When Derrick arrived crashing through the roof like wet paper,
The White House was empty.
Derrick stood in the Oval Office for exactly two seconds, long enough to catalog residual fear, hurried evacuation paths, reinforced panic rooms already abandoned. No president. No symbolic confrontation.
"Predictable," he murmured.
He turned to leave and Mjolnir hit him in the chest like divine judgment.
The impact erased distance.
Derrick was launched through the air, skipping across the horizon, plowing through forests and rock before crashing into an open plain miles away.
The ground folded inward beneath him as he dug himself out of the crater, already recalibrating..
Thunder answered him.
Lightning tore the sky apart as Thor descended slowly, deliberately, cape snapping like a war banner. Storm clouds coiled overhead, responding to his presence like loyal beasts.
"Creature," Thor boomed, voice layered with echo and myth, "you trespass upon Midgard's seat of rule and strike at its people. You will answer."
Derrick moved first.
Gravity locked.
For three seconds only three and Thor froze midair, muscles straining against an invisible weight that crushed space itself.
Mjolnir rattled violently in his grip.
Derrick didn't press the advantage.
He retreated, vanishing backward in a controlled burst, buying distance as Thor tore free with a roar that split clouds.
Thor landed heavily, lightning crawling across his armor, eyes glowing white-hot.
"Run if you must," Thor said, voice dark, ancient. "It will only make your fall more legendary."
Then Thor raised Mjolnir.
The lightning that followed was not weather.
It was will.
Divine energy slammed into Derrick, tearing through his defenses as if they weren't there. Blacklight biomass screamed cells destabilizing, regeneration stuttering. Pain, sharp and unfamiliar, flared through him.
" fucking Magic," Derrick realized, teeth clenched. "Pure thaumaturgical output on high scale ."
Thor advanced, hurling bolt after bolt, each one precisely tuned countering Derrick's responding lightning effortlessly.
"I was hurling thunder when your kind was still learning to fear the sky," Thor laughed.
"Did you truly think stolen sparks could match a god?"
Derrick switched tactics—wind shear blades, then firestorms compressed to plasma density.
Thor laughed harder.
"Wind? Fire?" he mocked. "What's next harsh language?"
He charged.
Derrick met him head-on this time as he further compressed biomass into his arms .
Fist against hammer. Muscle against divinity.
For minutes, the battlefield held, Derrick's strength was monstrous, Thor's defenses absolute.
Every blow Derrick landed was dampened by divine magic, his kinetic superiority bled off into glowing runes and myth-forged resilience.
This was not a fight Derrick could win yet.
So he vanished.
Teleportation folded him out of the storm and dropped him into choking humidity and endless green, as he tried to adapt....
AMAZON RAINFOREST – WRONG PLACE, WORSE TIMING
Rain fell in sheets.
Derrick straightened, biomass still knitting, systems recalibrating and hell noticed him.
The air curdled.
A figure stepped from a burning sigil carved into reality itself, tall, elegant and wrong.
Eyes like embers. A smile that promised contracts written in blood and eternity.
A servant of Mephisto.
"You reek of souls," the demon purred. "Billions of them. Crushed together. Screaming so sweetly."
Derrick struck first.
It didn't matter.
Demonic magic bypassed physics entirely binding, burning, claiming. Chains of infernal law wrapped around Derrick, his regeneration lagging as metaphysical hooks dug into his stolen souls that he hadn't fused and properly absorbed .
"You are not protected," the demon hissed. "No wards. No sanctum. No faith."
Derrick felt it, his greatest weakness laid bare.
For the first time since Prototype's world, Derrick came close to death.
He tore free only by sacrificing mass and detonating it by splitting every atom with in and teleporting blind, escaping by instinct rather than calculation.
...
Far below Mephisto laughed.
"Oh yes," the Devil whispered. "You'll do beautifully."
STARK INDUSTRIES – ADAPTATION MODE
Tony Stark watched the data replay, jaw tight.
"Okay," he said quietly. "Magic hurts him. That's new."
Nanotech schematics shifted, arcane interface layers, mystic-frequency sensors, borrowed enchantments reverse-engineered from Doctor Strange's least lethal spells.
Stark: "Note to self: never mock the guy with no soul until we know what eats souls."
SHIELD & LATVERIA – CONVERGING INTERESTS
Nick Fury leaned back, grim but with slight relief.
"So magic's the key."
....
Doctor Doom watched beside him, arms folded, mask unreadable.
"Of course it is," Doom said calmly. "All conquerors fall to what they do not respect."
Fury glanced sideways. "You planning to help?"
Doom's eyes glowed faintly behind steel.
"I am planning to learn."
Somewhere in the jungle, Derrick had recovered, already rewriting priorities.
Science he could outpace.
Strength he could surpass.
But magic?
Magic would require something far more dangerous than force.
Preparation.