This story is a good one. I like the fact that Toby gets a moment to shine, and not in a way that makes him look weak. I think it's the last great Toby episode for quite a bit, and I hope I've shown that. This also contains one of my favorite lines that I've written in either Volume thus far. I think you'll recognize it when you see it.

Thank god that this is the last winter episode of the season. This way, I can officially move the story along and not have to worry about things like time and such. Yet, anyway.

AaronCottrell97: Yeah, most of the Bill and Ben episodes aren't my favorite. And Mavis definitely needs help.

Reality Rejection Service: That they are!

Kamen Rider Necrom:

Bronze Shield: Hopefully you enjoy it! Put a lot of work into it.

Game-Watch: There are some questions that are not meant to be answered...this is one of them.

MattPrice01: There will be more, I just need to find a place to put them! They're on their way!

Radical Sandwiches: Pretty much!

JD145: Oh no! MY CHARACTER HAS COME TO LIFE! What have I created!?

CUE THE THEME!

Finally, winter had come. It was, unsurprisingly for winter on the Island of Sodor, windy and cold. And when it got like this, the engines who are unlucky enough to have to go out and work can't wait to get back to the snugness and warmth of Tidmouth Sheds.

Then they're put next to Gordon, and that all changes.

One such engine was Toby, whom had been diverted onto the old tramway to deliver some passengers to the newly reopened stations there. "Bitter cold. bitter cold, bitter cold!" He chuffed. Or possibly "BIT OF COAL! BIT OF COAL! BIT OF COAL!" as he was hungry something fierce. Either one is a reasonable assumption to make. Pick your own. Can't tell you everything! You're not sheep.

Sorry, where was I? Got off track for a moment there.

Toby was stewing angrily over Gordon's sarcasm the previous night. It had been bad, even by Gordon's standards. The usual insults about being as flat as cardboard, having no real purpose being with the other engines, bringing nothing new to the table, just reworded slightly more scornfully. Then he had had the nerve to call him a 'token' figure.

So Toby was not in a good mood. Neither, for that matter, was Henrietta. She had had to listen to Toby's grinding teeth all day, and she was now completely on edge. It was a good thing Gordon wasn't there in front of them, because she would have most likely killed him instantly.

"Still-" said the tram, trying to summon some good cheer "-I'll be back in my nice warm shed soon! ...And then all I'll have to deal with is the mocking of that big blue oaf! ...Every cloud is silver-lined, even when it rains. So don't get too downhearted, as things are bound to change! All you've gotta do is wear a smile and you will find... Your sun will- SHIT!"

His driver slammed on the brakes as they both spotted the figure of a farmer, knee deep in snow and waving a red flag. Toby wished he had picked up those semaphore lessons, it might have saved a hell of a lot of time.

It was Farmer McColl, a red headed farmer with a mustache to be proud of. It was the only thing that he could, reasonably, actually be proud of. His farm was terribly run, he was completely cut off from most people usually and he tended to rack up quite the charge sheet with the very erratic driving he tended to do while riding his tractor.

"Uz phonelines are daahn! orl t' roads are blocked, 'n those nasty sheep o' mine av picked naw o' orl t' bloody times ta start lambin! 'n dis is why we should av 'ed 'em neutered!"

And to answer your question, no, you are not having a stroke.

"I...I'm sorry, what was that?" asked the driver, who didn't speak Yorkshire very well. Toby himself was wondering why it appeared that McColl was auditioning for a part in some spin-off of Our Friends in the North. The fireman could, however, and translated accordingly.

"Cos they're orl lazy buggers, they're trapped ont' 'illside 'n they're cut off by t' snow! Lazy so 'n so's!"

"What can we do to help?" asked Toby, once the inevitable translation came.

"Ah need eur vet as sharp as possible! alsoa, someone ta 'elp uz shift orl t' illicit drugs art o' t' way!"

"We'll go to the next station...and get at least one of those things." His driver frowned. "Hang on, there's a signalbox not far from here! RIDE LIKE THE WIND, TOBY!"

"You are not the Lone Ranger or Sheriff Woody, mate."

The driver explained all to the signalman, who allowed him to phone ahead to the station.

...

The Fat Controller and the vet were waiting for Toby as he arrived at Callan Station. The vet had just been there by pure chance, as he was surprised when Toby explained in a hurry. "The farmer's sheep are going into labor-"

"Why, I thought they voted Conservative!"

This shit joke was brought to you by the Token Political Joke Association. We hope you enjoyed this random segway.

"...Right...and we need to help them! PRONTO!"

"Why, is he up there too?!"

