And we're back! I'm trying something knew today, figured that it might be interesting to give the other engines something to do in certain episodes. It's nothing serious, just a few little moments here and there to perhaps build up character a little bit. Also, I've officially decided on a Cranky portrayal that isn't 'Angry Crane', because that really doesn't make him that much different from anyone else. This on the other hand...I legitimately feel bad for him when writing this. Now, review time!

Kamen Rider Necrom: Thank you! Glad you enjoyed!

AaronCottrell97: These are questions that the world aren't quite ready to answer!

Reality Rejection Service: The Out of Character Fairy is her niece, actually. Considering that the HIT entertainment era's coming up, Karma wants to give her a little work experience. And fair enough, I have no real problems with Harvey, it's just that at the time I was writing the episode, I didn't have much in store for him. By the time he appears again in Season 7, I'll have something for him.

TrainManiac: That actually doesn't sound stupid at all! Something I did want to try and do with Season 6 is to bring back the irreverent feel of series one and two, with Season 7 perhaps introducing the story-line proper like Season 2 did. I don't hate Post-Season 5 Thomas...in the Classic form. Season 6 is perfectly fine, and a nice quiet return to relatively sedate storytelling. It's just that I think Season 6 and 7 aren't as good as the previous five seasons, but that's not to say they're not great and miles ahead of where the show would be for the next decade or so. Harvey is actually going to get a proper character come Season 7, it was just that unlike Salty, he didn't make much of a impact beyond the cool look in his debut season. Hope that clears things up!

Game-Watch: Oh don't worry, that's going to be...addressed, at some point.

Radical sandwiches: Yeah, it's going to be interesting. Still not entirely sure what my plan is for those characters, but I'll work something out by the time I get to them. Glad you liked the Carlin scenes!

MattPrice01: Fun fact, I've considered quite a few times having the engines go to therapy as one of the running storylines throughout the series. James is definitely paranoid, and no mistake. And I absolutely agree with your thoughts on the Power Rangers movie. I could have used more actual fighting, but I appreciate that they gave the characters chance to breathe before getting to the good stuff. Cheered when the original theme came back too, and I'd love to see more of them. And as to references...well, just wait and see. Wink.

Hughie96: Thanks mate! I love Season 6, but it's not one of my favorite seasons of Thomas. Hence my mocking of it, but only in a affectionate way. It's far better than what is to come. Hope you enjoy this!

Brendam Docks is one of the busiest dockyards on the island of Sodor. By which I mean, it is the only dockyard on the Island of Sodor at the moment. Hatt had had to save money by making sure that there was only one big dropping off point for people who came via ferry. So not only did they have to endure the rough seas, rougher weather and roughest people crewing the boat, they then had to get out and spend a long journey with Gordon.

The docks is also where ships come to unload their cargo, and where everyone has to work hard day and night, every day of the year. All the while a massive sign reading 'DON'T FORGET, YOU'RE HERE FOREVER, YOU CHEAP BASTARDS' glowed brighter than the lighthouse.

After the camera crew had blown all of the money for the season on a impressive looking tracking shot of the docks, they were promptly sent home to sober up. Britt was forced to send Mike and Junior, the musicians, out to play their latest song 'Down by the Docks' to earn some money to which to pay the rest of her staff. She winced. She did not need this now.

Speaking of not needing this now, Cranky the Crane was feeling sorry for himself. He was having random flashbacks to when he had first come onto the Island, and he had tried to kill Thomas. Good times. But that had been the high-point of his time here, and he had spent the next four years or so rapidly going out of his mind. He got absolutely no-sleep, and was on the verge of declaring "SOD THIS!" and swimming for Dover. It didn't help that the only company he ever seemed to get that stayed for more than three minutes were the gulls that sat on his arm...and then left him presents whenever it was time to leave.

And so Cranky (Get this, this is a real original joke, been told NEVER before in the history of mankind. You ready?) is always Cranky!

...Where's the applause? Ugh.

...

On this day, Cranky was busy doing what he normally did: lowering pipes onto flatbeds, and leaving long and elaborate suicide notes for when he inevitably faked his own death. Not for the first time, he considered if there was a rhyme for 'garrulous' or something of the like.

"WHY SHIVER ME TIMBERS!"

"Oh GOD!" Cranky looked down at the water. Perhaps if he nudged forward, he could drown before he had to acknowledge Salty.

