Dungeon Diving

Kozmotis pauses, quickly holding out a hand to stop Gabriel in his tracks.
“Whats…?” Gabriel starts but Kozmotis cuts him off with a sharp hissing shush.
He focuses intently, listening to the sounds around them and yes, there’s defiantly something out of place right now, a sound they haven’t heard anywhere else. There’s some light footsteps and what sounds like a crackling fire and Gabriel seems to have heard it now and he’s also frozen, his fur prickling.
The two of them wait with bated breaths, meeting a pokemon down in the dungeon normally means a battle, and for their own reasons neither of them want to battle nor like doing so. Gabriel shudders as he thinks about his meeting with the weremon, Ramiel, he’s seen them since and he seems to have calmed down, though his explanation made very little since to him; but that night still makes him shudder and he knows Steven has nightmares about it.
Kozmotis stiffens, the glow of flames now visible just around the corner, there’s no way they’re going to be able to hide, and they came down a rather nasty slope into this room so they’re not going to be able to get back up and out in time to be hidden. Gabriel would much rather have to face them front on, rather then while they’re scrabbling half way up a slope and very much prone to an attack.
“Oh, what do we have here?” A voice purrs out and a tinge of recollection hits the back of Kozmotis’ head, he’s sure he’s heard that voice somewhere before. Sure, it’s someone he knows, but clearly not someone he knows very well, he’s trying to search through his head to think of who it could be that he’s seen recently. Though his mind is running up blanks, something he really can’t blame considering the fact he has an egg at home with his partner, an egg that he really wants to get back to right now.  Yeah, he didn’t want to leave the house today now that he knows about his imminent child but he did not expect that his little trip to get some more supplies and a plushie would lead him to be down in a dungeon. Not only down in a dungeon, but down in it with Gabriel, the pokemon that he has been following for so long. A tinge of guilt has built up about this, he never intended to actually introduce himself to Gabriel, let alone right now with everything else going on in his life.
He tries to clear his head but he’s so lost in thought, hoping that if this pokemon does try to take it’s advantage then Gabriel will be able to swoop in. Though, Kozmotis wouldn’t blame Gabriel if he dived to the side instead and just let him take whatever full attack he would be to receive. Well, it’s not like it’s something he wouldn’t have done, if he was the one at full senses, he would let Gabriel take the hit.
“Oh, well this makes it less fun.” The voice rings out and Kozmotis manages to snap out of it and looks up, making eye contact with the pokemon which has now appeared.
Even across the dark room Kozmotis can make out who it is, especially aided by the large flame coming off of it’s head, there’s bat wings spread out behind itself like a massive cape and a grin forms on Kozmotis’ lips as he does in fact recognise the other ‘mon in the room.
Gabriel’s still stiff in front of him, so Kozmotis gently places a hand on the Eevee’s shoulders, trying to ignore how fluffy it’s neck fur is, you can’t just pet other pokemon. He’s trying to calm him however,
“It’s alright Gabriel, I know this vampire.” He smiles out before then stepping around the other pokemon and taking a few more steps into the middle of the room, between Gabriel and Cassius.
“Cassius, it’s good to see you again.” He calls out.
That feline grin spreads itself across Cassius’ face again, all pointed fangs and Kozmotis enjoys that he can’t forget that these two are nothing more than prey to him, and if he really wants to, these two have no chance against him.
“Kozmotis, this isn’t a place I ever expected to meet you. And who’s this?” It purrs back, before then squatting down slightly, in almost a teasing manner towards Gabriel. Kozmotis can hear him snarl behind it, yeah, he’s not going to be polite so Kozmotis decides it’s still his turn to talk.
“Oh yes, Cassius meet Gabriel, we both accidently got pulled into helping out the guild today.” He introduces the Eevee, “I would say he seems rather friendly, but I can’t blame him right now. What are you doing down here?”
Cassius shifts, seeming uncharacteristically nervous. He takes a few steps forward towards them both, making sure to not move too fast to not startle the on-edge Eevee, that’s on the other end of the room, a little worried that if he moves too fast then they’ll end up in combat. Not that Cassius is worried about fighting the other pokemon, he won’t lose he knows that much, but more he doesn’t want to upset either of the other pokemon. He remembers Kozmotis saying something about this Eevee called Gabriel when they met, and finds it very telling that he’s acting as if he didn’t know him before this and that they’ve never spoken before. He wants to call it out but also doesn’t want to upset Kozmotis, they’re still sorting out the final kinks in their agreement, so he doesn’t want to ruin anything just yet, oh ruining things is defiantly a down the line task, he can’t help it.
“What are you doing down here?” The Eevee finally speaks.
Both Kozmotis and Cassius turn to look at him, not expecting the pokemon to finally speak, let alone judge why he’s down here. Cassius now lets out a rather ugly and nervous laugh, almost an uncomfortable chuckle as he shifts to rub his arm – the flame coming off of his head dims before growing larger, taking a couple of long seconds to settle back down to how it was before. This topic is clearly something uncomfortable for him, but Gabriel’s glare makes him feel like he needs to continue to speak, to actually explain himself.
“Well, yes it’s not ideal that I currently live here, but it was empty and I have just dropped in from another world. Housing takes a while to actually get your hands on.” Cassius states, with a slight hiss, really what do they expect of him, to have suddenly arrived in another world and have his whole life already put back together.
He had everything but now he’s just another pokemon in this world, a world where there’s not even that many other vampires, which may seem like a benefit but it rather means that there’s very few others who actually understand him and why he acts the way he does.
Kozmotis tries to hide the pity from his face, knowing it’s not going to be ideal to do that – he wouldn’t want pity for something like this so he doubts Cassius would.
“That’s awful.” Gabriel breaths out and Cassius stiffens, oh yeah, he doesn’t want a pity party.

