Eighteen-year-old Nicholas Hammerstein is at the cusp of finishing high school in his hometown of Los Alamos, NM. He has a seemingly ideal life and is blessed with loving parents, a cute baby sister, and great friends. Nicholas is a gifted student and martial artist who has dreams of leaving for college at the end of his senior year. But, living in a world of Emergent humans, he will soon find his life turned upside down as his life and the fate of a kingdom hang in the balance. His future and theirs will be determined by how he navigates the drastic changes in his body and the magical and superpowered Mergent population he joins.

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The Legal Stuff: Emerald Princess © 2016-2023 By Sofia Hammerstein
 
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2016-2023 By Sofia Hammerstein. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission.
 
 
Chapter 28: First Day

THE NEXT MORNING, I woke up to a worried shriek from Hannah. “What happened to your face?!?”

I groaned, “I’m trying to sleep here.”

“Sofia, your face has a horrible bruise on it!”

I groaned and opened my eyes, looked around, and then it dawned on me what she said. “Wait, I have the bruise here?”

Hannah gave me a piercing look, “What happened to you?” Then, she looked at a clock, “Talk quickly while I get you dressed.”

I blinked again and sighed, “It’s a long story… Last night someone tried to kidnap me from the castle.”

“What?!?!” Hannah shrieked.

Caireen pushed to the front, “Hannah, please calm down. Sofia fought back against the lady and could hold her own until I got there with my guards.”

“What about this bruise?” Hannah asked exasperatedly; she looked like she was about in tears.

“I’m surprised by this, but apparently, Sofia carried an injury back to her corporeal body. Give me a moment, and we’ll have her healed up.”

I felt Caireen do something, and my face instantly felt better. “Is she safe now?” Hannah asked.

“I think so for now, but my world will become increasingly dangerous for a while… So I definitely won’t be bringing you in for some time.”

“What about Sofia?” she asked worriedly.

“Believe me, she’ll be as protected as anyone possibly can. She should be safe.”

“Should?” Hannah asked.

“Just change our diaper and get moving, Hannah. You can interrogate me later, but I don’t want you two to be late for your first day of classes.”

With that, I felt her move to the back, and I took over again. Hannah didn’t say anything as she quickly changed my diaper and sat in the rocking chair. She bared her breast for me to nurse, but other than patting my back, I could tell she was angry at me. After I had emptied her other breast, she burped me. “Hannah, I’m sorry; I didn’t choose to be in this life. This isn’t Caireen’s fault either,” I added.

“Well, it doesn’t matter, does it!?!” She asked.

Before I could reply, she popped my pacifier into my mouth, and I decided to leave her alone. She put her coat and backpack on, my jacket on me, then helped me with my bag before picking me up and settling me on her hip to go to breakfast. I decided it was in my best interest just to be a good baby and stay quiet while my ‘momma’ was mad. I never liked being around Hannah when she was this angry. Still, unfortunately, now I couldn’t exactly get away from her to let her cool off.

By the time we reached the dining hall, I was hoping she’d get over her anger that day! She sat me down to get food, and I held my tray through the line again. At our table, our friends were chatting about many things. Lizi finally asked, “Are you excited to start classes today, Sofia?”

I shrugged, “I’m glad to be doing something again… who likes to go to classes, though?” I asked with a smile.

“We could just take you to daycare instead,” Hannah said.

I sighed, “Please, Hannah!”

“Whoa… are you two fighting?” Camille asked.

“Yes,” I said to Hannah’s, “No.”

She glared at me, “This is not fighting!”

“It certainly is, Hannah. You’re mad at me for a bruise that wasn’t even my fault!”

“Huh?” Camille asked, “What bruise?” I could see she was looking us both over.

I took a moment to perform one of the privacy warding spells Caireen had been teaching me. She nodded in approval as Camille said, “Wow, that’s a perfect ward!”

I shrugged, “I had to keep this private… Each night when I go to sleep, I don’t really sleep…?” I explained how I went to her castle each night, and even though I could feel Caireen was a little annoyed at how much I was sharing, I knew I could trust my new friends. “Anyway, last night, Caireen was getting ready to introduce me to the court for a session, and while I waited for my summons to go in, I was nearly kidnapped.”

The others looked stunned as I explained everything more. Camille’s eyes flashed, and she said, “Your Highness, you should be careful; I can feel your future value to this world… if you die in Caireen’s world, you will likely also die here.”

Hannah whimpered next to me and picked me up to hold me tight. “You can’t keep taking her there, Caireen!”

I felt Caireen come back to the surface, “Hannah, as much as I like you would prefer to lock Sofia away in a safe bubble for the rest of her life, that’s not her future. She is meant to be a great leader in my world and will do much good in this world. She will be in danger sometimes, but I promise you I will do everything I can to protect her.”

I felt Caireen slide to the background again and just shook my head. “This is never going to feel normal!”

It took a few more minutes for everyone to reassure Hannah before I felt like she was at least no longer angry at me. It annoyed me that she had been in the first place! Especially given I was the one in danger! Eventually, it was time to go to our first class at our Mergent high school!

