Shadow Guy (Story)

✅

Synopsis
Sam, a reporter, has a fateful visit to Gary the Gadget Guy, which gives him superpowers. Over the course of a few days, Sam has to decide between his life as a reporter or one as a superhero, and slowly learn what it truly means to be a hero.

Story
Our story begins with Sam, the reporter, preparing for an important interview. He puts on his hat, his coat, loads up his camera with fresh film, sticks a notepad with a pen in one of his pockets, and leaves his igloo. He hurries around Club Penguin, and to the Sports Shop, where he pulls back one of the curtains to a changing room to be met with a steel wall with a scanner on it. Sam shows his ID card to the scanner and, after an eye scan, opens up all the doors and lets him in.

Sam steps into the cold, unheated room he is presented with. There are two doors, one security camera, and a single monitor showing exactly what the camera is seeing. After it looks at Sam for a good few seconds, a pair of horizontal double doors on the wall to the right of him opens up, granting him access to the Gadget Room. Sam enters here too without a second thought. He was told to get in, do the interview, and get out. As he ignores the various brainchildren around him, he notices sparks flying from a nearby table out of the corner of his eye. He approaches them. “Hello, Gary”, Sam says, looking upon Gary the Gadget Guy working on what looks to be his newest, and frankly most impractical, invention. “You must be Sam”, Gary replies as he turns around. “Nice to meet you”, Sam says back as they shake flippers, and proceeds to asks him about just what it is Gary is working on.

“This, my friend, is the Toaster 3000!” Gary says. “It is the toaster of the future! It produces the best, crispiest, the sweetest smelling, and most perfectly toasted toast in the history of the island!” “What’s so special about a giant toaster?” Sam asks. “Most penguins would rather just buy a normal toaster that’s easier to carry around.”

“But can a normal toaster also play games with you?” Gary asks back as the Toaster 3000 produces a chess board. “Checkmate” Gary says as he moves a single piece on it. “It also can feed you if you like that sort of thing” Gary says, as the machine demonstrates its ability to Sam by shoving a cookie in his mouth and forcing milk down his throat.

“…Gary, how long have you been working on this fever dream?”

“A whole week with no sleep!” Gary replies, unfittingly cheerfully.

As Sam steps forward to take a picture of it, a spare roll of film falls out of one of the pockets on his coat, and he slips on it, causing him to fall down, and for the resulting vibrations to knock the coffee mug on Gary’s desk over. The resulting spill makes its way to the Toaster 3000 and causes it to short-circuit.

“Sam, what have you done?! That was my greatest creation yet!” The sleep deprived Gary scolds, as bolts of electricity fly from the toaster. “You just wasted a whole week’s worth of sweat, blood, and tears! Why, I ought to kick you out of this lab right now!” As Gary explodes, so does the Toaster, sending bolts everywhere. One happens to fly right at Gary. “GARY, LOOK OUT!” Sam shouts, before pushing him out of the way and taking the bolt himself. Sam screams in pain as the Toaster 3000 toasts its final object; him.

By the time it is over, Sam can barely stand up anymore. It’s only with Gary’s aid that he can do so. “I am so sorry, both for yelling at you and for the shocking.” Gary says. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah, I’ll be fine. I should probably go see a doctor about this…”

“That would mean cancelling your interview. Are you sure?”

“I’m sure. Besides, I’ve already had enough time with you already.”

“Now, what’s that supposed to mean?”

“Get some sleep, Gary.”

Sam walks toward the Gadget Room’s doors, expecting them to fly open automatically like they did before, but is surprised when he walks not just into the door, but ONTO the door as well. “Oof!” Sam says. It seems that not only is he now on the door, but he has completely become the color of a shadow. “What’s happened to me? Why can’t I leave? Did I somehow get taller?” He asks that last question because now that he is on the door, he is positioned a few feet above the ground. “Sam, you might not believe me when I say this, but you look like a ghost.” Gary says.

