Shadow Color (NEW VERSION)

Chapter 2

When the sun finally set behind the horizon, the temperature dropped significantly. Macaria stuck her hands into her coat pocket, she had left her gloves at home. At least she remembered to pack her jacket before heading out. The sound of the clock from the clock tower chimed ten times in the distance, it was later than Macaria had thought.

As she walked down the sidewalk, she could see people ahead of her holding small orange flames or bright orbs of lights in their hands. It would be nice to have some extra light, especially in spots where some of the streetlamp's bulbs had burned out. A group of five teens walked past Macaria, two of them had small orbs of white and yellow lights in their hands. One of the teens was holding a stack of trading cards, one held open a thin plastic bag from a grocery store, while the last one was shuffling through a pack of trading cards. For as late as it was, there were still quite a few people out and about and everyone was in groups, except for her.

Just as she was near to her apartment, she heard something fall in an alley. She stopped and turned to her left, there was a trash bin lying on the ground with trash scattered across the ground. An animal must have knocked it over. There were plenty of stray cats in this part of town. Macaria brushed off the sudden spook and took another step forward. This time, a bright flash caught her attention from further down the alley. The flash was then followed by bright white stars and then a dark figure darted behind another building. Now she was curious, she wanted to see what was happening. Some unknowns would perform beautiful light shows at night and this might be one of them.

She took a few steps down the alley before she saw another wave of bright stars and then a sudden dim orb of blue fire. The fire orb floated in the air, illuminating very little around it. She looked a bit closer and could see an outline of a person. It seemed odd. As she noticed the figure, she quickly jumped behind some trash bins and peeked around the corner. The figure stood as if ready to dodge an attack, but there was something odd about it. The mysterious person's hand began to glow as they quickly moved their arm in a large circle in from of them with their glowing hand leaving a streak of white light. Then they thrusted their hand in the middle of the circle which shot a flurry of bright white stars down another alley. As the bright stars continued to fly from the glowing ring, Macaria noticed it was a girl with what seemed to be large pointy foxlike ears and a fluffy tail.

Is that an unknown?! Macaria thought to herself. Unknowns are fully human with some kind of supernatural power. Never has she ever seen or heard of an unknown with any kind of animal features. As she continued to watch, the mysterious unknown quickly dodged a beam of ice that froze the area where she stood. She then hopped over a fence and began to run in Macaria's direction. Three strange people dressed in black ran out from where the ice beam had come from and began to chase her. The girl stopped and placed both of her hands on the side of a building a few feet away from the trash bins where Macaria was hiding. Now, she could get a better look at the girl. She had long light brown hair that went to the middle of back and wore a long warm gray sweater with a pink bow around her neck.

"Don't let her get away!" one of the strange people yelled as another threw a shadow ring at her. A light pink circle began to appear on the building where she placed her hands, it looked like some kind of portal. Once she noticed the shadowy ring, she quickly pushed herself away from the building. The ring seemed to have grazed her fingertips just a bit. As she quickly caught herself on the building behind her, the pink circle began to shrink. She then pushed herself off the building behind her and jumped through the circle before it closed disappeared with a flash of bright white light.

"Damn it, she got away," one of the strange people said as he began to investigate where the portal was moments ago.

"She couldn't have gone far," another began. "That ring touched her fingers which means she won't be able to use her powers for a while. That portal shouldn't have taken her far."

A beeping noise silenced them all. The one standing in the middle reached in his back pocket and pulled out a phone and answered the call. "How is the mission going?" asked the caller.

"She got away, but she couldn't have gone far," the man holding the phone said. He then looked at the other two standing at each side of him and nodded toward the way they had come. The two men than began to run down the alley.

"Oh, she did? How did she get away?" the caller asked. The voice didn't sound familiar to Macaria. She wished that the man would walk away so she could slip out from behind the garbage cans. She felt as if she shouldn't have seen or heard any of this.

"A portal. I just barely got her just before she jumped through. She couldn't have gotten very far. The other two are out searching for her now."

"A portal? Where, Felix?"

Felix than reached into his pocket again and pulled out a dim glowing green card. He then tossed it on the ground in front of him. The card shattered into millions of tiny particles that rearranged themselves into a digital looking person. This seemed to be some kind of hologram. The man had medium length blue hair with the left front strand a bit longer than the right and wore an off-white uniform with a purple stripe down the center and a dark gray cape that went over his right shoulder and gray blue gloves. He even appeared shorter than the man named Felix.

"I'm glad to see this new holographic card works," the man began as he studied the wall in front of him. He then ran his hand against the wall which revealed handprints from where the girl had placed her hands to open the portal. The two remained quiet for several moments. The silence made Macaria feel uneasy. Her knees began to hurt from kneeling on the ground for too long. She wanted to stretch her legs out a bit but was too afraid she would make noise and draw attention to herself. They seemed like the kind of people who wouldn't let her go too easy.

"I have what I need. Finish- "a meow from the street caught the man's attention. He looked toward the street and spotted a stray black cat. Felix sighed as the cat began to approach them. Macaria froze up and hoped the cat wouldn't notice her.

"Well, hello there," the man said in a soft voice and kneeled on the ground.

"This is a hologram call, remember? You can't pet it," Felix began as he crossed his arms. It seemed like this wasn't the first time this had happened.

The cat approached the hologram and looked at him with curiosity. The sight made Macaria feel a little less tense. The cat looked to be just about fully grown and it seemed to be quite friendly. "Vincent, focus," Felix snapped.

Vincent jumped to his feet with a startled look, "None of that happened," he quickly said before the hologram disintegrated into millions of white particles that fell to the ground before materializing into the green card Felix had thrown onto the ground. He reached down and picked up the card before running down the alley where the other two had gone.

Once Macaria was certain he was gone, she slowly stood up and stretched. She had been hiding longer than she had thought. A quiet buzzing sound came from her bag. She reached into one of the pockets and grabbed her phone, there was a text from Natsuki asking if she had made it home alright.

She quickly typed up her reply saying she had made it home safely, but just as she hovered her finger over the send button, she froze. Then she looked down the dark alley where the strange men had disappeared into the darkness. She was curious about them, but even more curious about the girl. Who were those people? Why were they chasing that girl? Were they on a mission of some sort? Was the girl an unknown?

Then, she looked at her message reply. If she sent the message, Natsuki would assume she was home, if she didn't, then Natsuki would keep sending messages and try calling. Of course, she didn't want to scare her friend into thinking something had happened to her. She quickly deleted her message and said that she had to stop and pick up a few things from the store and that it would take her a bit of extra time to get home. Natsuki was a night owl and would stay up until the early hours of the morning, so trying to get ahold of her at midnight wasn't an issue. After Macaria had sent the message, Natsuki responded a few moments later saying to call if she needed anything. Perfect. Macaria slipped her phone in her back pocket before rushing off into the darkness. She didn't have a clue what she was getting into, but she felt as if she had to find out. A little curiosity and excitement couldn't hurt.