E.G.C.
[Comments:]
I thought up the idea for this story while half-dead on a plane over the Atlantic well before starting the third IZ episode, but I never got the chance to sit down and plan it out further until just after releasing the fourth one (the only one I've put up here so far). Electra has always been one of the most popular of my characters, starting off as innocent and scared when she first appeared in IZ1 but becoming gradually more tomboyish over time.
This story takes place a couple of years after her appearance on IZ, when she's left school and is in her first year of college - I wanted to include more of her real life and friendships rather than write about a purely artificial setting like I usually do, and this gave the chance to write a little more humorously in places. At sixteen thousand words it's also my second-shortest story to date, as unlikely as that sounds!
Leon's Dungeon, which I wrote about once before this story, is really quite suited to a student union night, being a mix of entertainment and chaotic mess where no one's really safe... it seems to use the idea of phone-related challenges a lot, and even though most things involving phone votes aren't exactly the best of television, I think this might be what something like NHP would have evolved into if it was still on today. (It's no coincidence that Leon is "Noel" backwards...)
A large part of the middle section of this story is composed of slime fetish material - those who just want a sexual scene can skip to the end!
"Look at her. She's the cutest thing in the world."
Khimri looked up from the folderful of scrawled notes that he had been engrossed in and turned towards Borneo, who was sitting next to him on the bench. The red-furred canid made a sideways glance back at him, then nodded again very slightly in the direction he was looking. This time, Khimri followed his gaze across the quadrangle to see Electra emerging from the door of the college library, her laptop bag carried across her shoulder. As he watched, she caught his eye, waved as she descended the steps and started across the grass towards them.
"You should get on with it and ask her out, you know," Borneo continued, leaning a little closer and keeping his voice low as if she might hear from that distance. "You've been going round together for the whole term."
"Yeah, just as friends." Khimri smiled to himself as Borneo leaned back and shook his head in annoyance. He was the self-appointed matchmaker for many of the singles in the college, and had been trying to set the two of them up ever since Electra had moved into the same student residence as Borneo at the start of the year. Borneo had got him to show her around the college when she had first started, and Khimri and she happened to be in a couple of the same classes together as well. It was now near the end of the first term, and the three of them were only minutes away from their first exams of the year.
"But..." The red wolf moved his face towards him, speaking out of the corner of his mouth. "Look - at - her! Don't you have... hormones? Anything?" he asked, his tone of voice approaching despair.
"I'm just not looking at the moment," Khimri shrugged. Borneo made an annoyed grunt, and sagged back on the bench. The two of them had often had this conversation, and his replies had been practiced many times.
"Besides, if you're so keen on her, why haven't you asked her yourself?" he continued. He kept his eyes on the blue-furred bunny girl as she hurried towards them.
"I can't do that. It's against the rules." Khimri looked round again at Borneo, but decided not to ask any further as to what these rules of his might be.
"Hi, Ellie," he said instead as she stepped off the grass and approached the bench they were sitting on, bending down a little so her eyes were level with the two of them.
"Hi, Kim! Hi, Borneo," she added, turning her head towards him as he acknowledged her with a lazy raise of his hand off the bench's arm. "Think you're ready for this?" she asked.
Khimri, a dark navy-furred puma, struggled to keep his notes folder together as he got up from the bench. "I've gone over it all again, and I think I remember most of it..." He held out one hand, counting up on his fingers. "DeFino's five laws were..."
"No, don't tell me!" Electra put her hands to her ears and backed away, a grin hiding the nerves on her face. "It just makes it worse, finding out I don't know things now."
Khimri smiled back as he glanced at his folder again, trying to look relaxed.
"And how's computer... what was it called, algorithm analysis? How's that going?" She turned her head towards the muscular canid beside them.
"It's all in here," Borneo replied, tapping the side of his head, "but I don't know if I'll be able to get to it when it counts. Like a hard drive that's not connected up right."
Electra burst out laughing, leaning forward and moving right up to him, then pointed a finger into his face. "You... are a true computer science geek."
"Well, that's what I've got to prove in the next two hours. Let's hope Rona thinks so as well. Or 'professor' Rona, or whatever I'm meant to call her now." Borneo tilted backwards slightly, then put his hands on his knees and wearily heaved his heavily built form up from the bench. He took a couple of paces back and forward, seeming a little more nervous about the coming exam than he was admitting to the two of them.
"Your camera." Khimri glanced to the small digital camcorder that was sitting on the bench beside him - Borneo always carried it around with him for his photography class, his main concentration at the college. Picking it up, he held it up to offer it to him.
"Thanks." Borneo took it, shaking his head to clear it, and slipped the thin neckstrap over his head. Distractedly, he tucked the camera into the folds of his jacket. "All right. I'd better go."
"Feeling prepared, Borneo?" Electra asked him as he began to turn away.
"Oh, yes." Gathering his confidence again, he spun around on his heel and strode confidently off in the direction of the Schaffer building. "I went to four lectures," he added triumphantly over his shoulder.
"Think he'll be okay?" Electra smiled down at Khimri as the red canid disappeared around the corner.
"He takes that class every term, just to make up credits. I don't think he's ever really been interested in it." Khimri finished stuffing his disorganized notes back into the folder and closed it up. The two of them began walking in the opposite direction from Borneo, down to where their philosophy exam was taking place.
"We're going to be a little early, is that OK?" he asked her. "I always feel less nervous about the exams when I'm there."
"Yeah," she shrugged. "I know what you mean."
They walked in silence for a while, taking the path away from the quad at the end of the campus and through the park area. As it was the end of the autumn term, the ground was strewn with leaves from the now bare trees, though it was still pleasantly warm.
"So what happens once we're in there?" Electra asked him. He looked down at her - she was about a head shorter than he was - and thought about how to explain the exam. This would be her first one, and he and Borneo had been through the exam-week experience twice before in their first year.
"I don't think you'll find it too different from the exams you did in school," he said. "Just remember that you have to sign the front of your answer sheet at the end - my high school didn't do that, and I almost walked out without remembering in my first exam."
The bunny girl nodded silently, looking down and kicking at a pile of leaves on the ground as she walked through them.
"Don't worry about it - it's only a couple of hours, then we can meet up with Borneo again and go down to Cascade," he encouraged her. The combined bar and disco at the end of the campus was one of the most popular places to meet, particularly after exams. "It'll all be over soon."
"I'm OK - don't worry about me," she said, obviously trying to sound more casual than she felt. "I think it's Borneo that needs a bit of good luck this time!"
"Yeah..." Khimri chuckled. "He's always been more into the social side of university... he really makes an effort to try and get to know everyone he can, I don't know how he has the energy. He certainly helped me out when I was in the same block as him last year."
"While not really bothering with things like going to class at all?" she smiled.
"Sometimes. I'm sure he used to go pretty regularly at the start of first year. It didn't last long."
The two of them had reached the steps that led down from the park to the older area of the university, where the original departments had been built. Khimri hung back a little and let the rabbit girl go down the narrow steps in front of him.
"Remember in orientation week when I'd just unpacked my stuff and met you and Borneo coming up here?" he asked as they made their way down, eager to think about anything but the impending exam.
"Of course," she answered, and glanced backwards over her shoulder with a grin. "You didn't really speak to me much," she said.
Khimri breathed out heavily, remembering the conversation. "Well... you know how shy I am around people I haven't met before."
"Even harmless me?" They had reached the bottom of the stairs now, and Electra spun round to poke him playfully in the stomach with both hands. He laughed it off, brushing her aside, and led the way towards the philosophy building.
"Want to stay outside?" he asked over his shoulder, but stopped as Electra scampered past him down the shallow stairway to the main entrance. More reluctantly, he stepped down after her. "I haven't been in here in ages, so we'll have plenty to read while we wait at least..." he said, placing his hand on the door with a nod as she held it open behind her.
Because of the central location of the philosophy building, it also served as a social center for the students, and most of one wall of the lobby was taken up by a large noticeboard divided into sections for different college events. Electra immediately headed for the classified adverts nearest the door - Khimri couldn't remember her ever actually being interested in most of them, but she always disapprovingly pointed out the advertising students' spelling mistakes to him whenever they were in the building together. Smiling as she scoured the board looking for any particularly shocking examples, he wandered towards the center of the board, where a large poster had been stuck up in the center of the section for campus events.
"Hey, have you seen this?" he called over to her. She looked round, waiting for him to continue. "Leon's Dungeon is doing a fundraiser roadshow series, and they're going to be doing a show in Cascade on the 20th, the weekend after the exam period's over."
"Oh?" she asked, turning back to the wall of scrawled index cards. Khimri hesitated - he had hoped she would be more interested than that. Leon's Dungeon was a combination of light entertainment and a game show of sorts - it had started a few months ago on one of the small quiz channels, but had quickly gained popularity. He remembered that it had once been described before as 'Saturday morning TV for adults' because of its messy, chaotic nature - one of the main ideas of the program was that no one in the audience was safe from being called up to the stage to participate. It was something of a cult favorite among students in particular, and he and Electra had watched it a couple of times while round at Borneo's electronics-filled room.
