The following morning, as Caboose got up to get ready for the day, he found Papi curled up against him inside Miia's serpentine embrace. Deciding to let Papi keep Miia warmth/company until later, he slowly slipped out of the embrace until he could stand up. With Papi there, Miia's coils weren't as tight around him as normal, giving him plenty of room to wriggle out.

Moving to the kitchen, he looked in the fridge to discover…nothing. "Huh. Guess I have to go shopping before I can make breakfast. I need…I need…" He stared around at the fridge's empty interior. "What do I need again? Usually Miia makes me the list…"

[List of groceries available,] Freckles spoke up helpfully. He sent the file to Caboose's HUD. [Freckle will be waiting to return with groceries once acquired, if needed.]

"And then I can meet Polt for her morning walkies!" Caboose proclaimed happily, having started calling their jaunts that after discovering that Polt exhibited many canine behaviors…especially when he unthinkingly scratched her behind one ear, making her tail wag vigorously much to her embarrassment. "Good thinking Freckles! I'm off!"

It didn't take long for Caboose to reach the store and gather the groceries he needed. Since he was ahead of schedule, he decided to carry the groceries home himself and get breakfast set up before going to meet Polt. On his way back, he paused at a sign that he hadn't noticed on his way out. "Watch out…for frequent…purse snatchings…" he managed to read off. "…purses snatch people? I'm glad Miia and Papi don't have purses." With that, he turned to walk to the intersection, slowing his pace as he heard the sound of hooves. "…oh my gosh, is there a pony?" he gasped excitedly, only for something to slam into him with the force of a speeding car. It took him several moments to realize something had hit him, and he slowly turned into a face-full of cleavage barely contained by a button up white shirt. "…this is not a pony," he murmured softly as he took a step back.

A tall woman with a huge chest, willowy body, long blonde hair, piercing blue eyes, and the body of a brown furred horse from the waist down looked down at him proudly. "I cannot believe we met!" she declared dramatically. "It must be fate! My name is Centorea Shianus! I'm a member of the dignified centaur race. Are you the one destined to become my master?"

Caboose stared at her for a time. "…what?" he finally asked, confused and uncertain what to say.

Centorea blinked at him. After a time, she cleared her throat. "It appears you do not understand my meaning. Regrettable, but something I can handle! There is a Japanese spell that proclaims that if you run into an intersection at full speed, the one you run into is your soulmate!"

"What's a soulmate?" Caboose asked curiously.

Centorea blinked as she realigned her impression of Caboose's intelligence. "A…very special friend one should seek to spend the rest of their life with," she explained, wincing at the partial deception. However, if Caboose was struggling with 'soulmate', she didn't want to confuse him with other concepts. She could only hope that he would understand the concept of 'friend'.

Caboose gasped happily. "I love making new friends! I need to run into intersections at full speed more often!"

Centorea blinked, thinking back to where she'd read of the 'Japanese spell'. "I…am pretty certain the spell only works for women," she explained carefully.

"I didn't know Japanese magic was sexist," Caboose responded in confusion.

Centorea started to respond, then thought about the rest of the 'Japanese magic' she had read about. It…did seem like he had a point. "I…had not made that deduction before…" she murmured thoughtfully.

As they spoke, the sound of a roaring motorcycle engine cut the air, followed by a woman's scream. A man on a red motorcycle drove by, a purse in trailing from his grip. "Move it! Move it! Move it!" he screamed as he drove along, laughing wickedly.

"Oh no!" Caboose cried out as Centorea grasped her sword. "That purse has snatched that man! We have to help him!"

It was all Centorea could do not to hit the ground face first. "Nay, my master! That man has snatched the woman's purse! It is why I was in search of you this morning, for it is my quest to hunt him down and bring him to justice…but tis against the law for me to bring harm to a human, so I need my human master to assist me-"

"Freckle! Groceries!" Caboose called out, tossing the several bags of food stuffs into the air.

The bags froze, seeming to float. [Directive accepted,] Freckle responded as the groceries moved towards the house.

Centorea stared for a time until Caboose poked her. "We catch the bad guy?" he asked eagerly.

Centorea blinked in surprise, then nodded firmly. "Yes, we must give chase!" she proclaimed. "My master…" she began, bracing herself for inviting Caboose to ride her…only to see him racing after the motorcycle on foot, managing a very impressive speed all on his own. "Wait for me!" she cried out as she began to canter after him, before moving to a full charge when that failed to catch up.

