[StoryBot]

Stefan was sat in his dressing room, his make-up had been applied and he was waiting for the show to begin. As ever, he was ready several hours before they began filming and now he was feeling pretty bored. Being a game show host was all well and good, but as a member of staff, he was seen to first, before any of the contestants arrived, since he was already in the studio. Once he was dressed, he usually went out to greet the competitors, not because it was his job, but just because he had nothing else to do.

Leaning back, Stefan smiled and thought to himself about how good life actually was. Sure, he was wearing several pounds of make-up in order to be visible for the cameras, and this had given him a reputation for being more orange than, well, an orange, but if that was the price to pay, it was well worth it. He presented a show where people sometimes won big prizes, but always got slimy and, even if he did have to wear a horribly luminous green suit, he wouldn’t change it for the world. He had met some rather interesting people working here, and, after the first few episodes were successful enough, ITV decided to buy the full rights to it and show it on a late evening slot on ITV2. Thanks to this, Stefan was now getting his name known and becoming something of a minor celebrity himself, famed for his good lucks and adult humour. Out and about, a few people recognized him in the streets, and he’d met a couple of interesting celebrities through award ceremonies and the like.

After speaking to pop sensation Raquelle Stevenson at one such awards ceremony and hearing her enthuse about how fun it might be to get gunged, Stefan had put forwards the idea of a celebrity special for the programme, but ITV had turned it down, claiming that as long as the show was still only on ITV2, it wouldn’t be getting enough of a budget to draw in celebrities as competitors. Stefan hadn’t been too keen on this, he liked the idea of having a few celebrity guests, especially if he could get Raquelle in. She had made her name with EsKlübs-Effen, a German techno-pop group, before breaking solo to have a successful career as a singer and model. She was beautiful and for reasons he couldn’t quite understand, Stefan was keen to see her gunged, there was something about it that almost seemed a bit sexy, although that seemed like a weird way to put it. Furrowing his brow, Stefan shook his head, breaking out of his train of thought and glancing up at the clock.

“Quarter-to,” he thought to himself, “The competitors should be here soon.”

Getting up, he poured out another cup of steaming hot coffee and took a sip, checking his hair in the mirror. He smiled and checked his pearly whites, remembering that he had been told to lay off the coffee for fear of staining. The show’s producer, Mandy, had been very keen for him to keep his teeth as white as possible, it was a part of his image that he looked perfect, and having developed a reputation as something of a coffee-fiend, he had been ordered to cut back. He smiled as he remembered telling Mandy that he would limit himself to seventeen cups of coffee per show. So far, he’d stuck to it, but some contestants had been more than a little irritating, or, in one case, stupid, and he had come close to running out of coffee. Still, he was only on his second cup now, so Stefan had plenty of cups left for the rest of the day, and as he sat back down in front of the mirror, he began pondering about what sort of contestants might be waiting for him at the start of season two.

It had been about five months since they had finished filming the first season of Slimecore and whilst he’d kept busy in-between, having a guest spot as a host on “Can I Tell You The News?” and appearing as a panel member on the music quiz show, “Do Not Concern Yourself With The Kinks”. He had appeared on a few other shows, but those were the two that he saw as being real signs that this job was taking him places. Alongside which, he was working on a few efforts at comedy for some of the festivals, to try to further his career. When he’d got the part as host, this was just a small, experimental programme that no-one had ever really expected to go anywhere but now it was doing quite well for itself, being on late on a Friday night, it appealed to the drunken students coming home from the pub, who were seen as the target demographic for the programme. Most contestants were now either students or twenty-somethings looking to get their fifteen minutes of fame. Despite this, they had a decent fan base, and the show was getting pretty well-known, it even had a few parodies on sketch shows and it had found a way of seeping into the public mind. The show seemed to be particularly popular with young men, and Stefan thought he knew why. The outfits given to the contestants were a bit tight-fitting, so they tended to emphasize certain body parts on the female contestants.

Despite what ITV had said about celebrities, they had increased the show’s budget for its second season, and the production team had been hard at work with alterations to some of the games from the first season, as well as a few new games being added. They show’s grand finale, the Slimecore itself, had also been re-vamped and altered. Stefan knew most of the changes, but he was still unaware of how some of the games would work now. He knew the idea behind them, but he hadn’t seen them being played yet, so he was a bit excited about seeing them for the first time. Some of the games he knew rather well. Thanks to the “testing” day that the team had run the week before, he knew some of the games a little better than he would have liked, having been doused with all sorts of gunge after the staff decided it was only fair that he should get slimed himself. He hadn’t exactly enjoyed the feeling of it, but it had been a good laugh, and helped get the team excited about doing it for real. He smiled and sat back in the chair, wondering if today’s contestants would laugh as much when they were covered in slime.

