FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

[Comments:]

The second of four rounds of IZ4. This one features Gwen's reappearance, in a game separate from the main show that I'm looking forward to using much more in the future...

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Breaking through the group, Alex took off at a run again, leaving the four of them to catch up as he sped through the corridors. Jumping around a corner, he stopped and waited for them to gather round again.

Amy breathlessly jogged the last couple of steps, and turned to face the dimly-lit small room in front of them. It had a channel of water across its centre, a chainlink barrier stretching from the water surface to the ceiling. The small bank on the other side of the water had a small rounded door leading off it.

"It's just a matter of diving in and getting to the other side," Alex said, keeping towards the back of the group as they moved forwards. "Want to show them how it's done, team leader?"

Amy glanced back at him, then nodded and dipped a toe into the water, flinching at its cold temperature. Turning around to kneel on the water's edge, she slowly lowered herself in backwards, trying not to show her reaction to the cold as her feet touched the bottom. She waded forward in the neck-deep pool, then held her nose and ducked underneath the barrier, feeling suddenly cleaner as the slime on her head was washed off.

Breaking through the surface again, she shook her head and wiped at her eyes, then bobbed forward as she heard another splash accompanied by a squeak behind her. She glanced around to see Tamara re-emerging through the surface from where she'd jumped in, and turned back to climb up the ladder leading to the opposite bank as she approached.

Coco and Sadie were the ones left on the opposite bank, and both looked unsure as they shuffled forward to the edge. Tamara, who had climbed out of the water and was sitting on the opposite bank, clapped a little to encourage them. With a glance at each other, they held hands and then, after a moment's hesitation, jumped into the water together.

Amy laughed as the two girls shrieked at the cold of the water, letting go of each other and splashing around as they tried to get their balance again. Coco recovered first, and used her hands to push the water aside as she bobbed forwards to the grille. Putting a hand on its bottom to steady herself, she ducked underneath it, closely followed by Sadie.

As the two of them headed for the ladder, Amy looked back at Alex, the last one of them still to cross the water. Nonchalantly, he strolled around a narrow ledge surrounding the room and pushed open a small hatch in the barrier to let himself through. Tamara stuck her tongue out at him as he approached them, still clean and dry.

"Feeling a little cleaner?" he asked the group in general as he spun a valve on the round door open. Amy stepped aside as he swung it towards them.

"And a little colder!" shivered Coco, her arms hugged across her tummy.

"Don't worry - we can warm you up in here." He motioned to them to go inside, and Amy stepped around the door to follow the others. Beyond the door was a small chamber made up to look like a space vessel, with a few consoles and blinking controls surrounding them. A similar door was placed on the opposite side. The chamber was only a few feet across, and they had to squeeze together as Alex joined them, closing the door behind them.

The host reached up and pressed a button, starting a low humming noise, then turned one of the many dials to make a stream of warm air turn on and fill the chamber. Coco let go of herself as the air jet tousled her blonde hair, spinning round as much as she could in the small space to get dry.

"That's us heading up to the base now," Alex commented, "and we've got another four challenges for you up there. Like before, we're going to be needing a volunteer for the first game - who's that going to be, Amy?"

"We still have to try and get Sadie gunged," Amy replied immediately, looking in the direction of the still clean skunkette.

"Exactly what I was thinking - and I think we have just the game for you!" Alex grinned knowingly as she accepted his outstretched hand. The humming noise surrounding them stopped, and he pressed on the opposite door's handle, making it swing outwards.

Amy looked past the two of them to see a room with a large circular vat set into the centre of the floor. A seat was suspended above it, and towards the back of the room stood another cubicle with a pipe leading from its top and angling into the wall. Sadie gasped at the sight of the room, her free hand pressed to her chest nervously.

"Don't worry, we're not putting you up there," Alex reassured her, quickening his pace as the group made its way to the opposite door of the room. "There's something even better round the corner..."

Amy and the others followed the two of them as they passed through a dimly-lit corridor, and after turning a couple of corners, she grinned to herself as she saw one of the show's most famous machines in front of her - it was the Pod.

Sadie shook herself free of the host's hand and hugged his waist nervously, giggling as she was led towards the gunge machine. It was a large dark metallic sphere, about two metres across and covered in slowly pulsing lights. It was supported by three legs that protruded from near its base to the floor, and a seat was placed under its centre. Alex put his arm around Sadie's back reassuringly, and pressed her head gently down to guide her underneath it. As she sat down, he reached up to the front of the sphere and swung down a keyboard that was attached to the front with two thin metal arms, positioning it above her lap.

"Now, I don't think any of you need the rules of this one explained to you..." he said as he turned around and walked back towards the other three girls. Amy shook her head - this game was one of the ones that had become an Industrial Zone classic, and it was also known for being very difficult to escape from clean.

"But here's what you have to do anyway - Sadie has a keyboard in front of her with six unique symbols on it and the rest in pairs. What you have to do is find the six symbols that don't match any others, and you've got ninety seconds to do it before that pod opens." He turned towards a large screen mounted on the side wall, which turned on to show a view of the keyboard from just above and in front of Sadie. She was already looking it over, her hands hovering over it.

