BIOGRAPHY: Page 6
However, Nate first fell back into old habits. He hooked back up with Maddie, travelling around and letting her call the shots. He didn’t notice how dependant he had become on her, nor her growing cruelty towards others. While in Rio, he had a nightmare where he destroyed a small town without any reason. Waking up, Nate was convinced - despite Maddie’s attempts to calm him - that he had indeed used his powers in some way. Going outside for a stroll, he saw the latest newspaper headline, which described the mysterious destruction of a small town. Taking Maddie along, he flew there and realized he had done that and even more - in the destruction he saw the outline of Madelyne’s profile. Maddie calmly told him that she controlled him and had done so for quite a while. Promising him answers, she asked him to accompany her to another dimension, actually her native reality, where they were expected by a Mr. Scratch, who addressed Madelyne as “Queen.”
Turned out that “Maddie” was actually an alternate reality version of Jean Grey, who after having her powers removed and being exiled from her own reality for unspeakable crimes, had usurped the Throne of Queen Madelyne. She told the dumbstruck Nate of a spiral of parallel universes and that in many of them the ultimate doomsday weapon, a Nate Grey, had been developed. This Jean had been searching for and discarding Nate Greys until she found the perfect specimen - him. She had replaced the psionic ghost Nate created months ago. She stepped into that shell and filled it out and had successfully wormed her way inside his brain ever since. To demonstrate her control over him, she made him kill a helpless prisoner and told him that the next day he would exterminate all of Asia.
Nate unexpectedly ran away, following a voice in his head, which proved to be another Nate Grey. Nate 998 (the number of his universe) explained he was the first Nate the Queen had found. He was imperfect and driven mad by her but she didn’t manage to kill him. He had since refused to use his powers destructively, playing shaman to a small village of refugees, whom he was hiding from the Queen. Together, the two Nates reanimated the corpse of Forge, who had been Queen Maddie’s lover and top inventor. From the body, they learned viable information about the Queen’s plans and they tried to take the battle to her. However, they first had to deal with her guard Mr. Scratch, who was immune against any display of mutant powers. He attacked Nate and, as he was about to die, Nate 998 touched him and the both Nates were engulfed by some psychic fire. Seemingly, Nate 998 quickly perished and Nate himself was defeated and brought before the Queen. Yet, when she attempted to use his powers to take over her world, she discovered it was the wrong Nate she had and killed him.
Actually, the two Nates had switched physical attributes and, instead of dying in the fire, Nate had been brought back to the main Marvel Universe’s Earth, where he pondered the events. Thanks to the switch, the other Nate also passed him his genetic brand - an X-shaped tattoo - that would prevent his powers from burning out and killing him. Nate now had a new lease on life - he decided to go back and stop Jean/Maddie from committing any more crimes. He surprised the Queen and overloaded her with his power until she died. Back on Earth, Nate decided to take a cue from his counterpart and became a shaman, who protects his tribe, mutants and humans alike, from all threats outside reality. [X-Man #67-70]
One of these threats soon manifested. A being from outside this reality horribly murdered members of a secret group of mutants and nothing was able to stop it. Nate looked up a witness to one of these murders, a woman named Helen, who was also a member of the mutant group called the Gauntlet.
Nate learned that the members of the Gauntlet were businessmen and women who weren’t interested in becoming embroiled in mutant politics as exemplified by Xavier and Magneto. Instead, they used their powers to make their fortunes and to study the Spiral. Nate guessed correctly that something followed them back from one of the low broken universes. Fending off another attack of the creature, Nate got the feeling that the creature wanted revenge for something. Nate decided to follow it to its own world, where he learned the truth. In that broken universe, where life almost wasn’t possible, children were precious beyond belief.
