Emerald Princess - Revised Edition - Epilogue (5/18/2023)

[BabySofia]

Chapter 50: Grocery Run

 I WOKE UP that morning with my feet being tickled by Hannah.

“Stop that!!!” I told her.

“I think you just used more words than you know…” she said and then tickled me further.

“Mama, no!” I cried.

“Okay,” she said, pulling open my sleeper. “We’ll get you changed and fed, and then we’re going to be on our way to our new home Livy.”

“Livy?” I said.

“Mommy has to have a nickname for her baby girl! Plus, she hopes you’ll be able to say that sooner than Olivia,” she told me.

“I hadn’t ever considered not being able to say my own name…?” I said aloud.

“Now remember, from this morning on, you can’t say anything unless we’re in our apartment, and I say ‘splendiferous,’ and you use a warding spell.”

I nodded, “This is going to be tough!”

She finished changing my wet and slightly poopy diaper. She dressed me in another cute jumpsuit outfit that would be easy for diaper changes. Like all of ‘Olivia’s’ clothes, they were obviously second-hand shop purchases. The Bureau had a team of people pick up used clothing and furniture for us to use at the apartment. A pair of older agents were pretending to be her parents today. They were doing the typical parental thing and moving her in with an old beat-up truck pulling a short U-Haul trailer. It was to be clear she was moving out on her own, but her parents weren’t kicking her out.

When we came out, they got their final instructions from Agent Sanders. I was able to enjoy a last real breakfast of eggs before leaving on the mission. Bacon was available too, but my mouth was missing so many teeth that Hannah nixed that one for me. I pouted and grumbled that I received no real sympathy!

“Remember, no matter what, you can’t break your cover. Emerald, I expect you’ll have the toughest job there.”

I nodded, “Yeah, it will, but I’ll do it! I’ve had practice; we’ll get this job done, sir.” Unfortunately, since I was missing some teeth, I had developed a very babyish lisp that made me blush as he looked at me.

“Good luck to you all then,” he said, and I soon found myself nursing a bottle of juice in the back of the packed junker car. A few of ‘my toys’ and animals had ended up on the seat next to me. A worn blankie was in my hands, and I knew I would be expected to love it throughout this mission. Pulling up to the apartment complex, I could see it wasn’t a bad neighborhood per se, but it was definitely lower-income housing. I was carried into the office wrapped in the blanket, and ‘Granny’ played with me while my ‘mommy’ signed the final lease paperwork. Before Hannah was given the key, the apartment manager declared me the cutest baby ever and cooed at me too. We walked through the one-bedroom apartment, and I found myself seriously unimpressed!

The first item they brought up was the playpen, and I was unceremoniously dumped inside. I sat, pretended to play while they carried stuff in, and began sorting through things. Since there wasn’t a lot of furniture and possessions, it didn’t take long before they said goodbye to us, and we were left alone. Hannah took that moment to call the daycare and make sure they would be able to take me on Monday.

“Well, little girl, it’s just you and me!” she said. “Ready for your din-din?”

“Mama!” I said.

“Oh, you probably need a diapee change too, huh?”

I sighed and nodded as she took care of that on top of a dresser in ‘our’ bedroom. A crib was crammed in, not far from her bed, with a mobile attached. She had a small vanity table that looked like something she would have been given as a kid, and the dresser might very well be old enough to be her old changing table.

After she fed me a jar of baby food, I grew quite bored that night, and we watched TV together. Eventually, I pawed at her shirt like a baby, and she nursed me to sleep.

 

I WOKE UP in my crib to the sounds of distant screams, jeers, and other sounds that I would forever associate with the beginning of war. Caireen was standing by my crib and came to pick me up as soon as I stood up. “Good morning, Princess,” she told me with a strained smile.

“Morning,” I told her in reply. She squeezed me in a gentle hug and wasted no time in conversation before placing me on her breasts. As soon as I was fed, she changed me and carried me to the room with the mirrors. A large map was now placed on a table showing the battlefield. There were wooden markers on it, which reminded me of a game of Risk or something. I could tell the markers denoted troops; unfortunately, the other side still had way more than we did.

“Any new information, General Slane?” she asked.

“My field generals report that yesterday’s fire took out a good chunk of the front lines. They estimate our initial efforts on their approach have removed three-thousand men from the fight.”

“How many have we lost?” I asked nervously.

“From the wall yesterday?” He smiled, “None, Your Highness. We have heard back from those ‘special forces’ troops you came up with. They’re down to about sixty-percent strength and consolidating their numbers. They continued making raids into the rear forces last night. From what we can tell, they’re having a significant impact on their supply lines. If they can keep that up, we believe they’ll be limited in the length of their siege.”

“What are the orders of the day?” Caireen asked.

“Your Majesty, so far, we’re holding the wall. We expect Camulus to approach himself again today. I would advise that this is the time to resume firing the trebuchets. We’ll use both the units in the citadels and from our lines inside the gate. The targeting plan the princess suggested can potentially remove another large chunk of our attackers.”

“So ordered,” Caireen told him. I spent the rest of the morning with Caireen on a few lessons, mostly to distract me, and I also received another sword lesson before lunch.

During lunch, the large scrying ‘screen’ she had set up showed Camulus finally approaching the walls himself. He’d spent the morning sending men foolishly to die during attempts to fill in the pits in some way with trees and even one spade of dirt at a time. I had no way of knowing, but I guessed he’d lost another thousand men by the morning’s end. Our archers on top of the gate had been able to leisurely take aim at their targets.

As he approached, he called out in a magically amplified voice that reached even the castle. “People of the Emerald Kingdom, I urge you to surrender and present your queen and princess to me so that I may spare your lives! Your queen foolishly rejects my offer of an alliance through marriage between my son and her daughter. Deliver them, and we’ll make an even greater kingdom than the one I have now!”

I wondered how we could easily respond to him about ‘going to Hell,’ but the troops did it for us. Right then, a volley of arrows fired simultaneously down the wall from up top while another volley launched from archers to the rear of the wall. It was like a cloud of locusts as they came down on the battlefield below!

Camulus seemed undeterred and began launching fireballs at the wall! Again and again, a nearly endless stream of flames left his hands. I felt like I could feel the heat from watching it on the mirrors. Just as I wondered if the granite in the wall would melt, a volley of trebuchet rounds hit simultaneously in front, behind, and directly on top of him!

I lost sight of him for a moment before seeing some of his aides pulling his injured body away. “He’s not going to die from that, right?” I asked Caireen.

“No, he’ll just be furious,” she said.

“That fire spell… it’ll eventually melt the granite?”

She shook her head, “I warded the wall against that spell. It’s going to take real physical force attacks to get through it. Hopefully, we can keep making it impossible to do that. The wall you built may be one of the strongest structures ever formed here… With the extra magical protections I added, we should slow them down from either of those passages for a couple weeks. Luckily the other routes should be just as difficult to get through too.”

I nodded and watched as their forces tried a few other random attacks but were again repelled by ours. Then, finally, I noticed that the forest leading up to the wall grew increasingly scorched with each hour. ‘That’s going to be a no-man’s land,” I thought.

Caireen eventually took me to the nursery and nursed me to sleep that night. I hoped nothing wrong would happen while I was gone!

 

THE NEXT MORNING, I woke up on my own and realized drool was dried all over my face. I stood up and made a face about that and the mushy feeling in my diaper. I said, “Mama! Mama!” a few times before Hannah appeared.

She smiled and cooed at me, “Oh look, who’s awake!!!”

I thought Caireen had some moments of fun with over the top babying of me… Now I wondered if she should take lessons from Hannah! She changed me and dressed me into a set of coveralls and a long-sleeved onesie while indulging in her inner mommy more than I had seen her do. ‘She’s taking this seriously,’ I thought. ‘Too seriously!’

I felt Caireen giggle, ‘It’s soooo cute! I love it! She’s awesome!’

I sent her an image of me mentally sticking my tongue out at her. Hannah strapped me into the cheap highchair and put a bib on me. She pulled out a pouch of apple oatmeal baby food and began spooning it into my mouth. My mouth felt so weird without all of the teeth I’d removed. I couldn’t get used to having nothing to ‘chew’ on within the back of my mouth. I wasn’t even sure how I would have something more solid, as you couldn’t really chew with the small front teeth that I had.

Fortunately, Volango’s device had made this taste a bit better too. So I was pretty full when she wiped a much dirtier bib across my face at the end of the meal. “What a drooly baby girl!” she teased me.

“Mama!” I told her.

“You’re right; I am your mama, huh?” she tickled me as she sat down on the one decent piece of furniture we had, a wooden rocking chair. I latched onto her and nursed until she was empty, and I felt a little bloated. ‘Maybe I need her to dial down the calories of that one a bit?’ I thought to myself.

She changed a poopy diaper and then sat me down in the playpen, “Mommy needs to clean up a little, and then she’ll play with you, okay baby?”

I shrugged and babbled at her in some nonsense syllables I had practiced. She smiled and left me to the few toys sitting in the playpen with me. Knowing my fate for the next, however long involved my hiding as a baby, I played as best I could. I spent a while playing with a stacking toy. Remembering my sister used to slobber all over hers, I put a ring to my mouth and drooled on it like she used to. The sound of a phone taking a picture made me jump. “Mama!”

“Okay, Mommy will play with you now!”

She spent the next hour pretending I was a baby she was playing with. It was embarrassing but also kind of fun to do with her for some reason. I had just felt my diaper growing warm when she looked at a clock they hung yesterday. “Well, let’s get you changed and get some groceries. Mommy needs lots more baby food for her baby!”

I made a face at that, and she laughed, “Oh come on, you know you love your nummy food!”

I sighed as she dressed me in a coat, strapped me into the car seat a short while later, and used her phone to find the nearest grocery store. She carried me, my blankie, and the diaper bag to a cart and strapped me in with the seatbelt. I grabbed the blankie like it was my best friend and nursed on the pacifier she’d clipped to my onesie. We’d made it just a short way in when a lady said, “Oh my gosh, your baby is so adorable! How old is she?”

“Thanks, she just turned one last week!”

“She’s so precious!”

Hannah kept moving and grabbing different groceries here and there, but not anything extravagant. Her own meals seemed to be chosen to be as cheap and easy as possible. When she reached the baby aisle, she grabbed a box of cheap grocery brand diapers, and more wipes, before pushing the cart by the baby food. I wanted to cry as I watched her put a week’s worth of meals and snacks into the cart. Finally, she put in some puffy apple rice pieces, which I knew at least weren’t horrible since I’d tried my sisters before. She patted my head, “Got to have food for you, huh? Maybe someday you’ll like solid foods, and we can stop feeding you this icky stuff,” she tickled me and made me giggle.

A nearby mom with a two-year-old girl smiled, “Can’t get her to move past baby food? How old is she?”

“She just turned one… and no. If it’s not pureed, she spits it right out. Her pediatrician said it’s okay for another month; if she’s still doing it, we might have a problem.”

The lady smiled at her, “Oh sweetie, the doctors think they know everything, but sometimes you just have a picky little girl. Maya here wouldn’t touch most solid food until she was fifteen months. She’s doing fine now and eating everything in sight. Babies move at their own pace. So enjoy it, and don’t rush it!”

Hannah smiled at her, “Thanks for the advice,” and pushed me onward.

In my head, ‘If I have to eat baby food for the next three months, I think I will go off and beat the whole staff up just to get out of there!’

Caireen shook her head at me, ‘It’s not that bad since the flavors were adjusted. If it was the regular stuff, you would be right. Your friend Beth really came through for you there.’

After some more cooing, embarrassing attention, and boredom, Hannah buckled me back in the car seat and headed home to our dingy apartment. Once we got there, she discovered the joys of having a baby as a single mom. Hannah carried me and a single bag to the apartment, deposited me in my playpen, and then ran back and forth twice more to get everything from the car. I could tell she was kind of tired herself when she strapped me into the high chair and began feeding me a lunch of vegetable chicken dinner. Unfortunately for me, Hannah forgot to put it in the device first! I refused to take spoons of it and cried before she realized her mistake.

“Oh, I am so sorry, baby!!! Mommy forgot she needed to touch up this food for you!”

I had almost broken character there and was grateful that she figured it out before I had to. There shouldn’t be any way that any surveillance would happen, but we had been told to never let our guard down…

“How’s this baby better?” She asked as she spooned in a spoonful of puree.

“Mama!” I said with a smile after that.

“Well, I take it that’s better!” She smiled and shoveled the rest into my mouth, one bite at a time. Thankfully after the device was through, it tasted like a good chicken and noodle soup. Once you ignored the downright awful and weird texture, it was almost tasty.

When I had finished the bowl, she said, “Let’s get you your num-nums, and then you can take your nap.”

I smiled and cooed as she brought me to her breast, and I began to nurse. ‘This at least tastes a lot better than the baby food!’ I thought, ‘I could see just having breast milk only at daycare if I didn’t need to drink like four bottles worth.’

I felt Caireen’s amusement at my statement but ignored her as I faded off to sleep.

 

THE REST OF the afternoon had passed by slowly as I had been limited to baby activities, playing with Hannah, and alternating diaper changes. Being nursed to sleep for my new early bedtime of six o’clock had been mildly infuriating! It was nice, though, because if I slept the day and night away, the less pretending I had to do! I felt like I was a rock star at the whole, sleeping like a baby thing!

Caireen woke me up in her world, and we began dealing with other barrages from Camulus’s forces. They had started setting up some massive rams to attempt to bash their way through the wall. Midway through the day, a suspicious bat was seen flying around the southern border. “What’s that?” I asked Caireen as I spotted it on one of the scrying mirrors.

“What?”

“That bat… it looks a lot like…”

Apparently, the archers had also thought something was wrong – or were bored – because a slew of crossbow bolts flew out! One of them hit it in the wing, causing it to rapidly spiral to the ground on the wall’s far side. One of the mirrors showed the bat turning into a woman.

“That’s not!” I said with a hiss.

“It is…” Caireen said, “What an incredibly resilient creature… She must have built up a huge reservoir of manna to return here just before she died?”

I shook with rage and wanted to go after her, but I watched her limp away with the crossbow bolt sticking from her shoulder. Not long after she left, the men abandoned the rams and returned to their camp.

“Decided the wall was too thick?” I mused.

Caireen laughed at that, “Well, it is… But, unfortunately, whatever they do figure out will have to be devastating.”

I nodded at that. We watched the front of the wall and the views from each citadel throughout the day. Just before nightfall, a small force of fifty men approached the valley’s northern end. I smiled at their faces as they obviously cursed at the sight of another wall that suddenly came into view. I smiled as the archers there killed most of them, leaving just a few alive to report back to Camulus that he was blocked that way too!

Knowing that it was inevitable that a determined enemy would make it past those walls, we began working on nearer defenses to the castle. There hadn’t been an immediate wall around the castle grounds, so I worked with Caireen to build a circular ring around the castle made of the same granite as the valley walls. These were seventy feet thick, with the outer ten ringed with corridors with narrow slots to shoot from. The top of the walls extended one-hundred-and-fifty feet high, with a new streamed moat that encircled the outside of that wall. 

Caireen had added so many wards and spells over the years on the main castle that I felt it would probably be enough to stop most enemies. Still, between the valley walls, the new outer castle wall, and those, I hoped Camulus might run through his supplies before getting through.

 

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++


Thank you for reading! Please press the ‘Like’ Button if you’ve enjoyed it! It's been awfully quiet on the comment front for this work, if you're reading this please consider leaving one? (Especially if it's your first time!)

Emerald will now be posted on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, Sundays until it is completely posted. (‘Lights, Camera, …What?!?’ is being posted on Fridays)

If you're someone who must finish a good story 'now,' consider purchasing the full book on Amazon Kindle! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BTBTTGX1  I will be posting a chapter about every other day until the complete 62 Chapters and the Epilogue are reposted.
 

[FloridaKid]

Kind of nice that Sofia is able to settle into the baby role and lose some of the stress of daily adult life for a while. I’ll continue to praise your attention to supportive relationships that are easily relatable. Interaction between Sofia and Hannah is so precious and natural that I actually derive a sense of calm while reading about it. I know there are rough times ahead in both worlds, but the respite of a loving relationship helps build up our heroines well! ❤️💕

[BabySofia]

6 hours ago, FloridaKid said:

Kind of nice that Sofia is able to...

Thanks for the comment! It is probably helping her baby side to not be as overwhelmed actually! 🙂

[BabySofia]

Chapter 51: Daycare

 

SUNDAY WAS ANOTHER day of waking up in what I thought of as ‘baby hell.’ Sure, I looked like a baby before. I had no potty training, drank from bottles and breasts, and was generally embarrassed beyond belief daily! But this was a new extreme to limit yourself to three words and babbling otherwise! I also restricted my movement to crawling in preparation for that being my normal locomotion at daycare.

Hannah, for her part, tried to at least cuddle me and make me feel loved in my own private hell there. From the time she woke me up and fed me a meal of baby food, then nursed me, she was constantly doing something with me. I forced myself to happily go along with it since I needed to be in character. I did at least genuinely enjoy it when she pulled out some books and read them to me. Some of them had pop-up pieces that she had me pull up as she read them. Hannah was a pretty good actress, she always had been, so she made great voices as she read different characters to bring the stories to life.

I was still thinking about the books she had been reading when she pulled me from my car seat at the mall. Hannah had decided she wanted to get a chance to see the mall where she would be working. Instead of placing me into a stroller, she pulled out a wrap sling like my mom used with Cassidy when she was younger. I was a little nervous about being only held to her by some fabric. Still, to my surprise, I felt really comfortable there as she began walking. She had me turned to look away from her but instinctually seemed to constantly reassure me with her hands that she was there and I was secure.

“Let’s go see where Mommy is working!” she cooed at me as she walked through the mall. She walked into a garishly decorated store that catered to babies and preschoolers. The windows featured brightly colored sales signs with cute and happy babies. Throughout the store, it seemed like over-the-top cute baby fashions were displayed everywhere. She walked in and asked, “Is Trinity here by chance?” of a girl working on restocking.

“She’s in the back. Do you want me to go get her?”

“I’m Haley; I’m supposed to start working tomorrow. I just wanted to meet her in person once before tomorrow since she interviewed me over the phone.”

“Oh, I can take you back to her,” she smiled and held her hand out to her, “I’m Sam.” Then, she looked at me and said, “And just who are you?” In a cooing voice.

I smiled and wiggled a bit as Hannah answered, “This is my little Livy! She just turned one last week. She’s my whole world,” she told her.

“Aww… she’s adorable!”

We were led back to an office by the stock area, and Sam knocked on the door. “Hi Trinity, I’ve got our new employee Haley here. She just wanted to stop by and meet you?”

“Absolutely, come on in!” she told her. “Oh my gosh, your daughter is so cute!!!”

“Thank you,” Hannah told her.

“How old?”

“She just had her first birthday last week,” she told her.

“What are you doing with her while you’re working?” she asked after cooing at me for a few more moments.

“I’ve got a daycare she’s going to go to stay at during the days. My parents are helping to pay for it to help me get a start on my own here.”

I felt my stomach grumbling, and apparently, it was loud enough that Trinity heard it. “Sounds like someone is getting hungry!”

“She probably is; I should get her fed. It was nice to meet you. Thank you so much for hiring me!”

“It’s my pleasure! I have a feeling we’re going to have a great relationship here. Now go take care of that adorable baby girl’s little tum-tum!”

Hannah said ‘bye’ to Sam and made my arms wave at her on her way out. I figured she would find her way to the car or something. But, instead, she stopped at a bench and messed with the sling, turning me around, and… my eyes opened wide. ‘Here?!?’ I thought nervously. We were sitting in the mall hallway; it didn’t get much more public than there! “Let’s just get your tummy filled with some num-nums, and then Mommy can keep shopping while you nap.”

She whispered quietly so only I could hear, “It’s okay; it’s normal.”

I didn’t make a scene as she opened her shirt up discreetly and placed me at her breast. The sling covered my head and her breast the whole time I nursed. It was a bit awkward as she shifted me and the sling around to her other breast, but I was thoroughly knocked out by the time I finished that one. I must have felt comfortable because Hannah told me later I slept through a diaper change and two hours of her walking around the mall. I didn’t wake up until we were back at the apartment.

