It was a bright winter morning in Falmouth, and although the temperatures were already beginning to drop quite dramatically from their summer peak, the population was overall cheerful. The community was building towards Christmas already, and several members of the community who were expatriate Americans were already preparing for the upcoming holiday of Thanksgiving.
To this end, the Havens had come down to Falmouth to visit over the Thanksgiving season. Their engines had been a welcome addition to helping to relieve the workload that was starting to build up. The dockside was especially busy, with all the cargo that was arriving from all across the world.
Salty was especially hard at work on the harbourside. "I'm not one to complain!" he said. "But I have no idea whether we're coming or going!"
"This is an unusually high level of traffic," Sunny conceeded. "Much higher than last year, as a matter of fact. But I don't mind. Given we have magic back and our friends, what can possibly go wrong?"
"Hey Sunny!" Zipp called. "Me and some of the guys will be shooting hoops after work. You wanna come along?"
"Sounds fun!" Sunny said. "Izzy did show us how to play some new tricks, after all!"
Porter rumbled in with some loaded fish vans from the other side of the harbour. "Who ordered this smelly fish?" he asked.
"The fishmonger?" Izzy suggested.
"Apart from the obvious. I mean, who eats fish at Thanksgiving?"
"Given that they're forecasting another nationwide turkey shortage, some people might."
Salty glanced over. "I wasn't aware any people here celebrated Thanksgiving until more recently. I know some of the US Army engines stationed over here mentioned it, but otherwise it was very much a custom other countries did."
Just then, Rebecca arrived with a parcels train, filled with letters bound for the ships far away. "Look at all these letters!" she said. "They sure do have faith in their postal system, posting their Thanksgiving letters this late!"
"At least they're not sending the letters via E-mail," Hitch pointed out. "Otherwise postal workers would have less to do."
On the other side of town, Rocky the crane, freshly restored after being recovered from a quarry in Yorkshire, was helping to lift a huge statue into place. "Heave ho!" he called. "Time to lift!"
Goldie adjusted the controls as the huge object was lifted into place. "They'd have needed to hire a crane in to lift this," she smiled. "And here we are doing it ourselves. Just goes to show that old tech still has a place in the modern world."
"What about Harvey?" a construction workers offered.
"I don't think he's actually got the weight for this task," Goldie pointed out.
"I see. It's just that we haven't seen him for ages, that's all."
Goldie nodded. "His boiler tubes were wearing a bit thin, so he's been sent to Swindon to have them changed."
At the engine shed, Pipp was just signing on for the day, and as ever was streaming her daily life to her followers. "Good morning Pippsqueaks!" she said, with a cheerful smile. "Even though it may be winter, there's no reason to not be happy and look great at the same time!" She indicated to her winter coat. "Always make sure to have your coat with you. You'd hardly want to turn into an ice cube out here!"
"Pipp?" said the yard foreman. "We've got a shipment of empty ballast hoppers that needs moving from here to Lighthouse Quarry. There's no other engine available, so could you and Sophie do it!"
"Sure!" Pipp replied. "OK, love you lots, Pippsqueaks, gotta go! Pipp Pipp Hooray!"
"Pipp Pipp Hooray!" came the assembled reply.
A few minutes later, the short freight was ready to go. Pipp checked the brake hoses, and sure enough they were good to move off. The line down to Lighthouse Quarry was short but steep, so they'd taken the precaution to pin down brakes. The train slowly rolled forward onto the grade.
Before suddenly speed began to increase uncontrollably. Pipp increased breaking force, but that did little good. The speedometer dial simply continued to rise. "Sophie, what's going on?" she called.
There was no reply.
"Sophie? SOPHIE?!"
The freight was now doing at least three times the speed limit. Pipp faught in vain to get the speed back under control, but the controls seemed to be fighting her all the way. They rocketed through the tunnel past the lighthouse with the trucks bouncing along behind them. Pipp noticed there was no cheering or screeching from the trucks either, which was very strange.
