Brown, Kay, and Skyber (as Clem) are chased out of the Black Market and attacked for unbeknownst reasons. The attackers pull out Wildcards never seen or used before, but are bested by the Four-Scaled Clover Team due to their experience. Despite their near-fatal injuries, the opponents miraculously heal all wounds and/or respawn unconscious just outside the fight. All property damages return exactly to normal as well. Skyber deduces the AR machine is still corrupting the rest of the real world, and is slowly spreading its effects, while black market members are exploiting the Tournament rules to engage in fights and attain more powerful cards (Bronze, Silver, or Gold Tiers) through winning. She tasks Brown and Kay to stop the exploiters and help maintain the spread.
Brown finds Artemis surrounded by similar opponents near the Clover Casino, and is shocked to find her not only completely fine and able to hold her own against at least a dozen students, but also taking enjoyment from this. Enraged, Brown warns none of what is happening is a game, though Artemis refuses to listen, not about to have her long-awaited adventure denied by someone who’s already had his fill. They duel over their personal issues, only to get third-partied by Lily, on her own quest to win cards. Brown and Artemis settle their differences, and Artemis joins the Clover Team.
Kay takes Casti to the gym, where they get jumped by more members of the market as revenge for their fallen friends. Kay figures out that the machine has already spread above ground this fast. Casti, trusting Kay’s leadership, joins the Clover Team by proxy.
Dr. Ernst finds his original Tournament card in the abandoned building, easily deducing the basics of the situation. He blows through a wave of goons, finding an exhausted, weakened Kay after the smoke clears, who is only there to further assess the scope of the issue. In a brief misunderstanding, he mistakes her for another goon and easily defeats her, and finds a secret tunnel underneath the building leading to more tunnels Underground.
Pearl finds and rescues Kay, and escorts her through another wave of goons back to the Casino to meet Skyber, who is trying (and failing) to create new cards with Nova. Apparently, the machine is limiting Skyber’s divine intervention to prevent cheating, leading her to believe there are only two ways to complete this emissary:
- Beat the Tournament in its original intention, by beating the final round against Skyber herself. She advises not to attempt to do so without three gold cards. Once she is defeated, a grand prize will be issued to the winners, who can request their reward be the machine turning itself off.
- Go down into the dangerous wine cellar that has been wildly corrupted into a heavily infested dungeon by the effects of the machine and destroy it manually. This route is her last resort, as it is entirely unknown what is beyond the first floor.
The Clover Team readjusts their goals around this; Brown sets up a group chat over SMS to network, plan and discuss their next moves while in different places.
Sybil, Bob, Clyde, Nathaniel, and Sean all find Wildcards individually, and all coincidentally attract the attention of the Guard Force. Charlie interrupts Nathaniel and Sean’s fun specifically and takes them to questioning. Brown’s new roommates, Fraise and Gabriel, also find out about the Emissary. Brown and Fraise get jumped by the Future Farmers of America Club (FFA) in the cafeteria for cards, though easily low-diff the redneck noobs. Gabriel takes a wrong turn into the guard barracks and into Gyssabel’s room, and is interrogated as to Fraise (his other roommate)’s whereabouts. He (falsely) promises to keep tabs on his roommates, and Gyssabel rewards him with a Wildcard she had reclaimed somehow.
The De Silva twins, willingly separated for the time being, go off and have varying degrees of involvement with the Wildcards.
- Enzo seemingly dissapears from the story, though characters hereafter constantly lampshade how the Black Market and other subfactions of ERA are able to so easily upgrade their decks and improve their fighting skills out of nowhere.
- Valentina tries picking on Skyber at the library, who is not having it. She mentions the cards and even taunts her with Enzo’s rampage, though Skyber is REALLY not having this. Valentina loses interest and leaves.
Kay gets framed for causing Wildcard-related mischief by ERA’s new Disaster Unit, led by squad leader Quetz and Firefighter Fynn. Responsible for taking care of unconventional emergencies across campus (likely due to the Orbeez Incident), they take Kay in for questioning, while the real perpetrator watches from the shadows…
The Guards plan a meeting after questioning Sean and Nathaniel. ERA’s newest detective Suzy checks into the office for the first time the day before the meeting. Charlie notices Gyssabel has gone AWOL and assigns Suzy her first mission: Find Gyssabel, find out what she knows, and bring her back safely.