The time between then and dinner consisted of more playtime, reading a couple more picture books she bought while we were out, and a poopy diaper change. I internally hated this boredom more than I had hated being stuck the size of a baby. Hannah was doing an incredible job of being a good mommy, but playing a helpless baby twenty-four hours a day would get old in a hurry. The ‘dinner’ of ‘pasta marinara’ and ‘pears and prunes’ tasted better for having been in the device, but I was beginning to crave something I could sink my teeth into. Falling asleep that night, I had to remind myself that Hannah’s breasts were off-limits for my sharp little teeth!

 

THAT NIGHT IN Caireen’s world, I found myself waking up to explosions. I cried for Caireen, and it took her a while to get to me. She wasted no time changing me and carried me, still nursing from her to what I had begun thinking of as our situation room. I listened to the General briefing her that Camulus had suddenly started using catapults to start flinging flaming oil and steel shots at the wall. So far, there had been no damage, but the sound alone was beginning to cause our soldiers to have problems hearing.

I listened to other scouting reports and an update from our special force’s groups. They had apparently managed to start a massive fire in a supplies stockpile area of Camulus’ main camp. Extensive damage was incurred on their tents and animals before they got the fire out with magic. Unfortunately, Camulus’s men had captured a dozen of our soldiers and publicly executed them one at a time himself by beheading them with his sword.

I was enraged as I finished nursing and turned to General Slane, “Can you get us locations for all the rest of his supplies he has left?” Then, I paused, “And his own personal tent?”

“Umm… You Highness, why?”

He looked skeptically at the baby, who had just been suckling at the queen’s breasts. Still, he knew I was actually quite powerful. I knew he probably had difficulty rectifying that image in his mind. I gave him a break and sighed, “I know you have some outstanding crews manning the trebuchets on top of the citadels. I’d like to give those a little magical boost to give them an extended range and maybe keep demoralizing his forces.

“You don’t think that’ll be enough, do you?” He asked.

I shook my head, “On its own? No way! But, with the losses they took from our special forces group on the supplies, plus the officers they lost in the last week? I think there’s a perfect opportunity here to encourage more of his troops to fear us more than him. Also, the supply chain is the most important thing here. There’s a country in my world called Germany. They decided to invade another larger country called Russia in the middle of a massive war. The Germans got way too zealous and pushed into Russia before developing a foolproof way to get supplies to the front. That, combined with them not preparing for the cold climate, pretty much doomed them when Russia finally stood its ground. Plus, hungry troops won’t have the stamina to keep fighting as well as our well-supplied forces,” I told him.

He nodded, “I like it… Let me see what we can get here in a few minutes.”

Within an hour, we targeted their command tents, supply tents, makeshift stables, and an area they were cutting down trees and building something that was probably trouble. Next, Caireen and I traveled with the general to Citadel One, as I had creatively named it. I spoke with the crews, and they helped set everything up with a boost from magic on both the explosion the payload would make and the distance it could go with their trebuchets. We then traveled to Citadel Two, Three, and Four and did the same thing before returning to the situation room. As Camulus launched a new wave of assaults on the wall, we gave the signal to fire. On the scrying mirrors, I watched as their men scrambled around in shock as the payloads passed over the top of them and soon caused explosions behind them in their main camp.

One mirror caught sight of Camulus doing a check over the battlefield and his camp later. He looked furious, and his men seemed to be actively avoiding him. It seemed we had managed to do more damage than we’d hoped.

 

THE NEXT MORNING Hannah was frantic, trying to get me ready to go to daycare and get off to her first day of work. She was dressed in a nice blouse and slacks outfit that morning. She dressed me in a one-piece jumpsuit, and I watched her put two spare changes of clothes in my bag. She quickly spoon-fed a pouch of oatmeal to me, but due to her nerves and rush accidentally missed my mouth several times. My bib was a mess! After she cleaned me up, I watched her ensure she had processed my baby food jars of lunch in the device. She made sure there were some spares, a big Ziploc of frozen breast milk pouches, and thawed bottles for today.

“I think Mommy is more nervous about leaving you today than she is going to work,” she told me with a smile as she buckled me into my car seat.

“Mama!” I told her with a smile.

She sighed and poked my nose before closing the door and getting in the car. The daycare was not far from the mall, so it took us a little bit to drive to it. When we arrived, she carried me and my diaper bag on one side and the big Ziploc of frozen breastmilk on the other.

“Hi, can I help you?” A friendly-looking woman asked as she carried me in.

“Hi, I’m Haley Stephenson. This is my daughter Olivia; I called last week?”

“Oh yes, I remember you. You’ve got a lot of information to fill out, but why don’t I take Olivia and hold her while you’re doing that?”

“O… Okay,” Hannah stuttered as she handed me over. She was genuinely shaking, so I decided to babble my unhappiness.

“Shh…” the lady said, “It’s okay. I’m just going to hold you while your mommy writes some things down.” She bounced me up and down for a few minutes while Hannah filled in the medical information, information about meals, contact information, etc. “Looks like we have everything here,” she said, still holding me. I’d intentionally relaxed my body and clung to her then.

“She seems to like you,” Hannah said. “She’s not always good with strangers!”

“Well, it’s good since we’re not going to be strangers, huh, Olivia?” She cooed at me. “Ms. Stephenson, we have an app that I recommend you download; this is the information about it. We’ll track Olivia’s diaper changes, any problems we see, if we need more supplies, behavior, and things like that. Speaking of supplies, though, we recommend parents bring a box of diapers for their baby – it’s easier than dealing with a diaper bag?”

“Oh, I have one in the car and some wipees for her. I just didn’t have the free hands for it. I’ll get it and bring it back in… Umm…?”

“You want to say goodbye to her first? Then, we can take her to her room together, and I’ll get this milk in the freezer? I assume there are some thawed bottles in the bag?”

“Yes, please…” she said nervously. I was handed back to Hannah and said, “Mama, mama, mama,” to her.

“She does love her mama, doesn’t she?”

“Yes, and it’s one of the few things she says.”

“What else?”

“Num-num when she wants to nurse, baba if she wants a bottle, and the worst of them all… no.”

“No?” I said.

She laughed along with the lady.

“Olivia will be just fine here, and who knows, being around the other babies, she’ll probably pick up some other new words in the next couple of months too!”

“I hope so! As much as I don’t want her to grow up, I want her to be a smart little girl that can go further than I did in school!”

They began talking, and Hannah spoke about how her cover Haley had barely finished high school and then got pregnant with me not long after. Then, down the hallway, the lady said, “This is our infants and toddlers’ room here that Olivia will be in.” She waved over a couple women who were just putting down babies on a carpet.

“Ms. Sally and Ms. Amy are our two main teachers for this room.” The woman introduced them to her. “Little Olivia will be joining your room today!”

“Oh, she’s adorable!” the woman named Sally said. She was probably in her early fifties and seemed like the perfect grandmother type. “How old?”

“She just had her first birthday last week!” Hannah said, looking at me. I smiled at her.

“She walking?”

“She occasionally pulls herself up and walks a little. But she’s not convinced that it is better than crawling yet. I’d say she crawls ninety percent of the time?”

“Being around the other kids may change that for her. It’s amazing how much babies learn when they see other babies or big kids doing something!”

“Well, it’s okay. Livy doesn’t have to grow up too quickly!” Hannah smiled.

“Food?”

“She’s still mainly on breast milk. She gets a jar of baby food with each meal first and then should have her bottle. I’ve put enough in there for a snack, lunch, nap time, and a couple extras. I have some frozen milk here, too, that you can keep.”

“Not interested in full solids yet?”

Hannah shook her head, and I put my head on her chest next to her heart. “We keep trying, but she wants nothing to do with them. Her pediatrician said not to worry about it for another month. After that, we may need to test to figure out why she’s not progressing there.”

“Sounds about right, but I’d say you’re still okay until she’s fourteen months. She’s still a good weight for her age. Maybe even a little tall?”

“A little,” she agreed.

“Why don’t you go ahead and pass her over to Sally, and we’ll work on getting you two separated?” I heard one woman whisper to her.

I frowned as I was passed over to her and began to fuss a bit about it. More than I had with the other girl, so Hannah pushed in my pacifier that was hanging from its strap. “It’s okay, Livy. They’re going to watch you today while Mommy goes to work. You’ll have so much fun playing, and then I’ll come and take you home!”

Her eyes had tears that I knew the ladies had to notice too.

“Can you say ‘bye bye?’” The lady holding me asked me a moment later.

“Ba,” I managed.

“Well, that’s something,” Hannah said and laughed.

The lady holding me turned around, and I was facing away as Hannah made her escape. I just heard, “First time leaving her?” from the woman as they left.

“Oh, aren’t you so precious?” The woman cooed at me. She tickled me for a moment and checked my diaper. It was still pretty dry, so she sat me on a play mat next to some stacking toys.

She played with me and the toys for the next while, teaching me what I was supposed to do with them. Of course, I would intentionally make mistakes most of the time. Still, anytime I did it right, she would coo, “Good girl!” to me and make goosebumps travel down my body.

The two workers were joined by another younger girl. Soon, fourteen other babies and I were crawling around the floor and playing with toys. I made sure to let myself drool some, and after a little while, my top was getting pretty wet, and my face was slobbery. The newcomer was a younger girl that Sally called Ms. Kate. “Ms. Kate, can you change Olivia?”

“Sure, Ms. Sally,” the girl said. She wasn’t much older than Hannah and me, I guessed. She tickled me as she picked me up and put my pacifier back in my mouth. I was carried to a changing table and handed a rattle toy immediately.

I looked at it and waved it in the air, making it noisy. With that, I smiled around my pacifier, and the girl said, “Oh, aren’t you just a happy wittle girl?” She tickled my belly gently before putting gloves on and unsnapping the pants off my jumpsuit.

I was a bit nervous about having someone else touching me, especially in this circumstance. Still, I pretended I was a baby and didn’t care until the diaper came off and it was cold. I started sobbing then, and she said, “Shh… It’s okay, Olivia. We’ll get you all nice and dry here!” I kept crying through the change. Afterward, I debated stopping and being an easy baby when she tried bouncing me for a few minutes. Unfortunately for her, I decided being a needy girl might keep her attention longer. When I continued to cry, Ms. Sally said, “She might be ready for a bottle?”

She gave me a bottle of Hannah’s milk cold and spat it out. “Oh… she takes it warm,” another voice said, “Sorry, I should have warned you.” The receptionist had peeked into the room for a few moments.

“Yes, you should have…” she said, “Normally, by the time they’re one, they’re less picky!” So I kept crying, waiting for the bottle to warm. I discovered it was a lot of effort to bawl like a baby for fifteen minutes non-stop, so by the time I finished my bottle, I was tired and fell asleep in her arms in the rocking chair she had sat down in.

 

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Thank you for reading! Please press the ‘Like’ Button if you’ve enjoyed it! Comments are always super appreciated as well!

Emerald will now be posted on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, Sundays until it is completely posted.

If you're someone who must finish a good story 'now,' consider purchasing the full book on Amazon Kindle! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BTBTTGX1  I will be posting a chapter about every other day until the complete 62 Chapters and the Epilogue are reposted.

[FloridaKid]

Was super busy yesterday (Thursday) and didn’t get to read this until today. The upside? Now I get three days in a row of this great tale! Love this story. Thanks again for artfully mixing anxious moments and tender ones. ❤️💕

[BabySofia]

Chapter 52: Chicken Dinner

I WOKE UP and kept my eyes shut as I heard the younger girl, Kate, talking to someone. “Ian, I have a new one that I think you’ll like...?”

“She’s just one… could pass for a little younger if she wasn’t kind of tall for her age… But, no, she’s perfect! Blonde and blue, all I’ve heard is babbling and Mama so far… That long?” I sat there and wished I could hear the other side of the conversation. But before I was alert enough to use magic, she said, “Okay, I’m sure she’ll be here?”

I decided I was a baby, and it wouldn’t matter if I’d overheard her, so I rolled over from my back to my stomach and pushed myself up. I crawled to the bars and then made it seem like it was tough to pull myself upright. The girl was still texting on her phone as I looked at her. I began babbling at her incoherently.

“Oh, is Miss Cranky Pants awake now?” she cooed.

I babbled some more at her and held my arms out to her. Then, finally, she picked me up out of the crib and squeezed my diaper, “Guess we should get you in a dry diapee before you play, huh?”

I continued babbling at her and wondered what her reaction would be. She ended up tickling me and playing with me as she changed me. I missed the touch of skin versus gloves as she did so, but I was changed pretty efficiently. She sat me down on the floor with several other babies when she was done and directed my attention to a shape-sorting toy. She left me there, and I just started pushing it around for a moment. Then, Sally came over and showed me how to play with it.

She would place a shape in and show me before encouraging me to do so. I intentionally failed a lot, but when I finally got one in, she cheered like I’d won a gold medal or something. She played with me for a few minutes, then would play with a baby beside me. I was crawling around, but she tried to get me to stand. I did for a moment and even walked a few steps, but fell down on my butt and began fussing.

“Oh hush, it’s okay, sweetheart,” she told me and hugged me for a moment.

Things went on similarly until we were gathered for lunch in another room. There was a weird table with a cutout in the middle for the caregiver to sit. All around them, on the outside, were highchair seats built into the table. “What’s the new girl getting?” Amy asked.

“She has a jar of food in her diaper bag,” she said. “Her mommy said she’d bring us a box worth of them later in the week.” I sat impatiently, fidgeting as she moved around and brought over the jar.

“She had a fit about the cold formula earlier,” Kate reminded her.

“Oh… let me check…” she said, “Yep, her mommy said most of her food she warms up too. So let me just heat this in the microwave. You have a bottle going for her already?”

“I put one in a half-hour ago. Baby girl has got a set of lungs that I’d rather not have to hear again.”

All three women laughed at me as Sally sat down and tickled me. “Are they making fun of you…?”

I cooed to act like I didn’t understand anything. I knew babies picked up more from the tone of voice than the words at the age I was supposed to be. She took time to put a bib on me before beginning to alternate feeding the five of us at her table. My turkey dinner meal was again weird for the texture, but at least it did taste like Thanksgiving. She played little games to get me and the other babies to open up and eat our food when it was our turn. At one point, she put some little pieces of cereal in front of me to see if I would eat it, but I just picked them up and smashed them together. When she put some in my mouth, I spit them back out.

“Olivia’s mom wasn’t kidding; she really doesn’t want anything solid,” she told the others.

“Seems a little immature for one there.”

“She’s young enough; it’s still okay,” Sally told them. I watched as they began taking the other babies one at a time to change and put down for naps. Finally, she brought my bottle and tried to hand it to me. I didn’t move to take it, though, “Aww… are you missing your mommy?”

“I held her bottle for her earlier. The app says Mom really only breastfeeds most of the time. Maybe she doesn’t like holding her bottle?”

“Would you like me to hold your baba for you?” She asked me

I cooed and smiled at that.

“Alright, come on, cutie,” she said and carried me over to a chair and held the bottle to my lips. I played with my hands separately a little as I nursed on the nipple. This bottle was at least a bit better temperature, and I was enjoying it before I nodded off again.

 

I WOKE UP to the wailing of three of the other babies and wanted to groan. I forced myself instead to sit up and crawl towards the rails. Just as I did so, I felt a clench in my stomach and the familiar uncontrollable feeling of my diaper filling up. I decided the others had the right idea and added my voice to the chorus!

Once I was on the table getting changed, I was given a soft plush animal to hold onto. I waved it in the air and was rewarded with a rattling sound. I began putting it into my mouth, but the lady said, “Let’s use your paci instead,” and inserted my pacifier.

I continued to play, alternating the good or needy baby for the rest of the afternoon until Hannah came. When I was carried to her, I made grabby hands, “Mama! Mama! Mama!” I said as she hugged me.

“Aww… she missed you,” the receptionist said.

“Was she okay today?”

“You got the app, right?”

“Yes, I saw she was changed a little bit ago from what I saw?”

“Yes,” she said, “And if you look here, there are some notes from her teachers about her being upset a few times too. But it also says she happily played for a good chunk of the time.”

“That’s good… I need Livy to be happy!” Hannah said, squeezing me and tickling me. “Ready to go home, baby girl?”

“Mama!” I said.

She smiled, took my diaper bag back from the lady, and soon had me strapped into my carrier. She stopped at a Mcdonald’s drive-thru for dinner, but of course, I was pretending to be too young to enjoy fast food. I sighed as she put me down inside and crawled straight to a sheet of paper and crayons left for days like this. I quickly scribbled a message about what I had overheard earlier. Hannah joined me on the floor and read it, asking me questions in writing that I responded to.

I watched as she typed out some texts via an encrypted app to Agent Sanders. Then, finally, there was a reply that delivery would be made that night of a wire I needed to creatively figure out how to wear and not have it seen. The usual idea of inside a shirt would obviously not work!

‘Any ideas, Caireen?’

‘Thought you’d never ask,” she said with a smirk I could feel. ‘Same place you leave your purse, ID, and weapon.’

‘It’ll hear?’

‘It will when you add this spell…?’

Caireen gave me some instructions while Hannah finished up and ate the remainder of her burger.

“Oh my God, I didn’t see what time it was!” Hannah said a few minutes later, “I bet your tummy is rumbly, huh?” Hannah said to me.

I hadn’t realized how late it was as she placed me into the high chair and began feeding me a weird chicken meal. It looked more disgusting than anything she’d given me yet, but thankfully the device made it not suck… It still wasn’t good, though, and I was desperate for her milk to wash it down afterward. “Num-num!” I told her.

“Let’s get you a bath first, sweetie.”

“Num-num!” I said again.

“It won’t take long, sweetie…” she said and then realized there might be a reason. “How about Mommy gives you a baba while your bath is pouring?”

I smiled and nodded. Hannah placed me on the bathroom floor with a bottle of apple juice that I guzzled down in a hurry to get the taste out. Then, as the tub was filling up, she asked quietly, “Not good food?”

I stuck my tongue out and put my finger inside.

“Mommy won’t feed that one to you again,” she giggled. “Guess the device has its limits!”

 

AFTER I DRIFTED off to sleep, I found myself in the castle in Caireen’s arms. She didn’t delay changing me, feeding me, and returning to the briefing room. Reports came in from the citadels that Camulus was giving up on breaking through the wall. Instead, it seemed he was focusing on climbing over it. The scrying mirrors showed giant ladders and structures being built that reminded me of one of the ending battles of Lord of the Rings! Our forces had attempted to target the building sites, but Camulus seemed to have learned he should use his own abilities to shield his troops.

“Any ideas?” The General had asked.

I stared at everything on the map and asked, “How much of a footprint will those scaffolding things need when they’re done?”

He shrugged and gave me a measurement that Caireen translated to about twenty feet by twenty feet. “Could we destabilize the ground?” I suggested.

“What do you mean?”

“Make it to where the ground can’t support the structures?”

She nodded, and we set off for the front ourselves. I sat patiently in her arms as she climbed up the staircases of the wall. We looked around at the troops, who all waved quietly at us and knelt or bowed. They knew their focus needed to be on the enemy, even if they weren’t actively trying the wall right then. Caireen and I changed the ground’s density so it wouldn’t hold more than one hundred pounds in weight before swallowing them into a boggy pit that bottomed out sixty feet below.

Leaving the front and returning to the castle, I began trying to game theory how I would get around our defenses. Back at the situation room, I suggested that troops patrol the edges of the valley for any signs of tunneling… That’s how I’d do it!

When I woke up in the morning, Hannah had given me the ‘wire’ from the Bureau drop, and we tested the hiding spot. Things worked beautifully! Soon I was at daycare, and Sally reviewed the information Hannah had placed into the app.

Apparently, it was supposed to be some sort of team effort type thing. The daycare and Mommy were supposed to put in when I had my diaper changes, how much I was fed, when I pooped, etc. So I was slightly mortified when Hannah whispered, “I think we’ll use something like this back home when we’re done!” I looked at her in horror, “All of our friends can help me know when you were changed!”

I turned white as she tickled me, “I wouldn’t do that to you…” she smiled.

