Steam engines, Skullgirls, and Universes

Chapter 8: In the public eye

The crews slept rather well that night. Workmen came in to grab supplies and work on the other train that was in there. The sounds of the welders is what woke the crews up. 

"*yawn* Oh bother, I was having a nice dream too." said Thomas' driver in a sleepy daze. "Come on fireman, time to get up." he gently shook the fireman's shoulder, and he awoke too. 

"Mmmmh, five more minutes." he said, his eyes still shut trying to go back to sleep. 

"Afraid we can't, c'mon get up." the driver said shaking him some more. Eventually the fireman got up. He rubbed his eyes and stood up to stretch. Toby's crew were already awake and had made coffee. 

"Morning you two, care for a cup?" Toby's fireman gestured with the cup in his hands. 

"Oh yes please." they both said and went over to get their cups. While waking up, Thomas' crew told them about their night run with the post train. Toby's crew then told them about the trolley rescue, and their encounter with Filia. 

"So let me get this straight. This 'Painwheel' character wanted to take Toby to this shadow guy as a test subject?" Thomas' fireman said. 

"That's right. I didn't get to the best part yet." chuckled Toby's fireman. "We were struggling to get up the steep incline with the trolley, Toby tried his best but it still took a lot of steam. The ropes snapped and the trolley began to roll down the line. It hits Painwheel and knocks her lights out." Thomas' crew were enthralled with their story.

"Sounds like you lot had an interesting night." said Thomas' driver. 

"Yeah, a little too exciting for my liking. The idea of people sending out others to take our engines is frightening." Toby's driver replied. Thomas' driver and fireman agreed. 

That day Thomas was trialed to be a shunter for the yard. He shunted trucks to their proper sidings, and got the trains break vans. While Thomas still hated shunting in the yard, especially since he had just took a train the other night, he knew he couldn't do anything even if he tried. The other tank engines were busy shunting and piloting as well, number 054 could usually be found fetching coaches for the local mainline trains. Thomas was resting at a water tower, when someone in a suit walked up. 

"Hey number 1, we need you." The man said bluntly. 

"My name is-"

"Ah-babababa... Don't care. 054 has broken his side rods, we need you to go fetch some coaches for the next local train, they're the green ones. So get to it." Thomas was cross with the man, there was no need to be so rude. 

"Nevermind Thomas, come along." Said his driver. Thomas chuffed over to the coaches and brought them to the station. He was still in a bad mood and didn't pay attention to what he was doing. The coaches were coupled up to the engine. Thomas hadn't realize that his couplings had gotten tangled up with the brake coach's. The mainline engine blew its whistle and started its journey. Thomas noticed he was being pulled along with the train. 

"Oh no not again, not again! 'Peep-Peep!' STOP!" Thomas yelled, but the engine nor its crew heard him. Thomas found himself going faster and faster down the line. Yard workers noticed Thomas being dragged away, but by the time they tried to stop the local train, it was already out of the yard, heading for Maplecrest. 

Maplecrest's second station served as a junction between its branchline and Canopy's mainline. Here people could catch a train to go further into the rural area, or for mainline goods to be transferred to Maplecrest and vise versa. A tank engine was waiting for the mainline passenger train to stop there. Poor Thomas could only wait until the engine reached it's destination, his wheels ached as they kept moving down the line. At last they reached the junction and the train was stopped.