3 days earlier

Mars Ruins

When you gather 20 S Rankers in one spot, the result could only be a complete victory.

While this was painful overestimation, the track record of such team up was irrefutable.

Be it time traveling shenanigans, government conspiracies or alien invasions, the success rate of such a team was 100%.

They do get bloodied a few times, but they always somehow inch out a win.

However, this might be the first time they would feel the stinging brand of defeat.

Out of the original 20, only Crow, the Valkyrie Luvia, Mechanicus and Omegaman were left standing.

The initial 20 had no problems against the bug like creatures as they went through the ruins, but they hit a snag when they reached what seemed to be the center of the entire structure.

Based on the architecture that were very similar to that seen in the Ecclesiarchy, the center was some sort of altar.

It was a dome that had nothing inside it except for a fancy sarcophagus in the middle.

If you ignore the incessant attacks from the bug things, there was nothing particularly special about the room.

But then, the betrayal happened.

There were only 2 non-super powered individuals in the team.

One was Crow.

The other was the newly S ranked Sparrow.

Said Sparrow was now in front of the remaining S rank team in nothing but her underwear.

She took off her space suit in an area without air and proceeded to beat the entire team with her fists alone.

Yes, you read that right.

Sparrow took down the entire team all by herself.

Those who were beaten were currently being held down by the bug things.

So far, no one has died.

The pain Crow felt by this sudden backstab could not be expressed in words.

She took the supposed amnesiac girl 10 years ago and has trained her to eventually succeed the mantle of Crow.

Crow not only saw her as a potential successor, but also as a daughter she never had.

The grief of such a betrayal went straight to her soul.

At the moment, Sparrow took a boxing stance and was lightly hopping on her feet. She cautiously observed her opponents despite possessing overwhelming power.

Omegaman flew in low for a faint tackle before throwing an uppercut.

Sparrow received the blow with her left hand. At the same time, she smashed through Omegaman's helmet before connecting with his face for a downward hook.

FYI: As the superhero with a bajillion powers, Omegaman doesnt need a space suit to breath in outer space.

The force was so strong that the entire ruin shook from Omegaman's face plant.

But more importantly, blood was trickling from the superhero's nose.

The supposed invulnerable Omegaman was bleeding. That was no joke.

Sparrow kicked Omegaman in the gut to force him up, before hammering him in the back with a double hammer fist.

Once again, the ruins shook from said face planting.

Mechanicus fired off 3 energy beams from both hands and the reactor on his chest.

To counter this, Sparrow grabbed Omegaman by the throat and used him as a shield. At the same time, she showered her meatshield with gut punches.

Suddenly, Luvia appeared behind Sparrow and used her spear to skewer the enemies skull.

Sparrow stopped hitting Omegaman and caught Luvia's spear between her middle and pointer finger.

She then kicked Omegaman with catastrophic amounts of force and sent the poor man towards Mechanicus, who dodged his friend.

Sparrow pulled Luvia's spear threw a straight punch towards the Valkyries head.

Luvia blocked it with her buckler, but the mythril-made shield bent on impact.

Sparrow grabbed the valkyrie's arm then used her as a bat to bash the approaching Mechanicus into the ground.

Just to be sure, she bashed Luvia and Machanicus 3 more times.

By this time, Omegaman has recovered and launched himself at Sparrow once again.

However, she was more than ready for him.

She grabbed Luvia's spear, channeled what seemed to be magical energy and stabbed Omegaman on the shoulder.

Here's an interesting fact that very little people know of.

Omegaman does not have invulnerability.

In gaming terms, he has a massive amount of extra HP bars that attackers need to go through before actually damaging him.

He seemed invulnerable because of 2 things:

First: He has extremely high damage resistance to most forms of attack.

Second: As long as an attack doesn't go through his extra HP bars, there will never be any physical wounds on his person.

There were 2 ways to severely damage him.

First: A piece of Omegaman's long destroyed planet.

Since barely anyone had any idea what planet was he from, it was next to impossible to capitalize on this weakness.

Second: Magic.

While magic was widely available compared to the first weakness, it was also subjected to Omegaman's damage mitigation.

Only a massive concentration of magic could possibly punch through his defenses.

Oh by the way, the spear Sparrow was using went through Omegaman's shoulder and out the other end.

Despite the catastrophic injury, Omegaman did not let out a sound.

He may be near invulnerable, but he can feel every bit of pain from every attack he has ever received. He was no stranger to such mind breaking agony.

