Wow! Was not expecting the positive feedback to be honest. Thanks! Now then, let us move on with the next one.
Oh, quick thing, I'd like to thank Rosie Angelina for reading so far! And also Greatwestern1522 for PM'ing me.
Cue the music!
...
Mr Starr...Oh for god's sake...
Hmm? Sorry, was a bit distracted. Whatcha want me to do?
Another episode, if you don't mind.
Sure, sure, whatever, it's your bloody show.
And don't I know it.
What?
Nothing.
...
One day, Edward was in the shed.
Who was Edward?
What did he want?
Well to explain that, we need to basically fill you in on the way that life in Tidmouth Sheds works at the moment. At the moment there are five engines that live there, Thomas, Henry and Gordon you already know in some shape or form. Then there's...
"Oh god damn it the Red One is still there!" Henry wailed. "The Fat Director-"
"Are we still calling him that?" asked Thomas.
"Well it's either that or the Fat Controller. Really when he's called that he sounds like a bloody Doctor Who villain." muttered Edward, whose humor was as dry as teh desert.
"Well you can't get rid of me now!" said the red engine smugly. "I'm stuck here! And I have a name-"
"We don't care!" bluntly noted Gordon. "All right, here's the new rule, we ignore Eagle over there until we get to the proper time for him to be introduced."
"I don't think that's how-"
"And for that, Edward, we're demoting you beneath Thomas's rank."
Ah yes. The best way to describe Tidmouth Sheds would be to imagine the Houses of Parliment. At the top, there's the big leader who mostly bigs himself up and shames everyone else. Then there's the moaning whinging guy who does the dirty work for the top man. Then there's the joker, the one who will eagerly go along with mockery as long as he himself is not the target. Then there's the one who is ignored unless he does something remarkably stupid. And then there's the one who'd actually do some good and then gets mocked repeatedly.
Basically, it was that, except there was very little actual work done there.
Edward was a old engine, older than most of the others there. He was a mixed traffic engine (Which was often a great hoot around the yards, as most people used it to mock him repeatedly. Behind his tender though) and while generally he was actually one of the nicer people, on certain occasions his wit could be drier than the Sahara Desert. This however, had faded over time due to repeated pranks being played on him, as he had been locked away in the sheds for a good while now, waiting for his return to work
Now then, let's return to what actually happened.
One day, Edward was in the sheds where he lived with the other engines. They were not only the worst engines to room-mate with, but they were all bigger than him and boasted about it.
But wait, I hear you cry, Thomas is a tank engine! It's in the blooming title! Edward is bigger than him!
Well, the engines had discussed this (The architect had got it wrong, as he had most things) and Edward had come up with the official theory that Thomas's head was so big that it was bigger than Edward himself. The others had laughed, including Thomas, whose slow reaction time meant that he only got angry in the middle of the night.
"The driver won't choose you again!" They chorused like a Hive Mind. "He wants strong engines like us!"
Edward, who had decided to adopt a air of defeat while still plotting, sadly stared at the ground. "You're right. I should be more like you, Thomas. How is the motion sickness? And you Gordon! How's the alcohol poisoning? And Henry, well, I could be strong like you! With your damaged lungs and so on."
"Do we have lungs?" asked the Red Engine Who Shall Not Be Named.
"HUSH EAGLE." snapped Gordon, who had called him that because of a old engine he had known who was also red. Gordon's mind was very limited in that regard.
But the driver and fireman felt sorry for Edward. Charlie Sand, a man who had been mocked relentlessly because of his name and general quietness, and Sidney Heaver, mocked not only because of his name but also because of his Hitler mustache (People in pubs still stood up, clicked their heels and shouted "HEIL HEAVER!" when he entered) had been his driver and fireman for many a year.
Which is actually weird when you think about it, I mean where were they during all this time? Did they only realize when they were eating their lunch one day "OH GOD WE'VE GOT A ACTUAL JOB!"? Baffles the mind.
"Would you like to come out again?" asked Charlie Sand,
"Oh yes please." Edward said. "Took you long enough." he muttered out the side of his mouth.
