I bought the Themeforest theme, I thought it was bundled with Visual Composer. It is there but it says i need to activate it…when I try it takes me to Code Canyon to buy it? What gives?
First of, you bough a theme from ThemeForest, and not “the ThemeForest theme”. Themeforest is the marketplace. 
Any bundled Visual Composer version does not require activation, it will work without license key, as you do not have your own license key for Visual Composer since you received it as part of your theme. So you can fully ignore that message.
The only reason for you to purchase your own license for Visual Composer would be if you want direct support from the author of Visual Composer, as well as access to direct updates from the author.
Otherwise, you simply need to wait on the theme author to provide you with any updated plugin versions, and any issues you might have with Visual Composer MUST be directed to the theme author, and NOT the original plugin author, as you re not entitled to direct support.