With the first week of February already half over, Everyone was getting ready for seemingly the most important part of February: Valentine's Day. Because of that, there were plenty of mess-ups relating to attempts to attracting a potential bondmate. But since that was generally to be expected, it wasn't too much of a stretch of the imagination. But there were some unusual things going on, mainly the Lunar New Year celebrations in Animalia. What was drawing the most attention was the Best of Breed Showdown for the Year of the Rat competition. These were tests designed to test all of the rats strengths, both in 3d obstacle courses, but also in puzzle doors that required solving puzzles in order to open said doors.
But that wasn't the only thing going on.
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Kip was spending time with Animalia's Mane Six in an effort to get to know them, but one of the things they did together swung him back to "out of his comfort zone". He had been planning to go to a video game store, but decided to allow them to lead him to where they wanted to go first, and that happened to be (much to his surprise and chagrin) Miss Vivian's Intimacy Boutique. Miss Vivian (who seemed to be on to this) announced that there was a men's waiting room right next to the dressing rooms, which inspired his new "girls" (not official yet) to model for him their choices for lacy lingerie.
It took quite a bit more than 30 minutes for the girls to get their first choice, and Kip was already playing a Super Mario game on his 3DS when they each revealed themselves, much to his surprise and an ill-timed 1-up sound on his game.
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Another ill-timed noise led to another guy's humiliation at Claw Coliseum. He was attempting to impress some potential bondmates with a 200 lb. bench press (which he was certainly capable of, since he was a college student planning to go into the military). What wasn't expected was an ill-timed fart when the bar touched his chest. Because of that, everyone who was watching broke down in hilarious laughter, mainly because of what the fart suggested.
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There were several cases of those who were rejected attempting to drown their sorrows in alcohol, then attempting to try again, but the Police force was used to this, both in finding and busting the drunkards, so it wasn't too out of the ordinary.
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Another thing that was picking up in sales were bedroom roleplaying kits. Mercy was the "latest" to learn about this because her trainer had bought a "Jailbait" kit for her, not that she didn't find him attractive nor did she miss the irony of the name of the kit. She was somewhat glad that Flying foxes weren't compatible with black mastiff bats, but she was keeping up to date on her birth control anyway. She felt that she wasn't ready for a kid quite yet, and still wanted at least one year to get used to her new form and lifestyle.
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One thing that was a little unexpected though, was Aurora's meeting with Miss Fabina and Alice. Part of it was because of how popular, both as a 'dancer' at the Meat Market, and as a music artist for the positive body movement. But she had some downtime available to talk with both of them, mainly about underwater 'dancing' and what to keep in mind. Alice was a little surprised about what she could do, especially underwater, while Miss Fabina was avidly taking notes on everything Aurora talked about.
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But with the Year of the Rat Zodiac competition holding everyone else's attention, there wasn't too much going on.