Chapter Text
Lena never liked flying. There was no reason for it, she just didn't. She understood the necessity of it, of course, since her mother had had the great idea to send her to boarding school in fucking Ireland and it was the fastest way to travel. Going by sea wasn't really appealing to Lena either (she didn't want to dwell on the idea of possibly feeling nauseous too much), so she found herself stuck with flying for as long as she could remember. Every time she arrived from or at home, a sense of relief washed her body, with a rush of slight giddiness for seeing Lex again, or a determinition to ace all of her classes at school yet again.
She could feel that sensation crawling back to her body as the plane landed, strong and rough. It had been a rather uneventful flight from Ireland, with Lena sleeping almost through out all of it, but the last couple of hours that she had spent it awake, hadn't been as bad as a few Lena had had before. Actually, it had been an uneventful year so far; Lena was the top of her class, as always, she got a brand new set of tools for Christmas (she asumed they were from Lex, Lillian wouldn't spend money on her unless she deemed it absolutely necessary or to keep her own reputation as a "mother"), and Lena won the science fair (again).
She was sort of expecting a change this summer, something that would get her away from her rutine and could actually make her feel alive and changelled. Lena didn't want it too much though, after all, you always have to be careful with what you wish for.
As soon as she got out of baggage claim, Lena found Lex among the crowd, tall, muscular and... well, bald, in his elegant suit. He smiled at her with his white, shiny teeth, and Lena found herself smiling back, picking up the pace of her walk to reach him faster. Lex circuled her shoulders with his arms and hugged her tightly, just as Lena's hands gripped with a strong hold the back of his jacket.
"I missed you, Lee" Lex breathed in her ear. Lena leaned back so that she could look and smile at him properly.
"I missed you too, buddy." she replied. Lex laughed loudly at the term of endearment.
"You are such a little brat. Glad that that hasn't changed through the years." He said playfully.
"Well, I certainly have the brains for it. None of this," Lena tapped the side of her head for emphasis "is a bluff."
Lex shook his head, and grabbed Lena's suitcase. "Come on sis, lets go get one of those greasy burgers you like so much." Lena frowned.
"Don't you have work at LuthorCorp? I know you are busy most of the time." she asked, her still present accent shining through.
"Nah, I told Crystal to clear my schedule for the day. Work can wait, you are more important." Lex gave her a sheepish, charming grin, and Lena's smile could only stretch.
Then the wall exploded, sending huge pieces of stone and glass all over the place, and ruining their moment.
Lena never would have imagined on the plane from Ireland to New York that she'd have someone else waiting for her besides Lex, even less would she have expected them to be as unpleasant as they were (she had learn a long time ago that Lillian had better things to do than to pick her daughter up from the airport).
Although unpleasant was a huge understatement.
"What the actual fuck" she breathed, completely baffled.
A creature (that, according to some myths, seemed to be a cyclops) wearing just some kind of sheet which covered its naughty parts, entered through the destroyed wall where a convenience store used to be, and scrutinized the panicked crowds with half hearted concentration. It sniffed a few times, and then proceeded to pick up some of the broken infrastructure to look at what was under it, seemingly searching for something. Lena tried her hardest not to look at the very notorious red substance that stained both the debris and the floor.
Lena was so busy studying the monster that she didn't notice the way Lex was basically dragging her through the crowds, seeking for cover. Noticing Lena's lack of cooperation, Lex turned around, grabbed her by the shoulders, and shook her while shouting her name repeatedly over the frightened screams of the masses.
Lena finally looked at her brother and took in his expression. What usually was a cold, indifferent facade that only crumbled to show a warm protectiveness and pride when Lena was around, now was a fusion of fear, confusion and surprise. Just as the oldest Luthor opened his mouth, the cyclops spoke.
"There you are, demigod filth." Lena didn't recognise the language, but she unexplicably understood it. Looking towards the monster again was a mistake, since it was now approaching them with an eagerness in its eye that showed nothing but bad news.
A boy suddenly stood in between the two siblings and the creature, bow in one hand and an arrow in the other (if Lenas eyes were wide with confusion and fright before, they were falling out of their sockets now), and his back and quiver to them. He shouted something about getting cover and then finding the exit, to then sprint towards the monster.
Alarms went off on Lena's head. She watched as the boy started to run in circles around the cyclops while throwing arrows at it. Only when Lex tugged her again did she realised her brother was trying to get her somewhere safe. Without meaning to, she shrugged Lex's grip off and quickly scanned the room. Catching glimpse of the check-in counters, she quickly sprinted towards them. With a ringing noise in her ears and panick in her heart, Lena jumped over ine of the desks and ducked under it.
She needed to stop the noise, she needed everything to stop so that she could think clearly, because there was no way a mythological monster was standing in the middle of the airport lobby, there was no way a boy was fighting it, there was no way she could understand said monster and there was no way Lena was actually seeing all of this.
Breathe, Lena. Slow and deep breaths. Fucking breathe. she thought, trying to calm her pounding heart and her ragged breathing. She could here explosions and the monster's growls and screams, as well as some curses he was surely throwing at the boy.