I’d been playing on the floor for about twenty minutes after the morning nap when my bowels did their thing to let loose. Something wasn’t normal about it, though! I sat up from my crawling position and lost my balance, landing fully in the muck. It was slimier and waterier than I’d remembered happening since I’d emerged, almost like I’d just had diarrhea?

I looked down to determine the damage when Kate cried out, “Oh my god, she just had the mother of all blowouts!”

Looking down at the rug, I realized I hadn’t just sat down on a poop-filled diaper! Instead, I had squeezed the mush out of it... past the diaper cover, through my tights, and all over my dress and the ground! I looked up and did the only thing to do as a baby, I began to wail!!!

While Amy came over and picked me up, Kate ran to the trash can and vomited in the trash can. “Oh, you poor baby! I wonder what your mommy fed you last night?”

I was carried over to the changing table, which she took care to cover with a disposable pad first. Next, she gloved up and placed a pacifier in my mouth, but I wasn’t having it! She gave up putting it back into my mouth while I kept crying. Finally, my tights and diaper cover came off, totally smearing my legs in the wet poop. “I’m going to have to wash her in the tub. Can you get Kate to go fill it, please?” She asked Sally.

“She might as well do something. What a prima-donna!”

I kept crying, even though I wanted to laugh at that. Amy pulled my dress carefully down my body instead of over my head like Hannah had put it on earlier. All those soiled clothes ended up in a plastic bag, and she said, “We’ll make sure we wash those before your mommy gets here, huh?”

When she opened up the diaper, Kate had just returned. She turned back to the trash can and vomited again. “Really, Kate?” She said, “It’s just something babies do!”

She kindly wiped me up the best she could and handed me off to Kate, “Go finish washing her off in the tub.”

“But…”

“She’s clean now; you didn’t even have to do the icky part!”

Kate carried me gingerly to a waiting bathtub with some shallow water and began cleaning me. Unfortunately for her, midway through her scrubbing my back, my stomach clenched again, and I found myself and the tub covered in filth.

“Eew, Eew, Eeeeew!” She cried.

Fortunately, Sally heard her and told her to get lost. A spray nozzle came out, and she washed the tub out, sprayed me down, refilled the tub, re-washed me, and then dressed me. “There, all clean!” she told me as I calmed down. “You sure cried a lot; you want a baba?”

“Baba!” I agreed.

She smiled and didn’t give me a bottle of Hannah’s milk like I expected; instead, it had what I assumed was Pedialyte. It wasn’t my favorite, but I knew I had to have lost a lot of water in the explosions. I was the butt of good-natured poop jokes, along with Kate, the whole rest of the day. When Hannah picked me up, they asked, “what did she have for dinner last night?”

“Oh… it was a chicken meal?”

“I wouldn’t feed it to her again!” The whole story was passed along to her. I smiled and cooed as if I was happy to have caused all the trouble, but I just wanted to hide and cry!

 

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Thank you for reading! Please press the ‘Like’ Button if you’ve enjoyed it! Comments are always super appreciated as well!

Emerald will now be posted on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, Sundays until it is completely posted. (‘Lights, Camera, …What?!?’ is being posted on Fridays)

If you're someone who must finish a good story 'now,' consider purchasing the full book on Amazon Kindle! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BTBTTGX1 I will be posting a chapter about every other day until the complete 62 Chapters and the Epilogue are reposted.

[BabySofia]

Caution: While this chapter does not go over any lines in my opinion, it does skirt close to issues that may affect some readers. Violence is also contained within this chapter, reader discretion is advised.

Chapter 53: Solid

 

THE NEXT WEEK at the daycare passed by without anything significant happening - just more boring time spent pretending to be a helpless baby. In Caireen’s world, I had watched several attempts at breaching the wall. Still, I was proud that nothing Camulus and his forces had tried had even scratched it so far! Our special forces groups had been reinforced with another hundred men. They continued to keep the enemy honest by attacking the rear flank. I figured Camulus had to be getting desperate for a new plan with the reports of his dwindling supplies and deserters. Still, at that point, no apparent changes were made.

On my second Tuesday at daycare, I overheard a conversation that Sally and Amy would be out for some state training they had to do. Kate would be reinforced with a couple other workers from other daycare rooms. The glare I got during a diaper change that day was followed with, “So help me if you have a blowout tomorrow…?” I’d just cooed and giggled but wondered if this wasn’t the opportunity that they had been waiting for to get access to me.

Through the Bureau, we’d determined that Sally and Amy seemed completely innocent. However, Kate had a sealed juvenile rap sheet that the Bureau had to fight to access. She’d been involved in some drugs and theft by the time she was thirteen and was a runaway who was trafficked as an underage prostitute while she was fourteen and fifteen. Another theft and drug charge had been pled down in exchange for testimony on the traffickers. As a result, if anyone searched her records, she was clean. She had been a victim, and I felt terrible for her, but I had a bad feeling that the abused might have been all the more willing to become the abuser.

Hannah had let the Bureau know that we thought something might happen today. Still, since they’d already been on standby, nothing was really different. I was checked in like normal, but Kate placed me in a crib instead of putting me on the floor to play.

“Why are you putting her in the crib already?” A girl I hadn’t met before asked.

“Oh, I’m supposed to take her to therapy with the therapist in an hour. I figure maybe a nap beforehand will help her out. Can you get a bottle warmed up for her? She can be a real baby about needing it warmed up first!”

“That was a terrible pun,” the girl giggled. She seemed to be about Kate’s age. 

‘Therapy?’ I asked. ‘I don’t go to therapy…?’

‘This might be it,’ Caireen agreed with me.

Clearly, this all stunk to high heaven, and I began taking inventory of my resources. The weapon I’d been given by Doctor Bolt was effectively in a magical holster only I could get to. The magic lines in this town weren’t quite as strong as around Bechtel, but I had access to a decent smaller vein of manna to use.

A bottle was brought over by the new girl who had asked about me, “She’s such an adorable baby! Don’t you just want to take them home with you each day?”

“Not that one! She had the blowout of the century last week… Twice! It was soooo disgusting!”

The girl picked me up and said, “This cutie? Aww…” she stuck the bottle in my mouth and cradled me in her arms. “She couldn’t help it!”

Sensing something was up, I pretended to relax and sleep as I emptied the bottle. The new girl was gentle, and I felt comfortable in her arms. ‘I hope she’s not involved,’ I thought. ‘She’s a lot sweeter than Kate!’

I pretended to sleep for a half-hour before Kate said, “You two are good for a few minutes while I run her to her therapist, right?”

“We got this, Kate!” the man said.

“Yep, we do better without you anyway!”

I intentionally pretended to sleep as she slipped a pacifier into my mouth. I stayed still as she carried me down the hallway. A door was pressed, and I could feel the cold air outside as she left the daycare and went to the next shopping center unit.

I bounced a bit with each of her steps and wondered exactly what I was being carried into. Doctor Bolt had used the specs of the videos that had been found as a reference – so I hoped the room would be expected, but I had no clue. Finally, I decided to act like I was waking up a bit and started to fuss.

“Shh… It’s okay little one.” Kate cooed at me, “We’ll get this over with soon, and you’ll be back with your mommy. You’ll never even remember this when you’re older!”

I looked at her, and then around the room in the new building she passed through. There was a long hallway, and we were soon in a large open workshop with garage doors on one side. One wall was painted with a whimsical nursery background, with a crib and a changing table against it. High-quality cameras sat waiting beside it, and I felt my nerves growing. Several other sections of the space looked like nightmare doctor offices and butcher shops…

“Kate! This baby is a great find! How long do we have?” a man innocently dressed in a green polo and tan slacks asked.

“She’s in therapy right now, so I’d say an hour?”

“You said she’s still not talking, right?”

“Just babble and mama, pretty much.” She confirmed and bounced me. “So, where do you want her?”

“For her first time, we’ll just do her in the nursery scene.”

“You need me?”

“Not immediately; we’ll probably do a breastfeeding zoom-in with you once she’s screaming.”

I felt Kate shudder underneath me, and I wondered how willingly involved she was. Then, as she sat me down, another man came in, and my stomach clenched when I saw who it was.

Maponus was dressed like some sort of innocent father in a shirt and pants. Jacob Wells, his real name, looked me over like I was a piece of meat, and my skin crawled. I wondered if he would figure out who I was, but he said, “Well done, Kate! You found me a fine baby here! This is going to be fun today! We’ll make lots of money!”

“Glad you’re happy...” Kate said, some guilt creeping into her voice.

“Go ahead and set her down on the changing table. I think we’ll start here… What do you think, Ian?” He asked the other guy.

“Sure, we have enough scenes pulling babies out of their cribs. Just getting right into it this time will appease our fans.”

I looked around nervously at Kate as she sat me on the changing table. A strap was there, but they didn’t move to use it. “Now, we’re going to call her…. Laney for this.” He said. “That way, your mommy won’t know it’s you!” he said patronizingly. When he pulled out a massive fake phallus, I decided it was about time to move. “We’ll get you all ready to be a big girl here!”

“You ready, Ian?”

“Three… Two… One… Action…” He said.

“Let’s get you something better to suck on that’s better than that pacifier Laney,” He said as he approached me.

I heard myself internally decide, ‘Now!’ and went into motion. I activated my shield and used a light spell to temporarily blind the three like a flashbang. Then, in one quick movement, I jumped off the table and away from Maponus. I pulled out my weapon and pointed it at him, “FBI FREEZE!!!!”

Ian and Kate seemed to be fully bound by the spell I’d used, but Maponus shrugged his way free of the attack and started laughing. He began to perform a counterspell of his own, and I fired three rounds at him. But, much to my dismay, they just bounced off a shield he had created. Suddenly all of my senses went blank! 

I couldn’t see, couldn’t hear, couldn’t smell, couldn’t feel anything!

Caireen urged me to launch an expansive attack. I quickly threw up a stone wall in front of me while simultaneously sending a jet of purple energy out in a one-eighty-degree arc. I must have hit him because my senses came back. “Bitch!” he complained.

I pulled down my wall and tried a blast directly at him, but he did something to dissipate it. 

“Who the hell are you?!?!” He screamed as he sent a wave of metal knives at me.

I blocked and said, “Emerald Baby at your service,” activated my mental reset button for my appearance, and belatedly put on my costume.

He gawked at me, and his voice changed, “You!!!! My father wants you dead!”

He renewed his attack by using magic to fling a hundred knives my way! I moved to block them with a wall of stone while sending four small ley lines worth of a blast at him. I missed one of the knives and cried out as it sliced through my upper left arm!

“Damnit!” I cried out.

I let the wall fall down and saw that he had blocked my spell, but it looked like it had taken out a lot of him. I felt blood on my arm and hoped my healing would start soon!

“You should give up now; let me have my fun, and then I’ll put you out of your misery! It’ll be better than my father getting to you.”

I felt Caireen’s anger flare up worse than I’d seen, and just before I lost my senses again, she reinforced me as I fired an ice spell at him. My vision began going black again for a second, but it lifted nearly instantaneously. Then, I watched in horror as his limbs became covered in ice crystals. In slow motion, they crept up to his face. As it neared his head, he tried one more attempt to get free. I blasted him with another five shots of my pistol and saw him crumble into glass shards like in the old terminator movie.

I hoped I wouldn’t get in trouble for hiding evidence or something. Still, I activated the same fire spell I’d used with Rosemerta to incinerate his body just as the other agents finally decided to show up!

“FBI!!!!” They called out.

“IT’S ME, EMERALD. I’M AN AGENT, DON’T SHOOT!” I called out.

“Holy shit!!! What the hell happened in here?” One of the agents asked. “Did you kill someone?”

“Sorry, the suspect, code-named Maponus, refused to go down without a fight,” I said and turned to look up at Kate. She and the other guy Ian were still locked up inside their tendrilled cages.

“What happened to these guys?”

“Those are my restraints. I’ll remove them if you’re ready to cuff and subdue them.”

I watched as three men apiece pointed their rifles at each, while another cuffed them and kicked them to the ground as soon as I released the cages. Finally, I walked over to the man and said, “You are a piece of shit, and I hope you rot in prison. We’ll have to ensure the other inmates know you like babies.” I looked up at the agent holding his arms, “Get this despicable piece of filth out of my face.”

Agent Sanders appeared right then, “Agent Emerald, are you okay?” He said nervously, looking at my arm.

It was mostly healed, with just a red spot remaining, “He got me good if it took this long to heal!” I said aloud, “I’ll be fine in about ten more minutes. Can you let Agent Emped know to come?”

“Already here,” Hannah said, coming in her costume through the door. She moved to pick me up, but I stopped her.

“Good, I’ll need you in a minute. Umm… Agent Sanders?” I said.

“Yes?” he replied.

I motioned for him to move over to the side with me, “Look, I’m pretty sure it’s just Kate, Ian, and Maponus who were involved. But another employee or two could be involved? Can we question Kate somewhere? I think if she was given the right incentive, she’d talk. I have this… feeling that while she’s not innocent, she may not have been involved in this completely of her free will?”

He nodded, “We need to use the local PD for their holding cells anyway. I’m sure they’ll lend us a room. Are you doing the questioning?”

“With Emped’s help. She’ll be able to help us feel if she’s telling the truth.”

“Fair enough,” he looked at me, “The daycare will probably notice her being gone?”

“Maybe keep all of the rest of the employees there for now? Call and have the parents pick up their kids? I don’t think there are any other Mergents to worry about.”

“Sure as hell, hope not! If this is the damage we expect when you fight? What did you two do in here?” He asked, pointing around at the destruction. The concrete floor was torn apart, and large chunks spread throughout the room. Glass had been blown out of the few windows. The only things still intact were the cameras and pieces of baby furniture. I watched as techs began coming inside to collect evidence.

“He didn’t want to come quietly?” I suggested. “Make sure your techs get the footage off the cameras and don’t release that of the fight if you can. Or at least blur my features.”

“You didn’t look like yourself at all before.”

“I know, but do you want everyone to know you have a secret baby agent?”

He nodded, “Okay.”

I put my hands up to Hannah, who carried me out to her car. A spare diaper was found, and I was mercifully changed.

“You hungry?” She asked.

“Starving,” I said, feeling exhausted.

“I have some baby food; you want that?”

I glared at her, “Can we please just stop at Mcdonald’s? I need three double hamburger meals to make up for that slop I’ve been eating. It’s been torture watching you eat regular food!”

“Come on, it couldn’t have been that bad…?”

“That chicken? It definitely was! You heard about the blowout from that jar… but let me tell you!”

I animatedly began talking for the first time in this world after not quite two weeks of baby babbling. She went through the drive-thru and got my meals. As we pulled up to the PDs parking lot and handed me the food, she said, “Make sure you don’t overeat… I still have these things, you know!”

“After the burgers!”

“Will you still be hungry?”

“Haven’t you been pumping at lunch…?”

She sighed, “Okay, burgers first.”

She left the car running and jumped into the back seat next to me, and watched me eat the stack of burgers. My small mouth meant I couldn’t eat them that quickly, but I rushed to scarf them down in about fifteen minutes while relishing the return of a full mouth of teeth. When I was done, she grabbed me and put me on her breasts. As I finished her second one, I felt really bloated, “Maybe I shouldn’t have eaten that much…?”

“If you get sick, you’re going back to eating chicken baby food.”

“If you mention that stuff, then I will be sick!”

 

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Thank you for reading! Please press the ‘Like’ Button if you’ve enjoyed it! Comments are always super appreciated as well!

Emerald will now be posted on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, Sundays until it is completely posted. (‘Lights, Camera, …What?!?’ is being posted on Fridays)

If you're someone who must finish a good story 'now,' consider purchasing the full book on Amazon Kindle! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BTBTTGX1 I will be posting a chapter about every other day until the complete 62 Chapters and the Epilogue are reposted.

[BabySofia]

Chapter 54: Breached

 

HANNAH LAID ME down then on the seat and quickly changed my now poopy diaper. Eventually, she and I walked inside, still wearing our costumes, and approached the front security area to enter the police station. “Umm… can I help you?” An officer asked in front of the metal detectors.

“I’m FBI Agent Emerald, and this is Agent Emped. Agent Sanders was supposed to set up an interrogation room for us?” I pulled my ID out, and he looked at my ID and badge.

He looked at me like I had grown a second head, and I sighed, “I’m not kidding; where do we need to go?”

He looked at another officer, “Can you show these two where the interrogation rooms are?”

“Umm… Sure…” He said.

He walked us down, and we soon found Agent Sanders hanging out in the hallway from a one-way glass room. “There you two are. Where’d you go?”

“Someone was going through food withdrawals. Rather than have Emerald whine for all eternity, I decided McDonald’s was an okay stop on the way.” Hannah told him.

He smiled at me, “I hope you know we appreciate what you’ve done here. You said you think Emped can help out here?”

“I think so. Emped, can you tell Sanders what they figured out with your talent?”

“Well… I don’t know…”

“Come on, it will help here.”

“Well, it’s a useless talent, but I can tell what people’s emotions are… and what they’re feeling? So I guess I can tell when people lie?”

“That’s certainly not useless,” he told her. “We do have to be careful with you questioning suspects with it. But since you can’t actually read minds, it’s okay. Still, privacy laws mean we must ensure we don’t void any information discovered.”

She blushed, “You really think it’s useful?”

“Yes, it is, and I would guess Emerald understands why since she insisted on you being involved. Now Emerald, do you want me to take the lead on questioning?” He asked me.

“Actually, sir, I think it will blow her mind more if I do it. She’s been taking care of me for almost two weeks now… So I have a feeling it’ll mess with her a lot more if I do it.”

“Fair enough, I’m going to go in as backup. If I say stop for any reason, you need to. If the woman asks for a lawyer, we must stop too.”

I nodded, having seen enough detective shows growing up. He opened up the door to the interrogation room for me, and I saw Kate sitting in a chair with her hands cuffed together. Two chairs sat on the other side of the table, and I decided to just jump on top and sit down, looking at her. “So, Kate… I think I should introduce myself. My name is not Olivia, but rather Agent Emerald, F.B.I.”

“What the fuck is going on?!?” she looked at Hannah and Sanders, who sat behind me.

“What’s going on is that you are involved in one of the worst child exploitation rings in a decade, and we’ve got you and Ian as our only suspects now.”

“Bullshit! That was all Jake! You’d know that if you didn’t kill him!”

“I’m sure he was involved, but you were the one who carried me off to go get abused. What was the plan? Were you sickos going to have me sucking on that stupid toy, then move on to pushing it into me?!?” I hissed. I could tell my eyes had just started their ‘I’m pissed off’ glow as she looked suddenly terrified.

“It wasn’t like that!” She started to cry.

“Then how was it?”

“Babies aren’t supposed to remember – you wouldn’t have known in a year or two!”

“Now that’s bullshit!” I told her, “And a jury is going to think that too. With the long record, you’re looking at life in prison, maybe even the needle’s possible here. Prisoners aren’t going to look too kindly on you as a child molester.”

“What?!? But I didn’t do…?”

“You’re right; you didn’t do anything to stop it,” I told her.

“But…”

“But what? You enjoyed it too? Seeing someone else abused for once instead of it being you? I’ve seen your record, one arrest after another. So you got to be the pimp now? It made you feel powerful?” Hannah pitched in, “I can feel your positive memories there. You must have loved watching…?”

“Stop!” She cried, “I hated it!!!! If I didn’t help them, though, they would kill me! Ian is my pimp!”

She broke a lot easier than I had expected, honestly. After she told us about his involvement, I asked, “Who else at the daycare is involved?”

“No one,” she said nervously.

“She’s lying,” Hannah said though to confirm that.

“No…”

“I can tell you’re lying; it’s one of my powers,” Hannah told her.

“You’re not allowed to read my mind!”

“I’m not. It’s just a feeling of truth or lies for me, now why don’t you tell us the truth? No other babies need to get hurt here…?”

More tears from Kate later, we learned that the daycare owner and four other employees were also involved. The daycare owner was apparently fully complicit and even gave the orders more than Maponus. Sanders had him and the others arrested where they were held at the daycare. They also made sure that the state shut down the daycare facility for good at that point. It seemed like Ian and Maponus had been friends growing up, and he’d reached out to his Mergent friend for help with this awful scheme. The two of them, plus the daycare owner, had been operating secretly for four years – sadly abusing more kids than could be counted!

