Disclaimer: NYMN. Chapter 14 of "Moonlight Shadows and Echoes Past." A fair warning since the PG-13 rating this story carries will come into sway here for descriptions of emergency birth. You've been warned in advance. I've tried to keep the gore to a minimum and I know that such an emergency birth in real life would entail several more people, but they are not avalible in Mt. Quena at the moment--are they? :D
Moonlight Shadows and Echoes Past chapter 14
by ZeoViolet
****
Sharie felt oddly possessed, sitting astride Rhyhorn as he went as fast as he dared to where his mate lay, only barely taking into account that she was on his back and being careful not to throw her off.
The sense that something was utterly wrong, something urgently demanded her attention, had seemed to sap all of Sharie's will from her. She'd been expectant when Rhyhorn came crashing over, stopped, and had looked into her eyes as if he understood her strange, trancelike state.
Like a puppet on a string, without thinking of it or considering anything else, she'd been compelled to climb on his back to get to his mate faster, the whole time not feeling quite in control but sure she was doing the right thing.
Within moments, the frantic pacing beneath her sore legs--Rhyhorn's rock-hard back was not ideal for riding--slowed, and in a hidden alcove, where Nidoqueen was crouched, gasping silently in pain, Rhyhorn came to a stop, his sides heaving.
Quickly Sharie slid off his back and turned to him. Her trancelike state not over yet, she placed one small hand on his head, silently communicating. Her bottomless amethyst eyes met his frantic dark ones, and silently, she reassured him she would do everything in her power to help them both, and that she would give nothing less than her all.
It was to her credit that he, an overprotective clone, sincerely believed her, a human female descended of those who probably threatened them all the most. For that, Sharie was thankful.
She removed her hand from his head and turned to Nidoqueen. Before she could take a step, a sharp twinge of pain rushed across her senses once more.
Sharie gasped slightly, her face paling. Quickly she controlled it; not wanting Nidoqueen to see it. Sharie had helped deliver pokemon babies twice before, and she knew that was *definetly* not a pain that Nidoqueen should have felt. Not in this stage of labor.
The gasping pokemon was propped up against a large boulder, as upright as she could manage. She was shaking all over, her forehead was misty with persperation, and she shivered, not just with the pains racking her body. Her chest heaved for air it did not seem to get.
The pain in her brown eyes was great, and when she saw Sharie standing silently beside her, a mixture of relief and desperation entered them.
Nidoqueen gave a low growl, which registered in Sharie's ears as panic and pleading.
"I will do what I can," Sharie reassured her softly, her voice subtly switching languages to comfort the mother as best she could. "We will get through this together. Will you trust me?"
Nidoqueen managed a small nod before another tearing contraction ripped through her midsection. Sharie had to fight hard not to wince with her. Somehow, her senses had automatically tuned into Nidoqueen's so finely she was aware of every wave of pain as if it were her own. This was not the first time she'd experienced this, expecially with an expectant mother, but Sharie could not recall it being this intense.
"Sh, relax," she soothed in a soft voice to the straining pokemon. Gently her fingers pressed against Nidoqueen's temples in a rhythmic, soothing motion, a form of pokemon massage she'd learned how to do long ago. "Do not fight the pain, flow with it."
Sharie took a deep breath as she considered where to begin. This labor was not going typically, that was for sure. The violent surges of pain ripping through Nidoqueen was probably due to two sources--one, her labor was going too fast; and two, the pain was not typical of a contraction. Something else had to be adding onto the pain she was already experiencing due to contractions.
For any living being that gave birth, labors that come on too quickly could, in rare cases, do serious damage to the mother, and any pain that was not a normal part of labor also was worth looking into. It was rare, since labors could be extremely fast and do no damage at all, but Sharie had a sinking feeling this was one of those infrequent exceptions.
Gently Sharie placed both hands on Nidoqueen's slightly rounded abdomen, then pressed firmly in an attempt to sense the placement of each baby.
With a Nidoqueen's hard armor-like skin, this was not easy. Her skin was tough enough that it had even impeded most of the swelling that most other creatures would experience in the uterus as a result of pregancy. Nidoqueen's uterus had expanded more upwards than outwards.
Sharie's sensetive fingers pressed firmly against the gentle swelling, gathering what information she could from her sense of touch. She also lowered her mental sheilds a little to see if she could sense the bare essences of the life beneath her fingertips.
Near the top she sensed two, nestled in their designated spots, curled in quite a confining space. From their placement and the size of the uterus, Sharie guessed they were almost mature enough for full-term, but not quite. She'd been right about this being preterm labor.
Sharie frowned as another contraction ripped through NIdoqueen, and the essences of each baby twitched in her mind, mixing in with the agony that also tore across her senses. It was hard enough Sharie flinched slightly, unable to help it. That was not a good sign; it meant that the labors were placing undue strain on the babies. Sharie had to fight hard not to show that she felt each baby react to the contraction with a vague sense of suffering. Above all, she must not frighten the mother.
Sharie moved her hands lower; encountering two more essences. Just barely beneath her fingers she could feel fluttering movements, a good reassurance. But another contraction heaved through their mother and again, Sharie felt the essences twich and tremor in her mind. She shut her mouth hard, and a flash of unwanted memory creeped into her mind for a split second--she recalled how Madhea had struggled this way so desperately, fighting to stay alive in the tank she'd been floating in, all alone.
Just as swiftly, Sharie banished the thought from her mind, amazed it had even come up. Never before had she let anything distract her when doing something like this. It was completely unprofessional and her own feelings were beside the point.
She went on with her examination.
It was when she shifted her hands to near the bottom of the mother's abodmen, near the birth canal, that Sharie got truly concerned. The skin around her lips tightened imperceptibly, to the point where even Nidoqueen noticed.
Even between contractions, Their essences were fuzzing in and out of her mind, almost frantically. They were laying so close together and the sense of distress emenating from them both was so obvious that Sharie sensed an immediate cause to all of this--they were probably entangled by their own cords. Maybe even together.
And together, they were positioned right over the birth canal. Maybe even blocking it. Two babies could not pass down it at once.
Sharie could not even feel them moving. Their essences were barely there. She could tell no more without lowering her sheilds further, but she did not need to. She did need her equiptment.
Sharie, without moving, sent a quick telepathic thought to Madhea.
*Madhea, please, I need my medical equipment. Bring Mewtwo as well, as quickly as you can. Hurry, please!*
She sensed a silent acknowledgement. The girl did not question her at all. Sharie hoped she'd not sounded like she was giving a flat order. It had been a plea.
This was trouble.
****
Sharie turned her focus back to the anxious, worried mother.
"I think I have an idea of the problem," she said softly. "I must scan you to be sure, though. You must lie down, on your side."
Nidoqueen nodded assent at once. The level look in Sharie's eyes, as well as the calm reassurance she was trying to project, told her well that Sharie knew what she was doing.
Rhyhorn came up and nuzzled his mate on the head as she lay there on the grass, gasping with another contraction.
Sharie pressed her hands against the lower uterine wall again. Laying down had taken some of the pressure off the two babies at the bottom, but it would not help nor hold for long. However, something else whispered across her consciousness for a moment, something she could not quite define.
It was one thing that did not feel alarming, and it made her lips twitch, though she did not know why.
"Here is one thing I can tell you that probably is not bad," she said quietly. "I sense one of your children will be different. How, I do not know. It is just something I feel."
They looked at her, surprised for a moment. Then, suddenly, Nidoqueen nodded. "I had a feeling," she wheezed faintly. "One of....of them was not like the...others. I've been worried."
"Worrying will not help here," said Sharie. Vaguely she sensed Mewtwo and Madhea arriving by teleportation. "Different or not, I am sure you would love the child as you love the others, don't you? Even as clones, you are all unique, with your own hearts and souls. Nobody can copy those. Remember that."
Nidoqueen, gasping through another contraction, managed a weak smile.
****
"How is she?" asked Mewtwo as soon as he came over, Madhea clutching one of his hands and dragging Sharie's pack with the other.
"I have a good idea of the problem but I want to run a scan to be sure," said Sharie quietly. The forbidding look in her eyes kept both Mewtwos from asking questions.
Without another word she pulled one of her scanners out of her pack and went back to Nidoqueen. The weary mother made no objection when Sharie passed it over her, displaying vital signs of each baby.
