Okay, first off...thank you all for the kind words! Glad to see I didn't totally flush away any fans of this story I might have. Now, to respond to reviews. Thank you to Game Watch, the idea was to have this sort of a weird universe where anything could happen. Funnily enough, just like the weird world of British cartoons! To Reality Rejection Service, writing that entire 'karma' exchange was a ton of fun. And the Juggernaut is...eh, you'll see soon enough. And finally to the new reviewer MattPrice01. Thank you for reading, and I hope I can keep up the good work.
You'll be seeing a lot of references to British kids shows in the coming chapters, so at the bottom, I'll be detailing what they are and why I've used them.
CUE THE THEME.
'Emily's' was a rather small shop located somewhere in Blean, Kent. As Carlin stood on the outskirts of the shop, he wondered, not for the first time, what it was he was looking for. Hargreaves had, on this point, been rather vague. "Go to Emily's" he had said "And you shall find what you are looking for. People always do."
As he entered the shop, he was suddenly taken aback by the sight in the corner. As if in a trance, he walked over and stared at the strange collection of things on the shelf. The carved wooden bookend in the shape of an old woodpecker, a female rag doll, a toad holding a banjo that looked as though it might have been a hand puppet at one point. Near it, but not too near, was a mouse organ, despite it's age, maintained perfectly. And besides that was-
"Bagpuss." Carlin mouthed. He looked around, but there was no one to be found.
And then the shop door swung open, the bell startling Carlin, and a youngish girl appeared. She didn't look surprised to see him. "Ah! Good morning, sir! Can I help you at all?"
"Er..." Carlin was transfixed by the pink and white striped cat, fast asleep, on an old rug. "Er, yeah, do you have anything for a Mr Carlin?"
"I'll just check now!" And as the woman moved to the front of the shop, Carlin returned his attention to the cat. "You can stroke him if you want!"
"Er, okay." As Carlin stroked the saggy old cloth cat, he suddenly felt very odd. This was another world he had stumbled into. It all felt odd. Like walking back into another century. And yet everything still seemed new and fresh, despite it's old appearance.
"Ah, here it is!" The woman handed him a shoebox. "Open it outside, and if there is any problem-"
"Er, thank you. How much do I-"
"Oh no, we don't expect money in return! No, the reward is returning lost things to you." The woman smiled, and walked over to Bagpuss. "It was my idea, back when I was a child. And my father, bless him, helped me make it a reality. And of course, Bagpuss here helped. He's the most important, the most beautiful, the most magical cat in the world."
Carlin looked at the cat one more time. "I can tell. He's baggy. A bit loose at the seams."
"But I love him."
Carlin nodded. The nostalgia was all running back to his head, and he feared that if he stayed in this bizarre shop any longer, he himself would not be able to leave it at all. "Well, thank you very much. And thank Bagpuss for me." And so, as he stumbled out, he could have sworn that he had heard the cat yawn.
As he sat on the pavement opposite, Carlin went through the box. Inside was his whistle, freshly cleaned and polished, his old Conductor's hat, an old photograph with him and the other engines, a knife (Odd, he didn't think he had ever owned a knife) and finally, a single piece of rather crinkled and old paper.
He looked back up at the shop, to ask whether or not he had gotten the wrong parcel.
The shop was no longer there.
Carlin decided it was time for him to head off to his next destination before he hurt his head by thinking about this too much. He hurried away, and looked at the piece of paper in his hands.
"TRANSYLVANIA?!"
...
It was a busy time at the docks, and all the engines were working hard pulling and pushing trucks about. They weren't happy about it, obviously, but they painted on fake-ish smiles for the cameras.
Percy was having a great deal of trouble. He was late again that morning, thanks in no small part to a bunch of rather bad driving from Bertie the Bus. Cranky the crane was quick to critiszie coolly and creatively. Alliteration is fun when you don't do it all the time, take notes, future writers. "You HORRIBLE LITTLE GREEN CATERPILLAR! THESE SHIPS CANNOT BE KEPT WAITING! They have important cargo and if they miss their tides because of you, you little spotty oik person, they shall be late! And it shall be all your fault! Look up ships, for you are, after all, only a small little engine!"
"It's the bloody work! We've got too much of it. And didn't we just get through a episode where we learnt about not insulting people to their faces."
"I'm not doing it to your face! I'm doing it to your bunker, you green arse! And if the work is too much for you itty bitty weaklings, then perhaps a lorry should take over! Be more bloody useful than you!"
Percy was shocked! Lorries were usually the first sign that a railway was beginning to, pardon the pun, run out of steam, and would soon be supplanted. One did not invoke the threat of lorries on a whim! "Yeah, well...YOU SMELL!"
