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 60: NPC
 

‘LANGUAGE SOFIA!!!’ CAIREEN scolded. ‘But I agree, we do need to spank her on this!’

I knew that Streaked could use magic and that she had some level of speedster ability, but I had no idea on her skills beyond those. I put up my shield before I stepped out and began moving through the fake city unhindered for a long while. I sensed something was wrong only a heartbeat in advance, but I dodged the sudden spell that flew past me! Immediately after that, I found myself suddenly flat on my face, pushed over by Streaked, who flew past me!

I rolled and picked myself up, seeing her this time as she came in for another run at me. When she was ten feet away, I flung up a massive wall of rock I pulled from below and heard an incredible ‘thud’ sound. I giggled, thinking of an old Wile E. Coyote cartoon!

“What the hell?” I heard her say woozily from the other side. I peered around it and saw her picking herself up. She attempted to release another spell at me then that deflected harmlessly on my shield.

I smiled at her, “I can’t wait to see the replay on that one,” I taunted her. She moved quickly towards me, but I could tell she was still unsteady. My limited time sparring with other speeders made me more prepared to fight her. I used her inertia against her by tripping and pushing her forward with a grapple.

She landed in a heap on the ground and stopped moving. I thought about checking if she was okay, but a clock display at the edge of the Cube showed I only had five more minutes to cover some serious distance. I didn’t want to leave her unattended, so I quickly built a box of walls around her to keep her contained.

I turned and began running as quickly as my short little legs could go, cursing them as I still had to dodge other obstacles and booby traps in the building. At one point, if I didn’t have my shield up, I would have been fried with some sort of death ray! As it was, I had to redo my shield spell because it blew it apart and still left me with a little sunburned spot on my leg.

I took a bit more care as I ascended the remaining steps up the building, and I felt my tiny legs burning when I finally emerged at the top of the roof. Across from me was the flag that I began running towards, and I saw just ninety seconds left on the clock. I was just about to grab it when I heard loud footsteps coming behind me. I ducked and felt myself get kicked in the side as Streaked tumbled out of control over me. I looked up and was worried she would grab the flag before I realized she had bigger worries! She tripped right off of the roof!

She shrieked out, “Oh shit!!!!! No!!!!!!!!!!”

I ran to the edge and hopped on top of the lip. I quickly used a spell to slow Streaked’s descent and keep her from splattering on the ground many stories below. As soon as I saw she was okay, I grabbed the flag with just two seconds left on the clock.

‘Winner: Emerald Baby!’ Flashed across the screen as the lighting changed. I could suddenly see the crowd of students standing up and cheering.

I smiled and sat down on my butt for a few minutes, exhausted from the short burst of action I’d had!

Eventually, I had to get up, though and forced myself to hop down the stairs. I was grateful it was easier than running up them! Finally, I reached the bottom and began making my way out when Streaked suddenly stood before me. “You little bitch, you haven’t heard the last of this!”

She went to turn around and leave. So I called out to her, “You know, you’d think when I was nice enough to save you from breaking bones and finding hitting the ground sucks… you’d at least reciprocate a little good sportsmanship.”

“That’s bullshit! You cheated!” Streaked claimed.

“How?”

“I don’t know, but when I find out, I will have you kicked out of here!”

I laughed, “Okay, you do that.”

I watched her walk off to the entrance she entered while I walked to mine. I was the last Freshman to go, so most of my friends were waiting for me. “That was awesome, Sofia!” Beth told me.

“Thanks,” I told her.

Hannah picked me up and sniffed, “Guess you need a change?”

I shrugged, “I didn’t even know, honestly…?”

“And this is why I’m staying in charge of your diapers!” She said, tickling me. There was a locker room nearby that she carried me through to change me, and then I had to report to ‘debrief’ about the final. Hannah waited outside the door while I went in to find out what I’d done wrong.

When I knocked and entered, the judging panel was sitting at the table, “Welcome, Emerald!” Captain Tilling said, “Nice to be meeting under better circumstances.”

I smiled, “Yes, sir, it is.”

I said ‘hi’ to Mrs. Hensley and Retired General Giddings, who made up the rest of the panel.

