Characters University

== Synopsis ==
Characters University tells the story of how Pablo and Austin met and became friends while they attended Characters University's "School of Scaring."
== Plot ==
During a field trip to the Monsters, Inc. factory, the friendless 6-year-old Mike Wazowski is forced to walk with his teacher Karen Graves. When the class visits the Scare Floor, the children roar at the Scarers to show their skills. Superstar Scarer Frank McCay tells them that he studied Scaring by going to Monsters University, despite another Scarer claiming that Fear Tech is better; Frank says that MU is really the better school. Mike is forced behind his taller classmates; as a result, he cannot see the Scarers. However, he manages to sneak in the Scare Floor and follow Frank to the door he is about to open. As soon as Frank enters the child's room, Mike follows and secretly looks at Frank sneaking to the bed and avoiding the child's parents by pretending to be a piece of clothing. When the parents go away, Frank sneaks up to the child and scares him. After getting out of the door, Frank tells Mike how dangerous his actions were, but is also impressed with him since he didn't know he was in the room. He gives Mike his MU cap and winks at him. When Karen asks Mike what he has to say to defend himself, he simply asks, "How do I become a Scarer?"
We then switch 11 years later to a bus about to stop at Monsters University, where a 17-year-old Mike says farewell to the other monsters in the bus, but creeps them out due to the facts he knows about them. Mike arrives at MU and is extremely excited. After taking a picture for his ID card and visiting the school, he finally goes to his room, meets and befriends his roommate, the nerdy and shy Randall "Randy" Boggs, who has trouble controlling his invisibility power. When Randy suddenly disappears while greeting his new friend, Mike is impressed and tells Randy to use it more, to Randy's shock. Randy soon gets rid of his glasses under Mike’s suggestion because they don’t turn invisible when he does. While Randy is worried about not being able to impress the cool kids, Mike is laid back and confident in his scaring abilities.
At their first day of class, Mike, Randy and the other students are greeted by the orange, dinosaur-like Professor Knight, who teaches Scaring 101. When Professor Knight explains how the class will go, the dean of the school, the dragon-like, millipede-legged Abigail Hardscrabble - a legendary Scarer - drops in on the class unexpectedly. Her belief is that scariness is the true measure of a monster, letting them know how high her expectations are. She explains that there will be a final exam at the end of the semester, and failure will result in being kicked out of the program. After she leaves, an 18 year old student arrives late, James P. Sullivan, a natural Scarer. Despite having a lot of potential, Sulley never studies and always forgets his pencils and books whenever he goes to class.
Later that day, while Mike is studying scaring, Sulley breaks into his room to get back Archie the scare pig, rival college Fear Tech's mascot. Mike ends up riding Archie after the pig stole his MU cap. Mike stops the pig, but Sulley gets the credit for it, attracting the attention of many fraternities, including Omega Howl and Jaws Theta Chi, but the top fraternity, Roar Omega Roar, gets Sulley's attention. While Roar Omega Roar's president, Johnny Worthington III, talks to Sulley, Mike tries to get their attention and follow them to a party, but is stopped by the purple, one-eyed, crab-like Chet Alexander. Sulley tells Mike that the party is for scare students who "have a chance" after Mike says that he is indeed, a scare student. This event in particular causes an intense rivalry between the two. Mike studies hard and impresses Professor Knight, while Sulley's laziness costs him the respect of both Professor Knight and the RORs.
