"And how do they keep it afloat?" Ethan asked, tilting his head curiously.
"Don't forget—we're in Academy City," Katie said with a grin, giving him a playful nudge. "You should know better than anyone. You helped build this place."
Ethan's eyes narrowed slightly. "A new power structure..."
After the New York war wrecked New York's old systems, it had been General Ross—backed by members of the Brotherhood and the X-Men—who built something new from the ruins.
And most of them were now teachers at the academy.
So the heart of Academy City wasn't government or military—it was the Academy itself.
The next generation of leaders, fighters, and thinkers would all come from here.
Groups like the X-Men and the Brotherhood were already eyeing standout students to bring into their fold.
A new power structure wasn't coming. It was already here.
"Glad to see you're catching on," Katie said, suddenly pulling out a long, printed itinerary. "Now, time to do your part. I've scheduled your whole day."
Ethan groaned before she even started reading.
"First, a welcome speech at 9 AM. Then a student council meeting at 10. At 11:30, you'll meet with the law enforcement team to go over the first batch of student council members joining them. After lunch—"
But when she looked up, Ethan was gone.
Vanished. Not even a breeze left behind.
Katie blinked. "That coward bailed at supersonic speed... again."
Meanwhile, Ethan had taken the wiser path—ditching the list entirely.
"I came here to relax after saving the world, not to run errands," he muttered, hands in his pockets as he wandered toward the mission hall. "If anyone wants free labor, they can do it themselves."
Still, he couldn't just sit around either.
Wandering the school meant drawing a lot of attention.
Eyes followed him everywhere he went, full of awe and curiosity.
So he figured—why not take on a mission? It beat paperwork.
Since the last time he'd been here, the mission hall had grown. More missions. More students. More chaos.
There were C-level assignments, like giving new students campus tours. B-level tasks required leaving the academy—like helping a construction team with power-based labor or educating communities on safe power usage.
But the real action was in the A- and S-level tasks—especially with over 200 million superpowered individuals now active in New York. Not all of them were stable. Some turned violent. Others just couldn't control their gifts.
Ross's law enforcement squads were overwhelmed. That's why they leaned on the Academy for backup.
And then Ethan saw it—an S-level mission, marked in bold red.
S-Rank Mission: Assist the law enforcement team in capturing or eliminating hostile targets that have breached Academy City's perimeter. Warning: Targets may possess specialized anti-meta weaponry.
Requirements: Level 3 Ice or Electric abilities.
Mission Contact: Captain Frank Castle.
Ethan read the details, lips tightening. "Supernatural weapons..."
He'd heard those words before.
When Apocalypse first emerged, the ancient armor he wore had been a kind of power-based tech—a 'supernatural weapon.'
But here's the thing: modern society wasn't supposed to have that kind of tech anymore.
The knowledge had been lost generations ago. Research was still in its early stages.
So how did these invaders get their hands on supernatural weapons?
That question alone was enough to grab Ethan's full attention.
Enforcer was a word Ethan had heard before—familiar, yet distant. The whole idea of putting together a law enforcement unit for the academy?
That was actually his suggestion to General Ross. But after tossing the idea out there, he hadn't been looped into anything that followed.
According to the coordinates listed in the mission brief, Ethan made his way to a large, old building that resembled a research facility.
Whatever it had been before didn't matter now—it had been repurposed as the headquarters for the academy's law enforcement team.
The so-called law enforcement base wasn't nearly as fortified as he expected. In fact, a few massive holes were still visible in the walls—battle scars from previous alien invasions.
Nobody seemed in a rush to patch them up.
Ethan stepped inside.
The place was dim and cluttered, almost like a warehouse filled with leftover tech, busted equipment, and piles of supply crates.
As he scanned the area, a sudden beam of blinding light flashed into his eyes.
"Wrong place, kid. Just a heads-up—most folks don't show up here by choice," came a gruff voice.
A bearded man leaned lazily over a railing above. The beam had come from his palm, likely a light-manipulation ability.
Ethan looked up, unfazed.
The intensity in his gaze flickered, and for a brief moment, his eyes reflected the light back, forcing the man to squint.
"If this is the Law Enforcement Building, then I'm right where I need to be," Ethan said calmly. "I'm with the student council. Got assigned to assist on your mission."
