Kal El stood alone in the Kowachi caves, his neck craned as he took in the story scribbled on the walls. What was written had mostly come to pass, there were a few parts that had yet to happen and the exact meaning of these drawings was as ambiguous to him as it was to the countless scholars who had studied them before. Although he understood the Kryptonian words spread over the walls, the accompanying paintings had been rendered by Oracle-Earthlings - who were at times irritatingly prone to artistic license - and as such the two did not mesh as clearly as he would have liked. His brow creased as his gaze settled yet again on one painting in particular; on the opposite wall to the painting of him and his sworn enemy there was one that seemed to represent some sort of pairing. The Kryptonian glyph next to it was the word for 'Destined', but what sort of destiny it could allude to he did not know; it did however make him very uncomfortable - it most likely meant that it involved an Earthling, something he was not at all happy with. He sat down on a smooth stone to more comfortably examine the painting and thought back to what his father had let slip while he was being cleansed: Jor El had been to Earth before Kal El was born and, while here, had become deeply involved with a human woman. He surged to his feet and began to pace, one hand going to his jaw in agitation as he contemplated the situation he was in. Lois Lane had been at the Kent farmhouse earlier in the afternoon to inform Martha Kent and himself of Chloe Sullivan's disappearance, and while he had been concerned at the loss of his only known guide to finding the sign, he had been completely and utterly distracted by the Lane woman. He couldn't take his eyes off her as she waved her hands animatedly and spoke almost faster than he could follow, and he realised with a cold bolt of horror that he was displaying the same signs of infatuation that his father had when he had been exiled here. Kal El stopped pacing and sank back down onto the rock as another disturbingly contradictive thought weaved a vein of doubt through his mind: why would his father send him here to overthrow the people of this backward planet if he had seen enough good qualities in them to fall in love with one? He scrubbed his hands through his hair and stopped just as quickly as he realised he was falling back onto his old human habits. Sensing a presence behind him, he turned and frowned as his heart did that annoying flip-flop it had taken to doing whenever she was around him.
"Hey. Whatcha doin'? Chloe isn't going to mysteriously appear down here; let's go." She jerked a thumb in the direction of the entrance.
"What do you think this means?" He indicated the painting he had been studying so intensely, slightly curious at his own behaviour. What concern was it of his that this little Earth woman could interpret anything from this legend?
"I don't know and I don't care. My cousin is missing and all you can do is sit in a musty cave staring at some ancient scribbles drawn by men in loin cloths? Come on let's go." She shifted her weight from foot to foot, clearly eager to begin the search.
"Please. I would like your opinion. Then I will find Chloe Sullivan." The need to know what she made of the painting was making him nervous; what if she saw what he thought he had already interpreted?
Lois cocked an eyebrow at his hero complex and stepped forward to accept his strange request. Spreading her feet and folding her arms across her chest, she looked up at the painting and tilted her head to one side, "I dunno, I kinda studied runes and stuff one summer... um... destiny? Looks like some kind of epic destiny to me, at least as epic as you can get with wet chalk and a tiny brush. I," she turned to him to find him staring at her, "...uh, Kal El?"
Kal El's blood thundered in his ears as she - with absolutely no knowledge of the context of any of these images - confirmed what he had already made out from the archaic paintings. His destiny lay here, on Earth, inextricably paired with someone who resided here. Was it her? Or maybe the Sullivan woman? Maybe it was someone he was yet to meet? He turned and strode from the cave, his stony visage masking the whirlwind of thoughts and emotions swirling through him as he swept past Lois Lane, not bothering to check she had left with him. He had to find Chloe Sullivan, she would be able to help him unravel this rapidly souring riddle; he was sent to conquer wasn't he? Now it turned out that he may have been sent here for another purpose altogether. His frustration fuelled his pace, he had to find her!
"Okay, so we're leaving..." Lois struggled to keep up with his long, determined stride as he all but raced from the cave. Chloe had mentioned that he spent an awful lot of time down here before he went missing although she had no idea why. The look of shock and horror on his face as Lois had given him her interpretation of the painting had made her blink in surprise; what was so damn important about those drawings?
Kal El returned to his old loft after a mostly fruitless day of searching. It turned out that having super powers didn't make trying to find a missing person any easier. He was fast - when Lois was not around to see, for some reason he thought it best for her not to see him use his abilities - but Chloe Sullivan was so well hidden that even he couldn't find her. He sank down onto the worn, old sofa and picked up a photograph of Clark Kent with his adoptive parents and the girl he now knew to be Lana Lang. Looking at the photo of the girl, he felt nothing; no twinge of recognition, no glimmer of emotion, nothing. Switching to the photo of the Kents, he felt a faint, almost phantom warmth spread through his chest; clearly he had cared deeply about these people. Putting down the frames, he stared out of the open window at the setting sun and dwelled on this Lois Lane he had spent the majority of the day with. Just the thought of her filled him with a turmoil of emotion; she stirred more elemental reaction from him than anyone he could ever recall meeting. Her persistence played on his nerves, her feisty go-get-them attitude amused him, when she smiled at him - a real smile, not one loaded with sarcasm as seemed to be her trademark - his heart felt like it had stopped, her knack for getting herself into trouble exasperated him and her eagerness to fight with him made him insanely angry. And yet, all this considered, he was drawn to her, more than he had ever dreamed possible to be drawn to anyone. Had Krypton survived, he would have been betrothed from a very young age to a female he had never met from a powerful family, such was the way of the ruling houses on his planet. But here he was free to be attracted to whomever he wished and he knew he was falling into the same trap his father had.
