Finally we can address the mystery surrounding the most important characters in Paranatural. If you would like to hear what all these freaks were saying when they so rudely spoke over each other, you can check the transcript below. If you're having fun with my work, please consider supporting Paranatural on Patreon and/or Ko-fi! I work very hard on it and your support lets me KEEP doing that. Thank you, and thanks for reading!

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[Transcript]

        Far below the deepest basement of Bayview Biddle School, past moats and traps and guards and gates, the Student Council gathered in the darkness of their sinister Detention Fortress.

        The President had donned his mask and cape, his alter ego. As he swept his way into the chamber, applause erupted with volcanic force from the churning morass of minions that surrounded him. The Student Council’s pledge of allegiance echoed through the cavernous amphitheater, an unprompted display of their zealous devotion:

“WE PLEDGE ALLEGIANCE 
WITH OUR VOTES
TO DEMOCRATIC GOVERNANCE 
AND TO ITS DEFENDER
WHOSE WHIM IS LAW
ONE RULER
ABOVE REPROACH
WITH LOYALTY AND DISCIPLINE OR ELSE!”

        Salutes slapped against the sweaty foreheads of a hundred black-clad preteens.

        Cody studied his legions disdainfully through the narrow, scowling eyeholes of his mask. Here were the future servants of the crown that he was heir to, the thralls and sycophants he’d rule once he’d assumed his rightful place on Bayview’s throne. What a ridiculous charade. Their obedience was predicated on his own, his tightrope march along the path his dad had planned for him, and Cody’s father, for all his talk of education and succession and inheritance, would never tick a single second towards retirement.

        Regardless of his feelings, though, Cody had to act as he’d been ordered. His father had all but explicitly promised a moonless reunion with his missing mother, should they continue down the dark road they were walking side-by-side... and now that demon Fauxbia had threatened Jeff to stage her play for power and survival. Obedience, a surrogate, a puppet on a string—even at each other’s throats, his father and the Witch wanted the same thing from their Cody.

        The young vampire’s spiteful gaze rose to the balcony. There she was, unmasked: the infamous Vice Principal DuNacht. She grinned and gave her president a deferential nod, waving her opera glasses like a magic wand to egg him onward towards his podium.

        A gavel struck but once before the din gave way to silence.

        “Order! Order!” hummed the hammer’s wielder in a reedy little voice. “O, sweet Order! Duteous maiden! How your silence SINGS to me, your lawful, loving keeper!” Barrister, the ace of both Mock Trial and Debate Club and Number One of the Twelve Black Saint Councilor-Generals, fluffed his powdered wig and cleared his throat. “AHEM! I call this historic meeting of the Student Council to ORDER! Let the minutes show that I spoke first, as befits my lofty rank!”

        “The minutes feel like frickin’ hours with you wheezing in the mike, Barry,” sneered a lounging Number Six: Roxy, the star of Bayview Biddle School’s Rock Band. She played a sick riff on her monochrome guitar.

        “Hyeck-heh HEHK!” snorted the gangly Troll, the scourge of the Computer Club and Number Ten in the order of her dozen-strong contingent. “I’ll pencil Barrister in for the last word, too, since bro can’t live without it! Hrrk-heh HEH hyeh!” Slapping open her laptop, Troll’s fingers splashed in the greasy puddles that had gathered in the divots of its keys, an image I regret evoking even as I write it. “OWNED!” she added, undermining any coolness that her insult might have earned her.

        “Ad hominem,” scoffed Barrister. He held up his hand as though erecting a magical barrier.

