The colorful pheasant may as well have been in cold grayscale for the deadened level of enthusiasm with which he responded to Geoff's claim with.

"Oh. So Eggman's just 'out of the picture'," he replied plainly, in a tone that just may have been sarcastic, while ignoring the question. "So, some teenage hedgehog's trying to tell me we were out here risking our lives for nothing — and that I shouldn't get worked up about it, even though my friends are dead. For nothing."

Insert a frigid silence, save for the steady clacking of the tracks. Geoff's (perhaps inappropriately timed) levity was being poorly received.

"Go ask one of Li Fang's men if you want answers about Li Fang," he said while gesturing forcefully toward one of the troops (who may or may not have been alive), "but leave me the hell alone. I've got other things to be doing." And with that, he resumed sorting through the debris of the busted crate, stepping in over the splintered wood and nails, and reaching to pull one of his comrades out. This guy had probably become a dead end as far as information-gathering went.

The big, burly hog stood there, looking as though he felt very much out of place, somehow indicted simply for being there. He swallowed uneasily, but finally, lowly uttered a quiet "Well," as if to digress.

... Casey didn't say anything else, though, unable to find anything particularly poignant or useful to add in the moment, and instead wandered quietly over to squat next to the downed troop and investigate his... condition.

Casey touched the troop's neck, then picked up his wrist. "MnnnnI think this one's dead," declared the hog with all the due emotional attachment one might have in declaring a plant or a goldfish expired. Just as he dropped the guy's hand, though, there was a great gasp, and the troop sat up with a lunge, disoriented, and started trying to claw his way to his feet, all the while reaching for a sidearm.

"Oh, nope, still fresh!" Casey corrected himself. Then, out of the blue, he proceeded to backhand the guy several times in a row, pick him up off the ground, slam him into the wall, drop him back on the ground, and kick him in the ribs, reach down, take his gun, smack him over the head with it, throw it out the open side door of the train, and kick him again for good measure. He then picked the guy up again and held him suspended off the ground by his collar.

"Now talk."

The guy babbled in Chunese.

"Not that! English!" bellowed Casey, shaking him like a ragdoll.

More Chunese.

"... Well, heck," muttered the boar.

The troop, his eyes very squinted like they wanted to swell shut, glanced between Latika and the boar (who still held him suspended off his feet), and seemed to carefully contemplate his answer, between tired, heaving breaths. Either that, or he wasn't sure what she had asked.

He must have had some rough idea of what she asked, but was so certain she wouldn't understand the reply that he indeed called upon his limited English, and, in reasonably plain words, wheezed:

"Change... the world."

"Punk does speak English," grunted Casey. "Doesn't make a lick'a sense either way," he further observed.

The big pig mashed his gunarm's barrel up into the guy's cheek, meanwhile looking him over for anything else that may have been dangerous. More guns, grenades, knives, etc... If found, he'd probably instruct someone else to deal with them. If not...

"Maybe this is pointless," he thought aloud. "I mean, this really ain't any a'my business to go trackin' down train robbers."

In lieu of crickets, the clackety-clack of the train's wheels against the track had to suffice for a few seconds.

Casey stared down at the aardwolf, then glanced around uncomfortably He scratched his gut a couple times.

"... So,..."

His mouth hung open. He was trying to go somewhere with this, but apparently proved too disoriented.

"Iiii'm too hungry to deal with this right now," he finally decided aloud.



***



Sometime later, with Latika's help, Casey had busted out a portable stove and was cooking up a stew right there in the baggage car. It was starting to actually smell kind of nice inside, and with all the doors and windows closed up (and some of the larger bulletholes covered in a makeshift fashion), it wasn't too cold, either.

Their talk had been a meandering one. The boar did his best to wrap his head around the writhing, serpentine sequence of narrative events that had been unfolded.

"So... you guys say you were marooned here in a crash landing from space yesterday. And you say," cue a glance to Corin, "that this train was carryin' some stolen Cape Norden treasure with 'mysterious powers' and you were sent to recover it. And you say," cue a glance to one of the reluctant resistance fighters whom he had coaxed back into the conversation (at a distance), "your people stole it to help with the fight against Eggman... who you say," cue another look back to Geoff and friends, "is no longer in power anyway because'a somethin' you guys were up to yesterday — in space — while yooou say," cue a look to one of Li Fang's men, tied upside-down to the side of a crate, "a bunch'a... crap nobody friggin' understands. But you say," and now a look back to the resistance guy again, "that he works for an organized crime boss named Li Fang. And all'a you guys," he shifted focus back to the original party at large, "are just tryin' to get back home, and you—"

He looked at the gigantic purple cat.

"Who the heck are you again?"