TessaSage

A mutant with a computer-like mind, Sage can store massive amounts of data and possesses vast processing power. She has a long history of using her gifts as an undercover operative for both the X-Men and Excalibur, and helps the Exiles protect and restore realities across the Omniverse. She remains a dedicated protector of mutant and humankind.

Spymaster

The woman that becomes known as Sage spends her youth in the Balkans, but as a teenager she lives in Afghanistan when war breaks out. Scavenging weapons and equipment from fallen combatants, and forced to learn to fight both soldiers and local bandits, she discovers the first of her mutant powers—an absolutely precise photographic and kinetic memory. One day, she feels compelled to enter a cave in the nearby Hindu Kush mountain range, where she finds mutant telepath Charles Xavier, AKA Professor X, his legs crushed under a massive stone block after a battle with the alien, Lucifer. She rescues him, but on the trek back to civilization, the pair encounter a Shaw Industries-sponsored United Nations aid convoy under attack by bandits. She shoots most of the attackers and, enraged by the murder of one young UN worker, kills another bandit with her knife. The blood on her hands sickens her, but she simultaneously saves the life of another powerful mutant: wealthy industrialist Sebastian Shaw. She parts ways with Shaw and Xavier once she sees them to safety, returning to her mercenary life; where at some point she is sold to, and subsequently escapes from, a harem. 

Xavier soon contacts her, recruiting her to his cause of human/mutant coexistence at roughly the same time he founded the X-Men. While he trains the X-Men to be heroes, he trains her as a spy and double agent, keeping her presence at the mansion a secret; he helps her hone her mental powers, including telepathy and an analytical, computer-like mind, to hide her true intentions from other telepaths.

Living Computer

Sage is a mutant possessing a computer-like, “cyberpathic” mind with unlimited storage capacity and vast processing power. Her photographic and kinetic memory allow her to recall information with incredible speed and accuracy via mnemonic triggers. Like a computer, Sage is capable of parallel processing, performing multiple tasks at once by partitioning her mind to dedicate a portion to each undertaking. Sage could instantly calculate complex statistics, track event probabilities, and analyze behavior patterns.

When merged with the Panoptichron, Sage becomes a living computer. Housed in a massive “crystal palace” that exists outside of space-time, Sage can monitor and scan every reality in the Omniverse. Combining the Panoptichron’s systems with her own computer-like mind, Sage can record and analyze massive amounts of data at blinding speeds. Through the Panoptichron, Sage has access to so much data that she approaches omniscience. She can project a holographic human form that resembles her original body anywhere in the Palace; when the Exiles are in other dimensions, she can monitor and communicate with them through a device called a Tallus, or project a holographic form through the Tallus as well. The Panoptichron contains pan-dimensional transport equipment, medical bays and stasis facilities, synthesizers that can create food, clothing, furniture, etc. (all of which Sage can operate), and several tesseract-like “rooms” that contain various environments, including—now that Sage has given the Palace a soul—living flora and fauna.

Sage has complete conscious control over her own body. She’s a formidable hand-to-hand combatant, able to anticipate opponents’ moves and master any fighting style that she studied. Sage can learn new skills in seconds by downloading and analyzing all data on a skill set, knows several martial arts, and can wield a wide range of firearms with considerable accuracy. Presumably, she is similarly skilled when inhabiting her holographic body. 

Sage has an acupressure point on the back of her neck, which can be used to “reboot” her mind in the event of catastrophic failure. Sage has very pale skin, and possesses facial tattoos, which she occasionally hides telepathically, as well as a tribal tattoo around her left arm. She is fluent in more than 123 languages.

Sage’s low-level telepathy allows her to read and manipulate minds, communicate with others over a distance, project her astral form and create realistic mental illusions. Possessed of an ironclad, nearly indomitable will, Sage can reflect most psionic or cybernetic mental attacks back on their originators. She can also purge her body of certain viruses or contagions by force of will. Additionally, Sage has the mutant ability to sense others’ mutant genes. She can also read and analyze people’s genetic codes, and selectively manipulate their DNA to enhance preexisting or latent powers, or heal them from certain injuries. Sage can also channel others’ powers and energies through herself to an extent. It is unknown if Sage retains these abilities as part of the Panoptichron. 

