It started with a distant howl.
"Owooooo!!!!"
Then a chorus of barking from every direction at once.
"Arf! Arf! Arf! Arf!"
Cats began yowling—not the lazy meows of house pets, but the feral shrieks of creatures who had lost their minds.
"Meowwww!"
Birds erupted from the nearby trees, their wings beating frantically, their cries filling the night sky.
"Cluck! Cluck! Cluck!"
From the zoo Nadia and Astrid visited came the roars of big cats, the trumpeting of elephants, the shrieking of monkeys. Crows cawed. Squirrels chittered. Even the insects seemed to buzz louder.
Every animal within a fifty-mile radius had gone absolutely berserk!
And all across Solaris City, people were thrown into confusion.
A young boy clung desperately to his dog's leash as the normally calm golden retriever barked and tried to bolt toward the warehouse district.
"Rambo! Rambo, STOP! What's gotten into you?!"
The dog didn't stop. It couldn't stop. Something was calling to it.
An elderly woman's cat launched itself at the front door, scratching and yowling, desperate to escape.
"Whiskers! Whiskers, no! It's one in the morning!"
Whiskers did not care what time it was. Whiskers needed to go now.
At a nearby farm, horses kicked down their stable doors. Chickens escaped their coops. A usually docile bull rammed its fence hard enough to bend the metal.
"Is this an attack?!" Someone shouted from an apartment window. "Some kind of sonic weapon?!"
"Are portals opening?! I don't see any portals!"
"My dog has never acted like this—something's wrong—"
Maria had her hands clamped over her ears. The cacophony was staggering.
"What is happening?! Is there a portal rupture nearby?! I know animals can sometimes sense them before they open but—"
"It's not a portal." Charlotte shouted over the noise.
"Then what—"
"It's Pasha." Charlotte pointed at her sister, who was still crouched in her puddle of pee, looking deeply ashamed. "It's because she peed."
Maria's brain short-circuited. "What does her pee have to do with—"
"It's her blessing." Anya answered, as she sealed off her hears with her own blessing. "Everything she does has some level of effect on animals. And in this case, her body produces powerful pheromones and those pheromones are present in everything she excretes. Especially her urine."
She glanced at the puddle, which was still spreading.
"Think of it as catnip. Mixed with pure adrenaline. Mixed with the most potent animal attractant in existence. When Pasha loses control and releases her pheromones unchecked, every animal within range goes into a frenzy."
"You're telling me..." Maria said slowly. "...that the scent of her urine is making every animal in the city go insane?"
"It's happened before..."
Astrid confirmed, struggling to hold onto Aster, who had begun squirming and howling with the rest of the wolves.
"One time in a forest trip, every creature within twenty miles converged on our location. Bears. Wolves. Deer. Squirrels. Thousands of them. It took hours to calm everything down."
"Then how does she normally—" Maria gestured vaguely at Pasha. "—use the bathroom without causing mass chaos?"
Mika answered, somehow already having produced two earbuds and inserted them into his ears.
"She can control the pheromone levels. Normally, when she uses the bathroom, she suppresses them completely. No animals go crazy. Everything's fine."
He glanced at Pasha, who was now trying to make herself as small as possible, a challenging task for someone her size.
"But when she gets overexcited and loses control...the pheromones come out too. And we get this."
He gestured vaguely at the city, which had temporarily transformed into a wildlife rave.
"Mika!" Astrid was losing her battle with Aster. The little fox was thrashing wildly, her seven tails lashing, her tiny jaws snapping at the air.
"Aster is trying to bite me! My sweet little fox sister is trying to bite me! Please fix this!"
"Yeah." Charlotte added. "Before the entire city's animal population converges on this parking lot and we have to explain to the media why a stampede of rabid squirrels is surrounding the daughters of the Battle Angels."
Mika sighed. "Fine, fine."
He walked over to Pasha's side and to Maria's absolute horror, he crouched down and placed his palm directly into the puddle of pee!
"Mika! What are you doing?! She asked you to fix the problem, not check whether her pee is warm or cold!"
Mika ignored Maria and closed his eyes. He submerged his fingers in the clear liquid a bit deeper and whispered something under his breath.
[Calming Pee]
And then, from the puddle beneath his hand, a soft blue light began to glow.
It pulsed once and then poof. A tiny, spark-like explosion rippled across the surface of the liquid.
The effect was instantaneous.
The dogs stopped barking. The cats stopped yowling. The crows stopped screeching. The distant zoo fell silent.
Everywhere, the frantic animal energy that had consumed the city simply...dissolved. Replaced by a wave of profound, almost unnatural calm.
Maria stared at Mika in confusion. Then at the puddle. Then back at Mika.
"What...did you just do?"
"I reversed the pheromones."
Mika straightened up, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket and wiping his hand.
"Normally they trigger a frantic, aggressive response. I just...flipped them. Now they have a calming effect instead. Every animal that caught the scent is settling down."
Maria didn't know what to say.
She knew Mika was powerful and that he had abilities that no one fully understood.
But to turn pee into a calming spell and reverse its effects so instantly with just a few words—
That was something she couldn't comprehend, no matter how many times she witnessed his power.
But then something else occurred to her.
"Why did you say 'calming pee'?" She asked, her brow furrowed. "I've seen you do incredible things and along with that I've heard you say elaborate, dramatic spell words that sounded like they came from ancient grimoires—'Abyssal Cascade,' 'Voidrend Severance,' 'Ethereal Requiem'—and now you're fixing a city-wide animal rampage by saying calming pee?"
