AN: Trigger warning for discussion of torture.
Alphys ejected the final tape and heaved a sigh.
When no one else seemed inclined to comment, she gathered her courage and spoke. "I—I think that we may have been unfair to S-S-Sai," she said.
Undyne blinked. "Come again?" she asked.
"The timelines," Alphys clarified. "They've been amalgamated. And so have we."
"What?" said Undyne, still looking lost.
"I am the amalgamation of Alphys from two different timelines. You are the amalgamation of Undyne from two different timelines. All of us… we used to be two different people. That's why our memories are so contradictory and disjointed."
Mettaton frowned. "And how did this… amalgamation… happen?"
Alphys gingerly lifted the laptop. "When Ash and Sai amalgamated into Celadon, somehow it also amalgamated their timelines. This is visible in that the laptops—the windows into the test—have been amalgamated themselves."
"...and the word 'amalgamation' just lost all meaning," said Sans. "What's your point?"
"They took the test together," said Alphys. "Therefore, the results are meaningless."
"I had Chara," Frisk pointed out.
"But that was real," said Toriel, gently. "The test… we designed it to be taken alone."
"Why does it matter?" asked Papyrus.
"If you're watching my show with Sans, do you act the same way that you would if you were watching it alone?" said Mettaton, who had caught on fairly quickly.
Papyrus frowned. "I feel like I'm more myself when I'm with Sans, honestly."
Mettaton cocked his head, considering the sentiment. "Your personalities resonate, and you complement each other, yes," he replied. "You have an established dynamic that is comfortable and familiar. You are the stickler for the rules, while Sans is the wise-cracking layabout."
"…Yes?" said Papyrus, not seeing the relevance.
Mettaton laughed: a frivolous sound, but not without kindness. "Darling, Ash and Sai's dynamic seems to be that Sai is Evil and Ash is Good."
Alphys nodded in agreement. "They made their choices not because of morality, but because those choices fit the roles that they'd assigned themselves. Listening to their conversation, you can hear it very clearly: Sai makes the worst choices possible in order to rile up Ash, while also displaying obvious concern for Ash whenever she gets frustrated; Ash, while superficially disapproving of Sai's actions, seems more concerned with checking items off the 'good behavior' checklist than actually empathizing with any of us. Ash still supports Sai, even when her goal is genocide, because she values her friendship with Sai more than she values right and wrong, at least when it comes to 'games.' Neither of them took things seriously, so the data we have on them is all but useless. We were much harsher on Sai than was warranted, and much kinder to Ash than she deserved."
"It's good that we didn't manage to kill them, at least," said Asgore. "They did no lasting damage to us, we did no permanent harm to them. Things could have been much worse."
At his words, the tension in the room dissipated. Things had been badly handled, yes, but it hadn't been a disaster, by any means.
It was at that moment that another person appeared in the room. He was a pale young man, a water elemental in species, with a stoic, inexpressive face.
"Message for you," he said—ignoring their inquiries as to his purpose and/or demands that he identify himself—before placing a Padd upon an invisible bed and vanishing once more.
While the rest of them were still reeling and speculating, the taller of the skeleton brothers stepped forward.
"Live in Concert," read Papyrus, aloud, "The Betazed Symphony Orchestra Presents: Off The Rails, an improvised drama in mixed-media."
He hit Play.
After Ash and Sai had walked apart, Sai got about two miles away before being captured by raiders, blindfolded, and thrown into the supernatural equivalent of the back of a truck. Probably a pocket dimension, she decided.
The passage of time was impossible to mark. She was in Ash's body still, for which she was grateful. As far as Sai was concerned, Ash had already suffered enough for one lifetime. And she felt like, this way, at least a part of herself was still with Ash, protecting her from harm. Or from lasting physical damage, at least. This fact gave her no small amount of comfort and satisfaction. Especially since she knew that Ash would be incredibly annoyed at the fact that Sai had managed to steal her martyr shtick right out from under her.
Eventually, she was let out—or rather the feel of wind on her skin returned, as did ambient sound—and her blindfold was removed. Sai found herself in the midst of a group of people, all staring at her with anticipation.
"We. Have. Returned!" one of her captors announced.