As “Diana Fox,” Sage wields a sword, and wears a Shadow Captain uniform provided by Albion that grants her flight, increased strength (lifting in excess of 50 tons) and protection from psionic attacks. The uniform also reshapes and tones her body, and may transfer some powers to her, including body-altering abilities—when Sage and Diana struggle for dominance, Sage flies, demonstrates super-strength and briefly morphs into Diana. At any rate, she can presumably replicate these same feats via her holographic form.

Sage wears a pair of custom “cyber shades” that function as a miniaturized computer, with a wireless broadband connection to her larger network. Built by Kitty Pryde and herself, Sage gives pairs to her X-Treme X-Men teammates, allowing them to communicate via an audio/video feed using miniaturized microphones and cameras. The shades also project holographic images into the wearer’s visual field, which can be expanded outward to allow others to see with whom the wearer is communicating or information they are reviewing. The shades’ sensors can detect energy trails and telepathic resonance patterns, analyze electronic circuitry, and see via thermal imaging. The shades can also interface with external networks, and project a holographic, iconographic keyboard that can also be keyed to a visual input system. 

Sage’s custom network, “Sage-Net,” allows her to monitor worldwide events, and can clandestinely tap into several other networks, such as United States surveillance satellite feeds and the Fantastic Four’s and Avengers’ computer systems. It could project a hologram of Sage anywhere on the X-Men’s mansion grounds. Sage gives the network to Lucas Bishop, AKA Bishop, when she leaves the team, and presumably it’s destroyed along with the rest of the X-Mansion—but Sage sets up a second, similar network in Excalibur’s London headquarters. 

Sage also carries a knife, wields handguns that fire non-lethal projectiles, and occasionally rides a customized motorcycle.

Opposing Forces

Elias Bogan is often Sage’s enemy, who swears revenge upon her after losing a bet to her while she’s infiltrating the Hellfire Club as Tessa. When he takes his revenge, he brands Sage with facial tattoos. Though she defeats him, it shuts her telepathy down.

While on the Super Hero team Excalibur, Sage goes undercover and joins Albion’s Shadow Corps under the alias Diana Fox. Though an energy discharge affects Sage’s mind, allowing “Fox” to take over and she becomes Albion’s loyal agent known as Britannia. Fox slays some of Excalibur’s Shadow-X allies, but Sage eventually regains her mind and defeats Albion.

When the Omniversal Guardian Merlyn tries to overthrow his daughter Roma, Roma saves herself by transferring her mind and violent aspects of Merlyn’s as well to Sage’s mind. She fights off the personas, who try to claim her body, with the help of Diana Fox who resurfaces and then sacrifices herself to save Sage.

Mutant Allies

As an undercover X-Man most of the time, Sage does not get many opportunities to bond with her mutant allies. However, she becomes close co-workers and friends with Bishop while on a mission investigating murders on an Alaskan Glacier. She also is pivotal in helping her Exiles teammate Talia Wagner, AKA Nocturne, recover from a stroke.

A Life Undercover

Her first mission as a spy for the X-Men was to infiltrate the Hellfire Club, and so Sage renewed her acquaintance with Shaw, then a new member of the Council of the Chosen, the leaders of the Club’s New York chapter. She soon gained Shaw’s trust, and apparently took the name that he gave her: Tessa. However, Shaw murdered the entire Council and replaced it with his own Lords Cardinal, ruled by an Inner Circle loyal to him. Tessa became his familiar, advising and counseling him in both his legitimate and illegal business practices, but all the while gathering information on the Club’s activities for Xavier. Early on during her time undercover, Tessa ran afoul of the club’s first Lord Imperial, the ancient and sadistic telepath Elias Bogan. Shaw and Bogan’s pawn Oliver Ryland had made a wager that, if Shaw lost, Bogan would win the club’s then-White Queen, Emma Frost. With Tessa’s counsel, Shaw won the wager, but Bogan swore revenge. 

Later, Tessa warned off another spy, Elizabeth “Betsy” Braddock, AKA Psylocke, who had been assigned by the United Kingdom intelligence agency STRIKE to infiltrate the Club—cautioning her that the Club would corrupt her utterly; however, Tessa was unable to save the Phoenix Force from similar corruption, as, believing itself to be Jean Grey, it fell under the mutant Jason Wyngarde, AKA Mastermind’s power and was briefly transformed into the club’s Black Queen. This failure, and subsequent inability to warn Xavier of imminent Club attacks, bothered Tessa, but she continued on in her role. 

