Disclaimer: The views and opinions in this story are not intended to be viewed as those of the author. The following is a fan-written fiction. Gravity Falls, Star vs. The Forces of Evil, Kim Possible, and Big Bad Beetleborgs are property of their respective owners, creators, and publishers. Please support the official releases.

TW: This story will contain references to physical and psychological abuse, murder, and torture. Furthermore, several chapters of Volume 8 (and for the next several volumes) are set during a time period of extreme racial prejudice and traditionally sexist views towards both men and women. Reader discretion is advised.


Echo Creek, 1899

In 1847, a caravan of California-bound settlers led by Bonson Bonner descended into a valley northeast of Los Angeles following word of another party of California settlers being devastated by poor preparation and a particularly cruel winter while trying to find their fortunes further north. With this decision, some clever dealings, back-stabbings that would make the Northwest family proud, and a battle against some extremely determined marsupials, the settlement of Echo Creek was established.

For the next few decades, Echo Creek would grow and flourish, going from a small settlement to a prosperous rival of neighboring Los Angeles in short order. A pastoral town centered around ranches and vineyards, Echo Creek became known for being a restful retreat for visitors from back east–a place where one could relax and find peace from the hectic world at their own pace.

Then, in 1890, Oil was discovered.

By 1899, the vast stretches of rolling cattle land and rows of vineyards that one could look on from the slopes of the valley were gone–replaced by a forest of oil derricks wreathed in the haze of industry. Echo Creek was all but no more, a cloistered city center surrounded by oil derricks and pipes, siphoning the vast reserves of black gold that lay beneath the Earth.

The nascent Southern California oil boom has made Echo Creek extremely prosperous. But even as wealth is pulled straight from the Earth and into pockets, the ravenous need to overflow every cup has seen the derricks spread–climbing the hills and spreading into the neighboring lowlands and valleys of the San Gabriels. To the remaining farmers and vintners in Echo Creek, the growing industry approaching the edges of their lands is an inevitable progression–heralded by an inexorable force that would sooner see fertile grounds turn to worthless dust if it meant one drop more of the bounty beneath.

Three such heralds stood on the other side of a plain wooden fence separating them from the front yard of a farmhouse overlooking the encroaching forest. In the afternoon heat, the men were dressed in loose white button-down shirts, blue jeans, boots, and wide-brimmed hats iconic of the formerly wild west. The leader of the men, holding a stack of papers in his hand, held them aloft like a flag of truce–displaying it to the man who stood on the porch armed with a double-barrel shotgun.

"Now Mr. Baldwin, there is no need for any of this hostility. We're only here to persuade you to consider the handsome offer that's been presented."

The bare-chested, bearded man on the front porch of his home closed the breech of his loaded shotgun and answered promptly–his voice heavy with contempt. "Handsome offer?! You boys come here demanding I accept not even half of what my pappy paid for this land, just so I can watch my family starve while you oil jockeys get rich?! I'll tell you what, you can take that offer of yours and see if the Devil himself will take it! Then you come back to me!"

The man holding the papers raised his other hand. "Whoa, whoa, whoa…! Hold on there, sir! This does not have to resort to violence!"

"You come past that fence, and I'll have every right to!" Mr. Baldwin raised the shotgun and aimed at the three men, everyone involved aware that at this range all he would have to do is squeeze the triggers of his weapon to solve most of his problems. "I'll leave you right where you fall so the Sheriff knows it!"

The two men accompanying the paper holder went to their left sides. The man to the negotiator's right reached straight down with his left hand, while the man to his left reached across his own front, to shiny revolvers nestled none too snugly in their holsters. Seeing this, the man holding the papers called out. "Hold, damn it!"

He looked back at Mr. Baldwin. "We don't need to start somethin' unavoidable, gentlemen. Cycles of violence happen when you shoot one man, then another man shoots back, and the shooting goes on until something truly tragic happens and a family loses everything."

Mr. Baldwin narrowed his eyes at the negotiator's words, fully understanding their intent.

"This can all be resolved peacefully-like; you can take the offer, we can leave, and we won't have to come back." The man shook the papers again. "It's either that, or these tense and meaningless confrontations keep happening, sir, until someone slips and does something they can't take back."

