Cerebra's Files

Dani was raised by her grandfather Black Eagle in Colorado and learned to ride and shoot at a young age. When her powers manifested she was targeted by the Hellfire Club and Black Eagle was killed in their assault. Fortunately, Black Eagle was a friend of Professor X and had contacted him when he realized Dani was a mutant. Unfortunately, Dani thought that her power, which had manifested by showing a vision of Black Eagle's death, had actually brought about the event. Upon joining the original New Mutants, the Brood Queen infesting the Professor feared her power would reveal her presence and set a number of traps to kill her, though Dani evaded them all. Dani soon became team leader, eventually sharing the position with Cannonball. Within a few months, Dani was confronted with one of her biggest challenges, , fighting the Demon Bear that had claimed her parents years before. Dani faced the bear with only a bow and arrow and was mortally wounded. While Dani was in the hospital, her teammates fought the Demon Bear in its own dimension, until Magik destroyed it, freeing Dani's parents from the Demon Bear, where they had been trapped for years. Fortunately, Dani was then healed by the Morlock Healer - otherwise, she would have been paralyzed for life.

When the Enchantress captured the New Mutants for Loki and scattered them across Asgard, Dani became a Valkyrie, one of Odin's warrior women, after she freed one of the winged horses used by the Valkryor from a barbed wire trap. She gained the power to see death coming, but it scared her immensely. She was also able to fight off death with her "Spirit Lance" illusion. Later, when former teammate Magma was captured by the High Evolutionary, who intended to remove her powers, Dani led the New Mutants to Magma's rescue. Dani herself was captured and put into the Evolutionary's machines, and her powers were erased. Fortunately, though, before Dani was removed from the machine the dying Morlocks Glow Worm and Bulk reversed the settings and actually advanced Dani's mutation. As a result, she was able to give her images physical substance. She could keep only one image solid at a time, and soon learned to wish for a small necklace of her "Spirit Lance" to keep from accidentally bringing thoughts into reality.

A few months later, during #inferno">Inferno Dani began to experience terrible headaches, which she thought were the result of the death-visions she was having due to the demon invasion. However, the headaches were really the result of the Norse death goddess Hela's machinations. Hela had captured the Valkyries and corrupted them into collectors of the living, not just the dead. Though Dani's human nature delayed her conversion, she eventually succumbed to Hela's spell and burst into flames, along with Brightwind, her flying horse. The New Mutants enlisted the help of Dr. Strange and fought Dani all over Manhattan, trying to keep her from burning everything in sight (the damage was then pinned on Rusty by Freedom Force, resulting in his incarceration). Dani finally gained enough control of her mind to create an ice machine that froze her in place. Then the entire team was sent to Asgard by Dr. Strange to combat the evil at its source. Unfortunately, Dani couldn't maintain control any longer and she joined Hela's forces. Dani was in fact the lynchpin of Hela's plan, as she was to wield the Deathsword forged by Eitri the dwarflord and slay Odin while he slept. Fortunately, Cannonball was able to shatter the sword and Hela abandoned her plans, returning Dani and the rest of the enthralled Asgardians back to normal. While the New Mutants left Asgard, Dani stayed with her Valkyrie "sisters."

Months later, after the formation of X-Force from the old New Mutants, "Moonstar" reappeared as a member of Reignfire's Mutant Liberation Front. Interestingly, though Dani had returned to normal from her Dark Valkyrie form, Brightwind had not and was now called "Darkwind." At that time, Dani used her power to generate a psionic bow and arrow which penetrated the mind to knock it into unconsciousness or to dredge up its greatest fear. However, as the arrow was psychic energy, it could actually do whatever Dani wanted, like a telepath's power, as when she again journeyed to Asgard to save the Valkyries from the Dark Elves. Dani was able to channel the essences of the Valkyries given to her by Brunnhild into her arrow and deliver them to the Valkryor with one shot. This use of her power was never truly explored. While a member of the M.L.F., Dani was targeted in the "Younghunt" and helped fight off the Upstarts. Afterwards, she revealed herself to her former teammates, but returned to the M.L.F. Darkwind was later killed by Reignfire, who may have suspected Dani's loyalty was not absolute.

