There were very few times when Appa ignored Aang. Knowing confronting Fire Nation soldiers would make everything worse, the young airbender hopped off the sky bison with his glider and flew alongside him, nearly crossing his path. Even though the war was over, Aang wasn't sure how loyal firebenders would react to meeting the one who had ended their nation's rule. He waved his hands, trying to get Appa to slow down. He looked back, and saw that they were almost to the iceberg. A strangely familiar iceberg…

"C'mon, Momo, tell him to slow down!" Aang shouted. Sure it was a little difficult to hear with the wind rushing past your ears, but Appa should have been able to hear Aang. The giant ears of a sky bison are like the ears of a dog; multiple times better than any human's. Even so, Appa kept going until he landed on the ice, and Aang rode the rest of the way on his glider. Normally he would have hidden, but after all the time he spent trying to communicate with Appa it was too late. Instead he resolved to pull his hood over his head.

He still snuck a peek at the strangers. "You're not soldiers-you're too young. And I'm pretty sure the Fire Nation would never make their soldiers wear kimonos-" he thought. Accompanying this thought was a picture in his head of a soldier in the dark-haired girls outfit, but with a few more frills.

For a few seconds no one talked, and an odd clicking noise from Momo was the only thing that punctuated the awkward silence.

"And what kind of contraption have you brought this time, Jack Spicer? I know it is you! Or I know you know him! You will not get away with it this time!" The bald one said.

"Huh?" Before Aang could say anything more, Omi jumped at him with his arm outstretched. Aang let a gust of wind slide him backwards across the ice to dodge the attack.

"Wait! I'm not your enemy anymore! I won't fight!" Appa made a low groaning noise as if to agree with him.

"Anymore? Then who are you?" Kimiko asked.

Aang debated telling them who he really was. Every time someone found out he was the avatar, either something really bad or really good happened. People would celebrate his arrival, try to take advantage of his powers, or try to capture him. And he almost always had some extra responsibility tacked on to his journey. He liked helping people, so of course he didn't mind saving villages from monsters or soldiers, but it was tiring. Occasionally he would make new friends, and that was on the best of days. Katara and Sokka had decided to stay for a couple months at the Northern Water tribe, and Aang missed them. If he made friends with these people, he'd have someone to keep him company. So he made a compromise in his own mind. "Well, I have to take my hood off sometime. I'll only tell them who I am if they ask. Which they probably will, because these tattoos are a dead giveaway. Although, what's the worst that can happen?"

"I'm Aang," he introduced himself. "This is Appa," he said, gesturing towards the white bison, "and this is Momo," he pointed to the lemur.

"Whoa, dude, how'd you do that? Do you also have control over the wind?" asked Raimundo. He thought he was the only person who could do that. If he wasn't, Master Fung would have picked someone else, right?

Aang figured it was time to stop being shy. "I can bend…all the elements. I'm the Avatar."

The Xiaolin warriors all gasped at once, and their breath was visible in the frosty air.

"So, you're, like, legendary, right? You know it takes a heck of a lot of chi to have power over all four elements. I've never heard anything about you," the skeptical Brazilian said. Omi's eyes teared up and he respectfully bowed to Aang.

"Wait a second, Omi," the girl's voice interrupted. "I'm sure he's not even real. An avatar is a virtual representation of the player in a video game."

"No. The Avatar. The one who helped bring down the Fire Nation?" After a few seconds had p assed and blank looks appeared on the Xiaolin warriors' faces, Aang made a guess.

"Are you even from the Fire Nation?"

"That's a funny way to refer to the state of Texas, partner. I'm Clay," said the boy with short-cropped blond hair.

"Kimiko."

"Omi."

"I'm still suspicious."

"That's Raimundo." Raimundo glared.

"Umm…nice to meet you?" So they weren't from the Fire Nation! Aang inwardly cheered and thanked whatever spirits were watching over him. He wasn't really sure which ones, though, they could have been his past selves, bears, or even cabbages. Still, how could they know nothing about what had been going on in the world for the past few years?

Appa had calmed down, so Aang figured it was time to fly the couple miles left to the Southern Water Tribe. He turned his back on the red-clad teenagers and pulled himself up the furry mountain of white hair and used the wide saddle straps to haul himself onto Appa's back. More straps to his left were tight around several bundles of clothes, scrolls, and other goods that he was supposed to be delivering to the smaller sister tribe.

