Oddity Specialist: Manifestor

by James Courneya

  “Mh?”

  Neri gets an apprehensive look, as the oddity places its can against the ground. They push up with that arm, reaching their feet, Neri still holding onto their arm. The oddity raises its cane up to sweep at Neri. The girl, moving like a gymnast, unwraps her legs, pulling them back in tightly, forming a V-shape with her body. She twists herself backwards, pushing her weight onto her hands. The cane sweeps past where her body was, as the girl does a vertical handstand on the woman’s arm. One again the oddity twist her cane towards the girl. Neri lets her weight fall forward, pulling her arms in, avoiding the cane. She drops down, slamming the back of her heal into the oddities head, causing it to be knocked downwards. As this happens, Neri watches as the cane slams into the fencing, damaging the metal. Neri lands onto her feet and shuffles over to the just hit fencing. She is holding a loose fighting pose, then with her fingers, she motions for the oddity to come at her. Which it does, bringing its cane down onto the girl. She sways to the side. The cane strikes the fence, blowing it out, causing it to drop over the edge. Neri twists around grabbing the oddities extended arm. She flips the woman over her shoulder, over the edge of the overhang, onto the road below. The oddity falls down, slamming into the fencing sitting in the road. Neri turns around.

  “How is he?”

  She asks Quinn, who is knelt next to the victim.

  “I think he’ll live, but you know more about these things then I do.”

  Neri quickly looks over the man and nods her head.

  “We have a different problem then.”

  “That is?”

  Neri looks down at the standing oddity. Whose head is positioned up, towards where they are standing.

  “Two ways in, two ways out. An ambulance is on the way here, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That means, they have to get up, without worrying about a killer blocking the path.”

  “Then, you’re saying.”

  “If we wait her out, then we have a tie of sorts. If she comes up, we go out the other way. However, that isn’t really still an option. Meaning, we need a plan to get down and distract them.”

  “...Okay. Any recommendations?”

  “Well, there is a third option.”

  Quinn blinks at the girl. A few moments later, they stand back to back.

  “Ready?”

  Neri asks.

  “As I will be.”

  “Great, let’s go.”

  They both run in opposite directions. The oddity’s head follows Neri. Red energy flares out, as it rushes in that direction.

  “Seems I drew the bad lot.”

  Neri twists around on her heel. She sprints back in the other direction. Neri stops at the gap in the fence and hangs over the side, then drops down. Neri then sprints away, with the oddity hot on her trail.

  “This is a bad plan.”

  Lucifer states.

  “It was what we had.”

  “That thing probably doesn’t have stamina.”

  “Well, neither does she.”

  “I don’t see why you couldn’t have dealt with it.”

  “...Yeah, I thought about that. It is possible, I could have tried to distract it to sun up, by myself instead.”

  “You are also, just gambling on the idea that the thing will just go away then.”

  “No. Neri said that it’ll disappear when the sun comes up, so it will.”

  Quinn starts heading to where he needs to go, while thinking over the plan. They had marked out a route for the two to take and even came up with a plan, if the oddity went after Quinn when they first split. That was, to simply for both to run back and have Neri jump down then. “She just needs to run it around, until it’s time to trade off with me at the drop off spot.”

  Quinn wakes in an empty, forestry area. Twenty minutes later, Neri comes into view, with the oddity right behind her. Quinn raises his hand up. Neri runs past, high fiving him.

  “Tag in.”

  The sweaty girl runs over to Lucifer, breathing heavily.

  “So, are you planning to help?”

  “Getting hit would be very bad for me.”

  “Same for me.”

  “Yes, but you can heal a broken bone or two.”

  Quinn has started attempting to dodge the oddities strikes. Though, it’s not long before hits start landing.

  “We won’t be able to deal with this easily.”

  Neri says.

  “Oh, really? You seemed like you really had up till now.”

  Lucifer says.

  “It’s aggressive and has little to no weaknesses.”

  “That’s true. Even just looking at it, one can easily tell that it is a very compactly formed oddity.”

  He glances down at the girl.

  “You know, obvious to those with an eye for that type of thing.”

  “So, Quinn can tell how strong it is?”

  “...Maybe not in so many words. It’s more so, like if he could see the muscle fibers on a persons body. With time, perhaps he could tell. Though, In this case, the amount of muscle is at least somewhat clear.”

  Quinn continues to get beat, hit by blow after blow. Neri begins to concentrate, with her full force.

  “I wouldn’t recommend doing that.”

  “What?”

  “Going into the zone. Now is not the time. You’re lacking information. It doesn’t matter how fast you think, if you don’t have access to the answers.”

  “b-But I have to figure something out. Quinn’s getting his ass kicked!”

