SAT-IZ - Scene 3
Written by Iron-K, 2010
Featuring Teo and Sara - http://www.furaffinity.net/user/kjorteo

"It's that time again! And to think I used to be able to lie in on Saturday mornings..." The camera followed Alex as he descended the rickety metal stairs towards it. "But I think this is worth getting up for - take a look at this..."

He put his hand on the side of the camera and pushed it down and aside to reveal a ten foot wide pool in the floor, a coating of smooth thick lime green foam on its surface. As he approached the black and yellow striped lip of the vat, the camera slowly rose again to reveal two brown-furred coyotes seated a few feet apart above it, their feet dangling inches above the foam and a wide pipe jutting down from the ceiling above each of their heads. The male on the left kept his eyes on the green surface below him as the camera focused on him, while the purple-haired female on the right brightly gave a small wave back to Alex.

"And poised in fairly bad positions at the moment, our volunteers this morning are brother and sister Teo and Sara," the red wolf announced. He took a couple of steps around the pool to the right as he called up to the female coyote. "Sara, you were the one who wrote in to us - what made you want us to get your brother?"

The coyote girl glanced over to the seat beside her, her shoulders shaking as Teo hesitantly turned his head just enough to look her in the eye. "Oh, you know..." She shot a friendly grin back over at him, and he smiled at her weakly. "I just wanted to see him squirm," she continued casually, then reached out towards him as if to pat his shoulder, but couldn't quite reach him from her seat.

"Well, that's as good a reason as any for us - and I think you're getting that already...!" He looked to Teo, who nodded distractedly as he wriggled to sit upright, his eyes drifting up to look into the nozzle above him. "But we do try to keep things fair here, which is why you find yourself poised above the slop yourself just now as well. And one of you might find themselves in there very shortly, but here's how we're going to decide..."

He pointed with both hands, slightly above the two canines, and they both turned slightly to look at the pillars on the wall behind them as a column of thin lights blinked in a rising pattern on each one, ending with a large red light near the ceiling. "Each of you is going to have one minute of time, as shown in those lights behind you slowly filling up to the top. The clock's only going to be running on one of you, and you can stop it by answering one of my questions correctly, passing the buck on to your sibling and setting their timer going instead. Your aim's going to be to answer ten questions between you correctly in the time you have available, but if at any point the lights above you reach the top..." He paused and grinned as he looked between their two faces. "Then the ratchet holding your seat up is going to give way, plunging you down into this stuff." He gestured exaggeratedly down at the foamy surface a few inches below the canine siblings' feet, then looked back up at Teo.

"Oh, look at him - he really doesn't want that to happen...!" He chuckled slightly to himself as the male coyote shifted his weight on the precarious seat, leaning slightly forwards to look down his legs and lifting his feet away a little as he stared down at the green surface of the vat beneath him. "How are you feeling about taking a dip in there yourself, Sara?" Alex called up to the other seat.

"I'm fine... I'll make sure it's not me in there!" The female coyote reached up and behind her to grip the headrest of the dunking seat and wriggled forwards as she arched her back, stretching out and smiling up into the dark nozzle above her own head. From the other seat, her brother looked up from his feet and looked anxiously over at her, his gaze going from her relaxed face to her dangling furless feet and back, then he quickly snapped his gaze upward to the pipe on the ceiling as she turned to look slyly back at him.

"Well, we're also going to give you the chance to show some sympathy, should you want to do so...!" Alex continued. "If you get a question wrong, then you'll lose ten seconds and the clock will stay on you - but if you think your sibling has no idea about a question and you want to help them out, just say "Save" and we'll switch to you instead, thus preserving those precious seconds..."

He looked between the two of them with a smile. "I hope we get to see that used a couple of times, at least... but we'll see! Ready to begin?" As Sara straightened up in her seat, swinging her legs back and forth, Teo nodded slowly with his eyes still fixed downwards.

Alex raised his minicomputer up, touching a couple of places on its screen as the lights in the room dimmed. "And we're starting with..." He held the last word, and suddenly a bright column of light from the ceiling clicked on, illuminating the female coyote with small wisps of special effect smoke highlighted in the air around her.

"Sara! Let's start that timer going..." The female coyote looked down below her feet as a regular electronic ticking noise started up, a light at the bottom of the column behind her turning on for each second. "In which sport is a shuttlecock used?"

"Badminton", she responded quickly, and looked over to her brother as the light above her turned off, staring at his anxious expression as he was lit up in her place, his hands clasped in front of his mouth.

"Teo, spell the word 'misogyny'," Alex read out, holding a hand up towards the male coyote to encourage him.