The day of the Final Exam arrives, and Johnny threatens to kick Sulley out of ROR if he fails the exam. Each student must perform the appropriate scare tactic assigned to each mock child using a scare simulator set to its medium setting. Roar Omega Roar watches from the back of the lecture hall and Sulley sees Mike studying. In order to antagonize him, Sulley pushes Mike's books off his desk, causing the two to argue. Mike begins to roar at Sulley, to show him what he's capable of. Unimpressed, Sulley roars back. That goes on until they gain the attention of Dean Hardscrabble. Suddenly, Sulley trips over one of Mike's books and stumbles into Dean Hardscrabble's scare can. It dropped to the floor and broke open, rocketing all over the room, getting damaged beyond repair. Strangely enough, Hardscrabble acts quite calm about it, then dismisses it as an accident, and she continues the exams, taking over Mike and Sulley's tests herself. She asks Mike to inform her which scare would be used for a child afraid of lightning, he remembers the scare tactic perfectly but Hardscrabble dismisses him before he can even try. When she is about to test Sulley, he just roars at her, without letting her finish declaring the task. He claims that he doesn't need to know any of that "stuff" to scare a child. Hardscrabble informs him "that stuff" would've informed him that the child was afraid of snakes, and his roar wouldn't have made it scream; instead it would cry, alerting the parents and possibly exposing the monster world to the humans. Because of his sheer arrogance, Hardscrabble dismisses Sulley from the program. Hardscrabble then fails Mike because she believes he's not scary. Instead of becoming Scarers, Mike and Sulley join the extremely boring Scream Can Design school where Sulley is visibly angry at Mike.
Mike is so upset that his dream of being in the Scare Program has ended so soon, that he throws his book at the wall knocking down his calendar revealing a poster of the "Scare Games". That gives him the idea for getting out of his misery. He runs out his dorm room, past an angry Sulley who follows him. The sign-up for the Scare Games is nearing a close as the school gathers to listen to Hardscrabble explaining how to win the games you must be the "most fearsome monsters on campus!". Just before the end of the sign-up, Mike stands up on a car and shouts out his sign up for his new fraternity - Oozma Kappa! Everyone breaks out in a laugh as Oozma Kappa isn't really the scariest group of monsters on campus. Hardscrabble doesn't think Mike stands a chance, so he baits her into a wager: if OK wins, they must be allowed into the Scaring Program. She agrees, but also tells Mike that if they lose, he will leave Monsters University. And she also tells him there must be six members to join the games, and they only have five, as the rules of the games only count bodies as team-members, and so the two-headed monster Terri and Terry count only as one. Mike asks Randall to join Oozma Kappa, but he finally became part of the cool guys at Roar Omega Roar and he warns Mike to not mess that up. Sensing an opportunity Sulley decides to join OK. With no one else willing to join and desperate to get back into the Scare program, Mike reluctantly agrees.
The Oozma Kappa house turns out be that of Squishy's mother. It looks nothing like the usual fraternity houses. The monsters introduce themselves in the living room: Don, a mature student who was unlucky in his sales business and decided to return to school. Art, a flamboyant and laidback philosophy major who gives Mike and Sulley a "dream journal". Terri and Terry Perry, who share one body, and Squishy, an "unwelcomed" little guy with five eyes. Mike and Sulley look at each other as the guys are estactic to have new brothers. Later that night, Mike and Sulley find out they will be sharing a very small room together. The other OKs turn the power off and host an initiation in the basement, which is supposed to be spooky but is shortly interrupted by Squishy's mother, Sheri, who is doing laundry in the back room. The next day a letter from the Scare Games arrive, announcing the first challenge of the game: The Toxicity Challenge.
Each challenge of the Scare Games represents a part of the job of a future Scarer. In the Toxicity Challenge, the players must simultaneously race through a tunnel and avoid toxic stinging, glowing urchin-like balls that were produced by the Biology department, just as a Scarer has to avoid toxic toys and clothes and other belongings in a children's room. And because Scarers work in the night, the lights in the tunnel are turned off. Mike and Sulley immediately take their rivalry to the starting line. Roar Omega Roar comes in first, but although Mike and Sulley (still fighting with each other) come shortly after, OK gets eliminated, because the whole team is required to cross the finish line. Mike is heartbroken and Hardscrabble tells Mike it would've taken a miracle to keep them in the games. At the very last moment, the JOX fraternity is found to have cheated by using illegal protective gel and is disqualified, miraculously allowing Oozma Kappa to stay in the games in their place.
Oozma Kappa is joyfully celebrating that they somehow survived the first round. Mike knows they have to work as a team from now on to stay in the Games. Mike tries to gather the talents of his team mates, but outside of Terry and Terri's cheap magic tricks and Don's annoying suckers, he doesn't get much. So he decides to take full responsibility over the team and anyone else is just supposed to do exactly what he does. Sulley has no confidence in Mike's leadership or his team and walks off.