“A ghost?! You mean that shock killed me?!”

“Not exactly. I said you only look like a ghost, not that you are one.” Gary cleans his glasses.

“Then what am I?” Sam asks, waving his flippers.

Gary looks at him a while before responding. “Judging by your appearance and movements, you look just like a shadow. Could it be possible that you’ve been turned into one?”

“It can’t be, that’s impossible.”

“Then explain your predicament to me.”

“…”

“That’s what I thought. Now, Sam, if it isn’t too much trouble, I’d like you to stay here for a few days and research your condition. I have plenty of food to go around, considering how much I keep myself cooped up in here.”

“I wouldn’t mind, but my boss probably would.”

“I’ll just let her know I want to extend the interview, and that it will take much longer than expected.

“You sure she’ll buy that?”

“It’s logical.”

“Okay then. Now, there’s one more thing I’d like to know.”

“What is it, Sam?”

“How do I get off these doors?”

After a few days of testing, Gary finds his conclusion. “Absolutely astonishing!” he says, going over the results. “You seem to have absorbed some ultraviolet light spectrometers, and they’ve granted you the ability to not only become your own shadow, but take control of it as well!”

“How does it work?” Sam asks, in his shadow state.

“Look, I just did the research, and I’m not explaining how all that works.”

“So, the writer got lazy?”

“Yeah, he wants the plot to start actually going somewhere soon.”

“Okay, let’s get back in character.” Sam says, disregarding the fourth wall again.

Sam starts straining himself as he morphs back into a penguin. He still hasn’t fully mastered it. “May I go now? I don’t think my boss is going to let my stay much longer…” Sam says. Gary says “Of course! Just make sure to not use your newfound powers in public; they could frighten other penguins.” As soon as Gary said that, all sorts of ideas popped into Sam’s head, but he, for the moment, decides to ignore them. They do seem like fun, though, and he could use some livelihood in his boring job. Well, livelihood that doesn’t mean he’s stuck in a small room for days. “Now, if you’ll need me, I’ll be in a coma for the next fortnight.”

Sam leaves the Gadget Room, normally this time, and heads back to the Sport Shop and outside. He managed to get that interview after all, as he talked with Gary during breaks. With a clear mind, he goes back to his boss. Meanwhile, in the Gadget Room, a microchip from the Toaster 3000 vibrates itself close enough to the remains of one of the Toaster’s arms. It sends a jolt at its exposed wires, and gets the arm moving again. The arm picks up some small pieces and starts to reassemble itself…

“Sam, I hope you have that interview.” Aunt Arctic, head of Club Penguin Times says. She does not look pleased in the slightest. Sam, looking smug, goes up to her and plants his notepad full of interview on her desk. She takes the notepad without another thought and says “My, this is quite the write-up!” after looking over it briefly. “Yeah, I put a lot of time into it. Now, I was thinking about a rai-” before he can finish himself, his hand turns into a shadow and gets stuck on the top of the desk. Sam desperately tries to pull his hand up and ends up falling on his rear when it finally becomes normal again.

“What was that?!” Aunt Arctic says, shocked. Sam nonchalantly replies “Oh, I just had some gum on my flipper”, and he awkwardly fakes pulling gum off of it, putting it in his mouth, and chewing it. ‘Right.” She says, obviously not quite believing it. “I suppose you can rest for a bit. You’ve been through a lot, haven’t you?”

“Oh, you don’t know the half of it.” He mumbles quietly, as he leaves.

When Sam returns to his igloo, he hangs up his hat and coat and sits down on the floor. It’s time for him to practice. He begins by straining himself again, but he only is able to transform the top of his head into a shadow state before he’s all worn out, and what little of him he did transform revert back to normal. “There has to be an easier way” He thinks, before straining himself even harder, and getting to his beak. By now, the straining is becoming physically painful to him, and he can’t keep it up.

