Derek Lucks

**Character**Gallery

Derek Lucks

* Season 2
* Season 1

Background information

**First episode**
Wrong Warp

**Latest episode**
Fatal Error (real self)The End (A.I. replica)

**Voice**
David J.G. Doyle

Character information

**Other names**
Fricking Psychopath (Lamar)Big Blowhard (Sofia)Mr. Control Freak (Sofia)Captain Sideburns (Belle)Lucks

**Age**
42

**Affiliations**
TAS Corp.

**Goal**
* Achieve success in the gaming industry with his company, TASCorp
* To have Tari work for him and discover the secrets of her warping ability (succeeded)
* Prevent MD-5 from exposing his company's illegal activities (failed)
* Recover and wake Lucinia as well as hiding/protecting her whereabouts (failed)

**Home**
Silica City

**Allies**
Belle Fontiere (formerly)Evelyn (before death)

**Minions**
TASCorp. Security TeamPrivate mercenaries

**Enemies**
Masa Shimamoto (archenemy before death; technical killer)TariTheoMD-5Belle FontiereJames Sheridan (killer: deceased)

**Likes**
PowerWealthOpportunityTari

**Dislikes**
His Meta Runner's incompetenceBetrayalJames Sheridan (deceased)

**Powers and abilities**
ManipulationInfluence in Silica CityMilitary training (supposedly)

**Weapons**
Revolver

**Fate**
Accidentally shot dead by Masa Shimamoto whose arm was controlled by Dr. Sheridan

**Quote**
"So... **you** are behind this. Hm. Well played."*Lucks' final words before being shot by a controlled Masa.*"Give me the cartridge."

**Derek Lucks** is the main antagonist of the 2019 Glitch Productions science fiction-animated webseries Meta Runner, serving as the main antagonist of the first and second seasons and the posthumous overarching antagonist of Season 3.
He was the C.E.O. of the morally corrupt and abusive gaming company TAS Corp. and intended to capture Tari so he could exploit her abilities to warp into video games to benefit his company. He was also the former boss and archenemy of Masa Shimamoto.
In Shutdown, he successfully made Tari "his" after MD-5 fails to expose TAS Corp. to the public and she surrendered herself for their freedom. To ensure Tari's loyalty and prevent MD-5 from attempting to take her back, he crushed Theo's cartridge and trapped him in the TAS Corp. server as collateral.
Six months later, he prepared to introduce Tari into the main lineup of TAS Corp. Runners alongside Evelyn Claythorne, only to once again realize that MD-5 returned to expose his illegal activities to the public and this time, was unable to stop them due to Belle having betrayed him upon finding out he lied to her about Lucinia's "death". Lucks finally got his comeuppance, as MD-5 successfully exposed him and his company for its shady practices and had an arrest warrant issued for him.
However, Lucks would never see the inside of a prison cell as he was fatally shot in the head by Masa Shimamoto after his arm was hacked by Dr. Sheridan to get his revenge so he could take his place, while using Masa as his scapegoat since he would have the biggest motive to take out Lucks.
In Season 3, he is replaced by an A.I. of the same name, created by Dr. Sheridan as his personal assistant/slave.

Appearance
Lucks was a middle-aged caucasian male with blue eyes, slicked-back blonde hair, brown eyebrows, and light beard stubble, with an earpiece constantly in his ear. His design in the trailer was a dark blue collared jacket with a turtleneck sweater and a purple vest. In Season 1, his usual outfit was a bluish-black jacket with segmented shoulders with lights with a sweater vest with a white undershirt and black tie. In Season 2, he wore a different, grayish-blue three-piece suit that looked more sleek and professional and his eyebrows changed to match the color of his hair. At the end of Fatal Error, Lucks removed his jacket, gained a black eye from being punched by Masa, and lost his tie.

