Fair.

Doll waited on the hill, dawn was but minutes away and her opponent wouldn’t be far behind.

She had gone two hills past the village, so she would spot her opponent before either had the chance to attack, doll felt this gave her an advantage as her appearance would not give away her fighting style, but her opponent may have some kind of tell.

Dawn broke into sunrise, and as light started to fall across the hill across from doll she saw a woman appear above it, what doll wasn’t expecting was for her to keep rising above it. Doll’s opponent seemed to be standing atop a giant animal of some kind, four times the size of Doll.

What was the tactics here, could her opponent command mysterious animals? Was it just for show? Or some kind of hypnotic distraction.

The woman and animal stopped atop the opposite hill, surveying Doll.

Closing her eyes, doll attempted to sense the Qi of whatever it was approaching her, but saw what appeared to be the Qi of some kind of spider, one ball with many many thin strands coming from it. The person above was real, and they had tied their Qi to some kind of giant puppet.

Doll could tell this was the limit to her opponents Qi manipulation, it would only become a problem if the puppet was destroyed and she was left to fight the woman with her loose Qi.

A cutting Qi type attack would sever connections to the doll and result in her opponent having uncontrolled whip like Qi where the strings were.

Doll would have to win this fight physically, which was going to be tricky, as this opponent seemed to have her Qi set up for maximum physical attacks anyway.

“Presumably you have decided your tactics now?” Doll’s opponent’s voice carried well without any breeze.

“And you?”

“my tactics are always the same.”

“I am ready when you are then.”

Doll’s opponent dropped to a ready stance atop her puppet, and which after a slight pause dashed full speed towards Doll.

Doll began an arcing charge toward her opponent down the side of the hill, and leaped towards her opponent above the puppet, but the beast reared up and doll hit the base of the doll instead, it was solid and she did no damage to it.

Standing sideways on the puppet, doll realised it was about to fall forward to crush her, she leaped back and skidded through the grass facing her opponent.

“It looks like you are going to be a fun one, I heard warriors could be strong and I was looking forward to killing others like me.” the puppeteer smiled down at doll.

“So I’m your first battle against a banded warrior?”

“To tell the truth yes, but I’ve killed plenty before, back in my homeland I beat armies, I was feared all over, it’s refreshing to be able to remake my reputation here also.” The woman bent over and studied doll. “You seem disappointed.”

Doll stood upright again and brushed her fringe from her face.

“To tell the truth I am, I was hoping I could get extra points for the one battle. But it doesn’t matter, I plan on getting all the points anyway.”

“well of course, we all want to be the one left alive, but I don’t think this discussion is going to get us anywhere. Tell you what, I’ll let you make the next attack, to make this interesting.”

“Ok” came doll’s voice from behind her opponent, Doll had long since mastered using Qi to form a clone of herself and shifting into a form to move about undiscovered. The real doll ran up behind the puppeteer and kicked her from her perch. The puppeteer flew through the air, through Doll’s clone (which vanished) and hit the ground hard.

Doll stood atop the puppet. “I don’t think your reputation is deserved.”

The woman spat out the dirt from her mouth and stood up to face Doll, after wiping her face she said back, rather pissed; “It seems I’ve underestimated you. My name is Riopene, so just who are you?”

“My name is Doll.”

“Ha, that’s amusing, so this is a battle of one doll against another.” Riopene raised her hands (and as Doll saw it, several Qi type hands as well) “too bad my doll cant get hurt, I don’t think we can say the same of you.”

Riopene pulled all her arms down hard and her doll leaped full speed toward a nearby tree, trying to crush doll into it.

The trees split through the middle, the puppet landed on its feet and doll was still standing on top unshaken, she had long since been able to kick through solid trees, her opponent was still underestimating her.

Doll knew that wouldn’t last forever though, she would have to make her move soon.