This is a one shot fic, based on a story I remember watching on PBS once when I was six or seven. I don't own the original story, or the characters I'll be using in this fic. The story originated on PBS, and the characters are property of Sega. Remember, this is just a one shot.
Everyone knows that Station Square and the Mystic Ruins were always connected by one train and it's one rail track. However, as Station Square's businesses increased in production, a new transit system was forced to be made.
Today, the city of Station Square now had it's own railway system, with countless tracks leading to the city's main business locations: The new harbor yard outside the Mystic Ruins' main station, the junction near the outskirts of the city, and the scrap yard for recycling and reusing old, worn out machinery.
However, after all of the construction at these locations was complete, the city could only afford to manufacture older model steam engines to pull the trains. Passenger and freight alike. It just so happened, that Sonic and his friends had always been fascinated by old-fashioned train engines, and volunteered to control them during the summertime. They never had much to do during that time of year anyway.
Now, the railway tracks are made up in two main systems: the main line, which was the longest and ran across every location necessary for the businesses, and the branch lines, which stretched out from the main line for trains that needed to make shorter trips. Sonic, Knuckles, and Shadow were in charge of using their larger steam engines to pull all the more important passenger trains assigned to run through the main line. While Amy, Tails, Cream, and Rouge used their smaller engines to pull all the other passenger and freight trains through their assigned branch line.
Every once in a while, the gang enjoyed having one branch line assigned to themselves. But some structures, such as the tunnels and bridges, aren't as secure as those that exist on the main line. Because of this fact, no main line trains are permitted to travel down a branch line track. One afternoon in the junction, Shadow began to feel a little disappointed about this particular rule.
"It's just not fair!" he said to himself.
Sonic overheard him outside the lunch room. "What is, pal?" he questioned
"The fact that branch line trains can travel down the main line whenever necessary!"
"What's wrong with that?" Sonic wondered.
Shadow explained. "What's wrong is that Amy, Tails, and the others have the chance to travel across the whole railway, while you, me and Knuckles are forced to remain on the main line only! It's just doesn't seem right!"
Sonic thought Shadow was complaining over nothing. "Don't worry about it. I'm sure Amy will let you take some of her freight trains sometime!" he teased.
Shadow felt insulted. "I won't pull Amy's dirty old freight!"
"Why not?" Sonic asked curiously.
"Because the station masters back at Station Square would never allow me to do such a thing! They gave me the job to handle main line passenger trains. That's my job, and I'm sticking to it. Branch lines, to me, are VILE!"
Shadow got back to work, while Sonic still thought he was complaining over something that didn't really matter. Sonic then told Amy what Shadow had said. She laughed and agreed with Sonic's opinion toward Shadow. But Amy didn't see Shadow until later that night.
Every once in a while, when the opportunity came, Shadow and Amy would each be assigned one passenger train between 7:00 and 7:30pm. Shadow would leave the main station first with his train down the main line, while Amy would leave five minutes later with her train down her assigned branch line.
Usually the job was easy to accomplish. But tonight, there was trouble. A man standing on the platform wearing a red poncho was waving goodbye to a friend on Shadow's train. Shadow looked back and saw something red waving in the air.
"Right away, sir!"
He thought that the conductor just waved his flag. He pulled his train out of the station, leaving half of his passengers, baggage, and his conductor behind! Everyone became very angry about his slip up.
By the time Shadow found out what happened and pulled back into the station, Amy was now late with her train! So now, she had to leave the station first. But the signal man didn't know about the sudden change. By mistake, Amy ended up on the main line! And by the time she crossed over to her branch line, it was very late!
When Shadow was finally done with his train, it was so late, he had no choice but to park his engine on a siding at the harbor yard, outside a branch line. He had a futon in his cab, and was forced to sleep there for the night. Of course, he didn't like the idea at all, and laid down in anger until he fell asleep.
Next morning, Shadow awoke to watch the sunrise over the ocean's horizon. It made him forget about the trouble he caused last night. Just then, Tails and Cream pulled up in their steam engine near the harbor entrance. They were surprised to see Shadow's engine in a branch line area, and decided to have some fun…
"Hey! What is that?" Tails shouted.
"Hush, Tails." Cream acted. "It's Shadow's engine."
"It looks like Shadow's engine, but it can't be! Shadow never goes down the branch lines. He thinks their VILE!"
Shadow pretended he didn't hear them.
"If it isn't Shadow's then what is it?" Cream asked.
"It must be a pile of old iron!" Tails teased. "We have no use for it here."
Cream joined in. "Which means we should take it to the scrap yard!"
"No Cream. It looks too useless to be recycled. I say we put it on the crane at the edge of the harbor, and throw it into the sea!"
Shadow was alarmed! "WAIT! This IS my engine! And I'M still in it! STOP!"
Just then, another engine pulled up. Inside, was Amy!
"AMY! Your friends are trying to destroy my engine! I never thought I'd say this but, HELP!"
Amy found out immediately that Tails and Cream were most likely up to their old tricks again. She then threatened to the two of them, to take back all of the boxcars she brought for the two of them to deliver. Not wanting to have no work to do, the two of them took off in a hurry.
"Wow. Thanks for that Amy. I…I'm sorry for saying that stuff about your freight being dirty."
No problem, Shadow." Amy replied. "I think my freight is dirty, too. Everyone does, actually."
"Say Amy?" Shadow began to ask. "How did you know your threat would get those kids to stop?"
"Ah, well," she answered, "When you've known them as long as I have, it's just a knack really."
To this day, Shadow still thinks that Amy helped to save his engine. But we know those two were only kidding.
Don't we?
So, like it or not? Just say so in the review, please.