A/N: Hey! Thanks to everyone for all the great reviews. Once again, I have proven that if you complain loudly enough, people will give in and review. lol. Thank you. Alright, now to answer a few questions that keep coming up.
Will the X-Men ever show up again in this fic?
Yes.
Will you tell if Scott is guilty or not?
Yes.
Do we really need to know all that information about Memphis like street names and the city's layout?
Probably not, but some of it may come up again. I wanted to lay that foundation just in case I decided to use it later on. And even if it turns out to not be important, it was important to the last chapter. Learning the city was Scott's goal in the last chapter. It only makes sense that the story describe in detail what Scott is trying to memorize.
What does Oculus mean?
Oculus is a real word. I'll let you look it up on your own though. The word's definition isn't really all that important. Basically, I had to come up with a name for him to use since he couldn't really go by Cyclops anymore without the X-Men finding him easily. Also, oculus has a very greek/roman sound to it. That appealed to me since cyclops has such a greek background.
Will you ever describe exactly how Duncan died?
I'm not quite sure how to incorporate such a description yet, but yes. Although you already know the basics.
This is a question that hasn't come up, but I feel needs to be answered anyway. As you may have noticed in the last chapter, I'm now using some new breaks in the story. Where I used to use a line of five asterisks, you will now find a line of ten equals marks. The reason for this is simple. This website stopped recognizing my asterisks. As a result, my breaks weren't showing up on the site. So I had to change to a new system. During the change, I discovered the QuickEdit feature, which is where I found this nifty line to break my notes from my story. Hope that clears that up!
So there we go. This has been Q&A time with stAte. Enjoy the new chapter, and don't forget to review! There's still some of you who aren't doing it. You think I don't know who you are...but I do. Don't make me name names!
"Good evening, and welcome to Action New 10. I'm Diana Tribalo.
"Our top story tonight is Memphis' new mysterious masked man. For a week now, stories of a crime fighter named Oculus have been circulating throughout the city. So far, Oculus is credited with stopping three muggings and a jewelry store robbery. But despite these apparent signs of goodwill, the supposed hero has received varied reactions among the citizens of Memphis, such as this angry statement from Police Commissioner Ron Driscoll earlier this morning."
"What this man is doing is against the law and the Shelby County Police Department will not tolerate it! I promise that action is being taken right now to bring this Oculus nut to justice."
"But many citizens disagree with Driscoll's stance, claiming that Oculus is protecting them in ways that the police haven't in years. It seems only time will tell if Oculus' presence will be a blessing or a curse.
"Turning to weather now…"
Nate Reynolds turned down the volume on the TV as he turned to face Scott. The two had become friends over the last month, though one couldn't say they were really all that close. Tonight, Scott was having dinner at Nate's place. One of Nate's less fortunate patients had "paid" for his medical treatment with a family size ham, which was admittedly probably stolen. It had been too much for Nate to eat alone, so he had invited Scott over to join him. Scott had accepted reluctantly.
"So what do you think of this Oculus guy?" asked Nate between bites.
Scott looked up from his plate slightly. "Seems like a good guy to me. He's helping people, isn't he?"
"Yeah, he's helping people alright," said Nate sarcastically. "Y'know that jewelry store they just mentioned?"
"Yeah." Scott's curiosity was certainly peeked now.
"Well one of those robbers escaped somehow."
Scott's eyes darted up. He thought back and tried to revisit that night. He had been following a suspicious looking guy in a trench coat when he noticed four men in dark clothes gathered outside the window of a small downtown jewelry store. Oculus had slipped into a dark corner and watched until the guys threw a brick through the window and jumped in right behind it. Immediately, an alarm had gone off and Oculus dove through the window after them. It hadn't taken long to take the men down. He had given them enough of a beating that they would be sure to remember it the next time they passed a jeweler. But how had he missed one guy? Suddenly he remembered that one of the men had been tossed through a wooden door that led to the back room of the store. Oculus must have forgotten to grab him and tie him up with the others before he left.
"So this guy shows up at my clinic the next morning," continued Nate. "He's beat up real bad, two black eyes, a broken rib, a light crack in his pelvis, and a headache to end all headaches. I asked him what happened and he told me he fell down some concrete steps. I could tell he was lying, but I didn't push it. Sometimes you don't want to know more information than you're supposed to around guys like that. Then I saw the other three guys on the news later that afternoon and realized that they looked just like the guy I treated that morning. I'm telling you, I don't mind someone cleaning up this city's scum, but he's gonna kill someone if he isn't careful."
