I AM ALIVE! Sorry it's taken me so long to upload something, but I haven't been feeling well. And I'll warn you, I don't know when I'll be able to finish this. That said, I hope you enjoy what I have so far.

Loosely based on the "Villains' House Party" activity on "The Villain Files" DVD. Remember, kids, in real life it's not funny if someone gets drunk. But in real life, people can't shoot green flames from their hands, either.

Many thanks to Slipgate for being my beta reader! :)

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Dr. Drakken re-unfolded the HenchCo pamphlet and read its contents for the one-hundred-and-twenty-third time. With every word, his pulse raced faster and faster, until he could feel it pounding up in his ears. It was a strange, exhilarating
- yes, that was a good word, exhilarating- sensation that always left him just a bit out of breath.

"You've worked hard all year, trying to determine which of your brilliantly wicked plans would be most likely to lead you down the path of successful conquest." Drakken nodded. That described him perfectly, even though he would have preferred for there to be a few exclamation points at the end. Successful conquest was the one of the most exciting phrases in the English languages, and it didn't deserve to be treated so lightly.

"You've attended HenchCo's Villain Conventions to be inspired by your fellow evildoers and purchased HenchCo's innovative new technology." Drakken scowled a little and grumbled under his breath. Only the first part of that was actually true - HenchCo's products were far too expensive for a frugal supervillain such as himself - but he read on anyway.

"You're long overdue for a night of fun and relaxation." Drakken nodded again. He hadn't been able to afford this year's Evil Family Picnic, either - choked him up just thinking about it. He couldn't remember the last time he and Shego had actually had fun together when they weren't lowering Kim Possible into one of his genius death traps. "Even supervillains and criminal masterminds," the brochure continued, "need a chance to unwind. Introducing the HenchCo Villain House Party - putting the 'fun' back in 'dysfunctional'."

Drakken looked up from the pamphlet and studied the sunset - orange and pink and purple and almost pretty enough to distract him from his thoughts. Unwind sounded nice, made him picture an evening with no prickles on his neck and itch in his chest and tight muscles in his back. Oooh - maybe this party would offer massages! That would be just wonderful. He closed his eyes and tried to imagine his back smooth and non-achy.

When he opened his eyes again, Shego was looking at him from the driver's seat of the hovercraft and giving him a sideways smile. "Excited, Dr. D?" she asked. Her voice sounded just as sarcastic as it always had, as if "excited" was a bad thing.

That meant it was probably time to tell a little white lie. "Of course not, Shego," Drakken snapped. Curse the way his voice shot up; it certainly didn't make him sound calm. "Why in the world would I be excited about one of Hench's self-promotional gatherings? Even if it does have skin-care booths - and mazes to test your genius - and probably lots of fun games to play!"

Only when Shego raised one dark eyebrow at him did Drakken realize he was saying all of this out loud, and his voice was getting higher and higher with each word. He stopped, coughed, harrumphed, grunted, and twisted his own eyebrow until it almost flipped upside-down. Okay. So the fib angle wasn't working. "All right, so, yes," Drakken admitted, tilting his chin to look his sidekick in the eye. If she saw that he was embarrassed, she'd get the upper hand, and then he'd get frustrated, and oh it would just be terrible. . .

Anyway. "I've been entirely too wrapped up in my work lately," Drakken continued. A yawn formed in his mouth, and he scrubbed at an eye that suddenly felt tired and droopy. "See? I need a night to relax and unwind."

"Hey, if it means you don't shoot through the roof every time I tap you on the shoulder, I'm all for it," Shego replied. She lifted the left side of her mouth at him, and he tilted his head, trying to figure out the pattern behind her expressions. Did the left side of her mouth going up mean she was happy and the right side annoyed, or was that the other way around? Twitchy lips meant he was amusing her - he knew that - and when her nostrils flared, she was angry, but other than that, it was really hard to read Shego's face.

"Well, that's just because you're so darn quiet," Drakken shot back. "You really need to start wearing, like, a bell around your neck or something."

Oooh. That must have been the wrong thing to say, because her nostrils poofed out a little. "A neck bell?" Shego asked, shooting her eyebrows so far up they almost left her forehead. "What do you think I am, a cow?"

Humph. Of course not. Drakken shook his head. "No, Shego. It's actually quite easy to tell that you're human - because you walk on two legs, and don't have enough hair to be an ape - I mean on your body, not on your head - because you've got plenty on hair on your head -"

"Drakken!" There was a chuckle in Shego's voice, and he felt himself relax just a smidge - whatever a smidge was. "Look, look -" she took one hand off the hovercraft's steering gear to wave it casually through the air - "don't bother pretending you're not excited. You're talking so fast I can't catch a word you're sayin'." She gave a tiny snort. "'Course, I'm not sure how much more sense it would make if you slowed down."

