Friendship is Recovering

Chapter 18

"Let me get this straight... you want me to get a ring to propose to Midnight Song, on a hill, at night for a beautiful romance?" I asked Blitz with confusion in my eyes.

"Well... You don't have to do exactly that, you should still propose though," She said with a smile.

"But I don't have the ring finished yet," I admitted to her, "and plus, I've only known her for a little over a week!"

"Yes you do, its right there," She said, pointing a hoof at my bag, knowing for a fact that a ring is in it.

"I told you, I have not finished the ring yet," I said once more, but with more force.

"Why is it not finished then?" She asks me.

"Because it does not have a gemstone upon it, and I don't like rings being a plain old ring," I said, hoping that they will get the hint. I was sure that they did, as both Blitz and Dawn looked to be deep in thought.

"Did you ask Rarity for one?" Dawn asks me.

"Was going to, except that I heard some weird sounds coming from the floor above," I said, feeling bad for not investigating. But at the same time, I was glad that I did not investigate. Just in case it was more... private.

"Then why don't you seek the Gemstone of the Night?" Blitz says confidently.

"Gemstone of the Night?" I asked, looking visibly confused.

"Yeah, rumors say that the gemstone was made during the night of a full moon," she said. I face hoofed at how obvious the answer sounded.

"No pony actually knows where it is though," Dawn said in sadness.

"Sounds interesting now, where would it be rumored to be located?" I said, my treasure hunter instincts and excitement kicking in.

"It is rumored to be around the palace in canterlot, but why do-" She said, but she never finished her sentence because I walked out of the door. Alright, I have a nightly train to catch. I thought to myself, and made my way to the train station.

It was almost midnight when the train pulled into Canterlot. I was the only passenger on board, since it was so late at night. I got off the train and took a look at the fancy buildings that made up the entire capital. Heh, sometimes I have to love the way that nobles build their houses, almost always ends up to be as fancy as possible. I thought to myself with a chuckle, before focusing on the task at hand, or, as these ponies would say, hoof. I looked around for a moment to take in my surroundings before thinking on where the Gemstone would be hidden. Almost always, the gemstone is hidden in the biggest of buildings. I looked around for the biggest building, before promptly face hoofing. The castle is the biggest build- I thought, before being interrupted at noticing how large the castle was at this range. Ing... I finished, and for the first time, I actually worried about how to actually find the Gemstone. I closed my eyes for a moment. This will all be worth it in the end... I thought, in an attempt to try to motivate myself. As soon as I opened my eyes, I saw a pegasus wearing a dark blue armor fly towards me.

"Finally, you've arrived; I was getting bored of waiting for you!" He said. I looked at him in confusion.

"What?" I asked him, my confusion obviously showing on my face.

"I'll explain on the way there, right now, I need you to follow me," He said, and took off. I raised an eyebrow about why he would want me to follow him, before shrugging and opening my wings to follow him.

As soon as I caught up with him, he looked at me with an intention of talking.

"My name is Night Streak, one of the night guards, no doubt you are wondering why I am escorting you to a location, to make a long story short, the princesses are expecting you," He explained.

"How did they-" I started to ask, but he interrupted me.

"Golden Shield told them you would possibly be looking for the Gemstone, so they agreed to help you on your way to finding it. As for why they are going to help you? I think you will find out when you ask them," He said, before flying a bit faster towards the royal garden. I was even more confused than before, but I figured that I would get some answers from the princesses themselves, so I picked up the pace to trail Night Streak.

As soon as my hooves touched the floor, I saw Night Streak bow to Princess Luna, before flying off to somewhere. I walked up to them and before I could ask them anything, Celestia spoke up.

"I would like to apologize for all of the secrecy, but so far, you are the only pony who we would trust with the Gemstone," She explained.

"Why? Does this gemstone hold some power that could destroy everything as we know it?" I asked, with a gleam of excitement in my eyes. Luna giggled behind her hooves before answering me.

"Sadly, no it does not have any special powers. We... I made that Gemstone a long time ago as a present for my sister," She said, and I gave her a look of disappointment.

"We would have asked Daring Doo to obtain it, but she was too busy to get it," Celestia said. I then snapped my head to look at Celestia in surprise.

"Wait, Daring Doo is an actual pony?" I asked her in surprise.

"Have you read any of her books? Despite the stories, they are indeed real," She said with a soft smile, remembering the past.

"No, I haven't had the chance to yet, but they are true?" I asked her with excitement, I really wanted to meet another Treasure hunter in this world, and she was by far, the closest to being one.

"As strange as they may seem, they are indeed true, she even told us herself," Luna said, trying to suppress her giggles behind her hooves.

