Chapter Text
The guardian of dreams.
She was sitting under her golden tree, gazing at the ground. However, her vision wasn't focused on the environment around her but on what was occurring in the dreams of many people. More specifically, the dreams of Papyrus.
Lord of Nightmares, her counterpart, had caused Papyrus to fall under his temptation and had done something with him. But what he had done was beyond her knowledge.
Her insights caught a dark flower scrutinizing her from the ordinary realm. Like a decaying reality that did not belong in the holy and cleansed garden that she owned. Dream looked at her counterpart, Nightmare, with disdain.
"Does that trouble you, Dream?" The flower mocked as he winked. It was like a shadow of the normal Flowey, but now, he had dark wings that stretched to the height of Dream herself. These wings did not come to a rest but were in constant motion, fluttering carefully. It seemed like they had mini-tentacles that moved on their own apart from the wings.
"What did you do to that poor mortal?"
Nightmare chuckled at this; his sister did not know! How sweet this was going to be... "Don't worry, dear Dream. For things will become clear soon..."
“The Collective Soul is no place for you to be, fiend. Either you give me what I seek, or I end you once and for all.”
Nightmare disappeared into the ground. His decaying presence moved somewhere far away from her, somewhere else into the Collective Soul.
Dream sighed as she got up. Whatever her brother had planned was not good, and it was time to get prepared for it.
"I AM ENLIGHTENED." A voice screamed out in front. Dream concentrated her gaze on this being, which was none other than... Papyrus?!
Papyrus's colors were a pure white. His clothing, his skeleton, his boots, and his scarf—all of it was so pure white that it was blinding; it had no imperfections.
"I AM ENLIGHTENED!" His voice shook with more strength; this time it felt as if the very world of dreams shook with his might. Dream materialized her sword in her right hand and threw a slash right at Papyrus.
This slash, made with pure positive feelings, and crafted to purify anything evil... Did not work.
When getting close to Papyrus, the slash deformed. It seemed as if reality itself warped the slash, melting it into an infinitesimal piece of nothingness that never reached Papyrus himself. An orb of reality formed around Papyrus, which warped everything. The flowers all around him started to warp and disappear in the same way.
"I AM ENLIGHTENED!" His voice shook with even more strength. This time, the shaking hurt. It pained her entire body, her mind, and her soul. "I AM ENLIGHTENED!!" His voice shook everything once more, and her Eidos began to flee. It was as though a major force was trying to override her so that she could no longer exist. If that happened, her brother would have no opposition... He would win... She can't let...
Her eyes closed as her physical body lost its strength. The energy from her being faded, and she couldn't maintain herself. She prepared for the worst...
"What a nasty piece of work we have here." A voice said. Dream opened her eyes with all the might that she had left and witnessed something surrounding Papyrus. They appeared to be strings, unaffected by the orb of unmaking from the skeleton. Then, the strings gripped, and they pulled at him as his colors returned to normal.
Papyrus fell to the ground, and Dream realized who it was.
A dark skeleton with majestic clothing and blue circuits over his face that had saved her. Her confusion turned to surprise as she felt the aura of this being emanate.
"Destruction. I am thankful; if you weren't here... I would be gone."
Destruction nodded as he lifted a hand, and an invisible force lifted Papyrus’s body into the air. "Erase his memory of this dream. No mortal deserves such a fate."
Dream nodded as she waved her hand. Papyrus's pained expression morphed into one of calm as he went limp and unconscious, returning to the real world. "How could Nightmare have done this...?"
Destruction turned as his strings held to something that Dream couldn't quite see or perceive with any of her senses. "He was merged with the Eidos of all existence, forced to hear everything endlessly." Although Destruction's voice was grim, he kept explaining. "I had to fission it from him, separating it entirely to keep him and the world safe. With a single stray thought, he could’ve demolished everything." The strings returned to his fingers; whatever they were holding eerily departed.
Dream still looked confused, and the Destroyer observed this. His next explanation petrified her.
"The Lord of Nightmares has no power for such a feat." Dream's face turned pale. She knew what this meant. There was only one other being that could have manipulated the very abstraction of the world itself.