Leading them through the forest, the blue humanoids made sure they didn't move while, surprisingly, humans present handcuffed them with very advanced shackles. Raph was very hard to hold down, but the others were calm. Even the intruder.
Stephen held down his temper, trying not to lash his powers out.
"You could immediately free us?" Leo whispered to him while they were leading them.
Stephen glanced around himself. Then, he narrowed his eyes. "Yes."
"Then why don't you?" Leo hissed.
"Because I don't want to hurt these people!"
"Hurt? Just summon the portal!"
He rolled his eyes. "Do you have amnesia? Uatu told us that portal is dangerous. I will not risk lives of these innocents. Especially after they saved our lives."
Leo tried to argue back, but then he paused and slowly nodde. "You're right. Damn it." He glanced at the man in yellow armour, the multiversal traveler. "That guy is off to me. He is more dangerous than he seems."
"He has a gun, a sword and a few bombs. He is as threatening as morning Hello Kitty compared to us. And them, of course."
"You're underestimating him." Leo responded. "Guns, bombs and a sword can accomplish far more than you could guess."
The guard behind them pushed them, shutting them up. Leo looked at blue humas carrying this...Jake. He seemed to have been some leader of sorts. The way all of them treated him was full od respect, almost adoration. And the female one was always beside him. She was probably his mate.
Eventually, they came to a long, abandoned settlement, obviously made by human hands. However, that settlement was unlike anything either of them has seen. It was huge, built of white material, with wonders of science and technology not even Donnie couldn't realize was made by humans. They were wondering about this, but their doubts were soon at peace: overhearing humans who were assistants to this tribe, they realized this is 22nd century, after Earth's atmosphere is slowly getting destroyed. Humans, then, sought a new home and found it: Pandora, a planet a few systems away.
They were led into the settlement and every more advanced thing was avoided. Machines, weapons, notebooks...all were in the settlement. They entered a huge building that was filled with symbols of an acronym: RDA. Human scientists placed them in cells, together with the intruder, with doors of glass that was as strong as stone. This cell reminded Stephen of the cells he and America were on Earth-838. He could still remember all from that event. Wanda and the Iluminati were all haunting his dreams.
Na'vi unshackled them and took their weapons, leaving them. Only the tallest female remained, in front of the cell, apparently the partner of the male who was hit.
Stephen was hoping he was not wrong about her.
"We didn't mean any harm." he stated. "We are sorry. I am a doctor, I could..."
"Your help was not asked for." she replied. "We have better healers. Among both peoples."
Turtles' eyes widened. "You speak English?" Donnie asked.
"Humans taught us. However, that might be a better question for," she pointed at them, "you four. What are you?"
"Well," Leo coughed, "we are..."
"My colleagues." Stephen interrpted him, to Leo's annoyance. "They are not dangerous." then he shook his head. "Unless you count annoyance as dangerous."
"Look who's calling." Raph scoffed, but Stephen ignored it.
"I am Stephen Strange and these are..."
"Leonardo!"
"Raphael!"
"Michelangelo!"
"Donatello!"
They presented themselves, not allowing Stephen to do it. He just shrugged.
The female glanced at the intruder, who wasn't even looking her in the eyes.
"We don't know his name. We were just...tracking him." Mikey said.
"Tracking him even though you don't know his name?"
Mikey scratched his head. "Uh..."
"He is a prisoner." Leo interrupted. "A criminal that we were hunting. A threat to our...homeworld."
Stephen nodded in approval. Not yet, he thought.
She glanced at them carefully. "Neytiri." she finally said.
"Neytiri," Stephen continued, "please, you have to free us. We have to take him," he turned to the intruder, "back with us. He is extremely dangerous."
"The way I see it," she said, "maybe I will free you." She approached the cell more. "I can see that the five of you are not evil. You have good hearts. Pure intentions." She narrowed her eyes frustrated. "Some of you arrogant like children or naive like newborns, but yes, you are good. I know you didn't want to hurt him. But he," she pointed at the intruder. This time he looked at her, with an expressionless face. "he has anger. Hate. He is violent. But the worst is that he is not stupid like you."
