Well! It has been a while, hasn't it? I have been doing university work and also trying to get this story to work, because Toby's Windmill is a pretty bland one, really not the best story for Toby to have. It's a pity that it's his last big role in the Classic Series, but it's certainly not as bad as what's to come. Also. if you haven't read it, I delivered a Christmas gift on Tales from the Abridgement, so go check that out! With that in mind, REVIEWS!
AaronCottrell97: Agreed, definitely fun to write and watch!
Reality Rejection Service: "IT REALLY SUCKS." Thomas the Tank Engine, Some Point, 2003.
Bronze Shield: Especially around this era, yeah!
Game-Watch: I mean, it's a bit of an overreaction though. We accidentally destroy one of your cities that you can repair with a little exertion of your mind, and in return you destroy the entire world which we can't rebuild on purpose.
MattPrice01: Trust me, rediscovering Captain Scarlet's been a blast! Definitely a lot of fun to write the Mysterons in, and while we won't be seeing much of them just yet, they do have a role to play! Thunderbirds is definitely getting a nod, as is Terrahawks at some point!
JD145: Unfortunately not! She's not that musically or linguistically gifted here.
Radical Sandwiches: Thomas being a whiny bastard is fun to write! Ah, but regarding the Fat Director...well, the plot is going to thicken soon enough. This chapter especially might be an interesting read for you.
Guest: Nope, I'm not that smart or clever, and I won't be tackling that at all.
UGX7: Okay, so that's fair, but this does put me in an awkward bind of having to deal with your problems while also not spoiling the story. So to answer what I can, the Mysterons were introduced because I wanted the story to feel big, but they won't be taking up any more space than they absolutely necessarily have to. They have a purpose to this story, just as of yet, I can't reveal what it is. They have a connection to the Malignance, BUT it's also more complicated than they make it sound. I can't talk about what that is as of yet. And yeah, Zak was tipped off that Zero was returning, because the Other Railway had no real desire to keep the Captain around. Two birds with one stone, as it was.
Shin-Dan Kuruto: Yep.
CUE THE THEME!
There are many beautiful places on the Island of Sodor.
Good thing none of them are going to be focused on today! Am I right, ladies and gentlemen? ...No, but seriously, am I?
"Focus, chaps!" called Harold the smugass helicopter as he flew over some lovely stock footage. The engines love the pretty watermill (At least when they aren't getting splashed by the water and/or getting dunked into the nearby pond) the beautiful canal (Or canals, really you see one, you see them all, as you can tell by this OTHER lovely bit of stock footage) and the castle on the Loch.
Which didn't exist five minutes ago, but you know what, it's a weird bloody Island, okay.
Toby's favourite place, for the purposes of the episode today for some reason, is the old windmill. Why no, this isn't the same windmill as the one in the title sequence. Or any other windmill we've seen up until now. Nope, this is a completely new one!
Clearly Don Quioxte was onto something! These windmills must be stopped, no matter the cost! The windmill is worn, and cannot make much flour. Odd considering we haven't seen it before. And before any smartarses tell me that it's clearly the same windmill we've come to know and love, let me point out the different bloody colour! What, did the windmill fairies come and give it a spruce up? HA! We know better than that! What kind of madness is that? Now, back to our regularly scheduled screw up of a crossover with all British shit you don't know or care about! You know, the logical world.
Toby loves to watch the sails go around. It reminds him that death is coming for him, and that one day all shall be consigned to the dirt.
Also, it's pretty.
And Dusty Miller is Toby's friend. At least, Toby thinks he is. Jumping out of nowhere, saying "HELLO TOBY!" and holding a large scythe does make one question the relationships they have with each other.
One day, Toby was taking a load of flour to the market. At least that's what he was told he was doing. To be bluntly honest, he was wondering whether or not Hatt had a secret bun making facility underneath Knapford that was trying to put the mills out of business.
We'll also ignore the fact that according to the stock footage, the windmill is located on the bloody beach of all places.
He was so busy watching the sails and contemplating his mortality that basic sight failed him. There was a loud crack as he hit the trucks, shoved them forward and knocked through part of the wooden platform.
Though why a platform like that would be made from wood is anyone's guess. Also anyone's guess, why apparently the wood went up like a rocket the second that contact was made.
"Ah nuts." said Toby, who really didn't give that much of a damn. The miller, despite sounding perhaps a tad more annoyed, also didn't seem that phased.
"If I can't sell my flour, I'll have to shut the mill down...BAHAMAS HERE I COME!"
"Sorry." said Toby, who wasn't enjoying this episode that much. "...Oh, by the way, are you that guy from Camberwick Green?"
"No, that was my cousin. Twice removed."
