real life call of duty. II was excited because I had watched too many crime shows and movies. Joel led all of us, walking straight down the hall to the kitchen.

"Why are we in the kitchen?" Lauren asked sounding slightly worried . Joel had a stash of weapons in the freezer. Joel bent down removing a large piece of laminate tile from the floor.

"How come no one told me about a secret room," Dakota complained.

"Because the word secret is there for a reason," Joel replied. He ushered us through the hole where the tile was, sliding it shut behind him. With Lauren in lead we all filed down the narrow staircase. I heard a small click and bright white fluorescent lights flickered to life. I blinked , when I opened my eyes again . I saw rows and rows of weapons lining the wall.

"Why do you have all theses?" I asked the slightly crazy scientist standing before me.

"Apocalypse," he answered simply.

"Creepy," I muttered quietly ,though Dani heard me and cracked a grin. Then my eyes fell on it... the .357 Magnum. "That one," I said pointing at the high powered pistol on the wall.

"Are you sure you don't want something smaller like a 9 mm glock?" Joel asked uncertainly while looking at the magnum. Dani stepped over to the wall picking up and admiring the gun that I had chosen. "Nice pick," He said.

"Is it already loaded?" I asked , directing my question to Joel. He shook his head ,indicating that is was not , before going off to look for some speed loaders. Joel came back about 3 minutes later with a package of Colt speed loaders. Dani handed me the gun and Joel handed me a speedloader. I loaded the speedloader into the cylinder.

I had flown about 550 km, turned myself into a dog,followed my dad's scent ,and then Iended up on the edge of a cliff in the middle of the forest. The cliff was open to the air and was covered in desks, whiteboards and projector screens. Seriously! Who sets up a lab on the edge of a cliff. From where I was standing it was obvious that was trying to destroy the world. On the projector screen in front of me was a video (graphicly designed) of each country of the world exploding one at a time. Man, Dr. Evil was nasty. The images on the screen were horrifying. There were images of people getting blown to bits and little kids wailing loudly. I looked away from the screen, it was too horrifying to watch. I looked forward again and to my terror, standing there looking more terrible than in his jail photo , was Gieltish himself. He was flanked left and right by men dressed in black who all had a good 2 inches on me and were about double my weight in muscle. "Pleasure meeting you," I said in an icy tone ,while giving him an iron glare.

"The pleasure's mine," he said in an equally icy tone. " I see you came here to die," He said giving me a creepy smile.

"So much for Joel's psychology theory," I muttered under my breath. He snapped his fingers and the guy directly to the right of him charged. Natural instinct kicked in and I swung a roundhouse kick at his head ,my combat boot connecting with his temple.

"ATTACK!" Gieltish yelled as he stood there and watched me about to get torn to shreds. So much for playing fair. I dodged a loose punch aimed at my head. I only get one chance at life I thought. I raised the magnum and clicked the safety off. I aimed the gun directly at his heart. Pulling the trigger ,the bullet flew ,jolting my wrist and zooming at Sheldon at unbelievable speeds.

If he died the world would be saved. A flash of bronze. The doctor dropped dead to the ground at that same moment I felt a searing pain in my side. The hilt of a knife was wedged right between my hip bone and my ribs. My breath felt short and my vision was red and blurry. That was the last time I would see the world. My eyes closed and my breath stopped... forever.