Hollow's History
Monet St. Croix is the sister of Marius, Claudette, and Nicole St. Croix. When her brother Marius, who would later become the mutant Emplate, first manifests his powers, the conceited Monet often verbally abused him. An enraged Emplate transforms her body into a hardened, spiked, red state and left her mute. He then tells her to "consider this your penance." Claudette and Nicole, realizing how dangerous their brother is becoming, banish him to his own pocket dimension, but he manages to bring Monet with him, who takes the name Penance. Nicole and Claudette, knowing Monet was their parents' favorite, decide to merge into one body with the appearance of Monet.
Shortly after the formation of the mutant teen team Generation X, Penance is dropped onto the front lawn of the Massachusetts Academy by Gateway, who reveals her identity as Penance. She is brought inside by headmaster Banshee, who discovers her powers as he cuts his hands by trying to pick her up. As Penance cannot speak, understand English (apparently), and with an immunity to telepath, Banshee places her in the infirmary as Banshee and Emma Frost attempt to discover her identity. Teen member M, her relation to Penance unknown, tells the adults that Penance was perhaps a prisoner of Emplate, a parasitic mutant who fed upon other mutants who the group had encountered previously.
As the team leaves, Penance awakens with one thought on her mind: survival. Tearing apart her (in her mind) cell and escaping, she was free. Hearing the alarms of a breach, the team rushes to the infirmary and stares at the extensive damage she caused during her escape. The team splits up to find her before she can cause further damage to the Academy. Team member Chamber , feeling a kindred spirit due to his own mutilated body, leaves the group to search for her alone. Feeling that another deformed soul would seek him out, he waited for her arrival. After Penance fights her way past the rest of the team (Husk, Synch, Jubilee, and M), she approaches Chamber, who talks telepathically to her in an attempt to convince her that he knows how she feels and eventually calms the girl down into staying with the team.
During her stay at the Academy, she would rarely interact with her peers, due to her animalistic nature and fright of being captured again. Fortunately, perhaps due to her time with the feral mutant Wolverine, Jubilee becomes a friend to her. Trusting her friends more, Penance begins to go on missions with the others, and in in Generation X #8. In a subsequent mission, presumably to cover up their relation, Emplate refers to her as "Yvette" and the others grow somewhat weary of Penance.
Finally, M reveals that she is a combination of two sisters, and tell the others the truth about Penance, and that they feel horrible about impersonating their sister. To "make things right", the twins, now split apart, merge once more into the form of Monet and swap places with Penance, freeing the real Monet at last, with the merged twins taking over as Penance's body.
Monet, free at last, continues to operate under the twins' codename of M, while the twins retain the identity of Penance. Both remain a part of the Generation X team, while still trying to cure the still mute Penance. Later, an explosion frees the twins from the Penance body, but the body would continue to function as though a mind is still inside it.
When the twins leave for their home, they take Penance body with them, along with the mutants Artie Maddicks and Leech.
Penance later makes an apperance in the Loners series under a new codename, Hollow. She has been held captive by MGH-harvesting drug dealers. Penance trying to convince Ricochet that she isn't a threat, though he has been avoiding her claws. Lightspeed (following Johnny out of concern) lands between the two and uses her Kymellian powers to mesmerize Penance, but was stabbed through her shoulders instead. Later, Penance encountered the rest of the group at the hospital (where Julie was recovering); where she sensed a kindred spirit within Phil Urich. She also sensed the ones to imprisoned her, including a mysterious woman who called her "Hollow". It was Mickey Musashi's discussion with the woman that allow Hollow to remain with the group and which allows her to be staying at Phil's residence. While she is sleeping and Phil is washing dishes, when she was awaken by the sound of him smashing them {when he saw an image of himself as the Green Goblin and her kissing} and tries to comfort him. The Loners writer C.B. Cebulski has revealed that the Hollow/Penance body has a new host: "Is there someone inhabiting it at this point. Yes. Who is it? Wait and see!"
