Second Chances

"Autumn" my mother calls, "Are you ready to go?"

I gather a few more flowers from the garden before meeting up with her by the front gate. I nod solemnly as she places her hand on my shoulder. Crystal is beside her, but I don't look at her at all. She looks indifferent to the situation as if it had nothing to do with her at all.

Two days ago

"Nebula!" Crystal fakes her worried shout as she heads towards the stage. Pegasi rush into the hole to get Nebula out as the crowd gasps and nervously chatter, wondering if the young prince was ok.

Candy and I are too frozen to move, but once we saw Crystal making her way to the stage, anger fueled our movements as we run to the stage as well. By the time we got onto the stage, Crystal was already there pulling Nebula out. He's conscious luckily but it's clear that he's too hurt to get up by himself.

"Nebula!" I shout as a push past Crystal and kneel beside him.

Principle Cheerilee also kneels beside him, "Are you alright dear?"

"I'm fine. It's just a few cuts" he looks over his arms only to find a few cuts and bruises, "I don't think anything is broken"

"That's good" Candy sighs in relief.

"Are you okay young prince?" Crystal asks sweetly.

A sudden burning anger filled my veins as my face turned red. I grab Crystal by her shirt collar and pull her back, away from Nebula.

"You did this, didn't you!?" I tell at her.

"Autumn!" Candy exclaims, shocked by my action.

"Answer me!" I yank the spoiled brat closer and look her in the eyes.

"Of course not! How would I even make him fall?" Crystal wasn't smiling, but I can hear her sarcastic smug voice as she spoke, "This stage is pretty old, Autumn. Accidents happen"

I clench my teeth together and very uncharacteristically of me, I raise a fist ready to hit the girl.

"Stop!" Mrs. Cheerilee grabs my hand and separates the two of us. She turns her attention to me with a look of disbelief, "Autumn Crocus! I would never expect you to behave like this"

"She was the one who did this. She made the stage collapse when Nebula went on!" I exclaim.

"Noteworthy went on before Nebula! So how could I have decided when the stage fell!" Crystal argued back.

"You have magic! You could have used it to make it fall!"

"The stage broke from the inside you dodo! How can I use magic on something I can't see!?"

"How do you even know it broke on the inside! You could have-"

"Enough!" Cheerilee cuts us off, "we will continue this discussion after we've treated Nebula"

"But-"

"Autumn" Nebula calls out, "It's fine"

"But, Nebula. You know what she-"

Nebula, who still hasn't moved from his position, shook his head. I clenched my fist but, I let it go.

"Can you stand up?" The school nurse, who has finally arrived, asked Nebula as she helps him get into a sitting position.

"I would, but it feels like my body isn't responding" Nebula grimaced as he used his bruised arm to push himself up to sit.

"Do you feel any pain anywhere else on your body?" She asked.

"No, just my arms and head. My legs feel...okay" He trails off.

The nurse looks at Cheerilee concerned, "we should probably call an ambulance just to make sure"

Candy's eyes widen, "an ambulance?"

I begin to panic too. What if the hospital finds something in him that has to do with our past? And when about X-rays of his heart. Will it look like a heart or a magic container?

"A-Are you sure the hospital is necessary? He said it's just a few cuts right?" I stumble over my words, trying not to sound suspicious.

"It'll be fine Autumn. Trust me" Nebula assures me.

I hesitate but nod, "Alright"

Present

It's been two days since Nebula has been in the hospital and I haven't heard anything from him.

The school took my claim about Crystal seriously, I guess it's the perk of being a behaved student, but in the end, they came to the conclusion that it was just an unfortunate accident. The boards under the stage had torn, the second Nebula went up to the podium, causing it to fall down.

I still argued back, so they had to explain that if the board was deliberately cut, it would be a clean smooth cut. But the pieces of the board they found were ragged, like they had bent and then broken.

I glance over at Crystal who was on my mom's other side. She had no expression on her face, which is unusual since she always has an annoyed look.

We walked into the hospital's lobby and to the front desk.

"We're here to see Nebula" my mom says.

The lady at the desk looked through some papers before looking up and pointing down a hallway, "Fourth door on your left"

"Thank you" my mother says politely.

"No problem. The princess is here as well. She hasn't left her son's side for a minute," the nurse looks apologetically at my mom,"I'm sorry to ask you this, but do you think you can convince her to go home tonight? We aren't supposed to have night visitors"

My mom smiles kindly back, "I'll see what I can say"

Crystal sits down on one of the waiting room chairs. My mom tilts her head as her slightly, "you're not coming in with us?"

"No thanks, I'd rather not go see a loser like him" she turns her head up.

Even though I already knew that Crystal always said things like that, it still shocked me that she would say them in front of an adult. She always acts like an angel in front of adults.

"W-well, Alright then. We won't take long" my mom, obviously caught off guard, stutters as she lead me down the hall we were directed to.

We found the room Nebula was in and headed inside. Nebula was sitting up on the hospital bed reading a book and princess Twilight sat in a chair by his side. Her eyes looked a little puffy, like she was crying.

"Fluttershy, thank you for visiting. It's nice to see you too Autumn" she greeted us.

"Its nice to see you too princess" I slightly bow my head formally.

Even though my mom and princess Twilight have been friends for a long time, but I still get nervous when I'm around her.

"Please. No need to be so formal" she smiles sheepishly. She turns to Nebula, "Now why don't you say hello to Autumn too, Nebula"

Nebula looks up from his book and nods.