The name of the show featured the word slime and it was pretty obvious that anyone that appeared on the show would be going home messy. Some of the previous season’s competitors hadn’t been particularly great sports, some of the girls in particular had gotten a bit annoyed with the amount of gunge, and, whilst Stefan and the rest of the crew had pointed out that they agreed to it, some of them just didn’t take it all that well. Stefan couldn’t see the point in applying to a game show where there is no hope of staying clean if you’re unhappy about getting messy. For the second season, they had made sure to check more thoroughly that the contestants weren’t afraid of getting messy so that they didn’t have any problems. In one episode, things had gotten so bad that the only way that they could get one team of girls to continue was to rig the game so that the team of guys lost and got the big gunging at the end, whilst the girls stayed pretty clean. Stefan hadn’t been happy about it all, and neither had Mandy. The show was meant to be a bit of fun, and neither were fond of the idea of rigging the games, but it was the only solution, other than cancelling that episode altogether.

Stefan continued to sip his coffee, thinking about the last season. The first episode had featured an unlucky girl called Rachael, who had been on the receiving end of the forfeit in almost every round, whilst her partner had stayed relatively clean. They made it through to the Slimecore by virtue of a Rachael putting in an excellent showing in the quiz round, where she then trapped her partner in the end chamber, giving her a very severe gunging as a measure of revenge. Despite all the gungings, Rachael had gone through the whole show in high spirits, putting on a front of disgust for the cameras, but never complaining about it. She had been a real star, and Stefan hoped that thanks to the new vetting process, they might get more people like her on the show. As he began to think that perhaps it helped that she was rather cute, Stefan’s thoughts were interrupted by a knocking on the door.

“Yeah? Come in!” He shouted.

The door swung open and in walked a girl with short ginger hair, tied back into a ponytail. Her skin was pale, and her green Irish eyes were hidden behind a pair of red-rimmed glasses. She carried a clipboard tucked under her arm and had an earpiece in her left ear. Smiling at Stefan, she left the door wide open and entered the room, sitting on the edge of the dressing table, her legs dangling down next to him, before sniffing and glancing down at the cup of coffee.

“What did I tell you about the coffee?”

Stefan smiled and shook his head. This was Mandy, the show’s producer and now one of his closest friends, but nothing more. There were rumours going around that the two were a bit intimate, but so far, these were just rumours and nothing more. Stefan wouldn’t mind if they were true, Mandy was an attractive girl, even when she wasn’t making any effort. Today, she was wearing a pair of jeans and a black “Slimecore” t-shirt, and Stefan still thought she looked stunning. The two were close, and whilst there had been some flirting, it never went anywhere and Stefan was reluctant to make any moves, if only for the sake of professionalism. That, really, was about the only reason Stefan could find for why he had never tried to take it any further, but he also knew that Mandy had been jerked around by her former fiancé and, as such, she had been left a rather bitter person, with trust issues and a reluctance to get close to people. She had a bit of a reputation as something of an ice queen among the crew, but Stefan had gotten to know her a bit, even if she still wouldn’t open up to him. Still, when she was in the mood, she was good for a laugh, and whatever the mood, she was always good fun for arguing with. She had a dark sense of humour to match her cold personality, but Stefan found plenty he liked in her. Stefan often told himself that if she ever opened up to him, or showed some hint of feeling, he might take the initiative and make a mo-

“Stefan?” Asked Mandy impatiently, “Coffee?”

Stefan blinked and realised he had zoned out a little, “What did I tell you about the coffee?”

“I told you, I’d drink no more than seventeen cups. This is only number two. Besides, you only say that because you hate the stuff.”

Mandy rolled her eyes, “How you can like something so bitter and dark, I’ll never understand.”

Stefan smiled. The coffee may be dark and bitter, but there was someone in the room that was darker and bitterer than any coffee, and he certainly couldn’t add sugar and milk to Mandy. Not if he wanted to keep his job, or consciousness, for that matter.

“So, Mandy, have you just come here to tell me to stop drinking things I enjoy, or is there a real reason for your visit?”