  “Thanks!”

  He says, just barely ducking his head under a swing.

  “Why are you sure that it’ll go away in the morning.”

  “Every major post was about it doing something at night. That is intrinsically tied to its persona.”

  “Ah, yes”

  “Did you not pay attention to the plan at all?”

  “Not the first part, no.”

  “Listen closely next time.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Lucifer starts walking off. Quinn completely focused in on not getting killed, keeps attempting to dodge, even when Lucifer picks him up by his jacket. Like a mother cat, he throws the boy back. He then turns around towards him.

  “You, watch-”

  “Look out!”

  The oddity brings its cane down at Lucifer. Without looking, he bends his body to the side.

  “-closely.”

  Lucifer maintains firm eye contact with Quinn. The boy gulps and gives a determined gaze back.

  “Got it.”

  Lucifer begins dodging around the oddities attacks. Neri had distracted it for twenty-five minutes, Quinn had distracted it for five. “Together, we barely managed to get to thirty. Lucifer has been distracting it for five hours already.”

  Neri and Quinn have been recouping, watching the display from a safe distance.

  “The Red Woman moves almost robotically.”

  Neri states.

  “Yeah.”

  “Without going for incredibly risky movements, a person wouldn’t be able to match them. Unless, they themselves also moved like a preprogramed machine.”

  “...Yeah.”

  Quinn is still closely watching every move. The two have been going back and forth for a while, thinking of a strategy to fight an oddity, without a weakness.

  “I think I’ve got something.”

  Neri says.

  “Oh?”

  “If it doesn’t have a weakness, we just need to give it one.”

  “How do we do that?”

  “Fight fire with fire.”

  “...”

  “No question?”

  “I’m way to focused on this, that I probably won’t understand anyway.”

  “Ah.”

  “Besides-”

  Without looking away, Quinn gives a thumbs up.

  “-I’m sure it’ll work.”

  Neri nods her head.

  “I hope so.”

  The
y continue to watch.

  “By the way, it’s super impressive you haven’t blinked yet. Unless, you are timing your blinks with my blinks.”

  Neri states.

  “Uh-huh.”

  At quite some time, the Red Woman stops completely, holding perfectly still. They lower their combative stance, then simply walk away into the woods. Lucifer gives a sly look, watching as she leaves. He then lets his exhaustion show, as he goes back towards the other two.

  “Job done.”

  “That was really impressive.”

  Neri says with her normal expression.

  “I am a million leagues above an oddity like that.”

  “Not right now, you’re not.”

  He gives a low growl. His attention slides over to Quinn.

  “You watched?”

  “Yes.”

  “You learned?”

  “...Maybe.”

  He shrugs at the boy.

  “Close enough.”

  “Okay, now that the problem has been put off for tonight, we have to act quickly to deal with the Red Woman.”

  “Red Woman? What’s that?”

  “Her name. Or maybe, title? Code word. Case listing? We came up with it while you were playing with her.”

  “I could have actually been incredibly, seriously, irreparably, hurt.”

  “But you weren’t.”

  Quinn expresses some sadness with his eyes, as Neri says this. Lucifer glares at the boy, until he stops.

  “Mhh, if I had blood pressure, you would raise it.”

  “But you don’t.”

  “Hmhhh.”

  He rubs his eyes with one hand.

  “I take it, you came up with a plan to counter that thing, while I was out there.”

  “Yep.”

  “And you both are going to say something short sighted like, We’ve got to stop the oddity before tomorrow night, we must make sure no one else gets hurt.”

  He says in Quinn’s voice.

  “You’ve got the gist of it.”

  “There are very few times throughout my existence I have wished to be wrong, you exclusively are responsible for at least half of them.”

  “Rookie numbers, I’m sure we will be able to get up.”

  Neri claps her hands together.

  “Okay, enough banter, time to take care of this case.”

  They head back to the agency and start working. Neri gives Quinn a list of information he needs to gather.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Sleep.”

  “Ah... Actually, yeah, that probably is the best thing for you to do right now.”

  “We’ve on a time limit of twelve hours at the low end and sixteen at the high end. I want at least ten of them to be work.”

  “How many of those hours, could I cover?”

  “...Maybe half of one.”

  “I’ll cover an hour then.”

  She stares at Quinn for a moment.

  “Alright, three hours of sleep is all I’ll take then.”

  “Got it. I’ll get everything done before then.”

  “Thanks.”

  Neri heads down and instantly falls asleep in the rec-room.

  “Alright, let’s get started.”

