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.

Alarm clocks are like one of those double sword edge things. They’re loud and annoying so you have to turn them off to go back to sleep, but mom and dad are going to know that you woke up if you do that. Then they’ll come in to force you to get up themselves. There’s no way to actually get any more sleep. You’re doomed the moment you wake up.

I fought against my bed to get my eyes open, squinting up at my white ceiling and the surrounding soft blue walls. I reached over to the little table by my bedside with my last bit of strength and shut off the alarm.

Henry hated Toons. He was an adult when they first invaded our reality (Or did we invade theirs? The debate raged on), and as a respected professor of Math, and a serious man all around, their inherently chaotic nature meant their very existence was nothing less than actually insulting to him. So much so that not even fond childhood memories of watching Tom & Jerry and The Jetsons could overcome his contempt.

Everything is coming to a head, as Marion has to contend with his first day back at school. Family drama is never easy. At least Andy's made big plans for the weekend. Our hero's Journey is coming to an end. Where will he...or she go from here?

Beverly begins to see a way to help native peoples avoid exploitation.

Stacy had a problem, a BIG problem: her son. When she and her late husband, Chad (God rest his soul), found out that the baby rapidly growing in her ever-expanding belly was a boy, they had both been filled with such hope. What a handsome, strong man he would inevitably grow up to be, they thought! And virile too, though neither would dare say that part aloud (that would just be crude, of course).