Brown runs into Ernst in the Underground Tunnels, not having seen each other since the Tournament, and are forced to fight Clyde and Bob on a warpath. Brown notices Sybil, Skyber’s bartender, tagging along seemingly for fun and games, and after ending the fight in a stalemate, snitches to Skyber via DMs. Meeting in the casino, Skyber calls Sybil on the carpet for such blatant betrayal, only showing mercy if she promises to act as a double agent, to keep tabs on the SOL group. Sybil quickly accepts.
Fraise is attacked by Gyssabel, still wrongfully accusing him of cheating during the original Tournament. However, her assault is stopped dead by Suzy, who intervenes and uses her ability to subdue her consciousness and extract her most recent memories. She takes the witch in and shows the memory recorded on a film reel to Charlie, who notices Skyber’s insignia on Fraise’s face, a scene from their original fight. Charlie assigns her to look after Gys, and the detective takes her to recover in the break room of the Lodge, where she has her second job as its new manager.
Charlie’s entire squad (Oliver, Joan, and Jett, feat. Claude and Fynn) raid the Underground Tunnels, finding Skyber’s Casino and herself in it, placing her under arrest. However, their act proves futile under Skyber’s sheer might, and all are defeated in the Arena. After the fight, Skyber proposes a counteroffer to join in an alliance, giving them back their own Wildcards she won from them in exchange for the guards “leveling the playing field,” and arresting players who are using the simulation for their own gain.
More students, like Naomi (artist/designer Frog Therian), find cards to use only in self defense, while Penny (WWE fanatic) is eager to learn more about the rumored Dragon in charge of this whole charade, and willing to abuse the cards to achieve her goal. She hears of her friend Pearl’s escapades taking down The Art Department (TAD) (who have been leeching off Enzo) and sends a letter for a fight. Gabriel, who remains largely unknown but fought with Pearl whilst gathering more information, bides his time and continues to choose his battles wisely (by coincidentally exclusively beating up women).
Nathaniel, with a boosted ego from his win over Sean, meets up with Hugo and the two form a team to take down card wielders. After hearing of a fight club run at the black market, Nathaniel (and a reluctant Sean whom the FFA dragged in for entertainment) confronts its owner, a wrestler named Penny The Great P.T . Through sheer luck he gets the best of her but allows the fight club to continue. Meanwhile, Hugo and Sybil beat up Sean, who ran away from the previous fight.
The Black Market begins to organize like never before, with ringleaders and prominent figures like chainsmoker Ravien appearing to manage everyone from behind the scenes. She recruits a capable street fighter, ex-House lackey Preston, to get dirt on Skyber’s posse, believing her to be the villain who’s trying to overthrow the Market’s power over the Underground and creating the Machine to do so.
At the Lodge, Artemis, Casti, and Riolfie encounter the first Manifestation, an NPC controlled by the Machine itself for reasons unknown to the players. They know it to be a part of the simulation as this one takes the form of a robotic, Metal Pearl. Through defeating it, the Clover Team finds these beings contain a high value Gold card.
The Manifestation of Rock (modeled after Karen) also spawns in, terrorizing Dorm 3. Concurrently, Pearl battles a Silver Kay in her search for the real one, whose whereabouts to the Clovers are still uncertain. They all obtain Golds from these Manifestations.
Phoenix and Goldman (who has recently discovered his Electi ability) also run into a weaker version of Karen’s Manifestation, and defeat her with Ravien’s cards, banked with Goldman on the pretense they’d never know what they truly were.
Penny gets the idea through battling Pearl that by defeating Skyber and being granted the “One Wish”, she can ascertain her place as #1 of ERA and earn the respect of her role model, treating the Emissary like a WWE game. To do this, she plans to climb the ladder of supposed authority within the Clover Team’s ranks, targeting Brown next. However, she confuses Hugo for Brown with next to no description of him to go off of and fights him instead, ending in a draw, though Hugo is all the more willing to blab about him.