Personality
On the surface, Lucks appeared to be a man very much in control of his emotions. No matter the situation, he always spoke with an even keel whether it's giving orders or threatening a subordinate. Just beneath that, however, he possessed some strong anger issues and had no problem with making others suffer for his goals.
Right before his fate, however, he chuckles as he manages to sarcastically congratulate "him" for his outplaying him, showing no fear at all of his imminent demise, proving that despite being paranoid of his true nature being exposed, Lucks is not a coward and can show genuine bravery even in the face of death.
Lucks proved himself to be an opportunist as he saw almost anything as an opportunity in some kind of way and seeked to take advantage of it. This led to moments of obsession, such as his desire to make Tari "his". He never cared who he hurt or what gets destroyed along the way as long as it suited his goals. He did have some measure of self-restraint, taking precautions not to raise attention when possible.
It can be seen, however, that he would go to extreme lengths when necessary to achieve his goals, such as when he shot Masa's Meta Runner arm off or entrapped Theo in a comatose-like state after destroying his game cartridge, as 'collateral' to keep Tari loyal to TAS Corp and dissuade MD-5 from retaliating. Later, when his leverage against MD-5 is endangered when Tari warps into Theo's game to rescue him, Lucks took advantage of Evelyn's hatred for the former and gave her connection to the game to stop Tari.
All in all, Lucks was a self-serving sociopath deluding himself into thinking that what he did was the right thing.

History
Not much is known about Lucks' past prior to the start of the series, but he purported himself as the inventor of the Meta Runner arm. His former subordinate, Dr. Sheridan, however claims that he was actually behind the invention of the Meta Runner arm, and Lucks merely marketed it as his (or by his company, TASCorp).
He became an insanely popular CEO of the world-renowned gaming tool production company, TAS Corp.. He was even associated with authorities and mercenaries. However, he was secretly performing illegal acts into becoming increasingly more rich and powerful.
He had his own team of Meta Runners manufactured by his company, led by Masa Shimamoto, and includes a range of people including Belle Fontiere and Lucinia Porter. He also had scientists working on other products, one of them being Dr. Sheridan, who seemed to struggle the most.
On the day after a conference with his two most popular mainline runners, Lucks and the others notice Lucinia has disappeared and declares her missing.
Eventually, he discovered an explosion taken place in Sheridan's lab, believing that the scientist wanted to coverup his failures and when searching the laboratory with his scientists, they discover the critically wounded Lucinia, infuriating Lucks as he realized Sheridan to be responsible for her disappearance/current state. He then ordered his medical team to recover Lucinia and nurse her back to health.
Masa, due to being very close to Lucinia, eventually came to the suspiscion that Lucks was behind her "death" or at the very least, knew something about it. This led to him attempting to hack into Lucks' private server where the information of Lucinia's disappearance was held. However, Masa was eventually caught and decommissioned from TAS Corp.
For the following year, Lucks, Belle, and his team fought a rebellion led by Masa, consisting of Lamar Williams and Sofia Porter, two of which's lives were "destroyed" by him.

Season 1
One day, he was disappointed at Belle's failure in the speedrun tournament on Ultra Jump Mania. He and Belle later discovered Tari's ability to transport her conscience into video games. He orders the TAS Corp. scientists into the room for experimentation. He attached a controller into the game and plays as a discolored Theo. He tries to make conversation with Tari about her greatness while having a tracker placed inside her Meta Runner arm. Despite putting her in pain, he chose to keep going forward, saying that pain was an obstacle.
He accidentally caused Tari to break herself out of the game and bring Theo to life. He tried to apologize to Tari, but she refused and walked away, with Theo calling him a final boss that would be killed later. A guard attempted to block the path, only for Theo to throw a coconut in his face.
He later tracked Tari and Theo down at The Hive and sent Belle and a few soldiers to capture them. He drove after the transport van that held Tari and witnessed Lamar Williams crash his car into it. A car chase is initiated as he allowed Belle to drive with a Bluetooth controller. At one point, she accidentally crashed the car, much to Lucks' frustration. When the police are about to get them, he contacted the police chief to call of their duty, revealing his connections to other authorities. He witnessed Tari's ability to evade a barrier of TAS Corp. soldiers. After Tari's escape, he growled "I want HER", vowing to gain Tari's power.
He later instructed Belle to find information about Project Blue at the laboratories, since Tari's clothing and arm had a similar logo. Meanwhile, not having access to Tari, he used Theo's cartridge to hack into the latter's eyesight. Belle, traumatized, revealed to Lucks the footage she found, showcasing the incident of Dr. Sheridan and Lucinia. Later on, he found out about the plans of MD-5.
At the big Tempest competition, he had his team of Meta Runners log into the server to prevent MD-5 from performing the glitch. While his other Meta Runners failed, Belle succeeded in killing most, including Masa. Instead of finishing Tari off as Lucks asked her to, Belle removes her speaker and began to torture and question Tari about Lucinia. Later, Tari was able to fend her off and execute the glitch.
Lucks, infuriated at Belle's missed opportunity, switched to his alternate plan. He manages to corner the group into a circular room and has his soldiers beat them down. He threatened to kill MD-5 if Sofia didn't reveal herself, but Masa attacked Lucks; however Lucks overpowered Masa and went as far as shooting off Masa's arm at the elbow. Sofia tearfully gave away the phone, and the soldiers deleted the hacked information. Belle revealed the "truth" to Sofia about her sister. Lucks further revealed that he used Theo as a spy. As he and his soldiers were about to have the group imprisoned, Tari offers her membership in return for her friends' freedom. However, in order to ensure Tari's loyalty, Lucks crushed Theo's cartridge, holding his consciousness as collateral in exchange for her complete loyalty, and threatening MD-5's safety and Theo's life for non-compliance.
After everyone else had left the stadium, Lucks asked for a status report on a subject in a cryogenic pod, implied to be Lucinia.

