Chapter 57
***
Jean had left. The hall was empty. I performed a kata in the darkness. Furiously, giving myself completely to the process... The darkness felt oppressive. I had never experienced a feeling like this before. The lighting had never bothered me before, but... This was all Jean and her vile power. She stirred things up, rummaged through the attic full of junk and horrors, got what she wanted, and left. And now I felt terrified in the dark! Me! In the dark!!
I growled and began striking the air even more fiercely.
On the wall to the side, the fiery ring of a portal materialized, from which Suo stepped gracefully and unhurriedly onto the floor of the hall.
"Someone was planning to come to me as soon as he finished, wouldn't happen to know who that might be?" she asked, raising an eyebrow. She didn't wait for an answer. The portal ring behind her extinguished. The Ancient One frowned in irritation and, with a slight wave of her hand, turned on the hall lights. "How do you not get sick of this gloom yourself?"
"I have night vision," I replied between strikes, trying to keep the growling notes out of my voice. As best I could, anyway. "Better than a cat's."
"That's no reason to sit in the dark when you only need to reach out and flip a switch."
"Too lazy," I stated curtly, although a wave of gratitude swelled in my soul. My own pride wouldn't have allowed me to walk over to the wall and turn on the light, as that would mean admitting my fear of the dark. I would have just kept growling and getting goosebumps.
"Who was that?" my wife asked in a serious tone, sweeping her gaze over the trashed state of my gym.
"One of Xavier's students," I answered, continuing the kata, though calmer now, without the previous ferocity. My wife had always enjoyed watching me train. I knew this, so I didn't stop. "A potential Armageddon for our dimension."
"Is that so? Care to elaborate? Don't worry about eavesdroppers, I've already taken care of it."
"I noticed," I said. The wave of magic that had swept through the room had triggered a mild bout of irritation and made the "fur" on my hackles and arms stand on end. "She's the Phoenix."
"Phoenix?" Suo frowned. "Are you sure? I didn't sense anything of the sort. An entity as powerful as the Phoenix is impossible to miss."
"She will be," I replied, continuing my routine.
"You know, honey, I feel it's time you and I had a little talk!" the sorceress narrowed her eyes. And she was right. I felt myself that the time had indeed come.
"It is," a heavy sigh escaped me involuntarily, and my hands dropped to my sides.
"Let's go," Suo said, opening a portal.
***
I didn't recognize this place. Moreover, I couldn't even vaguely imagine what part of the giant, multidimensional Marvel Earth it could possibly be in. There were no stars visible in the sky; for that matter, the sky itself wasn't visible. It was obscured by smoke, spreading out in a continuous blanket from the peak of a towering volcano mountain in all directions at once. A network of lava streams—thin from this distance, but bright—snaked down the slopes. One of them flowed a mere twenty meters ahead of us. It radiated a steady, dry heat. The air smelled of sulfur and burnt rock.
Suo made a somewhat impatient gesture, and two wicker chairs appeared next to us. She sat in one, and I took the second, which was positioned directly across from hers. We sat in silence for a bit, gathering our thoughts.
"Victor, look..." she began, clasping her hands on her knee. "I'm not demanding an answer from you. And if you don't want to, you don't have to say anything, but... There are too many oddities piling up. Too many questions."
"Ask away," I shrugged.
"What makes you think that girl will become the Phoenix? How do you even know about entities like the Phoenix and Galactus? That's not exactly street-corner gossip."
I pondered for a moment and clasped my hands as well. I lowered my gaze and frowned.
"Don't want to talk?" Suo asked, staring intently into my face.
"Trying to phrase it," I replied. "You know about my lack of eloquence. It's incredibly frustrating."
"I don't understand why you even think you suffer from a 'lack of eloquence.' You express yourself perfectly fine," she said, a hint of irritation in her voice. I remained silent. "Alright," she sighed. "Phrase it."
"You know about the multiplicity of worlds... Do you believe in an infinity of worlds?" I finally offered after about ten minutes of silence.
"I do," she nodded calmly.
"Do you also have an understanding of the 'soul' separating from the physical body?"
"I do."
"My 'soul' has separated three times," I said. Suo frowned.
"Go on."
"The second time: when you knocked it out of my body yourself with a 'nagual strike.'" I had read that specific term later in Carlos Castaneda's books while already living in my old world in Vasya-Sensei's body. I had been terribly preoccupied with the subject at the time, hence the reading material. That term turned out to be the closest in meaning to what my wife had done to me back then. "The third time was in En Sabah Nur's pyramid."
"And the first?" she frowned even deeper, resting the knuckles of her clasped hands against the bridge of her nose.
"The first time... in the basement of my father's house, where he kept me on a chain after I mauled my brother to death. Two out of the three times, my 'soul' was... far away," I said and fell silent. Suo remained silent for a while too. Then she unclasped her hands and rested them on the armrests of her chair.
"How old were you at the time?" she asked a somewhat unexpected question.
