What do I do? What do I do! That's right, breath! Hee… Hee… Haw… Haw… maybe the girl should do it too. Unfortunately, her boyfriend was even more useless than I was, and all she could do was resist letting out cries that might bring back the recently fooled assassins.
Alright. This baby wasn't going to have itself. If this baby was going to be born in my pond, I refused to allow my first to be stillborn. I couldn't live with such a result. What did I need to do? First, I needed a sterile area. The pond water was filthy. I found myself cursing my laziness all of these years. I called all of my cells to the little area right around her and began an all-out war.
I didn't want to use toxins, for fear they might hurt the baby, so instead I took small patches of the area and then flash-heated them. I brought the temperature to boiling in a small area, killing everything inside, and then repeated. The entire pond acted as a giant heat sync, so the water didn't become scolding by the time it touched the mother.
"This…" The young boy looked in shock as he saw the water clear up.
To him, the algae just seemed to clear up, creating crystal-clear water. Bubbles kept coming to the surface, almost like the water was coming alive.
"I know…" The woman met his eyes.
"Should we… try to go."
"I don't think, it wants to hurt us. Ghhh… it's coming now! It's coming!"
The boy grabbed onto her as her knees buckled. "It's okay!"
"It hurts… it hurts… somethings wrong." She cried.
Wrong? What's wrong? I had cells all over her body. In a way, I had a complete image of her surface. Everything looked ready to go, but the baby didn't seem to be crowning. That's when I realized that the only way I could learn more was by going inside.
"Fine then! I'm going in!"
I moved water and cells into her. She shuddered slightly but otherwise didn't react as I forced my senses into her womb. That's when I finally got a look at the baby. I could see its feet. Wait, isn't it supposed to be head first? It's a breech! The baby was turned properly for delivery. If things continued like this, the mother would die, and maybe the baby would too. Normally, there would be a doctor or a midwife to help her, but they were clearly in a situation where such a thing wasn't possible.
That meant, unless I wanted a dead mother and baby on my hands, I had no choice. I immediately began constructing tissues to accomplish the job. Any large motor movement requires a lattice of cells. Individual cells, even if they worked together, still were limited in the tasks they could do. I especially found it difficult for such cells to exude a great force. That's why tissues were needed for larger-scale manipulation.
Once I had created a series of ropes, I used transporter cells to carry them into place. It was hard to say if she could feel my tampering out not, but I worked diligently for her sake. I could feel the baby, so I knew it was still alive. Just like the mother, I had cells sensing. As long as it was within my pond, it was like I could see it. I could feel its rapid little heartbeat and the louder and more steady one of the mother. I finally got all of the tissue placed around in a lattice, angled to support the baby's head and body as it was turned around in the womb.
Alright, this is going to hurt.
It was just a shame I couldn't tell her that verbally. I began to forcefully move the baby. She cried out as her flesh was torn, but I couldn't stop. At least the baby was in the correct position.
"It's… moving. It's hurting me."
"Hang in there. You can do this!" The boy said cluelessly.
All he could see was her stomach suddenly shifting greatly. He had never seen a pregnancy before, because he wasn't freaking out at the sight. A guy seeing that might have thought some alien parasite was about to explode from her stomach, but this guy seemed to think this was a normal part of labor. Only the mother seemed to have more sense. She gritted her teeth as I finished. It was almost like the baby instantly dropped into place as soon as the position was fixed. She let out a cry of relief. Within a few minutes, she was already crowning.
I used tissues to help hold her legs open as well as support the baby's head. This was crap the dad was supposed to be doing, but he was too lost in the awe of childbirth to even use half a brain cell. I carefully guided the baby out. After the breach was resolved, the baby came flying out, and it was only fifteen minutes later when the baby came out of her. The woman nearly collapsed in her boyfriend's arms. She had done it standing, after running for some time, and while limiting her cries and moans to a minimum. She was a champ.
I held the baby within my tendrils. Well, it wasn't like I had hands. I was just pieces of fibrous tissue that I had pieced together. I felt an indescribable sensation as I held it. It was a little girl. She floated so gently underwater.
"Oi…"
The boy was hugging his woman and kissing her like it was a job well done. The baby was still underwater! I flicked a finger of water at his ear. He jumped, but it seemed to be enough for him to realize the situation. He reached into the water and pulled the baby directly out. As soon as he did that, the cells I put inside the baby sucked up all the water in her lungs and mouth and retreated from the baby's body. The baby coughed up a few mouthfuls of water and then started crying.
"Ah-ahh!" He nearly dropped the baby as it let out a shriek.
The mother, watching him, let out a weak laugh. She was still passing the placenta, but I didn't focus my senses on such a scene. I went ahead and carefully cut the umbilical cord, a piece of water rising up and then cutting it smoothly. Seeing the panicked father, the peaceful mother, and the crying baby, I was just starting to think this family was going to be alright.
"So, that's where you went!" The dad spun to find three men standing at the edge of the pool, the assassins from earlier.
Either they had doubled back just in case or came to realize my mislead had been a trick. It didn't matter, they were there now. The boy handed the baby to his mother, but her expression seemed bitter and hopeless. He then drew a sword.
"You can take me, but please leave my wife and child." He spoke in a surprisingly brave voice, even though I knew he had just pissed himself in my pond.
The lead guy, a man with an eyepatch, shook his head. "You shouldn't have married her in the first place. We're just cleaning up the mess you two made."
"I don't care about succession. I even abandoned my family name. Isn't that enough?"
"Our employer can't take that risk. You pose a danger to his future, so it's only natural he'd eliminate you and any of your progeny." He pulled a sword and started to move forward. "The only one you can blame is your bad luck."
"I'll die before you touch my wife and child!" The boy cried out.
"Well, that's the idea." He laughed, unperturbed.
The three men stepped into the pond, although only the very edge. I had already decided I wouldn't allow a mother and her daughter to be corpses today. Since that was what I wanted, I decided to go all out. Tendrils erupted from the pond, grabbing the ankles of all three men. Not one of them was prepared, as I began to pull. I pulled the same trick I had on that duck. I dragged them down into the pond.
The boy stared dumbfounded as the three men were suddenly dragged below. Feeling annoyed by his stupidity, I flicked his ear with more water. He cried out, but he got the message. Grabbing his wife, the three of them left the pond and quickly began to flee. Meanwhile, I was in a struggle for my life. I had dragged all three men down to my murky depths, but they resisted considerably. I tried to force water down their throats, making them drown even quicker.
Two of them weren't able to resist, and after fighting for a few more moments, they spasmed and went quiet. However, the guy with the eyepatch was made out of different stuff. Its mouth with like iron and I couldn't break it. There also seemed to be some invisible layer around his body that held back heat and toxins.
I held him as long as I could, but then he erupted in light, and I received a massive blow of damage. He finally emerged, gasping for air. Before I could recover and grab him again, he had already crawled to the edge of the pond.
"You damned devil lake!" He cursed. "You have no clue what powers you're dealing with."
I went silent, watching for his next move, but he must have felt silly yelling at an inanimate object. He looked the way the three had run. I tensed slightly, but then he spat, muttered something then stumbled the other way. I must have damaged him more than I thought, as he was giving up pursuit temporarily. That was it though. There was nothing else I could do. Two assassins were dead and the third fled away.
As for the family, they had escaped, but they were on their own now. Likely, I'd never know if they ever managed to free themselves of their pursuers. After all, I was just a pond and an unmoving object detached from this world. At least, that's what I thought.