Misty yawned, entirely out of boredom as she had just finished a long nap.

She stretched briefly, glossy silver fur shimmering in the dimming sunlight, before leaping onto the arm of the couch, glancing through the window out of habit – a habit which used to tell her what time it was – and dropping onto the wood floor, heading for the door.

She nosed her way through the cat flap soundlessly, flinching at the snap as the flap closed again.

The small cat drew in a deep, relaxed breath. The scent of her friend, Shadow, hit her nose as in the distance Misty could see the shape of the large black cat.

Shadow was an intimidating, fluffy queen with sapphire blue eyes, and had been creeping along the sidewalk, seeming to be searching for something.

"Hey Shadow!" called Misty, bounding across the street.

"Oh, Misty!" Shadow exclaimed, straightening up. "I was just on my way... to go for a walk!" she spoke slowly, Misty mentally shrugged it off, why Shadow needed an excuse for going on a walk wasn't anything of concern.

 "I was going for a walk too!" purred Misty, "We can go together! I've just gotta be home before the humans go to bed, ok?"

Shadow didn't reply.

Misty followed Shadow down the sidewalk, Shadow walking a few steps ahead of her.

If Misty knew Shadow at all, something was probably following her. If something happened, Misty's return home would be delayed, her next nap would have to be shortened and she would be tired for the rest of the day.

At the first corner, a nearby dog howl put the two cats on alert. Misty's tail twitched, expelling the excited energy which dog howls had always given her. Shadow bolted out of sight as Misty tried to remember why dogs exhilarated her.

She momentarily panicked, wondering where her friend went, but a snap from the tree beside the path alerted her to Shadow's position. Looking up, she tried her best to make eye-contact through the leaves. "Why's that dog sound so excited?" she wondered aloud.

Without waiting for an answer, Misty turned to follow the sound, both to locate the dog and to find out the answer.

"Don't go towards the-" Shadow hissed, but was interrupted as a foxhound mix ran right by Misty, nearly knocking her over, and started barking at Shadow, jumping up and snapping at her tail.

"Why's he after you?" asked Misty. She had always been curious about the reason behind all the dogs who followed Shadow around, now was the perfect time to ask.

"Dogs just hate me, I guess. Never even seen that one before." explained Shadow, yawning on purpose.

"Get - down - here!" snapped the dog between jumps.

"No, I don't think I will, thanks." Shadow replied in the same unchanging tone.

She tried to leap up to the branch above hers, but her back paws slipped off and she barely managed to catch herself by her forepaws.

 "I'm lucky this is such a high branch." Shadow remarked, panting.

Suki, a brown tabby cat with white paws, a white muzzle, and purple eyes, came towards them. Drawn by the sounds of the dog howling and barking. Her long tail held high in the air, with a curled tip like a question mark, showing her curiosity.

"I thought Shadow might be in trouble." She mused to Misty. "The dogs on our street only howl like that when they've got her cornered."

"Hey Suki," Misty waved her tail in greeting. "Would you mind helping Shadow out of the tree?"

"Sure," replied Suki. "I was planning to anyway."

She stared at Shadow, who rose into the air, slowly lowering.

Shadow ran as fast as she could as soon as she got safely on the ground. "You could've just put me back on the branch!" She called over her shoulder.

"Hey! Get back here!" panted the dog, running after her.

"Lucky I was wearing my magic amethyst collar today." Suki gave an amused purr.

Not expecting a reply, and not even waiting for one to come, Suki started walking again, going straight past Misty in the direction of her own house.

Misty continued her walk, soon bored out of her mind. She went on walks so that she could have some amount of novelty in her monotonous routine, the eventful start made everything else that happened seem boring.

When she arrived home she headed to her human's bedroom, the human was on her bed reading. She read a book before bed every night. The human turned to glance at her alarm clock, putting her book next to it.

Misty's human didn't usually stop reading as soon as she came in, Misty usually had a few minutes to lay on the human's lap before bed.

 "No, I'm late for my nap!" cried Misty. "My schedule is ruined, and all for that boring walk." She lashed her tail, leaping onto the bed and falling asleep quickly regardless.

* * *

Meanwhile, all the dogs in the whole block had joined in chasing Shadow.

Shadow laughed as she looked behind her at the dogs, "I've never been chased by so many dogs at once."