The next challenge of the Scare Games starts. This time, the players have to sneak through the MU library, without getting caught by the librarian: a giant slug-like old monster with poor eyesight and very good ears and a very scary appearance, who will attack and throw out anybody who does the smallest noise. The aim for every team is to snatch a flag with their symbol on it, much like a Scarer has to reach their child without getting caught by their parents. The team is just thoughtlessly following Mike, until Sulley's impatience gets the better of him and he charges toward their flag, causing a ladder to break off its rails and falls hard. The librarian moves toward Sulley, then the other OKs start to make noises to distract her, which is legal since the only condition to advance is to avoid getting caught. While all of them finally escape the library, Squishy was able to steal the flag, because he is very good at sneaking about unnoticed, something Mike totally overlooked. The EEK team on the other hand, isn't so lucky; they are grabbed by the librarian, thrown out of the library and eliminated.
In the night after the second round, Oozma Kappa is surprisingly invited to a Scare Games-mid mixer party for the Top Scarers of the campus in the ROR's house. While the rest of his team is enjoying the party, Mike admires the Scare Games trophy and his reflection in it, fascinated by the fact that he is so close at getting everything he always dreamed about. Johnny Worthington III then holds a speech and greets his fellow contestants, but when he comes to the OKs, he just mocks them and Randall, again betraying his former friend Mike for the cool guys, activates a trap that douses them with colorful paint, confetti, flowers and stuffed animals to make them look foolish.
The next day, the OKs see that the whole campus is overflown with pictures of their humiliation of the previous day. Mike isn't willing to give up yet, but Sulley and the others tells him that no matter how they train, they'll never look like the competitors or be real scarers. Mike then gets an idea. He persuades his fellows to follow him on a secret night field trip to the Monsters, Inc. - in which they break in. Through a window, Mike shows the OKs the Scare Floor where his dream of becoming a Scarer has started. He explains that all the Scarers are different like they are - some have too many heads like Terry and Terri, some are older than the rest like Don. That impresses even Sulley, and he and Mike are starting to warm up for each other, because they share the same dream and the same fascinations. But then, the OKs are detected by the security and barely escape.
With fresh confidence, the OKs are training hard for the next round. Mike and Sulley have learned to stand each other. While Mike is starting to see the real potential of his team, Sulley starts to accept his strategies. They receive the letter for the next challenge of the Scare Games, where they have to race through a maze and scare pictured children, but hide from from pictures of teenagers, who while similar to children and equally toxic, aren't so easily scared. This time, the OKs master the challenge without any luck and with pure skills, and they finish in second place just after the RORs (PNK is eliminated in the event, as they scared the teenagers and got boxed in). They repeat their exploit at the next challenge of the Scare Games, where they have to hide in a fraternity house from security, in the same way a Scarer has to hide from children's parents (HSS is eliminated). The OKs and the RORs are the last two contestants for the big final. Dean Hardscrabble talks to Sulley and shows her respect for him, but notes that the team will still lose, for she knows there is at least one monster in his team who's not scary enough - meaning Mike. Sulley defends him, saying that Mike works harder than anyone else for that. She asks him if he thinks Mike is scary. Sulley can't answer because honestly, he doesn't think Mike is scary.
In the night before the great finale, Sulley thanks him for all the work he has put into the team. He then decides to do something for him and gives him scare tutoring. He shows him his scare-techniques, but soon gives it up, after seeing what an amateur he is, without letting him know. Secretly, he's starting to agree with Hardscrabble about Mike's unscariness.