Season 2
Six months after the events of Shutdown, Tari worked for Lucks and competes in exhibition tournaments with Belle and the new addition, Evelyn Claythorne. Lucks also had Theo on the TAS Corp. server and researched the sentient game character with empty promises that he can get him back into his cartridge. Despite this, Theo was able to escape the containment room twice and make his way into the company server, the second time on Belle's instructions to find out information about Lucinia.
Realizing the containment room couldn't hold Theo, as a punishment he decided to place him inside of his glitched out cartridge with its data bleeding into the company's server which reduced it to a nightmare world full of glitches as to hold him.
Unbeknown to Lucks, Belle successfully snuck away with the footage from the server in Heart to Heart after having Theo find a secret file containing information on Project Blue and Lucinia, showing Lucks finding Lucinia in Sheridan's lab and ordering a medical team to retrieve her, making Belle realize that Lucks lied to everyone about Lucinia for the past two years, enraging her and giving her the incentive to betray Lucks and join with Tari to take down him and TASCorp.
Ten days later, the showmatch occured to publicize Tari and Evelyn's promotion to TASCorp's main lineup at the Horizon Stadium with Lucks hosting the event, not realizing that MD-5 has secrelty infiltrated once again. Despite the "bizarre accidents" involving a short power loss, the showmatch proceeded as planned with Tari and Evelyn playing Hidden Heroes in a 2 vs. 50 match.
However, Evelyn noticed Tari speaking to someone on the enemy team and informs Lucks, who realized that MD-5 has returned and intends to activate security protocols to stop them, only for Sofia to stop him. He proceeded to give Evelyn a signal to take out Tari and end the match ASAP to prevent Sofia from hacking the server.
Evelyn attempted to end the match prematurely, but due to Lucinia's presence in Tari, she is defeated and Sofia is able to download the TASCorp. server. Realizing he's on thin ice, Lucks attempted a full lockdown of TASCorp. headquarters and receives word that Belle was found in Sheridan's lab before being tackled by Masa who socks in him in the eye to give Tari a chance to get away with Lamar.
The security team brought Masa and Belle to the vans as prisoners while Lucks demanded a media blackout and confronted his former employees, sarcastically remarking that the old team was back together. When questioned by them on covering up Lucinia's disappearance, he told them that he did what he had to do to protect the company, which included both of their betrayals, only for Masa to brush it off since they had the server and one way or another, their long-lasting fued would come to an end tonight.
Realizing that berating them was pointless, Lucks turned his attention to tracking down the remaining members of MD-5 only for Sofia to interrupt by calling and making threats towards Lucks, who was able to trace the call and capture Sofia in the process, but was unable to find the server data before realizing that Tari and Lamar were missing with the former using the cartridge as a backdoor into TASCorp's server to rescue Theo from the glitched game.
He raced back to TASCorp. headquarters to stop Tari but realizes that he can still use Evelyn to slow Tari down by offering her a chance at revenge against Tari for ruining her showmatch, to which she gleefully agreed. Despite this, Tari ultimately overcame Evelyn and successfully broke Theo out of the game. Realizing he had lost, Lucks began to panic, stammering requests before the van was suddenly rammed by Lamar's car.
Stumbling out of the van and noticing Tari in the passenger's seat, a wrathful Lucks orders that she gives him the cartridge, holding Masa at gunpoint while furiously lambasting MD-5 for repaying his "generousity" with betrayal. Just as he is about to reach his breaking point, Masa reveals that it was far too late, as suddenly every channel across Silica City revealed that the illegal activites of TASCorp, with an arrest warrant issued for Lucks. As Lucks stood shocked, Masa charged at him, beating him into submission and wresting his gun from him, ordering his security team to stand down.
Begrudingly accepting defeat, Lucks asks Masa what he wanted now. The latter gave his demands of TASCorp. being shut down for good and Lucks going to prison while the world learns that he was responsible for Lucinia's death. However, Lucks simply laughed and revealed his secret: Lucinia never died in the explosion.
Sofia was shocked at this and despite Belle's claims that Lucks was lying again to save himself, he pondered that why despite all the evidence, they never found Lucinia's body. He explained that when he discovered her in Sheridan's lab, she was wounded but not bad enough that his medical team couldn't save her and when asked by Sofia on why he's been hiding her for the past two years, Lucks reveals it was because she couldn't wake up despite being completely healed.
He then explained his theory: when Sheridan's experimental A.I. caused the incident that ended Project Blue, Lucks believed that it shattered Lucinia's conciousness and left her an empty husk. He then told them by that finding Sheridan's A.I. and retrieving Lucinia's fragments, she could be revived only for Belle to ask why he hasn't been able to find it after two years but Lucks retorts that he did in fact and that *she* was standing next to them.
Everyone realized he was referring to Tari who reveals that she discovered the truth about herself after saving Theo: she wasn't the host that Sheridan uploaded his A.I. into, she *was* the A.I. that was uploaded into Lucinia, who was the real host of the experiment. After explaining that Lucks was telling the truth, Lucks mocks Masa for fighting him for so long without realizing that he was trying to save Lucinia and that he should've simply remained loyal.
However, Belle interrupted him, telling him to shut up and calling him out on his victim complex and his manipulative nature. She told him that what happened to Lucinia was *his* responsibility since she was his employee and he was aware that Sheridan's project was dangerous, but allowed it regardless. Then, when Lucinia was hurt because of it, instead of taking responsibility for his mistakes, he instead tried to cover it up and threatened all of them to save himself.
With nothing left to say, he asked Masa if he's happy that he finally got what he wanted but Masa, in a moment of anger, stated that Lucks could find a way out of going to jail like always and began to consider that shooting Lucks may be the only way to stop him for good. However, the others reassure him that no amount of money or influence can get Lucks off scot-free anymore and he ultimately decided to listen to them, only for his arm to suddenly begin to malfunction.
Despite his best attempts, Masa was unable to control his arm as it pointed the gun directly at Lucks, who instead of panicking, realized that Dr. Sheridan had been behind all of this and congratulated his killer for outsmarting him before he was shot through the head, killing him instantly and sending his corpse to the ground lifelessly.

