Geppetto and Pinocchio were, to say the least, surprised when they found that the Gummi Ship was able to fly through space with ease, that Sora was a good pilot despite only having started not all too long ago, and, which seemed to be the most important thing right now, the fact that Sombra's cooking was to die for. Sombra had the feeling that it was due to the fact that Geppetto must have started to starve by the time they arrived in Monstro, so this was heaven compared to what he had experienced in the past, to the point where he was on his second plate while the others were on their first. Of course she had assumed that a puppet wouldn't need food, only to find that Pinocchio could, in fact, eat like a normal person and just rolled with it, because at this point the worlds couldn't surprise her with anything else, letting the puppet boy munch on some of the food as well. Geppetto did have to ask about Traverse Town, where Sombra told them it was a place for those who lost their worlds, like the one he and his son came from, and that they didn't have to worry about housing, since the town seemed to expand whenever new residents arrived, so all they had to do was find their new residence upon landing and the pair would be able to continue with their lives.
It was obvious that some of the concepts were too much for Geppetto to understand, though he understood that he and his son would be safe, which was the key piece of information he needed to know, but instead of taking someone's room the old man decided to sleep in the living area.
Following their escape from Monstro, and collecting two temporary passengers, it didn't take them too long to find their way back to Agrabah, only for Sora to find that the ship had a system that allowed him to warp them to worlds they had been to before, causing them to wonder why Cid didn't explain all of this when he installed it. A few seconds later everyone found that the Gummi Ship entered the Warp Space that the systems used, though while it was quicker than normal flying Sora discovered that it would still take an hour or two before they arrived at Traverse Town. Sombra had to assume that it was based on where they were in relation to their destination, so the further away they were the longer it would take to warp to a familiar place, leading to her spending some more time in the training area, using their new spell to slow her training dummies. She had to admit that the Stop spell was incredibly useful, as she could imagine ways to use it in combat and boost their already considerable battle power to new heights, even though it made her wonder about the higher tiers they might be able to unlock in the near future.
Other than that there was nothing else interesting going on until they returned to Traverse Town, where Sora warped all of them down to the town and they found that there was a new house near Cid's shop, which seemed to be modeled after Geppetto's shop, causing the pair to thank the group, Pinocchio even handing Sora a stone of some kind, before heading inside.
With that done Sora looked over the stone, which seemed to have some magic inside it, causing him to hand it to Sombra as they walked over to Merlin's place, because he recalled that the Fairy Godmother would be able to awaken the power inside stones like this. Sombra nodded and reminded him that they had acquired one sometime ago, the earthy one that Leon had given them while they learned about the bell and Traverse Town's Keyhole, so now they had two, though she also knew that Sora was the only one that seemed to have the power to use that power. The reason for such a thought was due to the fact that she was sure Genie might have given Sora a tiny bit of his now weakened power in the hope that he would be summoned to do battle with the Heartless, to help them find Jasmine, before Fluttershy pulled out a pair of special looking pages. She told them that one of her rabbits was actually with her nearly all the time, in fact Sombra could see 'Squeak', as the shy one called the light gray critter that wore a red cape and a small red hat, in her shadow, and he went out to acquire items from all of the chests they either ignored or passed by without opening them, and the pages came from two of them.
Such a thing meant they would also stop at the dalmatians place to drop off the puppies, as it looked like Squeak had an item to send whatever he found to their private world, where Radiant usually sorted them and let Fluttershy deal with the puppies when they were discovered.
Upon their arrival in Merlin's place, who was happy to see them since it meant there might be something he could do for them, Sora pulled out the gems, after Sombra gave both to him before entering the house, and the Fairy Godmother got to work, using her magic to awaken the slumbering individuals inside them. One of them was supposed to be a powerful heroic lion, while the other was supposed to be a small elephant that had long ears, something that only made Sombra wonder what sort of powers they might have, before Fluttershy pulled out the pair of pages. Sora was the one who ended up checking out the book as Merlin magically mended the pages into the binding, where he vanished in the blink of an eye and caused everyone to glance at the wizard for a moment, who informed them that Sora must have been teleported into the world that was contained inside the book. He studied it for a time and told everyone else that everything seemed to be fine, they just had to give him some time since the boy was interacting with the residents of the world, causing the rest of the group to spread out and wait for Sora to return, though Fluttershy headed out to return the puppies.
It took some time for Sora to return from the magical book, though when he did he seemed incredibly happy, detailing how he was talking with a bunch of animals that were like humans, including 'Winne the Pooh', or 'Pooh' as he was called, before handing over a third gem to the Fairy Godmother, which contained a young deer.