The man continued to stare. Neytiri took her spear. "He will be judged by the Tsahik and Olo'eyktan," she eased herself a bit. "if he is well."
"Please." Stephen persisted. "We are begging you Neytiri. He must not be killed. He must come with us. If he is killed outside of...our homeworld, something terrible will happen. He must come with us."
"I have said what I said." she answered and turned to go.
"Please!" Leo shouted, gaining her attention again. "Millions of lives are in danger. If he dies here, consequences will be horrible."
"Is that a threat?" she asked.
"No." Raph said. "It's a warning. Look, we don't know how to explain, but there is some...magic in all of this. You understand what we say?"
She slowly nodded.
"If he dies outside of where we came from," Stephen said, "it will have natural consequences. Your world will be struck by that force that will be released, if he dies here."
"It will be apocalypse." Mikey said. "Like...pretty bad."
"Please." Donnie said. "We swear, we are not lying."
"Neytiri," Stephen said. "I..."
"Stop." she said quietly and started thinking. Then, she turned to them. "Here is how it will go: if my mate wakes up and is well, he will decide what will happen with him. Jake is beyond wise: I am certain he will let it be as you want. But if he doesn't wake up," she glanced at the man with anger in her eyes. "he will be judged by us. And believe me, we will not be merciful." She turned to go. "That's all I can promise you." and she left.
Stephen yelled and kicked the wall.
"Hitting things, won't help." Raph commented. "Trust me, I have experience."
Stephen revealed the glove given to him by Uatu.
"I won't allow this. Not our first mission to fail. No!"
"Dude, calm down." Mikey said. "Their leader will wake up soon and everything will be fne."
"He maybe will, he maybe won't." he said. "I will not count on luck.
"Luck?" Raph said. "He was shot in the chest! Not the heart or something. By a bullet. You have seen how resistant these...guys are. You think a bullet would kill them?"
"You'd be surprised to learn what people can die from." he said. "We have no time."
"We have to think." Donnie said. "Logically. If you open the portal now, in a closed area, you know very well what will happen. Did you forget already?"
Stephen gritted his teeth in frustration. "Damn it! You are right. We could cause something worse if we open the portal now."
Leo raised his eyebrow. "We?"
"And what about you, dude?" Mikey asked the man. "You think anything?"
Raph would have slapped Mikey if he could.
The man was sitting still in the corner of his cell. He observed his armor, the only weapon left. "I wake up in Gotham, only to then find myself in this...jungle of a planet where I cannot even breath. And then I meet these weird creatures and am abducted by them. Why do you assume I think anything about this, Turtle?"
Mikey was silent, and Raph crossed his arms, staring at him, frustrated.
"Okay, let's start from the beginning." Stephen said. "Who are you?"
"They call me Deathstroke." he said. "I will give you my real name when these monkeys free us: which is never."
Mikey raised his eyebrow. "Monkeys?"
Raph shook his head. "Eh. I guess they kind of do look like monkeys."
"You are happy we are in different cells, because I would have slapped you, Raph." said Leo.
Raph just sniffed. "I'd like to see you try."
"What you did to their leader," Stephen said to Deathstroke. "it was the worst thing you could have done. We could have ran away quickly, but you put us into a corner here."
"Corner?" he bellowed. "Corner?! I put you into a corner?! I woke up on a foreign world, barely even breathing, if you haven't noticed."
"You did not," said Donnie, "need to shoot. You are smarter than that."
"Oh, you know that?"
"We are pretty certain of it." Leo added.
"Yeah," Mikey grinned, "not every bro out there carries a sword, a gun, bombs and an armour with himself without being a bit of a professional, don't you think?"
"So, anyone who is not you?" Stephen added, then looked back at Deathstroke. "We would have ran away from here almost immediately if you didn't shoot."
"As far as I know, you might be my enemies."
"Your enemies?" Donnie hit the door of his cell. "We saved your life!"
