We're going to get the Pack series done sooner or later! We're almost there, guys! Push on! A fairly reduced bit of Present Time because HEY, padding's fun. More next time, I promise.
AaronCottrell97: Ehhhhh, sort of.
Reality Rejection Service: *Cue Twilight Zone music*
Bronze Shield: It does not take much to do that, unfortunately.
Game-Watch: Perhaps we'll find out someday...or not.
MattPrice01: NO! The TG plot was actually not even in the original plan! But I quickly adjusted it upon realizing how...weak the Pack episodes would be otherwise. Glad you and everyone else enjoyed Carlin and Miss Jenny meeting!
JD145: I have no opinion on the animated stuff. The TUGS stuff is a BUTCHERING OF A GREAT SHOW...so no, not a fan. XD.
UGX7: All you need to learn is that they are three VERY stupid men who do stupid shit. That's literally it. XD.
Radical Sandwiches: HA! Thanks!
TrainManiac: Ehhhh, it's been a while! I'm glad you're still reading and enjoying! Oliver was one of those characters I just decided to go all out on.
CUE THE...less than impressive theme music.
THE PAST
"More filming on that ghastly spin-off, Thomas?"
"Shut the hell up, James."
"Ooooh, aren't I scandalized?!" James flounced off in a huff, while Henry wondered if he could get some of that sweet, sweet stuff from Oliver. Or whether or not that would violate the terms of his...agreement with the Sudrian authorities. But Thomas couldn't dwell on anything really, as the Fat Controller had a special for him. Shock of all shocks, it was apparently a 'special special'. I know, who would have guessed?
"You need to take two of Miss Jenny's machines to Maithwaite Forest-"
"AGAIN!? What the hell's going on there?!"
"...As. I. Was. Saying. They're repairing the lightning tree."
"Ohhhh, the lightning tree, WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME BEFORE!? Now all of this makes perfect sense, apart from the small fact of 'WHAT THE LIVING HELL IS THE LIGHTING TREE' that might cause me some confusion."
"Don't you ever read up on ancient history, Thomas?"
"Don't you ever go outside and have an interaction with another person who isn't your drug seller, Henry?"
"Fair enough, just thought it warranted pointing out. Jerk."
"Gimme the cliffnotes version."
"Sacrifices, various blood rituals, RollingStock 70...all sorts of disasters there! So good luck with that!"
"Ughhh. Yes sir, I'll get right on it straight away. Hopefully the two vehicles are at the very least entertaining-"
...
"WHY IS MY LIFE SUCH PAIN!?" wailed Thomas two minutes later, as he pulled Jack and Alfie along on a flatbed towards the building site. Somewhere, Edward began to laugh bitterly for some reason he wasn't sure about.
"OH MY GOD ALFIE I CAN'T WAIT TO SEE THE LIGHTNING TREE!"
"Neither can I, Jack! Yeah yeah yeah, it'll be super-cool!"
"Oh, so you've heard of it!" snapped Thomas in a sulky manner. "Am I the only person who's ever heard of the Lightning Tree?!"
"Yes!" said the driver, fireman and all of the workmen riding to work with Thomas on that day. The tank engine grumbled, and didn't speak unless he was spoken to for the duration of the journey.
"Why is it even called The Lightning Tree? It's a daft name to give a tree in any case! Trees aren't people! ...Henry isn't hearing this, is he?" He looked around nervously, just on chance. Henry could get...passionate about trees.
"BECAUSE IT GOT HIT BY LIGHTNING."
"...Wait, is that it? I was expecting some kind of story behind it! ...Wait, there's got to be hundreds of trees that have been struck by lightning before?! Are they all Lightning Trees too? Or is this just some bull you're making up for the sake of the show!?"
"GREAT FECKING SKY GODS, will ye quit yer whining?!" Miss Jenny stormed out of her trailer, looking like she had just gone twelve rounds with a wolverine. Which considering that she and Carlin had being going at it all night before, she probably had been. "It's old, in need of repairs and yet for some reason we're not allowed to just cut it down and start again! Much like most of the FECKING POLITICIANS IN THIS COUNTRY! FECK EM! AND THE YANKS! THEY CAN ALL FECK OFF! ...Where was I going with this? ...Oh yeah, the dumb fecking tree needs to be repaired. Apparently."
