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 2: Be Careful What You Wish For

I LOOKED AROUND the house and wandered around from room to room. Where was Mom? Dad? Lily? I decided to go up to Lily’s room and found it empty. It was weird. I walked over to her changing table and noticed her favorite purple pacifier was there. I picked it up and looked at the pacifier, and there were open cutouts on either side of the button in the middle of it. I always liked her using it because I could see her cute smile still.

“Would you like that?” I turned around and suddenly faced a beautiful lady in her early twenties.

I blushed, “If I was young enough, I’m sure I would,” I said and sat it down. “Who are you?”

“Names are powerful things, young one,” she told me.

Something about this didn’t seem like a dream, and I could feel something like static electricity running up and down my body. “Maybe a nickname?” I asked before stretching out my hand and saying, “I’m Nicholas.”

“Well, they certainly brought you up to be polite,” the lady said. “You may call me Caireen,” she said simply. “You’re a very unusual young man. Willingly taking care of your sister?”

“She’s a sweetheart,” I responded.

“Still not normal for an eighteen-year-old boy to volunteer to help,” she said. “Of course, we wouldn’t be talking if you were normal,” she smiled.

“What do you mean?”

“You’ll find out. I guess we’ll be together for a very long time since you found me. Please don’t be upset at your gifts,” the strange woman said with a bright smile before taking the pacifier off the table and putting it into my mouth. “There you go,” she said.

My eyes must have been as big as saucers as I realized this had to be a dream.

BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, I heard what had to be the most annoying metronome of all time as I woke up. I started to stretch with my eyes closed and suddenly realized something was wrong. “Levi, he’s waking up,” I heard Mom say, and I looked up suddenly at their faces.

Something was not right here. Not right at all! The angle of their faces was all wrong from where I was lying, and I was obviously in a hospital… but not in a regular hospital bed.

“Where am I?” I asked - or tried to ask. Something was in the way for me to talk. I reached up to my mouth and pulled out a… “Why do I have a pacifier in my mouth?” I asked, starting to panic, and sat up. My voice sounded really weird and squeaky.

Mom gently pushed me down, but something was wrong there. Her hand was too big!

“What happened?” I asked, more agitated and upset that my voice sounded weird.

“It’s okay, sweetie, calm down, and I’ll try to explain...” She said. Something in her eyes reassured me, but somehow I could tell that she wasn’t being truthful.

I lay back down, though, “Explain.”

Dad came in with the doctor right then. “Good, you woke up,” the doctor said.

“What happened?” I said again more forcefully.

“Nicholas,” Mom started, “...I don’t think there’s any easy way to explain, but you emerged last night and went through a major burnout.”

“I’m a Mergent?!?!?” I asked, surprised.

“Your mother and I both carried the gene recessively, but we figured the chances of you getting it was minuscule as a boy. “I looked at them in shock. I never knew our family had any history of Mergents.

“But don’t people usually emerge younger?” I asked, thinking back to when one boy in our school had emerged during our sophomore year.

The doctor shrugged, “Usually, but eighteen is not unheard of to emerge.”

I nodded finally, “Okay, so I’m a Mergent. Why… umm… why do I think I changed much more than average?”

The doctor answered this one, “Nicholas, you’re going to have to do some testing to be sure, but I believe you are an exceptionally high-level paradigm. Your EFP, or the Emergent Form Pattern that it made you look like, normally takes months to a year to change you to your final form. But for some reason, yours did.”

I sat up now and felt my mom’s hand helping me. I had lost a lot of height. A LOT of height. I didn’t seem to have any hair on my arms or legs. I felt the hair on my head, and it felt like it was shorter than it had been. It barely reached my shoulders but had a lot of curls at the ends. I pulled a lock of it and held it in front of me, surprised that it was now red! Looking down at the gown and noticed it was covered with very juvenile bears like you would see in pediatrics. Something else about my body felt ‘odd’, and I ran my hand down to my groin area. ‘Could it really have happened?!?’ I prayed that wish had come true. As I tried to feel that area, I was surprised that something padded was in the way.

I looked up at Mom and asked, “How old am I?”

