One True Place

by pitbulllady

Monsters, Inc.""Lilo and Stitch" crossover-After 2 12 years of being trapped in a Louisiana swamp following his "banishment", Randall Boggs finds himself on the Garden Isle of Kauai, where he meets a most unusual little human girl, and her even MORE unusu

1. Default Chapter

...One True Place

Chapt. One- Hellhounds On My Trail

"I got to keep movin', I've got to

keep movin',

Blues fallin' down like hail, Blues fallin' down like hail

And the days keeps on worryin' me,

There's a Hellhound on my trail,

Hellhound on my trail, Hellhound on

My trail..."

Robert Johnson, 1937

FINALLY! My first-EVER fanfic! Many thanks to Sean, Light Rises, Cool22 and to Joy, aka, "Ty Parsec", wherever you are, for the inspiration. There have been other "Monsters, Inc./Lilo and Stitch" crossover fics, but I hope to make this one of the best. It will be quite different from Sean's fic, "Experiment 301", so don't think I ripped him off at all!

Disclaimer: I don't own Randall Boggs, though I dearly wish I did;) He, however, is now the property of the Walt Disney Company. I DO own "Cyrus Fotenot" and "Chris Daigle", and the unnamed owner of a red Dodge Durango. The Catahoulas are based on my own pack of top-notch hog dogs, "Hannah", "Midnite Girl", "Cayenne", "Boo"(no, she's not named after "the Kid"), "Cheyenne", "Cailidth", and "Ringo". When hog hunters do it, the squeal is REAL, y'all!

This story is dedicated to my old girls, "Wise's Splash", and "Princess", who finally found THEIR One True Place, even though everyone said they could never belong...rest in peace, ladies, and to everyone who has ever been treated unfairly just for being "different". May you someday find YOUR One, True Place as well.

2004-St. Martin Parish, Achafalaya Basin, Louisiana

Cyrus Fotenot pulled the Z-71 pickup off to the shoulder of a dirt road, somewhere deep in "da Basin", about eight miles east of St. Martinville. Turning to his passenger, he inquired, "Dis look lak a good 'nuff place, eh?" The passenger, Chris Daigle, his second cousin, nodded in agreement, "Oui; us can turn out da dogs here-oughta be plenty dem hogs out here in DIS parta da Basin, I guar-ron-TEE!" With that, the two young men clambered out of the pickup, careful not to put their feet down into any tall grass or vines, or anywhere else they couldn't readily see, lest one of them disturb the rest of one of the swamp's many resident Cottonmouths, fresh out of their winter sleep, hungry and more irritable than usual. Without further ado, they both walked around to the rear gate of the Z, to an aluminum dog box welded to the bed of the truck, the openings in the side of which revealed sets of eerily gleaming blood-red eyes and eager whimperings. Reaching in behind the dog box, Chris was the first to strap on a miner's hat-a hard hat equipped with a battery-powered halogen light, while his cousin pulled out a tangle of dog chains, muttering curses in French as he attempted to make some headway into separating the tangle into three different chains, each ending in a "coupler"-a double snap made for holding two dogs at once. Chris laughed at Cyrus' battle with the dog chains. "Shoulda done did DAT 'safternoon, while it still light, Cuz", he advised. Cyrus, growing impatient with the recalcitrant metal, tossed the whole metallic mess over the bed of the truck to Chris, with the admonition, "Mebbe I shoulda got yo' Mama ta undo 'em, me!" This had the effect of earning him a one-fingered salute from his cousin, but one accompanied by chuckles-all in a day's fun for those two.

After what seemed an eternity, the chains were finally separated, and Cyrus finally had donned his miner's helmet and snake-proof leggings, and it was time to take out the contents of the aluminum dog box at last, much to THEIR delight. The two cousins proceded-with some difficulty-to remove and apply the chain leashes to some half-dozen Catahoula Leopard Dogs, or Catahoula Curs, as they were more commonly known in Louisiana. The powerfully-muscled, short-coated dogs, descendants of the huge, savage "Alano" Mastiffs brought over by the DeSoto's Conquistadors as biological weapons in the 16th century, were prime examples of Louisiana's official State Dogs. Although smaller than their Spanish ancestors, owing to mixing through the centuries with the wolf-like Native American dogs, the French herding breed called a Beauceron, and quite likely the gamey little pit-fighting terriers brought in by the wave of Irish immigrants in the 19th century, the Catahoulas were no less fierce. With their short coats mottled and spotted and blotched in an array of patterns that looked more appropriate for some child's finger painting than for any living animal, and usually ice-blue eyes, the powerful animals had an almost surreal look about them, a look magnified at night, when any available light striking their retinas would reflect back a Hellish red, owing to the light reflecting directly off of the blood vessels in the eye, undimmed by any pigments. This day and age, though, instead of their usual quarry being armored knights on horseback, or unarmed Choctaw Indians, it was feral hogs, whose ancestors had escaped to the bayous and swamps of the Deep South for generations, breeding back in type to their origin-the European wild boar. It was this dangerous and wily foe which Cyrus and Chris hoped to encounter tonight, as much for the sheer adrenaline rush as for the prospect of meat for the table, or another trophy head for the mantle.

