ALIAS: Penance
REAL NAME: Monet St. Croix or Nicole & Claudette St. Croix
NATIONALITY: Yugoslavian (Monet), Algerian (Twins)
TEAM AFFILIATION: Generation X
AGE: 16 (Monet) 16 (twins combined)
POWER: Her body is as sharp as a diamond making her virtually untouchable. Has long, sharp tendrils for hands, feet and hair. Has no irises, only pure blue eyes. Seems to have an ability to suck the light out of the immediate area around her. In Penance form she is unable to speak.
FIRST APPEARANCE: Generation X #1 (Monet), Generation X #40 (Twins)

It was in GenX #1 that Penance had made her first appearance. Shortly after Generation X had formed their team, Gateway appeared and dropped an unconscious Penance onto the front lawn of the Acadamy. Having rarely spoken a word since he knew the X-Men, he managed to utter a single word to them, "Penance". She was then brought inside by Sean Cassidy. He discovered then just what her powers were as he cut his hands badly as he tried to pick her up. This girl's skin was a deep red tone and was completly sharp as a diamond. Her spiked hair and hands were evidence of that. This girl was a mystery to them since they knew they would not hear another word from Gateway, telling them about her. They would not hear it from her as well, throughout the events in the comic, she seemed to be mute and deaf. Placed in the infirmary, she was watched over as Sean and Emma attempted to find out who she was. It did not take long before the intelligent M brought up some thoughts of her own. She summerized that she had been a prisoner of Emplate. She looked at their hair, both had similar spiked hair. Looking at her starved, atrophied body, M stated that since Emplate supped the marrow from mutants to temporarily take their power, Penance must have been a prisoner of his for a long time to come to this state. Understanding this, Emma came to the conclusion that her strap suit was not for decoration or modesty, but for restraints. They were at a blank on who she was as Emma could not read Penance's mind, she only came up with a blank or interferance. They let her rest in the infirmary and left to see what the others were up to. Unknown to them, Penance awoke with one thought on her mind, "survival". With this she tore apart her new "cell" and broke out of the Acadamy to be free at last.

Hearing the alarms of a breach, the team rushed to the infimary and stared at the extensive damage she caused during her escape. A large storm was underway so the team split up to find her before she could cause anymore damage to the area or herself. Chamber strayed off alone, knowing that she was a kindred spirit, they both knew the pain of being trapped in a horrible body. He knew that she would somehow find her way to him, so he sat in the woods and waited. Paige and Sean shortly came across gouges in the trees as well as footprints to follow. They were unaware until it was too late that she was tracking them more than they were tracking her. Penance burrowed up from the ground which dropped Paige into an opening underground. Sean attempted to help Paige but nearly had his tounge cut off by Penance before she wounded Paige and escaped. Running next into Synch and Jubilee, she couldn't penetrate the force field that Synch placed around himself and Jubilee. Synch had copied Penance's power in an effort to escape any harm. Seeing this, Penance took off again. She then literally ran straight into M, but was only captured temporarily as Sean sonic screamed at M in order to release Penance before she did damage to anyone else. It was then that she finally ran into Chamber. He stood his ground and talked telepathically into her head, attempting to convince her that he knew how she felt being trapped. She was about to slash at his face, but his words calmed her down enough to realize what she was doing. When she was completely calmed down, she was led back to the Acadamy to start her run with Generation X.

During her stay at the Acadamy, she rarely stayed around the others. Her animalistic nature kept her away from the others as well as her hesitance to be captured again. All that she had been through and have now become had turned her into a timid, skittish wreck. Sean attempted to discover her native language, seeing how she never spoke to anyone, and read from language books to help her. Jubilee was especially friendly with her, often taking apples out to the biosphere to her. Jubilee spent what time she could with Penance, and this became a point of arguement in GenX #48, which I'll get to shortly. During her time at the Acadamy, she had her good times and bad like the rest of the team. In the GenX '95 Annual, Penance suffered a form of seizure while at the pool with Jubilee but soon recovered. She did eventually begin to trust her new allies and even went on a mission with them in GenX #8 to find Cassidy Keep that had disappeared. (Sounds like the biosphere doesn't it?) On a regular basis though, you could find Penance in the background panels or hiding out in the biosphere, no one really knew what she did in her spare time.

Emplate made regular attempts on reclaiming Penance, but he has always met with failure. It was not until GenX #40 that we found out what Penance was about. You see, this was the issue that Larry Hama had written and declared as the truth. He had originally taken Monet and declared that she was really two twins named Claudette and Nicole St. Croix. So what happened to the "real Monet"? In this issue, Synch had synched to the twins and finally learned the truth of the matter. The twins later retold the story they watched. Monet St. Croix really was their older sister. She did not agree with her brother's plans to conquor his alternate realms and the earth realm and for her insults and disagreement, he transformed her into the Penance form. He changed her body to a razor sharp body, took away her voice and told her that he was the only one who could help her. He changed her so badly and told her to "consider it her Penance". With that, she was told that only he could turn back his spell on her and so she was forced to follow her brother to his alternate realm and there she became his prisoner. This is what Hama had said to be the truth of Penance, that she was the "real Monet St. Croix". It has been noted by Chris Bachalo, the original creator/writer of GenX, that in no way was Penance meant to be related to the St. Croix's or even the real Monet. She was meant to be an individual.

Well, now that GenX #40 has been written, it is now a defined storyline. That's not the end of Penance though. In the same issue, GenX #40, more to the Penance saga formed. You see, after the twins told the team the truth about Monet and Penance, they felt absolutely horrible about impersonating their sister for so long. In order to make ammends, they decided to do something about it. Here the twins merged together again into their Monet form and they grabbed Penance's hand. Admist a show of light, two people emerged. One was the form of Penance, while the other was a shocked Monet St. Croix. The twins merged inside the Penance form which allowed for the real Monet to be released. The twins have now become the one's trapped inside the Penance form.

Since this point, Penance has once again resumed her spot in the background. Those at Generation X still refer to the twins in that form as "Penance". Monet, now released from the Penance form has now proven that the twins couldn't make her snobby nature at all, this Monet is far worse. One of the first things that she points out is the way Jubilee treated her as Penance. In GenX #48, a big fight between the two erupts. As the fight continues, we finally see that Monet thought that Jubilee treated her as a pet while in that form. That she was like an animal, fed apples like a horse. Things have not, and probably never will get any better with these two but the team is still determined to find a way to cure the Penance state. Lately Penance has seen attention from Monet, this is very refreshing. Monet is usually an uptight snob to everyone, being in the Penance form hasn't mellowed her attitude, but she feels responsible for her sisters' state and is doing what she can to help them cope. Things may not be in the most positive light for Penance, but Generation X is determined to do all they can to help her in anyway possible.

Still a little confused on how Monet, the twins and Penance all came to be? See the MMM-emories, a picture layout of events for the Monet/Penance senario that led up to GenX #40. The image is taken from "X-Men Universe #1".