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

[BabySofia]

1 hour ago, littlepinkdargon said:

 Suit dude is a real work...at least the agent seemed to not be a d.

Ooo and Em didn't think to change herself this time ....progress!

Thanks for reading and the comments!!! 🙂

[BabySofia]

Chapter 39: Newsworthy 

I WOKE UP, looking through the bars of my crib and seeing no sign of anyone else. Standing at the bars of a new crib, I couldn’t help but wonder where Caireen was. Having no other choice, I started crying at the top of my lungs to get her attention.

She came in and said, “There, there, baby, let’s get you cleaned for the day.”

“How are things here?” I asked.

“We’ll talk about that in a while after your bath. Until then, I want you to act like a normal baby and take a break,” she told me.

Somehow, I forced myself to smile and hug her.

“There’s my little baby girl! I bet she would like her nice warm bath!”

I was kind of hungry and decided to act like she expected and reached for her dress. “Oh, I hadn’t even thought of how hungry you probably are!” She turned around, found a cushioned window seat in the hallway, and began nursing me.

While she nursed me, I couldn’t help but think of all of the deaths that were my fault yesterday. Not to mention all the deaths occurring here while Camulus sought to catch me and bring Caireen to her knees. I felt the tears going down my face when she suddenly moved me to her other breast and began speaking softly, “There, there, baby. Just relax; the world has gone mad, but you are safe here for the moment.”

When I was finished, she burped me and took me to the oddly modern bathroom with running water and a beautiful clawfoot bathtub. She undressed, then stripped me before slipping into the water together. She gently massaged some soap and a cloth against my skin, and I couldn’t help but relax. Caireen washed my hair gently, and I realized how rarely she’d bathed me here.

After she was done scrubbing me, she splashed water at me - occasionally tickling me or playing with my toes until we both had the giggles. Eventually, she sighed and called for a servant who handed her a towel that she swaddled me in.

“Your Majesty, I took a set of clothes for Princess Sofia to your room so you both may dress there?”

“Thank you, Fiera,” she told her with a smile.

She carried me through a couple back passages to her room. I was quickly diapered and placed in a beautiful green dress that was more ornamented with frills, stitching, and embroidery than anything I had ever worn. She carefully placed my tiara on my head, kissed my head, and then placed me on her bed.

I watched as she dressed in a regal gown that matched my own. It was the perfect mother-and-daughter set of dresses. ‘I might just have to make a set of these for Hannah and me to wear on campus,’ I thought.

“Okay, Sofia,” she said while opening her arms up, “let’s go find someplace where we can talk.”

It felt so comfortable and safe in her arms, something I craved after the real world’s chaos and death. I still couldn’t believe that people had died just because they happened to be where I was! Caireen walked through the hallways to a room covered with maps and charts that I knew had to be the war room. Several of her generals were in the room, and all snapped to attention and bowed to Caireen.

“Your Majesty, Your Highness,” her top general greeted us.

“General,” Caireen said, and she stepped towards a chair at a circular table that seemed grander than the others. A matching highchair was to its right, and I was sat gently inside before she took her seat.

“Princess Sofia, I am so sorry for the loss of life in your world,” the general began, “I regret it more than I can say.”

“How did that happen?” I asked forcefully.

“Gut feeling?” He asked to which I nodded. “I believe she and King Camulus have decided that the best way to utterly defeat us here is to attack you there.”

“So, these are avatars?”

“Well, his son at least should be… I’m unsure of Rosemerta. Nothing she does makes sense. If she was simply an avatar, what you did and the shattering of her head from the gunshots should have killed her!”

“What if she’s a Mergent with extraordinarily high regen?” I asked Caireen.

“It could be that… but I think she had stored enough manna to travel there… and do whatever she does…?” She sighed, “Either way, she can’t take hits like that forever without dying. I highly recommend next time, though, you immediately burn her remains. If we capture her again in this world, we will do the same.”

“And Camulus’s son? Maponus?”

“Yes,” Caireen answered.

“What kind of crazy person names their kid that? And they want me to marry him? And have… with him?!?” I was near the verge of tears and couldn’t even imagine having that with him! I held back from crying, took a deep breath, and asked. “So, what will they try next in my world?”

“I don’t know,” was the simultaneous reply from her and the general.

For the next hour, we dissected every bit of the attack before Caireen carried me to a quiet place window bench to nurse me. When we returned, I was shown an update on where King Camulus’s forces were. “How soon will he be here?” I asked nervously.

“We believe he’ll be here sooner than our original estimates. Maybe even by the New Year in your world.” One of the Generals’ men answered.

Plans were revised, and arguments went on and on about the placement of troops. Grim discussions were held about when to abandon villages in their path. Most civilians would be evacuated to the castle’s surrounding areas until they got closer. Then, they could be held inside the castle walls for a very long siege. The concern was the blockade wouldn’t be long as Camulus had broken through the defenses of several other similar castles recently with impunity.

As I was growing weary of the round-and-round discussion, Caireen picked me up, and we left them to it. She led me down to the dungeons and said, “Okay, we need more attacks for you!”

Caireen spent a couple hours teaching me some new possibilities for doing things like Camille did with the tendrils to capture Rosemerta. “But it didn’t work with her!” I said, exasperated as I failed to ensnare a doll on the ground in my seventh attempt.

“You have more than one enemy Princess,” she told me, making a chill run down my spine.

About the time I had finally succeeded ten times with that new spell, there was a knock on the door.

“Enter!” Caireen called loudly.

A man dressed in what looked like nineteenth Century fencing clothing came in. “Your Majesty, Your Highness,” he said with a low bow, “you asked for me to come?”

“Yes, Sir d’Artagnan, I did.”

“What may I do for you?”

“Please teach my daughter how to fight using this blade,” she said and pulled out what would look like a long knife to an adult but, to my size, looked like it was a little longer than a short sword.

“Great, I’m like a Hobbit with a dagger!” I groaned.

“Your Majesty?” he asked, confused. “But she’s just a bébe…?”

“She will approach her training with the maturity of one who has come of age; she must be able to fight when the time comes! We both know this war won’t end without an attack here.”

He looked at me again and pondered things for a moment before saying, “It will be my honor, Your Majesty. I will insist on some proper clothing?”

“As long as I don’t have to have fur on my feet,” I agreed.

Both of them looked at me like I was mad. I just shrugged and was soon clothed in what I could only think of as nineteenth Century fencing clothes. “These clothes contain a spell that will keep any blade from cutting or piercing them,” Caireen told me reassuringly before patting my diapered rear and sending me toward d’Artagnan.

That began two hours of abuse while he taught me the fundamentals of wielding the blade. I’d love to say we were having a film-worthy knockdown fight by the end, but the most I had done was swung the sword and stab the blade in what would otherwise be katas to me in my past Tae Kwon Do experience.

I felt exhausted when Caireen fed me dinner and laid me down in my crib. “Caireen… was that THE d’Artagnan?” I asked sleepily.

She kissed me on the forehead, “Yes, Princess, but that is a story for another time.”

 

THE SOUNDS OF news on the TV and Camille moving around in our room woke me up. I sat up and stared at the screen through the crib bars. The scrolling bar at the bottom was giving updates about damages and casualties while a reporter stood in Rockefeller Plaza… or rather what remained of it.

“Last night, Rockefeller Plaza was rocked by a huge blast where the famous statue of Prometheus stood. The statue itself is seen on footage exploding like a large bomb. Following that, we see a battle that is clearly begun and waged by Mergents with no regard for the civilian population. CNN has just obtained footage of this battle; this is exclusive, and you’ll only see it here.”

“Mom! Dad!” Camille quickly hollered through the adjoining room door, noticing me standing and watching.

The footage began by panning around the buildings nearby. You could see some bright signs on one of the nearby streets. The person had just reached a view where you could see the statue but not the ice rink when the explosion happened, and you could see the person fall to the ground. Screams, cries, and panic reigned as the entire video became chaotic. The videographer somehow dodged the fleeing crowd to get a view of the rink from the top level. Camille’s mother and family had fled before then. Still, they managed to catch Camille and me as we ran up towards Rosemerta, standing in the former statue’s footprint.

It was kind of scary watching Camille and myself fight her. I winced when she grabbed me, and my nose landed on the ground. Then when I had finally frozen her, and the bullets rang out, the video cut back to the talking heads who discussed everything about the event.

“There you have it, ladies and gentlemen! We have no idea who was on what side here, but given Tigress shows up and seems to defend the girl and very short Mergent, we have to believe they were on the good side.”

“Is that short one a baby???” One of the anchors asked incredulously. “She seemed to be the one that took the villain out too?”

“It looks like it. Our staff is working on the video and enhancing it. Mike, do you think we have a zoom available on this yet?”

Over her ear, you can see her receiving instructions, “We hope to do better, but let’s see what they’ve got so far.”

The video zoomed into where we were speaking to the police. You could see technomages were involved because there is no way someone’s cell phone should have had the resolution to view us close enough to make a larger image of me. My pacifier mask kept my lower face from being seen. Still, it was pretty clear I was in a very short and juvenile dress with a diaper cover over what clearly had to be a diaper. My cute shoes and tights seemed to only encourage the thought. The tiara on my head glistened, and you would never have expected me to be able to do more than appear in a beauty pageant.

Of course, that had been my intention since it could surprise an attacker. The tights were a bonus bit of protection, made of the latest Zexlar, and the dress and mask.

“Okay, I have to say she is adorable!!!!” the lady anchor said. “She looks like she takes some of the costume designs after that cartoon my daughter loves so much!”

“Adorable but deadly. Did you see how much damage those blasts did to the walls where she missed? The other girl was just as bad! How can we…?”

The TV was turned off, and I saw Camille and her mom looking at me, concerned. I just shrugged, “Guess that was inevitable. At least so far, they haven’t found a video to figure out who I am?”

They both nodded, and Camille picked me up to hug me before saying, “we have a little bit of time for a quick bath before we go to breakfast.”

I nodded, “Okay.”

She gently picked me up out of the crib and laid me down on a changing pad she had sat on the bed. She gently removed my nightgown and diaper, wiping me quickly with some wipes. Then I was carried over to the bathroom, where Camille had already drawn a bath with some bubbles. I watched her quickly to see we were alone before she cast a privacy ward.

“How are you doing, Sofia?” she asked me.

I shrugged with bubbles on my arms, “I don’t know. People died yesterday because they just happened to be where I was. How am I supposed to be?”

I could feel the tears in my eyes as Camille lifted my head and her voice changed, “Princess, it is not your fault in any way. Monsters will always exist in every world - the only thing we may do is fight them till our last breath or theirs. Yesterday you never hesitated, and I know that Queen Nicneven herself would have been proud. As it is, I’m certain our Queen will want to meet you when she can.”

I just stared for a moment before muttering, “thanks.”

Camille’s voice returned to normal, “Okay, so we have all morning that you’ll have to go back to pretending, I think.”

I nodded, “I don’t think anyone has a video of me changing into my costume? But, I’m sure there are enough cameras they can make a master list of people and babies to look at.”

Camille nodded, “I think you need to be sure to act like a normal baby this morning as we go see the Statue of Liberty.”

“Then it is still open?” I asked, kind of surprised.

“The mayor came on and said security everywhere has been tightened, but at no time will he ‘give in to terrorists.’”

I sighed, “Okay.”

Camille took a few more minutes to wash my hair, soaped down my body, and then played with me for a few minutes. Unlike when Hannah played with me, Camille used her magic like Caireen. I watched the bubbles in my bath change colors and become moving animals, dolls, and castles, and we just had fun together for a bit. Then, as she dried me off, I asked, “Do you do that for your sister?”

She shook her head, “I try not to do magic around her so she doesn’t accidentally tell someone something she shouldn’t. I do things every now and then, but my parents ask me to limit them.”

I nodded, “Lily definitely loved when I would play with her since I would create clothes for her dolls and bears!” Then, I grinned, “Mom didn’t like it - especially one time her… well, that didn’t work out so well.”

“Oh?” She asked as she ran a comb through my hair. “This sounds like a juicy story!” She smiled at me, “I don’t have to tickle you to get this out of you, do I?”

I gulped, “No need for the tickle monster to come out!”

She laughed and playfully reached for my belly. “So… story?”

“Okay, okay!” I squeaked. “I was making her a really cute princess dress… but I forgot to create a diaper for her outfit. So she went to show Mom, and let’s just say it was a good thing we were in the kitchen… the puddle she excitedly made would definitely have been worse to clean up anywhere else!”

She laughed at me and continued to help me feel calm. Yesterday had been a nightmare, and I just hoped today wouldn’t be the same. A diaper was quickly taped on me, followed by a cute onesie with a short skirting and then leggings over it.

“Do I need to make a couple more strollers?” Camille asked her mom.

“Can you?”

“Sure,” she said.

I watched two strollers form in the space next to the door. They weren’t the same as the ones from yesterday, instead looking like a matched set of pink and purple strollers that looked pretty comfortable. “Those look like Amy’s daughter’s stroller,” her mom told her with approval.

“Yeah, I thought of hers with them. We think Sofia needs to appear to be as innocent as possible today… I know that these work with those infant seats too.” A moment later, an infant-style car seat with a handle appeared.

“What?” I said nervously.

“Well, Sofia, they’re looking for a short Mergent that just happens to look like a baby, right?”

I nodded, “Yes,” feeling Caireen nodding with approval.

“The idea of a baby who can still fit in and be carried in an infant carrier isn’t likely to be noticed, right?”

“Right,” I sighed. “So how are you going to carry me and it? I remember getting tired of carrying my sister in hers when she was about sixteen pounds…?”

“Well, aren’t you only twenty pounds?”

I sighed, “Yes.”

“Then trust me, with my paradigm strength, there is no reason for you to worry. Besides,” Camille smiled as she began helping my arms into my coat, “the reason I made these is that the seat goes into the stroller.”

Camille’s dad came in a moment later with Cassidy in his arms. While I was laid into the car seat and strapped in, she was strapped into her new stroller. She loved the pink one, so my car seat was latched into the purple one. I hated the lack of movement possible as I sat strapped in there! I was grateful that Camille placed a pacifier into my mouth, letting me soothe myself without saying anything I shouldn’t! I sighed and lay there as I was pushed down the hallway, unable to see anything other than Camille.

‘This is worse than the stroller yesterday,’ I whined.

‘Oh hush, you know you look adorable in this! And, the point is that I guarantee absolutely no one would possibly believe you are the baby who was on TV.’

‘I hope you’re right,’ I told her.

 

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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 to work around Friday postings of ‘Lights, Camera, …What?!?’ 

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 40: Tourists

WHEN WE REACHED the elevator, an older lady looked at me and said, “Oh my, she has to be one of the most adorable babies I’ve ever seen!”

“Thank you,” Camille’s mom said.

“How old is she?” She asked.

“Almost a year,” she responded.

“She’s so cute!”

I sat there while the torturous conversation went on about me with no interaction from me. Thankfully elevator rides never last forever, and we were soon moving again. A restaurant in the hotel must have been decided on before I was woken up because they knew where we were going, and we were quickly seated. “Two high chairs?” the hostess asked Camille’s mom.

“Please,” she said.

Cassidy sat inside a high chair, and her mom placed a bib on her. I didn’t remember her having a bib yesterday, so I wondered if that was because it was breakfast? Finally, I was picked up from the carrier, placed in a high chair, and silently sighed in relief. I was half afraid I would be left in there like a newborn!

I looked around a high-end restaurant with nice crystal glasses and was sure babies were not among their favorite patrons. So I looked at Camille and said, “Baba!”

“Okay, hold on, Princess,” she said with a smile and dug into my diaper bag. A moment later, I was hungrily sucking on a bottle of Hannah’s milk that she had warmed.

‘I’m glad they managed to get that back,’ I told Caireen.

‘Wait, did you just say you were…?’

‘Yes, I did. I miss Hannah,’ I added sadly.

‘I know,’ she said, ‘maybe they’ll let you call her again in a while?’

‘Maybe…’

While I nursed my bottle, a little bit of pancake was placed on the table. The small plate was set in front of me but out of reach. Hannah’s mom had already cut it up and covered the pieces with some syrup, and gathered a side of some eggs. Camille’s mom took the empty bottle from me and began giving me a bite of my food every couple of moments while she fed herself. Embarrassingly some of it ended up on my bib, face, and even a little in my hair.

“So, how are we getting there, Dad?” Camille asked.

“We’re getting a ride from your Aunt,” he told her.

“Cool,” she said excitedly.

When we finished, her mom wiped my face with baby wipes, an intrusion I hated a lot. Then a finger found its way to my diaper, and she said, “Camille, why don’t we go change Sofia and take Cassidy to the big girl potty while Daddy pays the bill?”

As the supposed infant in this scene, my opinion mattered not. I found myself quickly strapped into the infant carrier with a pacifier in my mouth and swinging from Camille’s elbow as they walked to a nearby bathroom. She sat the seat and my diaper bag on the ground next to a large built-in counter. Like always, things were quickly and gently taken care of with my diaper before I was again strapped inside. I kicked my legs a bit as I was left on the floor next to a toilet that Camille sat down on. I was glad she had faced me to where I wasn’t locked into looking at her, but the sounds of her peeing into the porcelain throne made me jealous.

I heard Camille’s mom talking to Cassidy, “Sweetie, you need to tell me if you need to go potty.” Cassidy’s sniffles could be heard from where I was in the carrier. “Let’s get a new pull-up on you.”

I felt terrible for Cassidy as I heard her mom cleaning her up, but at least she could potty train!

After an eternity, Camille picked my carrier up, washed her hands, and walked back to the table where her dad waited. He stood and helped Camille lock the seat back into the stroller. “When is Aunt Michelle going to be here?” Camille asked him.

“She called while you were in the bathroom and said she’s waiting for us outside the main entrance.”

“Well then, let’s not keep Michelle waiting any longer,” I could hear the smile in Camille’s mom’s voice. They moved a lot faster once Cassidy was in her stroller, and we were both wheeled through the hotel quickly to the main doors. When my seat was unlatched from the stroller, I could see that we were getting into a… limo?

Lots of happy conversations happened before we actually got in. First, I was introduced to my ‘Great-Auntie Michelle,’ who suitably cooed over me. Then my seat was latched into the back limousine bench by the driver and Camille’s dad. Cassidy sat in a car seat that was already secured for her. Then I noticed another person who was just quietly sitting towards the front end of the limo.

I looked for a moment and had trouble recognizing her for a second due to her not being in costume, but I realized it was Tigress!

I waved at her, and she waved back at me before making a ‘shhh’ sign to her lips with her finger. I frowned around my pacifier but nodded. I was definitely bored as I sat there sucking on my pacifier. Auntie Michelle seemed to notice because as she talked with everyone, she asked, “Does she have a teething toy or something?”

“Yeah, she also has a new doll she likes somewhere in here,” Camille said as she looked into the diaper bag for things I knew weren’t inside. A second later, I had a brightly colored teething toy dangled in front of me. I let the pacifier fall out to pretend I was chewing on it. Embarrassingly it actually did feel kind of good to chew on. Camille also brought out my new Eloise doll and sat her inside the car seat next to me.

