The Party from Hell
There's a party in the Underworld! All of the major villains are invited, but what's this? Maleficent won't let her newest ally attend? Well...Riku's going to go anyway! Insanity, drinking contests, and Chris Farley impersonations abound!
A/N: This chapter doesn't seem as funny to me, although my betas love it. If you don't find it very funny, don't worry: the next chapter is where we kick it up a notch. The song the band sings is There's A Good Reason These Tables Are Numbered Honey, You Just Haven't Thought of it Yet, by the band Panic! At the Disco. Remember: Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery—that's the defining principle of fanfiction!
A lot of the dialogue jokes are inspired by Kingdom Hearts: The Stupid Files, a series of spoof fan videos on YouTube. I highly, highly recommend them, although be wary of the swearing and OOCness.
Disclaimer: Don't own KH, Riku, any villains I spoof, or Panic! At The Disco.
Chapter Three: The Party from Hell
Hades was standing in front of his mirror, oiling his fire-hair and giving himself his pre-party pep talk. "All right, baby, you're gonna rock this show tonight!" he muttered. "Knock 'em dead! Who da man? You da man! Who da man? You da man..."
"Who's the man?" came a snooty, superior, and all-too-familiar voice from behind him. Hades whirled around to see Maleficent, who'd just poofed in. "Holy flippin' fires of Tarterus!" Hades gasped, putting a hand to his heart. "What, woman, you wanna send me into cardiac arrest? Huh? What's wrong with you?"
Maleficent smirked. She loved being one of the few people who could rattle Hades on a regular basis. "Oh my. I didn't scare you, did I?"
Hades took a deep breath to steady himself, and regained his composure. "You're a bit early, Maleficent my sweet. Whatever for?"
"I wanted to see you," Maleficent purred. Hades involuntarily shuddered. "...And see if you had bumped off that hero of yours before you get caught up in entertaining your guests," she added.
"Okay, never ever say that first sentence again," Hades ordered. "Since when do you demand status reports? I'm not an angsty teen in high school, you know. Speaking of which, how's the Mexican?"
"...Mexican?" Maleficent asked incredulously, very confused. "Where did that come from?"
"You know, the new kid you keep parading around? What was the name—Pedro? Chico? Rico, that was it!"
"Ahh..." Maleficent recovered her usual slightly amused, supercilious look. "I see we have a misunderstanding. His name is Riku, and he is not Mexican."
"Really? He's not?" Hades looked disappointed. "Aw, man! I had all this great politically incorrect material ready to go! The Mexican jokes are classic stuff!"
Maleficent rolled her eyes. "Well, I apologize for depriving you of the opportunity to mock a vast ethnic group for your own personal enjoyment."
"No, really, why are Mexicans like cue balls?" Hades pressed, determined to make his point. Maleficent didn't deign to respond. "The harder you hit them, the more English they pick up! Ay, Dios mio!" Over to the side somewhere, a lost spirit played a quick three-beat riff on the drums. Hades grinned like a madman, waiting for Maleficent to "get it".
"You're hopeless," Maleficent sighed, and poofed out. Hades' grin faded. "Stupid freaking witch," he muttered under his breath.
XxXxX
"Axel, are we almost there?" Saïx monotoned (yes, I did just make monotone into a verb).
"We're in sight of the damn planet, geez," Axel snapped. "What—are you all up in my grill now, huh? You sound like Demyx."
Saïx, ignoring Axel's comment, continued, "Then, I can end this charade?" An almost-smile just barely grazed the corners of his lips.
Axel gave Saïx his best "WTF?" look. "You're weird," was all he could say.
Meanwhile, Demyx was doing his best to get Riku to come out of the closet.
No. Wait.
I'm sorry. Let me rephrase that. "Emerge from the storage locker." There, that's better.
Meanwhile, Demyx was trying to get Riku to emerge from the storage locker. "Riku, come on!" Demyx pleaded. "It's not that bad! Axel routinely laughs himself into a coma! It's part of his, um, daily fitness regimen!"
"Liar!" came a muffled yet recognizably angry shout from inside the storage locker.
"Listen, it's just to get you in," Demyx tried to reason with him. "I botched the job, okay? I'm certainly not going to laugh at you, Saïx is incapable of caring, and Axel will eventually forget...someday."
"You expect me to believe that? The guy's freaking catchphrase is 'Got it memorized!' He'll never forget, and neither will I. You've scarred me for life."
"Fine." Demyx, desperate, went for the reverse psychology approach. "Stay here and miss out on the party of your young life. I'm sure the dye will rinse out when you go home and back to mopping floors like, I don't know, Cinderella or somebody."
The ruse worked. After a sullen silence, Riku came out, Marluxia's scythe in hand. "Don't make Cinderella jokes to me," he warned. "I have to intravenously feed her and clean out her bedpan every day. She's lucky that Oogie Boogie or somebody hasn't raped her yet."
"Duly noted," Demyx shuddered.
"Also, I'm pretty sure that I'm going to decapitate myself with this thing," Riku added, gingerly resting the head of the lethal pink weapon against his shoulder. "It's so heavy."
