Spoilers: up to "Day of Reckoning"; up to but not including "Enemy Below." That's important, all you non-JAG people, because in "EB" something Very Bad happened and things post-"EB" (read: Season 8) are probably not gonna include Harm and Mac being overly cheerful and stuff.

Disclaimer haiku:
Now, JAG, DB owns;
And mutants are Marvelous,
So don't sue me, 'kay?

Notes: I swear by all that is holy, if "DoR" hadn't explicitly mentioned Marines, I would not have written this. Honest! But because it did explicitly mention Marines, and because I happen to be madly infatuated with a show that has a lot of Marines in it... well, okay, you get the idea. This is a wee more X-Men than JAG, but that's only 'cause of who the narrator is. Also, please disregard the fact that Harm collected X-Men comics as a child, as stated in the episode "Someone To Watch Over Annie." (Harm is just so cool! :) )

And yes, I know the new season is only weeks away, and a post-"DoR" fic now is kinda cutting things close. Also I haven't finished it yet. But who cares? On with the fic!


"Who are they? Where are they from? Government investigators are..."
- news snippet from "Day of Reckoning"


There was some debate over what to do with the four mutant prisoners. They were going to be taken into military custody; they had been already, in fact, not two seconds after the Marine helicopters had landed. No, it was the green, cement-like shells they'd been encased in, courtesy of the downed Sentinel, that proved to be the sticking point in the talks. One of the Marines - a major, from all appearances - was arguing on the side of expediency: freed, the mutants could be moved more easily. The man named Trask, however, was arguing on the side of caution: the mutants had to remain contained or they would escape.

Beast, having been thoughtfully chipped out by the Marines moments before Trask arrived, was the only one of the mutants to hear the conversation. He was a bit uncomfortable with being taken into custody, as there was still a warrant out for his arrest. His arms and legs had been shackled, but he was fairly certain that he could have broken free if he wanted to, which he did not. As the only teacher there, the students had become his sole responsibility, and he was determined to do everything in his power to safeguard them. And so he sat on the sidewalk with his personal coterie of Marine guards and did absolutely nothing while the military swarmed over the area.

It was difficult to look placid and non-threatening when you had fangs and blue fur, but he thought he was doing an admirable job. "Difficult," though, swiftly became "impossible" when Trask and the major moved their argument slightly closer and Beast was able to make out everything they were saying.

"- telling you that these creatures cannot be trusted! Look around, you idiot - don't you see what they've already done!" Trask exclaimed, gesturing at the battered cityscape.

The major did look, and Beast looked too; he saw that the firefighters atop a nearby building had finally extinguished the ruined Sentinel, as well as the numerous small blazes its fiery demise had begun. He also saw the crush of media crews massing just outside the area cordoned off by the Marines.

This skirmish, if it could be trivialized as such, had not gone well at all. Beast wished that Professor Xavier was here, if only to lift the burden of responsibility from his own furry shoulders.

The major returned his attention to Trask, and gave the civilian a shrewd, narrow-eyed glare. "I see a lot of damage, yeah, and most of it was caused by that machine - your machine. And even if you are military, I'm in charge of this operation and you're not my CO. So you can shove it, Trask." He turned to the sergeant standing at his shoulder and said, "Cut the others free and put them in restraints."

Trask grabbed the major's arm as the sergeant ran off to complete the order. "You're signing your own death certificate! These genetic aberrations don't care about taking human life!"

"Actually," Beast interrupted, his voice much calmer than he was, "we have no intention of fighting the military, in spite of what Mr. Trask claims."

"That's Dr. Trask, mutant scum," he snapped.

"That's Dr. McCoy, fascist," Hank growled in return, showing his canine teeth just enough to make Trask think twice about retorting. To the major, he said, "If you can assure us that we will not be handed over to this man -" he inclined his head in Trask's direction "- we will gladly come with you and face due process."

The major nodded. "Sounds like a deal to me. Lieutenant Holtz, Lieutenant Fullham, put Dr. McCoy with the rest. Corporal Wrightson, escort Dr. Trask out of the secured area."

"I don't need an 'escort'," Trask said, his face flushed dangerously red, and he turned and stalked off with four of his flunkies trailing in his wake.

"Have a nice day," the major called after him. "Idiot."

Beast, his two guards leading him towards a heavily armored truck, suppressed a grin.

The three students had been moved to the general vicinity of the truck and were being freed one at a time. Beast crouched outside the truck and made sure he greeted each of the students as they emerged, checking their vital signs as best he could and explaining the situation to them. As expected, they were all unhappy with the arrangement, but escape - with a hundred armed
Marines and a dozen armed helicopters watching them - was not an option.

The truck was, unfortunately, parked near one of the barricades preventing the media and rubberneckers from encroaching, and as Beast waited in between students, he was subjected to far more attention than he wanted.

"Who are you?"

"Is your group from another planet?"

"Was this a terrorist attack against the United States?"

"What was that big robot?"

"Do you have any demands?"

"Are you the missing link?"

"What's with the blue underwear, Magilla?"

The last question was so outrageous he spun around to see who had asked it, and was surprised to see a dark-haired woman, not unattractive, practically falling over the barricade in order to get her microphone closer to him. Against his better judgement, he took a few mincing, shuffling steps toward her, his guards close behind. "I beg your pardon?"

"Hi, Trish Tilby, ZNN," she said, flashing a bright smile. "So is it a fashion statement, or the latest in terrorist wardrobes?"

Beast blinked, but pulled his thoughts together long enough to say, quite emphatically, "We are mutants, born with a genetic gift of special abilities. I can't speak for all mutants, but we are not and never have been terrorists."

Tilby pounced on that with a quick, "Then why the battle we saw today? Wasn't that a terrorist action?"

"We were defending ourselves against a robot that was trying to kill us," he said, ignoring the forest of microphones and cameras being thrust at him in favor of the ones held by the ZNN correspondent and her crew. "We deeply regret that innocent people were endangered, but it was literally a life or death situation."

"Why would a robot try to kill you? Did it have reason?"

Beast looked over his shoulder, where Blob was being cut free, and then turned back to Trish Tilby. "In my eyes, no, it did not have reason. We were unaware of its existence until it attacked us. And any questions about the robot and its actions should really be addressed to its creator, Dr. Trask, instead of myself. I believe he's over there," he finished, pointing in Trask's direction with a sense of gleeful revenge, and went to explain matters to Fred before the large teen tried something foolish.