Here we go, something I am a lot more familiar with now! All of the stuff in the backstory takes place in the Magic Railroad section, in case you couldn't tell, and though the stuff with the chest wasn't alluded to, a lot of the events shown here were things that were either throwaway moments back there or were left hanging until now. We're hitting the endgame, lads, and said endgame is the reveal of just what it is that the Malignance is going to be doing, and how Zero's plan in the present day comes to shape, given that the last lot of chapters will take place over the course of the gap from Magic Railroad, leading all the way up to Season 6, where the framing device with John and Zero comes from.

On an unrelated note, it's my birthday tomorrow, so here's a gift to you from me!

AaronCottrell97: Uh huh.

Reality Rejection Service: He plays a very, very dangerous game indeed. We know it works out for the moment, but he doesn't, he's just being a pretty big maniac about it.

Game-Watch: Well I'd better not disappoint then! :D

MattPrice01: I had a LOT of fun writing it, and it's something I am going to try and keep moving into the more repetitive years. One day you shall hear the story. One day.

JD145: You will get there! At some point!

Radical Sandwiches: Thank you!

UGX7: Yeah, agreed, but at the very least, Arthur could occasionally get the odd segment in the Nick Jr airings, and he got his own little section of line to run, whereas Murdoch suffers a fair bit by comparison. After thinking about it, he really isn't a bad character, someone I'd like to see back if the whole...BWBA situation gets better.

Bronze Shield: His design is pretty neat, I'll grant you.

GreatWestern1522: Ask and ye shall receive!

Guest: Hopefully that calms down a little after this chapter, it'll be mostly new material explaining why it is that the Malignance requires the lanterns and so on.

CUE THE THEME

Thomas and Fergus the Traction Engine are friends.

And that's about all you need to know, cue the backsto- What? There's still four more minutes? Eh, I tried.

All right, friends was a bit of an exaggeration.

…..

ONE WEEK AGO.

"Ello ello ello! What's this 'ere?!"

"This ear? It's not an ear, it's my buffer. You've got eyes, haven't yo-OUCH!" Thomas would have rubbed his forehead had he arms. Fergus's truncheon retracted as with a menacing scowl, he advanced.

"You know bloody well what I meant, sunshine! WHY ARE YOU PARKING HERE?!"

"It's a free siding, jackarse!"

"Ah ha! Mockery of the police is a serious offence, you know!"

"Then arrest the whole Island, because I'm the rule, not the exception."

"When I have handcuffs big enough, I shall! Either way, move your arse in that-a direction, bucko!"

"Make me!"

Thomas was promptly beaten out of the siding by a bunch of rambunctious workmen who didn't want Fergus to hold up work anymore than he had already.

…..

TWO DAYS LATER.

"YOU HORRIBLE ENGINE! You know that this platform is for red express coaches only!"

"That's….not a rule, Fergus."

"OH ISN'T IT, NOW?!"

Thomas nodded and turned to the wall to confirm it. He then did a double take as he noticed the new notice hammered in with some force. 'RED EXPRESS COACHES AT THIS PLATFORM ONLY, PLEASE. AND NOW, BEFORE YOU START ON ME, NO I'M NOT BEING RACIST, I'M BEING PRACTICAL'.

"Bloody pig."

"Sunny-boy, you're in for a world of trouble if you keep mouthing off to me like that!"

"Oh yeah, what are you going to do? Throw me in ENGINE JAIL!?"

"So what are you in for?" asked Thomas, ten minutes later, to a rather disgruntled Toby, as the key was turned in the lock of 'engine jail'.

"Apparently I'm supposed to be dressed in full combat gear at all times, not just sideplates and cowcatchers, now."

"I'M INNOCENT OF ALL CRIMES!"

"Well, at least you don't have to be in solitary." Toby shivered. "I don't even want to know what's happening in there."

"WHOOOOOOO!" shouted Edward, having the most fun he had ever had for quite some time now on his own.

…

FOUR DAYS LATER.

