Cap had barked, "Defensive positions, everyone! Savage, Monako, Demon, Magar, Liberty, Silent Fox, you're with me!" and expected everyone to obey him without questions or hesitation. It was a battlefield situation, the danger was present and overwhelming, and Cap's instant assessment, backed by months of rigorous training and schooling at the Army's War College and by over a year of combat experience, was that the Liberators were threatened and so could not risk even a minor sortie. Based on the three months' experience he'd had with the Liberators he was certain that they'd immediately do as he ordered.

Which is why he was surprised almost to the point of being nonplussed when he saw that only a handful of the Liberators were staying put. The rest were attacking, and and even those Liberators who were in defensive positions were using their guns and powers.

Several of Murderer's Row, including Dakor, were unleashing enormous amounts of energy in an attempt to help Sarahiel and Gaghiel, who were being attacked by the dead from their past: angels killed in the Rebellion at the beginning of time, demons and fallen angels the pair had slain during the Rebellion, and daemons and other evil beings the pair had destroyed in the eons since the Creation. Most of the Liberators' powers had no effect on the enemies fighting Sarahiel and Gaghiel, but Dakor's magicks, including his modified Unfolding Ways spell (he was not skilled enough yet to cast the full spell, but he'd come up with a substitute for the final movement that was almost as good) were of great help to the angels.

The Patriot led a quintet of heroes at the resurrected heroes and villains besieging the Justice League of America of Earth-23; although Superman's and Batman's forces were mighty, their opponents, all the metahumans who had died since Superman had left Metropolis in disgust over the actions of Magog, were more numerous and more powerful. The Patriot, 1X, Don Gorman, the Purple Mask, and the Phantom Reporter had only their courage and their Liberators to help them, and when confronted with the Joker's clown gas and Starfire's energy bolts they served only to distract the enemies of the JLA, but as Superman told them later, "Every little bit helps. And it really is the thought that counts."

The temporarily reunited Crusaders ran to the aid of the Avengers of Earth-1000, and quickly discovered their mistake. The Crusaders each had various skills and powers, but the Earth-1000 Avengers had slain gods, devils, and unnameable things from the Primal Depths, and against such enemies the six human heroes could only gape and then run back to the Liberators' positions for cover.

And the Hurricane led the speedsters first against the enemies of the Avengers of Earth-11, but finding them to be only human thugs--Earth-11, aka "Earth-Prime," had no superpowered beings, and the Avengers themselves used only slightly advanced science to fight crime--made short work of them and then scattered, Spitfire and the Whizzer helping to guard the retreat of the Crusaders and Hurricane and Super Sabre relieving the pressure on the Avengers of Earth-994, who were confronted by their former friends, the now-dead bonobos and macaques of the Defenders and the gorillas and lemurs of the Invaders.


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