-july 4th 1985-
-reader's pov-
hopper, joyce and some other guy I'd never met, held a strong stance as the two groups shared eye-contact.
"the mindflayer," mike explained, "it built this monster in hawkins to stop el, to kill her and pave a way into our world."
"-and it almost did." nancy added, "that was just one tiny piece of it."
"how big is this thing?" hopper inquired.
"it's big," jonathan told him, "-thirty feet, at least.
"that's what she said." I snickered quietly to myself but I heard someone snort out in laughter. that someone being robin, steve's coworker, who had somehow got tangled up in all this shit.
"yeah, it sorta destroyed your cabin." lucas said typically, hopper glanced down to the floor in disappointment, "sorry."
"okay, so, just to be clear, this.." steve trailed off, "this big fleshy spider thing that hurt el, it's some kind of gigantic.. weapon?"
"-yes." nancy agreed.
"but instead of, like, screws and metal, the mindflayer made its weapon.." steve recalled slowly as it took a minute for his brain to process the overload of information, "out of melted people."
"-yes, exactly." nancy nodded.
"I- yeah, okay. I'm just making sure." steve stammered.
"are we sure this thing is still out there, still alive?" joyce questioned.
"-el beat the shit out of it, but yeah, it's still alive." max replied.
"-but if we close the gate again-" will started.
"-we cut the brain off from the body-" max continued.
"and kill it." lucas strongly concluded, "theoretically."
"YOO-HOO!" a loud, unfamiliar voice suddenly shouted, we all turned our heads to see the bold guy marching over to us, rustling some papers in his hands.
——————
"okay, this is what alexei called the hub." the nameless man pointed at the hand drawn map, "now the hub takes us to the vault room."
"okay, where's the gate?" hopper grumbled.
"right here." the man prodded a finger at the map again, "I don't know the scale on this but I think it's fairly close to the vault room, maybe 50 feet or so." the man dragged his finger along to another section of the map.
"-more like 500." erica cut in as she sassily swayed over, the bold man gave her a strange look, "what, you just gonna waltz in there like it's commie disneyland or something?"
"I'm sorry, who are you?" the man quizzed.
"erica sinclair. who are you?" erica said back.
"murray.. bauman." the guy I now knew to be murray replied.
"listen, mr bunman, I'm not tryna tell you how to do things, but I've been down in that shithole for 24 hours." erica mouthed, "and with all due respect, you do what this man tells you, you're all gonna die."
"I'm sorry, why is this four-year-old speaking to me?" murray retorted.
"um, I'm ten, you bald bastard!" erica fired back.
"ouch, burn." I whispered aloud to myself.
"-erica!" lucas scolded.
"-just the facts!" erica announced.
"she's right, you're all gonna die, but you don't have to." dustin agreed as he made his way over to the table with the map on it, "excuse me, sorry, may I?"
"-please." murray grinned sarcastically at the boy. dustin took a seat before moving the map closer to him.
"okay, see this room here?" dustin pointed the tip of his pencil at a certain room that had been drawn on the map, "this is a storage facility. there's a hatch in here that feeds into their underground ventilation system." dustin proceeded to draw a straight line across the paper, "that will lead you to the base of the weapon, it's a bit of a maze down there but between me and erica, we can show you the way."
"you can show us the way?" hopper repeated, finding this information unbelievable.
"don't worry, you can do all the fighting and the dangerous hero shit." dustin assured, "we'll just be your.. navigators." he finished with a shared grin between him and erica.
"no." hopper abruptly shook his head. dustin and erica shared a baffled look, "nope."
———————
everyone was left to just wander the mall and collect supplies and things that could come in helpful.
"well, that settles it." erica began, "he's gonna die, they're gonna die."
"-yep, most likely." dustin agreed.
"you guys survived." lucas said.
"barely, we could've really used you guys down there." dustin replied.
"could've used you up here too." mike nodded his head.
"yeah man, we missed you, dude." lucas grinned as the rest of us nodded in agreement.
"for real, big-time." will beamed before all the boys leant in to have a
bro-hug.
"eww, I ain't getting no boy cooties!" I joked before strolling away before hopper tossed a walkie to dustin.
"you can navigate, just from some place safe." I heard hopper say.
"-it's not that simple." dustin cut in.
"-the signal won't reach." erica added.
"not with this, you need something with a high enough frequency band to relay with the russians' radio tower. but for that to work, you need someone who has both seen their comms room and has access to a super-powered handcrafted radio tower. one preferably already situated at the highest point in hawkins." dustin babbled, "oh wait, that's me. if you want us to navigate, you got us, but we need a head start. and a car."
—————
murray informed nancy and jonathan on the different keys as joyce had a sweet mother-son talk with will.
"cmon, move it, wheeler." hopper playfully sighed as he directed me off, to somewhere else in the room. seeing as he wanted to have his own little father-daughter talk with el.
"alright, alright, I'm going." I muttered before gently letting go of el's hand and dawdling off to sit on another bench.
——————
"y/n, come help el!" hopper called out to me after his speech with el, "you've gotta get going now."
I quickly leapt up and jogged over, el put her arms around my shoulders and I heaved her up. this time max decided to aid her as well, she took the other side and I shot her a grateful smile.
"y/n?" hop's voice echoed and I swung my head around to face him.
"thank you, and, um, be careful.." he grinned weakly.
"you too, hop." I smiled lightly before returning back to helping el.