The Song of Eternity
Canto 6 : Galactus
Verse 6
Agememnon
His past is wiped,
The dark one approaches closer,
The one who embraces darkness speaks with light.
Vincent rolled over and shut off the alarm clock. He blinked his eyes, reading the clock. "8 AM," he muttered as he got up and headed to the bathroom to shower. He was staying in one of the guest rooms at Four Freedoms Plaza waiting the arrival of all the others later today. After he finished showering he pulled on his clothes and felt something missing. "What the…?" he whispered as he felt his gear and realized his guns and materia were missing.
He irritably made his way to Reed's lab to find the scientist hard at work on some obscure machine. Reed looked up when Vincent entered the room. "Sleep well?" he asked as Vincent slammed his metal hand down on the table. "Something the matter?"
"I've been robbed." Vincent said through clenched teeth. "My guns and materia are gone," Vincent explained.
Reed's face lit up in a surprised expression. "Hmmmm, this isn't good. Follow me," he ordered as he wheeled his chair over to a computer. "Let's see…here we go, security footage," Richards said as he hit a button and a video of Vincent sleeping began to play. "The problem is, if something entered the room, the security system would have alerted us," Reed explained as they both looked at the tape in fast forward.
"Go back," Vincent said suddenly. Reed rewound the footage until Vincent spoke again. "Play it at normal speed."
As the tape played a shadow in the corner of the room grew solid and moved to Vincent's things. It removed his weapons and materia and turned to the camera. "Who is that?" Reed asked as Vincent drew in a sharp breath.
"Travis Starmore," Vincent explained as he recognized the nearly featureless face of darkness. "He's saying something, can you turn up the audio?" Vincent asked as Reed tapped a few keys.
"I will return in about half a day," the voice came over the computer's speakers. The figure then faded away and disappeared.
"Amazing, he didn't trip the sensors, but showed up on the video. Very strange," Reed mused.
"He doesn't obey normal laws of nature anymore," Vincent said. "I've seen him force things to happen just by willing it. He doesn't notice it though, or at least he didn't before. He let us see him so we didn't panic," Vincent said angrily.
"Amazing, I would love to see him someday," Reed said as he began to pull up energy readings from the building, finding nothing out of the ordinary.
"No you don't. Even I wish I never met him some of the time," Vincent said as he left to room to get some food. Vincent was greeted by a sight that left him speechless in the kitchen.
"What's the matter? Never seen a guy in an apron before?" the Thing asked with a pink apron around his waist. He turned back to he stove and kept cooking. "How do you like your eggs?"
"Uhhh, scrambled," Vincent shrugged as he poured himself a cup of coffee and sat down.
Logan walked in, poured himself some coffee and sat down, sipping the drink. "Grimm, what the hell are you wearing?" Logan said as he finally noticed the apron on his friend.
"You got a problem with my apron?" Ben joked as he turned around revealing his 'Kiss the Cook' apron. "This thing is classy," he said as he cooked the food.
"Tryin' to scare the houseguests Ben," Johnny joked as he sat down at the table. "You guys sleep well?"
"More or less," Vincent said as he explained about Starmore coming in the night.
"Damn, that's weird. Why do you think he did that?" Logan asked as Ben handed out eggs and bacon.
"I don't know. He usually has a reason for things, but there's no telling what he thinks anymore," Vincent admitted. "He's been out there a million years and from what he told me, I was the only person he talked with for an extended period of time."
"So you think he might be nuts," Ben said as they all dug into their food.
A few hours later, around noon all of those who had arrived gathered in a large meeting room. Vincent and Logan had talked with Xavier and the others over the phone earlier, they would arrive later in the day. Spiderman had arrived with another man in a red suit, whom Vincent learned was called Daredevil. Dr. Strange had shown up half an hour earlier with three normal enough looking men on motorcycles. The Silver Surfer was still there and Doom had reappeared as well. Captain America and Thor were there for the Avengers to get the gist of the situation.
Vincent and everyone else sat around a large table or stood up against a wall if they were too big for chairs. Reed made his way to the front of the room and started the meeting. "Thank you all for coming. We are here to discuss a dire threat to the planet that will arrive in two more days, Galactus," he explained as he pressed a button and a projection of the devourer of worlds appeared on the wall.
"The reasons for his return are unknown, but he has apparently rescinded on his vow to never return to Earth. Doom will now fill you in a little more," he said as he sat down and Doom walked to the front.
"I recently used my time cube to return to yesterday from two days from now. Galactus attacked and killed all of you. I barely escaped before the planet was destroyed. When I got here, I changed the future by preventing the deaths of Reed and Mr. Storm," Doom explained. "It may have been unnecessary due to the arrival of Valentine and Wolverine, since through some sort of temporal anomaly, they found themselves here in this timeline, when they were not here in the original chain of events," Doom finished.
"We theorized that it may be due to the interaction of Travis Starmore with the events of this universe," Reed explained. He pressed a button, showing a still of Starmore on the wall from when he was in Vincent's room. "He is a being of immense power that may be a sort of temporal/dimensional anomaly due to his unnaturally long life and incredible power. It does not matter much, we have been unable to contact him at will or for an extended period of time, so we are unsure of his willingness to involve himself in this battle," Reed finished and motioned for Vincent to continue.
Vincent uneasily stood and took his place at the front of the group. "Travis Starmore is over a million years old. He has been on a mission to destroy the minions of those who killed his family for all of that time. The only problem is he has had to scour the multiverse to do it. He is more powerful than you can imagine. He has destroyed entire planets before and would not hesitate to do it again if his enemies were on it. He appears to be on our side this time," Vincent finished.
"How canst thou be so sure?" Thor asked.
"Because I owe him a debt of gratitude," came a disembodied voice. People gathered in the room looked around wildly for the speaker until a figure of darkness appeared in the corner of the room. "He aided me a long time ago," came the voice from Starmore's featureless body.
Doom and Strange recognized him immediately. "He is…" Doom started.
"The void before reality began," Strange continued.
"The destroyer," Doom added.
Thor gazed at the man and felt fear. He searched his mind for a reason for the fear and finally came across something Odin once told him. "There are things older than even Asgard. Beings more powerful than even I. Ones cloaked in darkness, hunting each other throughout time, waiting the day they can end their search, when they are the only one left."
The others all felt a sense of awe and uneasiness. Except for Vincent, who turned and looked Starmore in the face. "What do you want? What is your plan in all of this?" he asked him coldly.
"My plan…?" Starmore responded confusedly. "To repay my debt to you and to find the last WEAPON," he said after a minute. "It is close. Soon my journey will be over," he added.
"Why did you take my guns and materia?"
"To help you battle this Galactus. This being not worthy to lick my boots," Starmore explained. "Here," he said as he extended an arm, handing Vincent a pure white metal pistol. "I made all of your past weapons into this. Agememnon, the last barrier between this world and Armageddon."
Vincent took the gun and holstered it slowly as he felt the immense power in the gun. "Starmore, are you okay?" Vincent asked as he realized something. "Why do you look like that?"
"I have been like this for ages. It makes me stronger," Starmore said without emotion.
"What does Fiona think about it?" Vincent asked.
"Fiona… She is gone… Has been for so long… I can be with her once I kill Garland. I can be happy again..," Starmore muttered.
"Do you even remember who she is or what she looks like?"
Starmore stood silent for a minute, then disappeared. "What's wrong with him?" Logan asked.
"He… he has lost his mind," Vincent whispered.