The Polar Express: Dual Blade's Journey to the North Pole

by TwinSwords79

You're a Doubter!! // Arriving at The North Pole!

As the train was slowly turning on a snowy mountain, Conductor Shining led Dual and Virtus on the roof of the coal tender to lead them back to the passenger car. "Watch your step up here, it's pretty slick." Dual was walking down some small steps but he slipped on some ice and nearly fell off the train, Shining quickly grabbed him and put him back on his feet. "I told you to be careful, young stallion!"

"Sorry..." Dual replied as they kept walking.

"Ya know...years ago on my first day, I was on the roof making my rounds when I slipped on the ice myself. I grabbed a handrail but it broke off, I slid and fell but I never fell off this train." The train was now on a bridge, the sudden turn off the mountain made Virtus and Dual lose their balance slightly.

"Someone saved you?" Virtus asked.

"Or something..."

Dual and Virtus looked at each other, both of them thinking. "A guardian angel?"

"Maybe..." Shining climbed down a ladder from the tender so he was in front of a door to a car, Dual climbed down next along with Virtus. Before Shining opened the door Dual asked a question.

"Do you remember what he looked like?"

Conductor Shining shook his head. "No sir, I didn't see him, to begin with. Sometimes seeing is believing you two...but sometimes, the most real things in the world are the things we can't see..."

Conductor Shining opens up a green slide door to the car they were in front of and it was really dark in there, Shining used his lantern and puts his arm out with it, lighting the way. In the cars were a whole lot of toys, strings were tangled with marionettes in the ceiling, and broken up old dolls and puppets were put on the floor or on the old seats. In fact, without the toys, it would've just looked like a normal passenger car.

Shining sighed. "The old and abandoned...watch your step here...these poor toys have suffered enough. We got them from old alleys and abandoned buildings around the world..."

Dual looked at a few toys sitting on a seat, messing with a smashed up remote-controlled truck with a missing wheel. "What're they doing here?"

Shining shrugged. "It's a new idea the boss came up with...when we traveled and found these old toys...instead of throwing them away they're collected and put in here...he calls it...as a type of recycling."

Virtus picked up an old moldy wolf plush that had an eye missing and some dirty white stuffing coming out. "It makes me wanna cry...just seeing poor toys treated this way..."

"I know... it's sad..." Shining replied. "We collected lots of old toys and stuffed animals along with tangled up marionettes..."
As Shining kept talking and walking to the other side with Virtus, Dual got sidetracked and looked at an old Pinocchio marionette.

Virtus and Shining reached the sliding door and the wolf opened it up with a bit of a hard pull, she looked at Shining as he sighed again. "Sorry, that door jams up a bit..." Shining and Virtus got the blue door opened as the green sliding door closed with a bit of an echo as Dual was left alone in the abandoned toy car, Shining's lantern light also being gone.

Dual began to make his way to the door, passing by other marionettes before he heard a creak and something touching his shoulder.

He very slowly turned his head to look at what's going on as the thing that touched him, spoke to him. "You are just like me my friend..." as the colt turned around he saw that a puppet with pajamas and a nightcap on was actually talking to him. "A SCROOGE!!!!!"

Dual gave out a scared gasp at the yell and backed up a bit hitting some marionettes as the puppet continued to talk with a bit of a rough voice as the colt looked at him with a frightened look. "Ebenezer Scrooge...North Pole, Santa Claus, This train...is all a bunch of bullcrap!!! But you and I are definitely the same, boy....cuz I know what you are....you are a DOUBTER!!!!"

Dual screamed and ran away hitting puppets as he quickly pushed them out of the way, the puppet kept yelling. "YOU'RE A DOUBTER, YOU DON'T BELIEVE!!!!! YOU'RE A DOUBTER!!!! YOU DON'T BELIEVE IN NOTHING!!! NOTHIIIIIIING!!!!"

Dual found the sliding door and pulled it, but it was jammed. So he puts both of his hands on the handle and pulled as hard as he could with his adrenaline, successfully opening the door and closing it behind him, the puppet's laughs could still be heard echoing from the puppet car. The turquoise colt panted heavily, slightly giving out a tear cuz of how scared he was.

He opened up the blue door and made his way to the passenger car by opening up the next slide door. It closed behind him as he looked around, finally safe and sound in the passenger cars with the rest of the kids. "Dual Blade!!!"

The colt looked in front and saw it was Trixie who shouted his name, she got up from her seat and ran over to him. "Where've you been? Trixie hasn't seen you in here since you got Virtus' ticket back...you gave it back to her, right?"

Dual nodded. "Yeah, she's good...apparently she was in front of the train instead of the back."

"Huh, OK....but you missed the whole thing! We rode down really sharp mountains then we were on some kind of frozen lake, but Trixie said it was an illusion that was called by the moonlight and the atmosphere..." Dual looked behind Trixie and saw Virtus in the observation car through the door window. "Night said the train was actually on the ice....but Trixie said that was impossible...because there's no way you can build a train track underwater!"

Dual nodded. "That's cool Trixie...I gotta go..." The colt walked past Trixie and opened up the green sliding door on his way to the last car as The azure unicorn sighed.

"Where are you off to this time?!" Dual didn't answer her as the door slid closed behind him.

The colt opened up the door to the observation car and closed it, walking into the room as Virtus looked behind her after hearing the door close, seeing the 12-year-old colt. She beckoned her hand towards herself to signal Dual to come over where she was.

The colt listened and as he got closer he started to hear singing, Virtus putting a finger near her muzzle as another signal for Dual to stay quiet. The 12-year-olds looked and saw the lonely male wolf that Dual stopped the train for singing to the sky on the balcony as the wind calmly blew his hair around.

The 3 kids smiled as the wind kept blowing their hair peacefully, Virtus looked up and saw something. "Look!!"

Dual and the male wolf looked up and saw what she saw, beautiful lights in the sky consisting of red, green, blue, ultraviolet, infrared, yellow, and pink.

"What are those?" The male wolf asked.

"The Polar Lights!" Dual replied.

"Hey! You three!" The kids looked back and saw that it was Conductor Shining walking towards them. "We just crossed it...Lattitude 66 degrees the Arctic Circle...and look over there..." He pointed to something on the left side of the balcony bar. "You see those lights in the distance? They look like the lights of a strange ocean liner sailing on a frozen sea..."

He pointed again this time his finger stayed pointed. "There....is The North Pole!"

Dual looked up at the white stallion with a shocked expression. He then looked at Virtus who had a big smile on her face as she looked back at the colt.

Unbeknownst to Shining or the other kids, The 11-year-old male wolf went off the balcony and went back into the train with a bit of a sad expression.