Guys I just want to apologise for not updating... I've been in the hospital for 6 days and got home yesterday 💀 I'll update as much as I can again, but I also have lots of school work to catch up on :)
"Okay Eddie, truth or dare?" Adira asked Eddie once again, swinging her legs back and forwards slightly as she sat on the rock, a look of boredom on her face. She was fiddling with her hands and occasionally humming a small tune to help keep herself occupied and keep her mind of the events from last night
"Uhh truth," Eddie replied with a small nod, doing small hops as he skipped on the rocks and waved his arms around slightly to make sure that he didn't fall off. Adira went silent for a few moments, trying to think of a good question that neither of them had asked yet.
"How long have you l-"
"Oh boom! Bada bing, bada boom. There she is Henderson. Skull rock," Steve called out as he emerged from the bushes and looked over at the familiar rock that he had been to on countless occasions. Unbeknownst to Steve, Dustin, Max, Lucas, Robin and Nancy; both Eddie and Adira were sitting and standing on one of the large rocks, waiting patiently for them to arrive, "in your face man, in your stupid cocky little face," Steve said to Dustin in amusement, happy that he was able to prove the younger boy wrong.
Eddie and Adira heard him talking and shut their mouths and stood up, walking over to the edge of the rock so that they could jump down. Adira smirked over at Eddie as she got the mischievous idea to jump down and scare the shit out of them, they just had to wait for the right time.
Dustin looked up at the rock in confusion, "that doesn't make sense," Dustin said as he looked between his compass and skull rock, an even larger frown growing on his face, he could have sworn that skull rock was North.
"Yeah yeah, even with it staring at you right in the face, you can't admit it. You just can't admit that you are wrong, you little butthead," Steve said, putting his hands on his hips as he looked at the rocks proudly before a worried look comes on his face as he tried to find Adira
"Hey Addy, are you here?" He called out, worry filling his tone as his hands fall from his hips and he begins to walk closer to the rocks.
Eddie and Adira jumped down off the rocks and landed behind them.
"Boo!" Adira exclaims, giggling as she sees the slightly scared looks on their faces as they jumped back.
"I concur, you Dustin Henderson are a... total butthead," Eddie said to Dustin as he placed his hands on his hips and leaned back a bit, stretching his back. Steve walked over to his sister and threw his arms around her quickly, pulling her head into his shoulder and he cradled her in his arms
"Oh thank god you are okay," Steve muttered out to her, tightening his grip slightly. Dustin walked over to Eddie and also threw his arms around him, happy that both Eddie and Adira were both alive and well...ish, "i shouldn't have let you go back to the boat house, from now on, youre staying with me."
"Jesus we thought that the two of you were goners for sure," Dustin muttered out to them, a long sigh of relief falling from his lips as he tightened his grip around Eddie
"Yeah me too," Eddie admitted as he threw his arms around Dustin and hugged him back, "me too," he muttered out softly.
"Alright Stevie, you can let go now," Adira choked out as her brothers grip got a little too tight and she began to struggle to breathe, her face going slightly purple.
"Sorry, sorry," Steve quickly apologised to his sister before he and Dustin both pulled away from the hugs and took a few steps back, looking at Eddie and Adira who both looked exhausted and muddy.
Robin was the next person to pull Adira in for a hug and then Max, Lucas and Dustin all threw their arms around her too. Adira chuckled softly and wrapped her arms around them, "hey guys..."
-------------------------
"When we got to the shore, we tried calling you guys but uh, our walkies- they were all busted from the water and shit, they were drenched. So, uh, I did the thing that I do now apparently, I ran," Eddie chuckled sarcastically as he took a sip of water from a water canaster that Steve had luckily had in his car, "and Adira followed me."
Adira could tell how angry and disappointed Eddie was in himself, she wrapped her arm around his shoulders and placed her head on his shoulder, "there was nothing else to do Eddie, if we had stayed there then they would have arrested you," Adira tried to explain to the boy who turned to give the girl a small smile
"Alright, so after last night and our little adventure to the lovely Creel household, we are now one step closer to figuring this thing out. We know where Vecna is, it's obvious that he is chilling in the upside-down version of the attack in Creel's house. So now all we need to do is just sneak into Mr no nose's lair in the upside down and turn him into a nice chicken kebab, stab the shit outta him and then roast him," Adira said as she stood up and began to pace around in front of them
"I think that it is safe to assume that fire is our best bet in killing him, it's a hive mind so he is probably connected with all that stupid upside-down shit and both the mind flayer and the Demogorgon's kryptonite were fire, so we just need to torch that sucker right?" Adira said, thinking out loud as the teens all watched her in interest, "though it wouldn't hurt to stab him a few times either, maybe wack him around with Steve's nail bat like a nice little pinata?"
"Adira is right, we need to drive a stake through his heart," Max said, nodding her head as she crossed her arms over her chest and leaned her back against a tree.
"Does he even have a heart?" Robin asked, unsure if stabbing him in the heart was the way to go about this. Robin agreed more with the fire part of what Adira was saying.
