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 24: Bullies

MY NEW NORMAL day began when I woke up in my crib in Caireen’s palace, but Caireen wasn’t there. I stood up and grimaced a little at my soaked diaper. “Hello?!?” I asked quietly.

I heard nothing and wondered where Caireen would be. So I called out louder, “Caireen!?!”

Still, no one came.

‘Calm down,’ I thought to myself… I looked around my crib and found Emie next to the bars. I picked her up and held her while I waited and hoped someone would come.

Then I waited.

Eventually, I began playing with Emie to try and distract myself, but still, no one came.

After what must have been a few hours, I felt my stomach rumbling. ‘I’m hungry, and I’m wet!’

‘What would a normal baby do?’ I asked myself. ‘Is Caireen waiting for me to cry?’

I sighed and thought some more before standing up and grabbing onto the bars that hung just at my fingertips. I figured I could jump over the bars if Caireen hadn’t left a similar spell on this crib. So I ensured I had a firm grip and flung myself over the bars!

And then promptly found myself flung back into the crib and onto my wet rear-end.

I sniffled.

I felt tears going down my face.

Then without warning, I felt myself begin to wail at the top of my lungs!

‘Where is Caireen?’ I thought to myself.

As if waiting for me to cry, she suddenly appeared in the room. She picked me up and held me tight, “It’s okay, baby,” she told me.

“Where were you?” I sniffled out.

“Taking care of some things,” she said while bouncing me and shushing me. Nothing she said, though, was helping me stop the tears. “Let’s get that wet diaper changed,” she told me.

I was gently placed on the changing table, and Caireen was gentle as she unpinned the diaper and wiped me gently. I found myself still sobbing, though, as she finished. ‘Why can’t I stop crying?’ I asked myself.

‘Have I truly gone nuts now?’ I asked myself again as she dressed me, and I was still crying. Caireen continued to ‘shush’ me but, in the end, sat down in the nursery rocking chair and nursed me at her breast.

Embarrassingly it finally calmed my body down.

After I had finished nursing, she burped me and asked, “Better?”

I almost started to tear up again, “Why was I crying? And why couldn’t I stop?!?”

She hugged me, “The longer you spend time here in this world as my baby, I suspect you will begin to have more normal reactions. For example, a baby waking up alone and then crying in a crib for attention is normal behavior, isn’t it?”

“But why didn’t you come when I called your name?”

She smiled, “The alert ward in your nursery won’t go off unless you’re crying.”

“You tricked me into crying?” I asked, upset.

She shook her head, “I would have been here in another half-hour or so, but the only way I knew that you were awake and needed me was if you cried.”

I glared at her, “Would you please change that ward to if I call your name?” I remembered my manners at least, but my tone of voice had her clucking.

“You’re a baby; if you want my attention before I’m ready to give it, you’ll just have to cry.”

“What about…” I started to argue.

She put her finger to my mouth, “Do you need your first spanking from me?”

I felt my eyes open in terror and quickly shook my head, “No, I’ll be a good girl,” I told her, fearing how hard a goddess could hit!

“Good!” she said, “Then let’s get to some magic lessons here.”

I sighed and nodded. “What’s up today?”

“More wards,” she said simply.

For the next several hours, we practiced. First, Caireen taught me a simple privacy spell to prevent others from listening to me. Then she showed me another simple spell to protect something like our dorm room from anyone else breaking into the room. Caireen explained that she had already placed a bunch of wards around the room. Still, it would be better to continually add layers of wards to the protection.

After she fed me lunch there, she walked me outside and to the forest’s edge. “What are we doing here?” I asked.

“I wanted to show you your tree house!”

I looked up suddenly and noticed a beautiful tree house up on top of a thick tree. I could barely see the stairs that were cleverly camouflaged around the tree up to the top. “Cool!” I said.

I climbed the tree’s steps and came to a door. I tried opening it, but it wouldn’t budge. Caireen followed me up and said, “It’s locked by magic. You have to unlock it first.”

