Truly Evil?

June made a quick retreat away from the statues, and threw the molotov back into the backpack.  She elected to stay back, watching the statues for signs of weakness.  Once again, she silently cursed her lacking muscle mass.

Dusk just barely avoided a rather guillotine fashioned end with that first swing, the swords breaking through the flooring and going a few inches into the earth beneath. The magic blast, while powerful and hitting solidly, barely seemed to do a thing as the statue hit by it staggered back for a few seconds before regaining it's footing and proceeding as it's other's did.

Ician's series of attacks would land regularly, with only the rare attack being blocked. It was as if the statues had some self preservation but were too heavy for fast reactions. Ician's sword itself however would be doing even less than the magic blast, making harsh clanging noises whenever contact with the hard stone was made.

June was alright for now as the statues seemed plenty focus on the other two ponies, and she was able to study them and how they fought Dusk and Ician. The fighting style was similar and while there was a terrifying amount of power to each attack with the weapon being swung at a startling amount of speed, the attacks were fairly easy to read and dodge. The statues defenses seemed rather incredible as well, given that nothing so far had truly done more than chip them. The statues primary weakness for now seemed to be speed.

My advantages: Superior speed, and possibly disposition for intelligent thought and detailed battle analysis. Ician stopped attacking, instead retreating and moving around the statues quickly as he manoeuvred. Their advantages: Superior power, impenetrable armour, and numbers. He kept moving, relying on his speed to outrun the statues. Hardly a fair fight.

But then, when have I ever fought one?

As fast as he could, he tried to position himself in such a way that when the statue attacking him next swung its sword, it would hit another one of the statues instead of Ician. If I can't kill them... maybe they can kill themselves for me.

Dusk charged up another magic blast, a bit more powerful than the last one, and this time he was aiming at one of the statue's legs, which he assumed would more likely break. If he couldn't kill them outright, he might as well cripple them.

Dusk's blast didn't seem to do much to the stone, except mark the beginnings of a few fractures. But as the statue raised it's stone sword to swing, the statue behind it took a swing at Ician only to slam into the already damaged leg of the other statue. Stone shattered from the force of the blow and the statue that had been ready to Swing at Dusk crumbled to small chunks of stone. The other three statues however were continuing their attack undeterred by the destruction of one of their own.

The statue that had destroyed it's kin followed up the first strike with a second one aimed straight at Ician through the could of dust kicked up by the destruction. The other two took swings at Dusk, the stone swords coming down with bone crushing force.

"Well... that worked, at least." Ician flinched backwards as the second strike flew at him. He tried to leap backwards and avoid the blow, hoping he was fast enough.

June was furiously searching through her piles of "useful" items, trying to find something of use.  The explosives would take down the whole building, the pickaxes wouldn't fit through the backpack, and she was too weak to straight up fight.  She groaned aloud, looking towards the battle.  "Is there anything anyone needs?" She shouted at the ponies battling the statues.

Dusk was managing to hold his own against the two statues since he was much faster than them. Knowing that they could destroy each other was nice, but now he needed to figure out a way to get them to hit each other without being cleaved in two in the process.

When June asked if anyone needed anything, Dusk said, "Nothing I can think of right now."

He soon thought he could slide under one of the statues and hope the other swung at him as he passed under it. Since it was the only idea he had, he went for it.

The blow would just graze Ician, the blade of the sword only making a shallow cut. The force behind the blow however was still enough to nearly force Ician to the ground. If it had been a solid hit, it would have.

Dusk's plan worked to some extent. While sliding under one did have one statue swinging at another, the statue that he dove under rose it's hoof, and kicked out with the same terrifying amount of force. The blow easily sending Dusk flying off to the side and into one of the overgrown tables, that prominently broke, spilling dirt and plant all over the pony. As the one statue crumbled from being hit by it's kin though, the other stepped forward to continue the assault, though it was still walking fairly slow and would take a few moments to get there.

"Ack... would be nice if you had some... medical... supplies... June..." Ician glanced momentarily at his saddlebags. "Oh, right."

He next tried to manoeuvre around the statue so it would attack Dusk's remaining enemy statue, hoping to pull of the same trick he did for the original statue.

"Augh. Yeah, that was a little stupid," Dusk said to himself as he stood back up and quickly shook the dirt and stuff off of him, or at least to the best of his ability since the dirt stuck to his somewhat sweaty coat. He definitely was hurt, but it was nothing serious. Although he'd probably have a few nice bruises.

As the other statue approached, he decided to put some distance between him and it so he could think of a new plan. He specifically went over by June.

June watched Dusk approach, and adjusted the backpack to hide the opening from his view.  After a moment of rummaging, she pulled out a roll of bandages, some tape, a charm breaker and a bottle of disinfectant.  "Medical supplies!"  She then looked up to Dusk.  "What do you need?"

"Nothing really, or at least nothing that can't wait," Dusk said to June as he turned back to the approaching statue. It seemed Ician had an idea in mind, and Dusk figured he shouldn't get in his way.

June's smile fell.  "Oh.  Alright."  She zipped up the backpack, and looked up to watch the fight.  "I really hope he wins.  I'd help, if I could figure out a way to."

