A very special thanks to everyone who reviewed the last awesome chapter (all three of you). And now, I declare it to be Awesome Khajmer Day, because today marks the first and probably last time I will ever write up two chapters so close to one another, and due to the awesome day, I may just write chapter 3 today as well. So please, give me a pat on the back before preparing your pitchforks and torches for the angry mob that will surely form out of my readers (all four of you. If you haven't reviewed, Alerted, or Favorited it then you don't count) And now without further adieu, please welcome the new chapter (and fyi, for those wondering where it is, the universal disclaimer is in my bio).

Never the Last
The Western Air Temple

A flash of brilliant light awakened On Ji as her room's door was pulled open, temporarily blinding her while she rolled over. She could hear voices as well, but the only bit she was able to discern was "Nah, too skinny to be her", and then the shuffling of feet. A few seconds later, she had become re-accustomed to light and was now wide awake, quickly but silently shuffling over to the wall near the door and pressing her back against it. Slowly, she peeked around the doorframe, and saw two Fire Nation soldiers standing in front of another room. They were holding posters up to them, a third posting a few more to a wall, and talking excitedly amongst themselves as one pointed in and another shook his head. It was probably a raid, they were looking for criminals staying at this seedy little inn. On Ji shook her head, and twisted her fingers sharply, bending the air discreetly to carry what they were saying to her more easily. She then froze at what she heard.
"I'm telling you Chei, it's the Avatar. Just look really closely at him, and you'll see exactly who he is!" One was saying,
"Lee, he also doesn't have Airbender tattoos, has the wrong color eyes as his description, has hair, and, oh yeah, the Avatar's twelve and this guy must be at least eighty!" The other chided.
"Excuse me," Came another voice from inside the room. "But I am sixty-four years old and proud of it. Now, since I am clearly not the person you are looking for, would you gentlemen please leave me to my my morning tea? Unless you would care to join me? It's Jasmine."
"Be quiet you crazy old man." The second soldier snapped, and On Ji chuckled. Now that was a guy she could get along with. She then took a peek around the rest of the hallway, and noticed more Wanted posters across the hallway. There were quite a few of them, and she could instantly see why, as Kuzon (or Avatar Aang, as the picture called him) was up there, along with the girl he had danced with before (she unconciously clenched her hands into fists for a second), the blind girl she had seen at the dance party (The Runaway, it called her, apparently both a master Earthbender and an expert hussler. Her bounty was almost as high as that of the Avatar's himself), another boy she remembered seeing there as well (nothing special about him, it just showed that these people were all Kuzon's companions), a few other people she didn't recognize but were all wanted for assault on the Fire Lord's life, meaning they were the escapees of the Day of Black Sun invasion, three people who'd apparently escaped from the Boiling Rock (wait a second, the Boiling Rock? The prison mothers threaten their children they'll have them sent to to make them behave? The unescapable prison in the middle of a freaking volcano? Note to self: Avoid them if at all possible), Prince Zuko (who had, from what she'd heard, assaulted his father, nearly killing him with his swords, and would have suceeded had the eclipse not ended just in time, and escaped to join the Avatar's group), and the former General Iroh (who'd allegedly torn his jail cell open with his bare hands during the eclipse, knocked out the entire prison guard unit, and escaped the Capitol without anyone noticing him all in the entire eight minutes of the eclipse. Now that one On Ji didn't believe), as well as the usual ones for the Blue Spirit and Jeong-Jeong the Deserter. But then her eyes crossed one poster in particular, and she froze again. And as she dashed around the corner and dived for the nearest open window, she had two thoughts. First, that those soldiers were either idiots or blind, and two, that she couldn't believe her parents had put out a bounty on her return. I mean, who does that?

About a week of soldier dodging and painful walking later, On Ji found herself on the edge of a ravine, staring at the other side before glancing down at the map in her hand and scratching her head.
"Okay, there's supposed to be a huge temple right there." She frowned. According to her Gran, the Western Air Temple was supposedly a massive structure of stone hanging upside down under the outcropping of a cliff over a massive ravine. According to her map, it was right here. And from what she could see, there was no massive upside down temple here. Which meant either the map was lying, or Gran had gone senile in her old age and the map was lying. Either way it wasn't here, and the ravine was massive. That was one thing the map stressed, that is was absolutely gargantuan. Which meant that On Ji had to start walking now. She turned to her left, since the left had the shortest amount of ground to cover, when she heard something. It was very faint, but it sounded extraordinarily like laughter. And it was definitely coming from the ravine, from underneath. And that was when it hit her. She was looking at the wrong side. All the time she had been looking for the Air Temple, she had been literally right on top of it... well technially underneath it, but the point was she was sure of where it was now. She rushed to the edge of the cliff, stopping just in time with her Airbending grace, and got down to lean over the cliff and look down under, her knees balancing expertly on the rough edge and her hands holding her in place. she leaned as far forward as she could, and stared straight down. From her new vantage point, she was just barely able to make out the outline of a thin spire, almost like a very thin stalagmite but more refined, almost like the top of a building...
"YES!" She cried, bringing her hands up in joy at her discovery... until she remembered that she was using those to stay on top of the cliff, and not at the bottom of the ravine, which by that time, she was already well on her way to. And then she did the only logical thing for an Airbender to do when falling fifty stories to a rocky grave: she screamed, and screamed and screamed and screamed until she couldn't scream anymore, which came at about the same time she hit her head on an outcropping jutting out from the side of the rocky wall, and her last thoughts as she faded away into unconciousness were 'How ironic that an Airbender dies by falling off a cliff above an Airbender temple.'