The man backed off slightly, lowering his hand. "Huh. You've got guts showing up here. But listen—missions with us aren't your usual walk in the park like those kiddie jobs off the mission board. This one's serious. The captain never should've dumped it on the academy. If you've got any sense, you'll drop this now."
Ethan just shrugged. "I've handled worse. Hell-level ops. I'll manage."
The man scowled. "Yeah? Not the time for jokes, kid. You don't kn—"
Before he could finish, a woman's voice cut through the space.
"Ricky, he's not lying. Compared to what he's seen, this mission is child's play. He's the new boss."
Ethan turned his head. A striking woman with vibrant green hair and dark eyeliner walked into view. Her presence was cool and confident.
"Boss? You mean... this is Accelerator?" Ricky asked, his eyes wide in disbelief.
Ethan smirked faintly. "So you were transferred here from the Brotherhood. Didn't expect anyone here to remember that alias."
"First time meeting in person. I'm Polaris," the woman said, giving him a respectful nod.
"Polaris? Magneto's daughter?" Ethan blinked, caught off guard.
Polaris smiled, her eyes softening. "So he told you about me. That's... surprising."
Her expression dimmed slightly. "My father—Magneto—is a hero, sure. A symbol for mutant rights. But being related to a hero isn't always easy. He left my mother right after I was born. When I found him later, he didn't even acknowledge me."
Ricky stepped beside her, offering quiet support as she spoke.
Polaris composed herself with a deep breath. "Sorry, got a little emotional there. Let me formally introduce the team. This is our makeshift command post. Over there are Blink and Thunderbird."
Following Polaris's direction, Ethan spotted a broad-shouldered guy and a woman with vivid purple hair stepping through the doorway.
"They're all part of my squad," Polaris said. "Most of the law enforcement team are old allies from the Brotherhood."
Ethan studied the two newcomers for a moment. "I've worked a few missions with Brotherhood members before, but I don't think I've ever seen you or your team around."
"That's because we're the ones who stay in the shadows," Polaris replied casually.
Back in the day, mutants were split into two fronts—those who operated in the light, like the X-Men, and those who lived in the dark.
The X-Men were the public face of mutantkind, the heroes. But not everything could be done out in the open.
Magneto made waves, sure, but most of the Brotherhood weren't headline-grabbers. They were the ghosts—silent operatives working behind the scenes.
These so-called mice—people like Polaris and her team—handled the missions nobody wanted to talk about. Taking down illegal labs, eliminating dangerous extremists before they could harm others.
Their efforts went unnoticed, but without them, the world would've been far crueler to mutants.
"Now that Academy City's been built," Polaris continued, "every metas has a place. The X-Men and the Brotherhood have finally joined forces."
She turned to Ethan with a quiet smile. "My father wasn't wrong about you. No one else could've pulled this off. You brought us all into the light."
Ethan shook his head. "It wasn't just me. It took all of us."
Polaris didn't argue. She just smiled again, softer this time, and changed the subject.
"The light's great and all," she said, "but we're still mice. And darkness? That's where we belong."
Ethan nodded slowly. "So that's why you joined the law enforcement team."
"There's darkness everywhere," she said. "And if you want to preserve the beauty of Academy City, someone's gotta deal with the dirt. That's us. To stop the wicked, sometimes you have to be even meaner than they are. That's what our captain—Punisher—always says."
Ethan raised a brow. "You all seem to respect him a lot."
Don't let Polaris's calm demeanor fool you—she was tough. Being soft got you killed in the shadows. And if even she spoke of the Punisher with this kind of reverence, it said a lot.
Frank Castle, better known as the Punisher, had taken charge of the law enforcement team less than a week ago.
Yet in that short time, he'd turned the entire city's crime stats on their head.
Rumors said the crime rate in Academy City had dropped 80% in just three days. Places once overrun with chaos were suddenly calm.
The name stuck—Punisher. Criminals were so terrified, some turned themselves in just to avoid a run-in with him. The more superstitious ones whispered that those who crossed paths with him simply vanished.
Some heroes didn't like his brutal methods. Ethan? He wasn't one of them.
Times were tough. And in a city filled with metas and chaos, sometimes the only thing keeping the peace was someone willing to get his hands dirty.
People like the Punisher weren't optional. They were necessary.
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Word count: 1611
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