Kwannon

PHASE 1

PHASE 2

Kwannon
Portrayed by Stock image
Known Aliases:	Unknown
Affiliations:	The Hand

Socked By:	Socker required
Introduction:	Something Wicked

You assume I am some parasite to be dealt with, yet you know nothing of me.

The psychic echo of a dead Hand assassin, Kwannon 'lived' in the mind of Betsy Braddock, awaiting her moment to escape. That moment came in June 2012, when Nathaniel Essex removed her from Betsy's mind and placed her in a new body.

Daughter of a Japanese father and Korean mother who died while her daughter was still a young child, Kwannon was shunned as a 'half breed' and grew up a resentful and angry teenager. She fell in with ninja assassins the Hand, becoming lover to the leader Matsu'o and killing her father as part of her initiation into the group.

In the wake of her father's murder, Kwannon vanished, resurfacing as part of the Yakuza. She used her minor telepathic talents in their service, as well as her ability to kill, until her arrest and incarceration. The Hand, seeking revenge for her defection and wanting to silence her, had her poisoned whilst in prison. Her brain was harvested as part of a program seeking to create telepaths from ordinary humans, a program which continually failed. Eventually, the preserved sections of her brain fell into the hands of Nathaniel Essex.

Kwannon's brain tissue was inserted into Betsy Braddock's brain in order to revive her after she fell into a coma following her eyesight-restoring surgery. It appeared the injury to Betsy's eyes and optic nerves had also damaged her brain, namely her telepathic ability, and while she was still able to use her powers whilst blind, the surgery damaged that part of her brain further. Using Kwannon's brain tissue, Essex was able to restore Betsy's telepathy and return her to consciousness, although that happened many months after Essex' departure from the mansion.

A side effect of the surgery was that the psychic imprint of Kwannon became a malevolent offshoot of Braddock's personality. Several months after Betsy's recovery, Kwannon trapped Betsy's consciousness with the help of Manuel de la Rocha and proceeded to sabotage many of Betsy's relationships at the mansion and use a combination of deception, psychic manipulation and seduction to cover her tracks. When her existence was discovered, she attempted to flee, but was captured by the X-Men. Charles Xavier freed Betsy's consciousness, but the two entities were too intertwined for him to exorcise Kwannon without causing psychic devestation to Betsy. Instead, he bound Kwannon inside Betsy's mind, much as Kwannon had done with her 'host', and she remains there to this day.

During the invasion of Genosha, Essex used his position as Genengineer to capture Betsy (who had been mentally conditioned to act as a Magistrate for the Genoshan government), and, after breaking her conditioning, proceeded to separate Betsy's and Kwannon's consciousnesses. Once the procedure was completed, Kwannon and Essex escaped together.