//------------------------------// // Duty of Call {Reworked} // Story: Aca-decade // by Daxn //------------------------------//  A few minutes later – with a quick and vague mention of a non-fatal accident involving Twilight occurring at the competition – the deed had been done and Twilight's parents had been contacted via phone call.  Principal Cinch terminated the call and slipped the phone back into her pocket. "Truly, omission of facts is the greatest tool of all in times likes this," She mused to herself, turning her head towards Twilight, who she was holding in her right arm. "Am I right, little Twilight?" Twilight looked confused at Cinch, babbling something she failed to understand. “I will take it as a yes,” Cinch said, while typing in her husband’s phone number. “Anyways, now that your parents have been called, I can pass to call my dear husband Sombra to prepare himself to see me like his old flame again.” She put the cellphone close to her ear and a few seconda of waiting later, the phone was picked up. “What is it?” Sombra’s deep voice boomed from the other end. “I am going to round up hooligans in a moment, so please be quick, my dear Cinch.” “Always very affectionate, eh?” Cinch said with a quick chuckle. “I am just going to tell you that I may or may not come back home with a new look and with a strong need to get a money transfer~” “Oh, for God’s sake…” he said before closing the call on Cinch’s face. She sighed as she flippled her phone close, then putting it back into her’s coat internal pocket on the right. “Eh. Hopefully he will not mind too much,” she muttered, slowly rocking Twilight with her free arm as she turned around towards her students. By the time Cinch had called Twilight’s parents and her husband, the former academy’s students had assembled in four groups. The smallest one was one composed by seven students who – since had been regressed to grade school children – were sitting in circles, with only one of them a handling a phone that they then passed to the next one in the circle. Another group was composed by non-regressed students frantically calling and discussing what had just happened between each other, before running off to oversee other groups in the stead of other actual teenagers, leaving the remaining three detatachments. The largest group was composed of toddlers and babies. These were the heavily-regressed students who had been rounded up together and piled up in one spot, in an attempt to be kept under many watchful eyes until assistance arrived. The fourth group was a mixed bag of students of all ages crying out in agony. Most of the unscathed overseers were either bent over each wounded, trying to soothe them and keep them calm, while others frantically spoke and gestured on their phones. Cinch decided that a visit to the third detachment was needed in order to asser her new position, and the visit to the wounded ones’ group was needed in order to both keep morale high and evaluate the collateral damage. She walked up to the students who hadn’t been affected by the blast, where she made a little bow. “Madam… did it affect you too?” A sand-coloured student, called Cadete, said. Cinch sighed and nodded, while other students turned around and either bowed or saluted. “It did, as you could have guessed by my new appearance.” She said, looking up, while slowly rocking Twilight. “As such, you are allowed to stop to refer to me as ‘madam,’ although I think it would be wiser for me to relinquish my authority only when this crisis is over.” “Understood!” They said in unison. “What are your orders?” “You did a good job at organizing your peers according to their regression’s severity, so part of your orders is already done,” Cinch said calmly. “So, next is to call up all the parents or guardians, even if untouched by that power, in order to have an orderly evacuation.” Abacus Cinch then turned around towards the anguishing regressed pupils begin attended by other students. “Oh, and should the situation get dire, call an ambulance. Lord only knows how many fractured limbs have come back, or how many spines have been crooked again…” Twenty-five minutes had passed, and a handful of parents had arrived on the scene. It only took them a few seconds to find their students, but their mouths hung agape when they saw that they had been turned into children again. With their jaws still hanging open, they slowly moved towards their respective sons and daughters to collect them. “Abacus! We heard that there was an accident involving Twilight.” Night Light rapidly walked up to her “What happened?!” "A very, very unfortunate incident has occurred, Mr. Light," Principal Cinch said as she gave Twilight back to her father, who immediately proceeded to keep her close to his chest. "Members from the opposing school’s team have used otherwordly means to gain an unfair advantage over the our academy.  In a mix of both reckless courage from Twilight and overeagerness from mine, I have made her use said otherworldly means herself.”  Even if she knew it was all her fault, outright admit it was still sketchy, especially in a situation like that. Night Light started to lightly caress his daughter’s head slowly, silently glancing in her eyes before raising his head to look at Cinch. "O-othewordly means? What do you mean exactly?" Night Light said, as he slowly cradled Twilight in his arms. "At risk of sounding like a madwoman," Principal Cinch snapped her fingers to give emphasis to her words. “What I meant to say was that magic has been used. It may sound insane, but I have no other term to describe it, and your daughter explicitly told me about its nature anyway." Night Light stared at Cinch in bewilderment and stupor. Clearly he did not understand or, if he did, he understood bits and pieces of the entire thing. A tense silence, only broken by the shouts in the background and Twilight’s soft blabbering. "Mr. Light, I am aware that this must be quite difficult for you to deal with. Sadly, I lack of means to undo your daughter's damage to herself and everyone else. So I pray you will understand me, when I will just apologize for the major incovenience." Principal Cinch said with a little bowing movement. "You may leave now." Night Light stood there like a statue for a moment, staring right into Cinch's eyes, as if they contained the secret of the entire universe's existence. His expression was one of major confusion mixed with shards of fear. Then, he silently scurried away, disappering in the evening's darkness like a finch in a thick forest.