"It looks like she's ready - go for it!" Alex clapped his hands together, then stepped back to let them gather round the screen. Sadie immediately leaned forwards to press one of the buttons, sounding a bell as the key lit up underneath her finger. Quickly, she took her hands off the keyboard and kept staring at it intently.

Amy looked at the image on the screen nervously, trying to find one symbol that stood out from the many similar ones. Coco suddenly stepped forward and pointed at one of the lower keys, looking back at the others for confirmation.

"Second from the bottom on the right hand side!" Tamara called over to Sadie. Leaning forward again, she pressed it and was rewarded with another bell sound.

"That's two already, and you've got over a minute left," commented Alex from behind them. Before he had finished speaking, the skunkette jabbed at another key and illuminated it too.

After finding three of the buttons so quickly, there was a long pause as they all looked frantically around the board to try and spot the others. Sadie leaned over the keys a couple of times, looking as if she had found something, but sagged back each time.

"The one that looks like a backwards G, Sadie!" Tamara suddenly shouted out, hopping up and down excitedly as she waved a finger at it. "On the right hand side!" After a short pause as she looked at it, Sadie jabbed the button and brought the number they'd found to four, with just over thirty seconds on the timer.

The seconds seemed to tick away even more quickly as time went on, and Amy glanced nervously back and forth from the keyboard display to the timer. Sadie found another correct button, meaning that they only had to find one more, but they only had just over ten seconds left.

Amy shifted her weight from foot to foot as a buzzer started sounding with each second that came off the timer, and glanced at the frantically searching skunkette. Suddenly she realized that she could see the last one.

"Sadie!" she shouted above the noise, pointing at the screen and turning to her. "It's... four from the top, in the middle there!"

The other two saw it as well, and joined in encouraging Sadie as she carefully hovered her finger around the keyboard. The three of them cheered as she finally got to the right button, and pressing down on it hard, she stopped the timer with three seconds to go.

Amy let her breath out, grinning as she turned to look at the skunkette again. She looked up at them, a smile spreading across her face as she brought her hand up to brush her thick hair back behind her head. The keyboard raised out of her way, and she got up from the seat.

"Sadie, I think you have to be the luckiest contestant we've ever had on Industrial Zone... I can't believe you're still clean!" Alex put his hand on her shoulder as she rejoined the cheering group. Coco, who was jumping up and down and clapping for her, suddenly pounced forward and hugged her, making her almost lose her balance as she returned the embrace.

"So, girls - against all odds, Sadie escaped the Pod, and she's earned you all another sixty points for that. I'm going to take you all further into the base for the next game. Come on!"

He dashed down the corridor away from the machine, and the others followed him. After turning a corner, the group arrived in a brighter, circular room, lined with flashing computer bank props along its walls - it was made up to look like the bridge of the orbital base.

Its most prominent feature was the seat on a raised platform in the centre, which looked slightly like a dentist's chair with short rod-shaped handles at the ends of the arms. Above it, a cylindrical tank was mounted to the ceiling, with something that looked like a showerhead protruding down from it. Forming a semicircle at the front, a number of short metal poles stuck out from the ground, with nozzles pointing at the chair in the middle. Amy kept her eyes on it as Alex beckoned them forward.

"We're in the hub of the base now, but before we move through it, we're going to need someone to go in to that." He turned towards the seat mounted in the centre of the room, and paused for a moment to let them look at it again. "Want to volunteer someone, team leader?" he finished, bringing the team's attention back to him.

Amy, distracted by the menacing-looking chair, glanced around at the others and tried to remember who aside from Sadie had been gunged the least so far. "Coco hasn't been in a game on her own yet," she decided.

"Coco!" the host repeated, offering his hand to her as a hint of a smile crossed her face. Taking his arm, she was led up to the chair. She sat down slowly, lifting her feet carefully on to the footrest at the bottom, then rested her hands next to the two handles.

The squirrel girl fidgeted as Alex walked casually around the seat, the other three girls gathering to watch. When the host reached the other side, he leaned across to point at the chair's handles.

"You'll be in control for this game, Coco," he started. "The way to start up the machine is by pushing both of these handles forwards and keeping them held down." He demonstrated on one of them, flicking it forward with a finger and watching it click back into place as she nodded. "But of course, while it's on you'll be being sprayed with all sorts of stuff from the nozzles around you."

Amy looked at the sprayer beside her, and quietly stepped out of the way behind it.

"If you want it to stop, all you have to do is let go, but I'm going to give you a point for every second you keep the machine on. Think you can make a minute?"

"Yeah." Coco nodded, looking at the showerhead above her and wrapping her fingers around the levers.

"Then start whenever you're ready!" Alex stepped out of the way as the squirrel took a deep breath. After a moment's pause, she jerked both her hands forward to push down the handles.

Nothing happened for a moment apart from a faint gurgling sound, accompanied by a slowly rising mechanical whine. Coco hunched her shoulders up in anticipation, and suddenly the showerhead began spraying a thin greenish liquid down on to her in a wide fan shape.

She huddled her shoulders up further, biting her bottom lip and giving a high pitched squeak at the ticklish feeling, her hair and fur slowly darkening from the wetness of the translucent slimy liquid. Slowly she relaxed, only to giggle and squirm as the back of her neck was sprayed.

