INDUSTRIAL ZONE 7 - Round 4  
Written by Iron-K, 2012

Nyte was the last to step down from the tiled section of the corridor, putting one hand on the wall for support as he watched the slightly off-colored water drizzle from his soaked fur on to the stony floor. As Alex spun the wheel on the wall to shut the sprayers off, he looked around at Quinne and Becky brushing some of the water out of their fur. On the other side of the group, Isla ran her hands over her head as she closed her eyes, smiling as she shuddered a little, and Nyte swallowed as his eyes fell to the beads of water on her chest before quickly averting his eyes as she looked back at him.

"Everyone clean and safe?" the red wolf asked, clapping his hands together as he led them through the swinging double doors, holding them open as they came back into the center of the set's white tiled environment.

"Yeah, for now," he answered, and smiled to himself as he got a laugh out of a couple of the other members of the team.

"Good answer! You might not stay like that for long, but we've just got one more place to go..." As Alex turned to the wall, he pointed towards the hatch where he had stopped them earlier, and the four of them followed him as he put his hands on the rusty wheel on its center. He gave it a tug to free it, then leaned back to speak over his shoulder as he spun it around with one hand.

"As you can tell, team, the undersea level hasn't seen much use since the place was abandoned," he said. "So you might find that things have got a little... grimy down there..."

Nyte shuddered as Isla gave a wide grin, clasping Becky's shoulder and stroking it a little as she squeezed her eyes shut with an anxious giggle. Quinne scampered around to their other side and leaned over to look as Alex swung the hatch open.

"And of course... the lights are another problem," the red wolf said as he clunked the door of the hatch against the wall. Nyte nodded with a shiver as he looked inside - all that was visible was a small rusty corridor with a ceiling that was slanted sharply down, rapidly fading into black just a few feet away from them.

"Now, normally I'd be sending one of you down ahead of me..." Alex continued as he rubbed his chin, staring into the darkness. "But as I'm supposed to be responsible for your safety and everything, just this once I'll make sure it's okay..."

"We'll be right behind you if you get gunged," Isla said, patting him on the back.

"Oh, I'll make sure you're right in front of me if there's any danger of that!" Alex leaned through the hatch, flicking a switch on the wall as he did so. A bare light bulb on the wall flickered into life, dimly illuminating a set of cross-hatched metal stairs descending into the darkness, and he ducked as he stepped fully through the small hatch and took hold of the handrail. Nyte put his hands on the edge of the hatch's frame as he watched the wolf carefully descend the stairs.

"Come on, leader," Isla spoke up, and Nyte half-turned to her before yelping as she playfully swatted his behind. He turned to her for a moment, trying to find an answer as he looked at her attempt at an innocent smile, then swallowed and stepped down the stairs after the red wolf.

Pricking his ears instinctively in the absence of light, he turned his head as he sensed they were descending into a large room, but couldn't make out more than indistinct shapes in the darkness. Startled as he reached the end of the stairs, he whispered a vague warning over his shoulder as he traced his hand along the left wall, turning a corner and straining to keep his eye on Alex's tail, stopping suddenly as the red wolf turned around.

"Okay, are we all here?" he asked. Nyte looked over his shoulder, just able to make out the shapes of the girls as they gathered around.

"Yeah, we're... aah!" Becky squeaked as Quinne came up behind her and put her hands on her shoulders. She wriggled around in the fox's grasp, her hand clasped to her chest as she panted, and then ruffled the pink fennec's hair.

Alex smiled as he shook his head. "Careful not to make any of the team collapse from fright before we've started the round, Quinne..." He turned and grasped a handle jutting out of the wall as the fennec grabbed her hair to push it up in two bunches with a playful growl. "We've reached the master power switch for the undersea level, but I just wanted to say before I turned it on that we've got a surprise for one of you waiting here! Take a look..."

There was a sudden buzz as Alex hauled the switch down, and Nyte screwed up his face as the room was illuminated in harsh light from fluorescent tubes in the walls and ceiling. Blinking a couple of times, he squinted as the room came into focus.

Opposite them, a knee-high circular chainlink fence surrounded a large vat sunk into the floor, with its surface coated in a smooth layer of foam. Above it, a snow leopardess with neatly-cut blonde hair was seated on a chair supported from a pillar on the back wall, suspended with her feet dangling above the pool's surface and the opening of a large pipe looming just above her. Nyte looked to his left and right to see who among the team recognized the guest player, and smiled as he saw Quinne with her jaw wide.

"A friend of yours, Quinne?" Alex took a step towards her and put his arm around her shoulders as her look of shock gradually turned into a delighted grin.

"Yeah!" She spoke up after a pause. "It's... it's..." She stumbled over her words and put her hands on her cheeks, bouncing on her feet. "I made sure you'd really left when you dropped me off, and everything...!" Nyte looked between the two girls as the feline looked down at her friend with a smile that looked calm, though she was tapping her fingers together on her lap, her arms drawn in close to her one-piece black swimsuit.

"Well, I'll introduce you," the red wolf said as Quinne broke into another laugh, looking up at the leopardess girl and pointing dramatically down at the vat below her. "Say hello to Delta, everyone - who's been Quinne's roommate for the last few years..."

The leopardess nodded with a slight cringe, gripping the underside of the dunk seat. "Hi, everyone..." she answered as she looked around at Quinne and her companions.

Alex stepped to the front of the group. "Delta, we're glad you could make it - how are you doing?"

The leopardess rolled her eyes, then looked down at the foamy surface just below her feet. "Fine... got a good view from up here..." she answered.

"Good, good... we'll see how long you stay there! Quinne, why do you want to gunge her?"

The fox girl took a breath, then stopped to think. "'Cause she's always trying to organize me," she said as she grinned up at her once more.

"She needs it!" Delta protested with a point of her finger. "If it wasn't for me, she wouldn't have got here this morning..."

"Well, in that case, you've got yourself to thank for being seated above that vat of gunge now!" Alex clapped his hands as he approached. "Hoping to stay out of there?"

The feline folded her arms, looking down at the pool beneath her with a hint of a grimace as she brushed through her white fur. "...Just as long as I get her in here with me," she said.

"Oh, she's seen this show before - she knows exactly how this works!" Alex laughed as he moved to a hatch in the wall below the stairs they'd come down, and tugged it open. "Quinne, you've got the chance to drop Delta in the gunge - we actually had a talk with the rest of your bandmates and they came up with a game especially for you..."

Quinne scampered over towards the wall and stood on her tiptoes to see into the hatch past him as he leaned down and grabbed something from inside. Her eyes widened as he turned around again, holding up two pairs of yellow rubber boots that were just under knee height.

"They said - as we could tell when you came in - that you were a fan of boots, though perhaps not quite this kind..." He held them up and turned them as he looked at them, then set them down on the floor next to the fox girl as she looked at them curiously, scratching behind her long ears. "Your task is to use these to hit all five of those targets over the next minute and a half," he said, pointing up at the wall behind the team, and Nyte took a couple of steps away to see a row of large circles marked in faded red paint along the back wall, about a foot above head height. "But just to make sure you do it the way we intended, we're not going to allow you to use your hands..."

He reached into the hatch again, and Nyte's ears perked as there was the clatter of something loose and metallic being dragged out of it. He couldn't help smiling as the red wolf moved back to the fox girl brandishing a pair of handcuffs, linked by a couple of inches of chain.

The fennec stared at them, raising one brow but putting her hands behind her as Alex moved to her back. "So are those your handcuffs or ours?" she asked over her shoulder as he clicked the cuffs closed around her wrists. Behind her, Delta cringed embarrassedly, her cheeks reddening. "I didn't know you were into stuff like this..."

"Honestly, neither did I," the wolf answered as he fiddled with them. "I think some of our game designers have a thing they're not telling us about..." He let her arms go, and the fox made a show of trying to tug her fastened arms apart as he put his hands on her shoulders.

"If you just stand over here... you're going to have to fling them from this spot," he announced, pointing down to another small red circle marked on the floor. "So your teammates are going to have to retrieve the boots you throw and deliver them back to you... but there's one more little detail!"

Quinne blinked as he stooped to pick up two of the boots and drew them away, stepping back towards the gunge vat and holding them above it. With a smile, he allowed them to drop, and they hit the surface, pushing the inch-thick layer of foam aside as they splashed into the slime.

"Oh, you've got to be kidding me...!" The fox gasped, her eyes wide as she curled her toes against the floor.

"I'm not! We're only going to count it as a hit if you get any gunge on to the wall within those circles," he grinned. "So, you three - prepare yourselves to deliver some slimy ammunition to Quinne..."

