For the first time, the grand arena hosting the annual pro-bending tournament had a change in decor. Massive banners hung from the exterior walls, depicting Avatar Korra smirking confidently at the forefront, with the two Fire Ferrets brothers on either side of her in simirly resolute poses. The team name hovered above the trio written in bold, fming characters. And just above that, in a smaller but not insignificant size, the name Future Industries was dispyed in a far humbler font type.

  It was arguably the boldest advertisement of the corporation and its sponsored team, but it was far from alone.

  Stalls were set up just outside the arena’s main entrance, selling Fire Ferrets dining ware, attire, car accessories, and other forms of souvenirs. All set at a ludicrously premium price, except for members of the Fire Ferrets’ fanclub, and those lucky enough to win lottery tickets that could be cimed from every purchase made from stores owned by the Future Industries Group. The discount offered was generous when compared to the retail price, but in truth, Hiroshi knew that the sheer profits earned from the usual sales would more than bury that little pit of loss.

  While he watched from the privacy of one of the arena’s newly constructed viewing boxes (built and furnished barely a couple of days ago), the press of bodies mobbing the stalls was parting to make way for a small convoy of trucks. It would be the fourth restock in barely three hours.

  Well-paid guards kept the eager customers from swarming onto the trucks, ensuring that profits wouldn’t be affected by looting. The presence of metalbending police also served as additional deterrence.

  In contrast to that, none of the other teams even registered as commercial competition. Hiroshi spied maybe a handful of stalls across the causeway, from corporate sponsors who were still trying to catch up to Future Industries. Even the bookies’ favorites, the White Falls Wolfbats, had only a small stall trying to move stamped ptes and team armbands produced by Lee-Shang Steelworks.

  Most of the sponsors were doing the same for their team. Some tried to emute the lottery system or create fanclubs for their teams, but according to Isashi’s marketing scouts, the hasty implementation meant far less coverage compared to Future Industries. And without the Avatar to serve as the main draw, they barely registered as threats in this young battleground of sponsors.

  Basically, the competition was just copying from the Future Industries’ pybook, but didn’t innovate to expand their merchandise or profits. By the time they learned how to put up banners and book prime retail space, Future Industries - or more accurately, Future Media - would reveal another marketing tactic to maintain the advantage.

  Xing had already id out a roadmap of coached radio interviews, charity matches, and even novelties like trading cards…’voicepacks’, was it? He even factored in the outcomes of the tournaments; whether the Fire Ferrets won the whole thing, or were knocked out on this first day, there were options to make the best of the results.

  It was admittedly quite intimidating to imagine what ran through the media director’s mind, and Hiroshi didn’t want to know to what extent Xing was prepared to milk the pro-bending team for every yuan. Asami and Isashi mentioned the proposals to sell the team’s used towels, or having postcards sent to select fanclub members that were licked by the pro-benders, and neither could tell Hiroshi if Xing was half joking with those ideas.

  Scarier still, neither could refute the potential in them.

  While they were…eccentric ideas, Hiroshi knew that Xing already had a highly effective track record, enough to accommodate one or two failures due to youthful arrogance. Hiroshi himself went through such stages in his rise to power, and he’d argue that any great businessman needed such humbling moments in their lives. But…

  But…what if smelly towels and stained postcards actually worked? What if Xing was right again, as he was with the initially crazy talk of making cars more fragile for safety reasons, or hiring non-standard radio presenters?

  The business magnate shuddered at exposure to the darker side of humanity by such simple schemes.

  But then he also wondered just how much of this could be adapted for the Equalist cause? Putting aside the use of allure and perversion, what practices could the movement adopt from the young subsidiary director? At the very least, Xing’s insights into advertising for the common man might be adapted to refine the Equalists’ recruitment methods, and maybe Amon is already interested in Future Media’s approach to the Fire Ferrets public retions.

  Well, it was why Hiroshi was here today, sharing the VIP box with a carefully curated social circle alongside Xing. Thankfully, most of the non-Equalist board members weren’t much into pro-bending, or if they did, they happily took the offer to enjoy the gmor of watching from their own private boxes. With the exception of Xing, those who joined Hiroshi today were all fellow comrades, all of high enough rank in Future Industries or its subsidiaries.

  “Huh, gotta give it to the fans: even if their sponsors are barely making a fight out of it, every pro-bending team out there have their own group of passionate fans that’d give our fanclub a run for its money.”

