Hayato left the penthouse with a sour taste in his mouth. He knew that for once it wasn't just his age messing with him again. It was the real deal, no matter how those two younglings tried to prove otherwise. Zheng, the younger and more zealous one, was adamant that they could succeed even after today's spectacular fiasco. Ling was older and thus more reasonable, but his optimism was sickening too.

He really felt lucky that the fourth member of their team, Tien, had put herself out of action. Her whining would have truly crowned the day.

After bidding a quick farewell to the younglings, he decided to play the role of the harbinger and make a detour to their headquarters to tell their crew the news. They deserved at least that much for their efforts.

His trip through the Western Quadrant was uneventful, as always. This section of the city was a residential area, with the maglev train cruising between sprawling habitation buildings and verdant parks. Everything was neat and clean, constantly kept this way by industrious community workers recruited from the jobless. Crime was almost non-existent under the vigilant presence of the City Watch, and the conflicts between humans and spirits also avoided the city.

Ba Sing Se was an almost perfect place.

Almost.

Hayato could occasionally see the shadowed figures, lurking in the darkness or being chased by the City Watch. Young men and women, wearing ragged green uniforms, weary and half-starved, but with fire in their eyes. Surrounded by a shroud of despair and purposelessness, they were just asking for trouble.

He witnessed a disturbing incident just as he got off from the train: a woman in tattered Earth Empire stormtrooper clothes was cornered by the City Watch at one of the automated ticket-stands – from the shouts, it looked like she was trying to rob the machine when the Watch caught her. She made a run towards the nearest train – the one Hayato also planned to board – but she had no chance. The City Watch was accompanied by two of those monstrous bloodhound-spirits, massive dog-like creatures with jaws that could mangle steel and limbs that could outrun a maglev train. They darted forward as one and reached the train before the woman could even make a step. Her eyes opened wide as she finally understood her situation. As a last-ditch attempt, she turned towards the approaching City Watch.

"Please, comrades! Don't-" she cried, but her words were stifled by a shock-baton that hit her head. Another jabbed her in the stomach, but she was too tough – and too stubborn – to give up. The woman broke free and made a few wavering steps towards the exit…

…but one of the bloodhound-spirits also felt the need to get a piece of her, and rushed the poor woman. Her screams cut into the station's usual noises like a hunter's knife into his prey's flesh. The bloodhound-spirit was at least four times bigger than her, and in its bestial mouth the woman looked like an unlucky doll caught and being mauled by a stray dog. A very angry stray dog.

The scene only lasted a few minutes, but it was a perfect representation of the city's secret shame. It wasn't just how the woman - miraculously alive- was eventually dragged away by the City Watch after the spirit had spit her out, but also the crowd's reaction: most citizens found the woman's struggle funny, smiling on her misery; others were infuriated… as they thought that the City Watch was too delicate with this troublemaker, and they voiced their gratitude to the spirit-bloodhounds for teaching her a lesson.

It was disgusting, and this whole interlude only worsened Hayato's mood. That woman had fought in Kuvira's war, risked her life and experienced all sorts of horrors just to ensure the Empire's prosperity. In return, society had chewed her and spat her out, just like that bloodhound-spirit.

The train took him and his dark thoughts out of the Western Quadrant, into an endless sea of metal and glass. This was the so-called Agriskirts, a dense network of hydroponic farms, food processing plants, and warehouses, all serving the sole purpose of keeping the city fed. Formerly, this land had been brown and green from the rolling hills of cropland, but the rise of the new city had changed this, just like a lot of other things. Basic agriculture couldn't sustain the growing needs, so it had been improved - replaced - with advanced technology. Now, Hayato couldn't find even a single patch of grass on the ground, only rice, vegetables, and fruits floating in vast tanks of water.

Hayato got off at the remains of Ba Sing Se's Outer Wall. Another place that felt the winds of change. Roughly one year after Kuvira had reclaimed the city, a large project had been initiated to reclaim the desert outside of the Outer Wall. To do this, the wall's outer face was carefully re-carved into a maze of wind-channels, directing the vapor from the nearby sea onto the barren lands. It worked to an extent, as the desert had become a prairie, but it was still far from the original goal so the project had been abandoned, as had the walls themselves.

However, the place was far from deserted. In the large guard towers that rose alongside the wall, people lived. Those who couldn't find a place in the city were forced to live here, in the barely-habitable ruins, using the ancient, ramshackle infrastructure and living off scraps and the occasional mercy of the city government.

