SAT-IZ - Scene 9
Written by Iron-K, 2016
Starring Angel by what_a_mess

"Good morning once again from the Industrial Zone hangar..." Alex began, the camera following him as he emerged from the corridor into the wide open space, heading down the steep metal stairs that ran from the gantry to the floor.

"Last week, we put our celebrity group on the Gunge Gear and they came away with a pretty poor showing of 331 points..." He alighted on the floor and walked across the hangar, ducking under the large futuristic shuttle that stood in its centre. "So they left covered in gunge - but thanks to them, one of our viewers got the chance to nominate someone to visit us this week."

He stopped in front of a grimy set of double doors on the opposite wall. "The nearest guess of 337 came from a viewer who called themselves 'what a mess' - and they could have chosen anyone! Maybe a friend they wanted to get some revenge on, a parent, a teacher, perhaps..." He turned around and opened the doors with both hands, speaking over his shoulder as the camera moved into the room after him. "But out of all those possibilties, he chose... himself. Angel, how are you doing?"

The camera moved around Alex to bring a booth into the frame, tucked partway into a small alcove in the wall with wide curved pipes jutting from its sides and ceiling into the wall around it. Inside, a completely black cat with a mohawk hairstyle was seated wearing a small pair of IZ trunks.

"Doing great!" he grinned back, his hands tapping on his knees as he looked up at the red wolf.	

"Now, you're sure you want to go through with this?"

"Yeah!" he beamed, looking excitedly around the booth as he jiggled one leg, his other foot skimming on the floor. "I'd never pass up a chance like this!"

"I think most of the team that were on last week would've jumped at the chance to put you under those pipes in their place..." Alex smirked. "Still, you're here now... and you're sitting in what we call the Mixer! No doubt you'll have seen loads of people being covered in foam and gunge by this thing..."

"Heh, yeah..." Angel said, shuffling his feet against the tank's floor as he glanced at the pipes around him. "So... does this thing have a setting for 'no mercy'?"

Alex smirked at the feline's enthusiasm. "Believe me, all of our gunge machinery is on that setting - but I'm sure we can make some additions too..."

As he spoke, he stretched to the wall surrounding the booth, where a cluster of flexible tubes jutted out from the collection of metallic pipes and valves, and picked one of them out, shaking it loose. "You've been a fan of the show for a long time, haven't you?" he asked as he began screwing the end of one of them to an empty socket on the cubicle at about the height of the cat's head.

"Yep, since it started," Angel nodded, watching the red wolf intently as he moved around the cubicle and started on a second tube.

"Then you'll know we try to keep things fresh - change things around a bit, keep people surprised..." He tightened the tube aimed at the right hand side of the feline's head, then reached to the mass of pipes behind the machine again and attached two more hoses, one to the top left of the cubicle and one to the top right. The cat boy bounced excitedly inside the tank as he looked up at the two nozzles aimed diagonally down at him.

Alex stood back, dusting off his hands, and looked the device up and down, making a show of taking in the multiple nozzles and pipes aimed at its occupant. "You know..." he started, "We've got this on a timer, but we should probably do a test run first - I don't think we've tried making it anywhere near this messy before..."

"It's gonna be fine!" the feline laughed, his toes curling a little as he tensed up.

"No, I mean - we don't even know if it's safe! Hold on in there, I'll get the keys to let you out before it starts up..."

Angel looked up confusedly at Alex's reassuring smile, then stretched forward to watch as the wolf turned away, heading for the closed door. Suddenly he jumped as there was a spurting noise from the bottom of the gunge tank, and the two pipes at the sides of his feet began pushing bubbly white foam into the tank, quickly enveloping his dangling feet and beginning to crawl upwards as it filled the tank.

The black cat shuddered, his hands at the sides of his head as he stared down at the rising white bubbles, then he flinched again as the two pipes beside his head spluttered. With the sound of a rising mechanical whine, they began pouring foam out as well, arcing down to splat heavily across his lap and tummy. The feline gasped as the pouring foam slumped down his legs, watching as it trickled and dripped down into the rising bubbles from the bottom of the tank. A klaxon began ringing as the a few red warning lights winked on and off around the tank's frame.

"Too late! Okay, just... good luck in there..." Alex called above the hooting alarm, making the cat look up from the foam to face him. He opened his mouth to say something but at that moment there was the heavy clunk of a valve opening above him, and he was engulfed by a cascade of blue and orange slime from the tank's ceiling.

