The Song of Eternity
Canto 6 : Galactus
Verse 3
Dr. Strange
In the great city,
He meets with the Strange one,
And is exercised.
Vincent followed Logan out of the jeep and looked up at the huge mansion with its strong metal fence. Vincent walked up to the gate and pushed on it to find it locked. "You sure this is the place Logan?" he asked.
"Yeah, this is Strange's place," Logan nodded as he waited for something. "He'd usually just use his power to zap us in, no one uses the door here," Logan explained. He waited impatiently before shouting. "Strange, hurry your ass up!"
A second later a glowing ethereal face appeared in front of the two of them. "I am sorry Logan, but your companion appears to be resistant to my magic. If you can make it over the gate, the front door is unlocked," the face apologized before evaporating.
"Interesting friends you people have," Vincent joked as he looked up at the ten foot fence topped by sharp metal spikes.
"This coming from a million year old guy with demons in his head," Logan growled as he looked up as well. "Here goes nothing," he said before grabbing the fence, climbing up, and flipping down to the ground below. "Your turn Valentine," he said, wondering how Vincent would ascend the fence, hoping for a fall of some kind.
Vincent smiled before looking at Logan. "What you may have in skill, you lack in style," he said calmly as he crouched and leapt over the fence, landing behind Logan.
"Not bad," Logan admitted before they continued on to the front door.
A man with grey streaked hair and a black mustache stood in the open doorframe looking at them with an amused expression on his face. "Not very often you get shown up Logan," he laughed as Logan frowned. "Good to see you again my friend," he laughed as he shook Logan's hand. He then turned his attention to Vincent. "Allow me to introduce myself, I am Doctor Stephen Strange, the Sorcerer Supreme of this world," he said as he ushered Vincent and Logan into the mansion. "If anyone can help you with your unique problem, it is probably me," he explained as they entered a large hallway. He motioned them into a small study and leaned on a large oak desk while Vincent and Logan sat down on a pair of chairs. "So, how did you become possessed? Charles didn't explain much over the phone. He said something to the effect that you were possessed by a demon," Strange explained as he looked over Vincent and felt like there was something he should know about this man.
"A million years ago, a scientist shot me, injected me with mako and alien genetic material, and gave me three demons. Then I went to sleep for a long time," Vincent explained, leaving out the part about destroying the populous of the world.
Strange scratched his chin and searched around in his pocket for a medallion. "Make yourself at ease, I'm going to use the Eye of Agamotto here to transport our minds to a mystical plane and sort this out," he explained as he took a seat behind the desk. Suddenly everything went dark and the three of them found themselves in a dark void, floating in the air, with nothing but mist as far as the eye could see. "There now," Strange said in satisfaction as he held the glowing amulet in his hand. He released the amulet and it floated to his forehead and transformed into a third glowing yellow eye.
"What is this place? The Lifestream?" Vincent said out loud as he looked around the void.
"No this is just a small pocket dimension slightly off of our own. When here, one's mind and thoughts can become reality. So, all you have to do is open up your mind and let things happen," Strange explained. "Logan, you have been here before, so you should be able to keep your mind under control. I find it strange that the world has not changed since you arrived here Vincent. When most arrive here for the first time, the void is thrown into turmoil," Strange mused.
"It has changed," Vincent said as he looked around the area. "There are things in the mist," he said as he pointed to several areas of dense mist.
"Try to think back, show me what happened when you were given the demons," Strange instructed.
Immediately the scene shifted to the run down Shinra mansion. Vincent, Strange, and Logan looked on at the events unfolding. A younger Vincent was talking to a woman, they were arguing about something, but only Vincent knew the old language. "She is Lucretia, we had an affair," Vincent explained as Lucretia vanished and a child appeared. "Sephiroth, my son," Vincent narrated as the boy was taken away, crying, by a black haired scientist. "Hojo," Vincent said with hatred as the scene shattered. The scene reformed again, this time with Hojo and Vincent arguing in the basement. Hojo reached for a gun as Vincent turned to leave and shot him in his left arm. He then took aim and shot Vincent near his heart.
