Empire State University

It had almost been as though she had found her place. She now realised she had been wrong. Slinging the bag across her shoulder as she rummaged through her drawers, she was no longer welcome at the university and she had no wish to fight it anymore. Clarice Ferguson had up heaved her life before and she would do so again and rebuild a life for herself. As she looked around the room, she remembered the New Warriors and the times she had had with them. It had been good while it had lasted, but Clarice had learned when it was time to move on with her life.

“Dying” twice really taught a girl how to live.

Clarice Ferguson, the mutant known as Blink in the eyes of the media, looked around her for the finale time. There was something astounding about her in appearance, something beyond beauty because while she did not lack good lucks she was not stunningly beautiful as some of the girls she had worked alongside her in her career, albeit a short one. Her hair was cut short, reaching her shoulders and it was a bright shade of fuchsia and her skin was a pale pink. There was no doubt she was incredibly unique in her appearance. Yet, it was her personality that made up for her lack of beauty.

Tapping her foot indecisively, she reached for her phone and started to type a text before she stopped herself. She didn’t want that. She didn’t want to say goodbye like that, but she found herself in the dilemma of not being able to say it to the faces of her friends.

Her jeans were tight and her face taut as she considered the options, they would feel as if she deserted them and it wasn’t like she never wanted to return to them. The New Warriors had saved her after Generation X and the Massachusetts Academy had fallen apart, it seemed as if they were a part of her but it also felt like the rebound in a relationship and she needed to experience new things before she could allow herself to settle down again. That’s Clarice reasoned, truthfully she had never had an all or nothing type of relationship and she was uncertain.

Clarice had never been certain.

Raised in a single parent household, she had never seen love—at least not as the American soap operas represent it. She had watched her mother do what it took to raise her and that was all she could hope for. It had been strange at first when she noted her attraction to women but it had never scared Clarice, she had merely been intimidated by the prospect. Men were as they appeared; women tended to hide behind a veneer of who they wanted to be rather than what they were.

It was something she knew well, and she considered this as she removed her image inducer, dropping it in the litter basket beside the bed that had once been hers. Her eyes shadowed as she remembered the first time she had acted on her attraction to a woman. Jubilation Lee had been the subject of such affection. Of course, Jubilee had been less willing to indulge Clarice’s fantasies than she would have liked, but she had been gentle and compassionate and proven to be a great friend to her.

Janice had been a flirtation and a distraction from her real life.

Inexperience was what really plagued Clarice both in love and in the battlefield. She worked towards being something better, and she composed a letter as she considered how many ways to say goodbye and as she pinned the letter onto the door both Clarice and her luggage disappeared in a pink glare of light.

Blink in…

WHEN I LOOK AT YOU

By Gavin McMahon

The Lee Estate
Beverly Hills, California

Sliding her door openly slowly as she entered the room, she came to a stop, her face stretched into a surprised grin. “Oh hey.”

Clarice looked up from where she sat on the edge of Jubilee’s bed, the light fell upon her strangely and her face was hidden in the shadows of the room. Jubilee was just as she remembered her with her spunky retro style, an obvious throwback to the 90s, and her open and liberal mindset. Jubilee was definitely the closest of friends she had made since discovering her powers of teleportation and spatial warping, perhaps even before then because she remembered little about her teenage years. She had been sixteen when her powers had manifested and she had accomplished so little in her life.

Generation X had helped her grow, but only Jubilee and Paige Guthrie could be considered her friends, it was through them that she had been taught to experience life after they had thought her dead. She had been reintroduced to them as a villain, yet they took her under their wings.

“Jubilee,” she smiled as she rose to greet her friend. “It’s been awhile.”

“Much too long. I heard you were out with the New Warriors,” replied Jubilee. “What happened?”

“I just need to find myself. I can’t depend on other people to guide me forever.”

Clarice lifted her pale pupil-less eyes onto the face of the Asian-American. She wouldn’t deny that she still felt the attraction but she longed for the friendship much more. It was friends that she needed as she attempted to find herself. No longer would she allow herself to be lead, Fatale’s manipulation should have taught her that but she had failed to learn that lesson in life because of the immediate kindness that had been shown to her. Now, she had taken it upon herself to explore her history and trace the events that made her Clarice. She didn’t know how long she would be gone and she knew that it was time to make her goodbyes.