And on that stellar insult, Percy returned to the sheds.
...
"Hey, so, Edward."
"Hmm? Hold on a mo, BoCo, I just have to shunt these into place."
"It's kind of important." BoCo cleared his throat, and looked around, clearly uncomfortable. "Er, this is...god, this is harder than I thought-"
"Come come, BoCo, we are friends! You've helped me out of tight spots before, and you've always been there for me when I've needed a pal who doesn't mock the hell out of me and bring up my age at every possible opportunity. Least I can do is return the favor."
"YOU LOVE IT!" shouted Gordon from the sheds.
"SHUT UP GORDON!" called back both Edward and BoCo at the same time. BoCo turned back and cleared his throat. "Er, well, my driver was looking up some new ways to get some cash, and it turns out that there's a new job that's opened up that should be really good for me, career wise."
"Oh, that's great! Where is it? Kirk Ronan? Callan? Maron?"
"The Mainland."
Edward stared for a second. "Oh."
"It's, it's not like a job that I'll be in forever, it's a temporary thing, really. It's just that, well...it looks really good. Pays a lot of top dollar, as the young kids say. It's two years, and I'll get as much time as I can to come back and help around...I won't go if-"
"No. No, you should go." Edward clearly had to swallow back a bit of disappointment, but smiled anyway. "Hey, at the very least, you'll get some quiet for a bit. Wish I was coming with you."
"Trust me, it won't be long! A few years, tis all. And then I'll be back, and you'll be bloody sick of me. Don't worry, I've still got a few months before I have to head off."
Edward smiled weakly. "I'll tell Bill and Ben- WOAH, PERCY!"
And the moment was broken, as Percy rushed into the yard at a rather breakneck speed. He told the other engines who were gathered around the turntable what Cranky had said.
"Ha! As if!" sneered James. "Stuff and nonsense!"
"We engines run this Island!" snapped Henry "And if they tried to take us away, they'd have a pretty bloody hard time of it!"
"But what if lorries do arrive?"
"Then we'd best find a way of getting rid of them!" Gordon growled.
"Oh trust me, if Cranky means the types of lorries that I think he does, they'll be exiting quite fast under their own steam." Duck remarked, knowingly.
...
TRANSYLVANIA.
"Hello?"
Carlin felt exceedingly stupid. Following the instructions on the piece of paper, he had used some of his gold dust to transport him to Transylvania, and then had headed to the place that the paper indicated was where he was supposed to be. He had gotten some odd looks from the locals at first, but at last, he had found one rather old and grizzled man in a pub that had told him where to go.
No wonder they had looked at him weirdly. To them, Castle Duckula didn't exist.
But he was standing right in the hallway of it at this moment.
Silence. Complete and utter silence that was somewhat overwhelming. There was something to be said about how the creepiest thing about this castle was that it didn't make odd creaking noises or make eerie whistling sounds as the wind blew through cracks in the walls. There was just nothing.
"Morning."
Carlin jumped five feet in the air, did a spin that would have made a ballerina gasp and fell flat on his bottom. He scrambled up, reaching for the knife, only for the figure in front of him to offer a hand up. This figure was dressed in a rather smart looking black jacket over a white shirt and blue tie. Lower down, he wore blue striped trousers and black, smart shoes, a black bowler hat perched atop his brown hair, and a face that looked both young and impossibly old at the same time.
"Sorry to startle you, old chap. My name is Mr Benn."
"Oh. Of course. Don't ******* do that again, mate! You scared the crap out of me!"
"Again. Sorry. You must be Carlin."
"Yeah, well, how do I know you are who you say you are?"
"You don't."
This statement could be taken as a threat or just Mr Benn being a smartass. Carlin decided to take it as the latter, and shook his hand. "Fair enough. So, why are you here?"
"Two reasons. Primarily, because that is where I was instructed to make your acquaintance, and secondarily, because I wanted to confirm a hunch of mine. You know the history of this place?"
"I've watched the TV show. Does that count? ...Heh. Pun intended."
"Humeorous. The creature that lived here, Count Duckula, eventually grew bored of living in this dark and dreary place, and so decided to head out on the road and try and find fame. He took most of the staff with him, but if you follow me down here, I've found where those who remain are."
Following Mr Benn down the stairs was an experience akin to that of a horror movie. Carlin knew he was going to be shown something bad or something nasty, he just didn't know what. At last, they reached the bottom, and Benn opened the door. Carlin flinched backwards and covered his mouth, as the smell of the corpses wafted towards his nostril. "Shit! What happened here?!"