"But how will we know which one it is?!" said Alfie, who had forgotten to turn the volume down.
"You'll know!" said Kelly, who had tried to kill himself several times from the lightning tree, and was therefore partly responsible for the state that it was in. "It's the biggest tree in the woods! And I should know! ...I've crashed into enough of them."
"We need to prop it the feck up! Much like what the rest of the world has to do to the Americans to get them to FECKING WORK ON TIME." Miss Jenny was not, as one can gather, a fan of Americans. No, not even the one she was sleeping with.
To be brutally honest, he was not doing his country much credit in his attitude. He hadn't even done the dishes before he'd sodded off to work with Percy! The nerve on that bastard.
"Now, listen to me-" She grabbed Max and Monty by the front and almost lifted them clean off the ground "-LISTEN TO ME. DON'T. FECKING. RUN. ABOUT. ALSO-"
"Safety first!" said the Pack.
"YER DAMN FECKING RIGHT SAFETY FIRST!" Miss Jenny then fired her pistol into the air to scare them into starting quickly. No one commented on the hypocrisy there, it all seemed pretty clear to them.
...
As the two made their way through the forest, Jack and Alfie continued to do their usual schtick of chattering away inanely to each other about nothing in particular, until they came upon the lightning tree.
"WOW."
"It's big big big!" said Alfie.
The tree had a massive crack in the middle of it where, presumably, it had been struck by the lightning. Or equally as possibly, where Kelly had failed to end it all in a comedic fashion. Either or, really. The foreman had noted that the roots had also been pulled up, and that it wouldn't take much time, or much in general, for it to fall down completely.
"SO...why don't we want that to happen?" asked Nelson to Isabella, as they watched from afar.
"Um...something about...heritage?"
"Have you seen how many pissing trees have been struck by lighting over the past two years alone!?"
"Hey, I don't make the rules!"
"Well maybe I SHOULD."
"You mean, maybe 'you' should."
"I meant what I said."
Jack and Alfie, for once, were approaching the situation very carefully and aware that things could go wrong at any moment. It was a pity, therefore, that Max and Monty had chosen today to be a pair of right prats. Well, I mean, more so than usual. They were racing about, terrifying the local wildlife (In both human and animal form) and then, suddenly, they veered towards the tree.
"LOOK OUT!"
"YOU'LL HIT THE SACRED TREE!"
It was, as per usual, too late. Max slammed into Monty, Monty slammed into the tree, and somewhere, Miss Jenny slammed her head into her hands for reasons she wasn't yet sure of.
"Who put this here?!" asked Monty.
"THE TREE IS FALLING DOWN!" said Jack.
"Well, he's not blind, at least." said Nelson, who was too much of an asshole to try helping out. Isabella, meanwhile, had already decided to check and see if Kelly wanted to give himself brain trauma some more.
"We must SAVE IT!" said Alfie, who had bought into the hype a little too much. He raced forward, jamming his bucket against the mighty tree. The two loaders had already taken off, furiously denying even knowing what a 'tree' was. "HELLLLP THIS WAS A TERRIBLE IDEA!"
"I'M COM-"
"Move aside, you little goofball!" said a grumpy Oliver, who wanted more than anything to just go back to the Yard and get high as all hell. However, he couldn't, so he might as well try saving the stupid tree. Unfortunately, even with his own shovel added to prop it up, the tree was still coming down, albeit slowly.
"KELLY KELLY DOO! WHERE ARE YOU? WE'VE GOT SOME WORK TO DO NOW!"
"ROVER- I mean, ahem. Over here! Ah, typical! The one day we have to actually TAKE CARE OF A TREE and Byron's nowhere in sight! Ruddy typical!" snapped Kelly as he ambled on over with an expression of deep annoyance on his face. He added his arm to the 'holding the stupid tree up' club, as it had quickly become known amongst the watching workers.
"WELL THIS IS A NICE WAY TO SPEND ETERNITY!" snarled Oliver.
"Funny, I didn't think it would end like this. I saw more...acid. And raining death. And lanterns, lots of lanterns. And I think something to do with a creature of pure light?"
