Let us rewind time a few seconds (or is it a few hours?) and focus our gaze on the other of the three brave adventurers hurtling towards an uncertain fate down the abyss.
The Captain was falling with an unconcerned expression on his face, far more pre-occupied with fiddling with his thing-detector, smacking it a few times as though it was failing to work, than the threat of impending death. Circleface was doing his best impression of a tangled parachute that failed to open yet twisted and writhed as buffeted by the wind.
Squareface, on the other hand, had a peaceful expression on his face. Not quite the peace of enlightenment, but more like the peace of catatonic shock...which still counts.
"Haha", Captain Resquilatron cried out triumphantly, his voice blaring over the comms in an attempt to be heard over the roaring winds. "Slight anomaly men, but we should be landing soon. What's that, Circleface?"
Circleface, falling below the Captain, gesticulated wildly.
"What kind of anomaly is it?", the Captain looked back down at the thing-detector. "Temporal I'm afraid."
Circleface's shoulders drooped and he did his best impression of a sulk while rotating uncontrollably along his longitudinal axis.
"Yeah, I know they're your least favourite, but it shouldn't be that potent this time." He turned to address Squareface, falling like a ragdoll several metres above the Captain himself.
"SInce Clockface isn't now, he's future - I think. Or was it past? Whatever, it doesn't matter. SInce he's not here it's up to you to use Gridlock, Squareface."
"Sigh, fine.", Squareface replied sullenly. "I'm always stuck with the heavy lifting anyways. Where's the Slebius-damned workers' rights when you need em. One of these days I swear I'm gonna..."
His voice degenerated into disgruntled grumbling that the Captain immediately tuned out.
'First the thing-detector goes wild for that...whatever it was we sealed. Then that strange anomaly forms, mutating everything around it. It seemed to have shielded the thing-detector's influence though, only now when we're inside is its temporal nature revealed.
'Each of these alone would be rare enough, but together? It's unthinkable. Too good to be true. Well, whatever even if it is a trap, it doesn't matter. If someone's laid out such a nice looking meal, it'd be rude not to partake'
He managed to stifle a giggle, only because the thing-detector let out three sharp noises, and the Captain shouted down the comms.
"We're approaching the ground, you lot. Where's Trianglechest?" His last question was directed at Squareface, who had seen him last.
"He was just with me, but he jumped in behind me so I didn't see him", Squareface replied. "That is, if he jumped in at all. Knowing him, he probably just went home."
This time it was the Captain's turn to grumble a few choice words about his, ahem, 'troublesome' crewmember.
"It doesn't matter now", he growled out after a lengthy tirade. For real though, did he forget that they had just been warned of their impending transformation and induction into the 2D lifestyle through violent interaction with solid rock? Yeah, you're right. He probably did.
"BRACE YOURSELF!", he let loose a final roar as the infinite darkness succumbed to the light of his torch and the ground rushed at them like a speeding freighter.
Captain Resquilatron tensed up, but nothing happened. He found himself hovering off the ground at about a metres height. He was just about to warn Squareface about it when a heavy force collided into him from above, slamming him down to the ground and winding him.
"What the", he barely squeezed out a few muffled words before another collision sounded from above and his eyes popped as the weight on him almost doubled.
"SQUAREFACE! Get your space-whale blubberified excuse for a physical form off me before I send you to work in the engine room for the next seventeen cycles!", the Captain roared, the intensity of his voice sending a sharp whine of feedback into all their ears.
With a frantic shuffle, the crushing weight was removed from atop the Captain and he got to his feet laboriously.
"You seriously need to lose weight, Squareface. It felt like there were two of you on me. Gratches be damned you even landed on me twice!"
As the Captain straightened up, he noticed the incongruity of the situation. Standing before him, apart from Squareface who looked halfway between amused and confused, was a sheepish Circleface.
"How in Gletrious slimy name did you end up on top of me?", the Captain asked with genuine curiosity. Circleface merely shrugged in response and continued looking sheepish.
"So", Squareface somehow fixed a sullen gaze on the Captain through the opacity of his helmet's visor. "You going to apologise? I'm not actually that heavy, am I?"
The Captain sent a withering gaze at Squareface before ignoring him and taking out his precious thing-detector - he had shielded it with his body at the last second, though he still wasn't sure it could even be damaged at all. Or lost. It seemed to always find itself in his pocket. Well, if the Captain was good at one thing, it was ignoring the strange things constantly ongoing.
After all, with a crew like he had, going after every unexplainable occurrence would be an exercise in such absolute folly that it would propel you immediately to the maximum heights of folliness-having in all of time and space.