I became the center of attention for a few more minutes with cooing and other things coming from my auntie. Cassidy soon grew tired of not being played with and started crying about something. That re-focused the attention on her, and I could just sit there quietly, mortified as I realized I seemed to easily appear to be a helpless baby.

 

WHEN WE REACHED our destination and got out of the limousine, I was surprised to discover we were in New Jersey! Aunt Michelle explained to Camille that even with the drive out to New Jersey, it was quicker to travel there to get the ferry. It would also be faster to get on a ferry later to come home. My seat was reattached to the stroller, and we were taken through security. My diaper bag had to be opened, and the liquid from a bottle was examined.

“It’s just breast milk,” Camille’s mom said, clearly a little annoyed.

The lady looked like she was going to raise a fit, but another worker whispered in her ear. A moment later, we were waved through. I looked at where Tigress was the best from my view and saw her wink at me. “Baba!” I told her mom as she held it in her hands.

She sighed, “You just want to make us change your diaper sooner, huh?”

She tickled me as she placed the bottle in my mouth and reclaimed the teething toy to return to the bag. Camille must have done a spell from next to me because it wasn’t cold like I was afraid of. Thanks to our strollers, I figured we were stuck on the ferry’s lower level going out to the island. I was surprised, though, when a couple of trips together carried both Cassidy and me upstairs. To my relief, I was let out of the harness and held on Camille’s mom’s hip while Aunt Michelle had Cassidy on hers.

“Ooh, can you see that?” She asked Cassidy. “That’s the Statue of Liberty!”

I tuned her out as the announcements from the boat discussed emergency procedures and then told some of the stories of immigrants coming to America. Time did seem to pass quickly as we were unloaded onto Ellis Island. “Let’s take Cassidy to the potty really quickly and change Sofia again before we start looking around.” She told Michelle as Camille and her dad pushed our empty strollers behind us. Her mom handed me to Camille to change while she dealt with Cassidy, who excitedly shouted, ‘She was a big girl!’ When she successfully made it to the potty!

She was so cute with how excited and proud she had made it after missing every time since last night! Tigress hung back with us but did not appear to be part of our group. I wanted to talk to her, but a baby having a conversation with her would draw attention, so I patiently sat when they placed me back into the stroller and watched stuff go by.

The morning would have been much more enjoyable if I hadn’t had to pretend to be a regular baby. Pictures were taken of us everywhere, but my favorite ones were in the great hall upstairs. It wasn’t overly crowded when we took the picture, so you could see the vastness of the space and the extraordinary tile work everywhere!

‘Maybe someday, when you let me pretend to be older with that spell, I can come back and actually enjoy myself?’ I suggested to Caireen.

‘That would be fun, actually,’ she acknowledged. ‘I know this is boring… Sorry.’

I was allowed a little time to walk around holding Camille’s hands, but not much was out of the carrier. Shortly into that bit of freedom in the gift store, I found my body forcing me into a squat and groaned.

 

THE REST OF the visit to Ellis Island went by quickly after a swift diaper change. We boarded the ferry and headed to Liberty Island to look at the Statue better. I noticed that helicopters and flying superheroes all seemed to be warily guarding against attacks from above. It proved unnecessary while we were there, though. After lunch, I watched Camille and her mom whispering with Tigress.

Camille came over to where I stood on a bench and whispered, “She’s going to go ahead and take you to your meeting.” She looked nervous, “they suggested I not come along, so there’s less chance of you being recognized.

I nodded but sucked my pacifier a little more, “Baba?” I asked.

She smiled at me and whispered, “Okay, I’ll get one warmed up for you. You realize that regular people can warm up bottles, too, right?”

I blinked at her and shook my head. She gave me a hug, placed me back into the carrier, put the nipple of a warmed bottle into my mouth, and then handed my diaper bag over to Tigress. “We’ll see you both at dinner?” She asked hesitantly.

“Absolutely, I love taking my little cousins’ baby for the day, but you won’t catch me wanting to deal with all those diapers all the time!” She laughed.

I just sat there and pretended I was a good baby as she cooed at me and played with me. I made sure to fuss when I ‘realized’ that I wasn’t with Camille or anyone else. She just pushed a pacifier back in my mouth, though, and picked me up out of the seat to cuddle with me. Something about her body heat was off. I also realized that I wasn’t actually looking at any of her natural skin! She had some sort of projection on her face that my hand went through as she held me. I reached out and felt soft fur.

It took everything to keep me from saying, ‘Kitty!!!!’

‘I thought it might have been a costume last night,’ Caireen acknowledged. We’d both seen the fur.

‘Her condition must be rough, but she probably is pretty cute underneath that.’

Tigress looked at me with a little bit of a glare, and I realized I probably shouldn’t pet her without permission. She smiled at me as I gave her a small baby hug as an apology, and I stayed still while we waited to get off the ferry. As I expected, she placed me back into the car seat and pushed me down the pier to a waiting vehicle. The car was a simple-looking yellow NYC taxi van, but I had a gut feeling it wasn’t a regular taxi.

The second she swung my seat in to buckle it in, I could see I was right. I passed through a magic ward into a large bus-like space with TV screens and maps all over the walls. She placed my stroller to the side and buckled the seat into one of many available.

“What is this?” I asked while pulling my pacifier out into my hand.

“This, Your Highness, is one of the autonomous vehicles we use as a remote command post as needed,” Tigress said. “Can you go ahead and change into your costume?” she asked.

I activated the spell, and she made some sort of purring noise.

“You are beyond adorable, Your Highness,” she said.

“Why do you keep calling me, Your Highness?”

“Because you are a Princess, I’ve encountered Queen Caireen before this. I have absolute respect for her Majesty, and now you as her daughter.”

I felt Caireen come to the surface to speak, “When was this?”

“I was just a young kid when I was pulled into your world. You kindly set me free from the people who had kidnapped me.”

Caireen cursed inside my head, and I was taken aback as that was so unlike her! “How do you remember?”

“When I emerged as a teenager, the memory came back. I thought it was just a dream until I met you yesterday.”

“I am grateful that you can help now, and I’m even more grateful to see what you’ve become,” she said. I could feel her leaking tears out of my eyes. It was one of the first times I could remember her taking this much control over me. “I am going to let my daughter take back over; I am glad to know that she has an ally such as yourself here.”

I shook my head, “That was weird,” I told Tigress. I watched her change into her costume and turn off the generator over her face. Now that I was closer and knew the fur was real, I couldn’t help but admire how pretty and cute she was. “You’re beautiful, by the way,” I told her.

“As are you,” she smiled. “Are you ready for this meeting?”

I shook my head, “No, this was supposed to be a vacation,” I told her. “So, can I stop pretending to be a helpless baby now?”

“I think that’s best. By pretending to be as able-bodied as possible as Emerald, you can probably better hide yourself as the infant you appear out of costume.”

I nodded and thought for a second, “Can you hand me my diaper bag?” I asked her.

She looked at me oddly but handed it to me, probably half expecting me to drop it since it weighed as much as I did. Instead, I quickly did a spell and put it away in a space beside my small purse. Tigress looked at me oddly, “Well, you don’t think it’s a bad idea to have the same diaper bag running around with the baby?”

“Smart, you can still hand it to me to change you?”

I nodded and suddenly looked at my diaper, “Like right now, huh?” I sighed.

“Well, we are stuck in traffic…?”

She pulled me illegally out of the car seat after I handed her the diaper bag for a change before I put it back, and she re-buckled me. The ride ended soon after that, and she gave me a hand getting out of the car in our parking garage. This time she let me walk beside her into the massive Federal Building instead of being carried.

‘So, am I like the human sidekick to the big kitty?’ I asked Caireen.

She laughed at that, ‘More like my toy baby doll,’ she told me.

She led me up to an office on a different floor than we’d been in last night, “Okay, Agent Emerald, I’m going to wait out in the lounge they have while you meet.”

I looked at her and nodded before stepping into a smaller conference room through the open door. Agent Sanders and Agent Caruthers both stood as I walked in.

“Agent Emerald, good to see you again!” Caruthers said and offered me his hand. Sanders was right behind him and did the same before giving me a helpful boost onto a chair they had thoughtfully placed a booster seat on. Even with it, though, I could still barely see over the edge of the table. So I ended up standing up and jumping onto the table.

“If you don’t mind, I’d prefer to sit here since I’m so short?” I asked.

“No problems at all,” Agent Caruthers said. “I’m mainly here in a supervisory role; Agent Sanders is your actual agent in charge.”

I nodded, “So, what’s new?” I asked

“Well, the first thing I must say is that last night you threw a huge wrench into our investigation…?”

“Sorry,” I said, trying to keep tears from my eyes. I wasn’t sure I would ever feel anything but a need to cry about last night.

“Not in a bad way, ultimately, since you may have given us a lead. You saw this picture of the man you called Maponus?” He asked as a screen came alive with that photo again.

I nodded, “He’s the son of a King that my avatar spirit and I are at war with.”

“Well, he also happens to be smack in the middle of the investigation of the daycare we need you to investigate.”

“What?!?” I asked and felt Caireen’s rage.

 

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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 to work around Friday postings of ‘Lights, Camera, …What?!?’ 

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 41: Briefings

“HIS NAME HERE is Jacob Wells, but incidentally, his code name is Maponus.”

I fumed, “So he’s the one abusing children?”

“He is at least involved on the planning side of this ring. We’ve only seen him go to the daycare twice in the last year, so we had discounted him as a major player, though.”

“Doesn’t his involvement mean my cover would be blown if I went in now?” I asked.

“Not necessarily? If you can go soon, he might not even be there. He really doesn’t seem to appear around the daycare center that often. You’ve already demonstrated this morning while you were with the Jennings that you can pull off the baby act. My agents couldn’t believe what we had told them!” Caruthers chimed in.

“When do I need to go?”

“Well, we would prefer within the next week…?”

“I’ll miss the finals at school,” I said.

“If the mission goes on long enough for that to be the case, I’ll work with Mrs. Hensley to get you excused or be able to make them up.”

I shrugged, “I’m not sure I’m trained enough - and what if he recognizes me?”

‘I think it’s a risk that those real babies need you to take,’ Caireen said gently. ‘You’re not alone, I’ll be with you, and I’ll bet that Hannah won’t be far either.’

He gave me a blank stare and a bit of a shrug as a response.

I sighed, “I’ll do it - what else do you know?”

We spent two hours reviewing everything about the case. I was shown evidence in the form of video and images that I would probably never be able to get out of my head. They had shown me what they had, so I could be aware if I was being taken to one of the places they had been filming.

“What does Maponus have on his EID?” I asked eventually.

He pushed a couple buttons, and I looked at his EID card on the screen with his picture:

EID 66-859382-1382-4
Name: Jacob Calvin Wells
Code Name: Maponus
Birth Date: 5-2-1992
Age: 23 Years
Height: 6’3” Weight: 210lbs
Paradigm: 2, Esens: 3, Magic: 2, Regen: 2

“Well, he should be less powerful than I am…?” I said, “The Esens bothers me, though. I’m guessing he’s been using that to help with this?”

“Unknown, we hadn’t even really paid much attention to him before you pointed him out. We thought his involvement was minor - no one believed him to be a big part of this operation.”

“If you want my guess, he’s very involved,” I said aloud. Then quietly to myself, I added, “and now I wonder if he would even wait until I was an adult again…?”

I shuddered and felt Caireen put her arms mentally around me for a hug.

“I certainly hope you have success both here and in your other world,” Caruthers said sympathetically.

“Okay, what now?”

“Now?” He said with a smile, “I think first you probably need a little bit of attention from Tigress, and then she’s going to take you back to the Liberty Watch’s headquarters for some training time.”

I nodded, “Okay, when do I see you again, Agent Sanders?”

“Next Friday, I’ll come to pick you and Agent Emped from school, brief you, and she’ll place you in the daycare on that Monday.”

I nodded, “Okay.”

I jumped off the table and walked out the door once he had opened it for me. I was still capable of opening doors with some minor gymnastics. Still, playing baby the last few days made me hesitant to do it myself. I walked up to Tigress at a table and said, “I’m done. Could you help me in the bathroom first before we go?”

She smiled and said, “Sure!”

 

ABOUT AN HOUR later, we arrived at the Emerald Spire, where the Liberty Watch was headquartered. “Hmm… Emerald Spire seems like something I should have been destined to visit,” I joked quietly to Tigress, who carried me on one hip.

“I had thought about that when I heard your code name,” she said with a smile and a light touch of a giant claw to my nose.

The entrance seemed like your average office building. Still, when Tigress briefly held a wristband to the control panel in the elevator, I watched a new set of options appear on a hidden touch panel. She pressed the one that said ‘Headquarters,’ and I felt us begin to move like any regular elevator. Suddenly though, she pressed a ‘halt’ button that was illuminated on the new options.

“Emerald, could I get you to help me with a prank?” she asked.

I smiled, “It depends?”

“Just follow my lead?”

I raised my eyebrows, “I’ll try?”

She squeezed me and smiled before pressing the button to start the elevator back up. When the doors opened, we stepped out into a room that looked like any other office building. Really at first glance, we could have been back in the FBI office we just left. The figure which emerged from one of the offices changed any belief of that, though! She wore a form-fitting sky blue suit, with a large gun at her side and a gold helmeted head, which helped me see things were far from ordinary!

“Aww, she’s adorable! Who is she?” the figure asked Tigress.

“This is my baby girl,” Tigress said with a squeeze to give me a hint this was what she was talking about.

“Your what?” she asked a little louder, “When? How? Who?”

I decided to play the baby and pointed toward her, “Wook, Mommy Bwoo!”

“That’s right, baby, she’s blue! Can you wave at Doctor Bolt?”

She waved my arm for me at her and said, “Why are you so surprised?”

“When were you even pregnant?!?”

“Well, I am part cat, so I had a much shorter pregnancy. Remember when I was gone for a couple months last fall?”

“Umm… yeah… but…? Who’s the?”

Tigress shrugged, “Some one-night stand after I got done breaking up a robbery last year.”

“But…”

I chose that moment to turn back and forth between them and then put my head against her shoulder as if I was hiding, and she patted my back. “It’s okay; she’s nice!”

I looked back at her and smiled back at her, and I sensed that the joke had reached its climax as she said, “You don’t mind babysitting her for me the next time we get a call on my shift?”

“Bwoo!” I said again randomly.

There was a long pause while Tigress gave me another squeeze as she apparently felt like she had accomplished her goal. Even with a mask covering the other lady’s face, I could tell the other lady was far beyond confused. In fact, as she removed her helmet, Tigress started giggling.

“Okay, what’s going on here?” the lady asked.

Tigress laughed and squeezed me, “Thanks for playing along, Emerald!”

“What?”

“Doctor Bolt, this is Emerald Baby, the FBI Agent we were asked to help out?” She bounced me lightly on her hip and gave me another squeeze.

The confusion seemed to lift a little, but she asked, “Wait… She’s the Mergent? But she’s a…?”

“Didn’t watch the news last night?” Tigress asked.

“Uh…”

I made the universal, ‘I want down wiggle,’ and Tigress set me on the ground, “I’m Sofia, codename Emerald Baby,” and curtsied to her.

She laughed, “Well, it’s very nice to meet you, Sofia. I’m Doctor Bolt - the leader of this group of loonies!” She said with a smirk and a glare toward Tigress. “I will remember this Tigress!”

“It was worth it!” Tigress chuckled, “Manic, did you get that on video?”

A man in a black suit came around the corner, and I could see he was somehow directing a tiny drone back toward his hand. “Yep! Thanks for warning me of the opportunity!”

Dr. Bolt sighed and looked at me, “Like I said, loonies!”

I smiled, “I’ll probably fit right in with you all then!”

“So, what’s your story? Tigress mentioned that she had been convinced to spend a couple days helping a Mergent agent for the FBI train. Still, she didn’t apparently tell me everything?”

“You want the long story or the short?” I asked.

“Well… enough?”

I nodded, “I was an eighteen-year-old senior getting ready to graduate in Los Alamos, NM, when I emerged a couple weeks ago. Apparently, I was fixated on how my baby sister was spoiled with attention or something when I suddenly emerged and experienced a major burnout. The next thing I knew, I woke up in the hospital, and everything and everyone seemed huge!”

“But I’m guessing your emergence wasn’t just shrinking?”

I shook my head, “No, I lost my potty training, and my body has many of the same cravings and needs as a baby.”

“That’s awful,” Manic said sadly.

“Well, it’s not great… Add to that I have an avatar spirit, and you create the perfect situation where I’m definitely loonie enough to fit in with a bunch of loonies!” I said with my most perfect baby smile.

“I think she’s onto us!” Tigress stage whispered to everyone. Everyone laughed at that.

“So why did the FBI ask for us to help train you and equip you?” Dr. Bolt asked.

“Well, it seems my first undercover mission is getting moved up sooner than everyone expected,” I began. “The FBI thinks it’s important they get me into a daycare soon to figure out what’s going on. Also, yesterday one of the suspects was spotted near our battle down at Rockefeller Plaza.”

“How?”

“Damned if I know,” I replied. “My… spirit… takes me to her world each night when I go to bed. In that world, we have an ongoing war versus a king that wants me to marry his son so he can take our kingdom. My spirit… she’s a queen… said absolutely not, even when they offered to age me back to an appropriate age.”

“So that started a war?” Tigress asked.

“He wants her kingdom since I won’t marry him; the only way now is by force. The suspect we saw yesterday looks exactly like his son does. He has the same name, too, for his codename, so we believe he’s an avatar with that spirit.”

“Wow, if you were ten years older, you would have fit right in with my crazy friends that I went to school with…” a new girl said as she walked in. She looked to be in her early twenties but didn’t offer her name right away.

“That’s what I’ve heard,” I nodded.

“Well, now that I know what you’re facing, let’s get you to the range so I can show you what I can come up with for some weapons for you,” Dr. Bolt said.

Tigress, holding me, asked, “Do you need something to drink first?”

I looked at a digital clock on the wall and realized it was already almost three in the afternoon. I pulled my diaper bag out of its holding area and reached for a bottle. I handed it to Tigress, “Any chance you could warm this up for me?”

She laughed, “Sure, baby girl, but only if I get to hold you while you drink it?”

I turned red but smiled and clapped, “I get to cuddle with the kitty!”

Dr. Bolt and Manic laughed, and Tigress groaned, “You’re dangerous to have around here!”

Tigress walked me back through the offices to a full kitchen they had for the heroes to use. She sat me on the ground as she warmed the bottle up the old-fashioned way by microwaving a tub of water, and I got to watch it sit and warm up. ‘This takes forever!’ I groaned.

‘Well, it is easier when it’s fresh…’ Caireen goaded me.

‘I wish Hannah were here,’ I sighed.

As if somehow picking up on my mood, Tigress picked me back up and hugged me, “Who is it, you miss? Camille?”

I shook my head, “It’s kind of a long story…?”

She laughed, “Aren’t they all?”

Dr. Bolt appeared in the room, “I’m going down to the lab. Come on down when you’re done.”

