Lina looked at her plate. Dinner looked delicious but she couldn't really enjoy it. She kept looking around the table at the Hellions eating with her. She was afraid that the moment she turned her attention away from her food they'd all attack her. Her heart leapt into her throat as the Hellion called Evasia—whom she learned was named Amira—turned to her. Lina tensed, waiting for the blow to fall.

"Please pass the salt." Amira asked. Lina numbly grabbed the saltshaker and handed it to her, her hand trembling.

"Don't drop it." Phelan smirked as he noticed. Amira glared at him.

"Will you knock it off? The poor thing's terrified!"

"With you cooking I can't blame her." Phelan smirked.

"And I thought the real you was irritating." Amira groaned. Lina blinked.

" 'Real him?' What do you mean?" She asked. Amira jerked a thumb at Phelan.

"Phelan makes copies, clones of himself like this one here." Amira said. "Unfortunately none of them are any improvements over the original and what little brains and personality he has is spread out among all his clones."

"Ha! I've got more talent in one clone's little finger than you do in your entire body." Replied 'Phelan.' "I mean look at the food! See!" He grabbed several pieces of falafel off the plate and threw it at her. Amira retaliated by dumping mashed potatoes down his shirt.

"Knock it off!" Vladimir snapped. "Honestly you two are acting like a couple of…like a couple of…"

"Misfits?" Jacques suggested wryly.

"Hey our guest resembles that remark!" Rodriguez protested. Lina looked around.

"Out of the therapists office and into the loony bin." She muttered to herself.

"Sounds like you'll fit right in." Amira whispered to her. "You're already familiar with the basics of insanity…"

"Enough." Vlad said. "We're not insane…I think."

"Denial." Semira said to Phelan.

"Absolutely." He agreed.

"Any news from Miss Frost?" Takashi asked, trying to steer the conversation back to a saner place. Vladimir nodded.

"The Meta-Breed has agreed to do as Miss Frost says." Vlad said. "Most of them are a little too rough around the edges for the Massachusetts Academy, so they're being sent to the H.I.V.E. Academy." Lina gagged on her dinner and needed Amira to slap her on the back.

"The H.I.V.E. Academy?" Lina gasped after she finally forced her food down. She had heard of them from the Teen Titans, who had keep in touch with the X-Men and Misfits ever since Rahne helped out Beast Boy and Jinx. "Miss Frost has connections to them too?"

"Connections nothing." Phelan told her. "After she kicked out that wacko Brother Blood, she reinstated the old Headmistress. She works for Miss Frost now and so does the HIVE."

"I don't believe it." Lina said. The Hellfire Club was amassing a lot of powerful mutants, metahumans, and superpowered humans under their control. "Don't you know that the H.I.V.E. Academy trains villains?"

"It used to." Vladimir conceded. "But not anymore. Now that Miss Frost is running things, the H.I.V.E. Academy will be more like the Massachusetts Academy."

"So no change then?" Lina thought to herself. "What kind of school would accept gangsters and thugs like the MetaBreed? They're just a gang with powers!"

"Your comrade Shane 'Shooter' ran a gang too. What makes him so different from Ebon?" Vladimir asked around a mouthful of potatoes.

"It's not the same! Shane…did some bad things, but he had his standards; lines he wouldn't cross. Ebon is something else again."

"Then this is a chance for him and his fellow Metahumans to make something of themselves besides criminals." Vladimir said simply. "In a couple of years even Static will be hard pressed to find a problem with the MetaBreed."

Lina tried to explain to them all that they were being used, but they either just glared at her or simply ignored her. Wearily, Lina pushed her chair away from the table, stood up and walked out of the kitchen.

She walked through the hallways and corridors, idly checking for an exit. Vladimir was telling the truth when he said there was no way out. Lina sighed. She kept walking, trying to find a place to think, not knowing that she was being followed.

Lina walked into a room to find a large indoor swimming pool. She sighed and sat down near the water's edge. She peered over into the pool to see her reflection; an attractive—not that she thought of herself that way—dark-skinned girl of Indian and African-American descent with antennae, blond hair so pale it was virtually white, solid green eyes, and gossamer wings; staring back at her.

She never felt so alone. For the first time since her parents disowned her, she was truly alone from all the people in her life who mattered to her, her new family. She was trapped in a base full of her enemies, even if they weren't trying to actually harm her were still keeping her from her family, her friends…

Her vision blurred as her eyes started to tear up. One drop rolled down her cheek to fall into the pool, distorting her reflection in the tiny ripples. Lina wiped her eyes and leaned over as she thought she saw a dark shape in the water. Lina leaned over and nearly had a heart attack as a gray blur popped out of the water right in front of her face and…gave her a kiss?

Lina blinked as she idly wiped her mouth of the fish-smelling taste. The dolphin that kissed her threw back its head and gave the squeaking, barking laugh for which dolphins for famous.

"I think she likes you." Amira said from behind Lina. Lina spun around.

"You have a dolphin in your base?" She sputtered. Amira gave her a grin.

"Not quite. Naomi! Come on, it's time to come out." Lina stared as the dolphin gave a sad, pleading look, as if it understood everything Amira said. Amira just raised her eyebrows and looked down, over the rims of her glasses. The dolphin headed towards a ladder and turned into a little girl in a bathing suit.

"She's a mutant?" Lina asked Amira as she was wrapping the girl up in a towel.

"Yup." Amira said as she finished. "Naomi, this is Lina. Lina, Naomi."

"Hello." Lina said. Naomi blinked and said something that Lina couldn't understand. She turned to Amira for a translating.

"She thinks you're pretty." Amira told Lina. Lina blinked in surprise.

"She does?"

"So hard to believe?" Amira asked. "I'm going to go put Naomi in bed. Because we don't exactly have a lot of room to spare you'll be sharing a room with me. It's the third door on the left." She pointed the way. "You can go inside and wait for me. Then perhaps we should have a talk."

Lina gave a weak nod as Amira led Naomi away, still stunned that they had a child here. For some strange reason, she felt that things were only going to get more confusing from here on out.

She had no idea just how right she was.