INDUSTRIAL ZONE 7 - Round 3  
Written by Iron-K, 2011

Nyte pushed the changing room door open and was met with a familiar sight - like the last time he had come back into the main part of the changing area, the girls were already waiting for him. He jumped as he caught Isla's eye, and quickly looked to the other bench to avoid her gaze. His eyes instead fell on to Quinne, and he immediately twitched a little again as he saw she had got changed out of her T-shirt into a sports top that left her light pink tummy bare.

The fox girl waved back at him as he hesitated. "Good shower?" she asked.

"Yeah! Yeah, fine..." he answered quickly. He sat down heavily on the bench next to her, closing his eyes and making a show of combing both hands up through his re-fluffed hair in an attempt to delay having to say anything or make eye contact with the girls.

Alex leaned forward from the other end of the bench. "Yes, you're all looking nice and clean now... we like to give people a break sometimes, so that we can start on you all over again in the second half!"

Becky gave a small, whimpering giggle, brushing both hands up through her just-cleaned hair, as she glanced sideways at the grinning lizard girl.

"By the way, I know you've already been up close and personal with this stuff, but we always give our contestants a chance for a calmer look at it..."

Nyte leaned around Quinne to watch as Alex produced a small plastic bottle from his pocket, the gunge inside sloshing thickly against the sides as he moved it. Getting up, the wolf headed to the water cooler near the entrance of the changing area and pulled four cups off the dispenser, then set them down in a row on the low table and took the cap off the bottle.

"Strangest round of drinks I've ever served," he laughed as he tipped the bottle over and poured back and forward over the row, splashing the dark green gunge into the cups and spilling more of the stuff over the table around them. Nyte glanced up at Isla, who was watching the liquid gloop out of it fascinatedly. Alex turned and gave the first cup to her, then handed the rest to the other team members. As he stepped back to his seat, Nyte raised his up in the air with a smile and then mimed tipping it forward to his mouth.

"You can!" Alex smiled. "It's just thickened water and coloring, it should taste like... really awful custard."

Nyte looked down at the off-colored liquid in front of him again, tilting it a little and watching the thick liquid fall back slowly from the sides of the cup. "No," he grinned, shaking his head.

"What's it made of?" Quinne stared curiously down into her cup beside him with a small smile, poking one finger in and slopping the stuff around. Nyte knew what she was thinking, as he pictured her being covered in it again.

"It's an industrial food thickener," Alex replied. He paused, then a grin grew on his face. "Actually, you know the sauce you get in frozen meat pies from the supermarket, where if you've got leftovers, it gets all congealed as it cools down? It's the same stuff..."

"Urgh, it is!" Becky laughed through her grimace as she dipped a couple of fingers into the gunk and raised them up, rubbing them together as the glutinous slime dripped down from them. "I'm never going to see those in the same way again now..."

"So how do you make it?" the fox girl asked again. She raised the cup to eye level, swirling it around in a circle, and eeped as a lick of it flew out and splashed on her knee. "Do you just order a tankerful of the stuff?" Nyte leaned forward as she did the same, also having had that question in mind since he'd first seen gunge on television.

"It's made from a powder, just like cornstarch," the red wolf replied. "We mix it slowly in water, and add a dye to it for the color - we've got a couple of huge mixing vats just off the set entrance that I'll show you once we're finished!"

"Any chance of giving us some to have a go at home?" Isla smiled across from the other bench, and she grinned as Alex nodded.

"Yes, we give a pack out to our contestants at the end! We're actually thinking of getting the network to start selling our own branded gunge packs, as well..."

"Awesome," the lizardess cackled. "I know so many people who need to have that happen to them..."

Nyte jumped as he felt an elbow poking him in the side, and turned to look at the pink fennec. "What d'you think, Nyte - how about a gunge tank at those club nights you do?"

He paused, trying to keep his face neutral as he remembered telling the girls about the nights he'd DJ-ed at his university. "Yeah, that... could work," he said carefully, but he was already thinking about how he really could include one. "You know the text requests for songs - you could do the same for nominating people in..."

"I know I'd come along if you had that!" Isla enthused. Nyte whimpered as he suddenly pictured himself pulling the lever on her on stage.

"A young gunge-master in the making," Alex grinned, and Nyte felt his face heat up, the image still not having left his mind. He watched as the red wolf swung himself to his feet and moved to the head of the table. "So let's give you another lesson from the professionals first!"

He put his hand on the doors to the set, and looked back over his shoulder as the team got up and gathered around behind him. "You haven't had enough, have you?" he asked with a grin.

"Oh, no way," Isla smiled. Nyte shook his head as well, not stopping the smile from spreading across his face as he imagined what they were about to face in the second half.

"Come on!" Alex threw his hand over his head in a sweeping beckoning gesture as he leapt through the doors, with just a glance backwards to make sure the team were keeping up as he hurtled back down the corridor towards the circular hub of the set. Nyte ran alongside the girls, smiling over at the still-dripping platform with the Pod on it as they passed through the chamber, then he scooted to a halt as Alex stopped at the mouth of a corridor they hadn't been down yet, with a set of double doors leading away from the circular room and a hatch with a circular handle set into the wall.

"Okay, everyone!" he started as they caught up. "We've still got two wings of the compound to explore - where do you want to go first, Nyte?"

Nyte twitched his eyes away from his teammates and looked up at the wolf as he slapped the hatch on the wall behind him. "This leads down to the undersea level - or we've still got the storage area to explore," he said as he moved his hand to point down the corridor towards the set of double swinging doors.

"The... storage area," he repeated quickly, gesturing towards them.

"Good, we can leave the really messy stuff down there for our finale..." Alex clapped his hands together, then jumped and turned to hit the ground running towards the doors. As Nyte took off after him, the wolf put his hands out and ran into them at full tilt, making them burst open and flap closed behind him.

Nyte slowed down as he reached them, hearing his teammates scamper up behind him as he pushed them both open, glancing over his shoulder as he held them for the girls. Seeing their expressions, he looked in front of him again to see a tiled section of the corridor, lined with multiple nozzles at head to ankle height along both walls.

"Come on!" Alex was already on the other side of it, waiting at a T-junction and holding both hands in a beckoning gesture to encourage them through. "It's just a rinser, there's nothing to worry about - it's only gone off accidentally two or three times..."

Nyte forced a laugh, brushing a strand of his hair off his forehead, then took a breath and stepped forwards on to the tiles. Unconsciously shrinking his shoulders a little inwards, he hurried through, half-closing his eyes and jumping at a sudden noise that he quickly realized was just one of the girls stepping up behind him.

After just a few steps, he let his breath out, smiling as he stepped out of the range of the nozzles, and looked around as the other three stepped out of the raised section of the corridor and gathered around Alex. This area of the set was decorated to look less futuristic than the others, with stone-textured walls leading up to a slightly curved ceiling. Lights hung from beams above them, a couple of the bulbs flickering erratically.

"Okay, team..." Alex started. "I know we gave you a hard time right from the start, but it's not going to get any easier from here - are you feeling nice and clean after that?"

He looked towards Becky as he said it, and the golden brown puppy girl nodded, her nervous smile breaking into a grin as she shuffled her feet.

"Well, I hate to do this," Alex grinned, clearly feeling the opposite of what he was saying, "but we're going to have to put one of you in danger of getting gunged again - come over here!"

He leapt away from them, taking a couple of steps backwards along the right fork of the corridor. Nyte came forward with the girls, glancing at the few metallic barred doors that led off from the main corridor around them, before he felt the fur on the back of his neck stand on end as the red wolf turned to put his hand on the latch of a door on the corner, decorated with a triangular warning sign and bordered by black and yellow striped tape.

"We've got something very special in here," their host grinned as he undid the latch, pushing the door slowly open with a rusty squeak to reveal the gloom beyond it. "I just hope we get a volunteer..."

"Oh, I'm sure we will!" Isla said brightly, sliding a hand through Nyte's hair as she passed by, leaning around him to stare into the room. As Alex stepped inside, she was the first to go in behind him, and Nyte swallowed the lump in his throat, images of rooms that they hadn't been in yet flashing through his mind as he dazedly followed the rest of the girls into the dark room.

He stared silently in front of him as he crept forwards beyond the sweep of the door. The room had been changed a little for the new set, but he instantly recognized the flickering green glow of the booth set into the wall in front of them, along with the pulsing of the lights on various electronic props around its back and walls. A metallic door covered the lower half of the booth, with the back of a curved chair poking above it, and a small lip on the ceiling disguised whatever was above it.

There was another scraping noise from the door, and he snapped out of his thoughts and looked over his shoulder to watch as Alex swung it closed. The rectangle of light on the floor narrowed away until the only light in the room was the ominous green from the tank in front of them.

"I think you know what's going to happen here..." grinned Alex as he stepped forwards past the row of contestants, heading for a switch sticking out of the wall near the top left of the tank. He reached up and tugged it down, producing a sudden mechanical noise as the door of the tank slowly lowered into the floor. "This is what we call the Hotseat, and whoever's on it is at risk of getting very gungy indeed - who's going to step up and take it?"

Nyte shuddered as the metallic tank door gave a clunk as it opened fully, the top of the door nearly level with the floor. He glanced over his shoulder to see Becky grinning nervously with her hands placed next to her mouth, taking a step back into the gloom, and pictured her cringing and giving her cute squeaks as she was covered in gunge. Suddenly, his heart jumped as he realized the girls would be clamoring for him to be gunged again if he didn't speak up.

He turned around, half pointing to the puppy at the back of the group, but stayed silent as he saw Quinne clap both her hands on to Isla's shoulders in front of him. With a gentle push, she walked the reptilian forward further into the circle of green light, clapping her hands together as she stepped back and left her beside Alex.

"It looks like we have our volunteer," Alex smiled, as the lizardess stretched up then let herself drop back. Even though Nyte couldn't see her face, he saw her shifting her weight from foot to foot excitedly.

"Isla... I think you're going to enjoy this," the red wolf grinned as he reached forward to grasp her hand, tugging her eagerly forwards. After nearly being pulled off her feet, the lizardess scampered a little to keep up, and looked over her shoulder back at the others as she was led towards the booth.

