Chapter One - Having Children

They were screaming at her again.

What was it this time? A dish towel left in the wrong place, or perhaps a plate that she forgot to wash?

It was cold outside. Puddles of water had frozen into ice. Windows left partially open were frozen in place.

But that didn't dissuade them from kicking her out.

It was a common occurrence. The first time she was kicked out, she wandered the streets near her apartment building. The next few times, she wandered into a store, until the store owner decided that a raggedy little child wasn't welcome in their store. Eventually, she learned that the door to her building rooftop was unlocked.

So, she went there. No one would be up on the roof.

The roof was windy. It would have been fine during the summer, but during the winter, the cold wind was like icy teeth biting into her fingers.

She pulled a folded comic book out of her hoodie pocket. It was a gift from a classmate of hers. The classmate insisted that the book was old and used and that she didn't need it. She didn't bother explaining why an old and used book still had the plastic wrap and was in pristine condition. Though her classmate did try to peel off the price tag.

Her hoodie was also a gift. Her classmate took it off her own back and wrapped it around her when she found her wandering the streets.

She peeled open the plastic wrap and started reading the comic. It was the latest chapter in an ongoing story about a group of beautiful warrior women.

She tried to focus on the story to take her mind off the cold.

But it was just so cold.

She closed her eyes.

When she opened her eyes again, she found herself in what appeared to be an enormous courtroom.

She couldn't see the front of the courtroom, just rows and rows of wooden benches. For some reason, she couldn't focus on the faces of the people next to her.

The people sitting around her got up and left, while others came and took their seats.

But she remained, unsure of where to go.

"Ah, you're still wearing the hoodie I gave you all those years ago," a kindly old woman said as she sat down next to her.

The girl turned around, confused. She didn't recognize her, but somehow, this old woman felt familiar.

"And it seems that you remained the afterlife courtroom long after your death," the old woman sighed and held her hand out to her, "Come on, let's get going."

The old woman led her to the front of the courtroom.

The girl couldn't focus on the faces or the voices of the judges or any of the other people in charge of the court. But she remembered the conversation that she had with the kindly old woman.

"We're going to be reincarnated. We're being given a choice in the matter." The old woman peered at the endless windows that suddenly appeared before them. Every window showed a different world.

The girl saw a window that showed a group of women on an island. Many of the women still played with little clay dolls.

"Grownups play with dolls too?" the girl asked.

The old woman turned to look at that world. Two women were doing some kind of ritual to pray for a child, while a third woman lay on a pattern of symbols drawn on the ground. "I think the women are unable to have children, so they're pretending that the clay dolls are children."

"That's so sad."

"It is."

These women wanted children. Unlike her parents, who never wanted any. The girl wondered what it would be like to have parents who wanted her.

"I wish someone would give them the ability to have children," the girl said softly.

But then she heard a voice call out to her from that world. The voice promised her a special power if she chose to be reborn in that world.

The girl thought for a while.

Having the power to give someone the ability to have their own children would be nice. But what about the power to heal? What about the power to fly? How about being able to teleport? That would come in handy.

Or how about the power to not feel cold?

The girl couldn't decide on a single superpower. Her fingers toyed with the stickers attached to her hoodie with safety pins. Her favorite sticker was a children's drawing of a world decorated with peace signs and multicolored hearts. They were gifts from her friends.

"Oh! Can I have the power to draw an image and put any superpower I want on that image?" the girl asked innocently.

The voice chuckled and pointed out that this would be a strong power that can be abused.

"Oh, then how about a time limit on the power? Exactly one week from the time the image is drawn or when the image is destroyed, the image will lose power?" the girl continued.

The voice agreed.

"So, you've found the world that you wanted to go to?" the kind old woman asked. The girl nodded.

The old woman gestured at a window to a world that looked a lot like the one that they had come from. "I've found mine too."

The old woman gave her a hug. "It was nice seeing you again."

The girl finally realized who this old woman was. It was her classmate. The classmate who gave her the comic book and the hoodie.

"I hope you have a better life this time around," the old woman said.

That was the last thing the girl heard before she was reincarnated.

"We need to keep trying," Myrina said firmly as she lay on the ground.