"There's a sign-up sheet here for it as well, you can donate money to get them to gunge people." He looked down the list of scrawled names and nominators, each with a figure next to them indicating the donation that they planned to make. He stopped as he reached one that he recognized very clearly. He felt a shiver at the back of his neck as he turned towards the bunny girl, who was still engrossed in the adverts, and tried to think of how to break the news to her.
"...You're on here," he said simply.
"What?!" Electra suddenly scooted over towards him, sliding to a halt between him and the board, skimming down the list and finding her name in the column. She paused a moment, then turned to him, and Khimri was quietly relieved to see that she had a wide grin on her face.
"You're OK with that?" he asked her, surprised at her reaction.
"Of course! But who would want to put me on there?" she asked. She turned back to the board again, her finger pointed out towards her name, and traced it across to the other column for the nominator. "E.G.C.", she read out loud. "Someone's initials?"
"I'm... not sure," Khimri replied hesitantly. He glanced behind them - a few others had come in now, and they were beginning to gather around the entrance to the exam hall.
"Hey!" He heard Electra call, and turned as she tugged on his jacket sleeve. She had noticed the home-made poster at the far end of the board, and was dragging him towards it. He stumbled a little to keep up as she dashed over, her eyes fixed on the image of her own face displayed in a photo in the center of the sheet.
"Do you think this bunny-girl needs to be gunged?" she read the title out loud, then looked down again at the grainily-printed photograph. It was from the end of the summer, just after Electra's arrival at the college, and showed her sitting outside the café area they were now standing next door to, wearing a slim white T-shirt and denim shorts. "I remember that! It was taken on Borneo's camera!" The bunny girl looked up at Khimri, who was still staring at the poster, and pointed frantically at the photo of herself, jumping up and down excitedly. She paused and looked back at it. "He could have got a better one..."
Khimri turned away and walked back along the board to the first poster, feeling rather awkward as Electra continued reading the poster out loud to him. "Donate in the box in the Philosophy foyer to get her in Leon's gunge tank..." He shivered at the sound of the words, and watched as she looked over to the table at the end of the noticeboard. On one side was a green-colored box with a slot in the top, taped down to the surface. She took hold of it and tried to shake it a little, producing a heavy rattle from the coins inside, then turned back to read the last line of the poster.
"Signed - the Electra Gunge Committee!" she exclaimed. "Oh, I'm going to get him for this." But even though she seemed shocked by it, she smiled, turning around and walking back to join Khimri. "So what's this thing about - how do they pick people?"
He looked back at the sign-up sheet, reading the entry rules once again. "It says that the top five donators are definitely going to be on if they agree to it, and anyone else who's on the list might be picked at random."
"Looks like I'm in trouble, then!" Electra smiled - she was taking it far better than Khimri had expected. Suddenly she looked down to her jacket pocket, and he watched, laughing, as she produced a pen and turned back to the poster, writing a new entry on to the list.
"Hey..." he started as he realized she wasn't putting the name he had expected, and leaned to the side to see over her shoulder as she wrote his own name down. She giggled back at him, then signed the other column and put herself down for $10. "Why me?" he asked as she put the pen away again.
"It's for something worthwhile." She patted the rest of her pockets, making sure that she had everything she would need in the next couple of hours. "Besides, if I'm going to be up there then I at least want you to have a chance of being picked too!"
"It's fair enough," Khimri conceded. Suddenly he remembered what they were in the building for, and grabbed at his own pocket to find at least one working pen.
"The waiting's the worst part. It'll all be over soon, remember?" Electra said to him, noticing his panic. Pointing behind him, she wandered over to the other side of the room as she recognized a group of their classmates huddled around the entrance to the hall. Finally finding what he was looking for, he moved over to join them as the doors to the hall were opened, and they both walked in to their first exam of the year.
It was two weeks later, just after nine in the evening. Khimri walked towards the open double doors to the campus's largest venue, a hall attached to the union building that was usually used as a disco at the weekends. Another of the Electra posters that had been appearing all over the campus was stuck to its glass surface. This evening, the place was packed, and he had to push through the crowd to search for the people he was looking for.
He looked up to the venue's stage as he squeezed towards the front. It had been done up with a medieval theme, with backdrops made to look like crude stonework having been put up on the back wall. At the back, he recognized one of the signature elements of the show - the section of rotating wall that was used to bring contestants and different equipment for the games on or off the set. At the moment, the rotating wall had a large bent pipe protruding down from it, looking like the spigot for a giant faucet. A blue dragonmorph that Khimri thought he recognized was sitting in a blowup chair placed below it, looking up at the show's gray panther presenter as he explained the rules of the game that was about to start.
"Hey!" Khimri heard a call from beside him, and looked around, spotting Electra waving at him and jumping up and down. Borneo was with her, fiddling with his camera as always. As he made his way towards him, he looked up as well.
"Where were you, Kim? You've been missing the best parts!" Borneo looked up towards the stage for a moment, where the blue dragon was now struggling with a questions round. "You know Kaisha who lives down the corridor from me? She was up there a minute ago playing the... you know, the strip quiz game that they have, and she went right down to her bikini before she agreed to be gunged." He shivered. "But I've got it all on here," he added, holding up his camera again and patting the side.
Amused at his friend's enthusiasm, Khimri smiled down at Electra, who was wearing her long rain jacket, standing on tiptoe to see over the other people's heads. He suspected she didn't have much else on underneath in preparation for being invited up to the stage. Looking back to the game in progress, he shuddered at the thought - he hadn't been too worried about the idea of being called up to the front before, but now that he was here amongst the crowd he was a little more nervous.
"You OK, Electra?" he asked her, knowing that it was pretty certain that she would be up soon.
"Cold!" she replied, bouncing on her feet and craning her neck to see what was going on up on the stage. "And Borneo won't admit that he put my name down for it even though I keep telling him I know." Suddenly a loud klaxon blared, and she giggled as the on-stage participant was hidden by a torrent of opaque yellow slime dropped from the pipe.
Khimri laughed a little under the cheer of the rest of the audience, quietly wondering what it felt like to be underneath that torrent. He'd watched it happen on the program all the time, but it was still somehow strange seeing a proper gunging in real life. It looked thick and heavy like custard, but runnier at the same time. He watched as the downpour gradually trickled to a halt, dollops of it running down the dragon's coated hair and skin as his shoulders shook with laughter.
He looked to the side as Borneo leaned forwards and put his hands on the bunny girl's shoulders. "That could be you soon, Electra..."
"Hey." She turned away, wriggling out of his grasp and playfully pushed him back with one hand. "Maybe I'll win and they'll put you in instead..."
Borneo turned to Khimri as he straightened, grinning widely. "I keep telling her I'm innocent, but she won't listen!" He shook his head and turned back to the stage, where the host was finishing with the current victim.
"...and we've got a free ride off for you to save getting the stage any messier. Enjoyed yourself?"
"Definitely." He nodded, the movement making even more of the gunge slither down and splatter on the floor.
"All right, thanks for coming on, Aku!" Leon took a couple of steps back as the wall began to rotate, and Khimri watched as the dragon was carried off backstage, running his hand through his hair and flinging a handful of slime in the audience's direction as he disappeared from view.
Leon turned away from him and walked to the front as the stage lights swung back towards him. He was wearing a dark suit, the same kind of clothing that he wore on the program that made him look much more dignified than the show really was. Holding his hands up, he waited for the audience noise to die down.
"So I'm afraid that's another random selection that's failed to complete a challenge... I think it's time to take a look at our top five again." He pointed over at the large display screen mounted at the side of the stage.
Khimri turned to the screen along with the rest of the audience as it switched from the scoreboard for the last game to another display. Five rows were visible on it - the bottom three showed names of people that had already been on, but the first and second places were covered in white noise-type masks. After a pause, he watched as the second row dissolved away to form the name "Nikki".
A high-pitched chorus of screams and whoops erupted from a group near the front of the stage, and Leon waited a moment before speaking over them. "Nikki, where are you?" he asked, and joined in the audience's applause as a gray-tinged chipmunk girl with short chestnut-colored hair padded quietly up to the stage.
"What, does that mean Electra's got the first place?" Borneo hissed into Khimri's ear. "I know she was popular, but..."
"Could be." Khimri nodded as he tailed off, his attention still on the stage as the spotlighted nominee climbed the stairs.
"Want to introduce yourself?" Leon asked as she stood up beside him. She smiled and turned towards the audience, looking down and tapping her toes on the stage nervously.
"Well, I'm Nikki... you knew that... and I'm in the School of Nursing," she replied, wringing her hands nervously behind her back.
"Any idea you were going to be called up?" he continued.