So they lit his fire, made lots of steam, lit a pipe and both Edward and Heaver puffed away. On two completely different things. Edward decided to show restraint to the now fuming other engines.
And then he decided to screw it.
"SEE YOU LATER PLONKERS!" He crowed.
The other engines were very cross at being left behind. They were very, very insecure, you see.
...
Edward spent a enjoyable day pulling coaches around and doing stuff that other engines rarely did. Which was actual work. True, most of his coaches had gone a strange moldy green color, and they weren't as chatty as they used to been (Some of them kept asking for soup) but he was out and stretching his wheels, so he had no problem with it.
On a bridge, two boys watched as Edward puffed under there. "Hey Jim!" said one. "You wanna get some stones to toss on them?"
"Do I!" enthused Jim.
Elsewhere on the bridge, Mitton and Allcroft looked down the bridge.
"Now this-" said Allcroft. "-would make a hell of a place to film a intro."
"I can see it."
Edward worked hard all day, The coaches, when they could be bothered to give a opinion, thought he was very kind and the driver was very pleased. Though that may have been because he was able to keep his job at last, after two years of just turning up to the pub, drinking his troubles away and not even going near the engine.
...
"I'm going out again tomorrow!" Edward told the other engines. "What do you think of that?"
A owl hooted. Perhaps he had seen another female owl.
"You know what I think-"
But he didn't hear what they thought, or didn't care, for he was so tired and happy that I fell asleep at once. "ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ."
Gordon scoffed. "I swear, he learnt to do that on purpose."
"Do you think-" said Henry after a moment to compose himself. "-that Edward is perhaps rubbing it in that he's the hot potato at the moment?"
"Henry, of all the metaphors used-"
At this point, Gordon, Henry and the Red Engine Who Must Not Be Named began yet another argument, while Thomas wondered vaguely if the new TV show would allow him the chance to leave the Island for pastures new.
...
The next morning, Edward had woken up to find that nothing had changed (Save for the positioning of the Engines, which had changed from the previous morning, but Edward was not one of those people who would count those things). Gordon was still boasting as per usual.
"You watch me little Edward, as I rush through with the express. That'll be a splendid sight for you."
"Ah, what a pity. I was going to remove my eyes. Sorry, won't be able to see or care there."
Gordon ignored Edward. "Goodbye little Edward, look out for me this afternoon."
Henry groaned. "Oh, I don't feel so good. Probably shouldn't have had that coal earlier."
Edward rolled his eyes and went off to do some shunting, deciding that beating up a few no good trucks would help him.
...
The trucks were demons. Even their faces looked like it, painted on as opposed to a natural looking face, as if someone had deliberately designed those trucks to scare the living hell out of the engines. That was the only way to rationalize the way that they behaved. For example, the coaches were often subjected to the things that the trucks went through, such as being pulled everywhere and filled with things that they would more likely than not would not like to have in them, but they took it with good grace and calm and were generally nice about it. The trucks, on the other hand, had one day been created and had immediately decided that kindness was to be repaid with pain and harshness with deliberate aggravation. So it took a happy medium between the two to keep them in line.
Edward knew that happy medium. It involved punching the living loads out of them (Tar was the sole property of Tar Wagons, so they couldn't kick the tar out of them) and then slowly but gently letting them know that they could get a good old fashioned sing song in the Yards, the pub franchise that was located all over the Island. The old fashioned carrot and stick method worked quite often.
Besides, in a weird way it was fun, he liked playing with them. He would come up quietly and give them a push. Then he would stop and the silly trucks would go bump into each other. He was a bit of a sadist.
"OOH ER!" cried a rather camp truck. "Whatever is APPENING?!"
When trucks are attacked, they dropped their aitches.
Mid way through the day, Henry finally got up and moved out of the sheds, while Thomas and Mr Not Appearing In This Story watched with amusement as he wheezed in terror. Edward played til there was no more trucks (He wasn't sure if he had killed them or not, just that there were no more.) and then he stopped to rest.
Presently, he heard a whistle. This was not a surprise to him, as they were all trains. They all had whistles.