"Ah. ...You, er, always have been millers? Seems a bit of a random name to give to someone who isn't."
"You would be surprised." Dusty sharpened his scythe and licked his lips at the fireman, who whimpered and hid beneath a large box.
"LET'S GO. STORM COMING." said the driver, who was equally as bored.
...
"SORRY EDWARD, THIS IS A BLOODY AWFUL CONNECTION I'VE GOT! STORM AND ALL!"
"I swear, Toby, why you don't just move back into the normal sheds like the rest of us-"
"GIVE ME MY OWN BLOODY SHED AND I WILL! BUT NOOOOOO HATTY SAYS SEVEN SHEDS IS WASTEFUL! ...WHAT ELSE DID YOU FIND OUT?!"
"Mind toning it down a little, Tobe?"
"TONE WHAT DOWN!? THE MILL IS SHUTTING AND IT'S ALL MY FAULT."
"...Okay, random, whatever. Okay, so, the Railway Board are essentially shoving all the sentient coaches off to the side, same goes for anything else aside from trucks and us. We got into contact with Boxhill earlier-"
"SPEAK UP! THE STORM IS LASHING MY HOUSE!"
"...APPARENTLY. The Duchess's death has lead to a nasty power struggle in the Iron Circle. The Old Guard are essentially trying to railroad, pun not intended, the government into giving them power!"
"HOLY SHIT THE WINDMILL JUST...well actually a really bad CGI effect happened, and then the sails just sort of fell off like a wilting flower petal. ...Mills don't usually do that, right?"
"FOCUS! Now, have I got your attention?"
"Yep!"
"Good. So now-"
And then the power cut out.
...
The next morning came and Toby trundled along his line. He was getting the weirdest sense of deja vu from this, like the last storm they had suffered. He had been wearing the exact same face, on the same line, with the same amount of storm damage...how odd. But he continued onwards past torn trees (Somewhere, Henry screamed in sorrow and scared the marrow out of Donald and Douglas) and ruined farm buildings (Somewhere else, Terrance continued to not give a shit) before finally he saw the most shocking sight of all.
"A SALE?! At Debenham's?! MY WORD!" He then looked up from his newspaper. "Oh and also the windmill's gone, oh dearie me, what a shocker."
"This means the end of my business. And my obsession with wearing smocks with weirdly placed stitches on them." said Dusty, sadly. Then he cheered up as he thought about going to the Bahamas with the insurance payout. "I can't afford the timber to make repairs!" He said, lying through his teeth. He could, he just didn't care enough to do so.
"There must be a way! ...But sod me, I'm not going to think of one." And off he trundled, wondering to himself if there was anything important that Edward had to tell him when they next met.
Then his driver saw a fallen tree on the line. At first mistaking it for Fatty having tripped and fell, he eventually put the brakes on. Terrance and Harvey were busy pointedly not looking at each other, and ignoring the inevitable failure of a conversation that they had had before hand.
The Fat Controller was cross. "This storm has caused confusion and delay!" He gazed up at the sky. "YOU HEAR ME, GODS?! I SHALL SEND YOU TO YOUR SHEDS IF YOU DON'T STOP THIS NONSENSE!"
A bolt of lightning struck Hatt dead on.
"Never mind." He said, and promptly fainted.
"Are you all right, sir?" said the bodyguard.
"Mrrrrr Norris, tear down this tree!" muttered the delusional fat man.
Toby had an idea. "Please sir, the windmill has been broken. As have the Island's funds, which cannot pay for it's repair! Can we use the tree to aid in it's reconstruction, and also to stop yet another prominent industry from going under? Five of those have already given up on us this week alone!"
"SPLENDID IDEA!" slurred Hatt, who then vomited up his lunch. It was quite sizeable. So Toby took the tree away while his boss proceeded to curl up into a ball and cry, to the miller.
"I can't make bread out of this!" He protested.
"I know."
Then the Miller saw "You want me to use this as a canoe! I've always wanted to go canoeing, thanks Toby-!" And then the tram engine told him what he could do with this tree. It was quite rude. Then he told them the actual purpose behind bringing the tree here. The Miller sighed, seeing another wet holiday on the Island take the place of all the gorgeous babes fawning over him. "We can rebuild the windmill...yay. Good as new...not. Let me just go get my scythe!"
The construction, for some reason, didn't involve the Pack, who were too busy getting drunk and lamenting the cancellation of their series. Instead, the rather weak teamup of Trevor and all three of the replacement steamrollers (George, Jorge and Jeo-Orge, who was from Switzerland) to do it.
Somehow they managed. How, I'm not sure, but they did. They also found a few things buried under the mill.
Coffin shaped things.
And soon, the windmill was back up and looked, really quite nice. It was a pity then that following this, Dusty threatened to shoot the camera crew if they even came anywhere near the mill.