The Final Challenge of the Scare Games arrive. The champions Roar Omega Roar versus the underdog-surprise Oozma Kappa. The both contestants have to battle each other in the Scare-Simulator-Challenge, where one by one, every monster of each team has to enter their Scare-Simulator, read and interpret the mock child-information, choosing a scare-technique and then scare the dummy as much as they can, on the highest difficulty level. The team that reaches the most combined scream-energy wins the challenge and the Scare Games. Before the challenge starts, Mike discusses his strategy with his team. He wants to go in first, but Sulley wants to give Mike the honor of finishing the Scare Games for them, because he was one who started it. Mike is pleased and agrees to go in last, right after Sulley. Don makes the start and makes good use of his suckers. Surprisingly he outscores his opponent. Terry and Terri create the appearance of human body to scare in the act, Art that uses his flexibility to move around the room and even Squishy that uses his eyes to create something similar to a zombie face. ROR has a slight lead by the fifth round, in which Sulley faces Randall. Sulley has learned and studies the mock child-info, before he goes in. In addition to his usual roar he stomps the floor hard and produces a small earth-quake. He score's very high, while in the other simulator, Randall is knocked off the wall, causing his uncontrolled camouflage ability to take the color of the child room carpet - a very bright pink with tiny hearts on it. Because of his rather neat than scary looks, his score is rather low and when he comes out of the simulator, Randall gets mocked by his fellow RORs. Randall swears that he'll one day take revenge on Sullivan for this humiliation - setting the stage for their upcoming rivalry in Monsters, Inc.
Mike faces Johnny in the final round. Johnny is certain - even though OK made it this far - that Mike doesn't belong there and he's already lost. The both of them make it across the room with great skill. Johnny generates a high score, meaning that Mike will have to pull off a record breaking scare. For Mike, the moment of truth has arrived. The memories of all the scorn and derision he got over his life raced through Mike's head, then he hears Sulley's encouragement from last night. Mike unleashes a mighty scare that makes the dummy scream as loud as it can and generates the highest score possible. Mike can't believe it, but the audience is amazed and jubilates for him. Against all expectations and to everybody's surprise, the Oozma Kappas won the Scare Games. Joyfully Mike holds the Scare Game trophy for the OK's.
OK is in the stadium taking pictures with other students while Mike stands in front of the simulator, overjoyed that he will be a scarer, that is, until he playfully gives the dummy a last little scare, getting him a perfect score again. Even snapping his fingers causes the same reaction. Mike checked the settings of the simulator. He found out that the difficulty-controller for the other scarings were on the highest level as they should be, but the last one - Mike's controller - was on the easiest. It dawns on Mike that Sulley changed the setting. Mike accuses him of doing it for himself and of being like Hardscrabble and everyone else for thinking he's not scary enough. Sulley lets it slip that he doesn't believe Mike has what it takes. A heartbroken and angry Mike walks away, as the rest of OK, who were equally ashamed that Sulley ruined their victory by cheating, leaves behind the undeserved trophy.
Sulley walks through campus with the trophy being praised by the other students. ROR approaches him and welcome him back, but he declines, leaving the trophy with Johnny and goes to talk with Hardscrabble. Meanwhile, Mike waited in front of the Door Manufacturer Laboratories, after he has listened to a girl who has worked the whole semester on a door that is about to get shredded tomorrow, because it is too dangerous. Without knowing what that means, Mike skillfully steals the key card for the laboratory and breaks in. Sulley confesses to Hardscrabble that he cheated and takes full responsibility for his actions. Hardscrabble is outraged and wants him off campus by tomorrow, but then an alarm sounds, signaling a break-in at the door labs. Mike has locked himself in the lab, activating the door and enters the Human World.
Mike sneaks out of the wardrobe and finds a little girl sleeping. His nervous roar only wakes the girl up. Sleepy, the girl sees Mike and says, "You look funny." This wakes another girl up, who's sleeping in the same room. To his horror, Mike finds out that he isn't in a children's room. He is inside the girl's sleeping bungalow of a Summer Camp - filled with poisonous girls that find him and his scare-attempts funny and cute and badly want to touch him.
