Oddity Specialist: Manifestor

by James Courneya

  “And?”

  “They cared enough to run, but not hide. They would welcome a fight. Their goal isn’t to lay low and escape. Their goal is to advance towards something as fast as possible. Why?”

  Neri’s eyes dart around.

  “Quinn, show me those pictures.”

  “Sure.”

  He hands the girl his phone. She walks around matching up the images with where they were taken.

  “This was a base.”

  “Yeah?”

  “No I mean, a base camp, a point used to get ready to go on the offensive. No place to examine things. They are using it to build something. The central column was obviously a control panel. A floating disk and a control panel.”

  She keeps following the thread her thoughts are giving her.

  “Light, metal, coils, electricity... Lasers?”

  She turns towards Quinn and loudly exclaims.

  “They are building a flying death ray!”

  “...Out of junk?”

  Lucifer asks.

  “Their an oddity, we don’t know what type of reality bending engineering powers they have.”

  “Okay, but a death laser... Seems kind of pointless to me. Unless of course...”

  Lucifer stops.

  “Fear.”

  “English?”

  Quinn asks the two. Neri frantically begins to explain.

  “If an oddity had a weapon, that could strike at any time and cause unknown amounts of damage. Their power would immediately spike. If they build a weapon like this, it would be a matter of time, a very short amount of time, before their power would get out of control. And if they are building it, that means they are based off the invading alien architype. Meaning, they would have no trying to end as much life as possible.”

  “Oh, yeah, I’m starting to see what you mean. Yep, that would be bad.”

  Quinn says in his regular voice, his expression not really changing.

  “Why aren’t you panicking?”

  Neri asks, having calmed down because of the boy’s strange behavior.

  “We just have to stop it right. Actually, knowing this, seems like it makes things simpler. If we destroy the device, then that could trigger the oddity into being stopped. So, we find it again, break the thing and if that doesn’t solve it, we face the oddity directly.”

  “...When you put it that way, you make it sound relatively easy.”

  “I know it would be hard, but-”

  Quinn takes a moment to formulate his thought.

  “Not as hard as what we’ve already done.”

  Neri takes a moment after hearing this, then immediately calms back down to normal.

  “Hehe, that’s a good assessment.”

  “Okay, now that we know what to do, how do we do it?”

  Neri gives a smile.

  “Simple geometry.”

  Neri works on measuring the spacing of the different sighting spots, narrowing down a potential new location. Using the measurements of the space needed, the location is figured out.

  “Right here.”

  Neri taps the map, zooming in on a building out of town.

  “If I had to pick a new place, someone wouldn’t find. It would be a building with nothing around it.”

  “Then we head out their and break the thing?”

  “That’s the plan.”

  “Alright.”

  They head out to the location, arriving at sundown. An old wood cabin, sits in an open field within the forest, near a hill side. Looking over the place for a bit, it appears as if no one is home. They then make their way to the door and head inside. Neri breathes a sigh of relief, at the sci-fi sight.

  “Okay, let’s smash this place up.”

  Neri looks over to Quinn, who looks over to Lucifer.

  “Me?”

  “Can’t you do it?”

  Neri asks.

  “Uhh, I’m not even sure that I’m any even still physically stronger than the boy.”

  “Hmm.”

  “I could be, if a certain someone, would just give me their soul back.”

  Lucifer glares at Quinn.

  “Is this really the right time?”

  “It’s always the right time, for me to get what I want.”

  “Oh well, good thing I brought this.”

  Neri pulls out a sledge hammer.

  “...So that’s what you brought with us.”

  Neri starts to slip on some rubber gloves. Quinn looks down at the bag she also took with them.

  “Anything destructive in their?”

  “Very.”

  “...I don’t like how you answered that.”

  “You would have liked it less, if I gave more detail.”

  “Spooky.”

  Neri holds the hammer, with the handle running across her shoulders. She walks around examining the place, then starts smashing.

  “Quinn, do you want in on this?!”

  “...No, that’s okay. You seem like you’re having fun.”

  “Thanks!”

  She destroys the screen, smashes apart the side paneling, and tears apart the ceiling circuits.

