Painted Ghouls

Chapter 11

WARNING: violence

"You get tired really easily," Brendan commented, his vision fixated onto the torchic in his arms.

She released a meek chirp in response. He isn't wrong.

Although it was only noon, and the two had left Brendan's home extremely late in the morning, she was already exhausted. She was hardly fit for walking for what felt like ages, to put it simply. She wasn't sure how Brendan managed to hardly ever get tired- it was as if his entire life was walking for days on end, just to exercise his legs.

That would make sense, Athena thought, her wings drooping.

Brendan simply sighed, bunching his shoulders together. After a moment of awkward silence, he placed the pokémon onto the grass beside him. Flapping her wings, she glanced up at him a tad curiously. He had begun to dig through his backpack silently and somewhat subconsciously, appearing to be on the search for a particular item. Sniffing, the fire type brought her gaze to the openings in the lush canopy above them.

The leaves from the trees helped shield the sky from her view, but after taking a few steps forward, she managed to catch a glimpse. To be frank, it wasn't too much. There were hardly any clouds left to wade endlessly through the dainty blue abyss. The only notable thing was that the sun was high above them.

I don't get how Brendan does it, Athena thought, wincing at the sound of her stomach gurgling. He wakes up before me, and he still manages to have more energy!

The sudden and close movement of Brendan's hand drew her away from the sky and toward the ground next to her. A small pile of corn was placed beside her. Feeling her stomach rumble once more, she leaned forward and began to eat the treats, savoring their sweet flavor.

"We should probably hurry," the human said, zipping up his neon backpack. Slinging the backpack over his shoulder, he looked aimlessly around. "We have a place to get to."

Athena looked up at him, a tad confused. What place? she pondered, taking a small break from her meal. He never told me that we had places to go to. Usually when they went outside, they just wandered about without a certain destination. Was this a surprise of some sort?

Swallowing down the last bit the corn, the chick pokémon stood on her tiptoes. Almost instinctively, Brendan bent down and picked her up. Once he was safely secured in his arms, he began to move.

It seemed as if Brendan had no clue where he was going. Every now and then he paused, heaved a sigh as he meddled with his cap, before turning to either his left or his right. Sometimes he went straight.

Does he even know where he's going? Athena thought, shifting around uncomfortably. I hope he doesn't get lost.. With a feeble chirp, she looked around.

Not many trainers were in the area. In fact, the forest seemed hauntingly empty regarding humans. Granted, they hadn't seen many humans while trekking around for the past few days, but surely there was at least one nearby? Brendan didn't seem to care or even notice, possibly due to the fact that he held a dislike for trainer battles. Of course, Athena didn't mind- she held the same disliking toward the concept as her trainer.

Despite the lack of humans, there was certainly an abundance of pokémon. Not only could the songs of taillow and swellow alike could be heard, but many wurmples and poochyenas were scattered across the area. Truthfully, Athena had never seen a poochyena before, and she ended up squealing in fear when one approached them. Brendan, however, seemed indifferent, and continued on walking without any hesitation.