Author's Note: Thanks so much to everyone who wrote a review, and thanks for sticking with this story all along. We probably have about 2 more chapters and an epilogue left to go in this one. I've already got a second story started, which is not at all related to this one. The new story will be Season 2 related, unlike this one. If you remember from way back, I started writing this story before Season 2 came out, so that's why there's no Max or Kali 08 and such, sadly. So anyway, this one's almost done, and I'm so glad for everyone who has followed so far, and stay tuned for the next story as soon as this one is finished. I only hope that I have time to finish the new story before Season 3 comes out and makes that one obsolete, too. :)

Chapter 15

The dank and decayed scenery of the Upside Down rolled past the van's windows as Sam bounced along at an easy fifty miles an hour. They'd let Hopper go a while back, and had planned to return to their original goal of escaping the city. Will had been growing more and more concerned about his friends, though, and had been trying to make contact.

"Lucas, Mike, Dustin, come in. Does anyone copy, over?" Will said, not for the first time, into his little handheld bundle of wires with a small antenna.

"Did you make that, kid?" Sam asked, impressed.

"Dustin made them," Will answered in a distracted voice. Sam glanced into the back seat, where Joyce still sat. She had been quiet since they'd let Hopper run off on his peace mission.

Will called into the homemade radio again, but still got only static. "I think the Upside Down is messing with the signal," Will told Sam. "I'm going to have to bring us back out."

"Copy that," Sam said, letting his foot off the gas. He'd been through a couple flips from the normal world to the Upside Down and back by now, and he understood that he didn't know exactly what he'd be stepping into once they returned. On a city street like this, though it was empty and dead looking in the upside down, it could be packed with cars once they flipped back.

Sam brought the car to a complete stop and glanced nervously over at Will. The younger man closed his eyes and took a slow breath. It actually seemed like he was becoming more of a pro at this weird party trick each time he did it. Sam reflected on just how strange that was. Until a week ago, he hadn't believed a man could start fires with his brain. Now he'd seen a woman lift a car into the air, and he'd been taken into another dimension. If Hopper lived with this kind of stuff every day, Sam wondered how he'd managed to hang on to his sanity.

"You always been able to do this, kid?" Sam asked Will.

He shrugged. "About half of my life now." The younger man breathed one more time, his eyes still closed, and snap, they were back.

Sam swept his eyes around the Chicago street, now happily illuminated by sunlight. The tentacles were gone, and so were the floating spores in the air.

The street was just as deserted in the real world as it had been in the Upside Down, though. Sam took that as a good sign, because it might have meant that most of the people had been able to evacuate, and wouldn't get caught in the fires.

Speaking of fires, Sam saw a hazy plume of smoke rising off in the distance, in the direction of downtown and the river.

"Let's not go that way," he suggested.

Will was already on his homemade walkie talkie again. "Lucas, Dustin, Mike, come in. Does anyone copy, over?"

Movement in the rear view mirror caught Sam's eye.

A police car had just turned onto their road.

Its lights weren't on, and it wasn't speeding. However, they were in a van, sitting in the middle of the road, not going anywhere, with no other cars anywhere in sight. They stood out like a sore thumb.

Sam shifted the car into drive and tried to look nonchalant as he slowly headed off down the road.

It didn't work. The cop car flashed its lights once and pulled in behind him. He stopped.

Sam could feel Joyce and Will stiffen up.

"They can't find us," Will breathed. "They think we can take them to baby Allie. They'll arrest us and use us to get their hands on her."

Sam gave him a startled look. "The cops are after you too?"

"It's true," Joyce told him from the back seat. "They already had me in handcuffs once."

Sam looked back and forth between them. "You're serious? Why would they do that?"

"They work for the agents," Will insisted. "The agent want baby Allie."

The pair of cops were already getting out of their car and coming over to the van. Sam briefly considered speeding away right then and there, but that would only make them chase him. If there was any way he could talk his way out of this, he wanted to try.

"You can't tell them who we are," Will hissed as the cops approached the van. The one on Sam's side knocked, and Sam lowered the window.

"You didn't evacuate with everybody else?" The cop asked him.

"Uh, we had some car trouble," Sam told him. "That's what we're trying to do now."

"Give me everyone's name in the vehicle," the cop asked.

"Well sure," Sam said agreeably. "I'm Chuck Finley. This is my buddy Andy McGee, and she's his neighbor, Carrie White. We're trying to get out of town before the fireworks get any worse."