Nyte shifted uncomfortably, already imagining slime spurting over the blue reptilian in the same way that he'd seen happen to people in the infamous gunge machine on television. As Alex encouraged her with a wave of his hand, she turned around and sat down, and Nyte's eyes dropped to the slight swing of her chest as she wriggled herself backward into the curved seat.

"Ready for this?" Alex asked her. She raised her hands up in a nonchalant shrug, despite the smile on her face, and clapped them on to her knees.

"I suppose so," she said, and twitched a little at the mechanical grinding noise as the door of the tank began to rise back into place in front of her. Alex hopped a couple of steps back to join her watching teammates, and brought his minicomputer out of his pocket, holding it up in front of him.

"Okay, Isla - I'm sure that you've seen this game before. All you have to do is answer three questions - if you get any less than all three of them correct, the Hotseat's going to start up and you're going to get covered in all the gunge and grime from the pipes around you," he said as he waved his hands down through the air. "How are you feeling just now?"

Isla jumped as the door of the booth clunked into position in front of her, and squeezed the arms of the seat as the pulsing lights from the walls slowly played over her. "Er, pretty good," she answered through a laugh, her eyes flicking between the two nozzles aimed at her from the front sides of the tank.

"Okay, well, we'll see how long that lasts! You've got a choice - do you want to answer the questions yourself, or do you want your team to try to save you instead? Which I should remind you didn't work out that well the last time you were in one of these things..."

"Yeah, I'll do it this time," she said. She blinked under the lights as Alex nodded, then her smile cracked into a grin again as the light from the top of the tank narrowed, leaving her spotlit in green. From just behind the red wolf, Nyte watched her intently as she waited for the questions to begin.

"Your first question, Isla..." Alex started. "What was the first name of the astronomer Halley, after whom Halley's Comet is named?" Nyte looked from Alex to the curvy lizardess, having no clue and waiting to see how she responded.

"Um..." She squirmed from side to side in the seat, looking up once again at the nozzle above her, then dropped her eyes to the floor again with a giggle. "I don't know..." she said with a nervous grin, looking back at the red wolf.

"Well, we can come back to that one if you like," he said, looking back down at his minicomputer. "Rossi Lombard has presented which evening chat programme for more than two decades?"

This time, Isla nodded as he read it out. "Friday Night Party," she said immediately. Nyte glanced at Alex's face, but couldn't read his expression as he moved straight on to the third question.

"In Roman numerals, what is the number 969?"

The lizardess slumped against the backrest, exhaling heavily. She stared up into the mechanism above her for a moment, blinking in the green light. "CM..." she started reciting, then paused as she thought. "D..." She gave a lopsided nervous smile as she guessed.  "IX."

"Okay," Alex nodded as he flicked his thumb on the scroll wheel. "Let's go back to this one again..." Alex pointed as he read the question out slowly. "The first name of the astronomer - someone Halley?"

The lizardess whimpered through her grin, and Nyte heard her tapping her toes on the floor of the gunge tank as she thought.

"Can I pass?" she asked, biting her lip.

"No, no passes allowed in this game!" Alex grinned back as he watched her squirming, drumming her hands on the arms of the seat, then a cheeky grin crossed her face.

"I'll take my top off," she offered, pointing down at her bikini. Nyte only just stifled a yelp in reaction, and heard the other two girls beside him tittering at his sudden jump.

"Well, you could..." Alex said through a laugh. "You still wouldn't get a pass, though..."

The blue lizardess sighed, and Nyte breathed out heavily, relaxing his pricked-up ears.

"I don't know," she repeated, rolling her shoulders and budging herself up a little in the seat. "John," she shrugged.

"That's your answer - John?" Alex asked back, his thumb hovering over the screen.

"Yeah," she said with a final nod, then bit her lip again and slumped back to stare up at the chute above her.

"Okay..." Alex started. "You've answered all three questions..." Despite herself, the lizard girl leaned forwards a little as he paused, and Nyte found himself curling his toes nervously even though he was sure she wasn't escaping. "And you only got one right, so you're getting gunged - and here's the man who's going to do it."

Suddenly, he turned around and thrust the minicomputer into Nyte's chest. He yipped, clasping his hands to it instinctively as he stumbled backwards a little, then glanced up at the red wolf's eyes, just visible in the darkness.

"Wh..." he stuttered, looking down at the screen and then up to the pretty lizardess in the gunge tank in front of him. He raised his arm up to hand the device back, but brought it slowly back to his face as Alex stepped away to watch with the other two girls.

"It's all up to you, Nyte - sometimes as the designated team leader, you've got to do some tough things..." the red wolf chuckled as he put a hand on the puppy girl's shoulder.

"C'mon Nyte, gunge her!" he heard Quinne add delightedly, poking her head over his shoulder.

"Er..." He looked up at the reptilian again, trying to think of what to say. "Sorry, Isla..." he tried, a sheepish grin forming on his face.

"Oh, I'll get you back," she replied calmly, twisting one finger in the strap of her bikini top.

"I'm sure..." he said under his breath, glancing down and seeing an arrow on the backlit screen pointing down to one of the controls below it. He took a deep breath, gritted his teeth as he looked back up at Isla, and then slowly pressed his thumb down on the button.

He jumped as the gunge tank siren rang around the room, and Isla closed her eyes, jiggling in the seat with her smile frozen on her face, giving a small whimper as she waited for the booth to start up. Suddenly, two jets of translucent green slime spurted at her from the front corners of the tank, and she yipped as they slapped against her sides and tummy, globs of the glutinous liquid tumbling to splatter noisily on to the floor.

Nyte watched transfixed as the spurting gunge angled up slowly, the lizardess craning her neck up as the slime slapped against her breasts, falling in gloppy curtains down into her lap. She brought her hands inward from the arms of the seat, catching the stuff and letting it slip through her fingers, and tossed her head to the side as one of the jets twitched up towards her face. She shook her head, strings of ooze flying outwards from it as she wriggled against the streams.

With another blast from the industrial hooter, there was a clunk from the ceiling, and the main nozzle spewed a glistening column of bright orange and yellow slime down on to the lizardess's head, hiding her underneath a shining dome that broke up as it caught on the green spurts still flying towards her. As Isla dipped her head forwards, Nyte caught a glimpse of her open-mouthed smile before the thick gunge slumped down over her face, the outline of her head and shoulders just visible underneath the sloppy downpour. As she was enveloped, he was half-aware of Quinne bouncing up and down right behind him, pumping her hands in the air.

Isla's fingers poked out through the gloop, catching again on the green streams still slithering up and down her from the sides, and she shifted her head a little to the side as the opposite spurt came up to her face. The bright gunge from above splattered down on to her shoulder, flying out to splurge against the walls of the tank as she screwed up the side of her face it was hitting, drawing her arms in to hug herself as the slop slithered down her.

As the green streams sputtered and slowly came outwards, drizzling across Isla's lap, she ducked down again and clasped her hands together to slide them over her head, pushing the thick yellowish gunge away and grimacing as it slithered down her back just before the thinning downpour from above glopped over her face again. She bowed her head forwards as the ooze drizzled and sputtered to a halt, and blinked her eyes open for a second to see her skin completely coated in the sloppy mixture. Nyte stood frozen, feeling a crush in his swimming shorts despite the shower minutes before, as he watched the thick colors of gunge slither and ooze over the curvy reptilian, the last blobs of the slime from above slapping on top of her head and dripping down the sides of her snout as she gave a helpless, giggling squeak.

The hooter sharply dropped to a lower tone as a column of black gunk poured down from the ceiling, and Nyte took a step back as it splattered wildly around the tank for a second, a streak of it flying over the door as Isla yipped and covered her eyes. The lumpy ooze spluttered over her head as she held her hands to her face, settling into a heavy dome that poured from her head down on to her arms and shoulders, pushing the bright orange and yellow gunge away and mingling into a sickly off-green as it slipped down her curves. The long blare from the siren shut off, and Nyte twitched as he listened to the thick dripping and splattering noise as the lumpy gunk slipped down her and splotted into the pool of gunge at the bottom of the booth. As she tented her hands over her eyes, revealing a streak of the thick gunk slipping down her snout, the black stuff slowed to a series of blobby drips, and the lizardess shook in relieved laughter, sending the globs of the stuff on her shoulders slithering down her chest and back.

Isla slowly pushed her clasped hands backwards over her head again, grimacing at the thick smacking noise as the wave of gunge dropped to the bottom of the tank, and she opened her eyes slowly, their bright green color showing up starkly against the dark ooze coating her head. She looked down at herself again, her hands at her chest as the black and off-green drips continued to slither from her chin and cheeks, then caught Nyte's eye as the corners of her shocked mouth turned up in a smile. He swallowed and forced a grin back, then they both looked up to the red wolf as he stepped forwards, clapping his hands together.

"Isla, I'm sorry that... he did this to you," he said, pointing back over his shoulder at Nyte. The gungy lizardess nodded with a knowing smile, holding her palms out in front of her and watching the thick slime drizzle through her outstretched fingers. "Are you feeling okay under all that?"

"I'm... aah!" She yipped as the green streams from the sides spurted back into life, making a gloppy splattering noise as they smacked on to her, washing away some of the murky mixture on her tummy. She shook her hands as they sputtered back again, bowing her head as another streak of black slopped down from the nozzle on the ceiling to splurge against her head. She ducked down, wiping her hands back and forth against her calves as she jiggled in the gungy chair, then brought them up to her eyes and twisted around to look at the slime-coated walls and back of the tank. Nyte grimaced as he caught a glimpse of the black gunge mingling into green as the blobs of it slithered down her yellow-coated back.

"Well, you're not looking too great at the moment, but... that's what happens to people in there, and you did earn your team 25 points for the one right answer - I think it really is empty now, so let's get you out of there..."