Scott nodded silently as if he agreed completely. He conceded inwardly that Nate might have had a point. Maybe he shouldn't be so harsh in the future.
==========
"I want Oculus in custody now!" yelled Ron Driscoll at the men in his office. He had called a meeting with the seven lieutenants in charge of the main downtown area. Every man in the room was a seasoned veteran on the Memphis force.
"That's gonna be tough, Commish. None of our boys have even seen the guy!" said Lt. Jim Flass of the 3rd district. "He's like a ghost. He catches guys, beats 'em to a pulp, ties 'em up, then calls 911 to tell us where we can pick 'em up."
"Where does he call from?" asked Driscoll.
"Wherever he left the perps at."
"So talk to the 911 operators if they're the ones talking to him. Find out what they know about him."
"Will do," said Flass.
"I'm serious guys. This guy is making us look bad. Every time he catches a criminal, it makes us look like we can't catch anyone! This has to stop. I want twice as many squads on the streets at all times. Give your boys permission to shoot Oculus on sight. I don't care if they kill him. A scandal like that is still preferable to being put to shame by some rookie in tights!"
Driscoll turned around and looked out his office window at the skyscrapers of Memphis.
"Where does this guy think he is, New York City?"
==========
Scott returned to his own apartment not long after dinner was finished. He hadn't really wanted to eat with Nate tonight, but had accepted the invitation to keep the man from getting suspicious. It wasn't that Scott didn't like Nate. He actually thought he was a great guy. But Scott wasn't used to having people be friendly to him. Everyone he had been in consistent contact with for the last eight years had been someone who spent their time constantly looking over their shoulders. They hadn't been warm, kind men like Nate. As a result, Scott simply wasn't sure how to react, or interact, with his new friend. He really didn't know if he even wanted to be friendly with Nate. For obvious reasons, Scott valued privacy. Allowing Nate into his world, even slightly, jeopardized that privacy as well as Scott's other identity.
These thoughts went through Scott's mind as he suited up for another night on the town. But as soon as his costume was on, Scott Fletcher and all his worries became distant. In these clothes, he was only Oculus.
==========
Five hours on the rooftops of Memphis and so far Oculus hadn't seen anything remotely interesting. No muggings, no robberies, no fires, no murders, nothing. The night had been positively mundane.
Desperate for something to do, Oculus made his way towards the Courthouse. He was ready to start investigating the Sonance Slayings and figured he'd start by checking out the scene of the murder that happened on the Courthouse steps. He arrived on the roof of a tall building across the street from his target location. This building was thought by police to be the one used by Sonance, or someone working for Sonance, to hide in when he shot Nelson Wright.
Wright had been the assistant to Robert Wicks, the head District Attorney in Memphis. Wicks had mentioned in an interview just days before the murder that he couldn't wait to try Sonance for all the killings that were taking place. The murder was thought to be Sonance's response. Later in the afternoon following Wright's death, a letter was delivered to Wicks. It had included a copy of the interview, printed in the Memphis Tribune. The letter simply read, "Wright was a warning. Be afraid." It was signed, "Sonance." The letter and envelope were immediately sent to the police labs where they were fingerprinted and checked for DNA. Unfortunately, it was clean in both regards.
Despite the warning, Wicks refused to step down. He had appeared in public often since then to decry Sonance's actions as those of a cowardly man with too much time and money on his hands. So far, Sonance hadn't responded.
Oculus stepped to the edge of the building he was standing on and quickly dove off. He let himself fall three stories before he pulled out a self-propelling grappling hook and fired it into the side of the courthouse. The hook clenched onto the wall and Oculus glided smoothly to the top of the steps beside the front door of the Courthouse.
Suddenly, he heard a woman's scream from down the street. Oculus took off running towards the sound immediately without hesitation. He ran for two blocks before he found the source of the scream. There was a young prostitute, probably only 15 years old, around a corner from Oculus. Her pimp was standing directly in front of her and had her wrists grasped in his hand.
"You pay me my money or else ya know what'll happen!" yelled the pimp right into the girl's face.
"I told ya, Billy, that's all I made tonight. I'm sorry. I'll try to do better tomorrow." There was fear in her voice as she cowered before the 20-something man.