Instead, remembering what happened at Aunt Arctic’s office, takes a deep breath and calms himself down. He then only needs to use a little effort and lets the transformation mostly complete itself. Soon where the normal Sam once stood is now occupied by his shadow. He takes another deep breath and again uses little effort to turn himself back to a normal penguin. Satisfied with his progress, he gets in his bed and goes to sleep.

The next morning, he wakes up. Big surprise. Only after he slides onto the side of his bed and directly onto the floor does he realize he turned into a shadow in his sleep. He takes a deep breath and returns himself to normal, just as he did the night before. Looks like he still has some training in control to do.

After his morning routine, he steps outside and heads to the Plaza to enjoy his Saturday. When he passes by the Pizza Parlor, he notices a poster on the door that’s advertising a new and improved pizza dough recipe coming soon. He thinks to himself, “I should try a slice of that when it’s finished", and continues to the stage. The play that’s currently showing is ‘The Twelfth Fish’, one of Sam’s favorites. He’s quite fond of plays.

He gets his ticket punched by the green penguin in the booth, wearing a raggedy hat with what appear to be some clocks strapped onto it. He settles into his seat in the back and waits for the play to begin. Unfortunately, after a good ten minutes, the play hasn’t even started, and penguins start to leave or go and try to get refunds from the front desk. Sam decides instead to go backstage to see what the trouble is. He overhears one of the actors say “So we’re just going to have a play about a fish without anybody to play a fish?” and the play’s director reply back “We’ll have to, unless our actor bursts in through the doors suddenly healthy again.”

Sam considers getting a refund himself for a few seconds, but then an idea hits him. He takes a deep breath and turns into a shadow, clothes and all, and sneaks into the room by slithering across the walls. Once inside, he gets off the wall and finds the costume rack. Thanks to the abundance of lights in a stage, he’s quickly able to locate the fish costume’s shadow. “Here goes” he thinks, as he grabs the fish costume’s shadow and merges with it, not knowing just what will happen. Fortunately, the results are highly beneficial, as not only did he become slightly bigger but he now also has the appearance of a fish! He then reveals himself to the actors by “swimming” across the floor very noticeably.

“What is that?” One of them cries “It looks like a fish to me” Another says. “Perhaps someone’s making shadow puppets?” a third replies. The play director, ecstatic, says loudly “Whoever is making these shadow puppets, would you like to help us with our play?” What none of them expect is for the fish itself to respond with a “Yes.”

Surprisingly, the play went quite well with the shadow fish. The next week’s Club Penguin Times had the event on its headline. Unfortunately, of the penguins that were interviewed on the performance, nobody could bring up a single account of the play or the happenings behind the scenes that lined up even remotely with someone else’s story. Good thing there was a reporter there…

Despite the unusual occurrence, the next day goes on without a hitch, but everything changes the next day when Gary finally wakes up. He gets himself some good caffeine and gets ready to clean up the mess left by the Toaster 3000 only to discover that it’s completely missing. He scrambles all over the Gadget Room desperately searching for any trace of it, but to no avail. “A thief must’ve stolen it.” He muses out loud. “Oh well, nothing else is missing, and what can one do with a pile of broken rubbish? Guess I’ll get to work on tightening security today.”

The day after that, something else interesting happens; an attempted robbery at the Gift Shop! Three penguins in robber costumes kick the door open. “PUT YOUR FLIPPERS UP, THIS IS A ROBBERY!” one says while his goons hold snowballs, ready to launch them any time. All the customers in the store, unwilling to get snow on their new clothes, surrender while manager waddles right up to the robbers. He opens his mouth to stand up to them, but before he can do so, one of the goons tags a red shirt with a snowball. “MY MERCHANDISE!” the manager cries before desperately rushing off to try and clean off the snow from it. The lead robber waddles over to the vault and tries prying it open, but to no avail.

