The immediate predecessors of Xi'an's X-Men in 2099 were formed by Master Zhao during the Corporate Wars a decade or so prior. Zhao went insane and killed his team of X-Men after taking psycho-amplifiers to boost his waning powers. He returned a generation later after creating his Chosen, mutants genetically-engineered to more closely resemble the original X-Men. These changes made the Chosen genetically unstable, however, and they all eventually succumbed to death of one form or another.