Had to keep the art for this one simple since my schedule's still packed! Thanks for understanding! Barrister will bear the burden by not appearing in this page at all.

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[Transcript]

        Johnny’s fists made short work of the Student Council’s first wave. Black hats flew high into the air with every uppercut he struck, an early graduation for the school’s most shameless strivers. Johnny caught a pair of nunchucks by the chain, instantly welding its links (through grip strength alone, no doubt) into an inflexible morass. A blinding blow seared straight through one kid’s sunglasses. Johnny punched another guy real hard and then that guy fell down. Not every shot was cinematic, but they floored his target audience—one smash hit was followed by its sequel, then an unnecessary spin off some nerd’s back.

        KTONG! A whirling roundhouse outhammered Barrister’s gavel, sending it sailing from his hand. A wooden mallet couldn’t hope to hold a candle to his mighty, metal—

        KTING! KTANG! KTONG!

        With every strike, a fire flared in Johnny’s chest, an anger that could not find time to cool. He’d been trying to be different, maybe, a better, more compassionate sort of bully. Here he was, though, in a fight again. He didn’t quite know why, but Johnny cared less every second. 

        Everybody knew he was a bad kid; they could always tell, had always known, since he could walk and talk and shout and make a scene. His dad knew, and his teachers knew, and his classmates knew. They told him all the time. Sometimes Johnny wanted to prove them wrong. Sometimes, he did everything he could to prove them right. It didn’t make a lick of difference. He would blunder into brawls and bad grades and detention even when he didn’t do his darndest to deserve them, shredding homework when it hurt his head, stealing lunch money when he was bored or hungry, making fun of dorks like Jeff to get a laugh from his—

        KTONG!!

        A lucky counterpunch sent Johnny stumbling back. He shook his head to fix his doubled vision. As he steadied himself, a lull in the fighting gave Johnny the chance to survey the battlefield for the first time since the clash had broken out.

        “R-resisting arrest... is the highest crime of all...!” a battered Barrister groaned from the ground. It was such a serious crime, in fact, that it was often the sole charge brought to bear against the Biddle School’s worst rulebreakers. The affliction was insidious—everyone LOOKED innocent until you tackled them and forced them into handcuffs. Then they’d show their TRUE face: furious, disheveled, locked in SHACKLES like a CRIMINAL; the transformation made Barrister shudder every time. The few suspects that didn’t turn when they were apprehended were charged with criminal negligence instead: neglecting to commit a crime, and thereby wasting precious Student Council resources.

        All around their Black Saint miniboss, Student Council adds had ragdolled in strange shapes, threatening to despawn as the courtyard reached its object limit. Still more mobs were waiting to replace them, however, and Bobblehead’s health bar had appeared onscreen for phase two of the fight. Johnny was exhausted. He didn’t know how much more brawling he could handle on his own.

        KTONK-KCHUNK!

        Johnny briefly felt a pang of hope, thinking that reinforcements might have arrived for him, as a heavy object barreled through the courtyard’s double doors. The large rectangle wasn’t Ollie, however—it was a TV on a cart wheeled in by still more Student Councilors.

        “HYECK-heh HEH SKKNNRRRT!” Troll hacked disgustingly. She’d appeared in a flash of static on the TV’s screen. The Tenth Black Saint Councilor-General was so skilled at hacking (the kind that wrecked computers and the sort that retched up snot) that she was able to worm her way into an unplugged television that didn’t have an internet connection. Troll scanned the scene from her monitor, smirking at her fallen Student Council comrades. “Not a bad K/D for a bully made of MEAT and BONE! Heh HEH HYUURRK! You’re every megabit the DINOSAUR I thought you’d be, JOHNNY JHONNY: as FIERCE as you are DOOMED TO GO EXTINCT!”

        “...I’d rather be a T-REX than a TV,” Johnny grunted, failing to understand that the device was not Troll’s body. “You wouldn’t be the first I put my fist through.”

        “How like a LUDDITE, LOW-IQ DEGENEROID,” scoffed Troll. “You can MUTE THE MESSENGER, but you can’t BLOCK the TOPIC’S TREND! The future belongs to CYBERBULLIES, not you and your OBSOLETE gang of offline goons!”

        “Say that to my face and not through screen and see what happens,” Johnny snorted.

        “That’s the BEAUTY of it, Johnny: I don’t HAVE to!” snickered Troll. “With just a few clicks, I can bully ANYONE from ANYWHERE! Embarrassing photos! Anonymous hatemail! Your digital footprint, 3D-printed and delivered by a proxy paid with cryptocurrency! The world’s ALREADY cyberpunk, and ANALOG punks like YOU are nothing more than WASTED SPACE that needs DEFRAGGING!”

        “Make a meme or somethin’, dang. I don’t need your geek philosophy’s whole wiki.” Johnny dug a finger in his ear to purge it of Troll’s residue. “Call yourself whatever kinda hyperlunk you want. No self-respectin’ bully throws their hat in with the friggin’ STUDENT COUNCIL.”

        “Heh-HEH hyeck! I respect NO ONE—not even MYSELF!” Troll powered through a sea of sympathetic looks from Johnny and her fellow Student Councilors. “TH-THE STUDENT COUNCIL’S RAMPAGE SERVES MY ENDS! I’m an ACCELERATIONIST! Look it up! Or better yet... LOOK UP AT THIS!”

        Troll’s image flashed away, and shocking footage took its place upon the TV screen. RJ, Max, and Lisa on a perp-walk through the Biddle School. Ollie chained up like King Kong in an interrogation room. Diva from the Drama Club cosplaying Stephen for some reason, getting fake-beat-up by Roxy from the Rock Band until they just started fully attacking each other for real. Johnny’s eyes went wide.

        “Heh-HEH hehck...” sneered Troll. “The MIGHTY ALPHA BULLY of the BIDDLE SCHOOL, bested by some PIXELS on a SCREEN! I think you know the toll this Troll will force your friends to pay... if the gruffest GOAT won’t join them down below! Heh HEH heh-HURKK!!” 

        Bobblehead stared with spiteful bloodlust at the Black Saints’ Number Ten. This was not the bushido way.

        “Y-you heard her!” sputtered Barrister. “Surrender willingly, and join your fellow derelicts in OVERDUE DETENTION... or drag your friends down WITH you, into DEEPER TROUBLE STILL, as we take you into custody by FORCE!”

        Johnny’s fists fell slack without a moment’s hesitation.

        “Finally! Subdue him!” Barrister demanded, and the grunts who were still standing swarmed their unresisting prey.