I’d sat in with Agent Sanders’ quick interrogation of Ian before he lawyered up. When I was there, I decided he was a piece of scum that needed to be forever removed from society. But, unfortunately, I had no justification for having done that earlier!

We were in a small conference room afterward where Hannah had had a debriefing, “Okay, Agent Emped has given her account for these past couple weeks. I need yours now, Emerald?”

Two other agents had joined us, and everything was recorded as they documented my account. I spent the better part of two hours telling and re-telling everything before the recorder was turned off. “With your account, Kate’s testimony, and the film from the cameras, this will be called a justified shoot,” Agent Sanders told me.

“Thanks… I would hope so! Capturing him alive wasn’t really an option.”

“No, I agree it wasn’t. Now, it will be a three-hour drive back to your school. I will take you back there and then deal with everything from this case back in my office. I’ll be in touch soon about your internship details over the summer.”

“Thank you, sir,” I told him and followed him out where Hannah had been waiting.

I held my arms up to her, and she picked me up, making a face as she said, “You’re poopy again!”

“Gee, I hadn’t noticed,” I said sarcastically.

“You know, I think I liked it better when you only babbled.” She smiled, “When you said Mama, you were so cute!”

“Just change me already, please!” I told her as she carried me to a nearby women’s bathroom and laid me on the small pull-down table. A lady officer washing her hands at the sink gave us a funny look before leaving us both giggling when she left.

 

WE WERE DRIVEN by Agent Sanders to the apartment to pick up the belongings we cared about, including the baby food device, before heading away from the town we were in. Then, after we stopped for a quick dinner at a Waffle House, we drove back to Bechtel in Agent Sanders’ SUV.

We each used our phones to call our parents on the way back. “Mom?” I asked when she answered the phone.

“Sofia!” She said excitedly, “Levi, Sofia’s on the phone!”

A moment later, I began having a conversation catching them up on nearly two weeks of missed time. “I was so worried about you!” Mom told me. “Did you catch them?”

I nodded as I said, “Yes, we did.”

“What were you doing anyway? You didn’t say beforehand?”

“I went into a daycare undercover as a baby,” I told her. “It’s probably what my job will be like most of the time.”

She giggled, “So you had two weeks of pretending to be a baby at daycare each day?”

I sighed and rolled my eyes, “I had two weeks of pretending to be a baby all day long, Mom. Let me tell you, if I ever see a jar of baby food again…?”

Hannah giggled next to me, and I stuck my tongue out as she held up a jar of that chicken goop.

We both had good conversations with our parents, and I even talked to Lily. I learned that they and Hannah’s parents had found a large cabin to rent for Christmas for us to be together. They would fly out at the end of our finals week and stick around until after New Year’s Day. I felt myself tearing up about seeing everyone again, but I managed to not start bawling! I missed my family so much!!!

When we pulled up to the front office, he said, “What you two did on this case was really great work! I’m sure we’ll have another mission for you no later than the summer. I was very impressed that you kept in character throughout the mission. You went above and beyond what I would have hoped for, Emerald.”

I blushed, “Thank you, sir; I’m just glad to be done with that. You have no idea how hard it was to pretend to be that young!”

He laughed, “No, I don’t, and I don’t want to!”

He waited with our things while we checked back into the school office. It was very late, but a security officer was up for such reasons. “You’re back late?”

I nodded, “Sorry, we’ve been on an assignment. We just need to check back in.”

He looked at me and shook his head, “This is so surreal sometimes.”

Once we were marked back present on the campus, we grabbed our things and returned to Trident. We used our student badges to open the door, and Mrs. Lang saw us and walked over. “You’re back! I thought you might not make it back before the end of the semester?”

Hannah smiled, “Sofia here managed to end the case today, so we’re back already!”

“Great! That means you’ve made it in time to have two days of review, and then you’ll be ready for your finals next week?”

I felt the bottom drop out of my stomach, “Umm… maybe I should have taken longer, Hannah?”

Mrs. Lang laughed while Hannah said, “Yes, I guess you should have!”

“You two might have some packages in my office, come see me tomorrow, and I’ll get them for you.”

“Okay, goodnight Mrs. Lang,” Hannah said.

Lights were supposed to be out by this time on school nights unless you had some odd condition that kept you from sleeping. That meant we got inside our room without encountering anyone else. “I could so use a bath!” I found myself saying.

“You want one, and then we’ll both go to bed?” Hannah asked.

“Sure…” I told her. She grabbed a set of pajamas, a diaper, some wipes for me, and a bathrobe and underwear set for her. As she let the bath fill, I watched her bring the curtain that surrounded the tub closed. “Why are you closing that?” I asked, “You usually just let everyone see me naked?”

“Umm… do you mind if I just join you in the bath tonight? A bath sounds great, but I don’t want to stay up after you go to bed?”

“I could take a bath alone, you know…?”

“I know…”

I sighed and just nodded, “Fine, I’ll share! You’re such a big baby!”

She smiled at me and began stripping off her clothes first. Once her underwear was off, I became the focus of her efforts. My diaper was balled up and placed next to my clothes before she gathered me up and sat in the tub with me in her lap. She’d been giving me baths since we’d arrived, but this was the first time she’d joined me. I felt like she took more time washing herself and me, and then she played with me a bit in the water.

After a while, I felt something and went, “oops…” as I peed in the water.

She just laughed, “It’s just pee… it’s okay,” She squeezed me when I was done and rinsed us off with a spray nozzle after the tub emptied. I was dressed back in a diaper, her in her panties and robe, and then she carried me and our stuff back to the room. Closing the door, she sat down in the rocking chair with me.

She hugged me for a long moment before startling me by suddenly speaking, “I was so scared today,” she told me.

I looked up at her, “Of what?”

“Of losing you, silly! Or something else happening! You realize what they wanted to do with you, right?”

I nodded, “I still want to vomit thinking about it.”

“Well, I was so scared… As soon as I got the call that you were being moved out of the daycare, I left work immediately.”

“I hope you didn’t put them in a jam?” I said, “They seemed nice enough…?”

“It turns out I was working there because her husband works for the Bureau, she understood.”

I nodded at that, “Sorry I scared you.”

She hugged my naked body to her own for a few minutes before saying, “You ready for your night-night num-nums?”

“You’ll have to tone down the mommy stuff with everyone else around here,” I told her, blushing.

“So, no more baby food at meal times?”

I just sighed, leaned forward, took her nipple in my mouth, and began nursing. The day had been so crazy, and she was right… I could have died or had something else happen. But, instead, Caireen gave me a mental hug, and I was soon asleep.

 

WHEN I WOKE in my crib, I heard bells clanging and loud yelling! I was about to cry to get Caireen’s attention, but she quickly strode through the door and picked me up. I looked at her and saw she wasn’t wearing a dress like normal. Instead, she was dressed in what looked like leather pants and a similar tunic. It made me think of some of the ‘armor’ pre-chainmail in the history books I’d seen.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“Camulus is ramping up his attack on the valley wall. Our scouts have also noticed a force that seems to be trying to tunnel through the mountain.”

I nodded and put my arms up to be picked up. Caireen carried me to the table and dressed me again in the thin diaper she’d created. She pulled out a nearly matching set of clothes to what she wore but included a chainmail shirt. “What’s that made out of?” I asked. “It looks like mithril?”

She nodded, “You’ve noticed my guard wears it; it’s the most protective armor I can give you. It should protect you from being cut by sword blows. Hopefully, you’ve learned your lessons well from d’Artagnon. I suspect you’re going to need them soon.”

I looked up at her in surprise and wondered just what Camulus was doing that she was suddenly more nervous.

The tunic went over my clothes’ top, and she added my tiara. Looking in a tall mirror, we looked like mother and daughter dressed up for some Halloween event… ‘This isn’t a costume, though!’ I thought to myself.

She carried me down to the situation room, and I looked at a sea of the General’s aides running back and forth with information. The scrying mirrors had someone watching them individually, calling out more information. Still, I could just see the views past them.

I felt my jaw drop as I saw the wall on the southern end of the valley suddenly gain a massive crack running down the middle. Even as Camulus’s forces were trying to split the wall apart, they had managed to land men on top with ladders and quickly overwhelmed our troops! Then, just as I got my mind wrapped around that, we felt a rumble in the ground like an earthquake. The view from Citadel Four showed that a tunnel had suddenly appeared across the valley below Citadel Two. Below Citadel Two, their men were streaming out! Then, just as I thought the bad news would be finished, the same thing happened with the view from Citadel One, underneath Citadel Three.

“They’ve breached the valley!” I heard multiple voices call out!

 

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Thank you for reading! Please press the ‘Like’ Button if you’ve enjoyed it! We’re nearing the end of the tale with less than 10 chapters remaining! Comments would be super appreciated!

Emerald will now be posted on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, Sundays until it is completely posted. (‘Lights, Camera, …What?!?’ is being posted on Fridays)

If you're someone who must finish a good story 'now,' consider purchasing the full book on Amazon Kindle! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BTBTTGX1  I will be posting a chapter about every other day until the complete 62 Chapters and the Epilogue are reposted.
 

[BabySofia]

Chapter 55: Come and Take It!

 

I WATCHED AS men began rushing to the edges of the newer inner wall. The bridge over the moat was quickly closed, and I felt a thud in my chest when the granite block slammed down to seal the ramparts up. I jumped when there was a loud crack as the valley’s southern wall collapsed in a cloud of dust and rock!

“Get the Citadels to target those tunnels!” I said.

“Do it!” General Slane told someone. “Have our trebuchets target the areas they’re regrouping to. The outer castle wall will be surrounded soon, have them continue firing on their troops no matter what! Don’t let them form up ranks!”

I watched, horrified, as the valley began filling up with troops from the two tunnels. Then a distant figure used magic to push away the rubble and clear an opening the size of the road flat. As soon as he did, men began rapidly traveling toward us. 

“How many men do they have left?” I asked.

“We think about fifteen thousand now,” he said, “those special forces troops helped push desertion levels and ambushes. Their forces also wasted a lot of lives on the wall in the past weeks.”

“Us?”

“About eight thousand within these walls,” he said and pointed to the walls where I could see on the scrying mirrors that men were side by side atop the ramparts. Within the yard, troops were gathered in ranks. Archers seemed to be set up to volley arrows over the walls but waited for the orders. Meanwhile, I watched the trebuchets continue flinging their own barrages. 

The Citadels did everything we could have hoped for! There was even some luck on our side as they managed to cause landslides that sealed off the tunnels from additional troops coming through! Just as we cheered that victory, Citadel Four activated their self-destruct function to prevent the vantage point from being taken by Camulus’ troops. His men had been scaling the cliffs and would have captured it. The mushroom cloud explosion looked like a small nuke had gone off, and chunks of the citadel flew into the air and fell amidst their troops, still trying to form up ranks.

I felt myself squatting for a second and realized I had just pooped my diaper. I sighed and looked at Caireen, who was talking to a few men for a moment before she noticed me and wrinkled her nose. “Come on, Princess,” she said to me. She carried me to a nearby dining room and said, “Look… Sweetie, I don’t know what’s going to happen today, but I want you to know I love you as the daughter I’ve never had.” She hugged me tightly, “With that being said, it’s time for you to be a big girl today. Go ahead and change your own diaper,” she told me.

I sheepishly looked at her, feeling scared and needy. “Do I have to…?”

She smiled and performed a spell, “Okay, I took care of this one. Until we’re done with this war, you’re on your own with changes. Go ahead and use the spell, and you’ll be fine.” She sighed, “You’re also allowed in the real world now.”

I hugged her tightly, “I love you.”

“I love you too…” she told me. “Now, let’s feed you one more time, and then I suspect we will have our hands full!”

I looked at her face, marred with streaming tears, as she brought me to her breast. She bounced me gently as I nursed from both breasts. I looked into her face and teary eyes as she gently bounced and cooed at me soothingly. Before I knew it, she was burping me and placing me back on my feet. “Now, my little Princess, it’s time for us to go to the wall and meet that bastard. Hold nothing back; today, we are fighting for our survival.”

I walked beside her, joined by General Slane and his entourage, leaving the main castle. It was a solid building that might hold up against a small raiding party. Still, a force the size of Camulus’ army would only be slowed for a few minutes by the walls and wards of the main castle. We strode across the main entrance area, past the beautiful fountain, and walked the two hundred yards to the base of the wall I had formed. Even though I hated stairs, I climbed the hundreds of steps to the top myself and stood beside an opening in the wall. All of us looked down at the massive army attempting to regroup below.

The two remaining Citadels were taking advantage of the forces forming into tight ranks – explosive jars were constantly flinging from their trebuchets! I watched as five men caught fire and attempted to put themselves out. Several men who tried to help them also caught fire before Camulus ordered archers to kill all of them. It was an act repeated across their lines over and over.

Inside the walls below us, our sixteen trebuchets were firing everything they could get their hands on. From steel to stone, to statues, if it could be flung, it was! Each impact took out at least a few dozen to a hundred men depending on what was being launched. From across the valley, I could see the massive wooden structures and ladders they’d attacked the wall with were now moving toward the castle.

A white flag went up from the back of the ranks, and Caireen commanded to pause the efforts from within the castle. Then, on a tall black horse in gaudy golden armor, King Camulus trotted up to the wall. Seeing Caireen and me, he shouted, “Surrender! You cannot possibly hold out forever! I have more men, and we will overrun you all soon!”

I felt the silence, and the people around us obviously lost their own hope. Looking around, I felt my stomach plummet as I saw a thirteen-year-old boy standing in full armor that looked almost too heavy for his frame. The crossbow he held looked bigger than he was. I looked down and saw women stationed beside the trebuchets, helping to reload them.

Looking up at Caireen, I smiled, “May I?”

She looked at me, “Your decision.”

I looked out at King Camulus, “Camulus, our response is this, COME AND TAKE IT! We will not surrender!”

At my shout, I heard thousands of troops gathered on the wall and below a shout, “Come and Take It!”

The battle cry had been shouted in battle first in ancient history with Leonidas, then again in the American Revolution, and more well known in Texas’ own war of independence. ‘Come and Take It’ again took place in people’s hearts! It became a rallying cry, and Camulus almost looked stunned.

“No rules, you said?” I asked Caireen as his horse reared up in fright from the shouts.

“No rules,” she agreed.

With that, I decided he didn’t deserve a white flag of truce! The ground from under his horse began crumbling, and he decided to retreat from the front. I started shooting off magic at the front lines of his troops even as they began rushing the castle! “Fire!!!” I heard up and down the curved wall, and our bowmen began firing arrow after arrow. It looked like there were clouds in the sky as our arrows flew, and I watched men drop as they were struck by them. Explosions rained down on the men from Caireen, and I personally obliterated a whole line of troops that neared the moat by covering them with a fountain of water and freezing it. The rank behind them fell to fire as they tried to trample past them.

The wall was completely solid now with the granite piece that had dropped in place. It was held in place by the same kind of magical key as my treehouse. I turned curiously and saw my personal play space in the distance, ‘I hope someday this can be a place to play again...’ I thought, distracted for just a second. Then, I snapped out of it and watched as the first troops tried to jump into the fifty-foot-deep moat I had formed. I’d ensured it wouldn’t cause seepage problems into the castle. The tall walls descended in one granite piece from the top to about a hundred feet below the moat and into bedrock. Caireen had cast an illusion, making it seem like it was only a few feet deep.

Within moments the first few hundred men jumped in, hoping to muck their way across the shallow moat. Instead, they discovered they were drowning with their heavy armor, dragging them to the bottom. Letting them be forgotten for the moment, I tried targeting spells at the catapults they were setting up across the battlefield. Obliterating them wasn’t necessary. Just taking care of breaking axles, or baskets, was enough to keep them from being used against us. I was frugal and only used a few ley lines of power in each spell, but I also didn’t hold back the blasts from continuing through the ground. Rapidly the back of the enemy lines, where they tried to organize the war engines, was becoming a pockmarked mess.

I was just getting ready to attack what looked to be the final catapult that had made it into the valley when I watched Camulus himself approach the moat. Several crossbows and archers fired at his position, but his men stepped in with massive shields and protected him. He reached the edge of the canal and began working a spell.

He wasn’t attacking the top of the walls. Instead, he was firing small spells and poking thousands of tiny holes below the water line in the wall’s granite. I stared for a moment, trying to figure out what he was doing.

Then, I snapped out of my stare and used my own magic to stop him when I realized his plan.

It was brilliant…

He instantly froze the moat into one massive piece of ice.

The little holes had filled with water and acted as thousands of little wedges to break apart the wall. With those and one massive piece of ice caught between two immovable walls… it was just simple physics at work. When I heard a ‘crack’ from the wall below me, I yelled, “Shit!!! Get off the wall!” I cried out to the men around me. People around me used the fireman-style poles I had stationed about the walls for a quick retreat. We were all gliding down the escape route even as the ice began to crack the walls where I had just been standing into hundreds of smaller boulder size pieces. Another spell he performed brought the rock down into the moat, and it now became a land bridge for his troops to cross.

I drew my sword as the first soldier came at me. I parried, sidestepped him, and stabbed him in the side where his armor was weak. My sword passed through just below his rib cage and killed him. I had no time to dwell on it, though, as hundreds of troops began to press and advance our broken lines. I fought alongside twenty other troops that circled me with swords and spells before one said, “Your Highness, pull back to a better position at the castle!”

I wanted to argue, but he barely blocked a sword meant for me right then. I managed to retreat back fifty yards before a shape flew in front of me and turned into Rosemerta holding her own sword. “Miss me?”

“Not really,” I told her. “Miss being dead?”

“You’re going to pay for that!”

She stepped forward to try and grab me. I sliced at an angle and managed to cut her leg almost cleanly off above the knee with a blow from the exceptionally sharp sword. I didn’t have long to wait before she performed a counterattack on me, and I felt a searing cut on my left arm. I used magic to attempt to freeze her, but to her credit, she wasn’t being fooled by the same trick twice. Round and round, we went before I managed to gather enough manna out of five ley lines to do something with. I debated what to do, but when she forced me next to the fountain, I decided I’d take Camulus’ lead and let the water do most of the work. I suddenly flash-heated the water in the fountain and tripped her good leg, shoving her inside.

She screamed as her flesh was being boiled off! She knelt upright and tried to crawl out of the fountain. But, from past experience with her, I knew better than to count her out! I leaped up to stab her through the heart with my sword while simultaneously blasting her with seven lines worth of a fiery blast. I heaved in fatigue as she disintegrated again in front of me.

The clang of battle continued around me, but an odd sound came from my right. ‘Who’s clapping?’

I looked over and saw Maponus. He looked younger here. Clearly, the human he’d been connected with back home was older than here, but the bloody sword he held in his hand told me he was probably more capable here. “Nice show, little girl. I think we’ve established this little dance in both worlds now. You kill her, I come after you. You know, since you killed my vessel in the other world… I think it’s your turn. I’ll enjoy seeing you dead in both worlds!”

 

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Thank you for reading! Please press the ‘Like’ Button if you’ve enjoyed it! We’re nearing the end of the tale with less than 8 chapters remaining! Comments would be super appreciated!

Emerald will now be posted on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, Sundays until it is completely posted. (‘Lights, Camera, …What?!?’ is being posted on Fridays)

If you're someone who must finish a good story 'now,' consider purchasing the full book on Amazon Kindle! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BTBTTGX1 I will be posting a chapter about every other day until the complete 62 Chapters and the Epilogue are reposted.

[BabySofia]

Chapter 56: Desperate

“NO, I REALLY don’t think so,” I told him. “I think it’s just time for you to die here too.”

He laughed, “There I was inside a mortal human… a weak one at that. I should never have let his body capture me!”

“Well, you’re since such a weakling, I won’t hold it against you,” I spat at him.

“You’ll pay for that little girl. You do realize that I’m not just a person here? I’m a god, and you will not defeat me.”

“You know what all villains have in common?” I asked him.

“What?”

“You all talk too damn much!” I said as I flung a massive spell of twelve lines at him while simultaneously putting another shield around me. It was only then that I realized my shield had fallen earlier, and I’d been stupid enough not to put it back up!