"Alright, now to a few questions I have, how do you know why I come here, and why are you helping me?" I asked.

"To answer them, Golden Shield wanted to assist you, but he was focused on getting training from our captain Shining Armor," Celestia said.

"Huh... so what now?" I asked her, noticing Luna really straining hard to keep from bursting out in laughter.

"Now," Celestia said with a chuckle, "We help you get into the entrance,"

"Great, where is it?" I asked, being excited for gaining entrance to what I was searching for.

"Look down," Celestia said simply. I raised an eyebrow, and looked down. I then saw exactly why Luna was trying hard to not laugh, as a hole was under me the whole time, and a blue veil of magic was holding me up. I looked up and glared at Luna.

"You son of a-AHHHHHhhhh..." I started to say, before the veil vanished from beneath me, dropping me down the hole. I swear I could see Luna laughing before I vanished down the magical rabbit hole.

"Ahhhhhh- OOF!" I exclaimed, hitting the floor pretty hard. I was lucky that I did not break any bones, but I was not happy about being dropped, literally, into the area where the Gemstone was located. I took a look around at the surroundings. Most of the walls and arches were crumbling over time, but most of them have already crumbled away. That was a tell tale sign of the halls being extremely old, perhaps even older. I got up slowly, making sure I don't break anything in my body, or pull any important muscles. When I was fully standing, I saw torches light up the old hallways, leading me in a certain direction.

"Torches lighting my path... yep this has deadly traps in it," I muttered to myself, before smiling at the prospect of risking my life. I followed the torches, and along the way down the hallways, I looked at the wall to see an image in the likeness of Luna upon it. It looked like Luna in every way, except that it was larger, darker, and sinister than Luna looked like now. I stopped to examine the odd image, but I could not examine it for too long. The reason was because I heard a soft click, and the torches flaring once. I was confused by the click, until I looked behind me and saw a boulder rolling at me. I would not waste any time running away from the boulder, yet the only thought I had at the moment was: Great, now I'm running away from a boulder like Indiana Jones...

I dived into a room, as the boulder hits the doorway of the room very hard. I sighed in relief for not turning into a pancake and stood up, resulting in yet another audible click. "Oh hell..." I said out loud, as holes formed in both walls. The holes started to shoot darts out of them rapid fire, and I was working hard to bend my body in ways to avoid them (not easy to do in the body of a pony). I weaved my way towards the open door, and dove right into the doorway. Before I got out of the room, a few sneaky darts would embed themselves into my leg. I hissed in pain, and landed pretty hard outside of the room. As soon as I touched the floor outside, the darts stopped firing from the holes. I frowned, and turned to look at my leg. Three darts decorated my leg with a thin trail of blood dripping from each of them. I scowled, knowing that I needed to remove those darts from my leg, just in case they were poisonous. It will be painful, but I need to do it anyways. So I took a few deep breaths, before I used my hoof to pull out one of the darts. I hissed in pain as the dart left my leg, and I immediately dropped it to the floor. Two left... I thought, and reached for the second one. I cried out in pain as I removed it quickly, dropping that one to the floor as well. God... damnit! I thought angrily. The pain was not unbearable, but it really did hurt. I looked back at the single dart left in my leg. I decided to not spare myself another second, and grabbed it. I waited for a moment to prepare myself, and then slowly pulled it out of my leg. It hurt a bit less than the first two, because of how I removed it, but it still hurt like hell when I finally got the dart out. I dropped that dart to the floor, and immediately pulled out bandages to wrap my leg up. It wasn't serious, but I would have to hope that I don't wait around for too long. Wounds tend to be the main cause of making simple things harder than they should be.

As soon as I wrapped up my leg, I stood up carefully, keeping the weight off that leg as much as I could. I looked down the hall and saw a doorway with torches. I smiled and took a step, and another click was heard. I really can't get a break while standing up... I thought to myself bitterly. The door where the torches were lit started to slowly close shut. I knew that I had to pick up the pace, and started to run towards the closing door, my leg screaming in pain. As soon as I got to the door, it was too low to run through it normally, so I lowered myself into a slide. My slide would result in me barely getting under the door, and my leg screaming in agony from the motion. I thought about grabbing a small item that had fallen from my bag, but it was just out of hoof's reach. The door slammed shut behind me with a loud thud, and I did not even move. I was waiting for my hurt leg to stop hurting first before trying to get up again. I... hate... dart traps... so... much... I thought in anger, while waiting for the pain to fade away.