Amy jumped back again as she felt the pipe nearest her twitch, and watched as it began to shoot a stream of thicker gunge towards Coco. With a squeal as the green slop splurged against her chest, she tried to wriggle away from it, but it was joined a moment later by another stream from her other side. She turned her face away as the gunge played over her chest and tummy, coating her in a slippery green layer.

Coco squirmed from side to side as a pool of gunge began to spread out from the chair, leaning forwards to look down at the handles. She slipped her slimy hands around them to keep her grip and looked up at the team, but screamed as two yellow spurts started up from the sides, splattering against her cheeks. Quickly, she leaned back in the chair again, her eyes tightly closed and her face screwed up, the slime clinging to her face and dripping slowly from her chin. She shook her head a couple of times as the yellow streams flew just past her nose.

Amy looked up as the showerhead clicked open, and the light spray from above suddenly turned into a thick red downpour which hit Coco right on top of her head and domed outwards to splatter against the floor. She jerked forwards again, trying to duck down further to avoid the yellow streams as well, and wriggled underneath the slimy flow as the red stuff mingled with the green on her fur to form a sickly brown colour. Drumming her feet on the floor rapidly as she tried to hold on, she ducked too far and the green sprays hit her face, making her hands jerk upwards and let go of the handles.

Coco coughed as the sprays shut off, drizzling over the floor as they slowly subsided along with the alarm sound. Raising her hands from the gungy levers, she shook them to dry them off and then wiped at her face, flicking her wet hair behind her head. She pursed her lips and blew out heavily to spray the slime away from her nose and mouth.

As she opened her eyes, she gasped at the sight of her completely coated body, grimacing slightly as she felt the stuff slither down inside her bikini top, but couldn't help giggling as she looked at the wide splatter mark around the seat. Still wiping at her eyes, she looked up at Alex as he came forwards again, picking his way through the puddle on the floor.

"Are you all right, Coco?" he asked with a smile, offering his hand again to help her up. Shivering as globs of slime dripped from her arms, she stretched them out and flicked her hands a couple of times to shake the slime off them. Reaching forward, she grabbed his hand and hauled herself upright again, slipping slightly as her feet touched the floor.

"Fine," she responded, breathing out heavily again. The two of them walked back over to rejoin the cheering girls.

"Well, you survived just over thirty seconds in the chair, so I'm going to round your score up to thirty-five for the game," the host said. Coco grinned and moved to hug Sadie, who squeaked and stepped back before she could touch her. "Who's going next, team leader?"

"Tamara", Amy answered immediately, pointing at the only slightly wet rabbit girl. She bounced on her feet eagerly, and stepped over to take the host's hand.

"All right - the next game isn't far away," he said, striding towards a door set into one of the four corridors stretching off the room, with Tamara skipping slightly to keep up with him. Amy and the others hurried over to duck inside after them.

Amy looked around the new room as Alex led Tamara over to the other side. The room was slightly larger than normal, but very blank - the only unusual feature was that the floor had a set of foot-high barriers scattered around it, forming a twisted path over to the far end of the room. Looking up to where the bunny girl was being led, she saw a large metallic cylinder on the opposite wall, and grinned as she stepped over the obstacles to get a closer look.

Alex was bending down to open a hatch in the side of the cylinder when they caught up with him. Amy stepped around to the front - the cylinder was blank apart from a screen attached to its front, and on it she could see a top view of a chair placed at a metal table. Peering at the table's image, she could see that two joysticks were set into it. Looking down and stepping back, she also noticed a small opening on the floor in the front of the booth, no more than about a foot square.

"Ready, Tamara?" the host asked. Amy padded around back to the rest of the group as he opened the hatch and nudged her inside. As she took her seat, Alex bent down to pick something up off the floor of the booth, and he turned around to reveal it was a small remote control buggy.

"Want to wish her good luck?" he smiled as he put his hand on the side of the hatch. The other team mates waved to her as he slid it back into place, hiding her from view. After making sure it was closed, he began to pick his way back to the room's entrance.

"Once the hatch has been secured, the only way to unlock that tank is from the inside," Alex called back to the others, beckoning them to follow him. "And Tamara's going to need the key - which is in here." Turning around, he showed the top of the buggy to Amy as she approached. It had a clear box on the top with a small card key rattling around inside it.

He turned around again, setting the vehicle on to the ground next to the room's entrance. "Now, Tamara has the controls for the vehicle in there, but she can't see what she's doing. You're going to have to guide her to get the key to her within two minutes."

Amy looked around at the route they would have to follow - there were a few awkward turns in it, but the start was mostly made up of straight sections. She looked back at the image of Tamara on the screen, who glanced up as Alex called her name.

"Are you ready, Tamara?" he asked her. She looked up to face the camera and acknowledged him with a nod and a thumbs up sign, then turned back to put her hands on the controls.

"Ready?" Alex repeated to the other three, turning around to face them. "Then go!"

"All right... go forward, Tamara," Amy said hesitantly, crouching down next to the buggy. Suddenly it sprang forwards with an electric whine, making her jump, and she watched as it slammed into the wall of a corner ahead, and kept repeatedly bouncing back and bumping into it.

"Stop!" she called over its noise. Tamara let go of the controls, and waited for more instructions. Amy glanced at the others, who seemed happy to stay quiet and let her do the guiding. "Turn left a little... slowly!" she added as it spun around in place. The bunny girl eased back on the levers, making the crazy spin turn into a more gentle turn on the spot, and Amy stopped her when she was facing the right direction.

