Chapter 4

"The Cryptid of 1-A"

As far as 1-A could tell at the end of class: Alarice vanished, and yet by the next day, she'd reappear back at class, as if she didn't exist in the same dorm building as they did. She came and went without running into others, even if they had the same business. They might have assumed she lived off campus if they hadn't known for a fact that Alarice Stone had definitely been moved into their Dorms. Though they weren't even sure which room in the building was hers. It was made slightly worse, that after that first training exercise, they hadn't really seen her at lunch either.

"Maybe she thinks Aizawa sensei might still decide to send her away?" Midoriya mumbled out while sitting with Iida andTodoroki, with Uraraka joining them.

"But, she was cleared right? She's in the Class for now at least isn't she?" Uraraka offered, settling down into her seat, and now into the conversation.

"She is... but maybe she feels like she can't relax. Shes only been here for a little while." Midoriya put down the notebook of roughed out notes that looked more like notes on some distant hero than notes for his classmate. "but she's doing well in class.. I think anyway." He started to chew on the end of one of his chopsticks instead of the food itself.

Iida stared into his lunch seriously, he'd done his best as class president to make her feel welcome but it didn't seem to be working. A thought occurred to him. "We could ask Momo, she seems to talk to her frequently, she might know whats up with our newest member... Temporary or not, she is still of Class 1-A! Until the moment that changes, I will make sure she feels welcome!"

Despite Iida's lunchtime declaration, at the end of the day, after exchanging comments and notes about their recent performances in training, once again Alarice had slipped away and vanished from the class's radar. Even with Momo having agreed to try to keep Alarice in one place longer than a few seconds. It was becoming clear to them Alarice came and went when she pleased. A good number of 1-A had decided that, they didn't particularly care what her reasons where, they where hers, and she could do what she wanted since she wasn't in the way.

Even so, life in the 1-A dorm since Alarice's reveal in class, had become a little bit.. odd. It had been odd before of course, since the boxes. There was food that would randomly appear and disappear from the fridges, if some one's food had been eaten the day prior, a new package of it would appear. Yet there was never any dishes that seemed be missing or used from the little kitchenette the students shared in the dorm. Even Sato's cookies had been menaced by their un-seen dorm mate who was giving Hagakure a run for her money.

Then, Sero lost his Phone.

"Keep looking, it's gotta be around here some where!" Sero insisted, despite his usual 'cool dude' demeanor he was quite upset about his phone's sudden disappearance. If he'd lost his charging cable that would have been a minor inconvenience with Kaminari around, but the whole thing: Big problem. Kirishima gave a grunt of his own putting the coffee table down after looking under it. "Sero man, I'm not seeing it."

"It's 2:32 am what are you guys doing up?" Midoriya had been attracted out to the common area now, too. Rubbing at one of his eyes and blinking from the bright lights.

"We didn't wake you up, did we?" Kirishima asked, unable to contain a yawn upon asking that question.

"No, came down for some milk actually," Midoriya gave a tired shrug. "So what are you guys doing?"

"My phone, I lost it." Sero said, unable to keep the sound of defeat out of his voice or his shoulders from slumping. "If its that late then I might as well give it up for now, it might even been in my room still.. even though I searched it thoroughly."

"Oh." the greenish haired boy, looked concerned for his classmate. "That's probably for the best... I bet we'll find it in the morning."

Sero scratched the back of his head, nodding, catching the good night from Kirishima before following the other. Waving back to Midoriya to give him a silent 'night as well. Midoriya nodded to both, and got what he came down for, though he stood for awhile in the kitchen to drink his cup of milk. It was calming. He thought briefly, what if she.. no. She wasn't a thief. Alarice might be weird, but he doubted she'd take Sero's phone. He finished his drink and began to head upstairs, when he heard shifting behind him. It was small, like what he figured it would sound like if there were rats moving. For a moment, he thought, he might see whatever it was Alarice did, but, decided against it. He'd ask her about what she'd been doing that night, in class, rather than at nearly 3 am...as creeped out as it slightly made him.

When Morning rolled around however, he was slightly reassured to hear that Sero had found his phone.

"It was in the center of the table! Kirishima and I checked the common area!" Sero insisted, despite the chuckling of his classmates that he and Kirishima must have been blind to have missed it. Krishima was the only one not laughing with them at Sero's expense. Instead he offered his only answer:

"Stone left it there for him. She must have found it and left it where he'd find it."

"How do you know she didn't steal it in the first place?" Mineta offered from the near ground height he stood at, being so short.

"I don't think she's the type to steal her classmates phone." Kirishima responded, thinking about this for a moment. Midoriya nodding and adding in his thoughts about it. The discussion trailed away from Alarice Stone's return of Sero's phone and possible-but-unlikely-theft of the phone.