Once Sharie interpreted the readings, a bleakness entered her soul, something she tried not to show on her face. But when she turned to Nidoqeen, the unreadable void in her eyes betrayed what she was trying to conceal.
"I will not hide the truth from you," she told the mother as calmly as she could. "Your babies are in danger."
A look of shocked panic entered Nidoqueen's eyes, and a low, faint whine escaped her mouth as she struggled to sit up.
Gently Sharie touched her shoulders. To her own surprise, the one touch stilled the mother at once.
"The two babies nearest the birth canal have their cords entangled. Not only around themselves, but each other, in a rather big mess. Each time you have a contraction it worsens the strain on them."
Nidoqueen made another low wailing sound of distress.
"I know you could not help going into preterm labor," Sharie told her softly. "But there may be a chance for them if I act quickly. Your labor was fortunate to start now, because had you gone to term they would not have made it, since by then it would have been too late for them."
Mewtwo had been listening to everything, and he was rather horrified at the mental picture Sharie's descrption rendered in his mind. "Can they be untangled?"
"The babies are lying transverse across the canal, both of them. and the tangling's too hard, I could not do it manually. The way they are no baby can be born, so all babies are in danger. To have a chance at saving them I must act quickly. Each contraction she has makes the problem worse for all."
"What do you need to do?" Asked Mewtwo quietly.
"I must perform a ceserean section. Here. Now."
"A....what?" gasped Madhea, surprised. "Cut her open?"
Rhyhorn made a grunt of disapproval and Mewtwo had to ask, "Is that truly necessary?"
Sharie could not help wonder why they were questioning this. Most likely it was the thought that the mother would be subjected to such major abdominal surgery on such a short notice. The fact also of who was doing it, her, would also be enough for him to raise doubts, even as much trust as he'd shown in her lately. But this danger was not an everyday occurence, so she could not blame him.
When Sharie raised her eyes to Mewtwo's, however, his doubt instantly vanished when he saw the dark nuances of desperation flashing in them, telling him the risks before she even said it, and the silent pleading for him to understand.
"Yes. Otherwise all babies will die in utero sooner than later." Sharie did not add that if this happened, the mother would die as well.
Sharie turned to the mother. "Do you understand?" she asked softly, stroking her forehead gently. "I cannot force you. But there is nothing else that can be tried."
Nidoqueen began speaking in harsh, clipped syllables. "Do it. The lives of my children are at stake. How can I settle for less?"
She reached up and laid a hand on Sharie's shoulder heavily. "Please, save them," she wheezed with increasing difficulty. The pain showing in her eyes was not not from labor, but from emotional agony. The thought of losing even one baby was one she could not stand, and it showed. "Save my babies. You *must* save my babies! Please..."
Sharie could not hide the mistiness that entered her eyes, nor could she speak without revealing the lump in her throat at such a desperate plea. "I will do my best," she said softly. "I swear it!"
****
So it was settled.
"Can you perform it safely?" Mewtwo asked quietly to Sharie as she got up and went back to her pack. The caverns inside Mt. Quena were hardly the place to be performing major surgery, but he understood now there were no alternatives.
"The only place where I'd be confidence of oomplete safety is at a pokemon center. But there's none nearby and I know you don't want to risk it. The environment here is a clean one. I have medical supplies for emergency birth. She trusts me to do this to her, but I need your trust and everyone else involved in this, too. I am only human. There is the risk of something going wrong, or of unexpected complications arising, and I want that understood. I am versed in the art of performing a c-section on a pokemon; however I have never done this before."
He had doubted her earlier, and now her eyes, turned to him, showed her silent pleading for him not to waver now.
"I think we all understand that," he answered seriously. What he could see in her eyes, to his surprise, made him feel rather ashamed. Sharie did not seem to be the type to callously toy with life. "I believe that in you by now. You would not give less than your all, but we also must not expect more of you than you are capeable of giving. It goes both ways. It is a risk we are all willing to face."
She stopped, surprised, and looked at him for a moment. The shadows in her eyes lightened for an instant, and her lips quirked upwards for a brief second in gratitude. Even though she'd never done a ceserean before on a live pokemon, and had only done a few births prior to this, they were willing to trust her.
Humans at any pokemon birth were a rare thing in itself, and few versed in pokemon medicine had ever guided a pokemon through labor. This fact also made it all the more startling that they trusted her.
Without another word, she prepared for the surgery.
****
The first thing she did was take out a hypospray.
"It's a local anesthetic," she explained quietly to the mother. "You will be conscious for the birth but you will not feel anything from the chest down."
"No," she answered weakly, and her eyes twinkled. "I do not think I'd want to feel that."
Sharie smiled and placed a hand on her forehead. "I thought not. You will not feel any more pain from the contractions, either."
Privately, she was grateful for Nidoqueen's bravery. For some reason, her own insides were quaking like a leaf. She had no idea why this was bothering her so; mabye because she'd never handled a birth with such an emergency behind it?
She ignored it, taking out a small thin tube. She pressed a small button on the side and it automatically stretched out several feet long.
Sharie held this over Nidoqueen, at chest level, and warned the mother not to move. She pressed another small button and the ends of the tube almost magically formed new lengths, downwards to the ground. Small tripod feet kept it standing. a thin but opaque blanket rolled down from the top, over her chest and obscuring her vew of the rest of her body.
Sharie saw her questioning look as she quickly spread another equally thin blanket over her legs, leaving her abdomen exposed.
"Do you really want to see yourself operated on?" she responded. "It is not done for the simple fact that in a large number of cases, if something like this is seen, creates a lot of problems, not just for the doctor."
Nidoqueen saw her point.
Sharie moved swiftly, for time was of the essence. She kept Nidoqeen on her side to make this easier.....Nidoqueen physiology was just that way.
Nidoqueen's physical makeup also would have her making the incision high on the abdomen instead of low, near the birth canal as she'd do for most other pokemon or humans. The muscles down there were one of Nidoqueen's vulnerable spots, heavy with arteries and delicate muscles. Cutting into them so low could cause the mother to bleed to death too fast, even with rapid-healing medications like Full Restore or Max Potion, or clotting agents meant to slow blood flow during surgery.
Sharie pressed a hypo full of medication directiy into Nidoqueen's abdominal area for just such a purpose, so she would lose little but natural birth blood when the incision was made.
A tiny package yeilded a thin plastic gown which Sharie donned quickly, as well as a pair of gloves. Sharie thoroughly scrubbed her hands to her elbows, and scrubbed sanitizer on her hands before putting them on.
The same germ-killing substance she spread liberally over Nidoqueen's abdominal area. The pokemon, now calmer, did not move nor flinch, telling Sharie she'd felt nothing and that the anesthetic was in full effect.
Sharie cast a quick glance around her. Madhea, recalling the medical procedures Sharie had been teaching her, had unobtrusively set out absorbent disposable cloths and the tools in her pack that let her do this job. The look of thankfulness in Sharie's eyes was reward enough for the little girl.
Sharie turned to Mewtwo. "I am ready," she said quietly. "I must be sure that nobody else comes and disturbs us. This is critcal and I must move quickly."
Mewtwo nodded his understanding. "Mew is standing watch. Sharie....good luck."
It was not something he was used to doing, but he gave her what he hoped was an encouraging smile. He understood the strain she was under because she'd never put what she'd learned into practice before, not something like this. And yet, for some reason, he knew his trust in her was not misplaced. He somehow understood she would only give her best, and he hoped it turned out all right.
****
"If the sight of blood bothers you, then maybe you should leave," Sharie quietly warned the worried father. "I don't want you to faint and distress your mate."
Rhyhorn shook his head. "I did not the last time she gave birth," he retorted. "I will be fine."
"Then so be it. Stay with her up there and encourage her, keep her calm."
She looked down at Nidoqueen, who's eyes, filled with sudden fear, matched Sharie's quaking insides. "Are you ready?"
Nidoqueen nodded, trying to slow her pounding heart. She moved the pile of cloths nearby to reach for at a moment's notice, and then picked up a special instrument.
It was a laser scalpel. Sharie was not about to take a knife to a ground-type pokemon. The skin would dull the knife's edge, and she could make a fatal slip if that happened. Besides, lasers were much cleaner, more delicate and precise, and the damage they did along the way was less intense.