The cop turned into his shoulder for a moment to call on his radio. Then he returned his attention to Sam.

"Please step out of the vehicle and show me your drives license."

"Sure thing, officer," Sam said, giving Will and Joyce what he hoped was a reassuring look as he climbed out of the car. "Is there a problem?"

"The problem is that the city's under a state of emergency now," the cop told him. "We're searching everyone who hasn't already evacuated." He spoke into his radio again. "Give me those names again."

Sam could just barely hear the voice coming back from the officer's ear piece. "...Henderson, Joyce Byers, William Byers, Michael Wheeler..."

Sam had run out of time for talking.

He jumped at the cop while his attention was still on the radio. His left fist connected with the cop's jaw at the same time that his right hand snatched the radio off his belt.

The other cop shouted in alarm. He'd been making his way around the front of the van before Sam had moved. With the hood still separating them, Sam threw the radio and nailed him in the face.

There was an ugly crunching noise, and the cop dropped his gun to grab his broken nose. Sam jumped and slid across the hood, gliding into a well placed punch that dropped the second cop. Sam whirled around when he heard a car door slam, afraid that the first cop was already back on his feet, but it was Joyce, already scooping up the dropped gun.

"Whoa, easy, easy Joyce. It's over," he said, afraid that she might actually shoot two of Chicago's finest.

"Will, I think we'd better go back to your Upside Down before any more of them show up," Sam said.

He nodded, but his little homemade radio crackled to life before he could say anything.

"Will, this is Lucas. Reading you loud and clear. We need assistance. Situation critical. Over."

"We have to go on foot from here," Dustin yelled as he tore off his seat belt and threw open the van door. "If we can make it in there before they catch up to us..." he pointed to an old abandoned warehouse a short block away. A run down city park, with a rickety old chain link fence, stood between them and their chosen hiding place.

Mike ran for all he was worth. He had to hope that Dustin's driving had put enough distance between them and the pursuing cop cars. They reached the chain link, and Dustin scrambled over, landing heavily on the other side. Mike handed Allie over the fence and then climbed up himself. He had one leg over the other side of the fence when he heard the unwelcome sound of revving engines and squealing tires.

"Out of time!" Dustin yelled, already starting to run toward the warehouse. "Come on Mike!"

Mike leaped off the fence. His pant leg caught on the rusty links and he landed awkwardly on one leg. He winced when he felt a sharp pain, but he couldn't let it slow him down. Dustin and Allie were already half way to the warehouse. Mike ran to catch up, grinding his teeth against the pain in his leg.

The sound of police cars bearing down on them grew louder. Mike didn't turn his head to see. He just kept running.

For one happy moment, it seemed like they might make it to safety in time, but the cops caught up to them, flying around a street corner and blocking the way.

The two cars came to a stop, four cops exploding out of them to point guns and shout at Mike and Dustin to surrender.

The two of them stood there gasping for breath from their sprint. Mike bent over and put his hands on his knees. Dustin couldn't because he was carrying Allie. She started to cry.

"Put your hands up," one of the cops ordered.

"And put the baby down," another added.

She cried even louder.

"You can't have her!" Dustin yelled.

Mike listened to her cry, getting louder and louder. "Actually, Dustin, I think you should put her down," he said.

"Mike?" Dustin asked him in disbelief.

"Trust me on this," Mike said as Allie started to wail at the top of her lungs. "I think you should do it."

Slowly, reluctantly, Dustin gently placed the baby on the hood of one of the cars. Immediately, one of the cops marched over and grabbed Dustin's arms, pulling them behind his back. He took Dustin over to the other car, bent him over the hood, and slapped on a pair of handcuffs. Dustin glared the whole time, but didn't resist. Mike continued to watch Allie, squirming and bawling on the hood of the cop car, as one of the other officers came up behind him and took out a second pair of handcuffs.

Allie cried.

Mike watched her.

The cop grabbed one of his wrists.

A tiny flicker of bright orange sprang out of Allie's squirming hand.

Mike spun around, away from the car and Allie. The cop who was trying to handcuff him ended up on the wrong side.

As Allie burst into flames, the cop's body shielded Mike from most of it. His blue uniform caught on fire, and he yelled in pain and ran, flailing his arms to try to put himself out. The cop who was cuffing Dustin looked over in shock at the raging bonfire that had suddenly appeared on the hood of the other car where a second ago there had only been a screaming baby.