Mandy handed him the clipboard she had been carrying. “Everything’s going according to plan so far, the contestants should be here soon, in fact, I think I saw one arriving on my way over here, and I think that’s it, really.” She bit her bottom lip and looked down at her trainers.

Stefan glanced at the clipboard, it was full of Mandy’s messy handwriting but everything had been crossed off. It seemed like everything was in order, and everything was ready. They just need some contestants now. He looked over at Mandy and smiled, she was nervous. Far more nervous than he was, and she didn’t even have to go out in front of the cameras, but it was a rather endearing feature. Stefan knew why she was here now, she was worried about it, after all, it was the first show of the new series and whilst everything had been tested over and over to check it all worked, you never know how it will go when it comes to filming. Fortunately, Slimecore isn’t live, so there’s time to stop, go back, edit, re-edit, re-shoot and generally iron out any problems that may arise, but it still caused Mandy great concern, and Stefan thought he could see a few butterflies in the back of her throat when she spoke. Deciding to try to distract her for a bit, Stefan handed the clipboard back and grabbed another cup of coffee, turning around to face her, smiling.

“So, tell me about the teams then.” He said, hoping to relax her a bit, but also with genuine interest. Mandy was part of the panel that interviewed the potential contestants before they appeared on the show, so she should know quite a bit about them.

Mandy grabbed the clipboard, flicking through a few pages. “Right, today, we’ve got… Oh, you’ll like this Stefan. We’ve got four girls.”

Stefan grinned; he always liked it when they had a full house of girls on the show. After all, he was a red-blooded male, and like most of the show’s male viewers, he enjoyed seeing the girls running around the games in the Slimecore “uniform”. He also found that sometimes the guys could be difficult to work with as the majority just seemed to shrug and ignore the mess, like it wasn’t a big deal. Some sort of macho thing, Stefan had often thought that the guys had to look cool and tough, so they didn’t react to the slime in order to keep up the bravado. Girls, on the other hand, reacted in a much more natural manner. They would scream, or giggle, or move out of the way of the gunge if they could, but no matter what they did, they reacted in one way or another. It provided a better spectacle for the audience, and Stefan found that it made the girls a lot easier to work with, and he could get a bit of banter going. Some of the guys would just grunt and shrug as if they didn’t want to be there.

“So, do these girls have names?”

“Yup, they sure do,” began Mandy, “We’ve got Leanne and Jenny on the yellow team, and Rebecca and Caroline on the blue team. Huh… That’s weird…”

“Hmm? What’s weird?”

“I’ll have to look into this.” Said Mandy, “Caroline and Leanne have the same surname and come from the same place… I think they might be sisters.”

“What’s so strange about that, then?” Stefan took another sip of coffee, “We’ve had sisters on her before.”

“Yeah, but they’re on different teams. I’ll have to check if this is right. I’d best get off and see what’s going on here, why don’t you go and see if anyone has arrived yet? I’ll catch up once I’ve checked this out.”

With that, Mandy was back to her feet and heading out of the door, clipboard under her arm and walking quickly as she moved off. Stefan smiled, she was a bit nervous at the best of times and something like this could easily throw her off even though it was probably a simple mistake. He shook his head and finished the cup of coffee, before grabbing the emerald jacket and pulling it on. For reasons he was still unsure of, he enjoyed wearing the suit to greet people, as if it was a perfectly normal thing to do. He had practically become a character in the context of the show, gaining a reputation as being slightly sadistic, yet polite and a bit eccentric. He had often joked that all he needed was a hat with an “In this style 10/6” label to finish the ensemble, but clearly, such a hat would be largely impractical. He looked down and smiled, the suit was almost awful, a green jacket and matching trousers, with a vibrant purple shirt and a lime green tie. He often wondered how the audience and competitors managed to look at him without feeling the need to throw up. The colours and patterns danced and clashed awfully, but then, that was the point. He decided not to fasten the jacket for now, although he wholly expected Mandy to tell him to sort it out before the cameras began rolling.

Pulling his dressing room door closed behind him, Stefan set off down the hall towards the studio entrance, where he was met by Grant, one of the show’s technicians.

“Hey, Grant, do you know if any of the contestants have arrived yet?”

Grant was tall and muscular; his bald head close to the ceiling in the corridor as he looked down at Stefan and nodded. Stefan often thought that Grant would look more at home stood outside of a London nightclub, but he had been with the show since its humble beginnings and was one of the more senior technicians on the team.