Meanwhile, in the Monster World, Sulley and Hardscrabble hurry into the Door Manufacturer Laboratories. Hardscrabble hears that some monster went through the door, and commands the door be cordoned off until the Child Detection Agency is on scene. Sulley knows that it was Mike who went through the door and he cannot let his friend get stranded in the Human World. Don creates a distraction for Sulley to enter the door against Hardscrabble's warnings. There he finds an empty bungalow - no sight of Mike. But through a window he can see the emergency lights of a patrol car and an amazed bunch of girls that described to the adults an alien, that entered their room and fled into the forest. Sulley decides to follow Mike's traces and runs also into the forest, but not without getting glimpsed by the park rangers. Mistaking him for a bear, they hunt Sulley into the forest, but he is able to shake them off. He then finds Mike sitting at the shore of a lake, hidden behind rowboats. Mike laments his inability to scare the girls, as well as his efforts to become a Scarer and prove he was special being for nothing. Sulley tells him he knows how he feels. This angers Mike since monsters like Sulley can screw up and still be loved by everyone and he was born a Sullivan. Sulley admits he is also a failure because he is a Sullivan who flunked every test, the one who got kicked out of the program, and he was so afraid to let everyone down that he cheated and he lied. Sulley acts scary yet has been terrified all this time. He never admitted this to Mike sooner because they weren't friends before.
They are nearly found by the park rangers and camp counselors. Without losing time, the two of them hurry back into the bungalow and open the wardrobe, but find out, that the door must have been shut down. Hardscrabble orders the entire room cleared out until the authorities arrive. In the bungalow, the adults are getting closer. Mike thinks that, if they can generate enough scream energy, they can activate the door from their side. It's their only chance, but Sulley has his doubts. He may be good at scaring children, but these rangers are adults and adults usually can not be scared. Mike knows every scare tactic in the book, so they have a chance.
The police officers, rangers, and/or camp counselors enter the bungalow and find it totally empty. Strange things are going on, weird sounds and shadows spook through the room, all produced by Mike and Sulley. When the horror is high enough, Sulley jumps out of the dark and roars as loud as he can, scaring all the adults out of their skins. Their screams don't just activate the door but they overload every scream canister in the room. Without losing time, Mike and Sulley hurry back into the Monster World just as the door explodes. For the first time, Hardscrabble is just plain shocked. The CDA arrive, taking Mike and Sulley away. Squishy asks them what will happen to them. The agent in charge tells him it's up to the university president to decide, adding that they'll be watching those two. "Always watching."
Mike and Sulley have been punished and expelled for their actions. To their surprise, Hardscrabble has allowed OK into the scare program since she was impressed by their performance in the Games. Also, Don and Sheri are engaged, to Squishy's discomfort.
Mike admits that, for the first time in his life, he doesn't have a plan, but he's okay with "just being okay." He boards a bus back to Monstropolis, but Sulley stops him, telling him that he hasn't met anyone that can do what he has. The wager with Hardscrabble, OK becoming champions, and Sulley pulling off the biggest scare MU has ever seen was all Mike's doing. Sulley says Mike isn't scary, but he is fearless. He begins to talk about Hardscrabble not seeing that, but she arrives, telling him to watch himself. She shows them that they made the front page again, and admits that they both surprised her, something that hasn't been done before. As such, she will look out for more surprises in the program. Regretfully, she can't do anything more for them, but she wishes them luck, telling Mike to "keep surprising people."
They notice an ad in the paper for a company that's always hiring in the mailroom. They start work at Monsters, Inc., where they meet the Abominable Snowman for the first time. He instructs them that tampering with the mail is punishable by banishment (maybe a rule he should have taken more to heart himself...).
Mike and Sulley are seen happy in the mailroom, then get promoted to janitors, kitchen assistants, can wranglers, and then take part in open tryouts for scarers. They pass the training program and Sulley becomes a scarer with Mike as his assistant. Mike dons a hardhat and joins Sulley on the scare floor for the first time, commencing the events of Monsters, Inc.
In the credits, a series of actualized Scare Cards of the Monsters that became Scarers after graduating are shown, featuring the Oozma Kappa members, Chet Alexander, Randall Boggs, Rosie Levin, and Johnny Worthington. However, Johnny does not end up working for Monsters, Inc. He goes to another company.
In a post-credits scene, the slug monster from the beginning of the movie finally arrives at his classroom, only to discover that the school year has already ended and he has missed every single class and the janitor wipes the floor. Then the slug begins his presumably excruciatingly slow journey home.