Painted Ghouls

Chapter 1

The temperature was blistering, but Mary did not mind. Her feet were a blur as she scurried ahead, her vision trained on the land ahead of her. The song of taillows in the branches above made their way into her ear slits, but they were drowned away by a combusken rushing after her.

"Come back here!" he called, almost tripping over his own feet as he chased after the significantly younger torchic.

Instead of following his commands, the chick pokémon swerved to the right, narrowly missing an ember fired by her brother. Without a clear target to hit, the flames collided with a bush, consequently setting it on fire.

"Hey, you know Dad's going to yell at us for that!" she said, ceasing to a stop as she stared at her brother, panting for breath.

The flames were pitifully small and weak, but she knew not to test their father's anger. She had seen him angry before, and it was not a pleasant sight. The combusken skidded to a halt, looked at the blazing bush, then back to the torchic.

"I doubt he'd get that mad, Mary," he casually responded, kicking a pile of dirt toward the bush. The flames instantly died out.

Mary snorted. Her brother, Zachary, was such an arrogant yet nonchalant pokémon, despite how much their father pushed them around. Zachary explained to her that before she hatched out of her egg, their mother and father were both used by humans for unexplained reasons. Ever since their escape, their father, Zeke, had been persistent on pushing them into training sessions and constant spars.

Despite how much the two men of the family were battle-ready and energized, Mary had never found interest in battles. If anything, she found them frightening, and scary. Pokémon could easily get killed in battles, so what was the point of them? Surely there was a way to live life without battling every single moment?

Blinking her beady eyes, Mary was about to open her beak to speak, but the sound of approaching footsteps crunching against twigs and leaves alike interrupted her abruptly. Turning around, she gulped at the sight of her cross father, glaring at the bush.

"Who did that?" he spat, motioning toward the plant.

The fires on the bush had already been extinguished, and managed to not spread to other plants, yet he still seemed to be in a rage. Backing away from her father, Mary glanced at Zachary, her eyes widened as he crossed his lengthy arms. Zeke groaned, flames dissipating out of his nostrils.

"Zachary," he mumbled, rubbing his feathery cranium with his talons. "That fire could've easily attract pokémon, or worse, humans."

The combusken stepped forward. "We can easily fight both of those things off," he coolly responded, shrugging his shoulders idly. Mary watched, deciding not to say a word. She didn't like the way the conversation was going. "We're strong enough."

Zeke blinked, dropping his glare onto Mary. Instinctively, she flinched, taking a small step back from her father. "Mary isn't," the blaziken spat, heaving a disappointed sigh. She blinked, lowering her head just a bit. He wasn't wrong.

The combusken only casted a sideways glance down at her, before perking up. "Doesn't she have speed boost?" he rhetorically asked, looking back up at his father. "She can just run or hide or something while we drive the-"

"Speed boost doesn't do anything!" Zeke snapped, clenching his gray fists tightly as he glared daggers at his son. "Your mother had Speed Boost, and she got captured!"

Zachary flinched, dropping his vision to the ground in an instant. Mary, too, flinched. She backed away tentatively as a silence stretched between the three. To break the silence, Zeke released a frustrated growl. Stalking away from the two siblings, he grouchily spat out, "Train."