The text Edward got from Joyce read: 'Come over. I need to talk to you about something.' It was a Friday afternoon, and he didn't have homework so he was able to leave immediately. In fifteen minutes, Edward was at the Wheelers' front door. Joyce opened it for him.
"Hi," she said very plainly.
"Hi," Edward said back. "Who else is here?"
"Just my dad. My mom is at work and James is… somewhere." Joyce closed the door behind Edward and then led the way up to her room. Edward took the desk chair and Joyce sat down on the bed. They didn't say much for a while.
"Did you actually ask me here to talk about something or are we just going to sit here?"
"Remember when I almost got mugged three days ago?"
"Well, yeah. I won't forget that too quickly. It's good that that guy ran away."
"That's not exactly how it went." Edward wheeled his chair a little closer to Joyce. She squirmed around a little as he got closer.
"Joyce… what happened?" Joyce took a deep breath and gathered the bravery to start.
"Like I said, that guy pulled me into the alley and started yelling at me. Then he started getting closer to me and I just wanted him to go away." Joyce paused for a moment to take another deep breath.
"Then what happened?" Edward asked in the most calming voice he could.
"The guy flew back and hit the wall of the building behind him." Edward was confused.
"Like… he tripped and fell backwards?"
"Like… his feet left the ground and he flew pretty fast into the wall. I still don't understand it, but I know I did that. I can… make things move. With my mind." Edward shook his head.
"No, you can't."
"What do you mean?"
"I'm sure the guy just ran away and you're trying to come up with some sort of reason. I don't know psychology but I think it's normal to do stuff like this after some trauma."
"I'm not making this up!" insisted Joyce.
"At least let me get your dad. He should hear about this."
"No." Edward got up.
"I know you don't want him to help right now, but trust me, this is good for you." Edward turned around and opened the door to go get Mike. He was about to go through when the handle was pulled out of his hand and the door slammed shut. He opened it again and it slammed shut again. Edward turned around to see Joyce standing as well. A small trickle of blood was coming out of her nose.
"No," she said again.
Eleven had been working for seemingly unending hours when she noticed it was getting close to 8PM. She tried to rub the sleep out of her eyes, but it was no use. She saved the document she was working on on her computer, locked it, then stood up, turned off the lights in her office and started heading towards the elevator.
"Done for the day, director?" one of the agents asked on the way.
"No. I'm just going to head around the corner and get some coffee."
"You have to go home some time, you know."
"I'll go home when I'm done."
"Suit yourself." Eleven got in the elevator and stared into the office as she waited for the doors to close. She liked the orderly chaos of it. Some people were just sitting at their desk working on their computers, others were frantically running around the room, but everyone had their place. The doors closed and the elevator started going down. Eleven felt like a weight was lifted off her shoulders.
Just around the corner was a nice little coffee shop. It was quiet, especially that late, so Eleven was free to just relax for a moment. She got her coffee, then called Mike. The phone ringed three times before he picked up.
"Hello?" he said.
"It's me."
"Hey! How long till you get home?"
"I don't actually know at this point. I still have a bunch of stuff I want to get done." There was a pause. "How are things over there?"
"Pretty quiet. James just called and asked if he could spend the night with his friend. I said yes. And Joyce has been upstairs talking to Edward for about two hours now." Eleven laughed quietly. "What's so funny?" Mike asked.
"Those two have been spending a lot of time together."
"What? Do you think they're dating or something?"
"Do you think it would be too bad if they were?" Mike had to think about that.
"No. I suppose not." Neither could think of anything else to talk about.
"I should probably get back to work."
"OK." Mike sounded a little sad about that. "Let me know when you're on your way home."
"I wouldn't stay up waiting for me."
"I'm going to." Eleven smiled.
"Until later, then."
"Until later."
"How long has this been going on for?" Edward asked. It took him a little while to get over the initial shock after Joyce slammed the door on him. He was a little scared of her initially, but she pretty quickly cooled down and that feeling went away.
"I don't know," Joyce said. "When I… move stuff, it feels kind of like how it felt when we were listening to that voice on my dad's old radio. It's like whatever's happening to me… it's developing. Progressing."
"I still think we should tell your dad."
"No. He would freak out or something."
"Why did you tell me?"
"Because I needed to talk to someone about it. It was killing me just keeping it to myself. I was scared." Edward walked over to Joyce and put his hand on her shoulder.
"I'm here for you," he reassured. "My opinion is still that you should tell someone that can do something about it, but I'm going to leave that to you. If you want, your secret is safe with me." Joyce was happy that she had someone she could talk to. Someone who understood her.
As soon as the elevator doors opened, Eleven knew something was wrong. But she only had a fraction of a second to take in the image of the destroyed office before she was hit on the head. Head throbbing, Eleven fell to the floor, catching herself at the last minute. She felt a cold piece of metal press against her neck as well as her wrists. She stumbled to her feet and tried to use her powers, but nothing happened. The thing around her neck was one of the collars designed to prevent her from using her powers and she had handcuffs around her wrists.
