Black and Gold
Chapter One: Errand to the Mountains
The Smelters yard. No doubt one of the most frightening places to an engine on the Island of Sodor. And when you thought about it, why not? It was virtually a graveyard for engines. A place where they are taken apart and either melted down into something else, have their parts used to repair other engines, or left to rust in a scrap heap for a few months before they got around to doing the first option.
Also, the place was scary to boot. It was dark, and lit up with the red light of what some engines theorized to be hellfire. Dark, menacing claws, hooks, and chains hung everywhere and there was always the occasional shower of sparks from the darkness. And then when the fog rolled in, well that just made things all the more worse.
However, there were three particular engines that would actually consider this place one.
Two of them in question were standing nearby watch scraps of iron being dumped into the molten steel, liquefied to be re-used later. A pair of twin black BR Class 08 shunters with black yellow hazard striped around their front and back. The two seemed to be spending their time cracking stupid little jokes as the pieces of scrap metal were thrown in.
"Oh, wait, watch this one Bert," one of the twins spoke up as the hollow, rusted shell of a tank engine was brought over to the vat. It dropped into the liquid steel with a splash.
"I'M MEEEEELLLLTING!" the diesel screeched, pretending to be an old crone, "MEEELTING OH WHAT A WORLD WHAT A WORLD!" His twin, Bert, laughed heartily.
"Good one 'Arry," he laughed.
"Sounds like someone threw a cat into one of the vats," came an oily voice.
The two diesels jumped when the form of a black of a diesel, similar model to them, almost melted out from the shadows. The twins found it creepy how he managed to blend in with the black and red background sometimes.
"Oh lighten up Diesel," Arry spoke up, "We're just havin' a bit of fun aren't we Bert?"
"Yeah, just a little fun. That's all."
Diesel merely rolled his eyes. "This place does echo you know, and I'd rather not do my work to the sound of you screeching like a cat on a hot tin roof."
"And it looks like you wont have to!"
All three diesels looked up to see the foreman standing on one of the walkways above them.
"We've got orders from the fat man!" It was known that this particular foreman wasn't on good terms with Sir Topham Hatt, so it wouldn't be unusual for him to talk crap about his boss whenever he wasn't around. Arry and Bert snickered at his remark.
"One of you guys has to take a delivery of spare parts up to somewhere in the mountains. Somethin' about maintenance and stuff."
"We have spare parts?" Bert asked dimly.
"Well duh! What did you think we did with all the metal after we melted it all down?"
"I dunno, maybe you save it to throw on any Steamies coming in here?" Bert suggested. The foreman face palmed. Sure, these diesels weren't that bad, but goddamn those twins could be stupid sometimes. Even Arry was rolling his eyes at the stupid remark.
He then glanced at the black diesel beside them and smirked.
"Why not have Diesel here do it?"
"What?" Came the response from both Diesel and the foreman. Arry gave his dark comrade a dark smirk.
"Why not? This place annoys you right? Well, it's a good opportunity to get out of here."
"No," Diesel growled, clearly disagreeing with this idea, "I said YOU annoy me. I can stands this place perfectly fine thank you."
"Exactly! You go and you'll be away from us, right Bert?"
Diesel sneered as the other twin nodded. On one hand, Diesel wasn't looking forward to any real work today. To be perfectly honest, he wasn't feeling to hot in the last couple of days.
On the other hand, getting away from those two morons would be a nice break.
"Fine, I'll do it," he muttered, resulting in a cheer from the twin diesels.
"The trucks are over in the sidings. You can't miss them," the foreman called out, "They're the only ones not carrying anything rusty!"
Diesel gave a curt nod before leaving to find his trucks. The two twins sniggered at how they got out of work.
"Hmm, I wonder," Bert pondered, "How many times can you ram a boiler until it breaks?"
"No idea," Arry shrugged (metaphorically), "But there's an old one out the back somewhere, we'll use that."
--------------*~*--------------
None of the engines seemed to notice this, but if someone had been watching Diesel leave the smelters yard, they would have seen a man chasing not too far behind him screaming:
"Wait! Don't leave me alone with them!"
--------------*~*--------------
"Stupid Arry, stupid Bert, stupid fat controller for making me do this!" Diesel muttered bitterly to himself as he strained uphill. He should have known when the foreman said the word 'mountains' that it would involve travelling uphill. Also add to the fact that the trucks had decided to be an utter pain in the buffers was also adding to it.
"Hold back! Hold back!" they chided amongst themselves, putting on their breaks and causing the ill-tempered diesel as much grief as they could.
Of course, they should have known by now how Diesel gets when agitated.