"I am making the incision," she said quietly.
There was sudden silence in the air, a breathless pause. The only sound was the faint hum of the scalpal as Sharie turned it on.
Sharie measured the incision site with her eyes. It was just above Nidoqueen's midsection, above where the two babies highest in her womb lay nestled.
With a swift, clean move, Sharie directed the laser beam across the abdomen in one motion.
There was a small gush of red fluid, but the inhibitors worked their magic. Nidoqueen's womb had been tight against the surface of the abdominal skin, and was now visible. Sharie made one more quick incision, being careful to time it perfectly.
The clean motion and lack of serious bleeding told her she'd succeeded.
She quietly laid the scalpel aside. That had been the easy part.
This was where her insides, frozen with fear, really began to shake, and Sharie was ashamed of herself for feeling such nervousness. Concentrating on not showing this, while performing surgery, was extremely difficult.
With great care, Sharie reached inside for where she sensed the first baby lay.
She'd barely entered Nidoqueen's body when she encountered a rock-hard surface, of a very small size that would fit perfectly into two of her hands. The small life twitched in surprise at her unexpected touch. Despite being almost frozen with fear, Sharie felt a surge of relief to feel the baby alive. She used both hands to delicately extract the small body from it's mother's womb and lifted it free, into the light.
A surprised squeak of outrage could be heard echoing along the cavern walls.
"I've got him," Sharie was suddenly smiling, feeling a temporary twinge of relief.. "It's a baby Rhyhorn. A fine boy."
Rhyhorn's eyes began to mist over with sudden tears as he looked at his son in Sharie's arms. Nidoqueen made a small whining sound that was a mixture of relief and longing, for her son was alive. Sharie held up the child for a moment for both parents to get a better look.
The surprised baby let out another outraged bellow, thrashing in her hands and creating quite a fuss. Quickly Sharie reached for an abosrbent cloth and wiped some of the mess from him, and reached for a clamp. She put this on his umbilical cord before swiftly cutting him off from his mother.
For him, it was over. He was a living, breathing being. Despite his prematurity, Sharie knew he would survive.
Madhea sensed her part. Sharie swiftly wrapped the little one up and let the young Mewtwo take him. Madhea was still the size of a small child yet, and the baby Rhyhorn, who'd fitted neatly in Sharie's palms, filled her arms full.
*I will need your help,* Sharie told her quietly in telepathy. *After each one is born I need someone to watch them. This is not a typical birth so I cannot afford the parents to be distracted with a baby who's not being cared for--okay?*
Madhea nodded her assent, and Sharie gave her a grateful smile.
The young Mewtwo had been watching all of this in stunned awe, and now she stared at the baby Rhyhorn in wonder. Sharie had been right! This, then, was the miracle of birth--and the end result was well worth it!
He had stopped fussing and was now watching her with wide, innocent eyes, probably frankely wondering who she was. She was fascinated beyond belief.
Sharie wished she had time for such indlugence. But as soon as she had handed the baby to Madhea she moved back to the mother. Again, before her eyes flashed the image of Madhea struggling for life inside her artificial womb that had been her world, and how it had also almost become her grave. Sharie had to fight against such mental images. Each time she saw them raw emotion twisted like a sharp knife in her chest. She could not afford to remember now, not here. Not like this. She had no idea what the hell was wrong with her but she could not dwell on it. She took a deep breath and moved her hands inside Nidoqueen's body again, feeling around for another baby.
Again, almost instantly, she found what she was looking for. Another small, wiggling, and rock-hard body almost moved into her hands, as if desperate to be released from this dark prison that had been making it suffer. Quickly Sharie extracted it from it's confines, lifting it free and out into the world.
It jerked in surprise at the sudden light, and gave a squeal of protest when she thumped a tiny foot to make it start breathing.
"It's another Rhyhorn," she announced to the anxious parents. "A girl."
She briefly held it up, and both parents looked surprised and delighted. In the last litter all the Rhyhorns had been boys. The baby Nidoqueens could have been nothing but female. This was their first Rhyhorn daughter.
Quickly Sharie clamped and cut the cord, and wiped as much birth blood off the baby as she could swiftly do. The baby stopped wailing and opened her eyes, and for a split second Sharie's hands wavered. She remembered Madhea staring at her with such wonder, when she'd taken her first glimpses of the world. Sharie smiled indulgently at the baby before wrapping her up and handing her to Madhea.
With more room, and the mother on her back, the babies left in the mother had moved upwards in her body. Sharie had no trouble encountering another baby when she reached in this time.
The contours of the body were different than before, she could tell that right off, altough just as small. Quickly Sharie lifted it up and out of it's warm wet world and into a new place, a new life.
The higher-pitched squeak rang out before Sharie could say anything, but she did anyway. "A girl. A baby Nidoqueen."
She held up the tiny, perfectly-formed infant for the relieved parents to view. Sharie, too, was sliently amazed that Nidoqueen had for the second time surprised nature by bearing fully-evolved offspring when it should have been impossible.
But no less miraculous. The baby stopped crying as she was cleaned and her cord was cut. Her eyes opened, giving Sharie the same stare as her sister Rhyhorn had done, a mixture of frank curiosity and the deep wisdom most pokemon seemed to have hidden in the depths of their souls, a wisdom few humans were aware of.
"Welcome to the world, little one," she could not help but whisper. "Your parents have been waiting a long while to meet you."
Sharie could've sworn she saw a tiny baby smile cross the young Nidoqueen's face before she was handed to a bemused Madhea, sitting nearby with all the other babies lined up beside her now.
Mewtwo, who had a strange look in his eyes Sharie alone could see, was standing protectively over the whole group, guarding them carefully. Sharie could not read that look in his eyes very well, but to her own surprise what she could see was a mixture of deep awe, and even deeper confusion.
It made her wonder, but she had no time to dwell on it. All she knew for certain was that he was witnessing natural birth for the first time and was reacting to it in his own way, she supposed.
She turned back to Nidoqueen, reaching swiftly inside the mother's body, finding and extracting the fourth baby. Her fingers acted used to this by now, but the iciness splashing her insides only increased. *Why* was she so afraid?
She held up the small gray body she'd lifted from his mother's womb. "Another baby Rhyhorn," she announced softly. "A sturdy son."
Strangely, this one did not cry. He was breathing well, she'd heard his first gasp of air, but his eyes were too busy taking in the world around him to think about something like crying. His wide-eyed newborn awareness made Sharie shake her head at him in wonder as she cleaned him up and cut the cord. He continued to stare around him as he was handed to Madhea to be looked after.
****
Sharie did not have to look at a clock to be aware of how much time had passed. Only a few minutes had elapsed since she'd pulled the first baby free of his mother's body. She now faced the hardest part of the cesearean section, the two babies that need attending to the most.
Sharie was amazed to suddenly feel her hands go icy with cold. The feeling of fear that had crept steadily up her spine fought now to explode in her brain and panic her senses. She did not dare allow this to happen. But a forbidding sense was also creeping into her consciousness, a mental warning. It terrified her but also heightened her determination. Precognition was not a psychic gift of hers, but if this was an exception.....
A distinct howling entered her ears, and along with it came the sharp booming sound of thunder. The storm raging outside had jumped sharply in intensity, as if sensing what was brewing below.
Sharie felt a cold draft, and she quickly glanced at Mewtwo.
He understood without her saying a word. His eyes flashed icy blue for a moment, and she realized he'd doubled the intensity of the psionic barriers covering all entrances into the caverns, so nothing from the outside could penetrate.
Sharie shot him a quick, grateful glance, before turning back to the mother. Nidoqueen was not unaware of her taking a deep breath to steady herself for the difficult task ahead.
She reached into Nidoqueen's body once more, her hands quickly encountering the last two infants.
It was true, what she'd felt--one of them had it's cord wrapped tightly around itself and the other. As gently as she could, desperately trying not to tear anything, Sharie worked to unloop one body from the other.
With the first gentle tug, nothing happened, and Sharie felt a flash of something akin to panic.
It was some strange mercy that did not let the panicky feeling control her senses; in fact, Sharie was surprised to realize that for once the feeling was a blessing in disguise. It only heightened her awareness of each tiny life and the placement of the cords.