  Quinn begins researching and looking for the topics on online, from the list Neri gave him. The entire time, he has a frantic air to him, attempting to accomplish double what he normally could. Though, if you where only to look at the mans eyes, you wouldn’t be able to tell. “Of course I would give double, I need to give more than anyone else would want to give. I’m just greedy that way.”

  Exactly four minutes before three hours are up, Quinn starts heading down stairs. As soon as his fingers touch Neri’s shoulder, her eyes dart open.

  “Catch up?”

  “The information is organized on your desk.”

  “Thanks.”

  She heads upstairs. Quinn watches her leave, then walks over to the counters. He starts washing his hands, then begins grabbing some food out to prepare.

  “So, after this, do you plan on heading to sleepy time junction yourself?”

  Lucifer asks the boy.

  “No, I’m good...”

  He hesitates for a moment.

  “Honestly, for a while, I’ve not had to sleep the same amounts as before.”

  “Ho.”

  Quinn brings the girl food. He stands in the doorway for a moment, watching as she is deep in her focus. He sets the food down where it normally goes, knowing that she will notice it, when she needs to. Quinn takes a seat and begins researching a topic of his own. Neri while in her own world, is incredibly focused in on one thing. That is the plan she has set into motion. “If I can change public perception of the oddity, to give it a tangible, exploitable weakness, then we can overcome it.”

  She begins engaging with discussion and making posts, with different alt accounts, that Quinn made. “I just have to use virality, against the viral. I don’t have to make people not fully disbelieve it, just that it has a weakness. And that weakness, will be the sun.”

  Making a series of leading posts, questioning why the Red Woman would leave before daybreak every time, she finishes it with one final direct attack. Saying that this particular alt had seen the Red Woman burn when a piece of daylight hit her. It caused incredible harm to them and that’s why they try to leave before the sun rises.

  “Now, we continue to stoke the flames.”

  She adds other people’s perspectives on the matter, slowly building the validity of the concept.

  “This is going smoothly. If I can just drive enough eyes to this, then we can take it down. We still need a weakness that can keep it in place though.”

  Neri spends these hours, doing everything she can to make sure that the oddity is weakened.

  “Phew, another thread down.”

  She looks over noticing food. Neri then looks around the room, but doesn’t see Quinn. “He must be asleep.”

  She picks up the sandwich slice from the plate. She eats it and washes it down with iced coffee.

  “Thanks.”

  Neri sits back down and gets to work. While she does this, a particular boy is being beaten up outside.

  “Break!”

  “A bone?”

  “Time.”

  “Tsk.”

  Quinn staggers away from the stick wielding Lucifer. He sits down and watches a video on his phone.

  “They make it look so simple.”

  “It is simple, you just have no coordination.”

  “I felt I’ve done pretty well in the past.”

  “While you had adrenaline and survival instincts blasting off. If you want to have a focused, calm method of dodging, then that won’t be of any help. You have to do the action, without over thinking it. Preferably, without thinking at all.”

  “I know that, but it’s just hard for me.”

  “Obviously, have you seen yourself in a mirror? You look like the type of guy who would hurt himself in a fight.”

  “That’s... mean.”

  “Accurate things often are. The truth hurts and that’s why most people live in a lie. Now get up so I can keep hitting you.”

  “This seems like-”

  “I’m having fun getting my frustrations at you out? Yes. That is what this looks like, because that is what it is. Now you either can come to me, or I can come to you.”

  “Fine.”

  They continue like that for some time. It comes close enough to show time, that Quinn has to start healing, if he will ready in time. Once again, he prepares some food and brings it up and once again, he watches the girl as she works away tirelessly. He places the food down, sits in his chair and starts visualizing the confrontation from earlier. “How did they move exactly? It was less like that and more like this... They would cut short there, while extending over here.”

  It comes time to head out.

  “Let’s stake it all on this.”

  The two begin searchi
ng for the Red Woman, once again. Neri strangely has an extra pair of shoes, hanging over her shoulder. This time, with an even clearly idea of where she will appear. Lucifer stops and points out at a railroad yard.

  “Something will be there.”

  “Our target?”

  Quinn asks.

  “Something will be there.”

  “Either way, let’s check it out.”

  They head into the yard. Walking along the side of a train, cane tapping against the wheels, bouncing from one to the next, is the Red Woman. When she comes out into sight, her head directs itself at the group. A red light blasts out, then calms down.

  “Okay.”

  Quinn steps forward, ready.

  “Wait, why can’t Lucifer just do it again?”

  Neri asks, with a questioning expression.

  “...Because, it’s better if I do.”

  Quinn says, without turning back to face her. “...What does he mean? Could it be, that earlier, that was real sadness he was expressing? Does that mean...”

  Neri turns to Lucifer, worried. It comes at Quinn. When she does, Neri begins to grin.