The statue that was after Dusk kept charging towards him and now June as well. With a full swing, it brought the heavy weapon down in a diagnol slash that was aimed to cleave into both ponies.

The statue after Ician continued to pursue him as well, occasional taking a clumsy swing whenever it was close enough. Gradually the two were working their way over to the statue that was swinging at Dusk and June, but it wasn't quite there yet.

Dusk had to make a very quick decision. Leap away, or attempt to block the attack. He went with blocking it with his sword, that way he wouldn't have to worry about June taking the blow.

He stepped in front of June, supporting his sword with both his hooves and his magic, and took that blow dead on. Once he had stopped the initial force of the blow, he charged up and fired a much more powerful magic blast to blow the statue as far away from them as he could.

"Come on, come on..." Ician continued making his way over to the other statue, trying to parry or dodge as many blows as he could as he retreated to his target at a moderate pace.

June took a moment to react, watching the statue approach.  Then, with a cry, she jumped away from the statue, but her backpack didn't come with her.  After reaching a safe distance, she noticed her backpack's disappearance, and shouted something uninteligible. It was quickly followed by "My backpack!  I need that!"

The blow from the statue swinging at Dusk would connect and solidly. While the blow from the kick had been staggering, the sword was worse. Luckily with the bracing and reinforcement, Dusk was setup much better to take the blow. That being said, it was still more than enough force to send the pony skidding back as the stone blade slammed into the metal one. Instead of being flung like before, Dusk was only forced back a couple feet, his hooves coming in contact with the bag and forcing it back as well.

The retaliation however finally triggered something of a response, forcing the statue to take a step back, almost onto Ician as he continued to lead the statue following him towards the other one. The stone hoof landing solidly on the ground Ician had been just milliseconds before. The one following Ician however took the opportunity to swing again. While the level of intelligence behind the animated statues was unknown, this attack almost seemed coordinated with the remaining statue as it continued the downward diagonal slash at the momentarily displaced Ician.

After a brief moment of consideration, June decided she wasn't near fast enough to grab the backpack without getting hit.  "Stupid statues.  I thought this would be less of a fighty adventure and more of a clevery puzzle sort of adventure."  She 'hmph'ed.  "Gotta be something I can use..."  On a whim, she looked around the nearby greenhouse for any helpful plants.

"Oh... crap." Ician raised his sword and braced in his armour for the blow, but he was not prepared. The blow knocked him to the ground, skidding a few metres away. Not yet out for the count, but certainly out for the moment.

Successfully blocking the statue's attack gave Dusk a nice feeling of power. He figured with the right weapon he could smash the statues himself, but he needed something like a war-hammer or a mace to do that.

He soon realized that his hoof was up against June's backpack, and he saw June was a little reluctant to come close and take it. So, he used his magic to place it closer to her. "There you go June. Now, try to find something big and heavy that I can swing," he said.

He then went back to the fight. Seeing Ician was down, he got close to the statues and simply tapped them with his sword, only planning to draw their attention and lead them away until Ician got back up.

Being taken to the ground was an understatement given the sheer power behind the statues swings. Ician's hooves would be force out from under him as the massive weight and crushing force were brought down, the armor though did it's job and kept the stone blade from to any serious damage to him. The armor itself on the other hoof would now be sporting quite the dent and some fractures because of the horrendous attack, metal almost splitting from sheer force along a contact line.

As the statue though raised it's sword to finish the down Ician, Dusk's tactic seemed to work. The clinks of his sword against the statues seemed to garner their attention, and both turned their attention towards him. While this would give Ician more than enough time to get up and get himself together, it also meant that now Dusk was dealing with two stone swords being swung at him, and while he'd managed to block one of the crushing blows, even he knew a second would at the least break his guard.

June would see a plethora of plants, even quite a few rarer ones that usually required special treatment to keep alive in captivity. The majority of these however were mostly for decor, being more that pleasant to look at and captivating with their beauty. There were however several fairly rare alchemical, medicinal, and component worth plant specimens spread throughout the veritable jungle of overgrowth. The biggest draw back though was while these would do wonders or horrors to a creature of flesh and blood, finding something that would truly affect stone would prove a little more difficult.

The backpack felt light, almost as if it was empty, though its shape signified it had at least something in it.  Turning r attention away from the flora, June caught the backpack, and a grin spread across her face.  She gave a mock salute, happy to have a task she could help with.  She began searching through a pile, trying to find something nice and heavy.  She pulled out a dented aluminum baseball bat, put it back, and picked out a few masonry tools, looking at them in apparent surprise.  "I thought I melted these."  She put them aside, and looked to a different pile of junk, finally finding something heavy and vaguely hammer-shaped: what seemed to be a solid iron leg from a statue, with a date carved into it.  It was slightly bigger than a normal pony's leg, but nothing overly unweildly.  June smiled at the object, as much as she hated that it would probably be destroyed.  Unable to lift the metal piece, she upended the backpack and it fell with a clang.  She smiled at Dusk.  "This work?  It's all I-"  Her expression turned to one of shock as the statues swung.  "Oh no.

Stars spun. Ician was seeing double.

Slowly, he staggered to his feet, instinctively heading away from the statues as he gathered his wits around him, preparing for round two.