"Zombies. Meant to staff the place until the master returned, but someone managed to get here first and remove what they were looking for, as well as stop these poor souls in their tracks."
"And what were they looking for?"
Benn pointed to a spot on the wall, which looked slightly different than the others. "There. This castle, you see, has the power to move anywhere in the world. It can go to Egypt, Scotland, Spain, the Arctic, Australia, any place which the host desires. The enemy, the Fat Director, ordered his men to attack the castle to take control over the mechanism that allows this castle to move through space to whatever location it fancies, and judging by the fact that it is no longer there on the wall, we can summise that he has gotten it."
"So, what do we do now?"
"You teleport us to our final stop before we begin our adventure through time." Benn smiled. It was a smile that wasn't emotionless, but was somewhat off a little. "To Festive Road, England."
...
I'm sorry to say (No, I'm not actually, I love a good bit of drama, me) that three lorries arrived the next day on a rather large cargo ship. It was the Other Railway's second ship, sent out with most of the cargo recovered from the wreck of the ship that had crashed into Brendam previously. And as these lorries were unloaded, they growled at anyone who came near them.
It won't surprise you to learn that the owner of these lorries was a man who went by the name of Gotch.
Cranky was delighted, and took joy in rubbing it in Percy's face as the little green engine, worse for wear after a night of drinking on the town, entered the yard. "Hey, you little shite down there! Job's done, go home, take a cold shower, these lorries are taking over now! One of them wants to talk to you before you head off!" He chortled to himself.
Lorry 2, as we shall call him, was very rude. He and his brothers spoke in thuggish voices "What's that steaming lump of scrap iron doin 'ere?! Be orf with ya, before I give you a kick up the arse!"
"SCRAP IRON!?" shrieked Percy. The hangover was making even the most minor of insults sound like Hannibal Lecter's cutting remarks. "STEAMING SCRAP IRON!? PAH!"
With this killer insult, Percy departed from the yard, passing Lorry 3, who was staring off into the distance with a dazed look on his face. The journey had clearly taken it's toll on him most of all.
A little later, the little green engine met up with Thomas and James, who were both looking as though they'd rather deal with another election attempt than have to listen to one of the other lorries talking to them. Lorry 1 then noticed Percy, and turned his virtriol on him. "Oh, look. It's a little green goblin on wheels. You'll be scrapped, just you wait and see. Right after the fire engine and copper over here." And he hurried away to do some work, leaving three engines very angry.
"Copper?" Thomas frowned. "Was that an insult? And if it was, bust my buffer. What a horrid little shit."
"DESPICABLE!" spluttered James. "I don't sound like a fire engine!"
"Oh, no, he was right on the money with you, James."
"Shut up, Thomas!"
...
Meanwhile, at the quarry, Toby and Mavis had just finished putting all the trucks in order, when above them, one of the lorries clattered along the new cliffside road.
"Odd." muttered Mavis. "No one uses that road unless they have a death wish."
"Must be newcomers." Toby suggested. "Anyway, you clocking off?"
"That's me done for the day. Think I'll hit up the Sidings with BoCo, see if they've got any of that new batch of oil coming in. Might be nice. You done?"
"I've got a couple more jobs to do, you scoot off." Toby smiled as Mavis tooted farewell. But as he waited for his driver to finish conversing with the yard manager about how divorce proceedings worked (His wife hadn't taken it well that they had little money to go on their vacation), Lorry 2 drove up, and stared at the tram in shock. Toby had been warned about these ones, and so greeted him with a cool grin.
"Well, well, well, no wonder this railway is in a mess, you belong in a museum!"
"Oh, going for the Indiana Jones reference, I see. Nice going. Mind you, at the very least, I'm not as damaging to the environment as you are. Anyway, I might look old, but I'm still as useful as ever. You look like you wouldn't know the meaning of hard work if it sat on your engine and smacked your face with it's massive...hands." Toby very quickly substituted the word he was going to use for the more PG equivalent.
Lorry 2 was shocked. "Useful!? Pah! Pah, I say! Just you toodle off!"
"TOODLE!?" snarled Toby, fuming with rage. "I'll toodle your balls in a minute if you don't-"
"Woah, easy there grandpa, you haven't even bought me dinner!"
"You'll be eating a knuckle sandwich in a minute, you slob!"
"Come along, Toby, don't bother to argue with him. We've got work to do at the Flour Mill, and I need to wash my face." The driver climbed aboard, and Toby, still glaring daggers at Lorry 2, headed off.
Karma, meanwhile, began casually notching arrows in her bow.