Donald Pierce, the Club’s renegade White King, later kidnapped Tessa during an attempted coup of the Inner Circle. Xavier and his newly gathered team of New Mutants defeated Pierce and rescued Tessa—bringing the two face-to-face for the first time in years.

When Rachel Summers attacked the Club’s new Black Queen, the ageless vampiric Selene, the Lords Cardinal and the X-Men came into conflict—but the mutant-hunting Sentinel Nimrod interrupted their battle, and both groups joined forces to defeat it. In the battle’s aftermath, Tessa extended the terms of their truce by offering the X-Men safe haven at the Club—a gesture that eventually led to Shaw offering Max Eisenhardt, AKA Magneto, then an X-Man, the position of White King. Hoping to ease tensions between the groups, Magneto joined, but later clashed with Shaw and ousted him from the Inner Circle. Sometime later, the young mutant-hunting Upstarts, including Shaw’s son Shinobi, attacked and decimated the Inner Circle. Tessa remained with the Club throughout this and aided Shinobi in his efforts to build a new Inner Circle to be ruled by himself; however, she later openly opposed him, summoning the X-Men to stop his attempted murder of publisher J. Jonah Jameson. Tessa then left the Club to aid Shaw, who was rebuilding his power base. Shaw had her telepathically brainwash X-Force to kill their mentor Nathan Summers, AKA Cable, but X-Force eventually broke free, likely with Tessa’s secret consent. Shaw eventually retook the Club from Shinobi, but Bogan suddenly returned, kidnapping Tessa to exact his long-awaited revenge. Bogan had Ryland brand her face with distinctive tattoos, and then tried to ransom Tessa in exchange for everything Shaw owned, but Shaw refused to bargain. Surprisingly, Tessa was rescued by the X-Men’s Ororo Munroe, AKA Storm, and soon cut her ties with Shaw and the Club—finally ending her undercover mission. She joined the X-Men, acting as part of their support crew despite their initial discomfort. To prevent Bogan from locating her again, Tessa concentrated all her telepathic power into shielding her mind—effectively shutting down her telepathy.

Together, Storm and Tessa decoded several troubling prophecies in one of the late mutant seer Irene Adler, AKA Destiny’s diaries. Agreeing that they needed to form a splinter group and distance themselves from the mansion, Storm gave Tessa the code name Sage and recruited several other X-Men for a mission to locate Destiny’s other diaries; however, in this “X-Treme” team’s first battle, the self-proclaimed advanced human Vargas killed Psylocke and mortally wounded Hank McCoy, AKA Beast. Sage revealed another mutant ability, to analyze and alter mutant genomes, and saved Beast’s life by enhancing his healing factor. At the same time, she says that she was Tessa no more, that she is Sage. 

When Shaw learned of Sage’s deception, he allied himself with Mastermind’s daughter, Regan Wyngarde, AKA Lady Mastermind, who trapped Sage in a series of repeating illusions, trying to brainwash her into turning against Xavier and back to Shaw. Sage telepathically reached out to the X-Men’s new ally Heather Cameron, whose powers adapted to handle different situations, and the two women overcame Lady Mastermind’s illusions. Sage later catalyzed Heather’s brother Davis’, AKA Slipstream’s latent powers, and the two siblings briefly joined the team as Lifeguard and Slipstream. 

Sage also jump-started her teammate Anna Marie, AKA Rogue’s powers, allowing her to manifest and control any of the various powers she had absorbed over the years. When the two realized that Rogue had once absorbed Destiny, and now possessed all her memories, the team ended their search for her diaries—but Sage, wary of the sea-change in public perception towards mutants since Xavier’s school went public, advised the X-Treme team to stay separate from the mainstream X-Men.

Sage bonded with her teammate Bishop, who put his past as a homicide detective to use investigating mutant-related crimes. She often used her analytical abilities to assist him, and forged several false IDs that allowed both of them to act as federal agents. Sage and Bishop investigated a multiple murder on an Alaskan glacier, and found that the victims were all associates of Elias Bogan—including Oliver Ryland. They discovered that Bogan tortured the family of young mutant Jeffrey Garrett, who lashed out, teleporting Bogan’s associates onto the glacier where they froze to death. Garrett had taken refuge at the Xavier Institute, where he came under the protection of Emma Frost, now an instructor there. Sage and Bishop went to the mansion to confront their suspect. But Bogan, once again seeking Emma as his prize, had secretly possessed the boy. Bogan took over the Danger Room, capturing Sage and Bishop, but Storm’s timely arrival allowed them to escape and defeat the villain. 