Isla was the first walk over to the vat, and Nyte and Becky followed behind her as she crouched down next to it, her hands on the top of the small barrier. A couple of patches of luminous yellow showed up in the foam as the boots bobbed up to the surface, brightly colored slime dripping off their waterproof material, and Alex scooped up the one nearest him.

"I'll give you a free one to start off with," he said, setting the boot down in front of the fox girl. Nyte turned and watched with a shiver as she picked her bare foot up, flexing her toes and then eeping as she dipped her foot into it. After a couple of inches, she withdrew it again, giggling at the sight of the purple glop slithering from the tips of her toes.

"Oh, yuck...!" Becky said under her breath, clasping her hands to her mouth.

"How's that feel?" Isla asked as the fennec wriggled her gungy toes.

"You should try it!" she said back, still staring down at her foot with a squeamish smile.

"Are you ready?" Nyte blinked and shuddered as Alex spoke up again, taking his eyes off the fennec's slippery foot and looking up at the leopardess again. "For every target you hit, that pipe above your friend's head will turn on - so Delta, I would prepare to defend yourself if I were you..."

The leopardess rolled her eyes, hefting one leg up and crossing it over the other, shifting a little in the precarious seat and glancing up once again at the gunge pipe inches above her.

"Quinne, I'll start the timer when you throw that first boot, so get ready..."

With a high-pitched squeak, Quinne dipped her foot back into the boot, giggling with a couple of disgusted noises as she wriggled it back and forth to hook her foot under the toe. Lifting her fastened arms and swinging them to put all her weight behind her throw, she kicked her foot forward and the boot scooted rapidly across the floor, leaving a broken streak of purple gunge behind it.

"Oh, you're going to have to work on your technique..." Alex said as Becky tiptoed forward to pick up the slimy upturned boot with one finger and thumb, quickly scampering out of the line of fire.

"That was hopeless!" jeered Delta from behind them.

Alex waggled a finger up at her. "Isla, give her another - there's still plenty of time, so don't look too pleased yet, Delta!"

Nyte swallowed as Quinne plunged her slippery foot into a second boot positioned by Isla, and turned away, remembering about the other pair of them. He grabbed them both and dashed over to the vat, leaning over the low fence and sinking them into the foam, pushing them down below the surface of the heavy liquid and feeling the fur on the back of his neck stand up as the goo sank into them. Behind him, there was a sudden thud of something hitting the wall.

"Yes!" he heard Alex call, and he looked up just in time to see a burst of green stuff spew out of the pipe sticking down from the ceiling. He drew back quickly as the gunge smacked on to Delta's head and spewed outwards, hiding her behind a sloppy dome as she gave out a yelp. The thin curtain of slime splattered heavily into the vat beneath her, staining the foamy surface and making it ripple slowly.

Nyte watched transfixed as the dome folded inwards and the slippery gunge crept down the leopardess's white fur, dripping in thick fingers and pouring off her dangling toes. Parting her hair, she hunched her neck and smiled defeatedly through her grimace as she looked back down at the pink fennec, who grinned up at her over her shoulder, putting both thumbs up and raising her arms as far as the handcuffs would allow.

"I'm going to get you for this...!" the feline growled playfully, shaking her head and looking down at herself as streaks of slime trickled off her. Another thump on the wall made Nyte jump, and he turned quickly around, seeing a gungy streak stretching from just below the row of targets to a boot with a  puddle of gunge around it on the floor. Twitching as he clasped the gungy boots to his chest, he scooted up behind the fox girl as she twisted to look over her shoulder.

"This one!" Quinne wiggled her left foot, curling the toes of her gungy right foot against the floor, and he moved awkwardly around her to push one of the filled boots underneath her. The mixture of purple slop and blobs of foam fountained upwards as she rammed her foot into it, fingers of the gunk dripping down its rubber sides as she wriggled her foot further into the ooze. Putting her right foot forwards, she swung her leg in a wide arc and sent the boot sailing across the room, narrowly missing the target furthest to the right and making Becky screech as some of the arc of flying gunge spattered on to her head.

"Almost..." Alex encouraged as Nyte shuffled forwards and lined up another boot for Quinne. Staying in the same spot she was standing, she tried the same technique again, this time sending the boot straight into the center of the target and leaving a massive purple splatter mark behind on the wall as it thumped to the floor.

The fox girl looked over her shoulder and tittered as Delta ducked under the new onslaught of green slime, wriggling to the side to get her face out of the downpour and sending the gunge flying out to the side as it splashed on to her shoulder. 

"She..." she started, spluttering and turning her face away, then straightening up as the gunge slowed to a drizzle. "She wasn't on the spot!" she protested with a point, her other hand on her forehead to protect her face from the drops of green gunge slipping over her hair and drizzling from her fringe.

"Yes, but it's my show..." Alex said with a smile as the leopardess sat back and folded her arms. They watched as Quinne flung another boot that thumped on to the edge of the same target as before, and she stood hopping in place, squirming her hands behind her for balance as Isla positioned another one for her.

Nyte turned around to see Becky tentatively leaning over the fence around the vat, holding on to its top with one hand and scooping the opening of one boot along the surface to collect some of the gunge. He ducked to pick up the other boot that she'd discarded beside her, and stretched his arm down to dip it in, pulling it towards him.

He straightened up and shared a smile with the nervous puppy girl as she handed him her boot, then twitched as a memory of her in the green gunge vat flicked across his mind. Feeling the slime against his thumbs hooked around the tops of the boots, he turned on his heel and dashed to put the two of them down next to Quinne as Isla came forward with a third one.

"You've not got a lot of time left... you're going to have to make these count!" Alex said as Quinne dipped her gunge-coated foot into the first of the three boots. Nyte held his breath as she wound up for another fling, but sagged as it fell short of the wall. The second went the same way, leaving a bright stripe of purple gunge down the wall from just under the target she had been aiming for, as Becky scrambled to retrieve one of the other discarded boots.

Nyte watched the fennec plunge her gunge-coated leg into the last boot as Alex began to count down from five, and took a couple of steps backward as she spun around to face the vat. With a glance over her shoulder, she leaned back, swinging her foot up and flinging the yellow boot up and over her head as she tucked herself down to fall on to her back. Nyte held his breath as it turned cartwheels in the air, spraying its slimy contents in all directions, before it hit the dead center of the target in the middle of the wall.

Becky was dashing to line up another boot for Quinne as a klaxon sounded, and she slowed down, panting for breath and putting the boot on the floor next to her as she wiped her hands. Twitching at the continuing glooping noise of the gunge falling into the vat behind them, Nyte looked over his shoulder to watch as the leopardess cringed under the dark green downpour, wriggling her shoulders as the slime slithered down her back and wiping the stuff off her fringe before looking down at the horizontal fox girl with a grin.

"Goooal!" the fennec cheered, flexing her feet in the air and clapping them together in place of her hands. Alex stepped forward, extending a hand to help the pink fennec, but stepped back as she swung herself up into a sitting position and then struggled to her feet.

"Wow... Quinne, what a finish!" The red wolf ducked again as the fox girl quickly stuck her foot into the boot Becky had left and flung it forwards anyway, her ears flattening as it just skittered across the floor. "With a performance like that, I hope the local football team get in touch with you soon..."

He took her by the handcuffs as she looked down at the floor, slipping her gungy feet against it, and turned her around so that she was facing the vat. Above it, the dangling leopardess sat with her hands forming a tent over her forehead, thick blobs of the latest splash of green gunge slithering off them as the final drizzle continued to pour down on to the back of her neck.

"Unfortunately you didn't quite manage to send Delta into the dip," he said. "But at least you got her covered in gunge - you'd been wanting to do that for a while, hadn't you?"

"Oh, yeah," she smiled. "That was worth it!" She hunched over, panting as she tried to catch her breath. "I'm used to moving in handcuffs, aren't I, Delta?"

The snow leopardess flinched again, wiping her hands over her head. "Gunge her - right now!" she called down with a point as the pink fennec giggled up at her.

Alex moved to her back and released the handcuffs, but then put one hand on her tummy to keep her from escaping. "You know, Quinne... we might have to take her up on that..."

Quinne's long ears pricked as a worried look crossed her face, then she yelped and squeaked as Alex swept her up in his arms, dropping the handcuffs behind him as he strode to the edge of the vat.

"Get her arms!" he said quickly, and Nyte fumbled as Alex pressed the fox girl towards him, taking her by the wrists as the wolf stepped back and held her by the feet. With Nyte unsurely following Alex's lead, the two of them moved to the side of the vat with the fox girl dangling between them.

"We didn't have another seat, but this is the next best thing," Alex said, smiling as Isla cheered them on. "Nyte, on three!"

Nyte swallowed, looking down at Quinne's upside-down face as she stretched back to face him.

"I'm gonna get you back for this!" she said, sticking her tongue out, before squeaking as Alex swung her legs out away from the vat.

