There's simply no time. Lucien should have come back earlier than this, perhaps an entire day so he could warn everyone properly of what was coming. And if not a day, then at least a few hours, long before Claire came to tell him she had a surprise for him. Long before he'd ever fucked Wonder Woman.
He hadn't even thought to go back earlier than this though. Was it because he was selfish? Or did he simply not want to ruin Claire's surprise by reversing things and redoing events in a way that it would likely never happen?
… Lucien could figure all that out later. Right now, it was just as he'd already thought. There was no time. No time to self-flagellate, and no time to convince Diana of anything either. Not when the distress call she'd received meant that Grail was likely already on Themyscira.
And so… all of his ideas for how to convince Diana to let him and Claire come with her… die on his lips. Instead, he sees only one option before him that will allow Lucien to minimize the death tolls.
"We'll meet you there. Claire, hang on tight."
He scoops Claire up faster than even Diana can react. To her credit, the hybrid clone doesn't even have to process his words before she's instinctively wrapping her limbs around him, holding him closely. And Diana doesn't even get the chance to open her mouth before Lucien… is moving.
Let it be said that Lucien doesn't actually know if he's the strongest being on Earth or anything like that. Maybe he is at this point, but it's not like he's gone out of his way to really test it.
Still, when he'd accepted Alexander's offer to become CEO of LexCorp while his father's clone went on to become President of the United States, it was like putting in a cheat code for his powers. To continue the gaming metaphor, he'd essentially 'unlocked' every possibility that one could imagine when he'd taken over the company. Because LexCorp had every sample of DNA you could imagine, both legally and illegally obtained from years and years of experiments and the like.
In the end, it didn't matter that Lucien had taken the high road back with the Justice League by not accepting Superman's handshake during Brainiac's invasion. He got access to Kryptonian DNA through LexCorp. And he got access to everyone else's DNA as well.
A lot of the past year and change for Lucien had been in figuring out how to make it all work. Taking the best from the physiologies he'd assimilated and discarding the worst. For instance, he didn't have a crippling weakness to Kryptonite, nor did Red Sunlight depower him. But he still had the strength of a Kryptonian, along with most of their abilities.
Along with the best bits of the rest of the Justice League as well. Like for instance… the Flash. Lucien still wasn't as fast as an actual bonafide speedster, to be clear. At least, not the ones connected to the Speed Force. Because he himself wasn't connected to the Speed Force in the same way they were.
However, they still had some really unique biology that he'd been able to incorporate into his own through the samples of their blood taken by clandestine LexCorp workers. And with that biology, Lucien could mimic a speedster for a bit through a technique he likened to Lightning Hopping.
Without the Speed Force, he had to rely on another way to charge his cells and while Yellow Sunlight was great for keeping him topped up on the Kryptonian side of things… there was nothing better than being hit by a couple of lightning strikes for getting him moving faster on the speedster side of things.
But first… in the initial seconds after he and Claire leave Diana in the dust, Lucien makes one single stop. Appearing in front of Blackfire, he gives his right hand woman a nod.
"Blackfire. Code Black on Themyscira. Get Tea and Kara and have Kara get you in touch with the Justice League. We'll likely need all hands on deck."
Blackfire's eyes widen and she nods before she too is gone with a flash. After all, much of what Lucien can do… Blackfire can do as well at this point. If he's an example of one hundred percent of his capabilities, then she's an example of ninety percent. Not quite as good, but more than good enough.
From there, Lucien doesn't stop moving again until they reach Themyscira. In the next second, he makes for the closest Lightning Strike… and dives into it so it hits his back. Claire, luckily, barely feels a thing even clinging to his body as she is.
The next half a second, Lucien runs into the second lightning strike, taking that one as well. The next quarter of a second, he hits the third. And then the fourth. Fifth. Sixth.
They arrive in Themyscira before the next full second can even properly begin. Lucien lets Claire down off of him then so she can fly of her own accord. At the same time, sped up perception allows him to take in everything from a floating position over the island's main city.
He finds the path of death and destruction easily enough. Putting together what's happened so far is simple enough for him at this point. From the look of things, Grail had landed or teleported in on the edge of the city. She was then approached by Amazons… who immediately lost their lives for daring to question her.
From there, Darkseid's Daughter looks to have taken a leisurely stroll down the main street of the city, her ultimate goal obvious… the palace. And she reached it too, with more armored and heavily armed Amazons strewn all over the place right outside of the palace steps.
Some of them aren't even dead, a combination of Grail's contempt and their armor letting them survive her blows in a way others of their kind did not. But all of them are down for the count… and the palace doors have been blasted open.
Lucien recognizes and catalogues all of this in another quarter of a second upon arriving in the skies of Themyscira. Then, he moves forward, leaving Claire behind in the air, the hybrid clone still recovering from their trip across the planet. There's no time to wait for her.
Indeed, Lucien arrives just in time to avert tragedy. There in the throne room, with dozens of weapons pointed at her, Grail stands with a smirk on her face and a familiar red glow just beginning to build in her eyes. At the other end of the throne room, Hippolyta, Queen of Themyscira and Diana's mother, is just starting to rise from her throne, an angry snarl on her face, words of censure and wrath aiming to spill from her lips.