"Um..." he started unsurely, looking up vaguely at the ceiling once more to avoid the stare of the other two. "M..." he started, moving his lips as he fought through his nerves. "I, S, Y..." He visibly gasped, realizing his mistake halfway through saying the last letter, and then squeaked as a buzzer blared from above him, quickly leaning over the side of his chair to see ten more lights blip on.

"No! Sorry, I know that was a slip - it's easy to trip up when you're under that spotlight..." Alex said quickly. "Here's another - which band equalled the record for time in the number 1 slot this week? Or, Sara, do you want to..."

"Save, yeah," she interrupted him with a nod, smiling over at Teo's expression of relief just before he disappeared into darkness again. She turned to Alex, leaning on one arm of her chair, as he read out a new question to her.

"What's the Roman numeral for one hundred - is it X, C, or..."

"C," she interrupted before he had finished the options, and he stopped and nodded. Her brother whimpered as the spotlight came back to him, having only been out of it for a few seconds.

"Teo - the joule is a measure of... what?"

The male coyote looked up from his cringed pose, eyes widening slightly as he picked his hand off the arm of the seat in a half-pointing gesture. "Er... energy..." he said unsurely, twitching at the sound of his answer just after he said it.

"Absolutely right!" The coyote sagged with relief as Alex responded, and the overhead light switched back to Sara. "That's three between you so far, and Teo's on the thirty second mark - let's go back to your sister, who has a little more time..."

Sara ducked down once again to look at her lights as they reached the level of her chair, about a quarter of the way up the column, and her ears pricked as Alex called up to her again.

"Sara, how many edges does a cube have? Not faces - edges," he added, flattening one hand and putting it next to his minicomputer to demonstrate.

The coyote girl gave a barely audible groan, and squeezed her eyes shut as she counted mentally, her ears flattening once more as she tried to ignore the noise of the timer. There was a tapping sound from beside her, and she looked to see her brother anxiously drumming his fingers on the arm of his seat at the edge of the light. He stopped and gripped the chair's arm again as she pinched the top of her muzzle.

"Twelve," she said suddenly.

"Yes!" The spotlight flicked over to Teo again, who was caught in mid-startled jump by the sudden light. After his initial shock, he quickly answered his next question correctly, and looked back to his sister, who gave a much more hesitant response to hers, hunching forwards as she waited for Alex's reply.

"No, I'm sorry..." Alex started, and the female coyote closed her eyes, slumping back again. "That means you lose ten seconds and the spotlight stays on you!" She quickly twisted to look behind her, her purple hair flying outwards as she watched a large section of the lights behind her blink into life, now approaching two thirds of the way up. "Prefixes for increasingly small measures are 'micro', 'nano', 'pico'... what's the one after that?"

Sara paused, thinking, then shook her head and looked to her brother. The male coyote grimaced unsurely as he shared a look with her, and then glanced behind him at his own lights, now just slightly further down than his sister's. "Save," he said after a pause, and he blinked as the spotlight above his sister shut off and his own lit up again.

"Good move! Here's another for you, then - in music, what's the name for the interval between two notes with the same letter?"

After looking unsure, a small smile formed on the coyote's lips as Alex finished the question. "Octave", he answered immediately, and leaned back as the spotlight above him shut off once more.

"Yes - you're neck and neck now! Sara, what do the initials LED stand for? As in the... little lights rapidly rising behind you..."

She gave a flash of a smile as she glanced back over her shoulder. "Light-emitter diode," she said back.

"That's close enough!" Alex spoke rapidly as the spotlight clicked off and on again. "Let's keep this going - you've got three more questions to go and about thirty seconds between you! Teo..." The coyote in the left hand seat leaned forwards, more eagerly than before. "The 'Lent lily' isn't actually a lily - it's another name for which common flower?"

Teo paused, looking suddenly unsure, then rubbed his feet together tensely as he thought, closing his eyes. "Tulip?" he asked back hopefully, then his ears drooped as he saw Alex's face.

"No, I'm sorry...!" The red wolf shook his head and sucked air in through his teeth as he watched the counter behind Teo fill up even more, getting very close to the top. The coyote in the seat below them clasped his hands in front of his mouth, his toes curling inwards tensely. "Quickly - what kind of colour is meant by the word 'smalt'?"

The male coyote sagged as the last word was read out, then gripped his head with both hands as he thought. "Um..." He opened his mouth but didn't say anything, his feet jiggling anxiously as the regular electronic ticking slowly rose in pitch. He twisted in the seat to look up at the lights behind him as the last few red ones at the top began to blip on, and then whipped his head round to his sister for help. He froze as he saw Sara was leaning towards him with her elbow propped on the arm of the chair, wearing a happily innocent expression as she stayed silent. As he watched, she stuck her tongue out at him, and he nearly leapt out of his seat as a harsh buzzer rang through the room, the last red light above him pulsing on and off.

