A little tank engine’s whistle blew long and loud as she steamed out of the tunnels of Ballahoo. On board her cab were three young adults, all at least older than twenty. One of them was driving her, and she had dark cerulean hair. The other two people with her were both men. One of them had a nasty scowl on his face and his hair color was jet black. The other man was more kindly and had blue hair. Like the man with black hair, the woman looked very dangerous, which could explain why the man with blue hair looked nervous. As a matter of fact, the engine also had an anxious look on her face.
“I don’t trust these people, Shining Armor,” she whispered anxiously, “what if they do something to you, me, or both of us?”
“I’m sorry, Lady,” Shining Armor apologized, “but I had no choice; I don’t want them to hurt my dear Cadance…”
“Shut up and let me focus on driving her, you idiot!” the woman snarled, smacking him on the back of the head.
“Alright, alright,” Shining Armor muttered under his breath, “keep your hair on. Sheesh…” He watched as the nasty woman opened the regulator wider and Lady went fast as her wheels could let her.
***
Half an hour earlier, Shining Armor had been polishing Lady’s brass outside of Vicarstown. Several weeks prior, he had been married to his high school sweetheart, Mi Amore Cadenza “Cadance”. He had promised to give her a ride aboard Lady when they were younger and today, he was going to fulfill his promise and wanted Lady to look her best.
His happiness and joy were quickly swept aside when the other two people – Quinn Chryssa “Chrysalis” and Kingsley Sombra – found him and the magical tank engine. Seeing her for the first time, and with their disbelief of magic, Chrysalis gave Shining Armor a threat he was unable to ignore. “If you don’t let me and Kingsley drive her,” she snarled, “I destroy her!”
As a mature adult, Shining Armor should’ve known better than to giving in to bullies, but his fear for Lady’s safety overshadowed his common sense. “Please don’t hurt her,” he begged, “I promised my wife I’d give her a ride on Lady!”
“Lady?” Sombra laughed, “You named this engine? Oh, this is so rich, isn’t it, Chrysalis?”
“It is indeed,” Chrysalis smirked, “so what shall it be, Sparkle?”
***
Right now, Lady was going faster than ever as she neared Crovan’s Gate. Sombra was shoveling the coal whilst Chrysalis drove a terrified Lady. Shining Armor could do nothing but watch with fear, hoping they wouldn’t damage Lady in any way or form.
Lady raced through the Skarloey Railway engine sheds where all seven engines were fast asleep. Sir Handel gave a mutter and opened his eyes sleepily.
“What was that?” he murmured to no one in particular, “Ah, well, must be another engine with a night train…” He gave a yawn and went back to sleep.
Duke, on the other hand, had his eyes opened long enough to see Lady coming in from the distance and disappeared round the bend. He didn’t say a word; there was no need to, but Duke hoped Lady would be alright.
In Lady’s cab, Shining Armor grew even more concerned; Lady’s coal supply was running dry, and everyone knows steam engines cannot run without coal to boil the water.
“I think we should stop now!” he said nervously, “We should find the nearest coal bunker and…”
“Mind your own business, worm!” Sombra shouted rudely, “Make her go faster!”
“I’m already on it,” Chrysalis smirked and gave a snicker and she opened Lady’s regulator all the way.
Lady was now going at her maximum speed, and as they were nearing Kellsthorpe, Sombra cried out, “That’s the last of the coal!”
“You fool!” Chrysalis snapped at Shining Armor, “Why didn’t you say something earlier?!”
“I tried to!” he snapped back, “But your lackey wouldn’t listen to me!”
“Look out!” cried Lady, “We’re going to have a crash!”
Without hesitating as they approached the station, Shining Armor quickly closed the regulator and tried to apply the brakes, but Chrysalis grabbed his arm.
“How dare you try and stop me from driving!” she shouted.
“Well, you at least showed more empathy, you’d at least be concerned about safety!” Shining Armor argued.
As both fought one another for control, Sombra leaned out of the left-side of the cab. “Er, Chrysalis?” he asked, a little nervous, “We’re about to run into those vans in our way!”
Before anybody could react, Lady ran into the vans with a crash, resulting in her front being bent out of shape. Then suddenly, as the siding she was on was at a curve, Lady began to tilt onto her left side and came off the tracks completely. All three people aboard were thrown out of the cab. Then there was silence.
A quarter of an hour had passed by. Shining Armor groaned as he stood up. He had some scratches all over and his shirt was torn, but otherwise, he was alive. Chrysalis had also survived with her share of injuries. Both of them walked over to Lady in silence, and then Chrysalis noticed that Sombra had been crushed underneath Lady’s cab, and there was a small pool of red liquid around him.