The other students found themselves marginally disturbed. She was obviously around them now, but interaction was one-sided. It had been assumed of course, since she moved in, and was 'introduced', but now it was very obviously a fact. It was also a fact that she apparently didn't want to be seen by any one else.

That Friday night, after largely everyone had left the common area, and it was time for bed, Iida had come back to it to straighten up and clean it a little. Everyone had to do their part after all when living communally! Except...

Some one else had already taken care to clean up for him. Everything was neat and exactly where he would have placed it if he had done it. He paused in awkward silence, trying his best to listen for the sound of any one moving around in the area. He got only the sound of the air conditioning unit turning on. He took what he was seeing, and decided he was going to bed, he'd figure it out with his classmates in the morning. After all, it was the weekend, and the majority of them were going to be in the dorms, including her.

In the morning, Iida went to the only other person so far who had become interested in catching her: Kirishima.

"It was exact." Iida insisted, Kirishima nodded to him. Usually he could be found near Bakugou, but the teen had already told Kirishima that he didn't give a fucking damn about Stone's activities. So It was, for now Iida and Kirishima on the case.

"So she's observing us, and knows our routines and even how we leave the common area when we clean it." Kirishima went into thought about it, before his thoughts were rudely interrupted.

"Doesn't she have a sensitive sense of smell? " Mina had gotten involved it seemed, looking at Kirishima with her big eyes. "She sniffs the air a lot even as a person when we're in class. Maybe it's good enough she can tell by smell whose been where."

"I don't think it's that sensitive." Midoriya had decided to join in, now, walking in to the little huddle conversation with Uraraka right behind him. "Really she would just need to know who was in the room last. Uraraka and I have been thinking about this too, we're not sure how she's done it, but she has managed to keep an eye on everyone's schedule some how."

"Well, I guess we could go to her Room and ask her?" Krishima, then realized, he had no idea which room would even be Alarice's. "Do.. any of you know which room is hers?"

"I actually asked Momo about that and..." Mina gave a shrug "None of the girls saw any one getting moved onto our floors."

Uraraka had a sudden idea. "Hang on, There's an entire floor in the girls wing that no one lives on! I bet that's where her room is!"

"Theres a whole floor?" Midoriya said, before the party of five was following Uraraka as she lead them to the stairs up to the second floor. Which was as oddly barren as one would expect. All of the doors in the hall way were barren of any kind of décor. Nothing to identify which room was lived in. There was a collective 'huh' before they group began to check under the doors, only to find that all 4 rooms, from under the door any way, looked equally barren.

They stood in the hall way, thinking. "well.. we may not be able to tell from here..and maybe she is on one of our floors?" Mina asked, with a shrug.

"I bet from outside we could tell which rooms are lived in and which one's aren't!" Kirishima responded, and down in a rush, they all went, excited now with a mystery to solve on their hands to pass the time. Going past Sero as they went out the front door, and their party of five became a Party of Six. Six teenagers standing outside of the dorm looking up at the sliding glass doors of the dormitory rooms of the girl's wing of the building. Well, for a moment all five of them were, Iida had started to look else where.

"Hey, Midoriya come here" Iida waved his hand to his classmate to come over, the others weren't sure and most where still looking at the windows. Their number quietly grew as Todoroki came over to see what was going on, and silently joined in. Mostly just to see how his classmates were going to 'catch' their transfer.

"Ah Ha! With Midoriya's help I have identified a clue!" Iida announced to the group who came over to see what it was he had found. Midoriya helped him part the bush a bit to show that it had been stepped on enough that there was almost a path through it. He then gestured emphatically to the wall. There on the wall where his fingertips nearly touched was a smudge of dirt that looked vaguely like that of a shoe sole.

"Her foot prints! This is how she's been moving around, from outside the building!" Iida and Midoriya seemed to smile with some kind of pride, Iida continued; "unfortunately this doesn't tell us a when, but it tells us a How! Now we need only to figure out a plan of attack! Er, Welcome!"

"It's like a Cryptid hunt!" Mina uttered with an excited gasp.

"a.. Cryptid hunt?" Kirishima uttered back to her, confused having never really heard the word before. Uraraka and Midoriya quietly seemed to mumble something to each other about how 'we can't really let this become a hunt'

"Yeah! A cryptid is like a creature that you only get blurry photos of, so no one knows it exists!" Ashido said excitably only to be countered by Todoroki of all people

"But Stone does exist, she's in our class." Todoroki stated, as stiff faced as he could be.

"Mina means in regards to our dorm, I think. When we aren't in class, there's basically no real proof for us that she lives here with us! She's 1-A's Dorm specific Cryptid!" Kirishima announced putting way more energy into this 'discovery' than his classmates thought he would. Todoroki looking confused, then nodding as if he'd just accepted what was being said.

