MASSIVE - GUNGE GROTTO 1 - SHEBA AND AKELLO
Written by Iron-K, 2018

"Welcome back to Massive!" The purple rabbit called above the raucuous cheering from the kids and teens in the audience around him, holding a hand up to acknowledge them as he turned to follow the camera swooping in to frame him. "It's almost the end of our first show of the summer, but before we go, we're going to play another game that we think you'll love..."

He turned to face the clear plastic gunge tank nestled against the wall of the set, and put his hand on his knee as he crouched down to address the young green-skinned lizardess sitting inside it. "Sheba, how's your morning been?"

"Been fun - thanks, Shane," she giggled nervously. One of her hands went up to play with her bright red hair as she looked up into the round valve on the ceiling above her.

"Awesome! Now, you wrote in last year asking if we could gunge someone, and hopefully you're going to get to send them into this!" He gestured towards his left, where the mouth of a six foot high cave was built into the wall of the set, bordered by large polystyrene boulders with a trio of grotesque gargoyle faces mounted along the top. Around it, the plain studio floor was decorated with a couple of feet of fake moss and grass with swampy puddles of slime dotted around, and green special effect smoke drifted up across the entrance of the cave from sprayers hidden among the tufts of greenery. "It's a new game for the new season, and we call it the Gunge Grotto - who have you brought along to face it?"

"Uh, my dad, Akki", she replied.

"Okay, let's bring him out!" Shane raised his hands to lead the audience in a cheer as an intense burst of smoke rose from the ground among the slimy pools. As it drifted up toward the ceiling, a brawny-looking bald crocodile with vibrant green scales came into view behind it, seated on a chair that was attached to a rail moving him out of the cave entrance. He was wearing a pair of running shorts and a white athletic shirt that left his muscular arms bare, and was shackled to the aircraft-like seat with a pair of foam cuffs around his ankles. He smiled back at the jeering audience sarcastically, shaking a fist in the air with a grin.

"Sheba, what's the reason you want to gunge your dad?" Shane moved next to the booth and put his hand on his knee as he crouched down. "And he looks like he could throw me into the next studio from here, so please... make it a good one!"

The young lizardess giggled, glancing at the crocodile seated across from her, then looked back at Shane. "It's cause he takes so long preening himself in the bathroom every morning," she said, pointing across at him with a smile.

Shane grinned and turned, smiling at the reaction of the young crowd. "Is that true, Akello - you spend a while in there?"

"Hey, it takes a long time to get a shine like this," the crocodile replied, indicating the polished scales visible on his bare arms.

"Okay, I hope you don't do the same thing with our showers after the game, but... you might end up having to," the rabbit smirked. He took a step back and addressed the lizard girl again.

"Sheba, here's how the game works - I've got five questions here on a topic you chose before the show. It's very simple - if your dad gives me three wrong answers, you get to throw the switch beside you, send him into the Gunge Grotto and watch as he gets extremely messy." He indicated the huge switch on the wall of the slime booth, and Sheba glanced over at it with a grin. "But remember - if he beats the odds and gets three right... well, we've got a tank of slime up there ready to splurge you instead." He pointed to the ceiling of the booth, and Akello clapped his hands over his head as his daughter looked up again, smiling nervously at the nozzle looming over her.

"And we've got some other players here who've experienced that stuff already this morning," he continued as he turned around and pointed his microphone at the front row of a nearby tiered seat, where a few of the watchers were wearing loose grey pyjama-like clothing. He crouched down next to them, stepping in next to an awestruck red squirrel who squirmed aside to make room. "How would you describe it to Sheba?"

"It's so yucky!" replied the blue equine girl with visibly wet long hair in the middle of the group, prompting smiles and nods from the mustelid and white dragoness sitting either side of her.

"You hear that?" Shane laughed as he stood up again and returned to the side of the booth. "So hopefully we can keep you dry, Sheba - what's the subject we'll be quizzing your dad on?"

"It's Sugarmouse," she replied with a smile.

"That's right - my old band before I got this gig! Akello, you don't really look like you were our target audience..."

"We'll see," Akello smiled nonchalantly. He wriggled up in the chair, flexing his fingers in front of him, and listened as Shane raised a set of cards up to read from them.

"Okay, Akello - get ready for question one! What was the name of our band's first number one single?"

The crocodile took a breath and let it out, mouthing to himself as Shane tapped his foot. "Uh, Dare to Dream?" he asked.

"Wow, he's right! Can you sing a bit for us?" the rabbit prompted, holding a hand out to the crocodile, but gave up as he folded his arms defiantly. "All right, let's move on..."

He flipped a card over and read out the next one. "A couple of years on, we swapped out one band member - can you name who it was and who replaced them?"

"Oh - the new girl was Rachel, and she replaced Stephanie," Akello said instantly. He glanced over to his daughter, who was looking over at him in surprise.

"Okay, sure - what are their full names?" Shane asked back.

The crocodile smirked. "Stephanie Oulsen, and the new girl's called Rachel Fox even though she's a red panda."

"Yyyeah..." Shane nodded, impressed. "Are you worried, Sheba? I'm not worried..."

The lizardess tittered, biting her lip as she glanced up again, and bounced a little in the seat as Shane cleared his throat to read out the next question. 

"Okay, we'll get you with this one - what day of the year is Rachel's birthday?"

Akello's face lit up as the name was mentioned. "The day after hers - February the 24th!" he said triumphantly, pointing over at Sheba.

"I don't believe it, he's right again - three in a row!" In the booth next to the rabbit, Sheba's eyes widened, then she gasped as a dirty industrial hooter blared and the light above her began to pulse. "Oh, no - I'm sorry, Sheba, but that noise means you're getting the gunge...!"