The remaining two cops seemed to react on instinct. The sudden appearance of a fire from nowhere must have been so unexpected that they didn't know what to do except turn toward it and draw their guns.

The sight of guns pointing at his tiny baby made something inside of Mike snap.

He flew at them, his feet barely touching the ground, and swung at them with everything his thin body had. Mike wasn't conscious of everything he did. He felt a fist collide with a jaw, then an elbow collide with a rib. He felt like a man possessed. He punched one of the cops again, and felt a crunch as a bone in his hand broke. But the pain barely registered in his rabid brain. He swung the broken hand again, and hit the cop even harder.

Dustin watched Mike taking on the two cops with immeasurable pride. Pressed to the edge with no other way to protect his baby, Mike had found his inner tiger. Dustin, bent over the police car hood with his hands cuffed behind his back, couldn't help but smile as he watched his friend give twice as good as he was getting. Mike Wheeler was a flurry of hands, feet, small rocks, finger nails, and wild hair as he punched and kicked and thrashed away at the two cops, both bigger and stronger than he was.

"That's it Mike, kick their asses!" Dustin yelled.

"Be quiet," the cop who had handcuffed Dustin said. He still had one hand resting on Dustin's back, reminding him not to try to run or cause trouble. "Unit 22-18 requesting additional officers," the cop said into his radio. He continued to babysit Dustin for another minute until, realizing that his two buddies weren't going to be able to handle Mike on their own, made his way over to join in the effort.

Dustin gave another smile as he watched the third cop walk away. El had psychic abilities. Lucas was strong and athletic. Hopper was tough as nails. But Dustin Henderson had been born with a superpower of his own. On a normal day, it wasn't something he could use to fight evil with. But today was a special day.

One of the effects of cleidocranial dysplasia was that he'd been born without a collar bone.

With the third cop now several yards away and fully occupied with trying to subdue Mike, Dustin flexed and rolled his shoulders, and easily slipped his cuffed hands past his legs and around to his front side.

When Mike had tackled the first cop, he'd dropped his gun, and it still lay in the gravel, forgotten in the melee. Dustin crouched low, trying not to attract attention, and loped toward the gun. Bless his heart, Mike was still giving all three cops such a hard time, they never saw Dustin scoop up the gun. He stood up straight and aimed it at them.

"Hey, uh, hey guys, stop. I have a gun!"

It took the cops several long seconds to realize the situation. Once they did, they stopped fighting Mike and turned around to face Dustin.

"Put your hands up and don't move," Dustin tried. After a moment's hesitation, one of the cops started to reach for his gun.

Decisions flashed through Dustin's mind. There was no time to think about it.

He fired a warning shot at the ground.

The bang was so much louder than Dustin expected. His whole body flinched and his ears began to ring.

The cop cried out in shock and staggered to the ground, holding his leg.

Dustin's eyes went wide as he saw the red blood begin to seep out around the cop's fingers.

"Oh my God, I'm so sorry," Dustin said without thinking. Then he waved the gun toward the other two cops. "I mean... That was a warning shot. Next time I won't be so nice. Put your hands up and move away from my friend."

This time they didn't hesitate to follow his orders. Dustin's adrenaline was pumping like never before in his life, but he managed to keep his hands from shaking. Mike leaped to his feet and snatched Allie off the hood of the car. She had actually been mildly burning away ever since the fight started, about the size of a very small camp fire, but she stopped when Mike picked her up.

"You can help your buddy with his leg over there now," Dustin said, "But don't try to follow us. Or else." He waved the gun in a gesture that he hoped looked properly threatening. "Come on Mike. I'm right behind you."

With the sound of more police sirens approaching in the distance, the three of them ran.

Hopper crouched under the canvas tarp on the back of an Army flatbed truck as it bounced uncomfortably down an otherwise deserted road. He'd stowed away under the tarp, guessing that the truck might be headed directly into the action. After an uncomfortable twenty minute ride, he turned out to be right. Poking his head out of the tarp, he saw a big plume of smoke rising up from just on the other side of that city block. With both a sense of relief and dread, he felt that he was in the right place.

As the Army truck rolled to a stop, he slide out from under the tarp, dropped to the ground, and jogged away to hide behind a parked car. He peered around the edge of the car and watched two dozen soldiers in Army green pull off the tarp and start unloading boxes from the truck. They seemed to be in a big hurry. As soon as the boxes were off the truck, the soldiers popped them open and dug inside, pulling out what Hopper eventually recognized as shiny, silver, flame-resistant suits.

