Six blocks away from Trask's building, Wolverine came to a screeching halt and ducked into an derelict storefront. Beast followed; his eyes, used to the neon-lit alleys and side streets, took a moment to adjust in the nonexistent light within. But the sound of a claw popping was unmistakable, as was the wet rip of flesh.
"Logan?"
"Fine," came the answer, along with a bit of gore-covered metal that landed at Beast's feet. Wolverine nudged it with his boot, but didn't crush it. "They put this tracker in my neck right after the Sentinel blew. Must've known one of you guys would be comin' to get me. Let 'em think we ain't found it and we're dumb enough to stay in one place."
"Good idea," Beast said, glancing down at the tracking device and then up at the rapidly closing wound in Logan's neck. A useful power, that.
They left the storefront and continued hugging the shadows. The sirens were still present, but none were bearing down on them, and Beast began to wonder what kind of trouble Trask was giving the cops.
"So bring me up to speed," Wolverine said after they'd gone another dozen blocks.
"It's a long story."
Wolverine gave him a look that clearly said, "and what else is there to do?"
So Beast told him, in quick chunks between shadow-skulking, starting with being chipped free by the Marines. He went into great detail about his Mystique-Xavier theory, which Logan agreed to after a few moments of thought. He described, briefly, how Rabb and MacKenzie had come to be his lawyers - Wolverine had a reaction not too dissimilar from Rogue's at that - and the trial process. As dawn colors began appearing in the sky, he also explained that the students had been taken into safekeeping.
That piece of news netted a ferocious "WHAT?" and a hand digging into the base of his throat.
"I didn't have very many options," Beast said, forcibly removing the other mutant's hand from his fur. He was stronger than Logan, a fact which he didn't care to demonstrate very often, most likely because he was still in a bit of denial. But it was exactly like the joke about the 800-pound gorilla: he went anywhere he wanted to.
"Now we have to get them back," Wolverine growled.
"Of course." Beast looked around, hoping for a payphone, and for once his prayers were answered. A graffiti-bedecked and rather damaged phone booth was not too far away. "We'll need some change."
"You don't keep quarters in those swimtrunks?" Wolverine said, still mad.
"Not usually," Beast said mildly.
Wolverine grunted and stalked off into the shadows. "You're the genius - you figure somethin' out."
Beast watched him leave with eyebrows raised. Then he shrugged and returned to the conundrum facing him. What to do, what to do... He could always call collect, but he disliked that idea. He owed the lawyers so much already.
A store's lights flickered on not too far away, and Beast decided to risk a trip inside to inquire about a phone, or at the very least a few cents.
He approached the door with care, not wanting to seem threatening, and lightly rapped on the glass. A young man in his twenties appeared a second later with an irritated look on his face - one that swiftly changed to alarm, and then recognition, and then curiosity.
Beast cleared his throat and called through the glass, "Ah, may I use your phone?"
The man looked behind himself in a quick double-take - the classic "who, me?" move of a thousand and one cartoons - then took a few wary steps toward the door. "We're not - uh, we're not open. Yet. Uh, today."
"I understand, but this is an urgent call."
The store clerk was chewing on his lower lip, plainly nervous about letting in an obvious mutant. "You're that guy on the news, right? The one on trial?"
Beast nodded.
"You're not going to kill me or take me hostage if I let you in, right? Or smash up the store?"
Beast gave him the closest thing to a paternal smile he could muster at the moment. "Young man, I could shatter this glass with one finger. If I was interested in harming you, I would've done it already."
The man hesitated a moment longer, looking over his shoulder at something Beast couldn't see, then fished out a string of keys from his pocket. "Yeah, I guess so."
Beast waited for him to unlock the door and leap back to a safer distance, then slowly and non-threateningly pushed it inwards and walked inside the store.
"I don't know if the phone is working," the clerk was saying as he retreated a yard for every foot Beast moved forward. "It's been kind of weird lately."
"In that case, I suppose I'd have to ask you for some change for a payphone."
"Oh." The clerk looked visibly relieved and darted over behind the counter. "Just give me a second. Hey - what are you doing out anyway? The trial's not over yet."
Beast smiled without showing his teeth. "I know."
The clerk - Beast was now close enough to see that his nametag read "Mike" - was unsettled by that, but he started opening the cash register and counting coins. "Uh - how much do you need?"
"It's a long-distance call," Beast said. A shifting mosaic of color on top of a shelf behind the counter had caught his attention, and he squinted; Trask had not been thoughtful enough to kidnap his glasses. "Is that a TV?"
"Yeah, you're the big story," Mike said, gathering up dimes and quarters. "This is pretty cool, you being in here. If you're really you, I mean. Everyone's been glued to the news for weeks."
"Could you turn up the volume?" There was no way to improve the clarity of the image besides squinting harder, which he did.
"Sure." Mike did a quick, thoroughly gymnastic maneuver where he reached up, back, and over, changing the volume without taking his attention off of Beast or the open cash register.
The channel was ZNN, and two talking heads were sitting in front of a large graphic bearing a glowing DNA helix, a gavel, and the words "MUTANT TRIAL."
Honest, if a little bland for such a sensational topic. He didn't know whether to feel amused or disappointed.
The tag under the male anchor read "Stuart Dunston," and Beast realized that this was the man that Trish was trying to unseat. Who she perhaps already had unseated. After all, what kind of demotion did it take to go from senior war correspondent to manning the pre-dawn news desk?
Dunston was saying, "-go now live to our correspondent Trish Tilby, who's been covering the trial since it began. Trish?"
The picture of the studio was replaced by a live shot of Trish standing outside somewhere. She was smiling brilliantly despite the early hour; a smile so blinding that it took Beast a moment to recognize the location as a building that he'd spent a significant amount time in. "Right here, Stuart. I've been told that the jury has just returned its verdict after only a single night of deliberation. Now, we're still not sure what the verdict is, but I spoke with some people earlier who hope the outcome is in Dr. McCoy's favor."
The footage cut to a previously-recorded shot of the same location. This time, the schoolfront was illuminated by flickering candles cupped in the hands of a small but sizable crowd of people. It was an equal mix of children and adults, and Beast felt at once like laughing and like crying. Bayville, it seemed, was a town that forgave - at least partially.
"I don't see why he's on trial in the first place," a girl was telling Trish's microphone indignantly. "It's not like having fur makes Mr. McCoy a monster."
With a start, Beast recognized the girl as Amanda, a decent student who had lately come under attention from the Institute's adults for dating Kurt. Apparently she knew what Kurt looked like beneath his image-induced hologram, and didn't care. And apparently her tolerance was applicable to other mutants as well.
"He was one of the best teachers we had at this school," Amanda continued. "And he never hurt anyone - I don't care what the papers are saying."
"This touching candlelight vigil was held by Dr. McCoy's former students and other concerned community members," Trish's voice said over shots of the crowd standing around and looking peaceful. One of the shots - a long, lingering one - was of Amanda lighting a candle for Trish to hold.
If there was any last ember of doubt in Henry McCoy's mind about Patricia Tilby and her place in the world, it died a quick and painless death at that scene.
Mike coughed, jerking Beast's attention back to the present. The change was lying on the counter in a small, stained silver pile. "Here you go. That should be enough."
Beast scraped the proffered change into one hand and nodded. "Thank you."
Then he left the store as slowly and carefully as he'd entered. The door swung shut on Mike's sigh of relief.