When their ship made it into a patch of clear space, the small planet that held the Coliseum – and probably a lot of other things that Sarah didn't know if she'd have the chance to discover – starting to grow steadily larger in front of them, Sarah settled back into her seat and pulled the thermos of milk she'd been drinking out of earlier and opened it back up. Rising from her seat with Donald and Goofy after a couple of long drinks, Sarah followed the pair of them out of the ship while settling her supply-pack more firmly onto "her" back once more. The three of them who were actually walking made their way through the Greek-style streets and plazas, on their way up to the building that dominated the skyline in this particular area.
The imposing edifice with all of its equally-spaced columns looked just the same as it ever had, but Sarah couldn't help wondering just how much had changed with the opening of the Games that Phil had been so excited about when they'd all seen each other last.
The first thing Sarah took note of, before their small group had even made their way into the building itself, was the long, snaking line of people – not all of them human – filing into the building through an entrance placed just to the left of the large double-doors that she and hers had used to enter the building on their first visit.
"So, looks like a good day for business, eh Phil?" she called, once her group had managed to make their way into the main room of the Coliseum at last.
"You said it, kid!" the satyr exclaimed, sounding thoroughly pleased with the thronging crowds moving into and through the room that they were all now standing in. "A lot of people came in today, just like I knew they would."
"Well, I certainly hope today is very profitable for you," Sarah said, as she, Donald, and Goofy went to turn their tickets over, and apparently to have their hands stamped as well.
She supposed that such a thing fit; it was, after all, one of the ways to tell someone who'd bought a ticket to an event apart from someone who hadn't back on Earth, as well. Making her way through the thickening crowds – careful to give anyone with hooves as wide a berth as everyone else was doing – Sarah tilted "her" head back and sniffed the air as she began to smell come very familiar scents. She didn't actually know what Ancient Greek – or even Modern Greek, for that matter – snack foods were, and such might have been an interesting thing to look up under any other circumstances, but in this case, Sarah was thoroughly pleased to be surrounded by anachronisms.
Making her way over to a particular stall, from which particularly enticing smells were wafting temptingly, Sarah found that they were indeed selling corn dogs. They also seemed to be selling lemonade, so Sarah found a bit of amusement in the thought that she'd apparently discovered the Disney-Greek equivalent of Hot Dog on a Stick.
"Well, looks like I know what I'm getting," she said, turning back to regard Donald and Goofy as the two of them caught up with her.
"Yeah," Donald said, not sounding particularly pleased.
Not that he sounded displeased, just like he wasn't entirely pleased with matters as they stood. She could hazard a guess why, but it was really always best to be sure with matters like these.
"What's got you so down, Donald?"
"It's nothing."
She held back a scoff through sheer force of will; it seemed males of any species had a marked tendency to be credulous dopes. "Come on, that's not a face someone makes for nothing. If it's not something you feel like you can talk about in public, sure I'll understand that, but bottling stuff up when you don't have to really isn't healthy."
"Okay," the drake said, still sounding a bit reluctant, but also like he'd let himself be convinced. "I just really wanted to compete in the Games."
"Ah." She paused for a moment to muse; she didn't think her actions on those other worlds – small as they ultimately were in the grand scheme of things – would have been enough to affect the plans that Phil himself had already made. "Why don't we talk to Phil after this round is done, then? See if we can get you guys a slot in the next round?"
"You really think Phil's going to be holding another tournament, Sora?"
"Considering the turnout for this one?" she returned, raising "her" eyebrows at Goofy. "I'd be surprised if he didn't. He seems like a competent businessman."
The fact that he could be a bit of a scatterbrain when it came to numbers aside – and yeah, she hoped he had a good accountant to help him cope with that if it was less of a running-gag and more of an actual problem now that they were all flesh-and-blood real like this – he didn't seem like the type to pass up a business opportunity like this.
"That's good," Donald said, sounding so honestly relieved that Sarah found herself smiling, just a bit. "Thanks, Sora."
"Not a problem," she said, smiling wider for the drake, before turning her attention back to her own shopping. "How much for eight corn dogs and a large lemonade?" she asked the vendor, wishing for a moment that she was back in her proper body for the purely practical reason of not having to look up at so many people.
"Twenty Munny," the vendor said, already beginning to get out a tray.
Prompt service, Sarah mused, as she began to count out the proper amount of coin. "Thank you," she said, handing over the money and accepting the fully-laden tray in return.
