After hanging up, Strange sighed. He had considered that plan too, but the problem was that when Batman came calling, he would not care which Doctor Strange he was dealing with. If Strange chose to stay, he would inevitably get beaten up as well.
Of course, he could go all out, but that would not only waste energy, it would also be hard to change the other Doctor Stranges' minds. They might acknowledge that he was strong, but Doctor Strange did not have any trait that made him unconditionally submit to the strong. They would still be stubborn when they wanted to be. So Strange was stuck between acting and not acting.
He sighed and decided to slack off later, putting on a passable performance. That would keep him safe while still teaching the others a lesson.
What he did not know was that chaos had erupted again at Central Command. Since the other superheroes had all reported to the Asgard frontline base, Jarvis had reviewed the attendance list and discovered that not a single Doctor Strange had arrived. Two teams from the Guardians of the Galaxy were missing, three Spider-Men were gone, and even Venom and Eddie from their own universe had vanished.
When Jarvis reported the results to Central Command, all the generals were stunned. It was like losing two full brigades, men and equipment included, during a ground operation, then finding that the communications officers from three battalions were missing, while the war correspondents sent down from above had disappeared entirely.
The generals cursed furiously while lamenting that this lot had been born in the right era. If this had been World War II, they would all have gotten themselves shot because of them.
But there was nothing they could do. The heroes from the Central Universe