Season 3
His death was seen to have made the news, and he was referenced constantly throughout the episodes, however he is largely replaced by his A.I. doppelganger. Sometime later, the charges against Masa for his murder were lifted due to evidence coming out that Sheridan was behind his fatal shooting.

Gallery
Miniature Lucks in Game Plan.Lucks's original design in the official trailer.Lucks (Season 2)Lucks is surprised when Tari manages to escape the van that Belle put her in.Lucks (Season 1 Cut Trailer)Lucks holding Masa gunpoint in trade for the server cartridge.Lucks in Season 1Lucks without his jacketConcept art of Lucks
Trivia* Lucks appeared to have much power and influence in Silica City, as his company, TAS Corp seemed to be #1 in the production of gaming tools and enhancers, and even has the Chief of Police in his pocket.
* Despite being head of one of the biggest gaming corporations in the city, Lucks was noted as having no skill with video games whatsoever.
* Lucks was mistakenly listed as “Lux” in the official trailer description on YouTube.
* Lucks went through a redesign since his appearance in the trailer, this was because the team felt it would better fit his character.
* According to the Meta Runner Season 3 Reddit AMA, Lucks is said to have a ton of backstory according to Glitch Productions.

References
Season 1* Wrong Warp
* Out Of Bounds
* Bad Split
* Sequence Break
* Game Plan
* No Clip
* The Run
* Shutdown

Season 2* Hard Reset
* Firewall
* Transfer Student
* Heart to Heart (Flashback)
* Hack and Slash
* Friendly Fire
* Soft Lock
* Nightmare Mode
* Fatal Error