"Yeah... a bunch of friends in my course put me down for this," she said, then giggled as another chorus of whoops came up from the group that she had been standing with.
"All right... just wait and see what we've got in store for you. I think you'll recognize this..." he pointed as a cubicle was wheeled on to the stage by the stagehands.
Nikki covered her mouth with her hands, staring wide-eyed as the tank came into view. It was one of the regular features on the TV show, and was made up to look like a phone booth, with a metallic back and a phone prop mounted on the back wall. On the top, a pair of clear tanks were visible - one filled with green stuff, the other yellow - and they joined together to form one pipe that jutted down slightly into the main cubicle.
Another cheer came from the audience as she turned towards them, looking nervously excited. Leon put his arm around her to turn her around, and paced her towards the machine, opening the tank's door with his free hand. She let go of him and stepped inside, peering up into the gunge chute above her as she turned around to sit down, then clasped her hands on her lap.
"Comfortable in there?" Leon asked as he closed the door. She tilted her head from side to side, then nodded a little. She looked over to the side as one of the stagehands reappeared with two chairs, watching him set them down facing each other in front of the tank.
"I think we need to get one of your nominators up here as well, don't you?" The panther paced to the edge of the stage again and crouched down to talk to the group that she had come from. "Which one of you would you say nominated her?" he asked them.
There was a jostle from the group as they whispered to each other. Eventually, a blonde tigress was pushed slightly reluctantly to the front. She stood there timidly for a moment, swishing her tail behind her, but eventually walked forward and took the stairs up to the stage as a round of applause encouraged her up.
"Have a seat," Leon said, indicating the chair on the right. She walked over and sat down, saying something inaudible to Nikki inside the tank.
"Oh - what's your name, by the way?" he asked as he seated himself opposite her.
"Sheefa", she replied.
"All right, Sheefa - now, what made you want to put this gorgeous girl in our gunge tank?" he asked, leaning back relaxedly.
"Everyone in the class wanted to put one of our names down, and we pulled her name out of a bowl. It was all totally fair," she replied, bringing her tail up and running it through her hands as she spoke.
"Is that true, Nikki?" Leon asked, leaning towards the tank.
"Yeah, that's right." She nodded.
The panther laughed a little. "You're supposed to say how unfair it was... make her feel more guilty! But why are you out of everyone up here, then?" he asked the feline.
"I was the one who pulled her name out," she said. "I didn't know they were going to put me up here as well!"
"I'm afraid we have to pick on someone," the presenter replied, and got up from the seat. "You know what happens by now - if your friend escapes, you're going to find yourself in there instead."
Sheefa shuddered as she looked up to the top of the tank. The host leaned against it, and bent down to talk to the girl inside.
"We'll let you choose your lifeline, Nikki - you're going to get to nominate someone from the audience to save you before the gunge tank goes off." The chipmunk girl nodded, glancing around at the watchers below her. "Any first thoughts?"
"Yeah, my boyfriend Kief's here," she said, pointing down at the audience. A hand went up.
"Good, you'll know his number offhand?" Nikki nodded. "Dial him on the phone behind you..."
The chipmunk girl shuffled around in the seat and lifted the receiver of the phone, carefully tapping out the number with her index finger. After a moment, a ringing sound started up from where the hand from the audience had gone up, and was quickly answered.
"Hi," she giggled at the sound of her boyfriend's voice on the other end.
"Want to come up here, Kief?" the host asked, then stepped aside as a young white catmorph pushed his way through the packed floor to get to the stairs at the front. He walked carefully up them, holding his mobile phone out in the palm of his hand. Leon motioned towards the seat opposite Sheefa, and he dashed across to sit down, eyeing his girlfriend as he shuffled his feet on the stage floor.
"You can hang up now, Nikki," Leon nodded at her. "But Kief, keep yours on - just don't touch anything until you know what's happening!"
The catmorph looked down at the phone again as his girlfriend hung up and turned fully around to face the front. She glanced up another time at the pipe looming over her head.
"If you haven't seen this before on the show, Kief, the setup's very simple - your phone's now connected to the door of the tank, and there's a four-digit combination that will unlock it and let your girlfriend escape." He turned around to the display screen at the side of the stage, which was showing four digits - 0, 7, 9 and 3.
"Those," he said, turning round to him and pointing back at them, "are the right numbers, but not necessarily in the right order - it's your job to find the correct combination." Kief nodded as he continued, pacing towards the screen. "Of course, the catch is that you've only got five tries - after the fifth one, the tank's going to activate, and then... she'll be in trouble."
They all turned to the gray chipmunk, who squirmed from side to side uncomfortably at being the center of attention, her eyes up at the gunge chute above her instead of looking back at them.
"You're not totally without help, though - the machine's going to let you know how many digits you got right each time. Sound easy enough?"
"Yeah," Kief chuckled.
"Good. One thing before we start - do you know this girl?" he asked. Sheefa yelped as he came back and put his hands gently on her shoulders.
"Yeah, we're in the same group of friends," he replied.
"So how are you feeling about her being responsible for your girlfriend getting slimed?" the presenter continued with a grin.
Kief looked from one girl to the other and back. "There's no answer to that question that won't get me into trouble," he decided.
"A wise choice!" Leon stepped back, pointing at the display. "Just enter your first attempt whenever you're ready," he said.
The audience was completely silent as the catmorph looked up at the screen, then at his phone again as he carefully copied out the digits in the same order. At the fourth press, a buzzer sounded, making all three of them jump, and the number one appeared next to the new digits on the screen.
"One of them's correct, Kief." Leon took a couple of paces around the tank casually as he tried again, swapping the last three digits round into new places. At the sound of the buzzer, the number 1 appeared again. Nikki smiled, turning back to her boyfriend and nodding.
"It looks like that zero at the start's correct - want to try and finish it off?" Leon hadn't finished his sentence before the catmorph looked down to his phone again, swapping the last three digits into the last possible combination. There was a pause as Nikki smiled over at the screen, glancing over at Sheefa who had her hands clasped tensely at her mouth.
The buzzer sounded again, and Khimri felt as shocked as the three onstage participants as a large figure zero appeared.
"Zero!" Leon announced above the collective gasp. "So you must have got one of the others right each time somehow..." He walked to the tank and looked Nikki in the eye as she wrung her hands on her lap. "Don't worry, I'm on your side! You're not in a good situation, but you can still turn it around..." He looked over at Kief, who nodded as he continued. "Think about the combinations you've tried so far and look at what else could have been right..."
Nikki faced forwards again and wriggled a little from side to side, shivering as she looked up once again into the top of the tank. Hesitantly, her boyfriend tapped in another code. As the last digit was entered, the machine immediately buzzed and displayed a 2 in response.
"Two right this time..." Leon turned from the screen back to Kief. "So you've got one last chance to decide which pair of numbers is the wrong way round... make sure it's a good guess!"
Nikki leaned forward on to the tank's door to have another whispered discussion with Kief, as Sheefa looked on worriedly with one hand placed at her mouth. Eventually, they nodded at each other, and the catmorph carefully keyed out his final guess. Encouragements and shouted advice came from the front rows, but a hush fell over the entire room as the fourth key was pressed.
Khimri looked between the three of them as the silence continued. Sheefa was twisted around in her seat, watching the screen worriedly and mouthing something to herself as she waited for something to happen. Kief was craning his neck to see past her, jiggling one knee anxiously and looking between the screen and his girlfriend in the tank. She was hunched over forwards, her hands at the sides of her head and occasionally peeking out from behind them at the screen or Kief.
A sudden buzzer made her jump, and she carefully looked round to see the number 1 displayed on the screen again. With a shocked look on her face, she turned back towards her boyfriend, jiggling in the seat as a mechanical whine sound effect started up. Her expression slowly changed into a defeated smile, which was suddenly hidden as the double tanks above her splurged open, covering her in a wide downpour of mixed green and yellow gunge.
Sheefa jumped away from the seat as the familiar alarm hooted and the messy downpour domed out over the chipmunk's head, a couple of splashes getting over the door of the tank and splatting on her legs. Kief just smiled sheepishly, watching the gungy dome shift slightly as his girlfriend wriggled underneath it. As the slippery downpour lapped around and coated the sides of the booth, Sheefa uncertainly tiptoed back towards it, moving round to the side so she wasn't hit by the flying slime.
Slowly, the umbrella came inwards, and Nikki leaned forwards to get her head out from under the flow, her face buried in her hands. She shivered at the feeling of the ooze slapping on to the back of her neck and creeping around her shoulders, carefully taking her hands away and straightening as the last few heavy drops smacked on to her head, the siren dying away below the sound of the audience.
