"None of us are going to give in, Cheep," Felix called out into the darkness, "so you may as well call the others off."
You have no idea how strong HawkMoth and Le Paon are.
"I know that depend on the weaknesses of other people far too much…?" He turned around at the sound of more swishing and broke into a jog. "Could we continue this conversation face to face?"
I am everywhere-
"Yeah, you said something like that already, but I have yet to see what you mean by-?" He came to a stop and gawked.
"…Oh. That would explain it."
He had come to the edge of an endless precipice, where a ginormous black wing fluttered up and down in the air above. Its body made up everything around him and created huge gusts of wind. His own body was beginning to go cold.
You see now, Cheep resonated through the air, that there is no escape. Join us and allow yourself to unleash the greatest powers of the Inventor Quantic.
Felix sighed and massaged his temples as the large wing rhythmically flapped at a slow pace. "I just need a moment, Cheep."
Of course. After all, you cannot leave until we join as one.
He closed his eyes and turned his back to the wing, trying to block out the sound. He focused on what he knew: Cheep was possessed, the akuma was everywhere, and the only way to get out of his own head – or Quantic – was to join with Cheep.
"…Cheep?"
Have you made your decision? It is the only one.
"You bet it is." He turned back to the precipice and gazed down into the abyss. "If we want to get out of this without being possessed, then I'll need to get to the heart of the matter, whether or not HawkMoth thinks I can."
And with that he dropped off the edge.
Felix?! FELIX!
It felt as though he had fallen for hours before Felix finally saw a spark of light below him. He twisted to face forward as the light grew and grew, eventually enveloping him.
Good to know I didn't just jump into the unknown and find myself trapped in darkness forever. On the bright side – no pun intended – I finally know what it feels like to improvise. Victor will never let me hear the end of it when I get back…
If I get back-?
The light flashed around him. He rubbed spots out of his eyes and looked around in wonder. "If this is your heart, Cheep," he murmured, "then your glowing personality is far from surprising." He actually found himself smiling at the sight.
It reminds me of a star.
Though surrounded by darkness once again, Felix found himself hovering before a glowing orb of beige light. As it shimmered and swirled, more and more glittering lights popped up around him. Soon he found himself floating in the midst of a constellation.
"…This," it dawned on him, "is what you once saw. This is how you came to be." He recalled the origins of the Quantic.
Energy brought to life 4500 years ago in a far-off galaxy. I truly am inside Cheep's heart, in his memories!
One by one, three more large orbs of light hovered close to him: one gold, one white, and one as blue as the ocean. The orbs closed in and began to spin around each other, drawing in strands of light from the neighbouring stars.
The Quantic feed off the energy from the stars! No wonder they've been so powerful for so long – as long as the constellations exist, the Quantic will be energized by their light!
Slowly the orbs floated away from the constellations and further into space. Felix followed along and observed the upcoming planet.
…Is that…Pluto? That means…for every second I feel, these orbs are moving millions of light years!
They passed Uranus and Jupiter and closed in one Earth in the distance. Eventually they entered the atmosphere and fell like asteroids into the ocean, where they unleashed four gigantic tidal waves that spread for a mile. Felix awed at the coast before him, evergreen hiding long creeks as small birds called for one another.
So, this is America before it was colonized by the Europeans.
He noticed a group of young men, Native Americans with nets prepared for fishing. They gazed out at the place where the Quantic landed and gasped as the four orbs appeared over the surface. They stumbled back into the trees and surveyed from behind the trunks.
Yeah, pretty sure I would have the same reaction if I was in their moccasins.
The orbs floated over to the shoreline and, in a flash, shifted to their real forms. Cheep and Mello gazed at the clouds in the sky, Hushh poked the seashells in the sand, and Whipp was the first to spot the Natives. When he spoke, it was in a language Felix could not understand.
The Indigenous language! The Quantic know it already? Contact with the planet must fill them with such knowledge before they even land…amazing.
The tallest of the Natives took a deep breath and stepped out from the trees, much to the shock of his friends. He approached Cheep as the other Quantic examined his clothing, brown fabric with tight thread and his long braid hung down his back.
Cheep pointed at the landscape before them and asked something, to which the Native replied with a smile, "Ch'uumat'a."
Not going to attempt pronouncing that lest I completely botch it.
Cheep grinned and pointed at the large brown feather hanging from the man's braid. After a moment the man nodded. Cheep flew right into the feather, and with another flash, Felix saw a complete transformation.
Whoa…
His clothing had taken a lighter brown shade, with white face paint highlighting the speckles of green in his eyes and white stripes down his braid and feather. His friends moved out from the trees and studied him curiously.
Felix watched the man smile at his friends and, raising the feather in his braid into the air, called out with pride,
"Thithíws!"