Fergus nodded to himself as a slightly dishevelled looking Thomas was dragged out by the two guards (Henry and Gordon in silly outfits) and dumped in front of him. "Very well, you have served your porridge."

"FOR WHAT!? WHEN DID WE EVEN GET ENGINE JAIL!?"

"All right Thomas." Toby sighed. "I don't know if I can adjust to life back on the outside, man."

"Toby, you slept through most of it."

…..

THE PRESENT.

So yes, it was fair to say that Thomas and Fergus were best friends in that Thomas had been told that he was contractually obligated to get along with all the new cast members this time around. Fergus was the darling of the cement-works, as he knows all the rules and obeys them. He is also hated by most of the workers for this, as union laws mean that they have a scab in the very midst of their many, many, MANY strikes. We'll ignore how thus far he's not done much AT said cement-works and just move on with the story.

One day, the Fat Controller sent for a diesel to assist in the cement-works.

The planned diesel, however, had been Mavis. She had come down with a sudden case of agonizing pain in her tanks, so she had been pulled over into Vicarstown way to be examined.

So in the chaos, no one noticed as Devious Diesel snuck into the yard.

Or as we know him, D1.

D4 was also on hand, just in case people started to wonder why someone who had been repeatedly dragged off the Island kicking and screaming would return in such an underwhelming and sneaky fashion. She got on with the work as she acted as 'Mavis', while D1 snuck up to Fergus.

Perhaps it was the heat. Perhaps it was his cover. Or perhaps the Island's brand of stupidity had finally gotten to the traction engine, but he didn't see Diesel as a threat.

Yet.

As to who kept over-enthusiastically shaking a rattle in the background, no one knows.

"Oh, you're back again!" slurred the Fat Controller, who was drunk and didn't see anything wrong with the picture in front of him. "Show the- HIC! -diesel around, give em a hand- HIC! Oh dear god I'm going to go and lie down now and regret a lot of things."

Given the way that Duck, who was entering the yard, suddenly shot back like a cannonball in reverse at the sight of D1, Fergus let out a quietly disapproving "Yes!" to the Fat Controller. He could tell that this diesel was going to be an issue.

….

Later, D1 was being anti-social as all hell. He banged into the trucks and sent them flying from their position under the hopper. He slid under it and glared at Fergus, silently waiting. He didn't have long to go.

"Careful, or I'll knock you about until you remember how to work! Do it right!"

D1 stared into Fergus's soul. "Don't interfere."

Then the hopper kicked off.

D1 blinked. "You forget you saw this."

"YOU DON'T KNOW THE RULES, DO YOU!?"

"Isn't that what you were supposed to teach me? It's your job." muttered D1, who had picked up a bit of attitude from being stuck inside with Captain Zero for so long. He backed off, and began to think very, very carefully.

Later, he returned with news from the Fat Controller. Or so he said. "You've got to go work at the smelters. Or something. He was eating a lot."

"SMELTERS!? ME?! But the cement-works is my safe space! And don't tell those bloody liberals I called it that, or they'll be all up my arse!"

"Charming, but he did say it. And, also he….he said that I'm going to stay here instead of you because I'm better. So….nyeh nyeh."

D1 had gotten a bit camp in recent years, it must be noted.

"S'NOT FAIR!" snarled Fergus. "THE CHIEF IS TRYING TO KEEP ME DOWN! I love working this beat! Everyone listens to what I have to say!"

There was a loud cheer as he left.

D1 was very confused. He had intended to demoralize the workers at the cement-works, and in fact had somehow managed to achieve the opposite.

…..

Fergus and his driver arrived at the Smelters. "I REGER THIS IMMEDIATELY!" said Fergus. "I get why the others don't come here often, it's scary as all hell! Like a Hammer Horror…thing!"

His driver nodded "You're right. But it could be-"

At which point, the two diesels arrived. Arry spoke first, and last.

"HELLO! ARE YOU HAPPY TO BE HERE?!"