News about the attempted robbery spreads like wildfire among Club Penguin, and who else but Sam the reporter wastes no time showing up to the scene. When he gets there, the head robber is still trying to open the door while his goons threaten anyone who tries coming near with some fresh, stinging ice. Sam wastes no time in running off and turning into his shadow state. He projects himself onto the floor and slithers along it, underneath the small crowd of penguins and their temporary oppressors. Once inside, he rises back up and goes to the robber. By now, people have spotted him, but the robbers think they’re lying in order to get inside.

“Need help with that?” Sam asks to the head robber. He turns around and nearly jumps out of his skin. “THERE’S A GHOST IN HERE!” he shouts. Sam brushes off the incorrect terminology and tries grabbing the robber, only to just project his flippers onto him. A silence ensues before the robber just kicks him off and onto the back of one of those guarding the door. He quickly gets off, and quickly takes their shadows, one in each hand, but before he can absorb them into his full body, the lead robber starts taunting him. “What are you doing to do to me? Wave your flippers around? Ooh, I’m so scared!”

Sam gets angry at the provocation, but starts to realize that he actually can’t do anything with his shadow powers. Tossing his self-doubt aside, he throws a punch… and it knocks the robber all the way into the vault, leaving him out cold on the floor. Since he absorbed the snowballs, he was able to convert them into his own weapons, in this case a shadow beam. He then turns around to the other robbers who have only just started believing that there’s another threat in the room, and he launches two shadow balls at them, sending them flying above the crowd and into the trees behind them. When they recover, they run away for their lives.

The crowd cheers for this mysterious hero, but Sam slips away as fast as he can. Sam makes the front page next week. The headline reads, “Mysterious Shadow Guy saves Gift Shop!”. Sam, naturally, is distraught, but relieved once he realizes nobody was able to identify him. There were ties made to the Stage’s shadow fish incident, however. He decides to visit an old friend for help, and moseys to the Sport Shop. Immediately after he steps into the unheated room again, he is greeting by the cold, mechanical stare of a dozen or so security cameras. The Gadget Room doors open up again, and Gary stands there. “I’m terribly sorry”, he says, “I needed to upgrade my security.”

“So, I see you made the news again.” Gary says. “I’m glad you’ve decided to use your new state for the benefit of Club Penguin.”

“Can you hold that thought, Gary? I want to tell you about something interesting I’ve noticed.” Sam says.

“Go right on ahead, Sam.”

“Well, ever since I absorbed that fish costume at the stage, I’ve been moving as a shadow a lot easier, a lot more fluidly I should say. Not only that, but the effects of those snowballs I gathered haven’t gone away either, watch.”

Sam proceeds to prove his point by blasting one of Gary’s solar-powered oxygen enrichers. He breaks its pots and leaves the plant, soil and all, on the floor.

“Perhaps since you’ve still acquired your shadow side relatively recently, perhaps it’s still in its formative state, and is able to adapt based on the shadows you add to yourself.”

“…”

“Is there something else on your mind, Sam?”

“I’m just wondering whether I should take on this shadow hero thing full-time. I mean, it’s great to help people in need, but I already have a stable life. If I decide to go full superhero, everything could fall apart.”

“I suppose that’s your decision, not mine.”

Meanwhile, over at the Pizza Parlor, a Francterran pizza chef is busy working late into the night working on perfecting his dough recipe. His eyes are beady and bloodshot, as he kneads the last of the dough and uses his feet to stomp it into a large, rectangular metal container. He wipes the sweat off his “brow” and, satisfied with his work, hangs up his apron and calls it a day. Meanwhile, the back door of the Parlor opens, and a little toaster, moving around on robotic spider legs, scuttles inside. While the intention of the chef was to cook the dough in the morning, the Toaster 3000 has other plans. It scales a counter, makes its way onto a high shelf, and jumps into the dough. Then, it quickly sinks into the gooey mixture as if it were quicksand and, once in the center, spreads out its legs even further and begins to toast like it’s never toasted before…