He skipped back over to the lever and tugged it, starting the mechanical grinding noise again as the door of the gunge tank rolled downwards into the floor. As it clunked open, the gunge-coated lizardess raised her legs up to look at her feet in front of her, wriggling her toes as she watched the murky green mixture of goo drip slowly in strings from them. Nyte shuddered as his eyes moved up from her feet, at the layer of slippery green and yellow gunge coating her upper body, the dark splatter on her head and shoulders dripping in fingers through the bright slime.

"Come on out - sorry that you didn't stay clean long..." The red wolf offered his arm to the reptilian, who put her hand in his, running her other hand over her head and leaving finger-shaped furrows behind in the thick slime. As she budged herself forward off the slippery chair, she brought her hand back around, watching the unpleasant mixture of gunge drip off her fingertips. Nyte realized what she was thinking just as she came forwards towards him, and yipped as she thrust her hand forward to splat it on to his head, rubbing both of her hands down his back as she smushed herself against him in a close hug.

He shivered as she pulled away quickly, feeling the cold goo hanging on his fur, and looked at the satisfied grin on her face, trying to keep his eyes there instead of on the mixture of green slime slipping in blobs down her chest and tummy. He opened his mouth, trying to find something to say, when he was interrupted by a loud squeak as Alex pulled the door open again.

"Well, that didn't go as well as it could have - especially not for this unlucky lizardess..." the red wolf motioned toward the gunged reptilian as he took her hand and headed out the door. "But we've got a long way to go yet - our next game's just back the way we came. Nyte, you're not escaping this one, but we're going to need one of the other girls as well - who's it going to be?"

"Uh..." Distracted by the sudden thought of being gunged again, Nyte looked behind him as he stepped out into the corridor. Becky was right behind him, and he opened his mouth to say her name just as she spoke up.

"Quinne's going to do it!" she said, pointing behind her at the small vulpine and stepping out of the way as she came round the door, blinking in the light.

"Ah, Becky volunteered you first! Are you okay with that?" Alex asked as he looked to the pink fennec.

"Well..." the short fox girl replied with a defeated laugh, "I guess I do still deserve it..." She smiled to herself, looking at the floor.

"Oh, don't give them that," Alex said, waggling his finger behind him at her as he led them down the corridor away from the door with the warning sign. "You know this team would take any chance you give them..."

Nyte smiled and nodded, looking distractedly at the gunge slipping down Isla's back as he walked at the back of the group. They were passing the branch of the corridor that they had come in by, and Alex glanced to his left at the nozzles in the wall. "We can give you a quick cleanup if you want, Isla..." he said, but stopped as she shook her head.

"I'm just going to end up back like this, aren't I?" she said.

The red wolf grinned back at her. "Good point! I wish I could say something more reassuring, but... take a look at this."

He pointed ahead of him as the corridor took a sharp turn toward the left, and Nyte's eyes widened as he saw what was around the corner. Most of the passageway beyond a few feet down was in darkness, but right in front of them were two spherical tanks, about six feet in diameter, standing side by side in the corridor. They were made up of two domes each - a blue metallic lower half with a few struts stretching from its lower curves to bolted panels on the floor, and a clear upper dome, through which he could see a round seat in the centre in the tank on his right. Directly above it, a pipe led from the ceiling to poke down a little through a hole in the top of the dome. The sphere on the left was open, the upper dome having been raised up a couple of feet along the pipe.

"We never worked out what these things were for, but I've heard some of the restoration crew calling them the 'splatterdomes'..." Alex said happily as he lifted the curved top half of the sphere on the far side up so that it was open like the other one. "And these two are going to find out why, because they're going inside!"

He turned around and stepped back, ducking down to scoop Quinne up in his arms in one movement. She squeaked, her long ears pricking, as the red wolf gently carried her over and put her on the seat inside the curved device.

Nyte padded over to the other one, putting his hands on the lip and looking down into it - the inside of the bowl was slick with gunge. He braced himself on the side and jumped up to try to get in, ending in an awkward position with one foot on the seat on the inside of the bowl-shaped tank, balanced on the edge of it with his hands.

"Let me just give you a bit of help, too, Nyte - I wouldn't want you to enjoy being inside here any less...!"

He watched, staying still as the red wolf dashed over to him and put his hands around his waist. He gasped as he wrapped his arms around him, then tried to disguise his surprise at how easily the muscular canine was able to lift him up, and folded himself into a sitting position as Alex put him down on the seat.

He looked down at the interior wall of the bowl in front of him, streaked with a layer of blue and green slime, and dragged both his feet up through it, shuddering as it oozed up between his toes. A change in the light above him made him duck down, and from his hunched position he looked up sideways to see the clear top dome of the device being lowered into place around him.

The two halves of the sphere settled into place around Nyte with a click, and he shivered, rubbing his slimy feet together as Alex moved to Quinne's device on the opposite side of the corridor. As he waited, he looked at the nozzle pointing down off the end of the pipe above him - it looked like it was divided into two circles, with a main chute in the center and some sort of sprayer around its edges. He blinked and squirmed backward a little as a thick dribble of light blue slime slithered down from it, spattering a couple of paint-like drops into his lap.

He heard a click from the other side of the corridor as Quinne's dome was closed on her, and saw the pink fennec nervously looking up as he had done. He caught her eye, giving her a weak smile, as Alex put his arms around the two remaining girls, walking them slowly forward between the spheres.

"Okay, you two..." he started, looking back and forth between the puppy girl and the gungy lizardess as he moved them between the two trapped team members. "In this game, it's going to be up to you to save Nyte and Quinne from being gunged. Those two nozzles are going to fill the domes up with slime again in just a couple of minutes... unless you can transport enough slime from them to the chutes at the other end of the corridor."

The lights further down the passageway buzzed and flickered into life as Alex pointed forwards. A few feet in front of the domes, a five foot wide channel of green slime stretched from an opening at one side of the corridor to the other, a couple of flimsy foam bridges floating on the surface. Beyond it, the floor of the corridor was made of a ribbed inflatable material, going for several yards and ending at a wall with a couple of rectangular receptacles sticking out of it diagonally. Isla nodded, running a hand over her slimy head, while Becky gasped and clasped her hands over her nervous smile, keeping her eyes on the thick green surface of the gunge in front of her.

Alex stooped down to pick up two plastic buckets from the floor, and handed one each to the two girls beside him. As he did so, there was a loud click from somewhere in the ceiling, and both Nyte and Quinne hunched down instinctively before looking up as the pipes above them slowly moved up and forwards, swinging out from the tops of the spheres and moving into position just in front of them.

The red wolf put his hands on Becky's shoulders, holding her in place as she whimpered under her breath, her eyes fixed on the gunge nozzle as it moved into position right above her, between the sphere and the lip of the channel of slime. He patted her arm before straightening up again, standing between the spheres, and she tiptoed a little out of the way of the pipe.

"All you have to do is hold your bucket underneath these pipes to turn them on, fill them up, and then get yourself over to the other wall and pour it in there," Alex pointed. "You can concentrate on one of your team mates at a time, or do one each, if you want to save Nyte, Isla..."

"Nah, he got me like this - I want him to get gunged," the lizardess answered immediately, flashing a grin over at him. He felt his heart jump as she made eye contact, shuddering as he remembered the nozzle above him.

"Remember I had nothing to do with it, Isla!" the fox girl in the other dome called quickly, craning her neck up.

"There's such a thing as protesting too much," Alex chuckled. "All right, so... Becky, you take Nyte's side of the room, Isla can try to keep Quinne clean... we'll look at how much of the stuff you managed to carry over there when the time runs out... and we'll see who gets gunged. Oh, and... keep your eyes on the ceiling, too," he finished, pointing up with a knowing smile.

From inside the tank, Nyte grinned at the last comment, looking at Becky shuffle her feet as she faced the corridor in front of her, ready to enjoy watching the girls as he tried to swallow his nerves. Alex stepped back between the two spheres, and a harsh klaxon hooted as he jabbed a button on his pocket device.

Nyte folded one foot on top of the other as a timer at two minutes was projected on to the opposite wall. After a jump at the sudden noise, the puppy girl stepped in front of him, a timid expression on her face as she held the bucket underneath the pipe above and in front of her with outstretched arms. With a click, a thick stripe of blue gunge spewed out from it, splattering into the bucket below and making Becky squeak and tip forwards, her head going under the flow for a half second before she righted herself. As the gunge pipe shut off, Nyte watched the puppy girl shake her head, sending the blue slime flying out from her fringe before she turned around to squeamishly step down into the channel.

On the opposite side of the corridor, Isla leapt on to the plastic bridge floating on the gunge and made to bounce forward off it, but toppled forward with a squeak as it shot out from underneath her feet. Nyte winced as the lizardess slammed into the inflatable surface, her bucket of slime falling and spilling underneath her, and he pushed himself up in the seat with his hands, looking over at her concerned as she lay dazed for a moment.

She rolled over on to her back, and he was relieved to see that she was laughing. As he lowered himself back into his seat, she hauled herself up, looking at the bright splatter of gunge dripping down her chest and tummy, and wallowed the couple of steps through the channel to get back to the overhead nozzle.

"Come on...!" The fox girl bounced inside the spherical gunge tank as Isla held the bucket up again, twitching back and lowering it down as the yellow goo spilled into it. "I'm so going to get you back if this thing gunges me..."

"What, and get me messier than this?" As the level of slime in the bucket neared the brim, Isla leaned around the column of gunge to grin back at the fox girl, then turned on her heel, deliberately putting her head under the slowing slime nozzle to catch the end of the downpour before stepping forwards more carefully into the gunge in front of her. Quinne budged herself forward and pressed her muzzle and hands to the plastic of the clear dome, watching her intently.

Nyte looked back to his side of the corridor, where the puppy girl had already got to the end and was bounding back towards him, her hair and ears bouncing with each leap she took. Suddenly there was a burst of pink from the ceiling and she yipped, clasping both hands to her head and curling up in mid-air, as a torrent of gunge splurged down just behind her, painting the air-filled floor with a wide splatter mark.

With a glance behind her, an embarrassed smile on her face, the canine dipped her toe into the green gloop again and waded across, putting one hand down to help herself slither out on her knees as the thick puddle of slop around her oozed back down the curved lip back into the channel.