  “What do you think would happen if I broke these floating orbs?”

  “Not sure.”

  “Quinn could punch it?”

  Lucifer says.

  “And if that were to electrocute me.”

  He shrugs.

  “How about you break it.

  “Fine.”

  Lucifer walks over, jumps up and smashes the orb.

  “They’re like glass, but have some components in there.”

  “While you’re helping, could you grab those bars over there and see if they are dangerous?”

  She points over to the purple area, with her sledgehammer.

  “I suppose, if I must.”

  He touches the bars.

  “Doesn’t seem-”

  He gets blown across the room.

  “...dangerous to touch...”

  “That’s fine.”

  She starts pulling things out her bag.

  “What’s that?”

  “A bomb.”

  “Oh...”

  Neri starts humming as she sets it up.

  “Um, I have many questions.”

  “Shoot?”

  “www-whaaa?”

  “Good question. Obviously, bombs made of house hold objects are easy to make, so I figured it might be needed.”

  “And what about these chemicals.”

  “For making nitric acid.”

  “Ah... That melts steal.”

  “Well, slowly and it depends on a few other factors.”

  “Where did you get a gas mask?”

  “Do you not own a gas mask?”

  “No... Should I?”

  “Sure, never can be to cautious.”

  “I feel like, I am finding out that a lot of information you know, is highly dangerous.”

  “Oh, exceedingly.”

  As Neri is setting up the bomb and Quinn is focused on the fact a bomb is being set up, a noise catches their attention. The two turn towards the door, right as it closes once again. Standing there is a light grey, humanoid figure. The appearance it has, is that of an apparition, almost as if it’s not even there. It walks on two firm legs, that stamp around the place, pushing off the ground with robust thumps. They transition up to a thin torso, that thickens out slightly as it stretches upwards. It’s broader shoulders has flexible muscle tendons on the outside, connecting up to its arms and neck. The loosen and tighten up depending upon the action that the extraterrestrial makes. Looking as if they can allow for flued movement, but if need they could lock the limbs in place as to absorb direct blunt force. The forearms have two openings that indent themselves inwards, revealing a layer that resembles a purple shell. Four emancipated fingers stick stoutly out of the top of its hands, each one having a hard-looking orb bloating out of the tips. A longer, sharper digit extends out from the base of the palm, the way they bend gives
them the feel of a flexible weapon. Its oval head bends around, almost unimpeded by the connection to its neck. The three-antenna sticking out its head are moving around each other in sync, with hexagonal eyes sitting at the end of them, gazing out at their surroundings. It’s face has four black holes indented into it, in the shape of a diamond. The coloration subtly shifts to darker tones as you pear deeper in. A cold sweat breaks down Neri’s cheek, as Quinn’s eyes open wide. Two antenna observe the damage already done, a third is trained on Neri. It burst forward with great power, at the girl. Quinn slides into its path, without a second of thought.

  “Mh!”

  The alien awkwardly stops itself earlier then expected. It jumps up extending its hand towards Quinn’s face. Quinn grabs its arm, falling backwards towards the ground.

  “Wait, hang on a second! Can you speak English?!”

  The creates head is over Quinn’s own. The boy feels an uncomfortable sensation, looking into the abyss like features, that resemble a face. They echo out a residual noise. The vibration and frequency makes one’s heart feel as if its just been submerged under water. Neri franticly attempts to complete the bomb.

  “Quinn, keep it there for a minute!”

  The three eyes look at the girl. The alien uses its free arm’s claw to slice Quinn’s fingers.

  “Aw!”

  He lets go of the miscreants arm. It once again leaps forward with great power. This one leap enough to clear the room entirely, meaning the alien is on a collision course with Neri. The girl turns around, with a focused glare, ready.

  Bwok!

  A black thing strikes outwards, striking the creature in its head, sending it flying towards the wall. Standing there, with there leg extended outwards, is Lucifer. He brings his leg back in and straightens his tie.

  “Call me useless, will you?”

  “Hehe, sorry about that.”

  Neri says running past the man. She kneels down to Quinn and helps him up.

  “We gotta go now!”

