Sofia curled her tail around herself as she gazed around the other students quickly finding them forming teams around her.
She wasn't sure she'd be able to get into one as easily.
Sure, all of the Hero course had managed to move on but the language barrier and her mouth would cause her problems.
So, she planned to move back and wait for the time to end and just take whatever role she was left with in the end.
She only paused when she heard someone call out what she had come to understand was the Japanese version of her name and turned her head around.
Haku, her classmate, fast approaching and waving one of her hands likely trying to get her attention.
Sofia blinked surprised to see the girl do so, even more so than when she showed up to class with her hair dyed black.
Haku had a fear of spiders, something the whole class learned during one of their hero classes in the fake cities, and her mouth probably would remind the girl of a spider, what with it being segmented-like.
Haku however babbled excitedly at her before grabbing her by the hand and dragged her off towards the center of the arena and completely taken off guard Sofia couldn't stop the other girl from taking her away from where she was.
It took a few moments before they ended up next to a large girl with aquatic traits, and almost the same shade of purple, the girl grinning at her with a wide row of mismatched and pointed teeth.
The girl began to speak but it all went in one ear and out one ear since she still didn't know enough Japanese to understand what she was saying.
Haku elbowed the girl and likely explained the fact she didn't know Japanese, the other girl blinked her large fishy eyes then tapped her chin with a hum before turning back to Sofia once again.
"Do you happen to know any English?" the girl said and her ears shot up, she was surprised but nodded making the girl grin once again, while Haku's mouth fell open.
"Eh? You know English? Why didn't anyone say so? Ugh! We could have been talking way before now." Haku complained throwing her hands up in exasperation.
Sofia stared at the girl, she hadn't been hiding her proficiency in English... aside from her not speaking at all, which was probably why the girl didn't know.
"Anyways, um, Gromova?" Haku said slowly saying her name rather unsure until Sofia nodded "We were hoping that we could be a team together, with you being the Carrier." Haku told her.
Sofia looked between the two girls and pointed to herself, tilting her head to emphasize the silent question of 'Me?'
"Yeah, you go pretty fast during hero classes, so you'd be a great Carrier Gromova." Haku replied shrugging her shoulders.
Sofia scratched behind her ear a little flustered, not having been complemented often but ultimately nodded agreeing to be their teammate.
The two girls cheered and Sofia was even further surprised as they both hugged her, and while the contact wasn't fully pleasant Sofia was glad the other purple girl wasn't slimly to the touch like she had feared.
Slime was such a hassle to clean off and she probably wouldn't be able to get it out until after the festival was over.
"Great, I'll tell Deku-Sensei we're a group." Haku said running off to the middle of the arena and getting in line to register.
"So... are you mute? Cause Haku said you don't really talk much?" the girl asked curiously and Sofia, reluctantly shook her head.
"Huh, are you a quirked mute then?" the girl questioned tilting her head confused and Sofia blinked her eyes.
"You know, can't talk without triggering your quirk period." the girl clarified and again Sofia shook her head.
"Oh, okay." the girl replied thankfully not sticking to the point for long before offering her clawed hand "I forgot to introduce myself earlier, I'm Machida Ai." the girl said.
Sofia hesitated but shook her hand.
This had been the first time she could recall interacting with someone like this on her own, and well she didn't know where to go from there since she didn't exactly talk much and didn't feel the pressing need to try.
Even if Ai- No they go by last names here, Machida seemed to have her own set of unsettling teeth like herself, there was a difference between too many teeth and a jaw that basically unhinged like snakes did.
However, before the silence could go on for too long Haku returned and had both the bright red bag and the list reader in hand, though the 'list reader' looked like a phone of sorts in her eyes.
"Okay here's your bag Gromova, it has backpack straps." Haku said as she put it into her hands, then the reader over to Machida much to her confusion, since Machida probably would be a better 'thief' if anything else since she'd probably be able to overpower anyone smaller than herself.
Seeing her confusion, the two decided to explain themselves on that part.
"Oh right, I'm going to be the thief since I don't have a lot of experience with phones... and I'm not so sure I won't overload it by accident with my quirk, can't turn that part of it off you know." Haku told her bashfully as she rubbed the back of her neck.
"I don't mind though, we can handle this either way but considering the thief role I'm going to guess that even if there are different colored versions of the same items, there will only be one of each in that color so we might have to steal them from others if we can't find the item in time." Machida pointed out to them.
