Thousands of miles and dimensions away, a young boy with red hair sat in his room, looking over his favorite book: The Little Engine that Could. His older sister, Jill, soon came in to see him.
"Whatcha readin, Eric?" She asked.
"About the little Engine and the birthday train!" He replied happily. "She brings the train all the way over the mountain for all the good boys and girls to have toys to play with and good food to eat. And in two days, it's my birthday!"
Jill giggled. "Hmph. Birthday train full of toys? I can't believe you really believe that."
"Sure I do. It'll come!"
"I don't want to keep hearing about it." Jill turned to leave the room. "There's not going to be any birthday train coming here." And she left.
"Oh, you'll see." Eric whispered, turning to look out his window again. "It'll come. I know it will. I know it will..."
It was not long before Twilight Sparkle and her six friends had packed up all their supplies, got picked up some chariots, and soon found themselves flying high above Equestria. All chariots regrouped together before heading off towards the island of Sodor. Rainbow Dash was the only pony not taking a chariot, preferring to stretch out her own wings, and not having anything heavy to carry with her.
The world of Equestria was so beautiful below them, the grassy planes, high rocky and snowy mountains, green forests that stretched miles, giant blue lakes, it was wonderful. It was hard to hear each other over the strong winds, so they did not communicate much. When they did, they had to shout.
By nighttime, they were already soaring across the dark purple ocean, lit only by the stars and moon.
Finally, morning arrived, and in the distance, they could see a large island in the distance. The guards started to descend toward a little forest glade. As the ponies got closer, they could see a few small buildings in the clearing, and then train tracks. This must have been the train yard that housed the train that would take them to the mountain.
"Why do we have to take a train anyway?" Rainbow had asked before. "Why don't we just get there ourselves and meet the rest of the train there?"
Twilight had answered her question, saying "We need to arrive with the train so they know that we are part of the party." This answered appeased Rainbow, thankfully. It also appeased Pinkie Pie.
The guards touched down and pulled up to what looked like a large set of stables.
"We'll wait here until you return and you're ready to go back," One guard said. "We'll also keep your gifts safe until you find out where you need to go."
"Thanks," Twilight said as she and her friends got off and huddled together.
"So, where do we go now?" Fluttershy asked.
"I reckon we should find someone n' ask 'em for directions," Apple Jack replied. "We don't wanna go wanderin' into places we shouldn't."
"Good point, Apple Jack," Twilight nodded. They all started glancing around, trying to find someone to talk to, but there was nobody around; no ponies or any kind of living creatures. Just buildings and towers.
Then suddenly, they spied one lone control tower just outside what must have been the engine's shed... it was moving! It was alive!
And then, after a minute of stirring, it blew it's nose! It rang like an alarm of some sort. "To Work! To Work!" He tooted so loud it must have shaken the whole valley.
Totally freaked out by the living building, Spike and the other ponies ducked behind Twilight.
"Did I just see... what I think I just saw?" Apple Jack whimpered.
"Only if we saw the same thing," Rarity replied.
"What the hay is that thing?" Pinkie asked.
"It looks like he's in charge of this train yard," Twilight observed. She was a bit weirded out too. Not entirely though.
And after a minute, her friends all got over the shock, and got out from behind her. They had faced many other things in their travels; much scarier things.
"Maybe we can go ask him directions," Pinkie smiled.
"But he looks so intimidating!" Fluttershy whispered.
"Aw, come on, Fluttershy!" Rainbow said proudly, patting her friend on the head. "We've been up against scarier things than that!"
"And weirder things!" Spike added.
"Exactly!" Rainbow nodded.
And so the seven of them walked up to the large wooden tower, who seemed to be pulling out a clipboard and pen now. They walked up in front of him, still staying off the train tracks.
"Excuse us, sir?" Twilight called out to him.
With a grunt, the tower turned from his clipboard to see the six ponies below him. He did not seem surprised to see them though. He looked much more annoyed.
"What?" He grunted. "What do you want? Can't you see I'm busy?"