“No!” Chrysalis exclaimed, before breaking down in tears, “Oh, Sombra, my only friend in the whole world! Why?!”
Despite them both being his enemies, Shining Armor did feel some sorrow, but he was concerned as to whether Lady was alright or not. Before he could walk over to her front, he felt something punch him in the stomach and he fell over, clutching it in pain.
“This was your fault!” Chrysalis screamed with fury, tears leaking in her eyes, “Because of your foolishness, Sombra is dead, you idiot!”
“But it was hardly my fault!” cried Shining Armor, “It was your recklessness-”
“It was your reckless behavior that killed him!” snarled Chrysalis, “You’ve taken him away from me, but I’ll be back one day to get revenge on you… and your precious Island of Sodor too!”
Chrysalis ran away into the darkness, making a vow not to come back to Sodor for a while yet. Shining Armor stood in silence for a few moments. He put Lady’s fire out and walked over to her front. What he saw was horrifying; Lady’s face had faded away and in its place was a golden smokebox door. Her funnel was bent out of shape, a headlamp was cracked, and her buffers were bent. The paint on her left side was also most likely scraped as well.
“No. No. No!” cried Shining Armor, gasping in disbelief. He collapsed onto his knees and broke down crying.
“I’m sorry, Lady,” he said between sobs, “I let them hurt you and it’s my fault! I even let Sodor down, and worst of all, I let Cadance down too. If I had been more sensible, this would never have happened!”
In the distance, he heard a steam engine’s whistle in the distance from the westbound track. Shining Armor looked up with some hope restored.
“I need help,” he said to himself, “and it must be tonight!”
Edward the blue engine had been taking a late-night goods train for Douglas when he suffered from a clogged whistle and was now making his way back to Tidmouth Sheds light engine. In the distance, Edward could barely hear the sounds of a man crying out for him to stop when he saw Shining Armor waving and shouting.
“Driver, stop!” cried Edward, “I think someone needs our help!”
Edward’s driver, Charlie Sand, closed the regulator and gently applied the brakes, stopping just outside Kellsthorpe Station, but Edward was within Shining Armor’s range.
“Oh, thank you for stopping,” he said gratefully, “there’s been a terrible accident and I need your help.”
“What’s the accident, boy?” asked Edward’s fireman, Sidney Hever.
Shining Armor then explained the entire story in full detail, and the more he spoke, the more concerned Edward became. All of a sudden, there was a sparkling of gold dust, and a man in his mid-forties with blonde hair emerged.
“Mr. Faust,” Shining Armor exclaimed in surprise.
“Shining Armor, my dear boy,” said the man, walking up to him, “it’s surprising to see you out at this time of night.”
“There’s a good reason for that, sir,” explained Edward, “young Shining here was threatened by two bullies, they made Lady go too fast and crashed her; one of them was killed and the other escaped.”
“And I’d made a promise to Cadance that I would give her a ride aboard Lady,” added Shining Armor, “but now I feel I’ve broken it and let her down, as well as you… I’m so sorry, sir…”
“Shining, I’m sorry you had to suffer like this,” said Mr. Faust kindly, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder, “but Lady is the engine who keeps Sodor’s magic alive. Our family built this engine and her railway from Muffle Mountain all the way to Vicarstown back in the 1850s and she had been running the line since.”
“I understand,” said Shining Armor gravely, “but we can’t let this get around, can we? We must keep this quiet so nobody suspects a thing. You won’t tell an engine, will you Edward?”
“Not a single engine,” promised Edward, “I’ll help by getting the breakdown train.”
“I’m had a word with the stationmaster and signalman about fifteen minutes ago,” said Mr. Faust, “they’ll be telling station crews at Killdane and Crovan’s Gate to halt any trains at those stations. We’ll take Lady back to Vicarstown where she’ll be covered by a tarpaulin, that way, no one can see her.”
With that confirmed, Edward set off for Tidmouth to collect the breakdown train.
“It’ll be okay, Lady,” Shining Armor said quietly, “I hope…”
At Tidmouth Sheds, Gordon, Henry, James, Donald, Douglas, and Emily were all fast asleep when Edward arrived. Not a single engine stirred when Edward puffed onto the turntable and was turned around, nor did they notice that Edward didn’t back down onto one of the two remaining berths.
Edward soon found the breakdown train and his crew coupled it up to a flatbed and brakevan. With a quiet whistle, Edward set off once more back to Kellsthorpe, a lamp on either side of his bufferbeam. He and his crew were surprised as to how nobody even woke up, but they didn’t see Emily opening up a sleepy eye before closing it again.