  “Uh-”

  He is pulled forward by the girl. Lucifer watches them head out of the door, then turns back to the bomb.

  “Ah.”

  The alien gets up shaking its head. An eye looks to Lucifer, who points at the bomb. The three eyes look in that direction. The explosive begins to hiss.

  “Well, that’s my que.”

  Lucifer walks out of sight of the alien, disappearing.

  Booom~!

  Quinn looks back as the building is blow to pieces. He then turns his attention to the girl looking in the opposite direction.

  “Really?”

  “Cool guys don’t look at explosions.”

  “Where you planning to blow the whole place up?”

  “Not at first, but I was kind of under a strict time constraint.”

  She turns around towards the flames.

  “Though, it’s a shame I missed the explosion.”

  “Yeah.”

  Quinn faces the flames as well. Then, he begins to squint. A moment later, his eyes widen.

  “Hm?”

  Brgsh.

  The alien emerges from the flaming debris. Injuries and burns along its body.

  “Ah, not good.”

  Neri says.

  “Doesn’t seem like that worked at all. Well, the making the oddity disappear with destruction thing, I mean.”

  “Wait...”

  Quinn focuses his gaze back in, seeing energy leaking out of the alien.

  “No, that worked, at least somewhat. It’s losing energy as we speak.”

  “Huh, but if that’s the case, why didn’t it fully work?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Because-”

  Lucifer begins to speak, standing behind the two.

  “-The thing keeping it in tact now, is its own anger. Its own desire to destroy those who got in its way.”

  Lucifer rolls his torso and head around, starting his next sentence with a higher pitched voice.

  “Which, would be you two.”

  “I vote we run.”

  Quinn says.

  “It’s faster than you.”

  “It also just got exploded.”

  “Good point.”

  The alien begins walking out of the flames. As it walks across the grass, towards the trio, one of its antenna look over to it’s left side, towards the hill. Then all its antenna look that way. The trio then in unison, all look that direction. Standing there, is a little, thin man. With a big head and two massive pitch-black, oval-diamond shaped eyes. It walks up to the angry alien and holds a small device up towards it. Pressing a button, causes the three eyed alien to glow, with pieces of it disappearing at a rapid pace. In a mere moment, it has disappeared entirely. The grey lowers its device and turns towards the other three. They stare at each other.

  “...”

  “...”

  “...”

  “...”

  After what seems like forever, the grey raises its other hand up. It places its thumb out, then has its index and middle finger together, with the pinky and ring finger together, leaving a gap between the two groups. In other words, it gives a live long and prosper, Vulcan salute. The trio each slowly raise there right hand up, except Quinn who raises his left, returning the gesture. The grey then lowers its hand and slowly walks back to where it was standing. A flying saucer uncloaks itself, as the grey walks up its boarding dock. The dock closes, then the saucer floats up and flies off.

  “...”

  “...”

  “...”

  “What was that about?”

  Neri asks.

  “Um... I got nothing.”

  Lucifer states. The two look at Quinn.

  “Don’t look at me.”

  “Well, problem, solved. I mean, the metal in the debris is gone. So... case closed.”

  Neri says with a confounded expression.

  “...Yeah, case closed.”

  Quinn follows up, with a look of forced contentment. Lucifer’s bewilderment turns to irritation.

  “Okay so actually, I don’t really think that this was settled at all. I really think, we should talk-”

  And so, once again, another mystery has been solved.

  Chapter 5: Red Woman

  Rumors circulate online, crossing from one forum to the next, like a virus of the mind. This traction stems, from a brand-new urban legend. That of a ghostly figure haunting the streets at night. A creepypasta that has gone viral. With the traction circulating around a website dedicated to this horror of the night. Late at night, after looking into this at home, Neri leans back in her chair.

  “Not good.”

  The next morning, her and Quinn meet to discuss the topic.

  “So, you think this is going to cause an oddity to form?”

  “If the rumors didn’t start because of one, I would think that they would already have created a new one anyways.”

  “Alright. You said that the first post you found, was dated October thirty-first. Meaning, it has only been building up for just a bit over a month.”

