Chapter 15

"The Nutcracker"

She'd slept badly, probably because she'd tried to sleep in blue jeans. Either way, class was going about as well as it could. She felt less talkative than normal, which, given that she wasn't very talkative to begin with, it wasn't really noticed.

She pushed thoughts of her previous day out of her mind as she waited, heart beating into her throat with anticipation for the 'other half' of her team. Something of a relay race. It was being done in the cityscape setting of the training grounds, and being run by All Might, or rather since he was retired, teaching with some assistance. This time with Cementoss. She eyed the area around her, she could sort of see a few of her classmates, waiting, like her, tension rising.

The class had roughly been divided into half, but with Alarice's presence kind of ruining that, there had to be a slight adjustment. The adjustment felt ever so silly, but, she had to nod that it did make sense given Iida's quirk: Engine, that he do the race alone. There'd be a robot for him to 'exchange' with, technically. Iida didn't seem to mind, it was a race after all, any one teamed up with him would have a massive upper hand. Hell, he'd probably still win in the end.. depending on what other things might be thrown in specifically his way.

The same could be said of the rest of the class however. There was a pervasive thought amongst the group that since no one had said they couldn't play dirty, it wasn't off the table.

She heard a soft sound in the distance, her ears growing into hound ears, the only part of a partial shift she could confidently do now, listening intently. Her heart jumped up again knowing one of her classmate competitors had already made the drop and exchange, but hearing alone didn't give her a "who".

In fairness, she didn't know what her partner had to deal with. She hoped Kaminari would make it to her for the drop off, the ticking of the clock was making her tense more and more.

By the time she saw the tired boy running clearly as fast as he could, she knew at least five of their classmates were now out-pacing them. Bakugo, especially, had taken off; she wondered who had been his partner. The three power houses of the class had been all with different partners, so there wasn't risk of one team being ridiculously overpowered. She wasn't sure about the others, but she knew Bakugo had been in her half, and she wasn't keen on dealing with him again.

" Rice! I got it!" Her ears, still houndish, flicked forward to Kaminari's call, getting an idea.

She stayed in her spot, unable to run to him, one of the few rules, instead grabbing him as soon as he was in arms reach. In startled surprise he gripped the little Baton tightly, as he was practically pulled on to her back. Finding that handle she'd mentioned getting made, too caught off guard to resist or even argue when he she demanded he grab on.

Which he did, feeling her human body waver under taking on another entire teenagers weight, but taking it for that brief second before it began shifting. It was weird, certainly, feeling the scales come through, the suit and skin almost becoming one as scale took over. Except for where he was now straddling her back. The Handle still there, and still in his hands, recognizing now that her transformation, at least from his perspective was over, she was already mid stride.

Alarice took off at a full sprint, coiling and releasing as her back legs throwing her body forward, running as fast as her large, if slightly spindly body could take them. Picking up pace between each stride, the tension of waiting for him finding some release, finally.

"Hey-!" Kaminari squeezed onto that handle, and found himself quickly shoving the baton where it would be safe for the ride, grabbing onto the mane of hair as well. Alarice had decide to jump onto the first story building next to them rather than continue on the street. She lost little speed in the action. It was only when he heard the increasingly distant voice of Mineta, that he understood. She'd scented something and moved to avoid it before it became a problem.

It wasn't the smoothest ride he'd ever had, or the quietest. Wind rushing, her foot-falls were hardly silent, creating scrabbling, heavy noises as she thundered on. He was also pretty sure he could hear her sharp intakes of breath to keep the pace up. Every so often he caught a glimpse of one of their classmates. Thinking about them he noticed something built into the handle. Something metal.

"Does this conduct my electricity?" Kaminari tried to bark out near her ear so she could hear him. A deep rumbling noise, and a wild nod from her seemed to confirm that yes. She could carry him, but he would have to run defense it seemed. A smirking smile overtook his features. "You can count on me, Rice!"

The wind made his voice sound less confident.

Kaminari knew better than to just flash it out right now, that'd be a waste. Suddenly a thought occurred to him. "Wait what about you? I might hit you too you know!"

A snort answered him as she never stopped moving between the roofs or streets.

He screwed up his face and held on for dear life and kept an eye out for trouble, which he was sure was going to show up any minute now with their class. Shoji was the first to get the test of the electrical-hound combo they were making. Still daring to get close enough, not knowing about Alarice's immunity to electrical damage, or her new suits set up. It was certainly enough to deter the other teen from trying again to tackle the blond off her back.

She was like a train that couldn't be stopped, the momentum and force behind her now powering her forward till she got to the end of the track, one way or another. It probably helped that she was now all leg. Or was she always all leg? He hadn't spent that much time looking at her hell-hound legs. No point really, to him, any way.

The air got colder very quick and Kaminari knew what that meant. " Rice! You can't just barrel through his ice!" He shouted a warning but his return reward was a kind of roar, as she just continued to bound forward. Not wanting to get frozen himself, or her, he needed to come up with something quickly. Then mentally smacked himself for being so dumb. Electrical energy also produced heat. If Todoroki was looking to slow down his opponents, then he would primarily be using ice, and if Alarice had enough heat protecting her paws, at least, then she should be able to avoid it long enough to get past him. He activated and held his current steady, and gaped at how fast they were going to find out if it would work.