“Yeah man, a couple of dames arrived about five minutes back. I didn’t catch any names, but from the look of them, this should be a fun show. Hope the blonde one ain’t as prissy as she looks, or she could have some real problems with the slime.” Grant laughed, his strong Cockney accent usually covered up any twinges of his original Jamaican accent, but his loud laugh still showed his roots, “Anyway, they’re still hanging about in reception. Mandy said something about not letting anyone get changed before she’d spoke to them. Man, you know her better than me, but she’s driving me crazy with all this running around. Hope she settles down soon, or I might lock her in the fridge ‘til she chills out, you know what I mean?”

Stefan smiled; he was one of the few people that found Mandy’s madness to be endearing, rather than annoying. “Yeah, I get what you’re saying, Grant. I’ll have a word with her if I can, see about getting her to relax a bit. If not, feel free to stick her in the fridge later, okay?”

“Yeah man. Might need to move some of the slime out, or I might just throw her in with it. Whatever, right?”

Stefan nodded and moved towards the Slimecore reception. It was a large open room, almost like that of a decent hotel, with large windows and lots of natural light. Neutral carpets and walls filled the room, the beige and cream broken up with photos and posters for the show, and near to the door was a desk manned by the reception team. A few chairs and tables were scattered around the waiting area, and Stefan spotted two girls sat waiting. He assumed they were the two that Grant had been talking about, both were slim and attractive, looking to be about twenty or so, one with short blonde hair and a pale complexion, whilst the other was clearly Asian, her long dark hair falling straight down her back as she flipped through a magazine.

Stefan coughed to announce his presence as the two girls looked up. “Hello girls, are you today’s contestants?”

“Are you Stefan Kennedy?” Asked the blonde girl, jumping up from her seat and extending a hand towards the green-suited man.

“Yes, that’s my name.” Stefan said, flashing his pearly whites and shaking the girl’s hand, “Although I should think that this bright green suit limits me to being either myself, or the Riddler. And whilst I do ask my share of questions, I’m not yet planning to take over Gotham… Now, who do we have here?”

“My name’s Leanne” said the blonde girl as her partner stood up next to her, smoothing out her skirt, “And this is Jenny”.

Jenny smiled and nodded towards Stefan, “Hi. Um… Nice to meet you.”

Stefan smiled, she wasn’t quite as confident and exuberant as her partner, but she seemed nice enough. He got the impression that perhaps Leanne was the more athletic of the two, with Jenny coming along to provide the brains for the team. He just hoped that she wouldn’t be too shy or nervous when she was faced with a room full of people and cameras.

“So, like, why do we have to wait here?” Asked Leanne, glancing at the clock hung up behind the reception desk. “It’s only been about ten minutes, but can’t we just get ready and stuff?”

Stefan shrugged, “I’m not really sure. Normally, once you’re here you head through to your team’s locker room and then you get changed and wait for the show to begin. I think Mandy, that’s the producer, wanted to check some stuff first. Something’s got her a bit confused.”

“Oh… Is this my application?” Said Leanne, biting her bottom lip, “I know you guys don’t really do ‘revenge’ but it’s not like I was asking you to change the show or anything. Like, I didn’t want to cause a problem, but it’s not such a big deal is it? My sister isn’t here already, is she?”

Leanne was clearly starting to babble and Stefan had to put a hand on her shoulder to get her to stop. “Hold up, Leanne, you’re going a mile a minute. Now, what’s going on? What’s all this about revenge?”

Leanne sighed and looked down at the floor. “Well, uh, my sister is Caroline; she applied to be on the show. I saw the form lying around one day and wrote in asking if you guys could set it up so that I’d be her opponent. My sister’s a real pain and she could do with a good gunging to sort her out, but that show, um, like, you know the one, with that black guy and the dunk tank, uh, it got, like, cancelled, so there was like, no chance to do it?”

Stefan nodded, “Right, I think I understand where you’re going with this.”

“Yeah, I mean, like, I don’t want to do anything that’s really going to upset her or anything, just that, like, it’d be good to see her get gunged and get taken down a bit, you know?” Leanne smiled, looking up at Stefan, “It’s just a bit of gunge, isn’t it? Nothing too bad, but I’d like to gunge her. It’d be, like, a lot of fun, but she doesn’t know a thing about it, which is why I kind of want to go and hide in the locker room. I want to see the look of shock on her face when she realises what’s going on.”