“Eighteen…” she paused and grimaced, “going on three, we think.”

“And am I…” I was scared to ask this next one. If only it could be true, ‘please be true,’ I said to myself. “Am I a girl now?”

She nodded, and tears streamed out of her eyes. Dad came around and held one of my hands on the other side. I smiled.

“Being the same age as Lily is embarrassing,” I hopefully looked at the doctor, “But, I’ll at least grow back up, right?”

He looked at me and shrugged, “I don’t honestly know. Sometimes when a teenager emerges for the first time, they’ll go through a similar experience and get younger. Most of the time, they do begin aging again, but usually at a slower rate.”

“The other times?” I asked, finding myself craving something in my mouth to soothe myself. I knew the pacifier was sitting next to my hand and had to fight the urge to put it back in my mouth.

“Well, there have been a few cases of them getting younger and not aging at all,” he said, “I don’t know of any easy way to say it… but to be honest, there’s probably an eighty percent chance your EFP may lock you like this.”

“Great!” I groaned. “So, I’m going to be the baby sister before long!”

Mom smiled and said, “Well, maybe Lily will remember you taking such good care of you that maybe she’ll do the same?”

It was at that moment that I passed out again.

I WOKE BACK up as I felt my body being contorted. I opened my eyes and began to cry as I realized mom was changing my diaper. It smelled like one of Lily’s after-dinner diapers, which meant I had to have gone poop in my sleep. She finished and then picked me up. I realized then that the wires and IVs had been unhooked while I was sleeping.

“It’s okay, sweetie,” she told me, and she hugged me tight, cuddling me like my little sister.

Eventually, I calmed down, and she asked, “Do you want something to drink?”

I nodded. Mom produced a cup with a straw and some ice water. I tried to put the straw in my mouth, but something was in my way. “Here, I’ll take that,” she said as she pulled the pacifier out of my reddening face. A moment later, I found myself guzzling down. I was really thirsty!

When it was empty, I looked at her. “Am I a real baby or something? Why did I have a pacifier in my mouth?”

She sat down and held me on her knee, facing me. “You were burning up and stumbled down the hallway. When you reached the bathroom you… you… you suddenly started smoking and steaming before there was a burst of fire where you were standing.” Tears trailed down Mom’s face as she spoke, “I thought you had to be dead, but suddenly the fire was gone, and in its place was a… a little girl…” She cringed.

“Lily was as shocked as I was, and she walked over to you, and her pacifier fell out of her mouth right next to you. You picked it up, put it in your mouth, and then passed back out.”

I grimaced. I honestly could feel a craving for it even now. “Sorry, I have a bad feeling it’s going to be hard to break this pacifier habit!” I told her.

“You want it back?” She asked.

I couldn’t help nodding.

Mom placed it back in my mouth and started talking again, “What were you thinking about when you went to bed?”

“Why?” I asked around the pacifier. Mom still understood, with a smile curling on her lips.

“It may have affected your EFP,” she told me.

I grimaced and thought back, “I was thinking how nice it would have been for you to be able to pick me up and hold me like Lily.” I paused, unable to tell her the full truth about my wish. “Then I saw her standing in the hallway looking cute in her princess nightgown.”

Mom looked like she had understood most of that around the pacifier and hugged me tightly.

“I’m stuck like this, aren’t I?” I asked her.

“Probably.”

“The baby stuff?”

“Well, the pacifier seems tough for you to be without.”

I nodded.

“And the potty training… maybe we can re-train you.”

I pulled the pacifier out again and groaned. “How am I going to go to school in diapers and sucking on a pacifier?”

“I don’t know, sweetie, but we’ll find a way. I don’t think your mind will be hurt in any way. If anything, you’ll probably be smarter.” I smiled a bit at that, “And you’re probably a lot stronger, too,” she told me. “And you probably even have some really cool abilities now. The doctor said only the highest-level Emergents seem to change this much.”

I just nodded to that. “Where’s Dad?”

“He went home to get Lily.” She told me.

“What did you do with her last night?” I asked, suddenly worried.

“We brought her with us and then were able to drop her off at Hannah’s house since there’s no school today.”