The thing was well-balanced, to the point where she would really only have to worry about losing her grip on it if she did something stupid like try to carry the thing around one-handed while attempting to weave through the thronging crowd. She was also pleased to note that all of the corn dogs she had ordered were packed in what looked like a foil bag to help them stay warm; anachronism or not, Sarah was just pleased that she would still be able to enjoy her food warm, however long it took her and her group to make it to their respective seats. She was also pleased to see that the crowd in general seemed to be a bit more contentious of people with snacks – hell, people full-stop – than some of the crowds that she'd found herself having to deal with back home. that might have just been because not all of the people here had fully human shapes, and the last place anyone sane wanted to find themselves was under a centaur's hooves, but Sarah was still pleased for the courtesy, no matter its ultimate source.
Joining up with a lone of people making their way past what seemed to be a check-in desk of one kind or another – both given what she could see of it from where she was, and the necessities of this kind of gathering in particular – Sarah quickly shifted the weight of her laden tray and waved over Donald and Goofy as the pair of anthros began to make their own way over to the steadily-lengthening line.
"Come on, you two! Over here!" shifting the tray in "her" hands back to a two-handed grip before she lost her hold on it, Sarah grinned at Donald and Goofy as the pair of them made their way over at last. "Good to see you guys made it through that maze, too," she said, her grin fading into an easy smile. "Come on, I saved you a spot."
"Wouldn't that be like cutting in line?" Goofy asked, seeming a bit uncertain as to what he truly wanted to do; Donald seemed a fair bit more enthusiastic, however.
"Old family tradition," she said, stepping aside slightly so that the pair of them could take their places beside her. "The first one in line reserves a place for the others."
"Thank you, Sora," Donald said, graciously taking his place in line next to her.
"Gawrsh, thanks, Sora," Goofy said, taking his own place next to the two of them, though he still seemed a bit ill at ease.
She knew it would pass, given time. An idle musing prompted her to look over at what her erstwhile traveling companions had chosen for their own enjoyment; Goofy had bought a large tub of popcorn, while Donald had bought a small platter of soft pretzels. Didn't know they had those here, she mused, as the line of people making their way into the main seating areas of the Coliseum continued to move steadily forward. Such a fact might have not have ultimately changed her choice of purchase, since she did truly enjoy a good corn dog or several, but it was something to keep in mind for next time.
When the three of them made their way over to the check-in desk at last, Sarah shifted the weight of her tray once more so that she could show the other satyr – this one taller and slimmer than Phil; a female, with ash-gray fur where Phil's was a vibrant red-orange – the hand-stamp she'd gotten when this woman's fellow satyr, and potential business partner, had taken their tickets and ushered them in at the beginning of all this.
"Hey, Sellie- oh, good. You are here," the satyr in question said, making his way down to the desk where his fellow was still hard at work. "Good to see you guys made it here so quickly," he said, waving them over as he turned and began to make his way away from the check-in desk.
"A lot 'a that is thanks to Sora, here," Goofy said, sounding like he was right back to his normal, cheerful self. "He helped ta hold a place in line while Donald and I were buyin' our food."
"Decent of ya, kid," Phil said, as the four of them made a left turn into an arched doorway and began ascending a flight of stairs.
"Yeah," she said, noting the compliment before turning her attention toward what she was truly curious about. "Who was that other satyr we passed back there, Phil?"
"That was Selene," Phil said, sounding a bit surprised by the question. Then he winced. "No relation to the actual Selene," he said quickly, as their group made another left turn and ascended a shorter flight of stairs. "You know, the one up there," he said, waving his right hand in the vague direction of the sky.
"Helios and Selene; the sun and the moon," she said, in response to the questioning noises from both Donald and Goofy.
Donald laughed, a bit nervously if she was any judge. "I knew that."
Of course you did, she mused, deciding to be diplomatic and change the subject. "So, what does she actually do here?"
"She handles the money," Phil said, waving his left arm like he was trying to shoo an annoying fly. "I ain't got a head for numbers."
Called it, Sarah mused, as their group made its way back out into the open air of the Coliseum stadium at last. "Nice," she commented, looking around at the plush seating arrangements, and taking in the fast that the four of them were practically ring-side at whatever you'd gall the 50-yard line in a culture that hadn't invented football. "This your private box?"
