In mainstream reality, the X-Men prevented the assassination of anti-mutant Senator Robert Kelly; however, in Kate Anne Pryde-Rasputin’s timeline, Kelly was killed. The assassination caused intense widespread public paranoia against mutants, and, in the next presidential election, an anti-mutant candidate won. The anti-mutant outrage led to a genetic purity act, rendering the X-Men fugitives. In retaliation of fear, the anti-mutant president's administration unleashed giant mutant-hunting robot Sentinels to eliminate mutant-kind and the Sentinels decided that the best way to do so was to take over the United States. Kate eventually married her teammate, Piotr Rasputin (Colossus), only to be captured and see their children slain, by the regime's robotic Sentinels. Over the subsequent years, the Sentinels killed or imprisoned virtually all known superhuman beings within North America, including Kate's husband.
Kate was placed in the South Bronx Mutant Containment Facility, where she rejoined the surviving members of the X-Men, Wolverine, Magneto, Rachel Summers, and Franklin Richards, the son of Fantastic Four members, Mr. Fantastic and Invisible Woman, in a plan to end the Sentinels' reign by changing history.
Rachel used her psionic powers to exchange the consciousness and spirit of the adult X-Man Kate with that of Pryde's teenage self, as she existed at a time just before the attempt on Kelly's life. It was hoped that the adult Kate, in her younger self's body at that earlier time, could warn the X-Men about the assassination attempt, so they could stop it, thereby preventing the chain of events from occurring that led to the Sentinels' rule. However, history could not be changed in this manner and Rachel, as it turned out, actually caused Kate to exchange psyches not with her younger self in the past of her reality, but in the mainstream reality. While Kate was sent back to take over her teenage self's body, the other X-Men escaped the camp, taking Kate's unconscious body with them. Kate succeeded in preventing Kelly's assassination in the mainstream reality, after which the Pryde’s psyches returned to their proper times and realities. On her return, Kate found that other X-Men, except for Rachel, had all died in an attack on the Sentinels' Manhattan headquarters.
Investigating why their efforts did not succeed in changing her reality, Rachel sent her astral self into that past as well, also arriving in the mainstream reality, subsequently learning Kate had crossed timestreams. Rachel's meditative astral form was found by the Phoenix Force, a powerful cosmic force that had been linked to Jean Grey of the mainstream reality. Sending a portion of itself into the future of Rachel's reality with Rachel, the Force met Kate, after Rachel passed out from the strain of the time travel.[3] After Rachel passed out, Kate bargained with the Force to save Rachel from the Sentinel's rule and to keep her from remembering the horrors she had experienced. The Force agreed to boost Rachel's powers, so she could physically travel back in time, not just psychically. Kate still did not give up her vain hope of altering her reality's history. Kate hypnotized Rachel into using her psionic powers to tap into the Phoenix Force and send herself back in time when Kate said the words "Dark Phoenix". Thus, Kate hoped that Rachel herself could change history.
The next day, Kate, using X-Men ally Carol Danvers' credentials, and Rachel illegally entered the laboratory of Project Nimrod, which was the attempt to construct the most highly advanced Sentinel possible with the technology of that time, in the hopes of sabotaging the project. Kate planted a nuclear device, hoping to fool the regime into thinking Rachel had died, but the Nimrod prototype attacked Kate moments before the bomb detonated. Kate survived, due to phasing, but she suffered terminal radiation poisoning. Pursued by guards, Kate and Rachel locked themselves within the laboratory, whose walls were proofed against Kate's mutant power to phase through solid matter. Rachel believed herself and Kate to be trapped, but Kate said the words that caused Rachel to project herself back through time. Project Nimrod's creation, the Sentinel Nimrod, then fired on Kate and traveled back in time to find Rachel. After Rachel was gone, Kate was captured, and the Sentinels attempted to use the residual effects of the time warp on her to retrieve Rachel. Just as the warp was being created, Kate's inhibitor collar failed and she phased, merging with the warp.
Kate's consciousness came to rest in a small, metal, off-spherical body (built by Tweedledope of the Crazy Gang) in the mainstream reality. Still simultaneously perceiving other realities, Kate's mind was scrambled by the "interference" from other timelines she felt, leaving her amnesiac and going about everything with child-like glee. After playing "tag" with Colin McKay, who taught Kate the word "friend", Kate saved the child from Vixen, by creating a dimensional portal. Kate later met Rupert Holloway, a man possessed with the idea of making contact with alien species and another "friend", and opened a dimensional portal to the omniverse, where they met Opal Luna Saturnyne. After accidentally sending Dr. Moria MacTaggert and Callisto to an alternate dimension, the Lightning Force appeared to rescue their own Reichsminister Moira MacTaggert and battled Excalibur, the British-based superhero team. As a member of Excalibur, Shadowcat, Kate's alternate younger self, met Kate and, completely out of fear, disrupted her circuitry.
Shadowcat took Kate to Excalibur's Lighthouse Headquarters, where she was reunited with Rachel, now calling herself Phoenix, and Shadowcat named the robot Widget. After returning to the exchange of Dr. MacTaggert and the Highland Flyer crew with the Lightning Force Reichsrail Train, Reichsminister MacTaggart threw a nuclear grenade, and Widget, who had grown full-size, teleported Excalibur and Alistaire Stuart into another dimension.
Widget inadvertently took Excalibur through several alternate timelines in a so-called "Cross-Time Caper". After this, Roma had her locked to the Earth-616 timeline, preventing her from moving far from it. This began to clear her mind, and she reconstructed her body. After this, Rachel (who had recovered her full memory), Widget, and Excalibur returned to Rachel's original timeline and successfully reprogrammed the ruling Sentinels to protect all life, ending their tyranny. Widget now resides in Otherworld where she acts as an aide to the Braddock family and has returned to her earlier form as a floating head.