"One!" he called as he swung her forwards again, Nyte followed his movements, stepping a little to the side as he did so to make up for the wolf's much greater strength.

"Two!" He felt the fox girl shaking with giggles as they swung her back and then forwards again, this time in a much smoother arc, finishing with her almost sideways above the pool of gunge. She glanced down at the foamy surface, then they swung her away from the vat one last time, and Quinne gave a whimper and closed her eyes as Delta and even Becky joined in to finish the countdown.

"Three!"

The fox girl squeaked as Nyte and Alex let her go, her arms flailing as she reached the crest of an arc, turning around in mid-air and taking a deep breath just before she hit the surface of the gunge vat with a wet, heavy smacking noise. A mixture of brightly colored slime and white foam splashed up into the air around where she'd fallen in, the surface of the heavy liquid heaving up as the ripple reflected in from the sides of the vat.

As Nyte watched the white mixture drifted away from the vaguely Quinne-shaped purple hole in the foam, the fennec shot up through the surface a couple of feet away with a thick splash, bobbing up before finding her footing on the floor. Her fur was caked entirely in a sickly mixture of purple and green gunge, with a pile of foam sitting on her head and slowly breaking apart to slither down both her shoulders, her long ears twitching as streaks of gunge slithered from their tips. The gunge swelled as she brought her hands to the surface, the thick slime cascading down off them as she raised them a little to shake them clean.

Alex walked around to the side of the vat as Isla and Becky came forward to stand beside Nyte, the lizard hooting with laughter as Quinne wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. The puppy girl stood with one hand over her mouth to disguise her smile, twitching as the fox girl shook her head from side to side, the gunge swirling thickly around her as she moved.

"Sorry about that, Quinne..." Alex started, and she turned her head to look at where his voice was coming from, holding her hands up as long strings of purple goo fell from them and then bringing them back up to her head to get the gunk out of her eyes.

"Ugh..." The fennec girl looked down at herself, her hands in claw shapes as gunk dripped from them. "I look like something that just crawled out of a swamp!"

"You do," the red wolf agreed with a grin. "You earned sixty points for the team for those three targets, though... Delta, do you think she deserved to end up looking like a lost sea monster?" He called up to the leopardess, who was looking down at the gungy fox with a wide grin.

"For putting me up here - definitely!" she called down.

"Well, you deserved the gunge for making me do your laundry and wash your gym clothes...!" Quinne said back.

"I'm sure that we can even things up more here," the red wolf continued, crouching down and putting a hand on the fennec's shoulder to guide her to the side of the vat. "Because I'm sure that Delta knows that in this place, there's only one way down..." A laugh crept into his voice as the feline gasped and put her hand over her eyes, and Nyte's eyes widened as a burst of green gunge dropped from the pipe over her head.

Delta shrieked as the slime ballooned out around her, quickly facing forwards again and putting her hands over her eyes, bowing her head down as the gloop fell across her face. After a couple of seconds there was a mechanical click, and the sloppy bulge dropped down as the leopardess was tipped out of the seat, giving a high pitched yelp as she plunged into the center of the slime vat.

Nyte shuddered as the surface of the gunge buckled down where the feline had fallen in, blinking as a couple of drops from the huge splash fell on to his face. As he wiped his forehead, the gloopy surface burst upwards again as Delta emerged from the slop, her mouth open in shock with fangs of slime dripping across it as she felt the ooze slithering through her fur. She waded a couple of stumbling steps forward in the gunge, and squeaked again as another downpour crashed down into the vat from one of the pipes in the ceiling. She turned her face away as it caught her on the shoulder, and twisted so that the gloop splattered over her back, hunching her neck and shaking in a helpless squeamish laugh as her messy fur was painted in green.

As the gloop from the ceiling slowly eased back into a drizzle, Delta bounced forwards, still eeping as the thick liquid lapped up and down against her waist with every movement she made. She brought her hands up to her face and blew out heavily, tucking her gungy hair back behind her ears and then tentatively wiping at her eyes.

Nyte became aware of his mouth hanging open, and turned his expression into a grin, flinching back a little as yet another pipe on the ceiling sprayed a green downpour into the vat. This time, it missed both the girls in it and splattered down into the middle with a rich glooping sound, making Delta squirm again as it caused the glop to ripple even more around her. As she stumbled towards the side of the vat, she slipped, nearly dunking her head under before struggling to her feet again with the mixed colors of slop pouring and trickling down through her fur from her shoulders.

Putting both her hands under the surface, she hauled them forwards and sent a wave splashing towards the fox girl, who barked as she put her hands up to defend herself. Turning her face away, she paddled her own hands in the slime, heaving it back towards Delta as she approached and eventually sliding her gungy hands over the feline's face. Shaking her head, Delta ducked around Quinne's hands, and the fox screeched as she gave her a passionate lick on the cheek.

"That's better," Alex said calmly as he came forward, crouching down to open a small gate in the fence that bordered the vat. He tapped the grinning fox girl on the shoulder, and as she turned around, she dipped a hand into the gunk to playfully splash a last wave of it behind her at the leopardess. Taking both Alex's hands, she squeaked as she was hauled out of the vat, gunge pouring thickly off her in an opaque, gloopy curtain as he lifted her up and set her gently upright on the floor. Letting go, Quinne bounced on her heels, stretching her arms out and delightedly watching the ooze slither from her fur as Delta bobbed up into position at the gap in the fence, waving her hands at Alex to be let out.

"No, you're staying in there!" he laughed, swinging the gate shut slowly and bumping her hands out the way. The feline sagged and dipped her hands back under the surface of the gunge, then looked back up at the giggling fennec, shaking her head to get a gungy streak of hair out of her eye. "Thanks for coming on, though - you've helped this team earn sixty points for the round, and if they manage to turn on the purifier at the end, there should be enough water for you to get all that gunge off..."

The slime-painted leopardess laughed helplessly, pulling her hands out of the gunge and watching the thick slime pour out of her palms, weakly acknowledging the fennec girl as she waved and stuck her tongue out at her. Suddenly there was a shriek, and Nyte half-leapt away as he saw Isla had crept up behind the fennec and emptied one of the last filled boots over her head, the purple mixture of gunge and foam slipping over her already drenched fur - she turned around quickly and scraped her hands over her shoulders, flicking handfuls of the gunk at the lizardess as she backed away with a grin.

"I'm going to... steal your shoes so you have to wear these home...!" she said, reaching forward to grab the slimy boot out of Isla's hand and tossing it to the floor.

"I'd be happy to watch this for ages, but... shall we move on?" Alex smiled. "We've got three more games to go, and we're heading deeper into the undersea level to get to them..." He beckoned to the others as he walked the fennec away from the vat, heading for a bulkhead door with a round window that was hanging slightly open at the side of the room. Nyte glanced back at the leopardess watching them before joining the group as the red wolf tugged the door open.

As Alex stepped through in front of the group, Nyte peered into the rusted corridor and watched the dirty tube lights flicker near its ceiling. A trickle of yellow gunge poured from just beyond the door, as if it had sprung a leak - Becky wriggled to one side of the door to avoid it, before Isla stepped straight through behind her. He cupped one palm and looked down at the opaque yellow slime pouring into his hand as he followed them, but jolted and nearly lost his balance as his next footstep landed awkwardly - the corridor was built at a slight angle, as if the entire place had tilted to one side.

With one hand on the wall, he followed the girls and Alex through the passageway in near darkness, until they reached a small open area with angular rusty walls, various watertight doors like the one they had just come through, and some vague half-broken pieces of machinery scattered around. The light was dim, but just enough to see by as his eyes adjusted to the gloom.

"Welcome - if that's the word - to the main hub of the undersea level, team," Alex said, seating himself on one of the larger overturned parts. "As you can see it's survived a little less well than the rest of the building, but we do what we can - we have to keep the pumps running all the time to stop it flooding, so just let me know if you feel like you're sinking..."

He looked around at the team, then pointed around to the doors. "So we've got three more games to play down here - and they're going to be quite messy," he grinned. "Nyte - three of you are still clean but we need two volunteers for the next game - who do you want to gunge first?"

"Becky and Isla," he said quickly, pointing over at the two of them. Becky sagged in a giggle, while Isla stretched up with a grin.

"He's not wasting any time, is he?" Alex rocked backward a little and then sprang to his feet, heading over to one of the bulkhead doors behind him. "But I think Nyte knows exactly what you three are going to do to him after he's the only one left clean..."

"Yeah, I do..." Nyte nodded hesitantly, getting a laugh from the girls as they gathered around the door. Alex spun the valve open with one hand and stepped aside as he hauled it open, letting him step through.

