Chapter 3

"Fight time but not with dogs"

The moment she dreaded and was excited for, simultaneously came: Hero training. Her first exercise with the class. She was put at some slight ease after having read the notebook Midoriya had showed to her during lunch. Even a surprisingly fun english class, failed to raise her mood and alleviate that anxiety.

Alarice joined them in their unique and colorful outfits. Sticking out with her nearly completely all black ensemble and odd hood that looked like some variation of Hound dog's muzzle. She noticed Fumikage nodding to her outfit, and she, unsure of how to respond only nodded back. Was it because they were both wearing black?

She steeled herself against the potential for backlash. It would not matter in the long run, would it? No, just a few hurt feelings to overcome and as long as she was still in the school, she could still be a Hero. Besides, there was no guarantee the Hell-hound information that affected her peers in America, would affect peers here. If what Sunshine had said was correct, it was likely that there was even less chance for issues. That said, it was better to be prepared for the worst and hope for the best.

Nothing could be done for it now, she'd have to play and find out.

Alarice, as she cleared the opening with the rest of her classmates, was still awed after 2 weeks, at the resources at UA's disposal for teaching. It was no wonder that the academy was capable of producing amazing heros when they had small scale cities to use as teaching locations. Empty cities of course.

"Ah! Some of you will remember these boxes!" Alarice just sort looked at the skeleton man with bizarre mixture of discomfort, shame, and vague recognition. The two boxes on either side of him had 'Villain' and 'Hero' written on them in bright colorful letters. He only paused in pulling out names and arranging who-was-going-to-be-what, to explain to Alarice personally what her goals were, since she hadn't done this exercise before. She found his voice pleasant enough and carrying a certain warm tone that again hinted at something familiar. She couldn't quite place it, but she wasn't sure what to think of him at first. She hadn't seen him during her two week trial-run.

Her team, herself and Kirishima, and the other team, Sero and Bakugo were first. Her team would be pretending to be Villains, and Bakugo and Sero were going to be the Heros for this run.

Alarice found herself moving more stiffly than she would have liked when they made it to their location. Reminding herself how her 'catch-up' test/training had gone with Aizawa two weeks prior. Silence settled in before the red-head she was with decided to talk first.

"Stone, right?" He asked, his voice wasn't as unpleasant as she had expected it to be. They hadn't had a chance to greet each other before class that morning. Contrary to what she would have expected from his spiked red-hair, shark-teeth and over all tough-guy exterior, he didn't sound all that scary.

"Yeah, I mean, Arariel now, You?" Alarice asked, Though she had a vague guess from the drawings she'd seen of the corresponding 'heros' in Midoriya's notebook. He'd been far to kind letting her look through it.

"Kirishima, but right now, Red Riot!" His shark-like grin was all pride and a bit of confidence in his name. Alarice found herself just a little bit jealous.

"So you got a Transformation quirk right?" He asked before thinking and adding more before she could respond. "Mine's Hardening, I've fought Bakugo before, just try to leave him to me during this fight alright?"

Alarice felt as if she really had no choice, his tone like that of a man who had a challenge he had to personally deal with. "Alright, I kind of got a bit of an idea earlier on the class's quirks..." He gave her a look that silently was asking her, though she responded before he could inquire: "Midoriya let me read his book during lunch."

Another bit of silence, a nod, something like a smile on his face.

His confidence was very reassuring and she nodded, listening. "So you got a pretty good idea huh?"

"A bit of one. I think." Alarice added, "My form has an adaption factor, for every blast I get dealt, I'm going to feel it less and less, so... I guess we're both pretty sturdy for this fight."

"mm yeah... but Sero and Bakugo are going to have the advantage in mobility.." as he thought about this, Alarice had gotten lower to the ground as if to get into a place to hide. He watched her curiously seem to sniff the air, it was a little strange to watch.

"I can smell something burning..." Alarice offered without explanation. Their opponents were on the wrong side of the wind. "one of them is already in the building and heading up to us."

"Good, Arariel, I've got a plan."

"Get it out quick, once I transform I can't speak to you."

He smiled wide, and told her the plan.

The building shook with the small rumblings of explosions in the building, or outside. The reason could only be the aggressive Bakugo, who practically erupted into the room, with the clear intention of trying to make this go as quickly as possible. Sero came in through one of the windows, having taken the roof approach in order to attack. Kirishima immediately hardened himself and yelled out a challenge that was difficult to hear through all the noise. Getting both of his opponents to focus on him, mostly.

Alarice still un-transformed moved quickly and silently behind Sero, initiating a good throw on him from behind, taking him by total surprise. Thwarting his attempt to use his quirk to take the bomb while Bakugo and Kirishima went at it. He was confused, unable to see her face with that hood of hers down.

She was quick, but so was he, with that initially ridiculous quirk of his. He was difficult to avoid, and clever enough to get around her attempts, managing to tape what looked like a grenade to her leg during their scuffling. Alarice let out an in-human hiss at this realization.

