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.
The Hunter and The "Doctor"
The wind howled loudly over the San Gabriel foothills, as a figure beneath a solitary pine tree dug furiously with both hands to excavate as much dirt as possible. He had excavated a long, but reasonably deep trench, before he collapsed beside it in exhaustion briefly. With several deep breaths the young man, wrapped in a Mexican serape with a black-colored wide brimmed hat dangling off his back, unneeded at such a late hour, pushed himself back up onto his knees and looked down at the hole.
Reaching to his side, he picked up a long, tightly wrapped bundle and threw it in the hole. He followed it with a second wrapped bundle, before heaving into the far end of the hole a large pack that hit it with a heavy thud. With the same urgency, he began to fill the hole with the dirt he carved out of it–packing and punching it down until it was as level and undisturbed as the rest of the loamy soil surrounding the pine tree.
As he sat there, still labored in his breathing, the wind picked up even stronger. The tree above him swayed, its branches creaking from the strain, as the gusts caught his serape like a cape and blew it out to his right side.
Slowly, the figure stood up, a young man wearing a faded red shirt and faded brown trousers. He turned away from the tree and looked down the hill it stood at the summit of. At the base of the hill, looking up at him, an immense, misshapen man stood silently. Looking like a conglomerate of human body parts, stitched together in the shape of a powerfully built man evocative of Frankenstein's monster, the abomination stared hatefully at the boy in turn as electricity crackled from the two bolts screwed into the sides of its head and arced down his body down to his feet.
The young man, despite his exhaustion, reached with his right hand and to a holster on his hip. He gripped the handle of a silver-polished Colt Single Action Army revolver, and narrowed his tired brown eyes at the creature.
"Prey that thinks it can stalk the hunter…" he said to the beast as it hunched lower and growled at him.
After a tense moment, his grip tightening on the weapon, he yelled. "… Is just prey that is eager to die! Come on, then!"
The creature obliged. It leaped, hurtling up the hill and leaving a torn up crater where it stood, flying towards the young man as he drew the revolver and aimed it between the beast's eyes.
When Dr. Hillhurst brought the unconscious young man into his home, several things were readily apparent. First of all, he was Mexican, and he had spent a very long time out in the elements. His deeply tanned skin was dry and warm to the touch, reflecting a lot of walking out in the bright sun. His clothes, consisting of brown pants, a red long-sleeve shirt, a dark-brown colored sombrero with even darker, reddish splotches all over it, and a brown and green-striped serape meant to keep the sun off his body.
He was a young man, mid to late teens, with a youthful face, dark brown hair, and a beauty mark under his right eye. Judging by his shallow breathing and previously mentioned warmth even out of the sun, Dr. Hillhurst was fairly certain he was dying of heat exhaustion.
"Exposure…" He said aloud. "If I recall correctly…"
Getting up from where he left the young man on the couch. Dr. Hillhurst hurried out of the room and into his kitchen. Soon, he returned with a pitcher of water and a damp cloth. Pouring the water onto the cloth, he removed the young man's serape and began to dab it onto his face and exposed arms to make sure they were moistened.
As he continued to loosen his clothes to let his skin breathe, Dr. Hillhurst stopped when he noticed on his belt at his right hip a silver revolver–a Colt Single Action Army. It was while checking his other side that he noticed something even more unusual.
"… Is that a C96?" He looked at his belt and found that he even had spare, if used, stripper clips for reloading the gun in a hurry. "… How'd you get hold of something so fancy?"
It then occurred to him that the stripper clips were empty, and the slide of the Mauser was pulled back in its holster. "… And what were you using it for?"
He looked at the Colt and slipped it partly from its holster. All the cartridges had been fired, as well, and the boy's belt had not a round left to reload it.
Sliding the gun back into the holster, Dr. Hillhurst stepped back and brought a hand to his chin. "… This is unsettling…"
A well-armed young man with well-used guns usually meant bad news. Especially with a rising crime rate courtesy of the forest of derricks spreading like a cancer in Echo Creek. However, a young man wielding a fancy new semi-automatic with a bespoke caliber would be the talk of the town both below and above board.