"Reserved seating for VIPs, such as yours truly," the satyr preened. Then he laughed softly, as though at some private joke. "Herc has a seat reserved here, but he never uses it."
Another chuckle, this one coming from a woman with a throaty contralto, drew their attention to someone seated at the head of the row of chairs the four of them were now standing almost directly behind. The woman herself was pretty in that kind of careless way that suggested she didn't spend much time obsessing over what she looked like as opposed to just living her life. Sarah fully approved.
"Well, you know Wonderboy: always has to be in the middle of the action."
Phil chuckled, himself, as he led the three of them he'd invited over to the row of seats at last. "Sora? Donald? Goofy? Allow me to introduce Megara; love of Herc's life, and the only mortal to survive telling Hades Himself where to get off."
Megara chuckled, an amused smirk playing about her lips. "Well, someone needed to keep that son of a jackal's flaming head from getting too swelled," she said, her smirk lending a perpetual air of amusement to her face. "Anyway, call me Meg," she said, reaching out to shake each one of their hands in turn. "Everyone does."
"It's nice to meet you, Meg," Sarah replied, shaking the woman's hand and then settling down in a nearby seat while Donald and Goofy did the same with echoed sentiments.
Settling her tray neatly on top of the armrests of her chair, into a pair of slots that seemed perfectly designed to accommodate that sort of thing, in fact, Sarah started on the first of her corn dogs as the Games – or at least the first round of such, according to what she could remember – began in earnest.
Most of the fighters seemed to be professionals to some greater or lesser degree, though not soldiers by any stretch of the imagination.
"What's the matter, Sora? Are you not enjoying the Games?" Donald asked, just after she'd taken her first bite of her second corn dog.
Cleansing her palate with a sip of lemonade before she answered, Sarah turned to smile at the drake seated to her right. "It's nothing like that. The Games are perfectly good fun, I just don't have a dog in this fight. So to speak," she said, turning back to said fight just as one of the fighters was put out of commission in a rather final way. "Ouch; he's going to be feeling that tomorrow."
Hercules came out onto the field not too long after that, clearly having waited until the weaker and less canny fighters had been weeded out by their competition; probably to avoid curbstomping the less capable fighters before they could manage to give at least a half-decent showing. It was all to the good, she mused; curbstomps were fun when you were playing a video game, but not nearly so much so when you were watching a spectator sport.
There had been another high-tier fighter participating in the early-round eliminations, however. One that that she recognized perfectly well: Cloud Strife. Cloud Strife, with his outfit that looked like a thrift store had exploded on him.
There was something about him, some fact that had to do with the first game's plot and his role in it, and hence was probably important for various reasons, but for the life of her Sarah couldn't remember what that might have been. It was annoying on several different levels, but on the upside, at least Kairi and Mystery Kid seemed to be thoroughly enjoying themselves; leaning out over the rip of their private box, whooping and cheering like eager sports fans in spite of the fact that the only people who could really hear them were each other. Even she couldn't hear them so well in the waking world like this; which was actually kind of nice, considering the fact that some people out in said world might still be interested in talking to her.
Soon enough, the competition had been whittled down to just Hercules and Cloud, and stadium in general and their private box in particular seemed breathless with anticipation.
"Do you think Hercules can win?" Donald asked, sounding honesty worried for the fate of someone that none of them actually knew.
"Course he can," Goofy said, sounding as obliviously confidant as he ever did. "He's a hero!"
"That's not necessarily true," she said, still observing the swift strikes and evasions that seemed to characterize Cloud's style, as much as punishing blows and throws seemed to be a staple of Hercules' own. "That new fighter just made this a battle of attrition. All the strength in the world won't mean a thing if Hercules can't actually hit his opponent."
"Herc's got stamina, too," Phil said, said, sounding worried but stubbornly loyal.
"Good," she said, nodding as she narrowed "her" eyes in an effort to pry whatever stubborn little bits of information she could from her recalcitrant mind while she had the peace to do so. "He's gonna need it."
Before the match between Cloud and Hercules could be decided in any real manner, however, the ground rumbled; it was uncomfortably familiar to a California native: like the sharp, sudden tremor before a quake. The appearance of what could have very easily been the Disneyfied version of the mythological Cerberus – sans the back covered in snakes, or the snake for a tail, since hardly anyone seemed to remember those – stomping into the arena wasn't much of an improvement over a quake, but on the other hand it was something that could actually be fought.
