The supervillain smashed open the school gates and threw them aside. The children in the playground ran for cover – except for Jenny Tan, editor of the school newspaper, who took out her camera to take photos. The bad guy, whose name was General Vileman, stormed up to the school building. “What do you want?” asked Jenny. “There’s no money here.” “I’m not after money,” said the tall supervillain. “I need something from your science department.” He peered through the windows, searching for the laboratories. What he didn’t realize was that Jeremiah Lee, also known as junior superhero Jeri Telstar, was working on his science project that afternoon. A battle was about to commence.

***

General Vileman scanned the school “Hmm…Ah! The laboratories are over there!” General Vileman turned and bent down to pick up a long plastic slide from the playground and used it to smash the windows apart.

Jeremiah was working in the laboratories when the windows were smashed. Thinking quickly, Jeremiah ducked under the lab bench to avoid the falling window glass. Then a long, battered, plastic slide from the playground was forced into the windows. Then a gigantic hand gripped the window frames the slide had made and peeled off a chunk of concrete like a teenager opening a can of soda. When the smoke and dust had cleared, Jeremiah turned to peer though the enormous broken windows and saw a very smug General Vileman.

As General Vileman threw the playground slide away, Jeremiah broke into a run and ran down the stairs to ground level. He knew his only chance was to reach home and grab his suit. General Vileman looked at his work proudly. As he threw all of the benches and such inside away, he spotted Jeremiah sprinting out of the school door, thinking that Jeremiah was just some schoolkid that happened to be in the school and after seeing him break in, was terrified and ran off. General Vileman simply continued his work, smashing the concrete.

Jeremiah was out of breath. He had sprinted at record speed, arriving at his gran’s home in less than seven minutes. Feeling the adrenaline pumping through him, he ran into the living room, surprising his grandmother, who dropped the sweater she was knitting.

“What’s the matter, Jeremiah? You’re supposed to be at school.”

“There is no school now,” puffed Jeremiah. “General Vileman attacked and smashed into the laboratories with a playground slide. Everybody in the school has evacuated, and Vileman is probably looking for something. I need a suit, gran.”

It was something he didn’t need to say twice. Within minutes, Jeremiah had his suit on, and he flew at top speed towards the school.

Meanwhile, General Vileman was searching the labs for radium using a Geiger counter. He had searched for three minutes, and suddenly his Geiger counter detected traces of radium in a small metal vault. He gleefully ripped the vault open and took out the radium.

“This will be enough to make my laser gun powerful enough to slice open bank vaults!”

However, just as he had put the radium into his laser gun, he heard the screech of tires. He turned to see at least ten squad cars pull up outside the school entrance. Officer Bart and a few police officers got out of the lead squad car and Officer Bart yelled into a police megaphone.

“Stop! You are breaking the law!”

However, Vileman simply raised his gun and sliced the cars apart with a laser beam. Officer Bart dropped his megaphone and he and the other officers ran away to find cover.

Just as Vileman admired his work, Jeri Telstar was approaching. Jeri zoomed in onto Vileman with his super-vision. He checked that the school was still standing, and then he noticed the big gun in General Vileman’s hands. He activited rocket motors to full and flew towards General Vileman’s gun. But he didn’t go unnoticed. PEEYOW! A laser beam hit Jeri’s cape, slicing off a corner.

As he avoided the second volley from Vileman’s gun, Jeri remembered that laser beams were just light. So when he reached General Vileman, he avoided him and towards the rubble. He grabbed a sheet of shinny metal and reflected General Vileman’s laser beams. He then took Vileman’s gun and smashed it.

“No!” shouted Vileman, but he quickly shut up when five backup police cars surrounded him.