"For what purpose, I do not know." he said. "And don't want to know."
They all gave up talking to Deathstroke.
"Can't you do something?" Raph demanded of Stephen. "Like, break these cells."
"I have been trying to conjure up the magic to do so." he answered. "But...something is wrong here. I..." he touched his hand, feeling an itch on it. He pulled his sleeves, seing a blue mark on the wrists, with a purple touch to it. He didn't know where it came from, but he knew the effects and widened his eyes in terror.
"My magic is weak."
"What?" everyone else said.
"My magic is weak." he repeated. "It is growing weaker ever since that...snake-thing grabbed me in the forest. It left this," he raised his hand, "on my wrist."
"A mark?" Leo yelled. "A mark is able to weaken your magic? How is that possible? What kind of a wizard are you?!"
"I don't know why!" he yelled back. "I..."
"It is the deed of Eywa." a very accented voice said. Another Na'vi woman walked before them, followed by two males armed with spears. The woman was dressed in brownish red robes and wore some jewelry. The most noticeable one was her arrow, going through two long, yet simple, lines that went down from the small crown on her head.
"Eywa?" Donnie asked, as if not aware of who he was talking to.
"Eywa." she said again. "The Great Mother. The One who lives in all of our world and the defender of life."
Leo nodded. "Your goddess."
"What did she do to me?" Stephen asked immediately.
"As soon as she felt your presence and the presence of your dark arts, Stephen Strange, through the humla that you fought, she put an end to your power. At least in her home."
"Then your goddess made a griveous mistake." Stephen punched the wall of the cell. It didn't break, of course, but anger was so visible in him and in that hit that the female and her guards winced. "Those are not dark arts: I am using them to save lives. Your goddess might not like them, but she is wrong..."
"Eywa is never wrong." the female continued. "Not about her child. Your powers, sorcerer, do not belong here. They threaten the ballance of Pandora. They are not part of it. They are like what you humans call a virus in a body: foreign thing that will consume life if not extinguished."
"She wanted me to leave? Well I would have left already if I had my powers!"
"And for what purpose would you use them? For conquest? For..."
"Oh, shut up!" he yelled again. "Don't be ridiculous."
"Sorcerer." one of the guards raised his spear towards him. "Be careful how you speak to Tsahìk Mo'at!"
"Leave him be." she said. "He is not dangerous now."
"We are neither, but there will be harm if you do not free us!" Donnie said.
"Is that a threat, Donatello?"
"No." Leo added. "It's a warning. You absolutely do not realize how dangerous it is for us to be here."
Donnie took out all the things he had in his bag that were not taken from him and started observing the nearby wall.
"If we do not leave this world, reality will be shaken." Stephen added.
"We have no reason to trust you."
"The moment you were around us," Leo said. "we could have defeated you with a wave of our hand. But we didn't. We are not your enemies."
Raph glanced at Deathstroke.
"You shot our Olo'eyktan." Mo'at almost hissed. "Our leader."
"We swear, we didn't want it to happen." Stephen said, with surprising amount of emotions in his voice, even placing a hand on his heart. "We did not."
"We?" Raph protested. "We didn't do a thing! It's this bulldog who..."
"Raph, shut up for once!" Leo hissed back at him.
"This wasn't meant to happen. We were going to leave as soon as we..."
"Our law is clear, sorcerer." Mo'at said. "We shall not listen to you again. If Jake Sully wakes up, he will decide what is to be done with you. If he doesn't..." she narrowed her eyes, especially at Deathstroke, "we will see the punishment."
Then she turned and left, with the guards followimg her.
"Well, that's a bummer." Mikey said.
"Bummer?" Stephen said, chuckling, sadly. "We're screwed."
"Yeah, we really are." said Donnie, leaning onto his cell from the outside and studying some mechanics in his hand. Everyone gazed, even Deathstroke.
"What?" he asked, quasi-surprised. "Oh, right! Yes!" he tipped his cell with his staff. He smiled. "Just a piece of cake."
