Disclaimer: I don't own anything at all.
Chapter 11
Intermission: Corporations and Their Pet Projects
"Curse my poor planning… What time would that be in Japan again…?" muttered a brunette man in standard business attire to no one in particular. While he didn't exactly look old in the least he did look rather stressed. That he repeatedly kept checking his watch every two or three minutes as more and more finely dressed businessmen found their way past him only made this more apparent. With a sigh, he began pacing about in front of a window, not noticing or caring that his almost absurdly long ponytail occasionally ended up lightly tapping a red haired man seated on a bench near him.
"…Do you… perhaps have some other business you must attend to, Mr. Cardona?" The red haired man, Maxamilian Thermidor, drawled as the brown haired man accidentally caused his ponytail to hit him again. His question caused the other to awkwardly pause midstep.
"No, no…" said Cardona as he turned, "It's just that my son wanted to talk to me about something and I fear that if this takes too long I won't catch him before his school day starts…" The Spaniard paused, "And please, call me Alfano."
"Ah yes, that's right, you've sent Isabeau to IS academy as well didn't you?" The question was rhetorical and Alfano knew it. Not waiting for any recognition from the other Thermidor nods, knowing he's right, and continues, "I heard that he dropped another spot in the rankings. Odd, you'd think a flagship AC wouldn't be so near rock bottom."
"Yes…"Alfano merely frowns at the completely unsubtle taunt, "Apparently it inspired him to seriously climb in the ranks however and he ended up spending the entirety of the next day ranking." Noting Thermidor's inquisitive reaction Alfano smirks, "Currently he's sitting at D14. Incidentally, is that not a rank above your own sponsored Raven Shinkai?"
The Ravens and their ACs were the lifeblood of the corporations. Not only were the Ravens the Corporations' elite forces but they were also the most blatant showing of the Corporations' power. A corporation did not become great if its' Raven corps was small and weak. It simply didn't happen. It mattered not if your corporation designed an AC mounted weapon capable of eliminating an IS with a single shot, it mattered not if your corporation developed an AC that could run circles around all others, if you lacked a capable and loyal Raven your corporation was quite simply nothing but a failure and a waste of resources.
This was why corporations like Rayleonard and Arisawa Heavy Industries had become names uttered with reverence and fear throughout the world while other corporations such as MSAC International or Cougar were barely known even within the industry. Alfano's Cardona Industries had but a single Raven, the man's own son. Not only that but said raven was easily one of the lowest ranking ravens in the world with even recent recruits blowing past him with startling ease. On the contrary, some corporations like Global Armaments employed up to a dozen ravens either personally or by proxy. Other corporations such as Arisawa Heavy Industries had a handful of extremely capable ravens on their payroll. Rayleonard, put simply, had both.
While not the founder himself to many Thermidor was the face of Rayleonard Corporation. He headed the Public Relations department and was popular enough to have been voted as Canada's representative to the UN. He was also very well known as a condescending arrogant prick whom would not ever hesitate to tell someone what exactly he thought of them directly to their face.
Thermidor would've replied, likely pointing out that D14 was rather low for someone that had been a Raven as long as Isabeau had, had someone not interrupted him in a completely disinterested tone, "Cute." Both men abruptly paused at the sound of that mocking voice, "Come now, are you both going to start bickering like school children now? Maybe a little schoolyard tussle? Because that is exactly where that it looked to be going, gentlemen."
Both the men turned their heads and near simultaneously winced as they realized whom it was that had called them out. Dressed in an almost absurdly expensive 3-piece suit was Frederick Rayleonard, the well-respected founder of Rayleonard Corporation. In a fashion statement that was either amusing or intimidating depending on who your talking to at the moment the middle aged man actually wore a high collared gold trimmed black cape, like something straight out of a movie on magic and wizardry. The man himself found absolutely nothing wrong with the image at all. Were he not the man who not only created his corporation from the ground up but also the man whom designed the vast majority of his company's first generation parts, including the high performance 03-Aaliyah model AC, he'd no doubt be considered mad. But then again, could the same not be said of Tabane Shinonono?
The founder of Rayleonard gave neither of the others time to retort and continued on, "The meeting is already beginning. If you're both not too busy trying to one up each other I would most appreciate it if you wouldn't delay any longer."