"Get moving you bloody trucks!" he snarled as he tried to pull them up hill. The trucks however decided that being a pain in the ass instead was a lot more fun.
"I SAID MOVE!" Diesel roared, banging them violently, a little too violently as he would learn later on. The trucks let out a chorus of cries and squeaks before realising who they were dealing with and deciding to simply go along with him.
"That's better," Diesel muttered before continuing, the trip just a bit more bearable now that the trucks were behaving.
--------------*~*--------------
Unfortunately for him, their good behaviour would soon come to an end. He seemed to be going along nicely before there was a sudden screech and a sharp pain shot up inside of him.
"Gah! What the hell!?" Diesel groaned as he felt his engine backfire, black smock starting to billow from beneath him. He started to loose strength, slowly jerking to a stop.
"What the bloody hell?" cursed Diesel's operator, Damien as he jumped out of the engine to see what was going on. He through open the maintenance hatch, only to get a face of black smoke billowing out. After a minute of coughing, spluttering, and fanning, he finally managed to clear out the smoke and looked in.
"Well," he muttered, "It looks like you hit those trucks harder than you thought. You've bloody cracked your regulator and now your motor's overheating."
Diesel was fuming, almost literally.
"You've got to be kidding!" he growled, "So you're saying I'm stuck here!?"
Damien looked around for a moment before spotting a signal box and a siding.
"I'll have a talk with the signalman and try to have you moved to the side. I'll be right back."
Diesel muttered bitterly to himself as his driver took off. He came back a moment later with permission and with a bit of pain and light cursing, managed to move the black diesel engine into the siding with his trucks.
By this time though, the trucks had realised that their fowl tempered diesel was now unable to do anything to them. So they did what every other truck would do, and took advantage of the situation. The trucks laughed and jeered at the inoperable diesel and in an almost ironic twist began bumping him as well.
All the black diesel could do was sulk and fume as he tried to get some sleep, quietly contemplating a genocidal rampage against all truck kind.
--------------*~*--------------
"Hello." Came a gentle, sing-song voice, "Wakey wakey."
Diesel didn't recognise it. It was female, but he only knew three female engines on the island and none of them spoke like that.
His eyes slowly cracked open, his vision blurry as he mumbled incoherently. He could see something on the rails next to him. After blinking a few times, he realised the form was in fact an engine. A steamie to be exact.
"Hello," she said sweetly.
Diesel jumped back in surprise, clearly not expecting to find a Steamie so close to him when he woke up. He wondered for a brief moment just how long she had been sitting there for.
The engine was a model he didn't recognise. She was a small engine, not a Narrow Gauge engine, but still small. She was a red-purple colour with gold headlamps on the front plate, gold buffers, smokebox, funnel top, dome, whistles and side rods. Her face was a soft, gentle sort. Here eyes had a soft, friendly look to them.
She gave a soft chuckle.
"Sorry to wake you up," she apologized, "But we have to go."
Diesel rose an eyebrow in confusion. Normally he would have said something along the lines of "I'm not going anywhere with no stinking steamie!". However, there was something about this engine that made him keep his mouth shut. Maybe it was because she didn't seem to have any hostility towards him.
"Go where?" he asked, a little suspicious. The engine gave him a warm smile.
"To the sheds of course," she replied, "We need to get you fixed up. Unless of course, you LIKE sitting in that siding all broken."
Diesel wanted to reply with something witty and sarcastic, but considering the truth of her statement, he was pretty much stumped. Diesel instead mumbled grumpily, looking away.
At that point he finally noticed that the place seemed a lot more quiet than before. Looking back, he discovered the reason why.
His trucks were gone.
"I took your trucks while you were asleep," the engine explained, almost apologetically, "I couldn't let them keep bothering you like that. It's shameful how some trucks act sometimes."
Diesel had to admit, that was pretty thoughtful of her. He really wasn't used to engines doing this sort of thing without wanting something in return, but this engine seemed to be doing it out of the goodness of her heart.
"Um, thanks," Diesel responded awkwardly. He wasn't really used to thanking people for things either.
The engine beamed, "That's ok. Now, let's get you to the sheds and fixed up."
Normally Diesel would object to being coupled up to a steamie but this time said nothing as the small engine was hooked up to her. Soon Diesel was being pushed along towards this engine's shed. The engine was being quiet and the silence was disturbing the diesel just a bit.
"So, um," Diesel spoke up, trying to make conversation, "What's yer name?"
At that point he noticed the gold writing on her sides. The engine noticed too, but smiled and decided to answer him anyway.
"My name, is Lady."