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 59: Cubed

THAT NIGHT WITH Caireen in her castle, she cuddled me, fed me, cuddled me, fed me, and cuddled some more, all while I continued teething in her world. She turned the baby treatment on full blast, but I didn’t honestly mind it that much with how miserable my mouth felt! Each time I nursed from her, though, I felt better, and by the time she changed me and fed me that night, my teeth had all erupted.

The next morning I was so grateful to get checked out of Caduceus! I was so happy to have a complete set of my baby teeth again! At lunchtime, I was piling on the crunchiest fried foods I could find to celebrate!

Over the next week, we all had the stress of final exams. Hannah and I took two exams on Monday, one on Tuesday, two on Wednesday, two on Thursday, and one final one on Friday. When I finished my final martial arts test, I quickly magically changed out of my gi. I caught Beth as she was leaving, “Beth!” I said.

“Hi, Sofia. Want a ride back to the dorm?” She asked, reaching her hands out to pick me up.

I shook my head, “Actually, I was kind of hoping you could help me out with something…?”

“Sure, I’m done with finals now! Well… except our Cube Finals next week.” She shrugged, “Not much we can do to study in advance there.”

I giggled nervously there, having heard so many horror stories from the past from upperclassmen this week!

“I have something I want to do with Hannah… Can you call her and get her to meet you at the coffee shop? Tell her I’m already there with you?”

She looked at me suspiciously, “Pulling pranks on your mommy may not be the best of plans?”

I felt like I was withering under her glare, but I returned my best innocent little girl stare back to her.

Beth sighed, “Luckily for you, I love a good practical joke! And, now, I’m too curious to say no!”

I smiled at her and hugged her. “Thanks!”

‘Hope you’re sure of this…’ Caireen mumbled to me.

Thirty minutes later, Beth was seated in the coffee shop, and Hannah walked up to her. “Where’s Sofia?” She asked.

“She’ll be back in a sec,” she told her.

Hannah looked around nervously for me but didn’t realize she was staring right at me. I let her stew for a few minutes and then walked up to the table. “Beth, is this seat taken?” I asked her.

“No, go right ahead,” she said with a smirk.

I had to do a weird hop into the seat to make it seem like I was really just sitting down in the chair.

“Where did Sofia go, Beth? I’m getting a little worried?” Hannah said.

“I’m right here, Hannah,” I told her.

She shrieked as she looked into my eyes… “You… you…”

“Grew up?” I asked.

“But… Caireen said… Your EFP..” Hannah was clearly in disbelief as she stared at me. I looked like I thought I would if I was ever going to age to being an eighteen-year-old girl. My red hair was straightened and styled nicely, my odd-colored eyes sparkled, and I wore what looked like a typical Bechtel uniform.

Or at least, so it appeared!

I smiled at her, “It’s just an illusion, unfortunately,” I told her.

“What?” She said.

“Try and touch my hand,” I told her and put my hand on the table. My real hand was much closer to me, but as soon as she touched the illusion of a hand, I reappeared in my actual baby form.

“You can’t scare me like that! I thought you grew up…” Hannah cried, and I felt terrible a moment later as she asked. “Why?”

I shrugged, “I wanted to try it? Sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you?”

She shook her head, “I’m not upset. It was just a bit of a shock…?” Then, she glared at me, “I’ll remember this...”

I looked at Beth now, sure I wasn’t quite in the doghouse… crib? “Thanks for your help!”

She laughed, “Totally worth it! But this can’t be the only time we get someone with this,” she told me.

After we all drank cups of coffee, Hannah carried me back to the dorm and asked, “So what was the point in that?”

I sighed, “I’d like to be able to pretend to be normal every now and then.”

She nodded, “It might be fun to go out like that tonight…?”

“Go out?”

“You know they’re having a dance tonight?”

I shook my head, “No, I guess I haven’t even paid any attention to things like that. Of course, this only works as long as you don’t touch me, though…?”

“So, we’ll have to be careful while we’re out?” She smiled.

I shrugged, “Okay!”

Hannah nursed me, and we had dinner at the Friar Hall before coming back for her to change into her homecoming dress from this past fall… Or at least that was the plan! But, with her breasts filling out and her growing an inch or two, it didn’t fit like it had two months earlier. She was nearly in tears when I said, “How about I make you a new one?”

She looked at me skeptically, “Why hadn’t you offered that yet?”

I laughed, “Like I normally dress you?”

She laughed at that herself, and we found a couple websites and decided on a dress she liked. I created one for her and then used one of the others as my template for my illusion. ‘Caireen, what if I put up a shield just past the illusion? Would it hold then?’

I felt her think for a moment, ‘It probably would; just make sure it’s just a solid shield and not one of your charged ones…?

I nodded at that and put it up.

“How do I look?” I asked Hannah.

“Beautiful!” She told me with a smile.

She started to reach for my hand but stopped… “What?” I asked.

“You said it goes away if I touch you?” She replied.

“Go ahead and try it; I did something different.”

She reached for me and felt my hand, the shield ended right above where my skin seemed to be, so it was like she was grabbing onto me. “This feels weird, but you still look the same?”

I smiled, “Maybe I can actually dance then!”

“Umm… Sofia… not to be mean, but if you can do this… then why not change back to your old self?”

I sighed, “I guess I only had this conversation with my parents… I can’t believe we haven’t talked about this?” I shook my head then.

She looked a bit lost, “Talked about what?”

I sighed, “Hannah, the only part of this weird emergence that bothered me was turning into a baby. I’ve dreamed of having my body turn into a girl most of my life. I knew I was transgender since the first time I heard an explanation of what that meant...”

She smiled, “Why didn’t you say anything over the years? With your long hair, I could have easily made you look pretty even before this? It would have been a blast to dress you up!”

