Twilight stared at the newly arrived machine standing before her. "I wonder where that came from?" She asked looking up at the sky. It was visibly an engine of some sort, even with its front end buried in a hedge. By the look of it's wheels it was a train, but it wasn't like anything running on the rails of Equestria.
She left the scene to the gawkers and retired to the library for answers. Searching through relevant sections she soon had all the books on transport spread across a desk. There were a great many strange contraptions depicted in line art and colour, but none like the one outside. She decided her next course of action would be to summon a train driver.
Returning to the scene she found even more ponies had arrived to stare in wonder at the bright blue machine with red stripes. If it had evil intents this was going to be a blood bath with this crowd. After spending half an hour doing her best to calm the situation a train driver finally arrived.
"You were right to summon me," said Stan the train driver, with a strained look. "That does indeed look like a locomotive."
A few stallions tried moving it back, but it was too heavy for them. Instead they pulled the hedge away to reveal its front end.
"Mothers hay burgers, its got a face!" exclaimed a mare from the assembled party. A tiny filly wailed at the sudden interruption.
Wondering how much it was like his own engine Bob decided to open the 'face' and inspect the boiler. Swinging it aside he found a chamber full of long tubes.
"Yep, it's a steam engine all right," he pronounced, slamming the door shut with a clang. This action seemed to be enough to bring the huge machine to life.
"Bust my buffers," it said excitedly, "I'm Thomas, where am I?"
The crowd took two steps back and gasped. "It's a witch," screamed a voice from the back.
Twilight rolled her eyes. "One sixth of our populace are quite clearly witches, and that's not even flesh and blood." The brainless disk face smiled down at them wide eyed. Twilight turned to Stan. "It can't stay here, they'll be sacrificing chickens on it next. What do you think it eats?"
Thomas chipped in, "I run on coal and water. And on rails" He added helpfully.
At that moment Rarity arrived. "Darling, what possessed you to use that hideous palette on your creation. You really should seek professional advice on these things before you get too far."
Twilight ignored her for the sake of progress. "It says it needs coal to work. It dropped a lump of it there. Can you find some please."
Rarity wrinkled up her nose at the black charcoal-ish material just in front of her. Poking it with a hoof tip to see if it was dangerous she proceeded to wrap it in a cloth and take it away. "I know just the place," she replied, signalling to some stallions to follow her.
Huge though Thomas was his cab was too small for ponies. Stan managed to get inside to take a quick look, but had to squeeze through and jump from the other door. He sent a message with a likely looking colt to bring tools and some railway line.
Turning to Twilight he explained, "If we are to get it working we need to take that bit off the back including the roof."
"My tender behind," called a voice from the other end.
Twilight considered raising a work party to bury the enchanted machine where it stood. It's cheery voice was already grating, but they could always use more trains. If they could get an idea of how it worked it would probably 'pimp' up a bit with magic to run a local route.
Soon enough a black smith arrived with hammer and chisel. He set to separating off the rear of the blue engine until there was plenty of room at the back to stand. They threw down some planks to fill in the gaps that were now left in the floor. Twilight was inspecting the removed structure and the pile of cut off rivets when Rarity arrived with her work party. All were very dirty except the immaculately clean white pony.
"Sweetie, that was simply frightful," she exclaimed as buckets of coal were brought forward. "I'm off for a bath!"
Spike helped light the odd black rocks with a dragon blast that made Thomas giggle, "You're tickling me." Spike rolled his eye's and left Twilight to it. This wasn't her strangest project to date, but it was definitely one of the more public ones. These were best avoided as they inevitably imploded around tea time.
With Thomas complaining that his old fireman, "Didn't do it like that," they soon had a roaring fire
in the belly of the beast and plenty of water. Twilight sat on the edge of the new drivers platform hoping not to get splinters in her butt.
Wiping sweat from her brow she listened to the water singing as it heated up. She turned to Stan who looked equally hot and bothered. "I think we need a cup of tea," she said with a smile.
"I can make tea," came the annoying voice again. "That brass tap on my side is where hot water comes from. You can use it for tea, coffee, latte, noodles, cuppa-soup or...."
Twilight interrupted the crazed machine, "Yes, hot water, we get it." Not that she had ever heard of 'cup-a-soup', which sounded like some Pinkie Pie invention. But she had seen a tea pot in the wreckage that was Thomas's coal bunker and levitated it over to the tap. They soon had enough tea for everypony.