Walking three dogs each, the two men more or less simply followed their charges through a barely-noticeable pathway into the swamp, their headlights illuminating the way ahead of them, revealing clouds of insects amidst the trees and vines, rising like so much smoke in a spring revelry. Reaching a small clearing, they stopped and began to unclasp each dog's collar from the chains, giving each a pat of encouragement to send them on their way. Noses high and tails thrashing, the Catahoulas set off silently, like a pack of four-legged Raptors, into the inky blackness of the swamp. If they could not strike a fresh trail within five minutes, they would instinctively return to their handlers, then set off again in a different direction, and would continue to do so until they made a "strike"-a fresh track of their quarry. Unlike hounds, they ran with their heads up, reading the wind, and ran silently, without "opening up" or bawling while giving chase, which might have alerted their wary and often-dangerous prey to their presence. It would be only when the pack had finally cornered, or "bayed up", their quarry, that they would bark, to let their handlers know of their location. Little did the two cousins know, but tonight's chase would end a bit differently from usual, for the fresh trail that their dogs would hit that night belonged to no pig.

About a quarter of a mile from where Chris and Cyrus has released the pack of Catahoulas, anticipating a good dog-hog battle royale, a nutria had met its demise earlier that day in the jaws of a Conibear trap, set the previous winter by a Cajun fur trapper, and forgotten. The nutria, a 20-pound semi-aquatic rat, related to the muskrat, was not a native to Louisiana. Its ilk had been accidentally introduced into the delicate ecosystem some near-seventy years prior, when a hurricane had smashed open the cages of a Depression-era fur farm, releasing the South American natives into the waterways of the Bayou State, and they had made themselves at home ever since. The life of this particular nutria did not end in vain, however, for it had barely ceased its final thrashings before it was discovered with delight by another denizen of the Basin. This particular denizen, like the nutria it had found, was also not a native of Louisiana; in fact, it wasn't even a native of this WORLD, period. It, or rather, HE, had also not eaten in nearly 48 hours, and the carcass of a recently-deceased 20-pound rat was indeed a welcome discovery!

Unlike the recently-deceased nutria, however, this denizen had a name. It was Randall Boggs, and he had found himself an uninvited, and unwilling, resident of the Achafalaya some two and a half years earlier, due to a series of extremely complicated and unfortunate events back in his REAL home, in a parallel Universe known simply as the Monster World, the existence of which was totally unknown to Chris Daigle, Cyrus Fotenot, or the six Catahoula Curs. Not that the Catahoulas could have cared less, even though it was HIS trail, left just a few hours previous, which they happened upon that night, along with the tantalizing aroma of swamp rat roasting on an open fire.

To the uninitiated, not familiar with the native flora and fauna of the Basin, as the Achafalaya drainage system was often called, a creature like Randall Boggs would have seemed right at home in this swampy environment of cypress knees, Spanish moss, slow-moving blackwater streams, big snakes and alligators, for he had a superficially-reptilian appearance, his 12-foot-long, lean, muscular body being covered with flat, smooth scales-scales which normally were colored purple, with a complex mosaic of teal and turquoise criss-crossing his dorsal side, ending in a bright blue, thin green-banded tail. What might have stood out as a bit unusual, though, was the fact that Randall possessed what would seem to be an abnormal compliment of limbs-four that served primarily as arms, four more to serve primarily as legs, though all eight could be called upon to serve in either capacity should the need arise. The more-than-casual observer would have also noticed Randall's normally-upright stance, which was itself quite non-reptilian, and his facial features would have betrayed an intelligence no reptile-indeed no animal of this world save for a human-could possess. Moreover, he was NOT, in fact a reptile, being a warm-blooded creature, and as such afflicted with a high metabolism, requiring regular intake of high-caloric meals. The latter, as it turned out, were not always easy to come by in a swamp, especially for a monster who was accustomed to ordering meals to go from fast-food establishments back home. This was why the discovery of a recently-deceased nutria was such a joyous find.

