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 is my favorite chapter. Ever. Ever ever. I'm so excited.

Disclaimer: No belongy me.

Chapter Seven: The Drinking Contest

Maleficent currently was in a foul mood—fouler than usual, if you can believe it. Not only had she been verbally harassed and publicly humiliated by a slimy, skinny, two-bit romantic interest of a protagonist (for a villain, this phrase is the equivalent of "son of a bitch"), but now she had to smile and pretend to be civil to her mortal enemy.

Who? No, not Prince Philip. Worse. The wicked stepmother of the darling Cinderella. Maleficent hated her. The snooty looks, the ugly dress and hairstyle, not to mention her infernal feline, Lucifer, just drove Maleficent nuts. She often complained of her nemesis to Riku for hours, or at least until he interrupted her with some icy, condescending, teenager-esque remark. Hey, at least he pretended to listen for a little while so she could vent without ruining some priceless architecture.

"So," Wicked Stepmother (WS) smiled snootily, "how has business been going? I hope you're treating my stepdaughter well enough—I would hate to lose such a hard worker after you're done ripping her heart out in one of your...rituals." She made a sniffing noise, as if she could smell fire and brimstone on Maleficent's clothing, which of course she could not. Maleficent made sure to liberally apply Secret® Villainess Strength Body Spray and Deodorant every day, to keep the stench of evil from ruining her person-to-person relations.

"Oh, she's well-treated enough," Maleficent replied through teeth gritted in a grim rictus of a smile. "My associate makes sure she is comfortable in her unconscious state, and as soon as I use her heart to open the final door, you can have her inert body to...stuff or something." Maleficent privately felt she didn't want to know what WS would do with the limp body of a former Princess of Heart. Probably use her as a mannequin for her dresses or something.

"Your...associate," WS repeated disdainfully. "I hear he's some dirty Mexican teenager you plucked off the streets. I hope he isn't putting his nasty little hands where they shouldn't be."

Maleficent seethed. "For one thing, he does not do anything to any of the Princesses, I make sure of that," she began, pointing an accusatory finger at WS. All Riku ever did with regards to any women was mope around looking for his little girlfriend. He changed the pillows and sheets inside the containment chambers for the grown princesses, managed the IV's, and stalked out of the room, often muttering things like, "I feel like a freaking pervert, lousy stupid job this is..." Of course, Maleficent had no idea what went on in his teenage guy mind, but then she really didn't want or need to know. If WS was going to start spreading those sorts of awful rumors, Maleficent's reputation for integrity and reliability in her villainous dealings would be severely compromised.

"I'm sure," WS sniffed.

"For another thing, I do not appreciate you trying to demean the reputation of my hired help," Maleficent continued, "because that, of course, reflects badly upon myself."

"Oh, I'm terribly sorry," WS apologized without a hint of actual remorse. "Please excuse my abhorrent manners. I must have been enjoying your illustrious company for far too long."

Maleficent, ignoring the deliberate insult, concluded, "And for the last time, Riku is not MEXICAN!" It surprised her how much she'd ended up defending the little snot. Maybe, on some level, he reminded her of herself. She used to be quite the ball of fire back in her day, before she'd miscast that spell in fairy school and turned her skin green, lost her boyfriend, flunked out, and ended up working long hours with meager pay until she could afford a small lair on her homeworld while all the other fairies got invited to cool parties and royal birth celebrations, leaving her with naught but her silly pet raven, Diablo (whom she'd almost had to eat during a tight spot), and an abiding hatred of the "popular" girls.

"I don't know how you tell," WS replied innocently (hah).

At that point, Lucifer ran up, and Maleficent lost her temper. She gave the feline a ferociously sharp kick. "Begone, hellcat," she snapped amidst his shrieking yowl and retreat to the safety of WS's arms.

"Don't treat my property in such a way," WS ordered fiercely. "It's bad enough I have to look at your hideous complexion."

Maleficent leered at her. "You are a disgrace to all female antagonists in the fantasy genre," she snarled. "Where is your sense of pride? You do no work to advance any sort of heinous machinations or personal advancement. You have no master plan. You aspire to be nothing but a lazy, lounging, chocolate-eating mother-in-law of an empty-headed Prince Charming, and..." she sniffed, "you do not even have a terrifying mode of entry. Do you even have a name?"