"Yeah, maybe you should leave it here," Demyx said nervously, imagining terrifying images of a crazed, hormonal teenage guy running through a crowded room swinging the scythe wildly, shouting WHEEEEEE!!!!! (He knew how scary it was. He'd been that crazed, hormonal teenage guy once.) "Besides, if you lose it, Marluxia will kill me."
"Yeah," Riku agreed, and propped it against a wall. Suddenly, the ship entered atmosphere, just as Demyx spotted a penny on the floor.
"Dibs!" he shouted, and leapt onto the floor for it, while the atmospheric turbulence rattling the ship knocked the scythe loose from the wall. Riku, rooted to the spot, saw the scythe descend as if in slow-motion. NOOOOO, went his mind, but he couldn't say a word. The sharp blade sheared down...and sliced off the top half of Demyx's hair.
Demyx froze. Too late, Riku squeaked in an unnaturally high pitch, "Watch out for the...scythe." Instead of his former shoulder-length tumbleweed hair, Demyx now sported a flat-top, with a few wispy, not-chopped hairs hanging around his face, and a mullet where the back-of-head hair had escaped pink scythy retribution.
"WHAT DID YOU DO??" Demyx screamed, feeling his head. Riku squeaked, "Umm, umm, umm, ummm..."
Demyx dashed over to the mirror, where merely minutes before, Riku had suffered his own hair-related indignity. Talk about karma. Demyx stared at his reflection, open-mouthed. "Oh, my God!!" he shouted. Riku braced himself... "That is SO GNARLY!!"
"...It is?" Riku asked, bowled over with relief and disbelief.
"Why didn't I think of it before? TOTALLY EIGHTIES! ROCK ON!" Demyx announced, drunk with hair-ecstasy. He was overcome, and suddenly hugged Riku. "Thank you!" he sobbed. "You're, like, my best friend!"
"Uhh..." Riku patted him on the back a couple of times. "Yeah."
XxXxX
Meanwhile, in some random location in the Realm of Darkness...
"So, Bob, you are perfectly clear on the plan, correct?" Ansem threatened. Bob drew himself erect and nodded proudly. He was dressed impeccably in a black suit and tie, and classy black shoes. If not for his demonic facial appearance (as befitting a Heartless of his station), he could have passed for any respectable businessman. Ansem, having no body, elected to go in his noncorporeal misty coat form. Meaning that technically, in a practical, metaphysical sense, for all intents and purposes...he was going naked.
"Yes, Master Ansem," Bob said proudly. "I am to go and mingle amongst the party-goers, assimilate myself into their good graces, and take their names down for use as a guest list at a party of our own devising."
"Good boy. Meanwhile, I will be hanging with the chicks," Ansem grinned hungrily. "Although..." His grin faded slightly. "It will be hard to mingle with hot women without a body to enjoy it with. Bob, I'll have to ask you to alert me to the presence of any men that the ladies at the party find attractive. Perhaps I can pull off a body swap."
"As you wish, Master Ansem," Bob said, silently thinking that no one could possibly be monumentally stupid enough to willingly hand his body over to the dark powers to use as they please. Surely not.
"See if you can get someone as close to my original hair color as possible," Ansem added, flicking back his illusory long platinum locks with a sigh of regret that he'd have to give them up in the physical world. "Da ladies love da silver!"
"Of course Master Ansem," Bob said. Translation: Oh, yeah, like out of the maybe five people who are attractive and brainless enough for you, there'll be one with your exact hair color. Why don't you go all the way and ask me to get you Sephiroth, dumb-ass? But Bob would never say such a thing—he was even ashamed to think such a thing. Master Ansem would be so displeased.
Ansem, unaware of his partner's mutinous thoughts, grinned evilly. "Then, Bob, my fellow soul-eating demon...let's crash a party."
XxXxX
Riku and the band have now arrived at the party...
Axel suddenly jerked around, as if a bug stung him. "Did you hear something?" he demanded. Saïx, Demyx, and Riku shrugged in unison. "No," Demyx said. "Like what?"
"Oh, just felt like someone using a crappy, half-assed scene transition," Axel muttered, throwing wary glances at the sky. Riku raised an eyebrow at Demyx, who twirled a finger next to his ear in the universal gesture for "somebody's loopy."
An enormously fat, felinoid creature was the bouncer. "Pete's the name," he growled at them, evidently expecting them to be impressed. They weren't. "Are you punks on da list?"
"No," Axel said, his voice oozing sarcasm. "We're gate-crashers who killed the band and stole their identity, clothes, and equipment."
"Humph. Nice work," Pete conceded. All present rolled their eyes.
"No, you blithering imbecile, we're the band," Saïx stepped in. "Saïx, Axel, Demyx, and...Marluxia. We should be on the list, so let us in before I kill you simply for being a nuisance."
The icy-cold promises of death from Saïx made Pete rethink the whole list. "You know what, go right on in," he gulped.
As Riku took his first steps into the Underworld, he finally, truly grasped the concept of the Party from HELL. "Holy sh...cow," was all he could say.
