November 4th, 1984

Beth watched as the groups argued like football players in a middle of a game, as she stood next to Brandon. The group was talking about when they saw Will and Mike last, and where they could be, hopefully nowhere near the monsters in the lab.

"The power's back." Nancy announced, interrupting and stopping her conversation between the groups.

Jonathan immediately sprinted over to the control booth that sat on the left side of the road, a few feet away from the gate. He started jabbing the button that was meant to open the gate, but nothing happened. He continued to press it, confused at why it wasn't opening if the power was on.

"Let me try." Dustin said, going into the small control box with Jonathan.

"Hang on-"

Dustin pushed the older boy out the way, "Let me try Jonathan!"

Dustin proceeded to do the same thing that Jonathan had done before, but the gate didn't budge. Beth sighed in frustration at not knowing if her new friends were okay and not able to get to the place they were in.

Dustin groaned from inside the control booth, "Son of a bitch! You know what-"

Dustin proceeded to punch the buttons as if it would make any difference. Beth rolled her eyes and walked over to the entrance of the booth. "Dustin, this isn't helping. You might actually be breaking it."

"Listen Beth, I know what I'm-" He started before the gate started sliding open. Beth's eyes widened in surprise while a huge smile made its way onto Dustin's face, "Hey! I got it! Told you!"

As soon as the gate was open, bullets were heard echoing in the inside of the building was heard on the outside witch made Beth get goosebumps all over her body. Growls and screeches were heard from both creatures and people, and Beth prayed that everyone was alright.

"Guys?" Max said, her attention focused on the opening of the gate. The engine of the car was heard speeding towards them and the headlights lit up Max's face. Beth quickly pulled her out the way before she was hit as everyone else went to the side of the road to avoid being hit.

As soon as a truck pulled up next to them, Beth saw the words on the side that read, Hawkins Police Department. She sighed in relief once she saw Hopper was in the front seat. "Let's go!"

They all hurried to get into the truck and Steve and Brandon waited behind until all the kids got in before they did. Beth sat beside Max as she saw an unconscious Will in Joyce's arms. She was wearing nurses scrubs that had some blood on them and Will was wearing a hospital gown.

"Why were you there?" Lucas questioned. "What happened to Will?"

"It's..it's a long story." Hopper answered for Joyce, who looked like she saw something horrible. "We'll explain everything when we get to Joyce's."

No one spoke another word as Hopper sped through the town of Hawkins.

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As soon as they arrived at the Byers house, Hopper placed Will, who was still unconscious, on the couch. Jonathan and Nancy, who had arrived about the same time as Hopper and the others, were kneeled down beside Will, holding his hand as Jonathan apologized to him. Also to Beth and Brandon's surprise their mother and father had been in the car with Nancy and Jonathan, and after seeing their kids they all gave each a group hug thankful that each of them were okay.

In the hallway, Hopper was standing by the phone on the wall, one hand held the phone up to his ear while the other was running through his hair in frustration. He was arguing with someone who wasn't believing anything he was saying about what happened in the lab. Everything that happened had gotten explained to them the second they got to the Byers house. Beth sat at the table in the kitchen right beside Max, while Steve and Brandon were leaned against on of the kitchen counters. Steve had his infamous bat next to him.

Eventually, Hopper hung up the phone, slamming it into the receiver with a sharp clash, alerting everyone that the people on the other line didn't believe him.

"They didn't believe you, did they?" Dustin questioned, the only member of the party standing up, along with Steve and Brandon who had now started pacing.

"We'll see."

Beth jumped a bit when Mike slammed his hands on the table, "We'll see? We can't just sit here while those things are loose!"

"We stay here." Hopper states sternly, "and we wait for help!" He left the room, to find Joyce who was grieving in one of the bedrooms over her boyfriend, Bob. He had been killed trying to protect everyone.

