Later on, everything was resolved for now and everyone was now watching the baseball game that night.
"Cerise, wake up, it's time for baseball." Forte gently shook his wife awake.
Cherry groaned and slapped the top of his head like he was an alarm clock.
"Cerise, wake up." Forte said.
Cherry turned over, not wanting to deal with him right now.
"Oh, brother." Forte groaned.
'A very chaotic day for Japan to be sure and we're still receiving reports from the various prefectures,' The TV reporters announced. 'Similar problems are reported throughout the world; all caused by the spontaneous generation of accounts and the subsequent system errors that would occur. However, some technology experts remain adamant that the unauthorized use of OZ accounts is technologically impossible. We're pressed to provide anther explanation for OZ's current trouble. It's day ten of this year's Nagano High School Baseball Tournament. A week and a half into the action and we've already seen some players-'
'This going to be intense.' Emi thought to herself.
"Quiet!" Yumi soon yelled out. "We're gonna find out!"
'After an absolute slugfest between Ueda High and Saku Chousei for a slot in tomorrow's finals, a winner finally emerged,' The TV soon announced. 'Congratulations go out to Ueda High!'
"Wahoo!" Emi cheered.
"He allows 30 hits and they win? Amazing!" Yorihiko added.
"You know, when he thinks he's gonna lose, it's written all over his face." Katsuhiko commented.
"Like father, like son." Kunihiko added.
"He sure is an amazing baseball player." Atticus smiled.
"Natsuki, when are your parents getting here?" Mo asked the dark-haired girl.
"Well, Dad's pulling an all-nighter fixing the water pipes and Mom's still in Saitama," Natsuki explained. "She ended up crashing at a business hotel."
"That's nice." Mo smiled.
"Good thing they're okay." Yorihiko added in agreement.
"With what's been going on, it's good to know that their alright." Tony said.
"Y'know, if Granny hadn't called everybody up and raised a little hell, things would've been a lot crazier out there today," Kunihiko commented. "Ain't that right, Granny?"
"Raised a little hell?" Sakae replied. "I don't know what you mean."
"Suuure!" Katsuhiko smirked.
"She sure is tough." Mo said.
"No other grandma's that awesome." Kunihiko replied.
"Best one in Japan!" Katsuhiko added.
"True that." Forte nodded.
Cherry gave him an odd glance for that response.
"Silly boy," Sakae smirked until Kenji and Akito came to see her. "Kenji, Akito, I heard that you two worked especially hard today."
"Huh? Not really, no!" Kenji replied anxiously.
"Maybe a little." Akito smiled sheepishly.
"Natsuki's boyfriend helped out with you, Kito?" Atticus asked.
"He's not her boyfriend!" Shota snapped.
"Apparently they fixed the problem with OZ." Mo said.
"They sure are more advanced than average high school boys." Cherry smirked to her nephew's accomplishment with his new friend.
"They are exceptional in Math." Forte added.
"Way to go, Akito and Boyfriend!" The Jinnouchi's approved.
"Kenji isn't Natsuki's boyfriend!" Shota snapped again.
"Neither are you, Shota, so chill out." Cherry purred with a smirk like a sneaky cat.
This caused everyone to laugh, but then Akito and Kenji looked at the news on TV.
'And more on the National XXX, concerning the issue plagued OZ,' The TV soon announced. 'Although OZ is up and running again, the inconvenience continues for at least two million users across Japan whose online accounts have been rendered unusable. The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications is advising against OZ use until the source of this problem has been found and dealt with.'
"It's because of Love Machine." Akito said.
Everyone looked curious of the term.
"It's an account-stealing AI." Akito told them.
Kazuma soon showed all of them what it looked like online.
"That's one mean looking avatar." One said.
"No question that one's a bad apple." Another added.
"This thing caused all that trouble today?" Someone asked.
"The news shows aren't mentioning him." Mansuke commented.
"It's only a matter of time, Sensei." Kazuma said.
"The online world is huge, and people who've seen him are starting to band together," Marc commented before suggested. "If we can work as a team and pool our info, we should be able to beat him."
