She awoke to the feel of someone kicking her foot – Sora's foot, rather – and for a moment Sarah was sorely tempted to pitch a dirt-clod at the head of whoever was responsible. She doubted that that was something that Sora would do, however, and she'd been slipping out of character enough times that she was pretty sure Kairi was starting to have suspicions, so she decided to hold off on doing anything else that was blatantly un-Sora-like. At least to the best of her ability, and while she was around those people that knew him.
She couldn't count on everyone having Riku's brand of aggressive tunnel-vision, after all.
"All right, all right, I'm up," she said, sitting back upright and opening her eyes in almost one, smooth motion.
The ones standing in front of her weren't those that she had first expected, but when she had regained some of her faculties after her long nap, she realized that she should have probably figured that these three guys would be the ones to show up.
"Hey, Sora, you finally awake?" Tidus called, as she yawned.
"Yeah, I'm up," she said, running her hands through Sora's hair in an – most likely futile, but whatever – effort to bring order to that sheer chaos.
"Great!" Tidus exclaimed, grabbing "her" raised right hand and pulling "her" along until they reached the open patch of sand by the docks where these particular fights had taken place in-game. "Now that Kairi doesn't have you running all over the place collecting stuff, we can finally have that match of ours," the boy said enthusiastically, smiling as Selphie tossed "her" wooden sword over to Sarah. "Don't think I'm going to go easy on you!" he called, still grinning widely.
"Likewise," she said, smiling back as she saluted him with the sword in "her" right hand.
His first strike was aimed at her wrists, a good strategy but easy enough to dodge that she did so mostly on reflex. His next was aimed low, trying to take out her ankles; she jumped quickly over that one. Still, the fact that the kid was using tactics that she herself would often employ – not to mention the fact that he wasn't an arrogant little bastard like Riku – was worthy of a fair bit of respect as far as she was concerned.
With that in mind, Sarah decided to forgo both the verbal and non-verbal combat taunts that she sometimes employed. She would win this fight with her own physical strength; there would be plenty of times when she would be able to psych out her enemies. Like the other times she was going to end up tangling with Riku, for instance.
Besides, she was making an effort to act more "Sora-like", and Sora had never been one for taunting his enemies while he was fighting; or anytime at all, really.
Blocking another strike with the flat of her wooden sword, Sarah spotted an opening in her opponent's defense. Not knowing if it was deliberate or not, Sarah circled slowly to the left, blocking an overhead strike as she did so. The opening was still there, and more than that, Tidus didn't seem to be aware of it. At the same time, it didn't seem like calculated indifference; like something meant to lure her into committing to an attack so that Tidus could counter it or be in a position to unleash some manner of unpleasant surprise on her.
It did genuinely seem like Tidus was completely unaware of the opening he'd left for her or anyone else to take advantage of.
A single one of his strikes slipped through her guard, and Sarah shifted to take the blow on her left shoulder. It was a small price to pay. Ducking a wide sweep from Tidus' staff, Sarah swept her wooden sword forward and into Tidus' gut. Following swiftly on the heels of her initial attack, Sarah slammed the blunt tip of her sword into the same point that she had just tagged with the side of the "blade" and Tidus went down.
Just before she could deliver the final blow, however, she noticed that Tidus was actually laughing.
"Wow, Sora," the boy said, rising back to his feet with his left hand over his stomach. "I think that's the fastest that anyone's ever managed to beat me." He'd stopped laughing by the time he said that, of course, but his wide grin was still in place. "Can I be on your side, next time?"
"Sure," she said, relaxing her stance and letting her sword rest point-down on the sand.
"Great!" Tidus exclaimed, rushing over to her side almost before Sarah had finished speaking. "All right!" he exclaimed, taking a combat-stance next to her; staff held out like he was ready for trouble. "This time, Sora and I will take you both on!"
With a brief shrug and a mental "what the hell", Sarah raised her wooden sword and retook her own battle-stance.
"All right, then," Wakka said, smirking as he tossed his ball into the air and caught it again. "But don't expect us to go easy on you, either, mon!"