“Let’s talk about the match…” he talked through my opening moves of the fight with Streaked. “Why did you leave uncovered the top of the box you put her in?”

I shrugged, “I didn’t think the point was to kill?

“Couldn’t you just form a top and leave enough air inside?”

“I guess I probably could? I haven’t tried it. The only other time I did that was to encase an enemy completely in stone to his neck, and then I blew off his head?”

“Excuse me?” Giddings said, “You did that in combat?”

I groaned, “My avatar has another world that I go to when I sleep… We just finished fighting a war a bit over a week ago.”

“That’s why you were in the hospital, correct?” Mrs. Hensley asked.

I nervously nodded.

“Okay, going back to that, because you didn’t seal off the top, Streaked was able to use a spell to blow herself out of there with air,” a video of it played then.

“Oops…” I said.

“That should have been the end, in all honesty. Streaked should have grabbed the flag and ended the match. Instead, when she decided to attack you again, she ended any chances she had. I have to say that it was good thinking to trip her. Why did you save her, though? We wouldn’t have let her suffer major injuries?”

“You wouldn’t?” I asked with my eyes wide open. “I’ve seen some others limping out with serious wounds?”

Mrs. Hensley shrugged, “They’re usually as good as new within a couple hours.”

“Oh…”

Mrs. Hensley smirked, “I appreciate you saving us some work!”

I ended up with a ninety percent for my grade since I’d let her slip the initial cage and because I had taken so long to get the flag. Hannah enjoyed rubbing her higher ninety-six percent grade in my face a while later!

The most important part was that Trident House was neck and neck with Aegis House for the lead going into the team battles!

 

THE NEXT EVENING after dinner, we had our team match. Tuesday had been the sophomore testing, and apparently, for betting purposes, someone had decided evening team matches would be better for the bookies!

There were more teams in the junior and senior classes and only a few in the freshmen class. The majority of our team was made up of freshmen, so we had another freshmen team that we were put up against. The large screen over the Cube read, ‘Iron Blazers vs. The Babysitter’s Club.’ Someone had submitted a logo of their five silhouettes standing over the very obviously cartoon-diapered me. I was holding a rattle in one hand and a bottle in the other. “Really, Esmie?” I complained.

She just giggled, “I think it’s cute! Just like You!”

I would have stuck my tongue out at her, but my pacifier served as the required mask. After the match, the night before, I got help from Caireen to add a spell to the pacifier to help me breathe easier. I had been way too tired running up the stairs of the building! So I figured some concentrated air pushing through the pacifier might help. I had thought about pure oxygen for about two seconds, but in the Cube, the last thing I wanted was an explosion inside my mouth!

For the team battles they did allow us to see stats on a screen inside our staging room. They ran the images of each of our team members first, along with our code names, powers, strengths, and weaknesses. I groaned when ‘messy diapers’ was listed among my weaknesses! ‘Jackasses…’ I thought to myself. When the other team flashed across, I kept an eye out for any helpful intel.

The Iron Blazers were made up of six members like us too. First, there was a girl codenamed White Falcon, who the screen showed was a flyer. Next was a burly guy that reminded me of a smaller, normal-skinned Hulk named Paved. His stats mentioned being able to lift twelve tons. They showed the information next for Choco Chips, the gadgeteer that Hannah had decimated in her one-on-one match. I groaned as I saw the following picture was of Ewe, the brick I had kicked in the nuts the first day at the school! I was intrigued as I looked at the next member; I didn’t remember seeing him before. Monotone looked like a black-and-white photocopy of a person, and I assumed it was a mild form of dysmorphia. He actually kind of looked like a Roswell Alien in the face a little too. Apparently, he had a telekinetic power. Their final member made me groan; Streaked’s information showed up with her picture.

Camille, Beth, Lizi, Esmie, Hannah, and I were all nervously looking forward to this match. When we saw the match-up that morning, we had broken away for a few minutes to discuss tactics to deal with that team. We each had our personal communication devices in our ears, and I thought back to the mission briefing we’d been given.