...Know what? She's right. WS has no name, and I'm sick of it. From now on, she's gonna be called Margarethe, from Gregory Maguire's Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister (highly recommended).

Margarethe's supercilious expression never wavered in light of such accusations, an admittedly impressive feat. "I don't dabble in your ridiculous black arts. At least I can come up with original ideas for tormenting my allotted protagonists."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

Margarethe gave a condescending sneer. "Well, I heard the whole reason your silly teen isn't here is because you left him home to do the cleaning while you went to this party...I wonder where I've heard that?"

Maleficent flushed a darker shade of green. "You know, I wouldn't talk if I were you."

"Pray tell, why not?" Margarethe chuckled with no warmth. At least no warmth until her hair burst into searing green and black flames and she let out a piercing shriek.

"Because your hair is on fire," Maleficent finished with a grin.

XxXxX

"Hmm..." Ansem contemplated, rubbing his nonexistent chin with his equally nonexistent hand. Bob's initial pride at completing his master's mission was slowly draining away as Ansem predatorily circled the man stretched out on his stomach on the table, his hands and feet tied in front of and behind him with tendrils of darkness so that he looked like a chicken on a spit. Neither Ansem nor Bob had had a gag handy, so Bob had forced Marluxia's mouth open and wedged a ripe apple in there so hard he'd heard his jawbone creak. He resembled a suckling pig, all trussed up for some Polynesian ritual.

"Mmfflgrrghllrgh!" Marluxia wailed around his apple. His eyes were wide and terrified.

Ignoring the pink-haired man, Bob inquired, "What's wrong, Master Sexy-Sugar?" At that, Marluxia wailed louder and struggled mightily against his bonds—apparently Ansem's code name sounded like the name a pimp or pornography kingpin might adopt.

"...This..." Ansem growled, a growl that turned into a fearsome and yet somehow petulant shout: "This is not the ass I requested!"

Bob's jaw dropped. Marluxia froze, sheet-white and shaking.

Ansem continued, "This rear end is neither muscularly sculpted nor attractively shaped—it isn't even bootylicious! It certainly isn't the behind I saw being shaken on that dance floor, and the only explanation is that you screwed up. Again. Now, I want you to go back, and get me the individual to whom the good ass belongs, and I want myself in it by midnight. Capische?"

Marluxia screamed something that vaguely sounded like, "Oh my God, he's a RAPIST!" Or possibly "crayfish", as the apple makes it hard to tell.

The little wire in Bob's brain (do Heartless have brains? No? Do they even have wires?) that connected him to his sanity (All right, I know Heartless don't have sanity. Or at least not sanity as we think of it. Just flow with the metaphor while I patch the hole I just punched in the fourth wall) snapped. This latest calamity was the final straw in an entire hay bale of injustices heaped upon him by Master Ansem, and Bob would be a pink frilly bunny before he stood for another.

"You know what?" he bellowed at the top of his bestial lungs, at a volume not even Master Ansem had attained, lacking, of course, vocal cords in the physical world. "Fine! I QUIT!!!"

Ansem froze in mid-whine about the non-appetizing-ness of Marluxia's hindquarters. "You...you what?" he stammered, as if he had just been struck in the face with a two-by-four and was mystified as to why someone would do that to him with no explanation.

"YOU HEARD ME! I QUIT! I AM SICK OF YOUR WHINING, AND YOUR PUT-DOWNS, AND YOUR DIRTY MOVIES! BUT MOST OF ALL, I AM SICK OF YOU!!! IN FACT, I HOPE YOU NEVER GET A BODY BACK! I HOPE YOU DIE ALONE AND UNLOVED! YOUR HAIR IS GIRLY, AND YOUR FASHION SENSE ROTS!!!"

Ansem gasped, "You...you...you can't quit! I'm a higher-ranking Heartless than you, and I say you can't quit! You—can't—STOP WALKING AWAY! YOU'RE NOT ALLOWED!!!" When Bob showed no sign of acknowledging him, Ansem wailed at the top of his nonexistent lungs, "We could have had something special! But you're one crazy-ass BITCH!"

"I HATE YOU AND YOUR BARRY MANILOW MUSIC!" Bob bellowed at his ex-master for the last time, and stalked off.