Tamara was beginning to get the hang of being more gentle with the controls, and progress was easier as Amy gave her the directions to guide the robot along a long straight and back towards the others. Amy paced along with it as they approached a sharp corner.

"Turn around to the right... and stop," she said quickly. "Now forwards, forwards, forwards..." She shifted on her feet, knowing that they were being too slow. Sensing the same thing, Tamara pushed on both controls hard, but hit one slightly after another which made the robot curve, bump on the corner and end up scooting backwards along the track.

"No!" A chorus of warnings from the three girls made Tamara jump away from the controls, and Amy tried to sort her out again while keeping one eye on the rapidly decreasing timer.

After the three of them got her going in the right direction, Amy dashed to the chicane that the buggy was approaching and guided Tamara to manoeuvre it around the awkward section of the course. Frustratingly, she always seemed to move it just too far or too fast, making progress very slow.

"Come on, Tamara..." Amy wiped at her forehead. A loud klaxon blared in the background, and she had to raise her voice above it. "Just turn it a little to the left..." She stopped as she realized what the sound must mean, and all three of them looked at each other, then to the screen that showed what was happening inside the cylinder. Tamara slowly leaned back, taking her hands off the pair of joysticks, and squeaked as a huge downpour of white stuff slapped down on to her from the ceiling.

Amy put her hand to her mouth as the bunny girl was hidden from view, the white wave being tilted from side to side as it poured down on to her. As the stuff splattered off her head and smacked on to the floor, making a thick splat mark, she realized that she was being covered in custard pie foam. She watched as two more sprays started up from underneath the desk, making a hissing noise as the creamy gunk piled up on her chest and tummy, blobs of it breaking off and falling to the floor.

Tamara giggled and squirmed in the chair, her hands out to her front to defend herself as the main downpour sputtered and eased off. Specks of the foam from the front rebounded up from her hands and floated down to settle on her head and the rising layer of foam in the tank. Laughing helplessly, she tried to hold out one arm in front of her as the front sprays continued, and wiped the pile of foam from her head and face with her other hand.

Suddenly she froze as another alarm sounded, and a moment later ducked down as a downpour of thinner blue gunge slapped down on to her. She straightened up, making sure to get her head underneath it, and wriggled around as her ears were folded down by the weight of the falling slime. As it thinned out, the team saw her grinning as the slop dripped down across her face and the downpour shut off.

"Bad luck, team... let's see how she is," Alex said, chuckling as he moved around the tank towards the hatch again. He hauled it open, making the pile of foam against it slump out on to the floor, and greeted Tamara with a grin as she turned in the chair. She was still laughing helplessly as her team mates gathered round to see her covered in the white and blue slime mix. Dipping her feet into the foamy surface on the floor, she carefully got up from the chair and stepped to the entrance, kicking up blobs of the stuff as she went.

"Well, as Tamara's found out, you didn't quite make it, but you did get... where did you get to?" Alex asked himself as he closed the hatch. Stepping over a couple of barriers to get back to the buggy, he picked it up and paced back along the track until he reached a line painted on the floor. "The thirty-point mark!" he announced. "So that's half points for this game, but that's not a disaster - it's a difficult one." He came back to the team, pushing the buggy into the opening in the front of the tank. "Now, for the next game, everyone gets to take part - but you're all going to risk getting..." he paused, waving a hand in front of him, "...a little bit gungy as well. How does that sound?"

He grinned at the whoop from the four girls, and spun on one heel back towards the door. "Follow me, we're going to take the lift down!" he called back over his shoulder. Amy felt slightly worried at the mention of the lift, but didn't show it as they clambered over the obstacles to catch up with him - she knew where that meant they might be going.

After dashing through the corridors, they arrived at a rusted grate covering a cargo lift. Alex already had his hands on it, acting trying to tug it aside.

"This is our way down... but it hasn't been used in a while. Could you give me a hand?" he asked them, pausing to dust his hands off. Amy stepped forwards as he took his grip again, and couldn't help smiling a little as it actually moved aside quite easily.

"Easy," the host congratulated as the team members stepped inside. He followed them in and pushed a button on the wall, making the cage-like lift slowly descend with a rattling noise.

Amy peered into the darkness of the room that gradually emerged on the other side of the lift - all that was visible was a set of pipes twisting around in the gloom, but that was enough for her to know what machine was going to be used for the next game. Nervous but excited, she turned to the others as the lift clattered to a halt. From Sadie's look of quiet tenseness and Coco and Tamara's excited expressions, she could tell that they knew what it was as well.

"I can tell you already know what's down here!" Alex smiled as he hauled open the opposite lift door, letting them step into the warm musty air of the basement room. Reaching over to the wall, he flicked a light switch, making the fluorescent ceiling lights buzz into life.

Amy blinked as the lights came on. The room looked pretty much exactly like she'd seen it on the show before - clusters of pipes weaved across the room, splitting off to join other groups and forming a tangled mess at the front of the room. In the centre was a grimy metallic cube, six or seven feet on each side. Various valves and pipes protruded out from it.

