steve harrington hadn't lived in hawkins his whole life, he had wanted to leave who he was and what he did behind him, long forgotten- everything was going fine until a few people of his past came knocking and steve was left to face the same devil t...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
·—★—·
Trigger warnings for this chapter - nazi mention, demogorgan, the shadower, the mind flayer, Hawkins lab, voices, vines, the upside down, guilt..
·—★—·
"I don't know how many people are left alive!" Hopper shouted down the phone as everyone was crowded inside the Byers house.
The kids and Gator all listened in to what he was telling the person on the other end.
Gator couldn't help but think about the last voice he heard in his head last.
If he was this prince of whatever-
what did that exactly mean for him?
Whose voice even was it?
And why was he the one who 'controlled Dart' and needed to 'control' the other demogorgans?
It left Gator even more confused than when he started.
"They didn't believe you, did they?" Dustin asked Hopper once he hung up the phone and Hopper responded with a simple "we'll see".
"We'll see? We can't just sit here while those things are loose!" Mike argued but Hopper responded straight away with a firm, "We stay here, and we wait for help" before he walked away.
"I was right. Wasn't I?" Ezrae asked Gator quietly as they stood by the kitchen window. "About?" Gator asked giving her a confused look. "About following. Teaching them. All that?" Ezrae asked and Gator nodded slowly as a response.
"It's not your fault, you know? You didn't ask for it. Just like me, Eleven and Kenz" Ezrae said before giving Gator a tight hug before she stood next to Dustin again.
"Did you guys know that Bob was the original founder of Hawkins AV? He petitioned the school to start it and everything. Then he had a fund-raiser for equipment. Mr Clarke learned everything from him. Pretty awesome, right?" Mike spoke to Lucas, Dustin, Ezrae and Max as Gator watched silently.
"We can't let him die in vain" Mike stated as the guilt started eating up Gator's insides as he let out a sigh. "What do you want to do, Mike? The Chief's right on this. We can't stop those demo-dogs on our own" Dustin argued as Ezrae gave Gator a knowing look as Gator shook his head before leaning back against the counter.
"Demo-dogs?" Max asked in confusion. "Demogorgan dogs. Demo-dogs. It's like a compound. It's like a play on words-" Dustin started explaining as Max said a quick "Okay" to shut him up.
"I mean, when it was just Dart, maybe.." Dustin says to them and then Lucas speaks up and adds "But there's an army now". "His army" Mike states at a realization.
"What do you mean?" Gator asks confused as he looks between Mike and the other kids. "His army. Maybe if we stop him, we can stop his army, too" Mike explains before rushing off and grabbing the drawing Will did of the shadow monster- it looked like a giant spider made up of shadow matter and Gator could already tell that he hated it.
"The shadow monster" Dustin says in realization. "It got Will that day on the field. The doctor said it was like a virus, it infected him." Mike explained to them.
"And so this virus, it's connecting him to the tunnels?" Max asks trying to understand. "To the tunnels, monsters, the Upside Down, everything" Mike explains as Gator sighs loudly.
"Whoa. Slow down, Shitbirds." Gator says making Mike look at him for a second before he speaks again. "Okay, so, the shadow monster's inside everything. And if the vines feel something like pain, then so does Will" Mike explains.
"And so does Dart" Lucas adds. "Yeah. Like what Mr Clarke taught us. The hive mind" Mike tells them before Gator sighs again.
"Hive mind?" Gator asks as he crosses his arms over his chest. "A collective consciousness. It's a super-organism" Dustin explains which makes Gator frown at him. "And this is the thing that controls everything. It's the brain" Mike explains as he points to the drawing.
"Like the mind flayer" Dustin says in some sort of realization that left Gator, Ezrae and Max all asking what he was on about.
Soon they were crowded around the kitchen with a dungeon and dragons book open to what was apparently the mind flayer as Hopper, Nancy joined them again.
"The Mind Flayer" Dustin states as he slams the book open on the kitchen table. "What the hell is that?" Hopper asks as everyone crowds around it.
"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 explains.
"Oh, my God, none of this is real. It's a kids' game" Hopper starts in slight annoyance. "No, it's a manual. And it's not for kids. And unless you know something that we don't, this is the best metaphor-" Dustin argues before getting cut off by Lucas saying "Analogy".
"Analogy? That's what you're worried about? Fine. An analogy for understanding whatever the hell this is" Dustin tells them as his voice raises clearly from being annoyed.
"Okay, so this mind flamer thing-" Nancy starts only to get cut off by an annoyed Dustin correcting her, "Flayer. Mind Flayer".
"What does it want?" Nancy asks as Gators eyes roam the book in confusion. "To conquer us, basically. It believes it's the master race" Dustin explains.
"Like- like the Germans?" Gator asks trying his best to understand any of what has been said. "Uh, the Nazis?" Dustin asks back as everyone looks at Gator who looks back at Dustin before nodding repeatedly, "yeah, yeah, yeah, the Nazis" Gator agrees.
"Uh.. If the Nazis were from another dimension, totally. Uh, it views other races, like us, as inferior to itself" Dustin says trying to get everyone back on track.
"It wants to spread, take over other dimensions" Mike explains before Lucas then speaks, "We are talking about the destruction of our world as we know it".
"That's great, that's just great. So great-" Gator says as he turns away to kick at the wall in annoyance. "Okay, so if this thing is like a brain that's controlling everything, then if we kill it.. we kill everything it controls- We win" Nancy starts saying.
"Theoretically" Lucas states. "Great. So how do you kill this thing? Shoot it with fireballs or something?" Hopper asks as he grabs the book.
"No. No, no fireballs. Uh, you summon an undead army, uh, because.. because zombies, you know, they don't have brains, and the mind flayer, it.. it likes brains. It's just a game. It's just a game" Dustin stammers nervously.
"What the hell are we doing here?" Hopper asks as he slams the book on the table and starts walking off. "I thought we were waiting for your military backup" Dustin says to him. "We are!" Hopper argues back.
"How are they gonna stop this? You can't just shoot this with guns" Mike argues which makes Hopper argue back "You don't know that! We don't know anything!".
"We know it's already killed everybody in that lab" Mike shot back as Gator groaned loudly. "We know the monsters are gonna molt again" Lucas adds and then Dustin adds "We know that it's only a matter of time before those tunnels reach this town".
"That's right" Joyce says before adding "We have to kill it. I want to kill it". "I know Joyce, me too, okay? But how do we do that? We don't exactly know what we're dealing with here" Hopper tells her.
"No. But he does. If anyone knows how to destroy this thing, it's Will. He's connected to it. He'll know it's weakness" Mike starts as they all look over at Will while Ezrae gives Gator a knowing look as Gator shakes his head at her.
"I thought we couldn't trust him anymore. That he's a spy for the mind flayer now" Max says confused. "Yeah, but he can't spy if he doesn't know where he is" Mike stated.