"Lena!" Lex's voice sounded from somewhere behind the desk and over the grunts of frustration the creature was making. Apparently, what that boy was doing was working.
Lex suddenly dropped down from the counter and crouched in front of his little sister. "Lena what are you doing? We have to get out of here before more bombs go off." he said looking over to what Lena supposed was all the commotion. Lena blinked.
"Bombs?" Lena dared to look at the scene in desplay. She had been so caught up before (you know, with the sudden apparition of something that shouldn't exist) that she hadn't picked up the people's behavior. Sure, they were running around and screaming, but they didn't seem to mind that there was a teenage boy with a spear fighting a cyclops. In fact, they seemed unaware of it.
Lena looked back at Lex and studied his face, with a frown. "You can't see it, can you?"
Lex frowned too, and opened his mouth to say something. But he was once again interrupted by the sudden trembling of the ground. The walls and the roof rattled, causing a few more pieces of debris to fall, which, unfortunately, one landed on Lex's head.
"Lex!" Lena screamed as she hurried to catch his heavy body before he fell, and worsen his injury. She cradled his head with her hands and looked up, screaming for help. She almost cried in relief when she saw another boy running towards them. At least, before se took notice of his horns.
"Hey, I'm Dylan. What's your name?" the boy said with a comforting smile and a soft tone, as he crouched in a way that shouldn't have been possible for human legs to perform. But Lena was more focused on getting the hell out of there with her brother alive.
"Lena." she answered with a slight crack in her voice.
"Ok, Lena, I'm going to need you to follow me outside, okay? Do you think you can manage that?"
Lena gave him a single nod before looking down at Lex with tears in her eyes. "My brother, he... a piece of the roof hit in the head and I... I can't-" a sob fell from her lips without her permission, not allowing her to finish the sentence.
"Hey hey, don't worry. I'll help you carry him, okay? We'll make it together." Dylan flashed another smile while he took one of Lex's arms and slingin it across his shoulders. Lena nodded again and did the same with the other arm.
Standing up with Lex was definitely a task, but dragging his heavy body that was just dead weight was like carrying the world. Thankfully Dylan was there to help her, taking most of Lex's weight, even though he wasn't much stronger than Lena. Together and extremely careful of not drawing the cyclops, attention (who was still busy trying to grab the archer, even though he was too slow most of the time), they managed to get to the parking lot through the big hole the monster had left on the wall, and Lena could feel herself relax slightly.
Suddenly, the cyclops bursted through the wall next to the one were the group had just gone through. The creature fell hard on the ground, making it shake, and Lena, Dylan and Lex struggled to keep their balance, to finally lose it completely and making contact with the hot asfalt of the street. The girl looked at the crater where the one eyed monster was now trying to stand up. As the boy she had seen earlier approached it again, extremely exhausted and holding himself up (injuries clearly distributed throughout his whole body), Lena observed how some pipelines on the ground, as well as some cars, were complempletely destroyed as a result of the impact of the monsters fall. Fuel was littered all over around the montster, making it drenched with it.
Lena perked up as an idea popped in her head. Watching as the monster struggled to stand up, Lena adressed Dylan.
"Tell the boy to keep that thing distracted and in place, and to not get too near it. Stay here, I have an idea." she said, carefully laying on Dylan all of Lex's weight.
"Wha- Wait Lena!" he shouted, but Lena didn't bother to reply or turn around as she ran into the airport again. Sirens could be heard from afar and the space that used to be filled with scared people was now empty, with stone, dust, and bodies covering all the surface. Lena tried to ignore the corpses, and quickly scanned the area, her eyes falling on the souvenir shop she had seen earlier, at last.
Lena hurried towards it and searched through the stack of lighters one that wasn't too hard to light up. She finally settled with one that had a little cartoon of the statue of liberty with the american flag.
Ignoring the blaring alarms of the shop, she ran back outside to see the cyclops being held by thick vines that hadn't been there before, and that seemed to have life of their own. The vines tightened as the monster tried to break free, and new ones grew to replace the few that were being teared apart.
Where Lena had left Dylan and her brother, she noticed, the archer was now holding Lex, while he watched Dylan, who was a few meters ahead of them playing a flute. Lena noticed how concentrated he was, how he focused when one of the monster got out of the hold of one of the vines, how the melody he was playing was hasty and strong, how he started sweating more and more as he kept playing.
Putting two and two together, Lena looked back at the cyclops as it roared angrily. Taking a deep breath and turnung the lighter on, she shouted at the top of her lungs.
"Hey, fugly!" the monster turned towards her at the same time the music stopped. It frowned, confused because of the word Lena had used to describe it. "You should realle watch were you land."
With all the strength she had, Lena threw the lighter. She watched eveything as if it were in slow motion, the little flame twirling in the air, the monster's eye widening as the lighter made contact with the fuel on the ground, Dylan running towards her.
Then everything blew up, and Lena's vision turned black.