Alex stepped forward and led the team around the left side of the cube, ducking under a couple of low pipes as he made his way around it. On the opposite side, the room became more open, and Alex leaned against the side of the cube as the girls gathered round him.

"This, as you'll no doubt recognize, is... the Sludgecube." He grinned at them, watching their reaction to the word. Amy looked at it nervously - this side was made up of a large perspex window to let them see inside, where pipes of various sizes and angles jutted out of its walls. "Now, don't worry - you might all have to go in there, you might not - it all depends on your team leader!"

Amy gulped, knowing that Tamara would be eager to do it, but that the others wouldn't be so sure. She remembered reading in a TV magazine interview that this tank had been put in to give even the people who wanted to be gunged something to worry about, and it was definitely having that effect on her.

"The dial up there shows the chance that the Sludgecube has of turning on," Alex pointed to a large display on the wall opposite the window into the cube. It was a circular dial, with a rotating pointer and segments all highlighted in red. "I'm going to give you one minute to reduce the chance it'll activate as much as you can, then Amy's going to decide whether to risk putting you all in there or not. How does that sound?"

All four of them nodded, but Tamara was easily the most enthusiastic. She skipped forward to stand in front of the host as he pulled a set of question cards out of his pocket.

"Here's how it'll work - I'm going to ask each of you in turn a question from these cards," he explained, waving them in the air. "If you get it right, you can go around there and shut off one of the valves at the back. Each valve is worth five points." He pointed behind him to the other side of the cube, where the maze of pipes started up again. Looking carefully, Amy also noticed a couple of nozzles protruding from the wall.

"After your time's up, we'll see how much chance the cube's still got left of turning on, and then we'll decide if you want to risk going in, for double the points that you earn during the game. How does that sound?"

The girls nodded. Amy fell into place behind Tamara as the host prepared to ask her the first question, and turned to watch Coco and Sadie line up behind her, giggling amongst themselves.

Suddenly she turned around as she realized the game had started. Tamara got her first question correct and sped off into the tangle of pipes, ducking underneath them and shrieking as the nozzles in the walls sprayed cold water at her with a hissing noise. Trying to concentrate on the question, Amy stepped forward, but got hers wrong and had to return to the back of the line as Coco stepped forwards.

The squirrel also got the right answer, and ran over to the pipes, where she began climbing carefully over the first low one and squeezing between it and a higher pipe. Straightening up, she vanished from view as Tamara re-emerged from the other side, breathless and soaking.

Amy turned to look as the bunny girl rejoined her, then turned back to see that Sadie had already answered her question and was hesitating at the side of the cube.

"Go on, Sadie!" Tamara called, jumping up and down. Sadie looked over her shoulder, then reluctantly climbed between the pipes, yelping as the cold water sprayed on to her.

This time, Amy got her question right and dashed over to the pipes, putting her hand on the first one and feeling that they were softer than they were made to look. Scrambling over the first large obstacle, she tumbled through the maze of foam-lined pipes, trying not to squeak out loud as the water sprayers soaked her fur and swimwear.

Eventually she found her way through, and was just in time to see Tamara's disappearing tail as she ran around the other side of the cube. Looking at the valve handles that she had seen when she came in, she took hold of one that hadn't been rotated and pulled hard, making it squeak as it turned. With it locked into place, she turned to go as Tamara dived out of the tangled pipes, shaking her fur dry.

Dodging past the thinner pipes on the other side of the cube, Amy arrived back at the group to see Sadie and Coco having difficulty answering another question correctly. Stepping forward as Coco was sent to the back again, she got one right and, pausing only a moment to catch her breath, flung herself into the soft pipe tangle again.

Stumbling through the dark area, she heard the sounds of someone else behind her, and turned to see Coco following her with a grin on her face. Suddenly a water sprayer started up and spurted at the side of her head, making her squeal and throw one hand up as the water dripped from her soaking hair. Amy turned back around only to be hit by another spray from the floor, and spitting out water, felt her way the rest of the distance.

Emerging from the twisted pipes, she shook her head to get the water out her eyes then jogged towards the valve handles on the back, tugging on them to see which ones hadn't been turned. She found one and began spinning it, but jumped as she was interrupted by the familiar time-out klaxon.

"Time's up! Come back around here..." Alex called from the other side of the cube. Amy let go of the valve handle that she had been spinning and picked her way through the pipes between the wall and the tank to rejoin the others. She looked up at the large dial on the wall, which was now half filled with red segments and half with blue.

"You did pretty well, team, and turning off half the valves over there has got you thirty points for the game. But now it's decision time, Amy - if you want to double your score, you're going to have to decide whether to put the team into the Sludgecube and risk getting covered..."

Amy looked wordlessly at the other three girls. As she'd thought, Tamara was nodding eagerly, but Coco and Sadie looked slightly less sure.

"It's just a fifty-fifty chance of you being completely gunged if you decide to go in - what's it going to be?" Alex asked her, crouching down so their faces were level.

She glanced around at the others again, then at the inside of the machine, shifting from foot to foot nervously as she decided. "I'm going to put us in," she finally nodded. Tamara whooped, pumping her hand in the air, and the other two looked at each other, nervous smiles on their faces.

