A/N: (Ha, these chapters are really getting longer...) Hey, so this chapter's being posted a few days early since I'm too busy to post it this weekend, and I figured I'd try and post it sooner than later so you guys wouldn't be disappointed.

If any of you are All Engines Go fans... I'm so sorry. Except I'm really not.

Douglas liked taking the Midnight Goods. Compared to his brother, he was more of a night owl and preferred a little peace and quiet every once in a while.

He was currently heading back to the Little Western after dropping off the goods train at the Vicarstown Goods Depot. As Douglas inhaled the night air, he recalled how once when he had taken the Midnight Goods many years ago, he had come across a certain Great Western tank engine and his brakevan at the depot, and rescued them both from being scrapped. Now Oliver and Toad were some of his closest friends.

A half hour later, Douglas finally arrived back at Tidmouth Hault. As he drew near the sheds, he could see his twin and all of his friends sound asleep in their berths, one engine in particular catching his attention.

Michaela's livery was shimmering in the moonlight wherever it hit her iridescent paintwork, and the Scottish tender engine couldn't help staring at her with admiration. Rainbows twirled around her frames with every wheel turn that he made as he quietly puffed closer, and Douglas caught his breath.

"Somethin' th' matter, Douglas?" his driver whispered.

"N-nae, ah'm fine…"

Douglas watched Michaela's face, noting how cute and innocent she looked when she was sleeping. But as he continued to gaze at the iridescent tender engine, her face suddenly became troubled, and she whimpered a little.

Douglas moved closer to the sheds, growing concerned when he saw that she was starting to breathe quickly in a panicked sort of way, and her whimpers were only growing louder.

Michaela suddenly screamed and shot out of her berth, only just coming to a stop when she was mere inches from falling into the turntable well.

"Michaela, are ye alright?!" Douglas asked as everybody else at the sheds woke up upon hearing the noise.

"I h-h-had a nightmare…" she sobbed.

Douglas immediately puffed onto the turntable and went to comfort her with a buffer press. "Shh, it's alright, lassie…"

"What's wrong?" asked a sleepy Toad.

"Michaela had a nightmare," he explained as she cried into his buffers.

After a few moments, Michaela slowly opened her eyes again. "Oh gosh… It was horrible!" She sniffled. *"W-we lived in some kind of animated world, and I could jump off the rails and hold things with my wheels, and I-I…"

Michaela whimpered, and Douglas moved as close to her as he could, doing his best to comfort her.

When she spoke again, her voice was a hoarse whisper. "I somehow deformed myself before I woke up… and before I did, I-I saw some huge words suddenly form in the sky out of nowhere, and they said s-s-something like 'All Engines Go'..."

The iridescent tender engine burst out sobbing again, clearly traumatized.

"There, there, Michaela," said Duck. "There is no such thing as 'All Engines Go'. And even if there was, clearly it would be very wrong for it to even exist. Because as you know, there are two ways of doing things: the Great Western way, or the wrong way. This 'All Engines Go' nonsense would clearly be the wrong way."

He snorted. "Jumping off of the rails… holding things with your wheels… What utter rubbish!"

"Aye, Duck's got a good point there, Michaela," said Donald. "'Twas jist a bad dream, it cannae ever happen."

Michaela hesitated, then she smiled tearfully at them. "You're right… It was just a bad dream."

Her dark eyes looked up at Douglas again, and he felt a sudden warmth spreading through his smokebox. Blushing a little, he gently pushed Michaela back inside of her berth and slowly pulled away from her.

Only Donald noticed just how red his brother's cheeks were as they all went back to sleep.

Early the next morning, Michaela was the first to wake up. She yawned as she peered outside of her berth, then gasped.

A beautiful blue tender engine was sitting on the turntable outside of the sheds. Her tender was small and sloped, similar to Michaela's, and her face was practically glowing with warmth and kindness.

"Um… hello," the iridescent engine called out to her.

The mysterious engine's eyes flicked over to Michaela, and a little smile appeared on her face after a moment.

Michaela opened her mouth to say something, but a feeling of peace and love suddenly fluttered through her body. Her eyes widened as she realized that the feeling was coming from the blue engine.

"W-what are you doing here?" she finally managed to ask.

The engine's smile grew, as if she were laughing a little on the inside. Then her gaze turned back to the other engines and her smile suddenly lowered ever so slightly, turning a little sad as she focused on the sleeping Scottish engines.

