BIOGRAPHY – PAGE 5
Roosevelt Island proved a turning point for a group called Orphans of X. Apparently completely seperate and distinct from the Red Right Hand, they were originally a support group for the victims and surviving families of people killed by Wolverine, Sabretooth, Daken, X-23 and others like them. The Orphans became furious after these killers were hailed as heroes after Roosevelt Island. Daken was captured by the Orphans, tortured and his arm cut off again to be sent as a provocation to Laura. After several days, Daken escaped the Orphans’ hideout and fled, only to run into Laura almost immediately on the streets. It seemed the Orphans of X had a home rented in a suburban neighborhood blocks from Debbie and Megan Kinney, Laura’s aunt and cousin.
At the Kinneys, Daken tried to throttle back his adrenaline as he met the second shock of Laura’s birth mother Sarah Kinney, seemingly alive as well. As he was waiving his stolen Uzi around and yelling, Daken realized the deception when Sarah’s heart rate never changed. He shot Laura’s mother to reveal her as a clone construct through which the Orphans were monitoring them. From Sarah, the Orphans of X had learned the location of the Muramasa Blade, the one thing that could stop their healing factors and kill their “species.”
Matters became worse when they realized the Orphans had re-forged the Muramasa blade metal into bullets to kill them from a distance. Daken was shot, but managed to survive the Muramasa bullet when Laura cut around the wound, removing the tissue inhibited by the supernatural metal so his healing factor could restore him. They sought out Muramasa himself for an edge against the Orphans’ plot. Muramasa was willing to craft a defense, but it would require a sacrifice from those present. He specified that Daken would need to be whole, and explained that Daken’s reduced healing factor was psychological at this point. The guilt over failing to prevent Logan’s death and his own actions in life left him imbalanced. Through meditation, Muramasa guided Daken to greater peace and helped restore his missing arm. Daken bonded with Gabby as they prepared their defense, and even gave her the codename “Honey Badger,” because she was sweet and deadly.
Muramasa forged armor for Laura using pieces of their souls, but the Orphans soon arrived with a cadre of the Hand under their command. As they fought the undead ninjas, Daken realized some 
of them were going to lose. He took Megan Kinney’s phone and carved a hole for it in his chest before being captured by the Orphans. Megan’s phone tracker app led Laura and Gabby to him and the Orphans in a warehouse in Brooklyn. Old Man Logan, Sabretooth and Lady Deathstrike had also been captured by the Orphans, and Laura had to perform brain surgery with her claws to carve out the Muramasa bullets in each of their heads which were keeping them from healing. Instead of killing all the Orphans of X, however, Laura offered to join them. She recognized that the Orphans had all lost people to “the Wolverines” and (brainwashing and behavioral conditioning aside) they were owed compensation by the living weapons that killed their loved ones. Laura agreed to hunt down all the clients that hired her services from the Facility to bring closure to the Orphans’ pain. [All-New Wolverine #25-30]
Despite family bonding time, Daken was still pursuing his own selfish needs on the side. His powers from the Celestial Deathseed had remained in remission since shortly after he abandoned the Apocalypse Twins. Looking for a way to rekindle that fire, Daken lured a new mutant named Zach away from the X-Mansion. Known as Amp, Zach had the power to turn up or turn down another mutant’s abilities.
By showing him the good life, Daken hoped to influence Zach into improving his own powers enough to restore Daken’s missing Horseman mojo. He had to flirt-fight with the X-Men’s truant officer, Iceman, but Daken still got Amp out of New York and down to Madripoor for his own brand of training. [Iceman (3rd series) #4]
After some on-the-job training, Daken thought Amp was ready for the big time. Looking for revenge after his last encounter with Iceman, Daken crashed Bobby’s going away party at the X-
Mansion. He isolated the students and other guests while making a distraction for the X-Men’s A-team. When they had Iceman cornered, Daken had Amp show Bobby what he had learned. Zach restored the Deathseed’s raw power for Daken to wield, while dampening down the behavioral modifications and loyalty to Apocalypse’s creed. Despite Daken’s aggression, he couldn’t get Iceman to do anything more than pity him. Drake realized Daken’s nihilism and apathy were ultimately pathetic, as he couldn’t bring himself to risk caring or rely on anybody. Amp was taken out by Iceman protégé Spit Girl, and Daken was dismissed as a nuisance more than a threat, despite his Apocalypse power (which quickly faded). [Iceman (3rd series) #8-10]
Daken was finally offered a place to belong when Briar Raleigh reached out to him on behalf of Magneto and his splinter squad of X-Men. She presented Daken with a pair of Adamantium katana forged by Magneto himself as a welcome gift to the fight. Daken participated in the struggle against the Mothervine cabal as they attempted to artificially induce mutations in the populace to create a new subspecies of mutants under their control. He worked under the command of Magneto’s daughter and field leader, Polaris, and well as with Jimmy Hudson, another son of Wolverine from an alternate reality. [X-Men: Blue #24-28] The novelty of having a 
brother wasn’t enough to engender much loyalty from Daken, however. When Jimmy was taken over by an alien entity called a Poison, Magneto directed Daken to kill Jimmy rather than trust he could fight off the alien’s influence. He was only stopped by the intervention of the time-displaced original X-Men. [X-Men: Blue #29-30]
In time, word got around that Logan’s body had disappeared from the Adamantium statue that immortalized him, and rumor spread about his possible return. Lady Deathstrike and Sabretooth sought out Daken to go hunting for Wolverine and confirm whether he was alive or dead. Deathstrike tracked his Adamantium signature to a small town in Arizona, only to discover the entire town was dead and reanimating as zombies. The Maybelle emitter at the center of town responsible for the reanimation was also interfering with their healing factors, leaving Daken and the others vulnerable.
