Partner

Parutonā (パルトナー) is a high-performance airship built by Luxion for his master Leon Fou Bartfort. It is formerly used as the flagship to act as substitute of Luxion’s main body. As of now, it is decommissioned but kept operational.

Appearance
The airship has an exterior and interior design with an appropriate set up for the otome game world’s setting. Partner’s main hull resembles a cruise liner with a spacious top deck. The ship has two main airbags attached to either side.

At the fore end, the airship sports has a high cane spoon bow and the striking look of its primary armament. On both topside and underside as well as port and starboard, there are several propellers of various sizes for elevation.

Volume 1
Partner was first seen loitering on top of the Redgrave’s main floating island, as it carried Leon to negotiate with Vince, Duke of Redgrave. It later transported Leon, Olivia as well as Angelica and some of her retainers to the (at that point) third Bartfort son’s private island for the summer vacation.

Volume 2
At the Royal Capital’s airship harbour, Luxion keeping bragging about how capable is Partner to Leon as they were making their way to it; while the vessel was on standby for operation Air Pirate Subjugation. Later on, when the airship is underway, Leon, Brad and Greg could be seen playing cards and talking inside a casino of the recreational compartment as they proceed to the area of operation. Actions started earlier though as the Winged Shark air pirate deployed a squadron consist of Ship 3 & 4 including numerous armed units; which Partner took care of easily with a salvo of missile. Subsequently, Partner transported prisoners and tugged captured pirate ships to the Wayne Household, then departed for the rest of the Winged Shark corps. Unfortunately, (or fortunately), the Winged Shark came looking for the lone airship. After a brief but fierce close-quarter engagement, the air pirate surrendered and prisoners as well as victory spoils were taken aboard Partner; following that, the flagship were approached by Redgrave and Offrey’s airships, with the former taking over prisoner negotiations. During the winter school trip, Partner was said to had been shadowing the Royal Academy’s luxury liner by Leon; though it is not clear to be true or not since it took Partner quite a bit of time to arrive at the battlefield when the Principality struck. While Leon dealt with the Black Knight’s flight; Partner, using its main battery, suppressed the Principality force and picked up students from the heavily-damaged liner. Later on Partner annihilated the Fanoss fleet and its monsters (with the help of Luxion’s main body toward the end); at the same time, Leon was struggling against Vandel for supremacy. When the incident was over, Partner, still carrying people from the luxury liner as well as Leon’s spoils of war, headed back to the Royal Capital.

Volume 3
Leon, as the commanding officer of the Saint’s bodyguard, brought out Partner to escort Marie and her entourage to the Elven floating island (while talking to Angelica and Olivia, he revealed he could have arranged a different airship if not for the two’s enthusiasm). Later on, the flagship transported field trip participants (along with Yumeria who was employed by Leon) back to the Royal Capital. Shortly after Leon was arrested for “conspiring against the Kingdom of Holfort”, Partner together with other lost items of the third Bartfort son was confiscated by Frampton’s men in hope that they could gain access and seize ownership. The flagship was returned to Leon after he became the Supreme Commander of the Holfort Army & its Fleet and toppled the Marquess’ faction; it and Arroganz were put into light maintenance.

During the battle of Royal Capital, Partner led allied warships in a Hail Mary charge against the main bulk of the Principality force; with the flagship opened fire first with its main battery and missiles. While its primary armaments were supressing the Earth Guardian; Partner’s secondary guns joined its allies in pummelling the opposing airships and putting out ferocious anti-air fire, cutting down a great number of Fanoss’ armed units. Subsequent to the destruction of Weiss and the discontinuation of Olivia’s spell, Partner fell victim to concentrated bombardment from the Principality and finally sunk.

After the hard-fought victory, Luxion recovered Partner and put it into extensive refit. Before the spring break ended, Partner was once again up and ready, but Leon deemed it too troublesome to be shown publicly. For the time being, Einhorn acted as Partner’s replacement and took over the role as the flagship.

