Dungeon Diving

Mayr’s eyes drift across to look into his partners, and the other ‘mon looks giddy with excitement. It’s been a while since they’ve been able to go out just them, and even longer since they’ve been able to do a Dungeon together, becoming fathers really makes things harder than it needs to be, but they don’t mind.
They don’t need to worry about Adelaide, practically kidnapped by her so-called Uncles to spend time with her and have the children play together. She gets on wonderfully with Guinevere and it seems the two are going to become and stay firm friends as they age.

This led to the two adults having a couple days alone, Circe left explaining she needed to go grab some stuff and that the vibe felt weird, they tried to press her over what weird means, but she wasn’t willing to explain it. Mayr’s not quite owned up to Cassius that he agrees with her, something just feels weird right now and he doesn’t know what it is, until she put this out there, Mayr realised maybe it wasn’t just adapting to being a new parent. Of course, this alone time led to them wanting to do another dungeon, Cassius was practically vibrating with excitement over the idea of having time to do one again, especially beside his partner.
Neither of them know why they decided on a legendary ranked dungeon, maybe because of what the Moonlight Oasis meant to them, they want to recapture that time, that moment before. They were warned not to chose the shoreside, that it will be hard on them; but if anything, this made the two men chose it more. They’re as stubborn as they are in love with each other- which is proving to be a lot.

The two camp outside of the dungeon’s reach the night before, not wanting to head into it when the sun is cusping low in the sky, they’ve been warned how badly this dungeon will affect them mentally, that it’s not even that physically draining but it’s just hard on any pokemon who enters- but they’re prepared.
“You know, I don’t know where I’d be right now if I never met you.” Cassius states.
This catches Mayr’s attention, he pauses from putting away their tent, holding it gently in his claws as he turns to see his partner, a soft expression falling across its face. Cassius looks a little taken aback, as if he didn’t actually mean to actually say it outload, a blush spreads across his face and his flames crackle lower. Mayr’s trying to work out what to say, he’s mentioned a lot about how he felt falling into the past and how his relationship with Cassius ended up stabilising him so much – but Cassius, well he’s implied it a lot but has never actually said it outright. Mayr doesn’t want to make this about him and drops the tent, starting to trot over to his partner.
“HELPPP!!!” A voice squeaks out.
Mayr and Cassius both freeze, turning to look into the dungeon where the cry comes from, it seems there’s more serious problems a foot.
“Was there…” Cassius starts,
“There was no rescue stated for this dungeon.” Mayr finishes and confirms.
This makes things worse, it can either mean that there is someone stuck in there that wasn’t known about or, the dungeon is already starting to affect them, and maybe they’ve been camped too close to the edge of it. The two glance back at each other,
“We have to go, help them if there is someone who needs helping.” Cassius states firmly.
Mayr nods, and glances back at their stuff, it should be more then safe left like that, all of their needed supplies remained either packed up from their travels or where what they focused on putting away first. If this is a pokemon that needs help, then they need to do that. Mayr’s also reassured that they both heard the shout, maybe that does confirm it’s someone who needs them.

Carefully, the two of them cross into the dungeon, Mayr stumbles in the sand as it gives way under his hooves and Cassius grabs him before it can go down. They can both here laughing and snarling around them, they need to be careful, especially as they’re not quite sure where this lost pokemon could be, they know nothing about it and as they head further across the sands, Cassius must admit he might not even be as sure that there is a pokemon, or at least, that there isn’t actually a pokemon who needs help. This is a legendary dungeon and apparently, it’s filled with feral pokemon, they’ve faced some before but they all react differently when you end up facing them.  The two of them decided to stick close to each other, not letting the shoreside get into their minds if they stay close.
“Can you see anyone yet?” Mayr calls out softly across to Cassius, he must admit this is making him feel worse than he was before.
Cassius waits a second, staring around and trying to work out if he can see anyone.
“Not yet, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t someone here.” Cassius responds and then freezes.
Mayr doesn’t notice at first, but then back tracks to his partner, looking from him to what’s in front of them. There’s a glowing orb that seems to be, being shoved around by a Uxie and a Chimecho, almost looking like it’s being as a toy by the two of them, Cassius ducks down and pulls Mayr with him, as the Chimecho moves to briefly stare in their direction.
It's red swirled eyes are evident and it becomes very clear that both of these pokemon are feral and that clearly, this isn’t just some fun game for them, a soft whimper comes from the ball and the two stare at each other, this is clearly where their original cry came from. Mayr flexes his claws and prepares his best physic move, knowing that it will be the most effective move at this point in time, they need to be careful of that orb, clearly connected to a pokemon in some way but how exactly, they don’t know. Cassius nods and Mayr swallows, as Cassius stands up straight, becoming fully visible if the two feral pokemon turn around, but the orb is still being spun around between them.
“Hey, leave them alone!” Cassius calls out.
The Uxie and Chimecho turn to the voice and both snarls. Cassius does his best to not shudder at the response, but is glad to see the orb now float off to the side. They begin to move towards Cassius and Mayr takes a deep breath trying to focus, he’s never been the best at using his hypnosis abilities, the move he hates the most because it means he has to understand their emotions to manipulate them. As confident as he can be about the move, and well with time getting shorter as the two-snarling feral pokemon get closer to them, Mayr stands up in front of Cassius and casts the move.
Cassius places a gentle hand onto his shoulder, proving his own confidence in his partner. A few seconds pass and nothing seems to happen with the two feral pokemon, before the Chimecho then seems to waver slightly, its swirled eyes turn pink before it gently falls from the air and lands on the floor asleep. Mayr can’t let out a sigh of relief yet, as the legendary is still approaching them, it’s unnerving to see how a normally very relaxed legendary pokemon is in this feralised state. Cassius has trust in his partner, but slowly begins to form a flamethrower in his other hand, just in case, he’d rather not get too face to face with the legendary, his fire won’t do much, he knows he’s at a disadvantage and he doesn’t want to risk the flames hurting anyone else, especially not that strange orb.
The Uxie then begins to sway slightly, its eyes flickering between pink and the feral swirled before it lowers to the floor, Mayr’s panting softly,
“Grab the orb, we need to move away from here, it’s not going to hold on them for long.” He whines and Cassius lets go, closing his fist and making the fire disappear. 