Hugo meets with Nathaniel again to talk about Penny. The unlikely buddy duo are then jumped and defeated by Lily, who shares that she was the one who Kay was mistaken for this whole time, knowing the boys are unable to do anything with this information.
The guards find that Ridley is missing from the guard barracks, and presume obvious Wildcard shenanigans. Charlie and Joan raid the top floors of the abandoned building, on the grounds that the Market has kidnapped Ridley and forced him to replicate cards. They find their ringleader, Bodacious “Fat Guy” Taurus, and successfully defeat him and rescue Ridley using Wildcards, who helps mutate Charlie’s. They escape the same way they arrived: being airdropped by Skyber.
A new online messaging & forum platform called Rabbl is created, which every student jumps on. One of its first posts pertains to a Copper Golem manifestation of Penny terrorizing the lower levels of the abandoned building, which Sybil and Gabriel are tasked to destroy. Sybil takes the Gold.
Jett refuses to let Kay out of the holding cells, as the only guard in the squad who doesn’t know her and thus treats her like a criminal, despite never disclosing what she actually did wrong, especially with the Wildcards. Kay loses trust in the guard force because of Jett’s incompetence, but is rescued by Suzy and Gyssabel, both having grown close since Suzy started looking after her in Charlie’s absence.
- The day prior, Goldman visits the Lodge, asking Suzy about Kay, who was seen working there before. Suzy reveals her role as Detective and starts a new case. Goldman leaves momentarily to collect more information and finds her phone lost on the street. Suzy discloses her memory ability, and Goldman takes the opportunity to voluntarily be shot in the head (to collect his last memory of Kay, of course). In the roll of film from Suzy’s bullet primer, they find an image of Lily, on the scene the day of her disappearance. Suzy goes to the security department to investigate further, while Goldman keeps the phone to hide her contacts (including the entire Clover Team’s group chat) from the guards. Gyssabel overhears everything from the break room.
- When Suzy is denied access to the holding cells to rescue Kay herself, as she has not been logged in the system yet, Gyssabel appears and offers to sneak them both in her own way, similar to how she and Skyber broke out the previous arc.
- Obviously, Security had tightened since the last jailbreak, and Gyssabel triggers an alarm. Suzy covers her face and fights their way out from the on-duty guard force.
Back to the present: Together, they deduce that Lily must have been the one to frame Kay, and vow revenge. Even Gyssabel, who had befriended Lily last arc, grows concerned over her behavior and commits to the Clover Team’s cause.
Brown, meanwhile, is jumped by Preston while walking with Kate on his way to work, and uses the Gold he borrowed from Gabriel to escape to The Lodge. He meets Suzy, his new boss (who is upset at his tardiness), and banks his Gold with Artemis for safe keeping. Kate stays in the Lodge until further notice.
When they clock in the next morning, they find out Kay had been recuperating and taking shelter from her jailbreak since the other night, and message every Clover to meet her, causing a big celebration at the Lodge. With the impromptu Lodge meeting of Brown, Artemis, Kay, Suzy, Gyssabel, Nova, Skyber, Fraise, Casti, Pearl, and Goldman (who still has Kay’s phone), they move to the subject of Lily, who is still at large, and is exposed of her misdeeds with the roll of film. The second order of business is Manifestations, as Skyber explains the origins and rules they follow by the Machine, warning everyone to stay away, as they cannot be defeated and only get stronger with the more battle data collected. Skyber devises a plan: Brown and Artemis will be the strike force that zones her out, and Casti and Pearl will be the Plan B. Some cards are also swapped and banked between members. Even Suzy obtains one from Skyber after the meeting adjourns. In secret, Kay is tasked to search for Ridley to see if he can overwrite Skyber and Nova’s Blank cards, while hiding from the guards still looking for her under the Casino.
Around this time, a golden statue of a dragon figure erupts from the ground outside the middle of campus, with 5 slots for Gold cards to initiate the Final Boss, as per the plaque’s message. SMS chats and Rabbl posts erupt in confusion everywhere.