“I see, I see. So any ideas about winning a holiday are just an added bonus for you, then?”

“Well, yeah. It’d be great” Leanne said, a wide grin spreading across her face, “But really; I just want to laugh at my sister getting gunged!”

Stefan laughed, “Well, you do realise that she will have just as many chances to gunge you in return, right?”

Leanne’s smile quickly vanished and she looked almost a little concerned by this revelation. “Like, yeah, she’ll get a chance, but only if she wins, right? You only really do the big gungings as a forfeit, yeah? So if she doesn’t, like, win, she won’t get any real chance to gunge me, right?”

“Well, yes, if you win every game, you’ll stay pretty clean by comparison, but we’ve never had a full clean sweep yet” Stefan shook his head, “You’re almost certain to get slimed at least once, you really can’t bank on staying clean throughout the whole show. You’re alright with that, aren’t you?”

Leanne thought for a moment and nodded. “Yeah, I guess it’s cool. Just, like, I got all excited about the idea of gunging Caz that I never really considered the idea that she might gunge me. Nah, it’ll be fine. I’ll just have to, like, make sure she doesn’t win. Right, Jenny?”

Leanne turned to her partner for support and found very little. Jenny shrugged her shoulders in a look that said “I’m here, aren’t I?”

“What about you, Jenny? Got any issues with being gunged?” Enquired Stefan, now much less convinced by the show’s vetting policy.

Before Jenny could answer, Mandy ran into the reception, looking rather flustered, clutching her clipboard, “Hey girls, sorry to keep you waiting. You’re… Leanne and this must be Jenny, right?”

The two nodded as Mandy scribbled something down. Leanne piped up, “Is everything, like, okay? There aren’t any problems, are there?”

Mandy sighed and screwed up her face a little, “Well, yes, but they’re sorted now, I think. You two come with me, I’ll take you over to the locker room. You’ll be the yellows. Uh… Stefan, do you know what’s going on here, with why the sisters are on opposite teams?”

“Yeah, Leanne was just filling me in on it.”

“Great, that means I don’t have to. Look, I’ll take care of these two; can you hang around and wait for the others? Greet them, take them over to their changing room and explain the show, but keep quiet about it. I think it could be a really good angle, I’ll sort things here and then I’ll need a word just before the show, we’re going to do things a little differently.” She paused, lost in thought, “Don’t worry, it’ll be great. Just keep smiling, okay?”

With that, Mandy led the two girls to their locker room, chatting at some speed about a few things. Stefan sat down and shook his head; he could tell that this was already shaping up to be an interesting show. Not that the first show of a new series wasn’t already interesting enough, but there was a bit of a buzz now and Mandy’s parting words of “Just keep smiling” were ringing in his head as a warning that this might be one of those shows where you have no idea what’s going on and you’ll just have to smile because there’s nothing else you can do.

It was a beautiful day, the sun was shining and it was warm, despite being early April. Stefan sat back on one of the chairs, staring out of the large glass front to the studio, watching the world go by until he spotted two girls walking towards the front of the building, before opening the door and glancing around the room, moving towards the desk. Stefan hopped up and strolled over to intercept them.

“Hi, you look like you must be two of today’s contestants.” He said, causing them to turn around and causing Stefan to double-take when he saw one of them. She was about five foot five, slim, pale-skinned, a few freckles and long wavy blonde hair, with deep hazel eyes and a stunning smile. All in all, she was pretty by any standards, but more than that, Stefan was shocked by just how much she looked like Leanne. He had been expecting sisters, but not twins. Smiling at the blonde girl first, he said “You must be Caroline and that makes you… Rebecca?”

Rebecca nodded, stood a bit behind Caroline. She was quite tall, especially for a girl, and she must have been almost six foot, and most of that was leg. Stefan couldn’t help but notice her legs, for one thing, they were out on full display, but he was a little uncomfortable. He wasn’t the tallest of guys, at just over 6 foot, but he often found himself a little intimidated by tall girls, even if they weren’t taller than him. Glancing down, he took some relief from the fact that she was wearing heels, but she was still pretty tall. She was also quite pretty, shoulder-length chocolate-brown hair framed her face, and with her tanned skin she looked like she came from some Mediterranean hotspot.