As he ducked through the door, Nyte reflexively looked up, chuckling to himself as he realized how natural a reaction to a new room it had become. This time, a pair of square industrial hoppers were suspended from the ceiling, painted in bright green and yellow colours that stood out among the gloom. Their long spouts were pointed down at two targets placed inches apart in a section of the floor that looked like a sunken inflatable paddling pool.

"Getting to be a habit, isn't it?" His ears pricked as Isla said exactly what he'd been thinking, and he turned to see her staring up at the huge reservoirs as well. Beside her, Becky put her hands over her mouth and shook her head, as Quinne bounced up and down to see as she was the last to come in through the door.

Alex came forward and nudged his way between the puppy and lizardess, pushing them a little apart by knocking them with his hips as he put his arms around their shoulders. "You know where you're both going, don't you?" he said as he looked between them, and Nyte shuddered as he looked from the girls to the huge hoppers and back, already picturing what was going to happen in the next few minutes. He could see Becky wriggling squeamishly as Alex walked them on to the painted targets and stepped out from between them.

"So Isla, if I can just line you up here..." The lizardess held her hands out as Alex took her by the waist, and she sniggered as he made a show of walking her slightly to the left then right, looking up at the nozzle above her and drawing a line in the air down to her head with both hands. After finishing with her, he stepped around and took Becky gently by the shoulders.

"Come on, Becky, let's get you into position as well..." He slipped his hands down to her waist as her shoulders shook in laughter, her hands going up to her face to disguise her embarrassed smile as she shook her head. "Although I'm not sure you're going to stay put - Isla, can you take care of her?"

"Oh, yes." The lizardess grinned delightedly, and reached forward to take Becky's hands, bringing them down to hold them firmly at their sides. Alex stepped back and looked at the pair of them as he stepped out of the pool.

"Actually, you know what... I can't let this chance slip past," he said with a broad smile. "Nyte, do you want to come down here instead?"

"Um..." Nyte stuttered incoherently for a second, looking between the two girls as Becky enthusiastically nodded her head and the bikini-clad lizard girl turned to him, letting go of the canine and beckoning with both hands.

"If you go under the spout this time, we've got a gunge tank waiting just around the corner that I'm sure Becky wouldn't mind going into for the next game..." The puppy girl whimpered as Alex patted her on the shoulder, and Nyte laughed nervously, bowing his head down and scratching the back of his neck.

"S... sure," he decided, his eyes meeting Isla's for a second. As Alex nodded and stepped fully out of the sunken area with Becky, he swallowed and put his foot tentatively down on the surface, doing his best to appear casual despite his bristling fur as he shuffled himself over to stand on the second target, face to face with Isla. Not knowing where to look, he glanced around the rest of the room and up at the dark square spout above him, eventually blinking and looking straight at the lizardess in front of him. He felt his eyes quickly dropping to her large chest a couple of inches away from him, and he disguised it by bringing a hand up to rub his forehead then turned to watch as the red wolf spoke again.

"Okay, so Becky and Quinne, now..." Alex led the two other girls around to the back of the room, where a slanted container was mounted on the wall. "As you can see, this room's been closed off for a while and some of the pipes aren't in great shape." He swept his finger around at the walls, where various lengths and widths of dented pipes jutted out of the walls, running vertically for a foot or so before bending back in. "In this game, I'll be awarding you points for repairing them - all you have to do is pull them out of their sockets and replace them with the correct length of pipe from this parts bin." He reached behind him and rummaged around, eventually holding up a length of pipe and letting Quinne and Becky see it before tossing it back in with a clunk.

"However..." he continued, moving forwards, "the gunge is still going to be flowing through some of these, and when there's an active pipe broken anywhere in the room, the excess is going to be pumped out above your friends here." He reached up and tapped the side of the square spout above Isla, who looked up with a confident smile. "Hey, don't look at me - I didn't put it together!" he added as he saw Quinne looking at him with her eyebrow raised.

"I'm just looking forward to running around with all this stuff on me...!" she said back, running her fingers along the slime on her tummy and holding her hand up towards Alex as heavy drips of gunge slid from it. He retreated back a step with a smile.

"Oh, I'm sure it'll be easy once you get going..." He moved to the side of the room as the lights dimmed, and Nyte whimpered under his breath as Isla's eyes shone in the gloom. "Becky and Quinne, are you ready? Going to keep these two clean?"

Isla and Nyte looked at the two of them as Quinne nodded, already running in place, with Becky looking much less sure of herself. Alex gave a small laugh as he stepped out of the way.

"I hope you're ready to get messy, you two..." Nyte swallowed as Isla nodded, listening to Alex count Becky and Quinne down to start the game.

His heart jumped as a harsh spotlight came on above him and Isla, illuminating them along with the hoppers. He looked to the parts bin as the fox girl scampered over and hauled herself halfway over its lip to grab a pipe, with Becky hovering behind her and waiting for her to get down before tentatively reaching in herself. He leaned around the lizardess to watch as the fox ran to the wall behind Isla, holding the pipe up against the lengths on the wall to compare them before she reached forward with her other hand to grasp it.

He held his breath as Quinne pulled the pipe out of the wall and glanced up for a second, just before seeing the mechanism move on the hopper right above him. He faced the front and grinned through his gritted teeth as he felt the stuff pour gently on to his head for a second before the flood started. The cool, smooth texture splooshed suddenly around him and he gasped as he felt his head being pushed down by the heavy slime, hunching instinctively as the stuff slapped on to his shoulders and oozed down his back.

There was a yelp from behind him, and he twisted around to look as Becky jumped away from a lick of green slime that had spewed out of the wall where she had taken a pipe off, blinking as a curtain of drips from the edge of the hopper spattered on to his face. He watched as she tried to fit the pipe she was carrying on to the wall in its place, then jumped again as he heard Isla shriek.

He whipped his head around and flinched as a wave of gunge splurged into his chest, blinking as Isla was covered in a dome of dark off-green slop right in front of him. He twitched as she leaned slightly forwards to reveal her open-mouthed smile, the slime dripping in thick fingers from the coating on her shoulders. The flow subsided and she straightened up with a shake of her head, then gave a laughing scream again as it burst back into life. Nyte swallowed as he watched the gloppy curtain splatter off her head, following it down and watching it slither down the sides of her face, drip on to her chest and pool slightly in the front of her bikini top.

"Come on, Becky - make sure you get that replacement in quickly...!" As Alex called above the noise of the falling slime, Nyte tore his gaze off the lizardess's chest and looked around again, watching her pulling a third pipe off the wall and trying the replacement in the sockets left behind before finally thumping it into place. As she turned away, he spluttered as he was hit by another yellow burst, closing his eyes and holding his breath as he felt the stuff mat his hair down and slither over his face.

As the flow of gunge above him eased off, he faced the front again, bowing his head down and letting it pour off the front of his hair before flicking it up, pushing it back behind his head before opening his eyes again. He suddenly found himself face to face with Isla, and breathlessly did his best to return her sly smile as he watched the trickles of gunk continue to fall on to her, a thick streak going down the front of her head. He looked up, half-closing his eyes as he turned his palms up, still catching the blobs of yellow that were raining down on to him from the spout.

Shouting some vague encouragement to the girls running around them, he watched carefully for the next pipe being pulled off the wall, and smiled as Becky made sure to stand to the side before tugging at one, releasing a wave of bright yellow slime. He closed his eyes in preparation and broke into a helpless laugh as another wave spewed over him, soaking into his already drenched fur, and he ducked forwards, aware of the stuff splattering crazily out from the nape of his neck. He curled his toes as he felt the stuff ooze between them, nearly slipping on the collected slime despite the grips on the pool's floor.

He looked up at Isla again as he felt the slop easing down to a trickle on his back, just in time to see her close her eyes as she was gunged by the green hopper again, this time in a gentler flow that let the thick slop pile up slightly on her head before slumping down over her face. She twitched to the side with a grin, shaking the slime off her head, and held her arms out to the sides before looking down at her completely green-painted top half. Nyte's eyes were fixed on her as she brought her hands inward again, and she took hold of the bottom of her bikini top, lifting it away from her chest for a fraction of a second and giggling as a wave of gunk splashed out of it. He whimpered under his breath as he caught a glimpse of the gunge slithering down to cover the last visible patches of her deep blue chest, and twisted to the side to half-cross his legs, aware of his soaking swimming trunks clinging uncomfortably to his front.

He panted for breath as there was a pause in the waves of gunge from the ceiling, looking around as Becky and Quinne ran around with the pipes, and feeling the yellow slime ooze and trickle through every inch of his fur. He looked around to count the number of pipes that they had successfully replaced, seeing five or six of the more brightly-colored ones dotted around the room. He watched as Becky hoisted herself up on to the lip of the parts bin to lean in and reach towards its bottom, the view of her backside not helping with his excitement as he watched her wriggle as she stretched down.

