[Name: Phanya]

[Background: Deputy (Novice)]

[Class: None (Body Mastery/_)]

[Level: 1]

[XP: 1/25]

[HP: 6/6]

[Strength: 3]

[Dexterity: 5]

[Constitution: 4]

[Logic: 3]

[Awareness: 3]

[Willpower: 4]

Phanya stared at the list of titles and numbers for a long minute before she moved on, spending even less time on the strange congratulatory message. Adventurer, herodom, whatever a gong farmer was, everything so far matched up with what Tapper had described with so much pride. So where were these magical spells that would help her break out of here?

Something clattered and Phanya nearly jumped out of her skin. She gave the floor a second sweep with a tinge more urgency to her movements but there wasn't a sign of disturbance anywhere. It must just be the air vents turning on. Part of her actually believed herself too, but just as Phanya was settling down to read the system message it happened again. Just a small clatter of something moving at the edge of her hearing, and another pass through the store to confirm that nothing was amiss. And it kept happening, timed so perfectly whenever she started to relax that someone had to be intentionally taunting Phanya.

Or hunting her.

Fine, if they wanted to play games then Phanya could play them right back. All it took was for Phanya to position herself close to where the last noise came from, but not too close, and make a show of looking too exhausted to pay attention. Lean back, eyes closed, exaggerated sigh, and... there! Phanya leapt up at the sound of something moving just one aisle over and rounded the corner with her club raised.

An empty aisle, again, but she was getting closer. A rack of long thin paddles on one end, under a sign labeled 'HOCKEY,' all swung on their hooks as if someone had hurried past just a second ago. With mounting frustration Phanya started to pace, wondering what else she could do to bait out the hunter, when something clicked in her subconscious that made her freeze.

That mannequin wasn't holding a sports stick before, the same kind from the disturbed rack. And its uniform didn't match the others on display in this part of the store, either. It didn't move as Phanya approached, walking slowly and carefully so she was never off balance, and she circled around its small podium. This one was definitely out of place.

Its checkered shorts, bright polo shirt, and floppy hat with a little poof ball on top matched the other mannequins in a section titled 'GOLF;' this section for 'HOCKEY' was all square slabs of thick padding. Once she stopped to really consider how much this one stuck out, it felt blatantly obvious that someone set up a trap or some bait for her. Phanya picked up something from a shelf, a thick palm-sized black disc of hard rubber, and tossed it underhand at the mannequin with just enough force for an audible thunk that echoed in the silent store. It wobbled, Phanya waited, it settled, and Phanya let out her breath in a huff before she turned to leave. Whoever was playing this game was really starting to —

A soft rustle was the only warning Phanya got before she dove to the side and an explosion of sound sent sporting equipment flying in all directions. Crab-walking backwards a few feet in blind panic, it took Phanya a second to register what she was looking at: the golf mannequin now stood in a frozen action pose, ending the downward swing of its hockey stick where Phanya had been standing just a scant second ago. Phanya's instinctive reaction saved her, and the hockey stick instead broke against a shelving unit.

She scrambled to her feet without ever taking her eyes off the thing, ready for its next attack, but one never came. It just stood there, menacingly, exactly as a statue should. A knot of fear formed in her stomach, and despite its threats to exit upwards and outwards Phanya could feel anger start to overwhelm her better judgment.

This thing attacked her, and then tried to pretend it was still just a normal mannequin like she wouldn't notice? It was insulting! With a snarl Phanya strode forward, silently begging for it to face her properly, and when the mannequin didn't budge she brought her club down with all the force she could muster.

"Take this you stupid piece of GAHHH damnit!"

Phanya screamed in pain and dropped her weapon to the floor, clutching her hands to her chest. She wasn't hurt, probably, but she felt the full reverberation of the impact in her bones. It felt as if she had swung at a solid plascrete wall instead of a simple plastic statue, and the shock caught her off guard. And to add injury to the insult, the instant Phanya looked down at her stinging hands something struck her with enough force to send the world spinning.