He just barely dodged it and began running forward toward me. I dodged a stab of his sword and parried another. He kept pushing me further up toward the castle steps. I was about to take and make my own slash at him when a sword from behind me just about cleaved my head open. I barely dodged, rolled, and stabbed the man who had tried to cowardly sneak behind my back.

“Really?” I told him, “Can’t even beat a baby girl on your own?”

He growled and leaped at me again. I was pretty sure he was going to swing his sword down at me from third-position and watched as he did so, trying to slash down at me. Rather than parry him again, I used my sword to circle around his blade, momentarily trapping it long enough to kick his knee as hard as I could.

Even through the poleyn he wore over the top, I could tell that hurt. In fact, my kick had bent the metal so severely he couldn’t stand up straight. “You stupid bitch!” He said and advanced again. I parried his sword but missed dodging the backhanded swing from his other hand. His metal gauntlet made me see stars as I fell to the ground.

I spat out blood and lots of teeth, feeling dizzy right then. ‘Is this it?’ I wondered for a moment.

Right then, another of our men swung his sword at the prince. Maponus was taken by surprise, and it took him the better part of two minutes to dispatch our man, who was an excellent swordsman. In the meantime, someone picked me up, “Come on, Princess, we have to get you out of here,” a maid grabbed me and began running with me into the castle, the doors shutting behind us.

I was dizzy as she continued running, and I didn’t know what to do. “Stop…” I said, “I can’t leave them… Mama!”

“She told me to get you out of the castle Princess. At least you can live!”

I attempted to use some spells she’d taught me for healing but had trouble focusing, with my head pounding as she ran into some secret tunnel I didn’t know. Before long, it led out to the forest and the meadow near my treehouse. “Come on, Princess, we need to get you inside!” She told me, climbing the steps.

“No… I have to go back; I can’t let Caireen die!”

A blast struck a tree near us just as we reached the steps. I looked at the door, opened it with my magic, and shoved the maid inside before relocking it. Maponus advanced quickly, having ditched the parts of the armor that were bent.

“Running away?” he asked.

I shook my head, “Not intentionally. When you look like a baby, everyone just wants to baby you.”

“Oh… I know,” the villain said with a feral grin that made me want to vomit.

“Come on,” I told him, standing beside the tree, “Let’s finish this, one way or another.”

“I agree!” He said, “I’m going to look forward to playing with you before I kill you, though!”

“Well, I’m right here. Come get me!”

He charged at me from about fifteen feet away, sword held high in the air. Other than in the practice room in the castle, the best place I could feel the artery of energy was this old tree. I drew every bit of manna and strength from it while he charged at me.

When he finally got close, I fired a low-powered bolt of the freeze spell and watched him easily dodge it. When I saw the direction he escaped, I used most of the manna I’d gathered to bring the granite from deep in the earth around him and form it into a full body casting of him. The granite left only his head exposed. He began to try and say something, I assumed to cast a spell.

“And now, I hope I’m finally rid of your disgusting ass!” I said before he could. I flung another powerful bolt of my energy blast straight into his head. I watched his horrified face for a millisecond before his head exploded like a watermelon.

Suddenly having nothing left, I staggered to the ground. I was bleeding from several deep cuts on my body, and my head was still woozy from his backhand. If it wasn’t for adrenaline, I was pretty sure my body would have demanded I be passed out at that point. As it was, I was on my knees when I realized the maid was banging on the door to get out of the treehouse. I crawled up the steps and unlocked the door for her. She saw the sight of Maponus’ remains and promptly vomited.

“Oh, my goddess, are you okay!?!?” She asked me.

“Not really,” I told her. “I need to get back to the castle; I have to help!”

“You’re too hurt! You must stay and heal and wait for them to fight it out.”

“If I don’t go, and we lose, do you think I’ll be able to live with myself knowing I hid away? I appreciate the idea of getting me here, but I have to go back.”

She sighed, “Very well, Your Highness. Will you at least let me bandage up your arm?”

I looked and could see blood was still seeping out of the wound. I’d become so accustomed to quickly healing in my world that I forgot that didn’t seem to happen the same way here. I nodded at her.

As she bandaged the wound, I ran my tongue across my mouth. I had lost all of my front teeth, and my molars felt wrong too. There was still the taste of blood in my mouth, and I spat on the ground and groaned when I saw several molars there too. I did my best to perform a healing spell on my mouth and the rest of my body. If it hadn’t been for the strength of the ley lines at the tree, I was pretty sure I couldn’t have done even as much as I did.

I sighed and waited as she tore off pieces of her apron and tied them off on my arm.

“I guess that’s as good as we can get… Your Highness, are you sure you can’t just…?”

“I’m sure,” I told her and held my arms up, “If you can carry me back, I can use the time to keep trying to build some energy up.”

“Yes, Your Highness,” she said and placed me on her hip.

“What’s your name?” I asked her.

“Niamh, Your Highness,” she told me.

“Thank you for your help, Niamh,” I told her. “You saved my life back there.”

I breathed slowly in and out and tried to replenish my reserves as she carried me in reverse through the tunnel back into the castle. We had just reached the front door when it was flung open! Camulus’ men scrambled in, and just outside the door, I saw Camulus fighting with Caireen. I leaped out of Niamh’s arms and tried to decide where to start.

Caireen and Camulus were going back and forth with magic and sword in a deadly dance that I didn’t have the time to watch. Twenty men advanced on me, and I didn’t hold back with magic, freezing the hearts of each of them and watching them drop dead where they stood. I wanted to vomit, but I couldn’t linger. Twenty more ringed the battle around Caireen, and I dropped them the same way.

I was distracted by two men rushing me for just a second. I sidestepped and used a magic bolt on each of them.

I looked up and saw Caireen send a fireball of magic at Camulus. I silently cheered, but even as I started to feel hopeful, he redirected it into the ceiling, causing chunks of stone and wood to rain down below! A back-and-forth happened for the next few minutes as I got distracted by two new soldiers that challenged me. Finally, having just dropped the second one with a thrust upwards into his heart, I turned in time to see Camulus standing over Caireen. His sword was raised and about to plunge into her chest!

“No!!!!!!!!” I screamed!

He looked up at me and had the nerve to laugh as he noticed me, “Oh, and here is your human host now!”

“If you kill her, I become queen. Your son is dead, so you don’t get the land by having him marry me.”

“All I have to do is kill you, and I’ve got it all as it is. Shouldn’t take but a few minutes!”

“Then let’s do it!” I told him angrily.

He laughed, “Okay, you know what,” he did some sort of spell and bound Caireen to the steps with chains on her wrists, ankles, and neck, “you’re right. It’ll be much more enjoyable to have her watch you die.”

“Who says that I’m dying, asshole?”

He strode towards me, and I wasted no time flinging a shield over my body. Raising my sword towards him, I think he was surprised when I blocked his blade and successfully tumbled past him. I wasted no time stabbing him with my sword, but his magical shield stopped it. A backhanded blow from his metal gauntlet caught me on the shoulder of my bad arm, and I rolled away.

He advanced at me again and swung his sword at me. At the last minute, though, he changed directions and caught me on my left arm again. My shield kept it from being cleaved off, but I suddenly couldn’t do anything with the arm, which hung limply at my side.

“Well, well, well,” he said, “I may enjoy this more than I thought.”

“I’m sure you will!” I told him as I circled around him. The fights with Rosemerta, Maponus, and now him had injured me badly, and I was in so much pain! All I wanted to do was give in and go to sleep! I knew that was probably blood loss talking, but I glanced at Caireen briefly. As Camulus continued circling me, I saw her terrified face. The face of someone who loved me as her daughter. Someone who had saved my life, and I loved her so much!

I opened myself fully to the massive ley artery in the castle and tried to decide what to do – but I decided I wouldn’t give up until I was dead!

Camulus didn’t give me much of an opening to think, immediately attacking me and sweeping the sword low in front of him at the height of my knees. With him bent over, I used his arms as a ramp and climbed on his shoulders. Suddenly I had a desperate idea! I pressed my hand to his back behind his heart and pushed every ounce of energy I had gathered into one freezing spell.

I felt drained as I landed behind him, and he turned to look at me with amusement. “Did you expect that to do something…?”

Right then, I used the last of my strength to pull one of the arrows from an archer’s quiver and steered it right to the spot where I had frozen as cold as possible. There was a sound like shattering glass, and suddenly an arrowhead appeared through his chest!

“What the…?” He cried out and then tumbled to the ground on his knees, “How did you…?” He gasped for air.

Knowing what I had experienced with Rosemerta coming back to life, I stumbled over to him. I leveled my sword at his neck, charged the sword with manna, and slashed a fiery blade straight across his neck. His heart had stopped pumping when it had been torn apart by the arrow, but until my slash, he had just enough magic to keep himself alive. Then, as his decapitated head rolled towards his men, they took one look at me and ran screaming, “Retreat!!!” 

As they ran, I could stand no longer. Crawling over to Caireen on my hands and knees, I performed a spell to remove her chains. Then, I just said, “Mama!!!” before I passed out.

 

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Thank you for reading! Please press the ‘Like’ Button if you’ve enjoyed it! We’re nearing the end of the tale! Comments are always super appreciated!

Emerald will now be posted on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, Sundays until it is completely posted. (‘Lights, Camera, …What?!?’ is being posted on Fridays)

If you're someone who must finish a good story 'now,' consider purchasing the full book on Amazon Kindle! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BTBTTGX1 I will be posting a chapter about every other day until the complete 62 Chapters and the Epilogue are reposted.

 

[BabySofia]

Chapter 57: All I Want for Christmas…

BEEP…BEEP…BEEP was pounding inside my head for some reason in a moment of déja vu. It hurt my head like someone was driving an icepick through it, and I cried, “Ow!!!”

“Sofia!” I heard from beside me.

“Not so loud,” I complained as I opened my eyes and saw bars. They weren’t the ones to my crib, though? I looked around, and it looked like I was in a hospital room. “Where am I?” I asked.

“Caduceus…”

“What happened?” I asked, but things didn’t feel right as I did so. Finally, I sat up and tried to sort out my bearings.

“We were hoping you could tell us?” Camille replied from the other side of the crib.

I turned and looked at her, “Huh?”

“Maybe we should explain more?” Camille asked gently. “Thursday night Hannah put you to bed and woke up to you thrashing and screaming? You wouldn’t wake up no matter what. She called me, and I tried to get inside the world you go to, but the walls were so strong I couldn’t get in. When I gave up, suddenly, you had a massive gash on your arm and started bleeding? Since then, you’ve been having random injuries, slashes, bruises... It was terrifying to watch.” She genuinely looked near tears, “It’s Friday evening now, by the way.”

“Oh…” I said, suddenly remembering returning with my injuries when Rosemerta attacked me. I sighed and suddenly felt my mouth… “I’m missing my teeth here too?” I tried to say. I realized annunciation was going to be a problem until I fixed that.

I was thinking about fixing them, but Camille said, “Don’t do anything yet; the doctors think you need to heal a little before we fix your mouth.”

I nodded.

“So, what happened?” Hannah asked. “You scared me to death!”

“King Camulus,” I winced at my speech. Without the teeth to articulate against, I had a weird lisp. So I slowed down to enunciate more. “Camulus arrived at our valley a couple weeks back and had been held back with some fortifications we had built. Then, after I went to sleep here, he broke in with his troops. I guess the time I’ve been asleep has all been the battle?”

“How did you fair?” Camille’s voice changed, “Is Caireen okay?”

I felt Caireen sleepily come to the surface, “I’m fine; I just need to recover like Sofia. We’ll talk soon, Sora,” she said and faded again.

“Sofia Elizabeth Hammerstein, what happened?!?”

I sighed, “Give me a minute Hannah.” I looked down and saw an IV sticking into my arm, bandages on the other. I moved my tongue around my mouth and realized I could only feel one molar remaining – all my other teeth were gone! “Why hasn’t my regen taken care of everything?” I asked Camille as a doctor came in.

“We don’t know, Ms. Hammerstein,” the doctor said, “I’m glad you’re awake now. Maybe you can tell us what happened, and we can figure out your prognosis? You’re not healing from the cuts and broken bones as quickly as we’d expect with your regen ability?”

“It’s a long story… can I get something to drink first?” I asked nervously.

“Here,” Hannah offered me a weird cup with a straw and water.

‘That wasn’t what I was thinking of,’ I thought, annoyed.

“No bottle or…?” I asked nervously.

“Story first,” Hannah told me. “Plus, we’re nervous about what nursing may do to that jaw of yours?”

I turned white but took a sip. Thankfully that didn’t hurt. I would have guzzled it all down, but Hannah pulled it away, “Not too fast.”

I nodded.

“So, what happened?” Hannah pushed.

I sighed, “Well...” I began telling my story of what happened when I entered the castle. Several times Hannah gasped, and tears fell steadily from her eyes. For her part, I could feel Caireen’s terror many times, hearing the story from my point of view.

“Why in the hell didn’t you just hide?” Hannah asked me when she learned I’d almost escaped.

“I couldn’t leave Caireen like that!” I paused, “It would be like leaving my family or you to die, Hannah… I couldn’t!” I felt Caireen give me a confusing combination of a mental hug, thank you, and agreed with Hannah!

When I finished my story, the doctor said, “Well, I think you’ve given accounting for most of your injuries. Just so you know… The tally is the three slashes on your left arm – now that I know a sword did them… I guess it makes sense. Your arm was broken there too…” He added to the long list that included broken ribs before he concluded, “and finally, your jaw is broken. You’ve lost fifteen teeth there – just one of your first molars remains... I think that’s it because your chart notes that you had a set of primary… baby teeth instead of adult ones on your physical. And you were missing your second molars already after your emergence.”

“Can I use a healing spell yet?” I asked.

“No, sometimes it’s better to let your body handle things on its own – especially with high-level paradigms like you. I’m still trying to figure out why your regen ability hasn’t already finished healing? I have a feeling it has to do with the magic that’s involved. So I’d recommend leaving things alone until Sunday. If you haven’t healed by then, I think it’ll be safe enough to use your magic. Or we have our own healers on staff that can do it.”

“Am I stuck here until then?” I asked him.

He nodded, “Your heart also stopped three times on us… I think it’s best if we observe you over the weekend.”

I sighed, “Am I still unable to nurse…?” I asked him.

He looked at me oddly, “Your file says you don’t need to?”

“I have no teeth; what else am I going to eat?”

“Well, we still have some of your nummy baby food in your diaper bag,” Hannah said with a smile.

I glared at her, “This is not fair! I was done with that after the assignment!” I cried. The lisp I made just made her laugh, though.

The doctor said, “Baby food is actually probably a safe bet. But, if you want to try nursing from Hannah or a bottle, you can try it. If it hurts at all, though, you need to stop!”

I nodded, “Thanks,” I told him.

“Please make sure she gets some baby food a few times a day until she gets those teeth back,” he told her. “Not sure how that works with her caloric intake, though?”

“We have a device someone made for us that bumps up the calories and makes most things much better tasting,” Hannah told him.

“Most things?” Camille asked, “I thought Beth said it did everything?”

“Trust me, you don’t want some of it still!” I shuddered as I thought back to that ‘chicken’ dinner.

“And you don’t want her to have some of it… she apparently had the most epic blowout of all time at daycare!”

I turned red, “Please…?” I looked at her, “You promised no talking about my diapers…?”

“Camille’s different; remember she’s your Auntie?”

I sighed and shook my head, “Not fair!”

“Speaking of that… Can you two take care of that diaper? The nurse can, but…?”

“It’s fine, I’ve got it,” Hannah told him with a smile.

“Thanks! I’ll check on her again a few more times tonight. Visiting hours will be over in about ten minutes.”

“You mean I can’t stay?” Hannah asked in shock.

“She’ll be fine…” he told her.

I actually started shaking a bit physically at that separation. “Don’t babies usually get to have their mommies at the hospital with them?” I asked.

“Well… babies yes… you’re eighteen though…”

“No, according to my GEID, I’m allowed to choose if I’m legally eighteen months or eighteen years. Right now, I don’t have most of my teeth, and I’m definitely a baby! I want my mommy here with me!”

Hannah squeezed my hand gently and smiled at me before turning to the doctor, “You heard her, Doctor. Are we going to have a problem? I’ll call Mrs. Hensley if I need to.”

“Bu...” he started to argue, and I was getting angry. I was too tired to do anything to him, but he suddenly turned and left.

“What do you think convinced him?” I asked Camille.

“You know when your eyes glow?” she asked. 

I shrugged, “I’ve only noticed it a couple times; I can’t feel it?”

“Well, they just did, and it looks rather terrifying?”

I giggled then. Instantly the pain made me regret it! “Don’t make me laugh!” I whined.

“Well, I need to go, you may have convinced them to let your mommy stay, but Auntie Cami needs to get some studying done.”

“Can you come to watch her in the morning while I pick up some things from the room?” Hannah asked her.

“Sure, I’d be happy to.”

“Thanks,” Hannah said. She turned to me after she left, “Hungry?”

I nodded.

She leaned over and pulled out the diaper bag we’d taken on our assignment. She pulled out a few jars of baby food, including one of that awful chicken, “Sure you don’t want this one?”

I stuck my tongue out at her and suddenly noticed I was drooling. She laughed at that, put a bib on me, and did something with the crib that raised my head part of the mattress to a slightly more upright position. I soon was accepting spoons of a heated pasta marinara jar. A nurse came in then, “Oh… I guess you already found some food she could eat?”

Hannah nodded, “We had some leftovers from an undercover assignment we were on.”

“I can bring you some more if you need it?” She said.

Hannah looked through the bag, “As long as she just needs to eat it through Sunday, we have her covered. These have been altered to give her more calories. I did the math a couple weeks ago; if you feed her regular baby food, she’ll need like sixty jars to get enough calories!”

I felt sick thinking about eating that much baby food!

The lady shook her head, “Nothing here surprises me at Bechtel… Let me know, though. I’ll bring a package of diapers in for you to change her as needed. The doctor said you were staying with her?”

“Yes, I’m basically her mommy here…” she told her.

“No worries, I wouldn’t want to leave my baby alone in the hospital myself!” she said with a smile. “Can you sleep in that recliner, or do you want me to have someone roll in a bed?”

“A bed would be better?” Hannah said, “If it’s not too much trouble?”

“Shouldn’t be. Anything else you need for Sofia?”

“I’m going to… nurse her after she finishes this jar. Can I get her out of the crib for that?”

She glanced at my chart, “Since she’s awake, yes. I’ll come back in ten minutes, and I’ll help get her situated in your arms for you?”

“Thanks,” she told her.

“No problem, enjoy your din-din cutie…” she told me.

I sighed and accepted another spoonful of mushy red goo. Not having front teeth meant I had a mess on my face and bib. It was even worse than on the assignment when I at least had front teeth to hold things in! When the nurse came in, I had finished the jar and asked Hannah, “You ready?”

“Please?” She said.

“Go ahead and sit down and I’ll carry her over,” she told her. I had to sit patiently as the nurse messed around with the IV line pushing saline into me. Finally, she gently picked me up and carried me to Hannah. “Watch her arm there,” the nurse told her. “If she normally lays on that side to nurse, you may need to see if she’ll be okay flipped over.”

I was lying on the ‘wrong’ side a moment later, and it felt weird. I knew we were both a bit embarrassed as the nurse stared and watched Hannah pull her boob free for me to latch onto. I tentatively sucked for a moment and whined when Hannah pulled me away a moment later.

“What…?”

“No pain?” She asked.

I shook my head, “No!” I dived back to her boob, and the nurse laughed at me.

“She likes the boob juice, huh?”

“She’s an addict,” Hannah said, rubbing my back. “I’m okay with being her dealer, though!”

Sometime during the second breast, my body decided it was time to rest again.

 

I WOKE UP in my crib in the castle. I noticed that the skin on my arm was sealed, but there were vivid red marks still where the slashes had been. My mouth seemed sore, and I could feel these little nubs below my gums that hurt! I sat up inside my crib and grabbed Emie to cuddle my pain away. I enjoyed the quiet time without battle sounds or overprotective bonded mommies for a little while. I felt like my legs were getting kind of cramped, so I stood up shakily.

