For the second time in his conscious memory, Liam found himself in a new body. He inhaled, preparing his lungs for the inevitable sigh, until warm fluid entered his lungs. Liquid filled his lungs, yet he felt no fear. Breathing came naturally, oxygen filled his cells and he received none of the panic signals that should have accompanied drowning. In fact, he was at peace. As if there was no danger in the universe, no elder gods tearing off his limbs, no megalomaniac king, and no question of where the next meal might come from. This was not at all what drowning was. He exhaled, then inhaled, the action feeling unusually short, but sufficient to oxigenate his blood.

This is so strange. I shouldn’t be able to breathe water. Not unless I got reincarnated as a mermaid… But the ocean should be cold. Thought Liam.

Warm walls surrounded him, pressing in on him in a claustrophobically comforting fortress. It all clicked together at once.

Taloc, you asshole motherfucker. Reincarnated into a fetus?! First you dumped me into an old dead guy, and now an unborn child! What kind of all powerful diety needed this to happen? Cmon! This is exactly what I asked you NOT to do!

Ahh!

Liam mentally sighed, cursing the god would accomplish nothing. Besides, his last body had been similarly questionable and had worked out fine.

Please let this be some imprisioned-god-trick or something other than it appears!

He extended his limbs, gauging the boundaries of his new home. The walls were curved, giving slightly as he pressed on them, but were generally firm. A tube slowed the motion of his hand and he followed it with clumsy fingers, taking entirely too long to trace it to his belly button. It wasn’t a tube, it was soft and squishy, an umbilical cord.

Ick, this is like the most screwed up thing I’ve ever seen! You couldn’t have dropped me into this body a few months after it was born? This… is so gross! Well, weird really. What exactly am I supposed to do from here? I can’t see anything, I can’t fight, or talk to anyone. Taloc! Why?! Send me into the body of another old corndog instead of this! Thought Liam, mentally screaming at the imprisoned God-King. Then a voice spoke.

“Ah! That hurts you little!- Thing!” Growled the voice, speaking in English rather than the language Liam knew from his possession of Baron Green.

Odd, English isn’t spoken in this world… Thought Liam.

“What I would give for an abortion right now. Keep kicking me and I’ll find a coathanger you little leech. Hmm, maybe I should do that today, instead of leaving you on the side of the road like you deserve.” Said a feminine voice.

Her tone was direct,, humorless, and entirely pervasive, as if it spoke through Liam’s own mouth. He went limp, retracting all limbs. Promising to crown Taloc as the worst grandpa ever, right after this woman received a crown for being the worst mom. Their combined world shifted, as if the woman carrying him decided to lay flat.

Death threats and naptime… Eh, I guess mom is just cranky.

Please just be cranky.

Pretty please?

Wait…

Scraps of two earlier lives crept into Liam’s mind, information that was universally exclusive yet perfectly miscible to Liam’s hybridized intelligence. Mom had said –abortion– but they weren’t on Earth, they were in the world where Therun Perun Taloc was the God-King of humanity, where catgirls were in every city, and magical strength ruled over all, including the nobility. Abortions did not exist here, not just the word, the very concept was foreign. It was an idea from William Wilson’s world, not the world of Baron William Ethan Green.

Where am I? Did he send me back to Earth? No, Taloc said he wouldn’t, and he would lose power if he did so…

That left one possible reality.

Taloc, I get that we are from different worlds, but really, this is another level of screwed up. Like, why would you even think to put me inside another reincarnated person! Ugh, why are you such a dick? This is how to traumatize someone. Mother and child. I can only imagine how incensed Sarah would be if she got reincarnated into a pregnant woman. Oh baby, even Taloc would have something to fear from that woman.

An intrusive thought flicked Liam’s brain, I’m technically inside another woman right now… does this count as cheating on Nyota…?

If Liam could have slapped himself, he would have. But his infantile fingers could barely flex.

