Ritchie has guilt over Michael's family's death and him becoming a slave. If it wasn't for the fact they were looking for him and any survivors or his family Michael's would have been ok.
Ritchie did not learn all of his knowledge and skill with technology on his own. Before his family died they had people teaching him and letting him experiment. This lead to lots of explosions.
Ritchie's parents gave him the opportunity to either join the family business or explore like he wanted and they would support his decision.
The family business sold stuff on the black market to anyone and kept track of what was bought and who bought it. Lots of the workers were ex-slaves. Whenever a slave came into their territory they would buy them, steal them, or kill the person selling them. After liberating the slaves they gave them the option to work for them or have a nice life they would set up for them while making sure they kept slave enforcers away.
Ritchie would get angry and throw stuff at people for breaking his babies, then he would silently cry on the inside. Also if he is working on something and is frustrated you do not desterd him. He also has a habit of neglecting his needs when overly invested in inventing or overworking.
Mario's family is poor. This is why he studies like crazy to get into/stay in the academy. Mario has done this his whole life to the point it became apart of how he works. If the group was going after an object he was study everything and anything on that subject.
Because Austin's father was a general he had no friends and people would try to be his friend just for popularity or status. If people weren't trying to be his friends they would be trying to bulling him.
His father decided to homeschool him because he believed regular school was just a distraction. He let Austin go back to school when it was the father old school (the academy).
Austin's father was angry at his decision to join Ritchie and Mario and wanted/tried to convince Austin to become a general. That was until Ritchie and Mario went off on the father. This showed he could entrust his son to them thus, changing his mind to let Austin go with them.