Randall had only just finished up the last of his welcome meal, and was still sitting close to the still-smoldering remains of his little cook-fire, generated with the help of a pack of matches he'd found in an unlocked tar-paper cabin used by many different trappers, hunters, and fishermen in the swamp, and belonging to nobody in particular, when he became aware of something WRONG. It was just a feeling, but over the months of his exile, he'd learned by harsh experience to trust such a feeling, and it was this intuition, along with a good dose of old-fashioned determination and fighting Irish spirit, bequeathed to him by his own ancestors before THEY had been tossed OUT of the Human World and into that world into which Randall himself had been born, that had allowed him to survive all this time. Randall stopped stirring in the embers of the fire with a stick, from where he sat in the smoke(as much to keep the mosquitoes off as for any other reason), and listened. He heard nothing, and that was precisely what bothered him. No crickets, no whip-poor-wills, no frogs-and THAT was most unusual for a spring night in the Achafalaya. The lack of the normal wild orchestra could mean only one thing, that some other predator besides himself was afoot in the Basin, and more often than not, that other predator would be human. Encounters with humans, and their dogs, had been unavoidable, though Randall was getting better and better at being able to stay out of their way as time progressed. His body still bore numerous scars, some more recent than others, of such encounters. He had learned that to many of the human residents of this region, virtually anything with legs that wasn't furniture was fair game for the cooking pot or the barbeque pit. He had no intention of becoming the primary ingredient in a pot of "Boggs jambalaya". He had taken the time to stealthily watch the humans, and learn some of their ways, and their unusual dialect, and it had benefited him greatly in his daily quest for simply staying alive.

Now, as he listened, trying to pinpoint any tell-tale sound that would betray the intruder's whereabouts, he thought he heard a twig snap, or maybe a leaf crunch underfoot. He had intentionally kept his little fire to a minimum, to avoid its smoke being noticed, but now, he wished for a bit more light to illuminate whatever lay out there within the confines of the dark trees. It could just as easily be a bobcat, or even a black bear, something which might give a curious sniff in his direction, then decide that a twelve-foot-long lizard monster would be too big to mess around with, and be on its merry way. Randall slowly stood up, wishing for better night vision than nature had equipped him with, when suddenly, they were nearly upon him!

Like creatures from Sherlock Holmes' worst nightmare, they appeared first as so many pairs of bobbing, blood-red orbs weaving through the trees. Even as Randall stared, nearly spell-bound, the sounds of their panting could be heard, and their bodies seemed to materialize from the trunks of the trees themselves-creatures that were as at home in the swamps and bayous as any alligator, black bear or Cottonmouth, but which would have looked equally at home springing out of the mists of some moonlit English moor.

