Miquellesting around in Earth Bet

Michael Dallon, third child, only son of Brandish and Manpower, brother of Panacea and Glory Girl, shouldn’t exist.

He was never meant to. The story didn’t need him to continue, never needed him to begin with. His presence was insignificant, a ripple in a pond that should have altered the surface but didn’t.

Michael Dallon shouldn’t exist, and he knew it deep down, just as surely as he could gaze at the night sky and always find the stars waiting.

A dysfunctional family, a father drowning in his own despair and apathy, a mother oscillating between smothering him and resenting his existence. Cousins and sisters—so different, so much more, so distant in every way. A family that, when they looked at him, saw only the corpse of a beloved sister.

Michael Dallon shouldn’t exist, and he knew it. Each breath felt like a betrayal, each exhalation a quiet death.

Useless, worthless, powerless. Perhaps, had he been lucky, had he inherited less from his father, had his inheritance not been a faulty brain. had he not yearned, just once, to feel worthy—perhaps then he might have survived.

Maybe it was the world’s way of correcting its mistake in creating him. The sharp crack of a bullet breaking the sound barrier, the scent of gunpowder in the air. And finally, a boy playing hero, offering up his worthless life for a sister he envied so deeply, loved so dearly.

A bullet parted flesh, scrambled brain matter in less than a heartbeat—fears, thoughts, memories, a person, all gone.

The scream of a sister, a healer failing when it truly mattered. You can save others but can’t save what's yours the world seemed to mock her as she tried to reverse the irreversible. The sound of steel shattered as glory fell from the sky in the shape of a girl, her cries and pleas echoing over a lifeless body.

A family, the world, watching live as another life was lost, another with the same face as the one before—a cruel joke with them as the punchline.

Michael Dallon didn’t matter. A youngest child with a fractured mind, burdened with too much hope and despair, who shouldn’t have existed.

Nothing should have changed after that. Things should have returned to the way they were, to the tragedy etched in the heart of Earth Bet.

And they would have—if before the eyes of the world, Michael Dallon’s corpse hadn’t moved, jerked like a puppet at the end of invisible strings. They would have—if before his family’s gaze, light hadn’t burst from his body, rising like a pillar, like a ladder to the heavens.

They would have—if all of Brockton Bay hadn’t been, for a moment, bathed in the light emanating from Michael Dallon. If everyone present hadn’t felt, hadn’t seen old wounds vanish, limbs regrow, patients stir from comas.

Maybe Michael Dallon’s death would have been forgotten, wouldn’t have mattered—if his body hadn’t healed.

Maybe none of this would have mattered—if I hadn’t been the one to inhabit his body after my own death, his memories, everything that made Michael Dallon, now mine.

Some react to reincarnation with horror, fear, or sorrow. Me? I embraced it.

Me? I saw only a new life where I could forever revel. I didn’t panic when I realized I had been reborn into a world doomed to end in a decade, perhaps less.

The Michael Dallon, the new me who awoke, wanted only one thing: to have fun until the end of time. I wanted to indulge in every pleasure until I couldn’t anymore.

I wanted to taste the finest foods. I wanted to drink until my body gave out. I wanted to revel until the concept of sorrow itself was erased from my mind. I wanted to charm, to flirt, to pursue older women.

I wanted to live in a hedonistic haze until this new flame I was given was extinguished.

Michael Dallon, with his broken mind, who envied and envied yet died selflessly. A soul who gave and endured until his body finally surrendered when he chose to be selfish.

Whatever happens, will happen—but one thing I knew as I opened my eyes and my gaze fell upon my ‘family’: there was no chance in hell I was letting this grimdark world consume me.

*scene*

You never understand the freedom that flying grants until you’ve tasted it, until gravity’s hold on you is shattered.

I was happy. I was euphoric. It felt like the best day of my life. Perhaps it was only natural—this was my rebirth.

Uber and Leet, they deserved my thanks for that. If things hadn’t gone awry because of Leet, I wouldn’t be here.

I could see my family moving toward me, hands reaching out to grasp my form, lips parting to speak words.

I’d deal with them later, I thought, as I moved toward an android, the world slowing down while I sped up, my hand closing around its head, the body separating from it, electrical threads and machinery hanging from the severed neck.

At least one thing was confirmed: this body was superhuman, which meant I could afford to be reckless.

I pointed a hand at the sky, a whisper urging me on, and lightning fell, thunder shaking the heavens.

I caught it in my hand like a tangible thing, almost cradling it. I watched as it turned gold, as its shape shifted, becoming a two-headed glaive.

I knew what to do with it. Uber and Leet had given me this new life. It was only right to thank them.

It didn’t matter that the two Parahumans were far away, surrounded by androids, hidden in a structure clearly crafted by a Tinker’s hand. A savage grin split my face.

I pulled back my arm and hurled the lightning-forged glaive. I watched it slice through the air, through cracks and openings too small, dodging humans and obliterating any androids in its path.

I felt hands close around me, holding me, and this time, I let them.

Far away, as the glaive touched down just before the two Parahumans, the world was bathed in gold—twice.