BLINK (Earth-7) (TIMELINE AOA)

Biography 

Origin

A native of Cartusia Island in the Bahamas, Clarice was not born in any timeline other than the one she currently inhabits. This is because she is the daughter of a local farmer and a Scottish explorer who was part of a team of scientists that came to the island to study the totemic ziggurat at its center—one of many structures around the globe that served as a base for the mutant En-Sabbah-Nur, who had just awakened.

When the Age of Apocalypse began, Cartusia Island was one of the first places to be wiped out. Clarice’s parents were torn apart like every other human within a 2,000-kilometer radius, but the baby was spared. Found with rosy skin and unusual markings on her face, she was treated as a mutant sister.

Early Life

Clarice grew up in the military barracks, where mutant youths were raised to assume their designated civic-military roles in the complex genocracy founded by the absolute emperor En-Sabbah-Nur.

She was part of the so-called “special rooms,” where students with high genetic potential were subjected to continuous testing to enhance their powers. That was how she met her only allies: other young people like her, who were equally victims of that system. The oldest was Illyanna Rasputin, a sick girl battling the progression of a rare autoimmune disease called the “Legacy Virus.” The other was Nate Summers, a familyless lab-grown embryo, created to become a priest of the Apocalypse.

The experiments were carried out by the Dark Beast, a lab-created clone designed specifically to conduct tests and document results, the right-hand man of Nathaniel Essex, the true director in charge of the student camps.

Freedom

One day, the place was invaded by a mysterious group of exiles, saviors of the homeland and liberators known as the “X-Men,” led by a woman with powerful manipulative abilities, known as Magneto. Joining them were the brutal survivor Sabertooth, the rebellious novice Jubilee, and the unwavering champion Piotr Rasputin, Illyana’s brother. However, upon freeing his sister from the control collar, he saw her use her powers to vanish before his eyes, determined never to be found again.

The X-Men offered a place on their guerrilla team to interested youths, but those who did not wish to fight alongside them could seek their own ways to survive in that world.

A young beast-like mutant was the first to join the group and was given the name Wild Child by Sabertooth, his animal counterpart. Clarice turned to Nate, but he said he would go his own way and that he was tired of fighting. She then decided to continue her mission alone and threw one of her crystal daggers at the group, whereupon she found herself teleported. Jubilee was the one who greeted her, calling her “Blink.”

As an X-Men

While working alongside the X-Men on covert operations, Blink became an indispensable means of transportation for the team, continually honing her ability to tear through the fabric of spacetime via luminous portals.

Over time, she began to wonder if she could do more and eventually decided to leave the team and seek out the hermit known as B15H0P, a time traveler who, in the past, had sought freedom for his people but ended up trapped in an even more terrifying future.

The Journey

During her journey, she nearly didn’t survive crossing the Sahara Desert—now a graveyard of sentinels—but was helped partway by a nomadic tribe called the “Askani Clan,” led by a powerful psionic woman who was accompanied by an equally powerful boy who bore a striking resemblance to Nate Summers. Perhaps they were part of the same family or genetic lineage.

When she explained that she was looking for the exiled Lucas Bishop, one of the hooded priests approached her, revealing himself to be the man she sought and offering her the chance to clear up her doubts.

Time Travelling

Now old and discredited, he explains that he has given up the fight and his dream of striving for a more just world. In the past, he lived through a terrible future that he tried to prevent by traveling back in time to help the X-Men. However, upon realizing that the world was heading toward even greater destruction, he decided to return to the future, taking with him the sick son of a couple of friends who needed care.

However, upon arriving, he found a world even more ailing, now dominated not by mutants, but by a single mutant: the ruthless Apocalypse. He returned to the X-Men to warn them, but as time passed, he moved back to the timeline where they now found themselves, realizing that perhaps there is no more change, and allowing himself to experience calm and acceptance of fate at least once in his life.

Blink then explained that she could do things differently if he helped her operate a machine that could be powered by her teleportation powers.

Bishop wanted to say “no,” but hope is probably his greatest trait and also his greatest flaw.

He explained that when she returned, she might find him fighting alongside X-Force, where he fought for a few more years before walking away from it all. However, he told her not to look for him, as his goal was to ally himself with the X-Men, explain the Age of Apocalypse, and reveal the key to stopping the mutant who, at that time, was still operating in the shadows, waiting for his moment of triumph. 

By combining her abilities with the old time-travel device, Blink would have only one journey and one destination, but that’s no problem for her—after all, she only has one life, too.

The destination is the Charles Xavier Institute, the mission is to stop Apocalypse, the allies are the X-Men, and the outcome is uncertain.