A tense silence had fallen over the ruined building. The fire crackled, the only sane thing in a several-mile radius. Four post-human survivors, veterans of an 80-year-long science experiment designed by cosmic-level sadists, stared at their comatose god-tier comrade who had just groaned like a teenager who'd slept through his alarm.
Wolfen Welfric sat up, wincing with a theatricality that was entirely out of character. He prodded the nasty-looking gash on his side, his fingers coming away smeared with blood that seemed a little too... iridescent.
"Well," he said, his voice a dry, bored rasp. "This is new."
For a moment, no one moved. Then, the dam broke.
"Are you okay?" Derek blurted out, taking a hesitant step forward, his mercury-sheened eyes wide with concern. "That looks... bad. We should... I don't know, find some antibiotics? Do antibiotics work on... whatever your biology is?"
Leo, still cradling his sparking arms, snorted. "Oh, great. Nurse Derek is on the scene. I'm sure a band-aid and a juice box will fix the guy who fights with miniature stars."
"His cellular regeneration rate is likely orders of magnitude beyond any known antibiotic's efficacy," Jordan stated, not looking up from his katana, which he was now using to meticulously clean under his fingernails. "The optimal course of action is observation. If he dies, we loot the body for useful components. If he lives, we have regained a significant tactical asset."
Wolfen blinked slowly, looking from Derek's worried face to Jordan's pragmatic profile. "Charming."
"It's not about being charming, it's about survival," Leo shot back, glaring at his own malfunctioning fists. "While you were taking a nap, we were having a serious discussion. About not separating. About being a team."
"Ah," Wolfen said, the single syllable dripping with enough sarcasm to curdle milk. "The 'power of friendship' strategy. A classic. How's that working out for you?" He gestured vaguely around the destroyed city block. "I see you've befriended a significant amount of rubble."
Derek flinched. "We're trying to figure things out! It's complicated!"
"What's complicated?" Wolfen asked, his tone lethally mild. "You have a friend who has developed a god complex centered on the aesthetic appeal of absolute silence. She tried to turn you into a lightly-salted snack. The solution seems fairly straightforward."
"We can't just give up on her!" Derek insisted, his voice cracking. "She's sick! She's hearing things!"
Wolfen stared at him for a long, uncomfortable moment. "Derek. My man. The 'voices in her head' are not telling her to rearrange her furniture. They are instructing her on how to deconstruct the very fabric of spacetime. This is beyond a few kind words and a group hug."
"She called me 'unresolved anger'!" Leo interjected, as if this was a winning argument.
"And?" Wolfen raised an eyebrow. "She's not wrong. You communicate primarily through percussive maintenance on inanimate objects. You have the emotional range of a sledgehammer. The fact that a cosmic entity of entropy identified you as a grumpy meathead is, frankly, a stunningly accurate diagnosis."
Leo's jaw dropped. His fists sparked violently. "You—!"
"And you," Wolfen's gaze swung to Jordan, who was now using the Umbralite blade to toast a piece of unidentified fungus over the fire. "The walking spreadsheet. You'd sacrifice your own grandmother if the numbers told you it would increase your afternoon walking speed by 1.2%. You're not a person; you're a particularly grim accounting software that learned how to hold a sword."
Jordan paused his fungal toasting. "The analogy is flawed, but the underlying logic of optimal resource allocation is sound."
Wolfen pinched the bridge of his nose, a profoundly human gesture that looked absurd on him. "You are all idiots. You have been gifted, or cursed, with powers that could reshape continents, and you're sitting around a campfire having a support group session for the emotionally stunted."
Eva, who had been quietly observing, finally spoke. "And what is your brilliant solution, oh wise one? Kill her?"
Wolfen looked at her, and for the first time, his expression lost some of its mocking edge. "You. The 'Prime'. The unchangeable constant. You sat here and listened to them whine about their feelings while a walking reality-cancellation field was taking a nap a few blocks away. You have the power to potentially counter her, and you're playing camp counselor to these three disasters."
Eva didn't flinch. "They are my friends. And we are stronger together."
"Stronger together?" Wolfen let out a short, sharp laugh that held no humor. "You are a collection of incompatible operating systems trying to run the same program. You're the blue screen of death with a pulse."
He struggled to his feet, ignoring the pain in his side. He looked at the four of them, a pitiful council of war in a world gone mad.
"Let me summarize your 'plan'," he said, his voice scathing. "Step one: Find the all-powerful entity that wants to unmake existence because it finds your breathing annoying. Step two: Talk to it. Use words like 'friendship' and 'hope'. Step three: When it inevitably tries to delete you from the cosmic register, look sad and confused. Step four: Repeat." He shook his head. "It's not a plan. It's a suicide pact with extra steps and poor dialogue."
The group was utterly silenced. Derek looked crushed. Leo looked murderous. Jordan looked like he was mentally calculating the probability of Wolfen's plan succeeding versus their own (and not liking the result).
Wolfen took a limping step towards the entrance, looking out at the night. The silence stretched, thick and heavy.
Then, he sighed. A long, weary, world-ending sigh.
"The truly pathetic thing," he said, not turning around, "is that you're the only game in town."
They all stared at his back.
"What?" Derek asked, confused.
"Look around," Wolfen said, gesturing to the alien-choked ruins. "The Architects are gone. The world is a mess. Your friend is a budding nihilist deity. And the only other semi-interesting thing in this entire blighted dimension is currently trying to turn the planet into a featureless, silent marble." He finally turned to face them, his golden eyes glowing in the dark. "You are, without a doubt, the most dysfunctional, incompetent, and psychologically damaged group of individuals I have ever had the profound misfortune to encounter."
He paused, letting that sink in.
"And," he added, a smirk finally touching his lips, "it's the most fun I've had in centuries."
He limped back towards the fire and lowered himself back to the ground with a grunt, leaning against a chunk of rubble.
"So, here's the deal," Wolfen announced, as if he was a CEO taking over a bankrupt company. "Your plan is stupid. Your teamwork is a joke. Your chances of survival are laughably small." He looked at each of them in turn. "I'm in."
Derek blinked. "You... you are?"
"Obviously. Someone has to be the adult here. Someone has to make the hard decisions. Like deciding not to try and reason with a force of nature." He pointed a finger at Leo. "You. Grumpy. Stop punching things and start thinking." He pointed at Jordan. "You. Calculator. Your job is to run numbers, not make moral judgments." He pointed at Derek. "You. The Heart. Your job is to make sure we don't accidentally glass a kindergarten. Keep that nonsense contained to this group." Finally, he looked at Eva. "And you. The Constant. You're the failsafe. If all this goes to hell, you're the backup plan."
He leaned his head back against the rubble, closing his eyes.
"The new plan is simple. We find Sleeping Beauty. We contain her. And then we figure out what to do with a universe that apparently enjoys creating problems like her... and us."
A slow grin spread across Leo's face. "So... we're keeping you?"
Wolfen didn't open his eyes. "Think of me as your heavily-armed, deeply sarcastic, and incredibly handsome conscience. Now, someone go on watch. I need to nap. Nearly getting unmade by my own power is surprisingly tiring."
And just like that, the god of fire and obsidian joined the world's most dysfunctional superhero team. Not out of friendship, or loyalty, or hope. But because the alternative was boredom. And for an immortal, boredom was the only true hell.