"Stay down!" yelled someone whose face Eleven didn't really see. He hit her again and she fell back to the floor. Eleven was dragged over to the wall and once her vision stopped being fuzzy from the hit, she got her first good look around. About two thirds of the people who worked in the base were on the wall. A couple of them were bloodied and beaten. The other third was standing over them, pointing guns to make sure nobody tried to stand up.
"What happened?" Eleven whispered to Agent Read who was sitting next to her.
"They all got us by surprise. About two minutes after you left, they all stood up from their desks and forced us to the walls. Some of us tried to resist but none succeeded."
"Who are they?"
"We don't know." Eleven closely examined the situation. While most of the rogue agents were patrolling those on the wall, one was off at one of the desks on the phone. His name was Agent Bretts. Or at least it was. Eleven had no idea who these people were anymore. He was apparently in charge.
"Hey!" Eleven called to one of the patrolling agents. "Who are you?" A sly, victorious smile appeared on the former agent as he slowly made his way to Eleven, finger on the trigger of his gun the whole time.
"We're The Legion," he said. Eleven's heart fell. She always knew that The Legion was never completely gone, but she didn't know that they still had this much power. "With the Demogorgon gone, the only thing that might be able to stop us is The Coalition, but we're about to take care of that once and for all."
"Nine and Ten… They're in charge. Aren't they?… How did they get out?"
"They were never really trapped," Bretts spoke up from his desk at the back of the room. He slowly started walking over to Eleven. "Most of their guards were Legion members anyway. Now, we're just waiting on orders from them as to what we should do with you."
Eleven looked at everything in the room once again and her brain went into overdrive trying to find a way out. He hands were cuffed and her powers were neutralized, so most of her possible solutions were deemed impossible almost immediately. Eleven shot down each and every idea she came up. None of them had any chance of working. If she tried to do anything, there was a good chance that the Legion members would shoot.
"What's your idea?" asked Agent Read quietly.
"I don't have one," Eleven said back.
"I know you. You always have an idea."
"Sorry, John. Not this time."
The lights in Eleven's office suddenly came on. The first person to notice it was Eleven herself, but the second was Bretts.
"Go see what that is," he ordered one of the other Legion members. That man marched over to the office.
"Who's there?" he called into the office. He began pointing his gun around the small room, looking for someone that might have evaded them the first time around. The lights in the office got brighter and brighter. Then the lights in the main office started flickering. All of a sudden, the lights in the office went off. The man sent into Eleven's office screamed, but was cut off by something. When the lights came back on, he was gone.
Two more of the Legion members walked over to Eleven's office, but more slowly. One of them was visibly shaking trying to aim his gun at the room. They had no idea what was going on, but Eleven did.
"You need to get this collar off of me," Eleven said to the Legion member still standing over her and Read.
"Why would I do that?"
"If you don't, we're all going to die."
"If I do let you out, only we're going to die." He made a motion with his hand to indicate the other Legion members in the room. "I think I'm going to take my chances."
The lights started flickering again. There was a scream from the other side of the room, and another Legion member had disappeared. Two more screams. Two more missing men. Bretts picked a pistol up off his desk and began walking backwards. He backed straight into a corner and nervously pointed the gun around the room, but it was hard to focus on anything with the lights going crazy. Bretts fell backwards through the wall and was gone. The only Legion member that remained was the one guarding Eleven and Read.
"Do you believe me now?" asked Eleven. "Let me out!" The guard began to quickly fumble around with a ring of keys, looking for the right one to unlock Eleven with. He stopped when the room went completely dark. There was a small amount of light floating in from the streets below. It was just enough to see the giant silhouette rising behind the guard. A low rumble air permeated the air as the shaking guard slowly turned around. He felt the moist breath of the creature on his sweating face. The lights flashed on brightly as the creature pounced, then it was gone and everything seemed to turn back to normal. Most of the remaining Coalition agents were shaking, scared out of their pants. Eleven included. In fact, Eleven might have been more scared than the others because she actually knew what had just happened whereas the others had no idea. Nonetheless, Eleven allowed herself to take a deep breath in a vain attempt to calm herself down. The storm had passed… for now.
"What was that?" asked Read. Eleven didn't get a good look at it, but she knew exactly what it was. She was a little too shaken up by it to say much, but she did manage to get one word out;
"Demogorgon." The beast that had caused her so much trouble in the past appeared to have just saved her life.
A/N: So yeah, a lot of stuff just happened there. I have decided to slow down posting to once a week for about the next month so I don't get completely stressed out with this story on top of all the other stuff that's going on. Please write a review to let me know what you think and how the story should proceed, this is after all a big turning point.