"I'm plenty firm where I stand," Mr. Baldwin replied. "The only ones here having a problem with slippin' are you boys with the oil on yer shoes and blood on yer hands."

Lowering the papers, the man trying to negotiate realized that terms would not be arrived at so easily. "This is the best deal you're going to get, sir."

Mr. Baldwin's attention shot past the three men and to the path behind them as his opponent drawled on.

"Men with less land than you have made much more agreeing to close, it's a seller's market."

Behind the three men, the voice of a young man called back. "A seller's market? Oh Mr. Hutchinson, do go on."

The men beseeching Mr. Baldwin turned to face a Caucasian man with a dark goatee and mustache calmly stepping off a bicycle and setting it against the fence bordering the path up to the home. In spite of the afternoon heat he was impeccably dressed in a purple suit over an orange vest and a yellow ascot tie with purple top hat. He carried in his hand a cane he slipped from a basket aligned with the legs of the bicycle's front fork. Twirling the cane and setting it down, he began a leisurely stroll to the three men, beckoning them as he did.

"As a matter of fact, I would like an appraisal of my own land while you're in the neighborhood. Because I've heard that you've–" He stopped when he saw Mr. Baldwin on his porch, and recoiled a full step back, his dark eyes widening in amazement.

"My word," the newcomer addressed the man he called Hutchinson, holding the papers. "Are… are you shaking down a white man?"

Hutchinson glowered at the newcomer. "Well, if it isn't the alleged Doctor. This ain't a matter involvin' you, son. Why don't you hop on your fancy bicycle and mosey off to where you came?"

The newcomer shook his head. "I'm afraid I'm here for an appointment. Mrs. Baldwin is several months along and I'm here to perform a weekly checkup."

"The hell you are," Hutchinson replied. "A sane man wouldn't trust a snake like you with a haircut, let alone his wife and child."

The man in purple brought a yellow fingerless-gloved hand to his chest, as though in pain. "Don't besmirch my handiness with a blade either. I've cut plenty handsome heads of hair in my time and guarantee you won't find a closer shave west of the Mississippi or south of Skagway–but I digress."

He gestured past the men to Mr. Baldwin, and then side to side, indicating the farmer's land. "I was under the impression that your employer was more discriminating when it came to land acquisition. Are you genuinely out here going back on what I recall was… your word?"

Hutchinson's glower intensified. "This is strictly business, it's something a new resident like you wouldn't understand."

"Oh, my disciplines are wide and varied, Mr. Hutchinson. I'm no stranger to the 'You and Yours Discount.'"

"You and Yours?" Hutchinson repeated.

"You and Yours. A buyer offers to take the land from you at a lower price than what it's actually worth… one you accept so that nothing happens to you and yours."

He looked to his right, at the derricks off in the distance. "I've lived here in these parts long enough to see it as the standard model of business. Except, it would appear your employer is all out of Mestizo and Tongva to force off their lands, so they've gone after the white growers and herders. I applaud the progressive shift, but it's no less abominable."

Hutchinson's left eye twitched. "Good God man, you talk too much."

The newcomer walked right up to the three men, his lips curved up in an amicable smile. "Sirs, I am a man of confidence, it is my nature to talk a great deal."

Seeing hands moving to revolvers, he stops short and brings up his left in a halting gesture. "With that in mind, I would like to make a counteroffer on behalf of Mr. Baldwin here."

Hutchinson rolled his eyes. "You're no one's representative, Hill–"

It all happened suddenly, explosively. The cane in the newcomer's right hand came up and smashed into the chin of the man on Hutchinson's left. The man on Hutchinson's right reached across for his revolver, but the newcomer took his cane in both hands and bashed him in the jaw with the head of the cane. Hutchinson himself dropped his papers, for the pistol in the shoulder holster he wore, when the glint of sun off steel stayed his hand.

Hutchinson, frozen, looked at the slender, razor-sharp blade connected to the head of the cane and pulled from its shaft to be placed at his throat.

Underneath the brim of the man in purple's top hat, a cold and level voice calmly intoned. "That's Doctor Hillhurst, friend, Doctor Aloysius Hillhurst. Now, you'll pass on the closest shave of your life, Mister Hutchinson, take your men I've dinged good, and leave these fine people alone."

Hutchinson, persuaded by the metal against his jugular and the two men unconscious at his sides, slowly nodded.