  And Asami, of course. Hiroshi’s dear daughter was looking out the window with a pair of binocurs, scanning the crowd that was moving past the stalls to enter the arena. “Badgermoles, Rabaroos, Wolfbats… And the cliques are distinct enough, now that I look at them… Distinct and spirited.”

  “Participants of spectator sports like pro-bending and earthbending wrestling will always draw their share of fans,” Xing responded from behind her, standing almost at stiff attention. “Arguably, the smaller the following, the more dedicated its members are.”

  “Hm… I can see that making some sense, I guess.”

  “But the dedication of the fanbase can be turned into real profit, if managed properly,” Xing added with a nod.

  One executive - a new comrade from Li Shu Steelworks - joined the conversation with a half-raised hand. “Like the Fire Ferrets’ signed cards?”

  “It’s a start,” the media director answered, shrugging lightly. “What we’re doing for the Fire Ferrets is offering the team exposure, and its fans accessibility alongside a sense of exclusivity.”

  “And Future Industries a fair profit,” Asami quipped.

  Xing nodded again, and Hiroshi noticed the lecturing tone the young man suddenly took on. “The sponsorship is foremost a business which has to be carefully managed to provide long-term benefits to Future Industries Group. Support the sponsored party fairly, and don’t over-exploit its fans, and the reputation gained might even be more valuable than the immediate commercial profits.”

  Hiroshi hummed as he mulled that thought over. “Hm… You’ve already proven your point about public interest and perception,” he muttered aloud, recalling Hitori Kuro’s test broadcast at the soup kitchen, and the havoc that ensued. “But it’s still quite an investment, isn’t it? And for the long term, too.”

  Rather than being put on the defensive, the young d instead smiled. “That’s true, but it’s only an issue if you’re not equipped for it-”

  “Which Future Media is,” Asami cut in with a confident grin. “Equipped for it, I mean.”

  To Hiroshi’s mild annoyance, Xing reciprocated the grin with his own. “Future Media will soon have its own talent management department. We’ll follow simir operations as managers of bigger stage actors, but apply it to more than just the theaters.”

  “The radio station?” someone asked.

  Xing nodded again. “Future Entertainment Radio will serve as a vehicle for most talents, but if a pywright, musician or even a juggler has the potential and has basic integrity, we can offer to provide a mutually beneficial agreement.”

  “What kind of exposure can you get with a juggler? At least with a writer, you can credit their name on the radio… Describing how great the juggling is isn’t the same, is it? We can’t just use photos, right?”

  A smirk appeared on the media director’s face, one that hinted at something obvious. “I trust technology to progress and provide us with a solution.”

  Pushing aside his curiosity at the words, Hiroshi instead took that as a convenient cue to steer the conversation. “I’m gd you’ve such faith in technology, Xing.” The corporate tycoon gave an exaggerated scowl. “Unlike some people in the city, who believe everything’s good enough with bending…”

  “Come now, dad,” Asami said, as he expected her to. “Tarrlok’s just being stubborn. And stupid.”

  “If only it were just him, my dear,” Hiroshi bemoaned. “But the Republic’s ruling council and those close to them care more about keeping benders…‘relevant’ rather than bettering everyone through invention and innovation.”

  “That sounds…overly simplified,” Xing commented politely as he adopted a slight frown.

  “But that’s the gist of how things are in the United Republic,” Hiroshi replied, and without prompting menting nods blossomed around the room.

  “It was fine when Avatar Aang and his friends first started,” sighed Yingshi, a member of the board and one of Amon’s earliest followers. “But after they passed the mantle, we’re seeing the sensibilities from the old…rest of the world creeping in.”

  “But Future Industries is still creating new machines?” Xing naively asked, and Hiroshi almost smirked.

  Instead, he kept his sad mask on. “Oh, we’re free to push boundaries. But trying to get the city to adopt them for mass use?” Hiroshi managed to keep his smile dry and wan somehow. “Have you heard of the artificial refrigeration machine?”

  “Does that exist?”

  “Prototypes of it, yes. I hate to admit it, but Weiyo-Yukani Enterprises beat everyone to that idea before any of us even considered it. Such a trivial idea, keeping things cold without requiring the services of a waterbender.”

  Hiroshi paused for dramatic effect at first, but he let his daughter, who was also familiar with that case, pick up the tale without compint, her sincere resentment adding more weight to the telling.

  “I remember Old Weiyo himself being the one to present the invention. It was a box kept cold using pumps and electricity.” Her gaze shifted to Hiroshi as a smile flickered on her face. “I remember we didn’t know whether to celebrate the invention or stew in envy for not coming up with it in the first pce.”