The soldiers quickly stepped into the suits, zipped up, pulled the masks over their faces, and filed out the way they'd come. He could hear the roaring of flames on the other side of the building now. Franc must have been working his magic.

They seemed to have left the truck unguarded, so Hopper crept out from behind the car and hurried over to the open boxes. There were still several suits left, so he grabbed one. It wasn't quite tall enough to fit him comfortably, but it would have to do. He jammed the mask over his head and, making sure he was completely covered, jogged off in the direction of the chaos.

The plume of smoke and the echoing shouts of the soldiers hadn't been enough to fully prepare Hopper for the scene of fiery destruction that he saw as he came around the other side of the buildings.

Dozens of soldiers, half of them clad in the shiny, fireproof suits, had taken up position around the firestarter. Some of them knelt behind the cover of abandoned cars or city trash cans, some of them lay on their bellies with rifles perched on the ground in front of them, ready to shoot. At the center of all this attention was a great whirling tornado of fire. It stretched twenty feet across and reached as high as the buildings around it. The soldiers had given it a wide berth as they set up their perimeter. The fire continued to swirl and rage as the soldiers stood ready but unable to do anything effective. Hopper stared at the scene for a long time.

He'd seen what the firestarter could do. His abilities seemed pretty much inexhaustible. If he wanted to send his fire tornado spinning out in all directions to consume the soldiers, and the buildings behind them, and the buildings for a full city block in each direction, he could probably do it. As far as Hopper could see, there wasn't anything the soldiers could do. Besides, he didn't want the Army to kill the firestarter. Hopper wanted his help.

His feet began moving before he was even aware that he'd made the decision. His shiny, fireproof boots started carrying him across the no-man's-land between the soldiers and the raging fire. Some of them shouted at him to stop, most likely assuming he was one of their number who had, for some inconceivable reason, decided to just march right into the middle of the tornado. Hopper ignored them and pressed on. Even through the suit, he could feel the heat of the spinning wall of flames that loomed up in front of him, and sweat began to break out on his face.

He came to a stop right at the edge of the flames. He couldn't see inside, and he didn't really know what he was going to do in there, but he had to try. Taking one deep breath that might have been his last, Hopper stepped into the fire.

The flames grabbed him and tried to jerk him up and away into the tornado. Hopper was lifted a few feet into the air and spun violently around before he fell heavily to his knees, but that was it. He had passed through the curtain of fire.

Inside, the eye of the storm was calm. Hopper craned his neck and marveled for a moment at just what the inside of a firestorm looked like. It was something he would probably, hopefully, never see again.

The firestarter stood alone in the center of the storm. Hopper pulled himself to his feet and approached. The soldiers and the police on the outside of the storm only knew him as a living weapon that had shown up one day out of the blue and started burning down Chicago. Hopper knew that he was a man who had been a father and a husband, who had lost his whole family, and who had become consumed with revenge. Hopper knew him as a man who could feel remorse for the terrible things he'd done. Hopper knew him as a man who had done the right thing and surrendered himself without a fight. But, as Hopper looked into his face now, he didn't see that man.

There was a blank look in the man's eyes, as if he were actually somewhere else. Hopper could see no hint of the man he'd once gently placed in the back of a squad car. He took two more steps forward, and the man seemed to notice his presence for the first time. The firestarter raised a hand toward him.

Hopper flinch and held an arm in front of his face, imagining a great jet of orange flame bursting out from that outstretched hand to blow him away.

"Wait! Wait! I'm just here to talk!" Hopper shouted, realizing that the fireproof face mask probably blocked out most of his voice. He quickly grabbed the mask and pulled it off.

"Do you remember me?" Hopper asked, putting his hands up to show that they were empty. "I'm not with those soldiers. It's just me. You remember me, right?"

There was no recognition in those blank eyes. The firestarter stared back at Hopper as if not really seeing him. But he hadn't burned Hopper alive yet, and that was something.

He took another step forward.

Hopper considered putting his mask back on. The air in the eye of the storm was a lot hotter than he'd realized.

"I don't really know what's going on here," Hopper admitted, taking another step closer. "There's agents running around, they tell me there's a Russian... thing. My family and my friends are in danger. That's all I really know. And the last time I saw you, you were... different."