Her next tug gently unlooped one of the loops. Encouraged, she hooked her small fingers around the cord and unlooped it again.
With the first of the two babies almost free, she became aware of something. One of them was markedly smaller than the other, and felt....different. Distinctly different. Worry flashed in her eyes before she could stop it.
At last Sharie freed the cord of the first baby, and carefully extracted the baby from it's mate and lifted it free of the confines of its dark world.
As soon as she saw what she held in her hands, Sharie's surprised gasp escaped her lips before she could curtail it.
The baby was different, all right.
It was small and female, but different.
A baby Nidoran female.
Unevolved.
****
"Oh, gods," Sharie whispered in astonishment. Nobody had expected this; not when all babies before had been either Rhyhorn or Nidoqueen. Some mysteries of nature were just bound to remain intact.
The tiny baby's movements were sluggish, and suddenly Sharie noticed the tiny chest quivering, as if unable to draw her own breath for herself. The light blue color of her skin was too pale, evidence of how she'd suffered and nearly strangled. The silence, where a baby's first cry should have echoed instead, was palpable and jolted with silent, frantic electricity. Again, deja vu almost froze Sharie in her tracks. Sharie recalled Madhea struggling in a similar fashion, and the memory spurred her into reacting.
It was total instinct that made one of her hands thump a tiny foot and massage a delicate chest at the same time. The baby barely reacted, and it's first breath was quivery, a faint squeak at most. Very tiny, high-pitched squeaks could be heard, though, after this, rising in pitch and stretngth and reassuring her the baby was all right.
Only then did she dare lift the child up to her frantic parents.
"It's a girl," she said unnecessarily. "She'll be okay now."
A mixture of relief and shocked surpise showed in the eyes of both Rhyhorn and Nidoqueen; clearly this was not something they were expecting--not a baby Nidoran female.
Sharie, though, was smiling through her fear. "You and I both sensed one was different," she said. "There was no real problem there. She's healthy and perfect the way she is."
A warm glow of understanding entered Nidoqueen's eyes, and Rhyhorn nuzzled her in assent. Nidoqueen let out a small, high-pitched noise, and her new daughter stopped wailing and listened. She paused for a moment, then emitted her own high-pitched squeak, the same as her mother had done.
Sharie, relieved at the moment, clamped the cord of the newborn pokemon and cut it, swiftly cleaning her and handing her to Madhea to place with the others.
So far, it had gone quite well.
What happened next, though, shattered that scene.
****
Just as Sharie handed the baby Nidoran female to Madhea, something very sudden, and very awful, flashed across her senses.
She'd never lost her awareness of the last baby still in it's mother. In her mind it had been a warm essence, though very weak as Sharie had fought to remove all the babies to get to it.
Now, quite suddenly, it flickered in her mind, sputtering like a small flame being drizzled with water.
Sharie gasped aloud; it was such a shockwave in her mind she was unable to curtail it. Like a dying bulb she felt the essence begin to dim in her conscious awareness, to sputter further and threatening to go out altogether.
Nidoqueen did not see the frantic look on her face, but she heard Sharie's gasp. Rhyhorn *did* see the fear in Sharie's eyes and understood the silent message: their last child was in grave danger.
Sharie wasted no time. She'd felt Madhea fade from her awareness that day, the day she'd almost died before her first breath could be taken. The wounds from such a memory were still too raw in her mind.
She quickly, but gently, pushed her hands back into the mother's body to extract the last baby before it was too late.
Her fingers quickly found the child, but also a tangled mess of cord. Her fingers traced it rapidly and found it looped around the infant's body once--then twice.
And finally, a third time. Tightly.
And around the little one's neck.
Sharie's lips tightened as her fear threatened to paralyze her, something she could not afford to do!
The baby's awareness in her mind dimmed further, and the body of the small child did not react to her touch at all. She lay in there, limp as a rag doll and her struggles ceasing.
*No!*
The word exploded in Sharie's mind. No! Not again! The memories of Madhea and that day of horror overwhelmed Sharie's mind utterly. Why was it happening again to an innocent baby! Why?
For whatever reason why, she'd not let it happen! No child deserved to die because it was a clone or the child of a clone. The child would not die while Madhea had lived.
Sharie felt a faint flash in her senses, and along with it came a surge of new determination. Her fingers seemed to work without her thinking, tugging the cord free of the little throat and unlooping it from the rest of the body. As quickly as she dared she extrackted the child from it's mother's body, lifting it free and into the light.
"A baby Nidoqueen," she whispered hoarsely. "A girl."
Sharie quickly thumped one of the tiny feet and massaged the chest, encouraging a first breath.
The awful silence in the alcove only thickened as the baby made no response. To Sharie's total horror, instead, the bare flickers of life in her mind suddenly snapped utterly, leaving a cold, empty void.
Madhea, too, watched this in horror. The painful flashes of memory her heart sensed in Sharie's mind also flashed in hers. Oh, gods, that awful day, when she'd felt herself on the brink of death and only the sheer determination of a stranger, a human female, had made her live.
"Oh, *gods*, no!" Sharie breathed, her terror by now very real. All that she'd been sensing, all her uneasiness, had led up to this moment. Something about her power had actually known this would happen before she herself knew.
Her eyes burned, and a lump filled her throat. Quickly, frantically, she looked upwards as she clamped and cut the cord, looking past Nidoqueen to the boulder she'd been leaning against originally. Instinct took over Sharie's body as she stood up and walked around the horrified parents. She did not mean to but they could clearly see the limp child in her arms, more or less dead.
Sharie was consumed by memories of the past, the horror she had gone through with Madhea replaying in her mind again and again. Strangely, some essence seemed to take hold of her hands and body, fuled by her determination to do *something* to make the child live again. This child would *not* die when Madhea had, despite incredible odds, managed to survive.
She laid the baby Nidoqueen on the boulder, one of her hands slipping behind the tiny neck and lifting it. Her other hand swiped the baby's mouth free of debris.
Sharie bent and sealed her lips over the baby's muzzle, blowing in a gentle breath of air and inflating the tiny lungs for the first time herself--just as she'd done with Madhea that day.
Next she placed two hands on the baby's tiny chest and compressed twice, stimulating the heart to work. She blew another gentle breath and pressed the chest twice more.
The strain in the air around her increased further, and Sharie felt the same hopelessness threatening to creep in as she'd felt when Madhea had lay there just as limply. But her heart refused to give up.
Suddenly Sharie noticed one tiny arm twitch, a muscle spasm. It was enough for Sharie. A flash of dark hope flooded through her, she blew into the baby's mouth once more, followed by two more quick chest compressions.
The child jerked her head and gave a sudden cough. She gasped as she drew in a quivery lungful of air and gave a tiny squeak.
Beneath her fingertips, Sharie could feel the tiny heart start up of it's own accord and begin to thrum with a life of it's own. A smile lit up her face as realization dawned on her.
The crying squeaks came louder, more lustily now. The emptiness in Sharie's head and heart, from where her awareness of the baby had died, now resurged with a new strength. Sharie's eyes brimed with tears that did not fall, and she spoke past a lump in her throat as she announced quietly, "Your daughter will live. She's okay now."
She carried the baby over to her relieved parents. Tears were seeping out of the corners of Nidoqueen's eyes, and the low wail she gave was thick with a gratitude she could not describe. Rhyhorn's eyes were similarly wet with a weak relief. Their child would live.
"I did nothing but what had to be done," Sharie answered quietly to Nidoqueen's wailing sound. "She is alive, and....Oh, gods, look at this!"
For the first time, everyone noticed what was so unusual about this little one as Sharie cleaned her off where the parents could see her.
The baby Nidoqueen was a pink-purple color, not blue as her kind normally should have been. As she continued to cry, the rosy color only became more evident.
"I'll be damned," Sharie breathed, astonished all over again. "An alternately-colored Nidoqueen! If that doesn't beat all!"
The baby opened wide eyes and looked at her, wondering what all the commotion was about.
"It just means she's special," Sharie asserted, laying the child down beside her mother who, delighted, inspected her all over with her eyes and muzzle. "As special as any other creature with a soul. A special gift that nobody can duplicate, and is ours alone."