She shook her head from side to side, globs of the heavy goo dripping from her hair and splattering on her shoulders and lap. With her face just visible through her coated hair, her shocked expression turned back into a smile as she sagged and giggled embarrassedly. She brought her hands up to her head and, with her two forefingers, parted her messy hair and pulled it aside out of her face. Panting slightly, she looked around for the tigress, and grinned out at her as she saw her standing next to the tank, her hands clasped in front of her chest and her face frozen in an awestruck expression.
As Leon approached again, another drizzle started up from the top of the tank, piling up on the top of the chipmunk girl's head and slopping down over her face. She pursed her lips and blew the gunge off them, wiping again at her eyes and mouth with her hands, and turned to him as he leaned on the side of the phone booth, putting his other arm around the tigress.
"It looks like you're the winner here, Sheefa," he remarked, bending down to look at the gunge-coated girl inside the tank. "Bad luck to you, Kief - you almost got there but you just ran out of chances... as your girlfriend already knows. You all right?"
Nikki ran her hands over her head again, then just shrugged in response, her shoulders shaking with laughter. Dollops of mixed green and yellow slime slithered down from her shoulders, dripping in thick globs towards the tank's floor.
"I don't think she's going to be able to look at phone boxes in quite the same way again..." The host took his weight off the cubicle, and she looked to the side as a couple of stagehands appeared. They took one side of the tank each to wheel her carefully off the stage. "If you just go with them, you'll be able to get her back," he added to the other two.
Khimri joined in the cheer for the game's participants as Leon pointed after the stagehands, and the two of them got up and followed them into the wing. The host picked up the two chairs and handed them to the first stagehand as he approached again, and strolled to the front of the stage as he dashed back out of sight.
"All right! We've..." Leon paused as the noise of the audience died away, holding a hand up to acknowledge it. "We're going to have a hard time following that, but we do have one more student to gunge... Before we do that, I wanted to say that I was a little disappointed with this list." He reached into his suit pocket and produced a piece of paper, then brandished it in front of him.
Craning his neck to see, Khimri recognized it as the sign-up sheet that had been on the notice board throughout the past couple of weeks. It was virtually covered in nominations, with the printed table on both sides having been filled, and more entries having been added at the bottom and even around the sides as space filled up.
"I mean, there were plenty of... 'volunteers', obviously..." Leon continued, holding the list up next to him and turning it round as if reading through it again, "but you were the only college we've been to so far that didn't nominate one of the professors! What's wrong with you, Weiss?"
He laughed at the response from the crowd below him, and held his hand up again. "But... we sorted that out ourselves. We asked around a few departments, and someone from computer science was pretty willing to volunteer... or maybe it's better to say that the other members of staff were eager to volunteer someone who just finished her doctorate last year. I don't think she ever thought that this would be part of the teaching job description..."
Out of the corner of his eye, Khimri saw Borneo turn towards him, gaping. He looked back at him.
"There's only one professor he could be talking about," he said, pointing shakily to the stage.
"...so give a warm welcome to Rona!" Leon finished, a hand extended towards the rotating wall. Slowly, it began to spin, and Borneo leaned to the side to see as the other side was revealed.
The side coming round still had the inflatable chair below the pipe, but had been cleaned up again since it had last been on the stage. The new occupant of the seat was a golden brown canine, with shoulder-length blonde hair that shone under the stage lights. As a cheer greeted her entrance, she smiled a little and pushed her glasses back up to the top of her muzzle. She was wearing a pair of slim jeans with a casual, loosely buttoned shirt.
Khimri looked over at Borneo again, who was standing with his mouth open and was barely coherent.
"That... that's Rona who was my group's tutor in the first class I ever took here," he hissed, leaning closer to him. "I'll tell you, that was one class that I made sure I never missed..." He shuddered, looking up at the pipe above her head. "Never thought I'd see this... I just hope my battery lasts out!" He raised his camera again and held the viewfinder to his eye.
Leon was finishing introducing Rona as they both turned back to the stage. A stagehand brought out a thin podium, a box shape that was about waist high, from the left, setting it down a couple of feet in front of the chair before retreating back to the wing. The presenter strolled forward towards it as the canine eyed the large red button on the top worriedly.
"Just so you know the situation, Rona, there's quite a large tank of slime connected to the other end of the pipe above your head. You'll have guessed that this is going to do something..." He pointed towards the podium, then raised his hand in the air. Suddenly he brought his fist down sharply, thumping on the button.
Rona screamed and frantically curled up on the seat, bringing her legs up and hugging them, her head bowed and pressed into her tucked up legs. After a moment, she realized nothing was happening, and slowly returned to her sitting position, laughing nervously along with the audience as she glanced up at the imposing gunge chute.
"It isn't plugged in," Leon grinned, enjoying watching her squirm. "Because we want to be fair, we're going to have to get someone else to earn the chance to slime you first - is there anyone in Rona's class here?" he called out, spinning back towards the audience and moving towards the front of the stage.
"Kim." Borneo whipped the camera's neckstrap off over his head and handed it to him. "I'm counting on you," he said simply, then raised his hand in the air with a yell to the stage.
"'Scuse me. 'Scuse me..." Keeping his left hand up, he used his free elbow to negotiate his way through the surprised watchers in front of him. Khimri and Electra heard a couple of yelps as those who were too slow were pushed out of the way.
"Well, I see we've found one volunteer... I'd give him some room just to make sure you get out of here alive!" Leon beckoned the muscular canid up as he reached the stairs at the front of the stage, walking over to exchange a few words with Rona before spinning to face the audience. "Anyone else?"
Khimri looked down at the camera, trying to remember how to work it from when he had used it earlier. As a couple of slightly more reluctant audience members were called up to the stage, he found the movie recording tab and raised the camera to his face.
"You remember on Saturday morning game shows when you were still in school, where the contestants would get to gunge one of their teachers?" Leon was asking to the audience in general. There was a murmur, and a couple of cheers above it. "Well, we'd like to think we're above that level... but really, we're not."
He turned towards the back of the stage as a crew member came on, carrying a tangle of cables that he dumped on the floor next to Rona. She leaned over the side of the blowup seat, looking down at them as the host walked in front of her.
"So this is your chance to relive that... All you have to do is get that trigger plugged in to the socket here within one minute." He pointed down at an unusually-shaped wall socket near the ground on the right hand side of the stage, as the screen changed to a view of a stopwatch face. "Of course, the puzzle is to find out which cables can plug into which, and how you can get them to stretch as far as you need."
The three of them walked over to the cable bundle, and Borneo leaned down to scoop a handful up and examine their plugs.
"Ready?" Leon asked them, provoking a confident nod from the red canid in response. "Are you ready, Rona?" he asked as he turned to her. Laughing quietly, she shook her head as a klaxon sounded and the timer began.
Borneo immediately thrust a handful of wires in the direction of the other two volunteers, gesticulating and saying something that Khimri couldn't hear above the encouragement from the crowd. The two of them dashed off, one to the socket and the other to the podium in front of the chair, as he rummaged through the pile frantically.
Khimri watched keenly through the viewfinder as the game progressed, with Borneo taking charge of sorting out the wires and flinging them at the other two as they got closer together. Rona was leaning with her elbows on one arm of the blowup chair, her hands on her cheeks as she tensely watched them slowly progress over the width of the stage.
The noise from the watchers intensified as the two strands almost touched, the time on the screen rapidly running out. A chant started up, but quickly faded into the encouragement of the rest of the audience. Suddenly a shout came from the back of the stage and Borneo proudly dashed over, holding the last piece of cable they needed up in the air as he reached the two ends. To the applause of the watchers, he jammed them together and looked over at the podium as the button on its top lit up.
Rona bit her lip nervously, shuffling her feet a little as Leon joined in the applause. "Come over here, you three..." he said, beckoning them over and gathering them around the button. He gestured towards it, and each of them placed one hand on its dome-shaped top.
"Ready for this, Rona?" Leon grinned at her as she risked looking up into the pipe again, bouncing her heels on the floor. She just gave a sickly grin back, and shook her head. "You can start in your own time, gentlemen..."
"Just before we start... is this going to affect my grade at all, Rona?" Borneo looked up to ask her. The canine laughed a little along with the audience, and put her hand on her chin thoughtfully.
"Only if there's not enough gunge - it had better be worth it!" she replied.
Borneo gave a look out to the audience, then visibly took a deep breath before he counted down silently to the others. After thumping on the button together, they ran to the side to watch.
Rona stared at the flashing button in front of her as a loud hooter sounded, then she tensed up, clasping her hands at her chest and drumming her feet on the floor. A cheer went up above the noise of the alarm as a wide downpour of deep turquoise gunge with streaks of white dropped from the pipe above her, and with a squeak she flinched, closing her eyes, as the stuff smacked on the top of her head and shoulders. The thick liquid domed out from her head on one side, leaving one half of her laughing face visible as the gunk splattered out over her. As she shifted slightly in the seat, the dome slumped down to hide her from view completely.
