CINDY'S DEBUT
Written by Iron-K, 2014

The compact family car drew up to the kerb outside the main entrance to the studios, and the back door was already open before it had come to a stop. A young red squirrel stepped out, bouncing on her feet despite the early hour, and stared fascinatedly up at the sign above the large revolving door. She was followed by a milky white dragoness with chin-length blue hair, who budged herself over to the kerb side of the car awkwardly before stepping out and standing upright, one hand going down to adjust her denim shorts.

The passenger side window rolled down as the dragoness bumped the door closed behind her, and the older squirrel behind the wheel leaned across the empty passenger seat to speak to them.

"Now, Madison, you're sure you've got your tickets?"

"Yep, here they are," the squirrel replied, reaching around to the back pocket of her jeans to pick out two slips of paper then brandishing them in front of her. "All safe! They've got our names on and everything."

The elder squirrel peered over the tops of her glasses as she inspected the slips of paper, then nodded. "Okay," she said. "So I'll pick you up right across the road at the Burgerhouse afterwards - you'll remember to cross the street at the lights?"

"C'mon, we're not kids any more," Madison replied as she reached around her back to push the tickets back into her pocket. "We're going to be fine! Besides, Cindy's here to look after me," she said as she clapped her arm around the white dragoness's shoulder. "You trust her, don't you?"

"I just want to make sure you're safe," replied her mother. "There's no such thing as too careful..."

Cindy awkwardly adjusted her large black-rimmed glasses and looked idly around at the front of the studio building as the squirrel began a safety lecture, her daughter nodding along and bouncing on her feet, eager to get away.

"Okay. Yes, we'll be fine. All right, got to go, see you soon, love you!" Madison said quickly as soon as there was a pause, and turned and hurried across the pavement to the revolving door, Cindy following close behind. As she followed the squirrel through the entrance, Cindy glanced back and saw the car still idling, the squirrel's mother fiddling with something on the center console and trying not to make it look obvious that she was still watching them. Once they were both completely inside the building, she looked up and accidentally caught Madison's eye. She quickly forced her anxious face into a smile, then gave them a small wave and drove off around the corner.

"Sorry. My mum's such a worrywart," Madison shook her head as she walked towards the desk. "She keeps asking my big brother if he's still brushing his teeth every morning, and he's 22!"

Cindy giggled as they approached the feline behind the reception desk, who had just pointed another group of girls their age off down a corridor to the side.

"Good morning, ladies - here for Massive?" he asked.

"Yep!" Madison replied brightly, whipping the tickets out of her back pocket. She passed them over the desk, and he studied them for a moment before handing them back and directing them down the same corridor the group ahead of them had gone down.

Cindy watched Madison with amusement as the squirrel practically bounded down the corridor a few steps ahead of her. Suddenly her watch beeped, and she turned her wrist over to look at it, rubbing one eye as she watched the numbers tick up from 8:00.

"Some weekend," she smiled through a yawn. "I thought in the summer we got to stay in bed to watch this..."

"Hey, watching it on TV's going to be nothing compared to the real thing!" Madison replied. "We lucked out with SynRG being on this week - we might even get to talk to them!"

"And your boy Shane," Cindy added.

"Well... yeah," the squirrel fumbled, her red-furred cheeks reddening even more in a blush as she looked away. Cindy smirked - her friend had had a huge crush on the popstar turned presenter since they were in their early teens, and her bedroom walls were still adorned with posters of him and his former band.

They rounded the next corner, where someone had stuck a huge arrow sign on the wall with the show's title, and found themselves at the back of a short line leading into the studio. Most of the chattering audience members in the line were a few years younger than them, but they could pick out a few of the show's strong following among people their age.

"Hey, what's that?" Cindy asked as they shuffled along the queue, nodding towards a round container mounted sideways on a trolley that was sitting next to the main studio door, with another bright arrow stuck to it with "GAMES" written in marker pen. As the line shuffled slowly through the entrance, they could see a few hands ahead of them poking out and tossing their tickets into the open hatch on its side.

"Oh, they said when I got the tickets - they pick players for the games out of this," Madison said as they got closer.

"Oh, right, I didn't know... I guess I thought people just wrote in specially." She looked again at the large arrow sticker, then her eyes widened as the squirrel leaned out of the queue as well.

"Hey, wait, you're signing up?" she asked, just as Madison tossed her ticket into the drum with a flick of her wrist.

"Yep!" she said confidently. "Why pass up the chance now I'm here?"

"You've seen the show before, right? You might get gunged if you lose!" Cindy pictured the messy results of most of the show's studio games, unable to imagine the fashion-obsessed squirrel in front of her enjoying the thought of being covered in slime.

"That's a price I'm willing to pay!" Madison replied. "Come on, are you going to do it too?"

She hesitated, but then shrugged. "Heh... yeah, let's do it," she said, dropping her stub into the container as well. "Hey, I wonder if they'll know it's your birthday... they might have something lined up for you already!"

"Ohhh!" The squirrel squeaked, drumming her feet in place before walking after Cindy through the studio entrance.

Cindy looked around as she entered the studio space, a huge dark room with the show's set lit brightly in the centre. The set looked familiar to her from watching the show during summer mornings - it was surrounded by a gaudily-patterned set of backdrops, some of which had large carpeted steps in front of them that served as the seating for the audience. At the back of the set, against one wall, she recognized one of the props they used for their messy games - a giant green model of a canine muzzle poked down into a plastic booth, a blowup pool chair placed conspicuously underneath its huge nostrils.

"Wow, this is so weird..." Madison gaped as she caught up, glancing around the stage as one of the crew directed them to join a cluster of watchers on the largest of the carpeted bleachers. "You kind of forget that it's actually a real place!"

Cindy nodded as they squeezed into the end of a row, and looked around at the studio floor as she tapped her knees. They had a good view of most of the set, including the pair of interview couches on the left hand side. Above and a little in front of them, a couple of small cubical monitors were mounted on the ceiling rack, showing the television feed - at the moment, a news bulletin that Cindy had seen the ending titles for many times when in front of the television waiting for this show to start.