"Hey!" Rainbow snapped back. "What's your problem? We just wanted-" Before she could continue, Apple Jack put a hoof on her shoulder, and gave her a stern look, telling her to be quiet."
Fluttershy shrank back behind Apple Jack.
"Um, sorry to bother you," Twilight replied, forcing herself to keep smiling and act polite. "We're here for the birthday train. Could you direct us to it, please?"
"Huh? Birthday train?" The tower repeated. He turned back to his clipboard for a moment while the ponies stayed put. He flipped through a few pages, then finally nodded.
"Oh, yeah," he said, a smilie never crossing his face. "Here we are! Yeah, right here: Six magical ponies and a dragon for the birthday train. Yeah, you're in the right place. They're gonna load up over there." He pointed over to one shed that had one tower shaped like a large cake.
"You think we would have figured that out before," Pinkie Pie whispered to Rarity and Rainbow, earning a chuckle from them.
"Rolo the clown will be boarding the train in about ten minutes," The tower continued, turning back to his clipboard.
"Alright," Twilight smiled. She turned back to her friends. "I guess we'll go get our stuff and get ready to board!"
"Or," Pinkie replied, "Why don't we just have a look around 'till then?"
"How about we see about boarding," Twilight answered, "Then if there's time, we'll look around."
"I don't care what you do!" The tower snapped. "Just don't cause any trouble! My engines and I work hard to keep things running in order around here!"
"Yes sir!" The ponies and Spike whimpered.
"Now get out of my thinking space!"
And with that, the other ponies darted off towards the birthday train shed, but not before Spike and Rainbow stuck out their tongues at the tower.
"Yeeesh!" Pinkie muttered. "Who spat in his coffee?"
Behind them, they heard the tower blow his whistle alarm again, and again shouting "To work! To Work!"
Inside the shed were five snoring train engines, all with faces on their funnels or faceplates. One was a large red one with make-up on her faceplate, and an gold, iron bonnet. Another was a Yellow, and looked somewhat old and wrinkly. A third was a deep red, and coughed up smoke when he snored. Next came a large blue diesel engine, who blew his horn when he snored.
The last of these engines was a little blue engine, her face on her smokestack. A tiny little bird rested on her headlight, whistling with each snore.
Of these five, the little blue one was the one to hear the Tower's calling. Her eyes fluttered awake as she looked down at the little brown bird resting on her light.
"Wake up, Chip," She whispered.
Her little friend remained unmoving.
She blew her whistle, making him jump, only to float back down and try to lie down again.
"Get up, lazy bird!" The engine giggled.
"Leave me alone, Tilly!" The bird named Chip snapped. "I couldn't sleep all night!"
"Chip," Tilly groaned, "Have you been eating those green worms again?"
"Well, yeah," he gulped, rubbing his little tummy.
"Well, a little work will get you going!" Tilly smiled as she started puffing toward the turn table.
She new her job, her routine. She was the switcher engine. Her job was to get each engine outside in the morning, and just help out all the bigger engines around the yard. She always got the big diesel, Farnsworth, outside first.
When the ponies arrived at the birthday shed, they could see the place was mostly deserted. A line of coaches were lined up for the train to go though at least. They also noticed a stout clown sitting on a couple of boxes, looking over some paperwork and sipping a cup of coffee. A monkey was at his side, twiddling his thumbs.
The ponies all walked up to him.
"Excuse us, Sir?" Twilight said when they approached him.
"Wha!" The clown jumped and fell over behind the box, dropping his papers and spilling his coffee. Everyone else gritted their teeth as the clown fell back painfully.
The monkey helped the clown up to his feet.
"Um, really sorry!" Twilight whispered, forcing a smile, hoping the clown was not like the tower.
"Oh, it-it's okay," The clown stuttered. "Just-just gave me a bit of a start, that's all. No biggie. No damage."
But there was some damage. The monkey picked up the papers, which had been soaked in the coffee. The clown frowned.
"Oh, shucks!" Pinkie said in an apologetic tone. "That really stinks!"