The rosy-colored Nidoqueen gave a sudden squeak, as if annoucing to all she agreed. It made Sharie suddenly laugh aloud, her fear gone and her body warm once more.
****
My goodness, that was *not* an easy piece of writng, I tell you! Watch out for chapter 15!
Moonlight Shadows and Echoes Past chapter 14
by ZeoViolet
****
Sharie felt oddly possessed, sitting astride Rhyhorn as he went as fast as he dared to where his mate lay, only barely taking into account that she was on his back and being careful not to throw her off.
The sense that something was utterly wrong, something urgently demanded her attention, had seemed to sap all of Sharie's will from her. She'd been expectant when Rhyhorn came crashing over, stopped, and had looked into her eyes as if he understood her strange, trancelike state.
Like a puppet on a string, without thinking of it or considering anything else, she'd been compelled to climb on his back to get to his mate faster, the whole time not feeling quite in control but sure she was doing the right thing.
Within moments, the frantic pacing beneath her sore legs--Rhyhorn's rock-hard back was not ideal for riding--slowed, and in a hidden alcove, where Nidoqueen was crouched, gasping silently in pain, Rhyhorn came to a stop, his sides heaving.
Quickly Sharie slid off his back and turned to him. Her trancelike state not over yet, she placed one small hand on his head, silently communicating. Her bottomless amethyst eyes met his frantic dark ones, and silently, she reassured him she would do everything in her power to help them both, and that she would give nothing less than her all.
It was to her credit that he, an overprotective clone, sincerely believed her, a human female descended of those who probably threatened them all the most. For that, Sharie was thankful.
She removed her hand from his head and turned to Nidoqueen. Before she could take a step, a sharp twinge of pain rushed across her senses once more.
Sharie gasped slightly, her face paling. Quickly she controlled it; not wanting Nidoqueen to see it. Sharie had helped deliver pokemon babies twice before, and she knew that was *definetly* not a pain that Nidoqueen should have felt. Not in this stage of labor.
The gasping pokemon was propped up against a large boulder, as upright as she could manage. She was shaking all over, her forehead was misty with persperation, and she shivered, not just with the pains racking her body. Her chest heaved for air it did not seem to get.
The pain in her brown eyes was great, and when she saw Sharie standing silently beside her, a mixture of relief and desperation entered them.
Nidoqueen gave a low growl, which registered in Sharie's ears as panic and pleading.
"I will do what I can," Sharie reassured her softly, her voice subtly switching languages to comfort the mother as best she could. "We will get through this together. Will you trust me?"
Nidoqueen managed a small nod before another tearing contraction ripped through her midsection. Sharie had to fight hard not to wince with her. Somehow, her senses had automatically tuned into Nidoqueen's so finely she was aware of every wave of pain as if it were her own. This was not the first time she'd experienced this, expecially with an expectant mother, but Sharie could not recall it being this intense.
"Sh, relax," she soothed in a soft voice to the straining pokemon. Gently her fingers pressed against Nidoqueen's temples in a rhythmic, soothing motion, a form of pokemon massage she'd learned how to do long ago. "Do not fight the pain, flow with it."
Sharie took a deep breath as she considered where to begin. This labor was not going typically, that was for sure. The violent surges of pain ripping through Nidoqueen was probably due to two sources--one, her labor was going too fast; and two, the pain was not typical of a contraction. Something else had to be adding onto the pain she was already experiencing due to contractions.
For any living being that gave birth, labors that come on too quickly could, in rare cases, do serious damage to the mother, and any pain that was not a normal part of labor also was worth looking into. It was rare, since labors could be extremely fast and do no damage at all, but Sharie had a sinking feeling this was one of those infrequent exceptions.
Gently Sharie placed both hands on Nidoqueen's slightly rounded abdomen, then pressed firmly in an attempt to sense the placement of each baby.
With a Nidoqueen's hard armor-like skin, this was not easy. Her skin was tough enough that it had even impeded most of the swelling that most other creatures would experience in the uterus as a result of pregancy. Nidoqueen's uterus had expanded more upwards than outwards.
Sharie's sensetive fingers pressed firmly against the gentle swelling, gathering what information she could from her sense of touch. She also lowered her mental sheilds a little to see if she could sense the bare essences of the life beneath her fingertips.
Near the top she sensed two, nestled in their designated spots, curled in quite a confining space. From their placement and the size of the uterus, Sharie guessed they were almost mature enough for full-term, but not quite. She'd been right about this being preterm labor.
Sharie frowned as another contraction ripped through NIdoqueen, and the essences of each baby twitched in her mind, mixing in with the agony that also tore across her senses. It was hard enough Sharie flinched slightly, unable to help it. That was not a good sign; it meant that the labors were placing undue strain on the babies. Sharie had to fight hard not to show that she felt each baby react to the contraction with a vague sense of suffering. Above all, she must not frighten the mother.
Sharie moved her hands lower; encountering two more essences. Just barely beneath her fingers she could feel fluttering movements, a good reassurance. But another contraction heaved through their mother and again, Sharie felt the essences twich and tremor in her mind. She shut her mouth hard, and a flash of unwanted memory creeped into her mind for a split second--she recalled how Madhea had struggled this way so desperately, fighting to stay alive in the tank she'd been floating in, all alone.
Just as swiftly, Sharie banished the thought from her mind, amazed it had even come up. Never before had she let anything distract her when doing something like this. It was completely unprofessional and her own feelings were beside the point.
She went on with her examination.
It was when she shifted her hands to near the bottom of the mother's abodmen, near the birth canal, that Sharie got truly concerned. The skin around her lips tightened imperceptibly, to the point where even Nidoqueen noticed.
Even between contractions, Their essences were fuzzing in and out of her mind, almost frantically. They were laying so close together and the sense of distress emenating from them both was so obvious that Sharie sensed an immediate cause to all of this--they were probably entangled by their own cords. Maybe even together.
And together, they were positioned right over the birth canal. Maybe even blocking it. Two babies could not pass down it at once.
Sharie could not even feel them moving. Their essences were barely there. She could tell no more without lowering her sheilds further, but she did not need to. She did need her equiptment.
Sharie, without moving, sent a quick telepathic thought to Madhea.
*Madhea, please, I need my medical equipment. Bring Mewtwo as well, as quickly as you can. Hurry, please!*
She sensed a silent acknowledgement. The girl did not question her at all. Sharie hoped she'd not sounded like she was giving a flat order. It had been a plea.
This was trouble.
****
Sharie turned her focus back to the anxious, worried mother.
"I think I have an idea of the problem," she said softly. "I must scan you to be sure, though. You must lie down, on your side."
Nidoqueen nodded assent at once. The level look in Sharie's eyes, as well as the calm reassurance she was trying to project, told her well that Sharie knew what she was doing.
Rhyhorn came up and nuzzled his mate on the head as she lay there on the grass, gasping with another contraction.
Sharie pressed her hands against the lower uterine wall again. Laying down had taken some of the pressure off the two babies at the bottom, but it would not help nor hold for long. However, something else whispered across her consciousness for a moment, something she could not quite define.
It was one thing that did not feel alarming, and it made her lips twitch, though she did not know why.
"Here is one thing I can tell you that probably is not bad," she said quietly. "I sense one of your children will be different. How, I do not know. It is just something I feel."
They looked at her, surprised for a moment. Then, suddenly, Nidoqueen nodded. "I had a feeling," she wheezed faintly. "One of....of them was not like the...others. I've been worried."
"Worrying will not help here," said Sharie. Vaguely she sensed Mewtwo and Madhea arriving by teleportation. "Different or not, I am sure you would love the child as you love the others, don't you? Even as clones, you are all unique, with your own hearts and souls. Nobody can copy those. Remember that."
Nidoqueen, gasping through another contraction, managed a weak smile.
****
"How is she?" asked Mewtwo as soon as he came over, Madhea clutching one of his hands and dragging Sharie's pack with the other.
"I have a good idea of the problem but I want to run a scan to be sure," said Sharie quietly. The forbidding look in her eyes kept both Mewtwos from asking questions.
Without another word she pulled one of her scanners out of her pack and went back to Nidoqueen. The weary mother made no objection when Sharie passed it over her, displaying vital signs of each baby.
Once Sharie interpreted the readings, a bleakness entered her soul, something she tried not to show on her face. But when she turned to Nidoqeen, the unreadable void in her eyes betrayed what she was trying to conceal.
