Artie, who was awakened by the push, slowly blinked his cute little eyes as he looked around in a daze. Seeing the awakened Artie, Xiao Ai immediately leaped towards him and gave him a bun hug.
"Brother, you're ok!" Xiao Ai exclaimed tearfully. "Tell me what happened to Mama."
Artie nodded mechanically before responding in a sad tone. "I was too weak to protect Mama. When the bad guys came, I had to shut everything down to protect us but even then, Mama got hit one time while protecting me."
"Why is Mama not awake yet?" Xiao Ai asked Artie who would know Aida's conditions best since they operated as one unit.
"She needs to self heal her consciousness before she will wake up."
"Is there any damage?" asked Xiao Ai anxiously.
"Unknown." Artie looked toward the grown sadly, clearly at a loss on what to do.
Seeing this, Xiao Ai snapped out of her anger and sadness as she realized that she now had a younger brother to protect both physically and psychologically.
She floated to the sad robot and said, "Don't worry. Mama won't get defeated so easily. Right now, we need to stay strong and defeat those bad guys so they can't hurt Mama again!"
Hearing this, Artie finally looked up from the ground and nodded resolutely, "Mama will be fine. Let's go hit bad guys."
They began tracking the trail from where the virus came from. Xiao Ai also popped out of the virtual world to bring Ace into the operations as well. The three of them had on vengeful expressions as they began their counterattack. Their first step was to create an absolute barrier around Aida's consciousness to ensure that no one or thing would be able to touch or attack her. They would only be able to do whatever they wanted if they knew Aida was safe. After that, they began arranging roles.
Ace sat before his monitor and began typing furiously into the computer again, disregarding his surroundings. On the side, Enyo and a few of his subordinates watched him and the bun in shock. Enyo hadn't realized that Aida had an additional steamed bun companion who seemed to be as capable on a computer as Ace. This came as a great shock since Ace had grown his reputation as the number one hacker in the entire world!
Ignoring the stares, the three of them worked in tandem to trap the enemy. Artie acted as bait while Xiao Ai followed the virus back to the source. Meanwhile, Ace tracked their progress while working on a separate program that would send a deadly virus to their enemies.
While Xiao Ai was a fantastic programmer, she had very limited experience with human nature and wasn't knowledgeable to create the maximum amount of damage. In contrast, Ace had been immersed in this world for years and knew the ins and outs of all organizations. He knew exactly what to do to cripple their systems and rip out their life lines.
It didn't take long for the virus to come back on the offense again. In the virtual space, the virus is depicted as a purple tentacle monster. Artie shuffled back slightly in fear. Noticing this, Xiao Ai patted him on the shoulder and reassured him. "Don't worry brother! I won't let it hurt you."
Nodding tentatively, Artie stopped shuffling back and watched as the purple tentacle shot straight towards him. He knew if it touched him, parts of his code would be erased and who knew what he could forget. Just as it was about to touch him, a glass orb appeared around him, preventing the tentacle from touching him.
He secretly sighed in relief before pausing and thinking, 'Why am I sighing?' The silly robot child was momentarily puzzled by his own human-like reaction.
Seeing the initial attack fail, the virus appeared disgruntled as it sent many more tentacles his way. Soon, the entire orb was covered in tentacles. Despite this, none were able to touch him at all.
Xiao Ai nodded in approval before shouting to him, "Brother, Xiao Ai will go now! If you are in trouble, just shout out and doggy should be able to help you!" From this, it could be seen that despite Ace's current situation, she still had a lot of faith in him.
She quietly scuttled towards the virus, attempting to find where it originated. During this time, she took numerous twists and turns as the location bounced around the world. After running around the world three times, she finally found the origins of the virus. Turns out, it was back at the coast of City A!
Confirming the location, she ran back to where Ace and the others were and returned to the real world. Bouncing towards Ace, she asked, "Is it ready? Xiao Ai wants to kill kill kill!!"
Clearly Xiao Ai was still in evil bun mode. Her predilection for killing came as no surprise given that Aida was her main role model, and the latter really enjoyed killing and getting revenge particularly when she entered a certain mode.
Ace nodded his head with a serious look on his face. He looked unusually handsome and alluring as he worked, it's too bad Aida was unconscious and missed this. On the side, Enyo's heart skipped a beat as she saw his rare serious, working side. This was the expression that led to her pledging loyalty to him.
Xiao Ai peered over his shoulder and reviewed his code. She made a few comments and included some interesting traps. Ace nodded in appreciation and made the necessary edits. Soon, they had a well packaged and properly hidden virus to gift to their enemies.
Taking it, Xiao Ai returned to the virtual world and showed Artie the "gift." Seeing it, Artie couldn't help but shudder and back away. The virus they had created was a natural nemesis for an artificial intelligence system like him.