‘Another lesson?’ I asked myself.

I sat there for over an hour trying to feel how she had locked it with a ward. She had to change my diaper in the next hour while I picked the magical lock. It was frustrating beyond belief, but a part of me was enjoying the challenge. I eventually succeeded in opening up the door and immediately squealed in excitement!

“I did it!”

“Yes, you did, my clever little princess!” She said with a smile when I looked at her. “Now go on in there!”

I walked in through the entryway and quickly realized this was another of those weird spells to make things bigger. Inside was huge! There was a play kitchen with a modern-looking stove and microwave, “What, no wood-burning stove?” I asked her with a smile.

“Time to come to the modern age on some things,” she told me with a smile.

I walked through the house and found a playroom, a living room with a TV, a nursery just right for playing with Emie, and a door that led to a deck that ringed one edge of the house. I ran back to Caireen and hugged her, “Thank you!”

“You’re very welcome, Sofia. Before we go back to the castle and put you to bed, I want you to put up the wards you learned about today. Then you need to lock up the door again too!”

I looked up and excitedly said, “Okay!”

I walked inside and around the perimeter as I put up the warding spells. When I got back to the door, I knew everything about how it locked from picking it, so I created my custom magical key of a spell to relock it. Finally, I closed the door behind me and asked, “How did I do?”

“Great!” she told me as she scooped me up. She carried me back to the castle garden and sat in a chair. One of her servants brought a glass of some sort of juice to her, and she said, “You’ve got to be thirsty and hungry now…?”

I turned a bit red but nodded. Caireen moved her dress out of the way, and I nursed until I fell asleep to return to the real world.

 

I RUBBED THE sleep from my eyes as I felt myself get picked up. I blurrily looked up at Hannah and noticed she was already dressed in her uniform. “Good morning, Princess,” Hannah said with a smile.

“Morning,” I mumbled. Then, finally, my eyes began to focus, and I could see she was already dressed for the day. “You already showered?”

“Uh-huh,” she said as she carried me to the changing table, “I figure a bath at night should be enough for you?”

I thought for a second, “I guess normally… but I used to use that to wake up,” I told her as she unzipped the sleeper I had been dressed in.

“Well, we’ll try the normal baby way for a week?” She suggested soothingly as she slid my feet out and pulled the sleeper away, leaving me in only a very soggy diaper.

I shrugged, “I guess.”

With that, she laid me down the rest of the way and gently cleaned my diaper area with a couple baby wipes. “Umm… Caireen?” Hannah asked hesitantly.

I felt her stir and let her come to the front of the focus, “Yes?”

“They had a really good idea yesterday about making her uniform blouses actually onesies with the snap crotch there… Would you mind?”

I could feel a little magic leave me, and the blouse she had waiting on the changing table instantly added a tail. I knew without looking that the others in my closet had also changed. I sighed; it would probably keep my soggy diapers from sliding off me!

“Thanks!” Hannah said. She pulled it over my head and said, “You know we could just have this be a one-piece dress almost,” as she snapped the crotch shut. “The skirts could be attached like a couple of those outfits that you and Lily have…?”

“Whatever,” I said. Clearly, my dressing choices weren’t going to be mine again for a long time - if ever!

“What a cranky baby,” Hannah said half-teasingly, “let’s get something in your tummy, and maybe you’ll stop being grouchy!”

Hannah carried me to the rocker for a nursing session, burped me, then said, “Let’s go get breakfast, and then we’ll get to our appointments. I can’t wait to see what they list as my powers!” She said excitedly.

“Super breasts on the EID?” I joked.

“Well, super stinky diapers must be on yours?” she retorted.

“Ouch,” I said.