When the pain finally dulled enough for me to get up, I just go up and walked straight through the next room, Ignoring the beautiful gemstone that was set upon the alter. I did not even care about looking at it, as I was too focused on my pain to try to investigate. When I did chance a look, I saw that the gemstone turned into a black piece of gravel as soon as I crossed the room. I hate illusions... I thought, before continuing onwards. I did not even see what the gemstone actually looked like, since I took a quick glance over it. I felt somewhat bad for avoiding a trap like that easily without actually seeing the trap itself. But I at least was glad that I did not have to avoid yet another trap.

Click

"God... Damn... Law!" I said, and started to run again.

After narrowly avoiding yet another boulder trap, I finally entered a room that was as black as night. Upon the alter at the center of the room, was the prize I sought after. I smiled, knowing that my pain is almost over. Except when I took a step, I almost fell down a hole in front of me. I scrambled back up from the hole, glad that I have not fallen down. I looked around, and the floor was as black as the room was, saving for a single torch glowing near where I was. I carefully moved to the torch, and picked it up. The floor was revealed to me more brightly as I carried the torch. I walked forward, holding the torch in my mouth. I was stopped just short of the alter by a hole in front of it. Muttering muffled curses, I tried to look for a way around. I then saw another path going to the left of the alter, looking back, I saw that where I walked with the torch, the ground remained revealed in light, so I was glad that I could use that to track where I have been. I turned and followed the path.

After being lost in the night maze for a chunk of time that I will call an hour, I finally reached the alter. Setting the torch down carefully at the base of the alter, I would slowly move to the Gemstone. Before I picked it up, I examined it in awe; it looked exactly like the colors of the night. It would fit perfectly with the ring I plan to give to Midnight Song. I then reached out to pick up the gemstone, and found that the size was deceptive. As soon as I lifted it out of the light, the whole room lit up, and the Gemstone suddenly felt heavy. I could not hold it up, and it would land on the ground with a thud. As I attempted to lift it back up, I noticed that the Gemstone was now larger than it looked before. "Wow... how am I supposed to get out of here with this Gemstone?" I wondered out loud. That question was answered with a wall opening opposite of the way I came into the room. "Close enough..." I muttered, and tied the Gemstone to my back with difficultly. It weighed almost a ton, but I could still walk with it. I made my way to the recently opened doorway, and entered into the dark entrance.

I would surface a few seconds later from a statue. As soon as I exited the doorway, it would close shut with a soft thud. I turned around to admire the statue, before looking at it in absolute confusion. The statue looked like as if a snake sprouted wings, arms, and legs. "What the..." I said in confusion.

"You’re alive!" I heard someone shout from behind me. It was Pyro. Geez, he follows me a lot more than I realize.

"Of course I'm alive... what did you expect?" I said in a confidant way.

"Nothing I guess... John, your leg!" He said in concern.

"What about it?" I asked, turning around to see the owner of the voice.

"You're wounded," Pyro said, concern really showing in his voice.

"This is why I hate dart traps..." I said, giving him a look that would show my hatred of those traps.

"We really should get that looked at," He said simply.

"It's just a le-agh!" I said, when Pyro decided to poke it.

"Relax, I didn't burn you," He taunted.

"Son of a ghost coming out of hell!" I shouted, showing my pain in that leg as clear as newly cleaned glass.

"Yeah, you need it looked at," he said knowingly.

"Yeah... you find someone... I'm just going to pass out now..." I said, and before Pyro could say anything more, I closed my eyes, hit the ground, and drifted off to sleep, far away from the pain that I felt currently. Yep, it's poisonous...

I saw nothing but the color black. I knew I passed out again this time, but only because of what I just went through. I thought I could hear faint voices in the darkness, and they would slowly get louder until I could hear them as clear as the day. I realized that I was watching a memory of the past.

"Hey John!"

"Yes Jake?"

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah... I am okay,"

Wait... this is the day when I disappeared. I thought, but I continued to watch it anyways.

"You don't sound okay," A different voice says from the darkness. That is when the black vanished entirely to show the entire scene of the memory.

"Who are you?" I asked him. The man was wearing a brown fedora and a similar colored business suit.

"Detective Chris, you can just call me Chris though," He said.

"I thought the detective look died years back," I responded with a small taunt. He would frown before speaking.

"That does not matter right now, what does matter is that I figure out what happened, he said, pulling out a small notebook.

"What more do you need to know? I just saw my best friend betray me and kill my wife," I said, sorrow clearly showing through my angered voice.

"Do you know why?" He asked with a raised eyebrow.

"No, I... know what? Screw it," I said, and stood up.

