Thanks to RosieAngelina for reviewing!

And cue the theme!

...

What do you mean, we have to pay him? Look, I know we've kind of been banking on him being a Beatle, but do we really need to...Mr Starr?

Yep.

Pretend you never heard this.

S'cool.

...

"Nine hundred ninety nine bottles of oil on the wall, nine hundred ninety nine bottles of oil."

"SHUT UP HENRY!" shouted James and Gordon.

Gordon, Henry and James were miserable. Nothing new there. But being stuck inside Tidmouth Sheds for two weeks had left them a little...stir crazy. And emotional. And...injured. At first, it had been a bit of fun, as the other three engines had been moved down to Vicarstown to truly trap the big engines in misery. And then the cabin fever had set in. Now Gordon was missing one of his buffers, Henry was now desperately smoking black dust from his funnel and James's coat was resembling that of a mouldy carpet that had been beaten to death by fists. They had been shut up here for two weeks, and they were, by now, longing to get out again.

At last, the Fat Controller arrived, in a far swankier car than before and with his top hat embedded with rhinestones. "I hope you are sorry!" He said proudly, gleefully celebrating in how smart he was. "And I hope you understand that you are not so important after all." He paused, aware that trying to convince trains to work for him by telling them they were not important was perhaps a flawed technique to negotiate on, but he plowed on. "We have a new tank engine called Percy who helps pull coaches-"

"AND IS GREEN!" roared Henry. Or roared in as much as one can roar when congested. "THE UNORIGINAL HACK."

"Actually there are three blue engines. You want to talk unoriginal?" Gordon muttered.

"I'M THE SPECIAL ONE!" shrieked James, who had lost his wheeling on reality the most.

Hatt felt he was losing control of his lecture. "And Thomas and Edward have been working the main line nicely. But I will let you out now if you promise to be good."

The three engines perked up, and already began calculating how fast to wheedle. "OH YES SIR!" wailed Gordon, throwing himself on his sword, and abandoning his morals for the chance to not listen to Henry sing again.

"We WILL!" screeched James, who was still not fully adjusted to a normal volume.

Sir Topham cleared his ears. "Right. Please remember that this 'No Shunting' nonsense must stop."

"Fine." Henry sulked.

As the three engines were started up, Gordon steamed past and let out a slightly maniacal "YOUR DAY WILL COME, SIR!"

...

The Controller then told Percy, Edward and Thomas could go and play on the branchline for a few days, and they ran off happily to find Annie and Clarabel at the junction.

The three of them had also formed a rather interesting friendship. Edward was the guiding force, trying to get Thomas's mind off smoking and on work, and guiding Percy in matters of railway ettiquette ("These Sidings are dirty!" "You should see it when the Stag Dos come in."). The tanks, for the most part, were soon good friends, and had taken to mocking Edward friendly.

"G'day girls! I'm back from the hunt!" Thomas whistled as he backed down.

"Thomas!" said Clarabel joyfully. Annie sniffed, but the smirk on her face indicated that both coaches had missed him very much. Elsewhere, Edward and Percy were playing with trucks. Their favorite game, in fact, was 'Smack the Monsters', which they were doing well at.

"STOP STOP STOP!" wailed the trucks, but the two engines laughed manically as they reveled in their power to tidily arrange the trucks.

Thomas whistled and took off. "See y'all later!" he said, his adopted American accent making everyone wince. "I gotta go see what you did to the branch-line!"

"Screw you!" Percy mockingly called back as Thomas puffed off.

Next, Edward took some empty trucks (Some being the key word, he had failed to notice that Percy had filled some of the last few up) to the quarry. This was news to Percy, as in all the time that they had discussed the Island, never before had a quarry come up before.

"Right, Perc, look after the yard, don't blow it up, see you later! Also, one last thing-"

Percy zoned out and began to imagine himself as King.

"-so don't do that! Percy?"

"Good luck Edward!" Percy was left on his own for the first time in a while. He didn't mind. He liked watching trains and being cheeky to the other engines. "Hurry hurry hurry!" he would say, and make the three big engines very cross.

Well, Gordon very cross. James merely bit his lip and ignored him, while Henry suffered a nervous breakdown in both senses of the word.

...

Later on in the day, Percy had done a great deal of shunting, leaving two trucks for the workers to take as construction materials at Wellsworth. He sat outside the signalbox and waited for the signalman to change the points so he could get back to the Yard for another drink.

