Husk is a metamorph able to change her physical form by tearing off her outermost layer of skin. She can shift into anything that does not exceed her body mass, including liquid substances, such as complex acids capable of affecting organic steel, and has the ability to change only part of her body, such as changing a hand into a bladed weapon. When she husks into a body composed of a different element, such as silver, stone, and steel, she has the appropriate properties of those forms. Any injuries incurred while shifted will remain when she returns to human form.

As Xorn, she was thought to possess superhuman strength and some sort of healing powers. She was able to display a wide range of powers due to her husking abilities and it was speculated that she may have been some sort of energy being.

When the cullings had made their way to the green hills of Kentucky, the head of the Guthrie family defiantly held off the invading hordes. While his life would end that day, their father's efforts would allow several of his children to flee safely from the site of the massacre. The Guthrie children were orphaned and Paige escaped with her brother Sam and sister Elizabeth. There, these diamonds in the rough would be discovered by Sinister. Learning that the siblings were mutants, he took an immediate interest in them and offered to sponsor the children as members of the empire. While her elder siblings accepted this gesture, Paige refused and chose to flee instead. She would eventually side with the opposing factor in the war and become a member of the next generation of X-Men. During her time with Generation Next, she would find love and carried on a romantic relationship with her teammate Chamber, going so far as to dye her hair red according to his preference.

When Generation Next was ordered by Magneto to infiltrate the Seattle Core, Paige was paired with Vincente and the two took on the guise of the foreman Quietus with Paige husking his large head and Vincente filling out the rest of Quietus' body underneath their clothes. The kids were caught while conversing with teammates Chamber and Skin and were ordered by the Sugar Man to execute the duo. Though Chamber used his psionic powers to make everyone believe that he had been shot by the fake Quietus, Sugar Man saw through the ruse and the entire team's cover was blown!

In the riots that ensued shortly thereafter, Husk was the only of the Generation Next kids who wasn't slaughtered. She fought her way through over a mile of assailants but was beginning to get overwhelmed. As she approached the entrance of the Core, she held out a last glimmer of hope that despite all odds, someone would rush to her aid only to have that hope crushed as she witnessed her teacher Colossus who closed the entry way to save himself, trapping her inside. She was all alone.

With Quietus and the Sugar Man gone, the workers now had control of the Core. They kept her alive, having their way with her, and ripping away her innocence. While the freaks knew how to deal with casualties of war, they didn't know what to do with prisoners. This was a quandary that they would not have to ponder for long though as word of Apocalypse's defeat reached Seattle before long and the workers would desert the Core leaving Husk alone once again with no food, no water, and no hope when salvation arrived in the most unexpected of ways. Her family, Sam and Elizabeth, who she had turned her back on years ago, came back for and nursed her back to health.

She later learned that the X-Men had gone to Quebec to rescue Bishop, a stranger working alongside the X-Men, without knowing whether he was alive or dead and was hurt that the X-Men did not attempt to do the same for Generation Next. The sting of realizing that friends she would have gladly given her life to protect weren't willing to do the same for her did not sit well. The kids had risked their lives going into the core to save Illyana Rasputin and the X-Men never bothered to return the favor when they got trapped. This conveyed to Husk that the X-Men thought Generation Next wasn't worth the trouble, that they weren't good enough to be rescued. She rejoined her siblings who were once again in league with Sinister. The former Horseman helped intensify her bitter hatred for the X-Men and together they plotted to wound the them deeply by striking at their hearts.

Husk went undercover and infiltrated the X-Men posing as Xorn. She was discovered by the X-Men in the Breeding Pens following the fall of Apocalypse. She claimed that her mutant abilities manifested while she and her family were workers in the Seattle Core during the riots that killed the members of Generation Next. Magneto immediately offered her a place with the X-Men.

During her time with the team, Xorn never removed her helmet causing some to believe it contained her energy powers while others in the X-Men whispered that the helmet truly concealed hideous scars from her time in the Core. Her husking abilities enabled her to demonstrated many different powers and she told both Wolfsbane and Beak that even she was surprised by her abilities. Her dedication to Magneto's cause and her belief in what the X-Men stood for appeared to be absolute as she had gone above and beyond the call of duty as a member of Magneto's X-Men and looked to be one of the best of the New Mutants. However, appearances were quite decieving in this case.

