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: Yay for randomosity! This fic takes place somewhere between Agrabah and Monstro of KH1, so don't get confused. Also, I am calling Xehanort's Heartless "Ansem", like in the first game, simply because that's who we know him as at the time. Also, it's easier to type. But all the backstory revealed in KHII is still there—Ansem the Wise, the other five scientists with Xehanort, etc. You don't really have to be familiar with it to get most of the story, I just used it for comic relief (and because I'm obsessive-compulsive about detail).

Disclaimer: I do not own Kingdom Hearts, Riku, or Chris Farley. Do your worst.

Chapter One: The Invitation

It started out as another lousy day at Hollow Bastion. Riku had to reorganize the library, repair the lifts, fix the dumb seal in the front hall, wash the windows, clean the floors, and dust off the princesses' glass cases. In short, he had a bazillion freaking chores to do, and he was not in a good mood.

"Stupid freaking witch," Riku muttered angrily to himself as he slapped a mop onto the already pristine floors of the Great Hall. "Ask for help with a rescue, and what do I get?" He flipped the mop up in a passable imitation of Maleficent with her scepter, and mimicked, "Do this, Riku, do that, or you'll never find your little girlfriend again. Not that I care. I just want someone to boss around and emotionally traumatize. Now go away while I snog the darkness." He shuddered, slapped the mop down again, and continued, "Honestly, how many coats of paint does one flying buttress need? You'd think I was dealing with the evil freaking stepmother or something."

A Shadow randomly wiggled up from the floor next to his feet. Riku stomped on it, ran the mop over the black inky stain it left, and went on ranting without missing a beat, "And if she goes off onto one more freaking tangent about how great the flipping darkness is, and how ownsome and powerful she'll get when that final door gets opened or closed or whatever, I'm going to take this mop, and—"

Riku mimed something rather graphic and likely painful involving the mop handle and certain of Maleficent's body cavities. "That ought to shut her up."

"Indeed," came a snooty voice from behind him. Riku turned around to see the object of his complaints standing on the stairs with her pet raven on her shoulders.

Riku wrung the mop out in a suggestively threatening gesture, dunked it in the bucket, and coolly asked, "What, you're still here? Shouldn't you be out conquering the worlds or something?"

"Actually," Maleficent sneered, "I was just on my way to consult with an associate of mine. Don't let me get in your way." She took a few steps and pitched forward, catching herself before she fell down the second set of stairs. She whipped around to glare at Riku, whose mop seemed to have tripped her up "accidentally". Riku grinned.

"Whoops," he said, with the best combination of innocence and insolence any fifteen-year-old could muster.

Maleficent's pet raven swooped from her shoulder, defecated on the immaculate section of floor that Riku had just mopped, and sailed back to land on her other shoulder. "You missed a spot," Maleficent sardonically pointed out as she swept from the room. Riku made a very rude hand gesture behind her back.

No, he was not in a good mood at all.

XxXxX

So when the mail came, Riku was quite unprepared for what was to come. The usual Search Ghost arrived with the usual bundle of letters, packages, junk mail, and dirty magazines; Riku took the usual bundle with his usual teenage icy stare, threatened the Heartless with the usual "Beat it before I set the Behemoth on you, provided that stupid Keyhole ever opens, which I frankly doubt," and gave it the usual vicious kick. The Heartless disappeared, as usual, and Riku flipped lazily through the mail...as usual.

Suddenly, something unusual happened (gasp!). Riku found a letter addressed to him. Most of the envelopes were labeled to "Maleficent," "Current Resident," or "Mally-poo." (The latter usually came from Captain Hook.) This one was labeled, "Maleficent and Rico (or whatever the new kid's name is), 1313 Mountain Castle Lane, Hollow Bastion (Zip) 66666."

"My name has four letters, and this guy can't spell it?" Riku asked disbelievingly, slitting the envelope open. He never opened Maleficent's mail (out of sheer "don't-wanna-know"), but he figured he had equal rights to this letter since his name was on it too (albeit misspelled).

It was an invitation. A party invitation.

XxXxX

"Hmm... hmmm... –Ah. Hmm..." Maleficent was busy "hmm"-ing to herself as she read through the invitation, while Riku was over in the corner trying to maintain his suave, fifteen, "couldn't-care-less" coolness (even though he was secretly antsy with impatience).

Maleficent began to read the invitation aloud. "Come on down to the 'Party from Hell'! Your host: Hades, Lord of the Dead; Location: The Underworld; Date: August 13 (hmm, that's tonight); Time: 7 pm--?..." Finally, she finished, shrugged, and tucked the card into a pocket somewhere under her robe. "Sounds amusing. I should go get ready."

"So...we're going?" Riku asked with a mixture of incredulity and disguised excitement. He hadn't been to a good party since Sora's thirteenth birthday bash, when Tidus fell out of a tree, prompting Selphie to make out with him while he was half-conscious on a bet. You couldn't buy good times like that.

"If by 'we', you mean 'me', then yes, I'm going," Maleficent said snippily.

"Whoa, whoa, hey," Riku jumped up. "You're not telling me I can't go, are you?"