I felt the back of my diaper, wondering if I had gone, and she laughed at me. “You’re not stinky now, Silly,” she told me with a smile and kissed the top of my head. “I’m sure you will be soon, but that’s no biggie,” she said with a smile and sat me down on the ground. I watched as she gathered my diaper bag and our coats up. I put on the coat she handed me while she put on her own. As soon as she slung the diaper bag over her shoulder, she picked me up and said, “let’s go!”

We ran into Camille on the way to breakfast, and she asked us about how our powers testing went the day before. I learned a lot more about how Hannah’s had gone, and by the time we got to our seats with food, I mentioned that I had been able to shoot out some green stuff like her. Camille looked at me and asked, “Is it maybe because…?

I looked at her and glared. She got the hint.

“Because of what?”

“Because of her bond?” Camille recovered.

“Maybe,” Beth said. The others began talking about other Mergents and how sometimes they managed to influence things, “You could be a little bit of a copyist?” Beth suggested later.

As we finished, I hopped down and immediately groaned in my head. My body forced itself into a crouch, and I was soon pooping my diaper. Hannah grabbed my diaper bag and asked, “Do you want to walk to the bathroom or for me to carry you?”

I held my arms out in answer as I did everything I could just to not start wailing. I felt my pacifier push into my lips and kept my eyes closed. ‘This is so embarrassing! In front of everyone!’

‘Sofia, open your eyes.’ Caireen insisted.

I groaned but did so. ‘What?’

‘Notice, not a single person cares?’

We walked right next to a few gorgeous girls, and they just smiled at me. I forced myself to smile back. We’d almost made it to the cafeteria door to leave when Streaked just happened to walk in. She sniffed and looked surprised for a moment before looking at me and asking, “Oh, did the wittle baby girl make a poopy diapee?”

I felt a tear threatening my eyes, but I refused to give in. I couldn’t help this and was not going to put up with Streaked’s bullying. With a single spell, I had changed her outfit into a onesie top like mine, panties to a diaper. Then Caireen added a special touch of her own, and I watched the bully squat down and make her very own poopy diapee.

“I think the wittle baby girl did make a big poopy!” Camille said through her laughter. Other students pointed and laughed at Streaked.

“I’m going to get you!” she shouted at me and started to run at us. I quickly put up a shield between us and watched as she ran into it, rebounded, and sat on the ground. I felt for her as I thought about how much that had just smashed her mess. She began to try and retaliate again, but a member of Bechtel security came up right then. “What’s going on here?”

‘Uh-oh,’ I thought to myself.

“That little bitch just changed my clothes and made me shit myself!!!!” Streaked screamed.

The officers looked at me, and I remembered one of them from the other day when the officer led Streaked away. “Is that true?”

I thought about lying, but that never got me anywhere, “She was making fun of my disability and the fact that I was in a ‘poopy diapee.’”

“Let’s go to the security office and chat then…?”

“Umm… we don’t have to do that,” Streaked suddenly looked scared.

“This isn’t the first time you all have had problems, and I’m not going to have an ongoing feud,” the man said, “Let’s go.”

“Can I change Sofia really quickly?” Hannah asked.

The man looked thoughtfully at us, “Only if Sofia changes Streaked, so we don’t have to smell her?” There was a bit of a bemused smirk on his expression.

I looked at Streaked and used a spell that I wished I could use on myself. A second later, she was in a nice clean diaper, and I’d even given her a skirt to cover her diaper and the onesie… sort of. The onesie definitely peaked out from underneath the edge a little!

The officer smirked again and nodded at Hannah. “I’m so tempted to spank you, Sofia Elizabeth!” Hannah growled in the bathroom while she changed me. “She wasn’t doing anything bad to you there.”

I glared at her, “Do you have any idea how embarrassing it is to poop your pants and then have someone say something about it?!?!?”

“You’re a baby, Sofia. It happens all the time! Get used to it!” She said as she slid my pacifier back into my mouth. “Let’s go get this over with. Hopefully, you didn’t just land us both in detention!”