The lizard girl's gaze followed Shane as he hopped a step back from the booth, then she bit her lip in a nervous smile, rocking a little from side to side with her hands clasped on her lap. The repeating hooter suddenly dropped to a lower foghorn-like alarm, and she looked across to catch her dad's eye just before a fan of bright yellow gunge fountained down from the top of the booth and splashed crazily outwards from her head.

A mixture of cheers and groans came up from the studio audience as the gloopy liquid splooged around the booth, the young lizardess's wide-mouthed smile just visible underneath the splatter around her head as she squeaked at the feeling of the slime. The downpour fluttered a little as air pockets bubbled out of the tank hidden above, making splashes of slime lick forward and pour in fingers down the outside of the booth's plastic door.

Akello pumped his fists in the air, a wide grin on his face as the neon downpour began to ease back to reveal his daughter's little grin underneath the opaque coating of yellow slime pouring around her snout. The flow of gunge slumped over her face one more time, making her dip her head down, before the downpour from above broke into a drizzling rain. As the heavy drops of goo continued to splat over her, Sheba slowly raised her gunge-smeared hands to her face and parted her drenched hair, leaving a streak of yellow gunge on her face as she pushed it back behind her head.

"You okay?" the rabbit called as he leaned down to talk to the slimy young lizardess. She looked back up at him with an unsure smile, her gungy fingers splayed in front of her as she shook in a giggle. Beads of gunge trickled down over the opaque coating on her skin and a couple of drizzles of slime continued to pour down on her from the edges of the overhead pipe, dripping in fingers down her face and hair. "You weren't expecting your dad to know all that, were you?"

"No way," she giggled, hunching her shoulders and eeping as drops of slime crept down her back.

"Years of listening to your singing thanks to her!" Akello cackled as he wagged his finger towards Shane, stretching forward to look around him into the messy booth. "Finally it paid off..."

The rabbit shook his head, sighing down at the slimed lizardess. "Well, Sheba, he's looking happy, but your revenge kind of backfired," he continued. Sheba clasped a hand to her forehead and wiped it back over her head again, nodding her head as she caught his eye. "But we can still wipe that grin off his face - what do you say we throw that switch and gunge him anyway?"

Sheba giggled again at the cheer from the audience and nodded more enthusiastically, reaching a slimy hand up to grasp the lever beside her. A smear of gunge was left behind on its head as she adjusted her grip and looked to Shane for confirmation.

"Pull it!" the rabbit encouraged, and the gungy lizardess tugged the switch down with a grin over at her father. He raised a hand to blow her a kiss as green plumes of smoke fired from the ground again, and his chair jolted and began to move backwards into the mouth of the cave again.

Yelps and cheers went up from the watchers near the entrance as a set of sprayers on the walls and ceiling sputtered into life with a loud hissing noise, criss-crossing the entrance of the cave with white foam. Akello twisted round in the seat to look, then faced forward again and closed his eyes. He grinned through a cringe as the chair carried him backwards into the sprays, the shaving cream-like foam plastering itself to his scales and slithering downwards in large clumps.

The sprayers continued as the chair came to a halt inside the mouth of the cave, and Akello opened one eye, looking out at the cheering audience through a gap in the sprays as the white stuff continued to pile on to him. He raised a hand to drag it down his cheek, but had just cleared it off before a stripe of yellow gunge poured in from the ceiling, splattering out over his head.

Sheba grinned in delight as the gunge alarm hooted again, watching her dad being covered by the downpour. His snout was visible poking out of the dome splurging out from his head, with gunge creeping slowly along it to drip off the end into his lap. As he bowed his head down more, the flow sputtered over him, smacking left and right over his shoulders and leaving a clean V shape under his chin bordered by a coating of neon yellow slime.

The sprayers spluttered to a halt as the flow of gunge from the ceiling began to run out, becoming a thin drizzle from above that poured on to the smooth helmet of yellow slime coating the crocodile's head. He raised his head again, blinking as thick drops of the goo dripped from his brows across his eyes, and let out a small laugh as the chair began to move forward again.

"It's not over yet, Akello - get ready for something special...!" Shane called into the alcove, just as a curtain of silver slime dropped from just inside the entrance, hiding the crocodile from view. A renewed awestruck noise came up from the stands as two bulges poked through side by side, the gunge gradually trickling away to reveal the crocodile's knees with the weird reflective slime pouring off them and tricking to his clawed feet.

Akello's snout came through the gungy curtain next, the silvery stuff pouring off into his lap in curtains from either side of his face and dripping and pouring over his embarrassed grin. The chair continued inching forward, and a round shape formed under the curtain as his head came through. He stretched forward, and as he cleared the cave entrance the curtain of gunge finally glooped to a halt behind him, leaving him utterly coated in the shiny slime. He stayed frozen in place with his eyes closed as the chair creaked the last couple of inches out of the cave again then jolted forward a little as it stopped, sending silver gunge spraying with the movement of his head. He took his hands off the chair and spread his arms as he looked to his left and right, watching the goo drip from all along them for a moment. He shook his muzzle and dragged both hands over his bald head, smiling as he blinked his eyes open again, then raised his fist to acknowledge the clapping and whooping from the stands and the gunged lizardess behind him gasping with laughter.

"Now, that's a dazzling shine, Akello!" the purple rabbit smirked, then broke into a laugh as he gaped back at the streams of gunge still dripping slowly inside the cave. "What do you think of your makeover?"

The drenched silver-coated crocodile shifted in his seat, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. "I could get used to it..." he replied. Strings of the gunge continue to slither from his head to his shoulders as he looked down at himself, the slime sliding and creeping down his scales. He looked over at the younger lizardess again with a grin, and she waved back with a sheepish smile.

"Okay, you can stay that way as long as your daughter likes," Shane laughed. "Thanks to both of you for playing - let's go back over to Andie..."