The Legend Thief - Part 5: The Cure

Chapter 17: How to Face Your Fears

The friends left the restaurant. Raichu spoke up, "Now what?"

Shelly pointed up, and said, "I think we should rest. Then we can begin tomorrow anew."

"But where are we going to sleep?" Quinci said, "It's dark already and I don't want to walk all the way to the river to set up the Da Huang Ya."

"Uhhh," Shell said, "Oh! How 'bout we sleep at my relatives' apartment?"

"Where do they live?" Bell asked. Shell pointed to a nearby tower.

"But will there be enough space?" Raichu was skeptical.

"Plus, isn't it kinda rude...?" Pichu added, being Protego-y and all.

"There is definitely enough space," Shell answered, "It's like, three apartments. Two are in the tower I pointed to, and one in another. And yeah... about the rude thing..." Shelly took out her phone and opened up YouChat. In the family chat, she typed, "Wo men qu zhong guo de shi hou, neng bu neng zai ni men de jia zhu yi wan shang? (When we go to China, can we stay at your house for a while)?"

Responses quickly came. "Dang ran! (Of course!)" "Ke yi (ok)" "Bei dan xing (don't worry)"

"See," Shelly said, "It's fine."

"Uhhh," Bell said, "I don't think so..." She pointed to the screen, where Blanche was furiously typing in Chinese.

"Zai jian! (Bye!)" Shelly quickly typed, and shoved her phone into her pocket.

So, the seven friends began to walk toward the towers. They reached a crossing in the road, and Shelly pushed her friends back, "Be careful!"

"Why?.." Quinci said.

"Here, no one pays attention to the lights. So you have to be super careful when you cross the street." Shell explained.

"Ughhhh that's so hard," Bell whined. "BUT I PLAY CROSSY ROAD! SO I CAN DO IT!"

"Hey! I know!" Raichu held out his hand and shot a bolt of lightning at a few cars. The vehicles suddenly stopped, and so did the cars behind them.

"WHAT?! YOU CAN'T DO THAT!" Shelly cried. But Raichu was already running across the street.

As he made it to the middle, he yelled to the friends, "Come on! The malfunction will be fixed in a few seconds!"

The friends scurried to cross the street. Bell said, "We have 3.2605872 more seconds left!" The friends quickly jumped onto the curb, with Rudia making the final leap.

The cars started again, the lights and humming returning. Shelly cringed as some of the drivers swore, but brushed it off as usual.

The friends followed Shell through a thin alleyway, to reveal a worn down park. There was a shallow pool with graceful statues, worn by age. Further in the back was a series of short roof held up by vine-covered pillars. A plastic playset with colors faded still had children playing on it, where they yelled battle cries.

"Oooh!" Shelly said, nostalgia sweeping over her, "That's the slide my sister and I climbed on... even if it was against the rule! And look, that Go table is where I played with Nai Nai! And the swing over there was wh--"

"Okaay!" Bell said, "Tell us this later."

"Sorry," Shell said, and then turned around. The friends followed her, and looked at the building behind them. Shell said, "This is the apartment. Come on, let's go."

So the friends entered the gray, boring building, and took the elevator up. When they reached the correct level, Shell swerved left. There were two doors, and Shell knocked the one on the right first.

The door eventually opened, to reveal a oldish-middle age woman.

"Ni hao!" Shelly said.

"Yoyo?!" the woman said.

The two hugged, and Shelly explained, "This is my aunt, Gu Gu."

"Yoyo?" Bell laughed, "Hahahahaha!" Shelly wanted to strangle her, but refrained from doing so. Instead, she had a quick conversation with her aunt, explaining what had happened. (Actually, Shell had already strangled Bell in P.E. class, so...)

"Ok," Shell said, turning back to her friends, "We can stay at her place tonight, some of us can stay in this apartment. The rest of us can go to that place." Shelly pointed to the other door.

"Okay," Ravisu said as she walked away. "Girls in this room, boy in that room."

"Ummm," Raichu said, "I don't want to sleep alone! I'm afraid of the dark! And spiders! And what if some robber breaks in and kills me??!?!"

"Who would want to murder you?" Pichu asked, "Not really worth anything if you ask me..."

"Don't worry," Bell said. "You can just electrocute them."

"But that would be so inHUMANe of me!!!" Raichu cried. Shelly facepalmed.

"The best way to get rid of your fear is to face it, because when you're dead, you can't be scared anymore!" Bell explained (abnormally good at making funny lines).