"Ten... maybe twelve," I shrugged. "I don't remember exactly."
"You have an astonishing talent for magic. Do you know that, Victor?" A low, disgruntled growl rumbled in my chest seemingly of its own accord. "Easy, Vic, easy, calm down," she hurried to raise her hands in a placating gesture. "Think about it: at ten years old, without any training or outside help, you executed one of the most complex Astral magic techniques. What is that, if not talent?" I didn't even bother answering, simply staring at her with my heavy gaze, which she wasn't bothered by or afraid of in the slightest. "Alright," she finally broke the silence that was beginning to drag on, realizing the topic of my "magical talent" was a dead end. "And what did you do after separating from your body? Which dimensions did you end up in? Who did you interact with? How did you manage to return?"
"I... possessed another body," I said slowly. "In another world."
"Possessed another body?" she asked, surprised.
"Yes. By 'crushing' and 'suppressing' the 'soul' that previously owned that body."
"What kind of body?" Suo inquired matter-of-factly.
"A child's. A newborn... probably. I'm not sure."
"Let's assume so. We'll leave that point aside for now," she nodded to her own thoughts and whatever conclusions she was drawing. "A child's body in another world. And?"
"And I lived in that body until I was twenty-one."
"I see... And then?"
"I woke up in the basement, chained to the wall. The memories of my life before... the transition didn't survive. But the memories of the life I had in 'that' world remained very clear. It felt as if I was actually born in 'that' world and 'transitioned' to 'this' one, not the other way around."
"Are you sure that's not the case?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because of the third 'exit' from my body."
"And what happened the third time?"
"I returned to the exact same body. In the exact same world. Lived there for thirteen years. Then..."
"Then?" Suo continued dragging the information out of me with endless patience and benevolent calm. A thousand years of teaching experience really showed.
"Then a flower pot fell on my head..."
"A pot?" her eyebrows shot up in surprise. "A regular flower pot?" I nodded. She covered her eyes with her hand and shook her head slightly, then lowered her hand, straightened up again, and looked at me. "Fine, a 'pot.' And then what?"
"I 'exited' my body again. And, you know, there was a second 'soul' in that body. But there wasn't a second 'soul' in Sabretooth's body."
"Is that so... Logical," Suo leaned back in her chair. "And how did you return to this body? What did you do?"
"Pulled the 'silver thread' and 'jumped,'" I shrugged.
"Well... Your aptitude for Astral magic is simply astounding. And old man Nur didn't lie or make a mistake: he really did kill you in his pyramid... What about in '42? When your heart stopped? What happened then?"
"Flight. A vast emptiness. Nothingness."
"Were you self-aware in that Nothingness?"
"No. I was just flying. And I felt very good. Peaceful..."
"And how did you return?"
"I don't know. Blue light. Opened my eyes."
"And in '69?"
"Flight. Emptiness. Nothingness. Then green light, and my eyes opened. I saw you."
"I see how it is," Suo pondered. "In '69, you were subjected to the Eye of Agamotto. Hence the green light. But in '42, blue...?"
"The Tesseract. Johann Schmidt irradiated me with the Tesseract after injecting the serum, substituting it for Howard Stark's Vita-Rays," I didn't hide anything from my wife.
"Infinity Stones..."
"Yes. Space and Time. I teleport through space and can stop time."
"Stop time?" Suo asked very carefully, as if inquiring about the details of a lunatic's hallucinations. I frowned—I didn't like being treated like that, especially by the person I loved, trusted, and was ready to open up to. "Are you sure you *stop* it?"
"I move, everyone else doesn't. What else would you call it?"
"For example, that you remove yourself from the general Flow of time. The Flow ceases to have power over you, and because of that, you can act within a 'frozen' world. Since the Flow doesn't affect you, it doesn't 'drag' you along with the rest of the surrounding world," she answered.
"Isn't that the same damn thing?" I raised an eyebrow, my frown fading.
"No. It is not the 'same damn thing.' The difference lies in the energy expended: knocking yourself out of the Flow takes crumbs; stopping the Flow itself takes infinity."
"And what does the Eye do?"
"It moves the 'operator,' or the object it is applied to, up and down the Flow."
"Got it," I nodded at my own thoughts, losing interest in the topic.
"Vic, you are a mage. Whether you like it or not," Suo was amused now. "It's so funny how life can joke sometimes!"
"Grrr," another low, disgruntled growl rumbled in my throat. My wife cut her silvery laughter short and gave me a sharp look.
"All of this is very interesting and undoubtedly important, however... I still haven't heard about the Phoenix and Galactus. How do you know about them?"
"In that world. The one my 'soul' flew to... this world, where I am right now, is a fictional universe there. A very popular one. Depicted in comic books, novels, movies, and cartoons."
"Cartoons and comic books?" Suo looked at me even more intently. I frowned. She raised an eyebrow slightly, as if asking, "Are you shitting me right now?" much like that dog from the memes in Vasya-Sensei's world.