However, Lucien would know what's about to happen even if he didn't see the future. Grail is too confident, too cocky, too carefree. None of them are a threat to her. Hippolyta is about to die.
He doesn't let that happen. Instead, before Grail can fully commit to firing those deadly eye beams of hers, Lucien grabs the Daughter of Darkseid by the back of her head, cupping her skull in his palm, and proceeds to SLAM her forward into the throne room floor, carving a path through the marble flooring with her body all the way to the foot of line of Amazon Guards standing before their Queen.
"-filthy mongrel invading our-what?!"
Rather than being cut off by her impending death, Hippolyta's ranting is cut off by a shout of disbelief that is shared by many of her warriors as they begin to slowly (at least by Lucien's perception) realize what has happened and that there's a man among them.
Lucien barely pays them any mind though, because he's not nearly foolish enough to think that Grail is already down for the count. Luckily for him, the alien woman has a singularly impressive head of hair. Gripping down rather roughly on her thick, voluminous locks, Lucien squeezes with all his might and then rips her out of the floor and slams her up through the ceiling.
He follows her of course, flying them both up out of the palace and into the sky… and then further beyond for good measure. Having seen just how deadly those eye beams of hers truly are, Lucien doesn't stop until he's got her on the damn Moon, flying her into the surface with just enough force to create a small crater but not enough to blast her in one side and out the other.
Of course, around that point is when she finally recovers enough to start fighting back. Her struggling, as he'd feared, instantly tests the upper bounds of his own strength in a way Lucien has never got the chance to before. And then it starts going beyond what he's currently using to maintain leverage on her.
Before she can fully turn the tables and drag him into a potentially lethal grapple, Lucien kicks off of her, both feet right into the small of her lower back and shunts himself backwards through the air to create some space between them.
He floats between Grail and Earth though, ready and willing to go all out some more if need be to keep the bitch from harming anyone else.
For the moment though at least, she doesn't immediately go on the attack. Instead, she slowly pulls herself out of the crater, flipping her hair back and looking back at him with a narrowed gaze before turning properly to face him. Floating up into the air as well, the Daughter of Darkseid tilts her head to the side, her red eyes slowly sliding up and down his form.
Admittedly, Lucien doesn't look like much. In fact, the clothes he'd had time to put on before going to Themyscira to deliver a beatdown are already barely hanging on for dear life at this point. His pants are doing better than his shirt, which Lucien just grabs and rips off of himself, letting the tattered garment float off into space unimpeded as he glares her down.
"You… who are you?"
She sounds a strange mixture of angry, curious, and excited all at once. And, if Lucien isn't mistaken… she also sounds just a tad aroused? Frowning, Lucien's hands curl into fists at his sides.
"Lucien Luthor. And you, Daughter of Darkseid, are not welcome on Earth."
Grail's eyes light up. Not in the 'impending death beams' manner, but in an excited fashion.
"Oh! You recognize me! How interesting. And… I think I recognize you as well, actually. Or at least your name. Luthor… like the one Brainiac stole, no?"
Brainiac. Was that why she was here? Lucien had been wondering, in fact, it had been rattling around in the back of his head since he first laid eyes on her through the projection. Grail, Daughter of Darkseid… was not someone Lucien had ever even heard of before. And considering he was technically from six years in the future, that was pretty weird. Especially because as far as he'd been aware, Wonder Woman and the Amazons were all still alive before his first death had resulted in him coming back in time.
Now… Lucien admittedly wasn't your average time traveler. Not just because he could apparently loop for nearly an infinite amount of times before dying permanently, but also because his sickly nature in his first life meant that he hadn't actually gotten out much. Like… at all. So his foreknowledge was pretty shitty.
For instance, he'd known Darkseid was an alien who had bad plans for Earth in his first life. It wasn't until this life that he learned Darkseid was a whole lot worse than just another alien conqueror though.
Still, he feels like he would have at least heard mention of Darkseid's Daughter and the massacre of the Amazons… and he hadn't. So yeah, he'd been wondering what changed and brought Grail to Earth. And the answer, from the sound of things… might just be in no small part due to Lucien himself.
"… Brainiac stole a clone of my father, yes."
He's not about to spout the truth even all the way up here on the Moon. Especially not to someone like Grail. Of course, she just grins wickedly, her red eyes glowing with an almost knowing glint to them.
"Mm. Sure. So… Lucien Luthor… just how powerful are you, exactly?"
He narrows his eyes and clenches his jaw.
"You don't want to find out, Grail. You don't want to test me."
Unfortunately, that's the wrong thing to say. And he should have known it was the wrong thing to say.
"Oh but I DO! That's why I'm here, after all! To test you pathetic creatures and see if you're worthy. Mm, those so-called 'warriors' down there were absolute trash. I thought my mother's people would be stronger than that, but I could tell I was about to kill their Queen without a single bit of meaningful fuss until you stepped in."
… Yes. Yes she was.
"You though… you're exciting, aren't you? Quite strong. Quite fast. Let's find out just how powerful you really are, Lucien Luthor!"
With that Grail launches herself at him. Lucien was ready for it though. He meets her charge head on; determination etched in every fiber of his being. He didn't want to do too much damage to the Moon, of course… but better here than anywhere back on Earth, right?