__________
-UNKEPT-
PROMISES

Moments ago, everyone gathered at a wooden table in the trailer park. Unbeknownst to them, Valentina sneakily entered the Munson trailer to find any clues.

"A crack in the road? Nance, what is that supposed to do with anything that's going on?"

"I don't know, but for all we know, any little clue could always lead to more," Nancy responded. "I just can't stop thinking about how he walked away, he was completely fine, but started acting weird."

Everyone was quiet, piecing everything together, until they heard yelling.

"Yo! Chief, seriously, I told you not to be surprised if you found me at a crime scene. Tell Dumber to let me go," Valentina yelled while being carried by Officer Callahan.

"Kid, listen. Hopper made me promise him to not let you into any more cases. He knew how you were, I knew and still know about your obsession with research, but one day, it'll catch up to you and who knows what the consequences will be," Chief Powell warned Valentina.

Tears brimming in her waterline, Callahan let her go.

Talking under her breath, she started trudging out of the trailer park. Which made Steve get up abruptly, "Woah! Hey, Alma, where do you think you're going?"

She turned around, "I have an idea, but it could just be nothing. I'll meet you guys later."

Nancy shot up from her seat, "I'll go with you."

With his hands on his hips, Steve stuttered over his words, "Are you two out of your mind? Flying solo or duo with this Vecna creep on the loose? No, it's too dangerous."

"Harrington, do us all a favor and stop being a mom for a quick second. We don't need a babysitter. We'll be fine, I appreciate it, Nancy may not, but no thank you." Valentina fought the most efficient way she could, seeing as Steve was reminding her of her mom.

Squinting his, with his hands still on his hips, he let out a laugh of disbelief. "I don't care. I'm going, end of story." He then tossed his keys to Robin.

With her own look of confusion, Robin gave the keys to Max, making her laugh hysterically for the first time in months."Score!"

Turning around, Steve widened his eyes when he saw the redhead opening his car door and turning on the engine, then revving it. "What the hell, Robin!"

"Well I don't know, maybe you should've given the keys to someone who has experience instead." She strided towards the two brunettes, "How about I go with these two and you get to play babysitter, again?"

Gruffing, Steve stomped towards his BMW, "Out, Mayfield!"

Max then climbed to the back, where Dustin got into the passenger seat.

"Wipe your feet!" Steve exclaimed dramatically.

Dustin decided to wipe his feet inside of the car, in return Steve scolded, "On the outside, not the inside!"

He then turned around to see the three getting in the car, already starting to regret his decision.

Turning on the engine, Steve complained, "Always the babysitter! Always the goddamn babysitter!"

"Awe! Steve is angry because he can't get rid of us, isn't that right, Max?" Dustin jokingly stated.

"No, I just think it only has to deal with the fact that he's always been stuck with us for the past three years, " Max attested.

"Would you two just be quiet!"

"I haven't spoken to you for months, so I would consider myself speaking now, as a reward, Harrington," Max counterclaimed.

In response, Steve huffed and drove out of the trailer park.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

The three girls arrived at the Hawkins Library, where it seemed as if both Valentina and Nancy had the same idea.

Except Valentina was only there to do research on portals and alternate dimensions.

At the moment, Robin was talking the other two ears off. "So that means these murders predate Eleven in the Upside Down by about thirty years?"

Nancy let out a small yep, in response.

Which ultimately let Robin continue. "Which makes spooky Victor Creel, like seventy years old!"

The statement made Nancy let out another annoyed response, but it also ultimately made Valentina make her way towards a different area of the library, leaving the other two to their two-sided awkward tension.

Arriving at the sci-fi section, Valentina then scavenged for books based on portals and alternate dimensions, something she saw play a pattern in the recent homicides.

When she went off on her own in the Munson trailer, attempting to find clues that would be able to help, seeing as Eddie was in no shape to be able to murder the captain of the cheer team. The main thing that she has been holding back from the others is the idea of the markings that the bodies left behind.

Fred Benson's body had been put in a body bag and wheeled into the coroner's van, yet the clue that was behind was the crack on the road. Coincidentally, it had been the size of an average human body.

Clue number two, the crack on the ceiling, that only took two minutes to find after Valentina lifted up the carpet to end up not finding any cracks, like the police report had stated.

The two were not adding up, but at least in the end, all she had to do was look up. However, it wasn't the same size, but it would've been enough for someone to fit through.

Finding a book that seemed like it would answer all her questions, she sat down at one of the tables close to the exit of the library. Blowing some of the dust off, she flipped the book open to the rules to follow when finding a portal.

# 1 Do NOT go alone

# 2 Bring supplies that you'd think
would be helpful

# 3 Beware of your surroundings

Furrowing her eyebrows, she continued on with looking at some of the pictures of examples of what a portal could look like. One of them standing out, with there being vines and orange goo, it oddly reminding her of the portal that was once open in Hawkins Lab.

Yet, none of this happened, seeing as for the past few seconds Valentina's eyes were not blinking. Nancy and Robin had been trying to get her attention.

She had been too engrossed in her research to not see that the library had turned into nothingness, with it being filled with white particles, arctic temperatures, and an image with a clock on a brick wall.

A new and eerie voice made its presence known, "What are you doing here, Valentina? Your time is not here yet."

Slowly lifting her head up, to make eye contact with the same figure she has been seeing in her nightmares. This makes her take a look around to find an inhumane version of Hawkins in front of her eyes.

Going into shock, she freezes, when she then sees an image of Max being in the same state as her, where both Dustin and Steve were attempting to 'wake her up.'

Just as she was about to call out for Max to wake up, she was back in the library where she found Robin and Nancy looking at her in concern, while everyone else had been looking at the three for the past few minutes, no one had done anything, but stand still.

