Apologies for the slightly delayed chapter, I've been reading the new Yangchen book and suffering from slight writer's block.

Responses to Reviews:

RonaldM40196867: Whatever Varrick was doing (apart from the war profiteering stuff.)

Zigzagdoublezee: I was quite disappointed that Suki wasn't even mentioned in the story at all. Even Sokka got lines and he died years before Book 1 begins. So this is rectifying that.

As Always, Please Review!

Jinora

The skies above Republic City were no longer the domain of Air Nomads. With the imminent threat of invasion, Raiko had authorised major exercises for the Air Force and so the skies were abuzz with flying machines swooping and rolling and diving through the air. They moved in flights of four, each circling until it came time to execute mock attack runs, swooping in, and then rising back into the sky almost lazily. The noise of aircraft engines permeated the city.

Jinora watched them as she sat and tried to meditate in the pavilion. Everything seemed to be getting more serious now. Raiko had publically addressed the nation to inform them of the coming crisis, and the result had been a mild panic. Some citizens had begun evacuating the city, moving to elsewhere in the United Republic or even looking to find transport to the Fire Nation or Water Tribes. Jinora had heard her father talking about the potential for emergency powers to be granted to the President, and there was also talk of reservists being called up or even mobilisation for war. The United Republic of Nations had never done that before, it had never had the need to, so the situation was being taken very seriously.

Still, it wasn't that bad yet. Most people were just getting on with things, convinced that Kuvira wouldn't attack or that the Avatar would stop her, just as the Equalists and the Dark Avatar had been stopped.

She rubbed her head, and then set herself down and tried to meditate.

"Jinora?"

Tenzin was stood behind her, looking concerned.

"Dad?" Jinora got up and went over to him. "What's the matter?"

Tenzin smiled down at her.

"You are, I'm afraid," he said. "Those... episodes you've been having. I'm worried about you."

In the past few weeks, Jinora had suffered three such episodes; the first while she was looking for Korra in the airship, the second talking to Asami on the cliff top and the third a couple of days later on Air Temple Island. Every time was the same; blinding pain and a purple flash that filled her vision. The first time she had been astral projecting herself when it happened, and it had forced her back into her own body with the force of it.

She shook her head.

"I'm fine dad," she said. "But I really don't know what's causing it. Something spiritual, maybe. I've tried going to the Spirit World to find out but no spirits I've talked to either know what's happening or will tell me."

Tenzin frowned.

"And it's never happened before?"

Jinora confirmed that it had not.

"Have you been to see auntie Kya about it?"

Jinora had. It hasn't helped much.

"Yes, but she can't help me because there was apparently nothing to heal."

"Nothing to heal? You're collapsing!"

"Only a few times!" Jinora tried to reassure him.

Tenzin frowned.

"Either way," he said, "there's something else."

"What is it?"

"I need you to go to the Western Air Temple. That's in the Fire Nation, so far away from here. Your grandfather and his friends hid there during the Hundred Years' War, so it's safe. Take the rest of the Airbenders."

"Why?" Jinora asked, though she thought she already knew the answer.

"United Republic spies have told us that Kuvira is heading north. They think she intends to make her move against us. She's actually coming here, and that could mean war."

"I can help!" Jinora pointed out, gesturing to her tattoo.

"No, you can't!" Tenzin stood up. "You've fought Unalaq and the Red Lotus before, but that was different. This is war. You're too young for that."

"Grandfather saved the world from war when he was younger than I am now," Jinora pointed out.

"Your grandfather had his people wiped out, spent a hundred years in a block of ice and was traumatised and nearly killed!" Tenzin replied. "He saved the world but at a terrible cost, a cost no child should have to bear. I will not let you bear it."

Jinora frowned, but bowed dutifully. Tenzin hugged her.

"Please do this," he said. "It'll make it a lot easier knowing you're safe."

And then he turned and walked away. Jinora frowned. She had thought they were past this three years ago when she got her tattoos, but here he was again trying to sideline her in the name of protection. She turned around to look back at the city, crossed her legs, and closed her eyes.

"Psst!"

"What now?" Jinora stood up, irritated. "Can't you see I'm trying to meditate here?"

Then she saw Ikki and Meelo hiding behind a hedge, having just hailed her. They looked at her expectantly.

"What?" Jinora asked.

"What did father want?" Ikki asked.

Jinora thought about telling them to mind their own business, but then remembered that this was their own business just as much as it was hers, and relented.

"He wants to send us away."

Her siblings looked shocked.

"Where to?"

"The Western Air Temple."

"So it's true?" Meelo asked. "Kuvira really is coming?"

"It looks like it," Jinora sighed. "I just don't see why he wants to send me away. I'm an airbending master! I can help!"

"So can we!" Meelo chirped.

"What are you going to do, fart on the Earth Empire?" Jinora retorted.

"Among other things," Meelo said proudly. "I'll make my own army and defeat her before she ever reaches the city!"

"You and what army?"

"I just said I'll make one!"

"But that would mean directly disobeying father!" Ikki pointed out.

"When have you ever cared about that before?" Jinora demanded.

"...I've cared," Ikki defended herself. "Sometimes."

"But this is important! It's like the Red Lotus all over again!"

"The Red Lotus attacked us," Ikki pointed out.

"So will Kuvira!"

Ikki nodded. "Fine, I'm in. What's the plan?"

Jinora watched the city in the distance, as the flying machines began to finish their exercises and began the long flight back to their home bases in the mountains.

"Alright, if we do this though, we need to be clever about it. Pretend we're happily going along with his plan, and then go against him at the last moment," Jinora said.

"Maybe we can enlist some of the other Airbenders, too."

"One particular airbender, you mean?"

Jinora frowned. "Yes, Ikki, especially Kai. He is my boyfriend, after all."

"ooh, boyfriend!" Both her siblings chorused at the same time. Despite the relationship being completely out in the open, they both liked to mock her for it even now.

"Shut up, you two," she told them half- heartedly.