The two of them sat and made small talk among the chattering audience for a while, both of them occasionally looking up in excited anticipation at the time in the corner of the screen. After what seemed like ages, Madison leaned forward to look out at the edge of the set, and her eyes widened.

"There he is!" the squirrel gasped, her hand going out and nearly hitting Cindy's face as she pointed across her. Cindy looked to see Shane, the familiar mohawked dark purple rabbit talking to some member of the production team at the edge of the set among the cameras, nodding along as the shorter fox girl in front of him flipped through a set of sheets of yellow paper. As more heads turned at Madison's exclamation, a cheer began to rise up, and he looked over at them, holding his hand up to acknowledge them. He looked to the side of the studio as a slim yellow-furred mousette dashed to join him, and they both made their way up to the center of the set, the rabbit pumping his fists in the air.

"Hi, folks!" the rabbit called out in his southern hemisphere accent as he waved around at the stands. "How are you doing this morning?"

He held his hands up at the renewed cheer in response to his question, and the pair of them slowly around to face each of the tiered seats in turn. Cindy laughed as a group of boys about her age sitting across from them unfurled a "We love Andie" banner and held it across the group, whistling as the mouse girl blew a kiss back at them.

"Welcome to Massive!" she called above the noise of the audience, waving her hands in a futile attempt to quiet them. "We're going live soon - but first, who signed up for the games this morning?"

Cindy looked to the side to watch as a black labrador from the stage crew wheeled the drum with the tickets from the studio door over to the set. She put her hand up with a smile as Madison stretched into the air beside her, a couple of whoops sounding from others in the audience.

"I hope the ones we choose are going to be more lively than that... think they're nervous about the gunge?" the rabbit laughed as he took hold of the handle on the side of the drum and spun it around slowly. "Let's see who we're going to have in our first game - Mika, why don't you pick this time?" He called to the stagehand as the canine began to step away, and he spun back around as he heard his name.

"This job just keeps getting better..." the canine smiled as he stuck his hand through the hatch on the drum's side, quickly withdrawing it again with two of the tickets between his fingers. The audience members nearer the front craned their necks in an attempt to see the names as he handed them to Andie before retreating off the set.

"Here we go, here we go..." the yellow mouse said as she lined the two tickets up in front of her, then looked up and around at the audience stands. "First player - do we have... Madison Bluehoof!"

Cindy felt her stomach almost drop out and then rebound as the surname was shouted, and turned her head to Madison, who she could tell had just felt the same thing.

"My god, I thought it was me..." she gasped, her fingers unclenching from the edge of the seat as they looked down to where a sky-blue equine girl with long darker blue hair and tail was hesitantly getting to her feet at the front of the audience, encouraged by her group of friends.

"Me too," Cindy replied, smiling as Madison caught her breath, shaking her head. She put her arm around the squirrel's shoulders as another cheer went up for a second name being chosen. "But you wouldn't really want your hero Shane getting you slippery, would you?"

"Heh... depends what we're talking about..." the squirrel replied with a nervous smile, and they shared a laugh before watching as Shane and Andie led the selected audience members down from the steps and across the studio floor. The pony girl had been joined by a grey mustelid of about the same age with dark curly hair, and the two of them were being led over to a metallic semicircular alcove built into the wall between two of the audience stands opposite their seats. A barrier ran around the curve of its front, reaching to about waist height.

"Yeah, I know it looks a little scary, but it's really quite comfortable in there..." Shane's voice was audible over his microphone as he swung a small portion of the barrier open to let the pony girl through, her hands clasped over her mouth to hide a nervous smile as she turned and sat down on her side opposite the other contestant. The chairs they were sitting on looked like they had come from car seats, and there was a cockpit-like curved bank of dials and switches that curved around in front of both of them, with a divider down the middle at chest height so that they could see each other's faces but not each other's half of the control panel. Two small screens were fixed to the divider, one on each side of it, and in the middle behind them, a column of long flat lights formed a gauge on the back wall.

"You going to be okay for five minutes?" Andie leaned over to ask the mustelid as he bounced in the slightly sprung seat, and he nodded. "Okay, we're almost live," she called as she turned around and faced the rest of the audience, "there are just a couple of things we need to tell you!"

Cindy listened, drumming her hands on her knees as the broadcast time fast approached, half-listening as a producer came up to talk the audience through the studio's safety routes, how to get to the bathrooms, and so on. Just as she began to tune it out, the lights were dimmed, and she looked up as an anticipative murmur rose.

"Okay, folks - we want to have dead silence, but I promise that's the last time I'll ask you for that this morning," Andie smiled as she and the rabbit paced towards the front of the bleacher Cindy and Madison were seated on. "Can we just get in here, if you budge over a little..."

They watched as a couple of clearly awestruck early teenagers at the front moved aside so the rabbit and mouse could squeeze in next to them. A hush fell over the studio as the lights dimmed further, and the fox they had seen Shane talking to before stepped out on to the set, counting the seconds down.

Cindy felt Madison bouncing beside her as the fox held up her fingers to count down the last couple of seconds silently, and then stepped aside. The drumroll that began the show's theme music suddenly burst over the speakers above them, and Cindy looked up to the screens to see the titles she'd seen many times beginning to play out. As the studio came into view on the screen, she blinked as the lights came back up and then leaned physically back as a wall of noise erupted from the audience at the same moment, joining in with the cheering as a camera operator moved in to focus on Andie and Shane.

"Welcome to another Massive morning!" Shane called above the deafening cheers. "The lights are on, the stars are here, the gunge is ready to fly - let's see what we've got coming up for you today..."

Cindy watched with a smile as the presenters traded off items on the morning lineup, going between watching the yellow text on the autocue attached to the cameras and the view of the monitors above the audience as they showed the broadcast with the added video.

