Uno and Fog: Even the Greatest Among Us

The Fog left the old man and headed out and toward the church where SHE was supposedly located.  Holed up may have been a better way to describe it, but he didn’t think SHE was hiding so much as waiting for something.  He considered what it could be as he went forward.

At the edge of the gravel road he came up Luminary, The Comet and Powerstriker.  Uno wasn’t with them which surprised him slightly.  As much as Uno wouldn’t ever admit it, there was part of him that wanted to be part of the Cadre.  To be seen as one of the world’s greatest.

There was divide between those endowed with special gifts and the rest of the humanity.  They made it abundantly clear in little ways.   In a strange bit of irony, their arrogance and greatness made them easier to deceive.  There were those behind the scenes that manipulated events, manipulated humanity for their own gains.  Ones that saw most people as sheep, herd animals to be manipulated, used and harvested as they saw fit and the empowered as fools and tools for their own ends.

They had a lot in common with SHE.

Even Monarch, as ruthless as he was had nobler intentions then them, but even he was their tool.  They gave themselves silly names in public, and float half true conspiracy theories out there that had enough outlandish details that no one took any of it seriously, even the true parts, and anyone who did was a conspiracy nut.

He was alright with that.  He had forsaken everything simply so that he could pierce the fog surrounding the truth.  To reveal the ones that hid in the shadows.  The real enemy.  Nothing else really mattered.  Like a lot of highly intelligent people he had a hard time communicating with others.  What seemed obvious to him, was shrouded to all but a very few.

He was also very aware that highly intelligent people tended to have three very big weaknesses: they either tend to assume people can see what they do, or in the alternative that most people are idiots; think they don’t have any blind spots (everyone does); and to over think and complicate things.

The last being the mental equivalent of doing spinning aerial kicks when making a fist and punching something in the face was more practical, efficient and successful in a fight.

All three members of the Cadre had that empty enthralled look on their faces.  He didn’t like any of them and the fact that Uno wasn’t with them meant a couple things: either he hadn’t come here, which he doubted, or he had gone directly to SHE, whether on some instinct or She had drawn him to her he couldn’t be sure.  He felt certain that when he got to the church, he would find Uno there.

Luminary didn’t glow in this state.  Whatever Luminary did to generate his nearly invulnerable force field, it was a conscious process.  Which was a vulnerability.  Part of him wanted to test how easy it would be to hurt Luminary in this state.  Actual data was more useful than speculation.

He considered it for a moment.  The information could be valuable, but even so, he gave them all a wide berth.

On a conscious level he knew that other that the old man, his daughter and SHE no one could actively look for him when they were enthralled.  Still he made his way carefully toward the main street of the town.  His instincts refused to let him just saunter up there, plus despite New Age Mage’s claims that he was hidden from at least magical surveillance.

He didn’t particularly trust magic, and he wasn’t sure he trusted the New Age Mage.  The man had admittedly brought an old god over to the world and procreated with her, so is judgment was questionable at best.  He didn’t have a lot to go with though.  Cadre was incapacitated at the moment, and he had a deep suspicion that  military intervention would end badly for the military, short of a nuclear strike.

Assuming that wouldn’t just turn her into a radioactive god of wrath.

So he was going to go with the old hippie’s plan.  He had hoped that Cadre’s plan of punching her into the next dimension was going to work, but figured it wouldn’t.

When he got to the church, he checked the thermals and saw two figures in there.  One was Uno and he was absolutely still which meant he was under her power.  The other was her and she was standing near the altar area of the church and was almost as still as the people of the town.  Occasionally, he could see her left her head up or make gestures with her arms, but he wasn’t sure exactly what SHE was doing.

He thought about calling to Uno over their ear mikes, but decided against it.  He wasn’t sure if she would hear that.

Instead, he carefully began planting explosives around the church, being careful to stay clear of the windows, stained glass or not, it was a risk.  Then he waited.

If he had to, he would blow the entire church with Uno in it, but he wasn’t go to do that until he felt he had no choice.

He waited