While the Captain was fiddling around, Squareface walked over to one of the walls, noticing a strange sticky substance. Circleface motioned his hands, miming eating.
"Yeah, you're right. It does look like saliva."
A sadistic hint entered his voice as he turned his opaque visor towards Circleface, that black square motif looking strangely malevolent in the half-light of that cavern. Circleface mimed an X with his hands repeatedly while shaking his head frantically, backing away slowly as though from a wild animal, suppressed panic in his body language.
"Trianglechest told me saliva is really good for the suit. How about you get over here and we can test that out"
Without waiting for the sentence to finish, he lunged at Circleface, hand outstretched, barely missing him by a few centimetres. Circleface ran to the opposite side of the cavern and brought his hands to the sides of his helmet in a mocking gesture. Without waiting for Squareface to respond, he bolted down one of the random tunnels in the side, his retreating footsteps sounding like fading laughter.
The Captain chose this moment to look up, confused.
"Where did he go?", he said. Fixing Squareface with a pointed look, who quickly hid one hand behind his back and replied.
"He just ran off down that tunnel there", he pointed with the wrong hand and a globule of that liquid fell to the ground. The Captain spared it a glance, looked back at Squareface who had turned 180 degrees and was staring into the corner, then shook his head.
"Hurry up and let's follow him then, if these readings aren't wrong, he may have saved us all."
"Really?", Squareface perked up. "You mean we might live?"
"HAHA", the Captain broke out into boisterous laughter. "You gullible piece of flurdle-gloop. We better catch up to him if we wanna live for the next ten seconds. Nine seconds. Eight seconds."
Squareface bolted down the tunnel and the Captain followed soon after, still counting down. He had barely gotten to three seconds when they caught up to Circleface, who sat crouched on the ground, fiddling with something hidden from view.
"Circleface", the Captain crooned while approaching slowly. He gestured to Squareface to help get him away.
"That's not a toy, Circleface, you know that. Put it down and let the Captain deal with it.", Squareface added.
Circleface stood up and turned around, clutching a small, bristly looking ball. A strange word appeared in his mind, unbidden, yet so natural so as to seem like he had thought it himself. It took the Captain a second to even realise that the thought wasn't his own, how smooth the insertion was.
'Tumbleweed?'
He jerked backwards as Squareface did the same and he exchanged a look of understanding with his opaque visor (not quite sure how, don't ask too many questions).
The thing-detector was going wild in his pocket, it's beeping was consistent with only one thing he had ever heard before. A grave expression never seen before descended on the Captain's objectively hideously ugly face as a cold sweat ran down his back. He swallowed in his now dry throat and spoke in a soft voice.
"Put that thing down and come here, it's dangerous Circleface."
Circleface, however, seemingly unaware of the esoteric crisis he was in shook his head firmly. He pointed an angry finger at Squareface and gesticulated. The Captain briefly shot an intense glare at the offending figure from the corner of his eye, before continuing.
"He was just joking, you know that."
Circleface turned away stubbornly, as though refusing to communicate. The beeping from the Captain's pocket grew even more frantic. This was not like that strange object before - it was as though whatever that had, this one was conjured purely from it. Or maybe it had reacted with this strange place to amplify its dangerousness.
Whatever the reason, the thing-detector had reacted with less fear at a critically exposed antimatter core than at this current moment. Needless to say, the Captain had to resort to drastic measures.
"Circleface", his tone took on a warning tone. "If you don't put it down right now...I'll call Hexagoneye over right now. I'm not joking"
"He's definitely not joking", Squareface added solemnly. "He's being DEAD serious".
Circleface flinched, thought for a few seconds before dejectedly dropping the offending 'tumbleweed' and slouching over. Squareface grabbed him as soon as he could and pulled him behind them, all three taking several big steps back until the thing-detector relaxed from its seizure.
"What is it Captain?", Squareface whispered, still holding on tightly to Circleface. "You reckon that's what's causing this whole black weird crystal thingy stuff?"
"Hmmm", the Captain ruminated. "Even if it isn't the cause, it's definitely related. And most likely our way out of here. The other tunnels were no good."
With a shake of his head, still not taking his gaze off the small thing, sitting so harmlessly on the ground far away. He turned back to Squareface.
"What about the Gridlock, is it stabilised?"
Squareface shrugged one shoulder half-heartedly.
"Yeah pretty much. All neat and right-angled as it should be. Temporal's not even my strong suit but whatever, I'm sure I'm not even gonna get a congratulation, let alone a - and he's not even listening anymore".
Squareface's sigh was a lot more potent this time, Circleface having long-forgotten his own tantrum about ten seconds ago patted Squareface's shoulder reassuringly.
He then pat his own back as a well done for being nice.