The entire Underworld was packed with villains of all shapes, sizes, races, genders, nationalities, species, types, descriptions, and degrees of evil. A large stage was set up before the entrance to the Cave of the Dead (and therefore, the path to Hades' private chamber). Most of the spacious cavern was taken up by a large dance floor paved with the bones of murderers and thieves (Hades liked to go for the dramatic). A large green punch bowl big enough for Riku to swim in was located at the exact geographic center of the cave. As for the bar...it was big. So big, in fact, that most of it was floating on the Lake of Departed Souls.
Axel summed it up. "Let's rock this joint!" he shouted, grinning his pyromaniacal smile.
"No cave fires," Saïx strictly ordered. "We play the damn music, turn some jerks into Nobodies and Heartless so we can control their immortal souls for the rest of eternity or at least until we get our hearts back, and then we leave."
"Aww..." Axel scowled. "You never let me have any fun..."
"What...is...fun?" Saïx asked slowly, cocking his head to the side in apparent curiosity.
"You must have been a stiffneck even before you lost your heart. Trust me, with the A-train eating up this Popsicle stand, you'll loosen up before the night is out," Axel told him.
"Never."
"Five bucks says I can."
"You're on." Saïx gave a cold smirk.
Meanwhile, Demyx and Riku did their secret handshake (it involved pounding forearms, like Roxas and Hayner in the Day Two scene. Not too hard to figure out). "We've gotta get on stage now, but there are a lot of bands here. I'll catch up with you on our break. Axel and I usually have a contest to see how many party pranks we can play before getting found out."
"What's your record?" Riku asked.
"Four hundred seventy-three pantsings," Demyx said proudly. "We got the same guy sixteen times in a row, what a loser. Anyway, meet me after the show by the stage for a fun time."
"Demyx, that sounded really, really wrong," Riku cautioned him before running off to do teenage party things.
"Kids these days..." Demyx sulked.
Of course, none of them fully realized that they had just left an angsty, hormonal fifteen-year-old with pink hair and a trick blindfold alone at the Party from Hell, in the company of over forty-thousand villains.
Oh, crap.
XxXxX
Ansem and Bob have now arrived at the Party...
"Here's a walkie-talkie," Ansem said, handing Bob a Barbie Princess® handset. "Your code name is George the Destroyer. I'm Master Sexy-Sugar. Operation F.A.A.B.U.L.O.U.S.S. (Find Ansem A Body Under Ladies' Ogle-worthy Ultra-Sexy Standards. Go figure.) is now underway."
"Yes, Master Sexy-Sugar. I will go forth and carry out the plan," Bob quickly said, and dashed off to mingle with the crowd. It was great not having to hang around Ansem for a while—usually, Bob had to jump out at people who annoyed Master Ansem and shake them around for a bit, popping up and draining their HP and the like, while Master Ansem shouted something suitably threatening like, "SUBMIT!!!" Bob usually tried to apologize to these unfortunates later, but they often by then were dead.
A loud fanfare drew everyone's attention to the stage. Hades poofed onto the stage in a cloud of hellfire and infernal smoke. The crowd cheered in appreciation. He held up his hands for silence, and the crowd hushed in anticipation of his usual welcome monologue. He grinned. "Thank you for coming! I'll see you in hell!" With that, he poofed out.
The crowd went wild. This was pure showbiz, and they ate it up. Onstage, the curtains drew back, and Seven Ate Nine started right into their first number.
Bob, unbeknownst to anyone, even Master Ansem, was a butt-kickingly good dancer (It's been said that his Nobody was a Dancer as well). Demyx began singing, "Please leave all overcoats, canes, and...top hats/ With the doorman/ From that moment, you'll be out of place and under-dressed..." and Bob started owning the dance floor. A gold-tipped cane and jet-black top hat materialized in a crackle of dark energy, and Bob began a complex tap dance routine, to many appreciative whistles and scattered applause. Bob grinned—he was having the time of his non-life!
Meanwhile, Ansem was putting phase two of Operation FAABULOUSS into action. He randomly glided about amongst the party-goers, occasionally swiping a drink from a tray or copping a feel of some unfortunate female's behind, causing whoever it was to whirl around and slap the closest guy, whom no one would believe because come on, it's a party of villains. (That was a long sentence. Whoot!) Ansem smiled with satisfaction. It was good to be the bodiless specter of darkness.
Finally, he made it to his target: the large bowl of green punch at the center of the cavern. Glancing around furtively, he took a glass bottle out from one of the pockets of his coat. (wait...what?) The bottle was filled with a smoky dark gray liquid that looked unaccountably sinister. Ansem uncorked the bottle and dumped its contents into the punch bowl, chuckling maliciously to himself. The punch frothed, bubbled, hissed, turned pink, and then settled back to its original color and state. No one seemed to notice.
Ansem threw the empty bottle at some guy, laughed when he fell over, and then strolled (as much as a mist and an illusory coat can stroll) off, jovially humming the last few lines of the song:
"I've never been so surreptitious, so of course I'll be distracted when I spike the punch!"
A/N: Bwahaha! No one is safe! Next chapter: Meg curses out Maleficent, the band heats up, a speaker explodes, and no one can escape the wrath of the angry bartender...
