The entire way to the Docks, the engines wondered who else might be there with them. If at the Docks, then perhaps they were typically seen by the docks. Perhaps Salty? Or how about Porter?

"Wow... It's even sadder being here now..." Henry whispered, giving a shiver. "I've never heard the Docks so quiet..."

"Other than those waves." James looked to the edge of the docks as a large wake crashed over the top, spilling foaming water across the rusting metal. "That storm's only getting worse."

"Don't worry, we'll be looking for shelter once everyone's accounted for." Boulder assured as he examined the glowing map again, "Hmm... The signal's still coming from here somewhere..."

"Hello!?" Emily called out, "Anyone here!?"

Thomas then jumped, as did the others, as they felt something pulse through them. Like a little electrical shock, it wasn't painful, but seemed to give them some sort of emotion with it... Surprise? Hope?

"Did anyone else feel that?" Edward whispered.

"A ping," Boulder informed, "It's like a response without words. But that means-"

"They heard us...!" Emily hissed, looking around more intently now. "Hello!? Where are you!?"

Another pulse came, and Boulder then pointed ahead of them, towards where the waves were crashing over the edge. "There!"
Boulder got to the edge first, and then dropped to his stomach and reached down. "Sweet Solus Prime... Hold on, I'll get you up here."

After a moment, Boulder pulled up, hands grasping tightly to a long, spindly arm. "Gordon, grab his other arm and help me pull him up!"

Gordon hesitated a moment, "Oh...! Can't someone else get down there in the dirt and-"

"NOW, GORDON!" Edward and Emily both shouted at the big blue engine.

"Oh...The indignity...!" Gordon grumbled under his breath, and then got down beside Boulder, reaching down.

After a few moments of straining and pulling, they were able to pull the wet, shaking form up and onto solid ground. Gray in color, with long, spindly legs as well, they sprawled out on the metal as they coughed and trembled, but then lifted their head from the ground and tried to sit up. "T-Thanks...!"

"Cranky!" Thomas exclaimed as he recognized the voice, hurrying over. "Are you okay?"

"Well gee, Thomas, do I look okay!?" Cranky snapped, but then sighed, lying down again. "S-Sorry... I was down there for a long time..."

"Just take it easy," Boulder murmured, "Hmm... Tower crane?"

Cranky huffed, "Nothing gets past you, huh...? Yeah, I was, and then I was like this and fell backwards into the harbor. Took me a while just to stand on that slippery sand down there and get as far as I did..."

"But that surf knocked the wind out of your sails." Boulder looked to the others, "That's nine... Seven steam, one diesel, and one tower crane... But why...?"

They all jumped as a loud clap of thunder shook the empty metal structures of the docks, and Boulder looked up to the looming clouds as droplets of rain began to splash down from the heavens. The clouds darkened the sky to almost the darkness of dusk, and the wind was getting colder by the minute. Few structures on the island would be in good enough condition to keep them safe from this storm... they needed to evacuate.

"What do we do?" James asked, "Rain and wind aren't exactly good for my paintwork."

The others rolled their eyes, and Cranky tried to sit up again, but the loud, creaking sound made them all wince.

"We need shelter and I want to make sure that you're all okay and there aren't any underlying problems..." Boulder's brows furrowed, "...Best bet would be to retreat to my island for the night."

"But... Sodor is our home." Percy peeped, "We can't leave it, even if it is like this."

"We'll be back Percy, I promise. It's just until the storm blows over and you're all back up to full strength."

The engines all looked to each other, "Okay..." Thomas hummed, "...but how are we gonna get to your island?"

Boulder smiled a bit, and his eyes glinted with a bit of golden color. "...With a little bit of magic..." He then tapped the side of his head, "Graham, this is Boulder, do you copy?... I need you to open a groundbridge back to the bunker for me, I'm bringing the other mosaics there for the night to get out of a storm that's coming in... understood."