Nyte gave her an uncertain clap of encouragement as she shakily got to her feet and positioned herself under the nozzle again, hugging the bucket against her chest with her head turned away as she waited for the gunge pipe to start up. As it clicked, she flinched, then disappeared behind the sloppy downpour, stepping back and keeping her face away as the goo came down in front of her. She squeaked as the stuff spilled over the lip of the bucket, painting her forearms in blue, then shifted her hands to grip the handle and shakily stepped back down into the knee-deep gunge river.

As Becky bounced away, he watched her closely, her tail swishing behind her as she ran on the soft surface with an awkward hip-swaying motion, off balance with the weight in front of her. As she reached the gungy puddle from earlier, she slowed herself down a little, carefully planting her feet in the ribs of the floor as she walked over it. As she stepped away, she put one hand out to grip the edge of the chute as she poured the bucket into it, making sure not to spill any, then turned around, pushed herself off the wall and slithered through the pink slime - suddenly her feet shot forwards and she landed on her bottom, flopping backward as the bucket flew away in front of her.

Isla glanced over from her side of the corridor, and yelped as a canister of white gunge burst open above her, splattering off her face and chest and making her stumble to her knees. With a breathless smile, Becky flopped herself back into a sitting position, then grimaced at the feeling of the pink slime running down her back. Spying the bucket a few paces in front of her, she flipped over on to her knees and struggled forwards to retrieve it, then shrieked as another container of gunge spewed down on to her, the yellow glop fanning out and spattering on the blowup surface around her as it fell.

Nyte flinched and shifted in his seat as the puppy girl became visible again, her hair soaked and hanging over her eyes and her mouth open in a shrieking laugh. She flicked her hair back with one hand, sending yellow strings of goo flying out behind her as she folded her legs around to dip them into the gunge. His eyes flicked to the timer behind her, then to Isla as she scooted towards the channel as well. He held his breath as she made a jump for it, and at the same moment a spray of green gunge crashed down from the ceiling right above it. The lizardess shrieked as it caught her on the head in mid-air, landed with her feet halfway up the opposite lip of the channel, then twisted sideways and toppled fully into it.

Nyte's mouth dropped open as he craned his neck up again, and he grinned to himself as the lizardess bobbed her head and shoulders up above the deep green slime. Sheets of the stuff glopped back into the channel, slowly trickling away to reveal the outline of her head again, the mixed colors swirling around her as she turned and slowly dragged herself to her feet. He whimpered as he watched the green slime ooze down her shapely curves, blinking at a burst of light blue from his right as Becky stood beneath the gunge pipe once again.

As the puppy girl bounced away, he looked back at Isla as she positioned herself under the gunge pipe, and put his hands over his lap as he watched her hug the bucket to her chest, the yellow goo splashing down into it and rebounding out to slap against her breasts. His ears pricked as there was a squeak from his side of the corridor, and he looked as Becky flailed her free arm, her feet skittering over the gungy surface below her as she tried to stay upright.

He smiled as he watched both girls struggle more slowly back to the end of the corridor, Becky eventually shuffling forwards on her knees as Isla skated through the film of gunge on the inflatable floor. As the timer hit zero, a harsh buzzer rang around the room, and he shuddered, kicking his feet on the slimy surface in front of him again, as the gunge pipes swung back into place above him and Quinne.

"Okay, stop!" Alex called as he stepped forwards between the spheres, looking around at the splattered corridor and letting out a laugh. "All right, I'll give you that..." he added, as Isla quickly stumbled to the chute in front of her and tipped her last bucketful in. "You really gave it everything you had there - you've made this place a lot more colorful, and you two look almost as messy as what'll happen to Nyte and Quinne if these things go off..."

Quinne whimpered and giggled, staring up at the hole in the dome's ceiling as the pipe clunked back into place above her. After a glance at the pipe above his own head, Nyte looked to the puppy girl, who was smiling to herself, leaning on the wall breathlessly and flicking her slimy hair back behind her ears. She looked down at her feet, shaking one then the other to try to get the thigh-high coating of smooth green slime off.

"Speaking of which, I think it's time to see how you did - let's see how much Isla managed to get in first..."

Nyte and Quinne both straightened as he pointed toward a vertical counter at the side of the receptacle at the end of the corridor, which slowly began filling with bars of light, an electronic beep playing as each one turned on. Peering out through the curved plastic top half of the tank, he looked from the counter to the wide-eyed fennec girl and back, watching her face as she mouthed encouragement to it. She flattened her ears and balled her fists in front of her tensely, watching each section turn on slowly in turn with a beep, before the second to last bar lit up in red with a harsh buzz.

"Oh...!" Alex called above the noise. "Almost there, but not quite - Quinne, it's starting up!" The buzzer sounded again as the fox girl gasped, and she only just had time to bow her head forwards before a huge column of yellow splurged over her, enveloping her in a torrent of gunge.

Nyte stared at the other sphere, squirming nervously and glancing between the nozzle above his head and the dome of yellow gunge in the other sphere. The tips of the fox girl's ears were just visible as she wriggled underneath the gloopy downpour, the glistening slime twitching from side to side as small pockets of air bubbled out of the pipe. A lick of it splattered against the clear plastic upper dome, and he tried to stretch to the side to watch as the steady column broke into a blobby drizzle. The fennec ducked down as the heavy drops smacked on to her, running down her face and soaked hair.

He jumped as the hooter sounded again, and several ribbons of orange gunge burst from the edges of the nozzle, fanning out and splattering into the rising slime pool. Quinne wiped at her eyes and opened them again, twitching back a little as she watched the goo pour down, swirling in the yellow stuff and filling up the tank around her. She yipped and hunched up as they began to ease off, making the diagonal streams fold inward and splash off her head and shoulders in a sloppy cascade.

The drizzles of orange slowed to drips, revealing the gungy fox girl underneath sitting in a waist-deep pool of bright slime, the last visible patches of her fur being covered as the goo crawled down her in thick blobs. As soon as she moved to clear her eyes, a wet hissing noise started up, and the fennec yelped and clasped her hands over the rest of her face instinctively as jets of white foam spewed at her from the sides of the dome. Slowly, she relaxed as the streams played over her, putting her arms down below the gungy surface and giggling as she allowed her face to be covered. Nyte shuddered as the creamy white substance splatted on to her, clinging to her gungy fur and then dripping slowly away as it piled up, floating out on the lazily rippling slime bath.

The streams of foam sputtered and died out, leaving a large white blob in the middle of the dome. Slowly, two arms became visible at its sides, and the fox girl underneath it clawed handfuls of it away from her face, giggling helplessly as she tried to clean herself off a little. With a smile, Alex strolled over towards her and drummed his fingers on the top of the dome.

"It looks like you haven't had much luck with the slime baths, Quinne..." the red wolf chuckled, and the fennec twisted round in the seat to face him, still wiping her eyes with her palm.

"Nope." She shook her head and dipped both her hands quickly back into the gunge, making a thick glooping noise as the surface closed around them, then brought them back up again, sending gunge splashing out in front of her. "But you got the temperature just right this time...!"

She wriggled from side to side, watching the streaks of colored gunk ripple and swirl. "And with me in a new top, too..." Nyte leaned a little to the side, trying to see past the streak of gunge on the side of the dome as she brought her hands up to her sports top, squeezing inwards and sending a wave of yellow slop oozing out over the top of it.

Alex turned away from her, his smile unwavering. "Isla, you were the one responsible for keeping her clean - how do you feel, seeing this?"

The lizardess just grinned, sloshing through the gunge channel and then stumbling up the other side. She leaned over slightly to face the gungy fennec, who was gathering up the foam around her and piling it on to the top of her head, trying to craft it into a mohawk. Isla glanced over her shoulder at Becky, who removed her hands from over her mouth, revealing an awestruck smile, and as Nyte watched, she suddenly glanced over to him.

"That's right, Becky..." Alex said, noticing her gaze. "Now we've got to see if you saved Nyte from the same experience!"

Nyte took a breath and looked to the counter at the other end of the corridor on his side, trying to lean to the side as Becky stepped between it and his sphere. He gave up and closed his eyes, listening to the steady beeping as the counter filled and feeling the fur on the back of his neck stand up as he waited all the time for the buzzer. Suddenly, the sound changed, and he jumped as a final higher-pitched beep played.

"Nyte's been saved!" He pricked his ears up again in surprise as he heard Alex's voice again, and twisted around to look as the wolf stepped forwards. "Becky, you did it - you got enough slime in there to turn the dome off, so your team leader stays clean." He turned around and leaned on the top of the tank opposite Nyte, looking down at the gungy fennec girl inside it, who was now holding her sloppy hair out of her face with both hands, twitching as globs of yellow and orange gunge continued to dribble out of the nozzle above her. "Are you pleased to hear that, Quinne?"

She pursed her lips and blew some of the slime away before answering. "No, not really..." she said back, wriggling in the slop surrounding her.

"Well, you know what - as he threw the switch on Isla last time, I think it's only fair for her to get her own back now," Alex said. The lizardess whooped and raised her hands up as the red wolf beckoned her over, and Nyte grinned, having expected this to happen, as she pointed at him with a malicious smile. He felt his heart quicken as Alex led her over to a junction box on the wall near him, squeaking it open to reveal a handle and gesturing for her to take hold of it.

"The manual override," he smiled as she reached up to the lever. "Have you got anything to say to him before he gets it?"

The lizardess reached up to grab the lever, and Nyte gripped the seat underneath him as he watched her hand carefully, occasionally glancing up to the nozzle above his head and the messy dome opposite him, already imagining the feeling of the gunge pouring over him, this time with the tank filling up. As he looked back at the dripping reptilian, he saw her staring right back at him.

"Just that I hope this is as good for him as it was for me," she grinned, and slammed the wall switch down.

Nyte flattened his ears at the sound of the valve opening above him, then suddenly felt them pushed down by the front of the gungy downpour. The stuff spewed outwards crazily for a moment before settling into an upturned bowl shape, and he grinned to himself as he felt the stuff smack heavily on to his shoulders and slither down his back, quickly coating his fur in a heavy wet layer.