"Ahoy there, Cranky!" called Salty. "Avast, tis a fine sunrise, laddie!"

"How much can I pay you to leave me alone?" begged the crane, desperately wondering if he should just kill Salty and let it be over with. Being in jail could not be as bad for him as doing his job at the moment. He took a deep breath. "WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN!?" he snapped, trying to sound his usual oppressive self.

"An' a fine one it is too!" Salty said, ignoring Cranky, as was the wont of most engines when confronted with the crane. Said crane didn't think things could get much worse-

And somewhere, Karma started giggling with glee.

Sodor's answer to the Chuckle Brothers, Bill and Ben, arrived full of their usual mischief. They quickly sized up the situation, and realized that torturing Cranky with Salty was far more fun than torturing the both of them. Cranky began to sob, pathetically. "HURRY UP!" He wailed.

"You're no fun at all!" Bill said, mastering the art of the understatement.

"FUN!? FUN!? IF YOU WERE STUCK UP HERE, YOU'D SEE JUST HOW FAR FUN CAN GET YOU! I'M NOT BLOODY PAID TO BE FUN! I'M...not paid...at all..." Cranky proceeded to go through a minor breakdown as he realized that he was doing all of this for less than peanuts! Dover clearly wasn't going to be far enough. He wondered if they had need for cranes in Luxembourg.

"So that's why you're cranky!" Bill declared, wickedly grinning.

"You're lonely, you big ol' teddy bear!" Ben cackled.

"I! AM! NOT! LONELY!" shrieked Cranky, who was, but would rather have syphilis than have to deal with Bill and Ben for any period longer than ten minutes per day.

"So 'tis company ye need then!" Salty remarked. One might almost have thought he was doing this deliberately. "Reminds me 'o a lonely 'n frustrated barnacle-covered Great Banks lighthouse keeper!"

"NO! NOT ANOTHER STORY!" screamed the hapless crane. "ANYTHING BUT THAT" No, he decided, Timbuktoo sounded great right now. Apart from all the rumors of there being a huge horde of talking technicolor animals living there, it seemed like paradise to him.

"Please tell us, Salty! We haven't heard that one!" said the tormenting twins.

"Twas in th' middle 'o a wee tricky storm, th' likes 'o which be rarely seen in 'tis here lifetime!" Salty had clearly not lived very long on the Island, as he would have learnt that storms such as that happened on an monthly basis. But this story caused Cranky to snap, and he swung his arm about with reckless abandon, seeming to ignore the large wire that had been installed at great cost by the production team to get a good camera angle.

Unfortunately, he was still holding the pipes in his hook.

Somewhere, a sarcastic bastard began playing a mock-drum roll as the chains holding the pipes twirled for a moment...and then snapped. They missed the trucks completely, hitting the tracks and rolling towards the shed where the engines usually slept. "Whoops." Cranky whimpered, meekly.

"Arrr, ouch!" declared Salty, as the shed toppled over and hit him on the back. "You've blown tha main now, matey!"

The engines were trapped! DUN DUN DA.

"You're going to get in trouble!" chanted Bill and Ben maturely.

Cranky decided to start writing out his will.

...

"Sir, urgent-" Carlin stopped dead in his tracks at the sight before him. "Erm...should I leave and come back again?"

"For god's sake, Carlin!" snapped the Fat Controller, as Tailor Norris moved forward with his measuring tape erect (No, that's not a euphermism, but it should be). "You act like you've never seen a man getting measured for a new suit before!"

"Not...quite as intimately as that, sir, but...f**k what was my point? Oh yeah, Cranky's destroyed a shed."

"Shit." muttered Sir Topham. "Sorry Tailor, must dash! We'll finish up that waistcoat tomorrow, if you don't mind!" And off he strode to his car. He was halfway to the docks before he realized that the tape measure was still wrapped around his body. He didn't care though. He knew that any delay at the docks could cause confusion. Even more so than usual.

"BLOODY NORA, LOOK AT THIS MESS, CRANKY!" He shouted through a megaphone.

"I'm sorry sir, but the megaphone really isn't necessary, you know-"

"I don't care, I LOVE MEGAPHONES, IT GIVES ME A TASTE OF POWER! Mwahahahaha! You lot will have to stay here for the night until Harvey gets off his arse and clears the mess up in the morning! ...He's got a photo shoot all night, so he can't come tonight...well, goodnight all!"

