Power of Hercules in MCU - Chapter 2

Chapter 2: The Panel and the Past

The translucent rectangle hung in the air, unwavering, its white text stark against the muted tones of Gwen Stacy’s bedroom. Rudra stared, his mind, already a maelstrom of borrowed memories and existential shock, struggling to categorize this new impossibility. Was he hallucinating? Had the trauma of interdimensional travel, or perhaps the unknown cause of this body’s original vacancy, finally short-circuited his brain?

He blinked. Once. Twice. The panel remained, solid in its ethereal way, a silent, glowing pronouncement.

—

Level: 0 (0/1)

Skill: Hercules Method Lv1 (0%)

—

He tentatively reached out a hand, the one not pinned beneath Gwen’s slumbering form. His fingers, belonging to this younger, Americanized Rudra, trembled slightly. They passed right through the luminous display, encountering no resistance, only the faint, cool air of the room. He waved his hand through it again. Nothing. It was like a projection, visible only to him, yet possessing an undeniable presence.

Before he could delve deeper into the enigma of the glowing box, his thoughts snagged on a more pressing, more morbid mystery that the earlier memory flood had failed to fully illuminate. How had this Rudra, the original occupant of the body he now piloted, actually died?

The memories of last night were vivid, almost too vivid. Flash Thompson’s raucous birthday party, the pulsating music, the cloying sweetness of cheap punch mixed with something stronger, the escalating sense of recklessness. He could recall the blurry lights, the roar of conversation, the feeling of being swept along by the party’s chaotic energy. He remembered the distinct taste of beer – too much beer – and then those sugary shots someone kept passing around. Was it alcohol poisoning? It was a definite possibility. This Rudra hadn’t been a seasoned drinker; the sheer volume consumed could easily have overwhelmed a less accustomed system.

He sifted through the newly acquired memories again, searching for a definitive moment, a point of departure. There were flashes of increasing intoxication, a growing lightheadedness, the world tilting precariously. He remembered leaning heavily against a wall, the music a distorted thrum in his ears. Then came the encounter with Gwen, the conversation that cut through the alcoholic haze, the shared escape, the impulsive, electrifying kiss. The memories carried him through the fumbling intimacy in this very room, the surprising tenderness, the eventual slide into exhausted sleep.

And then… nothing. A blank. A sudden, inexplicable void where the continuity of life should have been. One moment, this Rudra was falling asleep beside Gwen Stacy, his heart still thrumming with a mixture of disbelief and exhilaration; the next, he, the Rudra from Bangalore, was waking up in his place.

There was no memory of a sudden pain, no gasp for breath, no indication of a heart attack or a stroke. If it was alcohol poisoning, it must have been swift and silent in those final, unconscious moments.

Could it have been drugs? The party had been wild, the kind where anything was possible. He scanned the memories for any sign of pills, powders, or suspicious substances being offered or taken by his alternate self. There was nothing concrete, just the general miasma of a party getting out of hand. It was possible this Rudra had ingested something unknowingly, or taken something in his drunken state that he didn’t clearly recall. The lack of a specific memory didn’t rule it out. The human brain, especially one soaked in alcohol, was notoriously unreliable.

The absence of a clear cause was deeply unsettling. It was one thing to be thrust into another’s life, another world; it was quite another to inhabit a body whose previous owner had departed under such mysterious, unresolved circumstances. It left a lingering chill, a subtle undercurrent of fear beneath the immediate shock of his transmigration. Had this body been… defective? Was there some underlying condition that had claimed its original inhabitant and might, in time, claim him too? Or was his arrival the cause of the original Rudra’s departure, some cosmic exchange he couldn’t comprehend?

The glowing panel, still patiently hovering, drew his attention back. It was a tangible anomaly in a world rapidly dissolving into the surreal. He focused on the words again, dissecting them with the analytical part of his brain that hadn’t quite succumbed to panic.

“Level: 0 (0/1).”