The ice shooting up to make a wall, and block them. Alarice responding by jumping to the closest roof and taking advantage of the nearest low-spot in the ice wall. The electrical energy heating up the wires and points of discharge for it on her suit created a layer of protective heat. It worked well enough, she still felt the bite of cold and had to get off the ice as fast as possible, but it worked.

Despite some frozen nails she put on a burst of speed to get past Todoroki, as well as getting up onto more roofs again, and keeping her contact with a surface he could flash freeze inconsistent, till they were out of range. The pair were so focused on avoiding any more dirty fighting in the race, that when they made it to the exit gate, Kaminari had to shout repeatedly at her to slow down.

Which they did, awkwardly, Alarice almost comically having to butt-slide for them to come to a complete stop. Her nails dragging noisily on the ground, but they did, come to a stop. And she was able to safely let Kaminari down, before turning back into a girl again. Sweat pouring off her, and practically gasping for breath, with a doofy, toothy grin plastered on her face. A similar smile on his own, before she let herself down to the ground. Iida, Bakugo and Midoriya made it through in extremely close succession proceeding them. They'd made it through by bare milliseconds.

Kaminari suddenly felt it, after such a rough and long ride, and had to equally lower himself to the ground. He hadn't noticed it during the ride, having been to concerned about falling off the whole time. Now though, he felt that ugly pain between his legs. He let out a little groan and tried to keep it to himself in the face of their victory. "It's a good thing we won." he wheezed out.

"We did! We won!" Alarice said rather proudly, despite still breathing pretty hard, her lungs were burning and she'd definitely take a bottle of water or five, later. Then she realized why he looked a little bit uncomfortable. "Oh my god. Denki, I'm so sorry."

Kaminari desperately tried to look less pained. "No its okay, it wasn't on purpose or anything... besides, we won right?" A big red flush was now on his face, he did not want to discuss his now sore body parts.

Alarice had also turned deep red in the cheeks, a mix of guilt of and embarrassment. She fidgeted nervously before giving him a thumbs up. "Yeap, Your defense was top notch Denki."

Despite the some-what pained look on his face, a confident smile crept back onto the blond's face. "Thanks, 'Rice." It only made the red on her face all that deeper.

"I'm so sorry, Denki." was Alarice's quiet response, bashful and a bit embarrassed for her teammate.

"That was a big finish for you both." Yagi had come over as the rest of the kids were now making it through, Cementoss who had joined in to help with this particular assignment, handled the regrouping kids. There was a dust of pink on Yagi's cheeks, too and the man nervously seemed to struggle to find the words. "Quite a display of team-work going on there, but it looks like you both should probably go see Recovery Girl."

His tone was all over the place, and he was clearly trying his hardest to be casual about it. Though, he was clearly very sympathetic to Kaminari's current plight. Alarice managed to get herself to her shaking feet, and offered a hand to her friend, who took it. She was too close to the cause to laugh at how awkwardly the boy stood up. At least Hero class students were almost expected to get hurt, no one really questioned it.

It was mercifully easy to explain what had happened to Recovery Girl, who seemed to just smile and nod and gave Alarice some candy and water, and did the same for Kaminari, plus gave him a healing smooch to the face.

Now the only thing to be injured was Kaminari's pride.

Mineta couldn't keep his words to himself, once class was over. "Wow I can't believe you got to ride Stone." He shook his head.

Kaminari turned pink in the face. "Don't say it like that! It was more like she carried me."

"I can't believe he didn't wear any protection." This comment came from Sero with a teasing smile of his own for Kaminari.

"I didn't think I would be riding!" Kaminari tried to defend himself, still red in the face with embarrassment and getting worse. "Besides I'm sure I'm not the only one whose costume doesn't have that built in!"

"Nope." Sero covered for himself.

"I got mine." called some one else knocking on something plastic, other boys were nodding. Kaminari felt himself sweat more and more with increased shame as it was quickly obvious he was potentially the only one. Mineta remained suspiciously silent.

"You should still get at least a jockstrap for your hero-costume man." Kirishima was now involved though he was hardly teasing. "you literally never know."

Kaminari found the teasing to stretch on for the rest of the day from some of the boys. A continuous visual of classmates shaking their head at him was just salt in the wound. Alarice on the other side of things, found herself also teased. Mostly in how she'd managed to 'injure' him, to her continued embarrassment. She knew she'd need to find some way to apologize to him at a later date.

She didn't bother to listen to the boys further as they continued the last few classes. She'd texted Sunshine that her first 'super move' she'd tried to develop and used, had gone down great. She didn't know what to name that yet, Hell-Hound Charge seemed fine. She hadn't gotten any feedback from her or Prometheus but that was okay.

