With Graduation officially taken place for seniors, they were finally ready to take on the world. Or they would if the pandemic wasn't going on right now, but it's a trend that's been going on for a while so, close enough. But there was a surprising thing that was delivered in the mail to the founding members of Animalia Ambassadoria, if a little confusing. It was a "press pass" especially for Animalia Ambassadoria members. While the uplifted members didn't have a clue what it was good for, the converted members were able to explain some of it.
But all together, Summer was shaping up pretty well with the Coronavirus slowing down. Because of that, tourists started slowly trickling into Animalia and its colonies. But "cabin fever" wouldn't be so easily cured, as many would find out. This did end up with a number of unusual things going on.
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One bouncer at the Meat Market was dealing with a difficult person who was arguing, nonstop, that he was sober enough to enter the Meat Market, but one person came up with a clever way of either proving or disproving their claim. Officially it was a make-shift breathalyzer test that didn't check for blood alcohol levels, but instead checks if someone is sober enough to recognize what the device was, a radio. As it turned out, the "test" worked time and time again. When someone would blow on the antenna end of the radio for the required time, the bouncer would reveal what it was much to the amusement of everyone else.
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The latest news from Heiya Island was that the new wing of the Imperial Palace was getting off the ground with its foundation laid. While the name Hall of One Thousand Pretty Girls was a bit of an overstatement, it wasn't too far from the truth, since all of the girls rescued were "taken" due to their appearance. But what was probably the funniest thing was that, only after a week of knowing her, all of the girls started referring to Ami as "beloved Mother" (最愛の母). While she made it clear that she wasn't Amaterasu, or even related to her in any way, they still referred to her as that.
Ami also made it clear that they didn't need need to be part of her new Geisha school, but those that were of age, mainly 16 to 19, were planning on signing up, mainly because they had been they wanted to follow in their "mother's" footsteps. While it was embarrassing to Ami, it was still something to be proud of at least.
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Alice had just gotten back from one of her workouts when she met one of the PR-MD agents.
"How are your underwater breathing lessons going?" asked the agent.
"Fine." she answered, "Aurora's been doing well with my lessons. It's just that... I'm not really into girls. Know what I'm saying?"
"That's fortunate, because we've just got a new donation that might be perfect for you." said the Agent.
"What?" asked Alice, surprised, "What is it?"
"While both goldfish and koi fish are both members of the carp family," said the Agent, reading up on the notes on their newest member, "They're technically not the same. But what we've got is a koi that's so orange it looks like the missing link between the two species, and not only that, it weighed 32 pounds when we got it's 'before conversion weight'. And I'd like to say that the fish was just confirmed as a male." At that, and seeing the picture attached to the file, Alice felt a really unfamiliar feeling welling up within her.
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Jerry, meanwhile, was delivering a meal from Red Lobster to the USAF captain and his new bondmate, who was now named 'Beatrice'. After knocking on the door and delivering the food, Jerry was able to get a question on how their relationship was progressing.
"We're getting well on our way to planning our first date." said Beatrice, "But every time I bring up wanting to have eaglets, he freezes up."
"Tell him that he's doing better than Captain 'Adam' was, both when he met our 'Mane Six', and now." said Jerry, laughing and taking the required notes down.
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A final funny thing came from Professor Nova, who had converted into a Mongoose Animalian to deal with her paranoid delusion. While she had calmed down significantly, she wasn't "all the way back", as Dr. Jones called it. She did see the coronavirus outbreak as another government conspiracy intended to "raise American's overall intelligence by getting rid of anti-vaxxers", to which many just shook their heads and rolled their eyes. While the claim on the internet did make a number of anti-vaxxer groups mad, her response to a person who had seen one too many Coronavirus scams on the internet, followed by Dr. Jones' response, got both of them fake "Internet Savage of the Year" awards.
Mister_Mad_Lad: Maybe you should learn some actual SCIENCE, and stop listening to the criminals pushing #Coronavirus SCAMS.
Super_Nova: I don't know, man. I already have a Ph.D. in astrophysics. Seems like anything more than that would be overkill to me.
Autistic_Therapist: That's why you need to continue your therapy. While conversion might have "brought you back", it hasn't brought you "all the way back".
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But what was clearly the most anticipated event of the summer was Animalia's first dedicated comic book convention. While it wasn't officially starting until July, that was seemingly enough time to see how the pandemic would go.