Dr. Hillhurst had also never seen this young man before. He knew every Mexican and Native resident around Echo Creek as a matter of neighborly course, and the young man was not one of them. Nor did his distinct face match any of the usual notorious suspects' description down at the Post Office.
"Where did you come from…?" He asked the young man aloud.
As if he'd said the magic words, the young man's brown, bloodshot eyes opened, and he moved with a practiced, efficient swiftness–drawing the Mauser from his holster and pulling the trigger repeatedly as soon as it was aimed in Dr. Hillhurst's face.
The loud, impotent clicks of the empty, slide-locked pistol filled the living room of the house, as Dr. Hillhurst stared down the barrel of the gun at the young man's face.
"I see you didn't need much, to come back around," the doctor replied cheerfully despite the weapon pointed between his eyes. He picked up and offered him the pitcher of water. "You must be thirsty, drink up."
Staring, surprised, at the man's completely nonchalant response to being used as impromptu target practice, the young man looked at the pitcher and immediately dropped the Mauser to take the it and gulp down some water.
After the first taste, he paused with a gasp of surprise, before he all but upended the pitcher into his mouth, draining the whole thing in great, greedy gulps.
"Yes, with all the oil drilling going on over the hill, I have to be very careful with the water I pump out. I've taken to using some English water treatment techniques–London is beyond hope for ever having anything drinkable, but it works wonders here."
As soon as the water pitcher was empty, the young man took Dr. Hillhurst's hands into his own and bowed his head in gratitude. "Thank you," he said in a raspy voice, "Thank you so much… you've saved my life."
Dr. Hillhurst was relieved. Pulling the gun on him must've been a reflex; he seemed genuinely grateful now that he had his wits about him. "It's the human thing to do, friend, there's no need to thank me."
Letting go of his hands, the young man looked around. "When I crossed the border, I was told to come to this place, because there was a man who was friendly to Mexicans who needed help. Are you Aloysius Hillhurst?"
Dr. Hillhurst frowned. "Doctor Aloysius Hillhurst, but yes."
The young man's brow furrowed. "My apologies, I was not told you were a doctor."
Pinching the bridge of his nose, Dr. Hillhurst sighed. "I paid a lot of money for that Doctorate…"
At the young man's puzzled look, Dr. Hillhurst waved it off. "Nevermind all that. What's your name, friend, and what brings you so far north?"
The young man nodded. "My name is Teodoro Ysidro, from El Desemboque in Sonora."
Dr. Hillhurst was surprised. "On the Gulf? Good Lord, young man, what are you doing all the way up here?"
Teodoro did not mince words. "My village was destroyed and everyone in it was killed."
Dr. Hillhurst recoiled with a start from the young man. "Everyone?"
"Yes," he said with a stiff nod. "They came in the night. Beasts that showed no mercy to anyone, they slaughtered men, women, and children then burned all they did not take. Those that escaped, they hunted like animals, and left none alive."
That was horrific. "… They hunted you as well?"
Teodoro shook his head. "No, I hunted them. My father, brother, and I survived the attack and chased them… but they were too many and overwhelmed us. I escaped, my father and brother did not."
Dr. Hillhurst looked at the darker stains on his hat and shirt, and quickly realized that they were all from blood, dried and baked into the fabric by the hot sun that must've beaten on the boy for weeks.
One could easily call his story made up; a lie meant to cover grisly deeds to explain his lack of ammunition.
But Dr. Aloysius Hillhurst was a man of confidence, and his years of experience taught him to identify those who spoke with confidence, and those who spoke with a clarity that could only be truth. Teodoro's story spilled from his mouth with complete sincerity, tinged with the horror he'd experienced and relived behind his wide eyes that were otherwise empty.
"Good Lord," he muttered, "And you made it up here… all the way to Los Angeles?"
Teodoro nodded. "I had to, I followed them here."
Dr. Hillhurst gave pause. "… Say that again?"
