//------------------------------//
// No Way Out 
// Story: Plebeian 
// by Sleep Sonata 
//------------------------------//

	“So that’s the story.” I finished my explanation. It must’ve been a lot for her to take in in the span of ten minutes. I could only hope she was being honest when she said she believed me. 
“Wow. That sure is, uh, crazy.”
“I know. Saying it all out loud, I can’t believe I was stupid enough to do all of it.”
She chuckled again. She always was able to find humor, even when I was really down and out. Another reason she was my friend. “I never would’ve thought you’d use the word stupid to describe yourself. I guess college does that to you, huh?”
“You don’t seem to have changed much at all. You obviously found your niche.”
“My what?”
I’d forgotten that our vocabularies weren’t exactly on par with each other. Not that I’m bragging, or anything. “I mean you must fit in pretty well at Wonderbolt Academy.”
I guess I’d assumed to much, because she took in a deep breath before continuing our conversation. “Well, I actually hit some bumps, too.”
She hadn’t mentioned this in her letter. “What do you mean?”
Before we got any farther on the subject, we arrived at our destination. It was a cloud building, like most of the others, but it’s architecture seemed more robust than elegant, unlike the surrounding city. It must’ve been built quite sometime ago. “What is this place?”
“Just a little hang out I go to every once in a while. You know, to get away for a bit.”
Once we stepped inside, I understood what exactly she meant by ‘get away for a bit’.
“This is a cider bar.” It wasn’t hard for me to reach that conclusion. The counter, taps, and mountains of barrels lining the walls kind of gave it away. 
“Yup, and because I go to the academy, I get discount drinks! It’s bucking awesome!” I guess it was. I was never much for cider, but I guess being under academy type stress drives you to drink. I just didn't stick around long enough to experience it myself. 
I began to get a closer look at the bar, and I could begin to see why Lightning had brought me here, sort of. The inside wasn’t as pristine as the outside clouds, having a slight, dingy gray hue. Most of the barstools seemed to have broken legs, sometimes missing them entirely. The bartender had simply affixed them to the counter with random pieces of cloud. The pool table, or what was left of it, didn't even have pockets. The entire interior was in a terrible state of disrepair. Maybe because it was so ratty, no pony ever came here. It made me wonder what exactly brought Lightning here the first time.
While I was examining the bar, the door from the back room swung open, revealing a mare, carrying a large barrel of what I assumed was cider. “Gimme a second!” She swayed as she struggled to lift it onto one of the racks behind the counter. Once she was finished, she wiped the sweat from her brow, and turned to face us. 
She had a beige coat, with a short, deep purple mane, which seemed to hang from her head in any manner it pleased. She was a pegasus, but she obviously wasn’t a very accomplished flyer. One of her wings was kept in a bandage, with scores of signatures scribbled all over it. She either had lots of friends, or that had been there for a while. “Lightning! Good to see you girl!”
“Wassup, Mai Tai! You get another load of White Tail Wood?”
“Not this time. I got a, ‘special delivery’.” She left a pause in between that specific phrase. Working a place like this, I could only wonder what that was a euphemism for. 
“Well, spit it out. What is it?” Lightning was obviously good friends with this pony, and I trusted her fully. But I wasn’t taken in just yet.
“This here is what’s going to save this place. A barrel of vintage Palomino Red!”
My Parents loved wine, so I’d had plenty of education on which brands to know. Palomino Red was extremely hard to come by, even in big cities. How had this street pony managed to get a whole barrel? Lightning obviously knew what that meant.
“So you stole it.”
“Borrowed, Wi-Li. Borrowed.” She seemed so nonchalant about being a petty thief. I almost couldn’t believe Lightning had consorted with the likes of her. I bit my tongue, however. I wasn’t exactly in any position to discuss being outside the law. 
“So who’s this you’ve got here? I feel like I’ve seen her before.” She had only just noticed I was there, and I was afraid she’d recognize me on the spot. She didn't exactly seem like the type of pony to read the newspaper.