He wriggled a little as he felt the slime on his back ooze down to the band of his swimming trunks, flinching as the downpour sputtered and twitched above him and holding his breath as it splattered over his muzzle. Surrounded by the glooping and splashing noises of the gunge hitting him and the surfaces of the tank around him, he flicked his head to the side a little, dimly aware of the stuff creeping up past his ankles as the tank began to fill.

The alarm rang from the ceiling again, and Nyte hunched his shoulders as the second wave poured in around him, feeling more gunge splash on to his knees as the thick spray started up. He stretched his arms out in front of him, flinching as he caught the slime in his hands and it began splattering off them on to his chest and tummy. As its weight pushed his hands down to his knees, he pushed his head a little forwards, letting the slowing drizzle of slime from above splat on to the nape of his neck and slide down his back.

Hesitantly, he opened his eyes, seeing curtains and blobs of bright blue gunge dripping down across his vision, with a soupy green mixture splattering down around him and into his palms. He smiled down at them as he watched the streams of viscous liquid forming small wells in his hands before rebounding off to splatter on to the sides of the sphere. After a few seconds, he gasped as his lap disappeared underneath the mixed turquoise gloop, wriggling at the cool, wet feeling of the gunge swirling around him as it continued to pour in.

Nyte looked up between the streams of green, blinking against the blue droplets dripping from his soaked hair, and caught Isla's eye as she grinned in at him, her hands clasped behind her back as she looked down into the gunge machine. Suddenly, the falling slime around him folded inwards as the tank ran out, and he spluttered, pulling his hands out of the gloop and closing his eyes as the last remnants of the goo trickled down over his head and shoulders.

Feeling a shiver as the cool gunge poured down his head, sticking his hair to his face, he heard the alarm again and pricked his ears as he remembered the tank's last feature. He clasped his hands to his face, blowing slime away from his nose as he heard the hissing noise of the sprayers, then smiled as he dimly felt the light foam spray on to him through the thick gunge coating his fur. The jets quickly got stronger, and he held his breath as one of them sprayed up into his face for a moment before going back down to his chest, feeling the stuff pile up against his fur before large blobs of it tore away.

He heard the jets shut off around him as the alarm wound down, and stayed still in the cocoon of foam for a moment, stifling a laughing whimper as he felt another cascade of heavy drips from above splat on to him and slither down his head, making a clump of foam slump over his hands in front of his face. Bowing his head down, he shook himself out and ran both his hands up over his hair, grimacing at the slick feeling of the slime.

"Are you under there somewhere, Nyte...?" Alex leaned forward and knocked on the side of the sphere, and Nyte opened his eyes for a second, then closed them again as the blue gunge continued to drip down across his vision. He nodded his head, twitching as the movement sent more blobs of gooey foam slithering down his neck and shoulders.

"Yeah, I can't wait to see what this looks like..." he smiled, running his messy fingers through his hands in front of him.

"You look pretty much exactly the same as Quinne - I don't think we can see much difference...!"

He heard Alex's footsteps as he paced away, then a clunk as the sphere beside him was opened. He brought his hands up to wipe at his eyes again, and looked through the slime-stained clear plastic around him to watch as the red wolf dragged the foamy fox girl out of the pool of gunge.

Becky eeped as she poked a toe into the channel of gunge between her and the rest of the team, sinking her foot in slowly up to just past her knee and then quickly stepping through before clambering up the other side, shivering and shaking her feet as the thick green stuff slid down her calves. As Alex set Quinne down on her feet, the puppy girl giggled nervously as she watched the drizzles of multi-colored ooze slithering down from the fennec's fur, then laughed as she tackled Isla in a hug, making sure to slide her gungy arms over as much of her as possible.

Bowing his head down to keep the drips from his messy hair falling into his eyes, Nyte swept his feet from side to side under the surface of the slime, grinning as he felt the colorful thick liquid resist his movement and swirl lazily around him. He heard the sphere being opened, and hauled his hands out of the gunge, watching it pour and then drizzle in glutinous strings from his fingers back on to the surface before he raised them and half stood up to let Alex help him out.

The red wolf leaned over awkwardly to grab Nyte's wrists, and pulled him upwards. As his waist came up above the surface, the heavy gloop yanked the back of his swimming shorts down, and he yelped, struggling to keep them on with his tail as Alex shifted to catch the back of Nyte's knees, carrying him over the lip of the tank with him pressed to his chest.

"You okay, Nyte?" he asked with a smile, setting him down on the floor. "You and Quinne aren't looking at your best just now...!"

"Yeah," he said as he took hold of the band of his heavy shorts and hiked them back up, still shuddering as the slippery gunge continued to drip and ooze through his fur. "Thanks for the rescue," he grinned back.

"The least I can do..." the red wolf chuckled, repeatedly batting at himself with one hand to wipe the streak of gunge off his chest fur, and he looked around to where Quinne was now chasing Becky around with two handfuls of foam.

"Okay, everyone," he announced, beckoning them back to him. Becky stopped and looked up, then squealed as Quinne caught up with her and smushed her foamy hands on to her tummy. "I'll give you ninety for that game, because Becky did save Nyte even though we covered him in gunge anyway, and Isla was nearly there..." He looked back at the messy corridor, then around at the four gunge-covered team mates. "I'm going to take you for a quick spray down before our next game, just so Quinne and Nyte can actually move about!"

He pointed down the corridor as he led the way, and Nyte looked over his shoulder at the slime-filled half-spheres and the gunge-splattered corridor one more time before he followed the group. Alex turned back to face him as he caught up, beckoning him to the front of the team.

"I've just realized, Nyte, that means all three of these girls have thrown the switch on you now..." the red wolf said with a smile as they rounded the corner, putting a hand on Nyte's shoulder.

He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand before answering, trying to clear his face of gunge. "Does that mean it's my turn to get back at them?" he asked back, running the same hand over his slime-drenched hair.

"Hey, I never said anything about that..." Alex chuckled as he turned to the girls, encouraging a reaction from them. "I think you might be outvoted three to one!"

Nyte felt his face heat up a little as they cheered, feeling a reptilian hand pat him on the shoulder from behind. Despite his embarrassment, his heart was still racing at the thought of Isla gleefully tugging the switch to gunge him.

As they reached the raised section of the corridor, Alex stepped to the side and turned a circular handle jutting out of a pipe on the wall. Nyte watched as a set of cone-shaped sprays of water at chest and hip height sputtered into life, sending a mist of droplets floating up from the tiled surface.

"Let's give our messier team members the chance to go in first..."

He nodded to Quinne, who eagerly stepped up into the sprays of water. She gave a squeak as the gunge and foam on her fur rapidly began to break up and slide off, splattering heavily to the corridor's floor. Isla followed her, brushing her hands over her head as she ducked into the jets.

With his eyes on the beads of watered-down gunge slithering down the lizard girl's back, Nyte stepped up into the corridor as well, hissing at first at the cold feeling of the water despite the high temperature the set was kept at. He wrapped his arms around himself, hesitantly turning a little from side to side to let the water flick the worst of the gunge off his fur and lifting his feet and shaking them off as the colored water collected at the bottom of the device. Becky came into the sprayer area in front of him and turned around, wriggling and running her hands through her tail as she shook her legs one by one. Catching himself staring down at her swinging hips, he closed his eyes, concentrating on the feeling of the water running through his fur.

After a while, he heard a squeaking noise as Alex spun the valve shut again, and the water sprayers began to ease off slowly. The red wolf stepped forward and took Becky's hands as she shook herself out, helping her to step down off the raised section.

"That wasn't so bad, was it?" he smiled, then turned towards a clear panel in the wall slightly further down the corridor, behind which was a brightly lit cubicle a couple of feet square with a horizontal panel forming a bench at knee height. "Let's just give you the first turn in the dryer here..."

"Oh, no..." The puppy girl gasped, then giggled helplessly as he leaned forwards and pulled the door open, putting one arm around her and turning her to face the entrance as she looked at the floor.

"Come on, it won't take a minute..." The wolf grinned, and slid his hand down to her back, giving her a gentle but firm nudge into the obvious gunge tank.

Nyte watched as the puppy girl put her hand out onto the frame of the door and hesitantly stepped inside, looking up to the ceiling of the booth and feeling behind her as she seated herself. As Alex closed her inside, she yelped as there was a sudden hissing noise, and clasped her hands to her head as jets of air from the bottom of the tank made her hair fly up. Laughing as she tried to calm herself, she smiled nervously down at her feet and swung from side to side a little in the warm air, the jets ruffling her fur and drying off the excess water.

Alex clasped his hands behind his back, wandering nonchalantly away from the clear booth. After dipping his head into the receding jets of water one more time, Nyte looked up curiously as the red wolf leaned against the wall, stepping a little to his side as if getting himself exactly into some position.

"Turn it on, ROB," he called.

Nyte heard squeaks from the girls around him as the sprays stopped and the corridor was plunged into darkness, and he turned quickly to the cubicle, where Becky was sitting behind the plastic door with her eyes closed and face screwed up, her face illuminated by a white light from above. As she realized nothing was happening, she opened one eye, looking carefully up to the ceiling of the tank, and then relaxed a little, shaking out her hair. She and the rest of the team jumped as with an electronic humming noise, a network of criss-crossing blue lasers sparked into life, pointed in irregular diagonal patterns in the corridor leading back the way they had come. He watched as a couple of them began slowly sweeping back and forward, and laughed to himself, recognizing a game he hadn't seen played on the show in a long time.

Alex pushed himself up from his leaning position on the wall, turning to the side slightly to squeeze between two lasers next to his left and right shoulders. Carefully, he made his way out to the middle of the corridor.

"All right, you three - our third game this round's something that we thought up when we were looking at this place's old security system," he called to them, ducking down to his side carefully and weaving away from them along the laser-lined corridor. "You'll have seen these in the spy films - of course, they were arranged more sensibly before we got hold of them, but this way you might have a chance of squeezing through..."