When the Gauntlet visited, they kidnapped the few children, hoping to make money from their adaptive DNA structures. The creature made it its life-goal to get the children back or get vengeance, even though, since his species evolved very quickly, he had become an outsider from his own species during the time he was away. Nate went back to Earth, but learned that the children were dead. Disgusted by their utter lack of morals, Nate killed the Gauntlet, except for Helen, who turned out to be the instigator of the idea to exploit the children in the first plan. Her punishment was that she was handed over to the creature. [X-Man #63-66]
Later, Nate ran across a nun who had put out her eyes due to the horrible visions she suffered. Nate suspected that Sister Perpetua was a mutant, as he realized that her visions showed events from another universe, and he teleported himself and Perpetua there. 
This other reality found itself under attack by an immensely powerful being named Qabiri, who hailed from the Brilliant City, the world at the uppermost end of the Spiral, where everything was perfect. Having become aware of beings who could travel between universes, such as Nate, he feared that some of them could reach and despoil the Brilliant City. Hence - in spite of the wishes of his fellows - he attempted to destroy all universes that had spawned worldwalkers. His current objective was the destruction of the world Perpetua and Nate traveled to. The two met the planet’s foremost defenders - the Protectorate - under the leadership of Nicola Zeitgeist, a woman who could be Perpetua’s twin. Despite all their and Nate’s attempts, Qabiri succeeded and next wanted to eradicate the main Marvel Universe.
As reality crumbled around them, Nate, Perpetua and Nicola shifted to another dimension, one where life almost was not possible. Apparently, it was the two women who had been drawn to that Earth, as another duplicate greeted them. By linking the three females, Nate discovered that they were all splinter personalities of the same woman - Idris - who belonged to Quabiri’s people.
Not complete yet, Idris did not remember the reason why she split up, only that it was something horrible. To buy himself and earth some time, Nate taunted Qabiri by mocking the Brilliant City and it’s self acclaimed perfection. Qabiri was enraged enough to follow Nate and Idris to the Silver City without destroying Earth. Once they had reached the world at the Spiral’s top, Nate linked all offshoots of Idris around the universes and, finally learning the truth that she couldn’t bear. He showed it to the inhabitants of the Brilliant City, Idris looking up and realizing that, in the spectrum beyond, there were beings above the Spiral to whom they were nothing. In the final analysis, the Brilliant City too was a broken universe. The realization took the fight out of Qabiri and left him and the denizens of the City shattered. Idris, who wanted to prevent this from happening, asked Nate to make her forget. He changed her back into Sister Perpetua, wiping her memories in the process, and she was now at peace and no longer plagued by any dark visions. [X-Man #71-74]
Some time later, from orbit, Nate noticed the words “Help us” in a Kansas corn fields. The message was erased soon thereafter, but Nate chose to investigate and found the town full of people, seemingly in a walking coma. The single exception was a boy named Mike, a mutant telekinetic, who was responsible for the distress call. Mike brought Nate to the being responsible for the town’s strange state, an alien humanoid calling himself the Harvester. Billion of years ago, his race seeded worlds with parasites and they became part of its lifeforms. Now Earth was ready to be harvested and, over the past decades, the alien had prepared for this event, by mingling himself with every mitochondrion of every life-form on Earth. Surely, the harvest would kill Earth’s entire population, so Nate tried to prevent this. Seeing that he could not harm the Harvester, as this pain would be shared by every human, he offered himself instead of Earth. Yet, the Harvester declined, being from another universe, Nate’s energy was tainted, unpalatable to them.
Nate found only one other solution. He took the young boy Mike away, telling him that he could become a good shaman if he wanted to and shared some of his knowledge and possibly power with the boy. As the Harvester started feasting, Nate touched him and, by using his powers on himself, started dissolving both of them. Their energies mingled and thus Nate’s “tainted” energy touched everyone on Earth, effectively spoiling the crop, thus saving the world. Mike realized what happened to them: their physical forms gone, Nate and the Harvester were now a part of everyone and everything on Earth. Mike then told his girlfriend good-bye, explaining to her that he had to follow in Nate’s footsteps and learn to be a shaman. [X-Man #75]