“This here’s a good friend from Trottsdam, Stardust.” Lightning just blurted it out as if we were at a party, but Mai Tai didn’t find that fact fun at all. 
“Wait a minute, you’re that mare wanted for murder in Ponyville!” 
Lightning immediately recognized her error. “Hold up Mai Tai. She’s innocent. She did some whack magic that made an evil copy, and that’s what killed those ponies.” I was glad that I was still her priority. 
“Do you know what you just said!? If they don’t banish her to the north, then she’ll just get thrown in the looney bin!”
I stepped in to defend myself. I couldn’t stand by while the friend I was supposed to be protecting did all the work for me. “That’s the truth. If you don’t like it, I don’t particularly care. I wouldn’t have come all the way from Canterlot if I didn’t have a good reason.”
She became even more aggressive when I stepped in. I guess I wasn’t as intimidating as Lightning was in that uniform. She lept over the counter and began a steady advance towards me, ending just inches from my muzzle. “Listen toots, If you think I’m gonna buy your bull for one second, you’ve got another thing coming!”
I shoved my muzzle back up against hers. “Back off! I’ve got more important things to worry about than what you think of me. Lightning’s life is in danger because of this thing, and I’m not gonna let you or any pony else get in my way!” I didn’t know where that rage came from, but I’d had enough of ponies not helping me. I would’ve thrown her through the wall had Lightning not intervened.
“Stop! Mai Tai, I swear on Celestia she’s telling the truth.”
“Lightning, I know she’s your friend, but that’s just crazy! You can’t just create ponies out of thin air! I’ve run into her type before. She’s just trying to cover her tracks.” I wanted to lose my temper then, and make good on my wish throw her throughout the clouds, but my sensible mind prevailed, and I tried to come up with a plan. Short of actually presenting the duplicate to her, how could I convince her I wasn’t lying?
Before I could come up with anything, I suddenly felt my head being crushed, as if somepony had placed a mountain on top of my head. I felt my mouth move to cry out in pain, but I heard no sound. All I could make out was the faint whine that pierced deep into my brain, intensifying the already unbearable pain. 
“Where are you Dusty!? I want my wings!”
I didn’t know how she’d done it, but unless she was right outside the window, she was using a torture hex over a distance. I somehow found the ability to speak. “Stop! I’m not gonna let you have her!” After that outburst, the pain intensified, working it’s way down from my head to the rest of my body. It felt as though all of my muscles were being torn off my bones with a hot, dull knife. I almost wished I’d been allowed to plummet to my death. I writhed in agony on the floor, feeling nothing but the sharp, constant pain from the hex. 
“I don’t have all night, Dusty! Tell me!”
She wasn’t playing anymore, she wanted me to suffer and Lightning to die. “Go away!” I felt a burst of magic erupt from my horn, and a wave of warmth wash through my body, dispelling the pain as it went. I don’t know how, but I’d broken the hex, and I could finally get my bearings again.
When I could see around me, I noticed Lightning and Mai Tai holding me down on the floor, so tightly that I thought they were trying to capture me. “What happened?”
Lightning was the first to respond. “You started screaming and thrashing around on the floor. are you OK?”
“Yes, I am now. I think it was…”
“A torture hex.” Mai Tai completed my sentence for me.
I did a double take as she spoke. How could this bar pegasus know anything about magic? “How did you…?”
“I’ve dealt with some shady ponies, I’ve had it used on me more than once. I just don’t know how any pony could’ve cast it without being here.” Her demeanor was more serious now, completely with out the aggression I’d seen in her moments before. “Was that the duplicate you were screaming at?”
I only had enough strength to nod. That hex had really done a number on me, even though the pain was over. My mind would never forget that for as long as I’d live. 
“Then we need to get you someplace safe. Lightning, help me lift her.” Lightning took me under my shoulders, and Mai Tai under my haunches. I closed my eyes, since I didn’t particularly care where they were taking me. After a couple minutes, I felt myself being wrapped in the embrace of a wool blanket. It itched, but everything felt good compared to that hex. “Where am I?”