  “If it worked-”

  Asami cut in swiftly, the embers of resentment in her green eyes coming alive as her attention returned to Xing. “Tarrlok instituted regutions on the coonts used by the refrigeration boxes literally the next day. Worried that they might leak and taint the food stored in them…even if it’s practically impossible because the coont’s-”

  Hiroshi pced a calming hand on her shoulder to stop her from breaking into a full-on rant again. “We’ll show him the schematics ter, dear.” His daughter startled, then winced as she realized the tangent she was about to embark on, and finally offered an apologetic nod.

  “Right, sorry about that… Anyway, besides that, there was also the new act that suddenly required all electric appliances to be certified safe for use. In case the wires in stoves or refrigeration boxes or toasters suddenly lit everything up.”

  “Were such things common?” Xing cautiously asked.

  “Only freak accidents,” someone at the other end of the box helpfully answered.

  “The competition is the firebenders and waterbenders, after all,” Hiroshi eborated. “They’re the standards for safety and effectiveness, so selling any appliance that breaks down or bursts into fmes easily is basically commercial suicide.”

  “But that’s the convenient excuse,” the media director correctly guessed, his frown deepening.

  “It’s the excuse Tarrlok convinced the others to believe,” Asami corrected with an outraged huff. “He wasn’t being shy about it, believe me.”

  There was a heavy pause before Xing finally responded. “I see…” He scanned the room with a querying look. “It’s not the only occurrence, is it?”

  Hiroshi shook his head slowly. “Unfortunately, no.”

  Yingshi chipped in again with an almost theatrically long sigh. “We can’t use too many cranes or earth-moving machines on construction sites, because earthbenders need low-paying jobs. Only waterbender healers are allowed to practice medicine, so there’s no support in trying to advance that field.”

  “Electricity tax,” someone helpfully joined in. “Gotta have that because we can’t have it so cheap that firebenders can’t be paid to light mps and stoves…”

  “Only reason motor vehicles and trams are allowed at all is because nobody in the ruling council wants to endure a long ride with the commoners like in the Ba Sing Se monorail,” another voice snarked. “Well, that and the fact that they’re too chicken lizard to pull back anything Aang and his council put into pce.”

  Hiroshi almost barked out a ugh at the stupefied expression on Xing’s face.

  “That’s…that’s been going on in the United Republic?”

  The industrialist gave a convincingly solemn nod. “Sad to say, but yes. We’re still pushing boundaries…we’re just making sure we don’t push the…” And Hiroshi made sure to suitably envenom the next word. “...’wrong’ ones. It-”

  “It almost makes you want to side with the Equalists, huh?”

  Hiroshi blinked in surprise at his daughter’s words. After all this time, was Asami…?

  “Almost, huh?” Xing’s emphasis and dry smirk ruined the moment.

  She gave him a light shrug. “Hard to discount the fact that they’re clearly terrorists with mispced ideals.”

  If not for the room already being drawn into the conversation with disguised interest, there’d be a stunned silence that would’ve betrayed everyone’s allegiances already.

  “Terrorwha-” Hiroshi blinked, but had the presence of mind to not let his jaw drop as he regarded his daughter.

  Thankfully, Xing misconstrued the reaction, and he offered a shrug. “It might sound hyperbolic, but that makes sense. The members might consider themselves part of an activist movement, but as far as I’ve read up on, the Equalists have primarily relied on intimidation, kidnapping, and other activities that make them more akin to the triads, to say nothing of the bending-nullification Amon is promising.”

  To Hiroshi’s quiet horror, Asami nodded firmly at the expnation. “Yeah, they’re so fixated on making benders the problem.”

  “They…they aren’t?” Yingshi muttered.

  “If they were, we wouldn’t be in business at all,” the younger woman insisted. “But the fact remains that most everyone, bender or not, likes using Satomobiles instead of taking the earthbender-pushed monorail, or electric lights instead of oil mps lit by firebenders, or motorboats instead of hiring waterbenders.”

  “Even the Avatar, with her mastery of multiple elements, prefers taking a steamer ship or flicking a switch to light up a space instead of relying on her bending,” Xing added. “It’s only practical.”

  “But that’s not what Tarrlok and the council are arguing,” Hiroshi countered.

  Xing shrugged at that. “It’s fearmongering to maintain influence and relevance. After all, it’d be wholly idiotic for any of them to truly hold bender-supremacy views when even the other nations view such a position as being radically backwards at best. The Fire Nation relied as much on non-bending soldiers and commanders in the Hundred Years War, as did the Northern and Southern Water Tribes, and as far as I know, Ba Sing Se has always been ruled by a non-bender for at least a couple of centuries. And the famed Kyoshi Warriors, an order personally founded by Avatar Kyoshi herself, mind you, do not have bending as any sort of requirement to join their order.”

