TAS Corp.

TAS Corp.

Type
Video Game Company

Owner
Derek Lucks **†**

Address
Silica City

Background information

First episode
"Wrong Warp"

Latest episode
"The End"

**TAS Corp.** was the main antagonistic faction for the first two seasons of *Meta Runner* and a posthumous antagonistic entity for the final season.
Widely recognized as a world-renowned gaming tool production company inside Silica City, the backbone of gaming society itself. The company is based around the production of gaming hardware, tools and enhancers, and is also known to be the producer of top quality cybernetic limbs to which people who own them are known as “Meta Runners.”
Underneath its clean facade, it is in actuality known for its extreme corruption, illegal experimentation and shady business dealings. With rumors of unfair contracts given to Meta Runners and are known to move forward by any means necessary; they also hire mercenaries or private military contractors to handle any illegal operations that require hired muscle.
After TASCorp's illegal activity was revealed to the public through the efforts of MD-5 and Lucks' "accidental" death at the hands of Masa, the company has gone bankrupt with all banks in Silica City rushing to sell all remaining assets and Lucks posthumously being stripped of all awards and honors while his legacy goes down in ruin, leaving all remaining employees/runners jobless and officially ending TASCorp. once and for all.

Members
Derek Lucks **†**
The founder and C.E.O. of TAS Corp; he was the main antagonist for the first two seasons of the series until his "accidental" demise. Known as a very powerful man in the city's social and economic hierarchy, he was praised as a "visionary" for supposedly inventing the Meta Runner arm that revolutionized the history of gaming. However, it was later revealed that the Meta Runner arm was actually invented by his employee, James Sheridan and all that Lucks did was steal Sheridan's credit by putting his company's logo on it.
Despite being a supposedly upstanding figure of Silica City, he is actually a very cunning and manipulative businessman who is willing to do many things, mostly illegal, in order to get what he wants through the use of his security detail and hired assistance willing to physically assault and even kidnap people under the law's radar. He is also known for cheating people out of deals, usually by offering Meta Runners unfair contracts, using blackmail and even holding things important to them hostage.
Ultimately, his greatest adversary came from his own former employee and captain of his e-sports team, Masa Shimamoto, who after being decomissioned by Lucks due to him trying to hack into his boss' private server to learn about the fate of the missing Lucinia Porter, teamed up with her younger sister Sofia Porter and another man named Lamar Williams to form MD-5 whose goal was to destroy TAS Corp by exposing its illegal activities to the public.
Despite successfully holding them off for a year and even supposedly "defeating" them after a failed attempt to leak his server's secrets online, he was ultimately exposed and had an arrest warrant issued against him immediately once the city's law enforcement learned of his hidden, depraved actions commited over the years. However, before he could be incarcerated, he was fatally shot in the head unintentionally by Masa after his arm glitched out due to a control chip secretly placed on it by Sheridan so he could murder his former employer and frame Masa for the crime. Afterwards, Lucks was posthumously stripped of all awards and honors after all of Silica City learned of how truly depraved he was with all banks rushing to sell any remaining TAS Corp assets while the company went bankrupt.