Khimri leaned to the side to see past the cheering watchers in front of him, getting her back into the shot as the smooth slime continued to fall. Every so often an air pocket bubbled out of the pipe, making the slimy umbrella twitch and splatter further out over the stage, briefly letting the audience catch glimpses of the increasingly gungy canine underneath the downpour. Borneo hopped back a little as a wave licked towards him.
After a few seconds, the flow began to ease off, and Rona ducked to one side, her slime-streaked face a mixture of shock and laughter as the remains of the gunk drizzled on to her. As the last few drops spattered on to her shoulder, she leaned back into a sitting position and sighed, sagging in the chair, her messy hair falling to cover her face. Large globules of the gunge slowly slid down her, the white mingling into the darker color as it went.
Under the coating of glistening slime, her head moved up again, and she raised her hands to her face, watching the ooze drip through her fingers. Giggling to herself, she looked out at the audience over her hands, then drew them back and tossed her hair behind her head. Thick dollops of the stuff splattered against the back wall as they were flicked from it.
Leon, his hands up in front of him as he joined in the applause, stepped carefully over the wide splatter mark to approach the canine again. "Was that enough for you?" he asked, leaning down so their faces were level. Rona nodded, raising her arms again as she looked down at her gunge-coated fur. The movement made more of the stuff slither off her arms and shoulders and slowly drip down the seat, and she squeaked as she felt it flow over her. As he moved away from her again, she picked at her soaked shirt, trying without success to straighten it out a little and stop it clinging heavily to her.
"Well, I think you knew exactly what was going to happen to you, so I think you're a great sport for agreeing to come on at all. Wasn't she?" he encouraged the audience, who erupted into a cheer again as he held his hand out towards her, ready to send her off the stage.
"Hold on." Borneo dashed to the chair and extended his arms to Rona. She hauled herself up with difficulty under the weight of the slime and accepted the hug, wiping her slippery hands down his back as she placed her head on his shoulder. As they broke off, she gave him a quick peck on the cheek before sitting down heavily.
Borneo turned around, walking to the front of the stage and laughing as the audience whooped. "I hope you got that, Khimri!" he shouted, pointing straight at him and wiping the turquoise gunk from his face with his other hand. He stepped on to the stairs, and behind him the wall began to rotate back again. The movement dislodged another few slimy drips from the pipe, which splatted on to Rona as she was carried out of view.
Khimri put his hands on Electra's shoulders as she stared up at the presenter, feeling her bouncing on her heels as she waited for him to speak again. She wriggled out from his light grasp, standing on her tiptoes to watch.
"I think that might be the highlight of the show for many of you, but we do have one..." He stopped, frozen in place for a moment, and then cupped his hand to his ear. A gasp went up from the audience as they heard the noise as well - an electronic ringtone was shrilling conspicuously from near the stage. Khimri smiled to himself - even though the phone votes were a regular part of the show, they had a reputation for harsh consequences if one went off unexpectedly.
Leon put his hands down and dashed towards the side, crouching down to talk to the source of the noise. "Hi," he smiled down at the unseen watcher, not entirely unthreateningly. "Was that a genuine mistake - you'd forgotten to turn it off?" he asked, then nodded as the audience member he was talking to said something that Khimri couldn't hear.
"You're just lucky that we've used the phone booth already," he said, making the audience laugh. He straightened up, and slowly walked towards the back of the stage. Suddenly he took hold of a part of piping that was on the stage wall, and wrenched it off to reveal that it was actually a device that looked like a water cannon, attached to the back of the stage by a length of flexible tubing.
He walked back to the front of the stage brandishing the pipe in front of him, and the group in the area he was pointing at all jumped a little out of the way. Khimri stepped back as the crowd jostled against him from the movement near the front.
"Fortunately we do have a backup plan!" the panther announced, and tugged on a switch on the side of the tube. With a loud hissing noise, a jet of white pie foam erupted from the end, and a feminine shriek came up from the crowd as the stream hit her. Specks of foam spurted out above the heads of the crowd from the impact.
Khimri craned his neck to see as the presenter played the stream up and down, catching a glimpse of the shocked foam-splattered girl at the front through the rest of the audience. After a couple of seconds, Leon shut the foam gun off again and hoisted it back to his shoulder.
"Nothing personal," he laughed, walking over to return the pipe to the wall. He hooked it back into place and dashed back to address the audience again. "Like I was saying, we do have one more volunteer, and she was by far the one that had the most money raised for her..."
The table of entrants came up again on the screen, and Khimri watched it as it slowly changed to reveal the final nominee.
"Electra!" Leon shouted above the noise of the audience. "Where are you?"
"Looks like it's my turn," Khimri heard from in front of him. He swallowed, trying to clear his head, and watched as Electra unzipped her rainjacket to reveal a yellow one-piece swimsuit underneath. After standing for a moment uncertainly, she bounced up and waved her arms a little, blinking as a spotlight swung towards her. As the surrounding watchers applauded, she glanced back at Khimri with a grin, handed him her jacket, and pushed her way through the crowd to the front.
Leon bent down as she got to the foot of the stairs, the watchers at the front stepping aside to make way for her. A couple of whoops and wolf-whistles went up as she scampered up the steps and shook Leon's outstretched hand. As she stood up beside him, he put his arm around her and addressed the audience.
"So, this is Electra, she's in her first year here, and you must have seen her before, because she was popular enough to have a whole advertising campaign for her all around the campus just to get her in here. Pleased with so much support, Electra?"
"I guess so," she smiled back, a nonchalant look on her face. Khimri noticed her wringing her hands a little behind her back, obviously nervous.
"Well, I'm afraid that we're not about to disappoint them..."
Khimri stood on his tiptoes and leaned to the side to see past the crowd in front of him as another tank was wheeled on to the stage. This one was a simple cubicle with a large cylindrical container on top, filled with thick orange-yellow stuff that sloshed a little from side to side as it was moved across to the center. The bunny girl put her hand to her mouth to stifle a giggle as the two stagehands turned it around to face out at the audience. As they moved offstage again, Leon put his arm around her and led her over to it.
Another few shouts of encouragement sounded as the panther stepped around to open the swinging door, and raised a hand to motion her inside. Stepping into the tank, she looked over her shoulder and waved before turning around to sit down, looking up eagerly into the gunge pipe above her as she was shut inside.
"All right, Electra, are you comfortable in there?" Leon asked, pacing back across the tank and leaning on its side.
"Yeah." The bunny girl wriggled her bare toes, curling them as she drummed her feet on the floor excitedly.
"Well, as it's the last game of the evening, we had to make things a little harder for you than usual - I'm going to ask you three questions, getting harder each time." He reached into his pocket and took out a single card as he continued. "And if you get any of them wrong at all, then I think you know the consequences..."
Electra looked out at the audience, smiling a little embarrassedly as another cheer started up for her. "But..." Leon continued, quieting them, "we need to give you some sort of prize if you get all three of them right. Do you even know who put you in here?"
"I have a fair idea," she smiled.
"Well, let's find out - would the mysterious 'E.G.C.' please make himself known?" Leon called out towards the audience.
Khimri looked over at Borneo as he turned around and clapped his hand on his shoulder. He smiled back at him knowingly, then raised his arms up, enjoying the sound of the applause as he moved up towards the stage.
Electra's mouth fell open in shock as the crowd parted to make way. "You!" she gasped, laughing as he climbed the steps towards her.
Khimri nodded back, before daring to turn around and look out at the audience again. Despite his nervousness, he forced a smile before looking back at the bunny girl.
"Sorry," he mouthed to her, but couldn't help grinning at her surprised expression. She sighed, and waved a finger at him.
"Not who you were expecting, Electra?" Leon asked, walking past Khimri to talk to her again.
"No," Electra said after a pause. "But I should have seen it coming."
"Well, he's the one that you're going to get gunged if you get out of there clean. Sorry, what's your name, by the way?" he asked, spinning around to face Khimri again and thrusting his microphone in his direction. He looked aside and cleared his throat, startled at the sudden question, then answered.
"And why did you want to put your... girlfriend? Friend?" - Khimri nodded - "in here?"
Khimri opened his mouth and hesitated, not sure of what to say. He grinned uncomfortably at the laugh from the audience, and looked at the host again as the gray panther put his hand on his shoulder.
"Well, sometimes you don't need a reason. Come over here and we'll see..."
Khimri followed him the couple of paces over to the tank, where Electra was still looking mildly shocked. He leaned on the side of the tank, looking down at her as Leon moved to the other side.
"Like I was saying - three questions, Electra. Are you ready?"
"Yep." Her confidence returning, the bunny girl nodded her head.
A tense bass note boomed over the stage speakers as the lights on stage fell and a pair of spotlights focused on the tank. Khimri awkwardly shuffled back out of the light as Electra wriggled, keeping her eyes on the spot where Leon's voice was coming from even though she couldn't see him.