Ouch. Drakken flinched; that really hurt him inside. The prickles stabbed at his shoulders and a hot, angry churn started in his stomach, and he opened his mouth to yell the frustration out -

But the look on Shego's face stopped him. It was the kind of look his mother used to get when he was about to throw a tantrum, the type that said, Keep this up, and you won't go at all.

Drakken took the biggest, deepest breath his squeezy lungs would let in and turned his attention back to the brochure sitting in his lap. He turned it over and over in his hands, squinting at the pictures of other supervillains with shiny silk suits and faces that were as hard to read as Shego's. They didn't look like they were playing Pin-the-Tail-on-the-Donkey or anything like that -

Not that I would want to play something so - so - so juvenile, anyway, Drakken reminded himself sternly. But a game of Guess-Which-Chemical-Makes-This-Smell was an entirely different story. He was a pro at that. Even when they blindfolded him and spun him in a circle to confuse his brain, he still did better than anyone else.

Everyone except Professor Dementor. Drakken felt his entire face slanting toward his chin in a fierce scowl (the one that had once sent an entire troop of Pixie Scouts running away in tears). Somehow, his rival always managed to beat him on the very last round. He must have figured out a way to cheat, because no one - absolutely no one - knew chemical smells better than Dr. Drakken.

Well, maybe - just maybe -

Yes! Drakken jolted himself forward on the hovercraft seat, wincing when his seat belt smacked him backward. Since he was such a wickedly creative genius, maybe he could exchange one of the sample chemicals for his own mind-control compound. Then, when Dementor took a big old whiff of it, he would become a helpless piece of Silly Putty in Drakken's hands, totally under his control, doomed to do his bidding for all time!

And he'd win the game.

Drakken straightened his shoulders against the hovercraft's seat to keep them from wiggling with excitement and grinned down at the pamphlet sitting in his lap. And there, written in straight, maroon, very official-looking font, were two words he'd missed until now. Two of the sweetest words in the English language.

Refreshments provided.

That kept him from minding quite so much that he'd left all his mind control compounds at home.

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Drakken frowned to himself as he wrapped his arm tightly around the banister and hopped from one step to the next (in an amazing display of agility, he thought proudly). He hardly recognized HenchCo's basement without a Doomsday device in every corner and dozens of Jack Hench's other, small but still outrageously expensive products displayed on tables. It was the same room - the ceiling was still gray, the carpet was still red, there were still cool little booths along one wall, the steps still squeaked under his feet - but it looked a lot bigger. Brighter. More intimidating.

Intimidating. Good word. Great concept, provided you were on the right end of it. Right now, Drakken wasn't, and he didn't like that. It made the hairs prickle up on the back of his neck.

So he narrowed his eyes and lifted his lip in disdain (another good word). At least he could look like he was on the right end. Maybe that would be enough to fool people until he could figure out how to be there again.

Unfortunately, Drakken's menacing narrow eyes threw off his depth perception, and he missed the next stair. His left foot flailed wildly, looking for something to come down, finding nothing. He tumbled, head over heels, down the rest of the stairs, smacking his knees on the next-to-last step and thonking the last one with his head. The sickening thud scared him more than the sudden pain.

He landed, face-first, on Hench's carpet. It felt fuzzy on his cheeks, and it smelled like it had just been washed. How, Drakken wondered, did you wash a carpet anyway? Vacuum it, sure - but vacuums smelled hot and rubbery. This stuff was more like laundry detergent. Its fake-flower scent tickled his nose and made him sneeze, right on top of it.

Oh, well. Drakken pushed himself up to his knees, swiped at his nose, and tried not to look as embarrassed as he felt. So much for the clean carpet.

Beside him, Shego rolled her eyes, and his insides got that squirmy feeling he always got when he was being disapproved of. "You always have to make an entrance, don't you?" she asked.

Drakken waited for the right words, the ones that would make her understand and respect him and get that mocking twinkle out of her eyes. But the only things that came to him were a grunt and a hiss and a frustrated blurt of, "I didn't do it on purpose!"

"Yeah. Doy." Shego gave her sarcastic laugh, grabbed his hand, and pulled him to his feet. While he swiped at his burning cheeks, she scanned the room with her eyes, like she had some kind of infrared cameras in them that would tell her exactly where to go. "Okay, look. I'm gonna go find some girls to hang out with. You think you can entertain yourself for a couple of hours?"