"All right! Let's get you inside there." Alex stepped around to the side of the cube and hauled a ladder down from the top, setting it on the floor then scaling it quickly to reach the top of the machine. Amy followed him more slowly as he bent down to undo a set of catches on the ceiling, and she reached the top just as he swung a panel aside to reveal the entrance.

Amy accepted the host's outstretched hands as she looked down into the dim interior of the cube, letting her feet leave the floor reluctantly as he hoisted her over the gap and lowered her gently inside, speaking to the others. "Remember, your team leader's getting you full points for the game, and you've got a pretty good chance of staying clean..."

She squirmed out of his grip as she touched the padded floor and looked around at the walls with the various sizes of pipes protruding out of them. It looked somehow different and more threatening from the inside. Pacing forward, she looked up into the darkness of the large central pipe on the ceiling, then turned around as Sadie was lowered in after her.

The skunk girl dropped to the floor and laughed nervously as she looked at her surroundings. Amy gave her a sympathetic smile as she glanced around, heading towards the corner of the tank that looked safest and leaning on the wall.

Tamara came in next, clambering down into the cube herself and scampering eagerly into the centre, right below the opening on the ceiling. After a moment, Coco was lowered in too, and she stayed where she was, blinking as the hatch was slammed closed behind her with a heavy clunk.

Amy rocked back and forwards on her heels as they all heard Alex climbing back down the ladder, and watched as he reappeared on the other side of the glass panel in front of them. Amy moved to the front of the cube as Coco squeezed slowly back to join the skunk girl. The cube was about seven feet on each side, so didn't offer much room with four of them in it.

"Are you all ready?" he asked them, moving over to the large button on the podium in front of the cube. Tamara cheered again from behind Amy, who joined in a little more hesitantly. She glanced back to see Coco and Sadie hugging each other as they waited.

"Team leader, just say the word and I'll start it up," the host said to her.

Amy swallowed, then breathed out. "Go," she said. Alex moved for the button.

"Oh, by the way..." he said as if remembering, making the four of them lean forward to listen. "Fortunately we're quite near the showers if anything goes wrong..."

Amy's heart jumped as he thumped the button, an exaggerated mechanical noise played and a low humming sound began as the dial on the wall began to spin.

All four of the girls watched it rapidly turn around, going past the red and blue areas alternately, and all held their breath as it began to slow down. Tamara leapt forward to join Amy at the front of the machine, pressing her nose against the perspex as it slowly ground to a halt. It moved into the safe blue section, slowing down even further, and eventually a buzzer sounded as it stopped just past it.

A low rumbling noise started up as Amy looked sideways at Tamara, who grinned back at her and eagerly leapt back to the centre. Looking past her, she saw the other two hugging each other even more tightly as they waited for the tank to start up. Suddenly Amy shrieked as a diagonal pipe above her spewed light brown lumpy gunge on to her head with a loud hissing noise.

She turned her face away and wiped at her right eye, dodging out of the messy downpour but hearing even more pipes gurgle into life as she moved. Opening her clean eye, she looked at the back of the cube where Coco and Sadie were being covered by two streams of translucent goo from the pipes at the sides, struggling as they tried to move out of the way.

Another gunge chute began spurting slightly darker stuff into the cube, catching Amy on the left shoulder. She sidestepped out of the way, looking around her carefully to try and get out of the way of any more pipes that might start up. The tank was beginning to fill up with gunge, and she grimaced as the level oozed over her toes, looking sideways at the still relatively clean Tamara.

Suddenly a loud hooter sounded and the bunny girl was hidden by a massive downpour of light and dark brown gunge, which splattered into Amy's chest as some of it domed outwards from the giggling rabbit's head. As the level of slime began to rise more quickly, a slimy arm reached out of the mess and grabbed Amy by the shoulder, and she shrieked as Tamara pulled her into the gunge along with her.

Holding her breath and keeping her head down as the lukewarm torrent engulfed her, Amy kept her eyes firmly closed as the lumpy gunge splattered on her head and soaked its way into her fur, creeping around her neck and covering every inch of her. She tried to wriggle out of the bunny's grip, placing her hands on her hips to push away, and eventually slipped out of her slimy grasp. Stumbling towards the wall of the cube through the waist deep muck, she panted for breath as she wiped at her face again.

As she felt the gunge rise to her chest, the ringing of alarms and sound of pouring slime began to ease off, and she turned around to look at what had happened. Sagging her shoulders, she giggled as she saw the state of the cube - it was covered in a muddy mixture of light and dark brown lumpy gunge, with a few drizzles from the ceiling still sputtering down onto the surface. Tamara was a barely recognisable blob standing in the middle of it, and Coco and Amy had let go of each other and were looking down at themselves. While they weren't as covered as Tamara and Amy, their fur was mostly coloured by splashes of muck as well. Slowly the skunk girl backed away, a band of brown clinging slime visible on her chest as she bobbed up and down in the mess.

"Come over here!" laughed Alex, laughing as he enjoyed the view of the four girls struggling in the gunge tank. Amy slowly moved to the perspex again, scooping the slush out of the way as she walked forwards. She grimaced a little at the strange sensation - the gunge seemed to be sucking at her as she tried to move through it. Out of breath, she leaned on the clear wall, hearing the others move into place behind her.