The discussion carried on as the group did a circle around their dorm, looking for more clues, before taking the clues they had, and heading up to Iida's room to lay out a plan and map her movements. As they all sat around on the floor somehow Iida had produced a white board to help them out. Between circle drawing, lines, and discussions, Uraraka cut in.

"She's been some what helpful though, doesn't that make her a beneficial uh, dorm cryptid?" Uraraka suggested. Kirishima was quiet and Iida tapped the marker against his lip for a moment. They'd just written down 'big net' on their board for items to catch their Cryptid.

"Yeah... but she wont let any of us see her outside of class, she's going to make this really hard. WE can't afford to go into this hunt un-prepared and half-hearted!" Kirishima's resolve to catching Alarice had gotten stronger during the course of the day and the discussion. "We need more of the class to be willing to help keep an eye out for her."

Iida nodded: "then that's the first step, lets go see who all is in the dorms this weekend and ask them to keep an eye and ear out for her! That'll help us pin down her movements."

The 'hunting party' dispersed just like that, off in search of their other classmates, and to collect data. Oddly Uraraka, Midoriya and Todoroki found themselves the only ones not going around the dorms asking who would be willing to help hunt down their "dorm cryptid"

"They're... kinda getting really into this aren't they." Uraraka asked out loud.

"Mhmm.. this not the way I thought this was going to go." Midoriya responded, going quiet with her as they nodded their heads.

"We should stick with it anyway." Todoroki offered, his voice a bit subdued in the hallway. "to keep it from getting to out of hand."

The trio agreed easily on that note, and with that, went on to see who all had been 'recruited to help. If they were lucky they might be able to catch Stone first and warn her.

Hagakure was away from the dorms for the weekend, as were Shoji, Ojiro and Koda. Hagakure not being there was a serious disappointment, she would have been very useful in catching Stone. Momo choose not to participate feeling that what they were doing might be a mistake, and she didn't want to threaten the relationship she did sort of have with Stone. Tsuyu also decided against helping the group, having quietly already sided with Midoriya's group. Mineta, to much surprise, also turned down the idea, deciding instead to... spend some alone time in his room.

By the end of it, with Kaminari's added 'help' and Jiro's information on what she'd heard, the group had a better lead, and roughed out plan of 'attack'. It primarily involved using Sero's tape as a safe non-destructive method of capturing her. They knew their time.. and sort of their mark. Though some of the group had voiced that trying to capture her at all was not a 'fair thing' to do her. After all: she must have her reasons for being so evasive.

Alarice's Saturday was less socially intensive than her classmates. She was still doing extra classes outside of class, with Aizawa, and he said, she'd be doing these extra classes with another student starting soon. No particulars of course. She wasn't thrilled, but she wasn't not excited about it. In the states, the few times she'd helped others out she knew it had helped her improve too, but it was difficult to keep trying that when people ran away from you.

Either way she'd wrapped up her extra class, filthy with sweat and exhausted, and yet still finding the energy to hop up and climb up onto her balcony ledge and in through the sliding glass door. Despite her aches and pains from constant work and the promise of relaxation now, she only wanted to do more. Instead she took a shower.

"No no, Alarice its time for some... you time." She told her reflection as she toweled off her hair, before climbing onto her bed to lay down and chill. Putting her earbuds on and turning on one of her recordings of her favorite radio show. Relaxing and then drifting to sleep to the sounds of their voice, reminding herself she did have to eat tonight... but if her memory of everyone's schedule served, then it was likely she'd have a chance later.

"ah okay. Shut up." She groaned, waking up from her longer than intended nap, to hit the alarm on her phone, which thankfully was only blaring into one ear and not both. "Oh god, its later than I thought.. eh well I can at least go grab a snack, I got food up here too."

Food being Protein bars, varieties of jerky, cup ramens, and other 'just add hot water' or 'just add water' products.

Groaning she got herself to her feet, and set to getting herself downstairs, unnoticed, which only involved some outdoorsing. Some. Out her balcony, down to the windows, and in through one of the back windows where few people went.

Once that was accomplished, seeing that the coast was clear any way, like a cat she made her way to the kitchenette. It was tempting to lounge on the couch and make herself comfortable... except... some one would talk to her. It wouldn't do to make friends when it didn't even feel like her dorm-building still.

Her stomach growled, noisier than usual, which made her remember the task at hand: Food, then back to her room pronto. She got to the fridge, and the exercise, hard work, and lack of food was coming back to bite her. Everything looked good, except everything wasn't hers to eat, but surely no one would notice a few bites? She stole a few bites of rolled up ham, and maybe five slices of cheese. The Milk though, was definitely hers. Pulling out the half carton, putting the opening to her lips and taking a big swig.