Zero. The absolute baseline. It was… humbling, to say the least. If this was some kind of system, he was at the very bottom rung. The “(0/1)” was slightly more intriguing. It suggested a threshold, a requirement. One point. One experience point, perhaps, to reach Level 1? What constituted an experience point in this context? Breathing? Thinking? Surviving the next ten minutes?

Then, the second line: “Skill: Hercules Method Lv1 (0%).”

Hercules Method.

The name slammed into his consciousness with the force of a physical blow, igniting a cascade of memories far more familiar, far more his own, than the ones he’d just inherited. It wasn’t just a name; it was a whole universe of blood, grit, and terrifying transformation.

‘The Strange Talent of Luther Strode.’ He could almost feel the cheap newsprint of the comic book pages under his fingertips, smell the ink. He’d been utterly captivated by the story, by its unflinching portrayal of violence and the harrowing cost of power. The Hercules Method was its core, its engine. A mail-order bodybuilding regimen, seemingly innocuous, a relic of a bygone era of comic book ads promising to turn ninety-pound weaklings into Charles Atlas figures. Except this one actually worked. And then some.

He remembered Luther, a skinny, bullied high school kid, much like Peter Parker in his earliest incarnations. Desperate for a change, he’d sent away for the Hercules Method. The initial exercises were brutal, pushing him beyond any normal human limit, demanding impossible feats of endurance and pain tolerance. But as he persisted, something changed. He didn’t just get stronger; he became… more.

The Method, as depicted in the blood-soaked pages of the comic, wasn’t just about physical conditioning. It was a complete restructuring of the self, a forced evolution. It granted its practitioners superhuman strength that could shatter concrete and bend steel, speed that made them blurs to the naked eye, and durability that allowed them to shrug off blows that would cripple or kill ordinary men. More than that, it unlocked a horrifyingly potent form of combat precognition – the ability to see the “spaces” in an opponent’s movements, the flow of violence, the trajectory of every attack and counterattack before it happened. Luther described it as seeing the “ghosts” of actions.

Rudra’s breath caught in his throat. The panel. This… thing floating in front of him was offering him that. The Hercules Method. Here. Now.

The implications were staggering. This wasn’t some vague, undefined superpower. This was a specific, named ability from a piece of fiction he knew intimately. It was as if the universe, or whatever whimsical, terrifying entity had orchestrated his dimensional jaunt, had reached into his very last conscious thought on Earth and plucked it out as a parting gift. Or a welcoming present. Or perhaps, a curse.

His “golden finger.” That was the term, wasn’t it? The trope in countless transmigration novels and fanfictions he’d devoured. The special advantage, the unique power granted to the transmigrator to help them navigate their new, often hostile, reality. He’d always found it a bit cliché, a convenient plot device. Now, it was his terrifying, undeniable reality.

A wave of dizziness, entirely unrelated to his predecessor’s hangover, washed over him. He felt a strange, almost hysterical laugh bubble up, but he managed to stifle it, acutely aware of the sleeping girl beside him.

Gwen.

Gwen Stacy.

Whose father was the Chief of Police. He could only imagine trying to explain a glowing, invisible (to others, presumably) comic book power-up system to her.

He stared at the “Lv1 (0%)” next to the skill name. Level 1. So, he wasn’t entirely without it. He possessed the foundational level of the Hercules Method. But the “0%” indicated it was dormant, untapped, or perhaps just at its absolute starting potential. He had the blueprint, but the edifice was yet to be built. How did one increase that percentage? The comics were horrifyingly clear on that: pain, discipline, pushing the body and mind to their absolute breaking points and beyond. Luther Strode’s training montages were less about lifting weights and more about enduring agony, about conditioning his reflexes through life-or-death struggles, about a kind of brutal, relentless self-overcoming.

A shiver traced its way down his spine, cold despite the warmth of Gwen’s body still pressed against his side. The Hercules Method wasn’t a “nice” power. It wasn’t clean, or heroic in the traditional sense. It was savage. It was bloody. Its practitioners, Luther included, often struggled with the sheer intensity of it, with a burgeoning rage, an almost addictive pull towards violence. They became predators, seeing the world in terms of threats and targets. The Method didn’t just give you power; it threatened to consume your humanity.