"That's very kumbaya, but it's not gonna work." Wabisuke replied.
"Oh, and why's that?" Lee glared.
"Fair question," Wabisuke replied. "Well, because... Love Machine was programmed by me."
This shocked everyone except for the ones that had found out before anyone else had.
"You created Love Machine?" Kazuma asked.
"Yeah, I developed an AI, tailor made for hacking." Wabisuke nodded.
Love Machine is soon shown beating more avatars.
"Really what I did was very simple," Wabisuke explained everything then. "I infused a program with the desire to learn. It has a Major Jones for knowledge. Then the military brass dropped in and offered to buy it for some serious coin, provided I let them give it a test run. I never figured they'd use OZ as their Petri dish. The results are pretty damn amazing. It's operating on encoded instinct, gathering information and user privileges around the globe. Love Machine's as strong as a million man army now. See? that's why you can't defeat it."
"Do you have any idea of how much trouble this AI has caused?!" Lee glared.
"Or how much damage you've done to our society?" Marc added.
"I'm innocent," Wabisuke shrugged. "If you're mad, go yell at Love Machine."
Hercules tightened his fists as he was enraged with how calm Wabisuke was being. "It's your creation and it's putting people's lives in danger!" he then growled.
"It's like I'm talking to a wall," Wabisuke replied before trying to explain. "Look, the AI-"
"You can talk your way out of this all you want, but you're still a scoundrel!" Hercules snapped.
"Hercules, please, calm down." Connie frowned as she tried to hold back her son.
Hercules growled and folded his arms as he soon settled down for his mother.
"Just don't pretend all of this shit isn't your fault." Akito mumbled.
"AKITO!" Mo scolded.
"I'm sorry, Mom, but this is all his fault; if he hadn't created that stupid AI, then none of this chaos would be happening!" Akito glared.
"Look you idiot, listen to me! How many times do I have to say it!?" Wabisuke glared back. "I only developed the damn thing, it isn't like I told it what to do!"
"That's bull-" Vincent was about to curse himself.
"Stop fighting and no cursing!" Mo got angry about her children saying such profanity.
Vincent decided to not continue his sentence.
"Wabisuke..." Sakae said.
"What's going on?" Cherry asked with a groan as she tried to shake off her hangover.
"Shh!" Atticus shushed her so they could see what was going to happen.
"Okay, okay." Cherry groaned.
"Granny, you understand, don't you?" Wabisuke told Sakae before showing an article. "Sorry for all the trouble, honest. These last couple of years I've been working hard, because I wanted to come back home and have you be proud. Read it. See, Granny? The US Army decided to buy Love Machine. We'll have money again, like when Gramps was alive, but even more. And I never could have done it without you. After all, that money you gave me funded my project every step of the way."
'I just know that Sakae is going to grab one of the weapons.' Atticus thought to himself.
Sakae then did just that, and where this surprised everyone.
"Mother!" Mariko called out.
Wabisuke soon started to back away, scared of Sakae as she was attacking him with the weapon she had.
"Mother!" Mariko called out.
"Look out!" Natsuki panicked.
Everyone got out of Sakae's way as she made her way to Wabisuke.
"On your feet, and die like a man!" Sakae demanded.
"I never should have come back here." Wabisuke sighed. He then soon got up and left the house.
"Uncle!" Natsuki cried out.
"Natsuki, just let him go." Mo said.
"All right, everybody," Sakae warned the others. "Our family tends to its own messes and this one is no different."
Natsuki felt so overwhelmed that she decided to leave.
Atlas and his family, as well as the Fudo family and the Forte family, the Clark siblings, and Emi helped the Jinnouchi family with the mess.
"These legs of mine used to be a lot more cooperative back in the day." Sakae frowned.
"Uh, maybe you overdid it a little." Alexandrite helped in any way that she could.
"Yeah." Hercules said.
"Oh, thank you, kids." Sakae told the siblings.