Gasping as yet another payload of the green gunk suddenly splashed down on to the lizardess in front of him, he put his hands up to defend himself as the goo splattered out from her on to the top of his chest. Suddenly, Isla's gungy hands came forwards out of the downpour, and with an involuntary squeak she swung him around, his feet skidding in the ankle-deep gunge pool as his head went under the green downpour. He quickly ducked his head down as the curtain of slime enveloped him, watching the dark green fingers cutting through the bright yellow slime already clinging to his fur as the stuff splashed over him, flailing his legs underneath him to keep his balance. Suddenly he felt himself slipping forwards, and reached out, instinctively grabbing for Isla's sides - she quickly braced one foot against the back of the pool and put her hands on his shoulders to support him, just as his head came forwards and his muzzle smushed firmly into her chest.

Nyte gasped and quickly turned his face away,  trying his best to make himself vertical again with his feet still slithering in the ankle-deep slime. Stammering as he lifted himself up to face her again, he saw her giggling helplessly as she shook her head, just before it turned into a shrieking laugh as the hopper snicked open and she was covered by a cascade of bright yellow gunge.

He stood speechless with his heart thumping as he watched the lizardess squirming and giggling underneath the new downpour, the gooey stuff breaking into thick streams as it slapped down on to her head and slithered in long fingers through the green gunge on her skin. She hunched her head down with a grin and then suddenly disappeared from his view, slipping and crashing down on to the soft floor of the pool.

Nyte gasped and looked down at the slight bulge in the yellow downpour as it slowly subsided, relieved to see Isla still laughing as the remains of the gunge shower poured on to her and into the rising pool around her. Her shoulders shaking as a solitary drizzle of yellow continued to ooze down on to her head, she bowed forwards and drew her knees up to hug them, rolling her head between them.

With a helpless laugh, she looked up at Nyte with a grin. Twitching at the sight of the yellow and green slime dripping from all over her face, he smiled back down at her, reaching forward to offer his hand and help her up. He ducked down slightly as he came forwards, then grasped her fingers for just a second before his own feet slipped out from under him as well - his free hand plunged into the inches-deep gunge pool, splashing slime into his face and making him turn away and splutter as he collapsed sideways into the cold goo.

He heard Isla laughing again as he hoisted himself up, one eye closed and grimacing as he felt the slime dripping down the side of his face and soaking into one side of his chest fur, then he yelped and closed his eyes as another payload of the stuff pushed his head down, the thick slippery liquid splattering off him in a cape before it settled to slither around his neck. He hunched his shoulders up, laughing helplessly and flattening his ears as the stuff poured over him, hardly able to feel the last drizzle of it under the blanket of slime on his head. He opened his eyes to see the stuff pouring in a thick green curtain off the hair hanging in front of his face, then gasped as Isla slithered forwards, pushing his hair back over his head with one hand and leaning in close with a grin.

Suddenly a klaxon sounded from the ceiling, and the gungy lizardess pulled away and looked up as Becky exhaustedly slowed to a jog, panting as she watched Quinne continuing to try to fit the length of pipe she was holding to the wall. The yellow hopper gave a final click and drizzled a rain of bright drops of gunge from its edges, and Isla blinked as they spattered down on to her.

"Okay, stop! Time's up - no, stay where you are!" the red wolf said through his laughter, the lights in the room brightening a little. Nyte breathed out heavily, half with relief as he watched the yellow blobs sputtering and dripping on to Isla's gunge-covered head. She looked to the side to watch, large beads of the slop dripping in long strings from her face as the red wolf came forwards and crouched down beside them.

"Come over here, you two... have a look at the results!" he said as he looked up to Quinne and Becky. The puppy girl walked forwards, curling her toes as she stopped just short of the large splatter mark on the floor, while the pink fennec exhaustedly sat down on the edge of the shallow pool, dipping her feet into the collected gunge next to Nyte.

"So, Nyte and Isla... just out of interest, based on how the pair of you are looking just now... how do you think they did?" the red wolf asked, turning his head between the two of them.

Nyte opened his mouth to speak, but it turned into a laugh instead as Quinne spoke up. "I bet we're getting top marks for that!" she said as she looked between him and the gungy lizardess sitting in the pool with him.

He brought one hand up to his head, squirming as he moved to slick his hair back - it felt spongy and matted underneath the layer of yellow and green goo covering it. He bowed his head down again to look down at himself, his shoulders shaking as he saw the dark green stripes on either side of his chest almost obscuring the neon yellow from the first tank he'd been under.

"Oh, we're just perfect," Isla spoke up as she dragged her hands up and out of the pool and let the sloppy liquid slither back into it through her fingers, prompting a round of exhausted laughter from the other three.

"I know - you're looking pretty slimy, but the good news is that they actually managed to repair eight pipes, meaning that you're getting eighty for the game!"

The lizardess whooped and put her hands in the air, shaking her head as more of the slop dripped across her eyes. Nyte clapped his hands once as well, leaning back on the wall of the pool and then flinching as he felt his hair being tugged. Opening his eyes again, he looked up and saw the fennec girl grinning as she ran his gunge-coated hair through her hands, spiking it into a messy mohawk.

"Come on out of there and we'll be on our way..." Alex extended his hand to the lizardess first, and Nyte took a few more breaths as he watched her hauling herself out of the pool of gunge. He shuddered at the sight of the slippery liquid dripping across her skin, the outline of her bikini just visible through the swirls of colored gloop.

With his cheeks burning despite the cool slime dripping over his face, he unsteadily got to his feet, twitching at the sound of the gunge pouring off his soaked fur. As his swimming shorts came clear of the pool, he felt them plastered heavily across him and giving no disguise to his excitement. Shuddering as the goo oozed and trickled through his fur, he dared to look over at Isla, certain that he saw her eyes widen just a little before she brought her gaze back up to his face.

He staggered over to the edge of the pool and stepped the half-foot up to the floor, the slippery gunge clinging thickly to his fur and trickling off him to leave a trail behind him on the ground. He gasped as Quinne stepped forward brightly to wrap her arms around him, holding his hands out to the sides for balance as she giggled and bounced against him. After a moment she shuffled her feet back to avoid brushing herself against the front of his shorts, grinning knowingly at him before she withdrew. He put his hands down and looked down at himself for just a second, then twitched as Isla came up to hug him from behind, trapping his arms and leaving yellow streaks across his tummy as she dragged her hands over him.

"You're looking pretty exhausted after that... we've still got two more games to go, but they're not going to involve running around. In fact, right now there's a seat that needs filling..." Alex turned and clapped his hand on to Becky's shoulder, and the puppy girl giggled through a whimper, her ears pressed against her head as she looked at her feet and tapped her toes on the floor.

"Yes, Becky's going in the gunge tank! Come right this way..."

He turned and hugged Becky a little closer as he walked her over to the door, Quinne following close behind as he pushed it back open. Slowly and breathlessly, he shared a glance with Isla and then took off after them, eager to see the timid puppy girl experiencing what she'd just put him into. As they came out the door, the red wolf turned sharply to the left and pointed down the dingy corridor ahead, and he saw the place for the next game as soon as Alex started leading Becky towards it.

The wolf laughed, rubbing his hand on the puppy girl's shoulder as she cuddled into him, as the group approached a six foot high booth against the wall of the corridor. Around it, several pipes and flexible tubes jutted out of the walls, dangling loosely or draped around the cube on the tank's ceiling, a clear reservoir of bright purple gunge. Next to it, a long-handled lever jutted out of the floor, with an indicator arc on the wall behind it with three sections painted in green, yellow and red.

"You're getting the best seat for this one, Becky - it's a nice and simple game this time, because sometimes we enjoy these too in between all the lasers and running about and stuff..." Alex opened the door for the brown canine as the rest of the team gathered around, and gestured to encourage her inside. Distractedly tugging at one side of her bikini bottoms to straighten them, she padded inside, and Alex closed the door as she seated herself, staring into the round valve separating her from the gunge reservoir above her head.

Alex walked nonchalantly around the tank, and she nearly screamed as she suddenly saw him reaching for the lever beside her. Nyte covered his mouth to disguise his smile, then twitched and blew slime away from his lips, flicking more of the stuff to the floor from his fingers.

"It's okay," Alex laughed, holding one hand up as he grasped the handle of the lever, and she panted with a nervous smile, holding her hand to her chest as she kept her eyes on his fingers. "This switch isn't going to gunge you right now - but it does decide how much gunge you're going to get. You see, you've got the choice between three difficulties for this game, and they also limit the maximum score you can get..." He pointed to the colored arc on the wall. "If you go the easy route, you only need sixty points to get out of there clean. On medium, you need eighty points and you'll be playing to avoid getting a foam bath as well..." He paused as the canine squirmed, looking down at her feet. "Or we can crank it all the way up to a hundred, where there's a bit of a surprise should you fail to stop the gunge tank..."