"Damn it, Vicki! How many times you gonna make that promise?" The pimp pulled a long knife out of his pocket and flipped it open in front of the girl's eyes threateningly. "If ya can't make more 'n a hundred bucks a night, then ya ain't worth nothin' to me."
The girl cringed beneath the pimp's cold stare. He placed the side of the blade against her cheek. Just before he began to cut her though, a black hand shot out of the shadows and grabbed his neck. The pimp's eyes followed the arm into the shadows as his body began to lift into the air. The arm seemed to belong to the shadows themselves, though he could make out a thin line of crimson that seemed to hover in the darkness.
"Don't touch her," said Oculus menacingly.
"Who…who are you?" stammered the pimp nervously.
Oculus finally stepped out of the shadow so he could be seen more clearly.
"I'm the man who's going to single-handedly put an end to your way of life around here."
Oculus' other hand shot out and punched the pimp's face. He then slammed the man down to the sidewalk and delivered a kick to his chest. The girl screamed again at the violent display.
As the man lay on the ground with blood trickling from his nose, Oculus leaned down and opened his jacket up. He found a wad of money in the inner pocket and pulled it out.
"Here," he said, handing the money to the young girl. "Clean yourself up and stay away from scum like him. You can do better, Vicki."
The girl smiled a little at Oculus as she took the money.
"Now get out of here."
She nodded and ran down the street into the city. Oculus turned his attention back to the pimp who was groaning on the sidewalk. He could hear a siren coming towards him. They had probably heard the girl's scream. Oculus bent down to pick the pimp up so he could tie him to the closest streetlight.
As he did so, the pimp made a swift move for the knife lying on the ground. He grabbed it and stabbed it deep into the back of Oculus' left thigh with a grunt.
"Take my life, will ya?! Well take that!" he yelled triumphantly.
Oculus bit his lip in pain and reached for the wound. With his good leg, he kicked the pimp in the chin, knocking him into the air before he landed unconscious on the street about 3 feet away. Oculus groaned and pulled the knife out of his leg slowly. He looked down to survey the damage. He was cut pretty bad and losing a lot of blood. Just then, the police car turned the corner and slammed on the brakes. Two cops spilled out with their guns pointed at Oculus.
"Freeze!" yelled the driver.
Oculus turned and fired his grappling hook up at a balcony on the building across the street. As he pushed the button to reel him up to the balcony, the cops opened fire. Oculus was hit twice, once in the lower abdomen and again in his right shoulder. Before he could be shot again though, his body was hurled into the air by the grappling hook's reeling mechanism and he landed on the balcony in a matter of seconds. He then made his way from the balcony to the roof, again, by means of the grappling hook.
Once he was on the roof, Oculus leaned against a large air conditioning unit located there. There was blood spilling down his leg and arm. He slowly made his way across the rooftops of Memphis as he tried to get home. He was losing too much blood and he knew it. But he had to get home. A sense of urgency rushed on him as his energy faded.
"I will not bleed to death on these roofs!" he swore to himself as he leapt from rooftop to rooftop with help from the grapple. Finally he could see his apartment building. Oculus shot the grapple into the wall next to his window and pulled himself to the familiar ledge. He crawled back through the window to his apartment and locked it behind him. As he walked through the room, he left a trail of blood behind him. He looked at himself in the mirror on the wall. His skin was already pale. He needed help, fast.
==========
The pounding on his door woke Nate up with a start. It took a moment for him to collect himself and realize his surroundings. He looked at his alarm clock.
"4:30 am?" he grumbled to himself.
The pounding came again and he rolled out of bed. He stumbled through the dark apartment and looked through the peephole in his door. He could tell there was someone standing there, but they were wearing all black and he couldn't see who it was. He unlocked and opened the door anyway.
"Just who do you think you are?" he demanded angrily.
Oculus partly staggered and partly fell through the doorway as soon as the door opened. Nate reached out quickly and caught him in his arms, then helped him stand nearly straight.
"Nate, I need help," he said in a weak voice.
"Scott? What's going on?" Nate shut the door and helped Scott limp into the living room as he switched on a light. Once the room was illuminated, he realized that Scott was bleeding badly.
"I need you to fix me up," said Scott. "I'm in some serious trouble."
Nate quickly helped Scott to the floor. "What's with the get-up?" he asked.