"Myrina, we've been chanting for hours…" Penelope took a few breaths of air and placed her hands on her hips. Menalippe took a few sips of water and turned towards Myrina.

She gasped.

"Your belly!"

Myrina looked down at her belly.

"What?"

"I just saw a soul enter!"

Penelope squinted at Myrina's belly.

"Hmm. How long until we know that she's pregnant?"

"She is pregnant," Menalippe insisted.

Myrina was an Amazon. When the Amazons were still a part of Man's World, they were one of the most feared warriors in the known world. Myrina was their best assassin and was known to be able to fight entire armies and slaughter monsters.

Myrina did not appreciate her two friends preventing her from doing anything.

"You're pregnant, go sit down," Penelope commented when she tried to gather fruit.

"You're pregnant, I'll fix your chair for you," Menalippe said cheerfully as she tied twine around the joints of the wooden chair that Myrina was trying to fix.

Centuries ago, the Amazons lost a great war against Athens to reclaim Antiope, Queen Hippolyta's sister, after she was abducted by the Athenians. The war resulted in the death of Antiope, her son by an Athenian man, and many of their Amazonian sisters.

The Amazons retreated from Man's World and found an island that was not affected by the passage of time. They named the island after their old home, Themyscira, and spent the next few centuries living idly on the island.

Queen Hippolyta was a fair queen, but she was still human. Ruling over a country of warriors accustomed to war was not easy. Myrina had witnessed her queen's brutal and swift justice to those who would threaten peace on Themyscira.

Thus, Myrina did not trust her queen, so she only allowed her two best friends to know of her pregnancy. As her belly started to grow, she retreated into the high mountains of Themyscira.

"Should we go get Epione?" Penelope asked for the umpteenth time. Epione was one of their best healers.

"No," Myrina gritted out, despite the obvious pain.

"Push, push the baby out," Menalippe said.

With a shriek of pain, Myrina finally gave birth. She watched as her friends cut the umbilical cord, cleaned the baby, and wrapped the baby in clean cloth before placing the child in her arms.

The baby cried loudly.

The girl was confused. She was standing in the afterlife courtroom a few moments ago. Where is she now? And was that a baby crying?

Wait, the crying is coming from her.

She tried to look around, but her eyesight was terrible.

But she felt a wonderful warmth. Someone was holding her very close. A woman with long black hair.

"What are you going to name her?" Menalippe asked.

"Grail," Myrina smiled at the baby.

In the next few weeks, Grail's eyesight developed. She saw that her new mother was a beautiful, black haired woman with brown eyes.

"Mama?" she asked.

Myrina smiled warmly at the baby. "Yes, my dear child, I am your mother."

Grail curiously felt her mother's arms. Her mother had a lot of muscle. "Mama?"

Myrina gently kissed the top of her daughter's head.

There were times when her mother wasn't with her. Then her mother would leave her with two other women.

Menalippe was a pretty woman with blue eyes and shoulder length red hair. She was an oracle with the power to divine the future. Interestingly, she could also understand Grail's baby talk.

Penelope was a fierce but beautiful woman with blue eyes and blond hair in a half up hairstyle. She was a seer with an excellent encyclopedic knowledge.

Penelope was trying to give Grail a bath.

Grail grabbed at the woman trying to wash her. Strange, this woman was muscular, but not nearly as muscular as her mother. She looked up and saw long blond hair.

"Not mama…not mama!" Grail flailed her little arms splashing water all over a frustrated Penelope.

"Penelope, let me wash her," Menalippe handed her a towel and took over. "Mama will be back soon, let aunty wash you alright?" she cooed at the baby who stopped flailing her arms and smiled up at her.

"Did you hear? The queen crafted a baby out of clay and the gods brought it to life," Penelope said as she watched Menalippe finish washing the baby.

Menalippe wiped Grail dry with a towel, smiling as the baby laughed when the towel tickled her little body.

"I heard. I believe Myrina was invited to the latest party that the queen threw for the little princess."

"The gods have granted Myrina a child, they have granted the queen a child, but why can't they give us a child?" Penelope said bitterly.

"Quiet! Don't let anyone hear you," Menalippe exclaimed.

"We're up in a cave, who's going to hear us?" Penelope's voice began rising.

