Lucien hovers there, a couple feet above the ground, and waits for someone to call him out on his bullshit. After all, even he knows he's not getting away with it. Even if he was 'right' about not ever actually setting foot on Themyscira itself, he knows that he's not actually going to get away with it.
No, more than likely, the Queen will shoot down his 'impressive' rules-lawyering but then be forced to acknowledge his contributions to her people. After all, he DID just bring back every single Amazon that Grail killed in her short but violent rampage.
In fact, they're surrounded by quiet but joyous reunions right now, once-dead women meeting with allies and friends and family in shocked but all too happy moments. It's enough to make the heart clench, it is.
Maybe they'll banish him or something, but Lucien isn't expecting to be punished much beyond that. Not least of which because he knows his power and they likely know it too. Even if every single one of them decided to foolishly attack him in this moment, Lucien suspects he would be just fine.
So… yeah. Get on with it already. Banish him. Or thank him and ask him nicely to leave. Let him go deal with his Grail problem at Black Site Zeta.
… Why is everyone just standing there with their faces increasingly carved of stone? Why are Hippolyta's shoulders slumping in defeat?
Lucien watches, somewhat dumbfounded, as the Queen of the Amazons lets out a deep, rattling sigh.
"General."
The Amazon from earlier steps forward, an incredibly sour look on her otherwise pretty features. She glares at him intensely for a moment before turning to face her Queen, a shadow crossing her face. Hippolyta faces her in turn… and reaches up, removing her crown from her brow.
"My heir, the Crown Princess, remains my daughter Diana."
What the fuck was going on? Lucien glances over at Wonder Woman to see the Princess of the Amazons looking downright stricken even as the Amazon General nods and takes the crown from Queen Hippolyta. Lucien's brow furrows. Was Hippolyta about to…
"Before all of you now, I abdicate my throne. No longer shall I rule Themyscira. No more am I your Queen."
Even the quiet, teary reunions between the recently deceased and their loved ones have stopped at this point. Everyone in the vicinity, which from the look of things might be more than half of the isle's population by now, are staring at them. At him or at Hippolyta, or at the crown in the General's hands… or at Diana.
Lucien's frown worsens as Hippolyta, having discarded her throne out of nowhere, turns back to him, steps forward… and drops to a knee at his floating feet. Head bowed, the former Queen nevertheless speaks clearly and concisely.
"I, Hippolyta of the Amazons, do solemnly swear an Oath of Service to you, Lucien Luthor. In recognition of your acts of bravery and valor, in saving my life and reviving the lives of every Amazon lost to the intruder's rampage, I will guard you with my life for the rest of my days, from this breath… until my last."
What. Lucien just stares at Hippolyta remains where she is, head still bowed. His mouth opens… but for the first time in a long time, he's truly at a loss for words. Meanwhile…
"Princess."
The General steps forward… towards Diana. Lucien finds himself caught in watching the two of them as most eyes turn in their direction as well. Every line of Diana's body screams that she doesn't want this… and yet, she strides forward all the same, head held high, eyes fixed on the crown the General holds aloft.
Once she's in position, Diana removes the tiara from atop her head and holds it under one arm… then, the other Amazon lifts up the Queen's crown and sets it upon Diana's brow. The Princess doesn't kneel, doesn't speak any oaths… nothing. She just stands there as the General turns to address the assembled.
"The Queen…"
The General pauses, eyes flicking to Hippolyta's kneeling form.
"The Queen is no more! Long live the Queen!"
"""Long live the Queen!"""
Alright he probably should have said something earlier, but finally, Lucien finds his voice.
"Wait. Hold on a second. I don't need a servant or a slave. I don't want a servant or a slave. Lift your damn head, get up already. This is ridiculous!"
Hippolyta finally rises to her feet and even lifts her head, though she doesn't speak. Instead… its Diana who speaks, her voice as serious and grave as it is stricken.
"Is it so ridiculous, Lucien? You have done Themyscira a great service today, and in response, Themyscira accused you of a crime you didn't commit. The debt must be paid somehow… and my mother has made her choice."
From how pained Diana sounds, she's not happy about this. And from the looks on everyone's faces, no one else is either. But then to be fair, Lucien is just as unhappy. Growling, he whirls and glares at Hippolyta.