“This is going to be an old-fashioned capture-the-flag exercise,” we were told. “Defend your flag while also managing to take your opponent’s flag. The match will go on for up to forty-five minutes, or whenever one team can clear the opposition’s flag from where it is hidden.”

“We can’t just touch it?” Lizi had asked.

“Not for this one. We want you to show you are in control of the flag before you are awarded the win. The flag must travel a minimum of one hundred yards over a flat surface; or down the steps and outside of a tall building.”

“Other rules?”

“You can hide your flag where you want, but it must be visible from the ground outside. Civilian casualties will count against you as well.”

We had been given just a few minutes then to set a plan in motion, but luckily this was an exercise we’d already planned for. The upperclassmen had described it as a pretty standard one for new teams. At the last minute, I added an idea to the plan that everyone else loved. I just hoped it would work!

After we entered the Cube to a loud buzzer sound, we had just five minutes to hide our flag. We had decided to leave Beth and Lizi behind to defend the flag. Before Camille and I left, we placed about ten wards apiece around the area. If someone managed to get within twenty feet of the flag, they probably wouldn’t be touching it or leaving! Lizi had her own magical abilities that she would use to defend. At the same time, Beth set up a crazy sniper rifle device in a nearby building. It let her control the route to the flag and perform last-minute defense of the flag.

The match began for real at the sound of the next buzzer, and we set off on our plan of attack. Camille and Hannah advanced together while Esmie took to the air to keep a lookout. Esmie was also the most likely to engage White Falcon. I activated a few spells and began meandering through the city towards an area I had just spotted Falcon taking off from. Computer-generated NPCs were walking around that appeared to be as real looking as I was, and I hoped to blend as the others took the attention of the Blazers.

I was halfway to the likely location when I saw Esmie and Falcon start getting into it up in the sky. Esmie had several devices courtesy of Beth that she was firing at Falcon. Falcon managed to get behind her and threw her out of the air for a moment. Then, just when I thought Esmie would crash, she went rocketing back into the air. She tagged Falcon with some device that immediately encased her in a bubble. Falcon immediately plummeted to the ground like a rock.

I kept moving through the city as casually as I could. Mildly amused that they’d even included a bunch of fake copies of businesses that were just a little different. Victor’s Secret seemed to feature male underwear models, Cold Topic looked to feature lame nerdy clothes, and other parodies followed…

“I’ve got Paved in sight!” I heard Camille say.

“Careful,” Hannah told her, “He’s strong. Might be better for me to take him on?”

“Let me have the first crack. Then, if I go down, you’ll have to take Paved out, and I’ll come back in and help out.”

I heard the sounds of fighting a couple blocks away, then just as Monotone appeared in the distance. He looked around the sidewalks carefully, taking note of the NPC characters but not doing anything to them. I kept moving until he passed me and decided to stick with our plan and let the others engage him. When he was out of hearing range, I said, “Monotone is going south on…” giving street names to my teammates.

“Roger, I’m going hunting,” Hannah said a moment later.

A moment later, Streaked ran by at about eighty miles an hour, and I spotted their flag hanging over the edge of the building above me. Apparently, Streaked was making a roving patrol around and around the building to keep us away. She looked right at me but kept moving as I crossed the streak with a few other NPCs and entered the building.

Being between doors in an airlock area of the entryway, I quietly communicated, “Found flag, it’s...” I gave directions. “Currently inside the building and heading up. I had just passed into the stairwell when I spotted Choco Chips looking around from the top. I hid for a moment and noticed that she was coming down.

‘Shit…’ I thought to myself. I quietly let myself back onto the office area of the level I was on. Inside were a bunch of NPCs working in cubicles. I spotted an empty one and sat down just as Choco Chips and Streaked suddenly appeared!

 
 

Thank you for reading! Please press the ‘Like’ Button if you’ve enjoyed it! We’re coming to the home stretch of this tale, with just two chapters and an epilogue remaining, the story will wrap up on Thursday! I would really really really appreciate it you would leave a comment! Some of you are doing a fine job of commenting, and I really do appreciate it! Please keep up the good work! New commentators are always loved too!!!! I will fully admit to feeling neglected when there’s none…? (Pretty Please? With a cherry on top?!?)

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