"Are you alright?" Nancy questioned, concern laced in her voice.

Blinking a few times, Valentina was fully back in reality, "What?"

"Are you okay? We tried waking you up and weren't moving, at all. You just kept mumbling incoherent words," Robin helped explain.

Laughing in an ambivalent manner, she answered, "Yeah. Yes, I'm okay, I sometimes just tend to blank out."

In disbelief, Nancy raised her eyebrows, "Even to the point where you don't answer right away? How long has this been happening?"

"Oh! It's nothing to worry about, I promise. I get too lost in my thoughts where I can blank out that deep." Valentina replied.

"Okay, are you sure you're okay?" Nancy tried to make sure, once more.

"Yeah, fine," Valentina smiled at the two in front of her before putting back the book where she found it. "You done with your research?"

The two girls quickly glanced at each other in uncertainty and shook their heads.

"That fast? We should probably meet up with the others then."

As the trio exited the library, Robin used the walkie-talkie to get a hold of the others. "Dustin, do you copy?"

Right away, he answered, "Yeah, I copy."

Where Robin then continued what she was about to tell the other group, "So Nancy is a genius, Vecna's first victim dates back all the way to 1959. Her shot in the dark was a bullseye."

Sounding uneasy, Dustin responded, "Okay that's totally bonkers, but I can't really talk right now."

Remembering what she saw in the library, Valentina took the walkie-talkie from Robin, "We're on our way."

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

A couple thousand miles away was a girl and an older man sitting in a booth. With a few black cars outside protecting the two.

"Sorry about all the theatrics out there. I didn't mean to scare you. But you got yourself in quite the little predicament, didn't you?" The old man questioned the girl, where she shifted uncomfortably.

"You know, I relocated you guys to Lenora because I thought, you know 'safe town, small, dull, far from Hawkins, nothing could happen here.' What was it, a roller skate or something?"

A waitress walked up to the table and asked them, "Ready to order some food?"

Looking up at the teenager in front of him, Dr. Sam Owens smiled at the waitress. "I think so. Some uh, more coffee, and um I'll have, how about the club special?"

The attention now being on El. "Whatever you want, kiddo. It's on me."

Tilting her head to get a better look at the menu, "Waffles, please." At that, the waitress walked away.

"Never too late in the day for breakfast, that's what I say."

Having her arms crossed, El wondered, "Am I in trouble?"

With a wave of his hand, Dr. Owens happily explained, "For the roller skate thing? No, no, no, no. We'll make that thing go away. Don't even worry about that."

El furrowed her eyebrows in confusion. "That's not why you're here?"

"To be honest with you kid, I wish it was. Last night, I saw something. Something I've been dreading for some time. I don't know how to say this, other than just to say it. Hawkins is in danger."

El leaned back with her arms continuing to be crossed. "You have fought this evil before and you've won. But this evil is like a virus. Each time it returns, it comes back stronger, smarter, deadlier. A war is coming to Hawkins."

"There are good people, brave friends who have helped you fight your battles in the past. But they alone can't win this war, not without you or others like you."

El spoke up for the first time. "What do you mean? Like Kali?"

With a shake of his head Dr. Owens clarified, "No. There are more like you. One in particular." He slid over a file, "One of Dr. Brenner's first experiments, 006 or her government name, Valentina Alma."

El gasped. "I've seen her before, when I left Hawkins, we made eye contact when I was leaving Hawkins. W-What powers does she have?"

"She has the capability of being able to absorb information more than the average human and can also find people that causes her to have visions, essentially a people locator."

"Brenner marked her as a lost cause since he thought she wouldn't be useful. But in reality, she was just as special as you. Now she's living a normal life in Hawkins after I helped her family out. Unfortunately there was a price for Ms. Alma to be experimented on, her father was practically forced to work at the lab, that poor man."

"Though it was slightly his fault considering he begged for Brenner to do the experiment."

"Mouthbreather," El muttered.

Owens laughed, but shortly continued on, "And I know it's not fair to ask more of you, but I wouldn't be here, if I didn't think this was the only way, if I didn't think you and Valentina were the only one who might have a shot, to hit this thing so hard, it can't get back up."

Leaning forward, El exclaimed, "I don't have my powers."

"What if I told you there was a way, a way to bring them back. I feared this moment would come, so I've been preparing, developing the means to restore your abilities. A program has the potential to not just bring them back, but bring them back, stronger than before."

"But there are others who don't believe in you, who think you are the cause, I believe they're wrong. I believe you're the cure. That's why if we're really going to do this, I'm going to ask that you leave with me now, but you should know that there is a very real possibility, this program fails. And if it does, you will never see your friends again."

Raising speculation, El questioned, "My friends in Hawkins, are they in danger?"

Taking a breath, Dr. Owens broke the news, "I'm afraid, your friends in Hawkins, are very much in the eye of the storm. You may feel you need to go to them now, but if you do, you will risk everything, risk everyone. They're not the only ones in danger."

"It's life as we know it. It's why I'm here. Because I believe you're our best hope. Our only hope."

Unsure of what to do, El doubted herself, "What if I'm not good? What if I'm the monster?"

Shaking his head, Dr. Owens comforted her, "I don't know you that well, kiddo, but I'm betting the fate of the planet that you're one of the good ones. But you've too spent too much of your life being told what to do by people like me. I know that. So, you say the word and I will take you back home. Or, come with me now. Find out for yourself."

- i wrote the last part on a road trip
and i almost fell asleep while doing so

edit one 04/11/2024:
- i almost forgot that i wrote that
Valentina has powers. but don't
worry, it won't effect the plot a great deal!