“Unless your company has been acquired by SPIRIT, I highly doubt that it has been made by the same people,” Richard replied to Wolf leisurely as he sat back into his seat, arms folded across his chest. Somewhere in his body, a spark lit up a flame of competition. He may not be the fastest, but he will do more damage, psychologically and physically, no matter how fast the bastard was. The next thing to happen took Richard back a little, but had little more effect than causing the Englishman to widen his eyes a little before scratching his chin. He knew that SPIRIT, along with the Japanese Nihonmaru company was looking into the new technology, and GHOUL was already looking for a way to use it to their advantage, after all, it was a direct delivery system to the brain, and they could hardly pass this up, even with the Terran Commission scoping them out for overt cruelty. Both integration and direct neural hacking were on the table. “Interesting toy,” Richard said as he stared levelly at the rubber cap, “let’s see if it actually helps on the battlefield.”

The Russian girl was next, detailing that her suit was more of a slow, heavy creature, which surprised Richard who was used to seeing girls in more…manoeuvrable machines, despite how sexist that may sound. In fact, Thessalia and this one were the only ones to break the mould so far. “That’s good to know,” Richard said, a small smirk tweaking the corner of his mouth, “always nice to have people who know how to work their machines.” It came out a little teasingly, but after seeing Karl in action, he meant it seriously. An awkward silence passed as they all sat in silence, and Richard was aware of Jack tapping his foot nervously. “Let’s get off the topic of combat for a second,” Richard said, if only to break the ocean of silence that had settled over them. “What do you people like to do…outside of military restrictions? I myself am a martial artist, as well as a passable chef. I am aware Thessalia enjoys literature, but I never really asked this before, and I actually am quite interested, after all, if we are to be teammates, we’d better actually learn what we all like….” He neglected to add the ‘Unlike last time’, but Thessalia and Jack knew what he meant.