Nyte stepped down from the raised corridor as the red wolf moved away from them, glancing over his shoulders as Isla and Quinne came out to stand beside him, their faces lit by the eerie blue glow. Becky watched Alex's every move intently from inside the tank, occasionally glancing up to the ceiling above her.

Alex stood up after ducking below the final laser across the corridor, and the puppy girl sagged a little. "Now, these things are totally harmless to you, but if you break any of the beams by touching them, then the alarm will go off, and then... well, Becky's going to get a surprise..."

Nyte grinned widely as he looked over at the gunge tank, where the curvy puppy girl shook her head and closed her eyes, her shoulders twitching in a giggle.

"Yes, that drier's got a lot of ways to pump gunge through it - hopefully with your help, she won't find out what too many of those are..." Alex cleared his throat, doing his best to remove his own smile from his face, and beckoned to the three free team members. "Come on! Do you want to show them how it's done, team leader?"

"Er... yeah," Nyte said after a moment's hesitation, and he twitched as he felt Quinne pushing him forward from behind. Isla stepped aside to let him through, and clapped her arm heavily around his shoulder as he passed by. Dimly stepping forward and shaking the girls off, he glanced at the canine's face and then looked towards the obstacle in front of him.

A blue laser ran across the corridor at knee height, with two vertical ones behind it a couple of feet apart. Stepping forwards, he looked up, reaching forward a little to look at the blue glow on his hand as he peered up toward the ceiling. Unable to see the source of the lasers in the darkness, he looked back at the low beam, and tentatively picked one foot up to step over it.

Halfway over, he changed his mind, and he heard a gasp from the puppy girl as he unsteadily hopped away on his back foot. Instead, he crouched down, unfolding his legs behind him to lie flat on the floor, and carefully wriggled through, keeping as low to the ground as possible and trying not to think about the girls watching him. Just as he thought he was clear, he flinched as a klaxon blared, and he slumped down, resting his head on the floor and facing towards the gunge tank, smiling a little guiltily as a splash of purple slime spewed out of a diagonal pipe and glooped over Becky's head and left shoulder.

The canine squeaked as the stuff smacked on to her, wriggling away and putting her arms up to defend herself. The stream of gunge spattered outward from her hands, forming brightly colored streaks on the walls and door of the tank before it subsided, a streak of it drizzling down the wall next to her. Becky rolled her shoulders as she sat straight, her head bowed as she watched the purple gloop drizzle from one side of her hair down into her lap.

"Mind that tail, Nyte," Alex chuckled as Nyte slithered forwards. He flipped himself over and got up carefully, checking above him for unnoticed beams. As he hesitantly straightened fully, he saw Quinne stepping forward off to his right, nimbly picking her way over the low laser as she began to follow him.

Becky ran her hands up and over her head, pushing her hair back behind her ears, and clasped her hands in front of her face, peeking out between her fingers as she watched her team mates contort themselves past the blue beams. She breathed in sharply as Nyte leaned back and shuffled his feet to get awkwardly through a near-vertical pair, but relaxed when he got through without touching either of them.

Nyte faced forward again, taking a breath in an attempt to slim himself as he stood inches away from a pair of beams that were sweeping up and down, crossing each other in the middle of the corridor. He was suddenly distracted by a noise from behind him, and he glanced over his shoulder at the fox girl, who was happily humming a spy theme to herself as she darted between the lasers.

Laughing under his breath and shaking his head, he turned his attention to the moving beams again. As they swept up to the ceiling, he lunged forwards, second-guessed himself, froze and then ducked as he tried to get out of the way. As he nervously stood up, the buzzer went off again, and he groaned, looking towards the booth.

Becky closed her eyes, and gave a shriek as a wide spray of gunge began from the ceiling of the booth, the green dollops making a thick splattering noise as they rained down on to her. Nyte watched as the puppy girl's hair darkened under the slime, the translucent goo slithering down either side of her head and sputtering down over her hands covering her face. As the ooze began to ease off, she parted her hands, gasping in a laugh as she looked down at the glutinous slime trickling down from all over her fur.

"I think that was Quinne...!" Alex called, pointing at the fox girl as she hurriedly stepped around another group of beams. "Nyte, you're not out yet, but you escaped those ones without giving Becky another shower..."

"Sorry, Becky!" Quinne called over to the booth as Becky clasped her forehead, wiping some of the slippery stuff away. "Hey, you don't look anything like I did five minutes ago..."

The puppy girl shook her head, slime spraying off her hair and sagging ears, and she returned her hands to the bench, rocking back and forth as Nyte turned back around to face Alex. He was only a few feet away now, on the opposite side of a set of beams in a pattern that gradually slanted from straight across to vertical. Carefully, he shuffled his way to the right hand side of the corridor, ducked and began to squeeze through them, but jumped as the whole arrangement began to spin towards him. He instinctively pulled back away from them, then stumbled and threw himself through, curling up in mid-air but seeing a brief flash of light as the last couple of beams touched his face.

He collapsed on to the floor at the other end, quickly drawing his feet forward and getting to his knees. He panted to get his breath back, but couldn't help smiling as he heard another squeak from Becky above the thick gooey splattering noise.

"Oh, a very dramatic finish, Nyte..." Alex laughed as he reached a hand down to help him, and he looked up at the red wolf's face as he got to his feet. "It would have been even better if you hadn't caught that last one..."

He nodded and looked back to the tank, where the canine was leaning forward out of a subsiding drizzle of orange slime, a smooth helmet of the stuff painted over her hair. She pushed her fingers up through it, sending streaks of gunge spattering to the floor, then flinched again as Isla stumbled into one of the beams next to her.

The puppy girl screwed her face up and closed her eyes, her hands still clasped to her head as she waited for the splash from above, but she yelped as a set of sprayers started up from the floor of the booth, spewing more of the translucent green ooze on to her feet. As she lifted them up, her scream turning into a ticklish giggle, she watched the jets getting stronger, spraying up her legs, then closed her eyes, looking up instead as they tilted up to splash into her face. She shook her head rapidly as the stuff splattered over her, streaks of green gunge flying outwards everywhere and dripping down the already slippery walls of the booth around her.

The green cascade eased back down again, revealing the puppy girl's open-mouthed smiling muzzle before the curtains of gunge slid away to show her face again, her hair plastered to her head with slime. The lizard girl stood still and watched with a grin as Becky brought her sloppy hands around to her front, half-heartedly cleaning the gunk away from her face and spitting it off her lips. She opened one eye then the other, shuddering and looking back at Isla with an embarrassed smile, her slippery fur glistening under the booth's light.

"And Quinne's through!" Nyte tore his eyes off the slimy puppy girl as Alex stepped across the corridor, watching Quinne dash through the last array of rotating lasers, dipping down to crouch under the last one at the end and holding her long ears down with both hands. "Which means that any more gunge Becky gets will be up to you, Isla..."

Becky shook her head as the slime on her hair began dripping over her eyes again, sending more gooey droplets spraying outwards. Slicking her hair back with both hands, she called encouragement to Isla as she picked her way around the last half of the laser-lined corridor.

Nyte flinched and hissed through his teeth at a couple of near misses as the lizardess made her way slowly and clumsily towards them, with Becky alternately covering her eyes and leaning around to watch her. Eventually, with no further sounds from the klaxon, Isla straightened up and faced the last set of rotating beams.

She watched them for a few moments, tapping her foot as she looked for a gap, then caught Nyte's eye with a grin. Spreading her arms, she just walked quickly forwards through them, with an audible gasp from Becky just before she touched a beam with one arm and walked through the final one tummy-first.

They all turned toward the gunge tank as the alarm hooted twice, the cringing puppy girl cupping her hands over her ears. As they watched, a thick stripe of cream-colored gunge dropped from directly above her on the ceiling, and Becky ducked, giving a shrieking laugh, as it smacked on to her head and hid her from view behind a dome of slime.

Isla put her hands in the air with a grin as they watched the glutinous downpour splatter over the canine, the edges of her arms just visible as the cream slop poured over them. A burst of yellow spewed from a pipe in the wall beside her head, mingling with the ooze as it poured on to Becky's shoulder, and she twitched away from it, one hand going instinctively up to block the new downpour as she held her gungy hair away from her eyes with her other hand. She looked up at the team with a shocked smile, just before she bowed her head again as the beige stuff slumped down over her face.

Alex pressed something on his handheld device, turning the lasers off and bringing the lights in the corridor back up again. With the passageway clear, he walked slowly back down towards the gunge cubicle, looking up to its ceiling as the column of thick slime slowly began to subside. Beneath it, the cream-painted canine slowly became visible again, thick drops of the slippery gunge drizzling from her hair and through her fur. As she looked back at him, she managed a squeamish grin as she rolled her shoulder against the yellow stuff pouring on to her from the side, raising a hand to catch the last of the glop as it eased off as well.

"You made it!" Alex called back to the team as he put his hand on the handle of the tank's door. "And you only broke six of the beams between you, which is a decent result - what do you think, Becky?" He laughed as he opened the booth, fully revealing the gunge-coated puppy girl inside. She brought both hands up and wiped down her face, ducking as the trickle of blobs continued to splat down on her head.

"Yeah, they did great..." she said with a wrinkle of her nose, and slithered forward off the bench to stand up. Alex extended his arm and let her take hold of him as he guided her out of the cubicle, then watched with a smile as she let go and bounced on her heels, shaking some of the mixed slop off her fur. Her hair was painted in a smooth dome of cream-colored gunge, with her hands held in front of her in claw shapes, translucent green goo dripping from her fingertips.

"Okay, you've earned yourselves another seventy points - and like I said earlier, we've got one more game to play here before we send you down to the undersea level," Alex announced. Nyte looked up, expecting to be asked to nominate someone again, but turned to follow the red wolf as he led the dripping canine past them. "This is a new one, and it's for all four of you!"

"A new one?" Nyte repeated, grinning over at Isla as they were led to one of the other metal doors that lined the dusty corridor. He felt his heart skip as Isla returned his smile for a moment, before facing the front and standing on her tiptoes to try to get a look through the barred window in the top middle of the door.

"Do I have to do it, too?" Becky asked as she dragged her fingers through her gungy hair, getting a laugh out of Alex as he undid the bolts at the top and bottom of the door.

