~more than a feeling - boston~
WHEN THE GROUP HAD ARRIVED AT THE BYERS HOUSE, Jennifer was completely filled in by her brother about what had happened with him and his friends at the lab.
Jen had come to learn that a piece of the upside down had stayed inside of Will, controlling him. She also learned that he was somewhat of a spy, meaning that they had to keep him knocked out if they wanted to keep their location a secret from the mini-demogorgons. She also learned that Joyce's boyfriend, Bob, had fallen victim to the demogorgons.
Hopper had tried to get a hold of someone that could potentially come to help them, but to no avail. After hanging up the phone with a scowl, he turned to face the group in the kitchen.
"They didn't believe you, did they?" Dustin asked.
"We'll see," he replied.
"We'll see?! We can't just sit here while those things are loose!" Mike snapped.
"We stay here, and we wait for help," Hopper said, his voice firm.
Hopper looked around at the kids once more before turning and walking away from the room, leaving them sitting in silence. Jennifer crossed the room so that she could stand next to Steve. She then rested her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes slightly. Steve shifted slightly and brought his arm around her shoulders.
If she was being honest, Jen was exhausted from the events that had happened that day. She had walked who knows how many miles and carried how many pieces of heavy metal. And, she sliced off a monsters head.
She glanced up at the phone hanging on the wall ahead of her before biting her lip.
"I should probably call my parents," she said, moving away from Steve. "Considering I've been missing for a day,"
She crossed the room to the phone before dialling in their house phone number. It rang a few times before
her mother picked up.
"Joyce?" her mothers voice asked. "Are the kids there with you? Are they safe?"
"Mom, hey," Jen greeted, cringing as she waited for the yelling that was about to begin.
"Jen!" Amanda exclaimed. "Where the hell have you been?"
"I'll explain it all later, I promise," Jen told her. "Me and Matt are safe, okay?"
"Jennifer, we're going to come and get you-,"
"No! Mom, don't do that," Jen pleaded. "Just stay at home, okay? Please,"
Amanda inhaled deeply on the other side of the phone and Jen tapped her foot nervously. She didn't need to have her parents in the path of danger as well.
"Fine," Amanda said after an excruciatingly long silence."Fine. But you bet your ass you're gonna be grounded when you get home,"
"Yes, I know," Jen nodded, rolling her eyes. "I have to go, okay? I love you,"
"Love you too,"
Jen put the phone back on the wall and glanced at Matt while walking back towards Steve. Mike suddenly got up from the table and crossed the room to grab something. When he turned, he was holding a sort of blue box in his hand.
"Did you guys know that Bob was the original founder of Hawkins AV?" he asked, looking at the younger kids.
"Really?" Lucas asked.
"He petitioned the school to start it and everything," Mike told him. "Then he had a fundraiser for equipment. Mr. Clarke learned everything from him,"
"That's awesome," Matt chimed in, a small smile on his face.
"Yeah," Dustin agreed.
Mike set the box down on the table and looked around at his friends again. "We can't let him die in vain," he decided.
Jennifer furrowed her eyebrows at this. She couldn't imagine how Joyce was feeling then. She actually hadn't seen her since they had gotten to the house, but she hadn't expected to, really.
"What do you want to do, Mike?" Dustin asked suddenly, raising his hands.
"Yeah, the Chiefs right on this," Matt agreed, glancing at Dustin.
"We can't stop those demo-dogs on our own," Dustin continued, resulting in strange looks from everybody else in the room.
"Demo-dogs?" Max asked, her eyebrows raised.
Dustin looked towards Max and sighed. "Demogorgon dogs," he said, putting his hands together. "Demo-dogs... It's like a compound... like a play on words, you know-,"
"Okay!" Max interrupted, her eyes wide.
Dustin clamped his mouth shut and looked away from the girl. "I mean, when it was just Dart, maybe," he started.
"Well, it's not just Dart anymore," Jen chimed in, her arms crossed. "There's a whole army,"
"Precisely," Dustin agreed.
"His army,"
Everyone turned to look at Mike in confusion when he said this. Steve glanced at Jen a second before moving forward.
"What do you mean?" he asked.
"His army!" Mike repeated. "Maybe if we stop him, we can stop his army, too,"
"I'm sorry, but who is him?" Jen asked, her face contorted in confusion.
Mike put a finger out towards her before rushing out of the kitchen and into the living room. He returned seconds later with a piece of paper in his hand. He showed it to Dustin first.
"The shadow monster," Dustin said, his eyebrows furrowed.
"It got Will that day on the field," Matt said, looking between Dustin and Mike.
"The doctor said it was like a virus, it infected him," Mike chimed in, his words jumbling together due to how fast he was speaking.
Dustin passed the paper to Jennifer and she leaned towards Steve so that they could both look at it. She had always known Will to be a great artist, but this was almost eery. A large, spindly legged creature loomed over what looked like the Byers backyard, an array of dark clouds behind it.
"And so this virus, it's connecting him to the tunnels?" Max asked.
"To the tunnels, to the monsters, the upside down, everything!" Mike exclaimed.
"Okay, whoa. Slow down. Slow down," Steve said, putting his hands out.
Mike took a deep breath before turning to the two older teens. "Okay, so, the shadow monster's inside everything. And if the vines feel something like pain, then so does Will," he explained.
"And so does Dart," Lucas added in realization.
"Yeah. Yeah, like Mr. Clarke taught us," Matt said. "Hive mind,"
"Hive mind?" Jen asked her brother.