        “Ohmygod, youguysarelike, SOfreakingfunny,” giggled Pompom, bouncing her eponymous cheerleading spheres even faster than the tempo of her speech. She was captain of the Biddle School’s Cheerleading Squad, and Number Eight of the Twelve Black Saint Councilor-Generals. I hope you’re taking notes, because you’ll likely have to order all these losers on the test. “Weshouldlike, TOTALLYhangoutmore outsideschool and like makeoutorlikewhateverhappensHAPPENS, right?” Pompom thrust a pompom in the air and began to lead herself in a call-and-response chant. “Gimme a K! ...K! Gimme an I! ...I! Gimme an S! ...S! And another S! S! Gimme a KISS! PLEASE—”

        Bea, the group’s Number Three and champion of the Biddle School Spelling Bee, glared at Pompom with her chest abuzz with loathing; that brainless cheerleader was stealing her WHOLE SCHTICK, and with SUCH a basic baby word just four dang letters long! Well, SHE’D spell out a choice four-letter word or two for HER! Bea scribbled out some swears onto a note she planned to shoot at Pompom in paper wasp form, but misspelled them as “I’D KISS YOU” by mistake. A mortified Bea quickly ate her hate mail without sending it—no one could ever know that she’d spelled something incorrectly.

        Joining Bea in silent judgment of their peers was Bobblehead, beloved mascot of the Bayview Bobcats. Though Barrister was Number One, not even he was keen to clash with the Black Saints’ Number Two; Bobblehead might have seemed, at a glance, to be a student in the guise of a beast... but, in reality, the opposite was true. The mascot’s cartoon eyes surveyed the gathered crowd with hunger, a complex and captivating backstory bubbling just beneath the fluffy surface of their fursuit.

        “EVERYBODY. QUIET,” rumbled Blitz, the mighty Number Five of both the Biddle School’s Football Team and the Black Saints’ deeply plot-significant hierarchy. “WE HAVE BIGGER THINGS TO TACKLE. THAN EACH OTHER. HUT HUT, OR SHUT UP. HUT HUT HIKE... OR TAKE A HIKE. THE BALL IS IN YOUR COURT.”

        “Yeah, the football court,” smirked Roxy. “Man, I hate when my Hail Mary hits the net.”

        Blitz raised his fists.

        “ISSHUN SENGEKI—”

        The other Twelve Black Saint Councilor-Generals got their quips and barbs in, too, but the sheer number of new characters was really starting to drag the scene down, so the rest all said their dialogue simultaneously: 

        [Reader at home: read all these paragraphs at the exact same time.]

        “All of you move in such predictable patterns,” beeped Bishop, Chess Club savant and Number Four of the Twelve Black Saints. “Unlike me. I always find my unexpected angle: forty-five degrees exactly. Everybody thinks you’ll attack head-on or come at them sideways... but they’re never prepared for you to charge from the exact midpoint between those tired tactics.” Bishop sighed. “Another easy checkmate.” He’d just defeated all of his fellow Councilor-Generals in a simulated tournament he’d held within his mind. He had so few worthy opponents. Heavy was the head that wore the crown, and Bishop was the undisputed king of Bayview Biddle School. Yep. It was extremely obvious at a glance that he was king, and not some other less important piece.

        “Hot dog, you cool cats need to chill,” crooned Jazz, snapping her fingers in agreement with herself. Back in sixth grade, a terrible accident had trapped her in the tangled heart of her tuba, and a subsequent growth spurt had intertwined her organs with its winding worms of brass. Now Jazz and her instrument had become inseparable—and, some might say, the next step in humanity’s evolution (if they were like joking or like really desperate for anything even minimally cyberpunk to exist and earn praise in the present). Where was I? Oh, yeah. Jazz is Number Nine. She has a devastating AOE sonic blast attack that I’m sure will factor hugely in the thrilling fights ahead.

        “I am NOT doing my grand debut as part of this ridiculous ensemble,” said Diva, the centerpiece of Drama Club and lucky Number Seven on the Councilor-General cast list. “I have an agent. I put makeup on today. I’ve been involved in a DOZEN different famous Broadway musicals, by going to see them with my mom. My mom who is my agent and who did my makeup today so she REALLY won’t be HAPPY if you waste my TALENT like she wasted HERS to raise ME! She LITERALLY told me that she WON’T EVER BE HAPPY unless I SUCCEED IN EVERY WAY SHE DIDN’T. I’m under a LOT OF PRESSURE from my MOM THAT I HATE, OKAY?! And think of the EMOTION I could pull from that if YOU jerks didn’t cast me as an EXTRA!”