“That does make me Rebecca.” She said, and as her strongly Scouse accent came through, any ideas about her being a Spanish beauty were quickly dispelled, “I’m guessing that you’re Stefan, since you sort of look like him and you’re wearing that hideous green outfit.”

Stefan feigned a sad face, “You don’t like my suit? I picked it out myself; you know, it’s very important to look good on TV.”

The girls laughed and Stefan noticed that they had arrived a bit late. “Right, girls, we’re going to have to get a move on. You’ll be the blue team, the yellows are already here and they’re getting changed as we speak. I’ll take you through to your dressing room and then someone else will look after you and I’ll….”

“…See you in the Slimecore?” Interrupted Caroline, quoting Stefan’s now-famous closing line to him with a beaming smile on her face.

“Uh… Yes, I suppose so. Yes.” Stefan replied, caught off-guard by the blonde’s response.

“Sorry” said Caroline, still smiling, “I couldn’t help it. I’m a big fan of the show.”

With that, the three continued to chat as Stefan led them to their dressing room and passed them over to another member of the staff before heading out to wait by the stage entrance. Mandy soon arrived and gave him a few instructions on how to introduce the show and how to work in the supposed “revenge” angle as well as a few last minute checks, and then… Show time!

~~~

The set had been re-designed since the new series, thanks to a larger studio and a larger budget. It wasn’t a change in style, just layout, mostly, with lots of industrial-looking clichés, like long pipes and control panels full of buttons, steel doors and steel steps, coloured lights, flashing beacons and other such things. Lots of greys and metallic colours, with smoke in parts, and a few cobwebs too, adding to the “abandoned power plant” look.

As the show’s theme tune came to a close, Stefan marched out on stage, into the spotlight at the centre, facing out to the audience. The show had always been filmed in front of a live audience, if only for the fact that in the early days, the ticket sales had been an important source of income, and now, even with a better budget, it still brought some money in, and there was good demand for tickets. The audience enjoyed the show and once they had stopped Stefan “accidentally” gunging random audience members, people were a lot more willing to turn up and see the show live. One of the earliest lessons that the show learned was not to gunge members of the public without any forewarning, as some of them can get rather angry about it. It may seem obvious that people would be annoyed at being gunged, but, at the time, it was just a fun gimmick, as no-one was safe from the slime. Not even the audience.

“Welcome one and all to the new and improved Slimecore,” began Stefan, speaking into the microphone as the cheering of the audience died down. “Yes, this is the start of season two, and we’ve got new games, new contestants, more gunge, more prizes and more madness, so what are we waiting for? Let’s meet the teams!”

The blue team ran out first, wearing the show’s traditional uniform. It was a pair of black shorts and a lycra t-shirt, with the Slimecore logo emblazoned on it, much the same as the team uniforms from the show’s first season. Caroline was in front, as Rebecca followed, both with big grins, waving to the audience as their bare feet slapped on the cold studio floor.

“Here we have the blue team,” said Stefan, smiling at the two as the cameras zoomed in on their faces, “Please, tell us a bit about yourself!”

Rebecca took the microphone first, “My name’s Rebecca, I’m a twenty-six year old personal trainer from Liverpool and I’m a huge Everton fan! I enjoy nights out and spending time in the gym, which is good, since that’s my job!”

She then handed the microphone across to Caroline, “Hello everyone! I’m Caz, which is short for Caroline, and I’m twenty-four years old. I’m currently working in Warrington as an English Teacher and I enjoy nothing more than shopping, just like any other girl!”

Stefan took the mic back as the camera remained focussed on the two girls, “So, blue team, do you think you’ll win today?”

“Sure!” Rebecca shouted, getting into the spirit of things. “We didn’t come here to lose and we’ll beat any opponents to get that holiday. Bring ‘em on!”

Caroline smiled and brushed her long hair back, “This is all about teamwork and skill and luck, right? We’ve got it in the bag. Besides, it’s been ages since we had a holiday and we definitely deserve some time to put our feet up!”

“Great, that’s what we like to hear,” began Stefan, “Confident partners that will work together. Let’s hope the yellow team are just as keen. Come on down, yellows!”

Jenny walked out first, in black shorts and a bright yellow t-shirt. Caroline’s face showed some faint signs of recognition, but not enough to know quite who she was, but she instantly recognised her twin sister who walked out with a huge grin on her face. Leanne waved to Caroline and stood to the right of Stefan, alongside Jenny.

“Well, I see that you recognise the yellow team, don’t you, Caz?” Asked Stefan holding the mic out to her, “Why don’t you tell us who they are?”

“Well, that’s… That’s my twin sister, Leanne and Jenny, her best friend…” Caroline was still a bit stunned by all this, “Why are they here?”

Stefan laughed, “Well, why don’t we let Leanne explain this one?”