  “But the fact remains that the council has been hamstringing efforts to introduce new technology.”

  And Hiroshi felt like he walked into a prepared trap as the media director nodded. “The council did. But what was the general sentiment of the refrigerators being restricted?”

  “Well…there was some grumbling,” someone sheepishly answered. “Lots of grumbling…”

  “By both benders and non-benders?”

  “Uh…yeah…”

  “And even the firebenders are compining about the electricity tax?”

  Scattered murmurs confirmed Xing’s guess. He gave a final nod before fixing Hiroshi with a look that announced something obvious that was overlooked.

  “The problem, then, is not the benders, but the ruling council, who happen to all be benders.”

  “Exactly,” Asami agreed with a bright grin. “Tarrlok especially, with all his stupid logic about keeping benders employed. If he cares about them so much, why not find them better opportunities instead of the bare minimum, most destitute work?”

  “That…that makes sense.”

  Xing offered a faint smile that pcated Asami and worried Hiroshi. “I understand how you might be tempted to sympathize with the Equalist movement despite its violence, Mister Hiroshi.”

  The moment of panic subsided as Xing hadn’t actually figured out the industrialist’s loyalties.

  “But Amon’s rhetoric’s, no better than Tarrlok’s, basically the flip side of the same coin.”

  “I…see. But, really, terrorists?”

  “From my understanding, the Equalist movement opted for more violent means from the very start, isn’t that so?”

  Hiroshi flicked a silencing gaze at Yingshi who was about to come to Amon’s defense, and put up a mask of naive hesitance. “I…suppose. But some might say it was the only choice for them, as Republic City would crack down on their movement.”

  “Yet up until the dispy of Amon stealing someone’s bending, weren’t people allowed to voice their support for the Equalist movement? If I recall, Avatar Korra ran into one such advocate for the movement, who was allowed to say his piece without being molested by the authorities.”

  “Not by Korra though,” Asami quipped wryly.

  A smirk fshed on Xing’s face before he continued. “Nevertheless, the point remains that until Amon escated, the council of the United Republic viewed the Equalists as a threat, but not one so major that it warranted crackdowns. It wasn’t a crime to voice support for the movement, no more than it was to say one supported the Agni Kai or Triple Threat Triad. Tarrlok’s task force and the Avatar’s involvement was a reaction, a response. Not a provocation by themselves.”

  “That…sounds…sensible.”

  The young director nodded. “If the Equalists wanted to really push for fairness, they’d have been formed as a political group, lobbying against Tarrlok’s pro-bending-”

  “Not the sport,” Asami again interjected.

  “-nonsense. It sounds like there are many valid cases to bring up against the ruling council, which could all be done legally. Such a group could force politicians like Tarrlok to negotiate or risk losing valuable public opinion of him. I know Master Tenzin at the very least would be more than willing to lend an ear to a peaceful protest.”

  Xing shrugged his shoulders, and then let out a sigh of disdain. “But instead the Equalists have acted little better than saboteurs and violent insurgents from day one, not only inciting a heavy hand from the United Republic, but also potentially tainting any real chance non-benders have to voice legitimate concerns to the ruling council. Now, people like Tarrlok can simply bel such voices as being Equalist sympathizers, subversives that seek to foment further unrest in Republic City. And he would get to push his agenda with far less resistance or oversight.”

  This time the silence was far more noticeable, though Xing reacted by suddenly shrinking back into a sheepish smile, as if he realized he’d been going on a rant in his field of specialization. “I apologize for delving too deeply into such a dour topic.”

  “It’s fine,” Hiroshi managed to say, happy to wave off the embarrassment. “After all, I started it.” He gestured at the rge windows overlooking the arena’s pying field. “Come, the pre-show’s going to begin soon, I think. Let’s see how the crowd reacts to Future Media’s talents, shall we?”

  “Of course, sir.”

  “Bah, none of that now, Xing.” Despite the words, Hiroshi had to suppress the twitch in his eyes as Asami gravitated to the young director and they both moved hand in hand towards the windows

  In the meantime, the founder of Future Industries gave the other guests in the room a silent look. No need to further prod Xing for his thoughts anymore. After this, they’d either have to work up a pn to win him over, or more likely, remove him.

  Preferably in a way that didn’t make Asami miss him too much.