As much as Eleven was afraid to see One again, she was not going to back out- her friends life depends on it. So Eleven leaned back into the salty water that filled the pizza dough freezer and connected her mind to Max's.
Once she was connected she found herself in one of Max's memories. Eleven quickly figured out how to get to where Max was; and was greeted with a scene of the Snowball from a couple years back.
She was quick to defend Max and sent Vecna flying.
"Max are you okay?" Eleven asked.
"Huh?" Max said breathlessly.
"Are you okay?"
"Y-y-up."
Max had reached up running her hands down Elevens face touching her head and then her cheeks and then her chin.
"Are you- are you real? Di-did I make you?" Max questioned.
Eleven grabbed her hands and held them tightly.
"I'm real." Eleven replied.
"How?" Max asked.
"I Piggybacked from a pizza dough freezer." Eleven simply said.
"What?"
In the small amount of time of their talking One managed to get back up. Max and herself continued to fight him inside of the memory.
Before she knew it she was in a mind replica of the Upside-Down, with one of the tentacles tightening around her neck as the others held her in place. One was making his way over to Max with his hand slowly reaching out towards her.
Besides Eleven's best efforts her friend was going to die and all of Hawkins along with her.
No- not her best effort. She was Eleven Jane Hopper and she was a superhero- Mike's superhero. She was not about to watch her friend die. Even if she wasn't powerful enough to stop One she was going to die trying because Mike loves her- her friends love her and she loves them.
With the new strength inside her she took a deep breathe before letting out a large scream. Pain flared all over her body but she ignored it screaming louder. In an instant the vines around her were severed in half.
The sudden release caused her to fall down on her legs with hardly any strength left to stand. She held her hands out towards Max and focused. The image of what was happening inside Max's mind blurred with an image of Max floating in what she guessed was the real world.
Just like in the lab when she first sent One to the Upside Down, One was starting to bend Max's limbs. Before he could break any of them, Eleven repeated what she did that day all those years ago and grabbed control of the twisting limbs.
She used all the strength she could, and continued fighting against One's powers in order to keep her friends limbs into a regular position. Eleven flinched when she heard Max screaming from the strain of it all but knew that pulling in the opposite direction of One was the only thing keeping her friend alive.
After a few more seconds of struggle between the two Telekinetic's; One let go of Max and turned to face her. Eleven followed in dropping her hold on Max and then proceeded to snap the vines holding her friend in place.
Max dropped to the ground before weakly meeting Elevens eyes. Eleven briefly used her powers to pull Max up and a few feet away and then nodded her head. Max seemed to get the memo and took off running but before she could get far vines twisted around her ankles.
Eleven was quick to remove the vines again but every few seconds they would grow back around Max.
"You can't keep this up forever. You're tiring Eleven." One said. He was a lot closer than before, having moved up a few inches with every chance he got.
She knew he was right; she could only last so much longer.
Eleven looked over at Max and saw her friend looking back at her with a frightened expression. They both knew that if this didn't end soon they would both be dead.
They both continued to struggle holding One back for a few minutes longer but their efforts were definitely weakening. At this point Max had vines all the way up to her neck that were starting to choke her before Eleven could pull them off. Eleven was also heavily distracted by needing to back up so One couldn't reach her.
Eleven's frustration was only growing as she tired. She couldn't fight anymore, and she knew it. So with one last final scream she managed to push the vines a few feet away from Max and fly One a little further away.
Eleven collapsed on the floor breathing heavily.
"Is that all you have." One laughed.
Eleven watched from her spot on the ground as One made his way over to Max.
"N-o-o!" Eleven heard herself faintly scream.
She wasn't enough. Max was going to die because she wasn't enough. Papa was right after all, she wasn't ready. One was up against Max at this point with his hand almost perfectly in place.
Suddenly One turned into a cloud of smoke- vanishing from the space. Their surroundings started flickering from One's world to a black space. The flickering started to get worse before seemingly settling on the black mind space.
Both Eleven and Max seemed frozen in place at what happened. Neither of them spoke, seemingly too afraid of One coming back. The only sound that filled the space was their heavy breathing.
Finally Max spoke up so Eleven didn't have to, "W-what... was tha-t? Where are we?"
"Mind space." Now that Eleven had calmed down she recognized the place they were in- after all it's where Papa made her spend so much time searching.
"Like the place you mind travel to?" Max asked.
Eleven nodded her head while taking an effort to crawl over to where Max was half laying/ half sitting up. Once Eleven reached her she stopped.
"That must mean Vecna's gone right? Wait- it makes sense! Our plan must have worked! Nancy, Steve, and Robin probably attacked him and the harm to his physical body pulled him out of my mind!" Max exclaimed.
Eleven thought it over before agreeing. "Yes. He's away. For now."
Her words seemed to relax Max as the red head leaned back against the floor letting out a large gasp.
"So, where are you El? You guys haven't been answering the phone... wait hold on you have your powers back! When did that happen?" Max asked.
Eleven felt her physical self getting shaken and knew that she was too tired to stay in the mind space much longer.
"Soon. Be there soon. We'll explain. Go."
Max must of understood what she meant because she threw her arms around her before whispering a soft "Goodbye El. Don't take to long, kay? We'll be waiting."
Max started to fade from her vision before suddenly Eleven found herself back in her body. Mike was asking her questions rapidly as he pulled her out of the pizza freezer.
She looked around and saw the other guys looking at her with cautious gazes.
"Are you alright Eleven?" Jonathan asked.
She nodded her head as Will placed a towel around her shoulders. The questions ceased for a few minutes as the boys helped dry her off.
They must have noticed how tired she was because next thing she knew Mike was picking her up and carrying her out to the van. She watched as everyone else got in. Argyle turned around from the drivers seat and passed down a box of freshly made pizza.
"We're gonna head back to Hawkins. Just, can you tell us how things went? Is everyone okay?" Will asked shakily from the seat to her left.
They had positioned her to lean against Mike, who was seated to her right. His arms were wrapped tightly around her. She found herself pushing away from him in an attempt to sit up.
"Woah! Wait, El. Let me help." Mike said. Mike then tightened his arms around her and pulled her up into a better position.
Once she could see everyone she spoke, "Yes. Max is fine. Don't know about everyone. One's stopped- for now."
This seemed to relieve everyone as they all slumped further back against the seats. They all caught on to what Eleven meant by that- they weren't out of danger yet but they survived another day. That their friends would still be alive to greet them when they made it back to Hawkins.
While they weren't out of the water yet they had managed to create a raft; and for now that was enough.
A/N: So, did you like it?
Thank You so much for reading! Thank you to everyone who liked and/or commented on this, it means a lot! Till next chapter!