“Okay,” Tigress replied. She looked back down at me, “So, long story? Seems like every Mergent, and definitely, every student at Bechtel, has one.”

I nodded, “Yeah.”

“Well?” she prodded, and I knew I would have to answer.

 

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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 to work around Friday postings of ‘Lights, Camera, …What?!?’ 

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 42: Simulation

WITH A SIGH, I began to tell my story again. “I emerged this form like I told you all. Then, a week later, my mom, my grandma, my best friend Hannah, and my baby sister Lily were picking up some pictures at a photo studio in a mall in Albuquerque. Without warning, someone tried kidnapping me while we were waiting for the pictures. I think it was some sort of Sanguis Primum moron, but no one has ever told me,” she pulled the bottle out of the water and checked it on her wrist before setting it back in the water.

“How did you get away?”

“Well, my spirit had taught me a couple defense spells, but in the end, I instinctively used some sort of charge all over my body that made the guy drop me like a hot potato. I managed to bounce back up and ran toward where I hoped I could find my mom. Hannah was standing there at the entrance hallway to the food court, and I jumped into her arms.”

“And…?”

“Well, Hannah chose that time to emerge herself.”

Tigress nodded as if she’d heard stories like this before, “What happened?”

“Well, she sent this pyrokinetic blast toward some of the people chasing me. Simultaneously, her EFP became that of a mother…?”

“A mother…?”

I sighed, “The perfect mother for me as a baby. Her DNA changed to match mine, and she developed some other… attributes…?”

“So, I guess that’s why this milk smells like breast milk?”

“You can smell it?”

“Remember, I’m part kitty.” She smiled and squeezed me, “I’m not surprised her Emergence did that. You’re like the cutest baby girl ever! It would be impossible not to want to protect you.” She smiled and pulled the bottle out, and decided it was good. She walked to a nearby room with a couch and sat down before settling me down to feed me like any other baby. As she popped the bottle into my mouth, I relaxed in her furry arms. It wasn’t Hannah, but it was still very reassuring.

“Well, I can understand odd emerges. But, at least you’ve managed to stay ‘cute’ through this. I was so horrified when I emerged, and my fur began to grow in…” I looked up around my bottle at Tigress with wide eyes. “It was a lot easier when I switched to Bechtel - at least there, weird is almost normal - but it’s tough to have people see you like that.”

I pushed the hand holding the bottle in my mouth away, “But you’re so pretty!”

She pushed it back in and smiled at me, “I’m glad you think so. Some others have thought so too. The only real bad part is when you meet someone allergic to cats,” she said with a wink.

I giggled and nearly choked to death, so I returned to emptying my bottle. She told me a few stories while I did so, and I was almost sad when I finished the bottle and found myself on her shoulder when she burped me.

“Well, ready to go to work?” She asked me.

I shrugged, “This was supposed to be a vacation.”

She laughed, “Get used to it! I have a feeling you’re going to be one of those Mergents that will never really get a true break.”

I nodded and looked around curiously as she led me down the hallway and behind a false bookcase to a hidden elevator that took us some distance underground.

“So, this is the lair of a superhero group?” I joked with her when the door opened to reveal a shiny stainless-steel corridor that fit right in with every bad comic movie ever.

She laughed, “I think Doctor Bolt decorated it this way to live up to the cliché as much as anything.”

The walls reminded me of an Imperial design from Star Wars. Every so often, there would be metal supports that would jut out from the walls. At the same time, pipes ran along the side similarly to at Bechtel’s underground testing facility. Cameras appeared frequently, and an occasional interactive screen seemed to allow access to maintain systems. I noticed bunker doors with printed warnings that would swing closed in an emergency.

‘I guess when you’re worried about villains breaking in, you must put in some heavy security!’ I thought to myself. She carried me down a few corridors with the occasional sight of some mad experimental lab going by. Eventually, we arrived in a large room with an extended workbench filled with tools and guns and a range down one side. Dr. Bolt looked to be adjusting a sight on a small pistol.

“Everything taken care of?” she asked us.

I nodded as Tigress sat me down on my feet on the table. “For now… So, what did the Bureau want me to see you all for?”

“Well, first, they said they had a pistol you trained with at Bechtel this weekend, but they asked if I could come up with a better one for you and maybe some other firepower.”

I nodded and smiled, “Yay, toys!!!!!” I hopped up and down a little bit and enjoyed a look of concern from Dr. Bolt.

“You may be the smallest and youngest looking Mergent ever… but I think you may be the scariest too!”

I heard Tigress laugh to my side, where she was absentmindedly playing with some tool.

“You’re too kind,” I said and curtseyed.

“Well, before I start giving you’ toys,’ as you put it, I want to see if you can handle them safely.”

“Okay!” I said and walked over to her, “What’s first?”

“This is a special pistol that I’ve devised to shoot several different types of rounds,” she paused and picked up three different bullets. The first looked like an ordinary twenty-two-caliber round. “This first one is like a twenty-two-caliber round but has more powder behind it to give it an equivalent energy of a two-two-three rifle round.”

I held my hand out and looked at it, “How do you have that much energy behind it?”

She just smiled, “I’m good at what I do,” she added with a shrug. The next round was longer and fatter. I learned that round was related to a nine-millimeter. Even though it looked similar, there was considerably more power behind it. “It acts more like a fifty-caliber round and can stop a car engine or cut through tank armor.” She told me. The final round looked as big as the gun barrel; I didn’t even know how it would fit inside, “This is an explosive round, Emerald. It’s the equivalent of a mortar shell upon impact.”

“How does…?”

“Better to just smile and nod,” Tigress advised, “I’ve long since given up figuring out how she does it. You can be sure, though, they’ll work as advertised!”

“Can I try them?” I asked tentatively.

“You can use the first two in here… Then, the last round, you can try back at Bechtel. Make sure you let Gunny know what you’re planning on shooting, and he’ll arrange a chance to try it out. I know he’ll be jealous,” she added with a smile.

For the next hour, I got to try out the pistol and the rounds. It was perfectly sized for my baby hands, and the weight felt comfortable. I could shoot the weapon all day long and not tire at all. When she thought I was past the point of needing to practice, she provided a cleaning kit for me. She watched as I carefully cleaned the weapon before loading it with twenty-two-caliber rounds. Somehow the gun changed the barrel’s opening depending on which round was chambered. The weapon’s clip allowed for rounds of both types to be loaded simultaneously, and a flip of the safety permitted the selection of the rounds. She provided several clips with larger rounds placed on one side too. I had no idea how, but a total of forty rounds were in each clip - it made no scientific sense, but that was just part of her Mergent abilities.

“Someone is stinky,” Tigress said as I put the gun away in a pocket of space along with the spare clips.

I groaned, “Of course I am.”

“Would you like some help?” she asked me.

I nodded, “Please?” I pulled my diaper bag back out of the space and found myself lying beside the cleaning kit on Dr. Bolt’s workbench. She looked at us both, a bit annoyed at us using it as a changing table but didn’t say anything. Her staring would have bothered me a week before, but at this point, it had become just another normal part of my day. I felt Caireen give me a mental hug and a pat on the head as I was redressed without a fuss.

“My baby sister never behaved that well…” Tigress said with a smile.

“No real kids for you then?”

She grimaced, “I’d say you wouldn’t understand, but I feel you do. Dating opportunities…”

“There’s someone out there for you,” I told her with a smile, “at least you’re not jailbait for life…?”

“More like lethal injection!” Dr. Bolt said, “Of course, it sounds like you’re getting ready to go into the lion’s den of people who don’t care. Are you sure you want to participate in the mission they’re preparing you for?”

I stood up then and walked to where she was tinkering with another project while she waited for my change. I looked at her face and said, “If those of us who can fight monsters choose to do nothing, then the innocent will be hurt. I may get hurt doing this, but I would rather it be me than a real baby.” I felt a tear come to my eye, but I forced it back.

She looked down at me thoughtfully before giving me a hug, “Then you better make it out of this safely.” Then, she let go and said, “Alright, are you ready for a few more toys and some training?”

I nodded and held my arms out to her, “Up?”

She laughed, picked me up, and then took me to a room marked ‘combat simulators.’ “Have you been in the simulators at Bechtel yet?” Dr. Bolt asked as she sat me down on the ground next to a disc-shaped platform with a rail surrounding it.

“Umm… I’ve heard about the Cube, but we’ve only been there a couple weeks, so I haven’t seen it yet.” I replied.

“Well then, you won’t have too high of expectations then,” she said with a smile. “Ours works well, but the ones Bechtel has are almost unmatched anywhere but in the military.”

I nodded, “Bechtel does seem to get a fair share of toys!”

Tigress laughed behind me, holding my diaper bag I had never gotten around to putting away. I decided it didn’t matter right then, “So what do I do?”

“Well, first, we must get you measured for a suit. Please stand over here?” Dr. Bolt asked, pointing to a transparent booth with a door attached to some box.

I followed her directions and jumped when a bright light scanned me quickly. “What now?”

“Pick a color,” she told me.

“Umm… purple,” I answered hesitantly.

A ding came from next to me a moment later, and I watched her pull out a shrink-wrapped purple outfit.

“Let’s get you dressed,” she said with a smile.

“Here, I’ll help her,” Tigress said. Quickly I was stripped of my clothes and my diaper, then she helped me squeeze into the skin-tight purple spandex suit. The suit covered my entire body, including my head. Only my face was left uncovered. The suit reminded me of the one at the testing center where I had made a mess in.

“Umm… you do realize I’m not potty trained, right?” I asked them both.

They both nodded, “The suit is washable and waterproof,” Dr. Bolt said.

“You wouldn’t be the only one to ever pee in one either,” Tigress added.

I just looked at them and waited, “Okay then… what now?”

“Now you come here and stand on this pad,” Dr. Bolt instructed.

I walked over, feeling it was weird to do so without the bulk of a diaper around my body. I just hoped I didn’t do more than pee in it! I took my position in the center of the circle, and she handed me a helmet that looked to have been hastily modified for my size. I saw only darkness for a moment before the simulator turned on. I was suddenly in a daycare facility with figures frozen all around me.

“Whoa,” I said. “What’s going on?”

Over an intercom in the helmet, I heard Dr. Bolt’s voice, “Emerald, we’ve been asked to run you through a couple of scenarios at the daycare you’ll be inserted into. Unfortunately, we’ll only have time for one today; you’ll come back on Friday. Your mission objective is to blend in and only break cover in case of danger to you or another baby.”

I nodded, “Roger that.”

“Beginning simulation,” she said, “good luck!”

I assumed she pushed a button on her end because I suddenly found myself being carried towards a desk by someone. “I’m here to drop off my baby girl for her first day of daycare,” she said.

“She’s adorable!”

“Thanks! Umm… I filled out forms the other day; what else do you need from me?”

“Well, it looks like you have her diaper bag there. Do you have any bottles that need to be refrigerated?” She asked her and then cooed at me for a moment. “Aren’t you just the sweetest little thing!”

I hid my head back in my ‘mommy’s’ shoulder then. “Sorry, she’s a bit shy. I think we’re both going to have a tough morning here.”

“It’s okay, everyone experiences it at some point, and she’ll be right here for you when you’re ready to pick her up.”

“Here are her bottles. I brought five of my milk; she can drink regular formula powder I left in there or whole milk too. However, she prefers mommy’s milk still, huh?” my virtual mommy tickled me a little, and I smiled at her.

“Well, they say it’s still best for them until the age of two if you can keep doing it. There aren’t a lot of mothers who pull that off, though.”

“Don’t I know it!”

“Well, looks like your little princess has everything she needs. I see she’s even got a bear here in her bag. Why don’t you bring her down to the crawler room, and we’ll let her play for a few minutes and talk,” the lady said.

With that said, a typical ruse to drop off a baby who had never really been away from her mother was played on me. I was dropped off in a room of about ten other babies. The walls were covered with ‘ABCs’ and painted in primary colors, with murals of babies being carried by storks. Caregivers seemed to follow the other crawling babies around to play with them.

The woman carrying me sat me down on the floor, away from the others, and handed me a cloth doll. “Here you go, sweetie, you can play with this dolly!” she told me.

I smiled and began playing with the arms and poking at it while my ‘mommy’ disappeared. Then, several minutes later, I felt my diaper fill in back, and I did what a good baby would do and screamed at the top of my lungs, “Mama!”

One of the ladies working in the room came over and said, “Oh baby, what’s wrong?” in a typical mothering voice. I soon found myself at a changing table getting cleaned up, but I refused to stop crying.

“Mama!” I cried.

“Oh, sweetie, it’s okay,” the lady tried to reassure me. “Hey, did her mother drop off any bottles by chance?”

“Whose?”

“The new girl that’s having a meltdown in my arms,” the lady said, a bit annoyed.

“I think so; let me look.” I cried until a nipple was pushed into my mouth with milk. Amazingly, the simulator somehow made me feel like I was drinking milk, but I was pretty sure I wasn’t. I played for the next couple of hours - making sure to mainly crawl and only occasionally toddle around. Before I knew it, I was being pulled away from some dolls to be fed lunch of softer foods. It was a bit of an assembly line, with the workers not giving me the attention I would have expected from any of the mothers in my life. Afterward, I was given a bottle and brought to a crib for a nap. While I was lying there, the caregivers began having a whispered conversation that I could still hear.

“He wants the new girl done today.”

“Why in the world would we move that fast?”

“It’s a traumatic day for her, and she doesn’t talk yet. Mama and baba are all I’ve heard from her so far.”

“When?”

“As soon as she is asleep,” I heard the voice respond.

I kept my eyes closed and pretended to sleep while I was picked up and carried down the hallway and through a couple turns. When my clothes started getting unbuttoned, I opened my eyes and saw I was in the abuser’s photo studio. The lady and a man were in there, and I felt like throwing up as I saw several things around the room that had no business being in a daycare. Finally, the man started to try and take my diaper off, and I decided enough was enough.

I let loose a spell that sent him flying backward while I reached into the pocket of space where I had placed the pistol and grabbed it. “FBI, don’t move!” I yelled.

The man launched himself at me, and I fired, or at least tried to. But, unfortunately, I’d forgotten the safety! A moment later, he was on top of me, wrestling the gun from my hands. I used my enhanced strength to hit him in the groin, and he backed off for a moment. He took the gun then and aimed it at me. A moment later the simulator went dark.

 

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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 to work around Friday postings of ‘Lights, Camera, …What?!?’ 

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.

[LittleFenny]

Fenny waddles in and uses his best narrator voice, "It was at that moment Emerald Baby knew she'd messed up more than just her diaper. But she remembered one of the important rules of life, the more you sweat on the playground the less you bleed on the battleground. No Jerry, I didn't make that up, it's a very common saying among junior size super heroes."

Thank you for the additional chapters!

[BabySofia]

Chapter 43: Spaghetti

 

I GROANED A minute later as the helmet was pulled off, and the lights around me blinded me. I blinked, looked at the lab I had been in the whole time, and momentarily wondered how long I’d been in the simulation. “Well, little girl, it seems like we have some work to do,” Tigress said as she continued disconnecting me from the simulator.

“What…?”

“Happened?” She finished, “You died from a point-blank gunshot wound to the head.”

I gulped, “what did I do wrong?”

“More like, what did you do right? There wasn’t much,” she said condescendingly. “But we’ll get to that in a moment. First, let’s get you out of the sim suit so we can clean it for when you come back on Friday.”

I just let myself go and was manipulated out of the suit that definitely needed a diaper. Eventually, Tigress had me cleaned up, dressed me in a clean diaper and costume, and then carried me to another room with a large screen that took up most of the wall.

“Well, it was a pretty standard first run there,” Dr. Bolt said as she walked in. “I think we all make pretty big mistakes our first time in the simulators.”

“But if that had been real life?”

“Yes, you would have been dead or worse,” Tigress said.

“Little blunt today, Tigress?” Dr. Bolt asked with a shake of her head, “Okay, let’s go through the footage before Tigress has to get you back to your family.’”

I would have thought I would be told I did okay for the first part of the sim, but clearly, I’d made mistakes there, too, in my efforts to pretend to be a regular baby. Apparently, I sent dozens of signals that didn’t match with a year-and-a-half-old baby. Tigress and Dr. Bolt picked on every random thing I had done that was out of character! When I reached the point where the man was going for my diaper, they paused the film.

“You made the ultimate mistake in these next few moments,” Tigress stated.

“Like…?”

“Identifying yourself was necessary by law as an FBI agent, that’s true, but the second there was a single twitch, you should have pulled the trigger. Then you made the biggest rookie mistake of all time by not taking the safety off. You must practice drawing your weapons and un-safing them simultaneously so you automatically react and can shoot. That is the kind of mistake that will get you killed just like it did you today.” Tigress chastised me, and I felt even shorter than I already was.

“You did a great job of using your magic; why didn’t you put a shield up as soon as you pushed them away? I know from the footage I saw from last night you can do that?” Dr. Bolt asked.

“I don’t know,” I confessed, feeling like I was the ultimate dunce.

They both nodded at me, “And this is why simulators are so valuable, Emerald,” Tigress stated calmly, “so that you can make these mistakes and not die learning them.”

 

 

THERE WAS ANOTHER half-hour or so of picking my performance in the simulator apart before we left for the hotel to meet up with Camille’s family. The really odd thing during the rest of the debrief was realizing that while it felt like hours had passed in the simulator, it had only been about a half-hour total in real-time. When I asked about that, I was told it was a Dr. Bolt device, and I was better off for my own mental stability to not ask.

Just before we arrived at the hotel, Tigress had me change out of my costume and back into an ordinary outfit. At the same time, she turned on whatever field emitter she had to hide her own oddities. I was carried in the infant carrier by Tigress going inside the hotel. Camille was waiting in the lobby, “Sofia!” She said as she unbuckled me and plucked me from inside the carrier. She hugged me, “I missed you!”

“You missed a lot,” I whispered to her ear.

“I’ll see you on Friday?” Tigress asked her.

“Yes, please, if you can sit for her again while we go shopping, it would be very helpful!” She tickled my side, “Wave bye-bye,” and waved my arm at her.

I sighed but stayed quiet and played along as she carried me to the elevator and back to our room. It was about 4:30 in the afternoon then. “Where’s Cassidy?” I asked her when we were inside.

“Taking a nap, like you probably should be doing,” she said with a light touch to my nose as she sat down on the couch while facing me towards her on her knee.

I shrugged, “Do you have my phone? I’d like to call Hannah?”

“Aww… do you miss her?”

I squirmed under her glance but nodded, “I’m sure she’s going even more stir-crazy than me, though.”

She went over to the suitcases, dug out my phone, and handed it to me. “Make it short; I need to change you and get you ready for din din.”

I stuck my tongue out at her and then decided I would facetime Hannah instead of just calling her. So I went into the app and dialed her thinking it might take a moment for her to answer; instead, it was like she immediately pressed accept. “Oh my God, you’re alright!!!”

Hannah was in tears as she spoke to me, and I realized I should have called her much sooner. “I’m sorry I didn’t call sooner; last night wasn’t good, and I’ve been… busy today,” I told her.