"This is so weird!" Madison whispered as she leaned towards Cindy's ear. "I mean... good weird! But it's like... it's hard to remember you're actually here, instead of just watching..." Cindy smiled, nodding silently as the lineup finished.

"But before all that, let's wake you up with a brand new game," Shane continued. "It's called Under Pressure and we've got two players ready and waiting! Come over here..."

The two of them jumped up from the stands, Shane turning around and raising his arms to get a cheer out of the audience as one of the camera operators swung around to follow the two of them across the set. They dashed over to the booth with the mustelid and equine inside, arranging themselves so they were standing at either side of it.

"Hi, Tal and Madison - I know it's early to find yourself in a gunge machine, but how are you both doing this morning?" Andie asked, smiling as she got unsure nods and responses from both of them. "On the blue side of the chamber, we've got Tal - put it here, Tal!" She extended a fist towards the mustelid, who smiled and returned the gesture, bumping his against hers. "How's your morning so far?"

"Heh, I'm doing great..." he said quietly, distractedly looking around the booth.

"And Madison's our player on the orange side," Shane called from the right hand side of the alcove, the blue equine in the seat behind the panel sitting up as her name was mentioned. "Madison, how are you feeling about being gunged?"

The pony girl shivered and hunched inwards, biting her lip as she looked up into the spout above her and twisting the fingers of one hand in her hair. "Is it gonna be cold?" she asked with an anxious giggle.

"I don't know, it's the first time we've used this thing - maybe you'll find out!" Shane smiled and looked across to the mouse. "Let me tell you how this thing works... you two are going to have to work together if you want to stay clean. That gauge on the wall behind you shows the pressure of the pipes above you, and it's going to slowly fill up," he explained as he pointed, tracing his finger up the large vertical thermometer-like counter on the wall, "and when it reaches the top, the pipes are going to bust open and you're going to get covered!"

Andie continued as the players both looked up with nervous smiles again. "To keep the pressure down and stop that from happening, you've got to follow the instructions that are going to be given to you on these screens," she said, slapping the top of the divider and making the two players glance at the monitors next to them. "It's going to tell you to turn a dial or hit a switch... but you might not have the thing you need in front of you, so you're going to have to talk to each other and work together."

"The longer you survive, the greater the prize - are you ready to rock and roll?" The rabbit grinned as the two of them turned to him and nodded hesitantly, then stepped back to the edge of the alcove where a lever was mounted on the wall. "Then let's play - let's start filling the pipes!"

The equine and mustelid jumped at the mechanical clank as he tugged on the lever, the studio lights dimming and leaving them spotlit by the greenish lights in the alcove as Andie and Shane retreated. The screens winked on next to them, and they both turned to read what was on their screens.

"It says 'Turn the red dial to 2'", the mustelid was the first to speak as he looked over his own console, the gauge behind him slowly crawling upwards.

"Got it," the pony girl answered as she reached out to her left and clicked something around. A confirmation beep played and the mustelid's screen blinked up a new instruction as the counter behind them dropped. He turned to it and began to read it out loud.

"Turn on the..."

"Flip switches A and E!" the equine spoke frantically over him as her own instruction began to blink on the screen, the gauge beginning to fill slightly faster.

"Oh... right..." Tal glanced over the array of controls in front of him and reached out to press one down. "I've got E, do you have A?" he said quickly, turning to face her.

"Yeah," came the reply as Madison stretched her hand out to flick the switch. Another confirmation noise sounded out, and she looked over her shoulder as the gauge retreated a little again, jiggling in her seat as Tal re-read his monitor.

Cindy smiled as the red squirrel next to her sidled closer and put her arm around her waist tensely as the game went on, the gauge at the back of the booth filling gradually faster against the contestants' attempts to keep it down. The instructions from the monitors got gradually more complicated, making the two of them stumble through talking over each other and search for the given controls ever more frantically. As the strips of light near the top of the counter began to blink red, the blue equine looked to her screen and called over the divider.

"Enter the code six-five-one-one-two!" she said rapidly, practically bouncing in her seat. "Do you have anything for that?"

"Um..." Tal leaned forward and frantically scanned the panel in front of him, delaying a few seconds before noticing a device that looked like it had once been a phone keypad right next to the monitor on his side. "Yeah!" he exclaimed as he extended a finger towards it, calling out the numbers as he pressed them. "Five-six-one..."

"No!" Madison squeaked. "Six...!"

The rest of her words were drowned out as a klaxon rang, and she jerked back from the screen as red warning lights flashed on around the two of them. They shared a glance at each other just before there was a twitch from something in the top of the machine, and two columns of brightly colored slime poured in from the ceiling, hiding them both from view as it smacked on top of their heads.

Cindy grinned as Madison gripped her tighter, a half-cheer and half-scream going up from the audience as the glop spewed over the two players. The equine girl leaned forward, her eyes closed and wearing an embarrassed smile as the orange gunge spewed off the top of her head and flew behind her, splattering around the machine as drips of it crawled down her face. On the other side of the divider, the mustelid spread his arms and looked down at himself as the blue slime coated his hair, matting it down and then slithering off into his lap in a long glutinous stream. As the ooze flowed down on to them, lights pulsed around the chamber, the smooth slime glistening under them as it domed out from the players' heads.

As the klaxon gave one last long blare, the streams of slime from the ceiling began to ease off, the wide downpours gradually becoming thinner and eventually breaking into a rain of heavy drops that slithered down from the edges of the pipes above the contestants. Underneath the right hand one, the gunged equine held her hair out of her face with her hands, giggling as she blinked her eyes clear and looked around at the orange-painted chamber around her. She straightened up, shuddering as the movement made more slime slither down from her shoulders, and looked across at Tal, who had most of his face hidden by his soaked hair, which had flopped over his eyes leaving only his grin visible behind the blue drips coming off his fringe. As the last of the glop sputtered on to his head, he brought both hands up and tried to clear his eyes, keeping one hand on his forehead as he looked out at the cheering audience.

"Urgh, imagine what that feels like...!" the squirrel girl whispered into Cindy's ear, keeping close as the presenters came back in to talk to the gungy players.