"Ah...yes, essentially," Maleficent sniffed disdainfully.

"What do you mean, I can't go?" Riku angrily asked. "The invite clearly states, 'All villains and sidekicks welcome, semi-casual, open bar.' If you're going to treat me like your stupid flunky,"—here he whipped out the list of chores she'd given him that morning for evidence. It was as long as his arm.—"then you have to let me go to this party."

Maleficent scowled, as if the force of his sheer impertinence was giving her a bad taste in her mouth. "It's an adults' party. You can't go. Your job is to stay home and clean the fortress." Without another word, she swept from the room.

Riku glared at her retreating back. He had his mind made up, and nothing in this or any other world was going to stop him.

He was going to go to that party.

XxXxX

Meanwhile, in some random location in the Realm of Darkness...

"Oh, Your Supreme Seeker-of-Darkness-ness!" Ansem's magical guardian-person walked into the kitchen to see his master doing the crossword and eating Lucky Charms out of the box.

"My loyal guardian!" Ansem called out, expelling a mouthful of half-chewed hearts, stars, horseshoes, clovers, and blue moons. "Help me out here. I need an eight-letter word for 'absence of light.'"

Ansem's Guardian (whom I shall call Bob from now on, because that was his name) thought for a moment. Was his master feeling well? The answer was not only obvious; it was his master's favorite word. Maybe this was a test. "Ah...'darkness,' milord?" Bob ventured cautiously.

"ABSOLUTELY NOT, YOU MISERABLE EXCUSE FOR A SOUL-STEALING DEMON!" Ansem exploded. Bob cringed. Ansem took a deep breath and explained, "Obviously, my well-meaning but sadly mistaken friend, they want us to think the answer is darkness. The true answer clearly must be...pancakes." He filled pancakes into his crossword, spelling it with two k's.

"Of course, Master Ansem," Bob said. Anything Ansem said was always right, no matter what. "I brought in the mail," he offered, plunking the pile onto the table.

While Ansem lunged for the Victoria's Secret catalog, Bob examined an envelope addressed to "Ansem and Bob, Random Location in the Realm of Darkness."

"Master Ansem? There appears to be an invitation for us to attend some sort of fiendish bash," Bob said after reading the letter. Ansem swallowed another mouthful of sugar-encrusted, magically delicious breakfast cereal, and snatched the invite.

"Blah, blah, blah, blah..." he muttered. His hellfire-orange eyes flicked back and forth along the page as he read. Then, they narrowed angrily. "WE DECLINE!" he roared, crushing the letter in his hand and burning it to ashes for emphasis.

Respectfully, Bob asked, "Of course, milord, but may I ask...why?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Ansem rolled his eyes. "Mister I-can-throw-a-better-party-than-Ansem-Seeker-of-Darkness Hades is trying to show me up. He wants to show that he could rule the world better than I could. A LIKELY STORY!"

Ansem took a deep breath and continued, "I could throw a better party than him with my eyes closed! No, with my eyes torn out by the roots and both hands tied behind my back! HA!"

"So...why not throw your own party the same night?" Bob ventured hopefully.

"DON'T BE RIDICULOUS, YOU HALF-WIT HALF-LIFE!" Ansem exploded again. "The party's tonight! I can't set up my own in ten hours; who do you think I am? Sephiroth? NO. When I rule the universe, I will throw all the parties I want! Drinking, dancing, smooching, more drinking, more dancing, naked women jumping out of cakes..."

Bob hesitantly pointed out, "But...what if no one comes?"

"What—WHAT KIND OF QUESTION IS THAT? OF COURSE THEY'LL COME!"

"But...but who will you invite?" Bob winced, expecting another round of verbal abuse.

Ansem filled his lungs to deliver said round of verbal abuse—and stopped short. Who would he invite? He had no friends—unless you counted Bob and the rest of Ansem's legions of Heartless. Not much of a party scene there. His five other science buddies had long been consumed by the darkness, as had his former mentor, Ansem the Wise. Ansem suddenly had a horrible mental image of his old teacher pointing at him and laughing. I may have had my name, research, pride, and dignity stolen, he seemed to be saying, but at least I knew enough people to throw a party if I wanted! Maybe you can stay home and do the Macarena with Bob! LOSER! I always knew you'd amount to nothing, you no-good, dirty-rotten, lazy-ass plagiarist! Ahahahahahahahahahah...

"ALL RIGHT, THAT'S IT! NEW PLAN!" Ansem bellowed in an effort to drown out the derisive laughter of Ansem the Wise. "We sneak into the party tonight, write down the names of every single person attending, and throw our own party some other time. Possibly when I have regained a body. Or taken over the universe."

Bob secretly breathed a sigh of relief. Normally, Master Ansem would kick him around for a bit if Bob had a better idea than he did. "Marvelous plan, milord."

"Of course it's marvelous. Pure genius."

"Indeed, milord."

"Oh, and Bob?"

"Yes?"

Ansem shook his head. "You really should work a little bit harder on improving your low self-esteem," he said, adding, "you stupid freak."

A/N: Well? WELL? Every time you read without reviewing, Ansem throws something at Bob. For Bob's sake, please review!