Initiation || A Stranger Things AU

First Contact

The organization in which she had been recruited to was not one known by the general public. It had started with military ambitions due to the work her mother did. Or so she had thought. Everything changed once she was recommended for a special governmental program that dealt with a different area of things. More supernatural than scientific. Something she'd have said didn't even exist before she had been pulled into such madness. Though there was still military training, which was fairly standard there were additional things as well. Classes about extraterrestrials, cryptids, alternate universes, and the complete unknown. Initially she had believed this to be a joke, that was until she also started to see proof which was kept within the laboratories of the underground buildings where this faction operated.

Cordelia was considered a rookie. Even though her mother held a high ranking position there already, she was still going to have to work her way up. Make a name for herself. Nepotism may have helped to get her recommended for the program but it wouldn't help her rank up. Something she was very interested in doing. All of the most interesting assignments were given to the best agents. She wanted to be one of them. There was also the thorn in her side that was begging to prove everyone wrong about who she was. How she was. Maybe she was small but she was strong and she was smart. She could survive anything thrown at her and she would make sure that everyone around her and her superiors knew this. No matter what it took.

One night, after a graduation party held in the barracks, she was hanging outside at a bonfire by the lake with a few of her fellow classmates who wanted to play a game of truth or dare. All of it was pretty normal and standard stuff until each one of them felt they had to one up each other with more and more dangerous feats. Her first mistake that night would be choosing dare when Charlie asked her on her next turn.

"You know about the portals, right?" He asked, referring to the recent portals discovered just inside the grounds of the compounds where they operated.

"Everyone knows about them." She said with a roll of her eyes. The only two that had been found were sectioned off from all but the most advanced team members, but as far as she and everyone else had found out, not much more was known about them beyond their existence. Scans were being run but that was about it. "Why?"

"I dare you to go in one." He grinned.

"Oh shit," Jake laughed, "There ain't no way she's doing that."

"There's no way anyone should do that." Kate said, "We don't know what's in there or under there or...whatever else."

"Then all the more reason to find out." She said, finishing the last few gulps of her beer. It wasn't that she was aware that this was a terrible idea but she didn't want to show fear to anyone either. Fear was a weakness and she guessed even though it may also be stupid to do this it was better than everyone thinking she was afraid. "Let's go."

"You can't be serious." Kate said.

"Hey she was given the dare let her do the dare." Charlie insisted.

"You want her to get killed?" Kate asked.

"No one's getting killed." Jake snorted, standing up as well. He brushed off his pants and pulled a flashlight from his pocket then tossed it in her direction. "I don't think she'll even cross the red tape to get there."

"You underestimate me." She said, turning on the flashlight to make sure that it worked. After looking around to get her bearings she figured out what direction she needed to go in and started to walk. Though there was a voice screaming in her head about what a bad idea this was she pushed it down with every step she took. Mostly she assumed that if she did this like she was serious by the time she made a move to enter a portal someone would stop her. Call her bluff. Then she could claim victory and they couldn't claim she wasn't a coward.