"That could have been you!" she replied, nodding towards the now orange pony, who was resting her hands on top of the splattered console and grinning awkwardly as she watched the goop drip slowly in strings from her arms.

"Eep...!" the squirrel shuddered, hugging herself. "You ever wonder what it's made of?"

Cindy shrugged. "I don't know, I figured it was just paint..."

"Paint!" Madison recoiled. "They can't cover you in paint, it'd be all... toxic."

"Not like the kind you paint your house with... the stuff they used to give us in preschool - in the squeeze bottle?" Cindy mimed in front of her.

"Heh... maybe," the squirrel nodded, looking fascinatedly across at the gloopy slime dripping from the two players opposite them again. "I bet they made sure the dumber kids could even drink that stuff..."

They watched as another show segment began on the opposite side of the studio, while a couple of stagehands came forward with towels and led the gunged contestants off the set. Time seemed to fly past for the next hour, but as the morning approached the time the guest band would be appearing, Cindy smiled as Madison visibly edged closer and closer to the edge of her seat.

"Okay, we've got our star guests coming soon, and I think this is what a lot of these girls and guys are here for..." Shane held the microphone up to the audience as a cheer went up, and Cindy jumped as Madison half-stood and cupped her hands to her mouth as she whooped. "Coming up next, SynRG are here and they're going to be answering your questions! Here's their debut video, 'Head Over Heels' - don't go anywhere..."

Cindy looked up at the monitor as it dissolved to the video and the familiar synth intro filled the studio, some of the girls at the front of the audience holding their hands up and swaying to the music. As the song's first chorus passed, Shane walked into the middle of the studio again.

"Okay, while you're watching that, Andie's going to need a player - so let's go over to the barrel of fate again!" The dark rabbit dashed to the trolley with the spinning drum on it and wheeled it out a couple of paces, taking hold of the handle and turning it around in front of the audience. "Want to reach in here and pick the next contestant?"

"Yeah!" The mouse flipped open the drum's hatch and reached in, pointing over to the cubicle on the wall adjacent to the bleachers as she felt around. "I'm doing Stop the Snot next, so someone's about to find themselves in a very messy situation..."

A murmur spread through the audience and Cindy saw a couple of them whispering to each other and shuddering excitedly as Andie pulled a name out of the drum. She straightened up, then looked down at the card before calling up at them. "Let's find... Cindy Erebus!"

"Oh, my GOD!" Madison screeched as Cindy sat stunned, her stomach giving a lurch as a few spectators in front of them turned around to face the source of the noise. Madison grasped Cindy's hand and thrust it into the air, waving to the yellow mouse with the other.

"Here! She's right here!"

Cindy swallowed, becoming aware her mouth was hanging open and trying to arrange her face into a smile as the mouse pointed up at her, then bounced up the aisle to sit on the stairs next to her.

"Cindy, welcome to the show - it looks like you weren't expecting this to happen!"

"Ah, heh... no..." She shook her head, bringing a hand up to run it through her hair, trying her best to appear calm as she saw the watchers twist in their seats to face her.

"So what do you say - want to do this?"

"Well, uh..." Cindy turned around and half-pointed at Madison. "Did you want to..."

"No! You got picked, you should totally do it!" the squirrel enthused, physically pushing Cindy towards Andie with both hands as the mouse offered her hand. "Get down there!"

"Heh... yeah, okay," Cindy answered. Before she had had time to grasp what was happening, she was bounding down the stairs with Andie and then heading across the studio floor, hearing the whoops and cheers from the audience behind her.

She came to her senses again as they approached the plastic booth against the wall with the mighty prop muzzle poking down into it. She had seen this game being played on the show every weekend last summer, and images of what happened to the contestants when they lost the game flashed through her head. She whimpered a little under her breath, smiling anxiously at the huge looming tank as the tall mouse stooped down to talk to her.

"Mika's going to get you comfortable, okay, Cindy?" she said as the black labrador she'd seen at the start of the show dashed around the corner from the backstage area, a cardboard box under his arm. "We've got to get set up over there, I'll be right back for the game afterwards!"

"Okay..." Cindy replied, trying to keep up as she stared at the cubicle she was about to be put into. She took her eyes off it for a moment and turned around, but the mouse was already halfway back across the studio, heading towards a pair of couches near where she and Madison had been sitting. Delighted screams went up from the audience as a couple of members of the guest band stepped into the light of the set.

"Hi!" a deep but friendly voice came from beside her, and she turned to find herself staring up at the canine. "Did she say Cindy?" he asked.

"Er, yeah," she replied with a nod.

"Okay, Cindy - let's get you set up..." She took a step back as the canine tugged the door at the front of the booth open, raising a hand to indicate she should go inside. "If you could take your watch off and everything... and you'll probably want to leave your sandals out here..."

Cindy looked down at her feet, and leaned against the frame of the booth as she picked one of them up and wriggled her toes out of the black sandal. "What happens to the rest of my clothes...?" she asked through a nervous laugh.

"Don't worry - after the game we'll get you something to change into, and your stuff gets washed on us," he smiled, bending down to pick up one of Cindy's sandals then the other and putting them into his box as she got out of them. He accepted the watch from her outstretched arm and put it with them. "Gunge might look nasty but it comes off easy..."

"I'll take your word for it..." Cindy smiled awkwardly, biting her lip as she looked up at the giant prop muzzle hanging down into the cubicle, and followed its aim down to the blowup pool chair situated underneath it. Twisting one hand in her hair, she took a careful step into the booth and grasped her tail as she sat down, sinking unsteadily into the not quite fully inflated seat. After fidgeting to get comfortable, she felt the back of her neck crawl as she looked right up into the dark nostrils of the tank poised about a metre above her head.

"Do you want goggles?" she heard Mika ask. She looked back down at him as he dropped her sandals into the box he was holding then rummaged through it with one hand. He held up a pair that looked like they might fit her face.