Keeping the exposed blade in his cane held to Hutchinson, Dr. Hillhurst pulled from Hutchinson's holster and gave it a look in surprise. It wasn't a revolver, nor was it one of the unmistakable Mausers that were becoming popular back east. It was a black, slide-operated semi-automatic pistol with the magazine stored in the handle.

"Good God man, how much are you being paid to afford a Browning?" He asked in amazement.

Stepping aside, he let the blade slide back into his cane as he disarmed the other two men as they regained consciousness. Keeping his newly acquired Browning pistol held on them, Dr. Hillhurst gestured to them with the gun. "Go on now, be on your way and don't let me find out that your employer has sent anyone else uphill to start pestering people for their homes."

Hutchinson glared at the man, as he and his groggy associates complied, gathering themselves and leaving. "Don't you worry, none! We'll be coming straight for you, Hillhurst! You'll see!"

"That's Doctor Hillhurst!" Dr. Hillhurst called after the three men as they staggered off, towards several horses tied up near the dirt road. Satisfied to see them go, and doubly sure his coat was well-lined with the ammunition of the heavier weapons the men kept on said horses, he turned towards the Baldwin farmhouse.

And stared at the barrels of the Baldwin farmhouse's shotgun.

"… Well."

Mr. Baldwin gestured with a quick upward motion of his barrels. "You'll be on your way, too. I don't need the sympathies of no damn Mexican and Injun lover."

Putting the pistols away, Dr. Hillhurst turned on his heel and strolled away on his cane. "No good deed goes unpunished, I see. Worry not, I have no intention of lingering."

Dr. Hillhurst returned to his bicycle, climbed onto it, and spared the farmer a final look before he rode off. Making sure Hutchinson and his friends were well ahead, he began coasting down the long slope from the verdant hills overlooking Echo Creek and down into the haze of the derrick forest that surrounded the town and stood on every other block.


"No Saloon! No Saloon! End the sale of Wine and Booze! No Saloon! No Saloon! End the sale of Wine and Booze!"

Dr. Hillhurst could hear them as he rode down Echo Creek's main thoroughfare, the dried and caked dirt leaving a trail of dust behind him. Looking ahead, his hand atop his hat, he frowned when he saw a gathering of women in wealthy-looking dresses of the Victorian style raising white signs lettered with red paint.

They were marching back and forth on the wooden walkway in front of an old Mexican-built saloon, a place he had every intention of visiting after his errands. In front of the town's post office, right next door to the saloon, a small crowd of residents hurled jeers and insults at the protesting women. Across the road from the saloon, more residents pretended to ignore the rabble as they ducked into the town's biggest bank.

Riding wide around the protestors and their detractors, Dr. Hillhurst brought his bike up to a post outside the post office and tied it up securely. Seeing the well-dressed doctor, some of the protestors' opposition broke into cheers and greeted him quite warmly. One man in particular stepped forward, the head of the Echo Creek Post Office.

"Hey, Doc! You know, you treat that bicycle better than most treat their horses!" The middle-aged, rotund man greeted him with a lingering Irish accent as he walked over.

Dusting himself off, Dr. Hillhurst turned to the man. "Afternoon, Harrison, what's the news today?"

Harrison O'Durgeson looked at the crowd of protestors and shook his head. "Oh, the same old. Ms. Bonny's gotten it in her head to have the saloon shut down because it's a 'blight on the community.'"

Dr. Hillhurst looked up at the sunny sky, tinted a light sepia by the faint fumes collecting in the town thanks to the oil derricks in every direction. "Here we all are, choking in the noxious fumes of industrial potential, but the saloon is the blight, of course."

The two men had a laugh and looked on at the protest. At the center of the rabble was a particularly elegant woman dressed more slenderly than her peers, her dark green dress inlaid with crystal accents that made her appear like a peafowl. Indeed, her large hat, protecting her from the shade, sported several large feathers from a peacock, pinned in place by hat pins adorned with pearls and other rare stones.

"Across this great nation, as society moves forward into the next century, the vice of alcohol continues its relentless scourge!" The beautiful, narrow-faced, brown-haired woman declared vocally over the chanting. "It steals husbands and fathers from families, sons from the arms of mothers, and workers from the factories propelling our country!"

