The World Holds Its Breath
Outside the poisoned maw of the Daily Planet, chaos reigns.
Green death coils through shattered windows, tendrils of toxin slithering into the sky like the breath of a dying god. Below, civilians stumble, their screams swallowed by the wailing sirens. A city in agony.
And inside
Lois Lane is already exposed.
Superman fights against time itself, his super-speed rendered useless by the delicate horror of the situation.
Every second is a lifetime. Every breath a gamble.
And then
Derrick moves.
But not toward Lois.
Not toward the hostages.
Not toward the gas.
His eyes narrow, cold as the void between stars.
His senses had already mapped the building the moment the crisis began. Every wire, every weak point, every heartbeat, catalogued. Analyzed. Predicted.
He knew where the fake broadcast room was.
He knew where the wiring led.
He knew where the real heartbeat of chaos waited.
The Joker.
Derrick's mind is a machine of ice and logic:
Lois was already exposed.
The sequence had begun.
Direct rescue now would create variables. Suspicion. Worse casualties.
The highest-value move?
Eliminate the architect.
And so,
Derrick vanishes.
Not with a flash.
Not with a sonic boom.
But with the silent finality of a blade unsheathed in the dark.
Three floors beneath the newsroom, behind a maintenance corridor and a false wall that screams to be torn apart, the Joker laughs.
His grinning face is bathed in the sickly glow of a handheld camera, his finger hovering over backup triggers, their red lights blinking like demonic eyes.
"Ohhh, look at them scramble... "
The wall explodes inward.
Not with gunfire.
Not with explosives.
But with the force of a god's fist, metal folding like paper, dust and debris erupting into the chamber like a storm.
Joker blinks once, his grinning face frozen in mid-laugh.
And then
Derrick stands in the doorway.
Calm.
Silent.
A statue carved from the heart of a dying star.
Joker tilts his head, his grinning mouth twitching with manic amusement.
"You're the new gu.."
Derrick crosses the room before the sentence ends.
One hand seizes Joker by the throat, lifting him off the ground as if he weighs nothing.
The other crushes the detonator into powder, the metal collapsing like ash between his fingers.
Backup triggers are ripped from the wall, wires torn free, sparks showering the room like falling stars.
Joker kicks, laughs, his body convulsing with hysterical glee.
"HAHA! Oh, this is FUN!"
Derrick slams him into the concrete with enough force to crack the floor, but not enough to kill.
Just enough to disable.
He leans down, his voice a whisper that cuts deeper than any blade.
"You waste useful oxygen."
Joker grins, blood dripping from his lips, his eyes wild with delirium.
"You'd be great in Gotham."
Derrick doesn't react. Doesn't flinch. Doesn't hesitate.
He wraps the Clown Prince of Crime in twisted steel support beams, bending them like ribbon, embedding him into the floor as if he's part of the building itself.
Then,
He launches upward.
Through the ceiling.
Through the floors.
Through the chaos.
Like a missile of flesh and will, unstoppable, inevitable.
Derrick emerges into the upper floors, where the gas still rolls through the offices like a living fog, swallowing everything in its path.
Civilians stagger blindly, their eyes wide with terror, their bodies wracked with laughter that isn't laughter at all.
Some collapse, their limbs twitching as the toxin takes hold.
Others clutch at their throats, their faces twisting in agonized mirth.
Derrick prepares to move them out, one by one, his mind already calculating the fastest, most efficient way to save them all.
Then
Batman's voice cuts through the League comms, sharp, immediate, commanding.
"Don't touch them."
Derrick pauses, his body coiled like a spring.
"Explain."
Batman's voice remains cold, unyielding.
"You move bodies through saturated air at speed… you create spread vectors."
A beat. The weight of a thousand deaths hanging in the silence.
"You carry contaminated victims outside… you infect responders."
Another pause. The sound of a man realizing he's just been outmaneuvered.
"Too risky."
Derrick's eyes narrow, just slightly.
Batman continues, his voice like steel.
"Use another method."
Derrick understands.
Batman is watching.
Batman is testing.
Another trial.
Fine.
Derrick floats in the gas-filled corridor, his body suspended in the toxic haze like a god descending from the heavens.
His eyes begin to glow.
Not heat vision.
Not standard plasma.
But something else.
Something new.
His internal systems adjust, recalibrating, drawing from dozens of absorbed energy signatures, fusing them, reshaping them, bending them to his will.
Radiative particle disruption.
A beam designed not to burn.
Not to destroy.
But to unmake.
Twin lines of pale gold light erupt from his eyes, sweeping across the room like the hands of a clock counting down to doom.
The gas reacts instantly.
Green clouds fizz.
Thin.
Break apart.
Inert vapor drifts in their place, harmless, powerless.
Not perfectly clean.
But enough.
Enough for breathable corridors.
Enough for visibility.
Enough for movement.
For the first time since the crisis began,
Hope flickers in the dark.
That opening is all the others need.
Flash becomes a scarlet storm, a blurred force of nature, evacuating civilians through the cleared routes faster than panic can register.
His laughter is wild, exhilarated, the sound of a man who's just been handed a lifeline.
"Now we're talking!"
Wonder Woman tears open sealed exits, her sword gleaming as she carves through debris like butter.
She moves with the grace of a goddess, carrying groups to safety in her arms, her voice a battle cry in the chaos.
"Move! Now!"
Green Lantern forms vacuum funnels of emerald energy, pulling the contaminated air into compressed containment spheres, his ring humming with effort.
The gas swirls within the orbs, trapped, neutralized.
"Got it! Containment established!"
And Superman
Superman reaches Lois.
He tears through restraints with trembling hands, his strength rendered useless against the poison in her veins.
Jimmy Olsen is beside her, his face pale, his body shaking.
Both alive.
But Lois is fading.
Her laughter has become weak, involuntary spasms, her breath ragged, her eyes glazed.
Superman holds her carefully, his face a mask of agony.
For all his strength
For all his power
There is no punch to throw.
There is no mountain to lift.
Only poison.
Only time.
And time is running out.
In the dark heart of Gotham, Batman replays the data from Derrick's eye-beam scan.
His fingers fly across the console, his mind racing.
"Energy modulation under pressure…"
"No hesitation…"
"No surprise…"
He zooms in on the footage of Derrick capturing Joker first.
Not the civilians.
Not the hostages.
Joker.
Batman understands what that choice means.
Derrick prioritized the source, not the suffering.
Efficient.
Cold.
Strategic.
Not heroic instinct.
Batman's eyes harden, his jaw tightening.
"You're wearing the mask of a hero."
The words hang in the air, heavy with implication.
Because Batman knows the truth.
And the truth is terrifying.
As medics rush in and the League moves survivors out, Derrick stands in the smoke-filled hallway, his figure silhouetted against the chaos
He has helped.
Enough to gain trust.
Not enough to expose everything.
He can hear Superman below, his voice a low rumble of desperation.
He can hear Lois' weakening heartbeat, the fading rhythm of a life slipping away.
He can hear the grief beginning before the death itself
And Derrick thinks only one thing, his mind cold, his heart still:
"This world's strongest man… can still be broken by chemistry."
He stores the lesson carefully, filing it away with the thousands of others he has absorbed.
Because knowledge is power.
And power
Power is everything.
The battle is won.
But the war
The war has only just begun.
And in the shadows, three forces watch, wait, and plan.
Batman, his suspicion growing like a cancer.
Luthor, his schemes twisting like a serpent.
Derrick, his calculations unfolding like a dark prophecy.
The board is set.
The pieces are moving.
And the next move
The next move will change everything.