Drakken would have answered, but a light bulb on the ceiling had caught his eye. It had looked burned out when he'd arrived, but now he saw that was blinking. On and off. On and off. It looked like it was flashing a secret message in Morse Code. Ooh, maybe he should add that to his latest evil plan! Communicate to his robot armies in Morse Code. He shivered with delicious, villainous delight.

"I'll take that glazed look in your eyes as a 'yes,'" a voice said dryly. He whipped his head around and saw Shego. When did she get here?

She reached out and caught his arm, sharp glove-claws snagging on the fabric of his lab coat. "But, before I go - what have we learned about HenchCo get-togethers?"

Drakken groaned under his breath. Was she really going to make him recite it - right here, right now? He started to shift from foot to foot. "If I do not know what a machine does," he said slowly, carefully, making sure to pronounce each word correctly, "pushing every single button on it is not the way to find out."

Shego raised one eyebrow all the way up into her bangs. "And?"

There was more? Drakken shrugged his shoulders up to his ears. "I don't know."

"Here's a hint." Shego jerked her head toward the refreshment table.

Hmm. Drakken tapped one finger to his chin as he pondered that. Refreshment table. Food. Eating. Chewing. Swallowing. Not playing with it - "My food is not a toy, it is for my tummy to enjoy?" he guessed.

The instant the words were out of his mouth, Drakken knew they were wrong. Shego let out a very loud guffaw that made heat rise up to his cheeks. They were probably turning the same pinky-red shade as his mother's hair.

Ugh. Mother. That had been her rule, not Shego's.

"Uh, close," Shego got out between chuckles, "but no cigar, Doc. Try again."

Drakken scowled at her. Well, why would he even want a cigar? He'd never smoked in his life - the one time Eddy had tried in middle school was enough to scare them both off it. . .

FOCUS, Drakken.

Okay. He pushed his lips together and rolled his eyes up so far he could actually see part of his eyebrow, but he couldn't think of anything else. He looked at Shego, who was still waiting for his answer, and shrugged again.

"How about this?" Shego leaned in toward him and lowered her voice, which he was grateful for. If she was going to mock him, at least no one else would hear it. "Don't eat yourself sick this year."

The heat came back, roaring in his ears this time. He ground his teeth together so hard he could almost hear them squeaking. Ooh. That kind of hurt, and Drakken remembered his dentist telling him that was bad for the enamel on them -

"Ring any bells?" Shego pinched at the air with two fingers and swung her hand back and forth, like she was ringing a bell. Yep. Definitely mocking him. Pain or no pain, Drakken gritted his teeth even harder.

It did a ring a bell - a whole choir of them, as a matter of fact - but there was no way he was going to give her the satisfaction of knowing that. He just folded his arms over his chest and glowered down at her (why couldn't she shrink, just this once?) until she shook her head, laughed again, and walked away, leaving him alone.

Alone.

Drakken shifted from foot to foot, trying to get rid of the nasty itch in his chest. He liked being alone sometimes. Like when he was working out the details of his latest brilliant plan, and he needed to be able to focus on it and not be distracted by Shego rolling her eyes and making fun of it. Or when he was in the shower, of course.

But not here. Not now. The whole point of coming was to be around other people, to amaze them with his genius! Not to stand here by himself while DNAmy chased Monkey Fist around the room and Dementor looked at him like he was a funny little boy instead of a fierce mad scientist who would one day have control of the entire planet. That wasn't the way things were supposed to be. Drakken suddenly felt very lonely and conspicuous, like a giant blue base in a room full of acids.

His eyes wandered back to the refreshment table. At least that was familiar. That was safe. Maybe he could just -

Yes! Drakken felt a smile slip across his face as a plan began to take shape in his brilliant mind. He'd hang out by the refreshment table - talk to his fellow villains when they came by to get something to eat - and he'd have a snack - just a little one - and he wouldn't make himself sick - and Shego would see that he really could learn from his mistakes, and she'd be proud of him. And things would be the way they were supposed to be, after all.

The itch in Drakken's chest went away. Having a plan always soothed it - even if it wasn't a plan for dominating the world, at least he felt like he knew what to do.

He even remembered to cross the room using his villainous swagger, instead of running as fast as he could and tumbling over his own feet. He felt his spine getting straighter and his strides more confident the more he thought about it. Especially when he saw who was standing at the refreshment table, leaning on a bag of golf clubs.

Duff Killigan. He wasn't the nicest guy Drakken had ever met, but he wasn't Dementor, either. And all he wanted to do was cover the world in grass and turn it into a giant golf course, which wasn't exactly evil. Weird, maybe, but not evil. Which meant he would be very impressed when he heard about all the wonderfully wicked things Drakken had been up to lately.

"Hello, everyone!" Drakken cried, snatching up a plate. "Dr. Drakken has arrived!"