Michaela stared in wonder at the lovely engine, her curiosity growing with every passing second. Then she blinked—and the blue tender engine was gone.

But although she had disappeared, Michaela could still feel the warmth of the peace and love that the engine had given her pulsing strongly inside her firebox.

She decided that she would ask her driver about it later.

Michaela whistled as she pulled into the Knapford shunting yard to drop off some trucks.

"Here you go!" she called out to Philip.

The little boxcab was more than happy to see her. "Oh, it's you! Michaela, wasn't it? Hey, you'll never guess what I saw this morning—"

But the iridescent engine didn't hear what else Philip had to say, for Gordon steamed into Knapford Station right at that moment and blew his whistle very loudly.

Michaela yelped and tightly closed her eyes, trembling violently.

Philip's expression changed to one of confusion and concern. "Um… hello? Are you okay?"

She didn't respond, her breath starting to come out in ragged gasps.

Kennet quickly got out of Michaela's cab and rushed around to her face. He climbed up onto her bufferbeam and gently rubbed her cheeks. The soothing touches helped Michaela to calm down, and she finally opened her eyes again and tried to slow her breathing.

Gordon, however, had seen the entire thing and huffed as he came around and passed by the shunting yard. "Such a dramatic little engine you are, Michaela. Honestly, if you're ever going to survive in this world, you need to toughen up and stop being so sensitive to every little noise that you hear."

Michaela gasped, and tears immediately sprung to her eyes.

The big blue tender engine rolled his eyes. "You should also know when to take criticism and put it to good use. I really thought you'd at least be aware of that."

Sam had joined Kennet in comforting their engine, and he turned to glare at the big blue engine. "Michaela notices much more than you think she does. Including your attitude towards her and her differences."

"I would be disappointed if she didn't." And with that, Gordon puffed away.

"Woah, lassie! Where's th' fire—"

Douglas stopped when he saw that Michaela was crying as she braked hard and narrowly avoided crashing into him. His face immediately softened. "Michaela, whitever is th' matter?"

She choked out a sob as she tried to speak. "Th-there's this big blue engine that I s-see sometimes whenever I go to Knapford, and he keeps saying rude th-th-things to me! Every time!"

Douglas narrowed his eyes. "Was it Gordon?"

"I-I think so…" Michaela cried even harder.

The Scottish tender engine pressed his buffers against hers, but his gaze was fixed off in the distance. "Ah swear… th' next time ah see him…"

Michaela's whimpers drew his attention back to her, and he leaned closer to her. "It's okay, lass. Jist let it all out."

After a few minutes had gone by, Michaela felt a little better and pulled back. "...Thank you."

She suddenly felt very shy and couldn't even bring herself to look up at his face.

Douglas smiled down at her. "Ah was tellin' ye th' truth when ah said that ah'm here fer ye. An' about Gordon… He doesnae understand th' differences tha' ye have, and ah guess he's treatin' ye like this because o' that. But it's no' right, an' ah'll make sure th' next time ah see him that he understands tha' jist fine."

Michaela saw how serious he was when he spoke about Gordon, and she frowned a little. "Oh, you don't have to do that. I-I mean… I don't want to cause any more problems between us. He probably hates me a lot."

"Which is why ah need tae have a wee talk wit' him."

Michaela wasn't so sure that she agreed with this, but she still smiled when it occurred to her just how willing Douglas was to help her. "I… Thank you."

"Nae need tae thank me, lassie." Douglas chuckled a little. "So, um… Ah think yer on th' wrong line."

The iridescent engine blushed furiously when she realized that he was right. "Oh… oh!"

As Michaela quickly went to switch onto the right track, she could hear Douglas failing to hold back another chuckle while he puffed away.

Michaela sat frozen on the tracks for a minute, thinking about everything that had just happened. It finally took her driver calling out her name several times for her to snap back to reality.

"Wh-what? Sorry, what was I supposed to do?" she called back to Kennet.

"Um… we were going back to Arlesburgh Yards where we usually work?" he replied.

"Oh, yeah… that."

Michaela began to zone out again as she headed up the line.

Engines. Steam engines everywhere.

Dying.

Gordon slowly moved through the scrapyard, shuddering as he watched the face of a dying tank engine slowly fade into blue dust. The engines believed that the dust of a dead engine would form their spirit and make its way up to the Great Railway Above, where it would live forever—if it had been good during its life.

