Archer... Was not sure what to do. For one, a longcoat was rushing him with a stun baton. And for two, the other guys were shooting at the longcoats he was fighting. That is to say, bullets were flying a little too close for his taste. He tried to put some distance between himself and the stun baton-wielding longcoat. Sadly, the ability of a crossover was hindered by bulletfire. He was limited to jumping back as the thug stabbed at him.

Meanwhile, he noted that Geoff was hard at work on the armed thugs in question, who were stupidly prioritizing 2 long coats over one superpowered, rock-armored hedgehog. With the hedgehog in their face, it would seem likely that their aim would certainly suffer.

Finally, Archer went on the offensive against his stun baton-using adversary. As he reared back for another strike, Archer moved in, grabbing him by the forearm with one hand to prevent the next stabbing motion, then with his other hand, grabbed his coat and just..spun so as to use him as a bullet shield(so if any bullets DID stray his way, he didn't have to worry). If this much was successful, he'd kick him in the stomach with the intent of pushing him back toward the general vicinity of the armed thugs, and more importantly, Geoff. The intent here, if successful, would be cause the longcoat to collide with..someone. Hopefully, Geoff.

Unexpected twist number two: The stun-baton-wielding longcoat Archer tried to spin kept spinning, dropping his sparking weapon and whirling seamlessly right out of his coat into a full-on spinkick, leaving the deer clutching nothing but sleeve. With some of the bulk of his attire removed, and his scarf twirling loose, this one appeared to be an extremely colorful bird of some kind, red, yellow, orange, and even blue.

Meanwhile, his partner steadied himself just in time to snatch the dropped stun baton and lunge, not at the deer who had just clubbed him with a bow, but past him at the nearest gun-wielding troop. Perhaps it stood to reason that, while Archer was formidable, he was probably not as much of an enemy as the murderous soldier-like guys with submachineguns.

Whatever the case, it became clear that the guys in the coats were outright desperate, and, judging by their tenacity, had a personal interest in the contents of the crate. While they were skillful, they definitely weren't soldiers, but seemed way too driven to be any kind of grunt on a payroll.

OOC: Inactivity user gonna be on the prowl by the end of the night. We will advance.

The saying begins with, 'fool me once, shame on me.' The assumption that the longcoat-bowling hedgehog wouldn't have a sudden change of heart for whose side he was on from the top of the train to the insides was proven a foolish one at best, but damned if he was going to catch them off-guard again. As it was, the first goon he'd blindsided wasn't out of the picture as he'd have hoped.

Behind Geoff, and just prior to his batter up swing, that same man pulled off a grounded leap towards the 'hog's ankles with one arm, and pressed against the back of his knees with the other. No matter who you were, armored or not, everyone had the same weakspots. With a shout of something with too few syllables to mean anything good, Mr. Bandolier snapped at attention, and wheeled around with a rather unsubtle intent to put his fat military boot through the hedgehog's face.

That only left one to deal with the baton-man. His empty magazine left him searching for an opening, when low and behold it came to him... though probably not as open as he'd have liked. It seemed he at least recognized what exactly the stun baton was, but for some reason, he didn't back away-- instead, he charged right into it. A headfirst football tackle with his arms crossed in front of him, damn the torpedoes. At least he'd still have his own dead weight to throw at his foe.

Elsewhere on Casey's side, it wasn't clear what happened to the man behind the sheet metal. ...But he didn't seem to be making much noise.

Finally, Ace was set with a much simpler task than anyone else undoubtedly had: To move, and to move fast. Actually, it was kind of funny how quickly he transitioned from 'what was that' to hauling butt-- but he knew better than to try and outrun a pair of heavy machine guns attached to a helicopter. While the serval knew he wasn't as lithe as to perform a stunt like the ratman just did, he still wasted no time hopping between the train cars, and on the platform below at the nearest opportunity. Avoid the chopper, catch the suit. This was quickly turning into an obstacle course.

Even the locked door wouldn't stop him-- two particularly visceral shoulder checks later, Ace came bowling, spilling from the brisk outdoors and into the passenger car. The broken glass he met inches above his fallen form indicated that, yes, this is where his perp went, and he picked himself up and kept right on running forward. Not like there were many places to lose him, here...

Archer was caught off-guard by the Longcoat's smooth escape. His underestimation cost him a swift kick to the face. The deer staggered from the force of the blow, still holding onto the coat. He recovered fairly quickly and threw the coat back at the bird before him, merely as a distraction. The next thing he did was lunge forward at his foe, throwing a shoulder into his hopefully obscured target.

The intent was obviously to knock him to the ground, and he followed up by swinging his curved hunk of metal down at his body, should the shoulder-crash be successful.

Without much to stop him, the rat quickly made his way through the passenger cars, leaving a clear path behind him seeing as he never closed the doors he slammed through. Soon enough, the mouse had returned to where he began: the baggage car.

The baggage car full of people who were probably friends with the cat that was actively trying to catch the mouse and do who-knows-what to him. The car was also full of bullet holes, and contained the writhing body of one of the agents, and not a single one of the passengers seemed to be harmed at all. The rat made all these observations from his standing spot in the still-open doorway of the baggage car, temporarily (and not literally) frozen in place with a very nervous frown on his face

It was a slow, horrifying feeling in his chest; realizing that everything was going very wrong. He didn't even think to glance behind him to check on his pursuer.

