Chapter Text
Wednesday, May 14, 1986
Home Base
“ Vecna?! ” Dustin cried. “What do you mean Vecna?!”
“He’s controlling them,” Will muttered. Stella smiled wildly and held Mike against the wall with her powers, strangling him.
“Stella! Stop!” Hopper shouted. “This isn’t you!”
“This isn’t me?!” the experiment laughed. “Hopper, you don’t know me,” she cackled. “This is the most me I’ve felt in 10 years!” Stella was choking Mike to the point where he was practically turning blue. Nancy charged at her, tackling the 19 year old and breaking her concentration. The teen was on the floor, begging for air to return to his lungs. Will and Lucas were immediately by his side.
Steve, who’d barely spoken since the possession had started, used his powers on Nancy, throwing her around the room like a toy. “Steve! It’s me! Nancy!” the young woman pleaded in an attempt to convince him to release her. Instead, his eyes burned brighter and he seemed to become even angrier. He used his powers to blast her into the kitchen, causing the rest of the gang to follow.
“Let the games begin!” Stella cheered enthusiastically, yet menacingly. “Seven!” she barked. Steve’s eyes darkened once more as Stella proceeded to give him instructions. “Finish them.”
“Steve, stop! It’s us!” Dustin sobbed as his friend grew near.
“Ugh! Does this one ever shut up?!” Steve growled. He grabbed Dustin and pinned him against the wall, squeezing the air out of him.
Max grabbed a pillow from the couch and started hitting Steve with it as hard as she could. The older boy dropped the curly haired teen, but he now had his attention focused on the fiery redhead behind him.
“Afraid you’ll hurt him? I know you can do more damage than that,” Steve taunted. He grabbed the pillow mid-swing and shoved Max so she fell to the ground. With little remaining strength, the girl caved and allowed unconsciousness to consume her.
For a brief moment, Stella’s eyes flickered. They shifted from red to brown as she was brought back to reality. She ran to Steve and pushed him away from Max. She clutched the collar of his shirt as she held him against the wall. “You stay away from her, you son of a bitch,” she growled. Immediately afterwards, Steve directed a blow right across her face, causing her to fall to the floor and snap right back into the red-eyed possession she was trapped in before.
“What is going on?! What are we going to do?!” Joyce sobbed as Lucas dragged Max’s limp body toward him. The two experiments drew closer and closer. Time was of the essence. The group had to think fast if they wanted to make it out alive.
Soon, Max’s eyes began to flutter open. She groaned as she observed the scene in front of her.
“S-S-Stella,” she ground out. She slowly began to stand, and even as she did so she was wobbly and unsteady on her feet. “Please. Come back. Don’t…don’t go,” she stuttered. Max fell to her knees, trembling with exhaustion.
Once again, Stella’s eyes began to change color. The thick red fog she had been walking through began to clear. She inhaled sharply before her brown eyes rolled back and she passed out cold. Hopper and Joyce rushed to her, trying desperately to wake her up. Meanwhile, Steve stared down at her with disgust.
“Pathetic,” he grumbled. He inched closer and closer to the rest of the kids. They were defenseless. Cornered. It was funny. They had been through all sorts of hell and they were about to die at the hands of their best friend. What a cruel twist of fate.
Stella began to blink awake as she saw what was about to happen. Tiredness left her previously frail body as adrenaline jolted through her veins. She stood up as quickly as possible and grabbed the experiment’s arm. Steve whipped his head around to face her. His eyes flared with anger and hate as he began to attack. Stella dodged as best she could. There wasn’t much else she could do at the moment. She couldn’t bring herself to hurt him. She’d be no better than her father. Hurting the people she cared about and who cared about her simply out of fear.
“Come on, Steve. I know you! You have to remember! Fight him off !” Stella cried. Steve remained unfazed as he continued to swing his fists. The 19-year-old grabbed his wrists and stared into his blood red eyes. Searching, begging for a sign of recognition that was completely absent.
“Well, if you can’t remember me, then maybe you’ll remember this!” And in that moment, Stella moved her hands up to her opponent’s face and kissed him senseless. It was heated with intensity. She pressed her lips against his as she continued to hold his face. They melted into each other as if there was no one and nothing else in the world that mattered. When they finally parted, the older experiment stared at the younger girl. He was absolutely dumbstruck.
All of a sudden, Steve started screaming bloody murder. It was loud with pain and agony peppered in. “Get out get out GET OUT! ” he screeched. He held his ears to block any noise that may be in the background. He felt as though his head was seconds away from exploding. The stabbing was splitting his skull as he continued to cry out in absolute torment until a blast of pure electric energy surged through the house.
Silence. You could hear a hair drop. Steve’s eyes, like Stella’s, transitioned back to his normally dark brown ones. He was gasping and panting as if he just had his head stuck under water after running a marathon.
Stella knelt down beside him, cautiously placing a hand on his back. “You okay?” she asked. The older boy nodded numbly.
“Is he…gone?” Jonathan asked.
“Yeah. He’s gone,” Steve replied, holding back tears. “Guys, I-I’m-,” he started, but Dustin cut him off before he could say more.
“That wasn’t your fault. You were being controlled. You don’t have to apologize,” he assured. The curly haired teen rushed to give his friend a hug, which the latter quickly reciprocated. Soon enough, everyone was compiling into a group hug.
“So…what now?” Suzie asked, popping the question that was burning in everyone’s minds.
“We get even,” Stella hissed. She grabbed her sword from the couch and held it in her hands for a moment. Familiarizing herself with the weight. Feeling the metal in one palm and obsidian in the other. Out of the blue, she took the weapon and stabbed it into the ground as deep as it would go.
“I won’t rest until I see him dead in flames,” she growled. With that, she removed her sword from the tile floor of the kitchen where they’d all been watching her as she spoke.
She tossed it to the side and went upstairs to bed, leaving the rest of her friends to bear with the uneasy tension that filled the room.
Everything had its price. What’s scary is what someone might do to pay it.