While the IAC was holding most of the attention, there was enough going on to prevent it from stealing all the limelight. But one of the busiest offices during this time was the PR-MD. Not only were they making sure that all events were covered, both literally and metaphorically, in a tasteful and respectful way, they were also helping out with sorting out the truth from fiction to certain pictures making their rounds on the internet.
"While Mr. and Mrs. Hanson are the largest members of the Hanson herd," said the first PR-MD agent, looking at a picture of Mrs. Hanson doing squats in the outdoor Gym while Mr. Hanson was doing the spotting, "But I'm not sure why people are taking this picture of it as proof that a long lost race of giants existed on earth."
"I've read the bible quotation that inspired the art/evidence of archaeological proof of ancient giants," said a second, before quoting, in a dramatic tone of voice, ""There we saw the giants - the descendants of Anak came from the giants; and we were like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in there sight." Numbers 13:33." At that, everyone was trying to smother laughter.
"Well, I've got the answer to the claim." said the third, who was doing a digital analysis of the photo. "The photo isn't tampered with in any way, but I managed to figure out why the spectators in the photo are so little compared to Mr. and Mrs. Hanson. It all has to do with one of the most famous, or infamous, optical illusions on the internet known as forced perspective."
"I've seen one of those," said the first agent, "It was a picture where a guy was seemingly holding onto a giant orange golf ball when in reality the golf ball was much closer to the camera lens than the guy was."
---
"So why is this 72-year old man getting into Project Phoenix?" asked one scientist as a giant pit bull walked out of his conversion room to get his measurements for his new clothes, since he was now on the low end of the Super Heavyweight scale.
"Because a mugger in Las Vegas took Roger for an easy victim, not knowing that he's actually both an ex-Marine, an ex-Marine drill sergeant, and a retired champion boxer." said her co-worker, "Roger's training came forward, and karma cracked the funniest can of whoop-ass on the mugger, much to every onlooker's amusement."
"So?" asked the first scientist, not really getting it.
"Two of those happened to be Daniel and Mandy who were meeting with a publisher to talk about the memoir he was working on." replied the second, "So Daniel got him sponsorship, even though he's not of the same 'generation' as him.
"Oh, right." said the second, remembering seeing it on the news.
"He's going to be taking an online course in order to get his physical trainer license, but I can clearly see him applying his military training to his lessons." said the first, already imagining rookies collapsing from exhaustion from the amount of training they were receiving from .
---
Roger was already chatting with Peter about his first group of trainees, since Peter and his group were on Heiya Island for the IAC Martial Arts Tournament.
"So these are friends of yours?" he asked.
"Yes," acknowledged Peter, "They're part of the same gaming club we were in before the founding of Animalia."
"In my day we didn't have any of these newfangled portable gaming systems." said Roger, which was true enough, "We just had board games and card games and thought that was grand."
"If you say so." replied Peter, "I gotta go, the tournament is about to start. Don't try to kill them outright." he said, hanging up.
Though Roger wondered at that last part, when he saw the his pupils, he immediately knew why.
While they were clearly double dosed, they were also clearly "yuppies" who had never set foot in a gym. One of the guys was 'curling' 12 pound dumbbells and basically doing it all wrong. Another was doing something that wouldn't look out of place in a martial arts comic book with five pound dumbbells for cardio, which just looked flat out ridiculous. A third was doing the only thing that looked right, he was using a regular barbell with one 35-pound plate on each end... and pinned beneath it. And that was on the low end of how pathetic their attempts at working out was, since there was eighteen Animalians in the group, equally divided among males and females. But fortunately, Roger was able to give them a 'warning' of sorts.
"What in tarnation is going on here?" he barked, getting their attention in full drill sergeant mode. The 'ohmigawd, I'm gonna die!' expressions on their face were considered priceless later.
After only one class, almost everyone was dragging their feet/paws/hooves/etc. from how exhausted they were.
"Well that had to be the most pathetic attempt at showing fitness that I've ever seen in years." said Roger, shaking his head, "But I'm feeling gracious today, so I bought you all lunch." Everyone felt slightly better seeing the amount of Subway he got them, but not much.
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However, the biggest event in June was the IAC URP Showcase. The showcase helped debunk the last of the myths that gymnastics were just "somersaults, hoop-di-hoops, and tippytoes", and also showed that swimming was more than just races, especially in Animalia.