After saving the Crunch, Spiral once again distanced herself from Mojo and returned to Earth, where she hunted the man she held responsible for her current state: Arize, the Spineless One and engineer who also created Longshot. She explained to Arize that, at some point in his future, he would transform Ricochet Rita into the woman he saw before him. Spiral hoped that, by killing him, she could at least save some other Rita from suffering the same fate as her. However, after telling the tragic story of how she became the monster she is, and after revealing that no matter how hard Longshot tried he would never overthrow Mojo, Spiral revealed the name of different man destined to free the Mojoverse from tyranny. His name, she said, would be Shatterstar. Fortunately for Arize, X-Factor intervened and subdued Spiral before he was harmed, after which Arize convinced her that he was not the enemy - Mojo was. Spiral and Arize decided to join forces to put a stop to Mojo’s endless cycle of pain and, together, they traveled back to the Wildways. [X-Factor Annual #7]
The services of Spiral’s Body Shoppe were later contracted by Matsuo Tsurayaba of the Hand. Matsuo’s lover, the assassin Kwannon, had suffered brain damage due to oxygen deprivation and had been battered relentlessly by the waves after tumbling into the ocean. Spiral did the job she was hired to do: she repaired Kwannon’s physical injuries so Matsuo could transfer Kwannon’s consciousness out of her body and into that of his amnesiac prisoner, Psylocke. However, Spiral did some meddling of her own before - and during - the transfer. She spliced together Elizabeth and Kwannon’s genes and minds before Matsuo and his ally the Mandarin performed the switch. As a result, after the transfer, neither woman was entirely certain of her own identity. In fact, no one, including Wolverine and Professor X, could discern who was who.
To make matters worse, Spiral delivered the unconscious body of Elizabeth Braddock to another man who once loved her, the crime-lord Nyorin. Taunting Nyorin, she told him a portion of Kwannon’s soul remained within the inert body. Nyorin eagerly accepted the gift despite Spiral’s cryptic words and crafted the tabula rasa of a woman into his own personal assassin and lover named Revanche. [Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #256, X-Men (2nd series) #31-32] This extra modification and trickery conferred no benefit to Spiral other than feed into her jealousy and satisfy her need to be malicious.
After the events in Dallas, Spiral and Mojo believed the X-Men - including Longshot and their living camcorder Psylocke - to be dead. As soon as they learned Longshot was still alive, however, Spiral attempted to apprehend him. She chased him across dimensions and eventually pinned him in Lila Cheney’s home in Malibu, where he eluded her grasp with Lila’s help. Spiral vowed to capture them for Mojo in good time. [X-Men (2nd series) #5] Her pledge to her master proved futile, as her master was killed by none other than Longshot and the X-Men. [X-Men (2nd series) #10-11]
Finally free of Mojo’s influence, she was again able to pursue her own agenda. Without Mojo’s presence to channel her hatred and self-loathing, Spiral began feeling guilty about what she did to Elizabeth Braddock and Kwannon. While checking in on Psylocke’s mixed-up counterpart
Revanche via her cybernetic eyes, however, Spiral lost the feed and realized Revanche had done the unthinkable and ripped out her own eyeballs. Later, when Revanche died, her death resonated with all who knew her - Psylocke and Spiral included. Spiral then sought out Psylocke, seemingly to apologize for the misery she had wrought with the Kwannon/Psylocke/Revanche debacle. However, true to her twisted nature, she could not bring herself to come out and say she was sorry, believing that guilt and regret were for lesser beings. Still, Spiral tried her best to apologize through her vestige of sanity: she left Psylocke with a cryptic clue concerning the solution to her identity issues, through which Psylocke learned the extent of Spiral’s manipulations. [X-Men (2nd series) #31-32]
The confounding incident with Psylocke taught Spiral she needed to work - badly. She joined up with the rebels of the Mojoverse. However, she soon grew tired of fighting for their cause - specifically because she felt it didn’t include “freaks” like her, for whom acceptance was twice as hard to achieve. She abandoned them and chose to fight only for herself, and later accepted a job 
working for Mojo II: The Sequel as an executioner, despite that he embodied everything she loathed in her previous master. When the rebels foiled her attempt to execute the first Mojo’s former aide, Major Domo, Spiral withdrew.