Hopper took another step. He still saw nothing in the man's eyes.

"Last time I saw you, you were done doing this." Hopper waved his hand toward the spinning wall of fire all around them. "That Russian thing... Is he in your head? Are you doing this because of him?"

Still nothing. Hopper took another step.

"Because I need your help. I need you to stop this. My family and my friends are here and they're running for their lives. And you can do some damn amazing things. And I need your help."

Nothing. Another step. Hopper was almost close enough to reach out and touch him now.

"I think you're a good man. I don't think you want to do this. I know you wish you could go back and save your family. Please. Help me save mine."

There it was. A flicker crossed the man's eyes. They focused on Hopper, as if surprised to see him there.

"Franc!" Hopper shouted in relief. "I know you're in there. Talk to me!"

The moment passed instantly. The eyes shifted back to their blank, dead state. The hand came back up. The fingers tensed. Hopper saw a single tongue of flame spring from the outstretched hand. He thought about jamming his mask back on his face, but knew it wouldn't be enough to save his life.

He lunged and swung.

It was a race between his fist and the fire.

Hopper shut his eyes as the world around him erupted in bright orange flame.

He felt his knuckles connect solidly with a chin.

And, as fast as they'd appeared, the flames vanished.

Hopper's momentum brought him tumbling onto Franc's unconscious body, and the two men fell heavily to the ground.

Hopper lifted his head and look around, breathing fast. His face didn't feel burned. The firestorm was gone. He could see the perimeter of soldiers all around him staring in surprise. In spite of everything else, Hopper couldn't help but smile with relief.

Underneath the weight of his chest, Franc stirred awake. Hopper scrambled off him and sat back to give him some space. The other man sat up and looked around with fresh eyes. The blank, dead look was gone.

"What hap..." He said groggily, surveying the soldiers and the battle damage all around him.

"Are you back, buddy?" Hopper asked. "Cause I really need you right now."

"Oh... Oh God," Franc said, looking back at Hopper. "What did I do?"

"I don't think it was you," Hopper told him. "It wasn't good, though. I'll explain, but right now we need to get out of here. Those soldiers won't let us just walk away. Can you create a distraction? You know... with your powers?"

Dustin and Mike had left their van far behind as they raced through an abandoned warehouse. They could hear the boots and radios of the cops who weren't nearly far enough behind them. Dustin's Reboks slid over bits of broken tile and plaster on the floor as the two of them made their way across a third story floor littered with broken pallets and old equipment. He crashed to a halt against a door and threw it open to find a rusty old fire escape.

"Down here," he told Mike. They scrambled onto the rickety old metal, which groaned under their weight. Dustin tried to focus hard on not stumbling as he took the stairs two at a time.

"I see them!" Someone shouted from close by.

Dustin jumped the last few steps to the dirty alleyway below, motivated to run faster by the angry voices behind them. He turned around to see Mike hot on his heels. He also jumped the last few steps off the fire escape.

Crack.

Dustin heard the sound as Mike's foot hit the pavement. He lurched forward to catch both Mike and Allie before they fell down face first.

"Are you alright?" Dustin demanded.

Mike's face was screwed up in pain as he tried to put weight on the injured leg.

"No," Mike hissed.

"Down there, in the alley!" A cop yelled from the top of the fire escape. Dustin heard the metal creak and grown as they piled onto it.

"Dustin, you have to go without me," Mike said, grabbing his arm so tight his finger nails dug in.

"Are you crazy?" Dustin asked. "No way."

"I think it's broken," Mike said through gritted teeth. "I'll only slow you down. I need you to take Allie and run."

"Mike, I can't," Dustin argued.

"Please! If they get me, so what! But they can't get Allie. They can't!" Mike thrust the little girl into Dustin's hands. Dustin took her without thinking. He couldn't look away from Mike's pain filled face.

"Please," Mike begged. "Leave me."

Dustin's eyes filled up with tears.

"Go!" Mike yelled.

Dustin's brain barely registered that his feet were already moving. The cops were pouring down the fire escape even as they spoke. He started to run. Over his shoulder, he could see Mike try to take a single step to follow, and collapse onto the ground. Dustin squeezed Allie to his chest and kept running. He got one last look, through his blurring tears, at Mike with two cops kneeling on his back and forcing a pair of handcuffs on him, before he turned a corner and vanished from sight.