"And they'll try to steal from us too, so should we split up or stay together to better protect our chances?" Haku reasoned out crossing her arms.
Sofia thought about it and she found the idea hard to give an exact 'right' answer.
If they stayed together she'd have a bit more protection with the two there beside her, it would also be easier to overwhelm someone to get more items.
But splitting up would let her run more freely without having to stick close to her teammates, and they'd have the chance to gather more items freely since they would be able to do so without worrying about watching over her at the same time.
"What do you think Gromova?" Machida asked.
Sofia folded her ears back somewhat, wondering how she was supposed to answer without knowing anything about JSL.
Thankfully she wouldn't have to speak either since she could scratch out her answer in the dirt of the arena, which was exactly what she did with one of the talons on her feet.
Since she still didn't know the kanji needed to get her point across, she drew the three of their faces, hers being off to the side and a thick line between her and them, then a slimmer line connecting the other two.
"Do you want us to go on our own and work together and leave you alone?" Haku asked after blinking a couple of times.
Sofia nodded and Machida looked at her concerned "Are you sure you'll be okay on your own? The other teams will definitely start to pick off the people on their own later on in the event." Machida questioned concerned for her, but Haku huffed bemused.
"Hey, if Gromova says she can handle it then she can, I've seen her in training and she can do a lot, with or without her quirk." Haku defended then bumped shoulders with Sofia.
"But if you do need help, just shout, okay? Machida can hear really good." Haku said before turning back to Machida "Does it say what we're looking for first?" Haku inquired.
"A white ice cream cone." Machida answered showing the screen which had a picture of the item too.
"Cool, we'll see you later Gromova, better to cover more ground now to find more stuff." Haku told her before rushing off with Machida, which was probably an odd sight since this was a team event.
Sofia tried to not get too caught up by that and just slung the bag over her shoulder, then left for the corners of the arena hoping to keep from being that close to the others when this all started.
It wouldn't be for much longer, so she crouched down and waited for the eventual alarm to tell her when the event started, remaining unaffected by the people eyeing her up.
A large chunk of the groups wasn't from the hero course so was to be expected she supposed, since they wouldn't know what she was capable of yet, most of the ones from her class didn't think to give her a second glance before turning back to their teammates.
Watching passively as the robots placed different barrels all over along with chests and dozens of holes opening in the stadium walls, all likely full of plastic items for them to collect.
She didn't have to wait long, and the alarm blared a minute later, and she didn't hesitate to spring forward as soon as heard it, easily clearing well over fifty feet in only a few seconds much to the shock of the other courses.
She could hear Mic-Sensei speaking but didn't pause in her stride, easily crossing the field in leaps and bounds, dodging and swerving between other teams as she did.
It wasn't until she heard the call of Haku "Gromova I found it!" did she change direction.
Sofia easily turned on her heel with her four feet on the floor and ran directly over to Haku and let the girl place the plastic treat in her bag before taking off as she had before.
This pattern served them well, as they collected twenty items without much trouble.
A few people tried to grab her but usually weren't capable of keeping up with her, much less actually laying a hand on her.
It wasn't until around the half-way point that someone finally tripped her up, one of the support course kids must have done it too.
One second she was running, and the next something wrapped around her leg and she crashed to the ground hard.
Whipping her head around she saw that her left leg was caught up in a net and there was a cheer from a boy nearby along with a couple of others.
Sofia tried to tear through the net with her claws but even with both hands she was struggling to get it done and the boy was coming right up to her.
Panicking there wasn't much she could do, both Machida and Haku were too far away to help her even if she called for them and the boy wasn't likely to leave her with her bag, and there was no way she'd cut through the net in time to get away.
With the boy now in arms reach she did the only thing she could think of and turned her head toward the boy and opened her maw to its full extent while hissing.
The boy, very understandably screamed and fell on his butt at the sight.
Something that gave her a few more precious seconds the tear through the net, she wasn't free of the net but not stuck to the ground either and without thinking about it she ran away as fast as she could.
The net might slow her down but that was better than losing their whole haul, but she'd have to be more careful as she ran around the field to keep from getting really trapped a second time.
That being said Sofia couldn't help pressing her ears flat against her skull, because even if it was necessary to move on, she didn't feel right with scaring someone with her mouth like she had.
Hopefully she hadn't traumatized the boy too badly.
She might not be inside the school and hang out with the other students often, but she also didn't need the rest of the students looking at her like some of her old classmates did.