Exhausted by the escalating, uncontrolled chaos, Leo knew he couldn't just react anymore; he needed to guide his familiars' growth.
Their powers were growing stronger, but without direction, that power manifested as squeaky skin, vanishing wallets, and spiritually unsettling gardens.
It was time for a more structured approach.
It was time for Spirit Dew, Batch Two.
This time, he was more prepared. He followed the Elder Spirit Codex's refined instructions with the focus of a research scientist.
He used the premium catnip, the imported spring water, and the captured essence of not one, but all three of his familiars purring, barking, and gurgling in a rare moment of communal contentment.
The result was a liquid that shimmered with a potent, silvery light. It looked less like water and more like captured moonlight.
He gave each of his familiars a carefully measured dose.
The effects were immediate and spectacular.
The next morning, he decided to test Milo's enhanced agility. He pulled out the cheap red laser pointer, the ancient enemy of cats everywhere.
Previously, Milo had been fast. Now, he was a violation of the laws of motion.
Leo flicked the red dot across the living room floor.
Milo didn't chase it. He simply appeared where the dot was.
There was a blur of silver, a faint whoosh of displaced air, and Milo was sitting on the red dot, looking bored.
Leo blinked, trying to track the movement. He flicked the dot onto the opposite wall.
Zip.
Milo was there, leaving a faint, shimmering afterimage of himself hanging in the air where he'd been a microsecond before.
Leo started moving the laser faster, waving it around the room in a frantic pattern.
The living room filled with silvery afterimages. A dozen translucent Milos seemed to flicker in and out of existence, a ghostly ballet of feline speed.
One moment he was on the bookshelf, the next he was under the coffee table, the next he was perched on the lampshade.
This isn't a pet owner's life; it's managing a spiritual circus, Leo thought, his arm getting tired. Milo's a blur, and I'm using a five-dollar laser pointer to train a creature that could probably outrun a photon.
Too slow, human, Milo's smug expression seemed to say as he appeared directly in front of Leo, batting at the laser pointer in his hand. My reflexes demand greater challenges! This red dot... it mocks me with its slowness!
Next was Max.
His 'deconstruction' talent was getting more precise, but it was still driven by chaotic husky logic. Leo decided to try and channel it into something… constructive. Or at least, less destructive.
He took Max into the backyard, which was suffering from an outbreak of overgrown weeds.
"Okay, boy," Leo said, pointing at a particularly large, ugly thistle. "Clean up."
Max tilted his head, then barked with joyous understanding. He trotted over to the thistle.
Instead of digging it up or trying to eat it, he simply nudged it with his nose.
There was that familiar, reality-bending shimmer.
The thistle didn't just vanish. It deconstructed into a neat, perfectly square pile of green dust.
Leo stared.
He pointed to another weed. Poof. A perfect, circular pile of dust.
He pointed to a long line of dandelions. Zzzzip. They collapsed into a series of interconnected, perfectly geometric triangles.
Max was 'redecorating' the garden with malicious precision. He was a canine abstract landscaper, turning the unkempt yard into a bizarre, postmodern art installation of weed-dust.
He proudly presented a perfectly cubic patch of disintegrated crabgrass to Leo, tail wagging. "Woof! Max made it neat! Good boy! Now, what about that fence? It looks… untidy."
Leo looked at his yard, which now resembled a crop circle made by an artist with a severe case of OCD. He had a brief, internal panic attack about how he would explain this to his neighbors. "Very good, boy," he said weakly. "Very… geometric."
Finally, it was Goldie's turn.
Her training was quieter, but no less strange.
Leo placed her bowl on the patio table, the water shimmering with moonlight-like energy from the Spirit Dew.
Goldie, in her quest for a perfect living environment, had developed a new habit.
She began to swim in a tight, rapid circle.
The water in her bowl responded.
A tiny, perfect water vortex, a miniature whirlpool, formed in the center of the bowl.
It spun with a silent, mesmerizing grace.
Goldie then proceeded to swim through the vortex, her tiny orange body looping and twirling. She was performing a synchronized swimming routine. With a self-generated whirlpool.
She was doing hydro-aerobics.
Leo watched, utterly mesmerized and deeply bewildered. His goldfish had a more sophisticated and physically impossible exercise routine than he did.
He spent the rest ofthe afternoon in a state of exhausted vigilance. He had to rake the geometric weed-dust into a normal-looking pile of yard waste.
He had to gently dissuade Milo from trying to teleport through the closed kitchen window.
He had to convince Goldie that creating a waterspout in her bowl was perhaps a bit too much for a quiet afternoon.
He collapsed onto a lawn chair, the sun setting, painting the sky in hues of orange and purple.
His pets, his familiars, were napping around him, their bodies thrumming with contained power.
He looked at the scene of 'perfectly' executed, yet utterly absurd, abilities. The training was a success.
And a complete disaster.
Especially when it came to the husky.