Of God and Aliens, 40

Back on the planet Rintu the strength test was commencing. It was made known that everyone could participate if they wanted, or each race could have one representative if that’s how they wanted to do it. Enya made it known that Congat would be representing their race immediately, to which he agreed. Maybe he wanted to, or maybe he just didn’t want to hear about it later when they were alone together. The others just chose one representative, they didn’t seem too concerned about it really, even with the watchful eyes of the military around them. They could either pick up a barbell and attempt to lift it over their head, or pick up another weight and walk with it from one line to another. Kind of like the farmer’s carry, Bryan thought. There was also a long rope in the assortment of things, tug of war maybe? When Premiere Luto asked who wanted to begin, Rilly all but jumped at the chance, extroverted fellow that he was. “Alright, what will you do?” Asked Luto. “Both!” Rilly said. Well he has heart, Yenta thought as she started to cheer him on, Bryan joining as well. Rilly seemed to eat up the praise as he put small plates on the barbell and then hoisted it above his head with some effort, getting a cheer from the two deathworlders, and shortly afterwards from the others in the crowd as well. He then picked up two weights resembling kettlebells and started walking with them. From one line to the other was maybe twenty feet, he started to falter around the halfway point until Bryan, while cheering him said, “Put it down, take a few breaths, then picked it up and finish! You can do it!”
This surprised him, but he did just that and finished after having to put it down twice. But he finished it!
And was very pleased with himself after as he heard the cheers. “Nice job, way to finish!” Bryan said as Yenta gave him a gentle pat to the back. “I’m gonna (indecipherable) feel this tomorrow!” Rilly said as he was panting. Wonder what that word means, have to ask later. Bryan thought as Congat elected to just lift the barbell with slightly more weight. He made it clear that he wasn’t the least bit interested in anything cardio related. But he did lift the weight, which looked comically small in his tall frame. All the other races chose one representative, about half chose the lift and the other half chose the carry. All were cheered on, making the experience feel more like a game and less of a test. Then as Kay Sara was providing the media commentary to the whole planet it seemed, it could be heard around her as she was saying “….and it’s also great to see the them cheering everyone on since the beginning! And now it’s their turn, we get to see how strong they really are!”
Yenta, smiling wide and looking forward to when both her and Bryan could do their plan that the Zindi suggested. “I’ll do both”, she said as she looked at the bar more closely. Everything took a turn as she picked up the previous weight with one hand and had a quizzical look on her face and said “Is this steel?” After the initial shock of seeing her pick it up so effortlessly, Luto said “ No, we don’t have much steel here. That’s aluminum.” Oh, alright, she thought as she just loaded the bar completely and then picked it up with one hand, put it down, then did the same with the other hand. She looked at Bryan as if to say “Um, this is almost weightless.”
“Well everyone, it’s obviously that they’re ridiculously strong!” Said Kay as both of them made little effort to manipulate all the weights they had. It was nice to see everyone cheering for them as well, wondering just how strong they were. They were also sure their threat level would be increased by quite a bit after this little demonstration. And even more after they got rid of the weighted clothing. “Maybe we should do a tug of war?” Bryan suggested to Yenta. “Sure!” She said as they asked to use the rope. “Tug of what?” Tora said as they were given permission to use the rope. The Psylics got some odd looks from some of the others from that question. “It’s when we both grab the rope and try to pull each other beyond a certain point, like one of those lines.” Bryan explained as Yenta said “Yeah, but we need to shed all this extra weight first, don’t you think, Bryan?” That look on her face was plain mischievous! “Yeah, we do. Everyone might want to give us some extra space too, we don’t know what will happen when we’re at our natural weight.” Bryan replied as he noticed Luto grinning, saying “I was wondering when you would do that.” Everyone looked almost shocked, especially the surrounding military members and Kay, who looked dumbfounded. “What do you mean?” Kay asked Luto, who said “Just watch them and you’ll see.”
It was predetermined that they would wear normal light workout clothing under everything so they wouldn’t have to go in to change. It also helped having low temperatures and humidity so they really didn’t sweat. As they removed both the upper and lower garments and put them down, they heard gasps as it became apparent what was happening, especially when they just dropped them on the ground, hearing an audible thump even in the low gravity. Yenta was looking Bryan up and down, thinking “wow, you look like an absolutely delicious light chocolate that I’d like to..” But her thoughts were interrupted as Bryan said “ Damn, you look really good. Are you ready?”
Don’t smile at me like that, we’re supposed to be opponents! She thought as they both grabbed an end of the rope.