Stopping only at the realization that her classmate Bakugo, was looking at her like Alarice was a rat in the kitchen. Not another 15-16 year old drinking the milk right out of the container like an uneducated animal. The pair just stared very briefly at each other in the surprise of running into each other.

Which was when the sudden shouting and screaming of the Cryptid Hunting Party, (headed by Kirishima, Iida and Mina ) happend. Followed by Alarice jumping out of sheer alarm at all the noise, and spitting her milk out on the nearest target. Sadly that was Bakugo, who didn't take it very well.

Which was why, on a late Saturday night, Bakugou ( after considerable joint efforts ) and Alarice found themselves taped to floor. The former was coming up with new kinds of insults, while robots were putting out the flames of what was their refrigerator. Aided in part by Shoto's efforts with his Ice.

"Guys, I think we should probably un-tape them!" Uraraka insisted, Sero shook his head.

"Bakugo's staying where he is, he destroyed the fridge!"

"Whatever! You stupid fucks are the fucking reason! Besides I'll just free myself!" Bakugo snarled from the ground, which he was making good progress on doing. While Alarice laid on the floor in what looked like shellshock. "Then we're really going to have a fight, Soy Sauce!"

"Holy shit you guys destroyed your fridge?!" Kendo of 1-B and a few others had come to see what the explosion had been about, despite, kind of knowing where it came from. Monoma didn't miss a heartbeat at a chance to mock 1-A

"My oh my, Mighty 1-A had descended into petty vandalism of their own property and in-fighting! Again! I'd say this is news but really, it's not. I guess that's just the cost of being so good." Kendo rolled her eyes, but didn't really have the heart to pull him down from his high horse. Not when half of 1-A was standing there in their common room, some looking genuinely like they hadn't meant for this to happen, some too, looked confused now as to what do with themselves, and a few sympathetic to the quiet one taped to the ground. There was chatter here and there around the expletives erupting out of Bakugo's mouth as he was wriggling free of his bindings.

"What is going on here?" The tired male voice had just a hint of anger in it. The students looked to the hall way to see 1-A's homeroom teacher walking in, looking like he was seconds away from kicking some one's ass. Alarice still as stiff as a board on the floor really hoped it wasn't her ass. "Start explaining. Now." Many voices struggled to answer him "One of you explain it... Iida, explain this to me. Sero, untie her."

He pointed aggressively at Iida, who was now taking a page from Alarice's book, and doing an upright impression of a wooden board. "We were attempting to catch Alarice since we still haven't seen her outside of class, It got out of hand. It was Kirishima and I's idea sir."

"Your refrigerator is on fire."

"Sir, since she was so evasive in our attempts to see her outside of class, we were worried that she wouldn't..." "Stop." Aizawa's hand was on his face rubbing the bridge of his nose, hand on his hip and trying to comprehend how this had happened. Also knowing that it was going to be subject of multiple jokes at his and 1-A's expense in the teachers lounge. "Bakugo why is the fridge on fire?"

"I GOT FUCKING MILK SPIT ON ME By THAT SKELETON-WEREWOLF AND TACKLED TO THE GROUND BY THESE FUCKING ASSHOLES AND YOU'RE ASKING ME THIS!?" He stopped for a second. "I blew it up by fucking accident."

Alarice was next to explain herself, untied now; "I came down for milk and was surprised so I.. mmm spit it out. Msorrybakugo."

Aizawa cut off Bakugo's irritated response at being apologized to of all things, with a sharp glare. Sero figuring now was a good time to untie the other teen, with a mumbled apology that was met with a glare and a snarl.

"Iida, Kirishima, Sero, Ashido, You four will be doing extra chores in this dorm, AND chores in 1-B's, you'll be meeting with Vlad to find out what that will be in the morning. You'll be doing that for the next week. Midoriya, Uraraka, Todoroki, and Bakugo, you will be cleaning your whole dormitory building all week." He turned to Alarice who froze like a terrified rabbit under his gaze. Unsure of what she could possibly be guilty of. "I can't believe I'm saying this, Stone, But if you ever attempt to use anything but a doorway to get around on UA grounds and outside of an exercise, I'll expel you. There are cameras, you will be caught. Is that clear?"

The punished students nodded, Alarice containing the anxiety as best as she could, letting out a breath of relief when Aizawa left, even though a group of robots had come in to remove remains of the Fridge. The entire class had come down to see the sight and silence settled among the Class of 1-A, as they watched the refrigerator leave, charred black and its contents officially ruined. Kendo dragged Monoma out before he could say anything else to the class.

Sato stood among his classmates, scratching the back of his head, genuinely surprised it had gotten to this point. "I had Jello setting in there."