✲꘏ ꘏ ꘏ ꘏ ꘏ ꘏ ꘏✲

Kristen, Murray, and Enzo stood outside the church while Yuri was working on the helicopter. The three were talking about Enzo being in Indiana when Yuri started speaking to them.

"Good news, my friends," he smiled. "Katinka feeling better. Shall we give her another try?"

"Why not?" Murray lightly chuckled to him. "Asshole."

"This guy. He's gonna be the death of us," Kristen sighed.

Yuri tried starting the helicopter, but it didn't work. He kept it going, making the three look at each other and run over to him.

Kristen grabbed his arm and held it against the seat of the helicopter, making him stop.

"The hell you think you're doing?" Kristen snapped.

"Get your hands off me, potatohead."

"You're trying to break her, aren't ya?" Murray asked. "Get us captured again so you can get your reward? That's it?"

"What do you three lizard brains know?" Yuri said as he released his arm from Kristen's grip. "You're engineers now?"

"I know that sound is not good," Enzo spoke up.

"On contrary, those noises you hear, that..." he imitated the noises. "...it's very good sign."

"Good sign, huh?" Kristen said.

"Yeah. My women make noise when I please them. You don't know what that is like. I understand," Yuri looked Kristen up and down as she scoffed. "But for those like me who knows what and where to touch, much noise."

He pressed the button again and the same noise kept going on and on. He released his finger and put it back on, annoying the three once more.

Hopper then peeked his head out from the church, calling Kristen, Murray, and Enzo inside while he left Yuri to tend to the helicopter.

Joyce and he explained that there was a phone call, so they were now discussing it.

"Okay, and, uh, who exactly was this mystery woman?" Murray asked.

"Not sure," Hopper said. "I mean, she wasn't exactly Miss Talkative. You know? I spent five minutes trying to convince her I was real. Kristen and I are supposed to be dead, remember? Anyway, I finally get around to half-convincing her, she starts to open up a little, then she says that she's a friend of the doc's. She said he was indisposed."

"'Indisposed'?"

"It gets worse. She said the doc's with the girl. And that girl went off to fight some evil in Hawkins. Then they all went off-grid. The doc, the girl, everybody."

"'The girl,' meaning... El?" Kristen asked, her mind instantly darting to Robin and Amber.

"Yeah, it has to be," Hopper leaned back.

"This is your daughter, American?" Enzo asked as Hopper hummed.

"And they're not alone. Joyce's kids are with 'em."

"What about Amber?" Kristen asked. "Did she say anything about Amber?"
"No. But maybe she lumped her in with Joyce's kids."

God, Kristen hoped.

"Okay, I... I see the mood here is bleak," Murray broke the silence. "And understandably so. But I do think we need to consider the very real possibility that this mystery woman is, in fact, KGB. And she's--"

"No," Joyce immediately denied. "She's telling the truth. When we were in the lab, those particles we saw, they were alive. And if they're alive, that means a gate's open in Hawkins."

"'Gate'?" Enzo questioned. "What does this mean?"

"It means we have to go home right now," Hopper stood up and walked over to the window. "What is taking so long? I thought you said he was close."

"Yeah, close to sabotaging us, you mean," Murray said as the three got up and walked over to Hopper.

"We think he's playing us again," Enzo said.

"So put a goddamn gun to his head."

"And then what? He just spits out more lies."

"It's moot anyway. If your kids are truly in some kind of imminent danger, even if we were to leave this very moment, we wouldn't make it in time. The earliest we'd get there is late tomorrow."

"No, we... we don't have to make it back," Joyce realized. "Not tonight. Whatever this evil is, we know it's connected to the hive mind. And now we know part of that hive mind is in Russia. So we don't need to get back to Hawkins to fight it."

"All we need to do is destroy those particles," Kristen realized.

"And if we're lucky, it'll hurt it enough to give the kids the upper hand."

"Wait, time out," Murray spoke. "We're talking about the particles inside the prison? The prison that we just narrowly escaped from?"

"We broke out," Hopper said. "We can break back in."

"Jim!" Murray exclaimed as Hopper walked over to the weapons. "The entire Soviet army is looking for us."

"Sure," Hopper said as he flipped the lid over. "And we'll be coming exactly where they least expect."

"All right. There is a fine line between courage and stupidity, and this falls very far on the side of stupid. This is Dirty Dozen stuff. Except there are, uh, five of us."

"Four, actually," Hopper corrected him. He walked over to Enzo as he continued talking. "Breaking back in's gonna be easier than breaking out. Which is why we need an airlift. This is where you come in. I don't care what it takes. You get Yuri in line, and you get that bird in the air."

"On it," Enzo said.

"Yu... Yuri mentioned something about a flamethrower, right?" Joyce asked.

Hopper opened a big crate, seeing the exact weapon required.

"Oh, yeah," Hopper said as he picked it up. "This'll do. This'll do just fine."

