Things are about to get weird...for these guys now

[1_true_leader]

((As assigned by HT, I'll be NPCing Sunstorm for the time being. And head's up to the crew on this, slightly different start from what was suggested.))*After leaving the Arctic -- first retrieving the pair of spears from the doorway and finding they could subspace the weapons now (and, subsequently, the entrance to the passage was sealed again)--

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(Reflector's PoV)

[reflector_trio]

*Reflector descends at the rear of the party and pauses on the last step when he sees no one else in front of him in the chamber. The three components trade looks and examine the room intently. Nothing.

With trepidation, Reflector stepps inside.*

** Welcome to the Dreamtime, kiddy. You're in for a ride.**

*With a pained fascination, Reflector watches threads of bright green light weave around his forms, then constrict abrubtly. He whimpers, not knowing what it feels like to suffocate, just that his systems are straining and straining against the darkness, but it's too heavy for him to fight and he is getting weaker...

The release hurts. He- They stand together and look at each other, mind fragmented in three. Spectro snarls, Spyglass shivers, and Viewfinder looks at the three of them.*

[Viewfinder] These bodies aren't quite right.

[Spyglass] *shakes his head, agreeing* The shells are still designed for the Reflector gestalt.

[Spectro] *looks around the area, far tenser than the other two. But that is the way it always was: he was the forward scout of the Orasicons.*

*The three of them stood in a flat land of red rock and soil. All was dark, and the sky glittered with stars. Far in the distance, a great rock rose from the earth.*

[Spyglass] *points at it* That's where we came from.

[Spectro] Hnh.

[Viewfinder] *looks up at the sky* The stars are wrong.

[Spyglass] *glances up* They look right to me.

[Viewfinder] They're Cybertron's stars. *A pause, and the Orasicons all look at each other again. Viewfinder, though, is the one who makes the decision.* We'll return to Uluru. It must be there for a reason.

Viewfinder's Log

[reflector_trio]

The rock is further away than it appears to be. Or perhaps our senses are misled in this place-that-is-not-a-place.

Spectro doesn't like this place. His "instincts", for lack of a better word, are constantly on edge. Something, he mutters, something is watching us back.

I shouldn't have pointed out the discontinuity between the stars and the planet. They're making Spyglass nervous. He's starting to personify them.

He is also incorrect in his assessment that these bodies are like they were before the mental split. While the Reflector-gestalt is still an option, so too is another gestalt. I have examined my own software as we journeyed and have determined that it is a combination of our robot-modes in a more "traditional" gestalt.

I must go now. Spectro has spotted something up ahead.

Spectro's Log

[reflector_trio]

I told him we were going in circles.

Coming up on a ridge where you can look down at yourselves still standing at the entry point really emphasizes that point.

Hate this place. Spyglass thinks it's the leaking stars that are watching us.

Spyglass is getting weird. He needs to take a break.

Except none of us can, because this place isn't safe. It's barely survivable. We've got to find a way out.

Spyglass's Log

[reflector_trio]

We circumvented the spot where we still stood at the entrance to this place. Spectro says he sees another group of us further along the path, where we had to detour around a canyon.

Viewfinder thinks this placement is important, I can tell. He's even blanker than usual, even considering that he's not used to having facial expressions since he wore a mask before the Reflector experiment.

Viewfinder wants us to retrace our path, though, and see where else we find ourselves.

The stars keep looking at us. It's making Spectro jumpy. I'm glad he hasn't drawn a weapon yet.

Viewfinder's Log

[reflector_trio]

Our... doubles, for lack of a better word and more information on the subject, appear in two places along the path we took: at the starting point and at a spot where we detoured around a canyon.

Since we cannot not keep moving, I have decided that we will cross to the other side of the canyon and see what happens from there.

Spectro's Log

[reflector_trio]

We crossed the canyon. Uluru has... moved closer.

I don't like this place. We are not advancing. It is advancing towards us.

Spyglass's Log

[reflector_trio]

The path is different here. It's flat, there's no terrain blocking the long ranges of my vision. There's something blurry prowling around in front of us, back and forth across the path.

The stars are awful chatty right now. I can't hear what they're saying, but I see their mouths moving when they talk.

Everything is contracting.

Viewfinder's Log: Recording

[reflector_trio]

*The three camera components file through a crevice. Spectro is at the fore, rifle in hand. Between him and the viewpoint is Spyglass. All three of them constantly, almost twitchily, look around, which makes the recording rather hard on a viewer's processors.

There is no sound, except metal footsteps against rock. The silence is unnerving, especially to someone used to the whole planet humming with energy and maintenance systems.

Scuffle of rocks as a few of them skitter down from the top crevice. All three Orasicons jerk their heads up to the ledge. An out-of-focus blur crouches there. It makes a static sound, then leaps towards Spectro.

Spectro brings his rifle to his shoulder and fires repeatedly. The laser blasts don't seem to effect the blur. It crashes down on top of him and mauls him, slashes and burns appearing on his armor before it leaps off and through the solid crevice wall.

Spyglass and the recorder hurry over to their fallen comrade.*

Spectro's Log: Recording

[reflector_trio]

*The recorder comes on again, though this time it's obviously a different Orasicon doing the recording. There is no time-skip from the last recording, at least not as is noted in the time measure in the lower lefthand corner of the video, but obviously some time has passed as the three Orasicons are now at the base of Uluru.

All three of them have acquired various laser-burns and slash scars on their armor since the last time the viewer saw them. Presently, the three of them are gathered together at a location halfway around Uluru from the entrance Starscream used.*

[Spectro, the recorder] It's between us and the entrance. It's roaming, too, so we don't know how close it is to us since we can only read it on visual spectrum.

[Spyglass] *nervously checks over his laser rifle* What is it? We don't even know that, how can we fight it-?

[Viewfinder] *suddenly* That's it.

[Spectro] Eh?

[Spyglass] Viewfinder?

[Viewfinder] We don't know what it is. We can't get a good look at it, we can't track it, we don't know how to hurt it. It's the unknown.

*A pause, and the recorder looks directly into Spyglass's optics.* Ah. So, what're we going to do about it?

[Spyglass] Normally we'd look at it from all three angles and compare it to what we know in our databanks. But we can't, because we're not Reflector anymore!

[Spectro] *slowly* We still have the camera-gestalt transformation.

[Viewfinder] It won't work. I went over the code; the bug that melded us in the first place has been... fixed.

[Spectro] Then what are we going to do?

[Viewfinder] We have another transformation here, if you had not noticed.

[Spyglass] We don't know what it is! I can't get at any of the codes associated with it!

[Spectro] Heh. So it's unknown, too, is it?

[Viewfinder] Exactly.

Reflector's Log

[reflector_trio]

So.

Triune.

Let the world fall to ashes, we have myself. I have ourselves.

This ends.

Now.