"All right," Strange began, pacing the room as two of the three occupants watched in rapt attention. "You understand what you're to do once we get you connected?"
"Find Wanda, tell her to bring everyone back," Rhody nodded. "Yeah, I've got it."
"And you - Mantis, was it?" he said, turning to the bug-looking alien girl. She nodded eagerly in response. "Do you understand what you are to do?"
"Yes, I understand. I reach in for the Wanda girl, and connect to her, and then connect her to Mister Rhody."
"Good. And then you just hold that connection steady for us," he said.
"Understood!" she nodded, folding her hands in her lap.
"All right. I'm going to open a small portal for you to establish your connection through, but I can only keep it open for so long, so we won't have a whole lot of time. Dr. Foster is going to cue us when she's ready so she can take test readings on how badly the portal affects the dimensional barrier. If the numbers spike too high, I'm going to have to drop the portal."
The alien girl nodded again, and he continued.
"Finding Maximoff should be fairly simple - look for the largest power source in the area and try to hone in on that. If for some reason you can't find her, let me know immediately."
Mantis nodded once more, her wide, dark eyes focused on him, unblinking.
"If anything feels weird, or if you feel her trying to attack you, drop the connection immediately. Understood?"
"Understood," she nodded solemnly.
Strange wavered for a moment, wracking his brain for anything that he might have missed, before letting out a slow breath and turning to address the other party in the room.
"Doctor Foster?" he asked, shifting his hands into position and drawing the familiar saffron sparks of power to his fingertips.
"Prepping data point analysis...stability measuring system online…" she was muttering to herself. "Magnetic fields still holding steady...should be ready to go in a few seconds."
"Whenever you're ready, Doctor," he nodded, casting a long glance around.
Just outside the door he could see some of the other Guardians clustering up against the little window to peer in, curious and anxious in equal measures as they watched their friend preparing herself for the task ahead.
A shift of movement caught his attention as Dr. Foster glanced back over a shoulder at them solemnly, meeting each of their gazes for a long second to be sure they were ready before nodding and turning back to her computer.
"Realm breach experiment on Maximoff's dome," she said, twisting dials on her machinery in preparation. "Making contact in three...two...one…"
"Now," Strange said in sync with her, whirling his hands in a circle and opening a tiny door in the mesh of reality, only about the size of a dinner plate, with his mind focused on the vague 'inside' of the dome to direct the destination.
Mantis was quick to close her eyes, the tips of her antenna starting to glow a little as she scrunched up her face in concentration.
For a long moment there was complete silence in the room, save for the faint sparking of his magic and the soft whir of the monitoring equipment.
The only thing visible through his little portal was a swirling red mist. He couldn't make out anything past it.
"Readings holding steady," Jane reported softly.
Stephen did his best to be patient as he watched the alien girl, nerves winding tighter in his stomach with every second that passed.
Dr. Foster had warned them all that until she got better readings on the dome, they needed to keep contact with it to a minimum - interdimensional gates tended to destabilize and vanish quite easily, it would seem - and what he was doing was really pushing their luck.
It felt rather like playing with the pin of a hand grenade...seeing how far they could pull it out before the mechanism tripped.
A little noise from the alien made him startle, snapping to attention as her expression screwed up in sharp concentration.
"Mantis?" he asked, nerves tightening in his chest.
"I think I have her," Mantis murmured, her nose wrinkling a little.
"Connect her to Mr. Rhodes, so he can make sure," Stephen instructed quickly, hardly daring to hope.
Colonel Rhodes obediently held out his hand for Mantis to touch, helping her connect to his mind as she groped blindly in his direction with her eyes still scrunched shut.
Strange watched as their fingers intertwined, Rhody settling himself in a chair beside her as he let his own eyes close and slowly frowned in concentration.
The seconds seemed to drag by as Strange waited, holding his portal steady and sharply aware of the red chaos magic sparking on the other side of it.
But then Rhody visibly relaxed.
"I've got her," the man said, his expression softening into a gentle smile. "I can feel her. She's...she's happy."
Mantis smiled as the emotion seeped through her in turn, her hands clasping more tightly around Rhody's fingers.
"Can you see her?" Stephen asked, trying not to let himself get too excited. "Can you talk to her?"
"She's...she's waving to me," Rhody murmured. "Waving me over."
"Waving?" Stephen prompted cautiously. "Not speaking?"
"She's not mad," Rhody grinned, ignoring his question. "She was upset, but she's not anymore. I told you she wouldn't be…"
"Yes, yes, that's good," Stephen pressed, trying not to let himself get agitated. "Can you talk to her, Mr. Rhodes?"
"Yeah...she can hear me. At least, she can feel how sorry I am."
"Okay, yes, wonderful - now ask her what the hell she's doing in there."
"It's a safe haven...a paradise…"
"It's not as safe as she thinks. Ask her if she can bring the others back."
"She's even got a place for me."
"That's lovely," Stephen sighed, resisting the urge to grit his teeth. "Now could you ask her if she-..."
His voice trailed off as the Colonel's words fully registered to him, and Strange felt a prickling sense of unease starting to tug at the back of his mind.
"Hang on, wait, a place for you?" he clarified.
"Yeah," Rhody smiled, his gaze distant. "She wants me to be happy, too."
Stephen frowned sharply. That...didn't sound right.
"Colonel, I need you to come out of there. Now."
"She'll let me in, too," Rhody smiled, sounding a bit distant as his head leaned to the side a little further. "She didn't mean to leave me behind…and she wants to fix it."
Alarm bells were ringing in Stephen's head, and the sorcerer was quick to cross the room to Rhody's side as the man's smile grew, keeping one hand reached out behind him to hold his portal steady.
"She'll let me go with her…"
"No! Don't go towards her, don't engage, don't do anything," Stephen snapped, feeling his heart rate climb. "Disconnect, right now!"
"I just have to-"
"Colonel!"
Stephen reached out sharply, intending to shake the man, but before he could so much as touch him, there was a violent flash of crimson energy that burst from his portal and threw him back across the room.
Strange hit the far wall with a jarring thud, sliding to the ground in a daze as his concentration on his portal broke and it fizzled out.
But that didn't sever the connection.
Strange was vaguely aware of a bright light coming from the center of the room, pulsing and flashing and condensing around Rhody with a raw power that made his teeth ache.
Just as quickly, it was gone again - leaving Stephen lying on the ground, trying to blink large dark splotches from his vision.
When he finally got his eyes to clear and was able to look up, he found Mantis on the floor, blinking back at him with terrified eyes as Dr. Foster scrambled with her computer in the background.
Rhody was gone.