"A stake? Is he a vamp? Is he a vampire?" Steve asked suddenly, his heart dropping to the bottom of his chest. Wizards and weird flesh eating demo monsters he could handle, but vampires? He hated vampires ever since he was a little kid
"It was a metaphor," Max snaps at Steve, shaking her head slightly at the older boy
"A bullet should work on him right?" Eddie asked them as he ate some of the food that the others had brought over for him and Adira. Adira on the other hand hadn't touched the food, feeling too sick and sad over what she had seen last night to even think about food.
"I say that we chop off his head," Lucas says, resting his hands on his hips as he looked around at the others.
"Yeah, I would say all of the above but we can't do any of that until we find a way into the upside down," Nancy says to them, a small huff falling from her lips. they were all getting too far ahead of themselves, they didn't even know how they would get into the upside down yet and all they were talking about was how they would like to kill Vecna
"We need El to get her powers back," Max muttered out before looking over at Adira hopefully, "do you think you could open a gate? Like El did?" Maxine asked her, a sense of hopefulness in her tone as she looked at the older teen
Adira shook her head sadly, "I don't even really know how to use my powers and I'm nowhere near as strong as El, I can't move stuff like El did, my power is pretty much only mind based," Adira said to them all, feeling guilty that she couldn't be any more of a help.
"everything was like way easier when we had this girl, she had superpowers like Addy," Steve tried to explain to Eddie who was looking slightly clueless and left out of the group
"Superpowers. Yeah, you mentioned her. Hey uh, Henderson is not uh, cursed is he?" Eddie asked in concern as he looked over at Dustin who was walking around in circles behind them, obviously thinking about something. He suddenly stopped pacing and stared out into the woods
"Cursed? No no no no no, he's fine," Steve said, "Mental? Absolutely," Steve added as they all looked over at Dustin, wondering what the hell he was doing
"BOOM!" Dustin suddenly exclaimed, slightly scaring the rest of the teens who jumped back in shock from his sudden outburst. Dustin turned around to look at them with a proud look on his face, pointing over at them with a smirk, "Bada... Bada... boom," he mocked Steve from before, making Steve roll his eyes, "I was right. Skull rock was north!"
"Seriously? You're serious?" Steve exclaimed in annoyance, not being able to fathom how Dustin was still going on and on about this, especially since skull rock was right in front of them right now
"Mhmm," Dustin says with a smirk as he nods his head, loving the fact that it was so easy to annoy Steve, and happy about the fact that he could prove steve wrong once again
"This is skull rock Henderson! This is skull rock! Ok you are totally, absolutely 100% wrong. Right now!" Steve exclaims, waving his arms around in frustration as he points to the rock and the ground and pretty much everything else around him
"Yes," Dustin replies, "and no."
Steve's eyes widen as he doubles back, rolling his eyes and shaking his head, "oh my god," Steve says, slapping his face with his hands as he looks away from Dustin in disbelief.
Dustin pulls out the compass and shows it to the group, "this worked correctly when we left the wheelers'. It was correct when we got in the car on Curly, but it started to slip the further East we went," Dustin explains to them and Adira's eyes widen slightly as she begins to piece it all together, there had to be a gate near by, "now it is way off. When I was leading us here, I wasn't wrong. The compass was."
"Dustin c'mon, just tell him before he goes out of his mind," Adira begged Dustin, gesturing to Steve who was getting more and more worked up
"So you are using faulty equipment, you are still wrong," Steve explains to Dustin, he was not going to lose this argument, he was sure that he was right and Dustin was wrong.
"Thats the thing... the compass isn't faulty," Adira muttered out, showing that she knew where Dustin was going with this, "Alright nerds in the group, you guys remember what can affect a compass?" she asked, turning to look over at Lucas, Nancy and Dustin, all of which were smart
"An electromagnetic field," Lucas muttered out first and Adira grinned, nodding her head
"Yep," Dustin said
"I'm sorry I must have skipped that class," Robin said, gesturing that she had no idea what the three of them were going on about
"In the presence of a stronger electromagnetic field, the needle will deflect towards that power," Dustin explained, pointing in the direction that the compass claimed to be North, which wasn't actually North, "so either there is some super big magnet around here, or..."
"There is a gate," Lucas and Adira both finish for him. Adira reached over to Dustin and rubbed her hand on his head, shaking his hat and messing up his hair with a big grin on her face, "you're a genius Henderson," she praised
Nancy shook her head in confusion, "but we are nowhere near the lab."
"But what if, somehow? There is another gate?" Dustin said, "a gate that we don't know about. It has to be smaller, and way less powerful," Dustin tried to explain to them and they all began to think about where this other gate could be
"A snack-size gate," Robin muttered out
"How? Why?" Steve asked in confusion
"I have no idea. All I know is that something is causing this disturbance," Dustin said and pointed down to his compass, "and the last time that we have seen anything like it, it was a gate. And I hope that it is, because then we would have a way to get to Vecna. And a shot at freeing Max from this curse," Dustin explains and then turns around and begins to walk off, away from the group