Alex hopped back a step as the gunge splashed out from the feline's head in a bright dome of clashing colours, staining the tank's walls in arc shapes with licks of it splattering on to the floor in front. As the steady stream of slime continued to pour on to him, Angel raised his hands through the downpour, his palms turned upwards with his fingers spread to catch it, making the dome split into gooey ribbons dripping from the ends of his fingers. A moment later, the dome broke briefly as the feline tilted his face up into the downpour, and there was a flash of black fur visible under his chin before the falling gunge crawled down his face to cover it again.

The alarm blared again as the feline twitched his head to the side, breathing out heavily to clear his nose with an open-mouthed grin just visible behind the curtains of slime falling away from his face. As he spread his arms into the falling white foam at the side, smearing an off-white mixture on to the tank's walls, a couple of air pockets bubbled out of the deluge from above, making the stream splatter chaotically across his head and shoulders. The gooey mixture crawled down the fur on his chest and tummy, forming swirling patterns with the colours mixing into an off-green as the ooze slithered down him, and the stained foam at knee-height began rising faster again, pouring into his gunge-covered lap.

The gungy cat boy faced forward again as the gloop pouring in from the ceiling slowed down, his eyes still closed and spitting gunge off his lips as the slime that had poured on to his face slumped down over his muzzle. Shaking with elated laughter, he shook his hands in front of him, making blobs of gunge fly out from them, then slowly dragged them over his closed eyes, leaving little streaks with his fingers that only lasted a moment before the slime still sputtering down on to his head slithered down to close them again.

He shook his head, streaks of gunge flying out from his flattened ears, then ducked instinctively as the nozzles at the top corners of the tank turned on, pouring thinner streams of dark green slime over him. He spluttered, twitching his nose as one caught the end of his muzzle, but sat still and held his hands out again as the nozzles slowly rotated, drizzling the new slime over him and covering the mingling blue and orange gunge with curved green streaks. With an airy laugh, he finally opened one eye again and looked down as the foam continued bubbling up his tummy, its white color staining deep blue, green and orange in a ring around him - then, jumping at the sound of a sudden hiss, he flinched and closed his eyes again just before the two pipes beside his head twitched and began spurting jets of thicker shaving cream style foam on to the sides of his face.

The rising foam reached the height of the tank's door and began spilling forwards, forming a pile at the front of the gunge tank with ribbons and streaks of slimy colors flowing down its door. The feline in the middle of the messy chaos stretched his neck up to keep his head above the bubbling mass and eventually half-stood up, the quivering shaving foam sticking to his face as the stuff continued to spray on to his arms and shoulders. As the blobs that remained of the gunge downpour from the ceiling trickled on to his head and slithered down around his ears or across his muzzle, leaving furrows in the white foam, he breathed out heavily again, clearing foam out of his nostrils and then wiping his face with the back of his hand. A black streak became visible on his face for just a moment before the heavy gunge and foam mixture slumped down to cover it again.

The red wolf strolled forward again with his hands behind his back, his eyes widening at the sight in front of him despite his calm act. The green slime nozzles were finally trickling to a halt, leaving an unrecognizable blob hunched over in the middle of the tank, the jiggling white foam on the feline stained with lines and swirls of orange, blue and green. The foam pumps at the bottom were still going, making even more foam flood over the door and join the growing pile at the bottom.

Alex cleared his throat as the cat boy whooped, one hand on the door to steady himself and dragging the other across his face. As he formed another brief window in the thick foam he opened his eyes again, looking down at himself and giving a renewed laugh and shudder. Slowly, he sat back down, batting the foam down with his hands as it finally began to slow down.

"Uh, you okay in there?" Alex spoke up, returning to his position at the side of the tank and leaning around the corner a little to speak to the gunged feline.

"Oh, yeah!" Angel crowed, dragging his hands over his head and patting the foam into a mohawk that matched his own now unrecognizable one as he pursed his lips and spat more slime away from them. "Now if only I could have one of these at home, that would be epic!"

"Well..." the red wolf laughed, glancing up at the nozzles slowly dripping gunge then returning his gaze to the utterly trashed feline beneath them. "You've definitely earned our Saturday IZ trophy, and when we start making consumer models of these, I'll make sure you're first on our list to test them..."

Angel flinched as another splash of orange and blue sputtered out of the tank above him and put both thumbs up silently, wriggling as the gunge splashed over his fur.

"Okay, Jayce and Kass," Alex announced, moving forward to face the camera and leaving the dripping cat boy behind. "I think we have a happy winner here - that's going to take some beating, but I promise we'll do our best next week..."