Chapter 14: Meeting Giotto

"Tony Stark… "

The first to speak was Tanya who had an annoyed look on her face as she spoke.

"As much as his words of pulling back from the military industry made me look at him differently. If his words ever reflected in reality, then the only ones losing would be us- all of us"

Tanya's words made all the women sigh helplessly. In the end they were just wallflowers acting out the role of CEO. They were able to take in the pressure and they did their best to uphold their position.

For example, MJ took a crash course in management and even did her own research on how to effectively manage a large corporation.

She was learning on the job and improving by the day, this was true for all of them. But even with that, no matter how great they end up in the management and business department they still face a major problem.

All of these leaders, Emma included, lacked the technical ability to continuously create new innovations. Even if they did have the ability, they did not have the chance to improve on it.

Tony Stark has been an innovator since he was studying in college, he just returned from being kidnapped and he wanted to shut down Stark Industries Military Division.

Doing so would cause Stark Industries stocks to drop but this posed a problem to them as this was the moment for Tony Stark to expand to other fields.

With a loss of income in the military industry, Tony would have to look for other markets to capitalize on. These women studied business and entrepreneurship, learned on the job and had a good idea on the impacts of Tony's actions.

"Currently Stark Industries have the Arc Reactor, it is currently in the experimental stage and could not be fully utilized for energy production. Given the information we have, our solar cells are leagues ahead of any technology, so are our batteries… in the field of energy, give us a few months and we would be a big player, a few years and we would build an empire…"

The one who spoke was MJ, she didn't bring with her a stack of papers. She did not read notes, she had lived the life of a CEO completely at this point and now she was acting like it. She worked day in and day out to ensure the company succeeds and she knew that her company would be the first to lay the foundation of their movement.

But she was not the only one, the others understood her words and sighed when MJ stopped talking.

This time Gwen Stacy was the one to interject as she added.

"But with the presence of Tony Stark, not only would we have a competitor, we would also have an enemy who could reverse engineer our technology, improve on it and make it his own."

Hearing her words MJ and Tanya sighed, the first to be affected, if ever, would be their companies. But while the two were dejected, Felicia countered. The first of them to propose a counter-argument.

"Well that would be the case if Tony Stark was the CEO of Stark Industries, but last I heard, control was in the hands of Obadiah Stane and Pepper Potts"

But to her words, MJ responded saying-

"That doesn't change the fact that Tony still produces technology for Stark Industries. He could easily replicate our technology or even make his own that is better. While we could only watch helplessly as he took over the market we started."

Her response made Felicia sigh helplessly as she replied.

"You're worried for nothing MJ, Tony Stark is prideful, he would not take our technology and improve on it. In fact, he might make his own but he would not be able to compete with us in the short run-"

As she spoke Felicia tapped on the table, this caused a holographic display to appear before all five women. None of them were shocked as this was a technology they were all, pretty much used to at this point. 

Felicia waited for each of the four women to read through the data before she continued.

"Technically, with the help of VEDA and our dear sponsor, Mr. Giovanni, we could outcompete Stark. Though, if he does replicate our technology, VEDA has predicted that his release of such tech would take at best, 3 months. Of course VEDA predicted replication to take a good 4 days but actual production, such as preparation of the facilities and preparations for market release would halt release to at least 3 months-"

As she spoke a sly grin appeared on her lips, Felicia looked around with a playful expression on her face before she added-

"That is not factoring any possible logistic problems incurred during transportation of materials, industry attacks such as hacks, release of experimental data and general sabotage… well I do hope he does not experience the same shit we had to go through but if he does… hopefully he has a powerful defense system in place."

Felicia's words made all the four women look at her with helpless expression as they let out disgruntled sighs. Looking at her friends' expressions, Felicia let out a small chuckle as she spoke.

"I mean, we were targeted in such a way, but we have VEDA so we did not have to worry that much. But Tony's a different topic altogether… though we could offer our help and have VEDA protect him if he does face such problems."

Her words were filled with various dubious plans but the four women could only look at Felicia and sigh in their hearts. They all were given companies to manage and not all of them started out liking their new jobs.

That was, save for some like Tanya and Felicia, these two loved the companies they were in and were quick to adapt. 

But between the two, differences were still present, especially for Felicia who used the data company to find out dirt on people.

Most of the development and actions of Innovades was led by VEDA. Felicia only appeared when meetings had to be held with other companies and when an appearance to the human workforce was needed.

With this kind of set-up Felicia was able to learn a lot about the secret life of many famous people. There were a lot of times where she would talk with the others and bring up information on certain celebrities.

In fact, Felicia was the one who first used the holographic display as she learned from VEDA that Emma had it installed in her office.

"Felicia, as smart as your plan is… we don't want to make Stark our enemy."

Emma was the one who spoke against Felicia as she decisively refuted her proposal. Her words made Felicia react though as she never thought that Emma would hesitate in attacking others. Especially those that threatened her plans, which led to Felicia smiling mischievously as she teased Emma.

"Oh no! It can't be that our dear Emma Frost has fallen for Tony Stark's charms! I mean, well he is a playboy but I guess after all that he's been through he probably has a more veteran daddy aura-"

As Felicia was teasing Emma, she suddenly stopped when she saw Emma's gaze turned dark.

She let out a chuckle as she waved her hands saying-

"It's just a joke, a joke! I mean… if you had someone like Mr. Giovanni, how would you even think of looking for an old man like Tony Stark?"

Hearing her words, Emma calmed down as she let out a breath before speaking.

