Victor did not stop to admire the champion. He continued running. The sound of blasts and explosions could be heard above him, but Victor ignored them. Beside him, Six-shot Samurai did the same. Both knew that there was nothing they could do about the battle above. However, Night Leopard did not. When they arrived at the police cruiser, the heroine was still there. She had not run. Instead, she was screaming at her communicator.

“What do you mean there’s no help coming? Are you seeing the size of this thing? The Champion need help NOW!” She never got a chance to get the response. Samurai immediately shoved the heroine into the vehicle.

“Get in the car! We are getting out of here.”

“What? What about the Champion?” Night Leopard asked as she was bundled into the back seat. “Thundersky is fighting up there.”

“Nothing we can do about that.” Victor said as he threw himself and the boy in the backseat.

“We need to help.” Naivety and youth were a bad combination at the best of times, but Victor knew what to say to well-meaning heroes who did not know their limits.

“And what about him?” Victor pointed at the boy between him and Night Leopard. “We have an injured civilian here. You want to leave him to…what? Shoot at the giant monster that can shrug off lightning blasts with your taser bolts? What can you possibly do against that thing up there?”

As Victor expected, Night Leopard had no answer, and the vehicle began to move. As Samurai drove them out of the battlezone, Victor turned to look at the battle above. He was just in time to see Thundersky shooting a blast of electricity towards the dragon-bird. The monster flapped its massive wings and turn in the air to dodge the blast. Then, it began to move. Victor’s eyes widened as the dragon-bird began circling the champion. Thundersky was floating in a stationary position and began shooting blast of lightning at the monster. However, the giant dragon-bird had a manoeuvrability and speed advantage on the champion.

“That thing is getting faster.”

Victor realized that Night Leopard was right. The monster was building up speed. The champion started to shoot in front of the monster, trying to catch it but the monster would change its speed to avoid the blasts. Then, it attacked.

After narrowly avoiding a lightning blast, the giant dragon-bird made a sharp turn and flew at the Champion. It flapped its wings and sped up. In a blink of an eye, the dragon-bird was in front of the Champion. Victor thought that was it. That it was going to slam into Thundersky, but the champion showed his class. He drew on his power. Tiny sparks of electricity raced across his body, and he exploded.

It was so bright it looked as if a small sun had appeared in the air. Victor had to squirt his eyes to see what was going on. A giant ball of lightning had appeared, with the Champion of Velocity City in its centre. The dragon-bird slammed into the ball of lightning at full speed and screamed. It was music to Victor’s ears.

The monster was flung away, crashing into a nearby building and destroying the top few floors of it. Thundersky did not give the monster time to recover. He went on the attack. Cupping his hands together, Thundersky released a powerful beam of lightning towards the monster. Victor saw the dragon-bird swinging both of its wings together to block the blast, and pure electricity struck the wings. It was a move that could obliterate a building, but the dragon-bird held on. Thundersky did not let up. He maintained the beam of lightning, seeking to overwhelm the monster. Victor dared not blink, waiting to see who would give in; Thundersky, or the dragon-bird monster.

It was the Champion.

Thundersky could not maintain the attack and the beam of lightning peppered out. Even from this distance, Victor could see scorched marks on the monster’s wings, but the monster did not let the injury slow it down. It immediately released its wings and shrieked. For a moment, Victor thought the monster was going to release another giant laser blast. However, the dragon-bird had more than one trick up its sleeve.

Countless bright-blue shards shot out from the mouth of the monster. The shards shot at Thundersky who immediately disappeared from his location in a streak of light. He appeared around a hundred meters to his left, neatly dodging the attack. The monster turned its head towards the champion, and the stream of shards from its mouth followed. Thundersky disappeared again, and the stream of shards followed once more. The shards did not disappear, but instead fell from the sky like tiny projectiles. Explosions erupted throughout the Northern Barrow district as they hit the ground. Maybe this was the reason why the champion decided to change his tactics.

From everything Victor had read, Thundersky was known as a Blaster. Someone who likes to stand at range and just throw blast after blast of lightning at his opponents, but Victor realized that the champion was slowly getting nearer to the monster after every dodge. Then, after getting out of the way of the monster's attacks, a wave of lightning appeared out of Thundersky.

It was the ball of lightning that the champion had used before but bigger, It wasn’t as bright, or as intense as before, but the lightning ball was much bigger. And it stayed. Thundersky maintain the ball of lightning and the collateral damage was immense. Everything within a five hundred meters of Thundersky was charred and blackened. This includes the dragon-bird.

It screamed. It was caught in the ball of lightning and knew it had to get out of it. In desperation, the dragon-bird flapped its mighty wings once more and a gust of wind with the force of a hurricane slammed into the champion. Thundersky was hit by the of the wind and tossed into the air. Tumbling out of control, Thundersky immediately turned into lightning and appeared a few meters above the roof of a nearby building. Victor saw the Champion of Velocity City dropped roughly onto the roof and quickly turned back to the monster. He was worried the monster would take the chance to attack, but it didn’t.

The dragon-bird monster had enough. On damaged charred wings, the injured monster had turned tail and fled. Victor watched as it flew away from Velocity City before turning back to the champion. Thundersky was at the edge of the roof, watching the retreating monster. Evidently, Thundersky had decided against chasing the monster, and Victor couldn’t help but agree with the decision. The champion would need the whole of Velocity Tower to take down the dragon-bird.

Then, the champion turned sharply to look at the Gap above them. Maybe Thundersky received a message because seconds later, the Gap simmered. Then it closed. As Six-shot Samurai drove away from Northern Barrows, Victor sighed in relief. The danger was finally over.