So here I am, sat on the buffer beam of a bright blue E2 steam engine, waiting for the magical set of wooden buffers in front of us to open their portal to reveal the final member of this little 'camping trip' if you can call it that. Well, I may as well introduce myself, my names Jack (but my friend’s call me Captain) and I live here, on the Island of Sodor. I moved here many years ago for reasons I’d rather not discuss… anyway im now sixteen years old and in case you haven’t guessed, the little blue E2 I mentioned earlier is indeed none other than; Thomas the Tank engine. Yep that’s right, as soon as I moved here Thomas was the first of the amazing talking trains I met and well to put a LONG story short, we got on like a house on fire and have been friends ever since. Thomas and the rest of the gang have really matured and aged since the book the Rev wrote. In short, Thomas is no longer the childish, silly engine he used to be, he is now a responsible, kind- hearted, rebellious teenager of a locomotive… so you could say we are pretty well matched!

“Come on!” the impatient steamer sighed, breaking my train of thought. I looked up from my sitting position into his huge black cartoon eyes. It’s something I’ll never get used to, how big these engines faces are compared to that of a human. “Where the heck is Lady!?” he groaned “surely it doesn’t take that long to travel through dimensions… does it?” he looked down at me hopefully, I simply chuckled and jump down of him, landing with a thud on the aging sleepers.

“Aahh stop your whining!” I teased “just cos you can bear to be away from your ‘Lady’friend for more than a day!” I stuck my tongue out at the blue engine as his big white face quickly turned red and a blast of steam shot out from beneath him.

“Come on bro, you know how much of a big thing this is for me!” Thomas replied trying to get rid of his blush and sudden rise in steam pressure that seems to appear every time he even thinks about Lady. Of all the engines on Sodor he had to fall for the magical inter-dimensional one!

“Relax bro im only joking” I said allowing myself another small laugh, which only got me a annoyed stare from him “anyway, im sure she will be here soon, probably just getting slowed up by the portal, you know how buggered those things are nowadays” Thomas did know, after the defeat of Diesel 10 the magical buffers weren’t used very often so started to get a bit temperamental. “And to be honest, if she don’t turn up in the next couple of minutes” I said looking at my watch “we can just go in and look for her” Thomas seemed to except this and I gave small smile. I walked down to his Cab and jumped in to do some general checks and grab a drink. Since we were meant to be having a sort of camp out next to the portal with lady I had a tone of gear with me, being human sure can be a pain sometimes. I looked over Thomas controls, pressure gauge, water level, how much coals is on the fire etc. after making sure everything was in order I went into my laptop bag and pulled out, well what else, my laptop. I clambered down from the cab and wandered back over in front of Thomas “well” hauling myself back onto his buffer beam “might as well keep ourselves entertained while we wait!” Thomas smiled, that in turn making me smile, yeah that happens a lot. I opened the laptop and powered it up, quickly scrolling through my media files trying to find the right folder.

“I’ll never get my smoke box round computers and all this new tech-nol-ogy” Thomas interjected as I scrolled through folder after folder. It was true, Sodor wasn’t exactly keeping up with the world, never had and never will as far as I see it, but that’s what I love about this place. At last I found what I was looking for, the latest episode of MLP: FiM. Yep believe it or not me and Thomas are both casual bronys! As crazy as it sounds we have been following the show ever since the first episode, we aren’t exactly the hard-core bronys like the ones you’d find on YouTube, we just enjoy the show and fanfics. I got myself comfortable leaning my back on Thomas’s cheek and started the episode.

“That was pretty damn awesome” I said as the credits came to an end, Thomas simply smiled and whistled in agreement. I chuckled and shut down my laptop and set it beside me and yawned slightly.

“Well” Thomas started, beginning to realise, to his disappointment, Lady never came “looks like we got to go find her ourselves” I nodded, was very strange of her not to show. But, an adventure onto the magic railroad (hate calling it that, so American) was better than any camp out! I grabbed my laptop and put it back in its bag in Thomas’s cab.

“Right then” I said rubbing my hands together as it was now night time and getting rather chilly “let’s get ready to go” I secured all my luggage in the cab and went about helping Thomas raise some steam. Some energetic shovelling later we were ready to go. “Oki Doki” I leaned out the cab “you gona let me drive or what?” I asked hopefully. There was a pause while my blue companion considered this and then with what I was sure was a smirk replied.

“Nope!” and before I could get another word in, the reverser, brake and regulator all moved of their own accord and we shot off towards the old mangled buffers. After recovering from the sudden start, I simply grumbled at being refused living out my dreams, yet again, typical teenager. Thomas quickly gathered speed towards the buffers.

“You sure you remember how to do this?” I shouted looking through the cabs left porthole at the fast approaching magical portal.

“I think so!” Thomas shouted back, a mixture of apprehension and excitement in his voice. The sound of the little engine with his regulator full open was almost deafening but I loved it all the same. Wait… did he just say I think so?!

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU THIN…” I was cut off by the flash of rainbow coloured lights and the sound of a hard working steam engine plus… my own screaming.

Next Chapter: Chapter Two Estimated time remaining: 29 Minutes