Finally, just before Operation: Zero Tolerance Moonstar called in X-Force, posing as a camera crew, to help defuse a hostage situation in the Wakeman Clinic, where the M.L.F. had been trapped after capturing the facility. When some of the captured doctors revealed themselves to be Prime Sentinels, a deadly battle ensued, during which X-Force discovered that Moonstar was really a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent undercover in the M.L.F. Dani aided in helping the M.L.F. and X-Force escape and then joined X-Force. Shortly afterwards, Dani was transmorphed for a short time by Arcadia and began to channel ethereal energies, both as healing and as concussive bursts. She had apparently linked with Arcadia, but there was a cost. Arcadia was being pursued by a version of the Demon Bear that had stalked Dani years before. When Arcadia finally caught up to X-Force in San Francisco, they battled the Bear, but Dani and Arcadia were swallowed. Inside, Arcadia's doll Mary Weather guided them to the truth about the bear and their connection to each other. Arcadia and Dani pooled their powers to disassemble the bear, but when it was done, Arcadia had turned into the Queen of the Star Swords, a villain from her childhood fantasies and a powerful version of herself from another dimension. The Queen called four versions of Dani from other timelines to serve her and began creating a citadel that linked to all the realities in San Francisco Bay. Dani was severely weakened by the other four versions of herself, who were all draining her powers. She and X-Force traveled through the citadel, visiting other distorted versions of themselves until Dani finally stopped the Queen with the help of one of the other Danis and by absorbing her powers back from all the other versions. In stopping the Queen, Dani lost her quantum abilities. After leaving X-Force for some months, she returned to the X-Mansion to go to college. She was part-timing with the X-Men, and accompanied Wolverine on a mission to search out the Neo Domina. She had gained more control over the telepathic aspects of her original powers, to the point where she can project images based on psychic echoes or resonances in a specific location.

While Dani seemed to have been estranged from the school in the months following, she recently rejoined after hearing the case of a wind-controlling girl and bringing her to the school. Professor X wanted Dani to return as a teacher, but she declined, not feeling ready for that role. However, she agreed to be something of a "recruiter" for the school instead. Dani is back to using her powers in their original modes, pulling images of things feared or desired from others' minds. After being forced to scare one of her students to stop him from killing, she wanted to leave Xavier's, but Professor X brought all of her recruits together and asked them who they wanted as a faculty advisor. They all chose Dani, so she agreed to stay. Recently, Dani also signed the papers for student Josh Foley's custody, making her his legal guardian as well.

Dani was quite upset with her old friend Rahne, who had joined the faculty and then started a relationship with Josh, causing Rahne to flee the Institute. Mirage also used her powers in conjunction with Emma Frost's telepathy to show Prodigy III a vision of what could happen if he reomoved the mental blocks that kept him from retaining his absorbed knowledge. She saw the squad through some tough times, with interpersonal conflicts leading to the New Mutants losing in squad competition, but she allowed Wind Dancer to try and fix things, which she did. Afterwards, she resolved to patch things up with Rahne.

In the House of M reality warp, Dani was the leader/mentor of a squad of S.H.I.E.L.D. trainees dubbed the Hellions. At some point in the past, Dani lost her left eye, which appeared to have been replaced by a prosthetic. Shortly before the fall of the House of M, Dani led the Hellions to the New Mutant Leadership Institute, a sort of rival, diplomatic organization run by Karma, and stopped a group of sapien terrorists from disrupting a prize-giving ceremony. Events led to the Hellion Surge II joining with some of the New Mutants to find her father, a leading Japanese sapien terrorist, and Dani commanded the rest of Hellions to follow. In Japan, Dani had new recruit Magik teleport them to the terrorists' location, and in the spirit of fairness, Dani agreed to take the Hellions with the New Mutants to discover more about Genesis. They soon discovered that Emperor Sunfire's Project Genesis was a horrific experiment geared to turning humans into mutants, but with an abysmal success rate. However, they were all fooled by Laurie Garrison, who was a sleeper agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., and who used her pheromones to turn the mutants against each other. Dani was wounded, but survived. After Cessily stabbed Laurie, Dani agreed that Genesis had to be stopped. She ordered Magik to get all the survivors out, and then led a Butch Cassidy-style charge against Sunfire's troops and Sentinels.

In the wake of the M-Day event, however, Mirage was rendered human and Emma fired her and sent her home, ostensibly for Dani's own protection. However, the bad blood between them and Dani's obvious displeasure at Emma's actions seem to give the lie to that rationale.

Much later, Beast brought Dani to Camp Hammond, where newly-registered superhumans were training to deal with Trauma, the young man who transformed into his targets' greatest fears. Given the similarity of their powers, Dani was able to help Trauma control his ability, though contrary to H.P. Gyrich's intentions, she inspired him to become a therapist.
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