But the second that they reached the flour mill, Toby was floored to see yet another lorry waiting there, the load already placed in his back. "Wha-WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE!?"
"We three are doin your work now, so shove off!" snapped Lorry 3, having recovered from his mild state of concussion earlier in the day. "You're too slow and too fat, so there!"
"Scathing, coming from a-"
Before Toby could let loose with a range of rather expressive insults, the miller spoke to the driver. "I'm sorry, times are a-changing, I'm afraid! Ooor ar!" He even chewed a piece of wheat just to make his point more obvious.
"Toby may be old, and occasionally slow, and a little bit rusty, and in need of a good speeding up, but he's reliable, far more than that idiot pig of a lorry you have. Come on, chum, we'll go the farms. They might be expensive sons of bitches, but they won't abandon us!"
"Thanks for somehow insulting me and praising me at the same time." Toby muttered under his breath. And so he set off, leaving Lorry 3 to sit there, very, very smug.
Karma was very carefully making sure that her arrows were sharp enough.
Now, this part of the branch-line has been given to Toby primarily as a thank you for all the hard work that he's done over the years. It runs through a narrow gorge, where vehicles have to go incredibly carefully along the cliff face for fear of dropping off and hitting themselves smack on the rocks below. Now, most vehicles, like that of Butch, are often very careful of doing this, because they actually like being alive.
Karma fired once!
When Toby arrived, he suddenly braked in shock. For there was Lorry 2, the one from the quarry, riding along the road with a swagger that would have made Duncan remark "Okay, yer're getting a wee bit cocky there". Made worse, the Lorry was loaded with rocks. Too many. He swayed and lurched and lurched and swayed back and forth the road.
"Oh, that's going to be trouble." thought Toby aloud. And it was.
No one knew quite how, but somehow, Lorry 2 managed to completely miss the road, skid forward and slide completely off the mountain. It was a rather impressive piece of stupidity.
The driver, impressively, managed to throw himself clear. Apart from a rather nasty lump on his head that rather ruined in his hat, he was miracalously unhurt. "Rotten roads!" he muttered rebelliously, as Lorry 2 spat out the rocks.
"You're going to jail, pal!" snapped Toby's driver, and practically frogmarched the hapless lorry driver into the cab.
...
The wrecked lorry was taken to the docks, where it was unceremoniously dumped on the side of the line in a heap. Percy puffed up, and began to crow very, very loudly to anyone who would hear. "What's that steaming lump of scrap iron!?"
"HOLD ME BACK! I'LL WIPE THAT SILLY LITTLE SMUG SMILE OFF YOUR FACE!" screamed the Lorry. His attempt at salvaging his pride was dashed instantly as Percy wheeshed him with great force. Then, Butch arrived, towing a second lorry, the one from the Flour Mill.
Butch also appeared to be missing something.
"HOLY CRAP, BUTCH, WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR FACE?!" shouted Toby in shock.
"Oh it's just a minor problem!" remarked Butch, cheerfully, even if he was having a hard time breathing at the moment.
"What happened?!" asked Toby's driver, as Butch's driver wiped his brow next to a barrel of quality diesel oil.
...
EARLIER ON.
Karma smiled, and placed her second arrow in the bow. She pulled back, and...fired.
"BLOODY NORA ON A POLE!" snarled Lorry 3, as his wheels spun helplessly. There was a loud bang as his engine promptly gave out, and a soft thump as the flour began to pour out of his broken back. Donald, or possibly Douglas, laughed hysterically at the sight.
Mostly because that wasn't actually flour.
Apparently the miller bought from the same place that the Sodor China Clay company did.
...
"So yeah. That was fun."
"Not very useful now, are you!?" mocked Toby. The lorries responded by making grr sounds at the engines, which was about as threatening as anything that doesn't have sharp claws and teeth going 'grr' at you. Then James whistled from across the harbor.
"They're only gone and brought the third lorry in on a barge!"
Lorry 1 looked wet. Very wet. Karma patted herself on the back for that shot. James grinned and asked the dock manager "What happened?! Was it painful? Please say it was painful!"
...
EARLIER ON.
Karma's third shot was a lucky one. It connected all right.
"So, you wanna talk me through what just went on right here?" asked Sir Topham Hatt, massaging his temples. "Cause, I don't think I can even begin to guess what exactly was going through your mind right here."
Lorry 1's driver grinned stupidly. "I done turned my lorry into a submarine!"
"Of course you did. Of course you did."
...