Sometime after almost executing Major Domo as per Mojo II’s orders, Spiral returned to “rescue” him from the rebels at his request. She came into contact with Longshot and, when they crossed swords, Spiral’s feelings for Longshot were less passionate than his were for her. Adding to that was the fact that she opposed him in this instance for purely political and financial reasons, not because of some twisted desire for revenge. The two of them eventually joined forces to dethrone Mojo II. Judging by her behavior during this encounter, Spiral, for reasons undetermined, appeared to be overcoming her obsession with Longshot. Spiral and the rebels overthrew Mojo II, and Spiral prepared to fulfill her end of her bargain with Major Domo. However, she discovered that he was no longer interested in being rescued and had found a place with the rebels. Instead, Spiral teleported away with the unconscious Mojo II, supposedly to punish him on national television for his crimes. [Marvel Fanfare (2nd series) #4-5]
Shortly after Mojo II was removed from power, the original Mojo miraculously returned from the dead. He solicited Spiral’s help in capturing and restraining Shatterstar and Cable. Mojo knew of the prophecy foretelling that Shatterstar would someday kill him and set out to get rid of him before he had the chance. He digitized Cable and Shatterstar and put them inside a video recreation of the prophesied battle. Contrary to expectations, when Shatterstar attacked Mojo, Mojo actually slew him, and not the other way around. Mojo televised this event for all to see, X-Force and Spiral included. Spiral saw the prophecy crumble before her eyes.
To prevent this, she transported X-Force to the Mojoverse, retrieved Shatterstar’s dying body from its digital prison and took him to the Weismann Institute, where the comatose Benjamin Russell rested. There, she had Longshot transfer Shatterstar’s “uemeur” into Russell’s body. Shatterstar woke up in this new Benjamin Russell body and, for the first time in his life, felt complete. When Cable asked Spiral why she chose to help them save Shatterstar, she shed a tear and posed the question, “Was it not enough that Shatterstar would live again to fulfill his destiny? Was it not enough to say that both young men meant more than all the world to her?” [X-Force (1st series) #59-61]
[Note: The intention of these interactions with Shatterstar implied some kind of maternal connection between Shatterstar and Spiral. However, this appears to have been discarded in favor of Shatterstar’s officially revealed origin established in X-Factor (1st series) #259 as the son of Longshot and Dazzler, with Longshot also being an imperfect clone of Shatterstar through time travel. Perhaps, Spiral merely valued Shatterstar because of his prophesized defeat of Mojo in the future. Since Spiral foresaw that Shatterstar was destined to one day overthrow Mojo, it is possible she saw that he might also fail. If this were the case, then perhaps that is what Benjamin Russell was to her all along - merely a backup in case something dreadful befell Shatterstar.]
Sometime later, Shinobi Shaw of the Hellfire Club hired Spiral to kidnap Leong and Nga Coy Manh, both of whom she had manipulated in the past. [X-Force (1st series) #62] Before Leong and Nga’s sister Karma could track them down, the Hellfire Club shipped them off to Viper, who then hired Spiral to modify the two children in her Body Shoppe. She aged them to adulthood and imbued them with bizarre genetic abilities. Before Spiral could reveal her motivations for any of this, she was interrupted by the intrusion of Karma, Cannonball and Beast, which led to the destruction of her cherished citadel. [Beast #1-3]
Her solitude in the Wildways was interrupted when she was ambushed in her Body Shoppe by a group of magical beings called the Dragons of the Crimson Dawn, who demanded she transport them to Earth. They threatened to augment her body if she refused and displayed one of their twisted creations as evidence of their cruelty. Even Spiral, a master at body augmentations, had to turn away from this horrifying creature. Given little choice, she reluctantly agreed to help and accepted the mark of the Crimson Dawn over her left eye. Spiral brought them to Earth in search of Captain Britain, the whole time searching for a way to outsmart and betray them. Unfortunately for her, they
proved smarter than she anticipated and Spiral had no choice but to participate. However, once she had the opportunity, she snuck away and solicited Excalibur’s help in recovering Captain Britain. They didn’t trust her and mentioned her connection to their enemy, Mojo, but Spiral made it clear to them she no longer served “that bloated sack of protoplasm and his inane quest for higher ratings and public adoration!” [Excalibur (1st series) #107-110]
Sometime after this, Spiral’s demeanor drastically shifted, and she plotted to destroy Earth-616 by harnessing the power of a dangerous creature called Skornn. Apparently, every few dozen centuries, the Skornn was released upon the Earth, but every time previous, some “meddling warrior” bearing a mystical weapon called the Five Fingers of Annihilation drove it back. Spiral hoped the power the Skornn would obtain from devouring mutants would propel it to success. Nevertheless, she intended to make sure the Five Fingers of Annihilation were not an obstacle before she released the beast. To get the blade, she tricked Shatterstar, the most proficient warrior she knew, into stealing it for her from her former lover, Dominicus Pierce. Her plans changed when Shatterstar caught on to the trick and confronted her. Spiral snatched the blade and escaped through a dimensional void to an alternate Earth, which she proceeded to dominate by harnessing the power of the Five Fingers of Annihilation.