Out of habit Aang said, "You guys don't need any help with anything, right?" He smiled brilliantly, (which could have come off as cheesy if anyone else had done it).

"So…do you live here?" asked Kimiko.

"No…but I think this might have been where I came out of the ice a long time ago."

"Well, it looks like a good shelter." The curved icy walls kept out the worst of the wind, and also made their voices echo slightly.

"You probably shouldn't stay here. There's a village not too far away. I'm going there to drop off supplies for my friend. I don't think Appa would mind a few extra passengers, would you?"

"Nah, we've got Dojo. But you could take this chatterbox along with you, if you want. Either that, or he could 'ride the waves'." Raimundo pointed to Omi.

The tattooed airbender just noticed Dojo who was hanging back, and had been silent up to this point. A sudden heat surged through him as his body remembered the dance and formations he had performed with Zuko many months ago, spinning slowly and lightly, but always keeping the proper stance so he didn't fall. The fire flowing through him was empowering, but it still wasn't his favorite element. Another element that added to the almost surreal atmosphere of that one afternoon was the dragons, though, and Aang was told those, the red and blue beasts, were the last in the world. His lips managed to overcome their slight numbness, too, and he celebrated this by half-yelling, "Is that a dragon?"

"Yes, I am," Dojo replied.

"It's just-there are only t-I mean, they're extinct." Aang didn't want to endanger the safety of the remaining dragons.

"Sure you don't see us a lot, but we're not extinct. In China, we're practically worshiped. We get our images painted in gold on the walls, and we even have one out of every twelve years dedicated to us," Dojo informed him.

Aang had a hunch. How could these people be so different? "Where are you from? Are you Airbenders?" Raimundo said 'also' when he mentioned airbending, so they could be Airbenders. Inside, he was hoping they were descendants of the monks he had grown up with before he left.

"We're not 'benders," Kimiko said, "but we can each fight with a certain element. We usually use objects called 'Shen Gong Wu'." Aang held up his glider questioningly.

"Magical objects."

"This is magical…more or less…"

Kimiko continued. "We're from a place over…Dojo, which way is the temple?"

"I'm not sure, I'm not sensing it anymore."

The four warriors could now look down at the unfamiliar world Aang had told them about. Only four nations? Clay wondered if they stretched across the same area that continents did in their universe. He couldn't see any Earth in sight, just ice. It didn't feel right, not being able to bend what you were standing on. In the Earth nation Aang mentioned, there were many people that shared his talent. His thoughts mirrored Raimundo's when he first saw Aang bending air. Wasn't he the only one who could…

Omi was so hyper he was almost jittery. "Wooohooo! Hahaha! I can finally have a lot of mini mes without using the Ring of the Nine Dragons!" He tried to stand up, but his foot slipped on Dojo's slippery scales and Kimiko had to catch him.

"Calm down, Omi. It's hard to see through all these clouds," Dojo said.

"Yeah. Why didn't you just lasso the sky bison?" suggested Raimundo.

"You know I can't do that."

"I thought you said you could rope five pigs at once when sliding down a haystack!" Omi chipped in.

"I mean, it just wouldn't be right. Tying up Appa would be like roping Dojo."

"No, thank you!" came the voice from the front.

Raimundo didn't really hear this conversation; he was too busy enjoying the wind flowing through his hair. He was unconsciously doing tricks with a yo-yo he had brought with him in his shirt. When it came up the string he could feel a cool, smooth surface. If he looked in his hand while he flipped the toy over, he probably wouldn't have even seen the monochrome swirls or dots on either side of it. They blended in almost perfectly with all the small dips and ridges in the ice.

A few shouts came from up ahead. They were muffled at first, but they slowly made their way to Raimundo's ears and snapped him out of his trance. He smiled. Far below, children were playing with weapons, having snowball fights, or warming up by the fire.

"Going down," Dojo announced.

Speaking of playing with toys… "Crap!" Raimundo's face flushed as he quickly tried to hide the yin yo-yo in his pocket. All of them had learned the hard way not to play with the Shen Gong Wu, but the Wu had been acting up lately. Not anything major; trivial things like the Lotus Twister refusing to return to normal, or the Orb of Tornami leaking water.

At least everyone below them seemed welcoming, unlike Aang. The Xiaolin warriors could use some hospitality.

A/N: I know I've taken forever to update this, sorry, but I'm not on a regular schedule yet. If I was, I wouldn't trust myself to follow it:) I'll try harder in the future!