Mark De Vries made the most dramatic entrance in Edinburgh derby history as he notched four goals to put Hibs to the sword.
Hearts' new Dutch signing scored his final two goals in injury time to give Hearts a 5-1 victory margin that did not flatter them.
It was Hearts' biggest win over their arch rivals in many a year and Hibs simply could not handle the robust De Vries.
Andy Kirk opened the scoring for Hearts after 18 minutes when he chased a flick on from De Vries to lob the ball over a stranded Tony Caig.
Hearts came within inches of a second in 27 minutes when Scott Severin headed against the top of the crossbar following a corner from Jean Louis Valois.
Hibs responded and the excellent Frederic Arpinon came close with a long-range effort which whistled past Antti Niemi's right-hand post.
But Hearts always looked the more likely and Kirk made a bad miss on 31 minutes when he headed wide from five yards following another Valois cross.
The second goal arrived five minutes from the break when Valois scooped the ball over the Hibs defence for De Vries to open his goal account with a right-foot shot from 15 yards.
Hibs came back at the start of the second half and Ian Murray scored with a six-yard header from a cross from substitute Grant Brebner, but Hearts stormed back and Kevin McKenna and De Vries both came close with headers.
Caig then produced the save of the match when he tipped over a 63rd minute shot from Kirk, but the goal was only delayed a couple of minutes and when Caig blocked a shot from Valois, De Vries followed up to steer the loose ball into the empty net.
The Dutchman completed his hat-trick in injury time when Paul McMullan played him through and he had plenty of time to clip the ball over Caig.
He then scored his fourth moments later with a back-post header from a cross from Gary Wales