She had already alerted Paige at the mansion, as she was currently on an active team of X-Men and Jubilee was her last stop.

“The rehabilitation has to stop some time, right?”

“Clarice, what are you saying?” Jubilee enquired cautiously.

“I’m saying…” she paused for a moment, biting the inside of her cheek, before she continued. “I’m saying that I need to go out into the world and find who I really am. I don’t know how long I’m going to be gone, or if I’ll be coming back even.”

Jubilee gave a soft smile, her eyes downcast. “I hate goodbyes.”

“Then we shouldn’t make this one,” Clarice responded slowly. “I’ll be seeing you, Lee.”

Stepping away from the embrace, Clarice gave a naval salute as she teleported once again.

Queens
New York

As the deep pink glare faded to reveal the place she had known as her home, she had almost wished the glare had remained to cloud her vision. When she had been a child, the apartment had not been the lavish home that the Massachusetts Academy had offered her. Nor had it been the modern dorms that the Empire State University had offered her, but it was even less now.

It was a bad neighbourhood in Queens, the impoverished families had lived there once but it didn’t look as though anyone had lived there since. Scrawls of stick men still lined the walls were her mother had let her run riot as she herself was pleasing men to secure the next meal for her daughter. As she remembered the things her mother had done to protect her, she hoped upon hope that perhaps she remembered her fondly. Memories of her mother of her mutation were hazy; the kidnapping by the Phalanx had happened in such quick succession that she could not focus on those single memories.

She had teleported into the corner, her back to the wall and the window to her left. She looked out of the broken glass to see children playing on the streets as she had used to do, balls in hand and she had realised that she wherever she may have turned she would have seen the same desolate area. It had not moved up any in the social spectrum but it seemed as though there were still inhabitants no matter how few.

She smiled at the thought.

Clarice moved slowly towards the old mantelpiece that had so often been the only source of warmth and comfort to her and her mother. Tears stained her cheeks as she remembered the times they had curled up before it and her mother had made it a game, as she caught herself feeling emotional she turned her back on it and made her way towards the doors that led her into the small kitchen. Nothing had changed in the four years since her absence.

Insecurities rushed over her as she toyed with the plates left abandoned beside the sink, her eyes emotionless now. There was something strange about the layout of the place she had called home; she felt none of the warmth and familiarity of it that she had at first. It swept over her like death, and it she had felt that too many times before to forget such a sensation.

Clarice paused in the doorway, her face taut and calm as her eyes flitted across the lounge area towards the doorways into another area of the old apartment.

“Where it all started,” she mused to herself.

Slowly, hesitantly, she moved forward but she came to a sudden stop. There was conflicting voices screaming in her head, they told her to run from the past and to leave it there but then her heart begged her for closure to face the memories that still haunted her dreams. Panting with an almost frantic tendency she moved forward once again, it appeared as if she was forced to drag her feet to bring her to her destination.

In a matter of moments, the deed was done and Clarice looked down on her past.

She tried not to throw up at the sight of the bloodstained carpet in what had used to be her room, it looked as if it had been washed away numerous times but the outline was still clear and that was what caused the memories to flash around her head with the subtlety of a procession of drums. She tried to control herself but failed as she threw up what she had eaten and disappeared in a flurry of pink energy as keys rattled in a door.

“Hello?”

Queens
New York
Four Years Ago

At sixteen she was isolated. Her mother was her only contact to the outside world and she could hear her in the next room pleasing men as she always had to support herself and her daughter in an impoverished lifestyle, but having a home meant that her daughter was not on the streets suffering and that was what she fought for. Clarice Ferguson had heard her mother crying at night at the prospect of another day, and her prayers to God were never answered it had caused Clarice to have doubt in him and she knew that was sinful in itself.

Pushing her hand through her crudely cut hair, she held her breath and counted. Her mother asked only that she be quiet and not alert the strangers to her presence. As she sat in silence she often thought about those where more fortunate than she was, her eyes twisted to the ceiling and she wished for something more. It made her feel selfish but she had never done more than dream.

Her mother believed she was happy, and Clarice wanted it to remain that way.

Pressing her fingers against her forehead she groaned slightly before catching herself, lying on the bed she attempted to fight off the headaches and migraines that threatened to overtake. They had started a month ago and had been every few days but they had become increasingly frequent which was what worried her. Clarice could not speak to her mother and concern her with childish woes of pain. She gritted her teeth and to relax her body.