The past Vincent lay there on the floor, writhing in pain as Hojo had some SOLDIERs put Vincent on an experimentation table. Vincent looked away as Strange and Logan watched Hojo mutilate his arm and graft the claw on. Vincent's past self passed out and Hojo approached him with two vials. One was full of a glowing green liquid, the other was full of a dark red liquid. Hojo gleefully injected both into Vincent and watched as he awoke again and screamed in pain. Finally Hojo took a strange machine with what Vincent recognized as summon materia in it and turned it on Vincent. It covered him in a red glow and he changed into the Galian Beast, Death Gigas, Hellmasker, and back to Vincent. Hojo then had SOLDIERs take his struggling body and throw it into a coffin and lock it in the basement.
"Amazing, where did this happen you say?" Strange asked as the scene shifted back to the mist filled void.
"This planet, a million years ago," Vincent explained. Vincent looked to the mist as the forms of his three weaker demons emerged. "Stay there," he commanded, learning long ago how to control the mindless ones.
Strange turned his Eye of Agamotto at the demons, bathing them in yellow light. "I see, your minds are not totally integrated. It is like you summon them from another world and they emerge from your body here, then disappear when not needed," Strange speculated. "But since you lived so long, they no longer exist in other worlds, only in your mind. You can make them leave yourself," Strange said as Vincent floated over to the demons. Vincent closed his eyes and the demons disappeared. "There, no more demons, that was easy enough," Strange laughed.
"Valentine, what about the other one?" Logan asked, meaning Chaos.
"Another demon? Where did it come from, if not from the scientist?" Strange asked.
Vincent sighed as the scene brightened a little, revealing a cave with a waterfall outside. He was kneeling in front of the glowing ghostly form of Lucretia. She held out two items for him, a gun and a vial. "I came to this place where her ghost had appeared, unable to die due to Jenova cells. It was right before we went to kill Sephiroth. I thought we were too weak to succeed. She gave me the gun, Death Penalty, that got stronger with each thing it killed. And she told me what was in the vial, the essence of the demon Chaos," Vincent explained before he gestured for Strange and Logan to watch.
His past self took the vial and stared into it for a second. He then popped the top off and poured it down his throat. He immediately doubled over in pain and began to scream as his body changed into that of Chaos. Vincent waved his hand and the entire scene, except for Chaos disappeared. "What do you want?" Vincent asked the demon.
"You have done away with the weak ones, now you wish to do away with me," the demon stated. "It will not work, I will have this body some day soon Valentine," the demon threatened before disappearing into the mist.
"He is correct. You willingly bonded your genetic material with that of the demon. Maybe if I had got to you earlier, but after a million years, there is no chance to remove the demon," Strange admitted. "Let us return to our bodies, we've done all we can," he said as a yellow glow spread out from the Eye of Agamotto.
"Wait," Vincent said sharply. The glow faded away and Vincent turned around to the being he felt appear. "Aeris," he said as he recognized the flower girl in the pink dress. "I am not doing this, what is going on?"
"Oh, this is what is left of the Lifestream, I was just waiting to see you again before I moved on," the flower girl explained.
"A being in the void," Strange muttered in disbelief.
"I never lied to you before Vincent, you will be free of Chaos some day soon," she smiled before she faded away and the others opened their eyes back in the study.
"Who was that?" Logan asked as he got up and stretched.
"Aeris, a friend from a long time ago," Vincent explained.
Strange got up and retrieved a book from a shelf and paged through it until he marked a page. "Something's been nagging at the back of my mind since I saw you Vincent. After seeing Chaos, I believe I have found what I was looking for. This is a book that I found frozen in a glacier in Tibet in my earlier years. It tells an interesting story about the end of one world and the start of another," Strange said as he slid a book to Vincent and Logan.
In the book, written in an unknown language were words under a picture. The picture was one of Chaos, Vincent, and a being of darkness killing people. "Half a million years ago the population of the world was infected with Jenova and Garland, a being who existed as a nanovirus. We killed all those infected before they would have killed us," Vincent explained before closing the book and sliding it back.
"Well, enough of this fun, let's get out of here Valentine," Logan said, sensing Strange's discomfort.
As they left the room, headed to the exit, Strange spoke to them. "I leave him in your hands Logan. Make sure I do not have to handle this myself," Strange threatened.