"Easy! Can I take 'easy'?" Becky interrupted with a nervous smile, looking at him and then back to her team-mates. She cringed and laughed as Isla put her hands up in front of her, beckoning at the ceiling, and Nyte joined in the encouragement, holding his hand up and letting the puppy girl see the gunge dripping from his fingertips. 

"C'mon, Becky - go for 'hard'!" Quinne called above them. "Just look at how much gunge you got Nyte covered in!"

Nyte watched Becky looking him up and down as she thought for a moment, biting her lip, then she nodded. "Easy," she repeated to Alex as she turned back to him.

"All right - 'medium' it is," he grinned back, tugging the lever upright into the yellow zone.

"Oh...!" The puppy girl whimpered as she buried her face in her hands, drumming her feet on the floor of the gunge booth as Alex reached to the wall, stretching one of the tubes dangling off it and connecting it to a socket on the side of the tank. Her hair spilled forwards over her hands, and she dragged them back up and over her head, her shoulders shaking in a defeated laugh as the rest of the team cheered for her. She grinned anxiously as she watched Alex walk around and connect the tube on the opposite side as well, then looked up at the ceiling of the booth again as he took a few steps away from it.

"Okay, Becky - you know the rules! Once the timer starts, you're going to have to get up to 80 points to escape without getting gunged." The puppy girl nodded, clasping her hands between her thighs, as Alex stepped away from the tank and brought his handheld computer up to read from it. "I've got a set of puzzles here - if you give me the right answer, you'll earn twenty points, but if you answer wrongly, you'll slip twenty away from that target instead... so ideally, you'll give me four right answers in a row and everything'll be fine..."

He smiled as Becky shuddered, her short brown hair flying out to her sides as her head shook. "And it's all up to you - your team mates can't help you here, even though I'm sure they'd like to save you from the gunge..." He held his hand out to the group, and Nyte laughed as Isla looked to the ceiling, pursing her lips and nodding unconvincingly. "Are you ready?"

"Okay." She shivered one last time and then straightened up, breathing out heavily as Alex read out the first question.

"Here's a classic to start off - if you have a drawer with three colors of loose socks in it - blue, green and red - how many socks do you need to pull out before you're certain of getting a pair?"

"Um..." Becky pursed her lips, shaking her head. "Three...?" she guessed, her eyebrows raising as Alex drew his breath in.

"Sorry, it's four - you could pull out three different ones, but the next one would have to match. You're staying on zero for now..."

The puppy girl glanced over her shoulder at the timer as he read out the next question. "Why are 1967 dollars worth more than 1966 dollars?"

Becky's brow furrowed as she mouthed the question again, before speaking up. "Uh, because there are 1967 of them...?"

"That's right - I think that was meant to be a trick question, making them sound like the year - maybe it works better written down..." Alex shrugged as the display below the timer flicked to 20. "Oh, here's a good one - if a tank, much like the one poised above your head, holds sixteen gallons of gunge... how much would a tank hold if all the sides were reduced to half their size?"

Becky looked up to the base of the reservoir above her head and winced, then clasped her hands to her head as she thought. "Eight gallons...?" she asked unsurely, then closed her eyes and sagged as Quinne let out an exasperated groan and Alex shook his head.

"No, every side comes down to half size, so it ends up being an eighth of the large one and you'd only get two gallons in there..."

Becky whimpered as the score display flicked back to zero, and took a worried glance at the timer before leaning forwards with her hands on her knees, concentrating as Alex read from the minicomputer again. Nyte watched tensely as she managed to get two right in a row this time, and kept one eye on the timer as she listened closely to the next one.

"A glass is filled to the brim with water, with three ice cubes floating in it. As the ice melts, will the level of water go up, down or stay the same?"

As the puppy girl paused, Nyte looked at the others' faces, seeing Isla looking up at the tank of gunge with a smile. Opposite her, Quinne was practically jumping up and down, her hand over the end of her muzzle as if physically having to stop herself from bursting out with the answer.

The puppy girl gave a high pitched whine as she grasped her hair at both sides of her head. "Down!" she guessed desperately, a flicker of a smile appearing on her face as Quinne leapt up and punched the air.

"Yes - water expands when it freezes, so as the ice melts the level goes down... you're on sixty points, and it looks like you're going to have to get this!" Alex glanced at the timer as it went down past twenty seconds. "Two children were born to the same mother on the same day, but they are not twins. How come?" He held his hand out to Becky, who cringed down, rubbing her temples as she shook her head.

"Were they... born in the same year...?" she hazarded.

"Same year, yes..." He looked back at the puppy girl, who cringed down in the seat, her ears flat against her head as she closed her eyes. Nyte felt his heart thumping in his throat as the red timer ticked down the last few seconds, and he was surprised to catch Alex tapping his toes on the floor out of the corner of his eye as well. Suddenly, Becky sat bolt upright and pointed straight at Alex.

"They were triplets!"

"Yes!" Nyte ducked back in surprise as Alex threw his hands up, and Becky gasped, twisting around in her seat and looking delightedly at the timer as it froze on two seconds and then flickered out. "Yes, that's right - they were part of triplets, or quadruplets, or whatever you like... Becky, you've done it - you've earned eighty points for the team, you've saved yourself and that vat of slime stays closed..."

"Can't you gunge her anyway?" Isla interjected with a grin, watching the puppy girl as she clasped her hands to her mouth, shaking her head as she closed her eyes. Alex laughed as he suddenly paused, and he rubbed his chin as he looked up at the tank of slime poised above the canine's head. He met her gaze with a smile as she opened her eyes wide, pushing her lower lip a little out as she tried not to laugh.

"You know the kind of person I am! Normally I would, but..." He paused as the puppy girl drummed her feet on the floor. "No," he said eventually, and Becky threw her hands up as she began to get up, leaning awkwardly forwards to open the tank's door before stepping out of it. She smiled around at the rest of her team, then gasped as Isla advanced towards her with her gungy arms outstretched. She retreated and hid behind Alex before looking up at him as he put his hand around her shoulder.

"Now, Becky - you did really well in there, but you should know that the reason you're still clean is that I knew you wouldn't escape for long..." He chuckled at her giggling whimper as he led the team back to the angular main room, and headed towards a hatch in the far corner which was highlighted from above by a flickering, dirty tube light. "Because even though I know you're not as messy as some other people in this round, I guarantee this'll even things up!"

Alex let go of the puppy girl and fumbled around with the hatch, tugging and wrenching at the valve in the middle and eventually putting a foot up on the door. Suddenly there was a bark as he shot backwards, and Nyte and Quinne leapt out of the way as he scrabbled his feet on the floor to barely keep his balance. Nyte looked down at the wolf's hands to see that the circular valve handle had come clean off.

Dazed, Alex silently looked from the piece of rusted metal in his hand to the socket on the door and back, scratching the back of his neck with his free hand. "Hmm." He tossed the valve to the floor with a clank, and approached the door again. "This place is falling to pieces faster than I thought..."

Nyte sidled closer to Isla as the red wolf tugged on the short protrusion of metal left on the door. "Was that meant to...?" he started in a whisper, but stopped as she shrugged with a smile, her eyes fixed on the gloom beyond the door as Alex led them inside.

"Now, follow me closely," he said over his shoulder, his eyes glinting in the darkness, and he held up his minicomputer to provide a light. "There's an emergency light switch around here somewhere - apparently they didn't think of just putting it at the door..."

Nyte twitched as Isla grabbed his hand from behind, and looked behind him to see the lizardess holding on to Quinne with her other hand with Becky joining the chain at the back. As he followed the glow from Alex, he suddenly felt the texture of the floor change underneath his footpads, and stopped as the red wolf signaled with his hands. As the girls gathered around, he strained to see as Alex stepped to the side of the room. There was the sound of machinery starting up, and Nyte rubbed his eyes as the ceiling lights slowly warmed up.

"Welcome, everyone, to the pumping room," Alex started as the darkness lifted, and the four of them blinked and looked around at their surroundings. "As you can see, it's a complex arrangement of pipelines that used to collect excess water, move it around and prevent this place from flooding..."

Nyte nodded, his ears flat as he looked at the machinery around them. Alex had stopped them on a circular metal pad a couple of meters wide that was slightly sunk into the floor. A tangle of pipes covered most of the walls and ceiling, with a whole layer of them visible through the chain-link floor around them. At the back of the room, a huge container jutted down from the ceiling, with a thin tall window on the front which showed a small amount of bright green slime inside it. He gave a nervous smile as his gaze dropped - the nozzle at the bottom of the container pointed down to a blowup pool chair right underneath it on the edge of the circle.