It would have sounded much cooler if that class hadn’t been Calculus!

We walked into the classroom and introduced ourselves to the teacher. He directed us to two seats that weren’t occupied and happened to be on the opposite side of the room from each other. Hannah looked pained about it, but I shrugged and said, “We can’t be together all the time,” as quietly as I could.

I ended up standing on my chair for much of the class so I could see the board and what the teacher was doing. I was just grateful that we had covered the same stuff at our school a week or so ago! The cool thing I noticed, though, was that as I went to copy my notes down, I didn’t have to worry about glancing up at the problem every other second. My new paradigm memory let me remember without doing that! I debated about not even taking notes then, but I was sure I would land myself into trouble that way!

Toward the end of the class, the teacher came to speak with me and looked over a couple of homework questions he had asked us to start. To my relief, he pronounced my answers correct and just shook his head. “I can’t believe a baby can do those equations that quickly,” he added with a smile.

I just smiled back.

Hannah and I visited the restroom before our next class so she could change my diaper before we went into the Costume Design. While we weren’t behind the students in Calculus, we both felt dismayed at how far behind we were in this class!

Mrs. Gaskin, the teacher, approached us at the table she had assigned us, “Ladies, do you have any ideas on your costumes? Remember as you’re making them that you need a costume and a mask for your time in the Cube.”

“The Cube?” Hannah and I asked.

“Oh, dear… I assume you’ve heard about the skill finals?”

“Someone mentioned it and said we might not have to do them since we came in late?” I said, remembering a couple of hints.

“Well, let’s not count on that just yet…” she began walking us through things the class had already done. She spoke of materials that were bulletproof, fireproof, magic proof… The sky was the limit if you had tons of money! I shook my head, “So we have like two weeks to do this?”

As I sat there panicking, Caireen mentally poked me, and I smiled. “Okay, we’ve got this.”

“What?” Hannah said, clearly afraid.

“Don’t worry. May I see some of these fabrics you mentioned?”

Mrs. Gaskin looked at me skeptically but led me over to cabinets with massive racks of bolts of fabric. Hannah held me up as I touched and felt everything she had there. Caireen and I got a good handle on the materials and how they worked. ‘Is that enough, do you think?’ I asked her.

She seemed to nod at me. “Before we start working on our costumes, Mrs. Gaskin, are there any rules we need to be aware of?”

“Well, copyright… you cannot have an identical costume to another established superhero or villain. It has to have at least color differences in the design so you can be identified as unique.”

“What about design?”

She and I had a ten-minute conversation before I looked at Hannah and said, “Okay, we can do this by the end of the week!”

Mrs. Gaskin looked skeptical, “Umm… you shouldn’t rush through this, sweetie.”

I grimaced but said, “There are no rules about using magic, correct?”

She looked taken aback by my asking that and said, “No…?”

“Okay, we’ve got this!”

“I do need sketches before you begin,” she told me.

“Okay… Hannah and I’ll have them for you tomorrow.”

With that, it was time to switch classes. I almost forgot that Hannah and I were separating when Camille met us at the door. Hannah handed me over to Camille and said, “Be good!”

I sighed, “Yes, Hannah.”

“She needs changed,” Hannah whispered to Camille.

Camille squealed, “I’ll take care of that.”

I groaned but just stayed in the good baby role as she walked down the corridors and eventually into a bathroom. She pulled down a changing table that looked rarely used and made quick work of what I was sure would just be a wet diaper but instead was a poopy one.

“There, I bet you feel all better now without that poopy diapee,” Camille said with a smile.

I just said, “Thank you,” while I was shocked that I hadn’t noticed and no one had said anything.

Camille hugged me after she sat me down and washed her hands, “It’s okay, Sofia, no one minds.”

“I do,” I said quietly.

“Come on, let’s get to class. Mrs. Cranther really doesn’t like late students!”

I groaned but accepted that. As Camille carried me into class, Mrs. Cranther looked at me wide-eyed, and I returned the favor. Mrs. Cranther was covered from head to toe in bark and leaves! I knew this to be a case of body morphism, and she was harmless, but I couldn’t help but take a breath in as it was shocking, to say the least. For her part, she seemed to be looking at me similarly.

“I’m Sofia Hammerstein,” I told her as Camille carefully stood me up on a desk at the front of the room.

“I’m Mrs. Cranther,” she said with a smile. “I see we both are shocking the other. You have so much power that I know you’re not a baby, and I look like some overgrown plant.”

I laughed, “Can’t judge a book by its cover, huh?” I said with a smile.

“We’re going to get along just fine. Why don’t you join Camille at her table since you seem to be friends with her.”

I thought maybe I would be just sitting on the table or something, but Mrs. Cranther suddenly performed a spell that made a highchair-like seat appear. It was made of something like living tree limbs woven in a beautiful pattern. As much as I disdained the idea of a highchair, at least it was a beautiful one. She looked at me expectantly, and I said, “Umm... thanks.”

 
 

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