“Anyway.” Says Kozmotis, interrupting them both before Gabriel can say anything else to make Cassius uncomfortable. It may only be a new friend that he’s made, but as Kozmotis doesn’t manage to make many, he doesn’t want to loose the chance at one he may finally have.
“We’ve been down here some time, why don’t you come up with us Cassius, you can tell Gabriel about the state of the rest of the dungeon and he can be off home and you can come meet the others.” Kozmotis states, Gabriel looks over to him.
“Why are you in such a rush?”
“It’s cold.” Kozmotis snaps, he doesn’t mean to come off so defensive, but he’s not willing to just outright tell Gabriel that oh yeah, he has an egg at home with his boyfriend that he's still not 100% sure what their label is, as well as another child they took in. He’s clearly anxious himself now, rubbing his arm, so it’s Cassius’ turn to come interrupt in. It covers the rest of the space between them and gently lays an arm over Kozmotis’ shoulders, the heat coming off the fire type is a lot after getting so cold, but it’s not uncomfortable.
“Kozmotis makes a good point,” It purrs back towards Gabriel, running an unnervingly warm hand along Kozmotis’ jaw. “Lets get out of here and I can tell you both exactly what’s going on with this dungeon, for whatever stupid reason that you need it.”

Cassius’ arm doesn’t leave its position on Kozmotis’ shoulders the entire walk back until they get to the stairs, and only then it’s because there is no way to walk up like that. Gabriel has asked so many questions, that Kozmotis has just ended up zoning everything out, Cassius having reassured them there’s no pokemon left down here right now other then a few harmless Zubat.
They leave Gabriel with some parting words, and Cassius follows Kozmotis home once he finally has decided Gabriel has disappeared far enough off that he is safe to head home without being followed. Kozmotis runs a lot of thoughts through his heads as they travel, how exactly he should explain Cassius to Ozul, as well as the fact he didn’t manage to grab any of the things that he actually went out to go get. Hopefully, hopefully Ozul is the calm and understanding ‘mon that Kozmotis believes him to be as of the last couple of months.