"That's not supposed to happen, is it?" she asked, already beginning to rise to "her" feet, fully prepared to move out once she got the confirmation she fully expected was coming; the question was rhetorical at this point, as far as she was concerned.
"No, it ain't," Phil said, sounding like he was trying to be angry but could only manage scared.
"Thought so," she replied, taking only a moment to examine and accept her emotions, before setting them aside so that she could focus on the job that needed doing.
Pulling her supply-pack away from the short wall in front of her, she zipped it open with the urgency that the situation developing below her demanded, and pulled out the four Potions that she had purchased earlier. Sparing Kuromaru a brief nod of acknowledgement as the Shadow hopped up onto "her" back, Sarah divided the quartet of bottles into two pairs, tucked the resulting pairs into the large pockets of Sora's shorts, and vaulted the railing amid the sounds of a conversation that she hadn't been paying all that much attention to since it had started.
Crouched nearly on "her" belly to ride out the force of impact, Sarah rose back to "her" feet and loped toward the snarling Cerberus. The people inside the stadium would all be running for the exits, she was fully aware, but with a crowd this large and a good number of them panicking, there were bound to be injuries among them. The least she could do was try to ensure that no one ended up getting killed here; either by panicking crowds or a rampaging Cerberus.
The presence of a rather familiar pair of anthros on either side of her would have brought a smile to "her" face, if she hadn't had something far more immediate on her mind, at least. As things stood, however, she was still rather relieved.
"Good to have you here, gentlemen," she said, her gaze fixed on the snarling heads of the Cerberus who was even now beginning to stare balefully down at them.
She could only hope that this one, unlike the proper Cerberus of Greek myth, did not actually possess poisoned saliva.
"Do you really think we can do this, Sora?" Donald asked.
"I don't know. But, we should at least be able to hold it back long enough for all those people to evacuate."
Now really wasn't the time for words, however, so as the Cerberus lowered its rightmost head to snap at them, Sarah dashed forward. Latching onto the enormous canine's right-side ear with the tenacity of a leech, Sarah hauled herself up onto the back of the gigantic hellhound, quickly steadying herself by grabbing the opposite ear. Just as she'd managed to find some stability amid the chaos of a thrashing hellhound and its three snapping heads, the middle head ducked, and the one on the left came roaring in, mouth wide open and ready to snap her up.
Grabbing both of the hellhound's pointed ears all the more tightly, Sarah slid forward on "her" back, onto the head whose neck she'd just climbed onto. Narrowing "her" eyes in concentration as she drew up the Mana within and around her, she recalled the Keyblade as directly as she could – what with being in the position she was still in – down the hellhound's gaping maw as it howled in pain.
"Thunder Lance," she hissed, and let fly.
As the left head of the now-injured hellhound twisted and writhed in agony, she raised an eyebrow as Donald and Goofy both launched themselves into the air and landed on the middle head.
"Good work, Sora!" Donald called over, even as Goofy slammed his shield into the left head's jaw to further stagger and disorient it.
"Yeah!" Goofy exclaimed, once he'd managed to stabilize himself again. "That was some quick thinkin' Sora!"
"Thanks," she called back absent-mindedly, already more focused on how to put down the hellhound they were currently facing.
The three of them might have been able to keep the thing from rampaging unchecked, but all of those panicking people still evacuating the stands would likely do enough damage to themselves and each other with their fears of what might be happening behind them that it almost wouldn't matter. And, even if they did hold the Cerberus off, there were still going to be people who needed medical treatment and. People who wouldn't be able to get to it with all of the current upheaval.
The lightning she'd used had at least seemed to have done something, even if it hadn't had nearly the kind of stopping power that a bolt of actual lightning would have done. Of course, it was entirely possible that that was because she hadn't actually used a bolt of lightning on the hellhound when she'd fired on it that first time. After all, she could recall from her training with Merlin, as well as some recollections from the KH games themselves, that Mana-powered lightning strikes hadn't displayed any of the damage typical of real-world lightning as far as she had seen.
No signs of electrical burns, exposure to extreme temperatures, or even steam explosions when she had fired it into – or, more precisely, under – water.