“Really? We had a snow day, and I have to be sick?” Mom just laughed, plopped the pacifier back in my mouth, and sat there cuddling me until I must have fallen asleep.

I DIDN’T SLEEP long because I was soon woken up by voices. “Is that really Nick?” I heard and groaned.
I opened my eyes, “Hi, Hannah,” I said timidly. Mom was still holding me, so I felt some comfort from that.

She held out a cute teddy bear to me that had a ribbon tied around its neck. I couldn’t help but notice it seemed more than half my size! “I thought maybe…?” Then, she appeared to lose her words and was unable to speak.

“Thanks, Hannah,” I said as I held an arm out to hold it. Mom held onto my waist and kept me from falling off her lap.

“You’re beary welcome,” she told me with a smile. But then, she hesitated before saying, “Wow, you’re adorable, Nick.”

“I haven’t even seen myself,” I said aloud. Through the pacifier, I thought it sounded like gibberish, but Mom must have understood it.

“Do you want to?” She asked me as she stood up and leaned me back to look at her.

I grimaced but nodded, “Uh-huh,” I said. Mom carried me to the bathroom, and I saw a pretty little girl, maybe just a little older than Lily, staring at me. My hair was fiery red now, like the color of Merida’s from Brave, and I had green eyes. Not just any green, though; they were a dark emerald color that seemed to glow almost – and certainly were abnormal!

Seeing myself as a girl was enough to make up for suddenly being a baby. I smiled at the realization that I, in fact, was a beautiful little girl!

The pacifier in my mouth must have been swapped at some point because it was a new one I had never seen my sister use. The guard was purple with a button of pink flowers on it. It was so girlish I would have to keep it safe from my sister stealing it. I giggled at that.

“What’s so funny?” Mom asked as I kept giggling.

“What’s not funny?” I asked, gasping as the pacifier fell from my mouth. “I’m supposed to be eighteen years old, and suddenly, I’m a three-year-old baby girl with a pacifier in my mouth that my sister will probably want to steal from me.” I kept laughing.

“Well, you did steal hers first,” she told me with a smile. She sat me down on the ground, and I walked towards the bed again.

Surprisingly I felt like I was able to walk normally. The only thing that made me waddle a little was the diaper, which was obviously a little wet. Hannah had picked up my dropped pacifier and washed it in the sink. I walked over to her and put my arms up in the traditional ‘pick me up’ pose. She obliged and said, “Well, I guess you won’t be worrying about that English essay for tomorrow?”

I smiled, “Somehow, I don’t think I’ll get that lucky?”

Mom nodded at me, “We’ll keep you home for now, but you’re going to do all of the assignments and homework from home.”

Just then, Dad came in, holding my sister. Lily looked at me and frowned, “Nicko?” She still couldn’t say Nicholas yet, which was the closest she could get.

I sighed and said, “Yes, Lily.”

“You little like me?”

“Yes, Lily.”

“You play with me?” She asked with a timid smile.

“Sure,” I said.

Dad had brought some of her favorite dolls with her, and I sat down in the bed… crib… with her and just like that, we played for an unknown amount of time before I felt my stomach growl. Mom, Hannah, and Dad sat in the corner talking and watching us and paused, having heard it from there. “Are we hungry yet?”

An orderly walked in, pushing a food cart as if on cue. “Mac and cheese?” she asked Mom.

I groaned; I would have to get used to people talking about me as if I wasn’t there…

“Yes, just leave it there.” She told her. “Lily, you’re going to go back home with Daddy and Hannah to take your nap. Hannah’s going to stay with you until later when hopefully, we’ll be able to bring Nicholas home.”

“I’m going home tonight?” I asked, surprised.

“The doctor said he’d probably send you home since you woke up. There’s nothing else they can do for you since you’ve stabilized. We have some paperwork to fill out, and they want us to get you tested Monday.”

“I wonder why I haven’t been able to sense any abilities yet?” I asked. “I thought ever Emergent gets abilities of some sort?”