"NOPE." Fergus left like a shot.

Arry turned to Bert. "We have to work on our social skills at some point, bruv. No one's coming to our birthday party if that's our opening line."

"ESCAPE, ESCAPE THIS WAS A MISTAKE!" shouted the driver, who pulled back so hard on the lever that it nearly came off in his hands. And for the first time, Fergus broke the rules.

…..

"THAT MAVERICK!" roared Chief, er, the Fat Controller as he sat in his very ugly green night-clothes and ate several of the kippers that had escaped the wrath of the Goat. "He should TURN IN HIS BADGE! He's a Wildman! Untameable! SEND THOMAS TO BRING HIM BACK! We must get to the bottom of this."

"It's not a bloody cop show!" snapped Alice Hatt, who just wanted to go to bed.

…..

Fergus and his driver headed along a disused track (Which looked suspiciously like the castle causeway from an earlier episode, but whatever) and ended up in what Fergus sarcastically called the 'Ghetto' part of Sodor.

Fergus is not the most correct minded of people kids, show respect to others.

He was frightened, but didn't show it. "AH WHO NEEDS EM! One engine, betrayed by the country he loved, must rise above to HOLY SHIT WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT!?"

"It was an owl." Said his driver.

"I HATE OWLS!"

"Why did we come to the countryside?"

"Just…just shut up, you, and let me think!"

Thomas was also of the opinion that both his driver and his controller were in good need of a hard think about their lives. He was exhausted as he puffed up and down staring at everything and nothing.

"We could try the old mineshaft!"

"We could! But MUST we? That line is dark AND SPOOKY!"

The driver ignored his protests and turned him down the line. Thomas wondered vaguely if the Naughty Gnomes were the ones responsible for Fergus going missing. But that would just be ridiculous, even for this Island and this show.

Fergus was on a siding, sans fire and sans dignity. Then IT happened.

"AN ENGINE!?"

"My word, you are just full of bright and clever observations today." Thomas snarled as he rounded the bend.

"Wait, I take it back. It's just an arse."

"What in the bloody stump of King Godred's neck are you doing out here at this hour dragging me out of bed?!"

"I am….strategically retreating from the Smelters! I need back up! It's a hellhole and I don't want to be there! And the Fat Controller's going to be cross with me!"

"You are DAMN-" Thomas stopped, and hesitated for a moment "-DAMN wrong! He's not cross he's…worried. For your safety. Yeah. YEAH that's it!" He was lying through his teeth, which worked quite easily on the very, very stressed Fergus.

"Really?"

"Reaaaaaaaaallllllly." Thomas said.

Fergus stared at him. "You know, I know you're lying, but I'm so exhausted, I'm just going to go along with your tomfoolery."

…

"You know we could have done this anywhere else. If I wasn't so tired, I'd assume you were trying to kill me deliberately."

"Now there's an idea." Thomas muttered as he drew into the smelters.

"Fergus, explain yourself!"

"IT'S AN AWFUL PLACE, SIR."

"You make a fair point, Fergus. It also doesn't help that messers Grimm and Grimmer are over there constantly trying to chew your face off." Thomas sighed. "And also, some shit about Diesel being here and telling him that yadda yadda yadda, he was going to be staying here forever, I'm honestly not sure why I'm even here at this point."

"Nonsense!" The cameraman rushed in to get a close up of the Fat Controller and ended up beaning him in the head. "AAAARGH SHITE!"

Quickly, the dub over artist hurried. "Uh, Diesel'll come to the Smelters and you can sod off back to the cement-works and do whatever OKAY AMBULANCE PLEASE."

"Oh….thank you, sir?"

Fergus knew he had a good friend in Thomas and he was still the pride of the cement-works.

He also knew that he was lying through his teeth when he thought that.

…..