"It's not so bad!" protested Hatt as he raised a shield between himself and the scythe. "TOBY HELP!"
"YOU RUINED MY LIFE. AGAIN!"
Dusty was later arrested for the many bodies found under his mill during the construction. He's currently writing a tell all book called 'Why I Would Have Gotten Away With It Too, if It Weren't For That Meddling Tram'.
Now the windmill makes more flour than ever, with Toby making twice as many deliveries. It's owned by people who aren't permanently insane. At least for the moment. He never tires of seeing the sails go round and round, and he's glad that they've called it Toby's Windmill.
He wishes that they'd stop pelting him with fruit every time he arrives there, though.
...
THE PAST.
Zero had his suspicions, of course. He wondered vaguely how much the three men who had hired him had told Zak beforehand. It was a good con, all things considered. Eliminate a potential source for Lady and get rid of a troublesome shit-stirrer at the same time. Clearly Starr had been moved beforehand, and replaced with the assassin intended to kill him
And thus, his employment with the Other Railway began.
After they had attempted to shoot him, then drown him, then crush him and so on and so forth. Unfortunately, whatever the Mysterons had done to him, it meant that he was sticking around for a good long while.
He wasn't entirely sure whether he had managed to intimidate them into letting him join, or they had just given up out of sheer boredom.
...
The day the war ended, there was pandemonium in the streets of every town, village and city on Sodor. Several people proposed on the spot. One of those people was a rather grumpy Scotsman, who ended up getting married to the daughter of one of the most prominent figures in construction around, Miss Packard.
He agreed, in a rather unusual move for men in this time period, to take her last name as his own. No one was quite sure HIS last name had been before hand, but it soon didn't matter. The Packards had a new member to the family, and they began to set about the reconstruction of Sodor of what would be the first of many times.
One of the first suggestions that the newly minted member of the family made was the construction of a Smelters Yard, located not too far from the coast, in co-operation with a smaller, yet no less wealthy railway that ran through the Trumptonshire area. 17 sheds were commissioned on the whole, though only one would be used by the engines of Sodor. They were still working out what to do with the other sheds when Mr Packard mysteriously suffered a heart attack.
Odd as it was, the elder brother-in-law took over and proved to be surprisingly amendable to a few suggestions made by both the Lord in charge of the Other Railway, and to the man who had suggested this in the first place.
Rumors that Zero had slipped something into his tea were completely untrue.
The ones about slipping something into his orange juice, on the other hand, were right on the money.
And so it was that the Other Railway took their first foothold on the Island of Sodor.
...
"And this is your office."
Zero raised his eyebrows as he stepped into the office. He glanced to Snort, who was looking grimly at his watch. The rest of his cadets would be there soon, waiting for something military related.
"National Service keeping ye up at night, Snort?"
"Just do your job. There are reports there regarding the nature of these creatures. Grout will come soon and look them over with you." The snap in Snort's voice was clearly directed at him. The creatures he referred to were the strange vehicles that seemed to come only from certain areas across the world, including Sodor. It was their job to catalogue them, to see how they worked, and most importantly, find out where their creators were.
Zero scoffed as Snort stormed off. He took his seat and stared down at the reports. All pretty boring stuff. There was nothing here that suggested an answer to any problem that the three men might have. The cadre of Trumptonshire figures were by no means good people, but they at least seemed to be concerning themselves with snobbery from afar, with only one case where they were prepared to do anything that approached the word 'action'.
Zero, on the other hand, was intrigued. Not just because of his encounter with the Mysterons, but because he had the vaguest notion that there was something about to happen.
Something big.
Something that would change everything that the Other Railway would be doing.
So as he sat there, he had an idea of his own. He reached for the typewriter, paused and then began to type away, furiously.
REPORT FROM CAPTAIN ZERO, TO ALL WHO IT MAY CONCERN.
First of all, let me confirm that the incident went ahead without anyone noticing. Officially, Harry Topper passed away in his sleep today, leaving his son to look after the family business. The Topper Fair will no doubt continue, thought to a much smaller degree this time around, without my influence to guide it.
Likewise, I have confirmation of Drampf and the Beetle. The latter is currently hiding out in one of the catacombs in the Island, which one we have yet to track down, but regardless, he is an asset that we can use later on. As for Drampf, his father has passed away recently, and I have no doubt that should we need to give him a little push on those thoughts of power that he currently has, we should pursue that line of enquiry.
I have a proposition, however, for the future.
We need to adapt. There are things out there that we do not understand. Things we can never understand. And unless we, or fate, makes us indestructible, we must prepare to fight our corner at all costs.