"Hang on a moment, I have some more questions to ask you," He said, but I wanted to be alone for a while, so I ignored him and walked off. I thought that the memory would end there, but strangely enough, it continued.

"Damn it..." Chris said disappointedly.

"Leave him, he needs to have some time alone," Jake says to the detective.

"I wanted to ask him if he knew about this," He said, pulling out a letter.

"A letter?" Jake asks, wondering why he would ask me about the letter.

"Not just any letter, the contents of the letter lead to the fact that his friend might have been blackmailed to kill the victim," he explained confidently.

"You’re saying that someone actually blackmailed Greg into doing this?" He asked in shock.

"Exactly, but John walked off before I could show it to him, no doubt he's going to hold everyone at an icy distance from here on out," He said, looking disappointed again and somehow predicting the future perfectly.

"You can show it to him next time you see him," Jake says, trying to encourage him.

"I highly doubt that I can be guaranteed another time to see him, I have this feeling that he might disappear instead, but when he does disappear, I will do everything I can to find him again," He said to Jake.

"Nah, John won't disappear," He said, waving it off and walking away. Chris reaches into a pocket of his coat and pulls out a necklace that contains a picture. I couldn't see the picture, but I saw how he looked at it sadly.

"I will help you John, one way or another, because you are my brother after all," He said softly, but I heard him. As he puts the picture away, everything faded back to black.

Brother? Whose memory am I looking at anyways? This is for sure not my own memory. I thought to myself, but I started to hear different voices.

"Are you sure he's okay? I mean, he did just go through a dangerous temple," I heard a voice say.

"Nonsense, he will be just fine, along with his marvelous gem..." A lady like voice said.

"I think you should stop fawning over that gem, it weighs about a ton," A third voice said.

"I've never read a book that told anything about this gem though..." A fourth one said to herself.

"Ah don't reckon that he could have carried that gem in his current state," A country voice says. I realized that I could finally move and open my eyes. I did so with a loud groan.

"Well ah'll be, your awake!" I heard Applejack say.

"Yeah... where am I now?" I asked, looking around the room.

"You’re in Ponyvile Hospital, Pyro had to carry you here after you passed out in front of him," Twilight explained to me.

"Why am I not covered in burns now?" I asked, looking over myself for burns, just in case.

"Because he did not want to actually hurt you, so he had to get some help to get you here, he did manage to stabilize your leg while you were out though" She explained.

"That was nice of him, now why are you all here?" I asked, mentioning the fact that there are six ponies in the room, counting Applejack and Twilight.

"We wanted to make sure that you were okay silly! I was going to throw a "your alive! Party" but you got up before I could think about doing it," Pinkie said out of excitement.

"Well I just wanted to make sure that you were going to get back up again," Rainbow Dash says confidently, but I knew that she was as concerned as the others were.

"Well... I'm awake now; how bad is it?" I asked them.

"Um... the doctor..." Fluttershy started to say, but she got interrupted by Twilight.

"The Doctor said that you were very lucky enough to not damage anything major in your leg, but you did loose quite a bit of blood," Twilight explained. I was not happy about her interrupting Fluttershy, but I let it slide for now.

"So I'll be fine then," I said, putting it simply.

"Maybe," She says, uncertain of why I thought I would be fine.

"Maybe? What makes you think that?" I said, being worried that I may have hurt myself more than I thought.

"Actually, your perfectly fine, it's just that the doctors are unsure if your leg will heal perfectly, so they want to have you stay here until it heals," She explained.

"Ahh," I said, but I was annoyed at the fact that I had to stay in the bed for longer than I thought.

"I have a question, why do you do things that can be considered dangerous anyways?" Rainbow Dash asks me.

"I thought I answered that? I am a Treasure hunter, I do this almost every time when I need to find a treasure," I said to her.

"Don't you even think about any others? If your okay with answering that though..." Fluttershy asks.

"I do, which is why I put myself in danger so often," I said, getting a sad look in my eyes. I sighed and made an attempt to get out of the bed, but I was stopped by a purple aura holding me back down.

"You should rest," Twilight said, being concerned about my attempt to try to walk around with a bad leg, "Last time I let something like this happen Pinkie ended up sprinting, foal strapped to her back, to the middle of town to see if the Sugarcube Corner was okay."

Pinkie blushed and somehow sunk into the floor.

"I will, once I finished one last thing," I said, being determined to finish making the ring.

"What is it that you want to do?" She asks me, being curious about what is making me so stubborn now.

"That gemstone I have there? That is for a ring," I admitted. I was sore that Twilight wouldn't let me up, but I did not blame her for being so concerned about a friend of her husband.

