Chapter 7; The Hunt

"That sounds like an AMAZING idea Emily!" exclaimed Thomas once he heard about her idea and he turned to face everyone else, "But just before we go, I'll introduce the last 3 engines; Percy is the wild card, always up for crazy and dangerous things, Toby is the fatherly figure when he is here, always looking out for the safety of his fellow steam engine members, and Edward is the oldest and wisest engine. He can teach you how to hunt with Emily." Then all the engines prepared to head out and Jocelyn hopped into Thomas's cab.

All the Steam Team started heading out and found other engines which chuffed 5 times to Thomas as he chuffed back too, and soon they made it to Henry's Forest. The engines disconnected themselves from the rails (just kinda walked off) and started creeping into the forest. Henry and Percy climed the longest trees, and Edward, Gordon and Thomas crept into a river, where they perfectly blended in. Jocelyn thought that since the 3 of them were blue, they couldn't blend into anything, but she was wrong as she could barely see any of them in the water, except their eyes.

All the engines got into position and Jocelyn ran next to Emily, who she bumped into due to her perfect camouflage, then crouched next to her. "So what do we do now?" Jocelyn asked, and Emily replied, "Now we wait, rule number 1 about hunting, always get close to water because every animal needs to drink and will go to the nearest river or lake." Then Emily averted her attention to Jocelyn and said, "if you don't want anything to see you, crouch low to the ground, not too low so that your body doesn't get dragged or makes noise when you crawl, and not too high so that animals can see you." Jocelyn tried her best and after a few failed attempts (and falling on her stomach and ribs loudly) she finally managed to get into a hunting position.

"Shh!" whispered Emily, as Jocelyn looked forward in her crouched position and saw a herd of deer coming towards the river, Jocelyn looked over at Thomas, Gordon and Edward, and found them going closer to the deer and deeper into the water, until they were completely submerged.

Emily slowly crept behind the deer herd a few yards away from them and Jocelyn could see her smile widening at the deer, whilst Toby joined her side.

Then, Thomas, Gordon and Edward jumped out of the river and terrified the deer, scattering them and even dragging some that they caught back into the water, drowning them.

The rest of the deer scattered backwards and tried to get through the bushes, but once they popped their heads through the leaves, they were immediately bitten off by Emily and Toby, leaving headless, bloody bodies. Then, Jocelyn finally saw her chance to strike when one of the deers ran too close to her, she jumped out, and landed on top of a running doe.

Emily noticed this and shouted, "Go crazy Jocelyn!! Claw, bite, scratch, punch!!" As Jocelyn was a human, she was equipped with 4 vampire teeth at the top and bottom of her mouth, she bit into the deer's neck as hard as she could, and clawed and scratched at it's body. The deer let out wails of distress and agony and tried to shake Jocelyn off, but she wouldn't. Jocelyn kept on clawing with her feminine sharp nails, and finally managed to reach the meat of the deer, now scratching at it harder. The doe wailed loudly and threw Jocelyn off itself in a huge leap, Jocelyn landed hard on the ground and grunted in pain.

The wounded deer ran away from Jocelyn, making sounds as if it were laughing and teasing her, until Henry fell from the trees above and landed on her, crushing her under his weight.

"Aghh!" Shouted Jocelyn as she was angry that she had failed her first hunting. Percy also fell from the nearest tree, crushing a buck under him. "I can't believe this!" Jocelyn shouted kicking a rock. "There, there Jocelyn." soothed Edward as he moved closer to her, he was drenched, and so was the deer in his mouth. He dropped it with a big plop!

"No one gets it right the first time, heh, when I was a lot younger it took me forever to take down a deer." He chuckled, "Oh I remember that!" Said a voice behind all of them, everyone turned around to see Thomas approaching with another dead deer, "Edward could never capture a deer because of how thin he was and his horrible techniques!" Some of the engines started to chuckle, and Thomas picked up the dead deer and plopped it in front of Jocelyn. "Here's a trick to strengthen those nails of yours, turn the deer so that it's belly faces you," Jocelyn did as she was told "Now scratch and tear at it's belly as hard as you can and don't stop if you find the meat or if your hands hurt, you're gonna go all the way to the lungs." Some of the engines started to gasp at Thomas's crazy idea, but he hushed them all and looked back at Jocelyn.

Jocelyn gulped, but then she started to claw quickly and rapidly at the deer's belly. "Scratch slower but with force, not fast and with little force." Jocelyn sighed and started scratching slower but with much more ferocity, and finally she got to the meat. The engines let out whoops of joy and Thomas nodded at Jocelyn, but she still wasn't done, she had to get to the lungs. She kept clawing as Thomas had taught her, and after breaking off and tearing off some obstacles and bones in the way, she finally reached the lungs.

All the engines cheered for her but Thomas soon silenced them and gave Jocelyn a straight face, "Jocelyn, cut the lungs open with your nails and keep your mouth OPEN." Jocelyn was very confused but did as she was told and when she cut open the lungs in one huge scratch, reddish water sprayed all into her mouth, making her actually swallow some. She backed away quickly and started to spit out all that was in her mouth. Then Thomas approached her and said, "This is how to get the cleanest water anywhere, the oxygen stored in the deer or another animal's lungs when you drown it combined with water makes your lungs a lot healthier AND the o2 mixed with water is the tastiest, healthiest, and cleanest water around!"

Jocelyn looked back at the deer's flooded lungs, she actually had to admit it was pretty tasty, and kept on drinking. Every other engine was amazed at Thomas's wise words and smart thinking, but soon everyone went back to eating the deers they had killed, and Emily and Edward taught Jocelyn how to eat one raw as everyone else was doing.