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 46: Don’t Hold Back

I MUST NOT have been out long, but I slept through being dressed in an embarrassingly cute dress that said ‘gobble gobble’ with a turkey on the front of it. I had a pair of thick white tights covering my legs and diaper. Camille saw me sit up from where she was looking at her phone. She walked over to me and asked, “You want to call your parents? Wish them a Happy Thanksgiving?”

“It’s still early still…?” I thought about the two-hour time difference but realized my dad’s parents were supposed to be down. So that meant my Mom and Grandma were probably already up cooking. “Sure,” I said.

She handed me my phone, and I used FaceTime to call my mom’s phone. It rang so long that I wasn’t sure she would pick it up, but when I saw a paper towel in her hands, I knew she was trying to clean her hands up from cooking something.

“Sofia!” she said.

“Hi, Mommy,” I told her.

“Are you okay?” She asked nervously.

“Better now that I can see you,” I told her with a tear that rolled down my face. “Physically, I’m fine… I’m getting homesick, though, without you or Hannah.”

“Oh, baby…” Mom and I talked for twenty minutes and introduced the new ‘me’ to my grandmother. Grandpa and Dad apparently were elsewhere, and Lily was playing downstairs.

I just wanted a hug from Mom, but I had to settle for my hour-long conversation. When I finished, fresh tears came down my face, and Camille hugged me. “It’s okay; I know you’ll see them soon!”

“I hope you’re right,” I told her as I regained some control.

Just as we were finally ready to go to Camille’s aunt’s house for lunch, her aunt called her parents. It was clear in no uncertain terms that the Mergent baby was not allowed to come! I could hear the angry words from her side and a very terse response from her mom, telling her, “Fine, we’ll stay away from you all until you can grow up.”

I felt fresh tears because I felt terrible about it. Camille’s mom sensed that “Sofia, don’t blame yourself. She’s an idiot and barely tolerates Camille. It’s time we cut ties with her until she gets a clue!”

“Sorry…” I told her still, “I’ve ruined your trip here.”

She hugged me reassuringly, “It’s not your fault!”

With that, no one was quite sure what to do until Tigress came to the door to escort us to her Aunt’s. “Umm… change in plans,” Camille’s dad told her.

“Oh?”

“We’ve been uninvited for dinner today…” he said.

“Oh…” she said, “I’m sorry to hear that - I’ve been there before. Anything we can do?”

He shrugged, “Probably take the time, I’m guessing, for her to grow up. We’ll just need to develop a new food plan today, I guess…?”

“Well… If you don’t mind being around a bunch of crazy superheroes, we have a traditional Thanksgiving meal planned here? All we ask is that you please promise us to keep their regular identities a secret?”

“That would be wonderful,” Camille’s mom said. “Can I help?”

“Sure,” she told her.

The rest of the day evolved into one of the more surrealistic days I’d had yet – which was saying something! Camille sat in one room and played with Cassidy and me while the Watch members and her mom made a late lunch feast. The heroes turned out to be serious goofballs like my friends at school, and it was the coolest Thanksgiving ever! Cassidy seemed to have fun being silly with them playing with her. Meanwhile, Camille and I soaked up all the stories they told about each other’s exploits. Afterward, Camille changed me, and I found myself in Tigress’ lap as she gently rubbed my back. I ended up napping in her comforting, soft furry arms.

 
 
I WAS SURPRISED when I woke up in my crib in Caireen’s castle. I felt myself on alert as I felt someone watching me, but I was relieved to see it was Caireen. My stomach grumbled and hungrier than I had ever felt in her world. ‘I wonder if it’s because I over-exerted myself earlier with the wall?’

I stood up and made the universal ‘pick me up’ gesture to her.

She smiled and cooed at me for several minutes before changing a soaked diaper. “Let’s get you fed, and then we’ll get you back to bed, sweetie. You still need some more rest here.”

I found myself hungrily nursing at her breast as she sang a lullaby to me.

 
 
I WOKE UP lying down on the couch in our temporary room. Camille’s mom sat at a desk on a laptop computer, but the others were nowhere in sight. I sat up and asked, “Where is everyone?”

“They went to a playground with Cassidy to burn off some energy while you napped,” she told me as she walked over to me and picked me up. She squeezed at the padding underneath my tights and said, “Let’s get that diaper changed?”

It had become increasingly easy to just play the good baby and let her quickly change me. She decided to leave off the tights when she was done, “I’m really not missing changing diapers all of the time,” she told me with a smile.

“I’d love to not need them,” I told her sadly.

She hugged me and then took the used diaper to the bathroom. “Why don’t you work on some of that homework you mentioned?”

I nodded and got to work for a couple hours while the others were out. Unfortunately, I was so focused on my Magic Theory book that Camille successfully snuck up on me and performed a tickle attack!

“Stop!!!” I whined as she went longer than Hannah ever did.

When she finally stopped, she had an evil grin, “Why?”