Perhaps what she needed, then, wasn't a more powerful spell, but a real bolt of lightning. Gathering Mana once again, Sarah half-closed "her" eyes, holding the qualities of real-world lightning in her mind as she channeled the gathered Mana into the Keyblade: the heat that would flash-boil water or make a full-grown tree explode; that would char and melt some metals; electricity that could stop a human heart, and go racing along conductive metals. All of that she poured into the Keyblade alongside her gathered Mana, breathed deep…
"Storm Bolt!"
And let fly.
She didn't really have the presence of mind to observe the results of her work once it was done, however, because the next thing Sarah knew, "her" right arm was on fire with pins-and-needles.
"Mother of fuck!" she snarled, reaching over to attempt to massage some feeling back into the abused appendage.
"Sora!" came Donald and Goofy's voices, from a lot nearer by than she had been expecting.
Opening "her" eyes, Sarah turned and beheld the collapsed form of the Cerberus, and the familiar pair of anthros running to her side. She made a game attempt at a smile, but she was almost certain that it came off as more the pained grimace that it truly was.
"So, looks like that worked," she commented, turning and starting to head back toward the building they had all entered through; there might still be people who needed help in there, and incapacitated or not, she still wouldn't feel quite right if she didn't at least check.
The feel of some kind of liquid being poured over "her" right shoulder and down the arm on that side prompted her to mutter her thanks to Goofy, though the Potion – she'd seen a flash of the green-glowing flask out of the corner of "her" right eye – didn't do much but take the edge off of the fatigue caused by so much strenuous, rapid-fire activity. She suspected that overtaxing one's nerves was quite a bit different than the type of injuries that such a thing had been designed to deal with.
Another set of hands joined "her" own in their efforts to bring at least some feeling back to Sora's right arm, prompting Sarah to look down at a familiar, red-collared Shadow.
"Thanks, Kuromaru," she said, smiling softly as the four of them made their way back into the Coliseum's main building once more.
There were a few more people inside then there had previously been, but given everything that had happened, Sarah couldn't honestly say she was surprised. What was actually surprising to her was to find Zeus himself, king of the Greek pantheon, standing in the center of the room with a look of interest on his face. Sarah knew full well that this was the Disney version of Zeus, and hence he was much more a good-natured, kind of oblivious dad and much less lecherous man-whore – God-whore; whatever – but it was still more than a little unnerving to have him standing there and staring at her – her in particular – like there was something he was looking for.
Something he'd just found, rather.
"Let me take care of that," the god said kindly, reaching down to gently take "her" right arm in his hands.
As he ran those same hands down the length of "her" arm, from the top of "her" shoulder to the ends of "her" fingertips, Sarah felt the intrusive, almost painful sense of pins-and-needles stop completely; almost like it had been pulled away. Maybe that was what had happened, considering the whole Zeus thing and all.
"There you go," the god said, and she thanked him, causing him to laugh and pat "her" head fondly. "That was well done for someone who never handled Thunder before," he continued; Sarah wondered if it would have been redundant to describe him as jovial. "Still, you should be careful: every mortal has the shadow of a storm inside their bodies, and you wouldn't want that getting tangled up in your spell."
"Yeah, I kinda got that," she said, smiling easily. "Thanks for the reminder, but you know how things get; desperate times and all that."
"Yes, I know," the god said, sounding solemn, but also rather pleased at the same time.
"For what it's worth, I'm sorry things turned out this way," a familiar voice – for all she hadn't heard it in person before today – said, sounding rather disconsolate.
Turning to look at Cloud Strife for the first time since she had arrived, Sarah had to swallow a sudden burst of laughter. Sweet merciful crap, that outfit is even stupider live and in person.
"I know I don't deserve to be forgiven-"
"Seriously, what are you wearing?" she verbally steamrolled, not remotely interested in Cloud's personal self-hate parade when there was something that actually needed addressing right in front of her.
"What?"
"You look like you ran through three different peoples' closets, flailing, covered in bees, and called the results good once you'd managed to pull the resulting layers of undergarments off you head," she said, giving the man in question a full-body scan with "her" eyes, and then repeating it for good measure.
Zeus laughed heartily once she'd finished speaking, with Phil trying – not remotely successfully, it had to be said – not to snicker, as well.
"Ha ha… Bees," the god finally said. "Oh, I'll have to remember to write that one down."
Noting the god's amusement, though it wasn't particularly important, Sarah turned her attention to Phil.
"How many injured are there?" she asked.