A piercing cry startled Gordon, and he quickly looked all around. He gasped when he saw another dying engine on a nearby track. It was one of his siblings.

"P-Pretty Polly?" he gasped.

Her eyes met his, and she looked afraid, but not of him. Of death. But as his sister's mouth opened to respond, her face suddenly turned into blue dust, leaving nothing but a rusting metal corpse behind.

Gordon began to tremble as he realized that all the engines he was now coming across were his brothers and sisters—all being scrapped, all dying and fading away.

He sped up, hoping to find a way out of this terrible scrapyard before he could see another beloved sibling of his pass on, but Gordon suddenly came to a screeching halt when he saw another engine in front of him on the same line.

It was his only remaining brother, Flying Scotsman.

Scotsman's eyes were wide with terror. "Brother, help me…!"

Gordon rushed forward. "Hang on, I'm coming! I will not let you die!"

But the moment Gordon's buffers met those of his brother, Flying Scotsman's face suddenly turned to dust.

The blue tender engine's eyes began to water. "No… no! Come back! Please, Flying Scotsman, come back!"

Tears slid down his cheeks, and he quietly began to sob. As everything around him grew dark, he whispered, "Come back… I can't be the only one left…"

"Gordon?"

Rebecca's concerned voice woke him from his nightmare. The big blue engine gasped as his eyes flew open, and he tried desperately to calm himself down. It took Rebecca puffing onto the turntable and moving in front of him to give him a buffer press that finally calmed Gordon's nerves.

"What's wrong?" she asked him, her knowing eyes searching his. "Did you have a bad dream?"

Gordon could feel his pride coming back to him, and he immediately responded, "No!"

Seeing Rebecca's skeptical expression, he added, "No, I did not… I don't get nightmares."

The yellow tender engine just smiled softly and pulled back a little. "It's normal to have them, you know. There's nothing wrong with admitting that you had one."

Gordon looked up at the sky, deliberately avoiding her gaze. "...Alright, so what if I did? It's over, and we don't need to talk about it anymore."

Rebecca stared at him a moment longer, and Gordon made eye contact with her again. She had a captivating way of getting him to look at her, even when he didn't want to.

After a moment, she finally told him, "It's alright if you don't want to talk about it. I just wanted to make sure that you're okay."

Rebecca began to reverse back onto the turntable, and Gordon suddenly felt a little bad for brushing her away when she was just trying to help.

"...Rebecca?" he asked her once she had settled back into her berth.

"Yes?"

"Ah… Thank you."

She smiled gently at him, before closing her eyes and going to sleep.

Gordon on the other hand felt very much wide awake, and he wasn't sure if he'd be able to fall asleep again after what he had seen in his dream. Needless to say, he didn't get much rest after that.

"Sir Topham Hatt, sir!"

The Fat Controller was very surprised indeed to see Gordon rushing into Knapford Station. "My goodness, Gordon! I didn't expect to see you here so early!"

Gordon came to a rough stop next to him. "Sir, I need to know! Is my brother Flying Scotsman still alive?"

Sir Topham Hatt was caught off guard by his question. "Wh-what? Yes, of course he is! Last I heard, anyways, which wasn't too long ago."

Gordon let out a long sigh of relief.

Just then, Thomas whistled as he puffed up alongside the blue tender engine. "Hello, Gordon! You're not looking so well this morning. Are you alright?"

He inhaled sharply. "Yes, Thomas. I'm fine."

And with that, Gordon suddenly reversed and went to fetch his coaches.

Thomas stared after him, his jaw agape. "Did he just…?"

Sir Topham Hatt shook his head. "What on earth has gotten into Gordon?!"

Meanwhile, Philip was about to bring Gordon his coaches, when the express engine himself buffered up to them instead and was coupled up.

"Oh! Um… I was going to get these for you, Gordon, but if you insist…" Philip scurried off, a bit puzzled but otherwise fine.

As Gordon sat still and let out a sigh, trying to compose himself, he didn't notice the two black tender engines creeping up on both sides of him until they spoke to him.

"Aye, whit's this that ah hear about Michaela being treated rudely by ye, Gordon?" said Douglas.

"What?" The big blue engine was surprised, but then he remembered. "Oh, that. W-well, uh… Michaela is too sensitive. She needs to toughen—"

"Och, really?" Donald butted in. "From whit she tells us, yer sayin' verra mean things tae her every time ye see her!"

