Mia was having a good laugh with her escort on their way back to her shared home living with Brad. Yes, they were only newly dating but life was good. Having not worried about danger on the trek back home due to her escorts, she was free to joke with them while wondering what Brad would think about the gift. She was also looking forward to the meal he had most certainly prepared for her.

“Corporal, there is a monster ahead with two people on the road!” Shouted the ranger leading the small group.

“Cindy, protect our rear along with our guest. Randy, pop off a few shots while me and Gareth close to secure the civilians.”

“Roger” the team shouted in unison while immediately parsing the orders and setting off to follow them. With his first shot flying wide to the left of the monster, the ranger had made sure that the second struck the left appendage of the monster, forcing it to retreat.

With the woman screaming hysterically and the man turning with a knife flashing in his right hand aimed at the approaching patrol, the woman grasped in a tight embrace with his left. The guards were still approaching to secure the civilians, but now realized that they must be easy with their approach, else they create a new enemy with the scared people they were trying to rescue.

“We are guards from Westbend, are you okay? Do either of you need medical attention?” the Corporal asked.

“Why did you shoot at us!?” the obviously shocked man demanded.

“We were shooting at the monster grabbing at your lady friend… was there a misunderstanding that we are not aware of?” The military man asked, now confused.

“Dang right there has been, that was my familiar! Watch over her, I need to go see if he is okay, he has a bleeding debuff now.” the man screamed before tearing off into the tall grass having jumped the ditch entirely.

“Brad!? Oh my lord, we have to follow him, we need to help them!” Mia screamed, running up and past the now confused guards and into the ditch.

The corporal, now very confused, set about giving his orders; “Gareth, protect the lady with Cindy” indicating the mud-covered woman still standing confused and in shock on the road. “Randy, let's go and figure this out. Be ready with a healing potion for when we find the familiar, I don’t want this to end up with us accidentally killing an innocent.”

“Understood” Randy replied curtly while dashing off into the tall grass beyond with his superior hot on his trail.

~~~ Brad~~~

“Rumble! Come back and let me help you!” Brad screamed while following the still newly swaying grass left behind in Rumble’s passage.

Surrounded now by tall grass it was hard to see and even quite oppressing in its envelopment of anyone running through it and as such any progress made was extremely slow.

Wading through the grass and yelling for Rumble, Brad was soon the recipient of a hush emoji. Not sure what to make of it Brad was soon on alert with him automatically hunkering down into a smaller profile while still being ready to react to any danger. This alert status however led to one of his chasers running right into him, leaving him just enough time to spin around and meet it head on before being bowled over by said individual.

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~~~Mia~~~

Running through the towering grass while chasing after Brad’s voice bellowing over the rustles of her passage. She was however not prepared for her boyfriend to suddenly stop yelling for his familiar, nor was she prepared for him to stop and crouch in the grass silently. And so with her momentum carrying her forward through the brush, Mia was carried into and with his face buried into her midsection the whole way to the ground in a spectacularly confused way.

“Ugh, my head.” Mia moaned. “What the heck just happened?” she continued as she rolled off of Brad to the side and onto her back.

“Apparently you happened, I didn’t know that you were with that group. I have so many questions. But we need to stay quiet, Rumble sent me an alert and I am not sure why.”

“OW! Sir, it is attacking me!” screamed the man that Mia knew to be Randy.

“Subdue it but don't hurt it if possible, that is someones familiar apparently!” the corporal replied, in an equally loud voice.

“Well we know what Rumble is doing, let's sort this situation out.” Brad told Mia while shaking his head. “Rumble, leave them be, they are guards and it was apparently a huge misunderstanding!” he yelled out while helping Mia to her feet.

“Rumble, they are friendly! They escorted me home to protect me!’ Mia screamed towards the loud commotion that her and Brad were currently running towards.

Within moments the commotion had started to die down, with Mia and Brad bursting into the area containing a floating Rumble held aloft by one of his feet by a battered and bruised Randy.

With a plethora of excitement rocking through Rumbles small body as his two favorite people came into his view, it was obvious that he now understood that he was glad to see them safe.

“You can drop him, he should be fine now.” Brad told Randy, with a bit of disdain tinting his voice.

“Understood, and I really want to apologize. I saw a group of monsters storming down the road a bit ago, but they had disappeared into the grass pretty quickly… so it just happened to look like you and your companion were getting attacked back there. I honestly have never seen a familiar like him before.” Randy tried explaining.

“Regardless, we do owe you our apologies.” the corporal said, now arriving into the clearing having been slowed down by his heavier armor. “Please take this potion as recompense, it is the least that we can do and we hope to make the situation right.” he said while proffering a bottle of a red liquid that seemed to glow in the light given off by his light stone.

“That doesn’t quit-” Brad started to say.

“Very well, we accept it and you are forgiven on our end.” Mia said, cutting Brad off. “But I do believe that you owe him an apology directly.” Mia continued while pointing down to Rumble.

“I do believe that we do.” the corporal quickly agreed. “Rumble was it? We would like to apologize for our mistake and subsequent shooting of you. We are sorry that you got hurt, but like you, we were just trying to protect people without all of the information available to us.”

Rumble slowly approached the corporal and shook his hand before walking over to Randy and stomping on his foot, not quite hurting the man through his uniform’s boots.

“I guess that settles it then.” Brad said with a slight huff of annoyance still present in his bearing. “Mia, Rumble, are you two ready to get back up to the road and head home?”

Briefly agreeing and having started towards the road with her boyfriend, Mia suddenly remembered an important detail.

“Brad, I have a question.” Mia asked in a tone that did not quite convey the calmness that her question should’ve given off.

Immediately stopping, more at the sound of her voice than the statement itself, Brad responded cautiously. “Uh, okay. What's the question? Did I do something wrong?”

“Was that Melissa on the road?”

“Ya it was, why?”

“Why were you holding her?”

“Uh….” Brad stammered as the both guardsmen involuntarily winced.