"That's not a hello" Twilight sighs, but let's it go, "Why don't we talk in the hallway Fluttershy. I have something important to talk to everyone else about, but since you're here I'll let you hear it first"

"No problem" My mom puts her bouquet of flowers in a vase next to the bed, "Feel better Nebula"

"I will thank you" Nebula responds as she and princess Twilight leave.

It's quiet for a moment before I awkwardly clear my throat, "what are you reading?" I ask.

Nebula sighs and closes the book before tossing it aside, "No idea. My glasses broke when I fell, so I can't see much right now"

"That must be tough, I guess it's a good thing I brought flowers instead of books" I joke.

Nebula didn't respond to that.

"Sorry"

"It's okay"

It goes quiet again. I want to ask him a question but I struggle to come up with the words.

"You want to know what happened while I was here right?" Nebula aksed.

"U-uh, yeah"

"Well, you had nothing to worry about. They didn't find anything about us. Well, maybe they did and they just didn't want to focus on it. They had something more important to look at"

"More important?" I question.

"My condition"

I felt my blood run cold, "what happened?"

"Back then, when the nurse at the school was asking me if I was okay. I told her that my arms were bruised but they weren't broken" he shows me his slightly bandaged arms, "My legs were in seriously bad shape though. I had a huge gash down the side, which is probably going to leave a scar"

"But, scars aren't too bad right?" I ask hopefully.

"No but I didn't feel it"

"You what?"

"I couldn't feel my legs. I can't move them" he finally said.

"A-are you paralyzed?" I ask.

"Yeah, I could be like this for a while. I'm sure if I just end my life now, I can wake up just fine" He says nonchalantly.

I hold back my opinions on this. I don't like the idea of him taking his life in such little consideration, even if we don't really die. But, I can't tell him that he should just be in a wheel chair for the rest of his life.

"I would do it right now," He says, bringing my attention back, "But, that would alert the doctors. It would be a strange miracle if I was suddenly healed, days after the incident. So, I'll wait"

I sigh in relief. Knowing Nebula, if he could, he would slit his own throat with a scalpel right now without hesitation.

"By the way Nebula. On stage, before you fell, it looked like you were in pain. What happened?" I ask.

"Oh that" he took a flower from the bouquet I gave him and held it out in his hand. His dark blue aura covered it and it slowly levitated off his hand, it shook like it was having trouble staying afloat though, "My magic was forcefully halted. It looks like whoever set up the stage incident really put some thought into it. I couldn't use my magic to save myself"

I place my hand under my chin, "Forcefully stopping someone's magic, without a physical bracelet? Is that even possible"

"Yeah it is. It'll take years of practice and strong control over your magic, but it's possible" Nebula confirms.

"Is Crystal even capable of that?"

"I don't think it was Crystal" Nebula says.

I sigh and hang my head a bit, "So you even think I'm crazy?"

"I never said that" Nebula cleans up the flowers on his lap and places them in an empty vase on his nightstand, though he drops a few because of his sight, "I don't think it was Crystal because she's not capable. Something else has to be apart of this"

"'Something' not 'someone'?" I tilt my head.

"No student should be skilled enough to use that kind of spell. And there aren't any adults in the school capable of that spell either. The only ones who can cast such spells are those who have magic as a talent like my mother or Starlight, and neither of them were at the school" Nebula counts two fingers, "Nor would they do something like this. In fact, I don't think any adult in town would want to permanently disable a child. Which is why I think the only answer would be the same kind of being that Cerberus is. Something that Typhon created is in this town, discreetly doing things to ruin our chances of preparing for him"

My heart beats harder and my blood runs cold. Something else is in this town, and we haven't even seen it?

"I suggest you watch out for things that are out of the ordinary. Perhaps, a new face in town, incidents that haven't happened before, or maybe someone acting differently" Nebula shrugs, "If you don't see anything, then this whole accident was exactly that; an accident"

"How can you even dismiss it like that? You're the one who came up with this theory, shouldn't you be more worried?" I ask.

"Whatever makes you feel better. Right now, you're looking to place the blame on Crystal too much without thinking about the bigger threat," He crosses his arms, "Our problems are much bigger then some schoolyard bully. Ignore her until we can figure this out"

"So, you think she's innocent?"

"Innocent until proven guilty to be exact"

I bite my lip to prevent lashing out again. Just thinking about how Crystal can get away with something this big is making my blood boil. But I'll be quiet for now.

"Alright. I'll see what I can find"

Nebula nods before sighing, "Well, sorry to kick you out so suddenly but, without my glasses you're just a red blob and it's making my eyes hurt. I'll see you when I get out of here"

I giggle, brushing off his somewhat impolite farewell, "I'll see you at school then"

I head towards the door, but it opens before I touch the knob. The princess and my mom walk in.

"You're ready to go, Autumn?" My mom asks when she sees me standing by the door.

"Yeah," I turn to the princess and bow my head slightly, "Have a nice day Princess. I hope Nebula makes a fast recovery"

The princess gives me a smile, "No need to be so formal" she places a hand on my shoulder, "Thanks for looking after Nebula. He should be back in school by Monday"

"That's good" My mom sighs in relief, "Goodbye Nebula"

Nebula simply raises his hand slightly from his position on his side facing away from us.

My mom and I leave the hospital room and walk silently down the hallway. My mom breaks the silence a moment after.

"I'm going to be going to the Crystal empire this weekend, so it'll just be you, Crystal, and your father this weekend" She announces.

Nebula was right, something evil was going on here.