"What's! Your! Name!" screamed the crowd in unison, in what couldn't have been anything but a call-and-response ritual.
Sai paused. "Clara," she said. "Clara Hart."
"Clara Hart!" announced the man, in a louder voice that would carry to the crowd, before turning back to her.
"Welcome to Paradise," he said, with a genial smile.
The crowd broke into cheers.
Sai was given a tour. This place surpassed even the utopias she'd seen in Ash's favorite sci-fi movies... in terms of tacky architecture, at least. The zeerust was practically flaking off the decor.
"...as far as the afterlife goes," her tour guide was saying, "there's a Good Place and a Bad Place. You were in the Bad Place. This is the Good Place."
"Heaven sends raiding parties down into Hell?" asked Sai, nonplussed. "Aren't there… rules about that kind of thing?"
Her guide shrugged. "If the Big Guy knows, he doesn't do anything about it. And this isn't the whole Good Place, just one neighborhood. Lazithe's our Architect, and he doesn't care what we do, so long as we don't bother him with it."
Sai paused. "If you can find her, I died with a friend: Cultivar Muscovite. Answers to the name of 'Ash.' Also answers to the name of Clara Hart. She knows me as 'Sai.' We can't be in the same room together because of… reasons, but she doesn't deserve to be left there."
"If we find her, we'll bring her back," the guide assured her, before suddenly seeming to remember something.
He hesitated. "…but we rescued you from Yocriel's neighborhood. Getting back in won't be easy; he keeps a tight leash on the souls assigned to him. About the only reason we were able to snag you was the fact that we got to you before you'd been identified by the system as a newcomer."
Sai nodded, disappointed but not surprised.
"Also, just so you know," Sai continued, "there's a good chance that you and everyone you know are fictional characters."
"In what kind of story?" asked the guide, not seeming bothered by this in the least.
Sai shrugged. "I haven't the faintest idea."
"… all righty, then. Thanks for the heads up."
And with that, they continued the tour.
Ash found her wanderings less interesting than had Sai. She remained in the hellscape, which resembled a cavern system near an active volcano. Rivers and streams of lava criss-crossed the floors. Tunnels occasionally gave way to larger rooms and chambers, but nothing here had been designed for human comfort. There was nowhere to sit or rest, not even so much as a bench or a floor mat. There was nowhere to sleep, as everything was lit with the harsh red glow of lava.
Well, at least she wouldn't suffer thirst or hunger since she was still… wait a minute, she was still in Sai's…
"Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow," said Ash, in the same exasperated tone that Sai might have used to say, 'God almighty, give me strength.'
It wasn't as though they even could have switched their bodies back, not when that would have involved fusion. But that Sai hadn't even mentioned it—not to ask for a possession or two from Muscovite's Gem, not even as a parting joke—it left Ash torn somewhere between feather-ruffling affront and sheer, bone-breaking relief.
Or rather 'she-no-longer-had-bones-capable-of-breaking' relief.
Physical torture had always been one of Ash's greatest fears. Of all the virtues, she'd always placed the highest value on temperance, or, as it was called nowadays, 'discipline' and 'self-control.'
…and resilience under torture had always been a test that she'd been sure she would fail. That was, ahem, the impression that she got. (Do-do. Do-do. Do-do, Do…)
Crap, that was going to be stuck in her head all day, now.
Anyway, point was, if she'd been Indiana Jones, then torture would have been her snakes. Anything but that.
And now, thanks to Sai?
'Anything but that' was all but guaranteed.
Gems were designed to circumvent torture techniques. Not that such things were impossible, but any truly severe physical damage would cause them to 'poof' and retreat into their gem.
…or, in Muscovite's case, collapse into a shapeless mass of glitter until she could pull herself together again.
She didn't even feel too much guilt over Sai's fate since, even in Ash's body, Sai could still do things like turn off her emotions and dial down the intensity of nerve signals, due to body-modifications she'd walked Ash through applying, back when they'd both first died.
So, yeah, she was angry at the unfounded arrogance of those so-called 'gods' in sending her here.
She was resentful of whoever was in charge of this dimension for deliberately hurting people, when people were fragile enough already without outside interference.
But the one thing that Ash wasn't anymore?
Afraid.