Shadestar closed her eyes, drifted off, and got tackled by Sunlit Hearth.
"Look out! Fireball!" he shouted as he bodily shoved her out of the path of a huge blast of flame. Hastily, he dragged her behind a nearby outcropping of stone.
"What is going on, Sunlit?!" the shadowmage cried indignantly.
He looked over the ledge he had taken cover behind, only to duck a throwing knife. "Long story short, bad ponies trying to kill us. I think this is a dream, but I'm not chancing it."
Shadestar looked around for the first time, and immediately noticed that they were not in the tower. They were in a large, rough floored crater, almost like a volcano caldera, with a multitude of channels, trenches, and chasms cracking the ground into a huge field of elevated platforms and recessed trenches. The noon sun blazed, and several black pegasi were circling overhead, mostly just watching but still occasionally flicking a throwing knife or shuriken toward them. Peeking over their cover, She noticed three unicorns, one matte black, one slate grey, and one a shiny blue-black like a beetle.
Quickly ducking to dodge a magic missile, Shadestar began formulating a plan.
"Sunlit, we need to draw them into the channels. The overhangs will block the line of sight to the pegasi, and they'll have to fan out, where we can ambush them."
The white unicorn nodded. "On three. One, two, THREE!"
Both leapt for the nearest crevice, hugging tight against the walls. The chunks overhung the trenches slightly, granting them tunnels roughly four hooves across to work with, even though the opening above was barely one and a half wide.
Grinning at the cries of frustration they heard from the ponies above, the cousins began running along the paths, following a serpentine and unpredictable path.
"So, this is a dream? How are you sure?" Shadestar asked.
Sunlit answered quickly, "Well, I fell asleep and found myself here. I tend to have some weird dreams, but the eight black ponies climbing over the caldera wall was really weird. I figured out that I should run when a throwing knife cut my shoulder and hurt. I don't feel pain in my dreams. By the way, where have you been the past ten minutes?!"
Shadestar grinned fiercely, ignoring his question. "Idiots! They invaded your dream pocket, rather than luring you out to the hub! Well, we can reflect on their mistake while we beat the hay out of them." Abruptly stopping and turning around, the shadowmage looked Sunlit in the eye. He noticed that her goggles were gone despite the glaring sun, and her eyes were a piercing silver-blue.
"My magic is based on darkness. While I can be helpful down here, I can't take the fight to them with the sun up. They're partially controlling this dream, but I doubt they'll have thought of that! Can you change the dream for me?"
Sunlit smiled. "I can change it a little. This was just a hardpan when I got here, the channels were just to trip up that hulking earth pony they had with them. He fell into the big chasm. Hold on, night coming right up."
The sun began quickly sinking, casting long shadows as it fell to the horizon. As night fell in ten seconds flat, Shadestar smiled gleefully. She reached out to the darkness, feeling its welcoming embrace, and blackened it to solidity. Reaching out further, she formed a sphere around herself roughly fifty hooves in diameter of solid black, then lifted herself and Sunlit out of the trench. Closing her eyes, she instead relied on the bat wing amulet around her neck; the ultrasonic pulses it sent out were interpreted by her magic into a three dimensional image of the battlefield, in which she identified the three ponies left standing.
Deciding to show these neophyte trainees their mistake, Shadestar sculpted a dozen copies of herself from the inky black. Each began striking and vanishing, keeping the novice mages off guard. She felt a few light cantrips being cast, and snickered. Only the sun or a physical lantern could illuminate the shadows she wielded, and these fools would soon find that out the hard way.
Reaching out again, she wrapped tendrils of void around each of the mages, playing on their distraction. Each began slowly squeezing until she felt each unicorn discorporate and vanish.
With a pleased smile, Shadestar released her control of the night air around her, allowing the starlight in once again. She turned to Sunlit with a cocky expression, but a sudden doppler-shifted sonar ping made her aware of her mistake as a shale grey pegasus with a brown mane body slammed her at a full dive-bomb.
Stunned, Shadestar blinked once or twice before trying to get up. A hoof on her windpipe stopped that.
"You know, I was going to make this fast and decent," said the pegasus, vicious hate and anguish filling her voice, "but then you killed them. They were the only ponies I knew, no matter how much I hated them, and you killed them. Now, you get the slow way."
Shadetar was roughly yanked off the ground into a painful hold. She charged a spell and turned her head, only to receive a sharp crack to the horn with the flat of a knife. Searing pain shattered her concentration, and her spell with it.
She looked up, about to cast through the pain when she stopped cold. The other two grey pegasi held Sunlit in a splayed position, while a black one poised a knife above his gut.
She thought frantically for a solution, her heart beating wildly. She thought of the grey pegasus' words earlier. Stalling them was the only option.
"Wait! They're not dead!"
The pegasus holding her faltered for a moment. "What? I saw you crush them! How could they be alive?"
Shadestar groaned. "Do you know anything about the Dreaming? I'm only on the first level, I can't kill somepony here. When I did that, all I did was return them to their bodies in the real world."
She was abruptly cast to the rough stony ground. A knife pressed against her throat.
"Nopony lies to me. Now, look me in the eye and tell me that again."
The black pegasus snorted. "Silent, you really care too much. We'll find out anyway; we have orders, so just kill her already."
"Shut your mouth, Tailspin. I care because I want to know just how bad this should hurt. Now," she said, adjusting her grip on Shadestar, "Say it again."
Shadestar repeated herself, trying to use honesty to gain an advantage. Maybe, just maybe, if she could get this pegasus off guard...
Silent Lightning stared into Shadestar's eyes, her glare radiating pure malice. "Alright, I believe you. Congrats, bitch, now you die fast and painful, instead of slowly and agonizing."
Shadestar smirked. Her gambit had worked. "Actually, see you later." she said in a pleasant tone. BAMF!
The assassins were staggered by a sudden magical discharge as Shadestar teleported herself and Sunlit. As they popped out of her portal fifty hooves away, the shadowmage saw Silent Lightning swing her blade through the air her throat had occupied an instant ago.
Conjuring a spectral rope, the onyx unicorn lassoed the nearest pegasus and smashed him into Silent Lightning. The crack of breaking bones sounded loudly, and both faded out of existence. As she turned to focus on the other two, the channels between the pillars suddenly glowed dull orange before filling with magma.
Shadestar turned in shock to Sunlit, who was focused on adjusting his dreamscape. As he melted the pillar on which his enemies stood, the pegasi took to the air, only to be buffeted by sudden chaotic thermals from the lava. Careening through the aerial maze, neither could dodge the large bursts of fire which Sunlit began throwing from the volcanic floor, and both were quickly hit and faded.
Sunlit turned to Shadestar with a proud smile. "I didn't want to do that before, but now that I knew I wouldn't kill anypony..." he trailed off, not needing to say more.
Shadestar smiled in return. "Well done. I'm impressed with your control of your dreams. Also, I don't believe you were introduced to them properly. You have just won your first victory against Clan Obsidian."
She smirked even more as Sunlit's jaw dropped.