He felt compelled to say something, to voice his rising displeasure with this situation. It was more for his own benefit than anyone's.

"This would have been a lot easier if you had all kept your heads down like I told you to."

Casey glanced back at the intruding mouse and gave him a queer look.

"Preachin' to the choir much?" he blurted with brows-raised-high sarcasm, before focusing intently on the door again. Perhaps he had room to say it; after all, everyone who was in the baggage car was a member of the party who hadn't chosen to go chasing after trouble—the ones who were hiding or just holding their ground.

Whatever the case, it was clear Casey hadn't caught on much regarding this guy and his conflict with Ace. As far as the hog knew, with all the chaos and hectic action, the suit was just another bystander, albeit a mouthy one.

The bird smacked the coat away as he was charged by Archer, and smoothly fell back into a well-practiced-looking, judo-like rolling counter, using the deer's own force against him so that, when they were finished tumbling, he'd be the one on top.

However, smacking someone with a big hunk of metal works almost as well whether you're on top or bottom. *Pang!* The bird flopped aside, solidly dazed.

For the troop who chose to rush the guy with the stun baton, however, it likely didn't end so well. The baton-wielding thug was the one first on the offensive; when the troop tried to rush him, he just slid back a brisk step and kept jabbing and feeding the would-be-tackler all the bladder-purging high-voltage goodness he could enjoy until either he hit the ground or they ran out of freight car to move through.

The mouse didn't have a response. With that complaint off his chest, he stepped in, brushing snow and glass off himself as he caught his breath. Acting as casual as he could, he reached down and picked up the sunglasses that he had dropped earlier while dodging the yellow cat. It seemed everyone had been distracted by the gunmen and the helicopter, so he was hoping that he had slipped everyone's mind. Placing the fancy aviators in his suit pocket, he strolled through the car at a leisurely pace, not letting on to the fact that their friend was still trying to skin him and was likely coming at him fast if the chopper hadn't finished him off.

"Well...if no one minds, I think I will check...to see if any other threats are heading our way... You know, scout," he declared as he headed for the downed attackers at the end of the car; more specifically, the open door next to them.

"Scout this!" came a fierce, serval-y cry-- not from behind the rat as one might expect, but holy Hell, he sprung right out of the door right in front of him, delivering a swift, if somewhat sloppy dual-footed drop kick to the chest as he whipped himself from just outside the car door. Improbable as it seemed, yes, that actually happened; rather than dash through a linear path that he'd obviously not be able to keep up with the ratman with, and possibly risking himself and any other passengers should the trigger-happy chopper pilot go too gung-ho, Ace being the psycho-thrillseeker that only he could be, actually climbed and scaled along the side of the train itself. It was cold, yes. At several times, the fear of his kung-fu grip succumbing to the chill seemed very real. But if catching him off guard meant something, it was worth it.

---

As could be expected, things didn't go so well for one of the troops. Namely, the one who'd be peeing blood for the next week or two should he ever make it out of there alive. His assault didn't last terribly long before he stiffened up considerably and fell to the floor with a thud. He wasn't dead, (even the simplest of Eggman's designs held some [read: some] security measures), but he didn't seem likely to get up any time soon.

Not far from them, the foot-through-face bazooka of a thrust kick turned into something more or less just as dangerous-- a freaking curb stomp. The brutality of it was shocking and almost out of place, even among all this violence and mayhem, just how willing this soldier, or whatever he was, was really to smash some t-shirt'd teenager's head in. And when he did...

Hell, it was almost as though he stomped himself somehow, vibrations shooting through his leg. No doubt Geoff felt a thud on his head, but it was a significantly dulled thud compared to what it could, or should have been. As it was, the stomper had briefly fallen off his balance, and the pinner had been caught off guard. Their training hadn't covered this.

"Sacré enfer--" The rest of that sentence came out as a pained mix of a cry and a wheeze as all the air in the rat's lungs was promptly kicked out of him by the angry loud cat that just burst out of seemingly nowhere.

The suited man was surprisingly light, so the dropkick was more than enough to send him sailing off his feet backwards, hitting the floor head-first with enough momentum to send him flipping heels-over-head, leaving him lying on his stomach coughing and trying to gasp some air back into himself. Being a quick thinker, he was already trying to scramble back to his feet to make yet another escape, but being dropkicked almost ten feet knocked a lot of composure and balance out of him. He tried to stand, but quickly collapsed to the floor again, hunched over, holding his suddenly-aching-like-hell chest.

Archer hit the ground in a less-than-desirable position, but some swinging of his bow at his dance partner's face was effective, no matter where he was, apparently. As his opponent flopped on the floor unconscious, the deer climbed to his feet.

He watched as the other longcoat managed to down another one of the gunmen. The would-be ticket puncher was actually unsure how to act. And with so much going on in Geoff's personal bubble, it was pretty hard to tell what to make of the situation, let alone how to react.

For the time being, Archer decided to do what any hapless civilian would do: Hide. He ducked behind the crate once again. This time, hopefully there wouldn't be more thugs lying in wait.