"So how is she?"
"Well, she seems fine. That blow to the head was nasty, but I patched it up as best as I could without Katara around. So now can I slap her awake and interrogate her?"
"For the last time, no Sokka. We don't have any reason to be suspicious of her."
"Aang, have you met me? I'm naturally inclined to be suspicious of people until I'm sure of their intentions, especially people from the Fire Nation."
"Hey!" This voice was louder and distinctly offended.
"No offense to you Chit Sang." At this point in the conversation On Ji's eyes fluttered open in an attempt to see the people who were currently speaking, but she immediately regretted it as pain rushed into her head. She involuntarily closed her eyes again and brought her hand up to her head, gently pinching the bridge of her nose with her forefinger and thumb to ease the pain. It didn't work. "Hey, she's waking up." The suspicious person said, and she heard the unmistakable metallic sound of a sword being partially unsheathed. Unlike before, where they did nothing, however, sounds now brought only more pain echoing through her mind.
"Please don't do that." She muttered. "The sound of my thoughts hurt, how painful do you think all that noise is?" She took in a few calm, deep breaths, regulating the flow of her blood through her breathing and making sure that her brain got plenty, gently easing away the headache until it had vanished. She took another shot at opening her eyes and found a somehow familiar face with a brown ponytail attached to the back looking at her uncomfortably closely, a hand on the hilt of his black-steeled sword. She simply stared at him for a few seconds, eyes wide as he looked her face up and down, attempting to portray all the innocence in the world with them. Unfortunately, she knew all the innocence in the world already belonged to the eyes of the person she was sure was speaking now.
"Sokka, cut it out. She doesn't need you in her face like that." "Sokka" sighed and pulled away, either satisfied that the girl wasn't a murderous spy looking to assassinate them all in broad daylight with the Avatar present and them all awake to reveal that there were several others around, including the Runaway, the three people who had been on the wanted posters for escaping the Boiling Rock, the three she had deduced were from the invasion, and him. Her reason for still living, for never giving up hope, the Avatar himself. At the sight of him she sat up abruptly and stared straight into his eyes, attempting to convey all of her feeling into one single word.
"Kuzon!" True, he looked a lot different with no hair, and different clothes (especially the missing headband. He looked so good in that headband), but those eyes were definitely the same. Light gray and full of both the wisdom of a sage and the innocence of a child all at once. This was, without a doubt, her Kuzon. He just chuckled.
"Sorry On Ji, but Kuzon was just an old friend whose name I borrowed. My name is really Aang." At this, Sokka jumped up.
"Aang, don't tell her anything! We don't know what she's doing here, for all we know she could be a spy!" Aang just looked at him funny.
"Sokka, first of all, what harm is her knowing my name going to do. I have Airbender tattoos, I'm wearing Airbender clothes, and I'm surrounded by people who are either from the invasion or who were in the escape from Boiling Rock, in your case both. A sloth-monkey could tell you I'm the Avatar. And second of all, what is it with you and thinking every stranger is a spy? Seriously, if you knew what you were talking about with that, the world would be doomed because I would be a spy." Then he returned his gaze towards On Ji. "Which reminds me, On Ji, what are you doing here?" She blushed.
"Well, uh, I was wondering if, um..." She stood up to bow properly, but wobbled quite a bit before falling back over. Aang rushed over to her.
"Are you okay?" He asked, concern evident in his voice, and interiorly she smiled, though on the exterior she grimaced.
"I'm fine. What happened to me anyway?"
"Well, um, you kind of fell off the cliff."
"Oh. I remember that."
"Yeah, well anyway, I heard you screaming and ran out to see what what was going on, and when I saw what was happening I grabbed my glider and flew down to rescue you. I caught you before you hit the ground, but you hit your head on something on the way down and lost conciousness. We had to bandage up your head because our resident healer is off on some secret mission she can't tell us about." Aang grinned, but Sokka jumped up again.
"Aang!" The Avatar just ignored him though.
"Wait a second," On Ji said, confused. "If she couldn't tell you about it, then how do you know that's what she'd doing?" Aang grinned again.
"Why our secret code of course." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a note, holding it up for her to see.

Guys,
Went out to "get some meat", don't know when I'll be back. Zuko wanted to come with me (and is currently sitting on Appa, knowing full well that I have no idea how to pilot the zeppelin), take care of yourselves until we return.
P.S. Aang, Zuko says same drill as before, practice your Firebending while we're away. And work on some Waterbending too, you're still having trouble controlling ice.
P.P.S. Oh, and Sokka, please don't worry. I can take Zuko in a fight, I can handle some "meat".

At this point Sokka's mouth was on the floor. "AANG!" Aang still ignored him, though girl standing behind him gave him a thump to the ribs with her elbow. He grinned sheepishly at her and rubbed the back of his head. Everyone present chuckled, and On Ji assumed it was a regular thing here. But then everyone got serious again, and they turned to look at her again. She blushed, and decided to admire the rather lovely patternwork of the ceiling of the room they were in.
"On Ji?" Came that wonderful voice again. "Why did you come here? Shouldn't you be back in your home?" She took a deep breath, and brought her eyes back to his, surprised to find that he had moved closer to her, but not jumping. And then she brought her hands into the traditional Fire Nation bow.
"Avatar Aang, I would like to ask that you take me as your student in the art of Airbending." The request actually flowed rather eloquently from her, and she gave a small smile at her ability to keep her cool around him. Until The Runaway burst out laughing.