Without another word he whirled around with a 'dramatic' swirl of the cape and disappeared through the doors he'd stood in front of. Neither Alfano nor Thermidor hesitated to follow him through, conversation completely forgotten. The entrance of the three men was only truly acknowledged by the elderly white haired man easily recognizable as Takafumi Arisawa. He gave no reaction however and continued paying attention to who was speaking at that moment.
"Although, I do note that he hasn't mounted any of them as of yet so I have no expectations of him joining Phantom Task." The speaker was the head of Ruined Country Weaving Corporation, Chisatsu Orimura, a women in her forties that quite frankly looked almost exactly like her far more famous daughter, Chifuyu. It wasn't exactly hard to guess whom she was referring to, even without having heard what led up to that sentence. The woman was rather well known for her willingness to go on and on about her children. A fact that was increasingly odd considering she'd supposedly abandoned two of them…
"I see." Arisawa's voice was that of an interested man. Whether sincere or fake no one could know for sure, "And what of your project? I'm sure I'm not the only one whom wishes to know of your progress."
Indeed he wasn't. Chisatsu Orimura's Autonomous AC project was easily one of the most discussed subjects amongst the corporations. Some expected it to fail miserably, others believed her success to be inevitable, and a few dreaded the results due to either the implications or chances of how greatly the balance of power would shift. Regardless of why, everyone in the room instantly began to devote their full attention to the women that had just previously been rambling on and on about how proud she was of her only son.
"Oh yes, The Project." Chisatsu coughs to clear her throat, "Progress is going better than expected. While I was initially worried that only some cores would accept the extra hardware I have found that the cores that did accept the hardware were almost all extremely capable. They are rather independent however so I tend to let them to themselves while they are not in active testing. Unfortunately, while close I am still not ready to call the project a success just yet. I'd also like to note that with the extra hardware, the subjects are… as Madoka would put it, 'disturbingly human.'"
Arisawa furrowed his brow, "…How so?"
"They're capable of more free thought than I'd thought they would be." She shrugged, "Many of them have shown themselves to be capable of 'normal' human emotion. For instance Subject 36, Genova, displayed a bout of, for lack of a better term, Berserker Fury after Subject 35, Vienna, was destroyed by a cannon round fired from a South Korean navel vessel. While Subject 36 was subsequently also lost there… wasn't much of a ship left afterwards. Or it's escorts. I was more than a little surprised it didn't go after the lifeboats as well."
Chisatsu paused for a moment, letting the others digest the implications of what she had just said. After a moment, she continued, "Such emotion is rare however. All in all, I'd say that I could have a true Autonomous AC complete within the span of two or three months. Any questions?"
For a minute no one said anything.
Then Arisawa coughed, "If there are no other questions then I shall be moving on…" The elderly businessman scanned the room with his eyes for a moment before finding the person he'd been looking for, "Frederick, glad to see you decided to join us. I had heard news that brought your health into question…"
The head of Rayleonard rolled his eyes, "Bah, takes more than tuberculosis to put me in the dirt. I assume you wish to ask of Project NEXT?" he guessed right and as Arisawa nodded in confirmation he continued on, "Very well, Project NEXT is nearing completion. The first two NEXT cores have already been developed. As they were made with my own countries IS cores I as such decided to implant them within AC Supplice and AC Orleans."
There were a few grumbles at that but no one actually went out on a limb and said anything about it. After letting them calm down for a moment Arisawa continued on to his next question, "And what of their combat capabilities?"
"There were some problems with that…" Rayleonard met Arisawa's inquisitive stare head on, "The PIC from the IS wasn't as effective for propulsion as intended, even the lightest AC is simply to heavy and it would require far more energy than I'm comfortable allocating to such a thing. As such I altered its use."
"You refer to this Primal Armor I've heard so many rumors of?"
"Yes. I won't bore you with the details so just think of it as a barrier that slows incoming projectiles and leave it at that."
Several men around the room scowled at that but otherwise said nothing. They couldn't just call Frederick out on telling them virtually nothing after all; such would make themselves look bad. While quirky, Frederick Rayleonard was a very well respected man after all.
"Moving on…"
And with two words from Arisawa the meeting continued on…
A/N: My hasn't it been awhile since I last posted a chapter of this? Of course I suppose this isn't really a chapter now is it. No Ichika at all... Seeing as I haven't touched this story in little under a month, wrote a novel, I decided to ease back into things with this. Sorry it's so short though. I actually considered adding the Dan fight onto this and making this a full chapter but I figured that that would be a tad... cheap.
