Temperatures were at a record low for January on Saturday, especially for Lyre/Animalia, so the BARA and ROSE Houses decided to have a college-style chili cookoff. While there were some who were rather confused at this, others more than welcomed the chance to eat hot food on a cold day.
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The Chili Cookoff was in the Great Hall, but it included some unusual things since it was "college-style" instead of a regular cookoff. One of the big giveaways were the bottles of alcohol in tin tubs full of ice, though parents were quick to prevent their kids from trying them. Nobody really complained because the side effect of this was more than worth it: watching macho-men trying to impress female Animalians by eating the hottest chili around and then trying to "cool off" with alcohol, which only made the burning worse. Fortunately, there were plenty of pitchers of iced milk around to help cool off those "not-so-manly-men".
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While most people think of chili as a soup or stew, there were some who prefer to eat it on top of things like rice or, in one case, taco chips. One of the best examples of this was Abby's mother, Josephine. While this was partly expected due to Josie being pregnant, there were still those who were visibly confused when they saw Josie eating bread-and-butter pickles and nacho cheese on top of her chili and rice.
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Of course, such large meals were also a place for socializing with people, and so people were. Mercy had decided to bring the car thief and his girlfriend to the chili cookoff both as a means of "introducing" Animalia to those two and help them decide on which species to become. Her contact for the FBI did indeed confirm the guy's story about jewel thieves. It was rather amusing to see "Missy" looking rather dazed from all the male muscle and the boyfriend both looking and feeling rather small compared to the male Animalians.
Elsewhere in the room, both Rox and Maggie were meeting with the ex-show dogs who were coming to ASM. As expected, not one of them were one of Rox's rivals from her show days, but indeed, some of them were champions in their own right. Fortunately, all of them were willing to learn everything Rox had to teach them.
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Finally, Miles was doing a Zoom call with Tom and Jerry on the GGAC's actions on Ryouiki Island. While most of the call was about the discoveries that were being made during the prep, there were a few things that were still a bit of a surprise, though to be expected after the fact.
"So, what else has the GGAC been up to?" asked Miles.
"We've actually been asked to help out with one problem Ami's been having on Heiya Island, the 'delusional anime fanboys' that still think that they can get their ideal "waifu" by becoming Animalians." Said Tom, looking rather disgusted at the idea.
"So, how's it going with that?" asked Miles, clearly confused at this.
"It's going to be a long road of hard knocks, but I have faith we can get it done." said Jerry, only slightly less disgusted.