Masa Shimamoto
The first team captain of TAS Corp's main lineup of Meta Runners. Despite eventually becoming Lucks' worst enemy, he originally was his best Meta Runner due to being viewed as the "star captain" who was known for being publicized on TAS Corp billboards across Silica City, where he was especially friends with Lucinia Porter, a fellow Meta Runner who he has known for years and her girlfriend, Belle Fontiere, who was rising up in the main circuit.
However, after Lucinia mysteriously went missing, Masa eventually came to the conclusion that Lucks knew more than he was letting on and in order to learn the truth, decided to take a very risky move by attempting to hack into Lucks' private server to get answers. Unfortunately, this attempt failed and only ended with his decomissioning and having Lucks force his workers to amputate Masa's arm as further punishment to show what happens to those who cross him. Despite this, all Lucks ended up doing was strengthening Masa's belief that he was somehow connected to Lucinia's "death" and chose to go against his former employer and take down TAS Corp itself by forming his own group called MD-5 by recruiting Lucinia's sister, Sofia Porter to help him due to her extensive knowledge of Meta Runner arms and hacking. Along the way, they also recruited Lamar Williams and granted him a Meta Runner arm in order to join their cause.
For the next year, the trio would work tirelessly to take down Lucks and TAS Corp in order to "avenge" Lucinia and with Tari and Theo joining them, believed the time was right to take down Lucks but only to once again be met with failure due to Lucks revealing he used Theo as a spy without his knowledge. This failure caused Masa to believe all hope was lost and for the next six months, he hid away in the low-tier of Silica City until Sofia and Lamar revealed to him the existence of a backup server they snuck away from Lucks.
Despite his initial belief that Tari and Theo were traitors, Masa ultimately chose to instead rise up again to save them and take down Lucks once and for all by secretly cheating Marco out of a new Meta Runner arm and making indirect contact with Tari under Lucks' radar and even choosing to (begrudgingly) trust Belle after she learned the circumstances of Lucks hiding Lucinia's death. Despite many things going haywire during their assault on the new showmatch, they ultimately succeeded in leaking the TAS Corp server to the public and having an arrest warrant issued for Lucks. Unfortunately for Masa, his arm began glitching out of control against his will and despite his attempts to stop it, failed to prevent it from fatally shooting Lucks and framing him for murder which left him in a state of shock and unresponsiveness. However, the next thing he remembered after that would be waking up with Belle inside of Dr. Sheridan's private server, shocked to learn he was alive and the once who hacked his arm to kill Lucks which enraged Masa as Sheridan had framed him as a murderer.
This rage didn't last long as Sheridan proceeded to use his superior computer knowledge to pry into his brain and force him to relive terrible moments in his life to break him down as a means to control Masa with a control chip, rendering him a mindless slave. However, after seeing Evelyn Claythorne about to execute Tari, he regained his free will and fought back against her, the controlled Lucinia and Belle and even attacking Sheridan only for the latter to stab him in the neck with a screwdriver. Luckily, his life was saved by the intervention of Tari into Sheridan's server and Marco's gang appearing in time to stop Sheridan once and for all by destroying his server. After being brought back to Marco's hideout, he reunited with the rest of the gang only to learn that Tari and Theo both gave up everything to save them all. Despite the loss of their newer members, Masa chose to reinforce MD-5 as a proper team now that Lucks and Sheridan were both dealt with for good.

Belle Fontiere
The second team captain after Masa was decomissioned due to attempting to hack into Lucks' private server.

Lucinia Porter
One of Lucks' older Meta Runners and considered to be Belle's "sensei" due to teaching her everything she knew about speedrunning.

Evelyn Claythorne
A backup Meta Runner for TAS Corp who has for years hoped to be included to the main lineup along with Masa, Belle and Lucinia.

James Sheridan
One of TAS Corp's scientists, known for being the mind behind Project Blue but also the creator of both the Meta Runner arm and the artificial intelligence program, T.A.R.I.

Tari
The main protagonist of the series and the sentient Artificial Intelligence created by Dr. Sheridan for his research program, Project Blue.

TAScorp. Workers
The masked grunts of TAS Corp who obey Lucks' every order.

Trivia* The term "TAS" is an acronym for "tool-assisted speedrun", a category in the speedrunning community where players use computer aid to maximize their speed running performance.
* TASCorp's mascot, Bo, bares a slight, if not obvious, resemblance to Saiko Bichitaru from the SMG4 series.
* TASCorp seemingly is very well known and highly regarded that they have control of the police to an extent.
* The TAS Corp Server seems to be an entire different kind of ecosystem that Bo even resides in with even her own living quarters along with special kind of security and look compared to Sheridan's server.