The foremost of the dogs, upon spotting its quarry, increased its speed, and it seemed that it would actually hit such a burst as to carry it PAST its intended target, but at the last second, before Randall even had a chance to react, it slammed on breaks, no more than three feet separating them, and began to bark loudly, constantly springing from side to side as it did. As Randall backed himself up against a large cypress, his mind furiously tried to grapple with the seriousness of his current situation, while angrily chastising himself for letting himself get into this situation in the first place. The other five dogs were soon to join the first, and all six commenced a horrible den of loud, explosive barks, designed as much to confuse and disorient their prey as to give their location away to their owners, scrambling through the swamps in pursuit. Randall knew from experience with such dogs that to try and fight back against this many would be futile and fatal; he could have easily killed a single dog with one well-placed bite, maybe even taken on two of them successfully, but six was far too many. He knew that these spotted devils would not give up, and if they managed to get behind him or under him, would pull him down and tear him to pieces. Yelling at them or threatening them would only increase their aggression. He also was aware that six dogs-wearing collars no less-weren't just out running game in the swamps by themselves; HUMANS had brought them here and released them, and that meant that those same humans could not be too far behind! His momentary complacency, the result of a full stomach(for once), had cost him dearly, and now he had to figure out how to get out of this grave situation alive and in one piece. To seek refuge in a tree would be easy-and it would also make him a sitting duck, so to speak, when the hunters showed up with their lights and guns, assuming they were carrying the latter(many hog hunters disdain the use of firearms, preferring to dispatch their dangerous adversaries with a knife in hand-to-tusk combat). In a bit of quick, spur-of-the-moment thinking, the sort of thinking that had allowed Randall's survival for as long as he could recall, long before he ended up here, he considered that while climbing a tree and remaining there would be suicidal, nobody said he had to STAY in the SAME tree! With the trees fairly close together, it would be possible-risky, but still possible-for him to leap from tree to tree, until he hopefully was able to put some distance between himself and his attackers. He didn't even want to think about what might happen should he miss a leap, or should a tree top snap beneath his weight, and with no further ado, he turned in an instant and scrambled up the cyress like a immense scaly purple squirrel, trying to shut out the sounds of the Catahoulas trying desparately to claw their way up after him, biting huge chunks of wood from the trunk in frustration. As Randall reached the highest part of the tree that would still bear his weight, he glanced down briefly, long enough to see one of the dogs leap some twelve or more feet straight into the air along the trunk, and fasten its jaws like a hydraulic vice onto a protruding branch, hanging there, twisting and growling, like some grotesque Christmas ornament. Randall had no time to reflect on this amazing feat of canine power and agility, but could not help but think, what if that branch had been HIM?

It was not long before he could hear the shouts and whistles of the hunters, and spot their lights weaving through the night swamp below him. Taking a deep breath, and a quick prayer to whatever deity might still happen to have a soft spot for exiled lizard monsters, he hurled himself from the tree in the direction of the next, feeling the branches scrape and grab at his body like so many clawed hands, but automatically shutting the pain out of his mind, endorphins and adrenalin pumping. He landed on the trunk of the second tree, as its top swayed to and fro beneath his weight, then immediately sized up the next, and leapt again, easily soaring the fifteen or so feet that separated the two trees. He tried not to let himself think too much of what was going on down below, lest it distract him from his concentration and cause him to miscalculate a leap. This display of aerial acrobatics continued for who-knows-how-many trees, until Randall could no longer see lights below him or hear the barks of the dogs. That didn't mean they weren't there, of course, just that he'd been able to buy himself a little more time. To speed things up a bit, he shimmied down the trunk of the last tree he'd landed in, glanced around quickly, and headed in the direction of what he knew would be the best tool for throwing the dogs off his trail-State Highway 131, a fairly busy connector road linking US 90, or the "Old Spanish Trail", with Interstate 10. If the dogs could manage to make it across that road without some casualties, well, then, he figured that it was SOMEONE'S intent that he, Randall Joseph Boggs, was to meet his demise in a Louisiana swamp, far, far from home, at the jaws of a pack of killer canines. Even as his keen hearing picked up the sound of his pursuers crashing through the bushes on his heels, they also picked up the siren song of the traffic on the highway, and he headed straight towards that steady hum and roar like a moth to a flame.

As Randall emerged from the swamp into the clearing next to the road, however, he suddenly found inspiration for a slight change of plans. He had completely forgotten that not even a quarter mile up the road to his left was a railroad crossing, and it took the sound of a train whistle approaching that crossing to remind him. Without another glance, he dropped to all-eights for greatest speed, and headed straight to where the train would soon be crossing. Panting hard, his sides hurting from exhaustion, he and the west-bound train pretty much reached the crossing simultaneously. The barrier had already come down, red lights flashing and bells ringing, and cars were already stopped, when some of the drivers were to be privileged to glimpse something very rarely seen in this part of the Human World-a real, live monster! In fact, the quite-shocked driver of the red Dodge Durango, who had chosen to stop as close to the tracks as the barriers would allow, was to be so privileged as to have said monster actually leap upon HIS roof, pause for a moment like a huge cat about to pounce on a mouse, and then spring off the vehicle-straight towards the passing train! The last sight that stunned driver was to have of this mysterious reptilian creature, which would make the news in four Parishes by the next morning and grant its erstwhile pursuers, Cyrus and Chris, their allotted fifteen minutes of fame, was of it landing, cat-like, on a passing empty flat-bed car, before that particular car passed on out of the illumination of the Durango's headlights, heading west.

Alright, so concludes Ch. One. Sorry it's so long, but that's me. Reviews would be appreciated, flames will likely be ignored.

pitbulllady