Not an Opponent, Not Quite a Friend

Pinkie and Applejack made their way down the hall before coming to a large wooden door with iron bracing in an arched frame. The room beyond was forty feet by forty feet with a thirty-five-foot ceiling. Within was a barren room, aside from a large looking cabinet in the far left corner and what looked like some sort of skeleton warrior with a living young mare as its main body somehow, said mare seemed to be legal age and attractively proportioned in her waist and chest area (the rest of her body that would usually be assessed by male and female alike was primarily hidden from view or didn’t provide enough of a proper view from the distance and angle Applejack and Pinkie had on this entity). Applejack gave the entity a fierce look and reached for her hammer before having her hand stop a tick next to its haft.

“I thought those were destroyed ages ago,” Pinkie exclaimed in surprise.

“Ya know what et is,” Applejack asked in confusion, “Ah think Ah know wut et is bu’ Ah jus’ wanna see ef we’re bo’ on tha same page.”

“That’s a **** Knight,” said Pinkie, “what did you think it was?”

“Same,” said Applejack with a curt nod. “Any suggestions un ‘ow ta deal wid this varmit?”

“How about we see what it does first,” said Pinkie as she began to skip towards the figure.

Applejack just nodded and followed the pink mare towards the entity.

After a minute or so Pinkie and Applejack were within spitting distance of the figure. The mare that acted as its torso looked even more generously proportioned up close, and looked very much like an earth pony, her pepper black form almost blending into the black skeletal-like armored structure of the **** Knight.

“I mean you no harm,” said the **** Knight in a very feminine voice that was more defensive than anything else, while looking right at the two. This threw the ponies for loop, everything they had learned about this sort of entity was far contradicted this entire encounter.

The mare that was held within blinked her eyes open a bit before saying in an ancient Equestrian dialect, one that was so far removed from the modern version it was a bit difficult to understand all her words, “Sorry about my compatriot,” she started, “I am Lily Whisper, I have...what is the polite phrasing for all of this? Suffice to summarize; this unit was designed specifically to help me with a problem present in my body. We have no clue how we got here, or even where here is. Tell me, how is that quaint side town on the island of Manehattan, I was there when they put in the bank, it was quite the site, first three-story building most of us had seen, looked like those extra columns was a smart investment. Sorry, I wasn’t paying attention when they gave me its official name.”

The two mares blinked in surprise a bit in surprise before Pinkie said, “Manehattan is one of the largest cities Equestria, it was officially started about three-hundred years ago, they didn’t get their first bank until about thirty years later. This dungeon is quite a ways out from any settlements in Equestria; we’ll take you back home with us.”

“Ah’m sure Twilight, an’ maybe Princess Celestia ‘r Princess Luna would be more than ‘appy ta assist ya with whatever yer problem ez,” said Applejack.

“The way you both speak is odd, unfamiliar, but you speak of Princess Celestia as if she were a close acquaintance. I am unfamiliar with this ‘Princess Luna’ of which you speak.”

“Sounds like you have been out of the loop for far too long,” said Pinkie, “we’ll see what we can do about bringing up to speed on everything you missed out on. Do you know how to get out of here? There’s only the one door to the room.”

“There is a magic circle of some kind present,” said the **** Knight, pointing to the far right corner, “this unit does not have an official designation, you may call this unit by whatever you desire. The circle was unresponsive to this unit’s attempts.”

“We don’t quite have our dedicated magic users,” said Pinkie, but I think I can figure this thing out. AJ, how about you use the stamp Twilight gave you and see if you can use its marks or it to get in touch with her.”

“Ya got it, Pinks,” said Applejack before going around and stamping all the walls of the room then tapping her weapon to one of the eyes left by the stamp to see if she could trigger a response with her magic, even though arcane and divine magic worked a bit differently.

After a few tries with a few different eyes with almost no response, Applejack called Pinkie over to give it a try. She hopped the pink mare would have better luck than her in regards to this. While Pinkie combed through her hair for an item to act as a focus of some kind to use with the stamped on eyes, Applejack took a prayer position and began to focus on the stamp itself, if she couldn’t try contacting Twilight she could at least try locating her.

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Twilight felt a disturbance behind her left eye and quickly shut her eyes and focused on the presence of the disturbance. She saw Pinkie, Applejack, and what looked like a non-hostile **** knight, Pinkie was doing her usual chatterbox thing in front of the eye, she basically described everything she and Applejack had dealt with up to that point from the point Rarity had been forcefully separated from them on loop, at almost a mile a minute.

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After continuing the story of what she and Applejack had been through, for the fifteenth time, Pinkie stopped her gabbing and sat down to rest a bit. “I’m pretty sure I got through to Twilight,” said Pinkie with a big grin, “how about we take a short rest? We’ve earned it.”

“No complaints fro’ me,” said Applejack before setting her gear off to her right and laying her head on her bag like it was some sort of pillow.