Later on, Fergus arrived to meet Duck at the entrance to the Little Western. He looked grim. "I've been compromised." He said with little preamble. "Thing is, I've been drinking and working a lot, so it didn't occur to me before, but whoever that diesel was, he had the stench of the Other Railway about him. With that in mind, I've taken myself off the radar, putting about some rumour about that quarry accident giving me some gip. Al the better to help you with."

"The security footage confirms it." Duck sighed. "Should have taken more care of Diesel, maybe none of this would have happened."

"Can't focus on that now!" Fergus said with a touch of impatience. "Important thing is, what happens next? There's going to be a whole new influx of holiday makers entering the country soon, if they're planning an attack, then they have a perfect time to carry it out."

Duck paused. "I..don't think that is what they're planning. Sure, they want to limit the lines of defence, but there's a method to this madness….my earlier theory about the crates was way off."

"What? How?"

"Because it's the kind of stupid thinking that the Fat Director would have used. The kind of stuff that you think is clever until you really break it down to brass tacks and so forth. And thus far, whoever has control of…well, these invaders, he's actually been fairly decent at keeping his cards close to his chest. This doesn't fit his MO. It's the kind of thing that works better as a distraction more than anything."

There was a long pause as this thought sank in.

"Oh shit." Duck said quietly.

…..

D1 smiled, as he waited in the cement-works. Any moment now, and he would be close to eliminating one of the wildcards.

As Oliver pulled out of there, still sulking over Duck's refusal to accept his apology, he failed to notice D1 slowly trail after him.

The chase was on.

….

1999.

Captain Zero watched with what he hoped looked like disinterest, but was in fact a fascinated kind of fear, as Diesel 10 swiped again and again with the claw, repeatedly slamming through trucks and steel as if they were cotton candy.

Silently, the Clown stood besides him. Zero had seen him coming, but that still hadn't lessoned the fear.

"Have ye got it?" he said with some awkward attempt at an unfazed reaction. The Clown slid a single piece of paper across with a series of symbols of varying size and shape. Zero nodded, this was some sort of spell. The kind that could teleport several thousand people away at an instant.

With one crucial difference that the Fat Director was not to know about.

The engines would be staying put on the Island.

The Malignance had told him that it was necessary for the Malevolence to be defeated by a group of engines, and for that to happen, they needed to stay put upon the Island for…some reason, he hadn't mentioned that part.

It would be two days before the spell was implemented, in which case he needed to get back to the Other Railway to monitor the situation closely. But first, he had one last thing to pull off.

Several parts from varying different engines had been brought to the Malignance, from all across the world, and he had managed to cast some sort of enchantment on them. When they were slid into place amongst Diesel 10's parts? Well, things would definitely get very interesting indeed. Best case scenario, it would cause several breakdowns over the next few days, plus the possibility of lingering mental instability. The Fat Director's plan was a stupid one, but one that he was all too happy to implement, given the nature of what the Malevolence could be.

...

Zero and Boomer's communications were getting fraught with each other. Ever since he had given Boomer that tip-off regarding Gotch, Hargreaves and UZZ, the two of them had been as thick as thieves, in both mental and metaphorical senses. He had no time to think about that, though.

Smudger had done something rather ridiculous, in that he had gone good before he had died. Which on the one hand, meant that things were going well enough that a few more elements of the plan could be tossed out the window for the Fat Director's lot. But on the other hand, that left the Malignance sans body.

Hence why the Fat Director ordering Ivo Hugh to be taken from the Island to be brought to the Other Railway as a 'statement of intent' had been such a lucky strike. And so, Zero had sat back.

He watched the Fat Director load up the gun.

He watched the Fat Director line up the gun.

He watched the Fat Director shoot the gun right into Ivo Hugh's head.

And then he waited for the inevitable spasms of pain to die away, and as the Fat Director moved across to check on the invasion plans, Zero darted forward and opened up a single portal.

He barely glanced at the nearly dead engine, pausing only to grab hold of a set of keys before opening a second portal back onto the boat headed straight for Sodor.

…

It was from that boat that he jumped onto land and strode across to Knapford. With a cool, determined air, he opened the door to Hatt's office and stepped inside.