"No, I'm fine," she replied. "But can you take these?" She pulled off her thick-rimmed black glasses and stretched up to hand them to him, blinking slightly as she refocused.

"Are you sure?" he asked, taking them and sliding them into the pocket of his jeans. "You going to be able to see all right?"

"Yeah, they're pretty mild. I just wear 'em cause I like them," she said, indicating to her face.

"Okay, I'll keep them safe!" He patted his pocket and turned to where the presenters were beginning the interview on the other side of the set, then lowered his voice. "You'll be on when they're done over there... I'll be off stage but I'll be back to take you off afterwards. Any questions for now?"

"I... guess I'm fine!" Cindy took a breath, then looked up at the underside of the tank again, biting her lip. "So are you the one who's going to set it off back there?"

"Heh... yeah," the black lab responded with a sheepish grin. "But only if you lose! You could come out of there clean..."

"How many times has that happened?"

The canine paused. "...Never," he smiled, then turned to go. "Have fun!" he said as he disappered back around the corner, leaving Cindy alone in the booth.

She looked over to where the interview with the week's guests was beginning - most of the audience was facing away from her and had their eyes firmly on them, but she could see heads turning among the crowd to glance over at her. She looked up to where she had been sat next to Madison, and grinned embarrassedly as the squirrel caught her eye, standing up and waving over at her before turning her attention back to the presenters and band in the seating area.

She breathed out heavily, trying to forget about the looming nozzle as she listened. Her legs were too short to comfortably touch the ground from the seat, leaving her skimming her toes across the floor as she watched the two band members taking questions from the group around them and over the bulky phone handsets. After about ten minutes, she tensed as she saw that they were beginning to wrap up.

"And I think that's all we've got time for!" Andie announced, the few hands left up in the audience going down. "SynRG, you're starting your first tour right around the block in the Rockport Stadium tonight - how are you feeling, nervous?"

"Oh... no, I think we're ready for it... what do you think?" the raccoon on the couch next to Andie asked as he turned to the vixen sitting next to him.

"It's going to be our biggest venue ever, but we're looking forward to performing and seeing you all there!" she grinned as the audience around her gave a cheer of approval.

"All right! We're going to have a live performance from you at the end of the show, but we've got someone else who might be a little bit nervous just now," the rabbit said as he turned to his co-presenter. "Andie, do you want to go and meet them?"

"Oh, yes!" The slim yellow mouse girl opposite him bounded to her feet, stepping around the guests on the couch. "My favorite part of the morning... are you coming?" she said as she suddenly turned to the raccoon.

"No, we promised them they'd stay well away," said the rabbit as her target gave an embarrassed smile, putting both his hands up in front of him.

"Suit yourselves..." the mouse replied. "It's time for Stop the Snot!"

The mouse clapped her hands over her head to encourage the audience, and Cindy swallowed as she pointed over at her, dashing towards the booth. She forced a grin and tried her best to not look nervous as a dramatic musical swell played across the set to introduce the game, rubbing one bare foot on top of the other and glancing up at the twin nozzles looming above her as a nearby camera operator swung around to point at her.

Andie skidded to a halt dramatically as she approached, leaning one hand on the front corner of the booth as she turned to face the camera. "And under the muzzle this week, we've got another contestant who's ready and willing to face the gunge..." She turned and smiled down at Cindy, and she forced herself to return it, tapping her fingers on the plastic armrests. "Introduce yourself, what's your name?"

She cleared her throat as the mouse thrust a microphone in her direction. "Hi - I'm Cindy," she said quickly, smiling at a loud whoop from Madison in the audience.

"Cindy, and when you came in this morning you never expected to find yourself in our gunge tank, did you?"

"Heh... no, no idea..." she shook her head.

"Before we start, is there anyone at home or in the audience you want to give a shout out to?"

"Yeah, I'm here with Madison," she said, gesturing vaguely up at the bleachers. "She's eighteen today..."

"A birthday...!" Andie swung around and pointed to where Madison was waving with both hands, enjoying the attention as the audience cheered for her. "Well, we'll have to get her down here later..."

The squirrel squeaked as the audience around her whooped in approval, giggling as she sat back down.

"Okay, Cindy, it's good to have you on the show," Andie continued as she turned back to face her, stepping back a little towards the side of the booth. "So how are you feeling about being poised underneath this giant muzzleful of snot?" She reached up above the wall of the tank to pat the side of the prop.

"I'm..." Cindy breathed out, biting her lip and then grinning anxiously up into the nozzles again, twitching as she pictured a flood of gunge erupting out of them. "...okay, yeah," she finished, unable to form a sentence. She bounced her dangling feet against the front of the seat, willing the anticipation to be over with.

"All right, well, hopefully you'll stay looking okay too... I'm sure you'll be safe!" The mouse paused and leaned in further in a stage whisper. "You've got a change of clothes with you, haven't you?"

"Er..." Cindy hesitated, and just nodded, picturing what had happened to the two players in front of her just an hour before.

"Okay, Cindy - first of all, we're going to ask you to pick your partner. We've got three players on the line, who want to try to get you some prizes and hopefully save you from getting messy... who's it going to be?"

"Uh..." Cindy peered forwards at a monitor mounted to the nearest camera as Andie pointed towards it. Trying not to be distracted by the view of herself staring back, she saw three names and locations pop up at the bottom of the screen. She flicked her eyes between them, recognizing the name of a city neighbouring her home, and chose the name from that. "Alyssa," she answered.

"Okay! Alyssa, line three..." The presenter straightened up and faced out to the camera. "Alyssa, you're live on Massive - can you hear me?" she asked, one hand going up to her earpiece.

There was a pause. "Yeah," a slightly phone-distorted voice came after a couple of seconds, and she smiled.

"Great! You know, we had an Alyssa in here last week," she said as she pointed her thumb back towards Cindy. "And you probably saw what happened to her - do you think you can do better than her partner did?"

Cindy twitched as there was a breath from the young voice on the other end of the phone line. "Maybe..." she answered, and the mouse presenter laughed.

