Only when she was done, panting and alone in the arena, did she notice that the stands were completely empty. It probably had to do with the gaping holes her lightning had gouged into the ground and up through the rows of benches, or perhaps it was the way the sky had grown dark and cloudy, and thunder was sounding somewhere in the distance.

Scowling, Larxene turned around full-circle to where her only audience members remained; Marluxia seated in the front row, one leg crossed neatly over the other and hands clasped against his knee. Behind him, Phil was cowering and just barely daring to peek out from behind the Nobody.

"Geez, alright, alright! Take your dang munny already!" he grumphed to Marluxia. "Though I should be keepin' it after all this damage she caused!"

Marluxia only smiled pleasantly and shook his head to get some of the hair from his face. "The munny? Ah, go right ahead and keep it; we've no need for it."

From her spot, Larxene could just barely make out the words, and her jaw dropped. She whirled and stalked toward the two, and Phil went scrambling off before Marluxia could change his mind... or perhaps before Larxene could get her say in it. So instead, it was XI himself that she focused her attention on, sparks crackling over her skin as she stood before him.

"'Keep it'? 'Keep it'? The hell?! I won that money fair and square!"

Marluxia inclined his head to watch her before rising smoothly to his feet. "Now, now, Larxene. You did do some rather costly damage to this lovely place... and you didn't even manage to keep your audience."

Larxene seethed, but somehow couldn't muster up the energy to do more than growl at him. "Not my fault that they all ran off because they couldn't handle a little storm, tch'."

"You are quite the little storm indeed," Marluxia mused. He touched a gloved finger to her chin, lifting it and simultaneously leaning down to place a kiss to the corner of her mouth. Larxene scowled at him as he said, "I should hope I'm the only one that handles the storm, in this case." His tone was so sugary sweet and smooth that it just might have made her blush were she inclined to ever do such a thing.

"What the hell was I fighting for, if not the money?" she asked bitterly while swatting him away.

XI tilted his head. "Superior asked me to find a way to help you, ah, expel some of your pent-up energy. Anger-management, as it were." He smiled again. "To help keep you from picking fights with Axel and trying to throw Zexion and Demyx off the astronomy tower, you see."

Larxene stared at him, looked away for a moment, stared at him some more. "So I've been fighting... all day... so that I’d be too tired to misbehave when we get home?"

Consideration for a moment, and then a nod. "Something like, yes."

"... That is the most absurd-!"

"I don't see you trying to stab me for it."

"I'm seriously considering it.”

"Of course. Come along, precious; it seems you still need some of that energy spent." He turned away, stepping over a lightning-made crack in the ground. XII followed after, scowling at his back.

"You'd better have a damned good way of going about it this time, then."

"Not a problem; unlike your earlier viewers,” Marluxia cast a look over his shoulder, gaze delightfully dark, "I rather enjoy riding out the storm."

~