She sighed, “I shouldn’t be so emotional like this,” she wiped tears away from her eyes, “but I’ve never been more nervous… Between the problems that I’m having and you being away?”

I nodded with tears in my eyes, “I miss you too!”

“I saw the news… and I was so worried!” But then, she said in a mother’s voice, “Why didn’t you call me?”

I felt three inches tall when I said, “I didn’t want to worry you. I figured you had enough on your plate… plus it was late by the time we wrapped stuff up and were back at the hotel.”

“Still, you should have called me!”

“I promise I will call in the future?” I said. “If you’re this bad, I guess I should call my mom and dad… they’re probably even more annoyed…?”

“Yes, you should! Your mom texted me earlier asking if I’d heard from you. So why didn’t you answer your phone?”

“Um duh… pretending to be a baby… I don’t exactly look like I should be using a cell phone that’s not a fake toy.”

“Oh,” she said. “Sorry… It’s just...”

“I know, I get it. How are you doing with your problems?”

“I’ve been getting better with fewer of those green discharges. They had to move me to an electrically shielded room for the first day. Today I seem to be getting better. I’m apparently a bit of a copyist if I’m attacked with something… At least, that’s what they think might be the problem? Our bond together is confusing at best for the doctors.”

“Yeah…”

“Sofia, are you almost done?” Camille asked, “Cassidy is waking up.”

I sighed, “I need to go, Hannah. I’ll try and call when we get done with Thanksgiving stuff tomorrow. Have a Happy Thanksgiving… I wish you could be here!”

“You too, Sofia, be safe. I love you!”

I started at the words but replied, “I love you too,” and hung up.

The tears in my eyes were filling rapidly as Camille presented me with a bottle I nursed safely in her arms. ‘I really need to call my parents.’

‘I bet we can get some time to do that after dinner. Just let Camille know…’ Caireen told me.

‘Yeah… I wonder if there’s any way we could get me back for Christmas now that Camille’s father got us immunity?’

‘I don’t know, Sofia. You still have angry EPC and Sanguis Primum people back there.’

I stayed silent in my head and soothed myself by nursing the bottle. Before I was ready for it, I was sucking empty air, and Camille was burping me. I belched and found myself having a diaper change on the bed before she dressed me in a pretty dark green dress that would have looked fine in court at Camille’s castle. “Where did you get this dress?” I asked her quietly when Cassidy was distracted.

“Mom bought it today while we were shopping. She thought it would look good on you,” she smiled at me, “I think she was right. I would look better if you didn’t have the artificial hair color you have for this trip.”

I nodded, “My red hair would look much better with this… oh well,” I sighed. Cassidy came in, and a pacifier was stuffed in my mouth before I was strapped into the carrier again. She had seen some of what I could do the night before, but they were still pretending I was just a baby in front of her in the hopes that she would forget.

Camille carried me downstairs to where her aunt’s limo was again waiting. I couldn’t ask aloud where we were going, but Camille told me, “We’re going to go meet your aunty at a restaurant!”

I sighed and sat quietly, sucking on my pacifier while the vehicle drove through traffic. I was surprised that it seemed lighter than I expected in New York City. Soon enough, we pulled to the side of the street, and my carrier was unhooked from the car, and I again swung at Camille’s side. Apparently, her aunt had made reservations at a very upscale restaurant. Everyone I saw from my seat was dressed to the nines! I quickly felt glares again towards the unwanted baby from the Maitre’D. Still, we were led to a large circular table with two highchairs sat, alternating other regular chairs. Camille’s mom sat with Cassidy to her left and me to her right. Camille sat next to me on the right after she unbound me from the carrier and placed a Velcro bib around my neck.

Looking around at the table, I saw that this restaurant must have been about as expensive as you could go! I could see three forks on the left side of each place setting for the ‘adults’ and several spoons and knives on the right. A very ornate plate sat in the middle of the place settings. I was surprised that no menu was brought to the table beyond a wine menu that Camille’s aunt quickly glanced at and ordered.

“What’s for dinner?” Camille asked.

“This is a five-course set that the chef puts together, special each night,” Camille’s aunt responded.

I could tell that Camille felt just a little out of place here, too, from how she fidgeted a little in her chair. I took a moment and looked down at my highchair and noticed it seemed made of magnificent wood. ‘Mahogany?’ I wondered. Surprisingly, throughout the first three courses, Camille and her mom were brought a separate plate for Cassidy and me to be fed from. For the next hour, I played the good baby by taking the offered bites and enduring the cooing from a waitress and a couple women guests that would pass by. I hated the long wait between bites, but I was happy to have the same meal as the grownups!

Throughout the meal, I listened in moderate horror as her aunt talked about yesterday. “Can you believe that there’s some Mergent running around pretending to be a baby?” she said at one point. “I mean, that’s so low and crazy… and sick!” she said to Camille’s dad.

“I don’t think they probably have a lot of choice in it…” he started to say.

“Really? I mean… can you imagine if Cassidy had one of those monsters pretending to be in daycare with her?”

“Umm… you do realize I’m one of those monsters, right?” Camille said pointedly, not hiding her disdain for her aunt’s statement.

“Yes, I know you are by law, dear, but you’re really just a witch. You’re not some weird deviant pretending to be a baby for god knows what reason…” her aunt said.

“I rather doubt…” her dad had started to reply when I felt an internal warning something terrible was going to happen. Sure enough, I leaned forward in the highchair just soon enough to miss getting hit with a piece of a dish with spaghetti plastered to it. I turned and realized it had been flung at me after a table was destroyed nearby.

“Seriously?” I asked. I pushed the button on the belt on the highchair and backflipped out of it. In front of me were Maponus and Rosemerta!

 

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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 to work around Friday postings of ‘Lights, Camera, …What?!?’ 

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]

I know I comment often on your stories, maybe too much sometimes, but I hate when you post a great chapter and hardly anyone says anything, so here goes (again). I just love the relationships you create. It’s easy to empathize with your characters and there’s depth to the story beyond just a few characters. You weave such great tales and carefully detailed worlds in which they take place. For what it’s worth, I like how you changed this version (at least I think it’s a change) to have other characters refer to Sofia as simply “Emerald” instead of the more formal “Emerald Baby.” I think it reads better that way and sounds more like a name rather than a title.

So even when I hold back and don’t post a comment, I do at least tap a reaction and please know that I’m loving every chapter. ❤️💕

[BabySofia]

9 hours ago, FloridaKid said:

So even when I hold back and don’t post a comment, I do at least tap a reaction and please know that I’m loving every chapter. ❤️💕

Thank you! I appreciate every one of your comments! 🙂

[BabySofia]

Chapter 44: Warnings

“WELL, PRINCESS, I think it’s time for you to come with us!” I could feel a mental suggestion along with the words, but I was able to shake them off.

“No, my mommy told me never to go with strangers,” I told him. Meanwhile, activating a spell to switch my costume into place and putting a shield around myself and another around Camille’s family. Meanwhile, the dining room alternated between frozen people who didn’t have the sense to run and those charging out the doors, trampling each other while screaming their heads off.

“But I’m not a stranger; I’m your future husband,” he said with a disturbing grin.

“No fucking way,” I heard Camille say next to me. “That’s just sick.”

“Camille!” I heard her mom involuntarily scold her.

I used that moment to go ahead and draw the gun I had been given by Dr. Bolt out and remembered to click off the safety simultaneously. “Maponus, I’m an FBI agent. You and Rosemerta are under arrest.”

Rosemerta took that moment to laugh and began to start an attack. I just calmly landed six shots of the higher caliber in her chest while simultaneously launching a freezing spell on her again. Her face looked shocked as the six rounds hit her center mass and must have at least hurt a bit. At the same time, her face froze into a pained expression that I hoped signaled her being out of the fight.

“Can’t you learn new tricks?” Maponus sneered at me.

“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” I said to him. “Now freeze!”

“No, I don’t think so…” He said with a hand movement directed at Rosemerta. She unfroze before my eyes, and he launched himself towards me. I didn’t hesitate before sending five rounds into his chest and two into his head. Sadly, he had put up a shield, and they just ricocheted harmlessly off of him.

Just before he got to me, I saw a shape come out of the corner that threw a punch straight into his jaw. He and the object crashed over a table as I saw Camille’s family rightfully pick that moment to slip out a back door. Tigress stood up shortly then, and I barely had a chance to fire another five rounds into Rosemerta when she was going after her. Camille engaged her with a spell to cage her in ice.

My anger and Caireen’s rose to the surface then, and suddenly I felt a connection with her unlike any I’d felt yet! We were truly one as we wove a spell of fire and launched it straight at the frozen Rosemerta. The massive heat and fire combined with the ice spell Camille had used caused a colossal burst of steam and then a concussive wave that knocked everyone else down! I watched with a grim smile as I saw every ounce of the vile creature burn to ash.

I smiled for a second before something hit me hard! I felt a sudden wave of pain, and the lights went out!

 

WHEN I CAME to, I rubbed my eyes and found I had a pacifier in my mouth. I sucked it nervously and looked around to see I was in my carrier. I tried moving, but the straps held me down. Someone noticed, though, and I saw Camille, “You’re awake!” she said in her avatar’s voice.

“I guess…” I responded as I put together we were in a vehicle. “What happened?”

“We’ll talk about that after we debrief,” she told me.

“Not now?” I asked.

“It’s standard procedure, so you don’t mix up your stories,” I heard a voice that I realized was Tigresses. Her head moved into view for a moment, “How are you feeling?”

“Like a freight train hit me?” I shuddered, “I’ve got a headache… I haven’t had one since I emerged. I got hit hard?”

“Yes, you did,” Camille’s mom said somewhere out of sight. “Tigress said they could look at you at their headquarters and thought getting you out of there was better.”

I noticed that I was thirsty, “Do you have one of my bottles?” I turned to look at Camille.

She smiled, “We did save your bag again. We probably should have you keep a spare in your storage space.”

I nodded but held out my hands as she quickly warmed a bottle and handed it to me. I sucked down the contents in record time and was still pretty thirsty. Camille’s mom noticed before anyone else, “Camille, you might want to get her another… she probably needs Pedialyte or something instead…?”

Camille took my empty bottle and looked at it for a moment before performing a couple spells and returning it to me filled with a pink liquid that I made a face at. “What is it?”

“Mom said Pedialyte, so here’s something that should be similar,” she told me with a smile. “Strawberry flavored?”

I took a tentative suckle and decided it was okay. The taste wasn’t phenomenal, but I kept nursing it anyway. We must have been stuck in traffic because we weren’t moving very quickly. Only after I’d been nursing that bottle for ten minutes did I figure out Camille had used some auto-refilling spell on it. I pulled it from my lips and realized it was still full!

I looked over at her, “Does this go bad?”

She shrugged, “Not with the spells I put on it.”

“A never-ending bottle… kind of cool.”

I stuck it back in my mouth and nursed it slowly until we finally reached the Liberty Watch’s headquarters again. Camille picked up my carrier, and I just lay still as I swung from her arms. I was glad she had me facing marginally forward while she did so, though I was pretty sure I would be sick otherwise! Whatever was in the bottle seemed to be helping my headache to subside some. I almost felt like myself when they were in the lower basement with everyone.

Camille sat the carrier down on a counter and loosened the straps from me. I made arms to get out, but she just pushed me down, “Let’s change that diaper first,” she told me.

I blushed and realized I had messed it and had again tuned it entirely out!

She pulled my tights down and my dress up before changing where I lay in the carrier. She made some faces as she cleaned me up, got me dressed, and sat me on my feet at a long table. I blushed as I realized the entire room had its eyes on me. Camille’s mom was missing, but her dad was present, along with Agent Caruthers and Agent Sanders. Several costumed superheroes that I vaguely recognized as some of the members of the Liberty Watch were also there. ‘I’m trying to get used to this… but all of them watched me get my diaper changed…?’ I groaned to Caireen.

She gave me a mental hug and said, ‘it’s okay!’

The talking around the room continued for a few moments before Dr. Bolt began speaking, “If you could all find a seat? We’ll begin this debriefing?”

Camille picked me up and placed me on her lap as she sat down, giving me a reassuring hug while she turned me toward the group.

“Since everyone may not know everyone here, let me introduce myself, and we’ll go around the table. I’m Doctor Bolt, leader of the Liberty Watch,” she said with a smile.

Next to her, a man said, “I’m Manic.” He was wearing a suit of black armor with gold trim, and I vaguely remembered him having some sort of magnetic powers.

The others went down the line, a large woman named Tonnage, another woman named Rummage, and the latest heartthrob superhero Neptune, dressed in his faux Roman armor. Agent Caruthers and Agent Sanders introduced themselves before Camille introduced herself as Sora and me as Emerald Baby. Her dad rounded out the group.

“Okay, now that we have the pleasantries out of the way, what the hell happened tonight?” Agent Caruthers asked me.

I shrugged, “We had gone out to eat with Sora’s aunt for dinner. I was playing the good baby and ignoring some anti-Mergent comments from her when I was nearly decapitated by a flying plate of spaghetti. I hopped up to defend myself and found Rosemerta and Maponus standing there. After that, it’s mostly a blur of a fight to me. I managed to perform a spell on Rosemerta that I hoped finished her off for good here… but after that, I must have blacked out.”

“What do you have to add, Sora?”

I listened as Camille filled in some gaps about everything. She had her own battle with Maponus, which was joined by Tigress. Right when I finished Rosemerta, I was knocked out when Maponus flung a table that caught me by surprise. I was unconscious as the two of them fought him for another minute, and he decided to retreat. After making sure I was alright, they booked it out of there and came to their headquarters.

“I can’t believe they made another attempt so soon!” Camille’s dad said. “Any ideas where to find this man?”

Agent Sanders nodded, “Pretty sure we’ll find him when Emerald goes undercover.”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea at this point?” Camille asked.

“It doesn’t matter if it is or not; it’s what’s got to happen. I won’t let innocent children be abused if I can help it.” I replied.

Questions were asked of the others who had been there, too, to clarify the story. This went on for a long while before the topic moved to whether we should be immediately escorted back to Bechtel. Finally, they decided it would be something to think about for the next day, and it would just be best to head back to the hotel for the night.

I was placed back into the carrier with a pacifier and put back in my original dress. Camille carried me by the handle, and we found her mom holding Cassidy in her lap in the lobby area. Both were fast asleep, and I could see that Cassidy had wet her pants to the point her Pull-Up leaked. I used a quick spell to dry her dress and her mom before Camille woke her up. “Thanks,” she whispered as she rubbed her mom’s shoulder.

“Mom?” She said, “We’re done; we’re going to the hotel now?”

Her mom blinked several times as she woke up. Camille’s dad took Cassidy as her mom sleepily stood up, and we headed for the elevator. A blanket appeared from somewhere, covering the carrier, and I sighed. They left it on as I heard some cameras click and questions asked as we entered Tigress’ car. After she finished buckling the seat, Camille pulled the blanket from on top and said to me, “Well, that was an adventure…?”

“Will all of those pictures put them in danger?” I asked her quietly, referring to her family.

She shook her head, “Those reporters don’t know it yet, but all of their pictures will mostly be blurry messes. The only ones that will be okay are the ones with known superheroes in their costumes.”

“That’s a neat trick!” I said with a smile.

“I think so,” she said with a proud smile.

The ride to the hotel was thankfully shorter than the one to get to the headquarters from the restaurant. Somehow, we went into the hotel and upstairs to our rooms without anyone accosting us. Camille had latched my carrier back into the stroller. She pushed me into the room before I immediately noticed a problem. Her expression scared me, and I wasted no time magicking myself out of the harness and doing a front flip to look into our rooms.

Everything inside was overturned, suitcases emptied and strewn about. A message was scrawled on the wall in some dark red liquid that looked eerily like blood.

 

Princess, I am coming for you!!!
YOU AND YOUR KINGDOM WILL BE MINE!

 

I felt a need to vomit right then and barely held it in.

“I guess we know who did this…?” I said sadly. “I’m so sorry for all this trouble,” I looked at her mom and dad.

“Not your fault,” her dad said, coming over and picking me up. “This kind of thing seems to happen around Camille all the time – it’s refreshing to see her not be the main target,” he tried to smile and lighten things up. But, unfortunately, he failed as Cassidy woke up suddenly and screamed…

The next hour was spent with Cassidy sobbing her way back to sleep, Camille’s mom crying, and finally, Agent Caruthers showing up. Eventually, a decision was made to head back to the Watch’s headquarters, where they had a few rooms we could stay in. By the time we were back there, I was exhausted!

“I’m sorry, we don’t have a crib for her…?” Dr. Bolt apologized to Camille’s mom. The room looked like a hotel room with two large king-size beds, a small kitchenette, a living room, and a bathroom.

“I don’t have to sleep in one,” I said to her, “It’s not like I’d even be hurt if I rolled out of bed.”

Caireen voiced her dissent, wanting to create a new crib, but I said ‘no’ solidly enough that she backed off. As a compromise, I found myself in the same bed as Camille, with a pillow and wadded-up blanket blocking the side of the bed opposite her. Camille changed me into a fresh diaper and a pair of my pajamas. “Good thing we just left all of your clothes in your diaper bag,” she told me as she zipped up the footed pajamas.

I nodded, “I wonder if he didn’t even know for certain I was staying there?”

She shook her head, “He had to have been certain to do that much damage.”

I nodded.

“Bottle?”

I nodded again, “Am I going to run out of milk before we get back to Bechtel?”

She laughed, “Even if you drank twice what you’ve been drinking, we wouldn’t run out for a month just with what I brought. Poor Hannah must be pumping all of the time!” She said the last part, kind of sadly.

I nodded, “I think she has to wake up in the night… She hasn’t been waking me up when she does it.”

“Do you think we can just get me back to Bechtel tomorrow? I hate to endanger your family…?”

She hugged me and then positioned me on her lap to give me the warmed bottle, “I don’t think we’re running away from here. Worst case, it’s just Maponus now.” Then, her voice changed, “Your Highness, I know for a fact that Rosemerta is no more here on this plane.” There was a smugness to her voice that made me briefly smile.

I nodded my response silently. Then I began nursing on the bottle, not bothering to take it from Camille’s hand as she gently sang a beautiful lullaby that Caireen recognized as an fairie lullaby.

 

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

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 to work around Friday postings of ‘Lights, Camera, …What?!?’ 

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.

[DiaperedPrince]

13 hours ago, BabySofia said:

Princess, I am coming for you!!!
YOU AND YOUR KINGDOM WILL BE MINE!

Scary!! I need to reread this at some point.

[BabySofia]

1 minute ago, DiaperedPrince said:

Scary!! I need to reread this at some point.

<nods>

[BabySofia]

Chapter 45: Preparations

 

I RUBBED MY eyes as I woke up in my crib in Caireen’s castle. I felt sore as I pushed myself to my feet and discovered my diaper was already messy. Tired and frustrated, I gave into my inner infant and began crying for Caireen. Fortunately, she didn’t make me wait long before she hugged me in her arms. “Shh…” she bounced me gently in her arms as she walked to the changing table and laid me down. My nightgown was pulled over my head, and she pulled down the cover on the destroyed cloth diaper. The pins were removed, and she soon had my butt suspended in the air as she wiped everything clean.