The host looked at the four of them for a moment, a smile on his face. "It's just as well that it's shower time next," he said, shaking his head. "Sorry, team, but it wasn't me that put you in... it was Amy that volunteered you..."

"Hey..." Amy began, then shrieked as she felt two messy arms stretching around to grab her chest, squeezing her and dragging her backwards. She heard Tamara's giggling as she struggled to keep on her feet, and screwed her face up as another pair of hands began rubbing handfuls of the slimy stuff all over her head. She flailed her arms out as the bunny girl dodged aside, dumping her backwards into the gunge with a thick splash.

She kicked her legs back to put her feet on the floor again as she felt the muck close over her head, and burst out of it again, coughing to catch her breath. She kept her eyes tightly closed as she felt the slush trickle and drip from all over her body, hearing all three of her teammates cheer at the sight of her. Slowly she raised her hands to her face and wiped her eyes, laughing a little uneasily as she blinked them open. She was caked in a clinging layer of the muddy substance, with just a thin outline of her swimsuit visible underneath it. Noticing one of the straps of her bikini top had fallen off her shoulder, she hurriedly grabbed it and pulled it up again.

Alex had moved to the top of the cube, and all four of them looked up as the hatch in the ceiling was opened. Stretching up to reach his outstretched arms, Amy wriggled in the muck as she was slowly hauled out of the tank, shivering as she felt it drip off her legs.

She sat down on the edge of the cube and got her breath back, laughing as Sadie was lifted out after her. She had managed to keep most of her top half clean, but she was coated in the muddy mixture from the waist down.

"You all right?" she smiled as the skunk girl sat down beside her.

"Yeah." Sadie swung her legs back and forward, watching the gunk drip down to the floor below them. "Had to happen in the end." Coco was lifted out of the tank behind them, and stood flicking her hands repeatedly to shake off the sludge.

"Actually, have you ever had a mudbath? It feels like that," the skunkette continued.

Amy shook her head. "No, but I'm definitely going to get my boyfriend into one somehow now that I've done this."

Sadie nodded with a smile, shaking her legs again and watching Alex and Tamara climb down the ladder to their right. "I think that's fair enough!" Shifting forwards as the host held out his arms towards her, she pushed herself off the edge and wrapped her arms around his shoulders as he caught her.

"All right, I promised you the chance to get cleaned up after all that, but do you want to know how you've done first?" the host asked them as he helped Amy down. "You've just earned a full sixty points for the game, and that brings you up to 395 points - you're well on your way!"

Leading them back towards the lift as they cheered, he strode towards the door and hauled it open. After beckoning them all inside, he jumped in himself and thumped the button for the platform.

"So, team leader, where do you think we should go next? We've got the security station and the factory left to visit."

"Let's go to... the factory," Amy decided after a moment. She raised her hands to her face again and brushed off a few more lumps - she would be glad to get into the showers.

"I can take you there as soon as we've got you cleaned up," Alex answered, noticing her discomfort. As the lift stopped, he gestured towards the grating on the opposite side, which Tamara shoved aside, and followed them through the gap.

"You'll be able to shower off in here," he said to them, pushing open a door on the opposite wall. "And if you'll wait for me on the other side, I'll see you all again in the factory!"

Amy joined in the whoop that Tamara gave, and gratefully followed her through into the shower room. Alex watched them all go, then turned to the camera operator that had been following them through the corridor.

"Now, if you'll keep following me," he said, "we've got a special guest for the last show of the series." He turned away, strode down the corridor a few paces and pushed open a set of double doors. "How are you doing, Gwen?"

The camera followed him into the small room and swung round to show a curvy pink dragongirl sitting in a tank set into one of the walls, behind a slightly curved clear door that reached up to her shoulders. She was wearing a black IZ bikini similar to the other contestants' swimwear, and was sitting on a wide inflatable sofa-like seat that stretched the width of the tank. She smiled as he came in.

"Hi," she said simply, waving a little in the direction of the camera.

"Welcome back to the Industrial Zone - are you ready for a repeat of what we did to you last time?"

She laughed a little, looking around the inside of her tank - three wide grilles were placed near the ceiling, one at the back and one on each of the walls. As well as those, there was the usual round opening placed on the ceiling slightly in front of her head. Turning back to the host, she nodded out at him.

"Well, in case you didn't see the first episode of this series," Alex said, turning back to the camera, "here's some idea of what happened to Gwen in the first round."

He looked up at the video screen on the wall, and the dragon girl laughed as a series of still images played, showing her first sitting on an inflatable chair in a dark chamber, then being coated from above by a massive downpour of blue and yellow slime that slowly filled the tank. In all the shots, she was hardly visible, with only her slimy head being seen above the mixed green slime bath at the end.

"Pretty much what you'd expect from losing a game on Industrial Zone," grinned Alex as the screen blinked off again. "The trouble was that we had a problem with the cameras inside the shuttle, so we couldn't show the whole thing - isn't that right, Gwen?"

"Yeah," Gwen said hesitantly, looking down and scratching the back of her neck distractedly.

"So we wanted another chance to gunge you," Alex grinned at her, and she giggled in response. Suddenly a quiet beeping noise started, and a look of shock crossed her face.

"Not to worry, that's just the tank starting up. Shouldn't be long until it goes off," Alex smiled, watching one of the four lights above the tank turn on. He looked at her, drumming his fingers on the door of the tank, enjoying watching her squirm. "Do you want to know how this thing works?"