Was this what awaited him? In a world that, if his memories of this timeline were accurate, hadn’t yet seen the rise of Spider-Man, was he supposed to become some kind of Luther Strode? A figure of terrifying, brutal efficiency? The thought was both exhilarating and deeply repellent.

The fanboy in him, the part that had always dreamed of superpowers, of soaring through cityscapes or trading blows with supervillains, felt a treacherous flicker of excitement. To possess such raw power, such overwhelming physical dominance… it was a seductive thought.
But the rational adult, the Rudra who understood consequences and valued his sanity, was horrified. The price Luther Strode had paid for his abilities was immense. His life had become a whirlwind of violence, loss, and constant struggle against the darkness the Method cultivated within him.

And where did Gwen Stacy fit into this equation? He risked a glance at her sleeping face. So peaceful, so unaware of the existential crisis unfolding inches away from her, or the bizarre, potentially world-altering power system that had just announced its presence in her bedroom. What would she think if she knew the boy she’d impulsively spent the night with was now wrestling with the prospect of becoming a superhuman killing machine?

His gaze drifted back to the panel. It was still there, patient, unwavering. A tool. A weapon. A path. But to where?

He thought of the dangers that surely lurked in this Marvel-adjacent world. Even without a Spider-Man yet, this was New York City in a comic book universe. Supervillains, alien invasions, shadowy organizations – they were all part of the package. Without power, he would be a victim, a bystander, as helpless as he’d been in his old life. With the Hercules Method… he might have a chance. A chance to survive, at least. A chance to protect himself. Maybe, just maybe, a chance to do some good, if he could somehow master the Method without succumbing to its inherent darkness.

The “0%” seemed to mock him. It was a challenge. The Hercules Method wasn’t going to activate itself. It demanded effort. It demanded… sacrifice.

A new kind of resolve began to crystallize amidst the fear and confusion. He was here, in this impossible situation. Panicking wouldn’t change that. Wishing himself home wouldn’t work. He had been given something, a lifeline or a lead weight, he wasn’t sure which yet. But it was his.

The immediate, pressing problem was Gwen. She would wake up soon. And he would have to face her, explain himself, navigate the excruciating awkwardness of the morning after a night that only one of them truly remembered the beginning of. The Hercules Method, Level 0, 0%, would be of absolutely no use in that confrontation.

But after that? After he extricated himself from this incredibly delicate situation?
He would have to explore this panel, this Method. He would have to understand what it meant, how it worked, how to make that “0%” climb. The alternative – remaining a powerless, confused transmigrator in a world teeming with unknown dangers – was far more terrifying than the potential cost of the Hercules Method.

He took a deep, steadying breath, the air in Gwen’s room feeling charged with a new, strange energy. The mystery of his predecessor’s death still lingered, a question mark hanging over his new existence. But the panel, glowing with silent promise and unspoken threat, presented a more immediate, more actionable focus. It was a starting point.

The first rays of dawn were beginning to paint the edges of the drawn blinds with a pale, rosy light. A new day was beginning, in a new world, with a new, terrifying, and perhaps exhilarating, set of rules. Rudra stared at the glowing text, a thousand questions warring in his mind, but one dominating all others:

How did one begin to train in the Hercules Method when one was currently naked, in bed with Gwen Stacy, and profoundly unqualified for superhuman anything?

The “0/1” for Level 0 seemed to taunt him. One point. He just needed one point. But what on earth could grant it?

He let out a slow, silent exhale. The path ahead was shrouded in uncertainty, fraught with dangers both internal and external. But for the first time since waking in this alien room, a tiny, fragile spark of agency ignited within him. He had a name for his power. He had a direction, however perilous. He had the Hercules Method.

The question was: what was he going to do with it? And what would it do to him?

The soft rhythm of Gwen’s breathing beside him was a constant reminder of the fragile, human world he was now a part of, a world the Hercules Method seemed designed to shatter.

The dichotomy was stark, the challenge immense.

Rudra closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them again, his gaze fixed on the panel. The game, it seemed, had begun. And he was Player One.