She scanned the crowd as she continued. "The moonshiners, brewers, and…" She stopped when she saw Dr. Hillhurst. "… The vintners that profit off the suffering at the hands of alcohol are only one arm of the unholy alliance! The other are the bars and saloons that serve as the middlemen between upstanding men and the temptation of sin!"

Dr. Hillhurst visibly cringed. "And they say I talk too much."

Harrison nudged him. "The lass is looking your way."

"I would much rather lock eyes with a gorgon." Dr. Hillhurst turned away from the protestors. "So, anything in the mail for me?"

Harrison nodded. "As a matter of fact, I was surprised to find a letter addressed to you, my boy, instead of the usual packages."

Dr. Hillhurst was intrigued. "Just a letter?"

Reaching into the dusty brown apron he wore, Harrison pulled out a single envelope and handed it to him. Looking at its face, and finding it indeed addressed to him, Dr. Hillhurst sought the name in the corner and his lips curved downward.

"… Benjamin Wintersmane…"

"Wintersmane?" Harrison was surprised. "Of the Cape Hatteras Wintersmanes?" He gave him a nudge. "Now I'm curious. What business does a scoundrel like you have with a young man of such high society?"

Dr. Hillhurst tucked the letter in his coat. "He and I shot a man in Skagway, just to watch him die."

At the skeptical look Harrison gave him, Dr. Hillhurst broke into a grin. "Truth is, he and I were associates and co-owners of a claim. Though I stayed in Skag to keep anyone from trying to snatch it from under him while he did the real work."

"That sounds more like you." Harrison looked at where the letter had been placed. "So, still in business with him?"

"Afraid not; he sold the claim without so much as a flake and we parted ways soon after."

"Wait, wait–if you didn't make any gold off the claim, then where'd you come up with the money for that land your fancy little château sits upon?"

Waggling his eyebrows, Dr. Hillhurst answered candidly. "I ran a business of separating fools' gold. It was quite lucrative."

Harrison found that confusing. "How'd you…?" At the persistent waggling of the doctor's eyebrows, realization dawned on the postal clerk. "… Ohhh!" He burst into hearty laughter and slapped the doctor's back. "You scoundrel!"

Dr. Hillhurst laughed with the clerk, before he patted his chest where the letter lay. "Well, if this is all, I'm going to stop by Hidalgo's and enjoy a much-deserved meal before I ride back. You're free to join me, old friend."

Harrison chuckled. "You know? That doesn't sound like such a bad idea. He's open now, in fact. We can just go through the back entrance and leave the furies to their wailing."

"I beg your pardon, Mr. O'Durgeson?"

Both men stopped and froze as the crowd of counter-protestors thinned and broke to reveal the woman who'd been making an exhaustive speech about the evils of saloonery.

"Women standing up for a righteous cause aren't furies, or harpies, or whatever slur you're quick to call them."

Harrison gave the woman the side-eye. "Aye, I agree, Ms. Bonny. That's why I'm not."

Dr. Hillhurst nodded. "The man speaks the truth, Ms. Blakesfield-Bonner. We cynics only disparage the ill-intentioned and sinister."

Emily Blakesfield-Bonner's brown eyes narrowed into a contemptuous glower at the sharp-tongue jab thrown without a care in her direction. "A man as well-spoken and intellectual as yourself wastes his gifts on being a poor example to the community."

His shoulders slumping, Dr. Hillhurst leans onto his cane and heaves a weary sigh. "There is a difference between being a patron, and patronizing, Ms. Blakesfield-Bonner. I engage in one, you are a virtuosa in the other."

Harrison's chuckling at the sharp spike in tension between the two was interrupted by the sound of gunfire erupting from inside the bank across the street. As the townspeople looked on, several men in dark clothes with bandana hiding their faces stormed out of the building firing revolvers in the air, and in seconds people were scattering in every direction.

"Damn it all," Dr. Hillhurst exclaimed. "Of all times to do this sort of thing."

Emily gasped and nearly swooned at the sight of the mayhem, while Harrison scrambled for the door of his post office. "Good God, man, get to cover before you get shot!"

The three bank robbers, still shooting into the air, turned from the bank towards the saloon and post office–and the short alleyway between them. One stopped, however, when he saw the well-dressed teetotaler. His eyes, flying wide, burned with rage as he aimed his revolver at her.