I smiled, “I know now how easy it went for people to get used to me being a girl… but I’ve been terrified for years to say anything. I didn’t want to lose you as a friend!”

She tentatively hugged me, “Of course, I’d be okay with you! I love you!”

“That’s the second time you’ve said that,” I told her. “You really mean it?”

A second later, she shocked me by attempting to kiss me on the lips!

The field and my illusion dropped.

“Ugh!” I complained.

She giggled, “Well, we might need to work on this… I can’t kiss you when you look like a baby, but maybe we can do something else to make the grown-up you work better?”

‘Caireen?’ I asked.

‘I’ll work on thinking of a solution… I told you I didn’t think this would work at all. However, your idea of the shield on top was a good idea… give me some time.’

“Caireen’s going to work on it,” I told her. I redid the spells, “Shall we go, I guess? If nothing else, our parents will appreciate that we can’t get into too much trouble right now!”

She laughed at me and hugged me. I was still shorter than her in this form by a little bit, and I was perfectly okay with that because I never wanted to be a giant. The two of us walked to the Friar Hall and found it had been converted into a massive dance floor with lights and a DJ. “Hi, Hannah!” Camille said when we ran into her, “Where’s Sofia?” She looked at me, “And who’s this?”

I giggled, “It’s me! I am the grown-up Sofia!”

“What?!?” She asked, confused. “Where did my little girl go?”

I giggled and told her about the spells I was using. Before I knew it, my friends and I gathered in the corner of the dance area. We danced with each other, and some boys would join us off and on. Hannah never lacked a partner, but most of the time, it was our group of friends in the same area. At one point during the dance, Hannah could smell my diaper and whispered, “You need a change!”

I blushed but did a spell to change my diaper that Caireen had finally allowed me to use.

“You can change yourself now?” She asked with a frown.

“I don’t have to normally…?” I suggested, seeing the hurt on her face.

“You can’t grow up completely on me, Sofia.” She warned me.

I sighed, “I’ll only change myself if I have the illusion up… or if I’m not around someone who can change me?”

She nodded and pulled me closer to her. “If you don’t let me take care of you still, I promise I’ll sick Caireen on you!”

“That’s not playing fair,” I told her as Caireen internally nodded her assent!

 
 

TWO DAYS LATER, all the freshmen discovered it wasn’t just the team matches we had heard about for the ‘Cube Finals.’ No, the tradition was not to let us all know that the first portion was a head-to-head match against a ‘random’ opponent. At the end of the finals, whichever of the five houses had the most individual and team wins received some perks in the dining hall and priority scheduling some recreational activities for the semester.

Trident House hadn’t won in a decade, and I hoped we might make a decent run at the contest!

Hannah and I had only been there for a few weeks of classes, but at least I had my time in Caireen’s world to learn and train. Not to mention, fight a magical war! Unfortunately, Hannah didn’t have much more than a few lessons in martial arts and a little time experimenting with her powers… and I was worried for her. She was matched against a girl, ‘Choco Chips,’ from Aegis House.

We had all gotten instructions from Mrs. Hensley that morning on how the finals worked. She explained that we were attempting to retrieve a dangerous weapon in the simulation. The opposing students would try to get there first and/or disable the other opponent. I just thought of it as a high-tech capture-the-flag simulation. Simple or not, though, as I watched the first few matches, I was amazed at how powerful some of my classmates were!

A screen showed the spectators each student’s abilities, code names, and other information before the match. The reason for the mandatory freshman costume class requirement was that all students had to be costumed and masked in the Cube. Apparently, the match stream was always mysteriously aired in Las Vegas casinos without any information that it was a school final exam. Officially it wasn’t allowed, but unofficially some older students thought it was likely it helped fund Bechtel. Throughout the matches, apparently, bookies placed odds on each fight! An older student had told me that the biggest betting was usually on the senior battles or the long odds on the freshmen battles that no one knew about. I smirked as I thought, ‘I bet I will win someone a lot of money if they’re willing to take the odds!’

I was scared to death that Hannah would be hurt, and I hated having to sit and watch her navigate through the Cube’s obstacles! It was currently set up like a mock city, complete with buildings and fake pedestrians. The girl who was her opponent was a technomage. She quickly attempted to overwhelm Hannah with robots that looked like something from Despicable Me. ‘Cookie Robots?’ Camille joked next to me as we sat in the stadium seats and watched.

I winced as they tried to swarm Hannah, but I smiled when Hannah let loose with a barrage of her green EMP shots. She had all of the girl’s robots disabled and climbed up to the top of the building with the flag before Choco Chips caught up with her. Hannah took a hit from her with some sort of frisbee drone thing that she screamed in pain from! After that, Hannah didn’t mess around! She quickly ended the girl with a blast that knocked her off her feet.

There were precautions from staff to avoid death, but the girl was definitely not okay as Hannah had to leave her and grabbed the flag to win. As soon as she did so, she helped the girl stand up and ensured she was okay. Some medics appeared to take a look at her as Hannah was sent off out of the Cube.

Each of my friends from Trident House went in turns - with most of them winning! Finally, my match popped up as the last match of the first day. Emerald Baby vs. Streaked showed on the monitors above the stadium for the spectators. I was waiting in a holding area for the signal to go and trying to figure out if this was really random or set up because of our problems!

‘I am not letting that bitch win!’ I thought to myself.

 
 

Thank you for reading! Please press the ‘Like’ Button if you’ve enjoyed it! We’re coming to the home stretch of this tale, and the final chapters will be posted in the next week!!! I would really really really appreciate it you would leave one! I do really appreciate the Kudos button, but please consider leaving a comment if you’re reading? 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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