"Really sorry," Twilight repeated. "But here, let me see those. I can fix it!"
The monkey held out the papers to her, and her horn glowed. The papers started glowing, and all the coffee drops started lifting off from the paper, making it completely dry. When all the coffee was brought up, she carried it over to a drain pipe at the side, and let the coffee slide away, knowing the clown would not want coffee that's been on the ground.
"Wow!" The clown said, clearly astounded by Twilight's trick. "That was so cool! It-it was amazing! How-How did you do that?"
"Unicorn magic!" Twilight smiled. "All unicorn horns have magic powers."
"And none of them horns have as much potential as the one-n-only Twilight Sparkle here!" Apple Jack said with pride, giving her dear friend a pat on the back, and making her blush.
"Aw, come on, Apple Jack," Twilight shrugged.
"We're serious, Twilight!" Rainbow Dash added. "Have some pride! No pony is as great with magic as you!"
Unknown to the rest of them, these words started to dwell on Rarity's mind, being reminded of her own magic skills, how for the most part, Twilight's seemed to be much better.
"Well, there's plenty of ponies who-" Twilight began, but then shook her head, remembering where they were. "Nevermind, we'll talk about it later." She turned back to the clown. "Are you Rolo the clown?" She asked.
"Yep, that's me!" The clown nodded. "I'm in charge of this voyage- eh, I mean trip. I've planned everything out. And this is my assistant, Chippers!" He gestured the little monkey who was now looking over Spike curiously. Rolo held out his gloved hand to shake each pony's hoof, all of them introducing themselves as they went along.
"So, are you guys the ponies from Equestria that I've requested?"
"Yep. That's us!" Rainbow answered.
"Well, great!" Rolo cheered, rubbing his hands together. "I'm so glad you all could come! I just know the kids in town will love you! They always do! Ya know, you're actually a little early. We got about, uh..." he glanced at his pocket watch quick. "-ten minutes before we board."
"Should we get our stuff together and board now anyway?" Twilight asked.
"Sure, if you want to," Rolo nodded. "It might be a good idea, ya know? Get a head start before the others."
"Okay then," Twilight nodded. "We'll be right back then." And so the ponies left to get their stuff quick from their chariots.
"It'll just take a second, lickety-split!" Pinkie added as she bounced off with her friends.
"Take your time!" Rolo replied. "This train's not going anywhere yet!"
When they returned to their chariots, however, they were in trouble. The animals that Fluttershy brought with her had gotten tired of staying cooped up in the chariot, and had run amuck, all over the train yard in that area.
Fluttershy was having a panic attack, afraid of her little precious munchkins getting hurt. She tried to call out to them using a call that she used quite commonly to call her little friends together in such times.
She had explained though that this did not always work on everyone. A few of the animals came back, but not all of them.
Luckily though, Twilight was there to help. After telling her friend to calm down, her horn glowed, and a little orb of violet light shot into the air, shining brightly.
All the animals that were hiding were entranced by the light, and walked out toward it, all gathering around it.
After a quick head count, and seeing all were present, Fluttershy gave a sigh of relief as Twilight canceled the spell, releasing the animals from their trance.
Fluttershy hugged Twilight, thanking her for her help, before leading the animals toward the birthday shed.
Rarity could not help but feel sad. She wished she knew this spell so she could have helped Fluttershy, so she may have been good for something.
She reminded herself she was good with magic, that she could help with it too. She walked over to Pinkie Pie, who was dragging along a large heavy sack of party supplies with her.
"Would you like some help with that, Pinkie?" Rarity asked her friend sweetly.
"Ah, that's okay," Pinkie replied cheerfully. "Twilight said she'd help me with it. I'm good."
And as if on que, Twilight used her magic to lift up the whole bag. "Wow! This bag is heavy!" She remarked. "Must be a lot of party stuff, huh Pinkie?"
"Yep! You got it?"
"Yeah! I got it!" And with that, Twilight and Pinkie started walking over toward the birthday shed.