Later, Thomas arrived to put the cherry upon the cake that was filled to the brim with lemons and other sour stuff. He grinned and began laughing maniacally. "Well well! The three brothers grimm! Smashed, broken and sunk!"
"WE'LL SMASH, BREAK AND SINK YOU IN A MINUTE!" howled the lorries, as they were shipped back to the Other Railway with a demand for the railway's money back and a warning that if they didn't, then there would be a great amount of trouble. The Fat Director wasn't about to waste perfectly good troop fodder, and so put the lorries to be repaired so as they could be used again.
But once the lorries had left, the engines worked twice as hard to make sure that the lorries never did return. Of course, they did.
But that, as they say, is another story.
...
Speaking of other stories, on Festive Road, two men walked in conversation. Or rather, one American frantically began questioning the Brit about what the hell was going on and the Brit stoically answered every so often.
"So, what's the plan?"
"We don't have one.
"Can I please change my mind?"
"You've come this far."
"Is it at all possible that this is all just one big hallucination?"
"Odd way to view life."
"...Are we there yet?"
"Yes."
And they were. They stood outside a rather odd looking shop. There was one window on the shopfront, through which could be seen a long line of costumes of all sorts. Gladiators, knights, prisoners, clowns, cavemen...and all of them looked bright and sparkling new. As they entered the un-marked shop, Carlin looked round, unsure of what was to happen next.
And then, as if by magic, the shopkeeper appeared.
"SON OF A *****!" declared Carlin. The shopkeeper, a rather portly man with a fez and a neat suit, ignored him, and turned to Mr Benn.
"Hello sir. I believe you will be in need of rather a lot today."
"Indeed." Mr Benn walked around, picked out a few costumes seemingly at random, and then smiled at Carlin. "Come on then."
"You know the way." said the shopkeeper. And all three turned their attention towards the dressing room at the back of the shop. Carlin gulped, and followed after Mr Benn.
Both men changed rather quickly into the first costume, this one being something that resembled a sterotypical viking. Mr Benn laid his clothes down, neatly on the floor. Mr Carlin threw his clothes rather roughly on the chair.
"Now what?"
Mr Benn said nothing. After looking himself in the mirror a number of times, he turned towards the door. Not the door back to the shop, but to the other door, that went...well, anywhere.
Carlin hesitated for a moment...and then followed.
...
In the darkness of space, all was silent and still. Nothing happened. Nothing.
And then, suddenly, across the heavens, came an all mighty light. Then, through the blackness, a meteor cycled over and over and over and over again and again, and as it entered the atmosphere, flames began to lick at it, burning away chunks of it, changing, moving, arcing towards the large land mass beneath it.
With a collosal explosion, the land shattered, splitting apart. But one part in particular spun out of control, rolling and rocking and spinning until at last, it came to a rough stop a good ways away from where England would eventually be created.
The Island of Sodor came to a stop...and there was silence.
And on the Island, in one of the sections of the meteor that had ended up embedding itself in the new land, something crawled from behind what looked like a door. It was a man. A very small man wearing a uniform that wasn't to be created for millenia He wiped his brow, looked around at what remained of ancient roadkill and remarked "Well shit."
The first Conductor had arrived.
And then, from the meteor (Or to give it a more accurate name, the ship) came two pieces of pure, white light. The first took the form of a female, the second a male that was shorter than his companion. Together, the spiritual forms of Lady and Proteus surveyed their new lands.
Unbeknownst to the three of them, however, a very large amount of dark energy began to move away from the craft. The Malevolence was smart. It knew that attacking right now would not be a good idea.
No. Wait until humanity has come around.
And that was how it all began.
Carlin saw this and more.
...
He awoke to find Benn standing over him. "Ah, good, you're up." said he, briskly. "Get up, we need to get moving! It's time for action, and unfortunately, this next part is a rather tricky one."
"Oh please, I just saw the birth of my Island and a couple of Gods, how tricky can it get."
Benn pointed up. Carlin looked up.
There was a very large, very angry, black dragon staring down at him. He was currently chewing on viking bodies.
"Oh." squeaked Carlin. "That's how tricky."
For the record, if you don't know where they are exactly, this is the battle between Lady and the Mightiness that Stepney told the engines about back in Train Stops Play. I figured that it would be a good first stop on this magical mystery tour of sorts. Fingers crossed, it's not too bad.
Writing for Mr Benn was fun, not least because I actually enjoyed his show as a kid, and getting to write some of the beats from said show was great. Also included in here are references to (In case you can't tell) Duckula and Bagpuss. The reason I chose that place in Kent for Emily's shop is because that is where the creator of Bagpuss, Peter Firmin, lived.
Hope this was okay!