After the IAC ended, the many tourists and visitors who were visiting left to go back home. But there were some people who had decided to stay. Mostly it's because they wanted to join Animalia and had already made the transition. But some people were going a bit slower than the others. For instance, Typhoon and Waterlily had found Animalia extremely captivating. It seemed like the perfect place for reawakening and reinventing oneself. Moving in with Iphis and Ianthe was not as much of a problem as they didn't have much possessions that were too difficult to transport and could easily be sold off as the anaconda's penthouse was already well-furbished.
The duo from Los Angeles were quick to find a niche in Animalia. While the twins' income was enough to support them, Waterlily felt it wasn't right to just 'crash on their fortune and leech up for nothing'. And Typhoon would go nuts if he was kept idle for too long. So the two of them were working at the town's bakery. Waterlily's vegan-based recipes were well-received by Animalians whose changes forced them to become herbivores.
However, Waterlily and Typhoon had not yet been converted yet. While they did feel a strong bond with the anaconda twins, they wanted to be sure they could be partners on equal footing. That is to say, they were wanting to wait until it can guaranteed that using the twins' DNA would make them hermaphrodites too. The simulations at Horizon were promising to far, but they were still working on isolating Iphis and Ianthe's unique chromosomal makeup.
Iphis and Ianthe were dusting off the display case their IAC medals were in. The three of them did shine rather prettily from bronze to gold. Iphis could feel a little bit of remorse coming from hir sister. "What's wrong?" asked Iphis.
"I just think we could have done better in the Bodybuilding competition if it weren't for me," said Ianthe.
"Hey, you put plenty of effort into that," said Iphis.
"And you did great besides that," said Typhoon, walking over to them, "Most people wouldn't have been able to make it to the finals with a handicap like yours." The twins gave him a slightly annoyed look. "I mean, it's not like it's an actual handicap, but a minor penalty that kept you from getting all points. You might have not come out first, but you were still able to come out second. That's still a big achievement."
"Yeah, I guess it is," said Ianthe, looking at the silver medal and thinking back to the finals.
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The Female Division of the IAC's Bodybuilding Competition was not as strenuous as the Male Division, but the competitors definitely showed that they had worked hard to get their muscles. There was certainly more of a larger audience than one might find at a normal female bodybuilder contest. With human bodybuilders, women would usually be required to sacrifice curves for bigger muscle mass. But with Animalians, big racks and muscles were the norm, though these ladies had to put extra work into defining those muscles even further. The results of this training was best seen in the gold winners of each weight class:
Lightweight:-- Stacy was a bodybuilding enthusiast for most of her life. She had been working hard at the gym in her old hometown to get the kind of body that appeared on fitness magazines. Sadly, her genes limited her ability to bulk up and it seemed her ambition was nothing more than a pipe dream. When Animalia came into being and the doors opened for people wanting to join, Stacy leapt at the chance. Not that she particularly cared about being an animal, but she'd give anything to be built like the amazons there. And since she had a reputation of being a gym rat, she decided to make that a bit more literal. She didn't care one way or the other about her new species, but over time, she found there were a couple of pleasures in being a rat. The way the Virus boosted up her curves was a welcome bonus too.
Middleweight:-- Macy had sorta stumbled into bodybuilding. She was one of Lyre's police dogs before the Animalian Outbreak uplifted her. She was still committed to the force, which meant she had to do regular training and exercising to stay in shape. The uplifted German Shepherd soon found that she liked working out and was doing plenty of it on her own time. Her friends eventually suggested that if she was going to work out so much, she might as well join the Bodybuilding Competition. To Macy, it was mostly about having fun than just putting on muscles. But she was still a police officer and she had a duty to uphold. Her buffing out actually helped a bit with her job. Although she didn't know it, there were more than a few would-be burglars who took one look at the amazonian Alsatian and decided to try their luck elsewhere.
Heavyweight:-- Rosie was a black woman before joining Animalia, so it was little surprise that she became a black panther. However, her reasons for doing so were a lot more than what they seem. She had been placed into the ARP because of her rather nasty divorce. Most people would think that this seems a little overboard, but her ex-husband has a terrible hair-trigger and would beat her if the slightest thing upset it. Worst still, after she had managed to get out of that marriage, he also proved to be extremely vindictive. He saw her as his own personal punching bag, no one else's. He swore he'd break her to pieces if he ever got his hands on her. As such, Rosie felt she needed more protection than the usual Witness Protection Program. Becoming a panther would make her a lot harder to beat up, especially if she bulked up. But now her bodybuilding was less about fearing her former husband and more about embracing her new identity.
Super Heavyweight:-- Olga's choice to become an Animalian had more than an edge of desperation. Like Martha, she had been morbidly obese as a human. However, while Martha's weight was caused by a thyroid problem, Olga had been a binge eater. She could not control her appetite whenever she felt the littlest bit down. Oh, she tried very hard to diet and exercise, but the slightest bummer would see her pigging out on junk food again. Naturally, she had several health problems because of her eating, not the least being diabetes. When she had to have her foot removed, she knew she needed something that could help her control her appetite once and for all. When Project Phoenix started, she had signed up out of desperation, hoping she could be cured before she ate herself to death. She had initially wanted to be one of the herbivores, but while waiting for her turn, she met a rather friendly grizzly named Piotr who gave her some very insightful advice about body image and self-control. Feeling a lot better about herself and a little infatuated with Piotr, Olga decided to become a brown bear instead. While still omnivorous, Olga could now restrain how much she ate, though her mate Piotr was a welcome source of dietary advice.
Ultra Heavyweight:-- There were not so many Animalians who could qualify for the Ultra Heavyweight division, even less females who wanting to do bodybuilding. So it was less of a challenge for Afia to win her division. She was part of the elephant herd that lived in the Lyre zoo before the Animalian Outbreak. She was much younger than her matriarch, Nzinga. As such, she felt a more youthful need to prove herself. While the other elephants were unconcerned of how round they appeared to be, Afia was determined to be in better shape than any of them. Nzinga lost most of her weight when she double-dosed with Dean, but Afia was boastful to say that she had earned her hard, rippled muscles out of her own work. There were certainly very few Animalians, male or female, who could out-muscle her. Even a bull elephant would find her very hard to overcome.
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Looking back, Ianthe couldn't say shi was disappointed with how they did. Besides, Olga needed to win more than they did. Though next time would be even better. Ianthe was going to even out her side so she and Iphis wouldn't get points docked for asymmetry and so she'll be able to hold up the Atlas globe more stably.