As soon as Beth heard about the patients waking up, she called the guys. She was all for going over immediately, but they all made her promise to wait. They'd see these people as a team.
When they got there, further surprises lay in wait. "That guy there, he's Captain Castile, from the EU Defenders! And over there, that's First Citizen! What're they both doing with those files?"
"Well, they seem to be going the same place as us, so we'll soon find out."
When they got there, they saw the patients were not only awake, they were angry. "Whadda'ya mean, dishonourable discharge? I was servin' my country when you were wettin' your pants, kid."
"Well, the men from the Army Accounting Board were not new fish, Sarge, and when they heard that you had died in a bomb blast, they checked the site. They said that it wasn't a bombsite, and no unexploded German ordnance had landed in that part of the city. They decided that you'd run away, absent without leave, and they dropped you, there and then."
Across the room, another argument was getting hot. "Now see here, my good man," the man in the suit was saying, "even if I do have Spanish 'Flu, that's still no reason to detain my friends here." His accent was cultured, English, reasonable.
"'Sright," said the man with the shovel. "I know I feel fine, an' I fink I speak for all of us when I say, Leave us go, you li'ul perishers." His accent was pure London East End, and he was obviously spoiling for a fight. He was just as firm, though.
Dr. Science was not having a nice day. "Because," he said, "the world's changed too much. Most of you probably wouldn't last a day, even in the cities you grew up in. To say nothing of leaving you go in some foreign city. And, your files haven't –"
"Buenos dias, senores, senora. Hola, Fred. I got those British Government files that you were asking for. Will I start handing them out?"
"Paco, you're a lifesaver," said Dr. Science. "If you want to start, go ahead."
Captain Castile picked a file of the top of the pile. "Henry Atkins? Alias the Mortarman?" The old man, who had been watching the argument between his friends and Dr. Science, stepped forward. He took his file from the Spaniard, and began reading. "Lord Paul Winter?" The cultured guy with the influenza raised his hand, and the file was passed back to him. "Nicole Lepennec, alias Olympienne?" The woman, who had been looking out the window, turned and claimed her file. "Saul Horowitz, alias the Gravedigger?" The burly fellow with the shovel came forward. "Thomas Cleneghan, the Huntsman?" The spear-carrier, who had handed Paul his file, now came forward to claim his own. "Jean LePuy, Grenadier?" The young soldier stepped forward, and he thanked Captain Castile for the file as it was handed to him. "Francois Chacon, who is also listed here as 'Le Fantome'?" The gymnast stepped forward, and collected his file. Captain Castile turned to the man that the Statesman had called 'Sarge'. "So that means you," he said, hopefully, "are John Matthews, alias Imperial, si?"
While Sarge shook his head, befuddled, the patients took on solemn faces, and Jean LePuy said, "Non, m'sieur. Capitaine Matthews is no longer with us. He has not been with us since the Marne. I do not know who this gentleman is, but he is not in our files, I know that much."
First Citizen stepped forward. "Well, that seems like my cue," he said, and he handed the file to Sarge. "Sergeant Michael Wade, her is your paperwork. In light of recent… occurrences," he said, eyeing the patients, "I have been told to inform you that a review of your case is underway, and that this is by no means the final word."
Captain Castile had been flipping through the files. "Here," he said, picking up a black file, in contrast to the others, that had been blue. "Hans Grillparzer, alias Zeitgeist." He handed the file to the German, who took it, and with that, the patients all began reading. Mortarman finished first. "I've already seen this story, thank you," he said, handing the file to Dr. Science. "Except for the part about me being dead. That sounds very interesting, I must say."
"Bad show, Henry, you've spoiled the ending for the rest of us," said Paul, and this drew a laugh from the group. But that didn't last long – this was serious stuff. It listed surviving relatives, medical histories, former addresses, and hobbies – the files had been added to every so often, to keep pace with trends, but the paper was old, and crackly. That, more than anything, brought home to them just how long they'd been gone. And then Captain Castile produced a set of photographs. They were of the museum in St.-Lo, Iron Eagle saw. The place hadn't changed much in twenty years. The photograph showed a mural, of Senex Abiecta against Nemesis. The next one showed some press clippings. Another one showed drawings of some of the most important menaces they'd faced – Die Kaiserlich Verteidigung, Count Otto Tepes Dracul, Balor of the Evil Eye – so fearsome to his twelve-year-old self, and yet, they seemed dated to the man who regularly fought eight-foot-tall Nazis.
"So?" the Mortarman was saying. "You've got our bloody files. We'll go under guard if we have to. But we refuse to stay cooped up in this hospital for one second longer than we have to be."
"I for one, agree with the sergeant on this," said Zeitgeist. "I refuse to stay anywhere near them, not after what they made me do in Paris."
It could have developed into a fight right there, but then Owl-Man ran in, clutching a piece of paper. "This just came in," he gasped, handing it to Dr. Science. "What does it mean?"
Dr. Science went over the sheet, his lips moving. When he got to the end, his face was deathly pale. "Oh, hell."
Iron Eagle was interested despite himself." What?" he said.
Dr. Science waved the sheet around. "This just came in from PortalCorp," he said. "They're picking up heavy inter-dimensional static. The signature of the starting point matches the Praetorians' home universe. And the end-point, according to this," he paused, as if he couldn't believe it, "the end-point is the plaza".
As soon as this sunk in, every hero in the infirmary ran to the window. Sure enough, there was a stable tear in space-time, right there by the fountain. And coming out of it was a group of Praetorians. Six, seven, eight. The man known as Diocletian led the group, the same group that had tried to kidnap the Pope last year. The group stopped, got their bearings, and moved forward.
And then a second group came out of the hole. Iron Eagle felt his stomach tighten. The second group was the same group that had killed Wailing Wall at Masada, on Yom Kippur. Iron Eagle bunched up his fist in anger. Wailing Wall had been an old-time hero, a veteran against the Storm Korps, a veteran of the Six Days War, and a veteran of the Rikti War. What made it worse was that a man named Caligula led the group. Caligula was a twisted mirror-version of Hero1, who had died saving the world from the Rikti. His funeral had brought a lot of attention.
And then, Iron Eagle's heart sank even further. Coming out of the hole was the last member of the first group: an evil magician to match any this world had produced: the dreaded Asmodeus.
Statesman went to the hole that Iron Eagle had made the night before, and yelled, "Sorry, folks, the tour doesn't start until noon. You'll have to come back then."
Caligula saw him, and yelled back, "Ho, impostor! Your continued existence is a living stain upon the honour of our emperor, the true Romulus. And he has empowered me to rid this world of your corrupting influence! Prepare to die!"
"I've heard that tune before, young fella. Let's see how well you dance it." With that, he jumped out the hole, and flew at the group. They looked set to surround him and beat him to death, as they had to Wailing Wall. But they had reckoned without the Freedom Phalanx. Rockets flew from Iron Eagle, blowing their scrum apart. The group who'd been watching what happened in the infirmary charged out through the hole. As Iron Eagle began targeting people, he looked at his teammates. There were old hands, like himself and Black Death, and rookies like Ascorbic and BPM, and even heroes who'd made it big before coming to the city, like Haida and Cerne Abbas. He was filled with pride that they would do something like this, to save their friend. But he knew they were going to lose.
"We're never going to win with a team like this," he said to Dr. Science over his radio.
"Well, why don't you try fighting harder? You may surprise yourself."
"Fine, and you can start calling up off-duty members."
"Doing my damndest. Over and out."