Abilities
Partner is a pseudo Lost Item (or as Leon remarked: "cheat level item") thus having unmatched capability.

'“Partner is, for lack of a better expression, a carbon copies of my upgraded modular system. From the performance tests so far, it has demonstrated no obvious flaws and has produced extraordinary results. Of course, its raw power and facilities are still nothing compared to my main body.”' – Luxion briefing Leon as they begin operation Air Pirate Subjugation

Description
Airship Partner is based on Luxion’s design. The battleship is constructed to form the bulk of Leon’s “public” firepower. It acts as a deterrent to convince the outsiders that Partner is the lost item instead of Luxion. What is more, Luxion’s main body is too futuristic-looking and is deemed overkill for most tasks.

Operational statistics
Partner has a bow-to-stern length of 700 metre (2296 foot 7 inches) and a beam of approximately 150 – 180 metre (492 – 591 foot). The warship is powered by multiple weightless compact engines that drives the numerous propellers, ensuring exceptional speed despite the immense size. Partner’s cruising range is unknown, but it was able to keep up with a Royal Academy’s luxury liner operating all the way to the Southern hemisphere.

Automation
As with all old human AI’s warships, Partner is completely automated, requiring no human input to run at maximum efficiency. Being integrated to Luxion, Partner as a flagship possess the sufficient command-and-control facility to dominate the battlefield; allowing its operators to have more situational awareness than anyone else. The airship can also be piloted remotely by Luxion.

Main armament
The flagship’s primary weapon is its assortment of breech-loading, rifled naval artilleries that have superior ballistic performance (range, penetration, accuracy, flight time,...) over new human’s airship weaponry. These guns are appeared in two configurations:


 * Operation Air Pirate Subjugation: 6 rifles on 2 armoured, three-gun rotary turrets; both mounted ahead superfiring.
 * First Fanoss battle: 4 high-angle rifles on 2 two-gun rotary turrets; both mounted ahead superfiring.

Secondary armament
No less than 26 smaller-calibre secondary rifles are present on Partner’s both port and starboard, mounted on a mix of rotary turrets and casemate along the airship’s broadsides. Capable of comfortably engaging both small, agile armed units and slower, more protected airships; the secondaries are dual-purpose.

Missile
Partner was complemented by a vertical launch system containing 40 cells (separating into two 20-cell group installed on the warship’s sundeck) for guided missiles. These missiles though have the generic look of naval warship's standoff AA missiles, Partner's own projectiles seems to be multi-purpose much like its secondary armaments.

Drones
A significant number of autonomous quadrotor drones can be deployed from Partner to aid in anti-armour warfare. They seems to be armed with autocannon using explosive ammo.

Protection

 * Active defence system: Partner using its advanced engines and Luxion’s computation power can generate a sturdy force field that covers the whole ship. Although extremely durable, this magic barrier can be saturated and break against heavy enough bombardment.
 * Partner-00-1 MG.pngcal armour plating: Made with raw material similar to those use in new human’s airship construction; but new alloys were developed by Luxion resulting in exceptional toughness, density and hardness. Though the Black Knight’s Great Sword that pierced Arroganz could also defeat Partner’s plating and deal a mortal blow. Not to mention despite the armour plates themselves are nigh-impenetrable, Partner itself could still be neutralised under continuous attack due to fire damage and structural integrity lost.
 * Stealth: The airship’s exterior is infused with optical camouflage technology, rendering it able to remain concealed from the human eye.

Trivia

 * Partner was the brainchild of Luxion, who cherished the ship like his own offspring, just as a doting parent.
 * In Light Novel Volume 2, the warship’s shape was described to be “simple, rectangular, and box-like.” – reflected in the preliminary design in its manga debut. Its finalised appearance would be changed by the time of Operation Air Pirate Subjugation. Partner-03 MG.png
 * On Partner, there are several legless, hovering spherical robots acting as crews and servants; in worst case scenario, they can also act as a last line of defence to protect the humans on board.