Toby closed his eyes and counted to ten, very, very slowly. He tried to get rid of the feeling that he was an Island of sanity in a sea of lunacy and focused solely on the task at hand. He opened his eyes and took a deep breath. "Sir-"

"I get it, I get it. I'll get on it now, we're sending Duck up to the farm to take care of it. This is a job for an engine with a snow plow and a lot of youth and vigor. You don't even have one of those things, Toby, so stay back here until we get confirmation.

Toby knew that Duck was the right engine for the job. He was powerful, and smart. But he still couldn't escape the desire to give the Fat Controller a real piece of his mind. He couldn't take any more of the insults today, he just couldn't. "Hurry!"

So much snow had fallen that the tracks ahead were now blocked, and as Duck puffed along, he hit more and more bumps. Getting out of the cab was not an option for either of his crew, the snow was blowing so fiercely at this point. "We can't go on! We have to go back!" said his driver.

Duck sighed, and wondered if he had packed the normal version of Watership Down, or the 'Oliver' version.

He prayed it was the former.

As he returned back to the station, Duck noticed that Toby was surprised to see him. Glumly, he admitted "I tried my hardest. I...gave it a push. And it was really, really hard. Honest. But...nothing. Weather's getting worse."

"The snow's too thick up there for us to get through, even with Duck's snow-plow." agreed the driver.

"Then the sheep are going to die!" said the Fat Controller blithely. "Oh well, we tried our best, let's go home everyone!" But just as he was about to leave, Toby had an idea.

"Wait, wait, hold your balls, sir. My old line may be rickety, but it's got a way to get to the farms in a lot shorter time. Remember?"

"Wait, hold up, that's far too dangerous! I was there, remember, on your line for a bit. Even with all the work we've been doing, Duck's a fat slob! It would cave under his weight before he even got a quarter of the way there!"

"Oh, thanks for the vote of confidence, sir!" Duck snapped.

"It might take my weight...and Henrietta's! I know the old way like the back of my buffers, and I'm pretty sure that it'll get me there quicker. It's the only chance to help the newborn lambs."

"Why do you care so much?"

"...It's what I do, sir."

"Be extremely careful. Good luck."

Duck whistled goodbye as Toby set off for the tramway once more. And soon, the blizzard howled so much that any sign of civilization (Or whatever passed for it here on Sodor) had vanished. The driver was worried, but Toby was grimly determined. "I can do it!" He puffed, trying to ignore the familiar pain in his chassis. "As long as these rails hold...I feel like I'm forgetting something."

He had.

Up ahead was the old iron bridge, a bridge that had been constructed by a madman whom had been drunk at the time and had therefore not thought anything through in the slightest. As he rounded the bend just before the bridge, Toby began to feel what passed for his chest tighten. He groaned. He had had these twinges since 1998, during the filming of Season 5. There had been a ton of explanations, a huge anxiety complex hidden under the surface, something wrong with the way he was built...personally, he just thought that he was allergic to deathly situations.

But still he pressed on. He tried not to wince as every part of his chassis began to tighten together like a crashed car. He tried to ignore Henrietta's little screams, they weren't going to help. "Oh...help, loosing control! Driver!"

"Doing it!" The driver was trying his best to regain his foothold on Toby, and the fireman was currently huddled in the corner of his cab, praying to any God that would listen.

"Got to keep moving! Got to keep moving! I'm needed! Ha! I'd like to see Gordon do this! That's it, that's it, oh, Henrietta, we're doing wonderfully-"

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

"That's the spirit, m'dear!"

...

McColl was waiting anxiously, not for the first time wondering if he had made the wrong choice trusting that shed that had appeared to sprout wheels. He wasn't entirely sure that his entire conversation hadn't been to a hallucination. This was not helped by the fact that Toby's headlamp was glowing brightly like a one eyed demon.

"Here we come to save the day!" sang Toby. The vet got out, stumbled into a bank of snow and threw up, before rushing in the direction of the sheep.

"You made it! Well, you tuk thy tahhm. ah well, wha' a brev engine you are!"

"Ta...I think?"

Soon the vet returned. "Well, all things considered, they're nice and well. But we're going to need a place to keep the little ones warm." He paused. "Also, I want to go home, so let's make it quick."

Toby smiled. "Henrietta...you've got plenty of room, haven't you?"

"Ohhhh...fine." She sounded grumpy.

Toby stayed with Henrietta and the lambs for a few days, just to make sure that they were all right. And because, well, how often was it that you got to see new life born every day. And soon, the snow had melted. Duck arrived to help the two of them back down, with a very grateful farmer waving him off and denying furiously that he had stolen his lantern.

"Thank you, Toby. we couldn't av done it wiyaa' you, you...beautiful shed!"

"Ah, it's all right." said the modest tram. "No, thank you. Nothing I like better than helping out a friend in need...though maybe consider getting an accent coach. That bit might get old really, really fast."