He's fast but hesitant as he walks towards the feral pokemon, the Uxie is still awake, just sat on the floor, but the chimecho is gently snoring so he’s not so worried about that. Carefully, he moves towards the orb, it flickers as he touches it and his hand feels numb.
“Friendly, helper.” It mutters, though this seems odd to Cassius, like it’s not actually been said out loud but rather straight into his brain, “New home!” It chirps.
With a bright flash of light the orb then disappears. Cassius blinks a couple of times, trying to work out if that was real, but the slightly numb feeling in his hand proves that it probably was. There’s no time to question it here though, the Uxie is beginning to move again, so regroup somewhere else and then explain.
Heading back to Mayr, he slides his hand into it’s before they leg it from the scene. The Uxie snarls and follows them for a bit, but they soon shake it off as they follow the shoreline, the water lapping beside them. Cassius wants to keep going but Mayr slows, before dropping to his knees.
“Are you okay?” Cassius panics slightly, stopping and turning to his partner.
The red water isn’t far from them, they’ve ended up getting closer to it as they ran, at least Cassius can still see the rather unique tree that marked their entrance to the dungeon, and he just really wants to get Mayr out of there again. Mayr simply whimpers in response to the question directed at it, so Cassius quickly surveys their surroundings, deeming the fact he can’t currently see a pokemon suggests that they’re safe for now; so he drops to his knees and gently cups the side of Mayr’s face, hooking his fingers around the horn and gently stroking the base of it. Carefully, Cassius tilt’s Mayr’s face back up so he can look over their face, his eyes seem to be dimmed the bright purple dulled out slightly and he looks exhausted.
“We need to get out of the dungeon, liebe.” Cassius purrs softly, using his other hand to push the curls out of the side as well as to gently pet the wool. That’s got to be what’s affecting him so bad, they were warned after all and after having to use a move that Mayr feels so draining must not have helped.
“’m too tired. I want to stay here.” Mayr manages to mumble out, but Cassius isn’t having this.
“No Schatz, we’re not staying here another moment longer, I will pull you to your feet if I need you to.” Cassius states firmly, before getting to his own feet.
He lets his wings brush across Mayr’s shoulders, lets go of his face but lets a hand rest on the tip of one of Mayr’s horns. Knowing the other can feel this and it will end up annoying him, but Mayr still makes no move to move. Guilt builds in Cassius’ gut, he knows that Mayr isn’t meaning to do this, but he’s got to get them both out, so he leans over and drags Mayr to his feet.
It's messy and difficult but he gets one of Mayr’s arms tossed around his shoulder and half walks, half drags him to the edge of the dungeon. 

They get to the remains of their camps before Cassius stumbles and has to almost drop Mayr, and once he gets them into a more comfortable position he crouches down again, looking into its eyes and they seem a little closer to normal. However, Mayr’s still pretty shut down, so Cassius sets around to setting their camp back up, they weren’t in the dungeon long but he’s not getting Mayr home like this, not just yet and a lump forms in his throat, really hoping that he’ll snap out of it soon and that it won’t have left anything too permanent in it’s brain.