Leanne nodded smugly and took the mic from Stefan, “It’s rather simple, really, sis. Remember this?” Leanne turned to the large screen in the corner of the studio, which usually showed the scores, or the time remaining, but for now showed a picture of an elegant, long black dress. It looked rather expensive, with sequins and lace and small pearls adorning its sleeves and bodice. However, more noticeable than any of this, was a large red stain on the left side of the dress, covering the arm and a fair portion of the bodice.

“No way…” was Caroline’s squeak of a response.

Once again, Leanne was looking rather satisfied with herself, “Yes way, Caz, that was my ball gown, it was, like, my favourite dress, and it was every bit as expensive as it looks and you… You borrowed it and somehow, whilst you were out, you managed to like, spill red paint or something all over it, ruining it forever!”

Caroline began to try to explain but Leanne cut her off, “I don’t know what you were doing, but, like, you ruined my favourite dress, so I’m here today to like, cover you in like, gunge or something, to get revenge for ruining my dress!”

The audience joined in with a bit of booing as Caroline began to turn a little red, the slightest hint of an embarrassed smile emerging on her face. Rebecca, with no idea about any of it was stood with a bemused smile, knowing that she’s completely unrelated but she’d just been labelled as one of the “bad guys”, at least for the remainder of the day’s filming.

“Well, this isn’t something that we’re used to here on Slimecore, but we’re more than happy to settle any family disputes” said Stefan, turning to Caroline, “Well Caz, have you got any response to Leanne’s comments?”

“I sure do!” Said Caroline, defiantly, “That was one incident, and she said I could borrow it. It wasn’t my fault that someone found some buckets of paint and started chucking them around. I certainly didn’t want to be covered in paint! Besides, it’s nothing compared to some of her stunts! She’s ruined some of my favourite tops by spelling red wine on them and all sorts of other things. I could go on, but we’d be here all day!”

“It sounds to me like you’ve both got a few reasons to want to get each other gunged, which is absolutely fine, because there’s no shortage of gunge on this show!” Stefan then moved to stand ahead of the two groups of girls, speaking to the camera. “Right, for any new viewers, I’ll explain how the show works. This place was once an industrial power plant, it was closed down a long time ago, and most of it fell into disrepair. Some parts still work, others don’t and some seem to be controlled by the malevolent virus that caused this place to be shut down all those years ago. The teams will compete in a number of rounds, set in different parts of the plant, where they will earn points. At the end of the show, the team with the most points will move through to the Slimecore, in the centre of the plant, where they will have a chance to win tonight’s star prize. Speaking of which, let’s see what today’s prize is!”

The cameras swung around to the large screen once again, showing a montage of a Mediterranean cruise holiday package, full of sun and sea and a luxury liner and all the razzle-dazzle that is to be expected of a game show’s star prize holiday. The audience made the appropriate noises and both teams of girls looked quite happy with the idea of a free cruise.

“Well, there we have it; a Mediterranean cruise. Sounds great, doesn’t it?” Asked Stefan, as the audience cheered in response. “Of course, it’s not fun if it’s easy, so our two teams will have to work hard to win it, and hopefully, to avoid that nasty sticky gunge that seems to have flooded the station along the way. In each game, one member from the team will be working to try to win, whilst the other will be facing a forfeit should their team lose, and all of those forfeits are very, very messy!”

More cheering from the audience as the camera panned across the girls. Leanne was smiling and waving to Caz, keen to see her sister get messy. Caroline, on the other hand was shaking her head, still in shock at her sister’s appearance here.

“So, with no further ado, let’s get on with our first game of the day. Leanne, why don’t you pick which part of the plant you want to go to first?” Stefan asked, pointing to a map of the plant on the wall. It contained all your expected locations, from the processing plant to the boiler room and anything in between that sounded vaguely industrial and appropriate to such a game show. The map was laid out in the form of a big circle, split into four rings, with the Slimecore in the centre. Each of the four rings were split into four areas, so that teams could take certain “paths” to the centre, and depending upon which room they began in, they could only move on to other rooms as they progressed.

Leanne looked over the map and her eyes lit up as she pointed to a location on the map, “That’s the one, the sewage works. I want to go there first!”

Stefan made a “hmm” face, “Interesting, you do realise that the sewage plant is a filthy room, full of all sorts of unpleasant gunk?”

“That’s what I’m hoping for. I can’t want to see Caz getting all messy and horrible!”

Stefan laughed and put his arm around Caroline’s shoulder, “Worried at all?”

“No way, Leanne’s the one that’s going to be getting messy, not me” said Caroline, before adding “If anyone needs to worry, it’s her!”

With that, Stefan led the teams through the large steel door into the plant, as smoke flooded the entrance way and the five of them disappeared into it and the cameras stopped rolling as the team moved around to film the first game of the episode.

