steve, and apollo all asked in unison, their face twisted in confusion as they looked around at everyone else.

everyone quickly went back into the dining room while dustin went to go grab will's d&d manual. steve picked up on the fact that max and arlo hadn't left each other's side since they came out the bathroom, making a mental note to ask his sister about that later. nancy and jonathan had came out of the living room when they heard the group scheming. hopper had came out of joyce's room as everyone waited for dustin to find the manual, having heard them shifting around. once dustin had found it, he basically slammed it down onto the table before he started to flip through the pages. he stopped once he found what he was looking.

"the mind flayer." he started.

"what the hell is that?" hopped asked.

"it's a monster from an unknown dimension. it's so ancient that it doesn't even know its true home. okay, it enslaves races of other dimensions by taking over their brain using its highly-developed psionic powers." dustin read, earning an eye roll from max.

"oh, my god, none of this is real. this is a kid's game." hopper told the younger boy.

"no, it - it's a manual. and it's not for kids." dustin corrected. "and unless you know something that we don't, this is the best metaphor -"

"analogy." lucas interrupted.

"analogy? that's what you're worried about?" dustin quizzed, looking at the sinclair boy with raised eyebrows. "fine. an analogy for understanding whatever the hell this is."

"okay, so this mind flamer thing -" nancy began.

"flayer. mind flayer."

"what does it want?" nancy asked.

"to conquer us, basically. it - it believe it's the master race."

"like the - like the germans." steve compared, earning confused looks from everyone surrounding the table.

"you mean the nazis, steve?" arlo corrected, earning an even more confused look from her brother.

"yeah, yeah, yeah, the nazis." the harrington boy nodded.

"uh, if the nazis were from another dimension, totally." dustin nodded. "uh, it view other races, like us, as inferior to itself."

"it wants to spread, take over other dimensions." mike continued.

"we are talking about the destruction of our world as we know it." lucas added.

"that's great. that's great. that's really great. jesus!" steve mutter sarcastically, walking away as he combed his fingers through his hair.

"okay, so if this thing is like a brain that's controlling everything, then we kill it. . ." nancy said, picking the manual up to get a closer look.

"we kill everything it controls." mike finished.

"we win." dustin nodded.

"theoretically." lucas reminded.

"great. so how do you kill this thing? shoot it with fireballs or something?" hopper quizzed, taking the manual away from nancy.

dustin chuckled, "no, no fire - no fireballs. uh, you summon an undead army, uh, because. . . because zombies, you know, they don't have brains, and the - the mind flayer, it - it - it likes brains." he quickly realized the annoyance on hopper's face, his smile dropping. "it's just a game. it's a game."

"what the hell are we doing here?" hopper questioned, throwing the book onto the table before he walked away.

"i thought we were waiting for your military backup." dustin answered sarcastically.

"we are!" hopper yelled.

"but even if they come, how are they gonna stop this?" mike challenged. "you can't just shoot this with guns."

"you don't know that! we don't know anything!" hopper shouted.

"we know that it's already killed everything in that lab." mike pointed out.

"and we know the monsters are gonna molt again." lucas continued.

"and we know that it's only a matter of time before those tunnels reach this town." dustin finished.

"they're right." a new voice appeared, making everyone turn around to see joyce. arlo felt her heart ache for the woman, only being able to imagine how much pain she was feeling in that moment. "we have to kill it. i want to kill it."

"me too. me too, joyce, okay?" hopper said as he walked towards her. "but how do we do that? we don't exactly know what we're dealing with here."

"no. but he does." mike reasoned, walking towards will. everyone followed after him. " if anyone knows how to destroy this thing, it's will. he's connected to it. he'll know its weakness."

"i thought we couldn't trust him anymore. that he's a spy for the mind flayer now." max reminded, her eyebrows furrowed.

"yeah, but he can't spy if he doesn't know where he is." mike said. "i would say we can use arlo's powers to go inside will's mind, but she has a piece of the mind flayer in her, too. so we have to do this another way."

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daij speaks!
THIS CHAPTER IS 4000 fucking words. the longest chapter for this dam book. i hope u guys enjoyed oh god. this not even half the dam episode💀. u guys want longer chapter like 3000+ or chapters that are less than 3000. cause y'all been receiving more than 3000 recently.

but i hope u guys enjoyed 🫶🏼🫶🏼