Chapter Text
Mike saw his life flash before his eyes when the Demogorgon charged at him. He was certain this was it; he was going to die here. Bleeding out on the cold ground, trying and failing to get the twelve children Vecna had chosen to be his puppets out of the military base. He raised his arms to shield his face, like that was going to reduce any of the damage he was bound to take from the supernatural monster. It was a useless shield, but he didn’t have a weapon, so it was the best he could do.
He waited. And waited. Waited for the pain of the attack, but nothing came. Slowly, hesitantly he opened his eyes and dared to take a peek. Suspended high in the air in front of him, the creature thrashed uselessly, an invisible force holding it in place. Before Mike could even process what he was seeing, there was a sickening crack. One arm snapped at an impossible angle. Then the other. Its legs followed, bones breaking one by one, each sound sharp and deafening despite the noises all around him. Last came its neck, twisting violently until it broke with a wet, final snap. The body dropped to the ground in a lifeless heap.
Mike could only stare in a mixture of disbelief and awe when he saw who had just saved him. Behind the monster stood Will, his eyes completely white. His arm was outstretched, fingers trembling, and blood streamed from his nose, stark against his pale skin. For a heartbeat, he remained standing before his strength gave out. Will collapsed to his knees, chest heaving as the power drained from him, leaving only exhaustion behind.
“Will!” Mike snapped out of his shock the second his best friend hit the ground. He rushed forward and dropped to his knees beside him, hands catching Will’s shoulders and hauling him upright before he could collapse completely. “You saved me,” he breathed, disbelief and adrenaline tangling in his voice. Then a laugh tore out of him, shaky and hysterical. “Holy shit, Will. You’re a sorcerer—an honest-to-god sorcerer.”
Will huffed out a weak, exhausted chuckle. His arm trembled as he lifted it, dragging the back of his hand across his face in a clumsy attempt to wipe away the blood. “You think so?” he murmured, eyes still glassy, his weight sagging more heavily against Mike as the last of his strength bled out of him.
“Hell yeah you are,” Mike said, a huge grin breaking across his face, bright and unrestrained despite everything. “Since when were you able to do that?”
“I’m not sure,” Will admitted, fingers tightening in Mike’s jacket as he used him for leverage to push himself back onto his feet. His legs wobbled, and Mike immediately steadied him, hands firm on his arms, ready to catch him if he went down again. Will swallowed, glancing around them, urgency cutting through his exhaustion. “We need to get out of here. Now.”
Mike nodded, the movement sharp and uneven but unmistakable. His gaze immediately swept the area, panic spiking as he searched for Joyce. He spotted her just as she scrambled up from where she’d been thrown against an overturned car, already sprinting toward them with fear written across her face. She reached them in seconds and pulled Will into a fierce, desperate hug, clutching him so tightly that Mike instinctively shifted back to give them space.
“Are you alright?” Joyce asked, drawing back just enough to cup Will’s face in her hands, her eyes darting over him, searching for injuries she might have missed.
“I’m okay, Mom, I swear,” Will said softly, managing a small smile despite the exhaustion weighing him down. His eyes flicked past her shoulder, finding Mike again. “But the kids. Vecna’s got the kids.”
“And we’re going to get them,” Mike said quickly, forcing steadiness into his voice as the weight of it all pressed in. “As soon as we figure out where they are. But right now, we need to get out of here. Find Lucas and Dustin and the others, regroup. Then we make a game plan.”
They made their way down into the tunnels, the air thick with dust and decay, every footstep echoing too loudly in the narrow space. They found Lucas pacing near one of the wider junctions, running his hands over his curls over and over again, breathing hard like he’d just sprinted a mile. He looked wrecked, to be quite frank, wide-eyed, shaken, teetering right on the edge of a breakdown.
“The Demos, they got them,” he said the second he noticed them, whirling around so fast his foot skidded on the damp concrete. “They took the kids.” His voice cracked, raw with panic, before he sucked in a sharp breath and laughed once, high and hysterical. He jabbed a finger behind him. “And the one that was attacking me just… snapped. Like Max. What the fuck was that?”
“That was Will,” Mike said, the words tumbling out with a rush of breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. Despite everything, a crooked, almost giddy grin spread across his face. “He did that.” He glanced over at Will, who looked pale and unsteady but very much alive, before turning back to Lucas. “We’ll explain it properly later, but right now we have to-”
“Hold on,” Lucas interrupted, shaking his head like he was trying to reset his brain. His eyes flicked between Mike and Will, disbelief written all over his face. “What do you mean that was Will? Will killed the Demo? How- how on earth did that happen?”
“He’s a sorcerer,” Mike said, shrugging like this was the most logical conclusion in the world. “He has powers.” At Lucas’s continued stare, he elaborated, voice quick and animated. “They were just… dormant, I guess. Hidden. But he used them. He controlled the Demogorgons, Lucas. He lifted one into the air and snapped it like it was nothing.” His voice dropped, the grin softening into something proud. “He saved my life. Probably all of ours.”
“Holy shit,” Lucas breathed, sounding equal parts stunned and exhilarated. He stared at Will like he was seeing him for the first time. “You- you know what this means, right?”
“Sorry?” Will said, blinking, finally starting to walk when Mike nudged him gently with his shoulder, steering him forward.
“You’re like Will the Wise,” Lucas said, a grin spreading across his face as he moved ahead of them, energy crackling through his words, “but for real. He’s real. We’ve got a second El now. Maybe now we can actually beat Vecna.”
“I mean, I’m not really…” Will started, his voice trailing off, uncertainty creeping in as his shoulders hunched slightly.
“He’s more like a sorcerer than a wizard,” Mike cut in immediately, a little too fast, like this distinction mattered more than anything else.
“Right,” Lucas said slowly, shooting Mike a strange look. There was confusion there, sure, but also something sharper, like he was clocking the way Mike said it, the way he stood just a little closer to Will than necessary. “Anyway, this changes everything. He has powers now. Whether he just got them or they were lying dormant doesn’t really matter.”
“Of course it matters-” Mike started, bristling, but Will interrupted him with a tired sigh.
“I don’t have powers,” Will said quietly. “Not like that.” He rubbed at his temple, grimacing. “It’s more like… I’m siphoning them. Stealing Vecna’s power. And to do that, I have to be close to the hivemind.” He gave a small, humorless shrug. “So it’s actually pretty useless.”
Mike frowned hard at that, jaw tightening. Will wasn’t useless—never had been—but he swallowed the argument before it could start.
“Anyway,” Will continued, forcing himself onward, “Vecna’s not coming back. Not right now, at least. He’s got the kids. His twelve vessels-”
“Vessels?” Lucas cut in sharply, stopping in his tracks and turning around. “What do you mean by that?”
Will froze, eyes widening like he’d just said something he wasn’t supposed to. He swallowed. “I mean… that’s just what he calls them,” he said, a little too quickly. “I don’t know why. Does it matter?”
“I suppose it doesn’t,” Mike said quietly, shaking his head. He really didn’t want to think about what Vecna was doing to those kids. Every fragment Will had ever shared about the Upside Down, every half-finished sentence, every nightmare he’d woken from painted a picture Mike desperately didn’t want to complete. Whatever was happening to them, he knew it wasn’t anything good.
They couldn’t afford to dwell on it anyway. Thinking too hard about the what ifs would only slow them down, and right now, hesitation felt dangerous. What mattered was this: the kids were still alive, and Vecna had them. And that meant their focus had to be on getting them out—before it was too late.