"I will not hide the truth from you," she told the mother as calmly as she could. "Your babies are in danger."
A look of shocked panic entered Nidoqueen's eyes, and a low, faint whine escaped her mouth as she struggled to sit up.
Gently Sharie touched her shoulders. To her own surprise, the one touch stilled the mother at once.
"The two babies nearest the birth canal have their cords entangled. Not only around themselves, but each other, in a rather big mess. Each time you have a contraction it worsens the strain on them."
Nidoqueen made another low wailing sound of distress.
"I know you could not help going into preterm labor," Sharie told her softly. "But there may be a chance for them if I act quickly. Your labor was fortunate to start now, because had you gone to term they would not have made it, since by then it would have been too late for them."
Mewtwo had been listening to everything, and he was rather horrified at the mental picture Sharie's descrption rendered in his mind. "Can they be untangled?"
"The babies are lying transverse across the canal, both of them. and the tangling's too hard, I could not do it manually. The way they are no baby can be born, so all babies are in danger. To have a chance at saving them I must act quickly. Each contraction she has makes the problem worse for all."
"What do you need to do?" Asked Mewtwo quietly.
"I must perform a ceserean section. Here. Now."
"A....what?" gasped Madhea, surprised. "Cut her open?"
Rhyhorn made a grunt of disapproval and Mewtwo had to ask, "Is that truly necessary?"
Sharie could not help wonder why they were questioning this. Most likely it was the thought that the mother would be subjected to such major abdominal surgery on such a short notice. The fact also of who was doing it, her, would also be enough for him to raise doubts, even as much trust as he'd shown in her lately. But this danger was not an everyday occurence, so she could not blame him.
When Sharie raised her eyes to Mewtwo's, however, his doubt instantly vanished when he saw the dark nuances of desperation flashing in them, telling him the risks before she even said it, and the silent pleading for him to understand.
"Yes. Otherwise all babies will die in utero sooner than later." Sharie did not add that if this happened, the mother would die as well.
Sharie turned to the mother. "Do you understand?" she asked softly, stroking her forehead gently. "I cannot force you. But there is nothing else that can be tried."
Nidoqueen began speaking in harsh, clipped syllables. "Do it. The lives of my children are at stake. How can I settle for less?"
She reached up and laid a hand on Sharie's shoulder heavily. "Please, save them," she wheezed with increasing difficulty. The pain showing in her eyes was not not from labor, but from emotional agony. The thought of losing even one baby was one she could not stand, and it showed. "Save my babies. You *must* save my babies! Please..."
Sharie could not hide the mistiness that entered her eyes, nor could she speak without revealing the lump in her throat at such a desperate plea. "I will do my best," she said softly. "I swear it!"
****
So it was settled.
"Can you perform it safely?" Mewtwo asked quietly to Sharie as she got up and went back to her pack. The caverns inside Mt. Quena were hardly the place to be performing major surgery, but he understood now there were no alternatives.
"The only place where I'd be confidence of oomplete safety is at a pokemon center. But there's none nearby and I know you don't want to risk it. The environment here is a clean one. I have medical supplies for emergency birth. She trusts me to do this to her, but I need your trust and everyone else involved in this, too. I am only human. There is the risk of something going wrong, or of unexpected complications arising, and I want that understood. I am versed in the art of performing a c-section on a pokemon; however I have never done this before."
He had doubted her earlier, and now her eyes, turned to him, showed her silent pleading for him not to waver now.
"I think we all understand that," he answered seriously. What he could see in her eyes, to his surprise, made him feel rather ashamed. Sharie did not seem to be the type to callously toy with life. "I believe that in you by now. You would not give less than your all, but we also must not expect more of you than you are capeable of giving. It goes both ways. It is a risk we are all willing to face."
She stopped, surprised, and looked at him for a moment. The shadows in her eyes lightened for an instant, and her lips quirked upwards for a brief second in gratitude. Even though she'd never done a ceserean before on a live pokemon, and had only done a few births prior to this, they were willing to trust her.
Humans at any pokemon birth were a rare thing in itself, and few versed in pokemon medicine had ever guided a pokemon through labor. This fact also made it all the more startling that they trusted her.
Without another word, she prepared for the surgery.
****
The first thing she did was take out a hypospray.
"It's a local anesthetic," she explained quietly to the mother. "You will be conscious for the birth but you will not feel anything from the chest down."
"No," she answered weakly, and her eyes twinkled. "I do not think I'd want to feel that."
Sharie smiled and placed a hand on her forehead. "I thought not. You will not feel any more pain from the contractions, either."
Privately, she was grateful for Nidoqueen's bravery. For some reason, her own insides were quaking like a leaf. She had no idea why this was bothering her so; mabye because she'd never handled a birth with such an emergency behind it?
She ignored it, taking out a small thin tube. She pressed a small button on the side and it automatically stretched out several feet long.
Sharie held this over Nidoqueen, at chest level, and warned the mother not to move. She pressed another small button and the ends of the tube almost magically formed new lengths, downwards to the ground. Small tripod feet kept it standing. a thin but opaque blanket rolled down from the top, over her chest and obscuring her vew of the rest of her body.
Sharie saw her questioning look as she quickly spread another equally thin blanket over her legs, leaving her abdomen exposed.
"Do you really want to see yourself operated on?" she responded. "It is not done for the simple fact that in a large number of cases, if something like this is seen, creates a lot of problems, not just for the doctor."
Nidoqueen saw her point.
Sharie moved swiftly, for time was of the essence. She kept Nidoqeen on her side to make this easier.....Nidoqueen physiology was just that way.
Nidoqueen's physical makeup also would have her making the incision high on the abdomen instead of low, near the birth canal as she'd do for most other pokemon or humans. The muscles down there were one of Nidoqueen's vulnerable spots, heavy with arteries and delicate muscles. Cutting into them so low could cause the mother to bleed to death too fast, even with rapid-healing medications like Full Restore or Max Potion, or clotting agents meant to slow blood flow during surgery.
Sharie pressed a hypo full of medication directiy into Nidoqueen's abdominal area for just such a purpose, so she would lose little but natural birth blood when the incision was made.
A tiny package yeilded a thin plastic gown which Sharie donned quickly, as well as a pair of gloves. Sharie thoroughly scrubbed her hands to her elbows, and scrubbed sanitizer on her hands before putting them on.
The same germ-killing substance she spread liberally over Nidoqueen's abdominal area. The pokemon, now calmer, did not move nor flinch, telling Sharie she'd felt nothing and that the anesthetic was in full effect.
Sharie cast a quick glance around her. Madhea, recalling the medical procedures Sharie had been teaching her, had unobtrusively set out absorbent disposable cloths and the tools in her pack that let her do this job. The look of thankfulness in Sharie's eyes was reward enough for the little girl.
Sharie turned to Mewtwo. "I am ready," she said quietly. "I must be sure that nobody else comes and disturbs us. This is critcal and I must move quickly."
Mewtwo nodded his understanding. "Mew is standing watch. Sharie....good luck."
It was not something he was used to doing, but he gave her what he hoped was an encouraging smile. He understood the strain she was under because she'd never put what she'd learned into practice before, not something like this. And yet, for some reason, he knew his trust in her was not misplaced. He somehow understood she would only give her best, and he hoped it turned out all right.
****
"If the sight of blood bothers you, then maybe you should leave," Sharie quietly warned the worried father. "I don't want you to faint and distress your mate."
Rhyhorn shook his head. "I did not the last time she gave birth," he retorted. "I will be fine."
"Then so be it. Stay with her up there and encourage her, keep her calm."
She looked down at Nidoqueen, who's eyes, filled with sudden fear, matched Sharie's quaking insides. "Are you ready?"
Nidoqueen nodded, trying to slow her pounding heart. She moved the pile of cloths nearby to reach for at a moment's notice, and then picked up a special instrument.
It was a laser scalpel. Sharie was not about to take a knife to a ground-type pokemon. The skin would dull the knife's edge, and she could make a fatal slip if that happened. Besides, lasers were much cleaner, more delicate and precise, and the damage they did along the way was less intense.
"I am making the incision," she said quietly.
There was sudden silence in the air, a breathless pause. The only sound was the faint hum of the scalpal as Sharie turned it on.
