NOCTURNE: Page 2 of 3

Publication Date: 11th Sep 2020
Written By: Monolith and Peter Luzifer.
Image Work: Peter Luzifer and Dean Clayton.
Biography

BIOGRAPHY - Page 2

Nocturne was devastated by her loss and, a few worlds later, lost the baby. She may have simply miscarried the child, but it was strongly implied that she deliberately aborted the baby instead of having to carry it to term alone. T.J. was a wreck for some time after that, unwilling to socialize with the other Exiles or let them in to help her with her feelings. [Exiles (1st series) #12, 16]

Shortly after she began to open up some, the Exiles were abducted to the Mojoverse, and Nocturne and Morph ended up prisoners of the place’s mad ruler, Mojo. He wanted the group’s funny man to appear on the TV shows he produced but, when Morph declined the "offer," Mojo ordered Nocturne to be tortured. To spare her from further being hurt, Morph did as told and eventually the remaining Exiles managed to free them with the aid of Longshot. Afterwards, Morph felt guilty for Talia’s suffering, but she reassured him that he was not to blame for Mojo’s actions. [Exiles (1st series) #18-19]

A few months later on, the Exiles were on a mission to rid the world of Vi-Locks, Legacy Virus mutated Phalanx entities who had consumed 70% of the planet's population, including a large percentage of their heroes and villains. After their initial effort to capture patient zero and study them failed miserably, the Tallus updated their directives and told the Exiles that they must destroy the planet in order to prevent the Vi-Locks from spreading into outer space. Nocturne was prepared to fly the suicide mission in that world's Avengers warbird ship to set off the nuclear weapons in the Vi-Lock headquarters, producing an explosion strong enough to break the world in two. Mimic ended up nerve-pinching her and taking her place, but luckily they received unexpected aid from Thor and the Asgardians, turning the tables and enabling Mimic to call off his suicide run so that the world would be spared. During this mission, Nocturne casually flirted with some of the Exiles’ allies; a sign she was finally healing from the loss of Thunderbird and the baby. [Exiles (1st series) #20-22]

Not too long afterwards, the Exiles made their first venture into the main reality on Earth-616. According to the Timebroker, Havok's travels through the Mutant X universe and his molecular interaction with his other self was at least partially responsible for the "unhinging" of time and space that the team was trying to fix in the first place. Their mission was to prevent the evil version of Havok from resurfacing in Alex's body and killing two boys in the X-Men’s care. Despite some initial mistrust on the X-Men's part and the untimely return of the werewolf clan called the Dominant Species, the Exiles succeeded in protecting the children and Nocturne herself drove "Evil Alex" out of Havok's body, using her possession power. The Tallus gave them some down time afterwards, and T.J. spent most of it getting to know her alternate father, which went a long way towards relieving her sense of homesickness. [Exiles (1st series) #28-30]

The Exiles continued on their missions, until they arrived on an Earth that had been enslaved by Weapon X, a second group of dimensional travelers. Apparently, the Timebroker had enough of Weapon X’s leader, Hyperion, constantly disobeying his orders and he opted for a rather extreme solution: he pitted the two teams against each other in a battle to the death, where the equivalent of one entire team had to be eliminated before the survivors could move on. Nocturne and most of the other Exiles were becoming sick of death and planned to use T.J.'s possession power to lock down Hyperion, and then figure something else out. However, their own unstable teammate, Magik, disabled this plan when she savagely cut open Sasquatch's back and attempted to join up with Hyperion. With Sasquatch unconscious, Talia was forced to use her power to enter Heather's body and compel her to change into her fast-healing bestial form. Hyperion killed Magik himself and the Exiles were drawn into battle with what remained of Weapon X, and the entire membership of that latter team died, mostly from in-fighting. [Exiles (1st series) #43-45]

After being given a day to rest up following their ordeal, Nocturne and the others found themselves transported once more to Earth-616, where the Tallus gave them a riddle as their mission, "Leave your possessions and earn your wings." Eventually, they came to understand this meant leaving T.J. behind, replacing her on the team with Beak, a former student of the X-Men. Nocturne hated seeing her friends leave, going on to continue their dangerous missions without her, but she had formed a bond with the Nightcrawler of this Earth last time and was willing to make a go as an X-Man. [Exiles (1st series) #46-48]

Before she could enter the mansion and let Xavier's people know she had arrived, though, she fell under the influence of Exodus, who muddied her mind, convincing her to join his new Brotherhood of Mutants, alongside the likes of Sabretooth and Black Tom. After her initial confusion, Nocturne realized her mistake and joined forces with the X-Men defending Xavier’s school against the Brotherhood's attack. Black Tom was proving by far to be the greatest threat among the evil mutants, as his mutated plant form was tearing all through the mansion's estate. T.J. attempted to stop him by using her possession power, but this only stalled the attack, as he was too difficult for her to hold for long. Shen Xorn thus made the decision to open up his mask and swallow the Brotherhood through the black hole in his head, removing them from the field of battle. Still inside Black Ton, T.J. was sucked up into the black hole, along with the rest of the Brotherhood and Juggernaut, who had been helping the X-Men by infiltrating the Brotherhood. [X-Men (2nd series) #161-164]

By accident or design, they all ended up in the Mojoverse, where Exodus bought the Brotherhood's freedom by "selling" Juggernaut and Nocturne to Mojo. Talia tried to escape by possessing Spiral and transporting her and Cain back to Earth. Unfortunately, it was a Trojan Horse ploy and, once back on Earth, Spiral was separated from Nocturne and summoned Mojo himself to Xavier’s school. After a brief reversion into X-Babies, the mutants defeated their opponents and sent them packing back to the Mojoverse. [Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #460-461]

Though once again happily reunited with her father’s counterpart, Nocturne did not get to meet the main reality’s version of her mother, the Scarlet Witch. On the verge of a nervous breakdown, the Witch could no longer properly deal with her reality-altering powers and she released a chaos wave that transformed the entire planet. Suddenly, mutants were the dominant species and Earth was ruled by Magneto and his children, the so-called House of M. Perhaps due to her originating from another timeline, because of her being the Scarlet Witch’s daughter or that she was not supposed to exist in it, T.J. was only partially affected by the wave. Whereas everyone else was remade as if they had lived their entire lives in the House of M world, T.J. ended up a blank slate, only recalling her name but nothing beyond that. Even worse, as genetic scans revealed her to be related to Magneto, she soon found herself on the run from a group of bounty hunters hired to bring her in. Fortunately, Talia ran into British royalty, Brian and Betsy Braddock, and some of their friends, who protected her from her pursuers. Happening upon a hole in reality, Brian and Betsy remembered their previous lives, and together the heroes managed to seal the gap, thus ensuring that the reality altering effect wouldn’t spread into the multiverse. [Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #463-465]

Shortly thereafter, the Scarlet Witch released another chaos wave that mostly restored the timeline to its previous state, with the exception of an overwhelming percentage of mutantkind worldwide losing their powers. The event was soon declared “M-Day” by the media. [House of M #7-8]