INDUSTRIAL ZONE - KIT AND RENE
Written by Iron-K in 2017

A sliver of light pierced the darkness of the room as the heavy door clanked open, a bright rectangle spreading across the back wall. As it grew, it illuminated the room's main feature - a cubicle built into the wall, its walls and back covered in a complex array of switches and dials. As three figures stepped into the room, an array of lights danced across the walls and a light green glow pulsed from above, indicating the machine starting up.

"Come on, you two - we want to do this quickly..." Alex encouraged the white goat and pale bald lioness in his tow as he dashed into the dim room, the door closing behind them. The pair of contestants, dressed in bright yellow IZ shorts and T-shirts, glanced nervously at each other as the door swung closed behind them. As they shared an anxious grin in the green light from the booth, the red wolf stepped up to the machine and tugged at the large switch on the wall, starting the cubicle's metal half-height door sliding into the ground.

"Step on in," he indicated with his hand. "I think there should be just about room enough for two in there if you squeeze..."

The goat glanced at his partner, nodding his head slightly towards the machine in a bid to let her go first, only for her to grin and push him on the back, following him into the metallic chamber. She stepped back as he turned to sit down in the chair, then joined him by sitting on one of his legs, tucking her tail behind her. As she seated herself, she glanced up to the ceiling, but closed her eyes against the light and faced the front again, tapping her feet on the floor as the door began to hum back into position, trapping them inside.

"Rene and Kit, a warm welcome to the Industrial Zone..." the red wolf smirked, his hand still resting on the lever. "Thanks so much for agreeing to come on - after this, we're going to be running an IZ marathon of our own, we're showing every episode ever from all three series so far. And you're our opening ceremony - how do you feel about that?"

"Uh... I'm not sure..." The goat started, his thick accent obvious even in the short sentence, then shook his head as he glanced around the cubicle.

"Oh, it's not that bad - let me tell you how this works!"

He moved to the front of the machine to face the pair inside. "I'm going to ask you three questions - if you get all three right, then nothing happens, I let you out of there clean, and you're free to go. Sound good?"

He grinned at their excited nods of the head. "But if you get just one wrong... well, you're in one of Industrial Zone's most famous gunge tanks, I'm sure you can work it out." He pointed as the pale lioness whimpered through a smile, her eyes going up to the ceiling again. "You ready?"

The goat nodded, putting his hands on the lioness's waist as the light from above dimmed a little, a tense bass tone ringing over the room's speakers. Alex raised his minicomputer and began to read from it.

"You're both very well known athletes, so you should know your anatomy..." he began, the contestants leaning forward tensely as he spoke. "So - what's the name for an opening in a bone that allows muscles or nerves to pass through?"

"Wh...?" The lioness's brow creased, and she turned to the goat behind her. There were a few seconds of whispered discussion.

The goat eventually cleared his throat, and spoke up. "Fistula?" he asked uncertainly.

Kit kept her eyes on the red wolf, but growled under her breath as he looked to the screen again without a hint of reaction.

"What separates the thoracic and abdominal cavities?"

"Oh, c'mon..." the lioness's deep voice came in response, just before being interrupted by Rene again.

"No, I think... the ribcage?" he said, indicating around the centre of his chest with his free hand.

"Okay, and finally..." Alex paused. "What is the scientific name for the kneecap?"

"Nngh... y'know we're both doing this in our second language?" the lioness asked back, clutching at her head. "I'd like to see you sit in here and answer three questions in Swahili..."

Alex smiled, but shrugged and stayed silent as Kit dragged her hands down her face, thinking as her ears sprang back into place. "Pit... pit-something?" She glanced to the goat, who shrugged with a grin. "Pitass..ia?" She shrugged, but bit her lip through a nervous grin as she dropped one hand back to her lap, draping the other arm around her partner.

"Okay, good guess..." the red wolf said, pocketing the device. He put his hands behind his back and sauntered up to the machine, positioning himself in front of the large switch once more.

"This'll either let you out or gunge you - it's great for the tension, isn't it?" he grinned in at the lioness, who growled at him playfully again, hugging Rene closer. "Well, let me get on with it - I asked you three questions, and you got all three of them..." The lioness straightened up as he paused, the goat looking up tensely as well. "...wrong."

"Aaaah!" Kit's shoulders sagged, then she rapidly tensed again with a shriek as Alex slammed the lever down, starting a dirty industrial alarm.

"So it's gunge time, I'm sorry!" he yelled above it, then jumped away.

The goat closed his eyes and bowed his head as the lioness gasped, looking frantically around the chamber as a pair of red rotating lights turned on and the alarm blared around them. With a sickly spurting noise, two pairs of sprayers sputtered into life at the front corners of the tank, shooting translucent green slime at the pair of them and making Kit yelp as they splattered across her chest.

The lion girl's face went from shock to a grimace as the cascade of gunge splashed over her, soaking her T-shirt and making it cling to her chest as fingers of green slime slithered down from it. Behind her, Rene's embarrassed grin was just visible behind the flying slime as it squirted into his face, his ears flapping as he shook his head. The sprayers tilted downwards for a moment, revealing his face fur painted in dark and light green, the stuff trickling in a long string off his beard.

As Kit raised her arms and hugged them round her to defend herself from the gloop, the alarm rang again and a wide bright orange column of gunge poured from the top of the tank. For a moment, the stuff domed out as it splurged on to her head, then twitched and splattered around the booth as she reacted to the cold slime with a flail of her arms. Feeling behind her, she leaned back in the chair as far as she could go, the stuff pouring heavily into her lap, and tugged her partner over, pushing his head in front of her tummy so he was under the flow of slime instead.

Rene cringed through his grin as the orange stuff glopped over his head, the outline of his horns visible behind the gunge flowing over him. Kit leaned out from behind the downpour of gunge and smirked down at him despite her own gungy state, shaking her head and making the slime on her flattened ears fly outward in strings. Just as she looked out of the gunge machine at Alex, she gasped as the alarm suddenly dropped to a lower blare, and her shocked face was hidden again, this time enveloped by a sputtering downpour of heavy black sludge.

"Mmffff...!" The lioness's muffled squeak was audible over the sound of the muck splattering against the walls of the tank, the black stuff oozing down her face and dripping on to her shoulders. As it dripped in slimy fingers down her top, it pushed away the clinging orange gunge, forming a revolting brown-green dripping pattern. With his head still down at her tummy, Rene grinned, one eye closed against the black stuff spattering on to his face. As she let go of her grip on him, he slowly levered himself around, cringing as the black stuff splurged over his back, and straightened up in the seat, laughing as the ooze stuttered to a halt.

"Rene and Kit, if you're under there somewhere..." Alex started, but was interrupted by a shriek as another splash of the black stuff squirted from the ceiling, tilting from side to side this time to get the goat and the lioness in turn. Kit held her hands in claw shapes in front of her as she hunched her shoulders, the mixed slime dripping off her fingers with her shirt soaked and her face totally obscured by the black gunge. As it stopped once more, she slowly raised her hands to her face and shook them, then dragged them across her eyes and hesitantly blinked them open, her mouth open in shock as she looked down at herself.

She glanced over to Rene, who had escaped a little more lightly, his face still painted green and orange but with just a spattering of the heavy black gunge across it. She snarled playfully, wiped her face with both hands again and then smushed them into his face, wiping them around as he wriggled away.

Alex laughed as Rene put his arm around his gungy partner, keeping her head under the dripping remains of the gunge from above as he looked out at the red wolf. "Thanks for taking the challenge, you two..." he started. "For you, the game's over - but thanks for opening the IZ marathon tonight!"