Grail remembered something.

Right before she reincarnated, a voice had promised her a superpower.

Grail looked around for something that she could use to draw with. She only found a stick and the dirt on the cave floor. With the two Amazons distracted, Grail climbed down to the floor and picked up the stick.

She tried drawing a baby. Instead, she drew a rather lumpy circle. Then she imagined the image having the power to allow people to have children.

In her past life, she had taken a beginner's computer programming class at school. Programming was creating a set of instructions so that when a user did something, something else would happen. A cause would lead to a predetermined effect.

Adding a superpower to an image was just like programming.

Menalippe turned away from an angry Penelope, to find the baby sitting on the ground waving towards a lumpy circle that she had drawn.

"The ground is dirty, don't sit there... hm?" Menalippe stared at the circle. It glowed with magical power.

In her past life, Grail learned about pregnancy through textbook articles and class lessons, so she had a rather vague idea of where babies came from. The baby image that she had drawn allowed a woman to be able to impregnate another woman. The way Grail programmed the image is that both women would touch the image. Then, both women would place their hands on the belly of the woman who would be carrying the child.

Grail started to explain, when Penelope tackled Menalippe from behind, knocking her into the dirt. They both landed on the image which glowed with power.

"Penelope! What—" Penelope silenced Menalippe with a forceful kiss.

Menalippe tried to protest, but she was never a good fighter. Not as good as her other Amazonian sisters.

Grail huffed and started crawling away. She never witnessed the act in her past life, but she had a good idea what was going to happen. She sat with her back to the two women and drew an ear on the ground. Then she touched the image.

All the sounds in the cave were silenced.

Myrina was returning from the latest party that the queen had thrown for the princess. She held a small bag of props that she had gotten from Gennes that would be good toys for her own child.

Myrina stopped.

Then she started running back to her cave. Along the way, she unsheathed one of her daggers.

The cave should be full of noises and sounds. But it was currently completely silent.

When she arrived, she saw her two friends in various stages of undress on the ground while her child sat with her back to them, near the cave entrance.

"What is going on?" Myrina tried to say, but she found that no sound came from her mouth.

Her child looked up at her and smiled. Her little hand brushed away a tiny drawing on the ground.

"Mama!"

All of a sudden, the sound rushed back into the cave. Myrina heard the sound of the wind, the birds, and the heavy breathing of the two Amazons who lay on the ground.

Myrina picked her child up and frowned at her friends.

Menalippe shoved Penelope off of her and said, "Your child has magical powers."

Myrina was washing the dirt off her baby. She turned towards the two Amazons with a scowl on her face.

"She drew an image on the ground, touched it, and all the sound in the cave disappeared. Before that, she drew a magical image on the ground," Menalippe insisted.

"What did that image do?" Myrina asked.

Grail babbled something.

Menalippe's eyes widened.

"It…it allows women to bear children…" she looked down at her belly. "I'm pregnant?"

Penelope just stared.

"How?"

They turned towards the baby, who was looking at the ground and frowning. The two Amazons tussling on the ground wiped her lumpy circle away.

For the next few weeks, they tested Grail's power. Grail was able to create any power. However, the power disappears after a week or when the image that holds the power is destroyed.

"Why should we live in secrecy?" Penelope snapped, "I refuse to raise my child in secrecy." She gestured at Menalippe's heavily pregnant body.

"We risk everyone learning about Grail's secret, and that would put her in danger!" Menalippe insisted.

Myrina warily watched the two argue. Meanwhile, her child was playing with a few large shiny pebbles that Myrina had brought back.

"Mama!" Grail held up a particularly large pink pebble. Her mother smiled down at her.

Then Grail pointed at her mother's dagger. Then she pointed at the pebble again.

"Baby," Grail said as she pointed at the pebble.

"Child, what do you…?"

"Baby!" Grail pointed at her mother's dagger and then she pointed at the pebble.

"You want me to carve little babies onto the pebbles?" Myrina asked.

Grail nodded and started babbling again.

"She's saying that we can create a bunch of magical pebbles and use that to explain my pregnancy and yours," Menalippe explained.

Grail nodded again.

Myrina was hesitant, but then she looked into her child's eyes.