What he didnt expect was being at the receiving end of a magical attack that not only punched through his moderately high magical resistance, but also inflict catastrophic damage that caused his body to shut down.

"Okay. I had my fill of fun. Time to stop fighting." said Sparrow.

The action of speaking was weird in on itself because there was no air to carry her voice.

Yet despite this, all 20 could hear her loud and clear.

Sparrow allowed the injured Omegaman to crumble to the ground.

She raised her hand and began channeling massive amounts of magic. Beautiful glowing runes appeared all over her body.

Suddenly, Omegaman, Machanicus and Luvia floated a meter above ground. There was an unseen force that made them unable to move.

"Now then, since you're the brains of this muscle bound group, let us converse Crow. Fear not, I will answer as honestly as I possibly can. I owe you that much."

Out of the original team, Crow was the only one unharmed. Though this was because she would only be a dead weight in a battle between monsters.

Crow's battle was not using her fists but with her words.

She needed to find a way to turn this around with her wits alone.

Sadly, Sparrow was trained by Crow herself. Every trick she had on her utility belt was already know to her opponent.

As such, there was no choice but to have an honest discussion.

"Who are you?" asked Crow

"That depends. My many self made aliases aside, the most common names I've been called was Samyaza, Shemhazia, Azza and Ouza. Call me whichever you find easiest to say."

"Samyaza? As in one of the leaders of the Fallen Angels in Ecclesiarchy Myth?"

In response to Crow's words, 3 pairs of wings attached to Sparrow's lower back fade into existence.

The 3 on the left was raven black while the 3 on the right was dove white.

But more importantly, Sparrow had 6 wings!

In Ecclesiarchian lore, these were called Seraphims, angels that were only second to the Holy Trinity himself. They were almost Gods in every sense of the word!

"As expected of you Crow."

"Anyways, I'll call you Sparrow for now. Is that alright with you?"

"Feel free to do so."

"Then Sparrow, why are you doing this?"

"That should be obvious. Every angel is hardwired to care for welfare of humanity and I am no different. Though my betrayal was extremely unsavory even for my tastes, I had to do it to ensure that the events that saved humanity will not be undone."

"What do you mean 'saved'? Why past tense?"

"It is exactly as it sounds. In the recent past, humanity came at a crossroads. One road continues to the present. It's far from perfect but it will lead to humanity expanding beyond the stars. In this future, humanity's extinction is still nowhere to be seen."

"And the other path?"

"Humanity will cease to exist by the year 2500."

That definitely got everyone's attention.

"Is that certain?"

"Absolutely. The Holy Trinity himself failed nearly 7.9 billion times to avoid that particular outcome."

Silence filled the air as an absurd number was thrown around.

Failing to save humanity 7.9 billion times would break a lesser man.

But then again, this is the Holy Trinity they were talking about. The God himself.

"Hold on.... 7.9 billion? Isn't that the current world population?" asked Crow.

"I know I'm repeating myself, but as expected of you Crow. It is exactly as you say. The means to ensure this timeline's continuous survival is to send someone back in time to prevent humanity from taking the path to destruction."

"I see... But why only one?"

"You of all people should know how time travel works. You've been through that crap before after all."

"You mean reality trying to destroy those that doesn't belong in that timeline?"

"Correct. We could circumvent this by reincarnating said person to a body of a child and making him live a completely new life. Naturally, it takes massive amounts of mana to keep the soul intact and sending it back in time. And since stronger beings require significantly more mana, we had no choice but to rely those closest to the bottom of the power pyramind. We rather not repeat that disgusting ritual if we can help it."

"Disgusting ritual?"

"I'm sure someone as wise as you can deduce how we'll be doing the ritual."

Crow stood silently for a few seconds before making an extremely grim face.

"Human sacrifice.... The Third World War."

If the others could move, this statement would get quite a bit of negative reactions.

"Correct. We will be using the souls of at least 1 billion people that will perish in the nuclear war to ensure humanity's salvation."

Naturally, all of the superheroes did take this well.

"Is there no other way?" asked Crow who hid her anger quite well.

"I once believed those words when I personally sent you back Crow." replied Sparrow who didnt bother hiding her annoyance. "You were the one I recommended to the Holy Trinity. You were suppose to be the greatest mind of this age, yet your naivety led to a bad end. In your run, you achieved world peace, but you still doomed humanity to extinction! Now that I think about it, all of you were horrible at your runs! And that's when we even told you exactly what needs to be done! You guys suck!"