It was the fourth headache in succession today.

Without warning a violent scream erupted from Clarice’s mouth and she instantly regretted it but even as she held her hands over her mouth, her eyes watering in pain, she heard the rumblings of her mother’s room. The man, her latest client, was screaming at her about being tricked and as he burst into Clarice’s room she cowered in the corner. Her hands shot out as he drunkenly approached her and she realised that they were a light shade of pink, shocked as she was the man pushed her hands to the side and grabbed her by the throat.

Her mother screamed for him to get off of ‘her baby’ but she was grabbed also and in letting go of Clarice, he threw her mother through the door where she collapsed beside the mantelpiece and it was the blood from her head that worried the young mutant, new as she was she could feel the fear and the anger bubbling inside of her.

“I’d say you could be as good as your mother,” mocked the man maliciously.

His hands fell across her thighs as he rubbed his hands up them, and she screamed but he merely pinned her down. Clarice’s world went black as she felt as if every fibre in her body was being torn apart at the seams. She could swear that the molecules that formed her disintegrated in seconds and then she was unconscious, only to wake moments later to the destroyed body of the man, a man who had been cut into several pieces by some unknown force.

Clarice had screamed. She was weaker then, and she continued to scream until she could remember no more of that day. Her mother had comforted her and tried to clean the mess that had been made but there was a fear in her eyes that broke Clarice’s already fragile heart.

Fisherman’s Wharf
San Francisco
Present

Stepping from the pink glare she watched over the Wharf. It had been her prison and it had been the site of her first ‘death.’ Of course, Clarice had never really died but she had felt as if she had and it was that rage that would later consume her and transform her into the villainous assistant to Fatale. She stepped closer to the edge of the cliff she now stood upon, her eyes on the Wharf below her with an intensity she would not have thought possible. It had been the one event in her life that had threatened to destroy her.

She had been left alone and abandoned.

Allowing a smile to fade onto her face she dropped all that she had been carrying with her, she had to revisit it if she wished to succeed. There was no hiding from what had happened to her, she had watched the others in Generation X face it and they had moved on, it still echoed in Clarice’s mind and she worried often about the Phalanx, yet she had hidden it from all who knew her. She felt needy enough through her inexperience. She wished to advance onto the next level of heroism but her concerns and worries were what kept her from doing so.

Running to the edge of the cliff, the mutant known as Blink launched herself into the deep blue abyss. Teleporting from one point to another to cushion her fall as she collided with the water, it was freezing but she let it wash over her and her arms flayed around in her in the freedom of the Wharf.

Bursting to the top of the water, she felt the cold air rush over her face. Clarice felt revitalised and fresh. She had fallen into the water once before after the explosion of her power had destroyed the Harvest, and seemingly herself. Teleportation was a description of her power that she had never cared for, it was something destructive than standard teleportation and this was evident through what she had accomplished against the alien technology.

Clarice called her ability ‘spatial warping,’ or even ‘spatial shearing,’ as her teleportation was harnessed specifically through its destructive blasts of energy. Shielding her eyes from the glare of the sun against the clear water she caught sight of something far to her right, scuffling into the Cove as she made her way towards it with anticipation.

Numerous thoughts ran through her head but she had refrained from focusing on any of them, Clarice would admit there had been times in her life when she had allowed her imagination to run away with her and she refused to stubbornly follow her imagination as if she had just stepped onto some foreign shore out of the Mystery Machine.

Hoisting herself out of the water and onto the dry, yet soggy, land she sighed as the water ran from her body.

Darkness was all that she could see ahead of her, and she strained her eyes to no avail. Creating an almost crystalline spear of the pink energy she used for teleportation, a skill she had learned amongst those of Generation X, and thrust it forward allowing it to explode and teleport small rocks from her path but the desired effect was the implosion of light that alerted her to something she had not expected to find.

Cautiously she moved forward her eyes focused only to come to a stop.

“Phalanx?” she gasped as she caught sight of the creature.

Fisherman’s Wharf
San Francisco
Three Years Ago

It was warm in his arms as she awoke.

Clarice looked into the strange, jovial face of the Eastern-European man who had introduced himself to her as Greg. She had been the second of the mutants to be gathered by the strange techno-organic beings explained to her as the Phalanx, but he had been there to comfort her from that moment. Since then she had found herself surrounded by others of the same age and each of them had experienced what she had in powers. Greg was quiet about his but it was the jovial smile that allowed her some soft comfort in the ordeal.