Suddenly, Shadow thought of the perfect way to escape, she quickly turned around and ran in the opposite direction.

Caramel, a white dog with patches the colour of his namesake, paused to slow down and look behind him, the other dogs dodged him and kept running, not realising Shadow had turned around. Shadow dodged between their legs as she ran, Caramel was too big to keep up and had to push through the crowd to follow.

Shadow ducked into an alley, hoping that the dog would keep running past without noticing she had turned, which would lead him straight to Ebony's house. She only had to hope the dog wasn't smart enough to check whether she'd continued across the street by tracking her scent.

"Hi Shadow" said a familiar voice from behind her. Shadow spun round and nearly bumped noses with Jade, a black cat with jade green eyes that sparkled even in the dark, she was young, barely six months old.

 "Oh, it's you." Shadow sighed with relief, taking a few steps back.

"Who did you think it was?" asked Jade.

"I dunno, a dog or something. You just surprised me." Shadow replied, tilting her head in an attempt at a shrug. She'd seen her humans shrug before, but couldn't quite figure out how they did it.

The dog who had been chasing Shadow ran past the alley, making Jade jump. The small distraction was enough for Shadow to sneak away before she could be questioned further.

Caramel continued running, he stopped at a corner, no longer able to pick up the cat's scent now that he was out of the crowd. He decided to cross the street, heading straight toward a dark green house, because there was a fluffy black cat in the yard.

Instead of going on the sidewalk, the dog simply jumped right over the fence, landing to the right of the black cat.

The grass was soft and clean. The house was flanked by two tall fir trees. An alley ran behind the backyard.

By now the sun had set. All was silent. Soon crickets began to chirp, announcing the arrival of another summer night.

Not a single light was on in Ebony's house, both of his humans had gone to bed.

Ebony wasn't bothered by the darkness. He knew his way around the house well enough. He weaved easily between chair legs as he headed through the cat flap in the door to his house.

As he stepped off the path onto the grass, Ebony heard something jump over the fence into his yard. He felt the grasshoppers jumping frantically away from its paws, trying not to get squished. He stumbled sideways as the thing brought a sudden gust of wind to the side of his face.

He sniffed the pine-scented air, trying to discern what it was.

 Why would a dog jump over his fence? He could tell it was someone's pet, it smelled faintly of rose shampoo and vaguely reminded Ebony of his neighbors.

"Now tell me." Ebony began with a joking tone. "Why would a dog come to my house this late at night?"

"Wow," The dog barked from Ebony's right side, closer than he had thought. "I thought cats had better night vision than that. You're not even looking at me!"

Ebony recognized the voice, it was his neighbor's pet, Caramel, his humans didn't treat him well and only let him inside for baths. His mind wandered and his silence irritated the dog, his whiskers quivered as the dog suddenly moved, but Ebony was too fast, he dodged Caramel's large paw as the dog pounced.

Caramel was too annoyed to notice that Ebony wasn't the cat he was looking for. He leapt at Ebony again, smashing his head into the fence with a loud crash as Ebony ducked once more.

The dog looked up as a light turned on inside the house, and the bedroom window opened.

Ebony's male human shouted something at Caramel and he scampered away. The female called to Ebony softly, making short, soft chirps that sounded like 'psst'.

* * *

Misty flicked her tail and scratched at the door, meowing at her humans. They must have forgotten to unlock the cat-flap in time for her morning walk.

 Her human picked her up and removed her collar. Was it time for a bath?

Apparently not, the human put a new, fancy collar on her. Diamond blue just like Misty's eyes, with tiny plastic sapphires on it.

Misty sat and admired the new collar for a moment as her human left the room. While the human was gone she put extra care into grooming herself, so that her fur would be as shiny as her new collar.

At the snap of a tuna can opening she turned to find that her human had returned and was putting an open can of tuna inside her pet carrier. Clearly she was going somewhere. Well, Misty wouldn't say no to a treat, she willingly stepped inside the carrier to eat the fish.

The human closed the door, picked up the box and carried it past the kitchen. Misty couldn't remember going through this door before; it turned out to lead to the garage.

The human put Misty in between the two seats of the car and got inside. Greeting the mother human, who had been waiting.

