Personality: Karma has had a very harsh life in the lead up to her coming to the Institute. When South Vietnam fell to Communist rule, she was forced to use her powers to save her family and help them escape. Unfortunately, weakened by illness and hunger, she was unable to protect them from the Thai pirates that attacked the small, overcrowded boat as it sailed to the United States. The men, including her father, were killed and the women were raped, inclusing Xi'an. Her mother didn’t survive the ordeal and, having arrived in the USA, Xi'an, barely a legal adult herself, had to be a single-raising parent to her far younger siblings. Forced to grow up quickly Xi'an is once again finding herself in her new home at the Institute.

Strength: Karma possesses the normal human strength of a woman of her age, height, and build who engages in moderate regular exercise.

Known superhuman powers: Karma is a mutant who has the psionic ability to take possession of the minds of other people or animals. She can control her subject's actions and experience what the subject's senses perceive. During the possession her subject's higher brain functions revert to diminished levels, similar to their state in a dreamless sleep, and the subject is left with no memory of the actual possession.

Although Karma can possess multiple subjects simultaneously, her control over her subjects is fragmented as she shifts her attention from one to another. Possibly she will overcome this handicap as her experience in using her powers grows.

When Karma first takes possession of someone, she can only move her subject's body awkwardly until she acclimates herself to her new host. If she remains in possession of a host for too long she will begin to think and act as her host would, and eventually her own personality would become subordinate to one identical to the host's.

General Coy later arranged for Xi'an's family to leave Vietnam, which was now entirely under a Communist government, but only Tran was sent abroad. Eventually, the rest of the family left Vietnam on a small, crowded boat. Xi'an's father was murdered by attacking pirates, who assaulted the women; her mother died the day the survivors were rescued by the United States Navy. Xi'an, her younger brother Leong, and her younger sister Nga, were sent to the United States to be reunited with her uncle Nguyen and Tran. General Coy had become a powerful and prosperous criminal in the United States (although he was publicly known as a businessman), and Tran was using his powers in his uncle's employ. When Coy asked Xi'an to use her powers in his service, she refused. She sought help from a Catholic priest, Father Michael Bowen, whom she had known in Vietnam. With Father Bowen's aid Xi'an secured employment and an apartment and enrolled her younger siblings in school.

But then General Coy kidnapped Leong and Nga in an effort to blackmail her into working for him. Desperate, she located Spider-Man, whom she believed to be a criminal from accounts in the New York Daily Bugle, and took possession of his mind so she could use his powers to rescue the children. While possessed by Xi'an, Spider-Man fought three members of the Fantastic Four, who were present at a party Coy was hosting, unaware that he was a criminal. Xi'an was forced to release Spider-Man's mind without having freed the children. Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four located Xi'an and Bowen, learned her story, and agreed to help her. Tran used his powers to take control of the Fantastic Four and have them attack Spider-Man. To save Spider-Man, whom she now knew was no criminal, Xi'an was forced to kill her brother by absorbing his life essence into herself. Xi'an was then reunited with Leong and Nga.

Shortly thereafter, Xi'an, who now called herself Karma when using her powers, accepted the invitation of Professor Charles Xavier to enroll in his school in order to learn to use her mutant powers better. Her younger siblings also attend the school but have not yet revealed any mutant powers.