Chapter 3

Arrival

After about 15 minutes of flying, Luz, Amity, Willow, Gus, Hunter, and Camila made it to Hawkins, Indiana.

Camila hated the whole flight for a variety of reasons like height and speed, and was relieved to finally be back on the ground. "Hello, sweet earth," she said, leaning onto a lamppost.

That's when a Demo-Bat opens up its wings and hisses, scaring Camila causing her to bring out her bat and whack it.

Other Demo-Bats, Demo-Dogs, and Demogorgons are summoned by the screech, so the witches prepare their palismen for battle, and Luz grabs some glyphs, just for her to put them back because they don't work in the Human Realm.

The Demo-Creatures charged into battle.

Hunter dashes towards some Demo-Bats and knocks them out with his staff.

Willow uses some plants to pull some Demo-Dogs underground.

Gus casts illusions of everyone to surround the creatures.

Amity casts a fire spell that sets a Demogorgon on fire, and it causes all the other creatures to back down. This revelation shocks everyone.

"They all must be connected," said Luz. "It must be a Hive Mind, like that thing that Marcy told me about when she introduced me to DnD, the Mind Flayer I think."

"Who's Marcy?" asked Camila.

"She's a girl I met in school," said Luz. "Says that she moved from LA to Gravesfield not too long ago and that she's interested in Azura. She introduced me to DnD, and though I wasn't interested, she gave me an in-detail explanation on all the creatures and lore of the game. We don't talk very often, but when we do, it's just to bond over shared interests, but we're just acquaintances as of now."

All the Demo-Creatures survived the fire, but fled the scene, even breaking through Gus's illusions.

That's when a Demogorgon creeped up behind Luz and was about to attack her.

"LUZ, LOOK OUT!" shouted Amity.

That's when the Demogorgon was sent flying back by some force, but it wasn't magic caused by Amity, Gus, Willow, or Hunter.

The teens look and see 13 figures standing there, the figure in the middle, a girl with brown hair going down her neck, the numbers "011" on her left arm, and blood dripping out of her nose holding out her arm as if she used some sort of magic.

Later, the Nocedas and witches are led to a small wooden house in the woods.

"So let me get this straight," said the Policeman, Hopper. "So you 4 are not from this world."

"That's the main gist of it," said Amity.

"And your world is being controlled by a child with god-like powers and you're trying to get back to stop him?" asked Hopper.

"The Collector," said Willow. "We have no idea who they are or how they even showed up in the first place, other than the fact some other guy, who's dead now by the way, named Belos tried to use them to eradicate life on the Boiling Isles, but even then, we have no idea how they met."

"And we may never figure that out," said Luz, loudly, before quieting down. "And before you ask, Belos is a guy from the 1600s, a Witch Hunter if you will, his real name being Phillip Wittebane, who came to the Boiling Isles by unknown means and tried to eradicate all life on the Isles under the belief that he's saving humanity."

"I've heard stories about Phillip Wittebane," said Hopper's wife, Joyce. "According to legend, he had a brother named Caleb, who was captured by a witch named Evelyn, and Phillip went to save Caleb, and both were never seen again, but if you ask me, it sounds like Caleb got a hot witch girlfriend and Phillip got upset, like, really upset."

Everyone knew what Joyce meant when she said "Phillip got upset." "Sounds like something he would do," said Luz.

"Back to the point," said Hopper. "Why are you here?"

"2 reasons," said Luz. "Firstly, we've seen on the news how portals have opened up here and I thought we could get information on getting back to the Demon Realm by coming here. Secondly, I've had these recurring nightmares that we just recently learned are more than just nightmares because I apparently floated off the ground when I was having the nightmare. We thought that you'd have information on that too because of your supposed supernatural history."

The others were sitting in the corner, minding their own business, until Max heard the part about nightmares. "What were they like?" asked Max.

"They vary in many ways," Luz replied. "The first nightmare had me witnessing the Collector torturing my friends who are still in the Demon Realm being held by them for their twisted games. Another one had me being chased by Belos. The last two had me being chased by my friends as they told me that it's my fault the Demon Realm is in danger in the first place. They all had this one recurring thing where there was a Grandfather Clock that chimed 4 times. The last one though had some guy that looked like a walking husk telling me that they can end my suffering, and they put their hand to my face. After a while, they disappeared and a door appeared, and I managed to escape through it."

"Shit, this is worse than we thought," said Dustin. "Vecna's trying to create more gates in other towns, and he's using the same method from before."

"Oye, first of all, don't swear," said Camila. "Second of all, who's Vecna?"

"Vecna, better known as Henry, is, like Belos, an insane human turned monster," said Eleven. "He views the world as deranged and plans to destroy this world by bringing the Upside-Down, the world the Demo-Creatures came from, into this world. He does this by going into the minds of people who have had a traumatic experience, haunting their dreams with these memories, and when the time is right, he kills them in the most gruesome way possible. Five Years ago, he killed 4 people here in Hawkins, opening one gate per victim, until they all died and the gates spread. The only reason why Vecna's army of Demo-Creatures never left Hawkins is because we've been holding them off."

"I was one of Vecna's victims," said Max. "I lost my brother a year before Vecna started killing, and the memory of me witnessing his kill has been haunting me since then. Vecna used this to his advantage and started haunting me. I managed to get past him the first time he reached the killing point because my friends played my favorite song, creating an opening for me to escape from. The second time, I almost died, allowing the gates to spread, but Eleven saved me from dying. Since then, we tracked down Vecna back to his old base of operations, and saw him in his resting place, before we landed a direct assault and tried to kill him, but he got away."

"That would explain how Luz was saved last minute," said Camila.

"We saw how well you fought Vecna's army," said Mike.

"We could use people like you," said Lucas.

"It would help a lot," said Dustin.

"So what do you say?" said Will.

The Nocedas and witches sat silently for a few seconds before Luz spoke up. "I say… we will not let this world fall. Where do we start?"