My body really hurt a lot! Apparently, it decided it was time for the morning messy diaper too. I sighed and decided it was time to figure out where my third mommy was… ‘or is she my second…?’ I thought to myself. ‘I really should rename her and Hannah in my mind… Maybe Caireen is Mama, and Hannah can be Mommy?’ I guiltily realized I was leaving out my real mom… ‘Well, she’s just Mom, I guess… I don’t nurse from her like the others.’

I cried loudly for several minutes before Caireen appeared. She had her own share of vivid bruises on her face and arms and walked with a limp that looked like her right knee had taken a hit. I held my hands out to her, and she carefully picked me up and squeezed me. “Oh baby, I’m so glad you’re okay!” she told me.

I stopped crying and enjoyed being in her embrace for a moment before squirming, “Poopy,” I told her simply.

She smiled, “That you are!”

I was gingerly placed down on the changing table, and she carefully pushed up the nightgown I was dressed in off my head. Then, she pushed me down onto my back and began the routine of changing the stinky diaper. That morning it felt like she took her time to be gentler and more loving than she had in some time. ‘Well, we’re not running off to war today, I hope…?’ I put my thumb in my mouth while she cleaned me up and pinned a new diaper. I was dressed in a simple short dress when she finished.

“Such a good wittle baby,” she cooed at me.

I smiled at her; for once, I didn’t mind being babied by her. I leaned into her as she walked to her rocking chair and sat down. She moved her top out of the way, and I quickly began nursing.

She sighed contentedly, gently patted my back, and stroked my hair while I nursed. When I finished her first breast, she burped me and moved me to the other. The routine was as comforting as I soothed myself with each suckle. By the time I finished, I felt like most of my aches and pains were gone. “Feel better now, baby?”

I nodded, “Yes, Mama,” I told her with a smile. Trying out my new word for her.

“Mama?”

I shrugged, “Trying to keep three mommies straight is getting tiring. So I decided you’re Mama, Hannah is Mommy, and Mom is… well, Mom.”

She laughed, “I think I can live with that.” She looked at my arm, “Looks like nursing from me is helping with those wounds…” she told me.

I looked down, and the red marks were down to barely noticeable bruises. My teeth didn’t feel any different, but everything else felt better. “What about my teeth?” I asked, taking care to do my best to enunciate.

“I think we leave your mouth alone until Sunday – the doctor was right about the damage on your jaw being different.”

“I hate not having them,” I said. I didn’t take as much care in speaking, so it sounded more like random baby babble.

She laughed and squeezed me tight, “You’re lucky you didn’t emerge much younger – you might not have had them at all!”

I glared at her, but she tickled me until I giggled. “Stop!” I told her.

“Okay, Your Highness,” she told me with a kiss on my forehead. She moved me into a position where I was cradled in her left elbow, looking up at her.

“So, is everything okay now…?” I asked. “Camulus, Maponus, and Rosemerta… they’re all gone now for good, right?”

She nodded, “None of them will ever appear again… All have died true deaths now, and no magic will bring them back from the brink. I only worry about Camulus’ wife, the queen, but what remains of their forces have begun running and retreating for home. She was tasked with staying behind and maintaining the affairs at their castle while they mounted their campaign. We may have an issue when she finds out about her husband and son? Still, truthfully I doubt their kingdom will be in a position to attack anyone again for many years.”

“Our troops?”

“We lost a lot Sofia… I won’t lie to you. The death toll is in the thousands… but when you struck the final blow on the King, it inspired those still alive! We’ll recover, and things are already being rebuilt. In a couple weeks, I plan to have a celebration - after we have a chance to mourn those who were lost.”

Caireen talked to me for hours, filling me in on things and people. I learned General Slane had been one of her last defenders. Sadly, he had given his life not long before I returned to find her.

“How about Niamh?” I asked her.

She smiled, “That wonderfully stupid girl is just fine. I just about wanted to tan her hide, though, when I found out you could have been safely hidden in the treehouse, but she brought you back anyway!”

“I couldn’t let you die, Mama,” I told her.

She hugged me, “Thank you,” she said. “Now… why don’t we change that diaper – I can’t believe you already soaked it! Then we’ll get you some lunch - and then I owe you a lesson on something.”

I looked at her nervously, wondering what a punishment from her would be like.

“Not that kind of lesson!” she told me, laughing.

Once I was changed, she fed me some mashed-up fruit that was marginally okay. However, I much preferred when she nursed me when I was done! “It’s a good thing Hannah can’t dry up; I don’t think she’d ever get you to wean willingly now…” she joked with me while I was nursing.

When I was finished, she burped me and then sat me on my feet. “Okay… let’s begin this lesson. We’ll build on the things you’ve already been using...”

 

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Thank you for reading! Please press the ‘Like’ Button if you’ve enjoyed it! We’re nearing the end of the tale with less than 7 chapters remaining! Comments would be super appreciated!

Emerald will now be posted on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, Sundays until it is completely posted. (‘Lights, Camera, …What?!?’ is being posted on Fridays)

If you're someone who must finish a good story 'now,' consider purchasing the full book on Amazon Kindle! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BTBTTGX1 I will be posting a chapter about every other day until the complete 62 Chapters and the Epilogue are reposted.

[FloridaKid]

Ahhhh…love the post-battle calm. This is one of those times I really wish I had a copy of the original version for comparison. I feel like you’ve made some changes in the recovery part of the story…or perhaps it’s just that the battle itself left more of an impression on me than the recovery the first time? In any case, it’s a great read, so count it as a win for the revised edition. 🙂

Now I’m very much looking forward to their return to classes and upcoming end-of-course assessments. 

[BabySofia]

1 hour ago, FloridaKid said:

Ahhhh…love the post-battle calm. This is one of those times I really wish I had a copy of the original version for comparison. I feel like you’ve made some changes in the recovery part of the story…or perhaps it’s just that the battle itself left more of an impression on me than the recovery the first time? In any case, it’s a great read, so count it as a win for the revised edition. 🙂

Now I’m very much looking forward to their return to classes and upcoming end-of-course assessments. 

Thanks for the comments. This area of the book definitely had the most revision and additions in it several chapters gained 10-20% of material. 🙂

[BabySofia]

Chapter 58: Keys

 WHEN I WOKE Saturday morning, I was still hooked up to the annoying heart rate monitor and I.V., and the crib rails were pulled up. Hannah looked like she was totally zonked out in her bed next to mine. I sat up and could feel that my diaper was completely soaked. I was debating about waking Hannah up when a nurse came in. I put my finger to my lip and pointed; she nodded as she came over. Then, she whispered, “You need a diapee change?”

I rolled my eyes, “yes, please,” I told her.

She lowered the crib rail and gloved up her hands before pushing my gown clear of the diaper and quickly changing me. “Do you want to wait for her for breakfast?” she asked.

I felt my stomach grumble but nodded, “I’ll wait.”

“If she’s not up in an hour, I’ll come to feed you myself,” she said as she put the railing back up.

“I…” tried to catch her to tell her I could feed myself, but she was gone.

Someone had set Emie down next to me, so I hugged her tightly, finding as much comfort there as in Caireen’s world. Looking down at my body, I felt like I was mostly healed. My mouth hurt, though - a lot! I found one of my pacifiers clipped to my gown, so I popped it in and chewed rather than suckled. ‘I wonder why my mouth hurts like it does…?’

‘I think you might be healing on your own,’ Caireen said.

‘So why does it hurt so much?’

‘Do you remember your sister teething?’

I gasped, ‘Please tell me…?’

‘I’m guessing that’s it.’

I groaned and thought back to my sister’s three separate months of teething stages. She had done pretty well in sleeping through the night for my mom and dad for the first few months after they brought her home. Then, her first tooth started coming in when she was seven months old. After that, I swore she cried all the time if someone wasn’t holding her or giving her the frozen teething chew toys mom bought. ‘If I start hurting as much as she sounded like she did…?’

‘Do you want me to make you one of those teething toys?’ Caireen asked me.

‘Let me hold off a while… I may take you up on that,’ I groaned. ‘It would be really embarrassing!’ I whined.

‘If you remember our lesson?’

‘Let me wait and see if nursing from Hannah helps at all first.’

‘Okay…’ she said.

Hannah must have sensed me watching her because she suddenly sat up, “Morning, Princess,” she told me as she sat up. “You been awake long?”

“A while…” I told her. “I didn’t want to wake you, though.”

“Thanks; I didn’t sleep the night before at all.” She stood up and walked over to my crib. I watched as she operated the latches to let the side down and reached in to feel my diaper. “You’re not wet?”

“A nurse changed me a while ago…?”

“Oh… I’m sorry, you could have woken me up?”

“It’s okay,” I told her.

“You want breakfast? I’ll probably have your Auntie Cammie come by and watch you while I head back to our room for some stuff.”

“Sure, Mommy,” I told her with a smile.

She tickled me, “I’m not really your mommy, you know, we’re not on assignment now.”

I shrugged, “You change me, you carry me around, your nurse me… I’d say you really are my mommy.”

“Maybe don’t call me that in front of other students?” She suggested, a bit red in the face, as she dug through the diaper bag. “Apple oatmeal work?”

I nodded, “Sure.”

“Your teeth doing any better?”

“They’re growing back in… Caireen thinks I may be teething here later today.”

Her eyes grew in fright; she’d also been there for some of Lily’s teething experiences. “Umm… Do we need to get something…?”

I shrugged, “Feed me and then nurse me… see where I’m at then?” I suggested.

She suddenly looked down at the diaper bag and said, “I actually have…” she dug some more, “Yep!” She pulled out several teething toys from the mission, including one that could be frozen. “I’ll freeze this for you in a few minutes,” she told me after putting it on my bed. I looked at the fake keys hanging from the teething toy she’d brought. They were meant to be frozen and then gnawed on… my sisters had been covered in disgusting drool!

While I’d been looking down, she’d velcroed a bib around my neck. She heated the oatmeal pouch and squeezed a little on a baby spoon. I opened my mouth, and we began a familiar dance of her feeding me baby food. I blushed when Camille came in to find me finishing the last spoon.

“Got here just in time for breakfast?” she asked.

“Almost done! I’m just going to nurse her, and then you can babysit your niece for a bit?”

Camille laughed, “Sure, I’ll watch the little rug rat.”

“I am here, you know!” I complained. She wiped my face with the bib since the lack of teeth meant more drool and food leaked than I wanted to think about! Soon I was nursing from her breast, and the two conversed.

“What’s with the teething toys?” Camille asked.

“She thinks her teeth are growing back in… I guess there’s a reason babies cry about it? She’s in a decent amount of pain. I had some teethers in this bag from the mission.”

“Ah…” Camille said, “Cassidy was a total wreck when she was teething!”

“Sofia’s baby sister was the same too.”

“So, we’re in for a cranky baby until they’re back?”

“Probably…” she said.

I heard footsteps and the nurse’s voice, “Oh good, you’re up and…” she looked startled, “I didn’t realize she was still nursing.”

I could feel Hannah’s muscles cringe, “It’s part of both of our emergences,” she told her. “She’s also hoping right now it’ll help her mouth. We think she’s teething as her teeth are coming back in.”

“Oh…” she said with the experience of someone who had been through that before. “I see you have a couple teething rings; I can get you some Orajel too?”

“I’m sure she’ll appreciate it,” Hannah said. “I’m going to leave when she’s done nursing, and Camille will stay with her. She’s kind of like her unofficial auntie,” she paused and lifted me to her shoulder to burp, “If you need something, though, she can call me on my cell.”

“I’m sure she’ll be fine, sweetheart,” the nurse said. Then, she looked at me, “I’ll go find that Orajel and come back and check on you, sweetie.”

I blushed, “Thanks.”

Hannah put me down on the mattress, “Sofia, what do you want me to bring you from our room?”

I thought for a second, “I think all of my books are in my backpack, but if you’ll triple-check? And bring my laptop and phone?”

“Phone is right here,” she said and handed it to me. “You might think about calling your back home parents when it’s a little later?”

I nodded, “Do they know…?”

She nodded, “Sofia, you had gashes and were unconscious… I couldn’t exactly hide that from them. But I told them you were doing better last night and that I’d have you call today.”

“Thanks,” I told her. She gathered up her stuff and walked out. I looked at the teether toy and decided I could use magic to freeze the little silicone keys that dangled on them. I tried to pull in manna and went, “Whoa… I’m tired…?”

Camille looked at me, “You okay?”

“I just tried to use magic to freeze this… but I couldn’t do anything. It was like I had run a marathon or something, and I’m just too tired?”

Sora’s avatar voice came through, “Princess, with the battle you went through, I have no doubts that you did run a magical marathon. You need to rest for a day, and you’ll be fine. In the meantime, I’m sure Camille would be happy to help you out?” Her voice shifted, “Really, Sofia, you just enjoy being babied today. I’m sure those teeth probably hurt.”

“You have no idea!” I told her.

She froze the silicone keys for me and handed the embarrassing toy back to me. I turned red as I put it into my mouth and began sucking and gnawing at the little nubby flesh. The cold and the massaging action made them feel better, so I kept it up much of the afternoon. The Orajel the nurse brought helped a lot too, but the side effect was I had to have a bib on because I couldn’t feel my lips to prevent myself from drooling! I decided I would forever be sympathetic to poor babies going through this experience! They were also unable to talk and bitch about it!

Hannah came back, joined by Beth, and the four of us worked on studying together for a couple hours before lunchtime. Then, the nurse walked in, “I have your lunch?” She said, and I could see a bowl of mush.

“Umm… Actually, I have some other stuff for Sofia here,” she told her and brought out a couple of options for me. I chose one and endured the extra drooling, messiness, and lousy texture I had to deal with right then. ‘At least when I was on the mission, I had a few teeth!’ I sighed.

I nursed from Hannah and then made a call home to my parents. “Daddy?” I asked when he answered.

“It’s Sofia!” he said to Mom.

“Sofia!” Mom exclaimed a moment later, “Hannah said you’re doing better, but are you really okay?”

I sighed, “My teeth are growing back in slowly right now… other than that, I’m mostly healed.” I worked really hard to enunciate as I talked.

“Growing back in?”

“It hurts!” I told her, “I take back all the mean things I thought about Lily when she wouldn’t stop crying when she was teething!”

Mom laughed at me, “I’m sorry, that’s probably not fun… Do you have any teething rings? Lily always cried less when she had one of the frozen ones to chew on…?”

I groaned, “Yes, Mom, I do. Hannah can probably even share an adorable picture of me chewing on it with you.”

Hannah looked up at me and smirked. The pit of my stomach fell out as she took her phone out, and I heard a ding on my mom’s side.

“Oh my god, you look so cute with that,” Mom laughed. “Not the hospital gown, though.”

I sighed, “Not a fan of that either.”

“Well, since we have you on, we’re finalizing plans to come out and see you in a few weeks when you’re done with your finals.”

I smiled, “I can’t wait to see you guys! Hannah’s parents are coming too, right?”

“We’re all going to share a cabin we’re renting about a couple hours from your school,” Dad told me.

“So anyway…” Mom said, “I’m trying to…” she was at a loss for words, “trying to figure out what Santa is bringing my new little girl this year?”

I blushed, “Mom… Please tell me you’re not planning on making me go with Lily to…?”

“Already has an appointment for you while we’re there!” Dad said, laughing at me. “You’re not going to get out of it either! I want the picture just as much as your mom!”

I sighed, “Back to Christmas presents… I don’t honestly know? Maybe surprise me? But don’t just buy baby gifts?”

Mom badgered me for a bit to get me to help her with hints of gifts, but I didn’t have any ideas. Caireen tried to nudge me towards some, but in the end, I just said, “I really need to get back to studying… I’ll try and come up with some other ideas and email them to you.”

“Fine…” Mom said a little grumpily.

“Love you guys,” I told them as I hung up a few minutes later.

I wiped some tears from my eyes, and Hannah came over and hugged me. “We’ll see them all soon!”

“I know…”

I looked at Camille and Beth, “How do you all deal with it…? I mean, I’m so homesick? Hannah and I have each other…?”

They laughed, and I listened to their stories about when they first got to school. We were all laughing our way through studying that day until the three of them all left to get dinner together after Hannah fed me. “Are you sure…?” she asked me.

“Just because I’m stuck eating terrible food here doesn’t mean you have to be, go!” I told her.

When I was finally alone, I got onto my computer. I’d been studying non-stop and felt like I probably knew as much as I could for the tests. Thanks to my paradigm memory, it all stuck in my head quite quickly. I hadn’t had fun in so long, though… Like not being stressed, having fun… I found myself surfing the web and eventually logged onto a website to see if I could get my mom some ideas for Christmas. I picked out a few computer games that looked interesting. I added a piccolo because I missed playing flute since the Emergence and some martial arts stuff. Then, I forced myself to dig through the lists of baby gift suggestions. I couldn’t find anything that said ‘play with me,’ so I went through clothes next. I had developed a soft spot for footed pajamas, so I went and picked out a bunch of those… along with some other winter clothes, to get me through our time at the cabin. I looked up information about it and found it was near a ski resort I hoped we’d visit.

Hannah returned and asked, “What you looking at?”

I sighed, “Trying to come up with a Christmas list for my mom…?”

“Let me see,” she said. I watched her click through, “Those sleepers are adorable! I can’t believe you picked them out.”

I blushed, “I like them, alright? They’re comfy… part of why I’m in this mess is my sister looked so adorable in hers!”

She laughed, “And I’m guessing you’d rather be in one right now?”

I turned red but nodded.

“Don’t worry; I asked the nurse for permission and brought one for you to use tonight.”

“Thanks,” I told her. Then, a sudden pain shot through my mouth again, and I found myself chewing on the teething ring again. My teeth had alternated from lots of pain to not as bad all day long while I felt them get closer to the surface. Finally, I just pulled the toy from my mouth and saw it was covered in blood. “Uh-oh… Hannah, I may need you to get the doctor.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Blood?”

“Here, open up and let me see,” she said. Suddenly her hand started glowing brightly, and she placed her fingers in my mouth. “Nothing wrong, sweetie; you just had one of your teeth pop back through!”

I felt tears go down my face, “You’re not the one in pain!” I told her.

She hugged me tightly, “Here, let’s put some more Orajel on.”

A few minutes later, I was back to a drooling mess, but at least the pain was fading. “Thanks…” I muttered. Some of it had gotten on my tongue, and I sounded like a real baby then.

I sighed and looked at my phone since Hannah had my computer. “What are you doing?” I tried asking. It came out as gibberish, but Hannah smiled, “Oh, just getting some ideas of my own to add to your wish list for your mom.”

I groaned, “Can you make your own list, so she knows it’s not from me?”

She looked at me skeptically but nodded, “Okay, you’re no fun!”

Eventually, it was time for the patients to sleep, so Hannah nursed me to sleep, cuddling me the whole time. Then, just before I fell asleep, I heard her say, “I love you, Sofia.”

“Love you too, Mommy,” I muttered back.

 

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Thank you for reading! Please press the ‘Like’ Button if you’ve enjoyed it! We’re nearing the end of the tale with less than 4 chapters and an epilogue remaining! Comments would be super appreciated to let me know what you've thought!

Emerald will now be posted on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, Sundays until it is completely posted. (‘Lights, Camera, …What?!?’ is being posted on Fridays)

If you're someone who must finish a good story 'now,' consider purchasing the full book on Amazon Kindle! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BTBTTGX1 I will be posting a chapter about every other day until the complete 62 Chapters and the Epilogue are reposted.

[BabySofia]

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 nearing the end of the tale, with the final chapters to be posted next week. If you've been reading please consider leaving me a comment!

Emerald will now be posted on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, Sundays until it is completely posted. (‘Lights, Camera, …What?!?’ is being posted on Fridays)

If you're someone who must finish a good story 'now,' consider purchasing the full book on Amazon Kindle! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BTBTTGX1 I will be posting a chapter about every other day until the complete 62 Chapters and the Epilogue are reposted.

[FloridaKid]

Still reading and still loving it! ❤️💕

[BabySofia]

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!

 

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Thank you for reading! Please press the ‘Like’ Button if you’ve enjoyed it! We’re nearing the end of the tale only two more chapters and the epilogue to go! Comments would be super appreciated to know what you’ve thought! The story will wrap up on Thursday this week.