Suddenly, the brakes kicked back into life, and Pipp slammed them into emergency. They skidded to a stop in the siding, with only a few inches to speare before hitting the headshunt.
Pipp shook her head, needing a few moments to compose herself before climbing out of the cab. "What just happened?" she asked.
Sophie looked confused. "What am I doing in Lighthouse Quarry?" she asked. "I was in the yard at the Docks a second ago?"
"We brought this train down the hill, remember?" Pipp said.
"No. I don't recall the grade at all."
In town, a similar conversation was being had. "You nearly dropped that thing on me with your clumsy great crane!" Posey Bloom shouted at Goldie.
Goldie looked back, surprised. "I have no idea what happened!" she said. "One second all was fine, the next the cables snapped. Is that right, Rocky?"
Rocky looked equally bewildered. "I don't know. One moment I was moving the object into position, the next this woman is shouting at me."
Sunny happened to be walking past. "I noticed the same thing in the yard," she said. "For a brief period, the engines became very difficult to control, and there was nothing being said by them. Almost as if- they had lost the ability to speak."
Zipp had arrived as well by that point. "What if it's something to do with the crystals?" she suggested.
Sunny sent a text, informing all of her friends to meet at the lighthouse.
Pipp had needed a moment to catch her breath after that excitement. The loading of the hoppers would take a while, so she had some time to chill. As she looked around the topography of the quarry, she noticed a cave at the bottom. But this cave wasn't like other caves. It was seemingly a glowing cave, as some sort of energy came out of it.
"Maybe I should check this out," she said to herself. Having secured Sophie in position, she trooped over to the entrance and stepped inside.
The cave interior had a river running through it, but that didn't reduce the beauty one bit. Glowing rock formations and bright crystals gleamed in the darkness, lit seemingly by nothing but themselves. The roof stretched high into the sky, and there was a bit of dripping water from the roof.
"I'm glad I decided to wear winter clothes today," Pipp joked to herself. "Imagine getting this on my dress!"
It was after a short walk into the tunnel before her she reached something remarkable. She then took out her phone and sent a text message.
Found something incredible.😮 Come sharpish?💛
"They're gone!" Sunny shouted.
"What's gone?" Argyle asked.
"The crystals! Somebody's stolen them!"
Moments later, the lift arrived, and the others began to arrive. As the lift could only carry one person at a time, getting into and out of the lamp room took a long time.
Once they were all assembled, they took a close look at the problem. The chamber where the Crystals usually sat had been opened. And one of the crystals had been removed.
"Oh no!" Izzy said. "Who could have stolen them?"
"A thief?" Hitch suggested.
"We'll need something a bit more specific than that," Sunny replied.
Misty glanced about. "What is half this stuff?" she asked.
"Equipment from when the lighthouse was taken out of service," Argyle explained. "The lighthouse beam is still fully functional, but when we want to operate it we need to move the Crystal chamber out of the way to avoid blocking the light."
Sunny spotted the lock on the ground and bent down. "Zipp, could you take a look at this for me?" she asked. "You're the detective."
Zipp bent down and dropped her goggles into position to scan it. "This lock was picked," she said. "Whomever did this had some pretty sophisticated equipment to work with. This was a professional thief."
Sunny stood up. "We have to find those Crystals," she said. "They not only power the magic and symbolise our unity, but they also give the engines their sentience. We only just got them back, and we can't lose them again." She continued. "We were able to bring them back together before against the odds, so we should be able to do it again!"
"How do we know where they are?" Hitch asked. "It was enough of a trip last time to find them, and that was using your dad's notes. How do we know where they are this time? They could be anywhere!"
Misty glanced over. "And how do we stop everybody from panicking? Somebody nearly got squashed by Rockey's statue, and one of the trams nearly ran somebody over!"
Sunny put a hand to her chin. "We need to dig deeper in here, in the crime scene," she said.
