The drive to the nearest city was a couple hours. They had previously intended to avoid every city they could to expedite the process, but circumstances have changed and the weather was also getting colder. These were all factors that led to Aida making the decision to enter a city.
As they got closer to the city, everyone prepared for battle. The only person who looked unaffected was Little White who had climbed onto Aida's lap and stared out the window.
The group expected that there would inevitably be a number of battles as they got closer to the city. Enraged, Reapers and Variants were likely to be roaming around, looking for prey. With Aida's scan, they would be able to avoid the bigger dangers, but the density of humans would prevent them from avoiding everything.
Their first destination was the car dealership. They needed to get a new car before moving on. Aida's intention was to get a double decker RV that they could retrofit. That way they could live in comfort and style while on the road. She longed to sleep in a proper bed.
She already scanned multiple maps to identify the dealership that was most likely to have what she was looking for. Double decker buses that were retrofitted into RVs were extremely rare, so she looked through many sources before finally finding a dealership that was likely to have one. Driving into the city, something unexpected happened. The Enraged on the road seemed to make space for them as they drove through.
It was almost like the scene where Moses parted water. Aida watched on in surprise, but quickly realized that it was Little White's doing. He had let out a trickle of his aura which seemed to inherently suppress the Enraged, preventing them from coming near. She patted the little bun on her lap.
With Little White's help, they quickly reached the car dealership. Right at this moment something unexpected happened.
BOOOMMM, a shock ran through the jeep. Little White was startled and quickly hopped through the open window and landed agilely onto the car's roof, eyes alert. Everyone else in the car also looked around cautiously, attempting to find the source of the sound. Only Aida reacted with a giant smile on her face. Everyone's nerves were extremely taut so none of them noticed the beautiful smile, but that was probably for the better as Aida didn't like being in the spotlight.
A young voice then sounded out from within the jeep, "Mama, Mama! Xiao Ai is finally awake~ Did you miss me~~?"
Aida quickly controlled her expression and greeted Xiao AI warmly with a big hug and a kiss. "Xiao Ai! You're finally awake! How are you feeling? I missed you lots!"
"Hehe~ Xiao Ai missed Mama as well. Xiao Ai is hungry," she responded while looking down at her white steamed bun-like body.
Hearing this, Aida ignored the gawking and stares from the others and quickly hopped out of the jeep with Xiao Ai in tow. She quickly brought Xiao Ai to the nearest building and plugged Xiao Ai in, allowing her to consume as much energy as she wanted. They also had the device that Ace made for them very early on, but those wireless charging devices weren't able to feed the necessary influx of energy that they needed and so were quickly discarded.
Aida watched happily as she saw Xiao Ai energetically consume more and more electricity. She continued to grow and grow at an extremely fast rate.
Meanwhile the others outside, quickly snapped out of their stupor as they saw multiple Reapers approach. Xiao Ai's awakening had caught the attention of everyone in the vicinity so their plan to go under the radar went out the window. Little White's vibe was only able to suppress those that were at a lower level than him, so he wasn't able to prevent the Reapers from approaching.
Everyone got into battle ready position and began fighting the Reapers. There were a total of 4 Reapers that approached, so Lucifer rapidly gave out instructions on how to defend. Lucifer would fight one, Light would fight another, Ace and Yukio would hold the third one off, while Rin was in charge of distracting the last Reaper with his abilities.
Receiving their instructions, everyone set off to fight their respective opponents. They were careful to leave a good amount of distance between themselves and the Reapers to prevent any accidents from happening before they fully understood the Reaper's abilities.
Little White continued to hang back and he watched on with innocent eyes as the situation unfolded. Lucifer and Light, who were extremely well versed in fighting were beginning to gain an edge over their opponents. Rin also seemed to enjoy toying with his opponent. In contrast, Ace and Yukio were struggling with their opponent.
Yukio had sent out a set of suppressive fire, while Ace was in charge of shooting the opponent at close range. Yukio did a great job of preventing any of the Reaper's attacks from actually hitting Ace, but the shots were too weak to do any real damage to the Reaper. Unfortunately, Ace was the absolute worst at combat and ran around screaming like a headless chicken instead of shooting at the Reaper itself.
Seeing the situation, Rin ran over to assist with the second Reaper in tow as he tried to collect both their aggro. His task was only to distract the Reapers until Lucifer and Light could provide backup, so he dove in and out of the shadows.