About a half hour later, Edward had arrived at Killdane where the signal was red. Once the signalman was confirmed of Edward’s arrival, he set the signal to green, and then red again after Edward had left. Shining Armor was relieved when Edward showed up.
“But what can we do with Sombra?” he asked Mr. Faust.
“We’ll have to inform his family – if he has any – about his death,” he said, “we’ll have the body buried, of course.”
Lady was soon put upright and was lowered onto the flatbed, and then covered with tarpaulins. The breakdown train was soon left to clear away the vans whilst the workmen dealt with Sombra’s body. Shining Armor and Mr. Faust both joined Edward’s crew in the cab, and the blue engine set off for Vicarstown as instructed by Mr. Faust.
“Edward,” said Shining Armor, “do you know Lady?”
“Why, yes, I knew her from seventeen years ago,” explained Edward, “you mean I haven’t told you about her?”
“No.”
“Good heavens, what am I thinking?” Edward chuckled before becoming serious again, “I should start from the beginning…”
***
Seventeen years ago in 1972, I was arranging trucks in place at Vicarstown. Suddenly, one of them ran away and I had to chase after it. As soon as I found it, the truck vanished through the buffers in a wonderful display of rainbow colors! I was very surprised; for all the time I had been on Sodor, I never knew such buffers existed!
“Driver, should we go after the truck?” I asked my crew, who were just as puzzled as I was.
“I don’t know,” said my fireman, “these buffers are quite unusual…”
“I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to try and go after it,” the driver shrugged, and very cautiously, I puffed forwards toward the buffers, and then suddenly… WHOOSH!
I had no idea where I was, but it was nothing I’d ever seen before! The rails were a golden color, flowers were everywhere, as were magic shavings of rainbow colors, and the scenery looked like it had come out of a painting!
There in front of me was the truck, giggling madly. Then suddenly, it was shunted from behind by an engine I’d never seen before.
“Were you looking for this?” the engine said with a slight giggle.
“Yes, I was,” I said sheepishly, “I’m terribly sorry about this.”
“No, its fine,” the engine said kindly, “this doesn’t happen very often, to be honest. My name is Lady, and you are…?”
“Edward,” I replied. Lady and I returned back through the buffers, and she helped me with the shunting once back at Vicarstown yards. We’d become good friends and talked about our respective lines. Once the shunting was done, Lady returned through the buffers back to her magic railway…
***
“I hadn’t seen her since that day,” finished Edward, “until today, that is.”
By this point, they had arrived at Vicarstown. Mr. Faust then instructed Edward to push the flatbed from behind and through the buffers. Once onto the magic railway, Edward, his crew, Mr. Faust, and Shining Armor noticed the railway looked different; there were less rainbow shaving in the air, the flowers were wilting, and the rails were slightly rusted.
“This is bad,” said Mr. Faust, “we’re in the first stages of a gold dust crisis; if Lady is damaged or unable to steam, she can’t provide the energy the railway needs. If the magic railway fades away completely, Sodor will be in complete chaos and all engines will not able to talk to humans.”
“That would be dreadful,” remarked Edward, “being controlled by your crew and you can’t say anything to them sounds like a terrifying thought.”
Eventually, Edward finally steamed into the workshops of Muffle Mountain, some miles away from Peel Godred. The flatbed was uncoupled and Shining Armor began to take the tarpaulins off of Lady.
“Do you think you’ll be able to restore her?” asked Mr. Faust.
“I’ll try my best,” promised Shining Armor, “the magic railway does need Lady to stay alive. But what of Cadance? Will she understand?”
“I am sure my daughter will help you and provide the support you need,” smiled Mr. Faust, “leave it to me not to tell Sir Topham Hatt about this.”
“We wish you luck,” said Charlie, “and we promise not to tell a soul about this.”
“I hope we meet again, Shining Armor,” said Edward with a small, sad smile.
“As do I, Edward.”
Some while later, Edward went through the magic buffers back to Vicarstown. He left the brakevan on a siding, was turned around, refilled on coal and water, and headed back to Tidmouth. On the way, he picked up the breakdown train from Kellsthorpe and shunted it back into place.
As Edward backed into a berth, Emily opened an eye and whispered softly, “Where have ye been, Edward?”
“Oh, good evening, Emily,” Edward said softly, before letting out a yawn, “I just had to deal with some late night business.”
“What sort of business?” asked Emily. But she got no response as Edward was fast asleep, his crew putting out his fire. Unable to get a response from the old blue engine, Emily fell asleep too.
Some minutes later, when Edward made sure no one was listening, he softly opened his eyes and looked up to the beautiful Sudrian night sky and whispered, “Guard her well, Shining Armor… for all our sakes…”
THE END… FOR NOW