"She doesn't sound confident, Cindy! Alyssa, have you seen this before, you know how the game works?"

"Kind of," the answer came. Cindy closed her eyes and grinned nervously - she had seen how much concentration this game took, and this contestant didn't sound like she was going to be a star player. She watched the camera monitor as Andie talked through the rules, a display of numbered and symbolled squares arranged like a phone keypad sliding in on the side of the screen.

"All you have to do is press two numbers at a time to turn the cards around - if you find two that match, then that pair stays face up and you win a prize." Andie pointed over in the direction of the display as they flipped in sequence in a demonstration of the game. "But of course, before you start finding pairs we need to shuffle them for you..."

The cards spun around, the numbers rearranging themselves at random across the board. "Get the idea? We're going to have a look at what you can win for yourself and Cindy today, for clearing this much of the board..."

Cindy half-listened to the voiceover as it listed the week's prizes for matching certain numbers of pairs, clasping her hands together and flexing her fingers.

"Cindy, is there anything on that you really want Alyssa to get you?"

"Oh - um... the CDs," she said, as the first thing in the list that came to mind.

"Okay - Alyssa, you just need one pair for the CDs, so we hope you can get that far! But remember, if you don't get all six pairs in thirty seconds, the muzzle empties, and this pretty young dragoness is going to get completely snotted..." Cindy shuddered at the word as she hunched inwards, giving a small nod and a nervous grin as she pressed her clasped hands between her thighs. "You both okay with that?"

Cindy breathed out before responding, curling her toes nervously. "Yeah!" she nodded at the same time as Alyssa.

"Okay, you've got thirty seconds. Good luck, Cindy... Alyssa, it's up to you to stop the snot... now!"

Cindy jumped as the timer started ticking down from thirty, punctuated by heavy clicks from the sound system. A series of touch tones played as the girl at the other end of the phone line pressed to select squares, and she watched two of them flip around and back as they showed non-matching pictures. She drummed her feet as Alyssa paused before selecting another two, moving around the board painfully slowly as she uncovered each of them in sequence. As she recognized one that had come up before, she leaned forward and was about to say something when Alyssa finally stumbled across a pair that were side by side.

"That's one!" Andie called as a confirmation beep played, and Cindy cheered nervously as two of the squares lit up. Her eyes dropped to the timer again, seeing only ten seconds remained, and leaned forward, her hands going up to her muzzle as her shoulders shook in a giggle at the thought of what was going to happen to her. She watched the game board intently as Alyssa floundered around, losing any kind of strategy as she hunted for another match.

"That one - you've seen that one before!" Andie suddenly called from beside her, encouraging the phone contestant as her presses got slower and more uncertain. "It was at the bottom - yes!" She put her hands in the air as another correct pair was finally uncovered. "And you've... oh...!"

A harsh buzzer suddenly blared out, making Cindy jump, and her mouth fell open as she watched the game display slide away on the camera monitor, leaving her alone on the screen.

"Alyssa, you're out of time, you only got two - so our dragoness is getting covered in gunge!"

Cindy's heart lurched as the slime booth siren rang around the studio, and she looked over at the cheering audience before hunching up and squeezing her eyes closed. An embarrassed grin spread over her face just before she was surrounded by a wet smacking noise as the gunge spewed down over her.

She let out a yelp as the weight of the slime pushed her head down a little, then bit her lip at the feeling of the lukewarm glop slithering heavily over her, aware of it splashing over her head and shoulders and then splurging forward over her arms and lap. Leaning forward to poke her muzzle out of the flood, she could feel the ooze crawling slowly down her face and dripping slowly off her chin, with even more slime joining it as the stuff splattered over her back. As she squirmed under the downpour, the seat buckled a little to the side, and she yelped as she inadvertently tilted her head, letting the slime spew down on to her neck and slide down her front.

Bowing her head down, she laughed helplessly as the slime continued to pour down on to her, making her clothes cling tightly to her skin under its weight. She could feel the stuff slowly crawling over her forearms and down her legs which were out of the downpour, and held her breath as even more of it continued to flood down on to her head. She hunched her neck as she felt the gunge slide down her back, pooling in the seat around her.

The blare of the siren finally stopped, and she became aware of the cheering of the studio audience again as she felt the downpour of slime beginning to ease off. She straightened a little as the heavy flood from above split into two and slithered down over her shoulders, letting out a squeak as even more of the stuff crept down her neck and back. Eventually, it broke into a rain of thick blobs, and she hunched up again as they sputtered over her, aware of them slithering off her head and slowly creeping down over her soaked clothing.

She let out her breath in relief, giving out another squeak at the ticklish feeling of the gunge slowly dripping down her skin. Slowly, she picked her arms off the seat, slime pouring off them as they moved, and she brought her hands up, balling them into fists and feeling the slop ooze out between her fingers. After wiping them off as best as she could, she slipped them through the wet and messy hair covering her face and shuddered as she lifted it away, tucking it behind her ears.

Blinking her eyes open, she giggled at the sight of her surroundings - her chest and lap along with the entire pool chair were covered in a mixture of green slime, bright green from the nozzle on the left and dark from the one on the right, the stuff mingling into sickly dripping patterns as it slithered down her. The plastic of the booth around her had been painted in arc shapes where the slime had splattered off her, and the floor of it was covered in an inch-deep layer of gunge. She bunched her toes, twitching as the stuff oozed between them, and straightened one leg to watch the glop dripping in long glutinous strings off her foot, making a thick pouring noise as it slapped back on to the floor.

"Alyssa, I'm sorry - you failed to stop the snot, as Cindy knows..." Cindy looked up, blinking again as streaks of slime dripped across her vision, and watched as Andie turned around to thrust the microphone into the tank. "Cindy, I think you got the most gunge ever - how are you feeling?"

"Heh... I'm okay..." she replied dazedly. She glanced down at her green-painted arms and squeamishly crossed them in front of her, sliding her fingers of her opposite hand along them to brush the smooth slime off. She grimaced as her fingers left furrows behind, watching as the gunk dripped in strings from all across the undersides of her arms.

