Like many of the other events that went into Animalia's celebration of the Lunar New Year, things did not always go on the same day. Some of this related to the time for many of the events. The Trial of Smarts had gone almost immediately after the opening ceremony, but it had also been something that didn't require a large amount of work to set up. It was also something that had also allowed all the contestants to be up there at once. Many of the other trials had different requirements and this required more time to get things set up and it made little sense to have them all on the same day.
The set up for the Trial of Stealth had been similar, as the clear plastic tubes had been brought in to serve as the corridors for the maze and laid out along the floor of the Claw Coliseum's main arena. The same went for the boxes where the various light traps would be. Thus, it made sense to have a day's break between the Trial of Smarts and the Trial of Stealth. It gave time for the Coliseum's staff to then assemble the maze and have all the light traps coordinated so that the contestants would have obstacles to go through... along with making sure that there was enough background light that viewers in the stands and on television could see the contestant move through the maze. The set up for the Trial of Strength had a similar need for a break. It would give the staff time to then disassemble the maze and then move in the things that would be required for the Trial of Strength. What would come in was a series of weight sets, one to lift the barbell over one's head, one of the stations for the bench press with a barbell with it as well. Both stations would have weights with them and that presented an obvious expectation of what would score the most points there.
"I think this will be the one that we dominate," Iphis commented as shi doted on of hir's, Waterlily's, and Typhoon's children. The three herm Anaconda Animalians knew who had given birth to who, but in raising them all together, they also really didn't keep full track on that. They gladly accepted Mother's Day and Father's Day gifts from all of them, though it often meant a rotation on helping their brood of hatchlings with selecting cards. It made family life interesting, but the three of them found themselves quite content with it.
"Agreed," Ianthe nodded to the head shi shared hir body with, "all the gym workouts we've done will be great here."
And in terms of lifting the weights, this was something that the three of them, along with Angie and Slick, would old advantages in. Many of the Humans that had become Snake Animalians over the years had often picked a venomous snake. Often because that weapon was associated with being "deadly." A young Texan couple that lived on their own ranch up in the state's panhandle, Tex and Wilma McClain, even commented in the locker room that they'd chosen the Western Diamondback Rattlesnake to give people a proverbial "don't tread on me" sort of moment. Iphis and Ianthe were fairly certain that many of the others that had become venomous species outside of reasons related to love had that same reason and that would be a bit of an impediment in the contest of strength where the point was to see how much they could lift or how much they could squeeze.
That was something that was going to naturally benefit constrictors, and as Anaconda Animalians, and the largest constrictors among extant snake species, if one went by weight, that was going to bring things even more into their favor. Iphis and Ianthe and their work through the gym facilities that were run in Lyre/Animalia and their participation in some of the body building competitions that Animalians had engaged in had a natural advantage. Waterlily and Typhoon didn't work out as much as their mate did, but they did keep something of a regular schedule, if only to stay in shape and keep up with Iphis and Ianthe. The two headed herm Animalian saw this as an advantage for them with their only real rival for winning this part of the competition would be with Angie and Slick, as the two Burmese Python Animalians would have comparable size and strength, and Iphis could note that Slick's workouts at the Claw Coliseum and with the coaching from the BARA House members had made him a powerfully built male Python Animalian. Though, Ianthe pointed out to Iphis that the real prize that Slick wanted was probably Angie as he seemed love-sick on her. The only venomous snake Animalian that Iphis and Ianthe figured could give them a run for their money was Leo Skye, who was a King Cobra Animalian.
"I think you might mean what you two can dominate," Waterlily said to hir mate with a small and embarrassed smile, "Typhoon and I may be herm Anacondas too... but we're not as advanced as you."
"Not to mention that that one of the stations one that Waterlily and I have no natural experience with," Typhoon added as shi glanced to the last station that was one of the stations there.
Ianthe looked to that station, which was the last one of the three that were there for the Trial of Strength. The last station was not a typical weightlifting station or machine that the gym at the Claw Coliseum had, or anywhere else in Animalia or any of its colony cities. It was a large canvas covered bag that was about six feet in length and was zipped up. A few flicks of hir tongue were also able to tell Ianthe that there was some kind of gelatinous substance in it. From the instruction manuals and rules that were posted for the trial, the material was to have consistency and texture of a decent sized organic food item. For Anacondas, this would mirror small to modest sized Caiman and Crocodiles or Capybaras, animals that the Anaconda were known to eat. For Pythons, this could include pigs and small to medium sized Deer. For the Kingsnake Animalians, the Milk Snake Animalians, Gopher Snake, and Bullsnake Animalians, this could compare to an upsized version of the animals that their mundane counterparts hunted, rodents, small lizards, birds, and for Kingsnakes and their relatives, even other snakes. And because these species were non-venomous, the test was a measure on their ability to constrict.