Two pipes stretched from the sides of the tank on the ceiling, ending on the ceilings of two clear plastic booths that stood ninety degrees around the circle from the chair. On the fourth side of the room, another similar chair was positioned underneath the opening of a large flexible pipe that snaked off into the twisted maze of pipes on the ceiling.

"Wow," Quinne started as she gaped around at the mass of pipes. "Someone's really gonna get it in here!"

"Yes, you could say that," Alex chuckled as he moved back to the group, putting his hands on Quinne's shoulders before she wriggled out of his grasp and turned to face him. "This is our last game, and we always try to give our teams a big send-off - so this is going to be very simple. We've got four seats placed in the biggest drop zones for the icky stuff running around the pumping system - and when I pull the switch at the side of the room..."

"...it's going to be a massive gunge machine with us inside!" finished Isla as he pointed dramatically at the lever.

"Correct," grinned Alex, looking around at the other team members' expressions as they looked nervously between the booths and chairs. "So all you have to do is decide who you want to splurge... you'll get the full hundred for this one if everyone goes in, but you can sit out if you want to deprive your team of a quarter of the points..."

"I'll just watch..." Becky spoke up as she raised her hand, making to step off the circle.

"You're staying!" Isla casually reached over and hooked her hand into the top of the puppy girl's bikini bottoms, and Nyte shuddered as she stretched them off her as Becky tried to walk away. With a shriek as she scrabbled behind her bottom with her hands, she caught hold of her swimwear again and turned around, looking in stuttering disbelief at the lizardess as she smiled innocently back at her. Nyte raised his eyes far too late for her not to notice, awkwardly trying to shield his lap from view once again.

Becky looked up to Alex as he approached. "I know... I'm sorry, Becky, but they all really want you to join in... do you want to come and have a seat in here?" Nyte's heart jumped as he turned around, his arm around her waist as he led her towards the nearest plastic booth, opening it up with his other hand.

"Oh, I only just escaped this...!" Becky looked the cubicle up and down, and clapped her hands over her mouth as she stepped inside the tank almost identical to the one she'd left five minutes before.

"I know, I know... but I've got to ask... when you came into the Industrial Zone, what exactly were you expecting?" Alex laughed as the golden-furred canine seated herself, brushing her short hair behind her ears.

"I thought you said we didn't have to do this..." she continued to giggle helplessly, looking up at the pipe above her head as she was shut inside.

"I definitely said you didn't have to do this - she had other ideas!" Alex pointed towards Isla as he turned back to the group. "But she's not going to escape either - Isla, where do you want to sit?"

"I'll take this one!" she said as she made for the blowup chair nearest the entrance, and flopped down into it, the air-filled seat bouncing underneath her as she wriggled herself upright in it and looked up into the tube poking down from the ceiling above her.

 "Nyte..." Nyte quickly stood upright and perked his ears as his name was mentioned, taking his eyes off the curvy lizardess, but whipped his head back around to her as she spoke up.

"Put him in the gunge tank!" Isla called out, gesticulating at the other empty booth. Nyte shuddered at the sound of the words, remembering his experience inside a couple of the classic gunge machines earlier in the show. He whimpered through a grin as Alex put his hand around his shoulders, but his eyebrows rose as he was turned around to face the other inflatable chair below the massive tank on the ceiling.

"Actually we've got a special place for the team leader - and you'll find out why very shortly!" Nyte looked up at the reservoir above the chair, feeling that he already had some idea why he was being put there as he settled himself into the seat. He felt Isla's eyes on him, and nervously looked up to Alex as he joined the last remaining team member, who was looking into the empty gunge tank, leaning on its door with her tail wagging behind her.

"Quinne, feel free to step inside - I know you've had sort of an unlucky run with these things over the show, but doesn't everyone..."

Nyte tuned out Alex's commentary, watching the pink fox's back as her long ears twitched excitedly. The red wolf came around and opened the door for her and put a hand on her back to encourage her inside. She spun around, running her hands over her backside to smooth out her shorts, and sat down on the high stool, looking up into the end of the pipe above her with a wry smile. He did the same, seeing a round opening with a valve cover across it, a small metal tab holding it closed for the moment.

"Okay, then!" Nyte looked down as Alex called out, clapping his hands together. "So you're all ready... the pumps are ready... and I seem to be in the middle..." Alex looked down at himself and hastily stepped away from the center of the room, and Nyte laughed nervously under his breath, looking up at the spout above him and gripping the arms of the inflatable seat a little more tightly. He glanced around at his three team mates - Becky with her fingertips touching her face, Quinne smirking confidently at Alex as he retreated, and Isla grinning knowingly across at him. He swallowed as Alex turned around, putting his hand on a giant lever on the wall with caution tape wrapped around its handle.

"Good luck!" Nyte felt his fur stand on end as the red wolf tugged on the handle, plunging the room into darkness for a moment before a mechanical rumble started and a red light slowly grew in intensity from the ceiling, rotating warning lights turning on behind him and on top of the cubicles at either side of the room.

Nyte ducked as there was a thick sloshing noise from the tank above him, gasping as the wave that he had anticipated didn't come. As the gloopy pouring sound continued he twisted hesitantly to look up at the capped nozzle above his head, convinced he could see the machine vibrating a little, and the fur on the back of his neck stood up as he imagined it filling with slime.

He twitched as he saw a streak of green from the ceiling, and turned to look in front of him, grinning as a pair of thin jets of slime poured from rusted holes in the pipes on the roof, angled to splash on to Isla's head. As the gloop impacted on her head and shoulders she gasped, her shocked expression becoming a smile as she leaned forwards with the bright gunge splattering out in arcs around her. As a splatter mark grew around her chair, the thick slop played back and forth across her head, and she turned her palms up to catch it as fingers of the stuff slithered down her back and chest.

There was a clunk from the right hand side of the room, and Becky suddenly disappeared under a dome of yellow gunge which twitched outwards as she threw her hands up with a yelp. Wriggling forwards, she clasped her hands to her head, biting her lip and closing her eyes as the slop fell in a wide column from the ceiling and spewed out over her. As she twitched in a fit of giggles, the gooey liquid splurged off her shoulders, the slow wave of slime painting the back wall of the tank behind her.

Quinne balled her fists as a siren rang from the ceiling, looking between the flood of gunge enveloping Becky and the drizzles of green stuff slowly parting to reveal the messy lizard girl. Looking up at the pipe that ended above her head she rolled her shoulders, moving her hands back and forth in a nervous dance as she waited for it to go off. Nyte's eyes drifted to Isla again as the streams above her slowed to drizzles pouring on to the arms of the chair, leaving the slippery lizard girl dripping with green stuff, goo trickling from her outstretched fingers as she looked down at herself. Shaking her head, she looked up across at Nyte, then at the sound of another mechanical click she turned around to watch as the fennec's ears flattened in readiness.

The pink fox gasped as she waited for the gunge to fall, but screeched as the pipe running across the floor in front of her shot a spray of white stuff up into the tank and hit her in the face. Across from her, Becky ducked out of the drizzles dripping from the edges of the gunge nozzle above her and grinned, putting her hands on the door of her tank as she watched the thick, creamy foam stick to Quinne's face, thick blobs of it slithering down and splatting on to her chest. After putting her hand instinctively out to block it at first, the fox girl slowly relaxed, her mouth opening in a barely visible smile as the spray subsided, painting a white streak down the front of the tank. Raising her hands carefully to her face, she dragged her forefingers across her eyes and opened them again, the pulsing warning lights making them glint underneath the thick layer of white foam on the rest of her face.

The flexible pipe above Isla twitched, and Nyte gasped as a torrent of the white foam spewed out from it, making the lizardess yelp as it enveloped her. The thick foam fell in huge clumps down from the wide pipe and splashed lazily out as it impacted on Isla's head, breaking into blobs that made her squirm and wriggle as they slithered over her slimy skin.

Nyte braced his feet on the floor as he squirmed in his seat, awkwardly adjusting himself and drawing his legs closer together, then he jerked upright, scrabbling his feet as he felt the ground begin to move. He and the girls all leaned forwards as a split appeared in the round metal pad in front of him, a bright light shining from underneath before it subsided as the two halves of the cover slowly parted. He squirmed up as a plume of green special effect smoke drifted up from underneath it, and blinked as it swirled around his face, suddenly finding himself staring down at a vat of dark green slime just below his feet.

"Oh, no..." he groaned under his breath, but broke into a grin as he felt his heart racing. He looked up at the three girls, seeing Isla wipe the foam from her eyes and then clap her hands together enthusiastically, pointing at him and then the vat as he smiled through an embarrassed cringe. The next thing he knew, he was engulfed in a flurry of white sticking to his face and fur.