"Cartoons and comic books," I replied just as gloomily. The woman snorted, trying in vain to keep a straight face, before losing the battle and bursting into laughter.
It was unusual. I had never seen her laugh so carelessly and genuinely before. And I had to admit, I liked her like this. Not more than her usual self, but I liked it. The only problem was that the reason for her laughter kept me frowning.
"Oh, I can't! Cartoons and comic books! Hahaha..." she wiped a tear from her eye, tried to catch her breath, but couldn't help herself and started laughing again.
"You don't believe me?"
"Hahaha... of course not! Hahaha... of course I believe you, I just tried to picture you reading comic books or watching cartoons... Ahahaha..."
"I like cartoons and comic books," I turned my head away, offended.
"You? Cartoons?" Suo somehow managed to suppress her laughter.
"Me. Cartoons."
"Sabretooth, cartoons?"
"Sabretooth. Cartoons."
"A crazy reality of a crazy world," the Sorcerer Supreme of the Earth Dimension said, rolling her eyes to the sky. I stayed silent. "And what happened in them? In the cartoons?"
"In the cartoons, things went to shit."
"And in the comic books?" she frowned.
"In the comic books, things went completely and utterly to shit. On a global scale, and more than once."
"Care to elaborate?"
"Dormammu, Mephisto, Galactus, Sphinx, Abraxas, Phoenix, Thanos, Amatsu-Mikaboshi, Celestials, Beyonders... and that's not even counting the small fry like Malekith, Loki, Hela, the Kree Empire, the Shi'ar Empire, and the like. Those are the 'imports.' But there are also 'domestic,' Earth-grown 'shit-starters' like Doctor Doom, Colonel Stryker, the Externals, and other riffraff," I practically delivered in one breath the burden that had tormented me for years, hanging over my head like a massive boulder that only I could see, with no one to share it with or vent to.
Suo frowned. She sank into thought. She remained silent for almost a full minute.
"I am familiar with almost all of those names," she finally said. "With the exception of Doctor Doom."
"He hasn't been born yet, don't worry about it."
"Alright," Suo nodded. "So, I know all these names. They are the names of... v-e-r-y powerful beings and entities. But why did you list them?"
"Because in the comic books of that world, every single one of those 'entities' tried to destroy Earth at least once. Earth at the very least, and the Multiverse at the most. And many succeeded."
"How is that possible? How could 'many' succeed in 'destroying the Multiverse' if there is only one?" Suo raised an eyebrow.
"But there are many comic books. And just as many versions of how things went down."
"I see," the woman smiled with benevolent superiority and condescension. "So there are many 'versions'..."
"And what's so reassuring about that?" I asked, surprised by the shift in her demeanor.
"Let's remember for a minute who I am."
"The Sorcerer Supreme of the Earth Dimension," I obediently delivered the answer she expected.
"And what do you think I do?" I didn't bite at the provocation; instead, I simply shrugged. "Alright," she sighed, realizing it was useless to wait for an answer. "I combat exactly these kinds of global threats. Sometimes through diplomacy, sometimes by force. And my primary tool is the 'Eye.' And it's not an instrument of force. It's not a weapon. Using the 'Eye,' I move along the Flow... and I watch."
"That's why it's the 'Eye' and not a 'Fist' or a 'Hand,' or..."
"No more versions, please," she hurried to stop me with a gesture, apparently already guessing which body part I was going to name next. "You are absolutely right: that is exactly why. Because it allows me to see into both the past and the future." Well, that information wasn't exactly a revelation to me. And that fact was apparently reading clearly enough on my face, because the Sorceress continued. "The only problem is that the Flow is not monolithic. The future is relative and multi-variant. The further you look, the more 'streams' it breaks into. To the point where it's easy to get lost in them. There are many variants and possibilities in the future. And to prevent threats, I have to navigate these possibilities and 'streams,' searching for the best outcome, determining which specific event leads to that 'best' variant. An event, or a chain of them. And then I have to try to make that specific event happen, triggering the necessary chain... So what am I getting at? I'm getting at the fact that in my practice with the 'Eye,' I have had to see 'variants'... Thousands, hundreds of thousands of variants of Earth's destruction, thousands of variants of the universe's destruction, and hundreds of variants of the Multiverse's destruction. So congratulations on 'joining the club,' honey!"
"The club?" I repeated gloomily.
"The club of those who know just how fragile our reality is. The club of those who realize: everything could just end at any given second. Suddenly and instantaneously, or drawn out over a terrifyingly long, hopeless period of time... So, you say we're going to have to face all these entities? On what timeline?" Suo asked, entirely businesslike now.
"Twenty to thirty years."
"All of them in such a short timeframe?" the Sorcerer Supreme asked, surprised. I nodded. "Well, fun times await us... But you're going to tell me about each of them in detail, aren't you, darling?" What choice did I have? I just nodded.
***
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