Skeleton Ghost

Dragons

Bounding. Leaping. Racing through muddy banks and glowing waters, pouncing on precarious paths above superheated rock and galloping on air above purple stone. Then roaring. Calling out to the sea in a wavering cry, to the earth, then bellowing with the might of something forgotten. Something that had slept beneath the earth, beneath civilization, untamed and free.

Then a great flash of light and it was no longer a dream. Thunder echoed from all directions and the fretful worries and concerns of a lost people found and lives that had passed beyond this world were forgotten.

A tail twitched, and a creature awakened in more ways than one. Sea and sky called to each other, and it wondered how it had ever been forced beneath the ground.

It sat there for a long moment, bathing in the scent of fresh storms and salt borne in from the tide, calm as memory began to come back to it.
Him. Them.
They felt safe. And alive. So wonderfully alive.

And a small voice spoke from the background, reminding them how they got here.
"Do you feel better now?"

Kneading the earth with claws they had never had before, they peered down into the dirt. Yellow flashed, and they saw the echoes in the air, in the ground, the marks of life and magic. The child behind them glowed prismatic, white and red, a flower carrying the memory and life of another, a shell retaining the blood of others to resemble a creature of magic. They felt and saw it all, and it felt right.
"𝕋𝕙𝕒𝕟𝕜 𝕪𝕠𝕦."

They glanced out to the sea. It called from the distance, waves crashing endlessly on the sand, old as the world yet weak. It pulsed like blood, hummed like magic, and sang its ancient song. Something slept just beneath those waves, buried under silt and long dead coral. Something capricious and wry, awaiting a day to awaken in freedom once again.

They took a step out, the dormant mana pulling at them, telling them they had a duty, a duty to wake…
What?

Distant voices shouted from lower down the mountain, aggravated, afraid, concerned.. they blinked, returning to a more civilized mindset.

What the hell just happened? No, scratch that, what is happening?
𝚂𝚊𝚗𝚜? 𝙸 𝚌𝚊𝚗 𝚑𝚎𝚊𝚛 𝚢𝚘𝚞..
...Got any clue what's happening, Nappy?
𝙽𝚘𝚝 𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚕𝚕𝚢.
It wouldn't be too much to hope that this is a dream?
𝙸 𝚔𝚒𝚗𝚍 𝚘𝚏 𝚠𝚒𝚜𝚑 𝚒𝚝 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝚘𝚗𝚎 𝚗𝚘𝚠.
...Oh screw everything, this is just ridiculous.

They approached the cliff edge, spotting a group at the bottom racing to the top at alarming speed. They recoiled in surprise as monsters riding bone attacks flew up in their face, soaring over the edge and hopping back down to flat ground.

Voices were shouting from all directions, a spear of cyan energy slamming into the recesses of their nasal cavity, throwing them to the ground with a flash of agony in their skull. Asriel was screaming, they recognized Undyne's voice shouting furiously among a cacophony of others. It hurt.

They dragged their face across gravel to dislodge the excruciating needle and snarled as it came free. On frustrated and incensed impulse, they whipped up and hissed at the red flashing hair.

Their vision came back into focus to see her hissing back with a spear on hand. "Come at me you bastard!"
"Undyne! Please, stop! Stop!"
"She's trying to distract it!"
"Napstablook is not an it!"

They had time to blink at the words before they were suddenly shoved into the ground, a hundred sharp needles and the like stabbing into their spine and ribs. Sans screamed, he knew it, but there was no sound from it apart from a whimper.
"Stop, you're killing him!"
"It's just an attack, Napstablook will be fine, kid!"
"No- you don't understand!"