After returning home that night, Sam decides to cut up some of his old clothes for a new project. With his sewing machine, he carefully spends the next few hours putting together a superhero costume for himself. He doubts himself multiple times throughout the process and even has to start over a few times, but he finally gets it to look close enough to what he wants it to be, except for one thing. He notices the belt buckle looks quite bare. He decides to sew something on it, but what? He goes through the past newspapers for an idea and stumbles across the one from his stunt at the stage. For a moment he considers sewing a shadow fish onto the belt before noticing the name the headline gave him: Shadow Guy.

"Yeah right," He says to himself, "Like I'm going to be running around calling myself Shadow Guy." He chuckles for a few seconds more before giving in and sewing an "SG" insignia onto the buckle. It looks less bare. Finally satisfied, he tosses the costume into his closet haphazardly, gets in bed, and finally goes to sleep.

Soon after, he's awoken by a very loud cracking noise. He checks his alarm clock: 5:30 AM, he doesn't need to be up for another hour and a half. Still, he knows he needs to investigate the sound. He looks out the window and he can't believe his eyes: A giant blob of pizza dough has broken right through the roof of the Pizza Parlor! Not only that, but he can barely make out a chef in one of its "arms". He quickly puts on his reporter clothes and grabs his camera and heads for the door, but halfway out he stops. Should he be going there as Sam, the reporter?

Or should he be going there as Shadow Guy?

He looks to his own flipper, which is producing a shadowy effect. He knows he has these powers for a reason. Why should he stand idly by and observe to make money when he can save lives? He tosses off his reporter clothes, quickly changes into Shadow Guy, and rushes out the door. He kept the camera, of course.

He arrives on the scene faster by swimming there in shadow form. Already there are PSA agents trying to take down the beast with Snowball guns. The dough monster laughs at them and swats them aside.

"HEY! DOUGH MONSTER!" Sam shouts at it, simultaneously getting its attention and destroying Sam's courage, "I'm, uh, gonna stop you! So... give up!" In response to this, the dough creature simply grabs his head and nearly suffocates him in its dough body before throwing him onto the roof of the stage. Gary, who has just arrived, sees Sam fall and rushes to the rooftop as fast as he can.

"Sam! Sam, are you alright!?" He asks,

"It's Shadow Guy, Gary. Don't want to play my identity so soon..." Sam weakly responds.

"Well you're alive so that's a plus. Anywho, if my line of thinking is correct, the most likely cause of that dough monster is my Toaster 3000 on the fritz! How it got there, I have no clue, but you must stop it!"

"How? By eating it?"

"AAAAH!! PLEASE, ZOMBODY, SAVE ME!" The Francterran Chef cries.

"We need to be serious, there's people in danger!" Gary says, "Maybe you can defeat it by tearing off chunks of the dough and throwing them away?" The monster swipes at them.

"But how will I do that?!" Sam asks,

"You're the one with the powers, you know them better than I do, besides, using your head is part of being a superhero, Shadow Guy."

"Use my head..." Sam looks down from the edge of the roof and notices the buildings in the Plaza have very large shadows. His eyes widen.

"I have an idea."

He jumps down into one of the shadows, which causes Gary to reach out for him. Fortunately, Sam transforms into his shadow state in mid-air and absorbs the stage's shadow on impact. He grows to about half the size of the stage before also absorbing the shadows of the Pet Shop and Pizza Parlor. He grows to the same height as the lumbering monster. Gary realizes Sam left his camera behind and looks at the now-giant Sam. He looks back and nods at Gary, who then starts up the camera and begins taking pictures. Sam turns back to the monster.

