Roughly a week following the battle with the Misfits found Vladimir still looking over the stolen blueprints for The Pit alone in his room. His plan was almost finished, Vlad grinned as he sat back in his chair. He just had to work out a few details and then—

BOOOM!

The sudden noise caused Vladimir to fall backwards as the chair tipped over. Cursing venomously in Russian, he leapt up to see what the hell had just happened. Vlad walked out of his room and made his way to the kitchen.

"What the hell was that noise all about and—" he blinked as he saw the inside of the kitchen, "Amira! Phelan! Why are you two throwing pudding at each other?"

"Because we were all out of Jello?" Phelan offered. Amira glared at him.

"The little creep dropped an ice-cube down my back!"

"You insulted my cooking!" Phelan shot back.

"Well your food shouldn't stare back at you when you look at it!"

"At least it's better than the garbage you feed Naomi! How that kid is still alive, I have no idea!"

"Are you insulting the way I bring her up?"

"I just think maybe your food is the reason she likes spending so much time as a dolphin! Better fresh fish than rotten garbage!"

"Take that back!"

"Make me!"

"Fine!" Amira bellowed as she started throwing pudding again. Phelan started firing back. Somehow Vladimir ended up with his face covered by chocolate pudding.

"Worst superhero team ever!" Vlad muttered as he walked off to let the two of them kill each other with gelatinous confections.

Vladimir wiped his face clean and stormed off to find the rest of his comrades. Semira was lying on the couch and watching TV in the living room. "Hi Vlad."

"Are you aware of what Phelan and Amira are doing in the kitchen?" Vladimir asked her. She shrugged.

"Last time I checked they were throwing Jello at each other. Why, they run out?"

"Never mind…" Vlad groaned. "Why didn't you try to stop them?"

"I think the pudding dripping from your ears is a pretty good indication of why I didn't try to." Semira pointed out. "Besides I'm doing research,"

"Research?"

"Yes. Before this assignment started I was part of the Massachusetts Academy's Acquisition Division. We examined people to see if they were mutants and then went out to recruit them. I handled the research aspect."

"Okay, and…?"

"I'm watching old tapes of past New Years Eves to see if Dick Clark is a mutant. I mean look at the guy! His face is the same as it was a decade ago! That can't be normal. Don't you think Vlad? Vlad?" Semira looked up to see Vladimir storming off.

"Now, what caused that explosion?" Vladimir wondered out loud.

BOOOM!

Vlad almost leaped out of his skin. Following the noise he found Rodriguez and Jacques in one of the Omega's training rooms. Jacques was tossing empty metal containers into the air and Rodriguez was shocking them as they fell down. Whenever they hit the wall or the floor, the whole room shook.

BOOOM!

"And what are you two doing?" Vladimir asked.

"We're trying to coordinate our powers enough to the point where we become Jedi." Jacques said as he lifted another container.

"Okaaay." Vladimir said, blinking.

"Look, Rodriguez has lightning powers and I can lift things telekinetically. Put us together and you have a full fledged Jedi!"

"You two put together only have half a brain cell!" Vladimir snapped. "And where, dare I ask, is Takashi?"

"He's in the training room next door." Rodriguez pointed. Vladimir walked out and headed for the other training room.

Walking in, Vladimir saw Takashi bowing to a couple of the robotic drones the Omega's training room was equipped with. Vlad was about to ask what he was doing when Takashi suddenly transformed his arms into katanas and started slicing through the robots like a hot knife through butter.

"Note to self: Never annoy Takashi." Vlad gulped as he darted out. "This is nuts, there's only one place I can go have an intelligent conversation in this place!"

000000000

"And that's the story." Vladimir told Naomi as she swam about in the pool the Omegas had built in their base. "Pretty pathetic, aren't we?"

Naomi gave a reassuring gurgle as she splashed about in dolphin form. She blew some water out of her blowhole and ended up drenching Vladimir.

"Thanks." He said dryly. "Knew I could count on you kid." Vladimir sat down on the side of the pool and dangled his legs in the water. "Sometimes I think that I've bitten off more than I could chew. Why I said yes to this job I…" Vladimir felt his face spasm a bit as he felt a colossal headache come on.

Naomi, looking as worried as a dolphin could, tried to snap Vladimir out of it by gently biting his pants leg and shaking him a little. What she ended up doing was to drag him into the pool.

"Naomi!" Vlad gasped when he surfaced again. Naomi looked contrite. Vladimir sighed. "It's okay. I know you meant well. It's just," he sighed as he climbed out of the pool. "Hasn't enough happened to me today?"

Naomi started squeaking and barking dolphin laughter. Vladimir looked over and saw a pair of jeans floating in the water. Looking down Vlad saw that he was definitely missing something, as he stood there in his boxers. He turned beat red.

"Could you please, give me a hand? Or at least a flipper?" Vladimir moaned, blushing. Naomi resolutely shook her head and, biting down on his jeans, proceeded to swim around the pool with them.

"HEY!" Vladimir protested as Naomi swam away. "Give me back my pants!"

00000000000

About ten minutes later, after Vladimir managed to get his pants—complete with dolphin tooth marks and holes—back from Naomi, he pushed a button on the wall.

"EVERYBODY GET IN THE LIVING ROOM, NOW!" Vladimir's angry voice came over the intercom. Everyone assembled within moments. Vlad, still soaked and dripping on the floor, looked completely annoyed. He proceeded to chew the Omegas out. "Today has been an absolute waste! Pudding wars? Jedi antics? Dick Clark? Pathetic!"

"Well what do you want from us?" Amira asked. "All we've been doing for the last week is train and train and train! We're sick of it! We want to actually do something!" The others nodded.

"Fine." Vladimir said. "Suit up. In five minutes we're going out to put the first phase of our plan into operation."

"What's it called?" Jacques asked.

"What?"

"Well, all operations, plans, and phases have a name. Cool ones too."

"Look I'm not that good at naming things like this!" Vlad groaned. "We'll think of one later!"

"Fine." Jacques sulked. "Can I name it?"

"Why you and not me?" Phelan demanded.

"Couldn't we play a game before we go?" Rodriguez suggested. "You know, to cool off for a bit? Like Clue?"

"You want to play Clue? Fine! Here's the solution! I murdered you all here, in the Living Room, with my powers!" Vlad yelled, powering up. His fellow Omegas fell silent. "Now, if you're all done being stupid…"

"We had more, but you go ahead." Phelan quipped. Vlad glared daggers at him.

"Everyone get dressed." Vladimir ordered. "I'm going to go change…and dry off. I bet that the Misfits and X-Men don't have days like this…" He muttered as he turned around and walked back to his room.

"I wonder why the back of his jeans has all those holes in it." Amira wondered.

"Still looking at his butt, huh?" Phelan grinned.

Amira just shoved some leftover pudding in his face.