She cooed at me as she did so, and I was soon in a fresh diaper and a dress. Caireen carried me over to the rocking chair. She hummed a tune as she pulled the bodice of her dress away from her breast. I looked hungrily at her nipple and realized how much I missed Hannah! I latched on and nursed, was burped, switched, and burped again in the routine that had become normal.

“Better?” She asked me as she sat me on her knee.

I shrugged, “I guess…?”

“Why don’t we take the morning and just have you play like a normal little girl,” she told me.

I had a thought, “Could I play in my treehouse?”

She looked thoughtfully for a moment, “That’s probably not a good idea, Princess; let’s stay inside the castle until we get through with the crisis?”

I pouted but nodded. Caireen sat me on the floor next to my toys, and I began playing with Emie and a couple of other dolls. I could now do way more than change their clothes! I adjusted some of their faces and eyes to make them more lifelike before having a tea party with them. It was nice to not be stressed about the outside world for a while, and I totally missed when I messed my diaper again until Caireen gathered me up and changed me.

“Time for lunch, and then we have a meeting and some more training to do,” she told me.

I sighed as she wiped me, ‘A week ago, I’d probably have given anything to not play like a baby… right now, I’d settle for getting all day to play with Lily.’

I felt sad as she carried me downstairs. It was sobering as I realized how much I missed my family, Hannah, and ‘normal’ life. She squeezed me tight as she carried me into a formal dining hall I’d never eaten in. The walls were covered with gilded frame paintings, tapestries, and large curtains draped everywhere. The table looked to have been created from the very top of a giant tree limb, with a massive bottom that expanded in branches to the leveled top. The top was smooth and varnished to the point that it looked like it could have been glass!

Ornate chairs sat all along the long table, and there were a dozen of Caireen’s generals and ten other strangers. They all rose and gave low bows or curtseys as she walked to her seat. I was set down in my ornate highchair that had been placed next to her chair. I noted that, unlike modern highchairs, there were no safety straps to hold me in! It was plushly padded, though, and I liked the comfortable me-sized seat as she pushed me closer to use the table for my food.

She sat in her own chair and said, “Please, be seated.”

I had grown so accustomed to eating baby food or nursing from her most of the time in her world that it was a novelty to just have small portions of the grown-up dishes here. I learned that several Dukes and their Duchess wives had arrived in the last couple of days. They were all retreating from their lands before Camulus could attack. Caireen had given the order a day ago that we had to consolidate here at the castle if we were to have a chance to take on his forces. It was clear they were not pleased about it, but it was also equally clear that they knew their survival dictated that decision.

“How go the fortifications on the south side?” Caireen asked one of her generals.

“Slowly but surely. We have plenty of manpower, but quarrying the stone we need is taking more time than I fear we have.”

I looked up at Caireen and tugged on her sleeve. She leaned her head down, “Can I help with magic somehow?”

She smiled and patted me on the head, “That wasn’t supposed to be your lesson for today, but it would be a good one!”

The Generals had gotten used to me not following the ‘children must be seen, not heard’ mantra of their culture. However, the three Duchesses down the table seemed scandalized that I would dare speak at the table.

Caireen glared at them when one whispered, “Why does she have the babe here anyway? She’s not even old enough to have weaned yet!” Made it to the front of the table.

“Because I am the Crown Princess,” I opened my mouth. “I have every right to be here! It’s my fate that brought about King Camulus being a fool and attacking us.”

Caireen patted my head, “My daughter is, of course, correct. She has the right to be here, Duchess O’Cleirigh.” She stared her down, “You, however, are not necessary if you continue to display the poor manners you accuse my daughter of!” I glared at the Duchess in question, and she looked away. Another way down the table smirked at the rebuke, and I wondered if she might be a better person to talk to at some point. She looked younger, barely out of her teens, but I noted her husband was probably close to my parent’s age. I turned my gaze back to Caireen, who looked at the generals, “Princess Sofia and I will come and assist you this afternoon as part of her instruction.”

“Your Majesty, it may not be safe out of the castle walls…?”

“Can’t be any worse than what I’ve faced within.” I meant to say inside my head, but my tongue slipped.

“Sofia!” Caireen rebuked me.

“Sorry,” I told her.

She sighed, “I think we’ll be fine if it’s today. Please ensure we have an entourage of guards that can protect us. I hope we can make some headway on fortifications to slow their army down. If we can cause them to break their forces on a wall and pick off some of them, we may yet hold them off.”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” the general said. He waived an aide to come over and gave orders to prepare our guards.

I nibbled on a small cake slice as Caireen discussed the upcoming war. Then, after a final look around the table, she told the generals, “We’ll depart in a half-hour; I need to see to Princess Sofia first.”

She stood and picked me up, and everyone else stood and waited patiently as she carried me out. A trip to my nursery was quickly made, and the soaked diaper was removed before she said, “Do you have any room in your tummy still?”

I looked at her and nodded.

“Let’s feed you some proper milk then, and we’ll get going.”

She nursed me from her breasts, and I felt the comfort in the act that had once just been embarrassing. ‘I really miss Hannah!’ I thought again. ‘I’ll never complain about nursing from her again!’

When I was done, she made sure there was a bag packed with some changes for me before we exited the castle. Outside troops were on horseback. She handed me to a woman and then hopped onto a horse herself. I was surprised that she wasn’t riding a side saddle to protect her modesty, but I didn’t say anything as I was handed up and placed in front of her.

My eyes widened at the gigantic beast below me. I clung tightly to the edge of the saddle in front of me as Caireen set the horse into motion slowly, and then soon, we were at full gallop! After a while, my terror became glee, and I decided it was kind of fun! We soon stopped at an area where men were trying to build a wall with earth and boulders across the road to the castle.

Her top-ranking general took me from her and set me on the ground as I looked around at probably a thousand men and boys working on building the wall. I felt a bit of a twist in my stomach in the hopes that these were all volunteers…

“Your Majesty, what is your plan here?” The general asked as she stood next to me.

“Give us a few minutes, and you’ll see. Go ahead and clear the workers back to this side of the barricade.”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” he said and gave orders to some officers who spread the order.

“So, this will be your lesson today,” Caireen told me, kneeling beside me. “You can still feel the main ley line, right?”

I nodded, “Yes?”

“Good, you’ll need all of that manna available! Now…” she gave me an explanation and a thirty-minute lesson on the principle that would let me magically create a solid barrier. She had me not only visualize the wall but also a gateway that could be solidly closed when needed as well. Then, with all that in mind, she said, “Go ahead and try Sofia.”

Thinking back to a certain green character about ‘size matters not,’ I looked at the earth before me. I visualized how to bring it up from the ground beneath. Moments later, the ground began shaking as a fifty-foot thick wall of black granite rose in a line from the edge of the valley, upwards of one-hundred-and-fifty feet. To divert the river that ran through the valley, I visualized a complex culvert that went down into the ground sixty feet, wound around, and finally rejoined the waterway on the other side. It would create a small pond, too, that might help if we needed a water supply. It wouldn’t dangerously flood, but it would keep anyone from swimming upstream through it and getting to this side. I carefully made grates and other covers that didn’t impede the water. Still, it would discourage anyone from sending a bomb or something like that through it to this side.

I took care to visualize a gate of a solid piece of granite that would drop with the simple pull of a lever to completely seal off the entrance. A traditional wooden door and metal gate were added just for extra aesthetic points in my mind. At the top of the long wall, I visualized five separate towers that could be used to spot the enemy and placed embrasures all along the wall to protect our archers. Staircases were placed strategically at points for men to climb and retreat from the wall as needed.

For good measure, I added a sign that no one could see from our side: Come and Take It! I thought it was an appropriate saying to borrow from Texas.

I felt my strength wane and stumbled to the ground, but Caireen caught me. All the men and boys around me stood in shock for a moment. Then, almost as one, they all knelt and bowed their heads. I found myself waving at them as Caireen told the General, “She should be able to do the other side of the valley tomorrow. After that, we’ll see if she has any other ideas.”

“My word… Princess Sofia did that by herself?” I looked at him, staring at me in awe.

She hugged me, “Yep, my baby girl is much more capable than she may seem.”

Caireen carried me over to some shade and laid out a blanket. I was, at that point, just tired and exhausted enough I couldn’t hardly keep my eyes open. “Let’s get you changed, fed, and then I think that’s probably about all your pretty little eyes will stay open for today!”

I numbly nodded with a feeling of pride in what I had accomplished. The castle sat in a valley with steep cliffs around it, and the only approach was the road from the north or the south that followed the canyon the river had carved out. I sat still as she changed a very stinky diaper. ‘I must have done that with all the energy I used?’ I wondered. I mentally shrugged; I had no control, and it wasn’t something to dwell on.

Caireen was soon exposing her breasts to me again, and I gulped not only milk, but also the extra manna she shared with me in those moments. Soon I fell blissfully asleep!

 

THE NEXT THING I knew I heard a noise around the room. Camille’s mom was working on her hair and noticed that I sat up in bed next to the still-sleeping Camille. She walked over to me and picked me up, “Ready to wake up?” she whispered to me as I noted the sounds of the shower going.

I shrugged in response as she felt the diaper underneath my nightgown. “Why don’t we change that wet diapee and see if you want to stay awake or not?”

I nodded and watched as she grabbed my backpack. She looked inside and shook her head, seeing the larger compartments. She pulled out one of my diapers, wipes, and the changing pad and laid it all out on top of a large dresser. She picked me up and lay me down on the pad. I could tell she’d had plenty of recent practice with diapers as she quickly but gently changed the wet diaper. “You want to go back to bed?” she asked me.

I shook my head, “Maybe I can look at my homework…? I figure the cat’s out of the bag with me not being a baby with Cassidy now?”

She softly giggled, “Sort of… but you’re right, no point in you pretending to be a normal baby right now where we’re staying.”

I nodded and let her set me down on the couch that was in the living room area. She placed my backpack next to me, and I dug inside for my Mythical Fundamentals book and placed it next to me. I saw my phone in the front pocket and pulled it out to find dozens of worried messages from Hannah and my parents. I felt guilty and looked at the time. It was still a bit early to text Hannah, but I sent her a message to see if she was up. My parents were probably up, but I didn’t want to wake Cassidy by talking on the phone with them. It was also early enough I knew they were probably both just getting around. Mom was probably enjoying a quiet cup of coffee before Lily woke up.

I sighed, feeling increasingly homesick about my family back home as the phone lit and showed a reply from Hannah.

‘OMG, are you okay?!?’ Hannah asked me.

‘Yes, I think my body healed overnight.’

Dots showed her typing, and I waited for her response, ‘What exactly happened? The news said that there was an explosion…?’

I spent the next ten minutes texting her back and forth while also trying to study some. The crazy memory I had now meant I had accomplished some studying before Camille’s dad came out of the shower. Her mom asked me, “Sofia, do you want a shower? Or a bath?”

I looked at my body and felt some stiffness still. My hair felt kind of off too, so I nodded.

“Which one?”

I knew what teenage me would say, but I found myself saying, “A bath please?”

“Okay, give me a few minutes, and I’ll run the water for you,” she said with a smile.

“Thanks,” I told her.

She came out for me a moment later, and I saw the bathtub had some bubbles. She pulled my diaper and nightgown off before gently setting me inside. I watched her look torn, “What’s wrong?”

“Umm… I know in my mind that you’re a teenager like my daughter…?”

“But I’m also a baby?”

She nodded, “Should I go ahead and wash you?”

I shrugged, “I don’t mind if you want to. It’s up to you, though. I can handle it myself if you would prefer I do so.”

I felt Caireen nudge a bit against that option, but I didn’t want her mom to be uncomfortable. “I would actually prefer to stay,” she said, “sorry… it would make me feel more comfortable to give you the bath?”

I smiled, “That’s fine; I’m used to it now. I haven’t had a bath on my own since I emerged.”

Camille’s mom was gentle as she washed me from head to toe. Even though my hair had been cleaned the other day, she found some remnants of the exploded dinner last night and scrubbed my hair with baby shampoo twice. As she was doing so, I felt tears prickle in my eyes.

“Oh, Sofia, what’s wrong? This is no tear shampoo?” She asked nervously.

I shook my head and wondered what was wrong before I found myself saying, “I miss my mommy!”

Somehow my baby brain tripped, and I began crying uncontrollably as she pulled me from the water and swaddled me in a towel. She bounced and cooed at me for a long while before taking me out to the main room. I could see through my tear-filled eyes that Camille was sitting up in bed. “Camille, would you get her a baba?”

She looked startled but nodded, and soon I was propped in the crook of Camille’s mom’s arm with her holding a warm bottle of milk to my lips. I didn’t hesitate and began quickly nursing it. Somehow Hannah’s milk made me feel like she was there, and I started feeling better as I began sucking at the empty bottle. “Do you need another one?” her mom asked me.

I thought for a moment before nodding, “Please?”

Luckily Camille hadn’t gotten in the bathroom yet, so she presented her mom with another bottle and took the empty one. I nursed at the second one much slower, feeling each pull of milk making me calmer. At some point, I must have dozed off.

 

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

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 to work around Friday postings of ‘Lights, Camera, …What?!?’ 

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]

9 hours ago, BabySofia said:

“I miss my mommy!”

I’d actually just thought in the paragraphs preceding this remark how much I missed Sofia’s interaction with Hannah. 🥹 Camille and her family are wonderful, but there are some voids that can only be filled by certain loved ones. It’s part of what makes Sofia so relatable.

Oh, and Chapter 454?! Feel like I missed a few hundred chapters. 🤣

[BabySofia]

3 minutes ago, FloridaKid said:

I’d actually just thought in the paragraphs preceding this remark how much I missed Sofia’s interaction with Hannah. 🥹 Camille and her family are wonderful, but there are some voids that can only be filled by certain loved ones. It’s part of what makes Sofia so relatable.

Thanks! 🙂

[BabySofia]

2 hours ago, FloridaKid said:

Oh, and Chapter 454?! Feel like I missed a few hundred chapters. 🤣

Grr… I’ve almost done this a bunch but kept catching it. Oops! Fixed!

[BabySofia]

Chapter 46: Don’t Hold Back

I MUST NOT have been out long, but I slept through being dressed in an embarrassingly cute dress that said ‘gobble gobble’ with a turkey on the front of it. I had a pair of thick white tights covering my legs and diaper. Camille saw me sit up from where she was looking at her phone. She walked over to me and asked, “You want to call your parents? Wish them a Happy Thanksgiving?”

“It’s still early still…?” I thought about the two-hour time difference but realized my dad’s parents were supposed to be down. So that meant my Mom and Grandma were probably already up cooking. “Sure,” I said.

She handed me my phone, and I used FaceTime to call my mom’s phone. It rang so long that I wasn’t sure she would pick it up, but when I saw a paper towel in her hands, I knew she was trying to clean her hands up from cooking something.

“Sofia!” she said.

“Hi, Mommy,” I told her.

“Are you okay?” She asked nervously.

“Better now that I can see you,” I told her with a tear that rolled down my face. “Physically, I’m fine… I’m getting homesick, though, without you or Hannah.”

“Oh, baby…” Mom and I talked for twenty minutes and introduced the new ‘me’ to my grandmother. Grandpa and Dad apparently were elsewhere, and Lily was playing downstairs.

I just wanted a hug from Mom, but I had to settle for my hour-long conversation. When I finished, fresh tears came down my face, and Camille hugged me. “It’s okay; I know you’ll see them soon!”

“I hope you’re right,” I told her as I regained some control.

Just as we were finally ready to go to Camille’s aunt’s house for lunch, her aunt called her parents. It was clear in no uncertain terms that the Mergent baby was not allowed to come! I could hear the angry words from her side and a very terse response from her mom, telling her, “Fine, we’ll stay away from you all until you can grow up.”

I felt fresh tears because I felt terrible about it. Camille’s mom sensed that “Sofia, don’t blame yourself. She’s an idiot and barely tolerates Camille. It’s time we cut ties with her until she gets a clue!”

“Sorry…” I told her still, “I’ve ruined your trip here.”

She hugged me reassuringly, “It’s not your fault!”

With that, no one was quite sure what to do until Tigress came to the door to escort us to her Aunt’s. “Umm… change in plans,” Camille’s dad told her.

“Oh?”

“We’ve been uninvited for dinner today…” he said.

“Oh…” she said, “I’m sorry to hear that - I’ve been there before. Anything we can do?”

He shrugged, “Probably take the time, I’m guessing, for her to grow up. We’ll just need to develop a new food plan today, I guess…?”

“Well… If you don’t mind being around a bunch of crazy superheroes, we have a traditional Thanksgiving meal planned here? All we ask is that you please promise us to keep their regular identities a secret?”

“That would be wonderful,” Camille’s mom said. “Can I help?”

“Sure,” she told her.

The rest of the day evolved into one of the more surrealistic days I’d had yet – which was saying something! Camille sat in one room and played with Cassidy and me while the Watch members and her mom made a late lunch feast. The heroes turned out to be serious goofballs like my friends at school, and it was the coolest Thanksgiving ever! Cassidy seemed to have fun being silly with them playing with her. Meanwhile, Camille and I soaked up all the stories they told about each other’s exploits. Afterward, Camille changed me, and I found myself in Tigress’ lap as she gently rubbed my back. I ended up napping in her comforting, soft furry arms.

 

I WAS SURPRISED when I woke up in my crib in Caireen’s castle. I felt myself on alert as I felt someone watching me, but I was relieved to see it was Caireen. My stomach grumbled and hungrier than I had ever felt in her world. ‘I wonder if it’s because I over-exerted myself earlier with the wall?’

I stood up and made the universal ‘pick me up’ gesture to her.

She smiled and cooed at me for several minutes before changing a soaked diaper. “Let’s get you fed, and then we’ll get you back to bed, sweetie. You still need some more rest here.”

I found myself hungrily nursing at her breast as she sang a lullaby to me.

 

I WOKE UP lying down on the couch in our temporary room. Camille’s mom sat at a desk on a laptop computer, but the others were nowhere in sight. I sat up and asked, “Where is everyone?”

“They went to a playground with Cassidy to burn off some energy while you napped,” she told me as she walked over to me and picked me up. She squeezed at the padding underneath my tights and said, “Let’s get that diaper changed?”

It had become increasingly easy to just play the good baby and let her quickly change me. She decided to leave off the tights when she was done, “I’m really not missing changing diapers all of the time,” she told me with a smile.

“I’d love to not need them,” I told her sadly.

She hugged me and then took the used diaper to the bathroom. “Why don’t you work on some of that homework you mentioned?”

I nodded and got to work for a couple hours while the others were out. Unfortunately, I was so focused on my Magic Theory book that Camille successfully snuck up on me and performed a tickle attack!

“Stop!!!” I whined as she went longer than Hannah ever did.

When she finally stopped, she had an evil grin, “Why?”

I stuck my tongue out and discovered that was the wrong move because she had just started up again. When she did finally stop, I told her, “Now that you made me soak my diaper, can you please change me?”

