Cue the theme.
...
Thomas and Percy are best friends. This is because no one else will have them.
Nah, I kid. The two of them have similar personalities and ambitions in life (Though if you were to ask Gordon, he would tell you that ambition on a tank engine's part was terrible) but sometimes (Read: Always) Percy teases Thomas about being frightened. He doesn't like that at all. Thomas, I mean. Percy clearly likes it because he's been doing it.
One evening Thomas was dozing happily in the shed. He was picturing all of the cameras pointed at him, the megawatt smile he had been practicing in the mirror (Which in reality wouldn't light a small shack) and all the female engine groupies rushing over to squeal at him.
But Percy, being a cheeky and quite frankly easy to bore engine, wanted to talk. "Wake up Thomas!"
"Are you a lusty eyed pink engine with curves like the Nuremberg?" drowsily asked Thomas. "Because if not, no."
"Are you dreaming about the time I pretended to be a ghost and I scared the coal out of you!?"
"Certainly not." Thomas, through drowsy eyes, still struggled to defend his precious pride. "Anyway, I was only pretending to be scared! I knew it was you really! By your stench!"
Percy went on teasing him. "I hope the guard leaves the light on for you tonight!"
"I AM NOT TWELVE YEARS OLD!" Thomas snapped, now fully awake. "Besides! I love the dark! It's my old friend!"
"Oh really?" Percy asked innocently, with a face that butter wouldn't melt in. "I am surprised! That wasn't the impression that you gave of me! I'd always though you were afraid of the dark, I wonder why?!"
"It's a bloody mystery." Thomas muttered under his breath. Officially, he decided to say nothing and tried to go back to sleep instead.
And then Percy started singing.
Glass shattered.
...
The next day, the Fat Controller arrived with his shiny new black car. That was lie. He arrived with his shiny old blue car that had been painted black for a laugh and now seemed to refuse to come off.
"Sodding hooligans!" He calmed down to address Sir Topham Hatt. "I would like you to go to the harbor tonight to collect something rather...unusual."
"Is it drugs?"
"I can promise you it is not drugs."
"Then what is it?"
"Wait and see."
"I hate it when you do that, sir."
Elsewhere, Percy was doing his thing. Shunting trucks, sarcastically making quips at the big engines and in general being a bit of a toerag. As he backed down with a set of trucks, Henry arrived with his own goods train to pass through Lower Suddery. Percy waited in the newly added goods yard as the signalman changed the points. Henry rushed past.
"Morning Percy!"
"Morning Henry!" Percy refrained from adding a comment asking Henry if the green hippie had started growing his drugs yet, as he felt like that comment was better saved for later. He patiently waited.
And then, of course, there was trouble.
"The points are jammed!" shouted the signalman. "I can't change them back!"
"Then get someone who knows how to do his ******* job!" called Carlin.
"Can't! Phones are damaged!"
"No they aren't!
The signalman walked back into the box, picked up his phone, walked back out and threw it, cord and all, onto the tracks. "Yes it is. The workmen will mend it in the morning! Too late now!"
"I WILL SUE YOU FOR THIS!" hollered Percy.
"Hmmmm." said Percy's driver, clearly wondering if there was any way to ambush the signalman and beat the knowledge out of him. "I'm sorry Perc. Looks like you're staying here for the night!"
"Where are you off too!?" Percy pleaded. "All for one and one for-"
"Tea." said Carlin. "I'm goddamn parched."
"I'm hungry mate!" said the fireman, quickly hurrying off. "Ta!"
Percy was speechless, for once in many a year.
...
"Ha! Suck it, pea green!"
"James, I will RAM one of those rhinestones up your tender one of these days!" Percy fumed as James rushed past cackling away. The other engines had already made it to the shed, and the reactions had ranged from sympathetic (Edward, Toby) to the apathetic (Duck, the Scottish Twins) to the mocking (Gordon). He could already tell he was in for a hard day's night.
When night time did come, he began to feel very lonely.
He would have sung, only three workmen had quietly threatened what would happen if that was the case.
"Oh dear." he murmured. "It's very dark." He paused. "Well of course it is genius. It's night."
There was a screeching hiss and Percy jumped. "OOOOH OOH! WHAT'S THAT?! IS IT A GHOST?!" He closed his eyes. "I'M NOT READY TO DIE! I HAVE SO MANY THINGS I NEED TO DO!" It was only a owl, but Percy didn't realize this.
Because he, like Thomas, can be a massive idiot sometimes.
"Oh, I wish Thomas was here to suffer with me!" he wailed, before a leaf fell on his boiler and he screamed.
...
Elsewhere, at the harbor, Thomas was yawning. "This had better be worth it." He frowned. "Anyone hear a noise? Like screaming?"
Suddenly, there it was! It was huge! It was yellow! It was accompanied by a oriental sting that may or may not have been racist! It was! It was!