"Number one, Electra - is this true or false? Tomatoes are a type of fruit", he read out, slowly and clearly. She pursed her lips, tapping her fingers on her knee as she thought. "True."
"Second question - which of these isn't a normal playing piece in Monopoly? A boot, hat, plane or boat?"
"I don't remember a plane..." she said back.
"Final answer?" he asked.
"Yep." She nodded confidently, but shivered at the same time. Blinking in the bright spotlights, she moved her gaze over to Khimri, who nodded back at her.
"Last question. As we're doing the university tour at the moment - what is the name of the founder of Weiss College?"
Electra grinned as the question was read out. "Hendry E. Weiss!" she answered enthusiastically.
Khimri blinked as the lights came back up a little to reveal a grinning Leon. The audience was silent.
"Well, Electra - how do you think you did?"
"Aren't you going to tell me?" She wriggled in the chair, her hands clasped between her thighs.
"Well, you got the first question right - I thought you'd be caught out by the pressure, but as everyone knows, tomatoes are a fruit." She nodded.
"The third question - you know, usually we get people with questions like that, but you were right! I'm sure you'll forget all the university history you had to learn by the end of this year, though..." Electra laughed a little at the comment, but tapped her toes on the floor of the tank tensely as she waited for the last question's result.
"As for the second one..." Leon drew his breath in through his teeth, looking apologetic as he shook his head. Electra's mouth fell open, and she leaned forward, putting her hands on top of the tank's door, as she waited for him to say something.
Suddenly he grinned again. "You got that one right as well. All three right means you've escaped!"
Khimri jumped at the noise from the audience, but pulled himself together quickly, hoping he didn't look as shocked as he felt. He looked up again into the orange liquid-filled cube on top of the tank, and then down to Electra, who was excitedly bouncing in her seat and pointing up at him triumphantly. Dazed, he watched Leon walk past him and open the door to free her, and she took his hand and tugged him towards the open tank.
Turning around as he sat down in the plastic chair, he looked up into the gunge pipe, which was covered by a black disc that was held in place by a small catch at the front. Shivering, he pictured it sliding aside and releasing the stuff that was now poised above his head.
"Just one thing before we carry on, Khimri..." Leon said, and he snapped back into paying attention. "I can't help thinking how difficult it would be to get that stuff up there off the shirt you're wearing..."
Khimri glanced down at his dark shirt and tried to laugh the comment off quietly, but looked up again in surprise at the loud high-pitched whoop that went up from the females in the audience. He looked out the front of the tank at the front row of watchers, catching a glimpse of the foamy girl from earlier shouting encouragement.
Electra stepped into his vision, and leaned over the door of the tank to reach for his top button. He raised his hands up instinctively, but then dropped them back to his side as he relented, letting her unbutton it as the applause continued. After leaning awkwardly down the way as she reached the last couple, she stepped back and tugged open the door of the tank, then walked in as he wriggled the shirt off his arms.
Leon moved to the open door behind them, and accepted the shirt as Electra handed it out to him. Pausing for a moment, he nodded with a smile as the blue rabbit motioned for him to close the door on them both.
"Changed your mind about coming out of there, Electra?" he asked as the door clicked shut. Khimri swallowed as she swung one leg over him to sit on his lap.
"Yeah, I wouldn't want to disappoint anyone," she answered as she wriggled backwards to sit comfortably. Tentatively, he placed his hands on her waist, circling his fingers a little as he looked up into the covered opening above them.
"Very considerate," the panther nodded, walking away from them and pacing around the back of the tank to address the audience again. Khimri swallowed, trying to keep his nerves from showing as he felt his heart speed up. "Can I get a countdown from five?"
Khimri tensed up, counting each second under his breath with the audience as they rapidly went past, watching the lights around the two of them dim so that they were spotlit on the stage. Wriggling uncomfortably underneath the excited bunny girl, he curled down a little and held his breath.
He gripped her waist a little tighter as the countdown finished, and glanced up as the catch on the pipe above them snicked aside and the cover fell open, causing a glutinous column of slime to spew from the tank. Moving his eyes down again, he heard Electra squeal as the gunge domed off her head, and caught a glimpse of the yellow wave coming towards him before he shut his eyes as it splurged into his face.
Turning his head to the side and spluttering slime off his muzzle, Khimri grinned to himself at the cool, heavy feeling of the gunge flowed over him, slapping into the side of his face and his shoulders. He held tightly on to Electra as she squirmed around on top of him, her hands clasped just under her flattened ears as the slippery orange and yellow mixture slithered and splattered down the way after landing on her head. Only dimly aware of the sound of the tank's siren and the loud cheering of the audience in front of them, he listened to the continuous wet smack that the stuff made as it landed on the cubicle floor or slapped against the walls.
Electra wriggled on top of him again, sending the gooey wave behind her back into his face for a moment, and he shook his head from side to side as he felt the wet gunge on it drizzle slowly downwards. He shuddered as the slime creeping down Electra's sides reached his hands, slowly oozing down to cover them as well.
Suddenly the column of gunge twitched backwards to towards him, and he closed his eyes tightly as he felt it slop over his head, rebounding down to his shoulders and creeping over his chest and back. He hunched down under the heavy flow, hesitantly tilting his head from side to side to allow it to completely cover him.
Feeling the downpour subside a little, he straightened up and shook his head again, feeling the ooze being shifted back to the bunny girl as it eased to a thin drizzle. Taking one hand off her waist, he dragged it across his eyes to wipe the slime away. He opened his eyes to see the gunge-coated bunny girl on his lap acknowledging the cheering of the onlookers with both hands in the air, and she gave a whoop that turned into a giggle as she glanced down at herself.
Khimri, moving slowly and shuddering as the slime on him dripped and slithered down with every movement, leaned out to the side to look over the yellow-covered door at them as well. He could just make out Borneo, standing on his tiptoes to get a better view, as he put two fingers in his mouth to whistle above the cheer.
Electra brought her hands down and wiped at her sodden ears as she glanced over her shoulder at him with a smile. He yelped as she twisted back the way to scrub the slime she'd wiped off herself into his hair, breathing out heavily as she leaned back and slipped her gungy arm around his shoulder. Looking tentatively up to watch the last dollops of slime splatter heavily out of the tank above them, he jumped as she leaned in to give him a kiss on the cheek.
Leon, after hanging back and letting the audience watch the messy pair inside the tank, stepped forward again and stretched his arm around to pick the coated door open. As it swung outwards, he raised his arm to motion them out, the lights being turned on again.
Khimri let go of Electra's side as she slithered off his lap and back on to her feet, shivering as her bare toes dipped into the gungy pool at the bottom of the tank. Standing up himself, he followed her, feeling the thick slippery stuff trickle down through his fur as he moved.
"Thanks for coming on, Electra and Khimri!" the host called above the cheering, which intensified again as he held his hand out towards them, handing back the shirt as he did so. Khimri watched as the bunny girl turned to look up at him, and giggled as she saw his slime-coated face. Smiling back, he stepped towards her and put his arm on her shoulder, then moved to walk off the stage.
At that moment he heard a movement behind him, and turned to see the used gunge tank being wheeled off by one of the stagehands. Suddenly, he jerked his head to the side as he saw the other one - he was struggling to push a larger tank on to the stage. The new machine was taller and had a crude metallic look to it, with battered metal walls and a covered section at the top.
"Now, you might recognize this as the tank that we always use to finish off the show..." Leon said, "...but we need someone to volunteer to get in there before we say goodbye." He turned towards one of the stagehands as he produced a small white envelope, took it, and held it up. "Someone in this room's about to get very messy..." Khimri realized with a start that they might have planned something more for the nominator of the most popular victim. He looked up at the envelope, and followed its movement as Leon handed it to the bunny girl beside him.
"Electra, would you like to do the honors?"
Electra nodded, running one hand through her messy hair and flicking the slime to the floor as she took the envelope with her other hand. Looking down at it, she undid the butterfly clip holding it closed with some difficulty, and Khimri shuffled over to look over her shoulder as she pulled out a card with a single name written boldly across it.
The bunny's eyes widened, her shoulders shaking as she laughed. "It's me," she announced, looking up to face Leon again. He extended an arm to her and turned her round to face the metallic tank at the center of the stage.
"I'm afraid so..." he replied as they walked towards it. Khimri followed them, relieved but also finding himself a little disappointed. "You didn't think we'd let you get away with just that, did you?" the panther asked, hauling open the machine's door.
"Well... no." Electra stepped into the tank and turned around to sit down on the chair in the center. The gloomy interior was lined with nozzles protruding slightly out of the walls, only just visible close up.
"So here's how it's going to work..." Leon slammed the door shut as the bunny girl got comfortable, and reached into his pocket to produce a small mobile phone. "You've seen what happens when one of these goes off without warning here, but you've got my permission to use them now..." He laughed as he looked down at it, dialing a number with his thumb.
