(a.n. So, hello ladies and gentlemen. It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these so I decided that i'd rewrite the fourth chapter of the third volume of Penguin Man to see if I can get back to writing these on a semi often basis. So yeah. Let’s see what I can do now that my mind has matured a bit and my writing style has improved, probably. Anyway, now that this author's note that is more worthy of an essay paragraph is done - let’s see how it pans out, shall we?)

Chapter 4

I woke up in my bed at the ice palace or at least that’s where I assumed I was, considering I was in a room made of thickly packed ice with a really cold draft in it. Though I don't know where said draft came from as the door was closed and there were no windows to my knowledge. I got up and got dressed in an ice blue shirt that was more tunic than shirt, some sky blue pants of an unknown fabric, and a soft and warm cloak that looked like it was made from snowflakes. I went out of my room to try to find the kitchen or dining room. The key word here is try, as I got hopelessly lost. I finally got to the dining room after I climbed the same tower fifteen different times - not an exaggeration. I sat down at the end of the table and waited for something to happen.

When something happened it was a hour and a half after I got to the hall. Charles came in half out of breath and the following conversation ensues:

Charles said “Hey.”

I replied, “Hello.”

Charles said, “This place has more hallways than the moon has craters.”

I said, “No kidding!”

I then asked, “Where is dad?”

Charles said, “I don’t know. I knocked on the door to the room he said he was sleeping in but there was no answer.”

“You think he’s sleeping in?” I wondered

Our dad chose that time to step out of the shadows and yell -  “BOO!” -scaring the ever living day lights out of the both of us and making me accidentally turn into a baby penguin out of nowhere. When they were both done laughing at my predicament, Dad told me how to turn back. When I asked why I turned into a penguin he said, “Since we are both dragons and gods, in a sense we are able to shift our forms to our whims. As an example I could be a ten year old female three toed sloth. Or I could go into my full draconian form and be a giant dragon the size of fifteen empire state buildings or larger.”

This was interesting news. If I had known that I would have just turned into a mouse or something when I was trying to get Charles to believe me yesterday. I then asked why he was lurking in the shadows and he said that he had been there before I had gotten there. As to how he had gotten there, he used one of the many techniques he apparently knows to enhance his speed and he ran around until he found the dining hall and then used his magic to cloak himself in the shadows  that where all around the room.

This was interesting to hear about seeing as the only things I had seen that was magical were the portal I had opened and the time I had frozen a police officer in a block of ice. Curious I asked about magic and he told me that he would show us some after we had breakfast.

Speaking of; by that time a few servants came and placed a plethora of food, such as bacon and eggs, among other more exotic foods. It’s not every day you see a roasted chicken that was five feet tall and 3 feet wide.

When we were finished eating dad opened up a small portal made out of a shadow like substance and on the other side of it was a training room the size of a football stadium. It was very hard to take it all in as we went to the center of the training room. On one side there were dummy’s for sword practice and on the other there were targets for archery practice. When we got to the center after five minutes of walking our dad turned to us and said “ Okay. Here I shall go over a few things such as how to control your elemental magic properly and to explain the basic fundamentals of it. I shall also demonstrate a few of my abilities such as my own elemental manipulation.”

He then said “ everything throughout the different dimensions has the potential to use magic either as a source of power or as a tool for their everyday tasks. Though only few gain the ability to use magic due to certain rules set by the creator gods when they made their respective dimensions. The ways a human can gain access to magic are numerous; either from great traumatic distress, or accidentally unlocking the ability while doing strenuous training, or by meditating on the traits that make up their personality. They can usually use magic by having a staff or a stave with some exceptions depending on the dimension. Though for us dragons and gods, it's quite a bit different. A dragon may wake his or her magic when they come of age which in dragon terms is about a hundred years of age. Now this may seem a bit long to you both who have lived with the time that is normal to humans, but to dragons a hundred years is like eighteen years to a human. The type of magic dragons can use in any form is depended on the type of dragon that they are. Such as you Kiwi (quick a.n. is you don’t remember penguins man’s name is Kiwi). You are an ice type dragon, so therefore, in order to use your ice you have a high elemental affinity to water and air magic. Whereas Charles has a high affinity to earth. All dragons have a relatively high affinity to fire though for some it is less so. I am somewhat special among dragons because I have affinity for every element, though my main and most powerful affinities are darkness, then fire, followed closely by lightning. Then comes light and wind and finally earth with water being my weakest affinity. As far as I know, only a few people have had affinity’s for darkness and light magics with only one other having an affinity for both, and he has not been around since the first dimension was created - way before I was born. Now for gods such as our family, we have our own type of magic and those types of magic correlate to the titles that we gain throughout our immortal lives ,either through some action or our heritage.”