"Sorry, Teo, you're going down...!" Alex called up to him quickly as his hands shot to his mouth, eyes widening as he gave a hoarse squeak. Both of the canines glanced upward as there was a clunk from above him, then he squeezed his eyes shut, gritting his teeth and flattening his ears as a cascade of dark blue gunge spewed out of the pipe above his head.

The gunge enveloped the coyote with a wet smacking noise, the thick goo glistening under the studio lights as it splattered outwards from his head and shoulders, slapping on to his arms and lap. His sister ducked her head back a little as a curtain of it licked towards her, but kept her smile as she watched the vague outline of his head as he wriggled underneath the downpour. With his shoulders hunched, he let go of the chair's arms and put his hands over his head, twitching as the slime splattered against them, then he yelped as there was a click from beneath him and the front of his seat began to slowly tip downward.

Sara grinned delightedly as she watched her brother slide forwards out of the tipping chair, his legs flailing just before his feet broke the surface, the foam parting and the dark green stuff underneath buckling a little down before swallowing him. He bobbed down up to his neck and then launched upwards again with a bark, and a thick wave ballooned outwards from him as he pulled his arms out of the gunk, the glutinous liquid dripping in curtains from them. Unsteadily, he stumbled a couple of times as he got his footing on the bottom of the vat, and whimpered as he felt blobs of the glistening slime sliding down over him and dribbling in strings from strands of his fur. His eyes were still closed as the dark blue stuff on his head dripped down over his eyes and muzzle, as around him the ripples pushed away the foam on the surface to reveal the murky dark and light green mixture of gunk underneath.

Feeling his way on the thin foamy surface with one hand, he bobbed stickily forwards, leaving a trail in the foam behind him. The thick slime was visible plastered in a ring around his tummy as he kept his other hand over his head, huge green drips of the stuff still oozing down from his arm fur. He twitched as another deep blue downpour crashed down into the vat next to him, catching it on one side of his head, and it left his shoulder and upper arm painted in blue as he turned away. Hunching over, he grimaced as the gunge sputtered over his back, gradually subsiding and forming a well in the surface of the glop as it poured down into the vat.

Alex approached the pool, watching as the gunk from the ceiling slowed to a stream of heavy drips. He looked down to the coyote in the vat, still breathing hard as he felt for the edge with one hand, wiping at his eyes with the other. As he blinked a couple of times, he bowed his head down, looking at the two streams of blue gunge slipping around his neck to mingle with the green stuff plastered across his chest, and with a last shiver, finally managed a squeamish smile up at the red wolf.

"Sorry, but it looks like your sister chose not to save you..." Alex started, grinning back down at him as the blue and green painted coyote grasped the edge of the pool tightly with both hands, twitching at the feeling of his slimy fingers against the floor and still blinking as the ooze dripped from strands of his hair and fur. "How does it feel in there?"

"Eueegh..." The gungy canine gave a drawn-out squeamish groan, sagging and then twitching up again as a slow ripple of slime lapped against his side.

"Yeah, that sounds about right...! Stay in there for now, we'll get back to you in a moment..." The red wolf stepped back to stride around the edge of the vat, leaving him picking up his hands from the streak of slime that had formed around them at the edge of the pool and turning them over in front of him. "Sara - you loved watching that, didn't you?" Alex called up to her.

"Yep," she confirmed with a nod, not disguising the grin on her muzzle as her brother looked up and over his shoulder, turning around to face her and eeping again as the slime swirled around his waist. She giggled as she watched his squeamish reactions, then looked back to Alex as he continued.

"Well, you got what you came here for - and that means you're the first of our Saturday contestants to get this," he announced, picking up a gold-sprayed trophy in the gear shape of the show's logo as he passed by a hatch in the wall. He held it up towards her, but didn't stretch over the vat to give it to her. "We'll give you this when you get down - and you get to keep your IZ outfit, and so does your brother if his has survived the experience... happy with that?"

"Oh, yes," she nodded.

"Good! Now, about getting you down from there..." Sara's eyes widened just slightly, and she folded her feet one on top of the other then swung them back and forth uncomfortably as Alex went back around the vat towards her brother, knowing that something else was coming as she saw the grin on the red wolf's face.

"One last question, Teo..." the red wolf called with a cheery smile, ducking down to put the trophy on the floor in front of the slime pool. The coyote in the vat looked up as his name was mentioned, his gaze following Alex as he approached. "Do you think your sister deserves to walk out of here clean after that?"