Gwen looked around her, wriggling from side to side. "Yeah," she said hesitantly, thinking it might be the wrong thing to say.

Alex leaned into the tank, looking up at the various openings near the ceiling. Gwen shifted back a little as he pointed at each of them. "Each of those leads to a tank somewhere above you. The team are getting ready for the second half of the show now, and we've rigged the whole thing to activate when all four of the showers are turned off again." Gwen nodded, biting her lip. "So you've got two more to go... let's hope that they spend a while getting cleaned up!"

The dragon girl nodded slowly. "I think they will, seeing as you put them all in the Sludgecube."

The host laughed. "Yes, it should keep them occupied for a while. You've had some experience of that yourself, haven't you?"

She giggled again, remembering her appearance on the programme. "Yeah, I wasn't actually inside it, though. It looked really icky..." She looked him in the eye to ask him a question of her own. "Haven't you ever wanted to try it yourself, then?"

"Well..." Alex chuckled, pacing to the other side of the tank. "I'm sure someone's going to get me eventually. So you've been watching the team's progress so far - what do you think?" he continued.

"They're doing OK," she nodded. "I don't think that they're going to win in the end, though. Do you?"

"I can't say," the host answered. "We haven't had a winning team in the series yet, so they've got the last chance."

They continued talking for a few minutes, with Gwen giving a start each time a light above her buzzed into life. When the third one came on, she looked around the tank again. "How much is in this thing?" she asked, pointing up.

Alex leaned back, stroking his chin. "Two hundred gallons, I think? Something like that," he said. Gwen swallowed, but a hint of a smile appeared on her face. "Normally five is enough for a decent gunging... so we usually use about ten at the minimum on IZ."

Her smile turned into a grin. "And what was..."

She ended her sentence with a shriek as the familiar loud hooter blared, and she was hit by two waves of thick green gunge poured sideways from the grilles on the sides of the tank. She shivered a little as they played over her, her hands clasped near her chest as she was rapidly coated in a green layer. Gradually, the two downpours eased off slightly, falling back so that they were pouring the stuff down the walls and continuing to fill up the tank.

Gwen giggled, raising one hand up to her face and flicking the slime out of her eyes, balancing with her other hand gripping the seat. A yellow wave suddenly spewed out of the grate behind her, and she leaned forwards under its weight as it splattered off her back, clinging on to the seat with her other hand as well. She grinned and closed her eyes, hunching her neck up to try and stop the slime from creeping round her shoulders, making a few waves splash over her head as she squirmed around.

As the yellow torrent continued, she opened her eyes again and eased her head round to look back at the gunge chute behind her, but quickly faced forward again as the wide wave splashed into her eyes. She shook her head and blinked a couple of times, grinning up at the host as she raised her gungy arms out to the sides, getting them coated in the new colour as well, then smiled downwards as she felt the level of slime creeping up her legs.

Her eyes widened a little as the klaxon began sounding again, her grin growing as she waited for something else to happen. On the third blare of the hooter, its sound dropped much lower and she squeaked again as she vanished completely underneath a wide column of mixed blue and yellow gunge poured in from the ceiling.

Her hands flew to her head, covering her face as the new downpour domed outwards from hitting her, a few splashes getting over the door of the tank. Slowly she leaned backwards out of it, edging back on the seat and giggling as the yellow wave from behind slapped over her head again. She was now completely hidden by the slimy deluge. The tank was filling up much faster, and the level quickly raised over her tummy, towards shoulder height.

The gunge from above eased off a little, but came backwards to splash off her head again as it slowed to a drizzle. As the tank filled up completely and slime began to spill over its door, the other flows subsided, leaving the barely recognisable Gwen completely covered in a layer of thick yellow and green ooze.

Alex stepped forwards again, picking his way through the slippery puddle on the floor, and laughed as Gwen slowly pulled her hands out of the gunge with a glooping noise, running them over her messy head to try and clear it. Wiping her face, she opened her eyes and blinked a couple of times, squeaking as another couple of splashes dropped onto her from above. Relaxing again, she leaned back in the chair so that the slime came up to her neck, and grinned at him.

"You all right, Gwen?" he asked. She closed her eyes and nodded in response, still laughing to herself. "How does it feel in there?"

"'Gungy' is the only word for it," the dragon girl grinned back, raising her hands out of the slop again and letting it pour off into the full tank. She squeaked as a hissing noise started up, and giggled as two light streams of foam sprayed on to her from the ceiling, the airy white blobs piling up on top of the gunge.

"That's good news, because we're hoping to be using this tank more in the next series," Alex explained, pacing to the other side of it and leaning in a little to talk to her. She squirmed from side to side, closing her eyes, obviously enjoying the feeling of sitting in the slime bath. "Is it up to our standards, do you think?"

"Definitely." She laughed again, nodding as she looked around at the mess. Slime dripped stickily off her face as she moved, a couple of drips still falling from the pipes above her and splatting on to the surface.

"All right - thanks for coming on again. I'm going to leave you alone now, and we might get you cleaned up later if we feel like it." He grinned as she pulled her arm out of the stuff and waved at him, and turned away as she leaned back again, sinking into the ooze as he left the room.