Beth toyed around with her fingers in her lap and looked around the house that was completely covered with drawings, that are apparently part of the underground tunnel the Mind Flayer created. She studied them and noticed they looked like a map of Hawkins. She was impressed by how amazing Will was at drawing.

Beth watched as Mike stood up, and picked up a small blue box, bringing it over to the table. "Did you guys know that Bob was the original founder of Hawkins AV? He petitioned the school to start it and everything. And then, he had a fundraiser for equipment. Mister Clarke learned everting from him. Pretty awesome, right?"

"Yeah." Lucas and Dustin smiled in unison.

"He sounded like a cool guy." Beth smiled.

"We can't just let him die in vain." Mike stated.

"Well, what do you wanna do, Mike?" Dustin yelled. "The Chief's right on this. We can't stop those Demodogs on our own."

Beth and Max raised their eyebrows as Max said, "Demodogs?"

Dustin paused before explaining the name with hand motions, "Demogorgon. Dogs." He moved his hands together. "Demodogs. It's like a compound. It's like a play on words, you know-"

"Okay." Max answered, as the whole group gives him strange looks.

"I mean.." Dustin began, looking at Mike to explain why they can't do anything. "when it was just Dart, maybe."

"But there's an army now." Lucas continued.

"Precisely." Dustin agreed.

"His army." Mike uttered.

That statement made Steve perk up, "What do you mean?"

"His army." Mike repeated, but still only received confused glances from the others. "Maybe if we stop him, we can stop his army too." He looked up towards the hallway leading to the bedrooms and then raced out the kitchen, "Come on!"

The others followed him as he headed towards Will's bedroom. By the time they had entered Will's bedroom, Mike was already spinning around, a drawing clutched into his hands.

"The Shadow Monster." Dustin stated, grabbing the drawing out of Mike's hand.

"It got Will that day on the field." Mike explained to the group. Beth remembered that day. She was super worried for Will even though she barely knew him. "The doctor said it was like a virus. It infected him."

"So this virus...it's connecting him to the tunnels?" Beth pieced together slowly, along with Max who was starting to get a better understanding as well.

"To the tunnels, to the monster, to the Upside Down, to everything!" Mike listed.

"Woah, slow down, slow down." Steve interrupted from the back of the group.

"How about you keep up, Harrington.." Brandon said to the boy, who gave him a quick glare.

"Okay, so the shadow monster's inside everything. And if the vines feel something like pain, then so does Will." Mike explained to Steve.

"And so does Dart." Lucas added.

"Yeah. It's like what Mister Clarke taught us: the hive-mind."

"Hive mind?" Steve questioned.

Dustin looked up at the boy, "A collective consciousness. It's a super-organism."

Mike tapped the paper, "And this is the thing that controls everything. It's the brain."

"Like The Mind Flayer." Dustin said, his eyes widening which made everyone else's eyes widened except for Steve, Brandon, Max, and Beth, who were extremely confused. Lucas eyes widened as he smiled, and clicked his fingers into a point at Dustin.

"The what?" Steve, Max, Brandon, and Beth questioned in unison.

They then started to scramble around the bedroom, for Will's D&D books. Steve went to fetch Nancy, Jonathan, Hopper, Joyce, Bev, and Ben while the kids looked for all they stuff they needed. They met up at the kitchen table a few minutes later. Dustin slammed down a heavy book opened at one of the pages close to the middle as the group surrounded him.

"The Mind Flayer." He announced, referring to the small, drawn, black and white image of some sort of alien dressed in robes. It's head was large and it's mouth was replaced tentacles.

"What the hell is that?" Hopper questioned from the other side of the table.

"It's a monster from an unknown dimension. It's so ancient that it doesn't even know it's true home. Okay, it enslaves races of other dimensions by taking over their brains using its highly-developed psionic powers." Dustin rushed out, not giving time for questions.

"Oh, my God." Hopper sighed. "None of this is real. This is a kids game."

"No, it-it's a manual." Dustin explained, quite annoyed that he wasn't being taken seriously. "And it's not for kids. And, unless you know something that we don't, this is the best metaphor-"

"Analogy." Lucas corrected, interrupting Dustin's rant.

