Lena Luthor crept down the many stairs of her-pardon, the Luthor's house.
Despite her new brother's best efforts over the years she was still yet to feel comfortable in this house without him by her side. To block the glares thrown at her by Lillian, the servants and whomever was high enough in society to enter the household, he was her comfort while in this home, like the badge pass that allowed people to walk around without anyone raising an eyebrow to wonder Eugh why is she here?
But during her useless attempts to fall asleep tonight, her subconscious had pinged an idea relating to one of her and Lex's projects down in the garage into her mind that she knew she couldn't hold in.
Lena had walked past Lex's room and seen the bed was empty, thinking he must have gone out with some of his school friends for a late night out or somewhere else in the house (with the garden as big as it was he could be doing both right now.)
Finally Lena reached the bottom of the stairs and was now making her way into the garage. It was more like a laboratory after Lillian had given up trying to contain their experiments to their rooms or studies. She didn't even have a drivers licence! Why she needed to control what happened in the garage in the first place baffled Lena at the start, all her drivers and cars were outside for show.
Lena entered the code and quietly opened the door and closed it behind her, flinching slightly at the faint beep it let out to confirm it had been locked again. Once it shut Lena waltz over to her bench and saw her little project where it was surrounded by various blueprints, spanners and circuit boards.
The brunette took a second to marvel at its incomplete beauty.
They were two knee high thick chunky boots with wires running in and out of the boots and two exhaust ports each side, a similar design was copied in a pair of elbow long gloves next to them except for the exhaust ports were at the palm of the hand and the rest of the wires ran up a cyborg like frame of the average person's arm.
Her fingers looped round a screw driver and began to separate the heel from the boot as a few circuit boards dangled out she gently disconnected one and went over to one of the tool boxes that contained other circuit boards from random things she'd taken from the company's trash to dumpster driving (she had a lot of spare time due to the lack of friends and that her family – Lex, wanted nothing to do with her.)
Once she found the right one she reattached it to the circuit and started putting the boots on. She went to take one step but struggled slight due to the weight of the boots – it felt like walking with some very hefty pair of skis on.
Waddling to the back of the garage were another door was that led to the vast garden she quickly grabbed a camera to record the future events that might even make Lillian impressed – she wasn't going to hold her breath for that one though.
When she looked at the sky she realised it was practically pitch black so she didn't think of needing any sun block to protect her skin from the sun – it was another trait that made her the black sheep of the family how they could all become tan after a day out at a beach while Lena could easily be mistaken for lobster of the day.
Anyway, Lena shook the negative thoughts out of her head as she set up the camera, this was a time for science, not her problematic life.
"This will be the first test of the flight boots mark 1, take 2. The circuit boards have been reconfigured in order to prevent short circuiting problem that continued to repeat itself throughout the experiment. Now activating the device," Lena spoke to the camera, she then got her thick insulated glove fingers around her arm and twisted the dial.
It was amazing, Lena's heart was racing.
She could feel the heat start to reach her feet, but more important she could feel herself start to be lifted off the ground, she couldn't stop herself from laughing.
"Starter motor appears fine, now raising the altitude to 10 feet." Lena said between laughing as she twisted the dial. A strong breeze suddenly appeared out of nowhere and it blew Lena backwards slightly that she started waving her arms to try and remain upright but suddenly she felt something click on the arm device.
She didn't recall any buttons on the device when she was planning it on paper- the only possibility was Lex had installed it. Whatever it was.
"Full thrust engaged" a robot voice suddenly spoke from her shoulder.
"What?! No!" But it was too late and before Lena could comprehend she was getting further and further away from the ground and she let out a scream and soon realised she was flying like a mad woman. Her body was frozen but her mind thought of the realization that these boots were not designed yet for high altitude temperature.
Mid scream she suddenly smacked her face into something.
"OW!" she shouted.
What the hell could she have hit in the middle of the night IN THE SKY?!
Was it a bird?
A low plane?
Lena had no time to think of what else it could have been as she realised one of her boots had frozen up and she was now flying all over the place and quite rapidly to the ground.
She shut her eyes. She didn't want to see this. Didn't want to see the ground greet her face with its rock hard surface. All Lillian would see the next morning was what disappointment but relief as she'd send a servant to sweep up what was left of Lena's body and have it recycled to make some coffee holders.
But it never seemed to come. She didn't dare risk opening her eyes and being wrong.
"You can open your eyes now." A young girl's voice spoke to her gently.
Lena's eyes shot open. Ok she must have a guardian angel to make up for this life, it's the only thing that made sense now.
"What?!" Lena looked at the girl but could barely make her out in the dark but she noticed the girl was holding her in a princess like way, "ho- how are you doing this?!" Lena asked astounded as she realised they were both in the air.
"The better question is how did you do it?" The girl joked as she started to descend the both of them slowly back to the safety of physics.
When they landed the house lights managed to land on the girl's face a bit so Lena could see a bit of the girl's face better.
"I- I invented these boots that help me fly," Lena stuttered, still shocked at the fact she nearly died.
"That's amazing!" The other girl replied "but maybe give them some lights so other people can see you at night time."
"Lena!" A voice called out.
"Uh oh," the other girl whispered "sounds like I better get out of here."
"Wait!" Lena grabbed onto the other girl's wrist and suddenly felt something weird. "Thank you so much for saving me… up there." The other girl gave Lena the most dazzling and genuine smile Lena had ever seen, placing her hand on top of Lena's, "any time." The other girl replied.
"Lena!" The voice called out again. Lena turned round "coming!" she shouted and turned back round to see the other girl only to find that she was gone, but Lena's hand remained warm as ever.