...

"Thinking of something, Toby?" asked Duck, as he helped the old tram back towards the junction.

"Oh...something Gordon said before this all started. About how I was pretty bland. And forgettable. And really only there to swell out the numbers. And be a token representative of trams...he said a lot of things."

"Ah. And this has taught you something?"

"It has."

"And that is?"

"That Gordon is a fucking idiot who, if we had arses, wouldn't know how to wipe his if we gave him detailed instructions on a nice laminated sheet of paper."

"It's a good lesson."

...

A few days earlier, Duck and Edward had been chatting to the Duchess of Hamilton.

Well...chatting was a bit of a strong word. Mostly it was her having to remark "No comment" to questions regarding the Iron Circle. It was beginning to get rather annoying.

"Okay!" said Duck, after a few minutes of this. "Let's cut to the chase. Is there anything you can tell us about the Iron Circle? ...Or anything that can possibly give us a hand with the issues we're facing."

The Duchess hesitated, and shook her face.

"Come on, you were all 'I'll try' earlier! And now...what?"

"I can't say. I really, really can't say."

Duck was about to speak, when Edward cut in. "Um, hello there, Edward here...look, Duck here clearly trusts you. I'm not sure if he's right to, but he does. And I understand that there are some things that you can't speak about for fear of compromising security. So I'm going to tell you what I think has happened since the last time he made contact with you.

Since the Battle of Shining Time, you've come under a hell of a lot of scrutiny. Your forces were, to be frank, pitiful when you arrived at Shining Time, and the other engines arriving was more or less a really, really big bit of luck. Since then, you've had countries either pull out of your group financially wise, or insisting on more oversight to make sure that you don't screw it up even more so. But not only that. A secret organization is, by it's own logic, one that doesn't advertise. The losses you took during the fights will have cut down your ranks significantly, and seeing as, as I have said, the international community isn't exactly keen on you at the moment, that means you're not getting bolstered by that lot. So you've been trying to scout out any potential new recruits. Unfortunately, you're stuck in the old ways. With the Other Railway gone, the number of distressed and oppressed souls that have little choice in the matter have dropped drastically. ...So that's why you've not been as active recently. There is no enemy for you to fight, and even if there were, you don't have the enginepower to do any fighting."

He took a deep breath. "Now, as to why you've cut contact with Duck here. I'm more certain that the above happened than I am with this, but here we go. It's plain old pettiness. We won. We beat the Malevolence. And we did so in a week. You had twenty years to come up with an idea or something to stop the Other Railway and the Malevolence, but you didn't. And by, admittedly, a huge amount of luck and bluffing our way through, we beat them. ...Everything that has happened to the Iron Circle since then can't have been helped by that simple fact. You don't have the ability to rub it in other countries faces that you won the day. You don't have any trophies, just scars. You don't even have the engine whom you did this all for, she stayed put in America of all places. ...So you're not answering because you're sulking. Or at least, the higher ups are, I think you're willing to meet with us, but there's something that they're planning which means you don't want us interfering with it.

Am I correct?"

The Duchess looked at Edward, and Edward looked at the Duchess.

Finally, she spoke.

"You know, I think it's frankly a mistake of immeasurable magnitude that we didn't try and recruit you for our side."

Edward gave what might have been a bow of the head. "Well, I would have been flattered."

"...I can't confirm anything you've just said. I hope you realize that." She paused, significantly. "Nor can I deny it." She looked at both of them for another moment. "...Tell me what you know. I shall investigate, and return with any information I can gather. That is the best I can offer you right now."

...

As the two engines headed back across the Vicartown Bridge, the Duchess of Hamilton headed off to a quiet siding to think things through. The Iron Circle were many things, but they were not without some capacity for forethought. Leaving the people who had singlehandedly saved the universe to a terrible fate may have given some of them great pleasure, but personally it was beginning to grow wearisome...

At which point, everything turned white. And the Duchess forgot everything that had happened in the last hour.

She blinked once or twice. "Where...am I?"

"You were just getting a cuppa. Think we might have had a little too much stuff last night." City of Truro smiled affably. "Don't worry. all going well."

The Duchess of Hamilton sighed. "We...We need to talk about our next actions. I...I have the feeling there's something strange going on at Sodor."

"There always is." Truro smiled again, and as they moved off, the Duchess failed to notice the memory wiping technology retreat back into Truro's cab. "Don't worry about it. By the time it's all finished, there'll be peace in our time."

For those who don't remember, Truro used the memory wiping thing on Duck back in Volume 1. So...the Duchess has now completely forgotten her meeting with the two engines.

But hey, things can't get any worse than that, right?

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.

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See you next time!