"I refuse! I do not accept your oath of service! I have no need for an unwilling servant!"
Hippolyta stiffens in response, even as gasps of outrage ring out around them. But Lucien only has eyes for the former Queen.
"You would question my honor? I am not unwilling, Lucien Luthor. Rather, it is the opposite. I cannot stay here on Themyscira any longer than you do. I must leave and begin my service. If not by your side, then command me to go elsewhere, to do something that will advance your cause, whatever that might be."
… Seriously? They were seriously going to let him pedant them all into forcing their Queen's abdication like that?! Just because he never actually touched the fucking ground?! With a snarl, Lucien comes down hard, rocketing into the street hard enough to crack the stone beneath his feet as he finally hits Themyscirian ground.
All around him, Amazons stiffen.
"Fucking there! I've committed the crime I was accused of! Debt settled! You owe me nothing anymore!"
They all look at him incredulously and Diana just sighs.
"… It really doesn't work like that, Lucien. It is already done. My mother is yours to command… and no woman in service to a man may remain on Themyscira. Please…"
Diana trails off, but Lucien hears the unspoken words all the same. He sees them in her pleading eyes. They echo through his mind, even if Diana never finishes the sentence.
'Keep her safe'.
Clear as day, really. And Lucien… Lucien just sighs right back, hands clenching and unclenching at his sides, jaw working back and forth as he looks for a way out of all of this. He could commit MORE crimes against Themyscira perhaps, turning Hippolyta's honor back onto him instead.
… But anything that would do that would just be harming innocent people. And he didn't resurrect dozens of Amazons a couple minutes ago just so he could turn around and kill them all himself. He wasn't a monster.
Nostrils flaring, Lucien finally sets his jaw.
"Fine. We're going. Stay close until I figure out what the hell to do with you."
Funny, no one is raising a fuss about him stepping foot on Themyscira now. Lucien's eyes sweep across the assembled Amazons and he sees a mixture of emotions on their beautiful, sculpted faces. Some hate him and nothing else. Some are filled with righteous anger and if they could get away with attacking him, he suspects they would.
… But others are more conflicted. Many are caught between gratitude at his actions and anguish at losing their Queen to a man. And some are studying him like a piece of meat, no doubt imagining him naked in their beds. Yeah… he's done here.
"We will be leaving to interrogate the woman who attacked Themyscira. The Justice League should already be there. Who else is coming with us?"
He directs that last part not to the assembled crowd of Amazons, but to the women who actually leave this damn island from time to time… or otherwise don't live here in the first place. Claire and Tea move immediately to his sides in a show of greatly appreciated silent support.
Supergirl hesitates for only a moment longer before joining them. After all, she's not his submissive secretary Kara right now, she's Supergirl, representative of the Justice League. So Lucien doesn't really hold it against her.
Meanwhile, Diana frowns, the crown upon her brow already seeming to weigh heavily.
"… I must remain here and see to the damages. Cassie, Donna… please go with him. And let the Justice League know about this… change for me, if you will."
Wonder Woman's proteges both nod and move to join him as well. And with that, Lucien finds himself surrounded by a lot more women then he would have wanted, even as they all lift off the ground.
Of course, not everyone can survive in space unimpeded. And not everyone is as fast as him either. Lucien could have flown to Black Site Zeta in minutes, but luckily for his tagalongs, there's another way out to the space station.
The flight to the necessary LexCorp Facility is an awkward couple of minutes to be sure, with Lucien trying very hard to ignore the fact that he'd accidentally made a servant of the Queen of Themyscira. All he'd wanted to do was stop Grail's rampage and reverse the damage that Darkseid's Daughter had caused.
This… Hippolyta was not part of his plans. He'd only saved her life for Diana's sake if anything. Although, if he was being honest with himself, it wasn't like Lucien HAD a plan here. Maybe if he'd gone further back in time he could have handled things differently, but the truth was he'd been flying by the proverbial seat of his pants here. It was a wonder that everything had worked out as well as it had so far.
Arriving at the facility, his credentials are more than enough to get them inside, at which point he leads the gaggle of women to the teleporters. Which of course brings with it some questions.
"LexCorp has teleportation technology?"