"Who are you talking to?" Emily asked.

"It's a long story... But just hold on a second."

They waited, and then with a bright flash of light and a clicking sound, they saw a giant swirling disc of light in front of them, hovering in mid-air.

"Whoa...!" Thomas whispered with wide eyes, "What is that?"

"It's a magical portal that will take us back to my island. It's perfectly safe, I promise..." Boulder then helped Cranky to his feet, putting one of his arms over his shoulders. "Henry, a little help?"

Henry was much more eager to assist than Gordon had been, coming up on the other side. "Ready to go somewhere other than the docks, Cranky?" He asked.

The crane blinked with surprise, "Yeah... I guess so..." He mumbled.

"Good... Follow me, everyone."

The engines all followed them towards the portal, and then as they stepped through it, they found it wasn't just a disc. It was like the beginning of a mountain tunnel, stretching onward around them more and more until finally, it vanished, and Thomas looked out to find them now inside of a building, bright lights shining down from above. It was quiet, aside from the soft hum of the portal behind them, which then disappeared again once they were all through with another soft click.

"Wow..." Emily whispered, looking around.

They heard a chuckle, and looked down to see a man stepping away from a series of controls- the first human they'd seen all day. "Well, thanks for the compliment..."

"Everyone, this is Graham." Boulder introduced, "He's my partner."

"So he's like your driver or fireman?" Percy asked.

Boulder shrugged, "Something like that. Graham, these are the Sodorians: Thomas, Percy, Emily, James, Gordon, Edward, Henry, Diesel, and and Cranky. Seven steam engines, one diesel engine, and a tower crane from Sodor, nineteen-twenty-five."

"Nineteen-twenty-five!?" Graham's eyes widened and then smiled a bit. "Wow, you guys must be seeing a lot of new things, huh?"

"You have no idea..." Gordon muttered, and then they looked around a bit more. "What is this place...?"

"The Bunker." Graham explained, "It's an underground portion of the firehouse we live at where Boulder and others like yourselves can just hang out."

"This is a fire station?" The big blue engine groaned, "Wonderful... I suppose the alarm goes off all the time...!"

"Don't be rude." Edward hissed, looking back to the human. "Sorry about him."

Graham waved a hand in dismissal, "I'm used to grouches around here..." He then looked to Boulder, "I'm gonna head upstairs and let the others know about this."

"Thanks, hopefully we can be back out there shortly."

"Ooooh no." Graham pointed a finger at his partner, "You found the mosaics, now you need to get some sleep before you do anything. All of you."

"Graham-"

"Sleep now, investigation later."

Boulder crossed his arms, foot tapping on the floor, before he sighed. "...Deal."

Graham gave him a firm look, and then continued around the corner.

Attention then turned back to Cranky as his body creaked and groaned, his teeth clenched tightly in pain. Boulder rushed up to him, despite being only a little over half the crane's size, and grasped his torso with strong arms. "Easy, easy. Just move nice and slow there..."

The crane grimaced as Boulder helped him to get down to the floor, finally settling his head on the concrete with a sigh. "N-Normally I'd be quite concerned about being like this on the ground."

"Just take it easy..." Boulder motioned for all of them to take seats as well, "Just sit tight for a moment while I get the scanner."

They all obeyed and took seats, huddling in a circle. Thomas and Percy rested against each other, looking around the space they were in. They'd never been inside of someone's home before- excluding that one time Thomas accidentally busted through the wall of a station master's house. Everything was new and strange, but they were out of the wind and rain, they were safe, and it appeared that- at least for now- they had a host willing to take them in.

"Thomas..." Percy whispered.

"Yeah?"

"Do... Do you think the other engines miss us?"

Thomas wasn't sure exactly how to answer the question, and remained quiet for a while. "I... I hope so, Percy."

"Oh, the confusion and delay we must have caused..." Gordon mumbled, "...Sir Topham Hatt would be cross."