-

Nerves were high as the four sat in the car.

"Where are the guards?" Joyce asked as they saw no guards by the gate.

"Maybe this'll be easier than we thought," Hopper spoke.

"I don't know, Jim. I got a bad feeling about this," Murray voiced his concern.

"You have a bad feeling about everything," Kristen pointed out.

They drove into the prison, hoping nothing seriously horrible would happen to them. Once they got far enough, they found the spot they had originally escaped from. Hopper opened the small sewer and let Murray, Kristen, and Joyce in before entering himself. Before he went in, he heard gunfire.

He jumped down, leaving the sewer open.

-

The four had returned to the room, seeing the tanks broke open and the small Demogorgon's free and somewhere around the prison. Kristen sighed deeply, knowing that this task was going to be much harder. They then heard growling, knowing it was from the creatures.

"Oh dear God," Murray breathed out.

Hopper started the flamethrower as he led the small group down the stairs and to the camera room. When they got there, they saw multiple dead bodies, including the commander who was barely hanging onto life.

Murray knelt down beside him, speaking to him and translating his answers.

"The monster got in. The guards, they tried to stop it. The gunfire shattered the tanks. The others came alive."

"The particles," Kristen urged. "Ask him about the particles."

"He says they call it 'the shadow.' The shadow went into them."

"Into who?" Hopper asked.

Murray asked, but before he could get an answer, the commander died. Everyone then heard screeching, looking around and at the cameras.

"I think this answers your question, Jim," Murray said as he looked at the cameras. "The shadow is in them."

-

The four had gotten into the center where Hopper and Kristen had fought just hours before.

"You shut off this fence, right?" Hopper asked.
"Yeah," Joyce responded.

"Good. So you can turn it back on again."

Murray chuckled. "Jim, you wanna clue us in on what you're thinking here or are we just supposed to read your mind?"

"This pit was designed to trap monsters," Hopper pointed out. "We get 'em in here, we lock it up, we rain fire from above, and we hope to hell that gives El and the kids an upper hand."

"Okay," Murray said monotonously. "I'm with ya. Except the whole, uh..." he paused and chuckled, "'getting them all in here' part."

"It's a hive mind," Hopper reminded him while turning around. "You draw one, you draw 'em all. You're the grill master," he took the flamethrower pack off of his back and handed it to Murray. "And you, you're the jailer. You get that fence turned on. And once they're all in here, lock that door behind 'em."

"What about you and Kristen?" Joyce asked as the two mentioned looked at each other.

"We're the bait."

-

"That one there," Hopper said as he pointed to a Demogorgon in the laundry room. "See him? In the laundry room? It's not far from here. He's all alone. He's our target."

Hopper saw the uneasy look on Joyce's face, getting her back to reality. Kristen let them have their small moment as she walked over to a guard and stole his gun. She made sure it was loaded, and it was when Hopper spoke her name.

"Kristen. You ready?"

"As ready as I'll ever be."

And then they left for the laundry room. They walked quietly through the halls, holding tightly onto their guns. Once they got to the laundry room they looked at each other, lightly nodding.

Kristen licked her lips and whistled, getting the attention of the Demogorgon.

It looked back at the two and screeched. It lunged for them, but Hopper slammed the don't shut as the two ran for it. Not long after, the Demogorgon broke through the door and started following them.

Kristen had continued running but slipped on some blood. She felt long and sharp claws slice her leg, causing her to scream out in pain. Hopper heard this and shot at the Demogorgon who was going for Kristen.

The creature had redirected its attention from the girl to the man. It started chasing him and eventually pounced on his back, causing him to fall. Hopper had managed to keep its mouth closed but was struggling.

Hopper had been saved by the one and only Joyce Byers as she had used an electric weapon to get it off of him.

"Joyce!"
"Hop!"

Kristen had slowly crawled her way over to the two, getting help from them as she stood up. Joyce had helped the teen stand as they heard more creatures come their way. Trying to slow the creatures down, Hopper started shooting at them. It worked, giving the three a chance to go ahead since Kristen was injured.

The tall, lanky Demogorgon had backed the three into a cell and ripped the door off. They then heard a voice and saw fire go down onto the creature. Hopper had shielded the two women from the extremely hot fire as the creatures were killed.

The only one that didn't die was the one that was being right earlier. Hopper had tried killing it with a gun, but it didn't work. He then found a sword that was used in the fight that occurred earlier. He picked it up and ran toward the creature.

He sliced one of its arms off and dodged the blows it tried to swing at him.

And he had done it.

He sliced the head right off, killing the Demogorgon once and for all.

Joyce ran over and hugged Hopper as Kristen limped her way over to the two. They heard a helicopter and looked up, seeing Yuri and Enzo in it.

"Son of a bitch!" Murray laughed and whooped. "Katanka!"

They were finally going home.