They drove to what looked like a repurposed mansion. It had a parking lot where there should've been a yard and the walls were imbedded with jewels. Brightly coloured lights shone through the windows in one of the rooms and Misty could see the shadows of humans through them.

The humans parked the car and took Misty's traveling crate out.

As they entered the building Misty felt a strange sensation. It was as if she was being given power from the very walls of the building.

As she looked around through the holes in the sides of her crate she saw Suki's human carrying her in its arms, Shadow was following her human, attached to a leash, and Ebony trailed cautiously behind his human, his ears flat.

Her vision seemed sharper than usual, so she kept looking around. She had never seen such rich shades, or such sharp outlines of things her eyes focussed on.

All the humans had dresses or suits and carried or led cats of all colours but ginger or cream. Suki's human had a business-like radiance about her.

The humans set their cats down and began chatting. After setting Misty free, her human went over and began arguing playfully with some of the grey cats' owners.

 Misty headed straight for Suki, "Do you have any idea what this is about?" she asked.

Suki nodded and took a long breath. Suki always did this when she was about to ramble on about a long story so Misty settled on the floor, tucking her paws underneath her.

"They're all here to see if their cats are in the legend of the Magic Cats. My human takes me every week. She usually goes to inform the cat owners who think their brown cats are magical that I'm the one. So that they don't spread misinformation." She paused to allow any questions to be asked.

A black cat with teal eyes walked over proudly. "I'm sure I am the cat with powers from jades." He boasted, flexing his shoulders in a friendly manner.

"You have the wrong eye colour." Suki told the teal-eyed cat. He dropped his head and tail, and turned away, heading back to his human.

 Suki turned back to Misty. "The legend says there are six cats, all with powers. Three black cats, a grey cat, a calico, and a brown and white cat." She pointed her muzzle down at her paws. "That's me."

Misty checked the room for any calico cats, sure she hadn't seen any before. She was right, none.

"Why aren't there any calicos here then?"

"Oh that's simple." Suki explained, "The calico cat turned evil, and nobody wants to think their cats might be evil."

Misty narrowed her eyes, "What kind of evil?"

"The most evil possible. Murder, kidnapping I think, everything! I heard she even tried to drown a cat." Suki described dramatically.

Misty shuddered, deciding to change the topic. She gestured around at the gems in the walls. "What do they have to do with this?"

Suki touched a paw to her collar, she was wearing her amethyst one again. "That's where we get our powers from." she said, simply. "The gems are here to test if anyone gets powers from them."

Shadow walked towards them, the humans had finally unclipped the leash from her harness. "This feels weird." She stated.

"Being inside here? It feels weird to me, too." Misty agreed.

Suki looked shocked, as though she had just discovered polar bears living in Africa.

"What are you shocked about?" Ebony asked, coming toward them from behind Suki.

"Shadow and Misty feel the difference between here and everywhere else." Suki answered almost breathlessly.

Misty tilted her head questioningly, why should it be so shocking? Didn't the other cats feel it too? Or, if they didn't, wasn't it just because they were used to unfamiliar spaces?

Suki answered her unasked question, "The difference is from the gems."

"So then does that mean I'm the grey cat from the legend? What would my power be from?" Misty asked.

 Suki scanned her eyes for a moment, then gazed into space as if trying to remember something. "Diamonds." She said, bouncing on her toes. Then she did the same thing with Shadow. "And yours... Sapphires."

Ebony looked amazed. He stepped closer to Shadow, purring.

Now that she could see clearly, Misty began to notice the differences between them. Ebony was shorter and more fluffy; and while Shadow stood in a way that seemed ready to run or fight at the first sign of danger, Ebony stood as though he wanted to be as small as possible so as to not get in anyone's way.

Suki studied his eyes too. "Did you feel any different when you came in here?" She asked. Ebony nodded slowly, yet eagerly.

"Your eyes are weird." Suki remarked. "I think your powers would be from Emeralds?" She seemed to hope her previous statement wouldn't be taken offensively.

Suki's human walked over to the black cat owners. After a few minutes of talking most of them looked disappointed.

 Soon, the party was over. Misty's human looked tired. But Misty was too excited about the news that she had powers to care. And besides, the day wasn't over.

(not part of the story but I did a thing)

https://youtu.be/r8Zo27K0RH8