Kenji soon came in to check on Sakae. He decided to do some cleaning in order to get on the good side and to help the old woman out. Sakae soon got out the Koi-Koi cards out.
"Koi-Koi." Alexandrite smiled.
"Tell me, have either of you ever played Hanafuda?" Sakae smiled. "In years past, we always used to play as a family. But now everyone's so spread out and busy with their own lives."
"Not really, ma'am, but I think Kenji would like to play Hanafuda with you." Hercules said.
"Very well," Sakae nodded and looked to Kenji. "You can go first."
"Okay." Kenji accepted.
Alexandrite and Hercules both sat and watched them play. Bunny and Muscles decided to also watch. Bunny in Alexandrite's lap and Muscles on Hercules's back.
"And I'm sorry you had to endure a little family drama earlier." Sakae then said to Kenji.
"It's fine." Kenji said as he placed one of the cards from his hand on the board.
"And Natsuki's foolishness, honestly." Sakae continued as they played their game.
"Koi-Koi, ma'am." Kenji said as he placed a card on the board.
"Very good." Sakae approved.
"Thank you very much." Kenji smiled to her.
"So if I should win, what do I get for my troubles?" Sakae soon smirked.
"Huh?" Kenji asked out of confusion.
"I guess he never thought of that, ma'am." Hercules said.
"Doesn't pack much of punch, if you don't make a wager." Sakae smirked.
"What if he wins, he promises to take good care of Natsuki?" Alexandrite suggested.
"Well, I was actually going to let that be my wager if I won, but that works too." Sakae shrugged.
Alexandrite smiled sheepishly at her response as Sakae and Kenji played their game together.
"Oh, look! Koi-Koi! Here it is." Sakae noticed.
Hercules and Alexandrite soon stayed silent so Sakae could say what she needed to say.
"f I beat you at Hanafuda, you swear to take good care of Natsuki," Sakae told the boy. "She's the kind of silly goose who'd rope some nice boy into being her pretend fiancé . But if you could look beyond that, I'll ask you again. Please, Kenji, take good care of Natsuki."
"I don't... Really believe in myself..." Kenji stammered. "You should change your bet."
"I know you can do it, Kenji." Sakae smiled.
Bunny also smiled cutely to Kenji to help lift his spirits.
"I'll try, ma'am, that's as best as I can do." Kenji told Sakae.
"Aww, Bunny likes you." Alexandrite giggled as she hugged her Buneary who smiled to the sky math genius boy.
Kenji smiled to the Buneary as he played against Sakae to see who would win this round, and where it seemed Sakae won as she got a card that had a sun rise image on it.
"Looks like I've still got it," Sakae chuckled before looking to the ex-circus performers. "So, where are your boyfriend and girlfriend?"
This question made Alexandrite and Hercules blush and stammer in response.
"Um, well..." Alexandrite muttered.
"You see, uh..." Hercules stuttered.
"Yes?" Sakae asked.
"Well, my father says I'm too young to have a boyfriend." Alexandrite spoke up while Hercules still seemed stuck on his words.
"You two don't have to tell me if you don't want to." Sakae said.
Later on...
The teenagers let their Pokemon out and about, mostly because Tony wanted to see them up close again.
"Oh, Teddy..." Estelle hugged her Ursaring.
"Teddy?" Tony scoffed.
Teddy soon growled at Tony. Tony gulped nervously and backed up from the fully grown Ursaring which was a lot like a grizzly bear like when Akito, Estelle, Vincent, and Felicity met Kenai after he was turned into a Kodiak. Teddy nodded firmly to him before nuzzling up to Estelle.
"You're my special boy, yes, you are~" Estelle cooed.
"Uh, V-Vincent, can I pet Ninetails?" Tony asked.
"Tha okay with you?" Vincent asked his primary Pokemon.
Ninetails merely shrugged.
"Go ahead." Vincent then told Tony.
Tony soon gently pet Ninetails. "Ooh, feels so soft." He smiled.
Ninetails smiled back as he loved the petting. Soon enough, it was time for everyone to go to bed.