Sunshine was quiet in the staff meeting room, listening to Nezu talk about a recent report from the police he'd been given. Keeping her hands and eyes off her phone, despite desperately wanting to check it. Amongst the staff it was well known that Sunshine was Alarice's God-mother, even if the students didn't know it, and the main subject of the meeting did not please her one bit.

As Heros, as a Hero school, they had been given very honest information from the police, and on the projector, in big letters read, like a newspaper.

7 people confirmed dead, 14 still missing, all so far confirmed to be Hell-hound quirk users.

Advisory that all Hellhound Quirk users either report their status to their local police and schools and/or Parents keep close tabs on any minors with this quirk.

Please call this ### ### #### if you know any Hell-hound quirk users who are hiding, or if you have one in your care.

The count of missing and dead wasn't international, it was Japan itself. Japan had the bulk of Hell-hounds. The over-all total of missing and dead hell-hounds, internationally was higher: 35. A gigantic number for a world filled with Heros. Sunshine had delivered the info herself, though Nezu was dealing it out.

It felt weird, given that everyone in the room knew they had exactly one Hell-hound.

Alarice Stone.

"Miss Sunshine, if you would give us any knowledge you have about this situation that would better help us protect our students." The furry rodent offered with a casual gesture towards her, despite the serious matter. Furthered by the amount of looks, one of which was quite cold to her. She was sure Aizawa was thinking up many, many words for her at this very moment. "Since I was informed that this is currently believed to be the result of the Coyote Noirs themselves."

She stood, trying to keep the worry from taking over her face. "It likely is. Despite being mostly defunct, they had ties all around the world at one point. It's possible that they are flexing what remains to gather, against their will and destroying the victims they deem useless."

"It's possible, that they are trying to regroup." Sunshine continued with some unease about the matter. It was close to home for her after all. "More than likely they would simply attempt something small, their coordination has been excellent so far, and its likely they'll continue to keep themselves low, and trying to lure out a student rather than trying to take them while on campus. It'd be best if students, even ones not Stone, were to keep to groups when leaving the Campus itself."

The school had become a boarding school after its own incident, to better protect its students. In many regards this was one of the safest places to put Stone, and really, she was the only target they had on their grounds. All other suggestions at this point became an invasion of privacy, not that she didn't already have a tracker imbedded in Alarice's phone. "Its likely that a tracker might be the only thing left." She suggested, knowing it was redundant.

"What about suspects?" Snipe questioned. Sunshine looked to Nezu who changed the screen, leaving six boxes for images. 4 of the 6 were filled with photographs taken clearly while being arrested, their real names, Villainous Alias, and quirks listed neatly beneath. Two of them were Hellhounds themselves, notable variants too. Two were empty of photos. With only limited info, Alias mostly, One of them "Manticore" had no real name and was suspected to have a trans-formative quirk. The other "Isolator" with some sort of unknown quirk power.

"These are the current Six suspects we are aware of, at this time." Nezu stated, Sunshine nodding along. The meeting went on for a bit longer, the deciding that putting 'another' tracker on Stone, and informing her personally, was in order to make sure she understood what kind of danger she could potentially be in. Since she was Sunshine's God-daughter, she of course, took responsibility for this activity.

Hell-hounds potentially killing each other, left an uncomfortable question hanging in the air. Sunshine answered it before it was asked; "Hell-hounds are undeniably, intensely loyal. Don't know why, but they are. Stone is dedicated this life-path, she wont turn on it for sweet promises."

Conversations persisted and the meeting wrapped with a sigh of resignation about the nature of their school's luck with students.

Sunshine left casually, a dark shadow tagging along behind her, before catching up with her long legged strides easily. "You could have saved all the trouble and told me you were bringing her here for safety, rather than dropping a surprise trouble child into my lap."

Sunshine was quiet to the accusation from Aizawa, barely acknowledging that. "You didn't need to know, and would it have really changed anything?"

He growled something back at her. "Seeing as how she was stabbed recently, Yes." He probably would have stayed at the stupid DJ show himself if he'd known that there would have been any real threat like that happening.

"It was un-related. He didn't know who she was." Sunshine stated curtly, wondering why lazy Aizawa Shouta was bothering to ask her questions like this. "You're a lot softer than I remember you being."

"And you're a lot colder." He retorted. She got into the elevator, ignoring him and he was returning the favor, distrusting this golden goddess of a woman but having nothing more than her constant withholding of information to go on. He turned on his heel, heading back to voice his concern. He didn't like being used, not blindly, and Nezu very likely had a good picture of what was potentially going on.

Sunshine headed towards the UA dormitories, and entered looking for Alarice, enjoying the polite sweetness of Midoriya, and amused by the looks of the other teenage boys (and a girl, or two) in the room. She was assistant teacher primarily to the upper-classmen, not these kids.

Alarice came down to meet her, and the golden hero filled her in on what she needed to know. Stone nodded slowly, a rather downcast look on her face as she responded. "Alright.. I understand... also has uh.. Is Prometheus okay? He hasn't responded to me in awhile."

"He's fine, I'm sure. I'm still waiting for a response myself." Sunshine forced out a small smile for her God-daughter. "I'll let you know as soon as I know, okay?"