"You know you're blaming us without explaining anything you know?"

"Ah. I apologize. I let my feelings get to me. *phew*. If it's you guys, then you know why magic is inherently dangerous right?"

"It is an unseen substance that is extremely volatile to strong emotions and subconscious thought. In great quantities, it has a negative effect on reality."

"Text book explanation, but absolutely right. But here's the thing about Earth. It is one of the most mana starved area in existence. While there were times it was flooded with the stuff, it always led to death and destruction. The Olympians was such an example."

"You mean Zues and the Titans?"

"Correct. That area of excessive mana use messed up the world back then. But at the very least, they didn't attract the Outsiders back then."

"And these Outsiders are?"

"The Avatar of Nyarlathotep. That should be more than enough for you to understand the gravity of your situation."

That it did.

Luvia and a few of the others belonged to long lived race. Some of them personally fought the avatar of Nyarlathotep and was eventually able to seal him.

Not kill, but seal.

That monster was literally immortal.

All they could do was weaken it long enough to be sealed and they had to sacrifice a good portion of Atlantis' warriors to do the deed.

It did not feel like a victory at all.

This incident was the main reason why the Hero Alliance was formed in the first place.

"I see. If the enemy is on that level, then I understand the drastic measures."

"I would like to clarify that it is 'Enemies'. Plural."

"Wait... Are you saying that the person you sent back in time fought off monstrosities like Nyarlathotep? I find that hard to believe."

"Of course its hard to believe, because it never happened. The guy went to the one extreme nearly everyone we sent seem to steer clear of. And yes, that includes the evil doers as well."

"Wait, you sent villains as well?!"

"Obviously. We were desperate. And just so you know, they did a better job than you. They still failed though."

"They only know greed and destruction. How the hell does that battle against immortal monsters?"

"That's exactly why they did better. The rampant existence of the occult led to the reckless use of magic. The best ways to deal with such miscreants is either to kill them all or drive them to extreme poverty. Save the world by any means necessary."

"And is that how the savior succeeded? Through exploitation and brutality?"

"Kind off. Unlike the rest of you failures, he was one of many that we experimented on. What if we told them absolutely nothing about the dangers and what needs to be done? And much to our surprise, this person did 2 things that ensured the current present. 1. The End of the Occult Era and 2. The Rise of the Technological Era."

"Ah. Now I get it. I've been wondering why magic isn't the dominant force in the world despite its ability to throw the laws of physics out the window."

"Yes. It's all thanks to the Patriarch. Though he was mostly motivated by greed, bloodlust and the lie that 'he was making the world a better place', he did exactly what was needed to be done. Through his efforts, the science dominated present came to be."

"Then is it safe to assume that the one inside that coffin is the savior AKA the Patriarch himself?"

"Indeed he is. He passed away due to old age but he helped quite a bit of people earn immortality. He has many friends and a couple of obsessive lovers waiting for him. *sigh*... I hope he comes back ASAP. Dealing with those lunatics is not something I relish. Anyways, the Holy Trinity himself guarantee's the Patriarch's resurrection. It might take a bit of time but it's the least we could for him. We owe him that much."

"Hmm.... In that case, I would like to offer the help of the Hero Alliance. This is a threat to the world so-"

Crow suddenly stiffen and began to float in the air.

"Dont take me for a fool Crow. I may not be as good as you in bullshitery but even I know Miss Samantha's Lesson #24: 'The best way to manipulate someone is to establish a friendly relationship and slowly worm into his heart by agreeing to everything he says'."

19 human sized cylinder rose from the floor. One look at it and it was easy to tell how cold it was on the inside.

"You may be the greatest hindrance to the plan but none of you will die today. Your kind still has some use in the new world order that is to come. For now, you will all sleep."

The bug things carefully carried the paralyzed superheroes into the cylinder.

A transparent glass door closed shut before the insides where flooded with extremely cold air.

These were powerful cryostasis pods known as the 'Purgatory' which was purpose built to house people favored by the Holy Trinity from whatever danger that may come.

While the superheroes were surprisingly incompetent when they were needed the most, they did a lot of good to the human race.

And besides, the Patriarch seemed to like them a great deal.

Once the S rankers were safely stored, Sparrow turned to the sarcophagus and gave a stiff salute.

"Thank you for your continued service to humanity my friend. Do hurry back. There are many that are waiting your return and keeping them from rampaging is driving me insane."

Soon, the fallen angel would return to the Ecclesiarchy and prepare the grand ritual that was more than 100 years in the making.