Soon after, Sage and Bishop returned to the mansion to investigate Emma’s attempted murder. Although Emma’s spurned student Esme of the Stepford Cuckoos was revealed to be partially responsible, Sage was attacked by the true mastermind, turncoat instructor Kuan-Yin Xorn, AKA Xorn, who used magnetic powers to erase his identity from her brain. Later, when Sage learned that the X-Corporation’s LA headquarters used to be the Hellfire Club’s West Coast branch, she discovered several catacombs underneath the building. Sensing Bogan’s involvement, she and several of the X-Men’s former allies snuck into the catacombs and defeated his “pet telepath,” the slave through whom he was manifesting—revealed to be long-absent X-Man, Rachel Summers.

After Xorn attacked New York and destroyed the X-Mansion, Sage and her teammates returned to help rebuild, rejoining the main team. Storm had recently proposed a mutant police force to the world powers, and deputized several X-Men to join this X-Treme Sanctions Executive (XSE). Sage coordinated their activities from her new headquarters, a state-of-the-art computer nerve center built in a carriage house on Xavier’s property; however, when Jamie Braddock created a facsimile of the cybiote killing machine, the Fury, it remotely infiltrated Sage’s network and took over her mind. Although she was forced to battle the X-Men, they overcame her and freed her from its thrall. 

Later, Sage learned that Shaw was trying to re-form the Inner Circle, with himself as Lord Imperial, and accepted an invitation to again become his familiar; however, disappointed in what Shaw had become, she deliberately failed to inform him of Donald Pierce’s impending attack, and the resulting battle left Shaw hospitalized. Newly appointed Black King Roberto da Costa, AKA Sunspot, stepped up to take his place, and Sage left the X-Men to become Da Costa’s personal advisor.

After “M-Day” depowered most of the world’s mutants, Sage accepted Peter Wisdom’s invitation to join a re-formed Excalibur team in the U.K. Investigating the villain Albion (Earth-70518’s Bran Bardic), Sage once again went undercover, joining his Shadow Corps under the alias Diana Fox, but an energy discharge affected Sage’s mind, allowing “Fox” to take on a life of her own, becoming Albion’s loyal agent Britannia. They clashed with Excalibur and briefly seized control of Britain; Britannia brutally slew several of Excalibur’s Shadow-X allies, but Sage eventually regained her own mind and Albion was defeated. 

Though Wisdom kept her from immediate incarceration, Sage faced a prison sentence for her actions as Britannia, but almost immediately Excalibur left Earth, pulled into an interdimensional conflict alongside the Exiles when the former Omniversal Guardian Merlyn tried to overthrow his daughter Roma. Dying, Roma transferred all her memories into Sage’s mind—including several violent personas she had absorbed from Merlyn. This influx left Sage unbalanced and hallucinating, unable to control her telepathy and under psychic attack by the phantoms, among them a revived Diana Fox. Staying with the Exiles, Sage relocated to their Crystal Palace and fended off Diana’s constant attempts to take over her body. 

Eventually, the other absorbed personas coalesced into an echo of Merlyn, who also tried to claim Sage’s body—and Sage and Diana realized that, split into two beings, neither could defeat him. Diana allowed herself to “die,” giving Sage the mental strength to overcome Merlyn and the other phantoms. Sage then somehow physically merged with the Palace computer, the Panoptichron, giving it the soul it was lacking. After this merge, she monitored the Omniverse as the Exiles’ mission coordinator, scanning for realities in need of repair and analyzing the best way for the team to help. 

She was later in her human form and working for an alternate reality version of S.W.O.R.D. as their ambassador. She then helped the team defeat the Exterminators from her home reality, she remained there with her X-Men. Sage then faced off with Nate Grey, AKA X-Man, who possessed David Haller, AKA Legion, alongside Jean Grey, the Stepford Cuckoos, No-Girl and Psylocke but they all were apparently annihilated by X-Man.