"Very well."

A few moments later, Myrina was by the shores, building a raft, while Penelope tries to dissuade her. Menalippe was still in the cave, unable to move much due to her pregnancy, with Grail who was asleep.

"Myrina…" Penelope began.

"Do not argue with me. I know the queen better than you. All of this is for the greater good," Myrina secured the last piece of wood to her raft and started setting up the sails.

"Tomorrow, I alone will take the stones to the queen and explain that I had discovered these magical baby stones. My baby is the proof that the stones work. After showing them to the queen, Amazons from across the island will show up at the palace looking for the stones. After a few Amazons have gotten pregnant, that is when you reveal Menalippe's pregnancy. A few fanatics, namely, the Queen's Circle will probably try to find me and kill me—"

"Why would they try to kill you? You've been so loyal to the queen—"

"The Queen's Circle is a group of idiotic fanatics who are currently fixated on killing the princess. They believe that children are 'an infection that must be cleansed. They may be loyal to the queen, but they're not necessarily loyal to those around the queen,'" Myrina finished fixing the sails. The raft was complete. She tied the raft to the shore, hidden behind a tree.

Myrina started heading back to the cave, with Penelope in close pursuit.

"But the queen is reasonable. Surely, she would punish the Circle…"

"Yes, she would. But that would mean that all focus would turn towards me. The princess was a gift from the gods. What about my child?"

"But why would you need to leave?" Penelope stopped in front of her.

Myrina sighed.

"Eventually people would discover Grail's powers. She will be exploited, by everyone."

Myrina did not mention the queen, but Penelope understood.

"There will be chaos once the Amazons discover that the magical baby stones have lost their power, but the chaos will pass. In the midst of the chaos, I will escape from the island."

Myrina placed a hand on Penelope's shoulder.

"You two will have to take care of yourselves."

"Ah, one last thing to note. The children produced by the magical baby stones will have the magical ability to be able to impregnate themselves or another woman. Your daughter will also have that power."

Penelope was stunned. Myrina simply left her there as she walked back to her cave.

The next morning, Myrina surprised the queen and her advisors by walking into the meeting room. To everyone's shock, a small baby was strapped to her chest. Myrina tossed a sack of large shiny pebbles onto the meeting table.

"What is the meaning of this?"

"My queen, I found these magical stones in the high mountains of Themyscira. They allowed me to be able to bear children," Myrina answered.

Her eyes briefly flickered towards the golden lasso of truth that hung on Hippolyta's waist. But she continued by explaining how the magical stones worked. A woman or multiple women would put their hands on a stone, then they would put their hands on the belly of the woman who is to carry the baby. That woman would become pregnant.

"How did you discover these stones?" Queen Hippolyta asked.

"My queen, many women on this island yearn for children. Many women carry with them clay dolls, or what we call whittle babies, and pray that they turn into real children."

"We are Amazons, we are warriors, but we are human too," Myrina finished.

Queen Hippolyta looked stunned.

"I…I…" the queen was at a loss for words. One of the advisors jumped up, it was Gennes.

"May I have one of these stones?"

Just as Myrina predicted, Themyscira broke out into chaos when Amazons across the island started showing up in droves at the palace to use the magical baby stones. Under the cover of darkness, Myrina escaped the island with Grail. She only took with her two sets of Amazonian body armor, a spear, a few daggers, provisions for a few days, and quite a bit of gold that she had stolen from the palace.

Her friends would have wanted to send her off, but they couldn't for fear of raising suspicions. They had already cryptically bid farewell to her the evening before.

Two months later, a little less than half of the population was pregnant. The magical stones had lost their power, but no one could find Myrina to force her to explain why.

Alkyone, the leader of the Queen's Circle, was angered.

"We cannot find her anywhere," Philomela complained.

"Then she is either dead or she escaped Themyscira. Wouldn't be the first," Charis snapped.

"What should we do now? Should we destroy the stones?" Myrto asked.

"No need to destroy powerless rocks. I suspect that this has something to do with the princess. These rocks appeared after her birth. Myrina was known to be close to the queen. Closer than us," Alkyone's face darkened.

Alkyone and the Queen's Circle were later imprisoned for attempting to assassinate the princess.