XxXxX

Riku was on his second piña colada when Hades showed up. "Oh, chico..." he trilled, poofing in at the bar. "I've got a deal for you."

"I thought we already made a deal," Riku pointed out, punctuating this statement with a stabbing motion of his paper umbrella.

"Yes, and the deal was, I stay quiet about your illegal immigrant status in exchange for leverage on you later," Hades corrected, waving a finger at him. "And it's collection time. You've been challenged to a drinking contest, Underworld style."

Riku grinned cockily, and ripped off his blindfold for the first time that night (the tickling sensation on the bridge of his nose was irritating him). Bring it," he challenged, his now-visible cyan eyes sparkling with enthusiasm. By the way, it should be noted that his eyes and pink hair completely clashed.

Hades pointed down the length of the bar ominously. "He's the contender."

Riku followed the line of Hades' finger to see a white-haired, turquoise-eyed man throwing down a bourbon, completely unaware that he had been "pantsed"...while wearing a full-body jumpsuit. ("That makes seventeen," Demyx told Axel, high-fiving him.) "Kadaj?" Riku laughed. "From all that Cloud's had to say about this guy, this will be cake."

"Freaking sociopathic bishonen asshole," Cloud agreed amiably.

"Do you ever have anything nice to say?" Demyx asked, in apparent curiosity.

Cloud replied, "Didn't I just?"

Hades looked more closely down Riku's line of sight. "No, not him," he impatiently corrected. He pointed about three seats down the row. "Him."

Riku looked, to meet merciless hellfire eyes burning with the promise of fates worse than death. The challenger smirked and raised a toast to Riku, drained the glass, threw it behind him to smash with a clear tinkling, and flicked a long strand of heaven-cloud platinum hair out of the way of his hellsmoke-black-feathered wing. One could hear, if one strained one's ears, several bars of "One-Winged Angel" playing in the background, complete with angelic choir.

"Oh," Riku said faintly. "Him."

XxXxX

Larxene felt much better after puking her guts out, so she decided to resume her quest to find the Melodious Nocturne, and... She frowned. Why did she want to find him, again? Ah, well, it didn't matter.

She stalked down the rows of tables on the far side of the cavern, zapping anyone who got in her way. Suddenly, a muffled, "LLMXSMMRMM!" reached her ears. It sounded like someone trying to shout her name around a large, blunt object. The Savage Nymph looked around, until she caught sight of...

"Oh, this is great," she cackled maliciously. "This is great." Larxene had stumbled upon none other than the Graceful Assassin, gagged with a large ripe apple and strapped to a table with his behind in the air. She reached out and gave the apple a tug. A bite remained in Marluxia's mouth, which he promptly spat out before speaking.

"Larxeeeeeeene!" he wailed. "Run! RUN BEFORE THEY RAPE YOU!"

In between chuckles, Larxene asked, "Did you get raped? Poor baby."

"Well, no," Marluxia admitted. "Apparently...they, um, don't like my ass."

Larxene burst into another fit of giggles. "Oh no, let me get this straight. You were kidnapped, tied to a table, and then rejected for rape on the grounds that you were not appealing enough?" She burst into outright hysterics, banging the table as tears of (pseudo)mirth fell from her eyes.

"Don't laugh," Marluxia whined. "It causes me so much pain...on the inside...where my heart should be..."

"Marluxia!" Larxene snapped, slapping him briskly. "Listen to me. We Do Not Have Hearts. We do not have true emotions, so as soon as you start thinking about something else, your mind will stop simulating the fear you should or might have felt, and you will be fine."

"Oh." Marluxia looked slightly sheepish. "Right. Yeah."

"Have you seen Number Nine around?" Larxene demanded. Marluxia thought about it. "He might be at the bar," he suggested.

"Bar. Got it," she repeated, turned around, and walked off in that direction. "Thanks."

"No problem," Marluxia shrugged. Or tried to, until he remembered that he was still tied to a table. "Uhh, Twelve? Aren't you gonna, you know, untie me?" he asked.

Larxene didn't even turn around. "Nope," she told him.

"But—wait!" he shouted despairingly, but to no avail. It was quiet where he was for another few seconds, then many pairs of bright eyes began to blink open around him on all sides, filled with predatory hunger.