He spluttered, thrashing in the seat for a moment before bringing his arms up to defend himself from the unseen sprayers and shaking the stuff off his face. He breathed out heavily, blowing a blob of the foam off his nose before feeling the sputtering foam subside, leaving thick globs of it slithering down his fur.

He opened his eyes, still trying to clear them as he heard a whimpering squeak from his right, and he watched as the puppy girl looked down, clasping her hands to her cheeks and kicking her feet as yellow foam began being pumped into her gunge tank. The two other girls watched as she glanced back at them, Quinne cheering through her laughter as she watched the canine wriggling in the knee-high foam. Suddenly the fox's laugh became a squeak of surprise as a fountain of gunge erupted from the base of her own booth, wide dark and light green ribbons of opaque slime splashing on to her feet with one shooting up through her legs to splatter on her chest and tummy. She yipped and squirmed as the stuff tickled the soles of her feet, lifting them away and watching the slime swirl together as the booth began to fill up around her.

Sharing a glance with Isla, he looked between the two booths, twitching as blobs of the slippery foam rolled down his fur and imagining what Becky was feeling as the stuff bubbled up around her. The puppy girl's whimper gave into a laugh as she wriggled upright in the seat, stretching herself up away from the surface as the bright yellow stuff reached waist height, and she looked up then immediately closed her eyes and bowed her head down, clasping her hands over her ears as there was an industrial siren from above. A mixture of yellow and dark green gunge dropped from the ceiling of the tank, splashing out in a dome over her for a second before settling to pour smoothly over her head, the colors mingling together as the slime flowed down to her shoulders, slipping around the curve of her bikini top.

Nyte tensed up as there was another siren, hunching down but opening his eyes again as there was a yelp from the other booth, and he looked just in time to see Quinne being engulfed by a downpour of slime as well. She poked her muzzle out of the gloopy yellow and green dome, a slight smile visible on her face as she turned her hands over in the curtain of gunge in front of her, letting it slip and slither through her fingers. As the gunge filled the booth to waist depth, she brought her feet up and pressed them against the door, her footpads visible on the plastic among the swirling mixture.

He grinned as he looked between the two booths, but his smile faded again as he became aware of a repeating alarm above his head. Sure that it was going to be him this time, he closed his eyes and hunched down as the loud industrial siren hooted above the noise.

The gunge burst over him in a huge wave, and he let out a yelp as he bowed his head down, feeling the thick slop splatter out from the back of his head and smack on to his arms as it domed outwards. He heard Isla cheering above the noise of it pattering on to the plastic seat around him, and laughed helplessly, shaking his head to get his wet hair out of his face and picturing the flood of gunge viewed from the opposite seat. He cringed and sat upright underneath the flow as the clingy, heavy liquid slithered down every inch of him, the smooth slippery flow twitching and splattering away occasionally as air pockets bubbled out of the tank.

Just as he felt the ooze from above easing off, he gasped and scrabbled instinctively to get a grip on the armrests as the back of the chair began to tilt upwards. Letting out a whimper through his tightly closed mouth, he took as deep a breath as he could manage as his hands and rear started to slide against the gungy plastic surface. As he slipped forward, he felt his feet sliding into the cool thick glop - he raised his arms as he plunged down, and the next thing he knew he was completed submerged in it, his hands following his head under the surface.

He flailed his feet to get his balance as he felt the gunge lazily swirling around him, slipping and dropping to his knees before he felt himself bob to the surface. Planting his feet on the floor of the tank, he slowly raised himself up, shuddering as he felt the thick slime oozing through his fur and pouring slowly away from his face. Breathing heavily against the gunge rippling around him, he dragged his slimy hands up and over his head, slicking back his matted hair and blinking his eyes tentatively open to see the chair that he'd been tipped in from, strings of gloop still dripping into the vat from its edges as the pipe above continued to drizzle slime on to its back.

He turned around, twitching at the feeling of the opaque gunge swirling with him and lapping against his chest, and he smiled back at the girls as he saw them looking down at him, Quinne cheering from the slime-filled booth with her hands in the air. Becky was squeamishly pushing the yellow foam out over the booth's door, slowly revealing her gungy fur as the green and yellow stuff continued to drizzle on to the back of her head and down her back.

He heard the siren blare for a fourth time and he quickly looked to Isla, blinking rapidly and shaking his head as strings of green slithered and dripped across his vision, to see her hunching down with a grin. The girls in the gunge tanks beside her watched intently as they waited for the pipe above her head to go off, but she yelped, raising her feet as the chair she was sitting in began to move forwards on a hidden rail instead.

Nyte smiled delightedly as he saw exactly where she was heading, and raised his arms out of the gloop, letting the slime drip from his outstretched arms. With her shoulders shaking in laughter, Isla covered her mouth with her hands, looking to the gently rippling surface of the heavy liquid in front of her, then yipped as a spray of dark green gunge erupted from the ceiling in front of her, sputtering down into the pool. Nyte heaved himself back in the slime, feeling the stuff lap against him as Isla was covered in the gunge, globs of it spewing out from her bowed head as the seat advanced over the edge of the pool. As it stopped, it tipped forwards, and the blue lizardess gave an excited shriek as she slithered forwards and plunged fully into the gunge vat.

"Yes...!" Nyte grinned, turning his face away as the huge wave of green stuff smacked against him, feeling the slop buckling crazily as the ripple reflected off the edge of the pool. He stepped forward as Isla slowly found her footing, poking her head above the surface of the gunge and then wriggling upward so that it was up to her neck, the glop pouring thickly off her skin and leaving her painted in green.

The lizardess grinned back at him as she tried to hoist herself into a standing position, squeaking as she slipped forwards. Nyte half-caught her instinctively, then gasped as he realized where one of his hands was and let go. The lizardess toppled forward against him, and he screwed his face up as they both fell back under the green surface.

Nyte spluttered and then held his breath as he tumbled over, feeling the slime ooze around him and into his ears. Not knowing which way up he was under the slime, he put his hands out, grabbing at the first thing that came into his hands and bracing against it to haul himself upwards. He coughed as he felt his face come to the surface, shaking his head to get the viscous dripping slime out of his eyes before opening one of them, seeing Isla's gungy face right next to him. He smiled and let go of her shoulder, letting her stand up and watching the ooze trickle over her as she stood up, the top of her chest just poking above the surface of the gunge vat.

"Becky... you avoided this happening to you in the very first game, and when you beat the booth just a few minutes ago - I'm sorry you couldn't escape it forever..." Nyte did his best to wipe his eyes with his palms, blinking the slime away as he looked up, seeing Alex leaning around the gunge tank to talk to the mucky puppy girl inside. She was dragging both her hands over her soaked hair, leaving foamy streaks of yellow and green behind as she tried to clean herself off, pinching her ears and giggling helplessly as even more of the slop sputtered down on to her from the nozzle. As she moved, blobs of the thick yellow foam spilled over the door of the tank and slithered slowly down the outside in long, slimy fingers.

"Quinne, are you okay in there?" he called across to the other booth, where the fennec girl was wiping her eyes, her head and shoulders completely painted in bright gunge and a transparent ring of slime visible just above the surface of the filled cubicle. She blinked and nodded, poking her fingers under the gunge and scooping some up with her hands, letting a stream of it pour back into the tank as the nozzle continued to drip long strings of it down on to her head.

"And you two!" The red wolf grinned as he turned away from Quinne and leaned over to face Nyte and Isla. Nyte yelped as the lizardess swung a gungy arm up to clap it around his shoulder, and he stumbled as she drew him closer to her. Regaining his footing and standing up straight next to her, he tentatively returned the sideways hug, twitching as his hand slipped over her slimy skin, and brought his other hand up to slick his soaked hair back. "Everyone on this show needs to end up in a gunge vat at least once, and you two did it in spectacular fashion - I can barely see you under there! How does it feel?"

Nyte shuddered as he became aware of the gunge swirling around his fur once more. "...Eugh," he managed to say, laughing as Isla nodded beside him.

"I thought so... but at least it's over now - are you ready for this?" Alex looked around at the four of them with a smile, bringing his minicomputer out of his pocket. "You've got a hundred points for this game - thanks for helping out with that, Becky..." He paused as the gungy puppy nodded, still looking squeamishly down at her hands as they dripped slime and foam. "So that's 320 in total for the last four games, and we double that up to 640 as it's the last round... and that brings you up to 1450 as your final score!"

Nyte jumped as there was a whoop from behind him, and he slithered himself around to see Quinne pumping her hands in the air, clapping them above her head and spraying slime on to the plastic walls around her.

Alex smiled back at her. "At least somebody's got some energy left...! And you're going to need it, because once we've got you hauled out of there and cleaned up, you're going to be taking on our last challenge..."