Sharie measured the incision site with her eyes. It was just above Nidoqueen's midsection, above where the two babies highest in her womb lay nestled.
With a swift, clean move, Sharie directed the laser beam across the abdomen in one motion.
There was a small gush of red fluid, but the inhibitors worked their magic. Nidoqueen's womb had been tight against the surface of the abdominal skin, and was now visible. Sharie made one more quick incision, being careful to time it perfectly.
The clean motion and lack of serious bleeding told her she'd succeeded.
She quietly laid the scalpel aside. That had been the easy part.
This was where her insides, frozen with fear, really began to shake, and Sharie was ashamed of herself for feeling such nervousness. Concentrating on not showing this, while performing surgery, was extremely difficult.
With great care, Sharie reached inside for where she sensed the first baby lay.
She'd barely entered Nidoqueen's body when she encountered a rock-hard surface, of a very small size that would fit perfectly into two of her hands. The small life twitched in surprise at her unexpected touch. Despite being almost frozen with fear, Sharie felt a surge of relief to feel the baby alive. She used both hands to delicately extract the small body from it's mother's womb and lifted it free, into the light.
A surprised squeak of outrage could be heard echoing along the cavern walls.
"I've got him," Sharie was suddenly smiling, feeling a temporary twinge of relief.. "It's a baby Rhyhorn. A fine boy."
Rhyhorn's eyes began to mist over with sudden tears as he looked at his son in Sharie's arms. Nidoqueen made a small whining sound that was a mixture of relief and longing, for her son was alive. Sharie held up the child for a moment for both parents to get a better look.
The surprised baby let out another outraged bellow, thrashing in her hands and creating quite a fuss. Quickly Sharie reached for an abosrbent cloth and wiped some of the mess from him, and reached for a clamp. She put this on his umbilical cord before swiftly cutting him off from his mother.
For him, it was over. He was a living, breathing being. Despite his prematurity, Sharie knew he would survive.
Madhea sensed her part. Sharie swiftly wrapped the little one up and let the young Mewtwo take him. Madhea was still the size of a small child yet, and the baby Rhyhorn, who'd fitted neatly in Sharie's palms, filled her arms full.
*I will need your help,* Sharie told her quietly in telepathy. *After each one is born I need someone to watch them. This is not a typical birth so I cannot afford the parents to be distracted with a baby who's not being cared for--okay?*
Madhea nodded her assent, and Sharie gave her a grateful smile.
The young Mewtwo had been watching all of this in stunned awe, and now she stared at the baby Rhyhorn in wonder. Sharie had been right! This, then, was the miracle of birth--and the end result was well worth it!
He had stopped fussing and was now watching her with wide, innocent eyes, probably frankely wondering who she was. She was fascinated beyond belief.
Sharie wished she had time for such indlugence. But as soon as she had handed the baby to Madhea she moved back to the mother. Again, before her eyes flashed the image of Madhea struggling for life inside her artificial womb that had been her world, and how it had also almost become her grave. Sharie had to fight against such mental images. Each time she saw them raw emotion twisted like a sharp knife in her chest. She could not afford to remember now, not here. Not like this. She had no idea what the hell was wrong with her but she could not dwell on it. She took a deep breath and moved her hands inside Nidoqueen's body again, feeling around for another baby.
Again, almost instantly, she found what she was looking for. Another small, wiggling, and rock-hard body almost moved into her hands, as if desperate to be released from this dark prison that had been making it suffer. Quickly Sharie extracted it from it's confines, lifting it free and out into the world.
It jerked in surprise at the sudden light, and gave a squeal of protest when she thumped a tiny foot to make it start breathing.
"It's another Rhyhorn," she announced to the anxious parents. "A girl."
She briefly held it up, and both parents looked surprised and delighted. In the last litter all the Rhyhorns had been boys. The baby Nidoqueens could have been nothing but female. This was their first Rhyhorn daughter.
Quickly Sharie clamped and cut the cord, and wiped as much birth blood off the baby as she could swiftly do. The baby stopped wailing and opened her eyes, and for a split second Sharie's hands wavered. She remembered Madhea staring at her with such wonder, when she'd taken her first glimpses of the world. Sharie smiled indulgently at the baby before wrapping her up and handing her to Madhea.
With more room, and the mother on her back, the babies left in the mother had moved upwards in her body. Sharie had no trouble encountering another baby when she reached in this time.
The contours of the body were different than before, she could tell that right off, altough just as small. Quickly Sharie lifted it up and out of it's warm wet world and into a new place, a new life.
The higher-pitched squeak rang out before Sharie could say anything, but she did anyway. "A girl. A baby Nidoqueen."
She held up the tiny, perfectly-formed infant for the relieved parents to view. Sharie, too, was sliently amazed that Nidoqueen had for the second time surprised nature by bearing fully-evolved offspring when it should have been impossible.
But no less miraculous. The baby stopped crying as she was cleaned and her cord was cut. Her eyes opened, giving Sharie the same stare as her sister Rhyhorn had done, a mixture of frank curiosity and the deep wisdom most pokemon seemed to have hidden in the depths of their souls, a wisdom few humans were aware of.
"Welcome to the world, little one," she could not help but whisper. "Your parents have been waiting a long while to meet you."
Sharie could've sworn she saw a tiny baby smile cross the young Nidoqueen's face before she was handed to a bemused Madhea, sitting nearby with all the other babies lined up beside her now.
Mewtwo, who had a strange look in his eyes Sharie alone could see, was standing protectively over the whole group, guarding them carefully. Sharie could not read that look in his eyes very well, but to her own surprise what she could see was a mixture of deep awe, and even deeper confusion.
It made her wonder, but she had no time to dwell on it. All she knew for certain was that he was witnessing natural birth for the first time and was reacting to it in his own way, she supposed.
She turned back to Nidoqueen, reaching swiftly inside the mother's body, finding and extracting the fourth baby. Her fingers acted used to this by now, but the iciness splashing her insides only increased. *Why* was she so afraid?
She held up the small gray body she'd lifted from his mother's womb. "Another baby Rhyhorn," she announced softly. "A sturdy son."
Strangely, this one did not cry. He was breathing well, she'd heard his first gasp of air, but his eyes were too busy taking in the world around him to think about something like crying. His wide-eyed newborn awareness made Sharie shake her head at him in wonder as she cleaned him up and cut the cord. He continued to stare around him as he was handed to Madhea to be looked after.
****
Sharie did not have to look at a clock to be aware of how much time had passed. Only a few minutes had elapsed since she'd pulled the first baby free of his mother's body. She now faced the hardest part of the cesearean section, the two babies that need attending to the most.
Sharie was amazed to suddenly feel her hands go icy with cold. The feeling of fear that had crept steadily up her spine fought now to explode in her brain and panic her senses. She did not dare allow this to happen. But a forbidding sense was also creeping into her consciousness, a mental warning. It terrified her but also heightened her determination. Precognition was not a psychic gift of hers, but if this was an exception.....
A distinct howling entered her ears, and along with it came the sharp booming sound of thunder. The storm raging outside had jumped sharply in intensity, as if sensing what was brewing below.
Sharie felt a cold draft, and she quickly glanced at Mewtwo.
He understood without her saying a word. His eyes flashed icy blue for a moment, and she realized he'd doubled the intensity of the psionic barriers covering all entrances into the caverns, so nothing from the outside could penetrate.
Sharie shot him a quick, grateful glance, before turning back to the mother. Nidoqueen was not unaware of her taking a deep breath to steady herself for the difficult task ahead.
She reached into Nidoqueen's body once more, her hands quickly encountering the last two infants.
It was true, what she'd felt--one of them had it's cord wrapped tightly around itself and the other. As gently as she could, desperately trying not to tear anything, Sharie worked to unloop one body from the other.
With the first gentle tug, nothing happened, and Sharie felt a flash of something akin to panic.
It was some strange mercy that did not let the panicky feeling control her senses; in fact, Sharie was surprised to realize that for once the feeling was a blessing in disguise. It only heightened her awareness of each tiny life and the placement of the cords.
Her next tug gently unlooped one of the loops. Encouraged, she hooked her small fingers around the cord and unlooped it again.