Zipp glanced up, having inexplicably gained a deerstalker in the meantime. "Conventional forensics won't work as we've all been in here a fair bit, so the objects are covered in our fingerprints. But a criminal is never able to leave a crime scene exactly as they found it. So all we need to do is find something other than the obvious that's out of place."
"Nice hat, Zipp!" Izzy said. "Where'd you get it from?"
"Every detective has a deerstalker on hand," Zipp smiled.
Argyle glanced around. "You are aware that Sherlock Holmes is never described as wearing a deerstalker, right? That was added for the illustrations."
"Elementary, my dear Argyle," Zipp replied. "Now let's look for clues."
Argyle sighed. "He never said that either..."
They took to searching the upper levels together, before Zipp suddenly spotted something. "Sunny, this is an overspill bookcase, right?" she said.
"That's correct," Sunny replied. "Have you found something?"
Izzy glanced down as well. "Is there normally a huge gap in it?"
"No," Sunny said. "These were always arranged in alphabetical order. And one of the books starting with S has been taken!"
Suddenly, Zipp's phone buzzed, and she took it out. "Text from Pipp," she said. "I was wondering where she'd gotten to. Found something incredible shocked face. Come sharpish heart emogi?"
"What's the incredible shocked face?" Hitch asked. "Sounds like an off-brand superhero."
Zipp texted back and waited for a reply. "It's in the caves near Lighthouse Quarry. Let's go take a look!"
"Whoa," was all Misty could say. In front of them was a giant glowing door, which glowed with incredible blue energy.
Sunny looked on in amazement. "I've heard legends of the glowing doors," she said. "Apparently, back in the time when the Gold Dust was young, a network of tunnels and corridors was created beneath the world. They could be accessed by the glowing doors, which would take you wherever you needed to go."
"It was giving off rainbows a few minutes ago!" Pipp said, and showed them a video clip.
"What I'm more surprised by is that you got a signal out here," Zipp noted. "Phone signal is usually awful underground."
Suddenly, the portal began to shake, and a wind started up. "What's happening?" Izzy asked.
The wind began to build even more. With a flash and a bang, the door opened, and they were all sucked through the portal despite their best efforts to hold on. After they were inside, the door closed behind them.
If you had been in the viscinity of a rural village on an English island that day, you would have seen a blue light suddenly stream out of the ground. This same light would have suddenly ejected a group of children out of the ground and caused them to land on the ground nearby.
They groaned as they got up. "That was a rough ride," Hitch groaned.
Izzy pushed herself up from the floor. "The floor is made of floor!" she exclaimed.
Misty groaned as well. "Ow. That did a number on me as well. Is that normal?"
Zipp tried to move, but something was preventing her from getting up. "Pipp, you're sitting on my legs. Could you please get off?"
Pipp sat up. "Oopsie! But at least I wasn't right on top of you like last time!"
"Yeah. That was quite a weight there. Perhaps fewer granola bar promos?"
Pipp pouted. "Shut up! It's not funny!"
Zipp snorted. "Wheel wheel wheel! Seems like somit slippit auf!"
Pipp shook her head. "I hope that wasn't important information as I didn't understand a word. Let's just hope we have signal out here."
Sunny glanced about. "Slightly more importantly, where are we?"
Hitch looked about him. "I don't know. It looks quite rural, but other than that I don't know. Let's go look around."
Izzy spotted something. "There's a station over there!"
The six of them ran over to the station, and walked onto the platform. Sunny looked at the running board, and read the name out loud. "Ffarquhar... Guys, do you know what this means?"
"No," Hitch replied.
Sunny jumped forward and hugged him. "WE'RE ON SODOR! See, I told you it was real!"
"Sodor appears on OS Maps," Hitch pointed out. "It's a bit hard to dispute the existance of a landmass."
"Guys, I don't mean to interrupt," Misty said, "but there's a train coming."
There was a train coming. And it was coming very, very fast.
"Help! Help! I can't stop!"