After an hour of trial and error Stan could see the pressure rising on a gauge. The numbers meant nothing to him, but the red bit at the top was probably best avoided. "I think we are ready," he called out.
Walking around Thomas Twilight began a final check for leaks. There were fizzles and hisses all over the place. From behind a panel water dripped and crackled into steam as it fell on hot metal. For something that spoke with such a friendly tone it looked extremely dangerous!
Continuing around the front she was aware of the two big eyes upon her. "Thank you for being my friend," said Thomas. "I was pretty scared for a bit." Twilight raised a hoof affectionately to his buffer, finding black gunk was now stuck to her purple hair.
"That's okay," she stammered, "Everypony gets a big party pony welcoming when they arrive in town." Wiping it off on the grass only seemed to make it worse.
It was now or never to see if the machine moved. They pulled a likely lever and Thomas lurched backward as a gigantic plume of ash exited his funnel and rained down. Ponies ran in all directions to avoid the disgusting splodgy rain. Twilight flipped up a spell to divert the worst of it from her and Stan.
Giving the lever an extra tug the engine clambered onto the makeshift railway line toward the proper railway on the other side of town. The horrible sounds coming from the temporary rail suggested Thomas was a bit too fat for it. Deciding to abort the trip she jabbed the direction lever back to forward as she reached the market square.
"Weeee," barked Thomas as sulphurous smoke rose and fell onto the pristine paintwork of town houses. This wasn't exactly the free resource Twilight had hoped for. Any adventure like this normally resulted in compensation claims later! The trip was soon over though, as they crash finished where it had all started back in the hedge.
The towns ponies were none too impressed with the antics and looked to be collecting pitch forks and lighting torches ready for a good old fashioned mob. "Send it back to Hell," They chanted.
"Run for it Stan," shouted Twilight. Then, with all her might the alicorn princess grabbed Thomas in her magic and teleported both of them to Tarturous.
"I'm sorry about that," she sighed. "I thought that would work out better than it did." She peered through the gloom at her new surroundings. "This is the safest place anywhere around. I won't have to watch over you and when they have forgotten about today I'll come back and take you to Canterlot."
"Okay Princess," came the happy voice, oblivious to the impending danger. "Us engines have to stick together."
Making sure he couldn't roll off into a precipice she popped off back to Ponyville to deal with the rampaging populace.
It was a while before Twilight Sparkle went back to see if Thomas was okay. Life stuff got in the way as the busy princess went about her duties. She wasn't quite sure how long it had been as she entered the prison of eternity. Looking for the familiar bright blue paintwork with its big yellow number cutie mark she was sure it was the right place, despite no sign of the machine.
"Hi! Princess," said a cheery voice.
"Hi," replied Twilight, following the voice with her eyes. She stepped back in surprise at the sight of Thomas's face propped up against a rock. "Oh, I expected to see more of you, where is your body?"
"I changed colour and melted," said Thomas with a bright tone. "I was blue, then brown and then black dust. You're standing on me right now."
Twilight stood slack jawed as she realised it had been more than a 'while'. In fact, maybe it had been three hundred years, or maybe more. So much had happened and coming back to get the cheerfully cursed engine seemed like a task that would always wait until tomorrow. It had never crossed her mind that he would rust to nothing?
Feeling uncomfortable she made ready her exit. "You seem to be happy here?" she asked idly looking around at the rock walls.
"Oh yes," said Thomas. "My friend was bricked up in a tunnel once and he was all the better for it."
"Greeeaaat," whispered Twilight. "We'll have tea together again one day....soon. Yes, soon. I have to go and do more princess things and well, you know how it is. Bye." She promptly teleported back to her castle.
"No engine?" asked a curious Spike. "Did you ask it where it came from?"
She looked up at the huge dragon in front of her with a bewildered expression. "I think I had better start a new planner that runs by the century rather than the decade, because that was a bit odd."
The End :o)
Author's Note
I have finished "Fish and Lilypad" and am awaiting the title art. Moon pony needs a bit more work and "A Horn Handled Gun" has been popped into "Tigger Tank" as a prequal. As this story has been in the ideas book for a few months I thought it was time it got aired. As such it has become the work of a wet and rainy Saturday morning.
