Having terrified screaming be the first response to my attempt at introducing myself was kind of insulting, especially when it came from someone who owed his continued survival to me.

…To be fair, the technique from earlier had most likely been an attempt to scan me and having it fail the way it had, probably tripped some red flag, maybe one that indicated my foreign nature. Entities capable of possessing the bodies of others were generally considered bad news in most places and the mangled name that had come out of the borrowed body’s mouth might have sealed the bad impression.

There were other possible reasons for the reaction, but what mattered more was that both medics were terrified of me now, though the blonde one thankfully wasn’t screaming her head off. Even worse, the screaming was upsetting the infants, making them waste precious energy on wailing.

We didn’t have time for this, not when the sounds of what was probably some kind of battle had yet to stop.

I slapped the man, using the body’s less injured arm to do it. The blow was fairly weak and landed a bit off from where I’d been aiming, but it shut him up long enough for me to shove the basket with the crying infants into his arms.

The man let out a startled (but much quieter) sound when he noticed whom he was holding and gave me a confused look. I gestured emphatically at the infants, trying to prompt him into doing his job. Either he understood, or some mix of professionalism, training, and instinct kicked in at that point and he began to check them over.

Satisfied with that, I turned my attention to the blonde woman, whose gaze was flicking between her colleague (or the twins) and me. I waved to catch her attention, not bothering to try and speak again. My earlier attempt at speech had been… garbled to put it charitably and I didn’t speak their language anyway, so gestures would have to do for now.

The blonde woman drew in a sharp breath and stilled when I caught her gaze, then hesitantly glanced in the direction I was pointing. She tensed further when she noticed the rest of the survivors and looked back at me nervously.

I tossed the bundle of all the medical supplies that I’d scavenged from the room in her direction and waited for her to see its contents before emphatically gesturing at the prone figures again.

That got my message across well enough and the woman half-scrambled over to the injured people with a short comment to her orange-skinned colleague.

He answered her distractedly, not taking his attention off the children. His energy reserves were dropping rather rapidly from whatever technique he was using on them, but in turn, their life force was growing noticeably stronger.

Once I saw the blonde woman begin treating the other survivors with a combination of mundane and energy-manipulation-based techniques, I moved closer to examine what her colleague was doing.

It was similar to how I’d converted my energy into a form that was safe for sharing with others but taken further and requiring a more delicate touch when introducing it into another’s body than just dumping the stuff into their extra circulatory system. It didn’t seem to target any specific parts of their bodies but bolstered everything instead.

Maybe this was the local version of those chambers premature children were kept in back in my original life. It certainly looked to be faster than keeping them in a sealed-off environment until they were strong enough to survive outside it.

He stopped the technique when about a fifth of his reserves remained, briefly looking a bit woozy, but not too tapped out to use a bunch of probable diagnostic techniques to check the twins’ condition. Whatever he found there made his expression fall even further.

That wouldn’t do. I went to poke him in the arm, missed, and switched to grabbing his shoulder instead. My coordination in this body might be mediocre, but manipulating energy was second nature now, so topping him up again and adding a shot of the bolstering energy (like what he’d been providing to the twins) was pretty simple.

The orange-skinned medic jerked in surprise at the sudden reminder of my presence but didn’t scream again, even though I was holding his shoulder. Instead, he stared at the point of contact that I was using to pour energy into him and muttered something that might have been a curse or a prayer.

He kept still until I let go of him and then cycled the energy through his body in a deliberate way, likely checking for problems. Whatever he found couldn’t be that bad because some of the tension bled out of his frame and he let out a long breath.

The sound of the blonde medic drew both of our attention to where she’d half-collapsed and was desperately trying to catch her breath.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Her colleague twitched toward her, but I shook his shoulder. When he looked back at me, I tilted the borrowed body’s head and tried to school its facial features into what I hoped came across as an inquisitive expression. I pointed at him, then at the infants, and formed a wisp of the bolstering energy at its point.

Either he didn’t get that he should return to providing whatever treatment the twins needed, or he thought aiding his blonde colleague was more urgent because he gestured in her direction and presumably asked me for help, at least judging by the imploring expression and tone.

I nodded and stood up to walk over to her, but not before firmly pointing at the twins. I might agree that having more defenders to ensure their survival was important, but that would be pointless if they didn’t survive long enough to need them. Fortunately, the man went right back to treating the infants as soon as he saw me place a hand on the blonde woman’s back and begin to transfer energy to her.

The other medic had run her reserves nearly dry, which probably wasn’t healthy, but seemed to have managed to stabilize everyone. The influx of energy led to her breath easing and color returning to her skin, and the final bit of bolstering seemed to take the edge off her exhaustion. She even gave me a small trembling smile before returning to treating her patients as soon as I removed my hand.