"Not to sound rude, but... only one of those three sound useful." Riku remarked, as the lion sounded like something that would be useful in a fight, if they found an area where they needed aid, or maybe there were far too many enemies for all of them to take on, while the other two almost seemed like a waste of time.
"Well, that's why Merlin has a practice area for us to use." Sora replied, where the wizard nodded his head and tapped a foot on the ground, letting the platform lower down from the ceiling so they could get on it, causing him to smile at his friend for a moment as everyone else got ready for his plan.
What they discovered was that all Sora had to do to summon one of the creatures he was now linked with was hold one of his hands to his heart before doing a certain motion with his Keyblade that seemed to be unique to each summon, and it wasn't long before an adult lion appeared near him. The beast attacked the furniture that was around them, though his true power, as they could tell it was male by the mane he had, came from his powerful roar that shook the area and hurt all of his enemies, meaning he could cover two types of damage for the time he was with them. The second one was the small elephant, that seemed to be wearing a hat of some kind and a neck frill from what Riku said was the circus, though his ears allowed the beast to fly a little and made him a mount for Sora, to aid him in battle. Once that was done he tried the third one, a young deer who seemed far too friendly to be useful in battle, though it seemed like he gained power as Sora took down enemies, eventually allowing him to condense the power into items, either healing orbs or even items for Radiant to use in her work.
After testing out the new summons, which Sora might use from time to time, Merlin informed them that Leon had left the town for a time, heading to an arena of sorts before he wanted to test his skills against strong opponents, something that made most of them interested in heading back to Phil and seeing what he had to offer them.
It took them some time to get back to the Coliseum, since Sora figured that warping there when they were so close was a bad idea, though when they did so everyone was surprised to see that no one was outside the area that Phil was no doubt working in, and, sure enough, found that the short figure was working on something.
"Hey kids. You here for the games?" Phil asked, though he took one look at Riku, noticed that he was part of the group, and just added him to the list of who was part of their party, not even asking questions at this point, which told Sombra that the satyr was still interested in her for some odd reason.
"We heard about them and came to compete." Radiant replied, because this would be a good chance for them to improve their teamwork, plus gain any rewards that might help them tackle the dangers that the other worlds might throw at them when they arrived to tackle whatever villains might be there.
"Good, because I have two cups you can enter right now: the 'Phil Cup' and the 'Pegasus Cup'." Phil stated, where Sombra and the others realized that the first one had to be the easiest of them all, meaning most of them didn't need to enter it at all, but someone should since Phil might give them a hard time if they decided to skip one of the cups, "Now, both of them have nine seeds, nine rounds that you'll have to fight in... Hades has been providing plenty of challengers, though I can't figure out where he'd getting them... but I can't let all seven of you enter at the same time. Would make things far too easy for you. So, why don't I split you into two teams and you can tell me which one will enter which cup?"
Sora thought that it was a good idea, that way in case they were separated into two groups they would be able to work as a team, even separated, where Phil told them that him, Donald, and Goofy would be one team with Sombra, Fluttershy, and Radiant serving as the second, while Riku could work with both. He made sure that they knew the new rule that was being created for them, that both teams had to complete a cup, as Hades assured him that there would be enough foes for multiple cups to be held in a row, before he allowed them to access the next challenge. Sombra was, of course, okay with this turn of events, because if both of them were required to tackle the same cup before moving on that meant she could farm hearts without having to do much, and she found that most of her group was okay with this as well, because Fluttershy was still nervous. Riku was fine with this as well, because he was the newcomer and needed to prove himself to be worthy in Phil's eyes, causing the satyr to nod his head before telling Sombra's group to get ready for the Phil Cup, all while Sora's sat in the stands, as he realized that having Riku in both teams meant he'd tell the others about the enemies they'd be facing, so this cut part of the process out.
When it came time for them to start the Phil Cup, however, Sombra found that their first group of enemies were a couple of Powerwilds and a few Soldiers, where he and Radiant focused on the armored foes while Fluttershy and Riku lashed out at the monkey Heartless. This was Riku's first time seeing the monkey Heartless, since he had missed the visit to Tarzan's world, but even then he realized how to deal with them and struck each of his foes down without delay, releasing hearts that were absorbed by Sombra's darkness as she removed their foes. After that came another pair of Powerwilds, but they were joined by a bunch of Nocturne, which floated around the arena and jumped around before trying to fight them, but none of them were able to fire their spells as Sombra stopped time on all of them, allowing her group to take their floating foes out. Following that was an interesting fight, more monkeys and a pair of feet from the Armor Heartless, though since they were linked to the chest Sombra knew that they'd release no hearts when they were beaten, so she removed them first while her companions dealt with the others.