Suddenly, a look of shock registered on Nate's face and Scott knew he had finally realized what was going on. Scott just nodded at him as he lay down.
"I've got two bullet wounds, here and here," he said as he pointed towards the bloody holes in his body. "They stabbed me too."
Nate squatted on his knees over Scott as he surveyed the wounds. The rush of adrenaline was slowly pulling him out of his droggy state. Finally, he stood up.
"Take the shirt off. I'll be right back." With that, Nate disappeared into his bedroom.
Scott morbidly chuckled to himself softly for a second. He was wearing a bodysuit, not a shirt, and it ran from his neck to his ankles! He grabbed the material below his neck and began ripping it down the middle to reveal his chest. Soon, Nate returned with a pair of medical tweezers, a scalpel, and a rolled up sock.
"Let's get those bullets out," he said as he dropped to his knees over Scott's body.
"Thought you could heal me with your powers?" said Scott.
"I can, but we can't leave those bullets in there. You'd die of infection."
Scott grunted a response and laid back flat on the floor. Nate put the sock into Scott's mouth and positioned the tweezers right above the wound in Scott's shoulder.
"Get ready. This is gonna hurt."
He plunged the tweezers into the hole and began moving them around, searching for the small metal slug. Scott's cries were muffled by the thick sock, but it was obvious he was in real pain. Finally, Nate pulled the tweezers out of the hole and dropped the blood-covered bullet to the ground.
"That's one," he said to himself as he began giving the same treatment to the wound in Scott's stomach.
Once again, Scott's screams of pain would have been echoing through the building if not for the sock placed firmly in his mouth. It was taking Nate longer to find the second bullet than it had the first.
Nate sighed softly as he grabbed the scalpel. "I'm sorry, Scott. It's about to get a lot worse."
Before the words had really registered in Scott's mind, the scalpel was cutting across his abdomen to make the hole larger. Nate made two cuts in opposite directions, both starting from the bullet hole. Then he plunged the tweezers in again and began circling them around inside of Scott. Just as Scott was about to pass out from the pain, Nate pulled the tweezers out and the second bullet fell to the blood-soaked carpet.
"Now," said Nate as he placed one hand on Scott's chest, "the hard part's over."
Slowly, the pain began to subside around Scott's body. He couldn't see it, but the three wounds were closing up all on their own. Within 45 seconds, all three holes were completely gone without so much as a scar left in their place. Nate helped Scott sit up once it was done.
"Get yourself into a little trouble out there?" he asked with a smile as he removed the gag from Scott's mouth.
Scott nodded and regained his breath. "You could say that."
Nate stood up and motioned for Scott to stay where he was.
"I'll be right back."
The man disappeared into his bathroom, then returned with a bottle of prescription painkillers and a glass of water in his hands. He handed them to Scott.
"Take two of these now, then another two as soon as you wake up tomorrow. Trust me, you'll need 'em."
Scott did as he was told while Nate sat down on the floor a few feet away.
"Thanks," said Scott after a moment of silence.
"No problem," said Nate. "So then, you're Oculus, huh?"
Scott smirked before taking a sip of water. "Guess I am."
"Wow. You sure know how to keep a secret!"
"My whole life's been a secret," said Scott cryptically. He wasn't looking at Nate, but was rather staring blankly at the wall.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
Scott sighed and shook his head. "Sorry. I almost died tonight. I'm still a little shaken. Forget it."
"No, don't worry about it," said Nate with a raised hand. "I shouldn't have pried."
"Sorry about your carpet, too," said Scott, looking around at the blood-soaked floor.
Nate smiled. "It's just carpet. I'll put a rug over it."
The two sat in silence for a moment as thoughts ran through each of their heads at lightning speed.
"You know," said Scott finally, "you can never tell anyone about this."
Nate laughed. "Of course! Man, it'd be quite a story though!"
"I'm serious," said Scott with a stern face. "No one. Ever."
Nate's laughter died down. "I understand. I won't tell a soul." He could tell Scott was taking this very seriously and didn't appreciate his laughter. "Answer me one question though."
"Okay."
"Why do this? Why risk your life out there?"
Scott turned his head to look out the window. It was a few minutes before he opened his mouth again to answer.
"I disappointed a lot of people in my past. I owe it to them, and myself, to live this life."
"So you're trying to make up for past sins?"
"Yeah," said Scott stoically. "You could say that."