"I'm sure you'll do fine," Ianthe assured hir mates, "both of you... The ones who will be at the most disadvantage at that station will be those who are venomous... as they don't hunt by constriction."
"Yeah... but for us, constriction is all relative to instinct," Typhoon pointed out, "and for Waterlily and I... our only EXPERIENCE with that is when we've got the kids to bed and coil into our love ball at night."
"And you're both very strong at that," Iphis smiled back to them, "but this is still a case where following your instincts should work out well and to your advantage. One that would be above the Snake Animalians that are from venomous species, as constriction is not a part of how they would hunt and feed."
"Against the others... only Slick and Angie... Burmese Python Animalians can match our strength in terms of the raw muscle power," Ianthe added, "For those that became smaller constrictors, like Madam Matryoshka, they may have some calculation on how their strength would be in proportion to their size. As they wouldn't match our strength, as the various species of Milk Snake are weaker than Anacondas, but they're also a lot SMALLER than Anacondas... and smaller than an Animalian, like Madam Matryoshka."
"So, she should be stronger than a mundane Milk Snake... even the largest mundane Milk Snake," Waterlily surmised.
Iphis and Ianthe both nodded at that. That played into the whole complicated issue where things like size and the Animalia Virus could be a tricky thing. There were relatively few mundane animals that were the exact same size as Humans and thus when dealing with animals smaller or larger than Humans the results could vary. With animals larger than Humans, while the new Animalian would grow in size, they weren't necessarily the same size as the mundane animal. Iphis and Ianthe had figured that out when needing to get their car looked at and going to the repair shop that Tyler Luwrie ran. The massive male Alamosaurus Dinotopian easily dwarfed even Iphis and Ianthe, but also said he was still smaller than what the actual estimated sizes for the mundane animal were. The same for them as an Anaconda Animalian, as while they were fairly long when counting their tail and torso, they weren't quite as long as the larger lengths the Anaconda could reach.
On the other side of the scale, animals that were smaller than Humans often became bigger than the mundane animal they were based on. Several of the Snake Animalians were perfect signs of that, and many of them were based on venomous species where a species that was six feet long would be considered "large." Fang and hir mates were good signs of that. The mundane Stejneger's Pit Viper, or Chinese Green Tree Viper, only reached just over 2 feet in length, at most. Yet Fang, Muxing, and Li-Wei were at least about five feet tall, and perhaps more, and had about another four to five feet of tail that they could move on. Thus Li-Wei GREW in size when he was uplifted. Though, they couldn't get the chance to dwell on that too much longer as Courtney and Mario Domini came out as the announcers for the Trial of Strength.
"Good evening, ladies and gentlemen," the male Pachycephalosaurus announced into the microphone, "and welcome to the Trial of Strength. We have seen each contestant show their smarts and we have seen them show some cleverness, speed, and flexibility combined in the Trial of Stealth. Tonight's trial will be one that is limited to a physical contest... the ability of each contestant to lift and squeeze, things that would fit their needs as Animalians and their base capabilities as snakes. And this will include even those that are of venomous species."
"And there will be some set rules that would relate to this," the female Pachycephalosaurus Dinotopian picked up from her mate, "mostly with regard to two weightlifting stations and in relation to those Snake Animalians that have had upgrades to have more than two arms. For medical sans have shown that the added sets of arms have either doubled the number of sets of pectoral muscles or enlarged and doubled the strength of the set that was there so that it could cover the added set of arms. Thus, a Snake Animalian with Four Arms has a choice. They can use two arms and will be judged on much they can lift or press with those two arms, or they can use all four arms but will then have the weight lifted cut in half to fit with the number of arms used."
Iphis looked at Ianthe and both nodded. Given that they only had two arms, this rule wouldn't affect them much. Some could even say that it would "unfairly benefit them," and some of that could be true. But then, the Trial of Stealth had the potential to go against them and made Angie do as well as she did surprising in that test and the Trial of Speed would likely go even further against the large constrictors as their size and weight would slow them down. Even in water, Iphis knew they wouldn’t be super-fast. It was a case where the advantages of strength that would favor the Python and Anaconda Animalians in this trial would go against them in another. This had been why the three of them had also trained hard to improve their speed for the race in the Trial of Speed.
“I will spot the males for their lifts,” Mario then moved into the last bits for the instructions for the Trial of Strength.
“I will spot for the females,” Courtney spoke, “and the herms will have the right to choose either of us as their spotter.”