She stared at me for a moment with her finger on her chin, “I guess… since you used the magic word!”

We spent the rest of the night alternating between us studying and playing with Cassidy when she came to get us. She was baffled about me being littler than her but working on homework like her big sis. I managed to also talk to Hannah again later on for another half-hour. I also spoke to my entire family for another hour. Lily was so excited to see my face, “Sofia!!!!!” She exclaimed, “Look what Grammy bought me! I big girl!!!!” she pulled up the skirt of her dress to excitedly show me the Pull-Up she now wore. She made a face, though, as she said, “Uh-oh!”

“Did you have an accident?” Mom asked her.

She began crying, and the two left for a few minutes while I talked with Grandma and Grandpa. They really did seem to mostly be okay with the new me. They had been happy to see that their baby granddaughter was beginning to be potty-trained. Still, her former big brother looked like a baby in diapers forever!

I finished the call and felt better at seeing them, but also slightly more depressed, knowing how long it might be before I got to go home to see them in person. ‘At least Mom may have some luck potty-training Lily with me gone.’

Before I went to bed, I spent another couple of hours trying to catch up on the semester’s missed work. Working with my new memory, I also began trying to get ahead on some of the reading. Since they were putting me undercover so soon, I didn’t want to just come back and be even further behind. The last thing I wanted to do was repeat my freshman year - a third time!

 

THAT NIGHT IN Caireen’s kingdom was spent working on a wall on the opposite side of the valley from the first one I had made. As I worked that day, I couldn’t help but feel embarrassed by the stares of the people around me. All of them looked at me in awe, bowing, curtsying, or kneeling before me way too often for my comfort. I completed the same type of structure and was beyond exhausted when I finished!

As I woke up on that Black Friday morning, I listened to Camille’s parents talking about shopping opportunities they wanted to take. In the hopes of a safer shopping trip, they decided they would go shopping without the two of us. Camille was disappointed, but I had already been scheduled to go into the simulations Doctor Bolt had set up for me again. With the time dilation that the simulations caused, I spent about five weeks practicing being a twelve-month-old baby. That time was spent attempting to make arrests and getting my ass handed to me one hundred percent of the time! Each time the simulation went dark, I had to blink tears out of my eyes that I was failing so badly.

Before the last time they sent me in, Tigress asked me, “Why do you keep holding back on using your magic?”

“I’m not; I just used my shield to last a few minutes before they blew up the place!”

“Have you used the spell I saw that you used on Rosemerta? Or any of the other offensive spells you probably have?”

I shrugged, “I guess not? That’s more like being an executioner, though,” I said nervously.

Camille came in right then, “How’s it going? Manic told me you all were still down here?”

“Trying to get Emerald to open up her abilities in the sim,” she told her.

“Can you handle a team member?” she asked Doctor Bolt.

“Umm… yes, but I only have it programmed for…?”

I guessed what she meant, but Camille said, “For a baby?”

She nodded, “I don’t think we have time today to reprogram it.”

“What would happen if I went in?” She smiled at me, “Would I be a wittle baby girl like Emerald?”

I smiled and blushed simultaneously as she said, “Umm… yes…?”

“Put me in!”

Shortly after that, I found myself sharing some blocks on a cushioned floor of the daycare center with a baby Camille who looked a lot like Cassidy! We spent a simulated hour crawling around before I needed to poop. When I was done, I realized Camille was making the same face I just had, and I watched her sit down in it and giggle. For whatever reason, I decided to follow her lead. We had a half-hour of playtime before a daycare worker picked us up and said, “Uh-oh,” with a sniff, “we have two stinky butts here!”

The daycare worker griped about us intentionally smushing it for them to clean up to her coworker as she cleaned us up. After that, everything went normal until lunchtime. Then instead of being taken for a nap to our cribs, they carried us back to the back room where everything had been taking place in these sims. Maponus and his cohorts were preparing to strip Camille of her diaper, and I decided not to wait any longer. This time I preemptively wrapped them in cages and wrapped my shield around us.

Another man went to shoot, and I caught him with a freezing spell. Several other shots were fired as I took out some others before noticing Maponus had broken free. He was about to perform his own attack, so I used the newer attack I’d learned and pushed a wall of rock from the ground up around him in a box to the ceiling. Before he could get out, I used the freeze spell on him and pulled the rock down. It was clear he was dead, and I felt only slightly guilty about that as the simulation ended.

“What did I do wrong now?” I asked.

“Nothing, that was a successful run,” Doctor Bolt told me.

“Really?”

“Really… Out of curiosity, why didn’t you hold back that time?”

I looked at Camille coming out of the simulator, “I had a friend to protect?”

“Whatever it was, that’s the way you survive! Don’t hold anything back if it gets to that point!” She looked at me and added, “Never trust a Mergent to be a lower level than you. There’s no such thing as cheating in a fight – always do whatever you must to win!”

“Yes, Ma’am,” I told her.

“Now, why don’t you two get cleaned up so Sofia can meet with Agent Sanders, who just arrived?”

Camille stripped out of the suit, and I looked away as I realized she had a genuine accident in the simulation. Given how often she cleaned me up, I decided to help. She blushed as she looked over at me and said, “Thanks… I guess it’s about time you repaid the favor?”

I smirked. “I figured you didn’t want the diaper, though?” She tickled me and soon had me dressed in a green Christmas outfit her parents had bought me while they had been shopping. It had a white fur hem on the bottom of the skirt, and the long velvet sleeves ended in the same white fur. She dressed me in white tights and put my hair up to go with my tiara. Little buckled black Mary Jane shoes were placed on my feet, and she squealed, “You look so cute!!!!”

I smiled at her and said ‘thank you,’ all the while wondering why I should be that dressed up then!

Agent Sanders stopped by as planned then, and I smirked as he didn’t hide the confused expression on his face very well. “Agent Emerald… you look pretty today,” he saved himself.

I curtseyed and said, “Thanks, Agent Sanders. You needed to see me?” I asked him as I pointed to the couch for him to sit down, and I sat opposite him.

“Yes, I would like to review your travel arrangements and cover for next week when we pick you up.”

I nodded, “Wouldn’t this be better to wait and tell Hannah too?”

He shrugged, “I’ve already done a video conference with her, so she’s aware.”

I nodded, “Okay then… How are we doing this?”

“Next Friday, we’ll pick you and Hannah up from Bechtel. Then, we’ll drive to the town and transfer you to your car. There’s already a one-bedroom apartment for the two of you to stay in. Hannah will have agents acting as her parents to help move you in. You’ll have some supplies, but you’ll likely need to go to the grocery store once you get settled in.”

He led me through the rest of the plan of Hannah beginning to work at a department store as a seasonal worker. They would have her call and set up a space for me at the daycare Friday after we got into the apartment. She would drop me off in the morning, go to work, and pick me up before the daycare closed each day. The hope was that a week would be enough. Still, the operation was set to continue up until Christmas Eve if necessary.

“If it goes that long… is there some way we can see our families?”

He shrugged, “Hopefully, it doesn’t… but if it does, we’ll jump off that bridge when we come to it. We don’t normally use undercover agents so young, so I don’t really want us leaving you under too long. We may pull you out if nothing comes out of it and try another tactic in a couple of months.”

I nodded, “Hopefully, we can wrap it up quickly. How old did you decide I need to be?”

“Your cover is that you just had your first birthday this week, actually.”

“Smash cake and everything?” I smirked.

He smiled, “Probably; Hannah seems like the kind of mommy that would insist on that!”

“What are our cover names?” I asked him.

Hannah would be Haley Stephenson, nineteen years old, and I would be her daughter Olivia. “Olivia?!?” I made a face about the name.

“What’s wrong with Olivia?” he asked.

I shrugged, “Not my favorite name. I knew one once that was a real bitch.”

He looked mildly stunned at my language, “You know you can’t swear at daycare, right?”

“Don’t worry, it’ll be all baby babble and Ma-ma or baba. Maybe ‘no,’ but that’s all I could speak at that age. This is going to suck.”

He smiled, “Hopefully, it’s worth it in the end?”

“I hope so… I want to take down those monsters!”

He left after giving me a packet I had placed inside my bag. It contained a driver’s license, social security card, and birth certificate for Hannah’s identity, as well as a birth certificate and shot record for me.

I was looking at a ten-page legend for Hannah to memorize about her background when Camille peaked at the document pile and said, “Oh, you just turned one today! We should get you a cake to smash into!”

I glared at her and pushed everything into the bag. “For your information, I’m really eighteen months old!”

I learned I probably shouldn’t antagonize her because I was tortured by the tickle monster for a long while. Her mom came in and said, “Oh Camille, can you change her wet diaper, and then we’ll leave?”

“Leave?!?” I asked nervously.

She smiled, “Relax, we’re going out to eat, but half of the Liberty Watch is watching out for us. They’re pretty sure Maponus was seen leaving the city anyway.”

To my surprise, the evening went smoothly, with no explosions, bad guys, or anything else! We had a nice dinner and finally made it up to the top of Rockefeller Center like I’d been promised. It was frigid at the top with the wind, but the view of the city was spectacular! We stayed there long enough to pose in many pictures and then picked up some souvenirs to take home. I grabbed a shirt for Hannah that I thought she would like and a couple of Christmas presents for my family from the gift shops there and around the area. As we left Rockefeller Center, I couldn’t help but note the still-destroyed statue of Prometheus behind yellow police tape. I felt terrible for the lives lost that week, but I held the tears back until I went to sleep in my crib that night.

 

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

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 47: Model

THE DAY IN Caireen’s world was spent making other fortifications around the valley. I had suggested building some tall tower structures around the valley’s perimeter walls to allow archers to defend in the unlikely possibility Camulus decided to come around the sides. They became reinforced mini-citadels with housing for a small garrison of two-hundred archers a piece and space for three trebuchets to perch. With the skill of Caireen’s soldiers, combined with magically enhanced arrows, the soldiers could land a bombardment outside the new walls of the valley - as well as inside if needed. The likelihood of the structures being overrun was minimal. Still, I also built a magical self-destruct so they couldn’t be used against us at the castle.

Once we had discussed the designs, I managed to do one of them that day. It left me nearly as exhausted as I had with the walls the days before! On the plus side, it allowed me time to cuddle with Caireen and feel loved in her arms.

Saturday morning, I woke up excited! Camille and I were cutting our trip short and leaving a day earlier than planned to head back to Bechtel! Her parents gave her a tearful goodbye at the train station. I also received hugs and kisses as their honorary grandkid! With my extra days in Caireen’s world, it felt like it had been more than a week since I’d left Hannah, and I was bouncing with excitement when she let me out of the carrier seat.

“Oh my, someone is a happy little girl?” a woman nearby said to Camille.

“Yes, she is! She’s getting to go home to Mommy after visiting her Granny,” she told her.

“How old is she?”

“Eighteen months, and she’s never been away from her mommy for more than a few hours before.”

“I bet there were some real tears from that?”

“Like you wouldn’t believe!” Camille laughed, “My sister owes me!”

She chose that moment to tickle me and then felt my diaper. “Come on, Princess Soggy Pants, let’s go get you a new diapee.”

She left the carrier in our reserved seat and carried the diaper bag and me to the restroom. Unfortunately, the changing table in it was almost not even big enough for me, and she left my ankles dangling off the edge of it. “You’d think they’d know babies older than newborns need changing,” a woman said as she washed her hands next to us.

Camill agreed, “She’s not even close to being potty trained either!”

I accepted my pacifier from her and couldn’t help blushing. The train ride was long and boring, but my energy level kept growing for some reason. Camille practically had to wrangle me to sit still long enough to drink a few bottles and eat lunch on the way. Finally, just before dinner, we pulled up in the shuttle from the station to Bechtel. Camille had texted Hannah that we were almost there, and she practically yanked me free from the carrier seat to hug me.

“Oh my God, I’ve missed you so much!!!!” Hannah said to me. She squeezed me tight, and we both cried more than I expected.

“I missed you too, Mommy,” I told her. My brain froze for a moment, and I wanted to take back those words.

She giggled, “Well, I guess we know that being separated isn’t something we want anymore, huh?” She said as she kissed my forehead. “You two haven’t eaten dinner yet, right?”

“No,” Camille said, “We didn’t have time since we got to the station.”

“Let’s grab your stuff, and we’ll go straight into the Friar Hall?”

I blushed as Hannah helped Camille put the carrier seat into the stroller. “This is adorable! I didn’t think the carriers were quite big enough for her? And what’s up with the eye and hair color Sofia?”

I started for a moment and then released the spell that changed me back to normal.

“Camille made one slightly bigger to help me blend in as a younger baby,” I told her.

“I thought it would do her good before your upcoming assignment?”

Hannah nodded and continued carrying me while Camille stacked my bag in the carrier seat and pulled along her small suitcase. I blushed as we entered since everyone would assume rightly that the stroller and carrier seat were for me. I watched Streaked laughing at me from across the Hall but knew better than to engage with her after my warning with Captain Tilling.

I found it refreshing to once again be able to fill my plate with as much food as I wanted! I was excited to not have to hide the fact I was eating a lot. As I ate, Hannah was asking constant questions about our trip. I noticed that Camille did her best not to talk about the last simulation run she had joined me for. I smirked, thinking of how cute Baby Camille had been! Then, she pivoted and asked Hannah about her recovery when things hit a little too close to home. She told us the discharges had finally let up the night before, and she hoped she wouldn’t deal with it ever again!

‘Remind me to put an exception into my shield spell!’ I told Caireen.

‘We’ll talk about it more tonight,’ she assured me, ‘it’s not a big deal.’

I was about halfway done with my second plate full of food when I noted I was being stared at by Camille. “You must have been starving that whole trip?!?”

I shrugged, “Kind of; that’s why I kept drinking more bottles, though.”

“What are you going to do on your assignment?” She asked softly. It was only the three of us, and the place was clearing out at the end of the service time.

“What do you mean?” Hannah asked.

I was debating about doing a privacy ward, but Camille beat me to it. “Her cover is just having had her first birthday yesterday?”

“She had her first birthday, and I didn’t get to have her eat a smash cake?” Hannah’s eyes twinkled.

I groaned, “Not funny, Hannah; Camille already made that joke!”

“Anyway, you want her to seem like a normal baby, right? Maybe even have her be behind the development curve, so they think she’s an easier target?”

I groaned but nodded, “Yeah, Agent Sanders and I decided I can say ‘Mama,’ ‘baba,’ and ‘no’ at this point.”

“You’re already breastfeeding her,” she said.

Hannah looked nervously around, “Not so loud!” she whispered back.

“Her privacy ward means no one will hear Hannah,” I told her. “But please… umm…”

“I get it… Maybe Olivia isn’t eating solid foods yet so well?”

“Eewww…” I complained. “You’re not suggesting?!?”

“Yes, but I was thinking of maybe getting Volango to technomage up some ‘special’ baby food with some more calories for you. Maybe something that tastes halfway decent too?”

“She could do that?” I asked, kind of stunned.

“I wouldn’t be surprised?” She paused, “We could probably do the same thing with magic, but with Maponus involved...?”

“Yeah, I’m already worried about my disguise potentially setting off warning bells.”

‘I can teach you a spell that will keep you hidden still,’ Caireen assured me. ‘I like this idea of super baby food!’

‘Of course you do!’ I whined.

“I guess let’s talk to her, Hannah. Do you know if she’s back?”

“She is… but we need to stop at our room first…?”

I smiled, “Okay!”

Hannah decided to try out my new ride and buckled me into the carrier. I made a face at her, but she popped a pacifier in my mouth and said, “Behave! You’re a baby!” Quietly to me in that ‘don’t you dare embarrass Mommy with a tantrum’ voice.

I sucked on the pacifier as she maneuvered the stroller down the sidewalks. Several students peeked in as we passed and waved at me, “Hi, Sofia!” several said. I blushed as she pushed the stroller out of the elevator on our floor and down to our room.

“What are you so embarrassed for?” She asked as she opened our door, “Didn’t you get pushed and carried around like this the whole trip?”

Camille had followed us in, “Yes, but she didn’t know anyone,” she reminded her, trying to help me out. “I’m going to see if I can find Volango; I’ll let you two do your thing! Glad you’re feeling better, Hannah!”

She closed the door behind her, and Hannah began unbuckling my harness. She carried me to the rocking chair and only belatedly thought to check my diaper. “You’re soaked!” She said.

I shrugged, “Sorry… Change me after?” I suggested.

She smiled, “If you pee on me, little girl…?”

“I can’t help it. I’m just a baby!” I told her with a smirk.

“That you are,” she said and bared her nipple for me to latch on.

There was no hesitation from me whatsoever as I hungrily nursed! Hannah seemed just as relieved to have me back to nurse, and the world suddenly seemed genuinely right for the first time since the accident! Sometime after she switched me to her other breast, I felt movement from my rear end, but I just kept nursing. I sighed, ‘I can’t do anything about it.’

Eventually, I began not really sucking any milk out and pulled my head away. Hannah hugged me then tightly, and both of us were teary-eyed, “You’re never leaving me again, baby girl!”

I smiled, “Okay, Mommy.”

“What’s with you calling me Mommy now?”

I shrugged, “You’re one of my three mommies… I won’t call you that in front of our classmates, but it’s getting harder and harder to think of you as Hannah.”

She tickled my stomach, “I guess I should be considered a mommy since I have to clean your stinker butt up all the time!”

Hannah placed me on the changing table and quickly changed the very wet and poopy diaper. It had leaked some, so she didn’t hesitate to dress me in a set of footed pajamas I didn’t recognize. They were pink with white polka dots and a koala bear across the zipper that went down to my foot, ending with a bit of cloth covering to keep a baby from escaping them. They were cute, “Where’d you get these?”

“They were in the boxes the FBI sent for our assignment.” She pulled the zipper up, “They sent us both complete wardrobes with a lot of used clothes for both of us. This was one of the few newer outfits… I think it’s adorable.”

I smiled, “It is!”

She was just about to say something else when someone knocked on the door. She carried me to the door, and Camille stood there with Volango, aka Beth. “Oh my God, you can’t get any more adorable!” she said as she came in.

They closed the door and found seats around the room on bean bag chairs. “What’s up?” She asked, “Camille was secretive but said you need some help?”

We explained the assignment and the concern. “So, you need like eight thousand calories condensed into a four-to-six-ounce container of pureed baby food?”

“Preferably a mixture of jars, pouches, and those plastic tubs Gerber uses?” Hannah told her.

“Hmm… Interesting challenge… You want these to taste good, right?” She said, looking at me.

“Please…? The whole point is it’ll work with my cover better, but you’ve seen how much I eat?”

She laughed, “Right! I don’t know where you put it!”

“Her diapers,” Hannah and Camille said simultaneously, causing my face to turn red!

“This is not ‘pick on Sofia day!’” I complained.

Hannah took that opportunity to tickle me for a moment, “Of course it is! It’s alllllways pick on Sofia day!”

My diaper was soaked when she finally let up, and I glared at her. “You just made more work for yourself.”