I stuck my tongue out and discovered that was the wrong move because she had just started up again. When she did finally stop, I told her, “Now that you made me soak my diaper, can you please change me?”

She stared at me for a moment with her finger on her chin, “I guess… since you used the magic word!”

We spent the rest of the night alternating between us studying and playing with Cassidy when she came to get us. She was baffled about me being littler than her but working on homework like her big sis. I managed to also talk to Hannah again later on for another half-hour. I also spoke to my entire family for another hour. Lily was so excited to see my face, “Sofia!!!!!” She exclaimed, “Look what Grammy bought me! I big girl!!!!” she pulled up the skirt of her dress to excitedly show me the Pull-Up she now wore. She made a face, though, as she said, “Uh-oh!”

“Did you have an accident?” Mom asked her.

She began crying, and the two left for a few minutes while I talked with Grandma and Grandpa. They really did seem to mostly be okay with the new me. They had been happy to see that their baby granddaughter was beginning to be potty-trained. Still, her former big brother looked like a baby in diapers forever!

I finished the call and felt better at seeing them, but also slightly more depressed, knowing how long it might be before I got to go home to see them in person. ‘At least Mom may have some luck potty-training Lily with me gone.’

Before I went to bed, I spent another couple of hours trying to catch up on the semester’s missed work. Working with my new memory, I also began trying to get ahead on some of the reading. Since they were putting me undercover so soon, I didn’t want to just come back and be even further behind. The last thing I wanted to do was repeat my freshman year - a third time!

 
 
THAT NIGHT IN Caireen’s kingdom was spent working on a wall on the opposite side of the valley from the first one I had made. As I worked that day, I couldn’t help but feel embarrassed by the stares of the people around me. All of them looked at me in awe, bowing, curtsying, or kneeling before me way too often for my comfort. I completed the same type of structure and was beyond exhausted when I finished!

As I woke up on that Black Friday morning, I listened to Camille’s parents talking about shopping opportunities they wanted to take. In the hopes of a safer shopping trip, they decided they would go shopping without the two of us. Camille was disappointed, but I had already been scheduled to go into the simulations Doctor Bolt had set up for me again. With the time dilation that the simulations caused, I spent about five weeks practicing being a twelve-month-old baby. That time was spent attempting to make arrests and getting my ass handed to me one hundred percent of the time! Each time the simulation went dark, I had to blink tears out of my eyes that I was failing so badly.

Before the last time they sent me in, Tigress asked me, “Why do you keep holding back on using your magic?”

“I’m not; I just used my shield to last a few minutes before they blew up the place!”

“Have you used the spell I saw that you used on Rosemerta? Or any of the other offensive spells you probably have?”

I shrugged, “I guess not? That’s more like being an executioner, though,” I said nervously.

Camille came in right then, “How’s it going? Manic told me you all were still down here?”

“Trying to get Emerald to open up her abilities in the sim,” she told her.

“Can you handle a team member?” she asked Doctor Bolt.

“Umm… yes, but I only have it programmed for…?”

I guessed what she meant, but Camille said, “For a baby?”

She nodded, “I don’t think we have time today to reprogram it.”

“What would happen if I went in?” She smiled at me, “Would I be a wittle baby girl like Emerald?”

I smiled and blushed simultaneously as she said, “Umm… yes…?”

“Put me in!”

Shortly after that, I found myself sharing some blocks on a cushioned floor of the daycare center with a baby Camille who looked a lot like Cassidy! We spent a simulated hour crawling around before I needed to poop. When I was done, I realized Camille was making the same face I just had, and I watched her sit down in it and giggle. For whatever reason, I decided to follow her lead. We had a half-hour of playtime before a daycare worker picked us up and said, “Uh-oh,” with a sniff, “we have two stinky butts here!”

The daycare worker griped about us intentionally smushing it for them to clean up to her coworker as she cleaned us up. After that, everything went normal until lunchtime. Then instead of being taken for a nap to our cribs, they carried us back to the back room where everything had been taking place in these sims. Maponus and his cohorts were preparing to strip Camille of her diaper, and I decided not to wait any longer. This time I preemptively wrapped them in cages and wrapped my shield around us.

Another man went to shoot, and I caught him with a freezing spell. Several other shots were fired as I took out some others before noticing Maponus had broken free. He was about to perform his own attack, so I used the newer attack I’d learned and pushed a wall of rock from the ground up around him in a box to the ceiling. Before he could get out, I used the freeze spell on him and pulled the rock down. It was clear he was dead, and I felt only slightly guilty about that as the simulation ended.

“What did I do wrong now?” I asked.

“Nothing, that was a successful run,” Doctor Bolt told me.

“Really?”

“Really… Out of curiosity, why didn’t you hold back that time?”

I looked at Camille coming out of the simulator, “I had a friend to protect?”

