Earth 86695
Blink smiled as she stood upon a windswept hilltop. Behind her a large group was setting up for a picnic.
“Cable!” reprimanded Scott Summers, native to this earth. “Stop pulling your sister’s hair!” a six-year-old boy with silver hair and a glowing eye sulked away from a four-year-old girl with red hair.
“Sorry dad,” Cable Summers muttered. Like most young boys, one of Cable’s favorite pastimes was harassing his younger siblings. Blink walked back to the group. The Exiles team had been sent into this reality to encourage the meta-human population to have a large “family” picnic. Assuring them that if something were to go wrong, the Exiles would deal with it.
Jean Grey-Summers spun in a small circle with her youngest son, Nathan. Nathan was only two but looked for the most part like his father with silver hair. Nathan wriggled and she set him down to go play. Nathan toddled off a short distance to plop down by his “cousin”, TJ.
Seeing that family brought a tear to Blink’s eye. Kurt and Wanda were playing with their daughter TJ and Wanda’s two boys from her first marriage, Tommy and Billy. Tommy and Billy were off following their Uncle Victor around like they always did.
The families were as such: Scot and Jean Summers with their three children Cable, Rachel, and Nathan. Magneto and Magda brought along with their two adult children Pietro and Wanda. Wanda was present with her second Husband Kurt, her ten-year-old twin children from her first marriage (to the Vision) Billy and Tommy, and her four-year-old daughter with Kurt, Talia Josephine “TJ” Wagner. Janet Van Dyne had come at the insistence of her “grandson” the Vision and her “great-grandchildren” Billy and Tommy. She was not related to either of them by blood, but all looked up to her as if she were. She was divorced from their father and grandfather, Henry Pym. Hank Pym was also there along with his eldest grandson, Victor Mancha, who had flown up with his mother Marianella. Pietro had convinced Crystal to come with their daughter Luna. Black Bolt and Medusea also decided to come as well. The Fantastic Four were also in attendance with Valeria and Franklin Richards. May and Edwin Jarvis were there along with May’s nephew Peter, Peter’s wife MJ, and MJ and Peter’s daughter May “Mayday” Parker.
The Exiles roamed around the grounds playing with the families, making sure all had a good time. Blink stood off in the distance, pensive. She couldn’t help but worry about the “replacements” as they had come to be called, the dark group lead by that boy, Wilder. Since his ultimatum roughly two weeks ago, nothing had been heard from him.
She felt a tug at the hem of her dress and looked down. There was four-year-old Rachel Summers. “Hello little one,” she said with a smile. “How can I help you?”
“Do you have a special friend?” she asked.
Puzzled, Blinks mind immediately drifted to Craig Hollis, but she didn’t reply. She and Craig had patched things up since their blow out over his Weapon X missions. She understood that he didn’t want her to see the dark things he had to do, but it took him a while to understand that she didn’t care, and that she understood the need for those missions. “Um… not really,” she said.
“Well… Billy Maximoff was telling me about his special friend Teddy, and I was wanting to know if you’d be my special friend because you’re really pretty.”
Blink’s jaw dropped as she smiled, trying to figure out how to answer that. “Sweetie,” she said. “I’m afraid that girls who want other girls to be their special friends are rather rare. But you’ll find one some day. She’ll be very pretty and she’ll tell you how wonderful you are.”
“Okay,” Rachel Summers said. “Maybe Ms. Kitty will be my special friend.”
Blink couldn’t help but suppress a laugh.