“But…”

Hannah finished wiping me none-to-gently and put a new diaper on me. Then, she angrily snapped the onesie snaps, pulled my skirt down, washed her hands in the sink, and then mine too. “Let’s get this over with quickly, and maybe we can still make our appointments on time.”

I pulled my pacifier out of my mouth and said, “I’m sorry, Hannah.”

She sighed, “I know you are. I just hope they let us off with a warning. As it is, I think you’ve made a permanent enemy of Streaked for us.”

I bit my tongue from saying, ‘She started it!’

When we walked back out of the bathroom, one of the security guards was still standing with Camille. They led us to the security office at Kane Hall with no one saying anything. The dread of being in real trouble hung over my head like a knife.

Before we reached the Hall, I decided to do something unasked and changed Streaked’s clothes back to her regular clothes. She gasped but smiled that she was back in her actual clothes. In return, though, she gave me a glare that made me glad I was in Hannah’s arms. One of the security officers looked at me and said, “No more changing anyone’s clothes right now, please!”

I nodded, “Sowwy.” I said around the pacifier. As we walked in the doors, I felt like we had walked into a police station and not someplace on a school campus.

“The Captain is waiting back there for you all,” one of the officers with a name badge that read ‘Giddings.’

I found myself sucking on my pacifier more, but Hannah pulled it out of my unwilling mouth just as we went in the door. I glared at her, but she angrily whispered, “You’re going to face this like the big girl you claim you want to be!”

Streaked had already taken a seat in one chair across the desk from an imposing man who I had to assume was the Captain. “Well, this isn’t the way I like to meet new students,” he started, “I’m Captain Tilling,” he said without getting up, “and we seem to have a problem with you all. Please sit down,” he motioned to the chairs. Camille took the chair in the middle of where Hannah sat down with me on her knee and the one Streaked was in. I heard the door shut behind us.

“So, let’s start at the beginning. Streaked, what’s your side of the story,” Tilling asked.

I knew it would do me no good to interrupt, so I listened as she wove a tale that made it sound like I was the first to start picking on her. I gritted my teeth and resisted pulling a spare pacifier from my purse to help me stay quiet. In the end, she said, “all I did today was to comment about the baby having a stinky diaper? What is so wrong about that?!?”

“Emerald, you’ve been really good about waiting for Streaked to say her part; what’s yours?”

“She started the whole thing by making fun of Hannah the first day. She made a comment that Hannah must have been some teenage slut,” I paused, “Pardon my language,” he nodded. “And, I made a comment to shut her up about ‘sorry, Hannah really is a virgin, and she can’t give you lessons.’ My friends laughed, and she took the hint and left.”

“Bull… I never said that!!!!”

“Streaked; I watched Emerald control herself very admirably through your side of the story. Time for you to do so too.”

“The other things?”

“She was picking on me another time about needing a high chair, and I made her hair turn into cute pigtails with bows. This one… she was embarrassing me in public and being a bully. I couldn’t help turning her outfit into what it was.” I felt Caireen stir and knew my voice had changed, “Sofia wasn’t the one to make her lose her bowels, though; that was me. I can’t stand bullies and people who pick on children. Her comment was not meant as a cute baby comment.” she faded.

Captain Tilling looked at his computer before asking, “That was your avatar spirit?”

“Yes, sir,” I said.

“You have anything else to add?” He asked me.

I sighed, “No sir, I’m sorry. I was mad and afraid I’d deal with them constantly if I didn’t stand up to a bully like her. In my defense, she was never harmed.”

“Uh-huh,” he said, unconvinced. “Ms. Rayburn, do you have anything to add?”

“Only that whatever you decide, I’ll back you up on. I know Sofia’s parents approved of some alternate forms of punishment.”

“Alternate forms?” I asked and was squeezed into silence.

“Yes, Emerald, your parents, and Mrs. Hensley discussed that cleaning up the containment labs for detention would probably not be within your abilities for your size. However, several other ideas were given as alternatives…?”

I gulped.

 
 

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