"I… uh…" Gordon was bewildered.

Douglas narrowed his eyes at him. "Ye jist watch yerself. If ah hear yin more time tha' ye mistreated Michaela…"

Gordon closed his eyes in exasperation. "Alright, alright! You can leave me alone now. I won't say anything negative to her anymore."

After a pause that was thick with judgment, they both smirked. "Aye, now ye jist keep it tha' way, ye hear?"

And the Scottish twins suddenly disappeared in a cloud of smoke, leaving a coughing and very confused Gordon to pull the Express.

"...Kennet?" Michaela hesitantly asked.

Her driver poked his head out of her cab. "Yes?"

They were driving down the Little Western, taking some trucks to the yard at Knapford again, and Michaela had only just remembered to talk to Kennet about her mysterious encounter the previous morning.

"I saw another engine yesterday," she told him. "She came to visit our shed early in the morning. Except… there was something strange about her. When I said hello to her, she just looked at me and smiled, and I felt a wave of peace and love wash over me. I asked her what she was doing here, and she just kept smiling. Then she looked over at the other engines… and then she just left."

Kennet froze. "Where did she go?"

"That's the thing… When I blinked, she was gone—just like that!"

Her driver was quiet for a moment. "Was there anything else unusual about her?"

Michaela scrunched up her face as she thought. "Come to think of it… I don't think she was actually touching the rails. Like she was floating a little. And her face and paintwork seemed to glow."

Kennet stared at the tracks in front of them. **"They say that babies are so innocent, they can sometimes see angels…"

"What?" Michaela asked.

He looked back at his engine. "Technically, you're almost as innocent as a human baby, if not actually as innocent. You are, after all, a baby engine still."

"I am?"

"At least, I think you are. Some engines take longer to mature, even taking as long as several months, so maybe you're still going through that. I mean, you're only two months old. It's a bit rare for that to happen to an engine, though."

Michaela was quiet for a moment. "So what does being a baby engine have to do with the engine who visited our shed?"

"Michaela… I think she might have been an 'angel engine'."

The iridescent engine gasped softly. "Really? What's that? Why was she at our shed?"

***"They're the spirits of engines who have… died, and gone on to live in a different place. I don't know why she was there, but I think you might be able to see angel engines because you're still a baby engine. If you see any more… maybe don't tell anybody else, but you can tell me if we're alone."

"You guys, I'm right here." Sam briefly joined Kennet at the cab door.

"Why can't I tell anybody else?" Michaela asked Kennet.

He frowned and looked down. "They might panic and make a big deal about it. People are always afraid of things that they don't understand. Truth is, not very many people know about the mysteries of engine life, like the Great Railway Above, for example."

She perked up with interest. "The Great Railway Above? What's that?"

"It's like your engines' version of heaven. Very little is known about it, but it's a belief that many engines have, and they don't speak of it often enough for us humans to know more. My dad told me everything he had learned about it from his time as a driver."

Michaela was quiet for a moment as she pondered Kennet's words. Then she asked, "Is that where engines go when they die?"

Her driver nodded. "At least, that's where they believe their souls go."

"...Will I go there when I die?" The question was hesitant and wavering, as if she was scared or saddened by the thought.

Kennet's eyes softened, and he ran his hand over the side of Michaela's cab. "I think so, girl, but it's okay. You don't have to worry about that for a long time. In fact, you probably won't have to worry at all."

Michaela glanced back at him with worried eyes. "Are you sure?"

He smiled back. "I'm sure."

Gordon was exhausted when he finally returned from taking the Express. He couldn't think straight, not after what he had been through the previous night. All he could think about was the dying faces of his siblings, their screams and cries for help penetrating every corner of his mind…

As he pulled into Knapford to be uncoupled from his coaches, Gordon could see a certain iridescent engine entering the shunting yard, and he recalled his conversation from earlier that morning with the twins.

Deciding that he needed to get away from it all, Gordon left and headed back up the Main Line. He wasn't quite sure where he was going, but for once he felt like he just needed to be somewhere by himself.

"But Kennet, I have to go after him!" Michaela insisted.

"Why?" Her driver was confused as to why she suddenly wanted to follow the same engine who had been mean to her the previous day.

"Gordon looked really sad, and I feel like something's not right with him!" Her voice was rising with intensity. "Please, Kennet!"

