Rock Candy RPs
After the academy’s cafeteria begins offering suspiciously rock-hard yet somehow still edible rock candy, local workaholic hotshot Artemis assembles a rag-tag team of students consisting of herself, Brown, Nova, Leaf, and Nikki (wannabe pop idol) to investigate the matter to its source, the E.R.A warehouse, before students begin breaking their teeth.
The students manage to sneak into the warehouse while avoiding its two only guards, rookie newcomers lazy lion Joan and anxious rabbit Oliver, and descend to the basement, where they find the culprits behind the hazardous candy: Shit Out of Luck (SOL), consisting of Clyde, short-tempered red penguin; Lily, nihilistic edgelord; and Bob, the crystal golem.
Clyde, the leader of the delinquent group, explains his master plan: using Lily’s ability to make anything edible, they will feed E.R.A. Bob’s manifested crystals by fooling them into thinking it’s manufactured candy, packaged by Clyde and his printing ability. With everyone eating Bob’s crystals, Bob will be able to control the students from within and do his bidding; however, his ambitions are short-lived once Lily informs him that it doesn’t work like this and he’s a bumbling idiot. (it’s stupid, I know, give me a break.)
A short scuffle ensues between the students and SOL, ending with the retreat of the delinquents and the oral health of ERA saved.
Karen returns
Splats effectively tells Brown she’s done being a bitch and convinces him to start dating her. Brown reluctantly agrees because he thinks “he can fix her”, and suggests a movie night.
Brown, Saki (third wheeling cuz he’s bored), and Splats visit the general store for snacks and beverages. They meet Karen again, who remembers the boys and is still pissed from last year’s wine incident. Brown tries to apologize, but Saki tries to flirt with her again and Splats starts stealing and disturbing the peace, causing Karen to go ballistic once again. Another fight breaks out with Karen believing Brown is the root and cause of all her troubles, kicking them out and calling the police on all of them.
A no-nonsense police veteran Charlie launches an investigation at the security department despite the case seeming pretty straightforward. He requests his colleague Oliver to search the tapes at the general store, revealing Karen to have a violent streak against various customers, deserved or not.
When he goes to the store to question Karen, he is met with cheeky undercover guard Claude who partners with him, as he is in between missions off-campus and bored. The buddy cops confront her, and despite her insistence on pinning all the blame on Brown, they bring up the tapes, which sends her into a frenzy, and yet another fight breaks out. Charlie initially detains her until she uses her rope-like arms to break free and send him flying across the store. Claude is able to incapacitate her using his ability to clone himself, and she is locked away in a holding cell for a year.
Festival Concert
A concert is announced for ERA’s first summer festival, and several acts sign up: Pearl has a solo act, Leaf and Skyber plan a duet, and Saki and Brown think of starting a rock band after buying a record player for their dorm, but have no musical experience whatsoever. Pearl (now Saki’s gf) advises them to rent their instruments from Merla, the music teacher (and also Leaf’s sister) in her classroom.
There, Hugo (awkward nerd) hears of their idea while getting his acoustic/electric hybrid Yamaha guitar tuned wants in, saying he plays well. They let Hugo in the band, and choose the instruments that speak to them the most: Saki picks a black and white Fender Stratocaster guitar, and Brown picks a red Rickenbacker 4003 bass.
Brown and Saki beg Xander (their new rough-and-tough roommate) to play drums for them, and he only agrees to learn for them, if he gets a set with flames painted on it.
After several months of practice, Brown, Saki, Hugo, and Xander finally feel confident enough to sign up for the concert, as the last and only available act left. They name themselves Collateral Damage, and their performance is remembered as the most average live show in ERA history.
School Dance 2
As a redo of last year’s disaster of a school dance (now non-canon), ERA hosts a prom-esque school dance on campus, where every student is invited. Pearl, Saki, Splats, Brown, Knowledge, Hugo, James, Skyber, Nova, Xander, his friend Emily, Leaf, half-fish half-bartender Sybil, and others attend.
In case you forgot about the Wine Arc’s awkward problematic love parallelogram, the dance kicks off with melodramatic romantic tension—Splats and Saki are now broken up after half a year of arguing and cheating, so to get back at each other, Saki gets back with Pearl (again), and Splats takes Brown out as her date, much to his confusion.
Outside the event, Joan and Oilver’s security Chief, Vietnam vet Colt, is suddenly stabbed by an unknown assailant. The two attempt to tend to his wound until the paramedics arrive, and Colt passes out from blood loss. It is later revealed he will be put on indefinite leave from the guard department.
Ex-Frontier law teacher Abigail arrives with her daughter Jesse, and is confronted by Frontier rival Hayden, who is out seeking revenge over personal issues from their past. Long story short, Hayden cuts the dance short by pulling a gun, but accidentally shoots Leaf instead of Abigail. Turns out he was the one who stabbed Colt, due to some other unmentioned bad blood. Charlie arrives to arrest him but is somehow bested.
The two Frontiersmen take their matters outside to the forest outskirts, threatening murder-suicide on each other, where Skyber follows them to berate them for ruining the party and making it all about them, threatening to kill them both if either of them are too chicken to do it themselves. Hayden leaves campus, never to return again.
Somewhere around this time, James graduates from ERA.
Xander and Emily graduate around this time as well, upsetting Saki and Brown since he had just become their friends.