NO! No, this is weird, but I literally had no choice! Being born is natural, Grandpa always joked about life being sexually transmitted, this is a perfectly normal bodily function, like breathing! Yeah, I'm breathing, not cheating… Ah, let’s just hope that this isn’t actually Sarah… If Taloc can grab two people from across the universe he can grab someone else as well…

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

His mind worked at the thought of magic. The ever present power that permeated the world and allowed certain impossibilities to be possible.

Wait… I should have magic…

That thought sharpened Liam’s undeveloped mind, he couldn’t talk with amniotic fluid in his mouth, lungs, and face. So he activated his most commonly used skill. [abbreviated cast] to skip the healing chant.

It worked.

To his stunned amazement his healing mana flowed through his body, finding nothing injured it entered the umbilical and swam into the mother’s body.

His mother’s body.

Mom’s body.

Liam steered the magic, dispersing the healing into an area wide pulse, just as he had in King Aldric’s court, but this time he listened to the energy. His [mana manipulation] skill was still maxed out at level ten, a boon that allowed him to sense mana moving, collecting, and working on his matriarch’s body via a sort of sixth and seventh sense. Sight without seeing, and touch without touching, he was able to perceive and envision mana, like a 3D rendering with glowing particles to represent mana density.

Liam’s heart skipped a beat as the damage became apparent.

Mom was a wreck.

Malnourished, with bones as light as a bird’s. Thin beyond reason, almost zero fat on her frame, every movement made her body cry out in agony. This pregnancy had been anything but easy. Blisters and swollen ankles tormented her feet, while the ligaments in her back were on their last threads. If she pushed herself much further they would snap, crippling her permanently. A sign of an extremely overdue pregnancy. Likely exasperated by this pregnancy being her first.

Memories of William Wilson’s life filled his mind, of med school, his dead fiance Sarah, his grandparents, and the modern world. Real medicine, science, cell theory, philosophy both religious and political, school, airplanes, cell phones, and automatic rifles. During pregnancy a hormone known as ‘relaxin’ was released, weakening the ligaments and tendons so a woman’s pelvis could stretch without tearing, allowing a child to exit the birth canal. As with all hormones, it affected the entire body and excessively long pregnancies could result in a build up of relaxin that could cause excessive stretching of all ligaments and tendons. That buildup was also the root cause of the iconic ‘pregnancy waddle’ pattern of walking. Since all ligaments –and thus the bones– where in a state of hyper-mobility. Mom’s ligaments were well past that point, lacking any true strength, strenuous motions of any variety could result in dislocations or even ligament tears. In fact, a dozen ligaments were already torn.

Mom… You pulled every muscle in your back, and your legs look like they’ve been dislocated and jammed back into place a few dozen times! What have you been up to? I’d have to be in here for… well, way longer than ten months, maybe twelve or thirteen for this to be an issue– hmm… Taloc, you’re starting to look like the ‘Zeus we have at home’ instead of this world’s Archdiety. Why drop me into a pregnancy that probably would have killed mother and child months ago?

The answer slapped Liam’s consciousness. Bodies took time to develop, as did magical bloodlines. A soul was a valuable thing, a treasured essence that not even Therun Perun Taloc would violate. So mother and babe had died months ago. Just as Baron William Ethan Green had died before William Wilson possessed the body. Liam cursed Taloc once again, realizing God had intentionally chosen this woman as his mother. A wounded, broken, woman to carry him.

I hope whatever reason you had is worth a damn, cause when I see you next, I’m getting an answer. Promised Liam.

But pimp slapping God could wait. There wasn’t time to bitch about his current circumstances. Liam needed to act. If Mom died, he would die as well, suffocating to death without ever being born. If [mana manipulation] was still maxed out, then he should still have access to his other affinities. It was within his mental capacity to perform the deed, but the ethical implications made him want to nuke this world from orbit. Repeatedly.

Taloc, you’ve got some serious fucking issues. If we meet again, I'm absolutely going to add some chains to your prison.

Focusing on the chant of healing, Liam [abbreviated cast] and sent a second healing pulse through his mother. Tendons swam over muscle, reconnecting, weak, but no longer torn. A second cast of healing and exhaustion crept through Liam’s body, dragging him into the darkness of mana exhaustion.

Great, I kept my magic, but not my mana pool…