Dustin's head snapped in his direction, "Analogy? That's what you're worried about?" He yelled loudly, extremely annoyed. "Fine! An analogy for understanding what the hell this is."

"Guys don't argue now." Beth sighed while pointing at them.

"Okay, so this mind flamer thing-" Beverly started.

"Flayer." Dustin cut in, correcting her. "Mind Flayer."

Beverly pursed her lips, and sighed. "What does it want?"

"To conquer us, basically. It believes it's the master race."

"Li-Like the Germans?" Steve added, trying to be helpful, but only ended up receiving confused glances from the rest of the group.

"Uh...the Nazis?" Brandon asked.

"Ye-Yeah, the Nazis." Steve agreed, his cheeks turning slightly pink from the embarrassment of getting corrected.

"Uh...if the Nazis were from another dimension, totally." Dustin agreed sarcastically, before moving on. "Uh, it views other races, like us, as inferior to itself."

"It wants to spread, and take over other dimensions." Mike added, Dustin nodding.

"We are talking about the destruction of our world as we know it." Lucas explained slowly, gesturing with his hand to emphasize his point.

"That's great. That's great. That's really great. Jesus!" Steve rushed out, panicking slightly as he pushed off the table, walking from the group as he pushed a hand through his hair.

"Okay, so if this thing is like a brain that's controlling everything." Nancy continued lifting the book from the table into her arms, "then if we kill it..."

"We win." Ben added.

"Theoretically." Lucas finished.

Hopper rounds the table, taking the book from Nancy's arms, impatiently. "Right, so how do you kill this thing? Shoot it with fireballs or something?"

"No, no." Dustin chuckled softly. "No, fire-no fireballs. Uh, you summon an undead army, uh because-" Everyone started to stare at Dustin as he went quiet, noticing Hopper's unamused face. He then decided to continue talking. "Because zombies, you know-they don't-they don't have brains, and the Mind Flayer, it-it-it...likes...brains." There was a short pause before Dustin sighed, "It's just a game. It's a game."

"What the hell are we doing here?" Hopper sighed, as he closed the book and threw it down on the table, trudging out the room.

"I thought we were waiting for your military backup!" Dustin snapped, holding his arms up dramatically.

Hopper spam around, "We are!"

"And even if they come, how are they gonna stop this?" Mike yelled. "You can't just shoot this with guns!"

"You don't know that!" Hopper argued. "We don't know anything!"

"We know it's already killed everybody in that lab!" Mike yelled.

"We know the monsters are gonna molt again!" Lucas added.

"And we know that it's only a matter of time before those tunnels reach this town!" Dustin added.

"You guys are giving me a headache." Bev held her head as Ben putting a hand on her shoulder.

"They're right." Joyce's croaky voice rang out from the hallway. "We have to kill it." Hopper started walking over to her slowly, his gaze suddenly went soft. "I want to kill it."

"Me too. Me too, Joyce, okay, but how do we do that?" He questioned. "We don't exactly know what we're dealing with here."

"No but he does." Mike spoke up. Mike's gaze focused on Will's unconscious body on the small couch in the room across from the kitchen. He started over to Will slowly as he spoke, "If anyone knows how to destroy this thing, it's Will. He's connected to it. He'll know it's weakness."

"I thought we couldn't trust him anymore." Ben said. "That he's a spy for the Mind Flayer now."

"Yeah, but..." He started. "He can't spy if he doesn't know where he is."

Hey y'all!! New chapter is here!! This one is a long one and took fucking forever to write. Also I added Beverly and Benjamin to this adventure because they need to know where their kids are and they're badass so yeah....

Anyways, more is coming soon!! And we only have a couple chapters left before the end! I also be making an extra chapter where someone is going to be coming to Hawkins...and they're an old friend of Beth...😏

Have a good day everyone! Love you!

-Mary💗