Gordon was very cross, which made a nice change from his usual mood of mildly peeved. Instead of nice shining coaches, he was pulling a lot of dirty trucks. Trucks who did not appreciate the racist attitude that Gordon was taking to them.
"A GOODS TRAIN! A GOODS TRAIN! A GOODS TRAIN" He rumbled, perhaps trying to summon the Engine equivalent of the Kandyman. His eye was slightly crooked, a after effect of some of the quite disgusting things the trucks had told him to do. "The shame of it! The shame of it! Oh the shame of it!"
Edward laughed at Gordon's painful karma and went to find more trucks to fight.
...
That afternoon, Edward was just considering fighting Bruce Lee and was finishing up a rather nice conversation with a coach that was about to be put in a museum when a porter rushed up. "Gordon can't get up the hill! Will you take Edward and push him please?"
Edward sighed again and went to work. All the while he vaguely wondered if mocking Gordon would make life easier or harder for him in the long run.
...
They found Gordon halfway up and very, VERY cross. He had graduated to two very's. The driver and fireman were talking to him severely.
"You're not trying!" said the driver, eating a sandwich as he did so.
"No, he's very trying!" called out Edward.
Both thought for a second and started laughing. Gordon scowled. "I can't do it! The noisy trucks hold a engine back so!"
"WELL SCREW YOU BUDDY!" shouted the van in the middle.
"I don't see you rushing!" Edward called up again.
Charlie came up. "We've come to push."
"NO USE AT ALL, HE'S A LOSER."
"You wait and see." said Charlie.
...
They brought the train back to the bottom of the hill, Gordon deliberately trying to slam the back of the train into Edward's stupid smug face and failing. They coupled him up and Edward braced himself. He hadn't done this for a long time.
"I'm ready!"
"No good at all!" said Gordon grimly.
They pulled and pushed as hard as they could. Well, Edward did. Gordon was just very limp. HA!
The second they reached the first bend, Gordon broke down mentally. "I CAN'T DO IT! I CAN'T DO IT! I CAN'T DO IT!" He cried in a voice that he claimed was manly but appeared to have gone up a few octaves.
"Fine. THEN I WILL DO IT. I WILL DO IT. I WILL DO IT." Edward chanted repeatedly, blocking out the whining sound of Gordon. "This is for all those years of bullying you prat! WHOSE GOT THE POWER NOW!?" He suddenly calmed down as he realized he was getting into megalomaniac mode. He pushed and puffed and puffed and pushed.
"Almost...there..."
And almost before he realized it, Gordon found himself at the top of the hill. "WA-HEY! I'VE DONE IT I'VE DONE IT I'VE DONE IT!" He cried arrogantly, and promptly sped up in joy. Edward reacted with shock as he felt himself free-falling down the hill.
He forgot all about Edward and didn't stop to say thank you. And also that he had brakes.
"Wait...wait you slow fatass...I just...oh dear god." Edward panted desperately as he slowly chased after the big blue engine. He was left out of breath and far behind. He ran onto the next station and there he found that both Charlie and Sidney were very proud of him.
As Sideny gave him a nice long drink of water/alcohol, the driver said. "So I'll get out my paint tomorrow, and give you a beautiful coat of blue and red stripes. Then you'll be the smartest engine in the shed."
He paused. "Well, you already are, but even more so."
Edward was actually rather touched by this, and so didn't say anything for fear of embarrasing himself.
...
Sir Topham Hatt sighed to himself.
Sure, those two TV people had managed to spoil one of his most recent days, but it was at times like this when he realized that he had many advantages of being a controller of the railway. One of which was leaving his car on the level crossing while he got some food from a burger shop.
At that moment, Gordon hit his car at full pelt.
The burger slipped from his hands.
...
For the second time in recent memory, Gordon ended up doing work to pay off the bill for something. In this case, for the car. Topham was already dreading the return home to explain to his wife why his lovely car had gone the way of the dinosaurs.
Edward, however, thought it was a hoot.
And compared with what was to come, this was actually pretty kind to the old Hatt.