BIOGRAPHY - PAGE 3
While Cassandra’s escape from the Stuff body and subsequent location over the next several years’ was left ambiguous, it can be reasonably assumed that she was able to utilize her psychic powers to hitch her consciousness onto various hosts and stay off the X-Men’s radar. She revealed her presence to Rachel Grey soon after Jean Grey had returned from the dead and reconnected with her alternate reality daughter. Cassandra Nova implanted a psychic trigger into the young woman and erased her memory of their encounter. This secret weapon of Nova’s was to be used against Jean at a future date. [X-Men Red Annual #1]
With the return of Jean Grey, a new resolve was formed in both her and the team she fashioned to truly attempt to realize the dream of human and mutant’s peaceful coexistence. Towards this goal, Jean spoke at the United Nations, asking for a seat at the assembly to represent mutant
interests. She was challenged by the ambassador from the United Kingdom, asking the powerful telepath how they could be assured that any vote they cast could not be swayed by her powers. After pushing back on this assertion, it seemed that Jean’s plan would be accepted. However, outside the UN building, the UK ambassador approached Jean and revealed that she was secretly a psychically-controlled mole of a malevolent entity. Said entity regretted the loss of her useful pawn and then exploded the ambassador’s head in a public display that suggested Jean was using her powers to remove her opposition. Many miles away, unknown to all, the mastermind determined to make Jean fail was Cassandra Nova. [X-Men Red (1st series) #1]
Nova continued to make indirect attacks against Jean and her team of X-Men, including manipulating a mob of humans in India, while trying to save new mutant Trinary and breaking into the X-mansion in New York to brainwash Storm. Upon Jean’s team subduing a rampaging Storm 
tricked into believing she was protecting Wakanda, where the mutants were staying, the Black Panther analyzed and identified the tool that Nova had used to control Storm. A nanite attached to the amygdala allowed Cassandra to remotely control her victims and had been developed by a captured and brainwashed Forge. Cassandra and Forge traveled the globe to meet with various world leaders about the mutant problem, only to then infect said leaders with these nanites. The purpose of these nanites was apparent when an infected African leader subconsciously identified his close advisor as a mutant and involuntarily shot him dead on the spot. Despite his remorse, Cassandra promised him that such mutants would never be able to hide again. [X-Men Red (1st series) #2-4]
Still working in the background and unidentified by the X-Men, Cassandra had Forge diligently mass-producing the nanites and comparing mutants to mosquitoes. Her true desire was for humans to instinctively squash mutants out of existence and, for her short-term plan, she had secured a powered teenager named Teen Abomination to attack the X-Men in Namor’s
underwater Atlantis sanctuary. Jean had constructed an undersea version of Searebro to enhance her powers and identify their attacker. However, an unimpressed Nova gladly revealed herself, stating she was surprised it took her so long and used the opportunity to launch Teen Abomination towards Atlantis to distract them for the time being. The X-Men managed to survive Nova’s multi-pronged attack and Jean announced to the world via Trinary’s technology manipulation powers that Cassandra Nova was behind the attack on Atlantis and the UK ambassador. Jean was determined to warn everyone that Nova was hell-bent on stoking the hostility between man and mutant but her team would stop her. [X-Men Red (1st series) #5-7]
The gesture was ultimately meaningless to Cassandra’s plan, however, as Forge had completed his mass-production of the “sentinites,” enough to infect a majority of the planet’s people. She was done poisoning the edges of the population and was primed to release the swarm that would guarantee no mutant on Earth would be safe. Using Searebro and a combination of Jean’s telepathy, Trinary’s control over machines, and Wolverine’s self-healing brain, the team was able to identify and start shutting down the massive cloud of sentinites. However, Cassandra soon figured this out and psychically attacked Jean directly while she was vulnerable. While Jean fought back against Nova, the rest of her team located the villain in Genosha and rushed over to physically confront the woman and buy Jean some breathing room. Storm sent a massive tidal wave onto the island and, while Cassandra was distracted, Jean and her two teammates were able to fully destroy the remaining sentinites. Cassandra realized now was the time to activate her secret weapon of Rachel Grey. [X-Men Red (1st series) #8]
After a battle between Jean and Rachel on Genosha ended with Rachel refusing to hurt her mother, Cassandra resolved to dispose of her worthless pawn. Before she did this, Jean convinced her to let her daughter go in exchange for her own life. When Nova accepted this bargain, she received a painful punch to the face from the freed Rachel but stood by her deal and let the woman leave. Jean offered to talk things
through with Cassandra, but she opted to disintegrate her nemesis instead, immediately realizing that the real Jean was not present on the island after all. Jean then delivered an impassioned speech to the villain about how her lack of empathy led her to underestimate the X-Men. It also made her scared that, perhaps the correct way to view the world was through compassion, a concept she could not comprehend. In retaliation, Nova faked a transmission broadcast, casting Jean as a mutant supremacist declaring war on humans and activated her remaining nanite-controlled humans to lure an army to Genosha. Jean had a plan too, though, and she recruited an army from Atlantis and the Avengers to help her take down Cassandra. In order to mitigate Nova’s advantage, she even equipped all of her allies with telepathy-blocking Magneto helmets. [X-Men Red (1st series) #9-10]
A battle of epic proportions commenced in which Nova attempted to crash a breached nuclear 
reactor helicarrier into the armies on Genosha, while battling Jean in the sky. The X-Men and Avengers dealt with the helicarrier and the brainwashed civilians, while Jean enacted her final solution for Cassandra. This distracted her just long enough that one of the nanites could be implanted into Nova’s skull, which Trinary had programmed to give Cassandra the empathy she lacked. Having finally realized the pain that she had caused, Cassandra was willing to take Jean’s outreached hand and seek redemption through her vision of peace. [X-Men Red (1st series) #11]