"Yeah!" Selphie exclaimed, cracking her jump rope like it was an actual whip. "We're going to win!"
"The loser gets the drinks, while the winner sits and rests," she said, the battle-happy smiles on the three kids surrounding her having reminded Sarah of one of her favorite animes. "If you hold back, I'll pound you!" she finished enthusiastically, grinning and dramatically pointing her wooden sword at her self-chosen opponents.
All of them laughed, as she smiled widely at them.
"You know, I think that's actually a pretty good idea," Tidus said, once he'd managed to regain his composure. "All right: losers get the coconuts, while the winners sit and rest," he said, grinning as he moved to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with her, just opposite Wakka.
Which, of course, left Sarah herself facing Selphie; something that she couldn't help but find incredibly amusing. Is this the Designated Girl Fight, I wonder?
"If you hold back, we'll pound you!" Wakka returned, bringing Sarah's attention back to the present moment.
Back to the fight that had just begun.
Selphie was on her seconds after Wakka had made that little declaration of his, and as she deflected what seemed like a probing-strike from the other girl's jump rope, Sarah's mind went into analysis mode even as her combat-instincts surged to the fore, countering or evading the younger girl's attacks.
She had some advantages in this fight, having already gotten a taste of Selphie's fighting-style while she had been playing through the Destiny Islands-centric parts of KH1. Still, the advantage wasn't as great as some people might have thought: none of the enemies in-game could be disarmed, and not even the greatest of video game AIs could react to a changing combat situation with the same fluidity and unpredictability as a human. Not to mention the limited, hence limiting, moveset that all video game characters had.
Still, just because her experience with Selphie in PS2-sprite form wasn't comprehensive enough to tell her everything that the younger girl would try in a fight like this, that didn't mean that she was just going to disregard it. It still provided her with some basis for anticipating Selphie's attacks, and even – to some extent – judging her fighting style.
Selphie had seemed to be primarily – almost exclusively, in fact – a long-range fighter, using what amounted to a light flail to keep her opponent at bay; she really hadn't seemed to have any skill in close quarter combat at all. Anyone who could weather her strikes and close to within arm's-reach would, therefore, gain a significant advantage. Still, there was no real need to weather your opponent's strikes when you could just disarm them and be done with it; not unless you were trying to intimidate them into submission.
Grabbing the plastic handle of Selphie's jump rope as it was flung at her head again, Sarah reeled the younger girl in by the simple expedient of twisting Selphie's jump rope up around the arm that she wasn't holding her wooden sword in. Selphie, not being particularly stupid, let go of her jump rope once Sarah had gotten four loops around her off-arm, and Sarah was glad for it. There was no real challenge in pounding on a stupid opponent.
Some amusement, yes, but no challenge.
Springing forward before Selphie could recover from the shock of being disarmed so thoroughly, Sarah slammed the flat of her wooden sword into the younger girl's gut, then crouched to deliver a sweep-kick that knocked Selphie to her knees. Taking a moment to make sure that the younger girl wasn't going to try to get up and make trouble again, Sarah turned her attention to the fight that was still going on between Wakka and Tidus.
It seemed to be going fairly well, though showing some signs of carrying on for longer than she would personally prefer; still, she could fix that easily enough.
"Banzai!" she shouted, as Wakka fell to the sand with the full force of Sora's weight bearing down on him.
When she looked up at Tidus, still standing there holding his wooden staff, she found him shaking slightly, and when she grinned up at him he burst out laughing. So did Selphie, and she could even feel Wakka laughing underneath her. Laughing along with the rest of them, Sarah slid off of Wakka's back and stood up again.
"Well, that's one way to end a fight," Tidus said, once he'd managed to catch his breath; he was still snickering a bit, though.
"Yeah, but could you try something that's not so hard on my back, next time?" Wakka groused, rising back to his feet as he rubbed at his back as well as anyone who wasn't double-jointed had ever been able to.
"Right," she said, grinning. "I'll keep that in mind."