“You’re in the wine cellar. No pony ever comes down here. Heck, I only come down here when I have something special to store.” I detected the subtle reference to me in that sentence. “You oughta be safe here. Let me know when you get your strength back, and we’ll come up with a plan.”
No argument from me. I simply closed my eyes and began to drift into a slumber. The cellar was cool, but having that blanket on top, I could easily imagine myself at home, in Trottsdam. It may have been a fantasy, but when your desperate for consolation, that hardly matters.

Again with the darkness. It was the same as before; ever expansive, yet nonthreatening. I wasn’t perplexed this time, for I knew what to expect. “What do you want?”
“So hostile. What have ever done to you?”
“Should I make you a list?”
“Ooh, getting feisty, are we? You’re starting to sound like me.”
I was insulted at the very insinuation. “You and I are nothing alike!”
“I beg to differ. You’ve been through an awful lot to achieve your goal, as have I. That sort of determination isn’t something most ponies have, wouldn’t you agree.?”
“I do it for my friends. What are you doing it for?” I should have known better than to converse with the devil.
“I’m doing it for my friends, too. Me, myself and I!” She let out a cackle, but I just rolled my eyes. Her antics weren’t helping me control my anger. 
“Shut up and tell me what you want! I’d like to go back to my real dreams.”
She didn’t seem to back down from my aggressive tone. She enjoyed taunting me. “First, I want to show you something.” Oh great. More illusions.
“What could it be, I wonder. What you’d look like with wings? what your vision for Equestria is? What your…” What she showed me was none of those things. Instead, it was something I couldn’t have foreseen. It was two ponies, bound and gagged, laying in a dark room, shivering from the cold. I recognized the two of them instantly. “Gemini! Polaris!”
“No point in shouting, Dusty. They can’t here you. But I assure you, this is real.” 
“They never did anything to anypony! Let them go!”
“You think I kidnapped them out of spite? You always assume the worst of me.”
“Should I not? If I know them, they’ll enjoy that hex about as much as I did.”
“Oh neigh neigh. I don’t want to torture them. I’m planning on releasing them as a matter of fact.”
She planned on no such thing. She wouldn’t go through all the trouble of capturing them and then releasing them for no reason at all. Then again, as unhinged as she was, maybe she would. “What’s the catch then? I know you’re not doing this for fun.”
“No my dear, this is business. I want something from you before I’ll let them go.”
I didn’t want to ask, but I had to know. “And that is?” I didn’t show it, but I was deathly afraid. Not for me, though.
“I want White Lightning.”
My blood boiled in a flash. She was trying to barter my friends!? “Buck no! Why would I do that to her!”
“But Dusty, I thought you were doing this for your friends.”
“Don’t call me Dusty!” I lost control, and fired off a magic missile somewhere. I didn’t know where. I was just trying to hit her voice.
“You don’t seem to be in the best of moods. I’ll come back when you’re more level headed.”
“Get back here!” I shot bolt upright. I wasn’t in the void anymore, but in the cellar. The voice was gone, replaced instead by the clopping of hoof steps upstairs. It wasn’t loud, but I guessed that Mai Tai had the bar open. The door opened, and I prayed that it wasn’t a stranger. thankfully it was just Lightning.
“Dusty, are you alright? I heard you shouting.” 
I couldn’t tell her what I’d seen, not yet anyway. “Just some night terrors. I’ve been through a lot these past few days. It’s all so scary.”
She rubbed her hoof on my back, which only slightly alleviated my fears. “I can’t imagine what you’ve been through to get here. But I’ll help however I can. I guess I’ll have to if I want to stay alive, huh?” It was black humor, but it still made my chuckle a little. “You want some cider? I’ll get you a mug from upstairs.” I gave her a nod, and she departed for the taps, leaving me alone with my thoughts.
What in the name of Celestia was I supposed to do? It was bad enough that I had put my friends lives at risk, but now it seemed that at least one pony was going to die, no matter what I did. I felt like I’d failed, in every way imaginable; as a student, a daughter, and as a friend. This was the hardest test I’d ever had, and there seemed like no right answer.