By the time she caught up to him, she saw he was on his phone through his helmet. "…so I'm going to miss our walkies today, Polt," he spoke apologetically. "I'm helping a new horse-girl friend chase down a bad guy. …yeah, centaur, that's what she said. …the bad guy got snatched by a purse! I think…oh, that makes much more sense. Yeah, I'll let you know how it goes. See you tonight."

Centorea grumbled under her breath as she finally managed to catch up to Caboose, panting a bit. "It is unseemly for a noble centaur to be outrun by a human," she muttered quietly, frustrated with herself.

"Oh, sorry," Caboose apologized, slowing down until he matched Centorea's pace. "Is this better?"

Centorea wanted to complain about how what she meant was that she should be the one having to slow down for Caboose, but discarded the notion. Her apparent Destined Master lacked the intelligence to realize the subtle intricacies of centaur propriety, and he was obviously just trying to be sweet. "It will do," she told him calmly. As they caught sight of the thief, she drew her sword. "Thief, come quietly!" she declared loudly as they approached. "Otherwise you will taste the weight of your crimes on the edge of my blade!"

"What she said!" Caboose called out eagerly. "…except I don't have a blade! That's Tucker's! …but I have a really scary robot doggy!"

Centorea mightily resisted the urge to facepalm as the thief sped up on his motorcycle. As they rounded a corner, he attempted to create an obstacle for the pair by running into a trolley of large bottles of water, sending them flying into the air. Centorea reacted quickly, slashing through them with her blade, resulting in only water hitting the pair…except for one bottle she missed that bounced off Caboose's head. He barely noticed.

"Too easy!" Centorea declared smugly. "Is that the best you can do?"

"Is your shirt supposed to do that?" Caboose asked curiously, staring at how the water rendered Centorea's shirt partially transparent, clinging to her large bosom and flat stomach. With a shriek of surprise, Centorea desperately covered her breasts with her crossed arms.

The thief took the moment of distraction to attempt to leap off the road they were on onto a sloping road going down, having missed the turn off and using that to put distance between them, calling back a taunt as he did so. "Is that the best you got, horse-girl?"

Centorea snarled, then moved toward the boundary.

"Are we gonna jump?" Caboose asked curiously.

"Yes!" Centorea declared, leaping over the edge. Her descent landed her atop a truck, before letting her leap off and onto the road below, now caught up to the man on the motorcycle.

"Okay!" Caboose declared eagerly, leaping off as well and cratering the asphalt below where he landed before making chase.

Centorea at that point had caught up to the thief, and had her sword at his throat. "You will not escape!" she declared angrily as he flinched back in fear.

Caboose quickly sped up. "Centorea, wait!" he called out, reaching for her shoulder. "You're not supposed to hurt humans-"

Due to both of their movement and Caboose's own clumsiness, he wound up grabbing the back of Centorea's shirt collar, causing the thin, wet fabric to tear completely off her as she pulled ahead of him. Centorea let out a panicked shriek as she desperately tried to cover herself, frozen in embarrassment as her sword went flying back along the tarmac…along with the thief who had fallen off his motorcycle due to a nasal hemorrhage. Centorea's gallop, however, continued uninterrupted.

"I can fix this!" Caboose called helpfully, shirt clutched in one hand as he started patting at his side. "I have a needle and thread somewhere-" His words were cut off as he ran full tilt into a solid metal wall, leaving a Caboose shaped indent even as Centorea slammed into a metal gate.

Having crashed into the metal gate, Centorea managed to recover her senses. "Master, how could you?" she murmured sorrowfully. She tried to cover herself as she turned to look for her sword…only to see it missing.

As she looked up, she saw the thief – now covered in various substances from his crash – standing over her with her sword. "Damn you, horse girl…" he began angrily, lifting the sword to strike. "I'll slice you apart!"

The sword began to descend, and Centorea started to scream in fear…only to see the blade caught in Caboose's hand. "No," he spoke, his voice now enraged and dark, "you won't." His hand slid down the blade until it gripped the man by the wrist. "That isn't yours." With a callous jerk, Caboose sent the man flying head first into the wall, knocking him unconscious and leaving the sword in Caboose's hand.

Centorea stared up at Caboose in awe. Not only had he managed to keep up with a noble centaur on foot, he had leapt to defend her honor with no thought to his own safety and dispatched a foul criminal in a single blow…and he even went about at all times in the garb of a noble knight! Her blue mailed Master may have been slow of mind, but that slowness acted to contain a fearsome rage and power, unleashed only in defense of others! Truly, she had found herself the penultimate Master for a noble centaur!

Caboose turned towards her, holding out shirt and sword. "You dropped these!" he offered helpfully. Noticing the tears in the shirt again, he added, "I can fix that!"