At the Grant Academy, nothing had come back to normal yet.
The repair and restoration of the campus was still ongoing, and with a large number of forces and security staff stationed in the academy not making it back from the fight, the academy had fallen into a state of gravely understaffed and lacking in defenses.
At this point, only a few students were here at the academy, they were the student volunteers that stayed in the academy helping the repair and restoration efforts. And aside from the repair and restoration crew and security personnel, not many faculty members were here either. The morale of everyone, as one could easily expect, was quite low.
The portal on the Anderson Plaza, the only one that was activated and not blocked by the many security measures, lit up in blue light. After a quick blue flash, Professor Atkinson and Dolores came out, each holding a cloth bag.
This time, there was no one there to greet them - under the circumstances, all the staff or student organization members that used to do the greeting were either absent or busy with something else right now.
And neither Professor Atkinson nor Dolores cared, they just rushed through the buildings and entered their office.
“Should we go and check with Josephine or maybe Mr. Yu?” Dolores asked as she put her cloth bag on her desk: “We won, right? We should check if they’re okay.”
“Yes. We should.” Professor Atkinson sighed and rubbed his eyes and temples: “But let’s check with the headmasters - they joined the fight, if they could tell us anything that’d be great.”
“You’re right. Let’s go.”
When they made it to the offices of the headmasters, they found that all of them were empty, with a lot of things gone. So they immediately headed to the next office where there were people inside - the academy budgetary office.
“Hey, excuse us.” Professor Atkinson knocked on the door frame: “Does anyone know where the headmasters are?”
“They haven’t come back yet.” One of the ladies in the office raised her head above the stacks of files on her desk: “If you do see them, please tell them to come here - there’s a bunch of things I need their eyes on - ”
“When did they leave?” Dolores asked.
“I don’t know, maybe two or three days ago?” The lady shook her head with impatience and frustration: “Brought a whole bunch of people with them as well.”
“Okay, thanks.” Professor Atkinson frowned and turned to Dolores: “Guess they are still on their way?”
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The two of them waited in the hall for a bit, and finally, Professor Randall Collins came back.
“Thomas! Dolores!” Professor Randall Collins appeared extremely tired but still somewhat surprised: “I thought you went on some super long excavation trip. But nice to see that both of you are safe.”
“Randall, where are they? Tony and Dorothea?” Professor Atkinson asked.
“They went … somewhere.” Professor Randall Collins hesitated for a while, and decided to offer an obviously cover-up answer: “And they need to be gone for a while.”
“We know about the battle and the Defilers, Headmaster.” Dolores budged in: “So you can tell us.”
“You knew? How?” Professor Randall Collins’ eyes opened wide, but then he shook his head: “Never mind, not important - yes, they went for the battle. And I haven’t heard back from them. But since you’re here, we could use your help in fortifying the academy - fingers crossed that they would come back, but if they didn’t, we’d better be prepared.”
“It’s over, Randall.” Professor Atkinson shrugged and sighed: “We won. The Defilers won’t be able to make it into our world.”
“Oh.” Professor Randall Collins let out a weak but relieved exhale: “You’re sure?”
“Yes. We’ll tell you more about it.” Professor Atkinson smiled: “We just came back from a shelter after hearing about it.”
“I - I - I - I, I need a minute.” Professor Randall Collins found a chair nearby and sat down on it: “Oh - god, that’s the best news I’ve heard in my entire life.”
“But we should get into contact with them as soon as possible.” Dolores said: “Did they say anything before they left? Something like how to contact them?”
“Well - they said if they win, we will be able to just contact them via normal means.” A tear ran down Professor Randall Collins’ face: “Let’s do it, both Tony and Dorothea brought their blessed communicator with them, let’s try.”
The communicator inside of Professor Randall Collins’ office was one spinning crystal ball, and under normal circumstances, they would just function like phones with blessed lines. The major advantages communicators of this kind had over phones with blessed lines were that they came with many other enchantments and blessings, which made them much more resilient to disruptions and almost all kinds of signal blockage.
The crystal glowed as Professor Randall Collins initiated contact, and after around seven to eight extremely stress-inducing seconds, they heard a tired, wheezing but proud voice of Professor Barnes: “Hey Randall, you called at a perfect time - we won, but we need some more help.”