"The sons of bitches are here, I tracked them here and I will hunt them down until they are dead." With the water in his system, Teodoro spoke more firmly and with increasing anger in his voice. "That is why I came here. They say you make ammunition, and don't turn away Mexicans."
He looked at his two weapons. "I need as many rounds as you can make."
Dr. Hillhurst hummed. "I've never made 7.63 Mauser before, but if you have a few shell casings, I can work with it."
Teodoro was relieved. "Thank you." He then reached into a bag on his hip, and produced several bars of metal he handed to him. "The rounds for the .45, I need them made from this."
Dr. Hillhurst looked down at the weighty bars in his hand, and his eyes flew wide when he realized what he'd been so plainly handed. The bars were solid, pure silver, each weighing a kilo and there were easily two dozen of them tightly tied together.
Feeling the weight of the silver in his palm, Dr. Hillhurst quickly set it aside. "How long have you been carrying that on you?!"
Teodoro stared at him, puzzled. "It came with me from my family. We melt them down for ammunition."
Dr. Hillhurst was, to say the very least, incredulous. "Ammunition–?! What the devil do you shoot with this?! Demons?!"
Without an ounce of hesitation, he replied. "Yes."
Dr. Aloysius Hillhurst was a man of confidence. As a man of confidence, there were opportunities born every minute, as well as the people who provided them. Twenty-four kilos of solid silver did not simply fall into a man's hand like this, confidence or otherwise, expressly delivered by a child who spoke of "hunting beasts" and shooting "demons."
A less discerning man would take the silver, melt it down, and gloss up the weight in rounds as a replacement. That less discerning man whispered in Dr. Hillhurst's ear to do just that. That same confidence of his, however, gave him pause.
Once more, this boy was far too forthcoming and sincere. His was a naïveté that would get him killed anywhere else, especially in a land so hostile to his kind. That told him two things that weighed gravely on him.
Dr. Hillhurst nodded. "I can do that for you, but it will be costly."
Teodoro understood. "I have no money, but as long as I am here, and those beasts are, I will repay you however I can. I will do work for you, whatever you need, so long as it does not involve harming the innocent."
When was the last time Dr. Hillhurst had an assistant? Quite possibly too long. The last one didn't work out when the Lady Bonner offered him a better price for his services rendered.
That set his ventures back several weeks and he was still bitter about it.
"I'll do you one more, Ted–can I call you Ted?"
Teodoro didn't get it. "Ted?"
"Teodoro? Theodore? Ted is short for it."
Teodoro lifted and dropped his shoulders. "I do not mind."
"Ted, as it turns out I am past due for an assistant to help keep my affairs in order and my posterior unkicked. In exchange for making your ammunition and providing you free room and board here, I'll need you as my right hand while I attend to some troublesome dealings in the town over yonder hill."
The young man made a face of disgust. "That oil field is a town? How do people live there?"
"That's the thing," Dr. Hillhurst said. "They don't, and that's what makes the dealings so troublesome."
The price didn't seem too steep to Teodoro at all. "Again, as long as I do not harm innocents, I do not care what you need me for."
Dr. Hillhurst beamed. "Outstanding, lad. You are in good hands."
A new dilemma erupted. "… Though, if I'm going to be making this many rounds, I'll need brass, and I have a shortage."
Teodoro looked down at his pockets, and produced another three dozen bars of silver, much to Dr. Hillhurst's disbelief. "I only brought silver with me."
"How much of that have you been carrying with you?!" He shouted in exasperation.
"… I buried a pack nearby with all that I could take from my home."
Dr. Hillhurst's mouth dropped open. "Did you live on top of a silver mine?!"
Teodoro gave him a blank look. "No, a fishing village."
Dr. Hillhurst shook his head. "Nevermind, Ted, nevermind." He got up. "Now then, you get some rest. There's water in the kitchen and an icebox with food you can prepare. Make yourself at home and don't worry about doing anything for the rest of the day so you can recover. I have to write down an order for some brass and find the strength to go back into town to submit it."
He shook his head in dismay. "I'll have to make a deal with a devil or two to see it filled."
Huh, lad seems familiar.