The Dawn is the eighteenth story arc in the main canon of EGS. It opened Febuary 4th 2013. It followed right after the first major timeskip of the comic.
End Of An Era
The Dawn starts with Elliot and Susan, Susan in a Starfleet uniform, reviewing one of the Star Trek: The Next generation movies. Susan notes how these movies are not considered canon in the Star Trek community and Elliot puts emphasis on on how he managed to find a plot hole.
It is December 23rd, indeed about six months after the end of the previous arc. Elliot and Susan are watching this review on the couch in Tedds basment together with Justin. The three are talking about how Susan was wearing a Next Generation Starfleet uniform, Susan saying it would have been alright for Elliot to tease her about that during the review. Susan accidentally misspeaks here, which makes Justin suspicious about the nature of their relationship.
Nevertheless, Justin quickly changes the subject to Susan's 18th birthday on New Years Dayt. Susan doesn't want to celebrate this event, mainly because people are already partied out after Christmas and New Years.
Elliot shows his disbelief over the fact that Ellen and Nanase got invited to a party with collge students. It is implied that the two girls have been solving mysteries eversince the There Will Be Whales storylines.
The conversation returns to the topic of Susan's birthday, Elliot says that it simply isn't right to celebrate "the Earth's birthday" and not that of Susan. He comes up with the idea of eating cake and singing birthday songs shortly after the ball drops.
Tedd changes the topic to Nanase's magic, wondering whether her magic is lying dormant on purprose for the sake of having extra power when it activates again. Tedd then reveals that he still worries about magic-using "tourists" with ill intend coming to Moperville, but says that he isn't quite sure about the Whales anymore, as he hasn't sensed them at all during the six months since. However, his father has confirmed the unusual amount of ambiant magic in Moperville.
A flashback is shown in which Tedds father promises Tedd he would never lie to him or feed him misinformation, but tells him that the Whale-story is absurd, confirming that he has no knowledge of such creatures existing.
Tedd asks the group to prepare in case "magic jerks" ever do show up. The comic then moves to Ellen and Grace ready to spar, with Greg as the referee. Ellen shoots transformation beams at Grace, which she gracefully blocks (which, shortly after the fight, she reveals she can only do when standing still). Ellen fires a strong one and Grace gets hit by the full blast, turning her into her Venus-form.
Grace turns her figure back to normal, then asks Greg whether it would be a good idea to go in battle completely flat-chested. Needless to say, Greg didn't have an answer to this question and quickly fled the scene.
Sarah and Nanase are sitting in a restaurant. Sarah reveals that she doesn't want to be in a relationship with Elliot anymore, but wants to stay friends with him. She says that Elliot is a gentleman and a great friend, but that he is simply too "passive" in their relationship. He never does anything new and Sarah feels the relationship isn't going anywhere.
Nanase explains Elliot's abstinence by speculating about Elliot's feelings on teen pregnancies. Apparently, Elliot's mother was still in school when she got pregnant with her son (revealed back in a 2003 comic), which may had an effect on Elliot's view on such things.
Sarah says it would be great if Susan could "take Elliot over" if she ended their relationship (though doubts that Susan is even interested in Elliot), then Nanase casually replies that this was basically what happened when Nanase broke up with him so Elliot and Sarah could be together. Sarah, shocked that it wasn't Elliot that ended their relationship is mad that Elliot didn't even take the initiative to end his relationship with Nanase.
Sarah and Nanase conclude that Elliot is just such a nice guy, which does only make it harder for Sarah to end their relationship. She also wants to wait until after Christmas and New Years as to not ruin the holidays for him.
Diane overhears this conversation and is pleased to hear that Elliot will be single again soon. This marks the first time Diane has shown interest in Elliot.
The comic switches focus to Elliot and Ellen. It's night and they are about to go to bed, Elliot still needs to burn off energy at night and tries to settle on a standard form to use from this point forward. Ellen reveals that since she went out of town for a short while (to solve The Mystery of the Were-Goat), her energy built-ups were over. Elliot, however, doesn't like to travel and doesn't really mind periodically switching sexes anymore.
They talk about how they'll be watching old Christmas specials with Grace and Tedd the next day, since Grace had never seen any of those. Ellen hopes that Susan would come as well, as she would have liked some snarky commentary to go with the movies. Elliot explains she will have to work that day, however, and mentions that it kind-of feels like "cheating" on her when he watches movies without her.
Ellen tells Elliot he needs to be more introspective awnd figure out why he feels the way he feels, despite his discomfort doing thinking about such things. Elliot tries this, wonders whether his past violence was really justified by his noble intend. However, he starts to imagine Susan justifying his actions, telling him he is maturing and coming close for a... kiss?
Elliot jumps up from his dream and is mad at himself for thinking that way about Susan. He blames his hormones for it (not thinking there might be some more behind it), but still feels like he cheated on Sarah. Ellen implies that Elliot might have a thing for Susan and that, at the very least, he owes it to himself and his girlfriend to figure out his own feelings.
Ellen then starts talking about how 'they' never really loved Sarah in a "true love" kind of way, but stops as she realizes that she is telling Elliot how to feel, rather than to let him figure it out himself.
Later, as Elliot is showering, he realizes he really may just have a thing for Susan. This gives him much to think about and makes him reevaluate his relationship with Sarah. In the next page, he tells Ellen how confused he is about all this and during this conversation, he makes clear that he had considered Ellen family from the first time he saw her.