BIOGRAPHY - Page 11
One afternoon in London, Betsy was psychically assaulted by her old foe, the Shadow King. Farouk had consolidated a new psionic power source, effectively allowing him to seize control of any psychic mind on Earth. Elizabeth became a Mothra-like rampaging psychic butterfly construct attacking the Spire until several X-Men responded to a mental cry for help. Rogue and Bishop managed to absorb the foreign psionic energy from her system and expel it, restoring Psylocke to 
her senses. She quickly explained the immediate danger Shadow King posed to the entire world. Betsy arranged for Rogue, Gambit, Logan and their unlikely allies, Mystique and Fantomex, to be sent into the astral plane to confront Farouk while she, Bishop and Archangel monitored the situation from the real world. Elizabeth was deeply concerned with having to trust Jean-Philippe of all people, but their time table didn't allow for personal grudges.
The situation grew more perilous as Farouk began claiming minds in the real world as his puppets, and awakened Logan and Gambit to turn against their friends as well. Psylocke was forced to battle on the physical plane while also maintaining the psychic link to the others still active in the astral plane. Remarkably, the X-Men received aid from the unlikeliest of sources: Charles Xavier, whose mind was still alive and preserved on the astral plane, forced to serve as Farouk's opponent in these games. Xavier orchestrated the various facets of the game, leading the remaining soldiers Fantomex, Rogue and Mystique against Farouk to distract the Shadow King long enough for Xavier himself to enter the game and defeat his old foe utterly. [Astonishing X-Men (4th series) #1-6]
A surprising side effect of the battle was Charles Xavier coming back to life. When Elizabeth brought her allies mentally back into their bodies, Xavier's mind inhabited the body of Fantomex instead, rewriting Weapon XIII's nano-encoded DNA to recreate a younger version of his own body. Suspicious and perhaps a little guilty, Psylocke accepted an invitation by the re-christened "X" to visit Fantomex on the astral plane. Jean-Philippe revealed to Elizabeth that he made the 
exchange willingly, and was at peace with his decision. Fantomex had always feared his Weapon Plus programming would turn him against the innocent, given enough time. As a purely astral consciousness, he no longer had to worry about such things, and in return allowed a great man like Charles Xavier to live again. Psylocke and Fantomex had a tender moment where they implicitly forgave each other for all past sins, and Betsy expressed an interest in visiting Jean-Philippe again on the astral plane, one day. [Astonishing X-Men (4th series) #7]
The threat wasn't over, however. Farouk's power source turned out to be the energy mutant, Proteus, reconsolidated and once again able to manipulate reality itself. Psylocke and X attempted to reach him telepathically, but X attacked Proteus on the astral plane, causing Proteus to retaliate with a reality storm and flee. The X-Men reunited to pursue Proteus, naming Psylocke as their team leader because of lingering suspicions over X and his role in all of this. Proteus was intent on making all of reality as psycho-reactive as the astral plane, and he used a village in Scotland called Fetters Hill to "grow" his reality garden in the minds of the townspeople. The garden then launched reality seeds all over the globe, making reality fungible everywhere and subject to whims and desires, spreading chaos.
Psylocke and X reconnected to the psychic network Farouk had used previously, tapping into the interconnected mental pathways of all psionics on the planet in order to reinforce reality as it currently was. However, the Shadow King had laid like a cuckoo's egg inside of X, and emerged during this union to seize control of the network again. Betsy held her own against Farouk for a 
time, until X reconstituted himself free of the Shadow King's influence. The two of them rejoined the network to stabilize reality and banish the Shadow King from the physical plane once more. Afterwards, X decided to keep his return a secret from the X-Men for now, but he allowed Psylocke to retain the memory of his existence, acting as a guardian in case Farouk's influence resurfaced and he needed to be taken down. [Astonishing X-Men (4th series) #8-12]
After that, Psylocke and several of her allies from the UK missions returned to the mansion, now located in Central Park as the Xavier Institute for Mutant Education and Outreach. As one of the X-Men's reserve members, she was around to witness the rekindling of her old friends' Gambit and Rogue's relationship. When the wedding of Kitty Pryde and Colossus fell apart at the altar, Gambit impulsively proposed to Rogue, and Betsy became one of Rogue's bridesmaids as the impromptu wedding went off. [Rogue & Gambit #1, X-Men: Gold #30-32, Mr. and Mrs. X #1]
When Wolverine's body disappeared from his tomb, his friends and family rallied to determine what had happened to him. Magneto had survived Psylocke's sword thrust and set up shop in Madripoor, so Kitty Pryde led Betsy, Storm, Rogue, Domino and Jubilee there to make sure he had nothing to do with Logan's vanishing. In their search, they uncovered Magneto had been imprisoned by Viper and the Femme Fatales, and Betsy was ambushed by Sapphire Styx. An immortal soul vampire, Styx drained away Psylocke's essence before she could react, and Betsy was captured along with Rogue and Storm. Styx found Elizabeth's soul particularly delicious, and spent the next few hours supping from her living essence until Psylocke died from the experience. Physically, at least.