  “That’s true, but the amount of support it already has behind it, if it is as genuine as it appears to be, then we might already have a problem.”

  “How do we stop it?”

  “That’s the thing, it’s been described as tougher, stronger, faster, then any regular human. Described as a vengeful spirit, a collection of negative energy, a curse by an ancient demon, a bearer of the end times, and a personification of the victims own fears. With the key phrase being, that it cannot not be stopped, once you’ve seen it, then it’s already too late.”

  “Okay, so it might be a big amalgamation oddity, with virtually no weakness.”

  “Yes. Might is the key-word though, people might be more on the fence with some of the sentiments, compared to others.”

  “Then it’s best to deal with it right now, before it can develop further.”

  “My thoughts exactly.”

  “Though, something
is bothering me.”

  “That is?”

  “How dangerous a creepy pasta oddity coming into existence would be, the danger it could pose. Stories made to have an element of realism, that also usually involve untraceable, unstoppable, monsters. I don’t like the idea of it at all.”

  “I see what you mean. Though, I have a relieving thought, or perhaps, a much scarier one, depending on how you look at it.”

  “Oh?”

  “Most major scary thoughts, creepypastas, SCPs, and urban legends must have already had oddity counter parts, at one point or another. Which means that an Oddity Specialist then encountered them. In fact, it’s fully possible every primal scary story, had an oddity Specialist face off against it.”

  “That is... both scary and reassuring.”

  That night, they try hunting down the oddity, by going to various locations tied to it and having Lucifer attempt detecting energy levels. Both are dressed more for the winter. Though, Quinn is normally dressed this way. Neri has on her purple pullover hoodie, grey beanie, black leggings, and boots. Quinn takes notice of how much more hair is visible coming out of her hat, from last time.

  “...So, now that you’ve had time to think about it, how are you feeling about the thought that a bunch of fictional characters probably have gotten duplicates?”

  Neri asks, balancing on a guardrail, as the two walk.

  “What I feel? I don’t know, seems like a bit too much of a concept, for me to actually take in.”

  “I see.”

  “Though, I would like to think, that even though evil has been brought into the world, that good has also had the same opportunity to come in as well.”

  “For every Darth Vader, there is a Superman.”

  “Sure.”

  Neri takes a moment and steps off the railing.

  “I would bet, there have also been a few people like Spiderman, who have formed because of oddities, as well.”

  Quinn gives the girl a questioning look. “She’s trying to say something, but I think I might be too dumb to understand.”

  “...Where do you think you fall, on this type of list?”

  “Nowhere, I’m just me.”

  “Hm.”

  As the two walk down the street, an overhang catches their attention. A flickering light, illuminates two figures, then only one. They both quickly make their way up the stairs and stare down the gated tunnel path. A blood covered man lies on the ground, scarcely leaning against the lower stone wall. Standing above him, is a woman. She is wearing a red dress, the top has a clear, black mess, rose floral pattern. A black choker rests on her neck. There are no shoes on her feet, but her ankles each have a red ribbon tied into a bow around them. Her figure is emancipated, emphasized by her thin arms and long fingers, with a texture similar to leather, that has bound the skin so tightly, to be melded with it. Within her left hand, is a steal walking stick, dripping blood. Its handle is formed to look like an Indian saw-scaled viper, the tail of which wraps down the top of the cane. Her lilac colored hair is in a short, frizzed, bob cut. You wouldn’t be able to make a out a face on her, because she does not have one. However, her cheek has been splashed with the blood of her victim. That though, is not the most stand out thing on her face. When she turns her head to face her new visitors, a harsh red energy out right where her left eye socket would be. It flares up, then calms back down. When it does, she starts to turn back to the man. Neri is already taking action. She runs over to stop the oddity. Jumping up, she delivers a spin kick to the real phantasm. The woman simply raises her arm up, stopping the kick on her wrist. Spinning her cane, she jabs at Neri, who ducks down, having it brush by her forehead. As she falls onto the ground, she spins her legs out, sweeping the bare foot woman. As she topples over, Neri leaps over top their side, grappling them. She places the oddity into an arm bar. Quinn watches this unfold, as he pulls out his phone, calling for help.