"Let's make this quick, I've got a job to do," He says to it while materializing back into a giant penguin. The dough monster roars at him and absorbs the chef in its gooey mass, whose screams are quickly smothered. Shadow Guy grabs one of the monster's arms, rips it off, inspects it for the chef, and then tosses it into the ocean. Unfortunately, this leaves him open for the monster to attack him with its other arm, which is now centered in its chest. It pushes Shadow Guy back into the Parlor, wrecking it further, and lands a good punch on him, but Shadow Guy quickly retaliates, ripping off the other arm and throwing it into the ocean, where it quickly dissolves. The dough monster sacrifices some of its gargantuan size to create two more arms, which is quickly uses to grab Shadow Guy and suplex him. Upon landing, Shadow Guy transitions into a shadow again, causing him to melt into the floor. The monster pauses a moment to look where he fell, but that proves to be a mistake as Shadow Guy rises up again, punching the monster's "head" off. He quickly catches the chef gasping for air as he gets carried deeper into the monster's body.

Shadow Guy turns back to a penguin and tries another shadow ball, which the monster blocks at first, but it ends up blowing them both back. Shadow Guy turns intangible to avoid damage to the forest behind him. The stage, where the monster was flung back to, isn't so lucky. The monster also quickly realizes it has no arms once again. It turns behind and sees the PSA Agents throwing what used to be its head and arms into the ocean, which enrages it. It rampages towards the agents, but gets caught at the last second.

"I don't think so," Shadow Guy says. It throws the dough monster into the ground and starts ripping away at it until a metal arm pokes out of its chest. It catches Shadow Guy on the arm, however, and electrocutes him, causing him to slowly shrink back down to normal. The dough monster has lost almost all of its mass, but it's still a good few feet taller than a regular-sized penguin. It prepares to step on Shadow Guy when a cannon, provided by the PSA, blasts a pile of snow onto it, which knocks a chunk of its side off. The opportunity is enough for Shadow Guy to grab the monster's own shadow before combining it with the cannon's. He is now even larger than the monster. All the while Gary snaps photos at a frantic rate.

Wasting no time, Shadow Gun grins widely and plunges a corporeal flipper into the monster's chest. He finally pulls out the Toaster 3000 along with the traumatized chef, clinging onto it. The rest of the dough monster immediately collapses as the Toaster tries to electrocute Shadow Guy again. The chef quickly climbs onto his arm and he crushes the toaster before it can get to him.

Shadow Guy shrinks to normal size on his own and dismisses the chef, who seems mildly disturbed from the whole ordeal. He walked into PSA custody with a hunched back and sparks coming from him occasionally. Shadow Guy could swear that he heard an evil cackle coming from him, but he dismisses it as his imagination. Other reporters quickly flock around him, but he descends into the ground and swims away from the crowd, all the way to the Sports Shop. He enters the Gadget Room once again where Gary is waiting for him.

"That was amazing, Sam! Absolutely fantastic!" He says, giving Sam back his camera.

"Thanks, Gary. Looks like this means I'm in the hero business for good, huh?"

"So you've made up your mind, is that it?"

"Basically, yeah."

"Alright then, you still need to meet someone."

Gary brings Sam to the PSA command room and signals for the Director. Inside is another agent, a dark green Adelaide penguin. He tips his hat to Gary.

"Good morning to you too, Agent T," Gary says. Shortly after the Director comes onto the screen.

"Hello, Gary. Is this the 'superhero' that you've been telling me about?" The Director says with a heavily distorted voice.

"Yes. Director, meet Shadow Guy," He says, bringing him forward.

"Shadow Guy. I've seen you in the newspaper, and there's something you should know: You're not the only powered penguin running around out there," The Director says. Sam seems shocked at this information.

"I need you to know right now that in passing through the threshold into embracing your new identity, you have entered a whole other universe, something much greater than yourself, much greater than Club Penguin's Island. Things will never be the same, you'll never get your old life back. Do you accept?"

"...I accept," Sam says.

"Good."

A large holographic map appears from the center table, displaying the continent of Antarctica.

"Welcome to a new world."

The End