The Soteira Killteam monitoring the experiment attacked the intruders and Daken was mortally wounded. Creed and Deathstrike escaped, but Daken died due to a sword through the heart and his body was collected by Soteira. [Hunt for Wolverine: Claws of a Killer #1-4] Soteira was overseen by a mutant named Persephone, who had the power to reanimate the dead. She brought Daken back as a soldier under her control, possessing no willpower or independent drive. [Return of Wolverine #2]
[Note: Daken returned to life following Logan’s defeat of Soteira. It’s possible his healing factor restored him from Persephone’s undead effect, just as Wolverine’s seemed to do.]
A new mutant nation arose on the sentient island of Krakoa, with the X-Men at its core. Citizenship and amnesty was offered to all mutants interested in immigrating to Krakoa, which was rapidly recognized by the United Nations. Daken was among many former foes and antagonists for the X-Men who were allowed on Krakoa in exchange for a vow of loyalty to the Quiet Council, the new ruling body for Krakoa. [House of X #5] Daken seemed to thrive in this new environment, free from his past animosity. He fully accepted Laura and Gabby as his sisters and bonded with Logan when they had spare time together. [X-Force (6th series) #9]
After a night of over-drinking at the Green Lagoon tiki bar, Daken overheard Northstar and Polaris putting together a search party to locate the presumed deceased Aurora. They refused his help at first, but Daken insisted and went along with them to Washington State. Aurora’s body was discovered, and Daken showed tenderness towards Aurora and to Northstar’s feelings. This investigation prompted the formation of X-Factor Investigations, who would act for Krakoa in alliance with the Resurrection Five. Because of the Five’s unique blending of mutant abilities, mutants no longer needed to fear death, but social conventions against duplicates made it important to provide proof of death before the Five did their work. X-Factor would serve in this capacity. [X-Factor (4th series) #1]
Team leader Northstar was not welcoming towards Daken at first, due to his past history and his overly flirtatious nature with Northstar’s husband Kyle and the resurrected Aurora. After being sent home early from a mission to Mojoworld, Daken got to know Aurora better at the team’s new 
headquarters, the Boneyard. He came on too strong, though, and chased her away at first. When Wind Dancer’s body was recovered from Mojoworld and she was resurrected, the Boneyard became an impromptu party scene for the younger mutants welcoming her back. During the festivities, Daken and Aurora reconnected and she indicated that, at least, their attraction was mutual. [X-Factor (4th series) #2-5]
X-Factor’s next case came from the mysterious, reoccurring deaths of Theresa Cassidy, Siryn. Theresa claimed to have no knowledge to share about her death after being resurrected, but Daken and the other investigators could tell she was lying. Northstar assigned Daken to track Siryn as she passed through the Krakoan gates to visit the outside world. However, Siryn was under the influence of the death goddess Morrigan and was more powerful than she seemed. The Morrigan isolated Daken out in the wilderness of Manitoba, using sonic hypnosis to weaken his resolve and convince him his team had abandoned him, then left him for dead, impaled on a plank of wood. Siryn had also hypnotized Polaris into sabotaging the investigation, hiding Daken’s calls for help during the chase. Only after Prestige broke Polaris’s spell was she free to reveal Daken was somewhere in Canada. Northstar crisscrossed the entire continent near the Alberta gate until his found his missing man.
Back at the Boneyard, Daken slowly healed in mind and body. Shaking off the Morrigan’s poisoned words was difficult, and Aurora tried to console him. The vulnerability he felt at the Morrigan’s hands was hard, and expressing it was even harder, but Daken reached out to Aurora 
when she asked. They kissed intimately in the Boneyard’s sauna shortly before the Morrigan arrived and started killing everyone. Northstar, Aurora, Prestige and Polaris were taken down for meddling in the Morrigan’s affairs. Eye-Boy and Prodigy examined the bodies and learned the truth about the Morrigan’s connection to Siryn. However, they needed to survive in order to relay that information, otherwise it would be lost when the Five resurrected them from their last Cerebro back-up. Daken faced the Morrigan and sacrificed his life as a distraction so his teammates could escape. After the rest of the team was resurrected, they retook the Boneyard from the Morrigan and confronted her and Siryn on the astral plane. X-Factor learned the conditions for undoing the "geas" that bound Theresa to the Morrigan, and set her free. [X-Factor (4th series) #6-9]
As the Hellfire Gala approached, X-Factor was ready for a party. Northstar reached out to Daken, giving him a cell phone to signal the next time he was in trouble. An awkward encounter with Aurora's ex, Wild Child, led her and Daken to officially admit they were dating. Jeanne-Marie still didn't think Akihiro knew her well enough, but Daken confided that he knew more than she thought. He had reasoned out that Aurora's death happened because her date, an anti-mutant hate group member, tried to set her up. She killed him, then arranged her own death to hide the guilt. Daken admitted he went back and killed the rest of Eddie's mutant hate group for attacking her. "Kill No Man" was Krakoan law, and so Daken and Aurora now knew each other's secrets. An interesting way of building trust in a relationship, but these are interesting times. [Hellions #12, X-Factor (4th series) #10]