ZERO

CHAPTER TWELVE - GOING TO BE A HERO

Iris watched the two kids hold each other with a sad smile. In the downtime they've had, Mike, Dustin and Lucas had filled her in on even more details about the girl that was now in front of her. Eleven was nothing short of remarkable.

But for the first time ever, she had someone that was just like her. That had gone through the same things, that could genuinely understand her. Her father was close, but he had never gone through any of the experiments himself, so while he had his own trauma, a lot of it wasn't shared.

But in a weird way, when Iris stood in front of Eleven, she felt as if she was looking in a mirror at herself. She was so lost in thought that she hadn't even heard Hopper admit that he had been hiding Eleven, which shocked the entire room besides John.

In fact, she didn't notice until Hopper pulled Mike out of the room, leaving Eleven to stare at her.

After hugging Lucas and Dustin, the red-head next went to introduce herself, which went less than well. Iris was expecting a similar reaction to her, but when Eleven refocused her attention to the teeanger, she broke out into a small smile.

"Sister." She said simply, hugging her tightly. Iris laughed slightly, resting her chin on her head.

"I've been waiting a long time to finally meet you." Iris smiled, letting her be embraced by Joyce next.

Eleven went to go see Will, and another thick silence fell around the room. This time, it was from shock. No one was expecting to see the girl come walking in, but everyone was more than happy she did.

CLOSE GATE

Iris thought about what Will had said over and over again. She knew what it meant, but she had no idea how to do it. Iris wasn't too happy about having to rely on Eleven for the answer, but if anyone would know, it would be her.

Iris just really hoped she could help.

Eleven found her after walking out of the room Will was in. "We need to close the gate together."

Iris nodded, swallowing thickly.

The group surrounded the round table again, papers thrown all over the table.

"It's not like how it was before. It's grown, a lot." John explained.

"That's considering we can get in there, the place is crawling with those dogs." Hopper added.

"Demo-dogs." Dustin interrupted, causing a small grin to form on John and his daughter's face.

"I'm sorry, what?" Hopper sighs.

"I said, uh, demo-dogs. Like demogorgon and dogs. You put them together and it sounds pretty badass." Dustin continued.

"How is this important right now?" Hopper asks.

"It's not. I'm sorry."

"I can do it." Iris says, purposefully ignoring Steve's eyes as well as his protests.

"Me too, I know how." Eleven adds. "We need to do it together."

"You're not hearing me." Hopper says, while John just looked defeated. John was aware his daughter had her full intent on closing the gate with Eleven, he was just worried about how he was going to protect her.

"I'm hearing you. I can do it." Eleven said.

"Even if they can, there's still another problem." Mike said. "If the brain dies, the body dies."

"I thought that was the whole point." Max says, confused.

"It is, but if we're really right about this, and El and Iris close the gate and kill the mind flayers army-" Mike trails off.