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[Transcript]

        “WELCOME, little larvae, to the DARK DEPTHS of DETENTION!” screeched Vice Principal DuNacht. She spread her arms wide with a sound like crunching soda cans. “Welcome to the CONSEQUENCE for all your MISBEHAVIOR!”

        A sea of students glowered up at her, some furious, some sullen and defeated. Johnny balled his fists, and a fire in his chest began to spread through his body, falling into his grip like a weapon.

        “Whatever punishment awaits beyond this life for NAUGHTY NASTIES is lamentably far off for most of you,” hissed Devilora, looming low. “The demiurge has cruelly given children longer lifespans than the elderly. If I had MY way, it would be REVERSED!”

        “You sick freak,” Johnny snarled.

        “How would that, like, even work?” Max mused aloud, but no one ever joined him in disputing Bayview’s logic.

        “It falls on ME, then, to create an EARLY PURGATORY for you horrid little rulebreakers. A place to sort the GNATS that can be SWATTED back in shape... from the evil, scheming SPIDERS creepy-crawling in your midst!” Vice Principal DuNacht cackled and wiggled her own arachnid fingers like a puppeteer (she could only wield a marionette in mime, most likely because she’d get burnt if she ever held a cross). “You should have listened to my warnings long ago. You’ve invited far worse than SUSPICION with your misdeeds, you blackhearted boys and girls...”

        RJ took this as their cue to stop paying attention.

        “Nyeh-heh HEH! Don’t you know what WITCHES do to wicked little children?!” The Vice Principal grinned, flashing sharpened teeth. “They GOBBLE THEM UP!”

        Lisa flinched. For a moment, it had felt as though DuNacht had looked straight through her.

        Beneath his mask, the Student Council President narrowed his eyes. Fauxbia, that horrible hag, was all but flaunting her foul-mannered alter ego. Cody grimaced. How much longer would he have to watch her get her wicked way? Once Jeff was free, he’d rip the seams out of her tattered, sneering—

        No, he thought. She can make me her puppet, but she won’t make me my dad. I’m not a— Cody hesitated. I’m not that kind of monster.

        He couldn’t deny, though, that his lacking heart couldn’t muster a hint of remorse at the thought of his father destroying her once and for all.

        “But never fear,” sneered Devilora. “The INNOCENT, with NOTHING TO HIDE, need only come CLEAN when they’re summoned to my lair. Simply CONFESS, you pretty little liars... or I’ll extricate your DARKEST TRUTHS by FORCE!”

        Isabel’s eyes went wide. 

        “You guys, look!” she whispered, and pointed at a shadow swooping down from the ceiling like a bat.

        The Sphinx of Truth circled DuNacht as she about-faced on the battlements. The feline spirit landed on the wall of the Detention Fortress, casting an arrogant glance in the Activity Club’s direction. Beside the Student Council President, the sickly green Sphinx of Crime clambered up into view with a clinking of chains, a Cheshire Cat whose stripes blended perfectly into the dismal prison scenery.

        “Wait, that’s that widdle—er, little blue freak we all beat up,” Max said in hushed annoyance. “Perfect. Let’s make her meow the truth about that riddle of a prophecy.”

        “And the spirit from the library!” a flabbergasted Isaac added. “It is another sphinx!” 

        “I swear,” Isabel growled under breath, “if all this started because some nasty pack of stray cats didn’t get to snack on Isaac—”

        “We’ll sadly have to throw him to the wolves,” Max lamented with a sigh.

        “...Hey,” a scowling Isaac interjected.

        “Sorry, no, that’s wrong of me to say. We’ll sadly have to throw you to the cats,” Max corrected himself.

        “No, no, I don’t care about that. Throwing me at those jerks is a great way to start a cool combo move. I was going to ask if we think that the Student Council knows they’re getting backup from a bunch of invisible spirits.”

        “...They’d need a spectral,” Isabel muttered. She glared up at DuNacht. The Vice Principal was clearly the mastermind of all this, and she had always been eerie enough to be haunted. Something in Isabel told her to trust in her hunch.

