One night she created a symbolic vision of her parents' deaths. Shortly thereafter her parents disappeared during a trip to the mountains. Moonstar believed them to have been killed, and her dreams were haunted thereafter by a vision of a demonic bear, whom she believed to be responsible for their deaths. In fact, Moonstar's parents had been transformed into the demonic bear by an as yet unrevealed cause. This bear was intended to work the same transformation upon Moonstar, but the spells of Black Eagle kept the demonic bear away from her.

After her parents' disappearance, Moonstar was taken in by their friends, the Roberts. Pat Roberts, their son, and Danielle were very close friends. After she had been at the Roberts's home a week, Moonstar was at Sunday dinner with them when Pat said something to her that provoked her. Moonstar lashed out at him with her psychic power, unaware she had it.  The images of the objects of Pat's greatest fear and desire appeared before Pat and his family as a result. Moonstar fled to the mountains, where Black Eagle raised her over the following years, Finally, Black Eagle sent a letter to Professor Charles Xavier, who had become a friend of his son, William, Danielle's father, when both Xavier and William were in the army. Xavier and William had become blood brothers, and Xavier had become acquainted with Black Eagle. Black Eagle believed that Xavier could provide Moonstar with the training she needed to utilize her powers best, and asked him in the letter to do so. When Black Eagle asked Moonstar to go with Xavier when he came, she angrily refused, believing all Caucasians to be her enemies. In her anger she unintentionally created an image of Black Eagle's death, as he had foreseen it in a prophetic dream.

Black Eagle ordered her to go with Xavier, and she agreed. But before Xavier arrived, Black Eagle was murdered by agents of Donald Pierce, a member of the Inner Circle of the Hellfire Club who intended to overthrow its leader, Sebatian Shaw. Pierce was determined to kill Xavier as well as other superhuman mutants. Moonstar, unaware of Pierce's involvement, vowed to take vengeance for her grandfather's death. She soon found herself hunted by Pierce's agents, but she was saved by the mutant Karma, who arrived along with Xavier. Xavier told Moonstar about Pierce, and she said she would work with Xavier to get her revenge on Pierce.

After Moonstar helped Xavier and other young mutants he had enlisted in defeating Pierce, she and the other young mutants became members of his new team, the New Mutants. This was a group of young superhuman mutants whom Xavier trained in the control and use of their powers. Moonstar decided to remain with them to honor her grandfather's request. Despite her initial hatred of all Caucasians, she soon came to regard her fellow New Mutants as close friends of her regardless of their racial background. She became an especial friend of Rahne Sinclair, the mutant Wolfsbane, in part due to the psychic rapport they shared when Wolfsbane was in non-human form. Under Xavier's guidance Moonstar not only learned how to keep her powers under control, so that she only used them when she so desired, but also learned how to use her powers to create images other than those of the objects of people's fears. Eventually she and Cannonball became the team's leaders. Moonstar originally took the code name Psyche, but later changed it to Mirage, after the illusions she creates.

With Black Eagle dead, the demon bear was no longer prevented from seeking out Moonstar. She fought the bear outside Xavier's mansion and it nearly killed her, The New Mutants then battled the bear, and one of them, Magik, used her soulsword to release Moonstar's parents from the spell they were under, returning them to their human forms. Moonstar was reunited with her parents, and she eventually recovered completely from her injuries, thanks to the Morlock Healer.

Later, Amora the Enchantress kidnapped the New Mutants to Asgard. While she was there, Mirage rescued a winged horse named Brightwind from hunters. Mirage herself was rescued from the hunters by Mist, one of the Valkyries. ("Mist" is an English translation of her name.) The winged horse was one of a herd of such creatures belonging to Odin, ruler of Asgard. The Valkyries themselves ride such horses. Mirage had an immediate psychic rapport with the horse, whom she named Brightwind after her pony on Earth, and the horse selected her to be his rider. This "bonding" bestowed part of the Odin power upon Mirage, and thus while with the Valkyries, Mirage somehow became endowed with the Valkyries' power to perceive the coming of death. When the New Mutants returned to Earth, Brightwind came with Mirage.

Soon thereafter Professor Xavier left Earth for an indefinite period of time, leaving his school and the New Mutants in the charge of his former enemy Magneto. The New Mutants, including Mirage, were obliterated from existence by the virtually omnipotent Beyonder and then recreated by him. In being recreated, Mirage and the other New Mutants somehow lost much of the proficiency in using their superhuman powers that they had learned at Xavier's school. Under the psychic influence of the Hellion named Empath, Magneto closed the school and sent the New Mutants to study with the Hellions' teacher, the White Queen. Mirage instead went to her parents' ranch in Colorado.