Looking to the current Wonder Girl since she's the one who'd asked that, Lucien smiles thinly, well aware that the Watchtower has its own teleporters the Justice League uses to get all over Earth as fast as possible. After all, not everyone can be a Kryptonian or a Speedster.
"We have better teleportation technology, actually."
And that's not even an empty boast either. The Watchtower Teleporters don't have the same range that LexCorp Teleporters have… as Lucien proves a moment later when they're all beamed from Earth out to Black Site Zeta, floating in orbit over Charon, one of Pluto's Moons.
"Mister Luthor!"
"As you were."
The technicians nod and get back to work, even as Lucien leads three Amazons, two Kryptonians, and an Amazon-Kryptonian Hybrid out of the Teleporter Room and down the hall. He can already tell that Blackfire and some members of the Justice League have arrived and secured Grail by this point. Others, the members who have less speedy forms of space travel, are either still on their way or have gone back to Earth to keep watch over the planet.
As they walk, Donna's curiosity gets the better of her.
"Why set up shop above Charon of all places?"
Lucien snorts in amusement. He's tempted to tell the truth… that being that this is far from the only LexCorp Facility in the Solar System. There's a reason this one is called Zeta after all, and not just because it's on the outer edge… though that's part of it.
Still, even though he fully expects the Justice League to start scouring the rest of the Solar System after this, Lucien doesn't see any reason to make it easy on them. So instead he tells Donna and everyone else listening in another truth entirely.
"Funny story, that. It was before I became CEO and I'm sure you know my father's fearsome reputation. If there's one thing Lex Luthor hates, it's a lack of results. And so, one of the Senior Researchers, afraid that my father would eventually turn his judgmental eye in his direction, decided to do something very, very stupid."
Lucien chuckles just thinking of the whole sordid tale.
"I should clarify; my father wasn't even breathing down this man's neck. Which made it all the more ridiculous when he decided to falsify sensor data and readings and fraudulently claimed that there was some sort of alien technology beneath Charon's icy surface. In fact, he went so far with it that he claimed the alien technology was almost as big as Charon itself, almost like the moon had been built up around it to hide it or something."
Donna lets out a noise of disbelief while Cassie snorts in amusement. Lucien just shakes his head and sighs.
"I really don't know what he was thinking. The lie worked for a time… long enough to build this facility over Charon. But you all no doubt know the old adage. Two can keep a secret if one of them is dead. Well, the man in question suddenly needed a lot more than two people to keep his secret once we got an entire space station set up out here. In the end, someone blew the whistle and revealed their own sensor data showed absolutely nothing technological beneath Charon's surface."
Shrugging as they approach where everyone else is, Lucien gives the others a smirk.
"A full audit revealed the lie, but Black Site Zeta was already constructed and so my father left it intact until I took over. At which point I turned it towards the task of acting as an early warning system for alien invasions. Or rather, alien invasions that don't rely on portals, I suppose."
They turn the corner and arrive before anyone can ask any questions. Blackfire and a few members of the Justice League turn as they approach, with Superman's eyes immediately zeroing in on Hippolyta and his lips turning downwards into a frown.
"Where's Wonder Woman?"
"She tasked her proteges with explaining that to you lot, so I'll let them do so."
Lucien steps past Superman as Cassie and Donna approach with grimaces. His eyes are on Grail, who at this point is secured in a cell and shackled with the strongest, most advanced restraints they have on hand. A blindfold capable of blocking Kryptonian Heat Vision blocks her eyes, though Lucien can't say for certain it will block Omega Beams.
She's still unconscious of course, given he hasn't woken her up yet. But… can't exactly ask her questions like this, now can he? Lucien moves towards the cell door, only to stop when he realizes he has an unwanted tagalong. Turning sharply, he frowns at Hippolyta.
"What do you think you're doing?"
Hippolyta's jaw clenches.
"… I must stay by your side to protect you from all possible threats."
Lucien raises an eyebrow. On the one hand, there's nothing Hippolyta can protect him from that he can't protect himself from. On the other hand, that's obviously a thin excuse she's using because she's personally invested in figuring out what's happening.
Hm… he's tempted to order her to stay outside. But admittedly, he still feels a little guilty for this whole situation so maybe he should let her come in with him after all. Might keep the Justice League off his back a little bit too…