It was perfect place to hide operations that stood on the fine line between legality and illegality. Like the one Hayato was part of.

Their headquarters was rather far away from the train station, a good half hour of walking through the sad remains of the Outer Wall. It was in a miraculously intact guard tower, occupying the whole upper level. Bristling with badly concealed activity, its light and noise was clearly perceivable from far away, especially now, as the sunset approached and the world around the tower grew dark and quiet.

As Hayato stepped through the entrance, he was welcomed by an even bigger chaos than usual. The place had only one massive room, that served as a command center, storehouse, and manufacturing facility, all in one. There were desks, containers, and all sorts of machinery scattered around in a haphazard manner, just asking for an accident. From the looks of it, this had been the case today, just as yesterday or the day before. Or almost any day since they had moved in.

A large container had crashed down to a power generator, and the device hadn't taken the hit very well: its core was cracked, and it was now emitting a long jet of fire into the air, creating a wild inferno in that area. Men and women were running around helplessly, trying to put out the fire, but they had very little success.

Ironically, the fire was burning their freshly printed leaflets. If this wasn't a sign from fate, then Hayato had no idea what could be.

A young man finally noticed him. He made a few hand moves towards Hayato, and from them, the old man knew that this wasn't the time he could talk to anyone, so he turned around and left the room.

He waited almost a whole hour outside until the young man appeared in the door. Since then, smoke had started to seep from the windows, but according to the sounds, the fire had been successfully extinguished.

"You are early, professor!" The warm welcome made Hayato smile. According to the man's reaction, it looked much more miserable than Hayato felt. "Is everything okay?"

"No, nothing is okay," replied Hayato with a tired voice. "Chin doesn't even want to know about us. The meeting was a nightmare."

"Oh. That's quite unfortunate. What about the others?"

"Tien fainted half way through. Zheng and Ling took it better, but they aren't too optimistic either."

"Uhm... And the leaflet?"

"He made me burn it."

The young man scratched his head, and turned back to the door. Hayato could see on him that he was thinking about that huge pile of ash in the middle of the room. Apparently, the parallel didn't elude him either.

"We distributed a lot of those in the city today," noted the man. He became more and more nervous with every passing moment. "They really liked it y'know. Made them all fired up and stuff."

Hayato just sighed.

"Any incidents?"

"Just the usual chase with the City Watch. We threw them off quickly."

"Lucky for you. I saw a woman getting much worse in the Quadrant end station."

"Did they have those bloodhound-spirits?"

"They did."

The man hissed and massaged his left forearm as he relived some painful memories. Those bloodhound-spirits were serious business, and only a few around Hayato had bodies without at least a small bite mark.

A moment of silence befell upon them. Two other men stumbled out from the room, carrying a huge pile of half-burnt leaflets. They unceremoniously dropped the pack not far away from Hayato and started sorting out the useable leaflets. The old man just watched them as they struggled to save something from that sad pile of charred paper. The only reason he didn't make them stop was their simple delight whenever they could find a miraculously intact leaflet – he didn't want to ruin their happiness.

"So, I hate to ask this, but what now?" The young man took out a bunch of notes. "I have twenty-four new names. Their ol' identification numbers too. Hoshi and Kalden are already out there to interview them."

"When did they leave?"

"Shortly before you came. Guess they are already on the train."

Hayato turned back to the city, musing on its warm lights. From the distance of the Outer Wall, Ba Sing Se looked like a thick fog of gold and silver, swirling low above the ground but constantly trying to reach up towards the night sky. The majestic sight eased his thoughts and let him think clearly, maybe the first time since he had entered Chin's office.

"We are going to suspend our activities for the time being." He said eventually. "Empty the headquarters, and transport any incriminating objects to our secondary hideout. From now on, we reassume our cover as a harmless charity organization." Hayato turned back to the young man and gave him an encouraging pat on his back. "Tell this to everyone, and report me back at the university when it is all done and settled."

The first response from the man was a confused frown. He opened his mouth like he had something to say, but then he closed it without giving away a single voice. Hayato watched as he walked away and began to round up the others, beginning with the two who were still busy sorting out the burnt leaflets.

Hayato waited until the men disappeared behind the door, then unceremoniously left the place and headed back to the train station.

He still had a few things to put straight tonight, and he didn't want to delay lest he end up in the same situation as the people he was trying to protect.