He was eager to work (Well, by a loose definition of the word, work.) but was rather careless. In fact, the entire reason that they needed the construction materials was because Percy had somehow managed to burn down a house. Edward had warned him "Be careful on the main line, whistle to the signalmen when you are there and don't drink his tea. That stuff's nasty. So don't do that! Percy?" But Percy, of course, didn't remember to whistle. So the signalman, being a short sighted man whom people believed had only kept his job because they felt sorry for him, forgot about him.

Percy waited and waited. His driver and fireman, both rather lazy people, did not whistle themselves because they had discovered a fascinating exposure on Page 3. The fireman had just been ready to get up and alert the signalman, when the driver had looked from side to side shiftily and retrieved a full hardcore smut magazine from his jacket.

The points were still against him, so he couldn't move. Well he could, but it would end badly. Then he looked ahead. "Huh. Track looks a lot more blue than I remember it. And blurry. And...moving. And...OH NUTS AND BOLTSACKS! PEEP PEEP!" He whistled in horror. For there, rushing down the line, was Gordon with the express!

Gordon had been cheerfully enjoying how quickly he had regained his top spot when he had looked ahead. "Huh. Track looks a lot more green than I remember it. And blurry. And...getting closer. And...OH NUTS AND BOLTSACKS! OOOOOOOOOH!" He roared. "GET OUT OF MY WAY!"

Percy slammed his eyes shut and tried to move backwards. The fireman had tossed (Not like that) the magazine aside and had staggered in, while the driver grabbed hold of the footplate in mad desperation.

Percy opened his eyes. Gordon, his face stuck in a jaw-dropped expression of terror, stopped a few inches from Percy, his buffers were only just out of reach of Percy's. He was suddenly very, very angry. Gordon. Not Percy.

Percy had begun to move, finally. "I WON'T STAY HERE!" He shrieked. "THIS IS TOO HEAVY FOR ME. I'LL RUN AWAY!" The fireman had leaped from his cab the moment it appeared that he was to be struck, and the driver hadn't even lasted that long.

Gordon stared in bafflement as Percy began backing up so fast you would have thought he was part rabbit.

"Uh." he said. "What just happened?"

The signalman glanced down. "Oh look!" he said. "A train!"

...

Percy had raced through Edward's station (Leaving a annoyed Edward to simply sigh "Why does no one ever listen to me?") and had been so frightened that he raced up Gordon's hill without stopping.

"WOW! I AM TOO FAST FOR WORDS!" And he was, he was so scared that words failed him. His backwards racing was soon catching attention and had the benefit of becoming a early meme on the Island.

After that, he was tired. In fact, soon he was beginning to wonder if he was the Road Runner, and if so, did that make Gordon the Coyote? But he couldn't stop, he had no driver to shut off steam, apply his brake or actually use the ultimate weapon 'Intentional Derailing'.

He entered Lower Suddery (Although at this point, words were a foreign concept, like slowing down, and stopping.) and let out a moan that a zombie would be jealous of. He tried using that thing that he assumed was a mouth and slurred out "Iwannastop, iwannastop."

"Oh god." said a porter. "Another drunk engine."

But this time, he was in luck that he got a actual kindly signalman, who saw Percy was in trouble and switched the points. Percy let out a 'Ug' of thanks, and felt his eyes roll back into his head.

He puffed wearily onto a nice empty siding that ended with a bank of...calling it manure would be disgusting, so a bank of earth. He was too tired now to care where he stopped. "Iwannastop. iwannastop-" He frowned. "I did stooped!"

His bad grammar aside, he was correct, and he felt himself relax onto the earth. Not the planet. The bank.

"Never mind Percy." said a voice.

"GOD?!" asked Percy.

"No. I'm Steve. You shall have a drink and some coal, and then you'll feel better."

"Oh...alcohol?"

"Better bloody believe it."

Presently, Gordon arrived with a winch in tow. Get...Get it? In tow? In tow with the winch and the...Sorry.

"Well done Percy! You started so quickly you stopped a nasty accident!" Gordon smiled cheerfully. "And that accident was me beating you into a pulp!"

Percy gulped sheepishly. "I'm sorry I was cheeky. You were clever to stop."

"Damn right." Then Gordon helped pull Percy out of the bank.

Later on, neither of them said a word to Sir Topham Hatt. But oddly enough, the short sighted signalman vanished.

...

Percy is still cheeky, because that's just the way he is. But he's always careful when he goes on the main line.

Yeah.

Wait how long that lasts.