"Yes, I'm sorry, you're going into this one as well - but at least this time you'll be able to share some of the mess with your team mates... you're all going on to this!"

Nyte stretched up on his tiptoes as Alex swung the door open, pricking his ears as he heard the noise of machinery inside. He let the girls through the door in front of him first, nervously smiling at their gasps before stepping through.

Most of the room was taken up by a huge gear prop, placed horizontally in a slight circular well in the floor, which was making a continuous rusty squeaking noise as it rotated slowly around. It was a few yards in diameter and about four feet high, with a mobile set of steps off to the side providing a route up on to it. On four of the eight teeth of the gear, four blowup pool chairs were placed at right-angles to each other, facing outwards away from each other, and just in front of the arrangement, a podium stood on the floor with a large red dome-shaped button on its top.

"Okay, you four - on to the Gunge Gear with you!" the red wolf encouraged as he moved to a lever at the side of the room, tugging it towards him and slowly bringing the rotating prop to a halt. "Lead the way, Nyte..."

Nyte glanced over his shoulder at him and then headed for the metallic steps, listening to the girls' footsteps behind him. As he ascended and stepped on to the surface, he looked up at the other obvious feature of the room - suspended from the ceiling, above where three of the chairs had stopped, were a set of clear spherical tanks of gunge, with long pipes stretching down to head level. He shuddered as he looked at their brightly colored contents, filling the pipe portion of the tanks and going up to halfway up the spheres.

He stepped aside as the girls came up behind him, and moved to the fourth chair which was facing Alex, looking up carefully to the ceiling but not seeing any sort of gunge mechanism above it. He slipped around it and sat down, grasping at its arms as it flopped down a little more than he had anticipated, tilting him back a little to face the ceiling. The domed red button that he'd seen from the floor was now just underneath his feet.

He looked over his shoulder at the girls, grinning as he watched them look around and decide where to sit. Isla was the first to move, and Nyte watched her head away from him towards the opposite seat underneath the tube of yellow gunge. Disappointed that she was in a position where he wouldn't be able to see her, he twisted around and watched her sit down, eyeing the nozzle above her head, as the other girls took their seats - Becky nervously looking up at the green gunge on his left, and Quinne bouncing into the seat underneath the purple gunge on his right.

"Okay..." He turned as Alex got their attention again, dashing over to drag the stairs away before he returned to the lever. "Taking that seat was a sensible decision on the face of it, Nyte, but you're not going to be staying in those positions for long - let's set you going..." The red wolf tugged the lever back a little, and Nyte jumped at the jolt as he and his team mates were carried around as the gear slowly rumbled into life again.

"When the gear stops, one of you will find themselves above this trigger here," he said, stepping forward to slap it and looking up as Isla's dangling feet narrowly missed him. "When you're in that position, I'm going to ask you a question - all you have to do is answer it, then push the button that you'll find underneath your feet. If you've got it right, the gear will move around again and bring the next one of you to the front." Nyte nodded, lifting his feet a little as he passed over the red dome again.

"If you haven't given the right answer before you push the button, though... the tanks are going to open up instead, and you're going to gunge all of your team mates," he smiled. "And with what's happened on this team so far... I don't think that's something you want on your conscience!"

"You'd better keep me clean, Nyte!" he heard Quinne call happily beside him.

"You know he's not getting away if he doesn't," Isla added with a sly grin, leaning back and to the side to face her.

"See what I mean?" Alex smiled as he stepped back over to the lever. "I'm going to give you two minutes up there... Becky, you're looking the sloppiest just now so we'll give you a break from the gunge first." As he spoke, he put his hand on the lever again and the gear slowed down. Nyte looked at the puppy girl to his left as her chair stopped just above the large red dome, and a timer counting down from two minutes was projected on to the wall behind Alex. He looked above his head, and shuddered as he found himself staring up at the long tube full of purple gunge.

"Okay, to keep your teammates clean... if you want to..." Alex added with a smile. "What are the two letters to the left and right of N on a computer keyboard?" He smiled as he made a show of covering the surface of his handheld computer, where she couldn't possibly see it.

"Um..." Becky paused, looking down and carefully lifting her feet so as not to touch the red dome. "M and... B?"

"Sounds good to me - let's see if you're right, hit the button!"

Nyte twisted to his left to watch as the puppy girl looked unsurely down at the large dome beneath her, carefully dropping her bare feet down to press it. As it went down, a buzzer went off, and she squeaked as she shot them back up again and returned to a curled position on the chair.

"That's right!" Alex's voice came, and Nyte jumped as the gear began moving again, turning all four of them slowly one position around and bringing him to the front. "So everyone's safe, but it means that you're going under the gunge nozzles now - let's hope your teammates can do the same in return!"

Nyte bounced in the seat a little as it stopped suddenly with him facing Alex, resting his feet on the dome below him. He glanced down at its red surface, now stained with half a sloppy footprint.

"Nyte..." He wriggled and sat up as Alex prepared to read out his question. "Staying with computers - how many bytes does the prefix "kilo" mean? And I'll give you a clue, it's not a thousand..."

He cringed, putting a hand to his head. "Agh, I know this..." he muttered, twisting to look over his shoulders, where he saw the fox and puppy girls looking intently back at him, and trying to pull together his vague memories of how to work it out. "A thousand and... forty-two?" he asked, letting go of his forehead.

Alex put his hand out in front of him. "Let's find out - push that button...!"

Taking a deep breath, Nyte dropped his feet back down and pressed on the dome. He half curled up instinctively as the buzzer sounded, then his stomach dropped as he heard the snick of valves behind him.

He snapped around again, just in time to see Becky disappear underneath a stripe of dark green slime from the pipe above her, squeaks and shrieks going up from her and the rest of the girls as the paint-like gunge slapped on to their heads. As the flow of ooze twitched and splurged down into her lap, the puppy girl brushed it away with both hands, leaning out of the thinning downpour as the remains of it trickled over her head and down her back.

He turned to look at the other girls' chairs, seeing the top of Isla's head painted in smooth yellow with fingers of gunge slithering down the back of her seat below it. On his right, Quinne reached up to part her hair, sending flecks of purple slop spraying outwards as she flicked it behind her head.

"Oh, the girls might be the messy ones but I think you're in the worst position already, Nyte," Alex chuckled, and Nyte grinned back at him sheepishly. "You had the right idea, it was a thousand and twenty four. Never mind, you can still turn it around - what was..."

"What, I get another one?" he interrupted as he raised his eyebrows.

"Yes! You're not escaping until you get a question right - or you can pass to move yourself on, but it means gunging the girls again..." Nyte swallowed, feeling the girls' eyes on him as the question was read out to him. This time, he breathed out as he realized he knew the answer. He pushed down on the button with both feet, and sagged back in relief as the gear moved again, before his heart quickened as he caught a glimpse of the green pipe he was now headed under.

"And Quinne enters the spotlight!" Alex grinned at the purple-splattered fennec as the gear stopped, her dangling feet swinging a little with the jolt. Nyte leaned around and watched her closely as Alex read her question out.

"Quinne, splash of color there..." He laughed as the fox girl brushed her hand over her head, sticking her tongue out at him. "Chemicals in the Periodic Table can be written as one- or two-letter symbols. What's the two-letter symbol for iron?"

Nyte watched the fox girl tilting her head from side to side as she thought. "Ir?" she suddenly asked back. He gasped as she pushed her feet down to press the button, and faced the front, gripping the arms of his chair tightly.

He hunched down a little at the click of the valve above his head, closing his eyes just as he felt the wave of thick liquid splurge out on to him. Smiling to himself underneath the sloppy dome as he felt it bulge out and soak his arms and lap, he tossed his head to either side, twitching as the cool slime slithered over and around him. After a couple of seconds, he felt it ease off, a couple of heavy dollops of gunk still smacking on to his head as he shook himself out and pinched his muzzle to wipe the gunge away.

"Wrong answer, Quinne - I think Nyte saw that coming!" Alex announced with a smirk, watching her as she nervously peeked over her shoulders at her gunge-coated team mates. "Try this one - what are the names of the two universities who take part in the famous annual boat race?"

Nyte stretched up and twisted around in the blowup chair, his gungy arm slipping off the back of it before he managed to wriggle upright. As Quinne thought about her answer, he looked over at what he could see of Isla, the mixture of purple and yellow gunge oozing slowly over her head before she clasped her hands together and brushed them over from her forehead.

He gripped the back of the chair harder as the fox girl pressed the button after getting her question right, and kept watching the lizardess as the gear moved her into position opposite Alex, with him underneath the yellow nozzle at the back of the gear.

"Isla... you're looking nice and colorful - so much for staying clean!" The red wolf shook his head as she came to the front, and Nyte sagged into his seat, clasping his hands back over his lap as he imagined the sight of the mingling colors of slop dripping all over her.

"Okay, Isla, to save your team mates from getting even muckier, how many milliseconds make up one second?"

"A hundred," Nyte heard her say, followed by the buzzer as she pressed the button.

He heard the gunge bubble above him as the valve snicked open, and ducked under the yellow slime's weight as it flooded down on to him, the new coating pushing its way through the stuff on his fur and mingling into a lighter green. He closed his eyes as the dome flying out over his head folded inwards, twitching at the squeaks from the girls on either side of him as he imagined the same thing happening to them. As the last of the yellow gunge dribbled over his head, he brought two fingers up to part the hair that was dangling over his eyes, and shook his head as Alex spoke again.

"Sorry, Isla, it's a thousand! An easy mistake to make, although I don't think your team appreciates it..." He glanced back as the lizardess groaned, leaning back and crossing her legs. "Here's another one... what's the scientific name for the main part of the brain?"

There was a pause, and Nyte looked down, watching the thick yellow drops of gunge dripping from his soaked hair as he heard Isla kick her feet against the front of her chair in thought.

"You can always pass..." Alex reminded her, but he looked up to see Isla shaking her head.

"Cerebellum?" she asked back.

"Well, let's find out...!"