"That's...oddly specific, Kelly."
"Well I'm an oddly specific construction vehicle."
"GET THE PROPS!" said Kelly's operator.
"But Nigel's nowhere to be found!" cried Alfie.
"OH HA HA! I MEAN THE PROPS FOR THE TREE!"
"Why would a tree need props?! It can't act! It is, quite literally, completely wooden!"
"Oh shut up, Oliver!"
Jack was already gone and at Thomas's side immediately
"THOMASYOUHAVETOGIVEMETHEPROPSBECAUSEMAXANDMONTYCRASHEDINTOTHETREEANDKNOCKEDITOVERANDNOWIT'SFALLINGOVERANDKELLYALFIEANDOLIVERARETHEREHOLDINGITUPOHGODOHGODWE'REALLGOINGTODIE!"
"...What?"
"PROPS. NOW."
"Fine! Get a move on, you weird little freak." Thomas hoped that Jack got back in time. Well, sort of. He was apathetic, to be brutally truthful.
"I don't think I can hold this for much longer!"
"HA! WIMP!"
"I'm like Popeye! I need my drugs to function!"
"...Popeye doesn't use drugs?"
"THEN WHAT THE HELL IS IN THAT SPINACH, EH?" As Jack raced up, Oliver let out a long sigh of relief. "Thank god! I'm getting really sober and I really, REALLY hate it!"
As soon as the lightning tree was saved via the use of props, the three vehicles collapsed into agonized gasping fits, unable to move or do anything for the rest of the week. Alfie could only manage a weak "Hooray!" before collapsing on his side and refusing to get back up until he was given cookies.
"WELL FECK ME WITH A GARDEN HOSE! I go and have a lie down for TWO MINUTES TO DEAL WITH THE MENO-WHATSIT, AND YE FECKERS GO AND NEARLY BLOW THIS WHOLE OPERATION!?" Miss Jenny took long deep breaths, her heart-rate was rocketing up. "Oh, ye three did...fine, I GUESS. The fecking tree is saved! ...WHOO-DE-DOO! And that's no thanks to ye two! LET'S SEE IF WE CAN'T GET SOME GLUE OUT OF YE."
"It's all Monty's fault!"
"Oh, shut up, Max!"
And as Thomas took Jack and Alfie home, he reflected on how much he DIDN'T care about this situation.
"LOOK!"
"YOU CAN SEE IT FROM HERE!"
It was the lightning tree.
And a grand amount of ZERO shits were given.
To this day, no one is quite sure why it's up there.
...Well there is one idea.
But that, as they say, is another story.
...
THE PRESENT.
"Oh no."
"Oh no!"
"Oh no!"
"MOTHERFUC-"
These were the responses of Kelly, Oliver, Byron and Isabella respectively as Van Stig blasted down the high street, training unfeasiblely large machine guns on them and began to shoot wildly.
"OH SHIT! OH SHIT! OH SHIT! OH SHIT!"
And so it went on for quite a while. Unfortunately at one point, that group and Jack's own crossed paths Scooby Doo style. There was a moment's pause, then a loud shriek, as the jet-tank strafed them and began to fire even more enthusiastically on them.
"THIS IS THE WORST DAY EVER!" wailed Jack.
"STICK AROUND A BIT LONGER AND THAT'LL CHANGE!" roared back Byron.
At which point, the plane caught him a little roughly. And by a little roughly, I mean he was shot up into the air like a cork from a bottle. Up and up and up and up he went, to the point where no one could see him any more.
"He's...going to come back down, right?" said Kelly, in confusion.
"I guess?" muttered Hammond, who had unfortunately arrived at the scene of the accident.
"ALL RIGHT! I'VE HAD IT UP TO HERE WITH THIS!" Isabella turned to Oliver. "HEY!"
"What?"
"CATCH!"
Oliver's eyes went as wide as saucers when he saw how many drugs were in Isabella's cab. And several indulgences later, and as someone began to play the Popeye theme at full blast, the battle commenced.
Elsewhere, James continued the chase at breakneck pace. In that you would break your neck if you tried to watch it, so excruciatingly slow was it.
NEXT TIME ON THE PACK ABRIDGED! OLIVER VS NORRIS VON STIG.