With the first of the two babies almost free, she became aware of something. One of them was markedly smaller than the other, and felt....different. Distinctly different. Worry flashed in her eyes before she could stop it.
At last Sharie freed the cord of the first baby, and carefully extracted the baby from it's mate and lifted it free of the confines of its dark world.
As soon as she saw what she held in her hands, Sharie's surprised gasp escaped her lips before she could curtail it.
The baby was different, all right.
It was small and female, but different.
A baby Nidoran female.
Unevolved.
****
"Oh, gods," Sharie whispered in astonishment. Nobody had expected this; not when all babies before had been either Rhyhorn or Nidoqueen. Some mysteries of nature were just bound to remain intact.
The tiny baby's movements were sluggish, and suddenly Sharie noticed the tiny chest quivering, as if unable to draw her own breath for herself. The light blue color of her skin was too pale, evidence of how she'd suffered and nearly strangled. The silence, where a baby's first cry should have echoed instead, was palpable and jolted with silent, frantic electricity. Again, deja vu almost froze Sharie in her tracks. Sharie recalled Madhea struggling in a similar fashion, and the memory spurred her into reacting.
It was total instinct that made one of her hands thump a tiny foot and massage a delicate chest at the same time. The baby barely reacted, and it's first breath was quivery, a faint squeak at most. Very tiny, high-pitched squeaks could be heard, though, after this, rising in pitch and stretngth and reassuring her the baby was all right.
Only then did she dare lift the child up to her frantic parents.
"It's a girl," she said unnecessarily. "She'll be okay now."
A mixture of relief and shocked surpise showed in the eyes of both Rhyhorn and Nidoqueen; clearly this was not something they were expecting--not a baby Nidoran female.
Sharie, though, was smiling through her fear. "You and I both sensed one was different," she said. "There was no real problem there. She's healthy and perfect the way she is."
A warm glow of understanding entered Nidoqueen's eyes, and Rhyhorn nuzzled her in assent. Nidoqueen let out a small, high-pitched noise, and her new daughter stopped wailing and listened. She paused for a moment, then emitted her own high-pitched squeak, the same as her mother had done.
Sharie, relieved at the moment, clamped the cord of the newborn pokemon and cut it, swiftly cleaning her and handing her to Madhea to place with the others.
So far, it had gone quite well.
What happened next, though, shattered that scene.
****
Just as Sharie handed the baby Nidoran female to Madhea, something very sudden, and very awful, flashed across her senses.
She'd never lost her awareness of the last baby still in it's mother. In her mind it had been a warm essence, though very weak as Sharie had fought to remove all the babies to get to it.
Now, quite suddenly, it flickered in her mind, sputtering like a small flame being drizzled with water.
Sharie gasped aloud; it was such a shockwave in her mind she was unable to curtail it. Like a dying bulb she felt the essence begin to dim in her conscious awareness, to sputter further and threatening to go out altogether.
Nidoqueen did not see the frantic look on her face, but she heard Sharie's gasp. Rhyhorn *did* see the fear in Sharie's eyes and understood the silent message: their last child was in grave danger.
Sharie wasted no time. She'd felt Madhea fade from her awareness that day, the day she'd almost died before her first breath could be taken. The wounds from such a memory were still too raw in her mind.
She quickly, but gently, pushed her hands back into the mother's body to extract the last baby before it was too late.
Her fingers quickly found the child, but also a tangled mess of cord. Her fingers traced it rapidly and found it looped around the infant's body once--then twice.
And finally, a third time. Tightly.
And around the little one's neck.
Sharie's lips tightened as her fear threatened to paralyze her, something she could not afford to do!
The baby's awareness in her mind dimmed further, and the body of the small child did not react to her touch at all. She lay in there, limp as a rag doll and her struggles ceasing.
*No!*
The word exploded in Sharie's mind. No! Not again! The memories of Madhea and that day of horror overwhelmed Sharie's mind utterly. Why was it happening again to an innocent baby! Why?
For whatever reason why, she'd not let it happen! No child deserved to die because it was a clone or the child of a clone. The child would not die while Madhea had lived.
Sharie felt a faint flash in her senses, and along with it came a surge of new determination. Her fingers seemed to work without her thinking, tugging the cord free of the little throat and unlooping it from the rest of the body. As quickly as she dared she extrackted the child from it's mother's body, lifting it free and into the light.
"A baby Nidoqueen," she whispered hoarsely. "A girl."
Sharie quickly thumped one of the tiny feet and massaged the chest, encouraging a first breath.
The awful silence in the alcove only thickened as the baby made no response. To Sharie's total horror, instead, the bare flickers of life in her mind suddenly snapped utterly, leaving a cold, empty void.
Madhea, too, watched this in horror. The painful flashes of memory her heart sensed in Sharie's mind also flashed in hers. Oh, gods, that awful day, when she'd felt herself on the brink of death and only the sheer determination of a stranger, a human female, had made her live.
"Oh, *gods*, no!" Sharie breathed, her terror by now very real. All that she'd been sensing, all her uneasiness, had led up to this moment. Something about her power had actually known this would happen before she herself knew.
Her eyes burned, and a lump filled her throat. Quickly, frantically, she looked upwards as she clamped and cut the cord, looking past Nidoqueen to the boulder she'd been leaning against originally. Instinct took over Sharie's body as she stood up and walked around the horrified parents. She did not mean to but they could clearly see the limp child in her arms, more or less dead.
Sharie was consumed by memories of the past, the horror she had gone through with Madhea replaying in her mind again and again. Strangely, some essence seemed to take hold of her hands and body, fuled by her determination to do *something* to make the child live again. This child would *not* die when Madhea had, despite incredible odds, managed to survive.
She laid the baby Nidoqueen on the boulder, one of her hands slipping behind the tiny neck and lifting it. Her other hand swiped the baby's mouth free of debris.
Sharie bent and sealed her lips over the baby's muzzle, blowing in a gentle breath of air and inflating the tiny lungs for the first time herself--just as she'd done with Madhea that day.
Next she placed two hands on the baby's tiny chest and compressed twice, stimulating the heart to work. She blew another gentle breath and pressed the chest twice more.
The strain in the air around her increased further, and Sharie felt the same hopelessness threatening to creep in as she'd felt when Madhea had lay there just as limply. But her heart refused to give up.
Suddenly Sharie noticed one tiny arm twitch, a muscle spasm. It was enough for Sharie. A flash of dark hope flooded through her, she blew into the baby's mouth once more, followed by two more quick chest compressions.
The child jerked her head and gave a sudden cough. She gasped as she drew in a quivery lungful of air and gave a tiny squeak.
Beneath her fingertips, Sharie could feel the tiny heart start up of it's own accord and begin to thrum with a life of it's own. A smile lit up her face as realization dawned on her.
The crying squeaks came louder, more lustily now. The emptiness in Sharie's head and heart, from where her awareness of the baby had died, now resurged with a new strength. Sharie's eyes brimed with tears that did not fall, and she spoke past a lump in her throat as she announced quietly, "Your daughter will live. She's okay now."
She carried the baby over to her relieved parents. Tears were seeping out of the corners of Nidoqueen's eyes, and the low wail she gave was thick with a gratitude she could not describe. Rhyhorn's eyes were similarly wet with a weak relief. Their child would live.
"I did nothing but what had to be done," Sharie answered quietly to Nidoqueen's wailing sound. "She is alive, and....Oh, gods, look at this!"
For the first time, everyone noticed what was so unusual about this little one as Sharie cleaned her off where the parents could see her.
The baby Nidoqueen was a pink-purple color, not blue as her kind normally should have been. As she continued to cry, the rosy color only became more evident.
"I'll be damned," Sharie breathed, astonished all over again. "An alternately-colored Nidoqueen! If that doesn't beat all!"
The baby opened wide eyes and looked at her, wondering what all the commotion was about.
"It just means she's special," Sharie asserted, laying the child down beside her mother who, delighted, inspected her all over with her eyes and muzzle. "As special as any other creature with a soul. A special gift that nobody can duplicate, and is ours alone."
The rosy-colored Nidoqueen gave a sudden squeak, as if annoucing to all she agreed. It made Sharie suddenly laugh aloud, her fear gone and her body warm once more.
****
My goodness, that was *not* an easy piece of writng, I tell you! Watch out for chapter 15!