The satyr winced, turning away slightly. "Not as many as there could have been," he turned to look her square in the eye. "You and yours did real good out there, kid."
"Thanks," she said, since courtesy demanded that she acknowledge the compliment, even though she still found it kind of strange to be thanked for doing what she'd simply seen needed to be done. "Situations like this, you could always use an extra pair of hands. So, how can I help?"
"That's generous; thank you," Hercules said, smiling down at the boy everyone still thought she was as he came over to lay a hand on "her" left shoulder. "I'll show you where they put everyone up."
She nodded sharply, once, as the demigod led her – she could hear Donald and Goofy tagging along, as well – to a large tent that had been set up on the training grounds that she and hers had first used when the four of them had first arrived on this small planet. There was a small, blue man – or something that looked human enough, at any rate – fluttering around inside the tent with the aid of the small wings on his cap and sandals.
Hermes, she mused, taking in the caduceus staff he was waving around, which combined with the winged cap and sandals had made the conclusion she'd come to all the more inescapable. She didn't know quite how to react to his distinct resemblance to John Lennon, but that was a minor detail at best, so Sarah decided that everyone would be better served if she just ignored it. She wasn't here to sightsee, after all.
"Hermes, he want to help, too!" Hercules said, gesturing at her where she stood.
Hermes lowered his tinted glasses, giving Sarah a brief look at his eyes, before pushing them right back up with a relieved sort of smile. "Glad to hear it; I could use some extra hands," he said, turning his attention to her from Hercules. "How are you at setting broken bones?"
"I can manage," she said.
Dad had insisted she learn, both before and during those courses on survival that he'd taken her and her brothers on. That was part of how she'd learned to skin and gut a deer, and a lot of the reason she had no qualms about eating bugs.
"That's good to know," Hermes said, patting "her" right shoulder as the pair of them made their way into the medical tent. "It's always good to have more hands than less during a crisis."
The two of them made their way to the side of a satyr – one that she couldn't help but notice bore rather more than a passing resemblance to Mr. Tumnus, though he'd been a Faun – sitting on a pile of cushions with a pained grimace on his face.
"Clean break," she observed, as her gaze took in the unnaturally bent form of not-Tumnus' left leg; Sarah could at least be pleased that she wasn't being asked to deal with compound-fracture right off the bat, and so she set quickly to business.
That was the way things went for long enough that Sarah didn't bother keeping track of the time: her and Hermes moving from person to person, her gently coaxing them to relax – which occasionally entailed giving them a shoulder to squeeze when things got too painful – while she re-set the afflicted limb or limbs, and Hermes himself healing the limb good as new. And then spared a bit of that healing energy for her, in the instances that she needed it.
When the pair of them hand managed to clear the last of their patients – Hercules having finished bringing in the wounded some time ago – Sarah reached for the towel she'd draped over "her" left shoulder, wiping away the last of the blood on "her" hands before it could start to dry. Removing Sora's fingerless gloves from the left pocket of the kid's shorts once she'd finished, Sarah slipped them back on and readjusted the straps until they fit snugly once more.
Hermes had told her that she had "good eyes" while the pair of them had been working together, and while the sentiment was kind enough, she rather suspected that hadn't been talking about visual acuity when he'd said it. It was something she was still contemplating, on and off, when she wasn't thinking about other things.
Kuromaru had returned with her supply-pack some time ago, and the four of them had been sent off with the thanks of a grateful population.
"Well, I guess we're not going to get a chance to participate in the Games," Donald said, sounding dejected.
Crap. "Sorry," she said, reaching out to pat the drake's right shoulder. "I really did mean to talk to Phil about that." She sighed. "I guess it slipped my mind."
"You had a lotta' other things on your mind," Goofy said, reaching down to wrap his left arm around "her" shoulders. "And helpin' people's a lot more important than anythin' else."
"I know," she said, still more than a little annoyed with herself for the lapse, harmless as it ultimately was. "I just don't like breaking promises. It's a bad habit to get into."
Neither of her traveling companions seemed to have any kind of response to that, but before their group had taken more than a couple of steps along their path out of the Coliseum's front courtyard, a familiar figure in black and gray appeared in front of them.
"You know, I was just in the neighborhood, and I couldn't help but overhear you talking about a certain event," the god of the Greek underworld said, smiling in a way that practically screamed "don't trust a word I say" to Sarah; and probably anyone else with an iota of common sense.