"A collective consciousness," Dustin defined. "It's a super organism,"
Mike grabbed ahold of the paper again and jabbed his finger towards it, trying to prove his point.
"And this is the thing that controls everything. It's the brain," he explained.
"Like the mind flayer!" Dustin said, his eyes wide.
Lucas's eyes went wide and he snapped his fingers at Dustin. Jen and Steve exchanged glances, both confused as to what the boys were talking about.
"The what?"
"What?"
"Huh?"
Dustin pulled his lips into a straight line before telling them to wait there. He then left the room and disappeared for a few minutes before returning with a thick book.
"Oh, don't tell me this is something from D&D," Jen groaned, rolling her eyes.
"Just listen," Matt sighed, sending his sister a look.
Dustin thanked Matt before flipping open the book on the table.
"The mind flayer," he said, pointing at the small description on the page.
"What the hell is that?"
Jennifer glanced over her shoulder and noticed Hopper had re-entered the room. He was looking at the book with confusion all over his face.
"It's a monster from an unknown dimension. It's so ancient that it doesn't even know it's true home," Dustin explained, looking around the table. "Okay, it enslaves races of other dimensions by taking over their brains using its highly-developed psionic powers,"
"Did you understand a word that just came out of his mouth?" Jen whispered to Steve.
"Nope," Steve answered, shaking his head. "Not a thing,"
"Oh, my god, none of this is real," Hopper groaned. "This is a kids game,"
"No, it's a manual," Dustin argued. "And it's not for kids. And unless you know something that we don't, this is the best metaphor-,"
"Analogy," Lucas interrupted, earning a death glare from Dustin.
"Analogy? That's what you're worried about?" Dustin asked, shaking his head in disbelief. "FINE. An analogy for understanding whatever the hell this is,"
"Okay, so this mind flamer thing-,"
Jennifer had just noticed Nancy on the other side of Dustin, and she couldn't help but roll her eyes when she heard her voice.
"Flayer. Mind flayer," Dustin corrected.
"What does it want?" Nancy sighed.
"To conquer us, basically," Dustin answered. "It believes it's the master race,"
"L-like the Germans?" Steve chimed in, resulting in questioning looks from everybody at the table.
"Nazi's, Steve," Jennifer corrected, patting him on the chest. "Close,"
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, the Nazi's," Steve nodded, his cheeks flushing in embarrassment.
Jennifer watched as Hopper broke away from the group and rubbed his hand over his face, his frustration extremely evident.
"Uh... If the Nazi's were from another dimension, totally," Dustin shrugged, looking down at the book. "Uh, it views other races, like us, as inferior to itself,"
"It wants to spread, take over other dimensions," Mike added.
"We are talking about the destruction of our world as we know it," Lucas stated.
"Way to be a Debbie-Downer, Lucas," Jennifer snapped.
"That's great. That's great. That's really great. Jesus!" Steve scrambled, moving away from the table and running a hand through his hair.
Jen watched as he turned back around, shaking his head nervously. When he rejoined the table, Jen raised her eyebrows at him, silently asking if he was good. Steve nodded at her and sent her a small smile.
"Okay, if this thing is like a brain that's controlling everything, then if we kill it..." Nancy began, picking up the book.
"We kill everything it's controlling," Jen finished, making eye contact with the other girl.
"Right, exactly," Nancy nodded.
"We win," Matt confirmed.
"Theoretically," Lucas reminded them.
"There he goes again," Jen muttered.
"Great. So how do you kill this thing?" Hopper asked, taking the book from Nancy. "Shoot it with fireballs or something?"
"No. No, no fire- no fireballs," Dustin chuckled, shaking his head. "Uh, you summon an undead army, uh- because... because zombies, you know, they don't have brains, and the mind flayer, it- it... it likes brains... It's just a game. It's a game,"
Jennifer's eyes practically rolled into the back of her head and backed away from the table, face palming as she did so.
"What the hell are we doing here?" Hopper snapped, slamming the book back down on the table and walking away.
"I thought we were waiting for your military backup!" Dustin challenged.
"We are!" Hopper yelled, turning back around.
"But even if they come, how are they gonna stop this?" Mike asked, raising his voice. "You can't just shoot this with guns!"
"You don't know that! We don't know anything!" Hopper argued, his patience running low.
"We know it's already killed everybody in that lab!" Matt exclaimed, surprisingly loud compared to his usual quiet-demeanour.
"And we know the monsters are gonna molt again!" Lucas continued.
"And we know it's only a matter of time before those tunnels reach this town," Dustin added.
Jennifer smiled when the four boys had finished speaking. They really did make a good team.
"They're right,"
Joyce had finally made her way into the room and Jennifer's face fell. She looked terrible.
"We have to kill it," she decided, her face stained with tears. "I want to kill it,"
Hoppers face softened and he moved towards the woman. "Me, too. Me, too, Joyce, okay?" he said gently. "But how do we do that? We don't exactly know what we're dealing with here,"
"No. But he does,"
Mike had stepped forward and was now looking down at Will who was still knocked out on the couch.
"If anyone knows how to destroy this thing, it's Will," Mike continued, moving closer to the boy. "He's connected to it. He'll know its weakness,"
"I thought we couldn't trust him anymore?" Max asked, looking up at Mike. "That he's a spy for the mind flayer now,"
"Yeah, but he can't spy if he doesn't know where he is,"
*
I love how supportive Steve and Jennifer are of eachother. Also, the younger boys are soo good at getting on Hoppers nerves😭