The world went white.
Then, just as quickly, it rushed back in, a screaming, chaotic flood of sound and color.
The silence that had fallen over Central Park was shattered by the final, mournful shriek of the Red Gate as it tore itself apart, imploding with a sound like a dying god.
It was over.
It was actually, truly, monumentally over.
In the center of a newly formed, smoking crater, Michael stood for a single, victorious second.
He gave a weak, tired, and utterly triumphant smile.
Then his eyes rolled back in his head, and he collapsed, a broken puppet whose strings had finally been cut.
"Michael!"
Jinx's voice was a raw, desperate scream.
She was already moving, sprinting from her sniper's perch towards the crater, her own exhaustion and injuries completely forgotten.
Jax, his face a pale mask of pain and shock, was trying to push himself up, his broken leg a useless anchor.
"Go!" he yelled at the Ironheart veterans who were helping him. "Get the kid! Go!"
