𝐒𝐮𝗺𝗺𝐞𝐫 𝗼𝐟 85 - 𝐑𝗼𝐛𝐢𝐧 𝐁𝐮𝐜𝐤𝐥𝐞𝐲

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐁𝐀𝐓𝐓𝐋𝐄 𝐎𝐅 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐂𝐎𝐔𝐑𝐓

El was laying on the floor screaming and writhing in pain as the thing under her skin moved around.

"What is that?" Erica asked.

"There's something in there," Mike said.

"Keep her talking. Keep her awake, okay?" Jonathan told them. He ran off to one of the food court stands. He picked out a wooden spoon for El to bite down on and grabbed a knife, quickly heating it up on the stove.

"You know, it's not actually that bad," Robin said. "There was a... the goalie on my soccer team, Beth Wildfire, this other girl slid into her leg, and the bone came out of her knee, six inches or something. It was insane."

"Robin," Ivy said.

"Yeah?"

"You're not helping."

"I'm sorry."

"This is gonna hurt like hell," Jonathan told El when he returned. "Need you to stay real still. Here, you're gonna wanna bite down on this." Jonathan took the knife and hesitantly cut into El's leg. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath before sticking his fingers in to find the thing that was moving around.

"Stop! Stop!" El screamed. "I can do it." She held her hand over her leg and used to her powers to pull the slug-like creature out of her leg and throwing it across the food court. It was quickly squished by Hoppers boot as he approached with Joyce and Murray.

"The Mind Flayer it built this monster in Hawkins, to stop El, to kill her and pave a way into our world," Mike explained as everyone stood in a circle together.

"And it almost did. That was just one tiny piece of it," Nancy said.

"How big is this thing?" Hopper asked.

"It's big," Jonathan said. "Thirty feet, at least."

"Yeah. It sorta destroyed your cabin," Lucas added. "Sorry."

"Okay, so, just to be clear, this-- this big fleshy spider thing that hurt El, it's some kind of gigantic weapon?" Steve asked.

"Yes," Nancy told him.

"But, instead of, like, screws and metal, the Mind Flayer mades it weapon...with melted people?" Ivy finished.

"Yes, exactly."

"Yeah, okay. Just making sure."

"Are we sure this thing is still out there, still alive?" Joyce asked.

"El beat the shit out of it, but, yeah, it's still alive," Max said.

"But if we close the again--" Will started.

"We cut the brain off from the body," Max added.

"And kill it," Lucas finished. "Theoretically."

"Yoo-hoo!" Murray called from behind them, walking towards them waving around papers.

"Okay, this is what Alexei called 'the hub,'" Murray said, pointing towards a place on a drawing that looked like the Russian pace Ivy, Dustin, Steve, Erica, and Robin spent the night in. "Now, the hub takes us to the vault room."

"Okay, where's the gate?" Hopper asked.

"Right here. I don't know the scale of this, but I think it's fairly close to the vault room. Maybe 50 feet or so."

"More like 500," Erica spoke up. "What, you're just gonna waltz in there like it's Commie Disneyland or something?"

"I'm sorry, who are you?" Murray asked.