“Once the lift section is done, each participant will move to the last station,” Mario continued, “and in the constriction section, the points will then range from the total amount of pressure they can put on the sensors inside the bag and will then be compared to data that we have for each respective species based on their size. For venomous species that are not known to actively engage in constriction in addition to the bite, a lot of this will also relate to tests with resistance bands and computer modeling.”
“And all of this will also be scaled in proportion to the size of both the mundane animal and the Animalian in question,” Courtney finished, "the order of all contestants will go alphabetically and by weight.”
From there, things moved slowly through the list of contestants. Many things did go as Iphis and Ianthe figured. Many of the Snake Animalians that were based off of smaller and often the venomous species often did not lift as much as what they knew they could lift. That was something that rewarded the herm Anaconda's confidence in winning this trial, but even with that, there were some surprises that did show up. Leo Skye did fairly well with the lifts, at least so far as what Iphis and Ianthe could judge, but he actually did very well with the constriction section of the trial. In fact, Leo actually put up better numbers in that section than Madam Matryoshka and a couple of the smaller Snake Animalians that were also based on constrictors. Iphis figured that some of this had to be due to the fact that the King Cobra was both the largest venomous snake and among the heaviest, without needing the massive girth that some Viper species had and was also known to hunt at least juvenile Pythons in the areas where it lived.
With the lifts, there weren't as many surprises, but Iphis felt there were some good showings. Tex and Wilma did reasonably well, though the biggest surprise among them to Iphis was more Sylvia's performance. She wasn't particularly bulky and neither Iphis nor Ianthe expected her to show much in terms of the Trial of Strength. Her work as a corporate lawyer in Las Vegas likely kept her busy and both of them had followed enough in other news that indicated that her firm, largely representing Horizon's interests in relation possible offices in Las Vegas and Animalia in general, had made some fairly decent legal splashes regarding other issues. And Sylvia's reputation was built more on the first case she had out of law school, which had served to introduce her to Andrew and Tommy.
The two were brothers and the older had been accused of murdering his father while the younger brother had suspected foul play on his stepmother's part. In the course of going through playing to the younger brother's hunches, Sylvia and the prosecutors in Las Vegas found that the younger brother was right. The stepmother was practically a wicked stepmother and ended up falling victim to her own scheme. To a great surprise, the older brother soon fell for Sylvia, and while it meant that Sylvia couldn't represent him in court, the love seemed genuine, and Sylvia was happy for all that. They hadn't gotten as far as marriage and a conversion, yet, but that would surely follow. And for the moment, there was still the contest, where despite not working in a field that would lead to a lot of weightlifting, Sylvia had done a lot better than what Iphis and Ianthe expected.
And a couple of the other Snake Animalians that had gotten into body building had done fairly well. Bazooka was actually one that lived up to his name, and that among the Snake Animalians that were based off of venomous species, the male Red Spitting Cobra, managed some of the more impressive lifts, even if he couldn't match Leo's ability in constriction. Both Ianthe and Iphis had to be impressed by that, though the ones that managed to be the closest to them were Slick and Angie, as was expected. Angie didn't do quite as well as Iphis expected, but Slick more than did so as the two Burmese Python Animalians were able to play to their sizes quiet well and the natural muscle power that came with being a large constrictor. In fact, Slick actually managed to outlift Iphis and Ianthe, though, they and Typhoon and Waterlily were able to out squeeze Slack and Angie.
"You did well," Slick said with a friendly smile to Iphis and Ianthe as the scores were posted and the Coliseum's scoreboard updated where the contestants were in the standings, "I think this put you back in the lead among the herm Snake Animalians."
Iphis and Ianthe looked up and did note their position in the lead among the herm Snake Animalians and that Waterlily and Typhoon were also in the top five among them. That last point wasn't necessarily big, as there weren't as many herm Snake Animalians competing when compared to those that were just male or female, but there were more herms competing for the Year of the Snake Crown than had competed for the Year of the Dragon the year before.
"You didn't do too badly yourself... the guys at the BARA House must be pushing you hard," Iphis commented.
"Maybe," Slick said slowly and looked over his shoulder to Angie who was looking between him and the larger Anaconda Animalian, "though... I don't expect to win the whole prize. My reflexes weren't super-fast in the first two trials."
"He is strong though," Angie said softly, which Iphis, Ianthe, Typhoon, and Waterlily all heard.
"Which is impressive... given that the female Burmese Python is supposed to be bigger and stronger than the male," Waterlily commented.
"A lot of what I do isn't geared toward building muscles," Angie answered.
"And a lot of my training is to find a way to help Angie," Slick answered, "she did so much for me..."
"Looks like you won his heart," Waterlily smiled to Angie, "given how polite he is... I wouldn't let him get away if I were you."
Angie only found herself blushing under her scales.