None of them were even remotely surprised by the next seed being just a couple of Nocturnes, some red and yellow ones, before moving onto the next which was just a single Large Body and a few monkeys, causing Sombra to sigh as she just used her magic to blast these Heartless into oblivion. She knew that this was the beginner cup, it had to be, but even then she wasn't seeing anything that was really helping them out, save for her gathering more and more hearts to increase her power when she felt it was time to do such a thing. Fluttershy was doing just fine, showing that she was getting used to all of the fights they had been in, and the following seed was dominated by her and her alone, which happened to be just a couple of Shadows, a few Nocturnes, and the weak arms of the Guard Heartless taking part in this cup. Sombra realized that the shy one was trying to show them that she could stand on her own hooves and not be a hindrance, which caused her to nod her head for a moment as she and the others resumed helping her, as she was pleased with her progress and was eager to see what she was capable of once this adventure was over.
The remaining seeds were nothing special, just a few more Nocturnes, a couple of Powerwilds, a pair of Large Bodies, the arms and legs again, and then the chest on it's own, all of which they were able to eliminate with far too much ease, but Sombra was overjoyed by the reward for this cup, the Gravity spell.
With the spell in hand Sombra sat on the stands as Sora's team took to the arena, allowing her to study the tome's pages on it for a time, where she could see just how to use it in combat and even in the actual world, like lowering floating items down to where they were standing. While she read the pages her darkness captured the hearts that were freed and just added them to her ever growing collection, since right now she really didn't need the power boost from them, but figured it was best to keep them on hand if she ever needed to beat someone stronger than her. She honestly couldn't believe that both of the spells she had been interested in had been given to them so easily, one to control time and one to wield the power of gravity, causing her to smile as she observed the ongoing battles, eagerly awaiting their chance to fight once more as she braced herself for the second tournament. Part of her also had to admit that Sora's group was doing well on your own, in fact she was sure that they would be able to defend themselves against their enemies if they were forced to split up, which likely made Sora and Riku happy.
The Pegasus Cup, as she discovered, started off interesting with several Ghosts, a few Winged Soldiers, and even a couple of Bandits, causing Sombra to step forward with purple magic, looking nearly identical to her new Stop magic, around her hands as she waved them at their enemies. Such a thing caused the magic to wash over their enemies and forced them down into the arena's floor, crushing them under the weight of her power, and when Radiant and Riku attacked the group of Heartless they were untouched by her power. With that in mind they moved into the following seeds, finding that the next was Bandits and Barrel Spiders with a few Shadows, enemies that all four of them tore through with ease, before having to fight more spider Heartless, the two types of Large Bodies, and several more Nocturnes. Sombra decided to have a bit of fun as she touched a few enemies and then activated her Gravity spell, crushing them with the pure weight of gravity as a grin appeared on her face, as she was enjoying the new magic and couldn't wait until they found the upper tiers of both this and the Stop spell.
Other than those enemies there wasn't much variety until they got near the end of the cup, fighting three of the Black Fungus Heartless, before Sombra grinned as they reached the final battle of the cup, which seemed to be them against both Leon and Yuffie.
"Sombra, I had a feeling you'd reach this point in no time." Leon said, where he shifted his stance for a moment and held his gunblade at the ready, while at the same time Yuffie held one of her throwing stars in her hand, causing the others to get ready for the battle as well, "Come. Let us see how you have improved since our first battle."
Sombra said nothing as she rushed forward and swung her scythe, finding that this time around Leon swung his weapon and blocked the attack before it could reach him, while at the same time Radiant and Fluttershy moved on Yuffie, leaving Riku to join her as they pressed the assault. Leon seemed to approve of this change, even though it meant he had to focus on two foes instead of one, because while he had fought Sombra while she was joined by an inexperienced Sora, who was far better than he was a week or two ago, this time both she and her companion were skilled in the art of fighting. This time around she had more spells than before as well, so when Leon used his fireball on her, intending on blowing both of them away to claim the advantage, Sombra slowed it with a quick spell as Riku flanked him and kicked their foe right in the chest, knocking him back. While that happened it was far to easy to see that Yuffie wasn't having any luck either, as both Fluttershy and Radiant were keeping her pinned down, the former using her barrier magic to keep her separated from her friend while a few arrows were provided by Radiant to keep the ninja moving.
In the end Sombra knocked both warriors out of the arena, realizing that they were holding back for some reason, and sat in the stands as Sora's team got ready to fight, as this was a good way to relax before having to worry about whatever the future had to throw at them, even though she was eager to see what the next world might throw at them when they finally reached it.