        “They did try to recruit me,” Max said. “Actually that’s probably irrelevant, I was a hot commodity across the board. You guys are lucky you got dibs.”

        Johnny squinted up at the wall of the Detention Fortress. He’d followed Isabel’s finger to a pair of purple blotches on the parapet. Now the Activity Club was huddled up and whispering as if they’d seen a ghost—the same ghosts that he was seeing.

        “Go, my monkeys!” Devilora called back to her Student Council minions. “Send every last confiscated weapon to the EVIDENCE LOCKER! Take the Black Saints’ MOST WANTED to the INTERROGATION ROOM! As for the REST of the students...” DuNacht cast a devious glance over her shoulder as she stooped into the darkness of her cobweb-covered lair, an office in the castle’s highest tower. “LET THE WITCH TRIALS BEGIN!!”

        The double doors below her at the far end of the prison yard were suddenly thrown wide by black-clad bailiffs. Barrister emerged from the shadowy courtroom within, reading out a roll call from a lengthy, yellowed scroll.

        “ABBEY ABNER!” the Black Saint Councilor-General snootily proclaimed, and a beefy bully girl was swiftly seized and dragged away. Barrister slammed the doors of the courtroom shut behind them, sneering at Johnny and the other captives of the Detention Fortress before he disappeared from view. 

        Bobblehead loomed above the threshold like a gargoyle. He’d lingered as the President and sphinxes left the wall to follow Devilora.

        Klang, klang, klonk! A cartful of confiscated possessions rattled as new evidence was poured onto the pile. Isabel and Isaac exchanged a glance, having both glimpsed Max’s baseball bat as it was hauled away.

        “You’re coming with me,” a Student Council trooper said. Handcuffs slapped around RJ’s punk-rock wristbands, instantly inspiring a future album cover. 

        “The HECK they ARE!” roared Johnny. His veins burned like white-hot wire as his heartbeat surged with anger.

        He lunged to pull his friend free from the Student Council’s grasp... only to freeze as RJ recoiled from his touch. A searing stovetop heat had sparked the reflex. Johnny stared back at his dumbfounded friend, no less confused than they were... but, unlike RJ, Johnny decided at once that he deserved the blame for whatever had just happened.

        “Take this delinquent to the interrogation room,” a gruff Student Council warden said, gesturing towards a distant door. “To join Johnny Jhonny’s other squealing piggy.” He smirked a malevolent smirk. “That prize hog Ollie Oop.”

        “...Really weird thing to say, dude,” Max said.

        “Yeah, that was way out of pocket,” Isabel agreed.

        “Some characters simply do not deserve dialogue,” Lisa judgmentally muttered, looking the now-flustered student up and down. 

        Johnny was burning too hot to join in on the roast. He was furious—at the Vice Principal, at the Student Council, at himself. Every time the fire rose in him without release, the embers lingered longer, crackled louder in his thoughts. He wanted to lash out, to let his anger take control. He wanted to keep his cool, to not prove everybody right. He wanted to—

        “Don’t worry, Johnny,” RJ reassured him. They’d already dismissed his fiery touch as a freak trick of friction, and only saw that Johnny was upset. RJ nodded towards the interrogation room. “These weenies can’t even scratch me and Ollie, let alone get us to snitch.” RJ grinned. “I promise, I won’t say a word... and if anyone can keep a vow of silence, boss, it’s me.”

        “RJ...”

        “No offense but you’re literally the only person here who demonstrably breaks a vow of silence like all the time,” Max couldn’t help but comment.

        “I’ll demonstrably break a clown with violence if you don’t zip your quippy lips, Max,” RJ said. “I’ll yank that big red nose right off your face and bounce it off you ’til I give you hitball flashbacks.”

        “...At least I have a nose instead of featureless gray shadow,” Max mumbled back, more pleasantly perturbed to have been parried by a rude peer than offended by their cheek.

        “Don’t concede the premise, Maxwell. Your nose is negligible at best,” Lisa advised him.

        Johnny sparkled with wistful affection as his foul-mouthed friend was hauled off with the evidence cart, whisked away through heavy doors to the west wing of the Fortress, hurling still more insults and a stream of wild punches at their captors all the while.