Rarity sadly looked down at her hooves, again being unable to help, being overshadowed by Twilight.
"Uh, hey, Rarity!" She heard Apple Jack call over. "Ya kin help me out these here apple sacks, if ya don't mind!"
Rarity's smile returned as she saw three large sacks of apples that would need to be carried over.
"Absolutely dear," she answered as she walked over toward the bags, lifting each one up together with her magic, and following Apple Jack toward the shed.
Meanwhile, just a few miles away, over a large lake, in a valley, a worm hole suddenly opened up in the fabric of the air, and out came the Iceberg ship, splashing down and wobbling in the water, as it became reacquainted with floating again.
"Dimension ho!" Shouted Gupta the badger as they touched down. Immediately, all were out on deck to check the place out, looking around to the edge of the lake to see the rocky hills, valley walls, evergreen trees.
"Hey!" Flynn the Elephant Seal grunted. "This don't look like the train yard! I think ball pooped out on us again!"
"The ball doesn't poop out, Flynn," Gutt grunted. "This is just the nearest body of water to the train yard. Apparently we need to travel by land to do this pillage!" This would be a problem. He hated traveling by land. Gutt loved the sea; the wide space, far away from civilization, feeling so free, and looking out from his ship as though he were a king on his throne looking out at his kingdom.
Never the less, he wanted that loot, and he needed to get on land to find those train tracks.
"Silas!" He barked, grabbing the attention of his blue-bottomed booby, "Give us an eye in the sky!"
"Yes, sir!" Silas replied with a salute before bolting into the sky.
"The rest of you," Gutt said, gesturing the others, "Let's dock the ship and get the truck ready!"
"Aye-Aye, Captain!" Everyone shouted in unison before going about their usual jobs in this case.
Within minutes, the ship was backed up against a strip of rock, and tied down to posts using vines.
Once they were all tied down, Gutt got below deck to the room he called the cargo bay, which held the truck that he and his crew had acquired during one of their many robberies in the future, one that they took for the few long road trips across land. The driver's part of the truck was red, while the holding segment was the dark blue of night with pictures of snowy mountains, and was advertising some sort of soft drink. They had cut little square windows in the sides of the truck for light and air, as well as in between the driver's cockpit and the tip of the cargo hold so the crew and the driver could communicate.
Raz and Shira had brought down a ton of bone weapons, fruit rations, and the ball with them to store in the cargo segment.
"Everything's all packed up, Captain!" Shira nodded and saluted as Gutt walked up toward the driver's seat.
"Excellent," Gutt replied with a smirk. He slid into the driver's seat, buckled up, and started the engine. He knew what he was doing and how to drive by now.
"Shira, the door!" He commanded.
"Aye!" She dashed toward the door, and pushed it down with all her might, making a little ramp come down, leading out the boat and onto the "dock".
And so Gutt pulled out and onto the dock. As Flynn, Squint and Gupta started to climb up into the back, Silas swooped back down, and landed on Gutt's arm, hanging out the window.
"What's the word, bird?" Gutt asked.
"There is indeed a train yard just east of here," Silas replied. "We will get there if we just follow this road."
"Super! Great work, Silas. You get shotgun!" Gutt smirked as he looked up the unpaved dirt road that went up the valley walls out of the valley.
"Thank you, sir!" Silas replied as he hopped down and bucked into his seat.
"Let's get going!" Squint said anxiously! "I wanna start slicing me some heads and eatin' me some apples!"
"That's good spirits, Squint!" Gutt called back, "Because we are hitting the road!"
All the pirates cackled and giggled with excitement as their captain hit the gas and started heading on up the road with Silas giving him directions when needed.
Author's Notes: So for those of you who are wondering how Captain Gutt and his crew have a time-traveling crystal ball and a truck, do not worry. All those questions will be answered in later chapters. The way I have it planned, it will be explained in chapter five.
So that's it for now. Thanks everyone who's still reading, and I'll see you all soon with the next update. Please subscribe, favor and review!