"SIR! PLEASE!"

But the Fat Controller had already abandoned Cranky to his fate.

"SLEEPOVER!" the twins screamed gleefully.

"Noooooooooooooooooooooooooo..." sobbed Cranky. His heart sank, as Salty uttered the fateful words:

"That reminds me of a story!"

"God, I wonder if the others are having as much fun as I am right now!" Bill whispered to Ben.

...

MEANWHILE, AT TIDMOUTH SHEDS.

"Sex! Blood! Drugs! Alcohol! MUUUUURDER! This show will have it all, let me tell you that! It will be a deep and socially damaging movie that will make us question what it is to be human...and it'll have a ton of action setpieces that will make Tarantino crap himself!"

"Gordon-" Edward said, patiently "-I doubt the Blyton Estate will go for this retelling of the Famous Five. And seeing as we nearly got sued for the anti-crane engine sentiment we used last time, when my words were taken out of context, I am not really looking forward to another legal battle!"

"But...But Edward, it's perfect! Imagine Arnold Schwarzenegger as Julian!"

"No."

"Steven Seagal as Dick!"

"Nope."

"Jeri Ryan as-"

"Look, with the greatest of respect, Gordon, I can't say 'No' more clearly than I am saying it!"

"You're full of shit, Edward!"

Edward took a deep breath, counted to ten inside his head and tried to get rid of the images of beating Gordon's face in until there was nothing left but a bleeding mass of tissue. Then he asked his driver to plug in his headphones and dial the volume up to maximum, so he could watch a Poirot episode in (relative) peace.

...

"It was a bitter cold winter, colder than a penguin in a fridge! 'n th' barnacle-covered freighter was stuck 'til th' ice had melted th' next sprin'! He sailed 'n sailed 'n sailed 'n, oh guess what, sailed, 'til after a hundred days at sea, he crashed into docks 'n came to rest not fifteen feet away from me buffers!"

"Wait, hang about...you're telling the story of my first day! I was the one who got bloody knocked down by that massive boat, not you, you...glory hog!"

"LUCKILY!" said Salty, loudly, to drown out the noise of Cranky pointing out plot holes/plot hiccups. "No one was hurt!"

"Except my ears and my sense of dignity!" wailed Cranky.

"Oh that old cliche!" muttered Bill. "It's not fun if they feel the need to add that reassurance! I want people to be hurt, damn it!"

And so Salty went on and on all night, telling stories of saucy seadogs, of chases, races and runaways, of capisizings and maroons and sodomy galore (In great detail) and all the while, Cranky comprised a poem. It reads thusly.

A Poem.

By Cranky.

Aaaaaaaaargh!
Aaaaaaaaargh!
Aaaaaaaaargh!
Aaaaaaaaargh!

Beautiful, I'm sure you agree.

By the time the sun had rose, Salty hadn't stopped to draw breath. He was still talking and talking away. Impressively, the three engines had not needed one bit of sleep that night. Unlike a certain crane, who was now trying to hang himself. He was aware that this was impossible, but he felt that he had to try at some point.

"I can't take any more!" Cranky creaked desperately. He suddenly let out a howl of delight as Harvey arrived, shining and clean from the launch party that had been held after the photo shoot.

"The Fat Controller has sent me to help you!" He said. He paused, and then took another drink of the Ultimate Scottish Accent Elixir: Irn Bru. "HOOTS MON!" He bellowed, and proceeded to lift the shed up at high speeds. Cranky, meanwhile, was so gleeful at the fact that the engines would be leaving soon that he forgot to be his namesake.

"I'll never misbehave again as long as you get that THING away from me!"

...

And after the magic of editing, Cranky did his job rather well. He carefully lowered the cargo onto the trucks, sped the engines on their way and said please and thank you through very gritted teeth. It was a minor miracle that the docks were relatively productive for once!

"So...this is new." Thomas muttered to Percy.

He had spoken too soon. Percy nearly wet himself as the pipes clanged down in front of him. He tried his best to keep a smile on his face, so that he would look cool and daring on camera. "Ah well...it was nice while it lasted!"

And all the engines laughed, while Cranky was still cranky (HA!) and proceeded to suffer a nervous breakdown that resulted in nice men in white coats taking him for a temporary stay in the funny farm to calm him down a little.

Once again, there is a moral to this story. And once again, sod me if I know what it is.