Ace's knuckles popped Juke right in the forehead. This could have been very bad for the attacker if he had been dealing with a tougher target, but Juke was a tomato of a man, and as such, his skull became the only major casualty of the impact, and reverberated appropriately.

"Hagh!"

The bat staggered backward faster than his feet could keep up, fell onto his back, and almost rolled over backwards, feet reaching pretty high before he again flopped flat. He rolled onto his side, holding his bruised head and wincing and grunting, and writhed there, scuffing up dirt and either trying to crawl away, or get to his feet, or something, but lacking the coordination to do it yet.

"D-damn, ghhh..."



And with that... silence.

All attackers were down, either unconscious or just plain done fighting.

Juke was unfortunately more known for being persistent than, say, compliant, or smart. As such, the grunting, wobbling mess of a bat ignored Ace's advice and pulled himself up by his bootstraps, against the throbbing urges of his head and his common sense crying out not to. First, up to a knee, then, a cock-sided stand.

He squinted around behind his dark sunglasses, looking both irked and pained, but quickly regaining his senses. He wasn't doing anything aggressive anymore, though.

Interestingly, Midian did... just the opposite. It was kind of odd, but the jackal's eyes seemed to spread into a thousand yard stare, and his gait became staggered and awkward. Without any other warning than his unfocused, dazed expression, he dropped to one knee, hacked a single, nasty-sounding cough, and groped around for something to grab to stay upright.

"Nobody," spat Juke curtly, still a little slumped over and surly from getting beat up on and having his plan foiled. It was hard to tell if he was telling the truth.

Midian wavered but stayed upright owing to Ace's support. For a few seconds, there, he went completely limp, but a few more coughs later, he was shaking his head and regaining mental acuity.

"M'fine," he muttered. "Just a-a condition. ... It'll shake off." He swallowed heavily, took a deep and sudden breath, and straightened up, steadying his crouch and looking more directly at Ace—still not eye contact, as it was more at his be-hoodied chest, but an improvement, at least. "Take care of the traitor for now. I'll keep."

Coop appeared.

“That bat’s disappeared, huh?” he said. “Hrnmg.” Then:

“Look,” he said to Juke. “you—what is that. Is that coffee?”

He sniffed. He looked around at the situation.

“Huh,” he said, before turning back to Juke.

“I am going to scrub out the coffee maker with your face if you don’t say something right now,” he said, matter-of-factly.





“Shadow!”

Tails hurtled over to where the hedgehog was being lifted out of the water.

He grabbed onto one of the hedgehogs’ arms and helped as best as he could, quickly feeling the hedgehog’s chest and for both a pulse and signs of breathing.

No signs of life from Shadow.

...

"Haghk!"

He jolted upright with a cough, spitting and choking raggedly on water. He was going to be alright, from the looks of it. He just needed a moment.