"Really?!" Donald and Goofy both exclaimed, sounding surprised and enthusiastic.
Unfortunately, common sense seems to be in annoyingly short supply in this part of the 'verse, she mused, folding "her" arms behind "her" back and relaxing slightly.
"Yeah," Hades said, grinning in a distinctly predatory way; behind "her" back, Sarah flexed "her" fingers, prepared to recall the Keyblade if she needed it. "And hey," the god made a gesture as though he were pulling something out of thin air, and three slips of what could have either been thin cardboard or thick paper given their stiffness did indeed appear in his hand as he held it out to them.
"Well, you've just made two of my friends very happy," she said, watching as Donald and Goofy reached out to take what Hades was offering. "I'd thank you for the consideration, but what's the catch?"
"Catch?" Hades echoed; and oh but he was good, all wounded innocence and suchlike. Anyone who didn't know his type would more than likely have been taken in by the act. "Kid, I'm hurt. Here I am, trying to do you and your little pals a favor, and you go and say a mean thing like that." Sarah narrowed "her" eyes, coldly unimpressed with Hades' posturing. "Ya know, I've got half a mind not to give you this, now."
"Keep it," she said, after a brief flick of her gaze to the item in question. "Tournament fighting isn't my thing."
Just like Phil before him, Hades seemed amusingly surprised by the fact that she wasn't remotely interested in the Big Thing on this little world.
"What? You mean a big hero-in-the-making like you doesn't want to go and strut his stuff in front of the crowds?"
"It's not something I'm interested in, no," she said, tucking "her" hands into the pockets of Sora's shorts.
Hades spluttered a bit, but he didn't seem to actually have anything to say in response.
"You know, interpreting healthy suspicion as an act of hostility is one of the classic signs of either an abusive personality, or a pathological liar," she said, making a show of scrutinizing Hades from head-to-toe and back again. "I wonder which one you'll turn out to be, in the end."
Deliberately turning "her" back on Hades, she was completely unsurprised when she found herself forced to dodge to the right to avoid a fireball to the back. Turning smoothly – nonchalant in the extreme – to face Hades once more, Sarah bared "her" teeth in a thin, cold smile.
"Thank you for proving my point," she said, resuming her trek to meet up with Donald and Goofy once again, after tossing Hades a mocking salute with the Keyblade.
"What was that, Sora?" Donald demanded, as she and Kuromaru met up with him and Goofy again.
"Minor difference of opinion," she said, smoothly slotting herself back into their group as the four of them started forward again.
Soon enough, their group stood before their ship again, and not long after that they'd boarded her again. Donald sent them back into the stratosphere, and Sarah laid on the triggers as they broke orbit. The withering barrage from their ship's guns – limited as their arc of fire was – cleared the spacelanes in front of them, allowing their ship to pull smoothly back into the hangar that they had departed from what felt like about half a day ago, now.
When the three of them who had been seated rose back to their feet once more, Sarah quickly retrieved her supply-pack, laughing softly as Kuromaru hopped inside just as she'd been about to lift the thing back onto "her" back.
The three of them made their way out of the hangar and back through the First District without incident, though Sarah couldn't help but notice that the milling crowd – sparse as it was, day or night – seemed to be paying a bit more attention to the boy they all thought she was than usual. Probably had something to do with Squall; Cid had said that the other man had been ranting about Kuromaru to pretty much everyone he could pin down for a talk. Probably even if they weren't particularly interested in the topic being discussed.
She'd have to have a word with the man when the pair of them had the chance to meet up again, just to make sure that he wasn't inadvertently encouraging anyone to do something stupid.
But, here and now, all she really wanted was to head back to the hotel, record some interesting thoughts she'd been having, and get to bed. Bidding her traveling companions a fond farewell, Sarah yawned deeply as she made her way inside once again, making for the nightstand that doubled as a small cabinet once she'd made it back to her room. Pulling open the top drawer, Sarah smiled softly as she caught a glimpse of the neatly-folded mantle that she'd received in Wonderland, with the Queen's Seal resting atop it.
Chuckling softly at the memory – something she'd done that was uniquely hers, not just following the path that'd been laid down by Sora and his compatriots in another life that might have been; and might even still be, somewhere and somewhen else – Sarah picked out the journal she'd been keeping during the course of her travels in this part of the 'verse, and sat down on the edge of her bed to update the thing.