Second Chances: Superman and Lois - Rough Draft

Chapter 24

John Henry Irons was currently working on repairs to his exosuit in the repair bay of his ship, since while the suit had survived his last battle with Superman, it had taken a beating and would require maintenance before he could return to the field. Unfortunately, while he was a decent mechanic, he had not been the one to design this suit and even though it had been coded to him, he was honestly still trying to learn to understand all the tech. He was just thankful that his AI was able to walk him through the repairs.

"I remember warning you that the suit was not ready for a direct battle with Superman." the AI said as John continued making repairs.

"I don't want to hear it. But we clearly need to find a new power source for it, since the old one is shot." John said as he examined the suit.

"To be fair, the suit's current power source is not what was intended to power the suit." the AI reminded him.

"I know, it was just a work around, since we could never locate the resource that was actually meant to power it. Speaking of which, any luck locating it on this Earth?" John asked his AI.

"Yes and it turns out that it is right here in Smallville in the mines." the AI said and John grinned.

"Perfect. One perk of Superman not going bad yet is that we can acquire all the materials that the suit was meant to be out of." John said.

"Though do you really think you'll be able to build it exactly as Kara designed it?" the AI asked and John sighed.

"I know I'm not Kara, but that's what I have you for." John Henry said.

"You remember that she never intended for the warsuit to be used like this? In fact, according to my memory banks, she never wanted to build it at all." the AI said.

"I know that. But we needed this suit at the time. And you have her schematics loaded into your AI, so you'll be the one deciphering her plans." John Henry said.

"You could always reach out to the Kara Danvers of this universe." the AI said.

"No. For one thing, that would risk alerting Superman to my identity and for another, from what I can tell, this earth's Kara is very different from my wife. She's a reporter, not a scientist." John Henry said, since his earth's version of Kara, his wife had been a scientist. In fact, before her cousin turned on humanity and declared war on them, she'd run her tech empire, Argo Enterprises. It had been one of the biggest and most successful tech companies on the planet and Kara was the genius behind it all. She'd actually been the one who had designed his suit, originally, she designed it as a prototype battle suit for the military to use. However, it had quickly shifted into being a way for John to protect their daughter Natalie. And even then, what he had now was not the version of the suit Kara had envisioned. It was a salvaged suit built out of little materials the resistance could salvage. But now, he had a chance to build the suit the right way.

"Since we're on a new world, I think you might be interested in learning that your wife programmed me with some ideas for upgrades to the suit's design." the AI said.

"Tell me." John Henry said.

"Well for starters, X-Kryptonite can have more than one use besides powering your suit." the AI said.

"Begin working on locating the rest of the materials needed to not only build the fully operational suit that Kara and I designed, but also everything that will be needed for these upgrades while I go get the X-Kryptonite." John Henry said.

"Of course John. And should I keep scanning for any other signals?" the AI asked and John Henry sighed.

"The day I tell you to stop scanning for any signals is the day I'm dead. Until then, I'm not giving up." John Henry said.

"Of course, I'll let you know if I have any success." the AI said.

"Good." John said before he left the ship to get to work, though he also made a note that he needed to infiltrate Clark's home, since while he was still preparing to kill Superman, if only because it was his wife's dying wish, John was willing to get to know this world's Clark to see if there was any way to prevent him from going bad, though he wasn't hopeful about that. If anything else, it would serve as a better way to get to know his enemy.