"That's the number for the tank..." he said, pointing to the top of the front, where a phone number was stenciled. "And because I think we've got enough money out of you tonight, it's not going to cost you anything to dial." Khimri watched the audience as cellphones were brought out from bags and pockets. "And once your top volunteer Electra gets two hundred calls, that tank's going to activate and send her off in our style." He looked to the screen at the side of the stage, which was now displaying the number 200.
Electra leaned forward, one hand on the tank's door and the other wiping the yellow stuff from her forehead, as some of the watchers started looking down to enter the number.
"Want to show them what else happens when a call's received, Khimri?" Leon asked, and he looked around to see him offering the phone to him.
He took it, nodding. This section always happened at the end of the program, and he and Electra had seen it happen to many other participants on TV. Looking down at the dial button, he looked to Electra, who had her hands clasped at her chest tensely. Swallowing, he stabbed the button.
A loud hissing noise made the bunny girl jump, and a sharp spray of white foam jetted on to her from one of the nozzles at the side of the tank. After jerking her face away from it, she slowly moved back, wiping at her cheek with her hand.
Her shoulders sagged as she breathed out, and suddenly another spray hit her from the ceiling, then the far side of the tank. Khimri glanced at the on-screen counter as it rapidly decreased, then back to the tank. With more of the audience dialing in to the tank, she was now being slathered from all angles by the foam sprayers, her giggling face just visible under the white mass as she held her hands out to one side in an attempt to defend herself.
Suddenly, the cascades of foam stopped, and a low siren began sounding repeatedly. Khimri watched as Electra returned to her sitting position. The bunny girl, colored completely white from the foam, smiled out at him as she wiped at her face, and was suddenly hidden from view by a massive column of orange and brown gunge from the tank's ceiling. A shriek came from underneath the upturned bowl shape as it fanned out messily from her head.
Khimri watched worriedly as the heavy downpour slopped over her, the bunny girl now only visible as a squirming vague blob above the surface of the foam as the gunge slithered down her head. The foam surface buckled and wobbled as the slime disturbed it, a continuous wave of white froth spilling out the front of the tank. He leaned down a little to see, and caught a glimpse of her half-giggling, half-shrieking expression through the transparent door, her eyes tightly closed against the gooey shower.
Looking up, he noticed the gunge flow slowly stopping, first thinning out then becoming a continuous drizzle, the last few drops dribbling out on to her hunched-up neck. She was now a mess of foam and slime, hardly recognizable underneath it all, with her ears flattened down on to her head and gunge oozing and trickling down from every strand of her fur.
Slowly, she rose from her curled-up position, a shocked smile on her messy face as she looked out at him, the mixed gunge colors slowly oozing from her coated hair. As she straightened up, another drizzle started up from the top of the tank, and she squeezed her eyes closed again as the gunk sputtered on to her head.
He became aware of the cheering and whistling of the crowd again as Leon stepped forward to give a last goodbye to the audience, shouting above them happily as he announced the final amount raised during the night. Electra, still giggling helplessly, slowly dragged handfuls of gunk off her hair and playfully flung them in Khimri's direction as he turned back to them, the stage lights going down.
"Electra - thanks for coming on!" he said, advancing towards the tank again with his hand outstretched. She pulled an arm out of the gungy mixture and held it towards him to accept the handshake.
"And Khimri - I think you did well to get her the number one spot, it looks like she enjoyed it!" Khimri shook his outstretched hand, the gunk that had got onto Leon's hand from Electra squishing between them.
Leon flicked the slime on his hand to the floor as he let go, and turned to watch the reappearance of the stagehands. "We'll get your souvenir packs sent to you soon - if you go with them, Khimri, they'll help you escape." Khimri, still feeling a little dazed at the whole experience, watched the two of them take a side of the tank each and began to follow them off as the host dashed off the other side of the stage, giving a final wave to the audience as he went.
The two of them wheeled the tank to the back wall of the wing of the stage, Electra fixing her gaze on Khimri as she was turned to face him. One of the stagehands, a dark-furred wolf, laughed as he straightened up. "You all right in there?"
The slippery bunny girl nodded, sticking her tongue out at Khimri, and heaved herself upwards against the weight of the slime as the door was opened a little for her. Stumbling out amongst a pile of stained foam, she pounced at Khimri and hugged him, making sure to rub her face around his chest and smear as much slime as possible over him. Khimri stumbled backwards a little, raising his hands up and reaching for her shoulders.
"Will you be wanting water?" The stagehand that had let her out of the tank held up a bucket. "There's a bit of a line for the showers." Khimri nodded, and tapped Electra on the shoulder to get her attention. They followed him out the stage door and outside, to an area of the building's forecourt that was now covered by a few square meters of messy tarpaulin.
"Ready?" he asked, taking hold of the handle of the bucket with one hand and the base with the other. Electra cuddled into him as he nodded again, and he put his arm around her as the stagehand pulled back for throwing.
He tensed up, closing his eyes as he felt the water smack against him, and heard Electra squeak loudly at the lukewarm wave. Hissing through his teeth at the temperature, he looked down at himself and brushed some of the thinned-out slime and water mixture off his chest. Tentatively, he slipped his shirt back on, flinching as the material soaked up the cold water and clung to his back. He looked up as the wolf offered a thin blanket, and wrapped it around his shoulders as Electra was handed one too. "Thanks," he remembered as the stagehand dashed back inside.
"You know, I don't envy the people who have to clean up that show," he said, looking over his shoulder as the two of them walked away, heading towards the student residences. "We're going to have to get back and take a real shower."
"Do you want to use mine?" Electra asked him, running her hand through her hair and grabbing at a blob that was still there. She flicked it off her hand to the ground. "It's closer." She lived in one of the newer buildings that had ensuite bathrooms built in to the rooms, rather than one shared bathroom for every four people like most of the residences.
"Sure... that would be better than queuing up for the shower in my block. I bet it'll be being used for the rest of the night."
The two of them changed direction, walking back through the quad to reach the path to the new residences. Khimri stepped down a shallow set of stairs, then looked behind him as Electra returned to his side. He jumped, startled, as she slipped her hand into his, swinging it gently as they walked.
"So..." she started, looking at the ground. "What I want to know is... why did you want to get me on?"
Khimri paused, looking straight ahead and allowing a silence to hang while he tried to think of how to explain it in his head. "I kind of wanted to go on myself, but I was too... shy, I suppose," he struggled. He glanced at the bunny girl beside him, who nodded. He decided to get it over with. "And I knew you'd enjoy it because I saw you on Industrial Zone last year."
The bunny girl froze momentarily in surprise, then snickered to herself, let go of his hand and clapped her hands together.
"I was waiting for someone to mention that! I'm surprised people didn't mention it before." She shook her head, laughing again. "Why didn't you say earlier?"
"I was kind of embarrassed about it..." Borneo answered, lowering his voice a little as he felt exactly the same way now. "I thought it was you when Borneo first introduced us, but I wasn't absolutely certain."
"So you're a bit of an IZ fan, are you?" Electra asked, changing the subject back and poking him amusedly in the side. He shivered at the feeling of her still-slimy finger.
Khimri hesitated again. "Yeah," he eventually decided. "A little."
Electra just smiled knowingly, then shook her head. "I didn't think for a moment it was you putting those posters up," she said. "It doesn't seem like the kind of thing you'd do."
"Well... I actually only made the one, the one that you saw in the philosophy building just before the exam. Someone must have got hold of it and made copies themselves - people really wanted to slime you." He paused again, and decided to continue before he thought about it too much. "You're absolutely beautiful."
He felt himself blush a little as he said it, and glanced down at her, hoping she wouldn't be too taken aback by the comment. Instead, she just giggled and caught his hand again, swinging their clasped hands between them.
"Even like this?" she asked, cuddling a little into his shoulder and pointing out her gunge-coated hair and shoulders.
He laughed with her, and turned to face forwards again. He'd barely noticed the walk because of the conversation, and was suddenly aware they were approaching the entrance to the building where Electra and Borneo's rooms were. As they came nearer, she fumbled for the keys in her bag, and Khimri shivered as a gust of wind gave him a chill, looking forward to the shower inside. Eventually she found them and opened the door, holding it for him to go in first.
He had been in the building many times before, as like any student who had brought their own television to the college, Borneo's room was a popular place to spend time. The door to the building opened into the common area with a couple of sofas, TV and table, with a kitchen area at the back. A set of stairs led up from this room to an upper floor.
Electra led him through to the corridor beyond the common area, where four dorm rooms had their entrances. Khimri glanced across at Borneo's door - it didn't seem like he was back yet, as his door was usually left open if he was in.
Electra slid the key into her lock and turned it, opening the door to her own room. Khimri followed her in and looked around - he had been in here a couple of times, but not for any length of time. The room was kept much neater than his own, with the bed neatly made, the computer desk opposite it almost blank apart from her closed laptop, and a couple of posters stuck up on the doors of the closet.