"Marly..."

The Graceful Assassin chuckled nervously. "Eh-heh-heh... Nice fangirls... Good fangirls... Stay, fan—No! Don't do that! AAUUGHHH!!!"

XxXxX

Showdown time...

Out at the very farthest end of the bar, bobbing slightly unsteadily on the murky violet waters of the Lake of Departed Souls, a lone table stood. Floated. Whatever. At that table, four people were seated: Hades (the judge), Cloud (the overseer and liquor provider), and of course, our two duelists, Riku and Sephiroth.

The table floated some few yards away from the end of the bar. Everyone gathered there. Axel and Demyx had the prime spots, from which they could see everything.

Riku and Sephiroth sat at opposing ends, staring each other down. Each clutched a shot glass in his hand. Cloud held a bottle of some hellish cocktail marked with warning labels of all sorts: skulls, crossbones, red labels reading "DANGER!", biohazard symbols, radioactive waste symbols, recycling symbols, Mister Yuck stickers, you name it. The liquid shone with an eerie blue-white corona.

Hades turned to address the crowd. "We play this contest by Underworld rules," he announced. "My barkeep, Cloud Strife, has in his hands a bottle of my own special brew. This stuff'll knock the socks off a god—and believe you me, our socks are not easily knocked.

"The match is simple: our contenders have exactly ninety seconds to down as many shots of this stuff as they can stomach." A large number 90 hung in the air over the table inscribed in numerals of blue flame. "First one to puke is automatically disqualifed. At the end of the time limit, the one with the most shots downed and held is the winner." A large zero also hung in the air over each contestant's head.

Cloud looked furious at having to pour shots for his sworn nemesis. Sephy was as cool as a cucumber. Riku had his "bite me" face on, a look he'd perfected for use on Maleficent. Hades held one hand up.

"Ready... Set... GO!" The clock flashed and began to count down, and it was on.

Riku threw back his first shot and winced. Sephy downed his, swallowed delicately, scrutinized his shotglass, and then shrugged and gestured for another.

"He's got no chance," Demyx lamented, shaking his head. "Sephiroth's got the upper hand in height, weight, pwnsomeness..."

"But Riku has one major advantage," Axel contradicted.

"What's that?"

Axel grinned. "He's a fifteen-year-old guy. And fifteen-year-old guys can stomach anything."

Indeed, Riku seemed to be holding his own well. However, he was behind by a shot. Twenty-seven seconds had already flown, and the score was 4-3 in favor of Sephy.

"He's got one minute," Axel said.

"I wonder if—look! They're tied!" Demyx pointed excitedly. Both Sephiroth and Riku had downed six shots, and forty-five seconds were left on the clock. "I think it's because Cloud's taking his sweet time to fill Sephy's glass," he hypothesized.

Sephiroth had noticed Cloud's minor delaying tactic. He growled, brandishing his glass, and demanded, "Hit me!" Cloud slapped him across the face lightning-fast, and then sloshed some liquor into his glass, smiling sweetly.

Thirty-five seconds.

Riku fought off a wave of nausea as the room divided into fours, spun around, caught fire, and hit him repeatedly in the temples with a ballpeen hammer. He must be getting drunk fast. "Hit me," he gasped, and Cloud quickly filled his glass. The score was still tied at six, and both contestants tilted their glasses for a seventh.

Twenty-eight seconds.

Sephiroth "accidentally" shook the table, sending Riku's glass flying from his unsteady grip. He finished his own, and raised a perfectly shaped silver eyebrow at Riku, who gaped at him in shock and anger. "Oops," Sephy said sardonically.

Twenty seconds.

The score was now 7-6, Sephy leading, and Riku was running out of time. "I need a glass!" he frantically shouted. Hades shrugged. "No spares," he said, almost apologetically.

Thirteen seconds.

Sephiroth gestured for his eighth shot, but suddenly, Riku lunged forward and snatched the bottle out of Cloud's hand ("Oh no," Cloud said, without the slightest inflection). "Oh my, he can't be serious," Demyx gasped.

"He is," Axel confirmed.

Riku turned the bottle over and dumped its contents (all of it!) into his mouth.

A/N: ZOMG ONOZ! I love cliffies.