The Fate of Hawkins; A Stranger Things Fanfiction

Chapter Nine: The Gate

Y/n's POV

"So that's Eleven?" Steve asked as the kids all hugged her.

"Yep. That's her," I confirm. "I've never seen her do anything cool, but I've heard a lot about her and her powers, so I'm gonna assume they're awesome."

"The gate is not like it was before. It's grown. A lot," Hopper declared. "And, I mean, that's
considering we can get in there. The place is crawling with those dogs."

"I can do it," Eleven insisted.

"Even if El can, there's still another problem. If the brain dies, the body dies," Mike pointed out.

"I thought that was the whole point," Max countered.

"It is, but if we're really right about this...I mean, if El closes the gate and kills the mind flayer's army...Will's a part of that army. Closing the gate will kill him," Mike stated.

"He likes it cold," Joyce recalled. "That's what Will kept saying to me. He likes it cold. We keep giving it what it wants."

"If this is a virus, and Will's the host, then we need to make the host uninhabitable," Jonathan figured.

"So if he likes it cold, we need to burn it out of him," Joyce guessed.

"But we have to do it somewhere he doesn't know this time," Mike reminded us. "Somewhere far away."

"I've got just the place," Hopper revealed. This is where we split up. Eleven and Hopper were going to close the gate, and Nancy, Jonathan, and Joyce were going to burn the Mind Flayer out of Will. That left Steve and I to watch over Max, Lucas, Mike, and Dustin.

"Mike, would you just stop pacing already?" Lucas advised. "El's gonna be okay. The chief will take care of her."

"Listen, when a coach calls a play in a game, the bottom line is, you execute it," Steve said.

"Okay, first of all, this isn't some stupid sports game," Mike grumbled. "And second, we're not even in the game. We're on the bench."

"So my point is..." Steve trailed off. "Right, yeah, we're on the bench, so, uh, there's nothing we can do."

"That's not entirely true," Dustin opposed. "I mean, these demodogs, they have a hive mind. When they ran away from the bus, they were called away. If we get their attention, maybe we can draw them from the lab and clear a path to the gate."

"Doing that would get us killed," I note. "So that's a big no."

"I got it!" Mike chirped and gestured to the drawings all around us. "Look at where we are. This drawing is the hub. And look. All of the tunnels feed into here. Maybe if we set this on fire the mind flayer would call away his army."

"They'd all come to stop us," Lucas continued. "We circle back to the exit, and by the time they realize we're gone, El would be at the gate."

"Hey. Hey! Hey!" Steve shouted. "This is not happening."

"But," Mike started.

"No, no, no," Steve interrupted. "No buts. Y/n and I promised we'd keep you shitheads safe, and that's exactly what we plan on doing. We're staying here on the bench and we're waiting for the starting team to do their job."

"I can't believe you like this guy," Dustin muttered from where he was standing next to me.

"What?" I question and turn to face him, just as the noise of a loud engine cut through the air.

"Shit," Max cursed. "It's my brother. He can't know I'm here. He'll kill me. He'll kill us."

"Want to come with me to deal with him?" Steve quizzed and glanced at me.