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 22: Playgrounds

“WHAT DID YOU do with all of that milk?!?” I asked Hannah, mind blown at how much I was nursing from her.

“Well, there are a few bottles of expressed milk in the bag for you if you get thirsty,” she said with a smile. “And I talked Mrs. Lang into letting me use her fridge until we can buy a fridge with a freezer to put in the room tonight.”

I shook my head, “That space will be filled in no time, though!”

Hannah squeezed me as she picked me up, “Probably!” Then, she placed me on her hip, “Let’s get this testing over with!”

I smiled, “At least you’ll know more about yourself when we’re done!”

“Yeah, other than shooting energy at people and being the best wetnurse in the world, I don’t really know what I can do yet.”

We walked to the building together and checked in at the front receptionist’s desk. “Hi, I’m Hannah Rayburn, and this is Sofia Hammerstein. We’re here for powers testing?”

The lady smiled at me, “Why aren’t you just the cutest thing.”

I sighed and politely replied, “Thank you.”

“Let me just look up some information and have you fill out some forms for you and this little princess,” the lady said condescendingly.

Before I could get upset, Hannah said, “Ma’am, Sofia can fill out her own set of forms.”

“Isn’t she a baby?”

“No, ma’am, she’s eighteen,” Hannah said bluntly. I took a moment and looked up at Hannah and cringed a little bit. Being friends for most of our lives, I’ve seen that look only a few times. The last time she gave Sarah Acosta the ugliest black eye I’d ever seen.

“Oh, my apologies,” the lady said. “Here you go then, sweetie,” she said and handed us each a clipboard.

To assert my age a little more, I did a backflip off the counter and walked to a chair in a small waiting room. Hannah smiled at me and shook her head. After that, it was like déja vu all over again since it was mostly the same questionnaire from the powers testing in Los Alamos. I found myself filling in the ‘incontinence’ line again, but at this point, I had to admit there was no changing that.

“You done?” Hannah asked me a few minutes later and took hers up simultaneously.

“They should be out to get you two in about ten minutes.”

“Thanks,” Hannah said.

As she came over, she put her hand on my diaper and said, “I think you’ll be fine for a while.”

I nodded and looked at her chest, “How about you?”

She sighed, “I probably should pump or have you nurse, but I’ll wait until we’re back there and have them take a look. Why? Are you thirsty?”

I thought for a second and nodded. Hannah reached into the diaper bag and grabbed a bottle out of a pocket. She shook it, uncapped it, and then handed it to me. “Yours?” I asked as I looked at it.

She nodded.

I took a hesitant suck on the nipple and discovered it was cold and didn’t taste as good. “It’s cold,” I said while I made a face.

Hannah looked thoughtfully and said, “Here, hand it to me for a second.”

She held the bottle in her hand, and I saw a quick glow before she put a test drop on her wrist. “Here, try it again.”

I found it was precisely the temperature from her breast then and smiled around the nipple. ‘When did she start being able to do that?’ I wondered.

‘She’s got the most to learn today,’ Caireen reminded me.

Hannah picked me up and sat me on her lap as I continued to hold the bottle to my mouth. Sitting there was pretty relaxing, but I couldn’t help but be a little disconcerted by how much I was missing nursing her milk from her instead of using the bottle. When a white-coated scientist came out to the waiting room, I had finished the bottle and was just absentmindedly sucking on the empty bottle. “Hannah? Sofia?”

Hannah and I nodded. She grabbed the bottle from me and stored it in the diaper bag before getting up, and we walked back with her carrying the two bags.

“I’m Doctor Kestner,” the scientist said to us. “I’ll be one of the people running your testing today.”

“Nice to meet you,” I said, “I’m Sofia, and this is Hannah.”

He paused in the hallway, looked at me briefly, and then shook his head. “I understand you two are a team at this point?”

Hannah nodded, “Probably for the rest of our lives.”

“I get that; teaming up in emergences happens every now and then. Will you be okay being tested separately?”

I nodded, “I will need Hannah to help me every now and then, though.”

He raised his eyebrows, and Hannah responded, “She’ll need a diaper change in about an hour, I would guess.”

“Umm… okay. Or one of our staff could help with that,” the doctor said courteously.

“We’ll see where we’re at?” I suggested.

“Fair enough. I don’t want you two to impact each other’s testing right now, so we’re going to run one of you through one portion while the other is doing another. Sofia, if you’ll come with me please, Hannah, if you’ll go down that hallway and take a right, there will be someone waiting for you.”

With that, I was led into a room like the physical testing area at Los Alamos, but at least several times larger!

“I didn’t think to have her leave your bag with me… do you have a change of clothes for the physical portion of this?” He asked.

I didn’t even answer him with words; I just said, ‘do it’ to Caireen, and I was soon in the same leotard and tutu I’d been in for the initial test.