If you're someone who must finish a good story 'now,' consider purchasing the full book on Amazon Kindle! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BTBTTGX1 I will be posting a chapter about every other day until the complete 62 Chapters and the Epilogue are reposted.

[BabySofia]

Chapter 61: Mama Bear

 “YOU HEARD THE door close?” Ewe asked as they got closer.

“Yeah, and one of my robots said the sensor was tripped here…?” Choco replied.

“So, someone’s probably on this floor?” Ewe asked.

“Probably?” she paused, “I looked around, and all I see are NPCs.”

“Why don’t you get back to the roof and stand guard. See if you can’t catch Streaked’s attention and get her to join me. I’ll search this floor.”

“Got it,” Choco told him.

He was walking around while I pretended to do work on the computer screen in front of me. Some sort of TPS report thing was up on the screen, so I worked on typing in the blanks. He’d walked past me and started sniffing, “God, what’s that smell?”

I froze, ‘Shit!’ I thought as he looked at me. I saw a moment of confusion as he tried to figure out why one of the NPCs smelled like they had a dirty diaper. I wasted no time using the concrete and metal below him to form a cocoon tightly around him. I let down my teenage image and revealed myself as Emerald in costume. I called out to the team, “I’ve been discovered! Ewe and I are probably getting into it here.”

I devoted half a second’s magic changing the poopy diaper, just as cracks appeared in the cocoon and he broke out. “I’m going to make you pay for that bitch!”

“I’m sure you are,” I muttered as he began stomping towards me.

I knew from the time I kicked him in the Friar Hall that I wouldn’t be able to make much of a physical attack on him. He was practically invulnerable from injury with the protective telekinetic shell that extended around his body. Worse for me was that his regen rate was among the highest at Bechtel. Add in the superhuman strength he had, and I barely had much of a thought on what to do with him now that my first plan had failed. I was trying to dodge around him when he slapped the snot out of my rear, effectively spanking me and sending me tumbling across the room and into the wall!

“Damnit, that hurt!” I said as I bounced off it and pushed my hair out of my face.

‘Time to test Bechtel’s protections?’ Caireen suggested.

‘What?’

‘They said you can use whatever attacks?’

I grimaced, ‘What if I…?’

‘He’ll be fine…’ she told me.

“You know it’d be really nice if I didn’t have to go this far,” I told him.

“What?” he said as he began rounding on me again.

I sighed and used my freezing spell on him. A moment later, he was standing there as a frozen statue, and I felt guilty at his horrified expression.

Before my conscience could get to me too much, some robots from Choco Chip began crawling in. They had almost spider-like bodies and, as they rushed towards me, made a creepy clicking sound that would come in my nightmares if I ever actually slept! I had nursed from Hannah as close to the match as I could and began shooting the green blasts out that Hannah did. I was happy when I was able to take out ten of them quickly, but the next time I tried, there was nothing left.

“Shit!” I said as a hundred more continued to advance on me. I was getting pinned to the back wall of the offices as they moved and decided to revert to magic. I charged a single blast from about ten small ley lines and aimed just in front of the swarm of killer spiderbots. I found myself knocked off my feet and nearly fell through the hole that formed in the floor! I grabbed onto a piece of metal sticking out from the wall and pulled myself up. Most of the robots had been destroyed; the rest were upside down and half covered in rubble.

“I hate spiders!” I said. For good measure, I fired some flames into the level to make sure the metal in the robots was slagged, and they couldn’t get me from behind!

I carefully made my way around the edge of the room and back to the staircase. Finally, I reached the top and found Choco Chips standing, fighting with Camille. I was about to get involved when Streaked showed up and stood across from me. “How about a fair fight this time?” She taunted me.

I laughed, “What’s fair about this? I’m nearly three feet shorter than you?”

“You cheated yesterday!”

“Umm… were you at another match than I was?” I asked. “I left you nicely contained and just about had the flag when you decided to attack me instead of being smart and going for the flag?” I laughed, “It’s not my fault you’re clumsy. I should tell you I’m not stopping your fall this time.”

She screamed and began moving towards me almost as fast as I could see. I extended my shield a little further and laughed when she tried striking me but gripped a broken hand instead. “What the hell?”

“You know you really should pick on people your own size!” I told her. I fired one of the net spells I’d learned and watched as she barely dodged out of the way. In the process, some sort of water pipe was nicked, and a puddle of water formed at my feet and rapidly flowed toward the roof’s end.

“I’m going to teach you a lesson, little girl!” she screamed and came at me again.

Unfortunately, she did connect with a spell that time, and I felt one of my recently injured ribs bruise again!

“Bitch!” I swore!

She smirked, and we traded a few other blows before she connected with my butt, still sore from Ewe, and knocked me to the ground. I was thrown ten feet from the impact and bounced off a wall in the middle of the roof!

I shakily stood back up and stared her down.

Streaked gave me a menacing glare and then began charging.

I noted then that the water from the pipe was getting deeper, and she was sloshing through it. Then, I had a thought and smirked as I used a freezing spell on the water. She had just hit her top speed when I dodged out of the way and watched her skate right off the roof!

“Son of a….!” I heard her scream.

I smirked at that. Camille was still dealing with Choco Chips, so I decided to help her and used one of the net spells on her. She cooperated and went down in a heap. I was walking toward the flag when suddenly I heard a scream and felt myself knocked over. Somehow my shield spell failed as a hand rapidly ripped my diaper off and repeatedly smacked my naked butt! ‘She’s spanking me?!?!?’ I screamed since it hurt after already being bruised from Ewe and Streaked’s first blow!!!

Suddenly another scream came from behind whoever had grabbed me.

My left arm hurt as I stood up and realized midway down my forearm was bent ninety degrees from the direction it should be! The bone was just poking through the skin! Tears filled my eyes, but I refused to cry out loud as I tried to assess what the hell had happened? My eyes took in the scene of Hannah nearby looking pissed and a very blackened and singed-looking Streaked. Esmie arrived right then, picked up the flag, and flew off to end the round. A buzzer sounded, and Hannah quickly helped me re-tape the diaper.

“Don’t you ever do that to Emerald again!” Hannah said as we passed by Streaked. She looked seriously injured, but I decided I no longer cared.

Camille came over and, in Sora’s voice, said, “Let me take care of that arm.”

She performed a spell, and my arm instantly sent pain down the nerves as it moved the bones back to where they should have been and then knitted everything back together. It was down to a dull throb afterward, but it still wasn’t pleasant!

We were just getting ready to head down the stairs when a crew of ten medics ran up to look at Streaked. Halfway down the steps, my jaw dropped as one of the most famous costumed heroines, Lady Fulvia, stopped us. “Emerald, can you unfreeze Ewe?”

I sighed but nodded. I followed the legendary heroine back onto the level where his face was frozen in terror like a cross between a gargoyle statue and Han Solo… I performed the counter spell that Caireen had taught me recently and watched him thaw and gasp a deep breath in shock.

“You!” He said, starting to come towards me before Lady Fulvia stopped him.

“Do you need to be in my office so I can give you detention in the containment labs for the next semester?” she said quietly.

“No, Ma’am,” he said. Only when he replied did I realize that Lady Fulvia and Mrs. Hensley were one and the same!

“Go see the medics and get looked at,” she told him.

“Babysitters, I expect your team in the debriefing room in ten minutes!” She hissed at us.

“Yes, Ma’am,” I said, along with the other two.

We made our way to the entrance and found our other three teammates waiting.

“What’s wrong with you three?” Beth asked, “We destroyed them!”

I sighed, “I think we’re in trouble…?”

“For what?”

“I’m not actually completely sure,” Camille answered.

“Probably for Hannah and me going overboard?” I suggested.

“Wait to discuss the exercise until you are in the briefing room,” Gunny told us, meeting us in the doorway.

Gunny, Giddings, Captain Tilling, and a still-costumed Mrs. Hensley sat down across from us, giving Hannah and me, in particular, very scary glares. I gulped, wondered how much trouble I was in, and nervously fidgeted. Of course, the wet diaper on my butt wasn’t helping either!

“Let’s discuss this exercise!” Mrs. Hensley said in a cold voice that made my stomach turn more. I was grateful for the pacifier mask I wore then as I found myself nervously nursing on the nipple. They showed a video feed of the battle, and I learned that Hannah and Beth had engaged Monotone. Eventually, some sort of explosive round from Beth’s sniper rifle did him in while Hannah had been distracting him from the other side. Before that, Camille, Hannah, and Esmie pitched in to get Paved into that bubble I had seen. I was really impressed!

The camera view then flipped to me in my teenage form. “And what was this?” Hensley asked me, “You’re supposed to be masked at all times!”

“That’s not my normal face, so it is a mask?” I said hesitantly.

She mulled that over, “I suppose that’s right. But, since when can you look like a normal teenager?”

“A week or so ago?”

“Wait a minute!” Giddings said, clearly thinking back, “You two were at the Winter Ball together?”

I blushed and saw Hannah do the same.

“I’m going to need to meet with you later, Emerald, to discuss if this has any implications on changes we need to make,” Hensley stated pointedly.

“It shouldn’t. It’s not real… but let me know when?”

“Okay, moving on,” Tilling said, clearing his throat, “I honestly thought it was an innovative tactic. We’ve seen students try to blend in before, but the mask rule usually means everyone catches onto them. So it was impressive that you made it almost all the way to the target unnoticed.”

“Except for one poopy diaper, I might have made it all the way!” I complained.

Hannah leaned over and hugged me, “Poop happens!”

I sighed, “Anyway?”

“Okay, this situation with Ewe here has me seriously concerned, Emerald. What exactly did you do to him?” Hensley asked with her eyes seeming to peer into my soul.

“I couldn’t do anything else physically to him… his shield is impenetrable, right?”

“A large enough tank round makes it through,” Beth told me.

“Oh… Well, I didn’t have one of those, so I froze Ewe.”

“Like frozen temperature-wise?” Gunny asked.

“I think if you measured, he would have been just a bit over zero degrees Kelvin?”

“Emerald, that sounds like a lethal spell…?” Hensley said.

“It would be if I didn’t undo it,” I agreed.

“I have concerns about this spell being used on other students again. Therefore, unless your life is in danger, you cannot use it on another student at Bechtel!” Mrs. Hensley said.

“Yes, Ma’am, I’ll try and learn something else.”

“Let’s see, you moved straight onto Choco Chip’s robots then. So you used Hannah’s EMP blasts there?”

“I’ve been using my copyist skill to make them for a while?” I said, “It was in my testing results.”

Gunny nodded, “The next blast you did… That was fairly impressive.”

“Good thing you were the last planned match of the night!” Giddings said.

“Why?”

“Because it will take the team all night to fix that damage! If someone had been under there? And then the use of the flames?”

“I really don’t like spiders,” I told her. “I would have felt justified blowing up the whole building to kill those things!”

Esmie giggled next to me until Camille elbowed her.

Hensley sighed, “the rooftop fight?”

We discussed my part and the use of the ice to let Streaked take herself out. “You made a huge mistake there,” Gunny told me.

I nodded, “I didn’t confirm she was down…?”

“Correct, you can’t take risks like that!”

He moved on, ripping into Camille for some things with her fight. Sora stepped in after a while and argued before begrudgingly getting out of the way. 

Eventually, Hensley said, “Well… the final thing we need to discuss. Emped, this blast you used… We are retesting you after the break because I want to know the real limit of your powers. I think they’ve grown from your GEID tests.” She rubbed her eyes with fatigue. “Look, Emped, Emerald, if you ever use those powers to that level again on students, I’m going to have to issue severe consequences, up to expulsion.”

Camille, Beth, Lizi, and Esmie all sucked in a loud breath, “You can’t do that!” I heard almost in unison from them.

“They didn’t start anything and only used a limited amount of the force they have!” Camille finished.

“I don’t care if you think that, ladies, you’re on notice, you two. We’re lucky that both were able to receive treatment quickly. Emped, you especially need to be careful of those blasts. Emerald, you could probably take out much more if you chose to. So you two have to be very careful!”

“Yes, Ma’am,” Hannah and I said together.

We eventually got free of the briefing and went back to Trident. Hannah and I took a shower together and then a long bath together. There were no thoughts of my teenage form, just comfort from a baby and a mommy. When we made it into our pajamas, the other girls dragged us to the theater room for an end of finals party. The other students couldn’t care less about the reaming we received from Hensley, instead raving about how epic that match was! As I prepared to nurse from Hannah later, she said, “Sofia?”

“Yes?”

“If Streaked ever did try and hurt you again… I honestly would do what I did again in a heartbeat.”

I smiled at her, “I don’t think we’ll ever have that problem again. But don’t let your mama bear mode get you in more trouble!”

She hugged me, “Nothing would stop me if that had been real!”

I nodded, “I wouldn’t hold back if it was you either.”

She cuddled me in her lap for a bit and then exposed her breast. I latched on and internally celebrated, having survived our first short semester at Bechtel!

 

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Thank you for reading! Please press the ‘Like’ Button if you’ve enjoyed it! We’re nearing the end of the tale only one more chapter and the epilogue to go! Comments would be super appreciated to know what you’ve thought! I'll post the final chapter late on Tuesday, and the epilogue on Thursday.

If you're someone who must finish a good story 'now,' consider purchasing the full book on Amazon Kindle! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BTBTTGX1 I will be posting a chapter about every other day until the complete 62 Chapters and the Epilogue are reposted.

[BabySofia]

Chapter 62: Reunions

 FRIDAY MORNING, I had a much earlier nursing session and breakfast than usual. We were up super early so Hannah and I could get to Aphrodite’s studio for my first modeling job. Hannah had dressed me in a simple set of elasticized jeans and a pink sweatshirt with Olaf on it that said, ’Some People Are Worth Melting For’ on it. I had nixed Hannah’s idea of holiday dresses based on a conversation with Amanda in the Friar Hall the previous night while we were at dinner. Since they really only wanted me for my diaper butt, there was no real point in dressing up. “You already have the job,” Amanda had stated to me but looked pointedly at Hannah when she said it.

I smiled as we walked in and saw camera crews setting up cameras, backdrops, and furniture in multiple zones of the vast Aphrodite studio. Amanda saw us and waved, “Hi guys,” she greeted me, “This is Janet; she’ll be in charge of the shoot for the manufacturer.”

“Oh my, she’s even cuter in person than in the shots you gave us!” she cooed at me. “You’re really eighteen?”

I nodded, “Well, technically, I’m eighteen years old, or eighteen months – I can be both legally. For modeling purposes, though, I’m eighteen years old.”

She smiled at that, “That’s great! That means we have all day to finish this before you probably go home for Christmas Break?”

“Not quite; our parents are picking us up to go on a vacation,” Hannah said.

“You are?”

“Hannah… her unofficial mommy,” she smiled.

“Well then, let’s not waste too much time! We have a new version of our diapers that we’re going to be releasing in the first quarter of this year. We want to have you wearing it and running around, playing, maybe getting changed, and film a few other scenes…?”

I smiled, knowing I would make enough money to be worth the embarrassment, “Okay, when do we get started?”

I was led to a salon where a lady was ready to work with my hair. “We’re looking for a little younger hairstyle than you have. Would you hate me if I said we needed to cut it way shorter?” she looked at Hannah for the answer, not me. Meanwhile, Hannah looked down at me for my response.

‘Caireen, I can fix it when we’re done with magic, right?’ I asked.

‘Yes, and if the spells you know don’t work for some reason, I have another I’ll teach you.’

I sighed, “Go ahead; I can fix it afterward,” I told her.

She gave me a weird look, “That okay with you, Mommy?”

“She’s not actually mine, and she is eighteen, so just ask her,” Hannah told her. “I’m just here for moral support... and diaper duty!”

My hair was quickly chopped and removed in bulk by the stylist! Other than on the assignment, my hair had not been that short in years! In the end, she had more of a hybrid between Lily’s hair and ‘Olivia’s’ during the assignment. It was just long enough that she’d tied it up in two cute stubby pigtails.

“Perfect!” Janet said when she saw me. “Now we just need to get you dressed in this awesome new diaper and this shirt.” She made the last statement to Hannah, and I felt annoyed that she forgot I was really eighteen...

“Okay,” Hannah said, “Is there some specific place?”

“Here on the floor works? Or wherever you all are comfortable.”

I sighed, “Just get it done, Hannah,” I told her.

She laid out my changing pad and soon had me in the new diaper. It did fit quite a bit differently! It seemed they added another zone of wide elastic along the absorbent pad in the middle from the back to the front. The leg gatherings seemed to be hugging me more too. “These feel nice,” I told Janet.

She smiled, “Not often one of our target audience members can have a conversation about the product! I may have to get you in touch with our research team!”

I smiled, “For the right fee, I’d be interested.”

“Said like a pro!” she smiled at me.

I looked down at the simple pink long-sleeve shirt I’d been given. There was a simple pattern of small, repeating white bows on the shirt’s fabric. “This is really short,” I mentioned.

“It’s a crop top for a baby,” Hannah giggled at me.

“Well, we must ensure the cameras can see the diaper in all its glory,” Janet explained. “Now, ready to get filming?”

At eighteen, there was no limit to my hours as a model, and you could tell Janet intended to take advantage of that to make me the face of the new product line. I was filmed jumping up and down, giggling, clapping my hands awkwardly, and staring at my ‘mommy.’ The actress playing her was another Aphrodite member, and they took shots of me playing with her while inside the set crib. I was filmed playing with toys in a nursery, running around on an outside garden set, crawling all over the place on a playground, and intentionally shown playing with my diaper wet. That was to show the ‘no sag’ design. Soon after, I was most embarrassed as they filmed me getting a diaper change multiple times! Nothing would be aired more than tapes being applied - and possibly my butt, but I had to do everything in my power not to be red as my hair during that part!

We stopped for a lunch break and another diaper change. I was changed into a bunch of other tops and still photographed in about as many ways as I could imagine. Finally, they had me just in a fresh diaper for the final shots and nothing else. Most of the time, I was held by the other model, but sometimes I was on my own, still playing or crawling. I had just been changed again and told they had enough shots and footage when I heard, “Sofia!!!” from a little voice. I looked to see Lily running over to me in a cute Christmas dress like Hannah would have wanted to dress me in.

“You wear diapers! You baby still?” She asked and pulled up her skirt, “I big girl now!” she showed me the pink Pull-Ups she’d been wearing since Thanksgiving Break under her tights.

“I’m proud of you!” I told her and hugged her. I noticed she had grown another inch or so since I had left home. ‘She might be taller than me now!’ I frowned.

“I’m done now, right?” I asked Janet.

“Yep, go ahead and get dressed. Oh, we always bring a bunch of extra boxes of diapers, just in case, for the shoot. I think there’s like seven unopened boxes over there – since you like them, go ahead and take them!”

I actually smiled at that, “Thanks!”

I hugged Mom and Dad and then let Mom help me get dressed into a matching dress to Lily’s, along with some white tights.

“Hi, Sofia,” Hannah’s mom said, “Do I get a hug?”

I smiled, “Sure!”

She picked me up and said, “So I hear you consider my Hannah to be your mommy…?”

I blushed, “Sort of…?”

“Well, I guess that makes me Grandma?”

“Grammy,” I said to her instead.

She tickled me and ended up being the one to carry me back to our dorm. My dad and her dad brought the boxes of diapers past way too many students and friends. Each of them seemed to have a knowing smirk on their face. I blushed, but I was a baby… I would always need diapers!

Our parents looked around in shock at the room for the brief time we were there. “How is it…?” Her dad was going to ask.

“Don’t ask,” my dad said, “My experience with magic sometimes means you just have to accept it.”

“You have everything in that?” Mom asked me, looking skeptically at the tiny purple ‘Sofia the First’ suitcase I acquired last week.

“I think so!”

“How about we grab one of these boxes?” Mom suggested as she looked at the diapers.

“I already have three boxes in my bag?”

“Wha…?” Mom asked.

“Magic, Sweetheart,” Dad told her.

She spluttered for a second, “You like them better, right? So let’s just trade them out really quick?”