Betsy's soul continued to exist in the spiritual landscape inside Sapphire Styx, filled with the rotting souls of her past victims. However, Psylocke discovered a vital spark of Logan's soul, still cognizant from his encounter with Styx years earlier. Elizabeth used her powers and Logan's soul-shard to torment Styx with hallucinations while rebuilding her strength. When the time came, she followed the urgings of Sapphire's centuries of victims and destroyed her from within. As the soul essence of Sapphire Styx exploded outwards, Psylocke was able to seize that power and use it to re-weave a body for herself, molecule by molecule. Her true body. For the first time in years, 
Elizabeth Braddock, British-born twin of Brian Braddock, stood tall in her own skin. Psylocke had lost none of her fighting skills or telepathic and telekinetic power, and she joined the X-Men's battle against Viper already in progress. In the end, the X-Men didn't find Logan, but Elizabeth found something she had been without for a very long time. [Hunt for Wolverine: Mystery in Madripoor #1-4]
The X-Men were soon forced to face Nathaniel Grey, the X-Man, and his plans for restructuring the world into a better, more peaceful state by any means necessary. Taking a cue from his old arch-nemesis Apocalypse, the X-Man created his own Horsemen of Salvation. Warren was drawn away from Betsy's side by Grey's call, brainwashed into becoming a version of Angel at X-Man's side. Along with Magneto, Omega Red, and Blob, the Horsemen of Salvation preached peace but were prepared to regretfully act with great violence. Psylocke and the X-Men were nearly killed in Central Park when Magneto destroyed the Xavier Institute to prevent them from intervening further.
Psylocke and the X-Men followed the Horsemen to Chernaya, where Magneto disarmed a totalitarian regime by turning all their guns into a statue of peace. However, the threat of the weapons was the only thing keeping the population from an uprising, and civil war soon broke out 
in the streets. Elizabeth found Warren and tried to convince him that, despite the best of intentions, X-Man's path was not bringing peace. Angel would not listen to Psylocke, due to his brainwashing and the fact that Grey had neutralized the violent influence of Dark Angel in his mind for the first time in years. Elizabeth then used her psi-blade to reawaken the Archangel personality as a counter for X-Man's tampering. Warren's mind was his own again, but at the cost of his inner peace.
The restored Archangel was not grateful for his release, and felt furious and betrayed by Psylocke for taking away the serenity he had found. The aggressive personality was so enraged that he was on the verge of killing Betsy for what she had done. Despite this, Archangel agreed to take Storm and the X-Men to X-Man's retreat in Canada. A fight broke out with X-Man and the remaining Horsemen, and he soon used his powers to suborn Storm and transform her into a new 
Horseman to replace Archangel. Psylocke and Archangel were forced to work together to free Storm, with Warren air-dropping Betsy onto Ororo. Storm was freed by Psylocke's psychic knife, and the Angel of Death still had enough feelings for Elizabeth that he saved her from falling to her death. The X-Men were unable to fully stop Nate Grey, however, as he used the Celestial Lifeseed to grow an entire constructed reality and consign them into it. [Uncanny X-Men (5th series) #1-10]
Elizabeth found herself working with Fred Dukes and several of the X-Men in this new reality as Department X, a fascist secret police who maintained a mutant utopia to X-Man's standards. Nate Grey believed peace and happiness would come from an absence of love and family, and his society grew new children in hatcheries while enforcing an utter absence of romance or personal affection. Despite this, Betsy detected a stray thought from Fred showing his attraction for her. She privately offered to remove his attraction to her telepathically so it didn't cause him distress, but Fred refused her offer. Despite his dedication to Department X's principles of not acting on romantic urges, Fred found the mere thought of Elizabeth comforting in his mind.
Fred and Elizabeth began meeting privately at his home to discuss his love of books and the weight their work placed upon them. As confidantes, they found comfort in each other even in the absence of romantic entanglement. Enough of Psylocke's true history remained in this reality for her to remember her time in Kwannon's body, and she disclosed feelings to Fred she had never confessed to anyone before. Elizabeth had struggled with her body image as a child, dealing with a
n eating disorder and feelings of inadequacy despite her outward confidence and modeling career. Kwannon's body had been a blessing in some ways, because her body image issues didn't apply to someone else's body, and so she could confidently display her figure. Her recent return to her original body, while a joy, had triggered the return of her old feelings of inadequacy. In time, the various X-Men and allies shook off Nate Grey's new reality and returned to their own. [Age of X-Man: X-Tremists #1-5]
Life was complicated for Elizabeth when she returned from the X-Man reality and learned Kwannon was alive again. It seems that Sapphire Styx drawing Betsy's soul out of her previous body created a vacuum that Kwannon's spirit returned to fill. It was awkward and uncomfortable for the two women to associate, with one having worn the other's body for years. Elizabeth even abandoned the name "Psylocke" for Kwannon to use as she wished.