He took off his cap and ran a hand through his brown hair. "Alright, but I don't see why you want to follow Gordon all of a sudden. He was saying really judgmental things to you yesterday."

"Do I look like I care?!"

Kennet took one look at her wide, dark eyes and gave in. He climbed back into her cab and leaned out the window. "Alright, let's go."

With a chirp of her whistle, Michaela quickly steamed out of the yard and onto the Main Line after the big blue tender engine.

Gordon wasn't sure why he suddenly felt so depressed. Maybe it was the memories of all his siblings coming back into his mind, combined with the fact that now all but one of those siblings were gone that was making him feel this way…

He didn't want to be seen by anyone in this state, so he pulled onto a siding that was mostly concealed by bushes and trees. Gordon let out a long sigh and closed his eyes. Suddenly, a single tear escaped from him and slid down his cheek.

Gordon's driver came up alongside him with a concerned look. "What's the matter, boy?" His eyes widened when he saw the tear on Gordon's face. "...What?! Why are you crying?"

"I… M-my brothers and sisters…" was all that Gordon could say.

It was right at that moment that the last person in the world that he wanted to see came puffing past the siding.

"Gordon?" Michaela reversed and peered through the bushes. "Why are you hiding back there?"

The big blue engine was too proud to admit that he was crying, so he remained silent and wished that she would just leave already.

Michaela chewed on her lip as she thought for a moment. "...Hold on, Gordon. I'll be right back."

He watched as she puffed away, then he quickly looked back at his driver. "Quick, get me out of here! She can't see me like this. Nobody can!"

His driver folded his arms. "Hold on a second here, Gordon. I'd like to see what happens when she comes back."

Gordon was shocked. "What?!"

"It could be a good thing. From what I've heard about her, she's a very kind engine."

He began to panic as he heard Michaela returning to his hiding spot, and his driver patted his cab as he climbed back in.

"It'll be fine. I'm still here for you."

"But you didn't do as I asked…"

Gordon fell silent as Michaela, now facing the other direction, turned onto the siding and came a couple of feet away from his front buffers.

Her eyes grew bigger when she saw that his face was wet from a few more tears. "You've been crying… Why?"

"I… I can't tell you—" But Gordon's response was suddenly cut off by a choking feeling inside of him (despite not really being able to choke), and more tears began to fall from his eyes at an alarming rate.

Michaela's mouth opened a little in surprise, but then she looked down and rolled closer to Gordon. What she said and did next surprised him very much.

"You look like you could use a buffer press… I'm going to give you one, okay?"

And she gently touched her buffers against his in a comforting gesture.

Gordon gasped, and he opened his mouth to say something, but he couldn't get any words out. Instead, more tears fell out of his eyes, and he suddenly felt very embarrassed for crying in front of Michaela.

But the iridescent engine somehow sensed this and told him in a gentle voice, "It's okay to cry, you know. Everybody has to at some point, and you'll feel better afterwards because it helps to get the sad feelings out."

Hearing those words made Gordon begin to cry—not loudly at all; instead he shed silent tears while Michaela sat with him and did her best to comfort him.

When he could finally speak again a few minutes later, he asked her, "...Why? Even after all that I've said about you… you still care?"

"I always care. Sometimes a little too much." She closed her eyes. "And that's why I want to say… I'm sorry."

Gordon was stunned. "Sorry? Whatever for?"

Michaela opened her eyes again. "That day at the station when I yelled at you… I was going through a really rough time, and I shouldn't have said any of that. I didn't mean to. Or maybe I did… but I was too upset to stop myself."

Gordon was speechless. After a few moments, he finally managed to say, "No, Michaela… I'm sorry. I have been very judgemental of you, and as much as it pains me to say this… it seems that I may have judged you wrongly."

Michaela smiled at him, then her eyes saddened and she asked, "Gordon… Why were you crying when I found you?"

He hesitated, before slowly telling her, "I've been thinking about my siblings lately… and how much I miss them. They're all gone, except for my brother, Flying Scotsman."

"Gone?" she repeated. "As in… dead?"

Gordon's sorrowful silence told Michaela that she was right.

"Oh my gosh… I'm so sorry, that's really sad!"

He sighed. "It's alright… At least, I feel alright now. You were right—crying did help me feel better."

Michaela hadn't been looking Gordon in the eyes at all, but now she worked up the courage to do so. "I'm glad. And… I think your siblings are in a better place now, and you'll get to see them again one day."