She shrugged, “That’s okay; I’m getting used to it!” Then, her attention turned to Volango, “Think you can do it?”

She nodded, “I think maybe I can make a device that can take an existing baby food item and add in the right calories… maybe go ahead and make the flavors more gourmet, too…?” She started talking to herself and said, “I’ll have it to you tomorrow…” and walked away.

“She’s okay, right?” I asked Camille.

She nodded, “Luckily, she’s in no danger of teaking out from Teak’s Syndrome. They’ve been good about checking technomages for that in recent years.”

“Good…” I said, thinking about how bad it could get for some of them. Some of them would literally go on crazy mad scientist binges when they teaked out. They would steal components for their devices and usually create all sorts of mayhem. It was rare that someone with Teak’s wasn’t a villain! The idea of cute Beth doing that kind of terrified me. Technomages were special because they could come up with almost any invention in their minds and could ‘Tech’ them. Basically, as long as mentally the physics worked in their own heads, the design would work as planned. If anyone else tried to copy it, their copies wouldn’t work.

“Well, I think she’ll get that taken care of. I know you already got her in her jammies. Still, she probably needs a bath tonight,” Camille told Hannah, “And I officially relinquish my auntie duties to Mommy!”

Hannah laughed, “Sounds good, Auntie Cami!”

Hannah looked at me, “Will your diapee hold a little while? You should call your parents and tell them you made it back?”

I pushed in on the diaper and shrugged, “If not, I guess it’ll just leak. I do need a bath anyway?”

She nodded, “Okay, your phone is in your backpack still, right?”

I nodded, and she carried me over to grab it, dug into the pocket to pull it out, and then carried me to the rocking chair before she handed it to me. She cuddled me gently as I pressed the screen and was soon dialing our home phone.

Dad picked up and said, “Hello?”

“Hi, Daddy!” I said excitedly.

“Hi, Sofia,” he said, and I could feel his smile, “Rachel, Sofia is on the phone!” I heard him call.

I heard a little voice say, “Let me talk!!!!”

I smiled as she was on the phone a second later, “Hi, Sofia!”

“Hi, Lily! What’d you do today?” I asked her.

I listened to her babble for about ten minutes before she got off the phone to play. Then I talked to my parents for another half-hour. I could hear the tears in Mom’s voice that matched my own as I hung up the phone.

Hannah didn’t need to say anything; she wrapped me tightly in her arms and hugged me. “It’s okay,” She told me.

“I miss them so much!”

“I know… I’m hoping maybe we can see our families at Christmas?”

I nodded, “I know you must miss your mom and dad too…?”

She sighed, “I do, but as long as I have you, I don’t notice it as bad.”

I looked up at her, “Sorry I left you.”

She squeezed me tight, “You needed someone to babysit you, and Camille’s family was perfect. You even got a chance to get some training in – it’s okay.”

I nodded and sat there for a bit before she squeezed my diaper. “That’s not going to hold much more, but I need to check my email – my Esens teacher was supposed to send me something to help me catch up on the semester.”

I nodded, “I haven’t even turned on my computer since we left… I should probably check too.”

I dug through my backpack and pulled out my laptop. I set it down on my desk, plugged it into the charger, and sat down with a squish on my chair before turning it on.

I found a hundred emails I needed to get through, but one caught my eye from ‘Amanda Kensington.’ The subject was ‘Modeling Offers.’ I clicked on it and opened it up.

 

Hi Sofia,

We sent your portfolio off to a number of the major baby manufacturing companies like we talked about. There was quite the bidding war, and I think there will be a few other deals soon too. Several clothing companies and a couple of toy companies are currently negotiating for your services. Aphrodite’s will screen and negotiate on your behalf as your agent to get you the best deals. One major diaper company made a considerable offer that I think you should take them up on. I’ve included the contract attached to this email for it. They would bring their product and crew here, make the proposed commercial, and photograph you for print ads and packaging.

They want to do this in the last week of finals before they launch a newly updated product in February. So let me know if you are on board to move forward!

Amanda Kensington

President Aphrodite’s

 

I squirmed a bit as I read it. I looked over the contract and felt my jaw drop! I’d researched child model rates for the heck of it one day and knew this was way above that! They were offering me $7,500 for the day of shooting. They also offered me a rate for each print ad being used. That didn’t seem high, but knowing how many ads they ran, I figured it could add up! I giggled then, thinking about the pun.

“What’s so funny?” Hannah asked from her desk.

“Just making a pun inside my head… umm… That girl, Mandy, has a contract for me already,” I told her.

“For what?”

I sighed, “Diapers?”

She laughed, “Well, you do wear them! Are they throwing in some free ones?”

I shrugged, “I didn’t see that, but they’re willing to pay me good money for the day of shooting!”

We discussed the offer for a few more minutes before I used an e-sign option to sign off on it. We noted that I may have to reschedule depending on another job. But I was eighteen and could make decisions on matters like that! Between the FBI salary and contracts like this, I might not have to worry about asking my parents for money!

I replied to a couple other emails and read some announcements.

One email was sent from Sergeant Harris stating that the team we had joined with Camille would have a practice run scheduled for ten in the morning on Thursday. I groaned when I saw the team’s name, “They called us the Babysitter’s Club for our team name?!?!”

Hannah laughed, “Diaper Duty Crew was another finalist.”

I groaned and replied we would be there after seeing we were excused from our morning classes to participate. “We’re going to keep missing so many classes!” I grumbled as I realized that we would miss more in addition to the undercover time taking us away.

“It’s just Calculus, and you’re doing fine in there! Well, also Costume Design, but we’ve already finished our assignment there! She just approved my design, so we’ll be done if you can make it tomorrow?”

I nodded, “Do we take Costume second semester too?”

She shook her head, “It’s a first-semester course to get everyone ready for finals, basically, optional after that.”

It was nice to feel less like a baby and more like a student for a while. Hannah eventually picked me up and said, “You leaked!”

I shrugged, “Not my fault. I’m just the baby here!”

She tickled my stomach for a moment before she stripped off the wet sleeper, “We’ll have to wash that before we go. Let’s get a bath, and we’ll find another cute outfit for you.”

Hannah was gentle and loving as she gave me the bath that night. I could tell that being apart from me had been hard for her… maybe even harder than it had been for me being away from her. That night we were both very content as I nursed myself to sleep.

 

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

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

I will be posting the ext chapter of this tomorrow night a little later since I'll be busy on Saturday. (I'll also be posting my ‘Lights, Camera, …What?!?’ chapter tomorrow as well!) 

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]

<deep sigh>
So happy to see Sofia back with Hannah. Love their relationship. ❤️💕

One minor goof you might want to fix…

4 hours ago, BabySofia said:

Hannah agreed, “She’s not even close to being potty trained either!”

This exchange happens on the train back to Bechtel, so it should be Camille, not Hannah.

[BabySofia]

51 minutes ago, FloridaKid said:

This exchange happens on the train back to Bechtel, so it should be Camille, not Hannah.

Thanks for the catch!

51 minutes ago, FloridaKid said:

<deep sigh>
So happy to see Sofia back with Hannah. Love their relationship. ❤️💕

It actually caused a lot of writers block for me in the middle of writing it. Became much easier to write when they returned to each other! Glad you like the pair there! 🙂

[FloridaKid]

21 hours ago, BabySofia said:

It actually caused a lot of writers block for me in the middle of writing it.

It may have been a block then, but the resulting balance with Camille’s family stepping up and Sofia missing Hannah works really well. I wish I recalled the OG version better to know exactly what revisions you made for this one, but it definitely is a good read.

[BabySofia]

Since I will be unable to post tomorrow, I'm putting this chapter up tonight instead. 

Chapter 48: Teamwork

I WOKE UP like usual in my crib in the castle, but no one was around. Not wanting to waste any time making preparations, I let loose the best baby cry I’d made yet! Caireen was soon there picking me up, changing me, feeding me, and getting me dressed to return to work. Before we left the castle, though, she said, “We need to go see General Slane first.”

I nodded. 

“Your Majesty, Your Highness,” her head general greeted us with a bow as we approached.

“General Slane, you said you had a report from our spies?”

He nodded and looked up, “They report that the army has regrouped and is marching towards us from the south. They report that even though a suggestion was made to come from the north as well, they decided to just take the one direct southern route.”

“That will help,” I said. “Only one major front to defend.”

He nodded at me and shook his head, “The problem is the numbers are way more numerous than we expected!”

“How bad?” Caireen asked.

“We expected a worst-case scenario of thirty-thousand… Instead, Camulus has nearly double that.”

“And we only have ten, right?” I asked him.

“Yes, Your Highness,” he told me.

I could tell he looked scared as Caireen looked thoughtful. I decided to ask, “Where did these troops come from?”

“Conscripts along the way,” he replied.

“So, most of them don’t want to serve him?”

He shook his head, “No, they fear for their lives and their family’s lives.”

“That’s something we can work with… Mommy, do we have to fight this war conventionally?”

She looked at me oddly, “What do you mean?”

“Do we have to wait for him to get to our wall?”

“Not necessarily, but marching our troops towards him would be suicide,” she told me.

“I wasn’t thinking that.” I put my thoughts together, “When America fought for our freedom, the British pretty much insisted on fighting regular battles with lines of men against each other. There’s an old movie that’s loosely based on some truth that a smaller force worked to cut off supplies and performed sneak attacks.”

Caireen nodded, “I remember that part of your history. I thought they were quite the ragtag group.”

I closed my mouth after gaping it open, ‘Sometimes I forget just how old she is!’

“So, what’s your suggestion, Your Highness?” the general asked me.

“We make your own special forces group, basically?” I explained the concept of making ten teams of ten members go behind enemy lines and make as much of their lives miserable as they could. Caireen added some thoughts, and we provided each man with special crossbows. These would only fire for our men and would fire a limitless supply of bolts. We magically improved them to make them repeat their shots like automatic rifles – I even created scopes for them. The men who volunteered were in love with them and, by nightfall, departed to begin their mission.

When we were done, I made the next citadel on the opposite side of the valley from the first. It still wasn’t easy, but I felt slightly less exhausted afterward. Caireen carried me to the top, and I looked down over the whole valley. I could see past the wall and a few more miles until the valley reached a bend and, from what I had been told, began flattening into a plain beyond. Three more trebuchets were set up on top of the structure. I watched as the men started practicing and sighting in with some fruit to mimic their actual rounds of clay pots and metal balls. Watching the sling chunk the items forward was impressive, and they were successfully nailing the middle of the road in no time. I watched through squinted eyes at animals who began coming out of the woods to feed on an unexpected snack!

I was taken back to the castle for more sword fighting lessons for a couple hours after we were done there, not quite as drained as the day before. As she carried me to the nursery that night, I felt like we had begun to be prepared. “Sofia, you truly are a force to be reckoned with,” she told me as she pulled her blouse down.

I shrugged, “I’m stealing ideas here, pretty much.”

“If they work, there’s nothing wrong with that!” she smiled at me.

I nursed myself to sleep and hoped we could defend her world so I would eventually have a peaceful place to come to each night.

 

SUNDAY MORNING, I sat in my crib with Hannah, nowhere in sight. Her shower caddy was missing, so I guessed she was showering. I looked at Emie lying next to me and began playing with her and two stuffed bears. I was enthralled enough in my play that I didn’t notice Hannah until she picked me up.

“Well, look at you! Being a good baby and playing with your toys!”

I turned and smiled at her, “What else was I supposed to do since you weren’t here?”

She touched my nose, “Sorry, Princess, but I needed to shower.” Then, she squeezed my diaper, “Think you can hold out until after your first breakfast?”

I shrugged, “I dunno.”

She laughed, just sat down, and began the day with my nursing from her again. It was apparent that we had both missed each other, but I couldn’t help but feel better with every suckle I made of milk! Once burped, she changed me into a pink one-piece jumpsuit with long sleeves. There was some lace on either side of the middle of the front panel, and little flowers covered the design to make it a very girly and babyish outfit.

“I don’t know about this,” I whined to her.

“You just agreed to model diapers,” she reminded me, “There’s no doubt you’re a baby, and on your days off, it makes sense for you to dress like this. It’s comfy, right?”

I shrugged, “I guess…?”

“And it’s easy for me to change you with the snaps!” She said with a smile.

I groaned, “Let’s just go get breakfast already!”

She put a coat on me but didn’t bother herself as she grabbed her bag and carried me off. No one commented on the outfit, and I sighed as I accepted that she was probably right - I just needed to let her dress me in baby clothes. Caireen seemed to like that thought and gave me a mental hug, ‘Good girl,’ she said to me.

Hannah and I spent the day working on homework until close to dinnertime. Then there was a knock on the door, and Beth came in holding something that looked like a weird coffee maker. “You two want to see what I came up with?”

“You’re already done making something?” I said in shock.

She shrugged, “I couldn’t stop thinking last night and worked through the night to make it. I documented it, which will let it count as a project for a homework assignment this week.”

She placed it on my desk and knelt to my level while Hannah sat next to us. “You just have to plug it in,” she said as she found a free outlet, “and then put whatever food you want to adjust inside here. Hannah, can I see your phone for a moment? I’ll get the app on there really quickly!”

I watched as an app was soon installed on Hannah’s phone. I could see options to set the calories the food would be adjusted to. Other options included adding salt, sugar, pre-set flavors, and even raising the temperature if you wanted to just heat up the meal inside the device.

“I don’t have any baby food to try it out on, but it worked well on a little apple sauce I had in my room. Lightly couldn’t believe the calories she got out of it. She said I should market them for Mergents as ‘Paradigm Food!’”

I laughed, “I guess we’ll have to buy some baby food to try out in it?” I felt my stomach churning with that, “I’m not really looking forward to that.”

Hannah said, “Give me a second; I think there was some in the kit the FBI sent.” I watched her go to a set of boxes on the counter, and she pulled out a few pouches, “Beef Stew, Chicken and Vegetables, or Turkey and Vegetables?”

I wrinkled my nose at all of them, “Beef…?”

She smiled, “Let’s see how this works!”

I watched as they played around on the app, bringing the calories up to the eight thousand we estimated I ate at dinner each day. There was an option for it to taste like a prime-rib dinner with mashed potatoes that was selected, along with a good amount of salt added! Hannah placed the pouch in the small chamber at Beth’s direction before pressing go on the app. There was a brief flash and then nothing.

“Did it work?” I asked.

Beth nodded, “Sorry, I didn’t add any cool effects to make it seem like it worked. I thought the flash alone was a better idea, just so you don’t draw attention to it. I tried to make it look like a coffee maker for that reason too.”

Hannah nodded, “I guess there’s only one way to test this. Let me throw it in the bag, and we’ll go to dinner.”

“Wait… you’re not saying…”

“We need to try it sometime, don’t we? Might as well try it for din-din tonight!”

“But I’m…?”

“Sofia…” She said warningly.

I sighed, “Yes Mommy… I hope it worked though, I’m really hungry!”

“If you’re still hungry afterward, I’ll let you go get a plate of grown-up food then.”

I sighed, “Let’s get this over with!”

Hannah carried me and did whatever trick she had tried before to make things warmer. All the way to the Friar Hall, it felt like I was within the spread of one of those outdoor propane heaters. She sat me at our usual table next to Beth and said, “I’ll be right back.”

“You’re not getting food?” Lizi asked.

I sighed and put up a privacy ward before answering, “We’re trying out Volango’s new device to alter baby food… I’m having a pureed dinner tonight to see if it can work while we’re undercover.”

“Undercover?”

“Didn’t we tell you I’m working for the FBI sort of as an intern until I graduate?”

“No…? That’s kind of cool. But you’re older than a baby that eats baby food?” she replied.

I did some magic and made myself appear younger for a moment before returning to normal. “I’m going to alter myself like that,” I told her.

She smiled, “You were much cuter that way!”

“You need to make your hair shorter, though,” Camille added as she looked at me.

I sighed and soon had Hannah back, who whispered to Camille quickly. She smiled, and a moment later, my tall stool chair turned into a mahogany wooden highchair with a plush purple covering. A tray sat in front of me, while a harness suddenly formed and held me tightly inside…

“Really?!?” I looked at Camille, “You’re ganging up on me now?”

She giggled, “Don’t worry, no one will care.”

Hannah pulled out a bib that she velcroed on my neck before putting an empty bowl from the serving line on the tray. She held the package for a moment and warned, “I’m warming this up for you, but be warned, the daycare may not.”

I made a face, but that didn’t stop her from twisting the plastic cap of the pouch off and squeezing the gooey mush into the bowl. It did not look appetizing at all! Finally, she grabbed a baby spoon from her bag and scooped up a spoon, “Open wide for the airplane!” She giggled.

I wrinkled my nose and wanted to refuse, but I opened my mouth and let it inside my mouth.

The texture was still kind of gross, but the flavor of it was delicious! I looked over at Beth, “That worked really well!”

Before I knew it, I took in spoonful after spoonful of the mush. It wasn’t how I would usually want to eat my food, but it tasted pleasant once you got over the texture! When she scooped the last small spoonful up and placed it in my mouth, I was surprised that I felt full. “All gone! Good girl!” She cooed at me and wiped a few stray spoonfuls from my cheeks with my bib. I sat back in the comfortable highchair then. “Are you still hungry?” She asked me curiously.

I shook my head, “No… actually, I had trouble swallowing the last few bites.”

“Thanks, Beth,” Hannah told her, “This will probably help us a lot moving forward!”

She smiled, “Any time!”

I felt like everything wasn’t too bad when Streaked walked by and commented, “Glad to see the baby sitting in her proper chair finally. Looked like she liked her nummy baby food too!”

I wanted to do something, but Hannah put her hand on my shoulder, “Don’t!”

I sighed, “I hoped she’d stop after Tilling read us the riot act?”

I was embarrassed to the point of being in tears then, but I managed not to cry. Hannah pulled me from the high chair and cuddled me while she finished her own meal. On our way back to the dorm, many girls asked if I was okay… “See, you’re so popular! Who cares about that bimbo?” Hannah told me as she walked in the doors of Trident.

I shrugged and soon distracted myself with some other reading I needed to do. I nursed from Hannah before bed and hoped that my life could evolve from being one humiliating experience after another!

 

THE NEXT DAYS were refreshingly normal for the most part in my world! I was feeling a lot more at ease in my classes. Using my paradigm memory and fast reading ability, I thought I was only slightly behind now in most of my classes. Hannah struggled more to get caught up, but we worked together on the coursework we shared, and Beth and others helped her in the other courses. My only gripe was that she had insisted on feeding me several other meals of baby food throughout the week to ‘prepare me.’ I didn’t bother fighting it. Caireen seemed happy with that, and in exchange, I hoped she might come through with her promise of the illusion to make me seem like a teenager again sooner than later.

Meanwhile, my nights in Caireen’s world were spent doing everything we could to fortify our position. I devised a plan to put some punji-style pits beside the road coming up the valley one of the nights. By Thursday, I was running out of more ideas for preparing for the upcoming siege. Each day we were getting some good reports from the ten units of troops we had sent out to harass King Camulus’s forces. Apparently, they had managed to knock off about half of the ranking officers at a meeting one day. Another day they managed to kill off a number of the horses that were pulling some siege engines and ladders they were bringing. Then, after a few more attacks, some troops fled and deserted his forces.