        “Ah........” sighed Matte, an Art Club staple and a disappointing Number Twelve of the dozen Black Saint buddies. “If I could capture it in a grand tableau........ the pathos in this room........ the irony of chaos in the halls of perfect order........” Matte shook his head, and paint dripped like a teardrop from his still-wet palette mask; he was always making last-minute revisions to his outfit, since he was seldom ever happy with his work. “But of course I can’t........ not with my meager talent........” He trailed off. What was the point of whining? True communication was impossible, even with the aid of art. Every brushstroke was a scratch upon the wall of an impenetrable prison cell—the cage of human consciousness. No one would understand. Like the “e” at the end of his name, Matte’s suffering was silent.

        “Hey um!! If you guys are uh gonna fight, you should um maybe take it outside!! GOSH I’d love to go outside!!” The sunny Scout, whose Student Council badge was one of many proudly pinned upon her sash, was a perpetually happy camper. Since she wasn’t currently camping at Camp Seaside, though, she wasn’t very happy... but she needed to attend these Student Council meetings as the group’s Number Eleven if she was ever going to earn her Participation In Student Government And/Or An Oppressive Paramilitary Force merit badge. “Maybe we could um start a campfire indoors??” asked a hopeful Scout. “I mean I KNOW I could ha ha with just two sticks and a wish and permission but um you know we could also um!! Does anybody have uh like some string that I could tie into a knot?? I fear that um that I’m wasting my youth.”

        [You read them all separately, didn’t you? Where is your reverence for the essence and intention of my art? I’m so misunderstood, as a creator........]

        “Enough,” said the President. Even at a whisper, his voice rang through the room much louder than the gavel that last silenced it.

        A bowing Barrister tiptoed towards the podium, where a stack of legislation was prepared for his superior to sign.

        “We’ve done the busywork for you, O prince of presidents,” oozed the Black Saints’ Number One boy. “You need only John Hancock your nom de plume, if you’ll forgive my jeu d’esprit.”

        “I won’t,” replied the President. 

        “Love that band,” said Roxy, strumming out a couple chords from Painkiller before Blitz sacked her amp to cut the solo short.

        “Very good, milord,” moped a chastened Barrister, dipping down to a guillotinable angle. The President, however, mercifully stepped forward to the podium without beheading him. 

        “Members of the Council,” he called out, raising his presidential cane as if to part the sea of stormtroopers before him. “White blood cells of the student body. Black knights of our brightest days, our time at Bayview Biddle School. With darkest ink on purest page, I sign the warrant for a hundred different rulebreakers at once.” He gestured at the legislation stacked upon his podium. “But words are paper-thin without your violent efforts to enforce them. For too long has our Code of Conduct been a meek suggestion. For too long has the ‘long arm of the law’ profaned our cause with the proportions of a t-rex. Is that the sort of animal you want our student government to be?”

        Everyone looked at each other and shrugged, nodding and murmuring. It would be pretty cool to be a t-rex.

        “...Extinct? A dinosaur forgotten in the dark beneath the earth?!” He swept a hand up towards the shadowy subterranean ceiling of the chamber.

        Everyone jumped at the President’s clarification and rushed to rapidly shake their heads no.

        “I didn’t think so,” said the President. “It’s time that we secured our place upon the food chain’s apex. No bully is above the law; no misdemeanor lost beneath our notice. Those that have earned detention will at last be made to serve it... so long as all of you serve with more spirit than you’ve shown up to this point.”

        The crowd broke out in cheers and tears and patriotic song... but Cody’s sharp eyes honed in on the single hand that had been raised to ask a question.