The Hood covered the change in her face, her black eyes seeming to pull back as the skin pushed forward, hardened, and turned into a pale egg-shell like color. Teeth elongated into fangs , changing to meet a more vicious looking, dog-like set of teeth. Sharper perhaps. Ears became long, hair pushed out along her spine, and a tail came out without tearing her suit. Her legs and arms lengthened, shifting into paws, scales and fur coming out and hiding her suit beneath them. The point of her tail split into a clawed-hand like structure. Smoke-like emissions came from wherever her eyes were, invisible behind the hood.

The explosion knocked the scaled dog-thing off its legs for a moment, but it was quick to recover. The sound was too close to that of an injured dog's cry for Sero's comfort.

She repaid him for his 'gift' by headbutting him with her large, hooded head. Even so he wasn't that much easier to catch as he had been before. Alarice managing catch a hold of him, hooking a claw into his suit, almost by chance.

She had focused-in on her fight with Sero, ignoring Kirishima and Bakugo as he had basically asked for. Which ended with Kirishima's mass getting slammed into her side, knocking her off Sero, and onto the floor again. Which her attempt to rise, ended with getting a taste of one of those explosions nearly directly to her face.

She knew that her hood had been ripped apart by that. Her ears ringing and head itself buzzing with pain from such an attack. She wobbled slightly on her feet, snorting out as the dust cleared from around her face, nostrils stinging. She heard Sero scream back at Bakugo that he'd "used to much" , Alarice shook off the ringing and pain to get back into the fight. Take advantage of the shock perhaps, even if she would regret it later, socially.

"Fuck off!" Bakugo snarled back, "I did not!"

He hadn't even really damaged the skull like face on her form, just the hood. She launched herself forward, maw open, jaws catching around one of his absurdly sized gauntlets. Bakugo wasted no time in slamming her with another explosion, in which her grip still remained on his gauntlet, forcing him to release it to not be shaken around like a dog toy. She let out something like a clacking hiss as she dropped it to the ground upon realization. Alarice's attack and hold had allowed Kirishima to get a hit in on Bakugo, and that in turn allowed her to re-focus onto Sero.

The fight went on, Alarice and Kirishima would occasionally trade their opponents in attempt to keep from being captured as the mock Villians, and keep the Heros away from their target.

In the end, they were not able to keep it up, unfortunately. Sitting on the ground defeated, though thanks to their combined toughness, they had less injuries to be treated than the Hero team. Which was mostly just Sero who needed any treating. Instead now it was time to receive feedback and Alarice had to admit she was dreading it. She hoped he wasn't going to be as harsh as Aizawa could be.

"Young Kirishima, You showed excellent cooperation with another you never worked with before! Good job! Same for you Young Stone, you've never fought with or against any of your new classmates before but I could tell you were trying your hardest!" Toshinori was definitely an easier teacher to hear from than Aizawa.

"Young Stone, You've got a good element of surprise, perhaps do away with the hood rather than using it." Alarice nodded a little, nervous about any looks she could be receiving from her classmates. She pushed it down, it was disappointing not to win but she had to tell herself it was to be expected when her classmates were so significantly more skilled than her at this point. She had a lot of catching up to do, she realized.

As she followed Kirishima over to where the rest of the class was sitting, she realized with a sinking feeling that they all probably saw her form, and knew now what she was. They had watched her fight, as she would now watch theirs. Somehow she'd forgotten about this factor, or intentionally pretended it wouldn't be an issue in order to make it through the situation. She settled into a seat with a sullen silence around her.

"Hey" Alarice looked over in the direction of the voice, Kirishima was talking to her. "Is it bone?"

"What?"

"Your skull face, when you're like a Dog thing, is it Bone or what is it?"

Alarice blinked for a second, before answering with a curious tone to her voice. "It's not.. technically.. its kind of like.. an exoskeleton I think."

"Hey Stone...Where did she go? I thought she was right behind us?" Kirishima asked confused as to where his recent training exercise partner had gotten off too. Sato and Kaminari twisted around as well, she'd been walking out with them... hadn't she? "I was just talking to her..."

The small confusion caught the attention of a few others. Ashido looking around for their classmate too. It wasn't like any of them lived any where else... They were all heading back to the dorms for now.. for the most part any way.

"Maybe she went off to do extra training or something?" Ashido offered, very well puzzled now about their mysterious classmate's sudden disappearance.

"Maybe you said something she didn't like, Kirishima." Kaminari teased the red head, a toothy smile threatening to appear.

"No way, I mean, she seemed a little weird after class, even thought it went pretty well, I thought..." Kirishima added, she'd been some what less talkative after their training directly.. Though it wasn't like they were really supposed do that much 'talking' when you weren't in the exercise directly, you really needed to pay attention to who was actively fighting currently.

The few that bothered to care of the class were now a little curious, and confused as to where their new classmate had gone after the day. Ashido and Kirishima even waited in the common area for her to come back, interested in talking to her at least a little bit. Except bed time rolled on without her ever reappearing at the dorms.

As far as student eyes knew, anyway. Alarice really did have extra training she had to do, to continue to stay in the class, of course. Mandated to make up for the stuff she didn't get to have, joining-in so late.