In the very instant before he could shoot Emily dead, a whip swung down at high speed and struck the weapon from his hand. As he screamed in pain, the other two robbers turned to look.

A woman emerged from the haze and dust kicked up by the panic. She wore a pink skirt with tassels and matching vest over a magenta-colored shirt with rolled up sleeves, and black boots that came up to her knees. Atop her head, covered in chin-length black gradient colored hair, she wore a pink ten gallon hat with a magenta cheetah-print band around its base. In each hand she carried a pair of long, whips with pink handles that matched her fashion. The one she had used to strike the first bandit twirled through the air above with the deft movements of her right hand, while the whip in her left remained coiled in her grip.

"You boys picked a fine time to rob a bank," the woman in pink declared with a bright but rough voice, "I was on my way to make a deposit."

As the first robber gripped his hand in pain, the other two turned their weapons on the newcomer, who lashed out with the whip in her right hand. The whip, aimed with sharpshooter precision, slapped the revolvers from the hands of both men. As she brought the whip in her right back, she uncoiled and struck with the whip in her left, bringing it up to clock the robber to her left in the side of the head.

The last man quickly tried to reach for a second gun, but the intervening vigilante brought her right-hand whip down and wrapped it around his ankles, bringing them together, while her left-hand whip caught his shoulders and bound his arms together. With a quick tug, she dropped the last man down with a thud.

"Though now I'll be making a dropoff at the jail, too," she quipped before the onlooking townsfolk broke into cheers.

For a bright moment, the chaos brought by the villains and the order restored by the whip-cracking woman brought an end to the divide between the saloon protestors and their detractors. All gathered around her, applauding and praising the woman as she got to rounding up the robbers.

On the outside of the crowd, still in front of the post office, Dr. Hillhurst made an unkind face in the direction of the woman in pink. "Ugh… so tacky."

"You are one to talk," Emily snapped. "You, who wears a mask of civility to fool the unsuspecting into handing over their hard worked for money."

Doc Hillhurst took offense to that. "There you go again, the prima donna of patronizing."

Emily's arrogant glare turned to something baser at his chiding. "You belong in a cell alongside these evil men."

Dr. Hillhurst's heart sank. He looked over at the three men on the ground, being mocked and insulted as the brave vigilante bound them up for carting to jail, and then turned his gaze back to Emily.

"Madam, this misery and evil is not the product of ill minds, but empty stomachs. Offer a man enough to feed him and his, and he'll do whatever is necessary."

He went back over to his bicycle and untied it. Harrison walked over to him, concerned. "What about lunch?"

Climbing onto the bicycle, Dr. Hillhurst turned to his friend. "Good man, I can't bring myself to it. Something ghastly has stolen my appetite."

Harrison yielded. "Take care of yourself. I'll see you tomorrow."

With a nod to Harrison, a quick glance at the heroine of the hour, and an acidic glare for Emily, Dr. Hillhurst pushed off and rode towards the town's limits.

The long ride was hilly and grueling on the rocky dirt path, but it improved immensely as Dr. Hillhurst escaped the forest of derricks and the ever-present miasma that hung around it. As the brown tint faded into the bright vibrance of the world, the young man took a deep breath and let his lungs fill with the clear air rolling off the mountains and valleys towards the distant Pacific Ocean.

As the hilly fields began to transition to rows of trellises overgrown with vibrant grapevines, Dr. Hillhurst reached into his jacket and pulled out the letter sent to him. He looked at the sender's name again, before looking ahead.

"Benny… what have you been up to all this time?" He asked aloud as he crested one more hill and his home came into sight.

It was a simple Victorian style two-story home; painted white with a gray tile roof and surrounded by a matching white fence. The house the ultimate prize for all of his dealings in Skagway, and ironically the source of all his troubles presently.

Still, as he rode past the open gate and up to the front steps, Dr. Hillhurst couldn't be happier to be back at his mansion.

Until he noticed the young man, a boy really, slumped unconscious on his front steps.


Fun Fact: Echo Creek isn't a real place in Los Angeles, and in canon it takes a bunch of motifs from various parts of LA to make up its own little locale. Against my better judgement, I've put Echo Creek somewhere in LA for the sake of my ability to write this story.