He paused and waited to hear cheers. Applause. Heck, he would have settled for someone yelling back, "Hi, Drakken!"

Instead, Killigan barely glanced at him - sideways, out of the corners of his eyes, in that way Drakken himself could never do without going cross-eyed. "Hello, lad," he said with an annoyed sigh. The itch came back.

Next to him, two big guys nudged each other and pointed at Drakken. It was like they were making fun of him, and he hadn't even done anything yet! Made sense, though. He could tell by their gray uniforms and their muscle-y bodies - even bigger than his own henchmen, which was a little scary - that they worked for Dementor.

Drakken whipped his head away from them and folded his arms across his chest. Fine, let them laugh at him! He'd just ignore them. They weren't worth the effort it took to get mad at them.

But he couldn't resist peeking back over his shoulder, just a quick one to make sure they were done laughing. They were. In fact, they were talking to Duff - something about some new stretchy golf club he was working on, which wouldn't break if he got mad and twisted it in half - just as if Drakken had never been there at all. It was worse than being laughed at.

Now his chest was so itchy, it felt like there was a big leaf of poison ivy where his heart should have been. (Which, now that he thought about it, was scientifically impossible, not to mention fatal.) Drakken snatched up a helpless brownie and took a fierce bite - and smiled.

How could he not? It was warm and chocolatey and melted perfectly in his mouth. It was hard to stay mad while chewing something that delicious.

Drakken closed his eyes to savor the taste. It's okay, he told himself. Everything's all right. And by the time the brownie was gone, he actually believed it again.

He ran his tongue over his teeth and frowned to himself. There were still some little brownie chunks stuck in his back molars. Yummy - but annoying. He grabbed the punch ladle and filled a glass with thick, red punch. That ought to wash it out. Drakken raised the glass to his lips and gulped three big chugs.

Yikes. Not the taste he was expecting. It was sticky and sweet, just like it was supposed to be, but there was something else in there. A taste that wasn't exactly bitter, not exactly sweet, not exactly sour, and definitely not salty. Just a little extra - "kick", they would probably call it on Food Network. Drakken closed his eyes and coughed - he wasn't sure if he liked it or not - and then swallowed hard.

The punch went hot and scratchy down his throat, which didn't feel good at all, but once it was settled in his stomach - yeah, that was nice. Warm and comforting. He felt the glow all the way up to his face.

Drakken opened his eyes and saw Dementor's henchmen and Killigan squinting at him with curious eyes, waiting for his verdict. They must not have tried the punch yet, he realized. They were waiting for him to tell them if it was any good or not! The thought made his chest puff out.

"Mmmm, yes, I like it," he finally said slowly, feeling like a great connoisseur. That was another word he'd learned from Food Network. (It meant someone who knew everything there was to know about food and drinks.) "A little bit of an edge to it, though. Not quite bitter, but almost." He paused for a wise nod, chest glowing warmer and warmer by the minute. "Very exotic. What's in this?" Drakken pointed to his glass and glanced at his awestruck audience. "Is it pomegranate? I've heard that's very hot this season."

Duff tilted his head to one side, looking more confused than Drakken felt. One of Dementor's henchmen slapped both hands over his mouth like he was trying not to laugh. Good grief, could he not do anything without getting laughed at around here?

But the other one grinned from ear to ear and clapped him on the back, so hard Drakken could almost hear the discs in his back screeching out of alignment. "Yeah, pal. Pomegranate. Good, isn't it?"

Drakken tilted his head to the side, too. Had one of Dementor's henchmen actually talked to him - like he was a human being? Almost nicely?

Well, of course he had! Drakken threw his shoulders back and stood up as straight and tall as he could, trying to ignore the fact that his head still only came up to the other man's shoulder. After all, he was so much brillianter than this guy's boss. He probably - secretly admired him. They all probably did!

He felt his face glow even brighter. Yes! This was fantastic! Even his arch-rival's hired hands were in awe of his genius! And he had someone to talk to, after all!

"So," Drakken grinned up at his new friend, "who wants to hear about what happened to me after the Attitudinator broke at the last convention?"

Duff wagged his head back and forth and chuckled, which he decided to take as a "yes." Even better, both of Dementor's goons nodded and leaned toward him to listen. He couldn't see their eyes behind those sunglasses they always wore, but he knew they had to be wide open and fascinated. "Sure, tell us," the first one said.

Drakken saw movement out of the corner of his eye, and he turned his head - quickly, sneakily - to see Dementor himself edging closer. He must be coming to hear the story, too. Even he was secretly interested!

Drakken felt a grin slide across his face. He raised his glass again and gulped another take - whoa, where did that come from? - took another gulp of punch.