Gordon was surprised. "You… you're talking about the Great Railway Above, aren't you? How do you know about that already?"

"Actually, I just found out today."

He closed his eyes, pondering. "...I never really believed in it until now. If there's anything that will give me hope, it's that golden railway in the skies."

They sat in a peaceful silence for a moment, before Gordon spoke up again.

"...Did you know that I used to be painted green? My siblings were, too."

"Really?" Michaela looked him over. "I can see that, though I guess I like you better in blue."

Gordon smiled, and he felt as if a weight were being lifted off of him.

Suddenly, they heard a whistle sound from nearby, and Rebecca pulled up next to them. "Gordon? Michaela? What are you doing here?"

Michaela reversed out of the siding and spoke to her. "Gordon's having a rough day. If you could cheer him up and make him happy again, that would be great. He needs someone to understand how he's feeling right now."

Rebecca's voice immediately softened, and she pulled onto the siding in Michaela's place. "Alright. I'll take care of him from here."

Gordon sat in an awkward silence, wondering what had just happened. Usually he was used to people dismissing his feelings, or telling him to "toughen up." But Michaela and Rebecca had both decided to empathize with him and show that they really cared about how he felt.

As the iridescent tender engine slowly began to head back up the Main Line, Gordon called out to her, "Thank you, Michaela!"

"You're welcome!" she replied with a smile.

"...An' then Donnie and ah vanished in a cloud o' smoke!"

The other Little Western engines all burst out laughing.

"Ah ken, we couldnae stop laughin' about it either after it happened!" said Donald.

Michaela caught her breath and let it all back out with a sigh. "I really didn't think you'd go that far, but I'm actually glad things turned out the way they did."

"I still can't believe you're actually friends with Gordon now," said Duck.

"Do ye think tha' whit we did helped some?" Douglas asked Michaela.

She looked up at the darkening sky. "I mean… he actually apologized to me, so I think it did." Michaela hadn't told them about the part where she had helped a sorrowful Gordon to cry out his pain from losing his siblings on a siding off the Main Line.

The engines all gazed at the large clouds that were blocking out the stars, each one starting to get lost in their own thoughts.

"Hey… guys?" Michaela finally asked after several minutes had gone by.

"Yes?" Duck replied.

"Can we talk?"

Oliver laughed. "We already are, Michaela."

She giggled. "Well, yeah. But what I mean is… Can we talk about something serious? At least, I think this is serious…"

The other engines' faces immediately became solemn, and Donald asked, "Whit is it, lass?"

Michaela hesitated, then asked, "How do engines die?"

A heavy silence fell over the group, and Michaela began to wonder if she would have been better off not bringing it up.

But it was finally broken when Douglas said in an uneasy voice, "It's no' something ah wan' tae talk about."

"But th' lassie wants tae ken how it happens," said Donald. "We should at least tell her so she doesnae have tae go through life wonderin' how tha' works."

"Ah said, ah dinnae wan' tae talk about it!" Douglas suddenly shouted.

The other engines were surprised at his outburst, and Michaela winced as his words rang in her head.

Donald frowned. "Douggie, ah ken tha' it's nae easy subject, especially after whit happened wit' ye an—"

"Stop! Jist… stop."

Douglas suddenly realized that the others were all staring at him, and he rolled back into his berth, hidden from their view.

Michaela felt awful. "Did I say something wrong? …Should I just not talk about it?"

The remaining engines all glanced at each other, then Duck cleared his throat and spoke up. "It's not your fault, Michaela. But the subject of… scrap is a dark one, and some engines have had very close scrapes with it."

Her brow furrowed. "What is scrap?"

Duck paused, before telling her, "It's when an engine gets so old that it breaks down, and they take it to the Smelter's Yard where… where it gets cut up, and they smelt the metal down and use it for other things."

Michaela was horrified, and she sat frozen in complete silence for a long time. Then her body started to tremble, and she began to whimper.

Oliver immediately tried to calm her down. "It's alright, Michaela. Most of the time, the engines' faces will fade away and turn into spirits before they get completely cut up, so that way they don't have to suffer… for long."

Michaela's eyes widened with terror, and her whimpers turned to panicked cries.

Finally, Donald puffed forward and went to calm Michaela down. As their buffers met, she began to cry, and the engines were all silent, some of them recalling the day they too had found out that that was the way it happened. They had all had similar reactions, more or less.