By some divine luck Phanya twisted her shoulders at the last instant so a fraction of the impact glanced off and likely saved her from a broken bone, but not enough to save the sense from getting knocked out of her. Nor was it enough to save Phanya from getting launched through a display stand, landing in a jumbled mess of bruises on the other side.

Rough carpet offered little comfort as Phanya rolled over and tried to orientate her swimming vision into upright shapes. And hopefully she was still seeing double, otherwise the crowd of mannequins now standing just down the aisle would be very worrying. Before that implication could properly register in her jumbled thoughts, something grabbed onto Phanya's ankle and yanked her backward. Hands failed to find purchase and on pure reflex she tucked both of her legs in, bringing herself closer to whoever was dragging her ankle, and kicked out with her free leg.

Blind panic and adrenaline fueled the kick and something shattered beneath her heel, freeing Phanya to stumble away without bothering to fully stand up. A few random turns down random aisles later Phanya sat down, making sure to stay below the sightlines of the shelves as she tried to slow down her panicked breathing.

Now out of immediate danger Phanya calmed with surprising ease, only to yelp again when she noticed a lone mannequin hand still holding onto her ankle with a vice grip. The stuff was like plascrete and refused to budge no matter how hard she strained, until it suddenly crumbled like sand in her grip. How did she manage that? Going through the motions again, the only thing that changed at the end was Phanya squeezing her eyes shut so she could focus… Which meant she wasn't looking at it.

Phanya held up the largest chunk of mannequin hand that still remained, half a palm and a nub of thumb. Everything underneath the glossy white mannequin… skin? Eugh. Everything underneath that was some gray substance, gritty and perfectly uniform and dense, with thin metal rods jutting out like bones.

And it was utterly unbreakable, until Phanya very pointedly looked to the side and the whole chunk crumbled like wet sand under a very basic squeeze pressure. Okay, so if it dies by the same rules that it fights with then Phanya will just have to work with that.

One more deep breath and Phanya was moving, head crouched low and on a constant swivel as she strode down the aisle. Don't stay still, don't go into any clearings, and don't make noise. She figured these things weren't too bright, but she was still surprised when she rounded a corner and saw the back of a mannequin standing frozen in the middle of an aisle. Phanya had really snuck up on it! And bless the tarmac for her luck in surprising it, the colorful bathing suit it modeled glowed in stark contrast with the vicious hunting knife in one hand. So the first step should be to disarm it.

Something of a grin started to work across Phanya's face as she closed the gap, reeled back, and squeezed her eyes shut at the very last second. With a satisfying crunch Phanya felt a glossy surface shatter under her fist, and when she opened her eyes she got to watch the frozen mannequin topple off balance. It was midstep in trying to backpedal away from Phanya, one hand covering the jagged crater where its other shoulder used to be. The hunting knife lay on the ground at her feet, along with the arm still gripping it, but Phanya stepped over without grabbing the weapon. Knives wouldn't help her much in this sort of fight, but her boots would, and they caved in the rest of its chest with one well-timed blink.

With the grin now fully entrenched on her face, Phanya stalked forward and found the next mannequin two aisles down. This one wore a piece of armor, a smooth helmet with a short bill, and held a bat at the ready in both hands. It must've heard the fight and came looking, but with it frozen in her sight Phanya felt nothing but excitement. She gripped its club with both hands, braced her feet, shut her eyes, and wrenched back while twisting her hips to rotate the weapon. She felt, rather than heard, two small pops and looked upon her success, holding the bat with an extra pair of hands still attached. They had cleanly popped off instead of breaking, and the mannequin was reaching out with both arms to reattach the hands.

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Phanya knew she needed to be quiet, but she couldn't help herself. "Oh I'm sorry, I'll hand these back to you," she quietly taunted. She braced her feet, heaved the bat in a powerful swing, and yet met nothing but air. Without any resistance she overswung her attack, and in the brief moment of weightlessness as she tipped off balance Phanya could only wonder how.

How had she missed? She didn't blink early so it shouldn't have had time to dodge, except for how sluggish she suddenly felt. That would explain it, in her mind's eye Phanya could clearly see the difference between punching the last mannequin and batting at this one. These things were fast and this one wasn't off balance, so it could easily sidestep her exaggerated swinging motion.

