mary. [ BILLY HARGROVE ]

xiv. CHAPTER TWELVE

     "But there's an army now," Lucas said in agreement to something Dustin had said. 

     "Precisely," Dustin nodded. 

     "His army," Mike said like he'd figured something out.

     "What do you mean?" Steve asked. 

     "His army," Mike said again. "Maybe if we stop him, we can stop his army, too." Mike walked to Will's room, everyone following him. He grabbed the picture of what Will drew, showing it to everyone. "The shadow monster. It got Will that day on the field. The doctor said it was like a virus, it infected him." 

     "And so this virus, it's connecting him to the tunnels?" Max asked confused. 

     "To the tunnels, monsters, the Upside Down, everything," Mike continued on. 

     "Whoa. Slow down. Slow down," Steve interrupted him.

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

     "And so does Dart," Lucas added. 

     "Yeah. It's like what Mr. Clarke taught us. The hive mind," Mike said. 

     "Hive mind?" Steve asked confused. 

     "A collective consciousness. It's a super-organism. God, do you pay attention?" Mary asked looking at Steve. 

     "And this is the thing that controls everything," Mike said pointing to the picture. "It's the brain." 

    "Like the mind flayer," Dustin said with wide eyes. 

     "The what?" Max, Mary, and Steve all asked at the same time. Dustin grabbed one of Will's D&D books, everyone moving out to the kitchen now, Hopper joining them. 

     "The mind flayer," Dustin said, pointing to the picture. 

     "What the hell is that?" Mary asked confused. 

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

     "Oh, my God, none of this is real. This is a kids game," Hopper complained. 

     "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 -" 

     "Analogy," Lucas interrupted. 

     "Analogy? That's what you're worried about?" Dustin asked. "Fine. An analogy for understanding whatever the hell this is." 

     "Okay, so this mind flamer thing-" 

     "Flayer," Dustin corrected Nancy. "Mind flayer." 

     "What does it want?" Nancy asked. 

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

     "Like the Germans?" Steve asked. 

     "Uh, the Nazis?" Mary asked, raising an eyebrow at Steve. 

     "Yeah, yeah, yeah, the Nazis," Steve nodded. 

     "Uh, if the Nazis were from another dimension, totally," Dustin grumbled. Hopper rubbed the bridge of his nose as he was sick of hearing the conversation. "Uh, it views other races, like us, as inferior to itself. It wands to spread, take over other dimensions." 

     "We are talking about the destruction of our world as we know it," Lucas added on to Dustin's already horrifying point. 

     "That's great. That's great. That's really, great. Jesus," Steve seethed, running his fingers through his hair. 

     "Okay, so if this thing is like a brain that's controlling everything, then if we kill it..." Nancy trailed off.

     "We kill everything it controls," Mike finished for her. 

     "We win," Dustin nodded. 

    "Theoretically," Lucas added. 

     "Lucas, you keep saying worse things," Mary snapped at him. She let her head fall into her hands as she was sick of this whole thing. She listened to Mike argue with Hopper again, over hearing the kid argue with him. Joyce walked into the room, saying she wanted to kill the mind flayer, too. So, they came up with their plan. 

     Mike figured Will would know what the mind flayer's plans were, so they decided to take Will to a place where he wouldn't know where he was. And thus they commenced their plan. 

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yeeyee
we're so so sooo
close to billy being back
not much happens these
next two chapters, they're
kind of fillers
but we're very close to some drama