"You got the CDs - are you happy with Alyssa's performance?"

"Heh... kind of..." she squeaked as another drizzle of slime crawled down her back.

"Okay, we'll go with that - Alyssa, you got Cindy covered in gunge but you've won both those prizes as well... thanks for playing!"

Cindy tuned out the conversation as Andie said goodbye to the caller and moved the show to a commercial break. Trembling helplessly in silent laughter, she clasped her hands on her forehead to try to stop her slimy hair dripping into her face, and began to look up at the pair of nozzles above her. She twitched as a drop landed on the end of her muzzle, and she dodged to the side, watching the strings of gunge still raining down on to her shoulder, barely able to feel them through the slithery layer of ooze that already coated her skin.

"Eugh..." she giggled to herself, coming down from the exhiliration, and blinked as another drizzle of slime caught her on the forehead. She wiped it away with her forefingers, and when she opened her eyes again, she saw Mika approaching out of the corner of her eye, dragging something that looked like a grey plastic laundry cart behind him.

"How are you doing?" the canine grinned. "You're looking great, you must have had a makeover since we last met..."

Cindy giggled at the remark as he pulled open the door of the booth in front of her, and struggled to push herself forward out of the slippery air-filled chair as it buckled underneath her. Levering herself forward by gripping its slimy armrests as best as she could, she got to her feet unsteadily, waving her arms as her feet slithered in the gunge.

"Whoa!" Mika exclaimed, reaching a hand forward to grab her arm and stop her from falling. "Yeah, it's slippy stuff - that's why we're giving you some transport this time..." He swung the cart he was pulling around so that it was in front of Cindy, and she carefully slid her feet to the edge of the tank before taking hold of the lip of it. "We'll get you off to have a shower, and give you something to change into - need any help?"

"I think I'm fine," Cindy answered, leaning over the lip of the cart and putting a hand out on its floor as she levered herself over the edge into it. The green slime coating her made her slip over easily, and she landed awkwardly on the thick matting at the bottom. Turning around, she budged herself up to sit against the side, and looked up at Mika.

"Okay, hold on tight, we're going for a ride..." Cindy put her arms out to press against the sides of the cart for balance as he turned it around, beginning to push her the way he had come towards the backstage area.

"Gunged kid coming through!" he called as they approached a group of crew members. Cindy smiled embarrassedly as she was wheeled out of the glare of the studio lights, people stepping out of the way and grinning or applauding as they passed by. Mika carefully manoeuvred her over the cables strewn over the floor, then turned her to the right and headed for a wide door just visible in the gloom on the edge of the studio.

"Can you get Madison as well?" Cindy asked as she pointed over her shoulder. "She's the red squirrel in the audience, she's with me..."

"Sure." The canine called over his shoulder for someone to retrieve Madison, then nudged the door's pushbar open with the lip of the cart. Cindy blinked in the light as he wheeled her into the corridor behind the studio, and watched the doors passing by faster as he casually hopped up on to a lip at the base of the cart and punted the two of them along with his foot.

As they reached a corner, he braked with the heel of his shoe and hopped down, tracing his hand across the edge of the cart and then taking hold of the front end as he opened the door behind him. "Here's our stop! Let me show you to your suite..."

Cindy leaned a little to the side to see past him, being careful not to poke her dripping head out beyond the lip of the cart. "Wow..." she said as he wheeled her into the dressing room - it was a smartly decorated space with a curved couch around a glass coffee table in the corner, facing a large television that had been nestled in an alcove on the opposite wall.

"Yes, you're lucky - we've only got the one show recording just now, so you're getting the room with the biggest shower!" Mika said as he carefully guided the cart through the space. "Oh - before I forget..." He took Cindy's glasses out of his pocket and pointedly put them down on the coffee table before wheeling her through and into the ensuite bathroom, flicking the light switch as he went. He had just stopped the cart inside when there was a knock on the door behind them.

"Oh - I'll be back in a second!" Mika exclaimed as he sidled himself around Cindy's cart, heading for the door. "She was quick..."

"Heh, yeah... she'll have come running..." Cindy replied. She looked around as Mika crossed the room away from her - she was sitting among an avocado bathroom suite, with a large shower cubicle with sliding doors taking up the entire back wall.

She looked along the wall and caught sight of herself in the mirror, bursting into a shocked laugh - her top half was absolutely painted in a sickly mixture of green slime, with only patches of her white skin visible on her chin and the streaks where she'd cleared around her eyes. Her top was soaked and clinging to her skin under the weight of the goop, which was still slowly creeping down her face and dripping on to her shoulders with every movement and forming long dripping fingers as it slid down her chest.

"Oh my god, Cindy!" She jumped as there was an exclamation from outside the bathroom, and turned to look as Madison bounded in, clasping the sides of her head with her eyes wide. She crouched down next to the cart, leaning over the green-stained lip and bursting into a laugh. "You... wow! It really looks like some giant sneezed all over you..."

"Yep, that's how it feels!" Cindy raised an arm off the matting in the cart and reached up to the squirrel, who yipped and leaned away as long strings of slime dripped from the dragoness's fingers.

"Okay, Cindy - let me give you some tips here..." Mika came back in and squeezed around the two of them then leaned across to start up the shower, aiming the head towards the wall as the water began to heat up. "You'll probably want to get in there with your clothes on at first, just soak yourself and them as much as you can - after that, take them off while you're still in there and scrub yourself down. That stuff gets everywhere, so make sure you get the backs of your arms and under your tail..."

"Got it." Cindy raised herself to her knees and got up carefully, holding the edge of the cart firmly as she stretched her leg over to step into the shower.

"Anything else before I give you some privacy?" he asked, his hands hovering near her as she moved slowly, eventually making it to the safety of the gripped shower mat.

"No, don't think so," she replied, running her hands down her arms and gathering handfuls of slime. "Actually, there's one thing..."