I sighed and opened up my suitcase. I, of course, had performed one of the enlarging spells on it. It was way larger inside than anything else I’d made like that so far. I reached in and snagged two boxes, each with over a hundred diapers in them. Three had most likely been overkill for the fifteen days we were going to be with our parents at the cabin, but Hannah hadn’t wanted to get stuck without them. ‘You would be a cranky baby…’ Caireen said in agreement the night before about my complaints of overkill.

I groaned and replaced the diapers with the new boxes then. Hannah still had like fifteen of the old diapers in her bag, and I had another twenty in my backpack too… Plenty of other things were inside to take care of me. Hannah and I had included dozens of baby bottles, pacifiers, stuffed animals, games, and even some Lego sets. I still had not found the time to put together the ones from our New York trip!

When I was done, “Now we’re good?”

Mom saw the infant carrier that we’d said we had. “This is her car seat?” She asked Hannah. “Yep, she still fits in it as a carrier, too, if you want to just put her in it now?”

I blushed, but Mom wasted no time picking me up and laying me inside of it, smiling at me as she buckled me in. “I don’t know if I can carry her all the way to the car?” she told my dad.

“I can carry her; you want to pull her suitcase? This has a base somewhere?” Dad said.

Hannah pointed out where it sat beside the stroller that had been folded up. “Should we take this too?” Mom asked.

“You planning on any long walks or shopping that we need to hide her in? Her car seat can just attach to it too.”

Mom sat me back down, unfolded the stroller, and then figured out how to latch it in. “Much better!” She said with a smile and tickled my stomach. “You really are much cuter as a baby!”

I stuck my tongue out at her and found myself rewarded with a pacifier shoved in my mouth by Hannah. “Behave!” she warned me.

I just smiled at her. Lily chose that moment to go up to Hannah with her arms raised. “Uppy Hanny! Missed you!”

She smiled, “Aww… I missed you too, Lily,” she told her and hugged her. Her dad took her suitcase and bag, while my dad pulled the dainty little suitcase with him.

Mom pushed my stroller to the parking lot at the front of the campus. I couldn’t help but smile that she seemed so happy right then to see me! I certainly felt better back with my family! Soon we had signed out and were at the two SUVs they’d rented. “We’ll see you at the dinner stop?” Mom said to Hannah’s mom.

“That should work fine! It’ll give us a chance to interrogate our daughters and figure out what mischief they’ve been up to!”

Mom opened the door, and I found my rear-facing seat soon latched into the base, next to Lily’s now forward-facing car seat. It couldn’t have been more obvious that she was the big girl now, and I was the baby!

 

ALL ALONG THE drive for the next hour, Mom and Dad kept asking me questions about friends, classes, and things I was learning. I was excited to tell them about things at first, but I grew tired of their questions after a while. Finally, I was so grateful when we pulled up to the restaurant we were stopping at for dinner to make the interrogation stop for a bit!

Mom carried me inside on her hip while Dad had a sleepy Lily cradled in his arms. Hannah gave me an odd expression as she walked in the door, and I sat patiently in Mom’s arms. Soon we were seated at a large table with a high chair for myself and a booster seat for Lily. Mom sat to my right, and Hannah joined me on the left as I waited to see just what food was available!

The restaurant was a mixture of everything, but the twenty-four-hour breakfast menu sounded delicious right then! So mom ordered me a meal with pancakes, bacon, sausage, and hash browns. We didn’t bother pretending I was a normal baby throughout dinner. I ate with the miniature silverware we’d brought and wished I could have a second plate or two.

“I can’t believe you finished that so quickly!” Hannah’s mom said.

“I’m missing Bechtel’s dining room right now,” I complained.

“Be grateful you sent her there, Mrs. Hammerstein. She’d eat you out of the house!”

“She already was before she left.”

I looked at Hannah to glare at her and then realized she’d just made a face that I knew too well. We had this discussion with our friends the past week. I had a pee-pee and poo-poo set of faces that I never even knew I had made! Hannah had the ‘my breasts are leaking’ look she was making right then. So I nudged her, “Need to?”

“My pump is in my suitcase,” she whispered.

“What’s wrong, Hannah?” Her mom asked.

She pointed at her breasts and whispered, “I’m really full…?”

“Well, just have Sofia take care of it,” my mom said, “It’s natural to do?”

“Here…? In front of…?” She blushed as she motioned, especially toward our dads.

“Just take care of Sofia; it’s okay, honey. It’s not like we don’t know,” her mom told her.

I smirked at her, “Nummies, Mommy!” I said to her.

She sighed and picked me up out of the highchair. There was a blanket in the diaper bag that she pulled out, apparently not too fond of breastfeeding me in front of her parents! Other than that, it was so routine to me that I didn’t feel like it was that big of a deal!

She placed me at her breast, and I let my mouth instincts take over. I was really grateful because the plate of food wasn’t nearly enough!!! Her mom said, “Aww… you make such a great mommy!”

“What Sofia do to Hanny?” Lily asked loudly.

I blushed and figured Hannah was doing the same.

“Sofia’s just drinking her milkies like you used to do from me when you were little,” Mom told her.

“She littler baby?”

Dad laughed, “Yes, she is. You wear big girl panties now, right? She still wears her diapees like a little baby.”

After Hannah switched me to her other breast, I began tuning out the embarrassing conversation. Lily was getting bored and becoming a bit more challenging to wrangle. Mom took her to the potty before I finished, and we returned to the cars. I was asleep from my milk coma before we reached the car!

 

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Thank you for reading! Please press the ‘Like’ Button if you’ve enjoyed it! We’re at the end of the tale and I'll post the Epilogue on Thursday! Comments would be super appreciated to know what you’ve thought! 

If you're someone who has enjoyed this, please consider supporting my writing by purchasing a copy on Amazon Kindle! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BTBTTGX1

[BabySofia]

Epilogue:

WHEN I WOKE, I had spent some time playing with Caireen in my Castle nursery and felt rested. Mom was opening my door, and I rubbed my eyes, “Good nap?” She asked me quietly.

I shrugged, “I guess… Are we there?”

She nodded and unbuckled me from the car seat. She wrapped me in a blanket instead of putting a coat on me, and I took the chance to look around as she carried me inside.

It was a beautiful modern log cabin with large windows! The clearing around it was covered in fresh white snow, and the trees beyond it also seemed to have a fresh dusting. There were tall windows overlooking a valley of lights below us. ‘This could be a postcard!’ I thought to myself. Dad carried a sleeping Lily in his arms behind us. At the same time, Hannah’s dad worked an electronic key box that contained the rental key inside. He unlocked the door just as I began shivering from the cold, revealing a substantial open floor living space as he turned on the lights.

“Whoa, this is awesome!” Hannah said quietly.

I agreed! A big fireplace was against the back wall of the living room. Beside it were huge windows that I guessed would have a great view during the daytime. A set of couches facing the fireplace created a cozy living space. A colossal elk head was mounted above the fireplace giving it the rustic cabin feel. Another more open area led to more windows, and a tall Christmas tree joined other decorations the owners must have put out for us. On the opposite side of the house was a huge dining room table that could easily seat six more people than we had with us. The kitchen looked about as state of the art as it could, with multiple ovens, two stovetops mounted on an island, and two large commercial refrigerators.

“Wow…” Mom said, “I’m not sure I’ll want to go home!”

Dad laughed, “Let’s go upstairs and check out the rooms.”

Upstairs it turned out there were two large main bedrooms with en-suite bathrooms. Both bathrooms featured whirlpool tubs and separate showers! A slightly smaller bedroom also had its own bathroom attached, but it had a simple bathtub with a shower. We opened a fourth door, and Mom seemed unsurprised to see a crib and a set of bunk beds inside. I sighed, knowing the crib was where I’d be sleeping while my ‘big-girl’ baby sister would be sleeping in the lower bunk.

Mom sat me down on the ground while Dad sat Lily on a changing table. “She needs to be changed for bed anyway, but her Pull-Up is wet,” he whispered.

Mom said, “Thanks,” and sat me down on the ground. I watched as she dug into an oversized purse she had carried upstairs. Her hands pulled out a regular diaper and quickly changed Lily into a set of footed pajamas. She didn’t stir as Mom tucked her into the bottom bunk and nudged me to walk out the door with her hand on my head. She closed the door partially behind us and turned off the lights.

“She’s still in diapers at night?” I asked.

“Normally just Pull-Ups then too, but I don’t want her to leak and make a mess in someone else’s bed?”

I nodded, “It’s so weird having a baby sister that’s potty-trained… and I’m not!”

Mom picked me up and squeezed me, “I’m so glad to hold you again - I’ve missed you so much!”

“I’ve missed you too, Mom,” I squeezed her back.

Dad brought up our luggage, followed by Hannah’s parents and Hannah bringing hers. Mom felt my diaper, “Feels like someone else needs a change too?”

I nodded, “Probably.”

“You want to take a bath and then call it a night?” Mom asked me.

“What time is it?” I asked.

“About ten?” Mom replied.

“I guess. It was a long day,” I admitted.

“Then I’m guessing you normally nurse from Hannah before bed?”

I blushed, “Yes…?”

She hugged me, “It’s okay; you and Hannah look beautiful together when you nurse. I’m just going to miss feeding you a bottle and watching you go to sleep in my arms.”

Hannah was standing there and said, “I could pump tonight, and you could feed her a bottle still…?” she offered.

Mom looked at me for a moment, “You don’t mind?” she looked at both of us.

I shrugged, “If Hannah’s okay, I am too?”

“I’ll warm up one of her bottles for you when you’re finished with her bath.”

Hannah made Mom’s night then, as she got to smother me in a bath and then sat down on the sofa with me downstairs. Mom had dressed me in one of my warm footed sleepers and soon had me cradled comfortably in her arms. Then, after a flash of green, Hannah brought one of my bottles and handed it to my mom.

“It’s the right temperature?” Mom questioned.

“A little trick I can do,” Hannah told her. “Normally, I use it in the cafeteria for her there.”

Mom nodded, and I watched her tilt the bottle toward my face and bring the soft nipple to my mouth. I smiled and looked into her eyes for a moment as I began nursing and Mom sang a lullaby. My eyes quickly grew heavy, and I was out before I finished the bottle.

 

I WOKE UP in Caireen’s castle that night and spent a day playing in my playhouse. I was glad that it was still summer temperatures there as I only had on my diaper and a short dress that day. Caireen spent a little time teaching me some refinements to some spells but mostly had been letting me play and let off stress since we’d completed our war with Camulus. The castle was already beginning to mostly look back to normal. We talked about me removing the rubble from the outer walls or fixing them for a little bit that night. In the coming weeks, we would rebuild the valley walls. I added some ornate touches that made them really inspiring to look at. We decided to just clear and remove the one from around the castle area to restore the typical beauty of the grounds. The moat was also cleared, and all you could see was the beautiful meadowy grass I had first seen when I arrived.

The best part was that the butterflies returned!

When Mom picked me up out of my crib that next morning, I was disoriented. “Mom!” I said with a smile.

She hugged me, “I’m glad to see you in the morning too!”

Lily apparently had gotten up earlier. Somehow, I was told I’d slept through her having a massive fit over the wet diaper she was wearing when she woke up. Mom had changed me into a long-sleeved onesie and jeans before looking at my hair. “Why is your hair this short?”

“Oh… I forgot to change it back last night… The company wanted me to look more my age with my hair for the shoot.”

Mom smiled, “You do look more like a baby your age should.”

I could see something in her eyes, “You want me to leave it alone for today?”

“I don’t want to embarrass you?”

I shrugged, “I just spent two weeks pretending to be younger and eating baby food and Hannah’s milk only; the hair isn’t that big of a deal?”

She smiled, and I knew I was making the right choice leaving it for now. “Okay, Hannah probably needs you right now… Let me drop you off with her, and I’ll help her mom with breakfast.”

Hannah looked at me when Mom passed me over; having been through a shower herself, it seemed since her hair was still wet. “Didn’t feel like changing your hair back yet?” She asked.

I shrugged, “I think my Mom has been missing me. She didn’t want to ask me, but I could tell she’d rather me look like this right now.”

Hannah laughed, “We had such a hard time getting you to accept being a baby, and now look at you?”

I laughed too, “Okay, Mommy, enough making fun of me, hungwy!”

She laughed and carried me down to the living area and the same couch Mom had given me my bottle the night before. I could tell she was still a bit sheepish about feeding me openly there, but her need overrode her embarrassment. When I was done, she burped me and got a large belch for her trouble.

“My goodness, someone has wigglys in their tummy in there!” Hannah’s mom said from across the room, successfully making me blush again!

We spent that day going into town and picking up groceries and supplies to make meals for our two families for the next week. Mom pretty much held me any chance she got, seconded by Hannah’s mom, who seemed to also be growing attached to me! Meanwhile, Lily was basking in attention from Hannah. Hannah was a big help to Mom, keeping Lily on the straight and narrow with her potty training. She only had one accident that day while we were out and seemed to mostly be ready for regular panties!

Meanwhile, I was going through the new diapers I’d been given at the photoshoot at my usual pace!

On our second day there, we traveled to a local ski resort. I talked to Hannah first and then to Mom as she put a new diaper on me that morning.

“Mom?”

“Yes, Sweetie?”

“Umm… I wanted to see if you would mind me doing something different today?”

“What’s that?” She asked as she sat me on the ground.

“This,” I said, and changed myself into the teenage girl form I’d done before, but with a more mature version of ski pants than I was actually wearing.

“What?!?” She asked, “But…?”

Dad came in right then and asked, “Who… Sofia?”

I smiled, “It’s not real… It’s like I’m a tiny body controlling a mech suit or something, but I think I could ski better this way? Hannah and I can spend some normal teenage time together?”

Mom looked shocked, “You still need your diapers, right?”

I nodded, “Caireen will let me use magic to change them now in certain situations.”

“Problem is we rented two kids’ ski sets…?” Dad said. “We haven’t bought lift tickets yet, though…?”

“Did you already pick up the skis?” I asked.

“No, we needed to measure you and Lily…?”

“How old are kids up to?” I asked after a moment of thinking.

“Ten or twelve?”

I thought for a moment and shrank my projection down to four foot two, made my breasts almost non-existent and changed my hair into a pair of braided pigtails. “I’m ten now?” I suggested.

Mom looked at me and shook her head, “I guess you are.”

Hannah came in right then, “Oh… I guess it’s not a baby I’m taking care of today?” She smiled, “Cute look… Why not eighteen, though?”

“Dad already paid for the ski rentals?”

She laughed, “I guess I can hang out with my kid sister all day today.”

We spent the next couple of days on the slopes, with me enjoying not being a total baby! I even spent a couple evenings hanging out as my eighteen-year-old self. But, unfortunately, it was clear everyone was much more comfortable with me being my ‘normal’ self.

Christmas Eve, Santa Claus was set up at the ski resort with real reindeer all around him. We waited in line for way too long, with Lily and I dressed in velvet Christmas dresses and thick white tights. Finally, after what seemed forever to us, Lily was on his lap, telling him what she wanted for Christmas. Once she had her picture taken, I was added to Santa’s lap and joined her for a photo before being left alone.

“What do you want for Christmas, little girl?” he cooed.

I looked at him, “I think I actually have everything I’ve ever wished for. Thank you, Santa,” I told him with a smile and posed for my picture. There had been a shocked expression on the poor guy’s face in the picture Mom bought, but my face was the happiest it had ever been!

Christmas Day, after a diaper change, Lily and I helped pass out presents from under the tree to everyone. Lily and I obviously had larger piles than everyone else! Per our family tradition, Lily was the youngest and was supposed to open one first, “Go ahead, Lily,” Mom told her, “You’re the youngest; you get to go first!”

“Nuh-uh, I big girl, Sofia baby!”

I blushed, “Umm…?” I was going to argue, but Mom said, “Oh my, you’re right, Lily! I forgot Sofia is the littlest baby now! You’re right; she should go first!”

I just shrugged and began opening my presents. Inside the wrapped gifts were many of the games and toys I actually might play with. I also discovered some older kids’ toys, like the Lego sets I’d put on the list. Hannah must have made an extensive list of baby items because there were also many toddler toys, bath toys, stuffed animals, clothes, and even a new crib mobile in my gifts. I definitely had not picked out any of those! Some practical things like more bibs, pacifiers, and bottles were inside too. They got me the piccolo I had asked for, and I was ecstatic that I could play it! Everyone else kind of groaned at the high pitch. Still, I loved having the ability to do something I had loved before my emergence again! I knew I would have to try out for the band at Bechtel in the spring.

I had one final gift from my parents: a silver locket with a picture of my parents, Lily, and myself on one side and Hannah and me with her parents on the other.

Hannah wasn’t immune from gifts relating to baby me. Her Mom had picked out a bunch of new nursing bras and one of those baby sling carriers we’d used on assignment.

As I looked around at all of my gifts, and given my hugs, and said my thanks, I couldn’t help but note Christmas was more fun as a baby than it was as a teenager! I’d dreamed of getting dresses for countless Christmases before. The cute matching purple velvet dresses Lily, and I played in for the rest of the day made it one of my favorite days ever!

A bit over a week later, we hugged our parents and Lily and said our goodbyes until the summer break, when we hoped to come home. I sat comfortably in the sling carrier, nursing on my pacifier, thinking of how Hannah and I had celebrated New Year’s in a slightly more mature fashion. While I would forever be her baby, we’d also established that we could have a romantic relationship. After all, we were stuck with each other… It was a bit of a magical hassle, but it led to a magical night!

“Hi, Sofia!” Someone said as we walked in.

“See, you’re all they ever notice!” Hannah pouted and hugged me on our way to our room. Hopefully, we’d actually get an entire semester of school this time!

  

Finis

 

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Thank you for reading! Please press the ‘Like’ Button if you’ve enjoyed it! Especially now that you're at the end of the tale, please leave me a comment too!!!!

If you're someone who has enjoyed this, please consider supporting my writing by purchasing a copy on Amazon Kindle! 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BTBTTGX1 

 

[FloridaKid]

Ohmygosh how much I love this story. All of the elements you bring to life wonderfully woven into two worlds’ worth of adventure. As much as I enjoyed it the first time, this revision is indeed a seamlessly smooth read.

As a side note…I’ve noticed other authors’ stories where you comment and I tend to gravitate toward those. I love your writing style and the stories you choose to comment on reflect that to a certain extent. I’ve not been disappointed. 🙂

[kerry]

SO great! I may have missed the epilogue the first time around, so I'm even happier about the reposting. I wish you had more of this story and this world, but that just proves how good it is. 🙂

 

[BabySofia]

On 5/18/2023 at 10:21 PM, FloridaKid said:

Ohmygosh how much I love this story. All of the elements you bring to life wonderfully woven into two worlds’ worth of adventure. As much as I enjoyed it the first time, this revision is indeed a seamlessly smooth read.

Thank you for your kind words, I'm glad you appreciated the revision! 🙂

On 5/18/2023 at 10:21 PM, FloridaKid said:

As a side note…I’ve noticed other authors’ stories where you comment and I tend to gravitate toward those. I love your writing style and the stories you choose to comment on reflect that to a certain extent. I’ve not been disappointed. 🙂

🙂

On 5/19/2023 at 12:23 AM, kerry said:

SO great! I may have missed the epilogue the first time around, so I'm even happier about the reposting. I wish you had more of this story and this world, but that just proves how good it is. 🙂

 

Thanks Kerry for your kind words and the support! Glad you caught the ending this time! 

I may come back to it at some point, but I have a couple other works to finish first... I'm planning to take a break from the dimension after LCW is completed, so I may circle back here then... we'll see! Thanks again! 🙂

[CDfm]

Oh my, I have loved this story for so long now. I can’t tell you how pleased I was to learn it had been completed. Now that I say that though I am saddened by the thought there will be no more to read. You did an amazing job writing this. I was completely drawn into the story and was along side Hannah and Sofia as they progressed along their journey. 

[BabySofia]

18 hours ago, CDfm said:

Oh my, I have loved this story for so long now. I can’t tell you how pleased I was to learn it had been completed. Now that I say that though I am saddened by the thought there will be no more to read. You did an amazing job writing this. I was completely drawn into the story and was along side Hannah and Sofia as they progressed along their journey. 

Thanks for your kind words! 🙂