That was how I spent the next while, topping up the two medics with energy and shots of what was probably local recovery magic.

I was out of practice with keeping track of time, but the treatment seemed to be going fairly quickly. That was fortunate because the noise level was starting to go up again and people with fairly strong life signs were making their way to our location.

*****

The two medics brought the other survivors up to speed with the situation when they woke them, so I didn’t have to try to convey to a group of jumpy warriors that I wasn’t the person they expected to be driving this body.

The leader of the guards seemed to be the short, muscular woman with indigo-colored hair and orange markings on her cheeks. She’d gotten her right arm torn off during the earlier fight, but didn’t seem too upset by it. At least not enough to stop snapping out orders at the other three guards and the civilians.

Thankfully she didn’t try to order me around, though whether it was because of the language barrier, my foreign nature, or me having the most power of those present to throw around was unknown. She was wary but not quite hostile and accepted the energy transfer without complaint.

She was also quick to catch on to my attempts to convey that I was sensing people heading toward us. Judging by the dark look on her face after consulting with one of her fellow guards (who used some kind of radar-like sensory technique) and the way they rearmed themselves, there must have been hostiles among them.

The group made for a sorry sight as they braced for more attacks. The guards’ clothes and armor were damaged, and their weapons were no better off.

The lean, dusky-skinned brunette had gotten one of her eyes slashed out. The pale-skinned and fair-haired fellow lost most of his leg to amputation, having been nicked by a dagger coated in a poison that felt very similar to the one still afflicting my borrowed body. The lanky, caramel-skinned man with long pointed ears had taken the least injuries, but the staff he’d been using to aid in casting his techniques was in pieces.

One of the maids (a woman with pale violet hair and eyes) was busy acting as the twins’ wet nurse after having been the subject of a technique that caused her to lactate by the orange-skinned medic. The other two maids had scavenged daggers from the fallen attackers and were holding them with grim expressions.

The two medics had run themselves ragged but looked ready to intervene in some manner.

I’d been experimenting with the techniques the borrowed body was familiar with and had succeeded in rearranging the nest of trees we’d ended up in to provide cover for the defenders to hide behind. The indigo-haired leader of the guards had emphatically indicated that I should kill anyone dressed in the same uniform as the attackers from earlier.

It was interesting that they weren’t too concerned with friendly fire because it wasn’t like I knew enough to tell actual hostiles from allies potentially masquerading as them, or vice versa.

That was why I’d only harassed the incoming people with sharpened tree branches whenever they tried to cut a direct path to this room and forced them to take the original hallways the long way, right into the prepared choke point. Hopefully, that hadn’t killed off too many potential reinforcements.

*****

We didn’t have to wait long.

The first few hostiles that rounded the corner into the hallway went down from the ranged attacks that the elf-looking man sent out and I got the ones behind them with a bunch of sharp branches. Between us, we managed to take out over a dozen people, narrowing the passage even further before the more capable attackers stepped in.

I didn’t have a good grasp on the local power scale, but the trio that came forward had more energy to burn than the four guards of the side I was helping. Their uniforms had a more personal flare and they carried themselves with a lot more swagger. A couple of similarly strong life signs had split off, trying to be clever by sneaking in from what was left of the adjacent rooms.

Unfortunately for them, my primary senses weren’t ones provided by the body I was borrowing so they all stood out quite clearly even while suppressing the energy they bled off. Some stood out more, like a blazing inferno that was snuffing out other life signs as it headed vaguely in this direction, but that didn’t mask the others.

The trio took the time to trash-talk when they saw me in the borrowed body, presumably trying to rile me up with things that would have set off the body’s original owner. The taunts drew some ire from the others but flew over my head thanks to the language barrier.

Well, if they wanted to play…

I mimed a yawn as they went on, before giving them a flat look and exaggeratedly tapping one foot.

That had the desired effect of goading the loudest one off into firing off a lance of flames, which I sent curving away from me with a small nudge. It was the last push needed to get them to attack me while ignoring everyone else.

The fire user cloaked himself in blue flames before leaping at me. The burly guy’s tattoos and gauntlets glowed as he followed. And the smaller masked figure initiated some kind of flash-step-alike technique.

The bloodthirsty expressions on their faces flickered into surprise when they were unceremoniously speared by tree branches before reaching me. And that was why I hadn’t been attacking with the full force or speed of the tree-animating technique while herding them.

It was quite amusing seeing the shock and denial overtaking the previous smugness, especially on the sneaky ones as they were dragged in to join their comrades in a messy tangle of bodies. No wonder people liked doing this kind of thing when the situation allowed.

I sensed a flare of another’s energy nearby and turned to look just in time to witness the rest of the hostiles get splattered all over the place like overripe tomatoes.

It looked like the person with the blazing life sign had finally arrived.