As if it was waiting for that question, all of a sudden, the world looked very different. I could see all of these weird lines running over the floor in every direction I looked. I noticed some leading towards my new teddy bear and had a silly thought, ‘She could really use a dress...’ Everyone gasped as there was a small flash, and suddenly, my new teddy bear had a perfectly sized and pretty purple dress.

“Did you do that?” Mom asked suddenly.

“Do it again!” Lily said.

I looked at the bear she had brought and imagined a pink dress to match. Suddenly there was another flash, and she shouted, “You did it, Nicko! Thank you!”

Mom looked at me and said, “How did you do that?”

“All of a sudden, after I asked what my abilities were, I saw all these lines…?”

Dad sighed, “Well, that’s going to mean we’ll have to get you taught sooner than later.”

“What?” I asked.

“It means you have a magic trait,” he explained. “You can probably do many things like that with magic.”

“Awesome!” I said before my stomach growled again. The lines were still everywhere, so I thought, ‘vision normal?’ I smiled as the lines went away.

“We’ll see you in a bit,” Hannah said and hugged me. I hugged her back, and soon Mom had me back on her lap with the tray of macaroni and cheese.

“It might be easier for me just to feed you,” Mom said as she tried to figure out the arrangement for me to have the bowl in front of me. Unfortunately, the bed wouldn’t work.

I sighed, “Let’s get it over with,” I said. We managed to get most of it inside my mouth. A couple times, she started to bring the spoon up, and I turned my head slightly on accident, and she missed my mouth. A baby wipe quickly took care of it, and she placed the bowl back on the tray.

“Let’s change your diaper, sweetie,” she said.

“I’m not…” then I realized I was wet and finished, “feeling myself going at all.”

Mom stood and held me securely to her right side while she used her free hand to unfold a changing mat onto the crib mattress. Then, she moved to a shelf on the side and grabbed a fresh diaper and some wipes, which she laid beside it before lying me down on the changing mat. “It’s okay, sweetheart. I have a feeling between what you were thinking and your body size that this may be a part of life now.”

I felt tears going down my eyes. “Forever?”

She said nothing else for a moment as she pushed the hospital gown out of the way to expose the diaper. I lifted my head forward to look, but she pushed my shoulders back down. “Stay down, sweetie, so I can take care of this. Even if it’s forever, I’ll always love you.”

I felt myself jolt as I heard and felt the rip of the first tape on the diaper. The second tape was ripped next, and I felt Mom grab my ankles just like we did to change Lily’s diaper. It only emphasized the massive size regression I’d undergone, as my ankles easily fit in her single hand. She used a baby wipe to gently wipe me, and her touch felt intrusive and tickled.

I squirmed a little as she thoroughly wiped a part of my body that was foreign now and felt my face turning the color of my new hair. “It’s okay, almost done!” She told me

I stayed silent as she placed my butt down on the new diaper. She folded the used wipes inside the old one and set it to the side. I tried to sit up again, but my left hand pushed down firmly above my belly as she taped the left side of my diaper shut, then switched to securely tape the other.

“I’ll never have a normal life,” I said, embarrassed to have my mom in my personal space like that!

“Who’s to say that, sweetheart? You may find part of your abilities lets you grow up too!”

She pulled the gown back down over my diaper and kissed my forehead before taking the balled-up used diaper to the trash can. Mom returned and carried me back over to the chair and held me. I felt comfortable as she gently patted my back. I fell asleep at some point because the next thing I knew, Dad was back, and so was the doctor. Mom had woken me up to talk.

“Okay, sweetie, we have to have a frank discussion about some things here.”

I nodded and noticed the pacifier in my mouth. I pulled it out and held it so I could talk. “Okay.”

The new doctor looked at me, “I’m Doctor Earnhardt.” He held a hand to me. I took his hand with his completely enveloping mine.

“Nice to meet you; I’m Nick… well, sort of?” I smiled.

He did too. “Okay, I think you’re out of the woods from the burnout possibilities. Your mom and dad will probably be best off taking you home now. However, we can’t do that before we take care of some things.”

“Okay…?”

“Well, first things first, we need to go to the nurses’ station so I can measure and weigh you.”