"Who's going first?" the rabbit asked from behind him. She pushed open the door to the bathroom, flicked the light on and turned the tap for the shower. Bringing her fingers up to pick it off her shoulders, she shrugged her thin jacket off, revealing her messy swimsuit again.
"I think you need it more than I do," Khimri laughed, indicating the blobs of foam and mixed gunge that were still clinging to her fur. She smiled down at herself, then nodded and moved back towards the bathroom door.
"All right, you know where my computer is. See you in a minute!" She pushed the door closed eagerly and Khimri heard the click of the lock, then the change in sound of the hiss of water against the tiles as she stepped into the shower.
Trying not to touch anything, Khimri paced about the room for a while, his arms stretched out to the sides with his fingers spread out. He'd enjoyed getting slimed, but after it had been on a while it had begun to feel sticky and heavy, and he was looking forward to his turn in the shower.
To distract himself from the clammy feeling, he wandered over to the closet to take a closer look at the posters. He smirked to himself as he looked down and saw a couple of male model centerfolds that had been stuck on the lower half where they couldn't be seen from the door - he hadn't thought that she would have anything like that in her room.
Hearing the click of the bathroom lock again, he glanced over as Electra re-emerged, a large towel wrapped around her from her underarms to knees.
"I thought you might like to get in the shower while it's still warm," she said as she approached. "There's an extra towel on the pipes."
"Thanks." Khimri glanced back at her as she picked up a corner of the towel and wiped at her face, then stepped into the bathroom himself, locking the door behind him.
Using the tips of his fingers, he slung his damp shirt over the free end of the towel rack, then stripped off his jeans and underwear, leaving them in a soggy heap on the tiled floor. The yellow and orange mixture on them didn't seem to be drying at all, and it still felt clammy against his fur. Pushing the plain shower curtain aside, he tested the water with his hand first before stepping into the shower basin.
Immediately, he felt the thick liquid in his hair and fur being washed away, and looked down to watch as the stuff dripped and splatted messily against the shower floor. As he tilted his head upwards, more came loose, and he felt much lighter as he slowly brushed it out of his fur.
As he showered, running his hands through his fur to wash away the slime that had crept everywhere, he let his mind wander to the coming journey home and the holidays. His parents were still in the town for the next couple of days, and after that they would be taking the train home to spend the few weeks until the beginning of the next term.
Glancing down as he put his hand on the tap, he saw blobs of orange and yellow still clinging to the tiles, and he tried as best as he could to wash the rest of the slime down the drain before stepping fully out of the shower and moving to the towel rack.
He picked up the extra towel that Electra had left out, which wasn't much bigger than a hand towel. Shaking it out, he rubbed it over his head and hair, smiling at the welcome feeling of being clean again. Quickly drying himself off, he looked around for the change of clothes that he'd brought with him, and suddenly realized that he'd left them at the foot of Electra's bed. He looked at the door, wondering whether he should knock on it or call her to pass them through, or whether that would just be too awkward. Eventually, he tried wrapping the undersized towel tightly around his waist, folding it over at the top so it was reasonably secure, and tentatively unlocked and opened the door.
"Ellie..." he started as he leaned out. She wasn't at her computer desk as he had expected, and he glanced over to look for her. She was on the bed, lying on her tummy and engrossed in a book, gently swaying her feet in the air behind her. She was wearing nothing but a bra and matching underwear. As she heard the door open she turned her head towards him.
"S... sorry," he stammered, averting his eyes and beginning to pull the door closed again. He stopped as he heard her laugh, and watched as she picked herself up from her lying position, swinging her bare legs around so that she was sitting on the edge of the bed.
"Don't be so shy! Come here," she said, patting the empty space beside her.
Khimri hesitated in the doorway, swallowing nervously. After a moment he forced himself to walk forward, still conscious he was wearing only a towel, and he drifted towards the amused-looking rabbit girl. As he approached, he realized that it wasn't just normal underwear she was wearing - she had put on a revealing bikini set that was tied by large bow-shaped knots on her hip and across her back.
He sat down heavily on the bed to her left, placing his hands behind him to prop himself up. Eagerly, she shuffled sideways towards him, and he jumped as he felt her hand stroke around his back to his left hand side.
"I... didn't think you owned anything like that," he said carefully, nodding to indicate her pink bikini.
Electra glanced down at it herself. "One of my friends at home got it for my eighteenth - he said that I would need something like this for the boys at college. I think it was a bit of a joke present." She looked him in the eye, leaning up towards him a little. "But this seemed the perfect time for it!"
Suddenly she got up, bringing her leg over him so that she was straddling his lap. Khimri caught himself staring as her breasts bounced a little as she moved. "Do you like it?" she grinned sweetly, posing with one hand on her hip.
"...Yeah." Khimri felt his dry mouth as he spoke, and swallowed. He gripped the bedclothes a little tighter and forced his eyes up to her face. Slowly, she leaned down towards him, settling to sit on his lap and putting her hands on his shoulders, and before he realized what was happening, their mouths met in a kiss.
Still taken by surprise at the whole situation, Khimri gradually raised his hands off the bed and wrapped his arms around her in a hug, one hand around her waist and the other reaching up to her shoulder behind her. As their lips parted again he got a little more confident, and leaned towards her for another kiss, putting his hand up behind her head and gently scritching her hair.
He smiled as he smelled the scent of the soap she had showered with, feeling her soft fur against him as she slipped her hands around his back in a hug. Leaning forward, she rested her head on his shoulder, gently nibbling at it with her lips.
"You're... gorgeous," he heard himself say after a moment. The two of them stayed like that for a few moments in silence, and he smiled as he realized that he could feel her heartbeat on his chest.
He let his hand leave her hair and stroked gently up and down her back a couple of times, finding himself lingering as his hand passed by the large bow of string across her back. He paused, his finger resting on the knot.
"Wanna take it off?" she murmured into his ear, turning her head to kiss him on the side of his neck.
Khimri tensed up, feeling his heart quicken as he glanced down at the knot on her back that his hand was resting on. Trembling, he slid his hand across a little and took hold of one end of the string.
"H'mm." Electra sighed contentedly, stroking her arms up and down his back as she cuddled into him. He tugged on the string and it came loose easily, and he felt her breasts shift down a little against his chest as the strapless bikini top fell down between them. With a glance down, she brushed it off his lap.
"Don't you think you're wearing a bit much yourself?" she asked innocently, her head still bowed down but looking up into his eyes. She put her hand back to his shoulder and then traced down his side with one finger, hooking it into the top of the towel wrapped around his waist. With a tug, she loosened it up enough for it to fall open at the back, so that it was just draped across him between them.
Khimri wriggled a little uncomfortably at the pressure on his lap, and Electra knelt up again, giggling quietly as she felt him squirm. Sliding her right hand down his arm to meet his left wrist, she gently pushed it downwards along her side and to the slight curve of her hip, placing his hand on the knot for her bikini bottoms. Feeling her mouth shape into a grin as she kissed him again, he flinched as she returned her hand to his shoulder. After a moment to compose himself, he fumbled for the end of the string and shakily, slowly began pulling on it.
He gasped as Electra wiggled her hips from side to side on top of him, encouraging the knot to come undone faster, and he felt the string suddenly come loose in his hand. Propping herself up a little on her knees as he returned his hands to her waist, she reached down to her bottom and unhooked the underwear from her tail, then tossed them behind her. Squirming awkwardly to take the towel out from between them, she tugged it out and dropped it off the side of the bed as well.
Still feeling light-headed and hardly believing what was happening, Khimri slid both his hands down to her hips. He tried to resist the urge to take his eyes off her face as the naked bunny girl cuddled into him again, her head down on his shoulder and her ears draped lazily across his head. Glancing down her back, he slipped one hand around to her fluffy tail. Gently but firmly, he squeezed it, smiling as she squeaked in response. Picking her head up again and facing him, she began slowly circling her hips on his lap.
Khimri shivered again as she wriggled further up, feeling every inch of her against him. Their faces met again, and he closed his eyes as he pursed his lips.
"Ellie..." he started nervously between kisses, unsure if he should say what he was about to say. "I've... I've never done this before."
She paused a moment, and drew her head back, looking into his eyes. With a grin, she shrugged in response.
"Neither have I," she whispered, and put her hands behind his head as she moved in to kiss him again, pushing him gently downwards.
Borneo took his head away from the door and straightened up, rubbing at the ear that he had had pressed against it. Casually, he clasped his hands behind his back, and strolled happily towards the front room with a wide grin on his face.
"What are you so pleased with yourself about?" a roommate slouched on the sofa asked, glancing up from his handheld game as Borneo emerged from the corridor.
"Oh, nothing... I just think it's time to give those two a bit of privacy." He picked up his bag from the floor and dug around in it for the camera. "You know, there's a video in here that I think you might be interested in..."