The Southern Water Tribe(5)

After the spirit was pacified by Unalaq it disappeared making him turn around and ask.

"How did you manage to keep the spirit still for such a long time? Spirits are powerful beings that are very hard to calm down once enraged and impossible to kill, I never heard of a method to keep it from rampaging other than pacifying it."

"That would be one of my inventions, spirits are mostly energy, so I created a device to disrupt and dissipate that energy."

"Is that even possible? Why didn't I hear about this method till now?"

"There are a few reasons, firstly it's almost impossible to do without extensive knowledge about physics, secondly it uses new technology that it's still in its experimental phase."

This time Korra's father asked me a question.

"Can Future Industries provide those devices to the Southen Water Tribe?"

"At the moment, I don't have a way to make sure that the bombs work all the time. The thing that I used was a half-finished product, I made a gamble since I was cornered, to be honest, it was about a fifty-fifty percent chance that I wouldn't do anything. It was quite lucky that it worked the way it was designed."

"Brother, this is so like you! All you are thinking about is fighting!"

"Well, not all of us are spiritual masters. How long till you can finish the bombs?"

"If I spend all my time on it and bring Varrick on the project, probably a few days to finish the designs, a few days to get the designs to the factories, and from there on out it depends how many you want."

"For starters how about two thousand?"

"Sure! I think within a month you will have them."

"Dad, please tell me that you aren't seriously considering this! Spirits are alive, they have feelings, they can feel pain and you want to kill them!?"

"Well... Spirits don't have a physical body so it's quite hard to call it being alive, it's not proven that they have feelings, what they have seems more like animal instincts, well most of them at least, killing them isn't possible since they aren't technically alive but what I think you meant is destroy them, we aren't, we are simply making them change their form, you can't destroy or create energy. The only thing still standing is the pain part, but let's be honest, would you not put down an animal if it catches rabies? It's not that different, since it's not us attacking them but the other way around, all we are doing is self-defense."

"Asami, please tell me that you will not let Ethan do this! How about you uncle?"

"I... I don't think that what Ethan wants to do is a good thing, but... He's making a good point, those people don't have a way to protect themselves, Korra you might be the avatar but can you protect them all the time? Having a way to defend themself isn't a crime."

"While I don't agree with the approach, it might be worth considering this option."

"Exactly my point, I get why you are scared and angry, humans tend to abuse the power they are given, we can create laws to prevent this, want it or not, we need something to keep the spirits at bay until we find a way to solve this situation."

Korra didn't know what else to say, even the spiritual master was on my side.

"Are all of you on the same page?"

There was a long silence, after fighting the dark spirit none of them looked at spirits as just benevolent entities, they were all scared of them now.

"I understand... Master Unalaq, please teach me the spiritual side of bending!"

"Korra, you still have a lot to learn about air bending, and visiting the Air Temples will help you connect to the past avatars."

"I don't need this right now, there are more pressing matters at hand, I can do all of that later, Unalaq is the best person for this task, while you didn't know what to do he came and calmed the spirit down. I think it's time I had a new teacher..."

It was a heart-wrenching scene, I could feel the pain in Tenzin's eyes when Korra told him that he wasn't needed anymore and that it's time to find a new teacher. Tonraq tried to persuade her to change her mind but she didn't budge.

"Unalaq has proven that he is the only one that knows what I need to learn! I need to go with him!"

"Please I know you are angry but, Korra, we've come so far together..."

"I know, you will always be one of my teachers but I need to do this now, I can't go with you to the Air Temples, this is as far as we go, I hope we will meet again."

The disappointment in Tenzin's face was soul crashing, I knew that Korra was making more or less the right choice, having him around would only make teaching Korra slower since he would question every action that Unalaq would be doing. Just the way she did it, well, let's just say it could have been better.

"It's been an honor to serve you, Avatar Korra."

He then left to start packing his thing. I approached Korra and told her.

"While I think you did the right thing you should have told Tenzin more nicely. He is one of your masters after all and he cares about you."

"I know, but those are the first things that came to my mind."

"Korra, one of those days you are going to look back at the things you did and start to question why you didn't think more before doing them."