"You mean to put that gem on a ring?" Rarity asks me with a sparkle in her eyes.

"Yes, so I could give it to Midnight, as a... proposal ring," I said, regretting that I ever wanted to tell them. I was right when I saw Pinkie Pie jump up and down so excitedly. Where she popped up this time, I have no clue.

"Woo! I need to get the Getting married party planned for when you propose!" Pinkie Pie exclaimed.

"Why would you need a ring that special?" Rainbow Dash asks.

"Rainbow!" Twilight exclaims at Rainbow.

"It's just a stupid gemstone anyways," Rainbow says, giving it a light poke.

"That stupid gemstone is the Gemstone of Night," I said in a small boast. I saw all of the mares in the room turn to me in shock except Fluttershy, who turned her head to hide her eyes.

"Did you just say... Gemstone of Night?" Rarity asks me, not sure if I was bluffing.

"Yes, now let me back up so I can put it on the ring," I half pleaded to them. Rarity and Twilight would look at each other for a moment, before nodding.

"Alright, but if you have problems on walking, you are going right back into the bed," Twilight said.

"I appreciate your concern, so I'll agree to it," I said, not telling her that I was able to withstand pain for a long period of time.

I pushed the covers off of me and rolled off of the bed with a thunk. I then stood up and turned back to my leg in surprise. It didn't even hurt, not even a dull pain was coming from it. I imagined that the girls were as surprised as I was.

"What... the..." I said, being in awe of this event. I could not even believe it myself, but here it was.

"That isn't possible... no pony could heal that fast, not even Dusk can heal that fast..." Twilight said in confusion.

"Did one of you heal my leg while I was out?" I asked the two unicorns in the room. They would shake their head.

"Other than the magic I used to keep you in bed, no, we did not use magic," Twilight said.

I decided to stop wasting time in staring at my leg in awe and start working on getting the gemstone on the ring. I walked over to the gemstone and Rarity helped me to take a piece of it out of the big gem. I thanked her and with a few tools, I fixed the gemstone upon the ring. As soon as I closed the box, the door opened.

"Twilight, I thought I told you that he is not supposed to be walking around," The doctor said, before noticing that I wasn't even wincing in pain.

"I'm actually more concerned on how my leg is perfectly fine like nothing happened," I said in response.

"Alright, I'll just examine-" He said, before pausing in shock.

"What is it?" I asked him, being concerned about why he would pause.

"Medically... you should still be hurt, but the wounds have closed now... and there's no trace of scabbing," The doctor said in awe.

"I can perfectly say that no pony here used any form of illusion or healing magic," I said. Before the doctor said anything, a nurse walked into the room and whispers something in the doctor's ear.

"Really? Interesting..." He said, and the nurse left.

"What is it?" I asked, wondering about what the nurse just told him.

"Apparently, you have built up an effective system that would allow for faster healing times, normally that does not happen, but as we were examining your blood, we noticed a green substance healing all of the damaged tissues in your leg," He explained.

"So you’re saying that that changeling ooze that I ate, it still tasted bad... somehow sped up my healing?" I asked, trying to confirm my suspicion.

"Why would you do that?" The doctor asks me in confusion, not sure if he should be impressed, or absolutely disgusted.

"I'm a treasure hunter, I always do really odd things, like the one time I bypassed a trap using a swallow and a coconut, don't ever ask me how I did it, I don't know either," I explained to the doctor.

"I didn't know that swallows could even carry coconuts..." Pinkie Pie said, thinking about what it would look like.

"Right, so am I good to go now?" I asked the doctor.

"Unless you have something else that's wrong with you, yes you can go early," the doctor said, unsure if he should change his mind or not.

"Great, if I get hurt badly ever again, I'll just come right back to this hospital; you offer great service here," I said, hoping that he will take it as a complement, and walked out of the room and the hospital.

As soon as I was outside, I breathed in some fresh air. Feels good to be outside once again. I thought to myself, but the calm was broken as quickly as it came.

"John! Thank Celestia your okay!" Blitz said, almost tackling me again.

"Blitz, what's wrong?" I asked, being concerned about why she was panicked.

"Some weird ponies wearing masks just fillynapped Midnight!" She said in shock, I turned to her with a hard glare.

"Did you see where they went?" I asked her, anger slowly starting to show in my eyes.

"I think they went north, but what are-" She said, but I interrupted her quickly.

"Get the elements together, both of them, and follow them. I am going after them myself," I said, and took off in the direction that Blitz told me that they traveled in. Hang on Midnight; I'm going to return the favor and save you this time. I thought to myself, as I flew faster to make up for the distance.