Astrid, who had finally calmed Aster down and was now cradling the sleepy fox against her chest, explained.
"He doesn't need to say anything. Most Blessed individuals have triggers—words or gestures they need to activate their powers. Mika doesn't. He could do everything silently if he wanted to."
"Then why—"
"Because he thinks it's cool." Charlotte said flatly. "When he was little, he watched cartoons where the heroes would shout attack names before doing their special moves. He decided he wanted to do the same thing."
Mika looked slightly defensive. "It adds dramatic flair."
"So." Maria said slowly. "He either makes himself sound like a Demigod invoking cosmic forces...or he just says things like 'calming pee.'"
"That's our Mika." Anya said, her voice bone-dry.
Maria let out a long, weary sigh. But there was a small, involuntary smile tugging at the corner of her lips.
Of course. Of course that was the explanation. This boy terrifying, world-altering boy was also, at his core, a complete dork who thought saying spell names out loud was cool.
Meanwhile, Mika had turned his attention back to Pasha.
The giant wolf-woman was still crouched in her puddle looking utterly miserable. Her ears had drooped. Her tail hung limp.
She was staring at the ground with the expression of a puppy who had been caught chewing the furniture.
"Pasha..."
"Pasha is sorry!" She mumbled. "Pasha didn't mean to. Pasha just got too excited. Pasha knows she's supposed to control herself. But—"
She looked up at him, her mismatched eyes glistening with moisture.
"Please don't make Pasha wear diapers, Mika! Diapers are for babies and Pasha is not a baby. Pasha is a powerful, mighty adult!"
"So, please, Mika! Pasha will be good. Pasha promises!"
Mika's expression softened. He reached up because even crouching, Pasha was still quite tall and placed his hand on her head.
"It's okay."
Pasha blinked.
"I know you didn't mean to and...it just happened. You're not in trouble." He ruffled her wild honey-blonde hair. "I'm proud of you, actually. In the past, this used to happen all the time. I was genuinely considering the diaper option back then."
Pasha's cheeks flushed with embarrassment.
"But you've been doing so much better. You barely ever lose control anymore. This is the first time in months, isn't it?"
Pasha nodded vigorously. "Pasha has been very good! Pasha holds it in even when Pasha is very, very excited! Pasha only peed a little bit today!"
"Exactly." Mika smiled. "You're improving. One day, you'll be able to get as excited as you want without any accidents. But for now—"
He glanced down at her legs, at the clear liquid still glistening on her powerful thighs.
"Let me help you clean up."
"Wait—"
From the sidelines, Charlotte immediately bristled.
"Why do you have to help her clean up?! She just told us she's a grown adult! She can wipe herself down!"
Pasha growled at Charlotte, a low, dangerous sound that made Charlotte take a step back.
"Pasha may be an adult to you." Pasha said, her voice carrying a warning edge. "But when it comes to Mika, Pasha is still a little puppy."
Her eyes narrowed.
"Get away little Charlotte, or else Pasha will bite you!"
Charlotte took a very decisive step backward. She had been bitten many times before. The memories were not fond ones.
Pasha, not wanting any further interruptions, waved her hand.
Whoosh!
A massive portal tore open in the air beside them. From it emerged a magnificent white dragon with feathered wings and a distinctly feminine form, smaller than Korra's true shape but no less beautiful.
Boom!
The dragon landed beside Pasha and Mika, spread its vast, feather-tipped wings, and wrapped them around both figures.
The wings formed a living enclosure—a private chamber of scales and feathers, sealing them away from the outside world.
"Hey!" Charlotte banged her fist against the wing-wall. "She's taking it way too far! She's making Mika do all sorts of weird things in there!"
Anya sighed. "Let it go, Charlotte."
"But—"
"You know as well as I do that there's no stopping her once she gets like this. Mika can handle himself. Just...wait."
—
Inside the feathered cocoon, the outside world faded to a muted hush.
The only light came from a soft, bioluminescent glow emanating from the dragon's wings. It was warm inside. Intimate. Private.
Mika looked around at their enclosure, then back at Pasha, who was still presenting her head to him like a dog awaiting praise.
"You know." He said. "Charlotte has a point. You can clean yourself up. You are an adult."
Pasha's expression crumpled into a pout.
"But Pasha wants Mika to do it!"
She looked at him with big, pleading eyes.
"Pasha has been so lonely for so long. Pasha has been thinking about Mika all day. And if Mika doesn't help Pasha clean up, Pasha will be a very sad puppy. The saddest puppy in all the realms!"
Mika stared at her. She stared back, her lower lip trembling with theatrical tragedy.
"Fine, fine." Mika held up his hands in surrender. "I'll help. Just stop with the emotional blackmail."
Pasha's pout vanished instantly, replaced by a grin so wide it nearly split her face.
"Mika is the best! Mika is Pasha's favorite person! Pasha loves Mika more than anyone!"
"Uh-huh." Mika crouched down to examine the problem at hand. "Now, how do we get this off?"
Pasha's outfit was...confusing.
It looked like some kind of battle garment, but it was wrapped and tied in ways that didn't correspond to any fashion logic Mika was familiar with. There were no obvious buttons or zippers. Just layers of fabric that seemed to defy conventional physics.
"Pasha will do it!"
In a flash, Pasha removed her lower garments. The fabric simply disappeared, leaving her naked from the waist down.
And Mika's breath caught in his throat.