And then it punched her in the gut. Phanya fell to her knees with a hoarse wheeze, trying to force the air back into her lungs. Stupid, she started playing around with monsters trying to kill her and now one was forcing her to stand with a bat held around her throat.

The mannequin was braced behind her and it froze when Phanya looked down at the hands gripping the bat, but it was perfectly angled so that she couldn't wiggle free from the unyielding mass. She was trapped and could hear scuffling from the next aisle over, if she didn't do something quick she'd get surrounded by these monsters. And then it was only a matter of how long she could go without blinking.

Working her feet into the most stable position she could manage, Phanya blindly snapped her head back with all her might and felt the mannequin's helmet bounce off the back of her skull. Just enough to surprise the monster, and with the sound of pounding footsteps hot in her ears Phanya hoped she got the timing correct. If she opened her eyes to stop the newcomer before she escaped, then she'd waste her one chance to stun her captor. But if the newcomer attacked with a downward swing like the others, then she could shove the bat at her neck upwards and blindly block the attack.

The shockwave of pain that Phanya's successful block sent through her bones made her drop the weapon, but with a defiant shout she forced her eyes open. This mannequin had even better equipment, a helmet with a face cover along with shoulder pads, but nothing that could stop Phanya from punching a hole straight through the middle of its torso.

She looked back to freeze the first mannequin, now short a few broken fingers. Phanya braced her feet properly and whipped her hips around in a full 180° spin. This momentum gave her arm some real speed to its swing, and although the side of her fist couldn't break through the helmet it did send the helmet flying with the mannequin's head still inside. And she stomped its chest into dust, just to be safe.

After that encounter Phanya made sure to keep everything safe. No more showboating, the weapons these things used were clearly only meant to work for them and what she already had was more than enough. Stare it down, walk up, blink, punch, and move on. Three more mannequins fell like this, each one in a different uniform and wielding a different sport stick, and they lacked the coordination to regroup until Phanya had almost finished working through them all.

A group of three finally figured it out, standing together in a clearing just barely large enough for all three to cover with their weapons. Gut instinct spoke up that these were just about the last of the mannequins, so she didn't need to worry about subtlety. Phanya hummed to herself at how confident the instinct sounded, so to test it she kicked over one shelving unit and waited without ever taking eyes off the mannequins.

No response and no other scuttling feet, so she crouched into position. A mental countdown hit zero and Phanya launched herself at a dead sprint, taking three long steps before she leapt into the air with her back tilting towards the ground.

Phanya curled up and lashed out, her whole body one big adrenaline-fueled spring, and drop-kicked two of the mannequins at the same time. As soon as both feet were clear of their impacts both eyes snapped open and Phanya focused every bit of willpower she had on not flinching when her back hit the ground. The third mannequin, already looming overhead and rearing back to deliver a double-handed overhead strike with a metal stick, served as plenty of motivation to keep her eyes open.

Phanya took her time catching her breath, slowly blinking alternate eyes so the monster could never move. She had it dead to rights, so long as she kept calm, so any rush would only endanger herself. This time she grabbed the weapon with one hand to hold it still, so she could give the thing a proper haymaker punch with the other hand. And then the store fell silent, save for the frantic sounds of adrenaline leaving the body.

It took a moment before Phanya realized she was still holding onto the weapon, a thin metal stick with a small round paddle held on one end at an odd angle. Still trying to shake off the last bits of adrenaline, Phanya gave it a few random swings and realized that she was wrong earlier — these things weren't made to only be usable by the mannequins, they were just sports sticks and she could swing them just fine.

So why did swinging it feel so sluggish and uncoordinated? At a whim, Phanya walked over to a nearby wall and gave it a solid whack with the stick. Not at full strength, but hard enough to sting her palms and bend the stick in the middle. She couldn't even leave more than a scratch on the wall's paint job.