Doctor Kestner snorted and chuckled, “Okay then, I’ll take that as you’ll be fine in that?”

I nodded, “Yes, sir.”

We began with a treadmill, moved to weights, and then finally, he led me down to an obstacle course that made the one in Los Alamos feel like a home swing set in comparison. Tall platforms that rose forty feet above the floor, with rock climbing holds, ropes, poles, and swings set up throughout. It reminded me of the Ninja Warrior TV show that I had seen on TV one time. Given directions for a route, I had a blast running through the course, jumping, leaping, and climbing it like a playground. When I completed the course, I ran up to him, barely panting. “Doctor Kestner, that’s a lot of fun. Is there any way I could come back sometime to play?”

He looked at me like I had grown horns or something, “Play?”

Right then, I barely became aware of Hannah behind me as she picked me up, “Yes, I’m sure she’s thinking play. She’s a baby, after all!” She said and hugged me tightly before wrinkling her nose. “One with a stinky diapee!”

“Uh… would you mind taking care of that before I take her to the next test?”

“Not at all. Do you have a private room?”

He led us to an empty locker room, and Hannah placed a portable changing pad on the concrete bench before laying me on top of it. She pulled apart the snaps in the crotch of the leotard and shimmied it all up my body before un-taping my diaper.

“Peee-ew!” She cooed and smiled, “What a stinky baby!” She took a moment to tickle my side before getting to work on cleaning my bottom.

When she was done, I said, “Thank you” to her.

“You’re welcome, Princess,” she said as she found a trash can and dropped my soiled diaper inside. “Running around on that course sure made you a mess! I think that’s the messiest diaper I’ve changed on you.”

I blushed, “Sorry.”

“Why? You’re a baby. That’s what you should be doing!” she smiled and tickled my side.

I giggled, “What have you done so far?”

“They had me stare at a bunch of parts, and things that I guess are supposed to do something,” she shrugged. “You know I’ve always been terrible with mechanical and computerized things. They also had me grabbing some things from across the room, too… that’s kind of fun!”

“Huh?” I asked.

“Here, watch,” she said as I saw the diaper bag next to me open back up, and a bottle came out. The cap was pulled off by some invisible force, and she held it for a moment to warm it up. A quick wrist test and the invisible force picked it up as she settled me in her arms. The bottle floated to my mouth, holding the bottle for me to nurse.

“Cool!” I said around the nipple, and she smiled.

I nursed the bottle to empty pretty quickly, and she turned me and burped me unnecessarily. Of course, my body still burped on command, though!

“Okay, back to work, Sofia!” she said and walked me back to the room.

When we reached another room, I recognized they were testing me by shooting the balls at me again. Once again, I could duck out of the way for a while. I eventually failed the test, though, as I assumed all students must! I wound up sitting in that same gadget room, just as clueless as Hannah had been. Finally, I was bored enough that I started stacking parts like a tower of blocks before they seemed to think I might break something and rushed me out... I was then tested for telekinesis and other related powers. I was sure I could do the tests with magic, but that wasn’t what they wanted.

To my surprise, though, I suddenly seemed to be able to do a lower-power version of the green energy blasts I had seen Hannah do when she emerged. They weren’t powerful enough to explode like hers, but we discovered they were sufficient to disable unshielded electronics. They also seemed to be able to knock a person’s nervous system out. It wasn’t the same as my magical blasts; I was sure of that!

“You weren’t able to do that before in Los Alamos?” she asked me.

I shook my head, “No, not like that… That’s like Hannah’s power.”

“I wonder…”

Whatever it was, she thought though she didn’t tell me then. After some more testing, I was eventually led into yet another room. Questions from another technician were all about my avatar spirit. As I explained more about her, the man’s eyes seemed to get larger and larger. Eventually, I was tired of answering questions and let Caireen take over my body. It was weird being the bystander as she answered history questions he asked, questions about her powers, and many other things. During that session, I noticed he couldn’t type notes fast enough into his computer.

At two in the afternoon, Hannah came to find me, and after changing back into our uniforms, we went to get a late lunch. When we returned to the testing labs, I was greeted by a young technician in her late twenties wearing a lab coat over a pretty flowered dress. She introduced herself, “I’m Trinity.” She held her hand to me first and then to Hannah, “Sofia, do you mind coming with me to meet with Ms. Raspin for your magic testing?”

I looked at Hannah, and we both decided we’d have to split off. “Here, her diaper is a little wet, but it’ll probably hold for another hour,” Hannah said and handed her my diaper bag. My face turned red, and I glared at her.

“Do you want to walk, or should I carry you?” Trinity asked.

I sighed, “I guess we’ll go quicker if you carry me.”

She smiled and shouldered the diaper bag before placing me on her other side. I tried to ignore the feeling of the stranger securely holding me by my diapered butt!

 
 

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