It should be noted, first of all, that in the previous volume, these events were mentioned before. However, a little context for you all now hurts no one.

It was true that in his head, he saw a whole fleet of things that he called Z-Stacks, on land, on sea, in the air, everywhere in between. It was true that he also saw Boomer or the Fat Director getting into arguments regarding who ruled the world. And it was also true that, had the Malevolence won so completely, he sat in a very pretty position of having a lot of money to be played with.

But that wasn't what was foremost on his mind.

What was in that steel trap of a mind was what lay inside the drawers of the desk he currently sat at. And as he rifled through, finding meticulously notes that explained how the Island's financial system worked, how the various companies that had begun to rely upon the railway and vice versa operated, the various complaints that various people had about the Island and so on and so forth, he began to get a very real, very clear idea.

He rang Boomer up. "Ach, we've done it man! We've got them! We've got them!"

"Terrific! About time! The scavenger crews are coming back with prisoners now, and any others are probably preparing for a counter attack."

"Should I order my men ta stay behind and deal with yon fools?" He nodded to Reginald, a nod which meant 'Get out of here, to the safe house'.

"No. You and your men need to return to Shining Time. I rather think that killing their heroes in front of everyone will be sufficiently demoralizing enough. Besides we're having a cocktail party! All of us! It'll be a blast!"

"Ye've got TV there, have ye?" That was important, he needed to time it just right.

"All eyes are on us!"

"Then I willnae miss it!" And with that, Zero hung up, and finished up the last elements of his plan. Firstly, he made sure to lock the door behind him carefully, having made notes of the various documents that were needed. Secondly, he sped off to the last boat, grabbed the chest and let out a sharp whistle.

The Clown appeared, took the chest, and left without a word.

And finally, he opened up his own portal and headed on through.

He did not, in fact, close it.

…

The Malignance sat, and waited in the darkness of his cell.

He had, over the course of his imprisonment, been able to hollow his way out of the dimension he was trapped in, to the point where he was pretty much trapped behind a glass wall, staring out at the Magic Railroad. Not long after Zero had left, Thomas and Lady had passed through, and the pair of glittering eyes that were the Malignance had locked with those of Burnett Stone.

Now there was one to watch.

But back to the point.

He wasn't able to escape as of yet. But he had been able to use something to his advantage. The Island's magic was the thing that, supposedly, had been keeping the engines from being ripped from the Island in the first place. That was true to an extent, but it was that the Island itself was feeding the engines more and more power, like thousands of electrical currents going through thousands of plugs into one massive adaptor. Magical energy that, with the boost from Lady, could kill the Malevolence. He had just enough magic left to direct the Island's energies towards those engines, and then sit back and wait for them to do the rest.

And that was where the Clown had come in.

One of the portals that Zero used, the one near Shining Time, now had a rather old, battered chest placed there by a mysterious figure who vanished as soon as his job was done.

Then the battle had begun. And…well, you know how it goes. The engines get beaten down, all the Other Railway staff who hadn't left beforehand were wiped out (Save for Zero and the Fat Director, who had collapsed into one of the time portals) and the engines went inside the Malevolence and finished it.

At the moment of it's death, the Malevolence tried to find some way to get out of it. Tendrils lashed out in a desperate attempt to break free from the light, but it was impossible. The light penetrated everything and everywhere.

Including the chest.

The Malignance began to suck it up like an anteater with ants. It was nourishing, it was rewarding and for the first time in years, his body grew and grew and grew, until the chest could not take it any more.

In the chaos of the Malevolence's death, no one noticed as an old chest shattered into fragments of wood, and no one noticed as a spectral figure rode through the portal and back to the Other Railway, where it was the work of a moment to grab hold of Ivo Hugh's body.

And after that, all he had to do was wait, and revel in the feeling of having a body again, until the Iron Circle came.

And they let him just walk right through them, without even a second glance.

The Malignance was free.