Meanwhile, Aida's group walked towards the car. As they approached, they noticed there was someone in the car, rummaging through their items. Aida walked silently over, curious to see who would go through their car.
To her surprise, it was a teenage boy around 17 years old. He was clearly part of the slums as he wore clothes that were dirty and torn in many places. As he turned around, she saw that his face was extremely sallow from lack of food but it was pronounced.
Xiao Ai called out in surprise, "Ah! Mama it's that boy again! He's the one who stole our food last night."
Hearing this, Aida was incensed, "Stop right there!"
Rose created an ice wall, attempting to block the boy in. The boy had already begun making his escape. He quickly slipped out of the car and began running away. To Aida's surprise, he was quite tall but skinny from malnourishment. His face was angular and unique. A random thought popped into her mind, 'He could've been a model before the outbreak.'
Shaking the thought out of her head, she chased after him with Little White carrying Rose to keep up. The boy was extremely familiar with running away. He purposely ran through cars and walls to create obstacles to slow them down.
This wasn't able to deter their group though. Little White could instantaneously travel at the speed of light for short spurts even while carrying Rose. Aida looked like a parkour queen as she scaled walls and other obstacles at breakneck speeds. Xiao Ai aimed lightning at him to numb and slow him down. They always seemed about to catch up with him, but then they would just miss him by a little bit.
In truth, Aida could actually catch him if she used her full power, but she didn't want to hurt the boy so it put her at a disadvantage. She simply wanted to scold him a little bit as punishment for taking their food.
Soon, they had made a full lap around the base without successfully catching him. She shouted at him in annoyance, "Return me my food!!"
The boy reappeared again, but just to stick his tongue out to laugh at Aida and the others. He then waved at him before disappearing through another building.
"AHHH" Everyone in Aida's group was angry but helpless facing this situation. They wanted revenge, but had no intention of actually hurting a little boy who clearly lived in the slums.
After voicing her frustration, she angrily turned around and went back to the car. She muttered under her breath, "Just you wait. When I become the base leader, my first order is to hunt you down and give you a good beating to remind you about good moral behavior. Such a rude little boy."
They drove off into the nearby city to acquire some food for everyone to eat. She muttered the entire way about injustice and being wronged. Xiao Ai, who had returned to bun form, treated the entire situation like a fun game. While she truly did enjoy eating food ever since she acquired this bun form, she still wasn't nearly as big a foodie as Aida was. Little White didn't even eat food so he just sat there blankly, confused about the situation.
Clearly, their entire group was relaxed and unconcerned about the upcoming battle with the leader. Rose was sitting quietly at the back of the car, clearly thinking deeply about something. Her doll like face was conflicted which caused her eyebrows to furrow slightly.
As they reached the nearby residential area, Aida and Rose got off to forage through the kitchen while Xiao Ai and Little White went to clear out the nearby area. In the first home they entered, Aida found some dumplings and frozen fruit in the freezer.
"Lucky~" she called out. Taking them out, she began to hunt for kitchen appliances to use.
Rose silently took the initiative to cook the dumplings. Aida's dangerous cooking had become notorious in the group. Before the outbreak when she was living with her father, she had to cook on occasion so generally understood the basics. Light and Yukio had also taken time to teach her more techniques about cooking and even referred her to a good Youtube channel, so she had slowly grown more adept.
Aida looked appreciatively towards Rose. This adopted daughter was the most adorable child ever. She gave Rose a quick hug before going off to find a blender for the fruits. They could finally have a smoothie. This was at least something that she couldn't mess up….. Probably?
As she waited for Rose to finish making the food, she had Artie send a message to the secret chatroom that Ace had set up for their group to communicate in. She just sent a note saying that all was well. The messages were left intentionally vague so that even if someone else were to access or stumble upon the site, it wouldn't be useful for them.
The food was quickly prepared and they all sat down to eat. Xiao Ai thought, "Eh~ I've never had dumplings before."
Aida shook her head and laughed, "What are you saying? These are practically your cousins! You just have thick skin while they have thin skin." [1]
"Muu Mama's a bully," pouted Xiao Ai before consuming three more dumplings.
On the side, Rose could be seen staring at her plate listlessly. This was extremely atypical behavior from her. She usually treasured food nearly as much as Aida. Having lived a life where food was extremely meager, she knew just how scary it was to not have food which is why she savored every opportunity she had to consume food. Yet, today she was acting abnormally as she pushed her food around the plate without actually eating any.
"What's wrong?" asked Aida.
Rose looked up with conflicted and hesitant eyes before bringing out a tablet from her bag to explain. She began typing slowly onto the device as Aida and the others waited patiently. She made a mental note to herself to get Rose a brain computer interface so that she could communicate more quickly and effectively in the future. She didn't want her voice to be stifled just because of her inability to speak even if it's for the short term.
[1] Buns and dumplings both have an inner filling of meat and vegetables. The only difference between the two is that buns use bread as the wrapper while dumplings use a thin layer typically made of water and flour.