While with her parents, Moonstar ran into an old friend, Pat Roberts, who she had betrayed when her powers were first emerging. When Pat was injured and stuck in a blizzard, Moonstar saw the death mark on him and fought Death in the form of an old gunfighter. Moonstar defeated Death, but the next day Death returned in the form of an old Indian woman who convinced her to let him go. When Magneto realized he was tricked into transferring the New Mutants, he confronted Emma Frost and through mind probes it was determined that they wished to return with Magneto, though remaining rivals with the Hellions. Moonstar returned to assist in the rescue of the New Mutants from the White Queen and return them back to Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters.

Despite the fact that Moonstar must probe a person's subsconscious in order to discover the mental image she wishes to project, she is not a true telepath. Although she can consciously initiate the mental probing in order to find and project an image, the probing process itself is not governed by her conscious mind. Hence, Moonstar does not consciously know what the image she seeks in another person's mind is (in any more detail than that it is the image of the object of his or her greatest fear, or that it is the image of his or her ideal customer, or whatever) until its image actually appears in three-dimensional form before her.

The three-dimensional images that Moonstar causes to appear are similar to holograms, although they are created by psionic energy rather than by lasers, and can be seen by anyone in their vicinity. However, only the people from whom Moonstar derives the images will perceive them as "real," indistinguishable from the real persons or objects they portray. To other people, the images are recognizable as illusions. The illusions are immaterial, composed of psionic energy.

Moonstar can use her power to derive and project mental images on several people at once. Each "victim" will see a different image, corresponding to his or her own individual concept of the kind of image that Moonstar seeks. If, for example, she sought to make e group of people each see the object of his or her greatest fear, probably each person in the group will see an image of a different person or thing. Probably if she caused each member of the New Mutants to see an image of Professor Xavier, each member would see a subtly different image, according to his or her own perception of Xavier's personality, handsomeness, and so forth. However, even though each "victim" in such a group would see only one image, Moonstar herself and anyone else in the vicinity would see each of the images drawn from the minds of each of the "victims."

The seeming materialization of the object of his or her greatest fear of desire invariably has immediate emotional impact on the person from whom Moonstar has drawn the image she projects. Moonstar's images dissolve and cease to exist as soon as she ceases to maintain sufficient concentration to keep them visible.

Moonstar is limited in the use of her power by her need to see the person from whose consciousness she derives her images. She can use her power on a person even if he or she can only be seen by Moonstar through binoculars. However, she cannot draw images from a person who is standing only a few feet from her, but behind something she cannot see through. Nor can she derive images from a person whom she sees via live television but who is not actually within her vicinity.

At first Moonstar could not control her image projecting powers, and she would draw and project images without consciously willing to do so. However, she has learned to control her power due to Charles Xavier's guidance and her own growing maturity, so that now her power operates only when she wills it to do so. Moonstar, like the other New Mutants, was killed and then resurrected by the alien Beyonder. When the Beyonder recreated the New Mutants, somehow their proficiency in utilizing their powers was greatly reduced. Hence, although Moonstar can still perform all the feats listed above, it is now more difficult for her to do so. Also, her ability to keep her power under her conscious control has been lessened as a result.

Moonstar's ultimate potential is to be able to cause her three-dimensional images to become tangible entities of psionic force. She has so far only been able to make use of this full potential temporarily when her abilities were briefly augmented psionically by Charles Xavier when he was mentally possessed by a member of the alien Brood.

Moonstar can also use her power to derive and project images of the objects of fear or desire from the minds of animals. The only difference is that the animal from which she derives the image will be the only being to see it. She can even use this power on fish and certain insects, although not on animals with intelligence any lower than these creatures. Moonstar can derive mental images of her winged horse Brightwind's objects of fear and love even if Brightwind is beyond the range of her sight, and project such images to him over a great distance. The limits of her powers with regard to Brightwind are unknown. She has summoned him in the past by projecting an image of herself, whom he loves, to him, even though he is out of her range of sights.

Moonstar can achieve a quasi-telepathic rapport with higher animals including primates (but not including human beings), members of the dog and cat families (including wolves and mountain lions, for example), and birds. She can sense their feelings, consciously perceive images in their minds, and even see through their eyes. However, since an animal's ability to conceptualize is highly limited, she is limited as to what she telepathically can learn from an animal.

Moonstar's telepathic abilities with animals allow her to communicate telepathically with her fellow New Mutant Wolfsbane when the latter has transformed herself into a wolf, and when Wolfsbane is in her half-human, half lupine transitional form. It is not yet known how far apart Moonstar and Wolfsbane (in lupine or transitional form) can be and still maintain telepathic contact. However, since Wolfsbane retains her human mind as a wolf, it is more difficult for Moonstar to sort out the mental impressions she receives from her than it is for Moonstar to deal with those of a real wolf. Moonstar's telepathic rapport with Wolfsbane was originally sometimes painful to Moonstar because of this fact, but it is so no longer.

Moonstar also has a quasi-telepathic rapport with her winged horse Brightwind; possibly Brightwind has psychic abilities of his own that make the rapport easier. Though highly intelligent, Brightwind has an animal's mind, so Moonstar cannot communicate with him telepathically in quite the same way she can with Wolfsbane when she is in her lupine form.