To that end, I suggest this. We begin to widen our net. Not just this so called 'Lost Engine', but all engines should be put under the microscope. Why stop there? Planes, boats, cars, buses, bikes, anything that is alive that shouldn't be should be monitored to the extreme.
And perhaps more.
We will discuss this in more detail should you find this of note.
...
1955.
The report never got anywhere. At least, that he heard of. He never directly asked about it, the looks on Snort and Grout's faces when he arrived in his office the next day were message enough.
Lord Belborough never spoke to him for the next few years, mostly sending clinical and rather cold hearted reports to him to follow up on. For the first time since that night where he had found the list, he began to wonder if he wasn't on the wrong path.
And then, one day after he learned that his wife was going to bear a child, he drove to Sodor as it was instructed. He bought a few things to eat, then sat in his car and waited.
A procession soon came down the street for a wedding of some sort. He glanced at the flower arrangemenet. Well he hoped Mr and Mrs Stone would be very happy together and not at all like his relationship with Mrs Packard, which appeared to be slowly sinking into the quagmire as far as that was concerned.
As the wedding proceeded, he headed off in the opposite direction to grab a few things to keep the big three happy. Eventually, he found what he needed and drove off, taking an old shortcut he'd known from the original days.
As he drove, he glanced around him. How very bloody boring. Was there nothing exciting going to-
Which was when the castle exploded, and a huge black cloud of solid darkness shot up like a cork from a bottle.
The car left the road and slammed into the ditch. All trains came to a screeching halt (Except for Edward, Henry and Gordon who were all knocked out of their minds in a bar somewhere), and everyone stared up in horror and confusion as the darkness came rushing over towards a small grotto.
Zero jumped out of the car and scrambled towards Kirk Ronan with every ounce of strength and speed he had. As he stood there atop the hill, he watched in amazement as white and black energy slammed against each other, again and again. He saw four small engines fighting too with increasing speed, one of which came apart from the force of something or other. And then the ground shook and Zero found himself spinning and hitting the ground with great force.
Frantically, he righted himself and watched in amazement as the both of them slammed against each other. The shockwave it created sent everything hurtling backwards, energy seeping into everything and everywhere, the Island pulsating for a moment and becoming visible from Mars.
From the ground, Zero saw the white energy retreating towards a pair of buffers. The black energy raced towards the sky, towards a strange looking hole that lashed out all the colours of the rainbow and more besides. Besides it, a hot air balloon raced up.
Something fell from the hot air balloon, hitting the ground with an enormously loud thud. But Zero had no time to check it out. Frantically, he raced back to the car, shoved it out and got in.
He had to get this thing dissected, now.
He felt almost giddy with glee.
Things were going to get VERY interesting indeed.
...
"Not bad." said a cold, dispassionate voice.
"Who are ye, exactly?"
"I'm the Accountant. Technically speaking, the Lord's assistant." The man smiled. It was a particularly unpleasant experience. "Of course, I'm more fascinated by that thing there. It's from Sodor, right? My parents and brother live there, see."
"Yes, it is, Mr Nosey. One of the few wee things I was able to get back here on me own time to examine."
"Why?" It was a good question, even if it seemed to be said by a slightly portly vulture with a smile that should be censored for everyone's own good.
"Because...something nae expected happened. There's something in here that I cannae describe. An energy. And it's not just yon car that's got it, it's just the most noticeable."
"How so?" Was that a genuine note of interest in the Accountant's voice there, as he bent down with some effort to gaze at the car, with it's faint pulsation of black and white energy catching his eye.
"Well, I've gotten a few samples from some of the wee silly buggers on the Island at the time whatever happened happened, right? Skin, and tissue, and blood and so on and so forth. And according to yon boffins, what's happened to them, it's nae possible! ...It's their skin. It's not ageing. Or if it is, it's doing so at a bizarre rate. Like the energy's slowing down the age rate."
"So..." mused the Accountant. "Say we have a man in his twenties. In about forty or so years time, he'd be?"
"Maybe approaching his forties? Middle of his thirties at absolute minimum. Now they tell me that what I saw was a leakage from one of the test sites on the Island, but-"
"They're wrong." The Accountant said, softly. He looked at Zero, and for the first time, the Captain felt a chill go up his back. "Tell me something, Captain, how broad a mind have you got? I have some ideas that might be interesting for you to hear."
"...Ye know, ye'd be surprised how willing I am to hear ye out." Zero paused. "Ye're really not going ta give me a name?"
"No, not at present. After all, you could be spying for the Lord. And likewise, you won't give me your real name, will you? Because I could be too."
"...What do ye want?"
"Many things. To be in charge of all the railways, for one thing. To get a better title than Accountant, most definitely. At present though? To tell you a story about something I call...Malevolence."