Camulus and his forces had never been attacked that way, and it seemed to be as effective as we had hoped!

Thursday came quickly, and I found myself in my costume with my fellow teammates looking around a room with a large screen up front. “Take your seat!” a scary-looking woman in one of the security uniforms said to us. I fiddled with the small earpiece that Volango had given me a little while before the meeting. It acted as a receiver and transmitter for us to talk over a radio… that wasn’t a radio. My brain hurt as the technomage had explained the principles!

“This is team… Babysitter’s Club…?” She looked bewildered until she saw me. “Hazing the new kid?” She asked them.

Camille shook her head, “Honestly, most of the good team names have been taken. We thought it was a cute name, and our opponents will probably underestimate us?”

“There’s some truth to that… Of course, just having a baby on your team will do that. Now, just to verify for our records, your team is Sora, Volango, Knag, Zing, Emped, and Emerald, correct?”

“Yes, Ma’am,” I found myself saying along with the others. I had to remind myself of everyone’s code names since I never thought of Camille as Sora, Esmie as Zing, or Hannah as Emped!

“Okay then, this is going to be a simple capture the flag style simulation…” she began briefing us on the city we were entering. Apparently, a flag was hidden somewhere in a supervillain’s lair across town. It was our job to collect it without all dying.”

“Questions?” She asked us.

Several were asked before we were told, “Okay then, saddle up; let’s get you in the Cube!”

From what I had heard, it wasn’t easy to get Cube time this close to finals, but somehow Camille had pulled in a few favors to get us in. When we entered, I was truly blown away by how realistic our environment was. ‘It reminds me of the Star Trek Holodeck!’ I thought to myself. Oddly Caireen seemed almost equally impressed!

While we were staring at the space, Volango pulled out some crazy-looking machine gun. Zing used that time to pull out what looked like a boomerang in her hand, and Knag was suddenly nearly invisible. Camille wore a costume that made her look like the evil sorceress from a Disney movie. Hannah’s outfit was like a slutty Halloween version of my own costume. Among the differences was that the skirt barely covered the panties. She wore flesh-colored pantyhose and a matching domino mask. She didn’t have the diaper, of course! All of it was made of Zexlar and bullet and slash resistant. Due to the rules of the Cube, everyone’s faces were obscured with masks of some sort as we entered and began looking around.

“Where do you think we need to go?” Zing asked Sora.

Camille pointed up at a tall building in the distance where a flag waved. “It can’t be that easy…?” I asked.

She shook her head, “I doubt it. Zing, can you fly top cover for us?”

“Will do!” She used her speedster ability to launch herself and a small hang glider into the air.

“Knag, go ahead and scout ahead?”

“Done!”

We began getting reports of it being clear, with only NPC civilians around and began moving out slowly. We were about a block from the tall building when Zing cried, “I’m under attack!” I watched something shoot at her before clipping her, sending her tail spinning down to the ground.

On instinct, I performed a spell to slow her descent to where when she hit, it wasn’t any worse than jumping off the back of a pickup truck. “Thanks, Sora,” she said.

“Not me, that was Emerald,” she replied, just as we began taking fire from automatic weapons!

I put up my shield and surrounded my teammates with one too. Hannah fired her green bursts at several, and I took aim at a group of about ten enemies firing at us from the other side of a brick wall. I pulled in a relatively controlled burst of magic and shot it out with my hand at them. The explosion rocked the ground, and all were out of commission.

“Holy shit, remind me not to piss off the baby!” Volango said.

I wondered where Knag was for a while until I saw some explosions inside the building. Then, over the radio, she cried, “Umm… I could use some help here!”

The five of us worked pretty well to protect and attack hundreds of enemies firing at us with small arms weapons. We eventually caught up with Knag, who was not doing well, versus a simulated classmate. I was soon embroiled in a hand-to-hand battle with the large boy who appeared to be a speeder. I used the tricks that Sensei had been trying to teach me and managed to hold my own long enough for Hannah to shoot him with her blast.

“Come on, let’s get upstairs!” Sora ordered.

Climbing steps was never my favorite thing, but now that I was a baby, it really sucked!!! The fact that we had to run up twenty flights of them made me damn cranky by the time we got to the top! Everyone else beat me up there, and I found they were in a battle with two other simulated Mergents, one of which seemed to be the person who had attacked Zing, to begin with. The stairs had me tired but also really pissed off. I just took in energy and shot it straight at each of them. The constructs disintegrated, and we finished the run when Volango grabbed the flag.

A loud buzzer alerted us the simulation had ended. I reached my hands up to Hannah, “I don’t want to walk down those!”

She laughed at me, and we soon found ourselves in a debriefing with the same stern woman. I thought we had plenty to be proud of, but she proceeded to tear us all a new hole for the ‘mistakes’ we made. About the only thing that she begrudgingly complimented us on was our teamwork...

 

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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!

I'll be back onto my regular posting schedule with the next chapter on Sunday. 

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]

Early chapter was quite a pleasant surprise. Thanks for that! 😀

[BabySofia]

30 minutes ago, FloridaKid said:

Early chapter was quite a pleasant surprise. Thanks for that! 😀

You're welcome, it would have been Sunday otherwise! 🙂

[BabySofia]

Chapter 49: Approaching Storms

 AFTER THE DEBRIEFING and brutally honest criticism, we all traveled back to Trident together. Hannah stripped me of the heavily soiled diaper I wore and carried me into the shower with her for a quick wash before lunch. We barely had enough time for me to nurse from her and make it to the cafeteria. Her lunch, and my real solid food, were finished in a record ten minutes before we headed to our afternoon classes.

At the end of Power Fundamentals, she told me, “Don’t forget to hurry back to Trident after your next class. We only have about a half-hour after that before they pick us up.”

I nodded, “Good thing we already packed!”

“And that they’re going to help us move in!” She smiled back at me.

I nodded and went to Powers Exploration, walking beside Lizi. When we were sitting down and waiting for class to begin, she said, “I can’t believe how much power you used!” softly.

I smiled, “It helps that Bechtel is right over the top of a huuuuge artery of power.”

“I can feel there’s power, but not like you’ve described. Can you really feel the ley line? And you can control it?”

“Mostly at this point,” I told her with a nod. “The first time I ever did something like that was scary. It was only because the building was warded to protect from that spell that it didn’t continue on forever.”

She nodded, and soon the teacher started off with class. With the upcoming finals, the review that started was handy for catching me up with anything that wasn’t in the textbook. The following week would be the final week of classes and then a week of study sessions. The next week was finals; the last week after that was supposed to be the Cube Finals. I hoped we would complete our assignment to be back for the Cube Finals. I was curious to see how our team would do against others!

After class, I lazily hitched a ride in Lizi’s arms back to Trident. She seemed to enjoy having a living doll to hold, tossed me around, and played with me on the way back. She used some sort of weird magical tickling spell somehow that took me too long to figure out to put my shield up to stop it. I was hurt when she just laughed at me after I made it stop!

Hannah, meanwhile, had switched her clothes out for the new ones provided to her. They seemed several years out of fashion and worn like she couldn’t afford new things. As soon as I was handed off to Hannah, she quickly dressed me in a long-sleeved onesie and leggings that also seemed second-hand. Hannah wasted no time before strapping me inside the infant carrier and latched it into the stroller. “Are you changing our appearances here?” She asked me.

I shook my head, “We should do it where they brief us. I’m actually not sure we should be dressed right now in these clothes…?”

She shook her head, “They said to go ahead and be dressed in these, so we don’t have anything out of the ordinary on us. The van they’re picking us up won’t allow people to see in as we drive.”

I stood on the floor and watched her gather a suitcase that held everything in it, including the baby food device, and hooked it on carefully to the stroller Camille had made. I made a couple of alterations in color and design to keep it from being recognized. However, otherwise, it was essentially still the same stroller that my carrier latched into. She carefully placed a blanket around my body to keep me warm before rapidly pushing her way out of our dorm. At the main administration building Hannah and I signed out. Then we opened a door into a black Bureau SUV that Agent Sanders waited in.

“How are you doing, Agent Emped, Agent Emerald?” He asked from the shotgun seat as Hannah latched my car seat in.

“Good,” I told him. “How far are we going tonight?”

“About three hours from here, we’ll get you into the safe house, where we’ll brief you tonight before you drive yourselves the rest of the way tomorrow.”

“Okay,” I said with a sigh. I was hungry right then…

Hannah must have sensed that because she showed me a pouch of baby food and a bottle, “Which one?”

I blushed as Agent Sanders sounded kind of shocked. “I didn’t realize that she…?”

I laughed, unable to see him with the rear-facing seat. “I don’t normally, but we figured if I’m going to be just barely a year old, it might make me seem like a safer target if I’m not even eating solid foods on time. So one of our friends created a device that enhances baby food to add more calories and make it taste okay.”

Hannah piped in, “I don’t think you’ve had the opportunity to see her appetite, but it doesn’t look normal for a baby.”

I stuck my tongue out at her and pointed at the baby food. “What about you?” I asked.

“I figure we’ll stop for burgers on the way. I know you won’t be able to wait that long.”

“Who says?”

My stomach growled loudly, “Your tummy?”

I sighed, “Fine!”

She warmed up the chicken and rice meal with her power and began squeezing little bits on a spoon that she then put in my mouth. I blushed as she occasionally conversed with Agent Sanders and the driver while shoveling a spoon into my mouth. Soon the pouch was empty, and my stomach was genuinely full. “Good?” She asked.

“Thanks to the adjustments… other than the texture, yes. I tried to just think of it as a weird thick soup.”

A warm bottle of her milk was placed in my hands, and with the long day and soothing car motion, I fell asleep for a short while nursing it.

 

I NAPPED APPARENTLY in the real world long enough to attend a briefing with General Slane and Caireen about Camulus’ army. They were getting nearer to us and were probably only a day or so ride from their scouts reaching the valley wall. Plans were made that the next day, both gates would be sealed with the large granite stones I had designed to seal them off. We would be completely cut off and on our own then!

When I woke up in our world, I was dangling from the end of Hannah’s arm. She was quickly carrying me inside the carrier into a house, so I didn’t get much chance to see.

Agent Sanders told her, “You can get Emerald’s diaper changed, and we’ll meet in the living room to brief you both.”

“Sounds good,” she said. Then, she looked down at me and said, “Oh, Miss Sleepy Agent decided to wake up?”

I tried to stick my tongue out, but the pacifier I was sucking on was in the way. So I ignored her as she carried me to a bedroom where I could see a playpen had been set up. I looked at it and asked, “I have to sleep in that…?”

She laughed, “I’ll let you sleep on the bed with me. Camille said you managed last weekend.”

I smiled as she picked me up from the carrier and placed me on a changing mat. This wasn’t the normal one I noticed, and it looked pretty worn with cracking spots in the material. It reminded me of one we had thrown out from Lily last year… When she went to put a new diaper on me, I noticed she didn’t put me in my regular brand. “What’s this?” I said, poking at it a moment later before she pulled my leggings up.

“Mommy’s cover is that she’s not made of money, sweetie; you get store-brand diapers while we’re on this mission.”

“Not even Luvs?” I complained.

“The legend for our covers says I’m basically broke and trying everything to keep your butt alive. Five cents per diaper adds at least another pouch of baby food a week!”

“That’s really sad,” I frowned.

“It’s what a lot of people go through, Olivia.”

“Are we already…?”

“Yep, I’m Mommy, and you’re my wittle year old baby girl, Olivia!” She tickled me before picking me up. “Let’s finish getting our briefing so we can get some sleep. It sounds like it will be all stress from here until we’re done.”

I nodded and leaned into her as she carried me to the living room. Agent Sanders went through more information on our legends, quizzed us on all of the facts Hannah had to have memorized, and prepared us for departing in the morning. We’d be taking off with Hannah driving an old, beat-up-looking four-door Honda. It was older than us and had rust spots in multiple places. There was already an old rear-facing car seat inside that looked like it had a full year of baby stains on it. I tried not to get grossed out, but it wasn’t easy!

The inside looked like a poorly kept vehicle, but he informed us that under the hood was a powerful engine. The car itself was also actually armored against small caliber bullets. When we got back inside, I changed Hannah’s hairstyle, color, and appearance to fit her legend better.

Caireen taught me how to sculpt flesh with magic in the past couple of weeks. She also showed me how to include a magical ‘reset’ button to return us to normal. Hannah griped, “I’m fat now!” While she was looking at her new self in the mirror. When I was done, she looked to have gained thirty pounds and had bigger hips and boobs to make her look like she had undergone childbirth. Instead of magic for her eyes, she just put in contacts that made her eyes look a duller, standard human blue color. Her hair was now a light blonde instead of our usual matching red.

I was a little limited due to my EFP, but I was able to adjust my teeth as one big thing. I now only had the average six teeth that a baby my covers age should have. I shortened my hair from long for a two-year-old to a wispy covering that just managed to cover my head. It came down barely into the length it could be put into a bowl cut and the shortest my hair had been since I was in elementary! There was probably barely enough to put little hair bands and fake ponytails, but not enough to style.

We had debated about contacts too for my eyes, but I was so small I didn’t trust them. I used the same spell I’d used before to make them a realistic grey-blue color, which, combined with my now blonde hair, meant I fit the ring’s primary victim type. I looked at pictures of twelve-month-old babies and added fat around my cheeks and body. My legs, in particular, had a chubbiness about them that ‘Haley’ declared ‘adorable!’

By the time we went to bed, nothing about us had looked like ourselves. Agent Sanders had actually seemed somewhat surprised and pleased by our efforts!

The bed in the room was placed right against the wall already. “I’ll let you sleep beside me next to the wall,” Hannah told me.

“You know I won’t fall out of bed!”

She laughed, “Do you know how much you move in your sleep?”

I nervously shook my head, “No…?”

“You’re a wiggle worm! I watch you roll against your crib bars all the time.”

I blushed, “Oh… really?”

“Really!” she smiled.

“So, won’t I keep you up tonight? Maybe it would be better to put me in the playpen?”

She hugged me, “For the next however long you are pretending to be my genuine baby. I guarantee you if I was really Haley, I would be co-sleeping with you most of the time.”

“Why?”

“Because Haley struggles for everything just so she can do the best for the baby she loves. I guarantee she would happily sleep with her baby until she was in elementary school if she needed to.”

“That’s weird,” I said.

She shrugged, “Not really; I slept in my parent’s bed off and on until I was in fourth grade.” I looked at her in shock, and she smiled, “I think I turned out pretty normal?”

I shook my head, “I think we’re going to have a difference of opinion there!”

She began tickling me mercilessly until I took it back. Then, finally, she kissed me on the forehead and placed me on her breasts to nurse me to sleep.

 

I WOKE UP, held in Caireen’s arms, and bounced as she looked out the windows of one of the turrets. “Decided to wake up?” She asked me with a smile.

I looked at her, “I guess… Why are we up here?”

She nodded her head off to the distance, where the sun was just bathing the land in light. Maybe a few miles down from the southern wall I had built, campfires were clearly evident, with smoke filling the valley in a gray fog.

“They’re here…?” I breathed nervously.

“Yes, they are… or will be today. I have no doubts that we’ll begin to hear swearing as they get within eyesight of the magnificent wall you built.”

“Certainly, when they start hitting the traps,” I said aloud. Right then, thunderous shouts and almost explosive sounds were heard rolling across the valley in the distance. “What’s that?”

She squeezed me, “Probably some of the efforts of the men you sent behind their lines. Just before we dropped the granite blocks, one of the groups sent word of their successes on the last day. Camulus has had about a quarter of his men desert him in the last few days, and they’ve managed to decimate the officer ranks. Some of his divisions don’t have anyone leading who was above the rank of a corporal four days ago.”

“That’s awesome!” I said with a smile.

“It’s definitely helpful! I’ve spent some time warding the wall, so I know even Camulus won’t easily penetrate it with magic.”

“So, we’re just planning on holding tight right now?”

“Yes, and no… I have set up several scrying mirrors down in the throne room that will display the view from the wall like your televisions. I thought we would go watch later?”

I nodded, “Okay,” I said and stayed silent as we both watched some more sudden plumes of smoke, and then a large forest fire started up in the distance. I thought that might be the straw to break the camel’s back! But instead, it was just an effortless exercise of King Camulus to pull down massive rain from the otherwise blue sky to put it out. I figured his men had to have been miserable, though, and armor, like they wore, would start to rust if they didn’t take care of it afterward. ‘We can only hope!’ I thought, knowing that we wouldn’t be that lucky.

Caireen nursed me and then changed my diaper into the thinnest cloth diaper I had ever worn – it felt barely thicker than regular underwear! “What’s this?” I asked.

“Something I hope you can move better in… I enchanted them to deal with soaking up your pee and poo just fine, but they’re thinner - and they don’t need a cover.”

I smiled at that as she then proceeded to dress me in the same costume I had made for back home, adding a short sword like I had been practicing with being strapped on my side. In complete contrast to that sword, she handed me my doll Emie, and we went downstairs to wait and watch.

She had placed many huge mirrors on the room’s largest wall that she had enchanted. They showed the views beyond the barriers, the citadels, and the castle. My initial excitement at seeing them faded to boredom as we waited for hours until the first traps were sprung. Finally, I watched as about eighty men, with locked shields at the front, advanced towards the wall on the road. One of Caireen’s mirrors zoomed in on their shocked faces at the sight before them. She’d managed to use magic to prevent anyone from seeing the wall until they were within a very close distance. When they closed within a hundred feet of the wall, the ground disappeared from underneath their feet, and they found themselves skewered in a punji pit. All of them died within minutes of the pierced wounds they experienced.

I felt sad about it and kind of sick to my stomach, but there was no getting around that people were going to die since King Camulus was being a greedy ass bastard! He sadly was perfectly fine with his losses and ordered the next group forward. Reinforcements arrived and began looking on the sides of the road for trees to make a bridge over the fifty-foot-deep pit that extended one-hundred feet across. As they did so, they ran into other traps. About three hundred men died before we could see Camulus in golden armor approaching the wall himself.

His anger was evident even without audio! I watched in horror as he angrily ran one of his attending soldiers through with his sword. Right then, the trees around him erupted in a volley of crossbow bolts fired from some hidden positions in the rocks above. The trebuchets in the citadels opened up simultaneously, and explosions from their ceramic oil bombs rocked the ground around him. I smiled as a bolt stuck into his armor but frowned when it quickly fell harmlessly to the ground. Unfortunately, the men around him weren’t so lucky, and we watched him retreat back to his camp about a mile down the road.

“Well, I’m guessing he’s not happy now?” I giggled.

Caireen squeezed me, “Probably not. He’ll take a day or two to develop a new plan. Even if he’d made it to the wall, it wouldn’t have been as easy as he thought…

The fires of the camping soldiers were visible in the distance as Caireen nursed me to sleep, looking out the tower windows that night. ‘I hope we can hold them off?’ I thought worriedly. ‘He’s not going to give up that easily!

 

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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.