Sara closed her eyes with a small groan, her grin staying in place as she sagged against the back of her dunk seat. Her brother looked up at her and gave a shudder, but he turned it into a shake of his head in answer to Alex's question. The red wolf reached into his pocket, and Sara straightened up and craned her neck to see, gripping the front of the chair between her legs, as he produced a small paddle adorned with a single domed red button, which he held out over the vat. Grasping it by his fingertips, he lowered it towards the male coyote as he hesitated, then eventually he stretched his slimy arms up to grab it, flinching as the blobs of gunge crawled down against the grain of his fur. Cradling it in one hand, he turned around to face Sara, the surface swirling behind him with his movement, and looked unsurely up at her, his palm hovering over the trigger.

"Oh, don't you dare," she grinned down at him with a point of her finger, her eyes flicking between the slowly rippling gunge below her and the pipe above her head.

"Come on, she did it to you..." Alex encouraged with a laugh as Sara folded her arms, trying to make a show of glancing up casually at the nozzle above her and then staring back down at Teo with a sly smile. The male coyote sheepishly forced a smile back, looked down at the paddle in his hand, then breathed out and thumped on the button.

He pressed himself back against the pool wall as the alarm sounded and a stripe of bright yellow gunge spewed out of the nozzle above his sister's head, then twitched again as the downpour burst over her, her ears flattening and a flinch just visible on her face before the yellow slop formed a dome over her head. Bowing forwards under its weight and poking her muzzle out of the downpour, she hunched her neck up and yipped as licks of the slime streaked down into her lap around her neck, another rivulet pouring forwards off her muzzle. With a click, the chair suddenly tipped forwards underneath her, and she put her hands out as she fell forwards out of the slimy downpour and splurged face first into the gunge vat.

A huge splash of green stuff billowed up from where she'd fallen in, the slimy surface heaving slowly up and down as the yellow gunge continued to drizzle and sputter on to it from the ceiling nozzle and the edges of the overturned chair. Teo put one arm up and turned his face away again as the wave of slime splashed over him, then looked through the crook of his elbow to watch as his sister bobbed her muzzle back up above the surface. For a moment, her features were completely hidden by the layer of thick green slime coating her fur, before she unsteadily got to her feet, slipping down once and dipping the tip of her muzzle back in, gunge trickling thickly away from her face and drizzling off the fur of her chin.

As she bounced back up, up to just below her chest in slime, she shook her head rapidly, sending specks of the gunk flying outwards. After holding her hands out on front of her and letting the slop drizzle from the ends of her fingers, she brought them up to her face, wiping backward along her muzzle and over her eyes, then up and through her sodden hair and over her flattened ears as her muzzle stayed frozen in an open-mouthed smile. Eventually she took her hands away from her face, holding them up in the air, and she blinked her eyes open, her shoulders shaking as she saw her sodden gunge-coated fur for the first time. With a large blob of green foam still slithering down the back of her head, she squeamishly took a step forward in the thick liquid, the slime shifting and rippling with her movement.

She yipped despite herself as another downpour splashed on to her from the ceiling, her hands instinctively going to her ears as the gunge billowed out over her shoulders and back as thick droplets spewed into the pool around her with a heavy splattering noise. Taking another stumbling step forwards as she caught her breath, the yellow slop slowing to a drizzle behind her, she caught Teo's eye, and managed another grin as she wiped at the new yellow slime dripping down her hair. Dipping down to sink up to her shoulders again, she paddled her arms slowly in the gunge as she approached her brother.

"You little... brat," she laughed, scooping up a handful of gunge from the vat as she bobbed up again and reaching up over him. He squeaked, closing his eyes and hunching up as she planted both hands on his head, smearing the green stuff over his headfur and giggling to herself as she watched him cringe as it drizzled down on to his shoulders.

"I think that's fair an end to the morning as we can manage," Alex said, chucking as the male coyote batted his sister's hands away, turning his face to the side and blindly smearing his hands over her face and front. He turned back to the main camera, preparing to finish the segment. "Jayce and..."

He jumped back away from the vat at a thick splashing noise, and whipped his head round. Sara pulled both her arms out of the slime, splashing a wave of gunge outwards over the edge, and she pounced forwards as much as she could in the heavy liquid, catching her brother on the chest and knocking him back to make them both tumble under the surface again.

After a second, Teo's flailing arm broke the surface, a splash of goo spattering outwards as he smacked his hand down again, wriggling up to get his head back above the surface. As he stumbled upright, the thick green ooze trickled slowly away from the fur on his face, strings of it oozing across his slightly open mouth as he bowed his head forwards. With a shake of his head, he wiped at his eyes, flicking the gunge on his hands back into the vat as he looked around for his sister, who was giggling as she watched him from a few feet away. She leaned back slowly, her toes poking up above the gunge as she lay back to float relaxedly on the surface.

Alex shook his head and turned again. "Back to you, Jayce and Kass - I think I'm going to slip away before they drag me in, too..."