Stronger Together

Jeremiah's first fully open and friendly conversation at Arias with anyone except J'onn.

And boy does he learn a lot!

Jeremiah walks into Sarrin's room. She is clearly somewhere else in her mind. Not frantic, but completely and totally in another room and another time. She sits on the floor and looks at him.

“I'm sorry, I didn't mean to intrude.”

“Jeremiah you never have to apologize to me for something like that. I like being able to share. It's in my nature to have very thin boundaries.”

“In that case, it didn't seem like you were caught up in a memory.”

“That's one gift of my people. What we see in our minds eye, if we work at it, is as real to us as the physical world.”

“Are you like Xavallens then?”

“You know about Xavallens?” Jeremiah simply nods. “You've met one before?”

“Is it really that rare? Are they really that rare?”

“It's rare to meet one anymore. Let alone someone on a planet tucked in its own little corner of space could have met -if I'm hearing the missing notes correctly got to know- one. Their home-world was destroyed almost 300 years ago. Most of them are nomadic. But some have established themselves as minorities on a few other planets. And three thousand years ago Atraxi, Enkarens and Xavallens were one species on one planet, one continent even. The Enkarens left for the distant shores and spent so much time just among themselves...that's why they look so much like themselves they didn't have anyone else to procreate with. We went to Thelia and Atridia, neighboring continents and were still very much part of each-others lives. That's why my people and Xavallens look so much like each-other. By the time any of us reached for the stars, Enkarens didn't look like us anymore. They looked like...well they literally were a concentrated version of what all of us had been. I'm not sure how literally to take the story but it is TRUE. No one knows exactly when we reached for the stars, or even if we left together. The races my people found must have been a lot like our own because our genes haven't faded.” She brushed the turquoise fish scales at her temples. “It's the one external difference between my people and Xavallens. We figure genetically it's a sign of genes hat have gone dormant in Xavallens. And the greater of our powers along with it.”

“Okay, not sure what you mean there, Nikita had powers.”

“Nikita, male or female?”

“Female.”

“Well Xavallens are still low-level empaths, but it really is diluted compared to us. I'm not being mean I'm letting you know that my people are intense, immediate empaths. Anything person in the room affects us, and we feel everything as if it was a part of us. I feel crap as if it were my own.” She rubbed her right wrist with her left hand. “Xavallens sense things, we experience them. That's why I spend so much time alone. I don't mind experiencing what you and J'onn give me. And J'onn's mental abilities allow him to put up certain barriers so I don't sense everything about him all at once. But some people are... even when it's not bad stuff or unpleasant it's overwhelming.” She lay on her stomach as if settling down with a good book.

“I take it those same abilities are enhanced or amplified in the Enkaren genome now?”

“How do you mean?”

“You said Enkarens were the extreme of themselves—yourselves. And if all of you had the genetics for these abilities...”

“Yes, you are right. Outside of my people and Xavallens, Enkarens aren't recognized as having anything to do with us. They have this ability that is known as traumatic hypnosis.. An Enkaren can absolutely make you believe that whatever surroundings they feed into your minds eye is absolutely real. A more intense version of what I was doing when you walked in here.”

“Would a half-breed still maintain these abilities?”

Clearly thrown off. “A half-breed Enkaren? Well yeah if the other half is a compatible species.”

“What about half-human?”

“No one would try that. No one bothers with Earth.”

“Are we truly such a in-the-middle-of-nowhere planet in the cosmos?”

“Well, no so much. It's more your rationality... which is not the right word. How you think of yourselves as being alone in the cosmos and how much we would have to prove that we are at least your equals. Some of us, like my people or Euphorians, can mostly blend in here. But J'onn in his native form. Well let's just say if he couldn't look more human than he does, he'd never leave his house in the morning."

“Are we really so backwards, so tucked into our own little corner of the universe, that everyone else avoids us?”

“You mean why would at least a few members of a nomadic race not settle on Earth?”

“Yes, exactly.”

“I imagine they would but again they look like you. I mean they look as much like you as Kryptonians don't they? And she certainly would not have had any externally discernible powers that would draw your attention. How did you know what race Nikita even was?”

“You compare them to Kryptonians specifically.” Jeremiah said in a strange voice.

“I was born on their planet.”

Jeremiah's face went completely slack. Sarrin's expression became withdrawn.

“I take it you have some bad memories of that place?” Jeremiah said finally.

“You take it In-correctly.” Sarrin replied. “I was still a child when I left. And most of my memories of that place are actually pretty decent. It is a noble memory, not a sad one that gives my face this look.” She picked up the clipboard from under the coffee table and began drawing.

I was 8 years old when my mom and I fled the planet. But here.” She handed Jeremiah the clipboard. On it was a single symbol, drawn in purple. “I've never been much of an Artist but someone wearing this symbol broke the law saving my mother and I.”

             (Larger Superman symbol with elongated S)

Jeremiah picked up a darker pen and began drawing a second symbol on the clipboard.

“Are you sure it wasn't something like this?

                    (Proportionate Superman symbol with properly placed 'S')

“What in the name of whatever God you believe in.”

“I have an adopted son. When he was 12 years old he found a small trunk filled with things from his past. Including a one-piece suit with this symbol on it, like a breastplate. Can you tell me what it means?”

"It's his family crest.” Notes the confusion on Jeremiah's face. “Kryptonian family units are Houses...the lesser houses would wear thier symbols on the cuff of thier shirts, near the wrist. The 'nobler' houses would wear them on their chest." Sarrin looked away, clearly saddened by the memory. "Trying to leave the planet had been declared 'inciting panic based on groundless suspicions'...until the day the skies tuned red and the ground beneath us began to shake. My people were...unimportant. Pushed to the side during the evacuation. Someone wearing that symbol helped my mother and I on one of the transports. But he stayed behind. I didn't recognize the crest. I never learned his name."

“My son's Kryptonian name is Kal-El. It was in the message.”

“A son of the house of El. That's comforting...somehow.”