The Byers Girl (On Pause until season 5)

Chapter Ten: The Piggyback Pt.2

Back in Hawkins' Creel House, Max and Lucas sit as they wait for the next phase in the living room. Through their notepads, Max tells Lucas she's glad he's here with her. Lucas asks her if she wants to go to the movies with him on Friday, and she accepts his invitation by showing him a crude drawing of her and Lucas at the movies together. Erica then flashes her light at them from the playground, and once Lucas flashes back, she confirms to Robin through the Upside Down to move to phase two: they wait for Vecna to take the bait. Max puts on her sneakers and approaches the flickering lantern she hugs Y/n tightly and steps back with Lucas. Y/n calls Vecna, attempting to communicate with him, but she is confused when she receives no response. The lantern's light fades, she, Max and Lucas slowly walk upstairs, following it as it flutters according to Vecna's location.

Back at Surfer Boy Pizza, Mike finishes his crafted sunglasses so El's vision can be blocked. As they laugh and flirt, Mike attempts to tell El of his feelings but is interrupted by Argyle. Will sadly observes them from afar. Jonathan, taking notice, asks Will if he remembers when he was little and asked Jonathan to get a Lego figure named Larry out of his nose. As they laugh, Jonathan says that he misses Will asking him for help and advice, feeling he doesn't do it anymore, but also apologizes for being stoned a lot of the times when Will needed him. As Will gets emotional, Jonathan emphasizes to him that he's here for him and that he'll love him no matter what. Will embraces his brother, and Jonathan reassures him that things will be okay. They soon finish preparing the freezer and inform the others. El places herself in the freezer and quickly finds Y/n, Max and Lucas in the Void. She tells the boys that Y/n's plan isn't working.

Y/n, Max and Lucas are now in the attic as they stand near a lantern. Y/n tells Vecna she knows she can hear him and sits down without her Walkman. She tells Vecna how what he said about her missing Billy was true, as there were nights she'd pray something bad would happen to her. She admits that the day Billy died, she felt she could've done something to help him. She says she can't forgive herself, and at night, she now prays she could be taken instead, admitting to Vecna that she wants him to make her disappear. Lucas and Max ask her  if that's the truth and if she thinks those thoughts often. Y/n is confused as to why they are talking because they're supposed to be quiet but they tell her that normal people don't sit around while they let someone die. They begin to back her into a corner, telling her they're glad she'll be the final sacrifice that will break the world.

Max and Lucas in reality, attempts to wake up a cursed Y/n. El tells the boys in the Void that Vecna has Y/n.
In Y/n's hallucination, she pushes the kids back who turns into Vecna as she bolts downstairs.
Holding Y/n's hand, El concentrates and retreats to one of Y/n's memories, when she first met the kids, with Steve, sleepovers with Nancy, Movies with Robin, Laughing with her Mom, Talking with Hopper.
Back in reality, Max signals Erica through the window, and she tells Robin to initiate Phase Three.

Robin informs Dustin, and he sets up the speakers on top of the Munson trailer. Eddie begins to play Metallica's Master of Puppets to lure the Demobats away. Nancy, Steve, and Robin approach the Creel house as the bats are led away. In Y/n's hallucination, she attempts to escape the house but finds the doors boarded up.
In reality, Jason and Andy speed towards the playground as Andy chases Erica away. When Y/n opens a door, she finds a hallucination of Billy in the sauna room who is attempting to escape. Andy catches up to Erica and tackles her. As Billy breaks through the door, Y/n thinks through her memories and transports herself back to the Snowball dance when she was with Steve. As the swarm of Demobats approach, Dustin and Eddie countdown before sprinting into the trailer and cheering over how metal his performance was.

In Kamchatka, Joyce, Hopper, and Murray crawl through the hole back into the prison and find out that the containers have been broken empty. Armed with a flamethrower, the trio enters the security room which is riddled with dead bodies and a barely breathing general. Murray asks the general what had happened, and he (with Murray's translation) explains to the trio that the Demogorgon got into the building and that the guards accidentally shattered the containers while trying to ward it off by gunfire, breaking out the Demodogs and the particles (referred by the general as "The Shadow") which went into "them", but succumbs to his wounds before he could explain who did they went into. Through the security cameras, the crew realizes that the particles have possessed the creatures.

In the Upside Down, Steve, Nancy, and Robin open the Creel house door and navigate carefully. El walks through the town and eventually finds Y/n as a younger child playing hopscotch with Jonathan.
When Will asks if anything is off in the memory, El finds an out-of-place DJ station on top of a bridge.
Y/n sits at a table in the Snow Ball and waits for the next phase, only for the decorative balloons to begin to explode blood. The record on the DJ table warps to play Ella Fitzgerald's Dream A Little Dream of Me as it begins to affect the memory of the kids playing on the street as well. In the Snow Ball memory, the banner and flowers begin to decay as flakes begin to fall. Thunder and lightning begin to surround both memories.

In reality, Lucas and Max notice Y/n beginning to hyperventilate and attempts to signal Erica again. Erica is being held in an arm hold by Andy, who threatens to break her arms. Lucas turns around to find Jason approaching Y/n, believing it to be the same ritualistic sacrifice that killed Chrissy.
Lucas tries to stop him, but Jason whips out a pistol and holds him at gunpoint. Max yells and Jason to stop but he ignores her. After forcing him to empty his pockets, Jason dictates him to wake Y/n up. Lucas refuses and tells him waking her up could kill them all, but Jason says he'll kill him if he doesn't comply.

At the Russian prison, the trio arrives in the courtyard with a plan to bait the Upside Down's creatures into the arena and set it on fire to help out El and the kids. Murray is given the flamethrower while Joyce is told to monitor the security system. Hopper plans to lead a Demodog out from the prison laundry room, but Joyce is haunted by Bob's encounter with the Demodogs that resulted in his death. Hopper reassures her that he'll die someday, but not today, departing with a kiss.