Shortly after the X-Men were unveiled to the media to be a government strike force as part of a plan to use mutants to hunt down renegade mutants, the X-Men clashed with the Morlocks and Xorn appeared to be fatally wounded in the battle. Her two closest friends during her time with the the X-Men, Wolfsbane and Beak would visit her in the infirmary. Beak was happy to report that the ones who had done this to her had been caught and were downstairs in holding. Wolfsbane thought they should go down and teach the Morlocks a lesson for what they did, but Xorn asked them to think about how they would react to strangers who seemed to be trying to take them back to captivity, having been trapped themselves in Sinister's lab not too long ago. They surely would have fought back as well. While Wolfsbane was aware of this, she was only trying to make Xorn feel better. However, Beak had never thought of it this way before and Xorn urged him to try and look at both sides to every story.

After Magneto left with a handful of X-Men to investigate mutant activity in Mexico, the Guthrie Family coincidentally emerged very suddenly with a public display of terrorist acts in Washington. The remaining X-Men scattered to meet the Guthrie Clan head on and, while they were away, Xorn, secretly Paige in disguise, was able to tear apart the vulnerable Xavier Institute from within. Taking Rogue by surprise, Husk easily seized the X-Men's base of operations. The X-Men were shocked when they returned to find Husk was alive, she had taken Magneto's youngest son Charles Lensherr hostage, and the Guthries who fled their battle earlier had retreated back to their home.

Husk had lost her innocence when she was abandoned by the X-Men, so to enact her revenge she was going to take away the only bit of innocence she could find within these walls. The pride of their esteemed leader Magneto: his son Charles. Storm pleaded for Charles' release and tried to reason with Husk, telling her that Colossus had told them only he, Shadowcat, and Illyana made it out of the core alive, but Husk was quick to point out that the X-Men went to rescue Bishop without knowing whether he was still alive. Negotiations for the young boy's life would be cut short as Psylocke snuck on to the scene, slipping in and out of the shadows in order to make her way towards Charles and free him from his bonds. With the boy no longer in danger, the X-Men were poised to pounce on the Guthrie Clan, but their attack was halted by a returning Magneto who was enraged that someone dared to come into his home and threaten his family.

Following the deaths of her siblings, Paige attempted to make a getaway but was caught in the act by Quicksilver and Gambit. While Quicksilver was eager to send Paige to meet her family members in hell for menacing his brother, Rogue prevented him from doing so. Rogue told Husk that they were in a war with Apocalypse and were told that she was dead, plain and simple. They chose to move on and worry about those still living and to save the planet. They won and none of the X-Men regret that decision, despite everything and everyone that they lost. Paige's actions that day proved to Rogue that she never even deserved to be one of them. Although she believed Husk deserved to die, they weren't going to kill her but would instead lock her up in a cell for the rest of her life where she would be left to rot and die all alone once again.

The thought of solitude was one that she could not bear and Husk moved to attack Rogue who had turned her back on the desperate Guthrie. However, before Husk could act, Kirika thrust her adamanitum claws through Husk's back and killed her. With her dying breath, Husk revealed that they weren't just there for revenge. The Guthries were also acting as agents of Sinister and Magneto's son was supposed to be used as bait to draw him out. Magneto had made a secret pact with Sinister and had been avoiding the villain's hails after he wanted his deal with Magneto honored. Subsequently, Weapon X was able to use the scent of Paige's body to track Sinister back to his secret laboratory on Liberty Island.

In our reality, Paige Guthrie was kidnapped by Harvest, a member of the techno-organic race known as the Phalanx, and taken to California to be experimented on before she was rescued by to the combined efforts of Banshee, Jubilee, Synch, the White Queen, and Sabretooth, as well as her fellow abductees M, Skin, and Blink. After her rescue from the Phalanx, Paige, now calling herself Husk, enrolled in the School for Gifted Youngsters and became a member of Generation X.