Then she rapped her bare knuckles against the solid plascrete and didn't feel anything. Phanya wasn't numb and she could physically feel the wall just fine, but knocking her knuckles didn't sting the slightest bit. Hesitant knocks became testing jabs that became rabbit punches, going faster and harder until she wasn't holding back at all.

The only reason she stopped is when she ran out of breath. Drenched in sweat and heaving, wild eyes darted back and forth from the shallow pockmarks in the plascrete wall to her perfectly unharmed knuckles. Not even a scratch, like she suddenly had a massive dose of gene mods all concentrated in her hands. But how?

Something in the distance went thump and Phanya's head snapped to attention. There was one left! Cursing herself for not doing a proper sweep before that bout of wall-punching, Phanya stomped off in the direction of the sound to end this once and for all. The middle of the store held a relatively open space where most of the mannequins used to stand, but now only one remained. It froze in its walk when Phanya entered view, almost in the middle of a circle of fake grass dotted with fake bushes and other scenery.

Phanya recognized it as the first mannequin she encountered that tried to grab her ankle and drag her to her doom. Only it had the good sense to try rearming itself with mismatched sports armor, football pads and a hockey mask clashing with its funny shorts, but nothing that Phanya hadn't already punched around. She almost laughed at the irony of it being the last one to survive.

Any chuckle died in her throat when Phanya started to circle the mannequin and noticed that it rearmed itself in other ways. One hand, the one she broke, was held behind its back and with dawning horror Phanya realized that the arm didn't end. The arm snaked behind and around a bush, coming out the other side right next to where Phanya stood so she could get a really uncomfortable up-close view.

Broken chunks of mannequin were fused together in a cobblestone pattern with the gray internal material used as the mortar, forming a thick ribbon with the occasional hand or foot sticking out. Phanya's horrified stare froze the thing in mid-undulation but something rustled right behind her and Phanya whipped around. It was the same flesh ribbon, more of it, it just didn't end.

She followed the unbroken mass of mannequin flesh in a circle until she was surrounded by a party of one. Everywhere she looked the writhing mass froze, but any of the chunks not in her direct vision were still free to lash out. It wasn't one conscious entity, they were all different chunks working together! That felt like cheating, somehow, and panic threatened to grip her senses. The very end of the arm thing whipped at Phanya's face and she lurched out of the way in the nick of time, nicking the whip on her wrist instead.

Pain and panic blossomed, and Phanya's fight-or-flight response flipped to flight. She had to get away from this thing, recuperate and try again, but unseen hands snatched at her from all directions. It was going to drag her away, just like the first time!

Wait, just like the first time. Phanya squeezed her eyes shut and thrashed, striking out in every random direction and the ramshackle tendril fell to pieces. She regained her footing just in time to dodge another crack of the whip, and in the pattern of attacks Phanya squashed her panic. This was just another freaky mannequin monster, and she knew how to fight them.

Following the mannequin flesh to the edge of her peripheral vision let Phanya estimate where it was behind her and an elbow swung in an upwards arc, cracking into the soft flesh just outside of her view. The end of the arm fell to the ground in dead chunks, and Phanya's grin returned with a manic tinge. She took a long step forward, always keeping the mannequin chunks directly in her view, and spun around to give her backwards punch some extra spice.

Step, spin, smack, over and over until it became a dance rhythm. She couldn't stop without giving any chunks behind her a chance to strike and she fought off the mounting dizzy sensation. She was almost done, Phanya could see the main golf mannequin still walking closer to her with every step.

What Phanya didn't see is the way the mannequin positioned itself, sacrificing the last chunk of extra flesh so it could sock her in the jaw as her swing followed through. Phanya rolled with the punch and pirouetted, the improvised spinning kick striking with the speed of pure unthinking instinct.

Too fast for Phanya to fully grasp what she had done and definitely too fast for the mannequin to dodge, the kick went straight through the monster and sent it flying in two separate chunks. Some frantic darting confirmed that there were no more mannequins, or cobbled mannequin flesh, hiding in the shadows, so Phanya took her time to walk the entire length of mannequin debris and stomp each and every chunk into dust.

Just to be safe.