“Whatever it was, that’s the way you survive! Don’t hold anything back if it gets to that point!” She looked at me and added, “Never trust a Mergent to be a lower level than you. There’s no such thing as cheating in a fight – always do whatever you must to win!”

“Yes, Ma’am,” I told her.

“Now, why don’t you two get cleaned up so Sofia can meet with Agent Sanders, who just arrived?”

Camille stripped out of the suit, and I looked away as I realized she had a genuine accident in the simulation. Given how often she cleaned me up, I decided to help. She blushed as she looked over at me and said, “Thanks… I guess it’s about time you repaid the favor?”

I smirked. “I figured you didn’t want the diaper, though?” She tickled me and soon had me dressed in a green Christmas outfit her parents had bought me while they had been shopping. It had a white fur hem on the bottom of the skirt, and the long velvet sleeves ended in the same white fur. She dressed me in white tights and put my hair up to go with my tiara. Little buckled black Mary Jane shoes were placed on my feet, and she squealed, “You look so cute!!!!”

I smiled at her and said ‘thank you,’ all the while wondering why I should be that dressed up then!

Agent Sanders stopped by as planned then, and I smirked as he didn’t hide the confused expression on his face very well. “Agent Emerald… you look pretty today,” he saved himself.

I curtseyed and said, “Thanks, Agent Sanders. You needed to see me?” I asked him as I pointed to the couch for him to sit down, and I sat opposite him.

“Yes, I would like to review your travel arrangements and cover for next week when we pick you up.”

I nodded, “Wouldn’t this be better to wait and tell Hannah too?”

He shrugged, “I’ve already done a video conference with her, so she’s aware.”

I nodded, “Okay then… How are we doing this?”

“Next Friday, we’ll pick you and Hannah up from Bechtel. Then, we’ll drive to the town and transfer you to your car. There’s already a one-bedroom apartment for the two of you to stay in. Hannah will have agents acting as her parents to help move you in. You’ll have some supplies, but you’ll likely need to go to the grocery store once you get settled in.”

He led me through the rest of the plan of Hannah beginning to work at a department store as a seasonal worker. They would have her call and set up a space for me at the daycare Friday after we got into the apartment. She would drop me off in the morning, go to work, and pick me up before the daycare closed each day. The hope was that a week would be enough. Still, the operation was set to continue up until Christmas Eve if necessary.

“If it goes that long… is there some way we can see our families?”

He shrugged, “Hopefully, it doesn’t… but if it does, we’ll jump off that bridge when we come to it. We don’t normally use undercover agents so young, so I don’t really want us leaving you under too long. We may pull you out if nothing comes out of it and try another tactic in a couple of months.”

I nodded, “Hopefully, we can wrap it up quickly. How old did you decide I need to be?”

“Your cover is that you just had your first birthday this week, actually.”

“Smash cake and everything?” I smirked.

He smiled, “Probably; Hannah seems like the kind of mommy that would insist on that!”

“What are our cover names?” I asked him.

Hannah would be Haley Stephenson, nineteen years old, and I would be her daughter Olivia. “Olivia?!?” I made a face about the name.

“What’s wrong with Olivia?” he asked.

I shrugged, “Not my favorite name. I knew one once that was a real bitch.”

He looked mildly stunned at my language, “You know you can’t swear at daycare, right?”

“Don’t worry, it’ll be all baby babble and Ma-ma or baba. Maybe ‘no,’ but that’s all I could speak at that age. This is going to suck.”

He smiled, “Hopefully, it’s worth it in the end?”

“I hope so… I want to take down those monsters!”

He left after giving me a packet I had placed inside my bag. It contained a driver’s license, social security card, and birth certificate for Hannah’s identity, as well as a birth certificate and shot record for me.

I was looking at a ten-page legend for Hannah to memorize about her background when Camille peaked at the document pile and said, “Oh, you just turned one today! We should get you a cake to smash into!”

I glared at her and pushed everything into the bag. “For your information, I’m really eighteen months old!”

I learned I probably shouldn’t antagonize her because I was tortured by the tickle monster for a long while. Her mom came in and said, “Oh Camille, can you change her wet diaper, and then we’ll leave?”

“Leave?!?” I asked nervously.

She smiled, “Relax, we’re going out to eat, but half of the Liberty Watch is watching out for us. They’re pretty sure Maponus was seen leaving the city anyway.”

To my surprise, the evening went smoothly, with no explosions, bad guys, or anything else! We had a nice dinner and finally made it up to the top of Rockefeller Center like I’d been promised. It was frigid at the top with the wind, but the view of the city was spectacular! We stayed there long enough to pose in many pictures and then picked up some souvenirs to take home. I grabbed a shirt for Hannah that I thought she would like and a couple of Christmas presents for my family from the gift shops there and around the area. As we left Rockefeller Center, I couldn’t help but note the still-destroyed statue of Prometheus behind yellow police tape. I felt terrible for the lives lost that week, but I held the tears back until I went to sleep in my crib that night.

 
 

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