"I know it sounds counter productive but, Giotto- Giovanni has decided to work with Tony Stark. We don't need to take down a business partner, in fact you should try to make VEDA predict what would happen should we work with Tony Stark instead of the scenario of us being in conflict."

Emma's words made all four women frown as a question came to their minds.

"But then, why did we have to talk about Tony Stark's matter?"

The one who asked was MJ who quickly realized that their meeting may have been a waste of time if the plan to handle Tony Stark was already in place.

But to her words, Emma swiped her hand on the hologram which showed a video that all four women were shocked to see.

In the video a gray robot with glowing eyes and a glowing circle on its chest walked through a valley. It was being shot at by what appeared to be terrorists as the robot retaliated by shooting flames towards its opponents.

Fire, explosion and screams were heard and the four women felt their stomachs churn when they saw a human limb fly across the screen.

Then the sound of rockets was heard and the huge gray robot flew. The camera seemed to be flying as it followed the robot which only flew for a few miles before dropping on the sand breaking into a million pieces.

What was shocking though was that from the robot appeared a heavily injured and messy Tony Stark.

Unlike his appearance in public, Tony in the video was wearing a ripped tank top that turned brown due to dirt. A pair of dirty old cargo pants and his whole body was covered head to toe in dirt. His hair was in a mess which was not because of the crash but because it had not been washed in days, maybe even weeks.

The four women looked at the video which ended with Tony getting up and walking away from the crash site.

After the video ended, all four women were speechless as they did not know how to react to such a video.

More than Tony Stark killing his way out of captivity they were also surprised that the pampered billionaire could live normally after going through what he had gone through.

"As you can see, Tony Stark had created a weapon in captivity, based on VEDA's analysis, the glowing thing on his chest was most probably-"

Emma was explaining, but as she spoke MJ suddenly cut in saying-

"A miniature arc reactor"

Her words made all the remaining three women pause, the fact that Tony Stark was able to create a miniature arc reactor in captivity showed two things.

One, the man was a genius who could turn scrap into gold and two, the progress of the arc reactor experiment should shoot up in the next few months which also means-

"The projection on Tony Stark's actions and the competition would be void…"

Felicia said with a sour expression on her face. The revelation of Tony's actions may have not caused others to think the same way as the five women but these people were all in the same mind.

To promote Celestial Enterprises and to build an empire as tech giants. Their thoughts had long been focused on the future and although they still thought in the present. They had already molded their minds to assess potential risks and benefits, especially when analyzing information on possible competitors.

"Don't worry, I know what you saw is crazy and Tony Stark's ability should have made you all waver. But! The reason I want to talk about Tony is precisely this, to show you the potential of our competitors. Now though I ask you, do you want to continue this struggle or do you want to quit?"

Emma asked them, right now, Emma found a good way to bring all her sisters completely into the picture.

At first she was hesitating as Giotto's plans were too big and her sisters may get scared. Even if they saw that it was possible and it was not all pipe dreams. They would still give up in fear of the weight that would be saddled on their shoulders.

'Now they are already partially in the mix, they could give up but they would hesitate given all that they have done up to now'

Emma thought she knew that her actions were in a way manipulation but to her she had to do this. 

Her sisters were people she wanted to bring with her to success but they also had their own dreams. 

As much as she wanted to support those dreams, she could not help but worry that they would become targets of her enemies in the future.

MJ for example wanted to become an actress, her connection to Emma was strong and it was known by many that they were close friends. If Emma starts to become a big name with Celestial Enterprises, there would be no end to the people trying to use MJ to force Emma down a peg.

She knew what she was doing and understood that her actions were bad. But she also knew that she had to protect them. 

Hearing her words, all four women paused for a moment, they looked at each other and after a brief exchange of glances nodded together. After which they turned towards Emma, their gazes firm and without any words, Emma understood their answer.

"I see, well then, from this moment on I will show you the true capabilities of Celestial Being and… the Vongola"

The four women were shocked, not because of Emma hiding the power of Celestial being. In fact they already had an idea that Emma was hiding something.

Aside from the fact that a lot of their raw materials sources were hard to trace, VEDA on its own was something that they could not truly imagine how it works.

Moreover, the mysterious Giotto Giovanni, who, in public appeared like a true hedonistic young master, was actually the major sponsor of Celestial Being. Which meant that a lot of the technology and power of Celestial Being, actually came from him.

These various questions already existed in their minds and they were expecting to find answers but the name Vongola confused them.

"Vongola… isn't that the construction company that is doing all the refurbishing in our buildings and factories?"

The one who asked was MJ, she was familiar with Vongola as it was a name that stuck out to her. But the company appeared to be laying low and traces of it were hard to track. She wanted to use VEDA but all the information she got was simple and nothing too stellar. 

But as Emma spoke about the company a realization hit her-

"Wait! Vongola… Vongola Enterprises! They are the-"

MJ was about to say her realizations when the door to the room opened, from there, Giotto appeared.

Unlike his usual appearance he now wore a three piece pinstripe suit. A pair of black leather gloves and his eyes… they were not the usual black but had now turned orange.

"Mr. Giovanni?"

MJ asked and Giotto, who just came in, smiled towards her as he walked towards Emma. With a smile he ignored the gazes of the four women as he stopped behind Emma before leaning in to give her a peck on the cheek.

"It seems that my beloved queen is about to bring in some new blood into the game"

He spoke while giving out a mysterious air before the whole room was suddenly flooded with green particles.

All five women had confused and shocked looks on their faces but Giotto simply smiled as the whole room glowed in bright green. The light lasted for a moment and as it faded away what was left of the room was the furniture, all six individuals disappeared leaving an empty room.