I nodded. Mom picked me up and carried me down the hallway, where I was placed on a scale, a typical doctor’s office one, and weighed. “Okay, twenty pounds, one ounce,” he said.

“That’s it?!?” I asked, surprised. I spoke around the pacifier that had found its way back into my mouth.

“Yeah, I thought you felt much lighter than your sister.” Mom said.

“Okay, come over here, and let’s measure your length.” He directed me against a wall and said, “Okay, thirty-four inches.”

‘I’m an inch taller and seven pounds lighter than my baby sister,’ I thought. “I’m never going to be able to get a car and drive now!” I moaned aloud.

Mom hugged me, and we returned to my room with her carrying me. Back in my room, the doctor took out a measuring tape and measured the circumference of my head, waist, arms, and just about everywhere else while making notes. He did some reflex tests on my knees and feet. He had Mom remove my diaper before examining my lower end gently for a long awkward moment before telling her to put my diaper back on.

“Okay, honestly, you seem to be physically a little bit below weight, but otherwise normal twenty-six-month-old girl,” he told me when she was done. “Your reflexes are better, though, and I suspect you probably have the physical abilities of an adult or more. Have you tried lifting anything yet?”

I shook my head.

“Put her down on the ground,” he said. He pointed to the chair against the wall. “See if you can move that or pick it up.”

I looked at him skeptically as I was sure it weighed more than my twenty pounds! I walked over and was surprised I could easily lift it above my head. For fun, I threw it up in the air and panicked as it hit the ceiling and bounced back toward me. Somehow, he caught it and said, “Okay, that answers that. Be very careful with your strength. You’ll probably find yourself getting stronger over the weekend. If you’re not careful...?”

I nodded, fighting the tears from my eyes - I could hurt my sister. That would be horrible.

“You made an appointment at the lab for Monday, right?” He asked Mom.

She nodded, “First thing in the morning.”

“Good, last thing before I write the release papers… We need a different name for you, I think.”

Dad had been sitting in the corner, just being quiet. “Nicholas, do you want to pick, or do you want us to pick?”

I froze at that. I had dreamed of girl names before but had never settled on one. “Can I let you pick but veto it if I hate it?”

He and Mom smiled about that. “Okay,” he said. “We were thinking Sofia,” he said, “spelled with an F.”

“So, like the cartoon character?” I asked, trying not to smile. It was actually a name I had thought of before!

Mom nodded sheepishly, “It was the other name we thought of when Lily was born?”

“And a middle name?”

“Elizabeth, like your mom and your sister,” Dad said.

“Okay,” I said.

“Really? You’re not going to fight us on this and throw a fit?” Dad asked, confused.

“No, I’m not, let’s talk about it at home, though,” I told him. “Assuming I can go home?” I asked the doctor.

“Yes, you may. I’m going to send a nurse here with the discharge papers. Why don’t you go ahead and get her dressed to leave?”

I smiled again at ‘her’ being used again. ‘I can’t believe it really happened,’ I thought. Mom felt my diaper and said, “It can last until we get home. Which would you like to wear?” She asked me.

She held up three outfits. One was a pretty dress with tights. I really liked it, but it was snowy outside if they didn’t have school today. The next was a yellow sweater and a pink set of overalls with snaps along the legs, and the final option was a pair of jeans and a plain blue sweatshirt. I pointed to the overalls, “That one please.”

She handed me the sweatshirt, and I gratefully put it on myself. I stood up, pulled the overalls up without too much trouble, and buckled the straps unassisted. The nurse came then, and before I knew it, Mom was sitting in a wheelchair with me, cuddling my new teddy bear, now named Amber, getting pushed out to the parking lot where Dad was waiting.

He opened the door I usually got in through, and I saw a brand-new rear-facing purple car seat beside Lily’s. “I guess I’m stuck in one of these, huh?” I asked.

“Yes,” Mom said. She pulled the harness straps around me, adjusting them before buckling me in and closing the door. As we pulled away, I couldn’t help but wonder just what in the world happened to my brain cells that I had to get locked with the body of a baby girl!

‘At least I am a girl, though!’ I beamed.

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