Cerebra's Files

N'astirh

Affiliation: None
Status: Discorporated, likely permanently
Alternate-X Versions: None
Codename Etymology: Pronounced n-ăs'tər
Powers: N'astirh was a demon of mid-range power, able to cast spells of dreaming, teleportation and more. Originally a minion of Belasco, N'astirh aimed to control Limbo by himself, but was never able to build his power base sufficiently. Then Limbo was conquered by Magik, who was an absentee ruler much of the time. N'astirh began to gain magical power, and was then summoned by S'ym, who was making a power play of his own, to open a giant portal from Limbo to Earth.

S'ym soon found the perfect pawn for his plans: Madelyne Pryor, whose access to the Phoenix Force gave her potential beyond measure. Madelyne was seduced to the dark side of magic by the demon S'ym, but then N'astirh began to plot to overthrow S'ym, who had lost much of his already limited magic when he was infected with the Transmode Virus during Magus's attack on Limbo. Madelyne became the Goblin Queen, and set in motion a plan to bring Limbo to Earth, starting with the sacrifice of her infant son Christopher, whom N'astirh helped her locate in one of Sinister's labs. N'astirh needed mutant babies to complete his portal spell, and the Summers child was to be the linchpin.

At the same time, one his minions, a demon named Crotus, brought N'astirh the mutant nicknamed Wiz Kid. N'astirh forced Wiz Kid to create a giant computer to run spells for him, which would increase his ability to spellcast. However, Wiz Kid stalled his construction, buying time for the X-Terminators to find and attempt to rescue him. Realizing that his sorcerous might was waning, N'astirh attacked S'ym, and had himself infected in order to gain more spell-computing power. N'astirh now had all of the shape-shifting and energy-draining abilities of a Technarch (Phalanx ancestors), and also had near limitless processing speed for his spells. He tried to absorb the spell computer, but Wiz Kid destroyed it before he could finish.

Then, N'astirh faced down the X-Men and X-Factor in Central Park during the midst of the Inferno event, and very nearly assimilated some of the mutants. However, using Storm's weather control to increase the heat and humidity, and Iceman's power to encase the Empire State Building (upon which N'astirh was standing) in ice, lowering the temperature to well below freezing. At first N'astirh was ecstatic, because the ice lowered the electrical resistance of his circuits, allowing him to function incerdibly fast, like a giant superconductor. However, when Colossus then shattered the ice around the tower, N'astirh was exposed to both temperature extremes of Storm's heat and Bobby's ice, and promptly exploded. Since he was Transmoded, though, he should have survived, albeit in little pieces, yet he has never returned. Perhaps his techno-organic body was imperfect and he could not regenerate himself.
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