There were Russians lying dead on the ground and an upturned car laid damaged beside them. That was the first thing you noticed when the four of you entered Starcourt Mall. The second thing you noticed were all the kids huddled around El who was sitting on the ground and screaming.
Hopper took off sprinting through the food court just as El used her powers and pulled some kind of fleshy creature from inside her lower leg before throwing it across the room. The fleshy creature landed a few metres in front of you. It was still wriggling and trying to crawl, and you reached for your handgun to shoot it before Hopper took a step forward and crushed it with his boot.
The kids all looked up in your direction their eyes widening and relief washing over their faces when they saw you all. Most of the kids were the ones you remembered from that night at the Byers with the Demo-dogs but there were a couple that you didn't know.
"The Mind Flayer it built this monster in Hawkins, to stop El, to kill her and pave a way into our world." Mike began to explain once Hopper had helped patch up El's leg.
The group of you were sitting around the food court spread out on the various tables and chairs while updating each other on everything you knew.
"And it almost did. That was just one tiny piece of it." Max continued to explain.
"How big is this thing?" Hopper asked, looking between the kids before glancing down at El who was leaning against him while he held an icepack to the small cut on her forehead.
"It's big. Thirty feet, at least." Jonathan answered.
"Yeah... it sorta destroyed your cabin. Sorry." Lucas informed glancing at Hopper sympathetically.
His cabin was gone? Shit.
"Okay, just to be clear, this big fleshy spider thing that hurt El, it's some kind of gigantic weapon? But instead of, like, screws and metal, the Mind Flayer made its weapon with melted people?" Steve summed up trying to understand everything the kids had just said.
"Yes, exactly." Nancy nodded like everything Steve had just said made total sense.
"Are we sure this thing is still out there?" Joyce asked, looking around at everyone.
"El beat the shit out of it, but, yeah, it's still alive." Max answered.
"But if we close the gate again..." Will began to say.
"We cut the brain off from the body." Max said in realisation.
"And kill it. Theoretically." Lucas added.
Well, that sounded all well and good. But you still needed to get down into the Russians secret bunker in order to do that. The very same bunker that Alexei said was impenetrable.
"Yoo-hoo! Yoo-hoo!" Murray suddenly called out running back into the mall after retrieving some of the blueprint drawings Alexei had made before he died.
Murray laid the papers out on one of the tables so you and the other adults huddle around while the kids stood off to the side and Murray began explaining how to get inside.
"Okay, this is what Alexei called 'the hub.' Now, the hub takes us to the vault room."
"Right, but where's the gate?" You asked staring at the blueprints which were nothing but confusing in your eyes.
"Right here. I don't know the scale on this, but I think it's fairly close to the vault room, maybe 50 feet or so-"
"More like 500." A young girl you didn't know suddenly said. "What, you're just gonna waltz in there like it's commie Disneyland or something?"
YOU ARE READING
Serve & Protect
FanfictionYou moved to the small quiet town of Hawkins after abruptly transferring from the NYPD and reunite with your old partner, Jim Hopper. However, Hawkins isn't as quiet as it seems, and your past catches up with you.