Her slaughter of this world’s inhabitants earned her the nickname Apocalypse by its few remaining denizens. After years of conquest, the only heroes who remained to oppose her total rule were that dimension’s version of Cable and X-Force. Before Spiral could snuff out the last remaining rebels, however, Shatterstar arrived by way of the same dimensional portal Spiral had used - albeit three years later - and aided X-Force in storming her castle. Spiral fought back, taunted them and boasted of her supposed omnipotence. However, when the time came to duel Shatterstar, Spiral neglected to use any of her vaunted abilities. She could have done many things to defeat him, but instead allowed herself to be captured. Whether or not this was intentional was unclear; maybe the 616-Shatterstar had some nebulous influence over her. Nevertheless, she was taken into X-Force’s custody while Shatterstar returned to Earth-616 bearing the Five Fingers of Annihilation. Spiral remained in X-Force’s captivity. [X-Force: Shatterstar #1-4]
After somehow escaping from her prison on the alternate Earth she conquered, she returned to the Mojoverse and served Mojo for a while. While back in his service, Spiral witnessed the X-Men Juggernaut and Nocturne arrive in the Mojoverse by way of a wormhole. [X-Men (2nd series) #162] She and Mojo manipulated Nocturne into leading them back to the headquarters of the X-Men so they could capture them and once again de-age them into babies. However, the X-Men fought back, defeated both Spiral and Mojo and turned them over to Emma Frost, who could not wait to punish them. [Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #460-461] What Emma actually did with them is unknown, however, as shortly after that M-Day struck and depowered most of the world’s mutants. Perhaps in the confusion wrought by this event, Spiral and Mojo were able to escape.
When Beast approached an assorted group of supervillain scientists to ask for their help in undoing M-Day, Spiral was among their number. Although she offered to tinker around with one or two thoughts she had, it seems she never gave the project her full attention. Mojo, however, needed the X-Men to remain mutants so he could still air his shows. Without them, his ratings were in the pits. Only upon Mojo’s command did Spiral step up and assist Beast. She approached Beast at his home and offered an avenue he had not considered. She noted that, as his problem had not been caused by science, it could not be solved that way. When science ended, she noted, was where magic began. [Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #491]
Considering her role in reversing M-Day complete by simply encouraging Beast’s pursuit, Spiral returned to the service of Mojo. After she helped him kidnap Sunspot and Cannonball, [Astonishing Tales (2nd series) #1] she betrayed him and offered her services instead to her a new employer and ruler of the Mojoverse, Mr. Veech. Once the X-Babies defeated Veech, however, Spiral shifted allegiances once more and began working for them, even after they refused her suggestion that they all work for Mojo. [X-Babies #1]
Around this time, Spiral rebuilt her Body Shoppe. Within this incarnation, she repaired Lady Deathstrike, who had fallen in battle against Cyclops’ covert team, X-Force. [New X-Men (2nd series) #45] Deathstrike, one of the Body Shoppe’s first customers, felt more indebted to Spiral than ever. She continually referred to Spiral as her “mistress” and acted according to Spiral’s whim. Deathstrike had literally become Spiral’s “magic murder doll.” [Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #504, 509] One day, while repairing her protégé Lady Deathstrike in the Body Shoppe, 
she was approached by Madelyne Pryor, at that point calling herself the Red Queen. Madelyne threatened to destroy Spiral if she didn’t join her new Sisterhood and help her defeat the X-Men. It turned out Spiral didn’t need the threat of death to join; she and Lady Deathstrike enthusiastically signed up right away. [Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #504]
Still, the Red Queen promised to resurrect someone for each member of her Sisterhood in exchange for their help in getting what she wanted from the X-Men. Judging by how she reacted when the Red Queen appeared to renege on the offer, Spiral had someone in mind she fiercely wanted to resurrect. [Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #509] Madelyne’s plans ultimately failed and she was destroyed before ever living up to her end of the bargain. Spiral had to retreat with Chimera, Lady Deathstrike and the Mastermind sisters. [Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #511]