Mexican swearing erupted from the greyscale young man, with unnecessary extensions onto his skin that allowed him to stretch further than imaginable. Despite his bravado, Clarice had been quick to see the weaker see of the young man known as Angelo Espinosa. His eyes watched with an emotion unexpected of him, his sarcastic remarks were a defensive manoeuvre used to protect him from being hurt by others.

Clarice had been that insecure person, she still was, and she recognised it within him.

Her eyes then drifted to the beauty across from her, it was the first time she could truly say she had noticed the true beauty of a woman as more than a passing comment. Blonde hair cascaded her face and there was strength of character in her, but a dependence on others. She referred repeatedly to her brother ‘the X-Man’ and detailed his rescue attempt for her. Paige Guthrie, the southern belle, was not to be underestimated.

Beyond Paige was another beautiful young woman who remained unknown to them, she had been asleep for much of their time together and had awoke into a catatonic stupor. Her stillness worried Clarice.

Angelo’s swearing continued and Paige babbled on and Clarice was thankful for the company because she felt safe and secure with them. Knowing they were mutants, they were like her, was something that aided in this comfort. Clarice was happy not be alone for once in her life, yet she was still emotionally scarred from what had happened to her and that man back at her apartment. She had watched her mother attacked in a flurry of black before she herself was gagged and abducted from her home by an unknown assailant.

“Ah think we should start lookin’ for a way outta here,” remarked the Kentuckian.

“I think it would be better to hold our ground,” Greg replied, his accent was as thick as hers.

“We can’t jus’ sit around an’ wait for them ta get us,” Paige growled back the man with suspicion.

“And what is your recommendation then, chica,” snorted Angelo with little enthusiasm.

Clarice’s eyes met with Paige’s pleadingly but an argument was on the verge of the group of teenagers. Greg loosened his grip of Clarice and rose to his feet, as did the girl from the Deep South and they squared off to one another as the doors into the dome opened. All eyes turned towards the door, all eyes except the catatonic young mutant and as their eyes adjusted to the light they saw exactly what they were dealing with.

Clarice Ferguson saw the Phalanx for the first time.

Fisherman’s Wharf
San Francisco
Present

In reality she would say things had not changed much about the scenario, except this time she was truly alone.

The Phalanx had been lying dormant but it had not been silenced. She noticed for the first time that the entirety of the cave seemed to have been transformed into the same techno-organic material that the alien Phalanx was composed of. She was less shy than she had been before but she had been unprepared for the battle when the beast launched towards her. She avoided contact, remembering what the others in Generation X had told her when she had asked about the intentions of the aliens in abducting them.

Assimilation was the word that had been thrown at her and she was careful to avoid touching the creature, she launched backwards in an elegant flip that landed her in a crouch. Again she created a crystalline spear and launched it towards the remnant of the Phalanx. She missed yet it had disappeared. Blink prepared herself as she scanned the area, she couldn’t be too careful when it came to the slimy little alien rodent.

Rocks of the material dislodged from above her and she rolled forward but as she steadied herself she saw the light disappear from around her. Blink now felt alone, she longed for Generation X and the New Warriors, but she knew that now was the time for her to make something of herself. As a teleporter she was by no means trapped yet with such little light she felt a little claustrophobic.

With movements as elegant as a dancer, Blink created more spears and launched them around her as the faint pink glow illuminated the cave. She ducked for cover in the pale pink luminescence of the area, her eyes shone brightly as she prepared to make it all or nothing.

“You have,” Blink grunted as she swiped the spears at it.

Thrusting another at the flitting Phalanx she struck, and the creature was impaled against the lavender hued walls of the cave and a smug smile formed across her face as she had battled her demons. Clenching her fists she moved towards it, her eyes wild and frantic.

“Enough from me,” she whispered before turning her back on the creature.

As she teleported from the cave back onto the cliff from which she had jumped, she felt the rumbles of her teleportational explosion from beneath her and with a smile she had finally felt free. Her demons had been faced and now she was one step closer to finding herself, she just needed to decide where her travels would take her. Lifting her luggage, Clarice Ferguson turned her back on the very place that had led her to where she now was. It had taught her about loss but it had also taught her to make friends and to become stronger.

Clarice was thankful for her past, and she walked from it with a smile.