She grinned as Mika leaned closer, then brought her slimy hands up and planted them on the top of his head. She and Madison cackled as he yelped and drew his head back, leaving a green streak down his face as she smeared her hands over his black fur.

"Ugh..." The canine looked at his face in the mirror, then grabbed a towel to wipe himself off. "It's fair enough," he said as he shook his head, dabbing at the gunge and getting rid of most of it, leaving him with a slight sheen down the top of his muzzle. "Take as long as you need, I'll get you some pyjamas..."

He smiled over his shoulder as he closed the bathroom door on his way out, leaving the two girls alone. Madison watched him go, then turned to Cindy, bouncing on her feet.

"I can't believe they gunged you!" she gushed. "You should have seen your face, just before it came down and... bluuueegh!" She slapped her hands on top of her head and mimed the stuff dripping down over her shoulders.

Cindy nodded along with the squirrel's chatter, smiling calmly as she reached up to turn the showerhead towards herself. She held a hand up into the water stream before closing her eyes and ducking her head into it, feeling the green gunge thin out and slither away with the warm water.

"I hope my mum's taping this like she said..." the squirrel continued, then gasped. "Oh my god, can you imagine if she saw you in the gunge tank?"

"After you promised we'd be safe, too!" Cindy laughed as she pulled her head out of the stream of water, turning around slowly to let it soak into her green-stained top. She looked down, watching the thinning slime flowing away and being replaced with the heavy, clinging sheen of her wet black T-shirt.

"What does it feel like?" Madison asked fascinatedly. She leaned down and poked her finger hesitantly into the cart, hovering just above touching the stuff, and watched the drips of slime slapping on to the shower floor as Cindy leaned over to brush the stuff off her legs.

"Well... it isn't paint," Cindy smiled, and looked at a glob of the gunge on her hand, turning over to watch it drip in long strings from her fingers. "It's really... gluey, kind of like really thick custard or something..."

"Maybe I'll ask that stage guy what they make it from..." the squirrel mused.

"Oh, his name's Mika," Cindy said, before holding her breath as she struggled to drag her soaked T-shirt over her head. She stepped a little out of the stream of water and wrung it out in front of her, then stretched up to drape it over the cubicle door.

"Mika, okay." Madison nodded. "Maybe I can ask him if we can get backstage after the show, too..."

Cindy put her head back under the water as the squirrel continued, watching the slimy sheen on her skin slither away. She moved her hands around to the clasp of her bra, and looked out of the shower as the squirrel tailed off. "Er... do you mind stepping out?"

"Oh! Sure," the squirrel responded, shaking her head as she seemed to realize where she was again. She got up, squeezing around the cart, and looked back with a smile as she opened the bathroom door. There was a squeak as she turned around and almost bumped into Mika coming the other way, and Cindy looked over as she stretched back into the room briefly to put a bundle of soft gray clothing on the chair in the corner. As the door closed, she smiled and closed her eyes, leaning back again into the warm water.

---

Cindy opened the door back into the dressing room, tying off the front of the loose gray sweatpants as she looked around. Madison had spread herself over half the couch in the corner, and was watching the broadcast of the show on the television opposite.

"Sorry, you didn't need to wait for me," she said as she moved herself around the coffee table, looking up at the screen as she sat down heavily. "You're missing the show!"

"It's okay!" Madison reassured her, swinging herself upright into a seated position and shuffling over to sit next to her. "They've just come back, it's been on cartoons for a while."

Cindy looked at Andie and Shane still talking energetically into the camera, then yawned, stretching her arms up. "I don't know how they keep going this early in the morning, I'm already out of it..." She gave a start mid-yawn as there was a knock at the door.

"Come in!" Madison called brightly, and Mika's head poked around the door.

"Laundry service," he announced with a smile, and came into the room brandishing a large plastic bag. "Can I get them from the bathroom, Cindy?"

"Yeah, I left them on the side of the shower," she said, pointing vaguely.

"All right!" he said, striding across the room and leaning across to the shower to pick the damp clothes off its door.

"Do I get them back before the end of the show, or do you send them on?" Cindy called into the bathroom after him.

"Yeah, we've got a washer-dryer in the utility closet - we'll get them back to you at the end of the show and you can change again - your parents won't find out, if that's what you mean," he added with a grin. "Unless they're watching the show and they've seen the whole thing - but we haven't got any angry calls yet, so..."

The girls laughed as he spun the bag around with his other hand to tie it closed, then grasped it as he began pulling the slime-stained cart carefully back through the doorway.

"By the way, Madison - did I hear from this dragoness it's your birthday today?"

"Yep!" Madison beamed. "Eighteen years old at last!"

"Well, Shane had a birthday this Monday too - we're going to surprise him by putting him in the Under Pressure tank at the end of the show," Mika grinned. "Want to be the one pulling the lever on him?"

Cindy turned her head toward the squirrel, who was gaping in a speechless smile as she slowly looked back at her.

"Can you put her in with him?" she asked quickly, grinning as there was a strangled squeak from Madison.

"Sure," Mika nodded, breaking into a smirk as he looked at Madison's face, then turned away. "That sound good to you?"

"Um... yeah, okay..." the squirrel responded hesitantly, her voice an octave higher.

"Great!" the canine clapped his hands together, looking down as his walkie-talkie beeped insistently. "I need to get going, but I'll come back in two minutes - we'll get you back into the audience during the commercials!"

He dashed off, leaving the door ajar, and Cindy grinned over at the speechless red squirrel on the couch.

"You...!" Madison started, opening and closing her mouth, then settling on a shocked laugh.

"You're getting up close with Shane!" Cindy grinned before the squirrel could continue, leaning towards her and pointing her finger. She cackled as Madison drummed her feet, giving a high pitched whimper through her smile.

"Aaaah...!" Madison squeezed her hands between her thighs as she bounced in the seat. "But I'm gonna be gunged, thanks to you!"

"Hey, you were just asking how it felt," Cindy laughed. "Looks like you're next in line for the shower!"