He fingered the small, metal pendant that he had found in the cave after returning there much later in the day. The journal pendant was shaped in the crest of the house of El, and as he clenched it loosely in his fist he felt his father's memories flow through him. A moment later he opened his eyes with a frown, even more confused than ever; Jor El had indeed fallen in love with an Earth woman and then returned to Krypton. He had precious few memories of his father, but he knew that he was no tyrant; he was a good man, a seeker of knowledge and enlightenment for his people. Kal El asked himself again, why would such a man send his only son to the place he held such fond memories of only to destroy it? It made no sense. His mind drifted back to Lois again and his heart fluttered; scowling, he ruthlessly thrust the feelings aside, he had to clear up the confusion that was plaguing him.
Lois scrubbed at her shower-wet hair, she could really have used a nice, hot, bubbly bath after the hellish day she'd had with Kal El, but she refused to allow herself such luxuries until she knew that Chloe was safe. This Kal El character was a strange one; from what Chloe had told her Clark Kent was a sweet, brainless farm boy with country ideals and an unhealthy penchant for plaid. But this man was so completely different from the one that Chloe had described that she had to wonder if he was in fact the same person. Kal El was driven, of that there was no doubt, but he had such a darkness about him that Lois couldn't help but wonder what had happened to him to make him that way. The weird thing was that she seemed to be able to really draw him out of the dark shroud he had slung around himself without even trying. She would come up with a possible lead on where Chloe could be and instead of glaring at her for her stupidity like she expected, he would look at her and really listen, take in what she had said and follow her as she lead the way. At one point she'd gotten them into a spot of bother with an alley gang in Metropolis, but he'd been there, protecting her although he had said himself after that he couldn't fathom why he'd felt the need to keep her safe. After that he had looked at her oddly for the rest of the day, like he knew something awful about her. She shuddered, she really couldn't figure him out; he was an enigma and she wasn't sure whether she wanted to rip through the mystery that surrounded him to get to the person beneath or just run from him until she could run no further.
Kal El bolted upright in bed covered in a cold sweat; his breath came in short, rapid pants, and his heart beat a tattoo against his chest as he struggled to release his bare legs from the sheets that had tangled around them. A moments fidgeting and he was free of the clinging, sweat-drenched fabric; he staggered out of bed and to the bathroom where he steadied himself against the sink and stared at his refection in the mirror. His skin was flushed, his eyes dilated and his hair hung loosely around his forehead as he struggled to fight the burning feeling that had pooled deep in his belly and groin. The dream had been intense and most disturbing in its heat of passion.
He and Lois...
He squeezed his eyes shut, banishing the images and phantom sensations from his mind and body; he would NOT make the same mistake as his father!
The following morning, Lois - after half an hours increasingly frustrated amnesiac-hunting - found Kal El back in the same place they had started the previous day.
"Why are you back here?" Angry at his apparent lack of urgency in finding Chloe, she missed the stiffening of his spine at the sound of her voice, "Is this how we're going to begin the search each day, by staring at some dusty old rocks?" She looked up at the painting they had stood contemplating the day before and muttered, "Stupid dream, like that could ever happen." Realising that he wouldn't be leaving the cave any time soon, she turned sharply on her heel and left; she'd probably do better on her own anyway.
Once his heart rate had returned to somewhere approaching normal, Kal El removed the octagonal disc of Kryptonian metal from his pocket and turned it over in his fingers. Holding it out in his open palm, he watched as it hovered for a second before slamming into the middle of an octagonal series of glyphs on the wall. The glyphs lit and he reached out to touch the three that would give him access to the room he had deduced was beyond the seemingly solid rock face. As the rocks parted for him, he held out his hand and the disc freed itself from the wall in order to return to him. Approaching the small dias in the middle of the small room, he read the Kryptonian engraved upon it and slipped the disc into a slot on the top. The cave disappeared in a blur around him and as he felt the familiar tingle of his fathers method of transporting him; a smile crossed his face, he would finally get the answers he had been searching for!
When he rematerialised inside an icy, crystal edifice, he approached the bank of crystals he knew would be waiting for him, but before he could touch any of them a feminine voice spoke,
"So there you are, my son. I had wondered when you would arrive."