//------------------------------//
// Chapter 15-We've Got the Light 
// Story: Thomas and Friends: a New Generation 
// by The Blue EM2 
//------------------------------//

The dust had settled before them. A massive amount of sand and rubble covered the ground where sandy beaches and beautiful scenery had once been. And buried underneath it all was Sunny. And Salty.

Porter sat there in shock, with no comment about the situation. But Izzy was quick to react. She jumped out of the cab and began clawing her way through the rubble, hurling small boulders aside and digging through sand to try and get through.

Zipp, Pipp, and Hitch arrived at the scene seconds later. "Izzy, what are you doing?" Hitch asked.

"What are you waiting for?" Izzy cried. "Get digging! Sunny's still alive out there, I know it!" She went back to trying to haul her way through the rubble.

Hitch looked back. "Get to town and order the cadets to send down the trucks," he said. "We need a crane to continue shifting this rubble."

Zipp and Pipp nodded, and sprinted into the distance as Izzy continued to frantically dig through. Hitch, having little else to do, joined in, equally desperate to save his friend.

A few minutes had passed, and they had made little progress. The chances of saving Sunny and Salty were dropping by the second, but still they dug their way through. Then, suddenly, they saw something.

"Can you see... light?" Hitch asked, pointing to one of the boulders.

There was. Something was glowing underneath the rubble.

"Could it be?" Izzy asked.

Seconds later, there was a blinding flash, and rocks and rubble were thrown high into the air as something erupted out of the blast zone. Hitch and Izzy shielded their eyes from the light, but when they cleared their view they looked on in amazement.

Hovering before them was Sunny. But she had undergone a surprising transformation since they had last seen her.

Her braid had come apart, and rainbow like hair ran atop her head. She seemed to glow with translucent energy, and two wings seemed to be attached to her shoulders.

"SUNNY! YOU'RE ALIVE!" Izzy squealed, who began to sob. But not with sadness. Tears of joy.

Sunny smiled. "Guess I got lucky." She turned, and with a surge of energy lifted more rubble free, revealing the damaged form of Salty. "Salty took the brunt of the impacts."

"I'm still functioning, if anybody's wondering," Salty said, as Sunny levitated him back onto the rails.

Sunny hovered up into the air, and reached out her arms. A series of golden streams shot forth from her body and thundered through the night sky as rainbows formed all around.

Argyle, who had been watching from above, looked on in awe. "Gold dust," he said. "We've done it. We've brought them back!"

Sunny, once her work was done, flew over as best she could to the nearby ground and touched down. Her new friends surrounded her as her wings vanished, and she sagged onto a bench. "Phew. Turns out powering down really does a number on you."

"But we did it!" Pipp cheered. "The magic is restored!"

"And the non-Faceless Vehicles will survive," Argyle added. "You did a great job out there, Sunny."





The next morning, work continued to rebuild Falmouth from the devastation of the previous day's battle. The terrain sounded to excavators and lorries removing large amounts of damaged soil and rock from the ground. And trains were helping to ship it away to where it was needed.

"We could make several sandpits with this!" Charles joked, as he and Sophie were attached to one such train.

"Pull sharp!" a Class 66 called. "We've got plenty more shipments where that came from!"

Hitch sat down next to Sunny, who was watching the sunrise. "Look," Hitch said. "I'm sorry for calling you a crackpot. Turns out I was the fool for not believing."

Sunny smiled. "It's OK, Hitch. I forgive you. Besides, friends don't agree on everything."

Nearby, Porter attached to the back of another set of trucks that needed to be taken to loading. "Right, where does this lot need to go?"

"We can deal with that in a moment!" Izzy called, as she secured him in place. She then walked over to where Sunny and Hitch were as Pipp and Zipp also joined them. "How you feeling, Sunny?"

"Better than yesterday," Sunny admitted. "Well, I guess this is goodbye." She stood up to face them. "Thanks for everything, guys. Without your help none of this would have been possible."

"Aww, we can't take all the credit!" Izzy said. "You did a great job bringing us together. It was you showing me kindness that inspired me to join you."

"The truth is," Zipp smiled, "a goodbye is never truly goodbye. Why consider this the end? We can still remain in contact with each other."

"There's a saying I picked up from one of my followers from Germany," Pipp said. "I think it's... wait, let me check." She whipped out her phone and scrolled through her messages. "Ah! Here we are! Auf wiedersehen. It's often used to mean goodbye, but it literally translates as 'until I see you again'. And since I hope we intend to meet again, I don't consider this goodbye. Instead, it's see you soon!"

"Of course," Sunny smiled, and she shook their hands in turn.

"You guys ready?" called the foreman. "The sand load needs to be moved to the empties can be put in the siding!"

"On our way!" Izzy called, and she ran to her engine whilst Pipp and Zipp went to theirs. With a roar and a rumble, the two diesel engines pulled away up the slope, with Porter snorting on the back.

"Good luck, Sunny!" Charles called. "May we meet again, under better circumstances, and as a team!"

Porter sighed. "Charles is talking about being a team. Must be in the fuel."

As this magnificent sight climbed out of Falmouth harbour, Sunny turned back to the water as the sun continued to rise. She smiled to herself. After all, things were good in the world.

And as a wise woman once wrote, tomorrow is another day.