Changes in the Wind - Part III: Gordon and the Extinct Ones

Chapter 7: Bargain

As the moon shone brightly. Papyrus finally ordered the engines to stop at last. He breathed heavily. "Excellent," he said, at last, "plenty of time to think of what to do next. Is everyone accounted for?"

The crew in his cab got down and began to count the engines. At last, they came back up to their engine. "We're missing four," said his driver.

"What?" said Papyrus, "who?"

"It looks like that H2 Atlantic, the T9, one of the LNER O2s," said the fireman, hesitant to say the last one for a brief period of time, "the other one is your brother though, Gordon."

Papyrus froze at this, and his brow furrowed. "That means we've lost their crews as well," he said, "at least what? Four of them as well? Leads us to eight missing in total."

"Yes," said the driver, "what shall we do?"

"What shall we do?" came a yell from behind the Pacific, "we go back for them!"

Hector came steaming up to Papyrus. "I thought we were meant to look after each other!" he growled, "but you all ran like cowards!"

"We took the chaos as an advantage," snapped Papyrus, "they most likely went off on their own. I did say if they did want to join us, they are allowed to leave."

"But they might not have!" snapped Hector, "they could've been caught! The Warclaws could have gotten to my brother! And yours too!"

"Even if that is the case," said Papyrus calmly, "we cannot simply go back, they would try and ambush us and kill us there."

"I refuse to leave my brother there!"

"WELL, YOU DID!" snapped Papyrus, "now shut up and follow me. There are no other options to keep your brother safe. He is either running to Thesang with Gordon and the other two or is captured or scrapped on sight. Go back if you want, but do not get me into this. Your brother chose to stay and you did not. Simple. As. That."

Hector went silent, his lips pursed, but his brow still low. "You cannot protect your brother any more than I can," snapped Papyrus, "so deal with it."

With that said, nothing came out of the O2's mouth. He just sat there, his eyes lowered to his buffers. Papyrus then puffed off, continuing to find another way to get to the engines. But Hector looked back up towards him, his face angered towards the Pacific and everyone surrounding him.

***

At last, Gordon came to a screeching stop, at a small station in the middle of the countryside with only a few small sidings. The night would be nearly ending soon, and they all would have to go and find a better hiding place than this station. The other three years all managed to catch up to the big engine at last. "You're fast," noted Eileen, trying to catch her breath, "just because you're a Pacific doesn't mean you have to show off."

"Better to be one and go ahead to scout if any Warclaws are nearby," replied Gordon briefly, "is this all four of us?"

"Yeah," cried Gregory, who was red in the face, "all of us, including the lads in the cabs."

Matt got out of the cab himself and walked up to Gordon on the platform, a few of the other crew members came up to him as well. "What now?" asked Matt, "we cannot just continue throughout the day, the diesels will see us clearly and we will eventually be caught by the Warclaws."

"I agree," said another member, "we need to draw a new plan on how to get there."

"There should be a map in the station," added another member, "we can use that to look at the available routes and then pick our yard to hide in."