Nyte squeezed his eyes shut in readiness as the buzzer sounded, but still jumped at the click above his head and the feeling of the cold, slippery gunge pouring down on to him. This time, he leaned back, turning his head to the side as the thick slime splashed out from his chest, flowing down into his lap and pooling around him in the slightly tilted chair.

He held his breath as the downpour of gloop slowed to a trickle, wriggling upright in the mess surrounding him. With his fur heavy with slime, he leaned around, putting his elbow on the back of the seat, as he looked at Alex.

"It was 'cerebrum' - you were so close, but that's two wrong, Isla! Do you want another question, or...?"

"No, I'll pass," she said, holding a hand out in front of her.

"I think that's probably a wise decision at this stage - but you know what that means for your team mates...!" Alex called as the valves clicked again. Without thinking, Nyte looked up above his head, and gave a muffled screech as he got a faceful of the yellow gunge.

He slithered back around in his seat and hunched over, breathing out hard and spitting gunge away from his lips as the latest downpour deluged down around him. Panting, he opened his eyes and gave a breathless laugh, seeing his lap and most of his fur completely hidden by a smooth, slimy bright yellow covering, hardly able to feel the stuff pouring down on to the back of his neck but seeing it ooze around his shoulders and down his chest in thick blobs.

"Isla... I don't need to tell you where you're going now," Alex said, and Nyte leaned around the back of his chair to see him pointing off to the side. "Yes, you might be getting some of the green stuff - let's hope for your sake the others do better...!" Nyte yelped and flopped back into a sitting position in the pool of slime that had collected around him as the gear finally started moving again, taking him back to where he had started underneath the purple tube.

"Becky, we're back to you - oh, Becky, I'm sorry...!" Alex broke into a laugh as the gear stopped, and Nyte looked around at the puppy girl, who was now barely recognizable and plastered to the seat by a huge splatter of purple gunge. "Isla, I think you're going to have a lot to answer for once she gets down from here..."

Wearily, the puppy girl hauled herself up and blinked her eyes open, hiking her bikini top back up her shoulders. Nyte twitched at the bounce of her slippery chest, trying to relax and concentrate on the wall in front of him instead, and running his fingers through his slime-soaked fur as he waited for her to answer her question.

He hunched down as the buzzer sounded, but the gear jolted again and he tried to wriggle up among the slop he was sitting in as he was carried around to the button in Becky's place.

"Nyte... also looking like you've got a bright new coat of paint!" Nyte grinned through the glop dripping off his face, thinking about what he'd look like on camera. "'Tsunami' is the word for a large type of... what?"

"Er, a... tidal wave", he answered with a nod, then remembered about the button in front of him. He looked at it as he stretched down, its surface now stained with multiple footprints and streaks of slime - his foot slipped over it before he finally succeeded in pushing it down.

The gear started up again, and he found himself laughing under his breath as he was moved around towards the green nozzle again, looking ahead at the others he was going to have to pass under before he escaped.

"Quinne, looking gorgeous in green..." Nyte leaned towards the front of the gear, looking at the huge curtains of green slop dripping from the edges of the inflatable chair, and the soaked and gungy fennec girl in the middle of it. As Alex looked down at his device, she brought her hands up to her ears, dragging the slop off them and flicking them upright, then she growled and reached forward with her hands in claw shapes, holding them up and laughing at the green glop dripping off them.

"And what an appropriate question! What's the name of the substance that gives plants their green color?"

The fox girl stayed silent as she thought, and Nyte watched a trickle of green slime drip slowly from the end of her muzzle. She took her hands off the edges of the slippery chair, clasping them together in front of her and breathing out heavily.

He flopped back into his seat and looked up at the round nozzle above him, which had streaks of green gunge now clinging to the edges of the covering of the slide valve. There was a quiet whimper from his other side, and he leaned around to see the purple-stained puppy girl looking up into the yellow nozzle in the same way.

"Oh - chlorophyll," Quinne said suddenly, and Nyte gasped as the buzzer went off, then tried to calm down once again as they were all moved around once more.

"Isla, we've not got a lot of time left - let's hope this goes better than last time!" Alex announced as the lizardess was brought to the front. Nyte cringed as he was carried underneath the yellow nozzle again, looking around at the splatter of bright gunge he was sitting in, but this time Isla immediately got her question right, bringing Becky to the seat opposite Alex.

"Becky again! This is starting to go better," the red wolf announced as he looked down at his pocket device. "The purity of gold is measured in karats - how many karats mean pure gold?"

"Um..." Becky picked strands of her gungy hair away from her forehead as she thought, her eyes on the timer on the wall behind Alex. "Twenty?" Nyte heard her answer, followed by the sound of the buzzer.

He cringed as the valves clicked once more, and slithered down under the weight of the purple gunge flooding down on to him. With his hair and fur already matted with slime, he could hardly feel the new downpour as it rebounded off his head, but as it folded inwards, he bowed his head down and watched the thick fingers of purple gloop sliding around his neck and mixing with the yellow stuff on his chest to form a sickly off-green color.

As a trickle of purple continued to drip down on to him, he put his hands to his head, pushing his hair back as he glanced at the display on the wall, seeing that they'd nearly run out of time. He saw Becky bounce a little as she dipped her feet down to press the button in answer to another question, and smiled as he was carried to the front position once more.

"Nyte -"

The timer hit zero and an alarm blared from the ceiling, drowning out the rest of Alex's words. Hearing a chorus of giggles and shrieks from behind him, Nyte flipped himself over and got unsteadily to his knees, gripping the back of the seat as he looked around at the three gunge reservoirs, the level of slime in the tubes overhead descending rapidly and leaving slippery streaks behind on the inside of the plastic as the three girls were all enveloped by huge, opaque twitching domes of gunge.

He gaped around at them, twitching at the continuous slapping, splattering noise as streaks of the stuff spewed out from all three of their heads, splashing against the surface of the gear behind them as well as smacking messily on to the floor below. He yelped as his knees slipped outwards in the slime, bracing himself against the armrests of the chair and clawing his way upright on the chair's back as he twitched at the feeling of the gunge on his swimming shorts oozing down the backs of his legs.

As the gunge in the pipes above the girls ran out, the flow from the nozzles broke into streams of blobs sputtering down on to their plastered heads. Becky squirmed forward, doing her best to clear her hair and face, as Quinne shook her head slowly underneath the slowing drizzle, her eyes firmly shut as the glop sputtered over her. Isla stayed leaning relaxedly back in the seat, and put both fists up in the air, her arms colored entirely yellow with gunge trickling from all along them.

"Did I forget to mention what happens when time runs out?" The fox and canine blinked and looked toward Alex as he spoke again, and Nyte slithered down into a sitting position to see him grinning widely. He moved to the lever and started the gear gradually turning again. "I think I love this game already... are you all okay after that?"

Nyte twitched as the dregs of gunge from the green pipe splashed over him, and nodded weakly, smiling at the whoops he heard from Quinne and Isla.

"Let's get you down from there..." Alex came forward and walked around the side of the gear, picking his way carefully through the puddle of green slime on the floor, then took hold of an inflatable ramp at the back of the room and budged it over so that it was next to the gear. "Come on, this'll catch you..."

Nyte looked to watch as Becky was moved over the ramp, and he heard her squeak as she pushed herself off the chair, landing on the inflatable surface and slithering to the flat section at the bottom. As Alex helped her up and back on to the floor with his hand, he got ready to push himself off his chair, and leaned forward, using his arms to propel himself as he passed over the middle of the ramp. He landed on his behind, yelping as he slid rapidly against the slippery material, and scooted around as he slipped to the floor, crashing into the inflatable guard at the end.

He smiled tiredly as he saw Alex's hand in front of his face, and got unsteadily to his feet, joining the puppy girl just as Quinne came into view above them. The drenched fennec slithered forwards off the chair and squeaked as she bounced on the ramp, sliding down head first and flopping on to the flat section. She got to her knees to lean against the crash barrier, smiling brightly up at them through the mass of purple gloop on her hair.

Finally, Isla was carried around into view, and Nyte tried to cover up his shudder as he grinned up at her. She and the seat she was sitting in were completely painted in the yellow gunge like he had been, with just the faint outlines of her swimwear visible underneath the slippery gloop. As she faced the team, her shoulders shook in laughter, and she wiped her eyes and blinked them open as she looked down at the ramp. Struggling forwards, she let herself fall off the chair and bounced to collapse into a heap below.

Alex smiled as he leaned down towards her. "You okay, Isla?" he said, and grinned as she raised a single gungy fist. She unfolded herself, getting to all fours before straightening up to her knees and finally to her feet, her thumbs hooked under her bikini top to shake it and spill some of the gunge out.

"You got me so messy!" Quinne called, pointing a finger towards the lizardess and sending a splash of mixed gunge flying up from her hand. Isla looked her up and down, a wry grin on her face. "It's okay for you, some of us have fur!" The fox girl spread her arms, looking down at the ooze trickling all over her, then reached up to try to fluff her soaked hair.

"Well, I've got to say, I've been doing this for a long time now," Alex started as he helped Isla off the landing mat and on to dry land with the rest of the team again, "but that's got to be one of our messiest ones ever! You four really took a punishment up there, but eight right answers gives you 80 points for the game, and that's..." He paused as he fished his pocket device out again, looking at the total on its screen. "265 for the round - you're doing really well!"

Nyte smiled around at his team mates, one hand up underneath his heavy fringe as the ooze continued to pour and drizzle from his hair. He yelped as Isla stepped off the ramp and lunged for him, wrapping her slippery arms around his chest, and he squirmed away and shuddered as she wriggled down to push the top of her head against his neck, dragging it against his fur and wiping off the mixed gunge on to his fur with a playful grin.

"All right!" Alex laughed as Isla let Nyte go. "I think we'll stop off at the sprayers again first, and then we're heading down to the undersea level, where someone's going to get a surprise..."

He clapped his hands together and stepped over the slippery ramp back towards the door. With a look back up at the dripping pipes, Nyte swallowed as he remembered putting one of his friends' names down for the show's upcoming guest section, then turned to follow his dripping team mates.