"MOTHER OF MERCIFUL NEPTUNE IT'S A GODDAMN DRAGON!" Thomas looked around. "Find me a lance and call me Saint George, cause it's time for me to SLAY THIS BEAST!"
"Don't worry yourself, General Custer." laughed his driver mockingly. "This one's just made of paper."
"Paper gives you cuts! It is no less dangerous!"
"It's for the carnival tomorrow!"
Thomas frowned. "What carnival? There was no carnival planned!"
"Hey, on this Island, every day's practically a circus."
Workmen hurried to attach the dragon to the flatbed. They even added lights all over the low loader and the dragon, lighting up from inside, for protection. How would this protect them, you may ask? That is something only the workmen know.
And then Thomas set off into the misty night.
BANG.
"MY CABBAGE TRUCK!"
Thomas recovered, and then he set off.
As he crossed the valley bridge, Thomas frowned again. "Hang on, why is there creepy piano music wherever we go?"
"The keyboard player needs to warm up his fingers."
"Couldn't he have done that before we started?"
"Thomas, the man's been sitting in a paper dragon in a soaking wet hold for a week. I think he's allowed to tune his goddamn keyboard!"
...
Percy was asleep in his sidings, having finally dropped off to sleep after fearing the sound of crickets and even the very rails he rode upon. Therefore he had no idea that Thomas was approaching him.
Thomas could see Percy's shape in the distance, and so encouraged not only the sound of the stereotypical Chinese music to play, but for the band rehearsing in the dragon to start up even louder.
"So, scared of the dark am I?!" he hissed as he came clear, letting out steam. Percy opened his eyes, and looked up.
...
The Fat Controller jumped out of his skin as the fire alarm in his house went off.
"WHAT THE BLOODY HELL IS GOING ON!?" He roared to his butler, who was deafened by the noise himself.
...
As Percy continued screaming out "HELP!" Thomas slid away quietly as a leaf.
"I-" declared Percy in a hysterical fit. "-WILL NOT OPEN MY EYES UNTIL CARLIN COMES BACK!"
And he did so.
The next morning, the points were mended (Rumors that Carlin had given the signalman a good thrashing were not proven but his absence did make a lot of sense if you considered this angle) and Percy hurried back to Knapford desperately. He spotted Gordon and he hurried over. The big engine was about to leave with the express. "GORDON, GORDON, YOU WILL NOT BELIEVE WHAT I SAW LAST NIGHT!"
"The error of your ways?" He was in no mood for puzzles, a jigsaw had recently annoyed him. "I'm a busy engine! I don't have time right now for your games!"
"I've seen a huge dragon! IT BREATHED FIRE AND DEATH! IT WAS COVERED WITH LIGHTS AND IT HAD IT'S OWN ENTRANCE MUSIC!" Percy panted heavily. Gordon looked at him as though he had finally cracked after all these years.
He snorted. "You have been in the sun too long! Your dome has cracked! Amongst other things! Now, if you don't mind-"
"Cracked like your safety valve you mean!" called out Percy, not too scared that coherent thought had exited his brain. Gordon huffed and was on his way.
When the other engines heard the news, they laughed too.
"Now, don't be too hard on him James." Duck admonished, before quietly chuckling to himself. He had seen worse things than a dragon.
"Look out Percy! Or the dragon may gobble you up!" laughed James as he rushed past.
"At least it wasn't a frigging BOOTLACE!" screamed Percy, now in no mood for games.
"No one believes me." sighed Percy as he puffed over the valley bridge. "Maybe I did hallucinate a dragon after all."
Had he looked down and stayed a few seconds longer, he would have seen Thomas, having no idea where to dump his unusual cargo, go under the bridge and curse the air.
...
Percy soon found out his mistake.
In a move that was practically Jaws-esque in it's execution, Thomas somehow managed to reduce the noise he made and crept up slowly into Elsbridge. The dragon loomed overhead, casting a shadow.
Percy looked up.
...
Meanwhile, somewhere in Paddington, the Flying Scotsman was ready to depart for the Island.
He frowned as his windows shattered. "Damn it! Looks like I'll have to get repairs when I get there. My dear brother'll be lucky to see my tenders!"
...
Once Percy had stopped screaming...he started again. "HELP! SAVE ME! TAKE JAMES INSTEAD!"
"It's all right." whistled Thomas, once Percy had made a sufficient enough fool of himself. He explained what was going on to the gradually more stormy expression on Percy's face. "By the way... how was your night out?"
"I hate you...so much." Percy sighed, and then a tiny smile appeared on his face. "If it had happened to James though? Hysterical."
"You know Percy, maybe we do get scared of the dark sometimes. But if we're engine enough to tell each other, then that means we're quite brave too."
Both engines stared at each other.
"That was a bloody poor moral."
"Yeah, pretty much."