"Try not to think about it right now," Edward murmured, closing his eyes and giving a yawn. "...We'll find our way back to normal somehow, I'm sure of it..."

Thomas hoped the old engine was right.

____________________________________________________________

"Nineteen-Twenty-Five...!"
Graham was trying to wrap his mind around what he'd just been told. Steam engines from almost a hundred years ago? Suddenly here in the present and not engines anymore? He couldn't imagine what kind of mental turmoil they were all going under. Were they sentient engines back then too, or did they just now come to life but had some sort of residual memory of where they were from?

The engineer rubbed his temples as he rode the elevator back up to the house portion of the building; they'd seen a lot of things, but this was a completely new category of unusual.

As the doors opened, Graham tried to put on a normal-looking face for his family- they didn't need to know his mind was trying not to explode.

"Hey, Graham." Dani greeted, the rest of the family seated at the dinner table. "You were down in the bunker for a bit, everything alright?"

"I... Uh..."
Graham never had been one to play it cool when he was flustered, and his family knew it as he adjusted his glasses and- despite clearing his throat several times- couldn't make any clear sentences. "It's... ummm...!"

"Graham...?" Kade stood up, "What's wrong? Is it Heatwave?"

"N-No! No no no, Heatwave's fine!" Graham reassured, "I-I mean, he's still out of it, but other than that-"

"So then what's wrong?" Chief Burns sat up a little straighter in the chair.

Graham swallowed, fingers folding together and apart slowly. "It's uh... Boulder and I, we may have..." He took a deep breath and then it came out all at once. "There's nine more mosaics from nineteen-twenty-five down in the bunker and they're gonna be staying the night while we try to figure out what to do. I mean yeah, we didn't ask you if it was okay to bring them in, but we couldn't just leave them out there all on their own! We-"

"Whoa whoa whoa whoa!" Kade waved his hands, "...Rrrrrrun that by me again?"

Graham shuffled over to the table and sat down, his fingers still twiddling. "So, um... Boulder and I were working on getting the scanner up and running so we could find Chase's signal, right? And then it gave off a ping that it had found something, so we went to check and it had nine mosaic energy signals pinging up from an island off the coast of England. So Boulder went to go and see what was going on, while I stayed here to run the groundbridge... and just now, he came back with all nine of these new mosaics, who are presently still down in the bunker."

"Okay..." Chief Burns murmured slowly, "...So what was that about nineteen-twenty-five?"

"So apparently these nine mosaics were from the year nineteen-twenty-five, and prior to arriving here were not cybertronian- I'm not really sure if they're cybertronian now either, but rather something similar- but they said they used to be steam engines."

"Trains." Priscilla blinked, "We've got nine trains hiding out in our basement."

"Uh... Yeah."

"Are they friendly at least?" Dani asked.

"They seem pretty friendly, albeit very, very, confused about everything."

"Hmph." Kade huffed, "If they were ordinary trains and then suddenly are alive and a hundred years in the future, I'm not surprised."

"Mmm... Anyways, there was a massive storm blowing in, so Boulder brought them here for the night until it blows over and then they'll head back out to try and get some more answers. Boulder was getting them settled for the night before he was gonna go rest himself."

"Geez," Priscilla looked over her foster family, "I knew you guys led weirder lives than even everyone else on the island, but-"

Graham plopped his head down on the tabletop, "It didn't used to be this crazy..." He mumbled into the wood, "Heatwave's still in a coma, Chase and Cody are still missing, Blades is gone to get his head together, and now..."

Chief Burns leaned over and rubbed his second son's back with a hand, "It'll be okay, Graham... We've been through long weeks before."

Graham rolled his head to the side so he could look at his father, "You sure...?"

Chief Burns smiled, "Yes... I know it'll be okay in the end."

The table was quiet once more, the Burnses and Priscilla all letting the newest information on their situation settle. So many things had happened... and so little had been resolved.