A few minutes later, Michaela stopped crying, but now she was feeling exhausted from doing so. Donald gently pushed her back into her berth before heading back to his own.

As the engines began to drift off to sleep one by one, Oliver looked over at Toad and noticed that the brakevan's face was rather tense.

"What's wrong?" he asked him.

Toad looked up. "Oh, um… I'm just thinking about our escape. You know… before we left? We were so close to… Mister Oliver, w-we were so close…"

Oliver's eyes darkened. "I know, Toad," he whispered softly.

But the brakevan's eyes lit up again, and he tried to wipe away the fear that had been showing on his face. "But we're fine now, Mister Oliver. I'm fine." And Toad gave him a little smile.

The Great Western tank engine smiled back. "You're braver than you know, Toad. Sometimes you really surprise me."

But as the pair drifted off to sleep, there was still one more engine that was awake. Douglas sat all alone in his berth, and he had overheard the entire conversation with Michaela. He couldn't bring himself to go and comfort her while she had been crying, and he still felt bad about that, but at least his twin had come to the rescue.

Their conversation about scrap had brought back more memories that Douglas was trying to push away, but they just kept coming.

He finally gave up and let his tears fall.

Gordon was in his berth this time. Although his surroundings looked very real, something on the inside told him that this was really just a dream.

But it wasn't any ordinary dream.

****A slightly transparent girl was watching him while floating in the air. Her body was tinted blue, and she wore a turquoise dress with long sleeves and a short skirt. Her hair was a bluish-white, and it slowly drifted in a mesmerizing way.

The girl turned and floated into the clouds, parting them as she passed through them and disappearing while she did so.

Gordon blinked, wondering what he had just witnessed, when all of a sudden, the sky turned a golden-pinkish hue, and he gasped as he saw a golden railway in the sky, visible through the parted clouds.

An engine appeared and looked down at him, then another and another. Gordon's eyes welled up with tears as he realized who the engines were.

They were his brothers and sisters.

"Gordon, we are watching over you," said one of his brothers. "You may not be able to see us, but we are always thinking of you."

"Look up at the stars every night and talk to us," added one of his sisters. "We are listening."

"And don't ever forget…" said another brother, "we will always be here for you."

Gordon smiled up at them, and for the first time in many long years, he finally and truly felt at peace with the passing on of his siblings, for he knew that they still loved him and they would meet again.

The golden specks flickered and fluttered through the air towards the sleeping engine, and a wise voice from above sounded pleased as it spoke.

"You have done well, my daughter. No other engine that I have seen for a long time has done what you did today. Your heart is pure and sincere, and for that, I shall give you a special place alongside us, my magical little engine…"

The gold dust traveled towards the engine's face and stuck to it, before spreading to the rest of its body. It glowed a golden color, before slowly dying down and returning the color to its original iridescent livery.

Far away on the other side of the island, a large metal creature stirred from his sleep and slowly oiled out of the Dieselworks. He stared out into the distance as the hydraulic claw on top of him whirred to life.

The diesel was silent for a moment. When he spoke, his voice was deep and devious. "I sense something… A presence I've not felt since…"

A/N: Wooow, so that sure set up a ton for the plot! But more of Michaela and her friends won't be explored in the next chapter—more like the one after that—because I want to focus on a different engine as a break from all this drama. (I know, that's probably what a lot of you are here for, but there are other engines that I'd like to focus on as well. But this is still primarily Michaela's story.)

You've probably noticed that I've changed the cover for Iridescence. This is because I wanted it to better match the iridescent effects on Michaela's actual livery.

And a little note about Diesel 10: His voice is much deeper here in this fanfic, unlike how it actually sounds in his appearances in CGI episodes or Day of the Diesels.

*Michaela crying over the (non)existence of AEG was inspired by a real life child that actually burst into tears and wouldn't stop crying after she watched the reboot.

**The whole "babies can see angels" thing was something I heard a while back, and while I don't know for sure whether that's actually true, I thought it would be interesting to add in a story one day, hence this scene.

***Michaela can see "angel engines" due to still being a baby engine, but from this point onwards she'll have a different reason for being able to do so.

****Credit goes to racefangurl for coming up with the idea to give Philomena, my first ever female TTTE OC, a cameo appearance in Iridescence. Keep a lookout for when I post Philomena's story ;)