(He then looks off into the distance and whispers something I think it was “though I won’t reveal my titles due to plot reasons.” He then winked at something that I couldn’t see.)

He then went on to give us some exercises to better enhance our control over our abilities. By the time lunch rolled around, I could make a sword out of ice with a few blades of ice and freeze what could be considered an entire New York City block in a block of ice that would stand for one hundred years. Charles could make spikes out of earth and stone and could have an entire platform of dirt float up into the air so that he could ride on it.

We went through another portal that our Dad made and we went back to the dining hall so that we could eat our lunch. Once we had eaten our fill of a twenty slice pizza with all of the toppings (and I mean all) we went back to the training room that looked more like an arena. Our Dad told us that he was going to teach us how to shift into our draconian forms. To demonstrate he became engulfed in shadows which grew bigger and bigger until he was the size of an apartment building. And when the shadows dispersed in our Dad's place, there was a pitch black dragon with the wingspan of a B-47. His eyes where slits like a serpent and his irises had a molten fiery look that seemed to move, also his eyes were like a ravens' feathers when the sun hits it. If I’m being honest I may or may not have pee'd my pants a little at the rather terrifying visage that was my father’s face. He had a horn-like protrusion from the back of his head and his teeth were sharp as a newly made scythe. I think Charles fainted in fright but I wasn’t paying too much attention to him at the moment.

When our dad turned back into his human form, he told us that we will learn how to transform into our draconian forms and the different hybrid forms that are possible. When we were done learning, he told us that he would be holding a council meeting with the rest of the family tomorrow to introduce us to the others. He also suggested we drop by Charles part of the dragon dimension to get his bo staff and for him to get some new clothing as he had been wearing the same clothing since yesterday.

And with that, we returned to the dining hall and ate a rather uneventful dinner; if you don’t count the several bowls of mac and cheese with ham and fried onions our Dad had. Then once we were finished, we all retired to our rooms with me going through a portal made of ice that I had learned to make earlier that day. The same went for dad and Charles except they made portals of their respective elements.

When I got to my room I got dressed into some pj's and went to bed. I fell asleep once my head hit the pillow, and drifted into the world of dreams.

End of chapter 4

Ending authors note: Well. That was really fun to write and I certainly hope you enjoyed it as much as I did writing it. 

Just a quick disclaimer. Some of this story will have certain elements that may belong in things like video games or TV shows or books. Seeing as this part of Kiwi's adventures as Penguin Man is heavily based in my imagination, with my imagination character the one who I control, and is like the character a player controls in a game. Most of my imagination character techniques can be based off of stuff from other works but that doesn’t mean that I won’t have stuff of my own in this. Some of you that may or may not be reading this may not recognize the stuff that I made up and stuff from another book or a game. Things like the concept of the creator gods I eluded to in this chapter and the different dimensions  are all my ideas. If you see something that you don’t recognize just look it up in whatever browser you have and if nothing comes up for it, then it is probably mine. But, if I use a thing called the Chidori in this, that is from the TV show/manga series Naruto. Now as for my imagination character - think of him  as a mix between Deadpool and Alucard from the abridged version of Hellsing Ultimate. As referenced by the little fourth wall break I had in this story, you can tell that William (Dad in this story) is aware that he is in a book right now and that he is being read by you. I’ll go into greater length about my creation in a later chapter. Heck, maybe if I feel like it after I finish this I’ll write a short story about him. Though if I do, I won’t add certain things in from my imagination because it would take too long to explain. Now, I believe that I have been rambling on long enough so I shall be taking my leave now.

Til’ next time.

TO BE CONTINUED.

Arrivederci.

William