~~~

Once the five were through the doors and Mandy had given them the signal that the cameras were off, Caroline immediately began questioning Leanne.

“Are you serious?” She asked, still not quite believing it.

“Totally serious” was the instant response from Leanne, “Besides, there’s, like, no need to look so worried, it’s just a bit of gunge! It’s cold and wet, but that’s about it. I’ll just, like, enjoy laughing at your humiliation when you lose.”

“You must be joking, right? You won’t win today, but I’ll be sure to laugh when you get slimed” said Caroline, “You always said you suited brown, so I’m sure you won’t mind it too much.”

At which point, Stefan stepped in, “Actually girls, neither of you could be facing the forfeit in this game; we have to flip a coin now to decide who will be playing the game, and who will be risking the forfeit. So, Caroline, if you’d like to call the coin in the air.”

Stefan flipped the coin, as Caroline called out heads. Catching it in his hand, he revealed a head as Caroline punched the air and Rebecca laughed, shaking her head in disbelief. Turning to the yellows, he flipped a coin and Leanne called heads too, getting it right, meaning that Jenny would be facing the forfeit for this game.

“Now, girls, I know there’s a bit of rivalry between the two of you, and you’ll be competing directly in this game, but please, don’t go too far with it.” He said, taking a rather stern tone, “It’s meant to be a bit of fun, the rivalry is great, but don’t let it get the better of the good-natured fun element of the show or we might have to step in and sort things out.”

Both sisters nodded, Caroline extending a hand to Leanne, who paused for a moment and reluctantly shook it.

“Good luck” said Caroline. “May the best girl win.”

“Oh, don’t you worry Caz, I will. It might be Rebecca that gets gunged this time, but, like, you’ll get yours soon enough.”

With that, Leanne and Jenny headed off down one side of the corridor towards Mandy to take their places for the start of the game, as Stefan led Rebecca and Caroline to theirs.

“Your sister seems pretty… Aggressive,” mused Stefan, “A little too keen to get revenge on you. She seems like a bit of a loose cannon, I’ve got my concerns.”

Caroline smiled, “Don’t worry, that’s just Leanne. She’s all mouth, really but she’s very, very competitive. She would want to win anyway, and, well, when you’re twin sisters, there’s always a bit of rivalry. Everyone lumps you together and you desperately want to make it clear that you’re different people. I think that’s got something to do with it, that’s why she wants to win so much, to sort of show that she’s the better sister or something.”

Caroline went quiet all of a sudden and stopped, turning to Stefan. “Um, you knew about this before the show began, right?”

“Yeah, just about, I have to know what’s going on, or it makes hosting the show very difficult.”

“Then…” Said Caroline, still speaking rather quietly, “Then, is it actually possible for me to win? I mean, this is still a fair game, right? It hasn’t been rigged or anything to make sure that Leanne wins has it?”

Stefan stopped walking and shook his head. “It’s exactly as even as it would have been originally. We think the “revenge” element is quite good, but we’re not going to change anything. If Leanne wants to gunge you, she’ll have to win the old-fashioned way, and, of course, if you win, you get to give her a gunging instead.”

“Excellent,” said Caroline, back to her bouncy usual self, “So there’s a lot to play for her. I can get a holiday and turn the tables on Leanne. She won’t like being gunged at all, but I think she might just deserve it.”

Stefan laughed before giving Caroline a nudge through to the sewage works, where the other three were ready and waiting for the first game.

~~~

The cameras began rolling once again, showing Stefan stood in a fairly dark room, lit by green lights and full of smoke. He was sporting a gas mask, which he pulled up before addressing the camera.

“Believe me, you need a mask down here, the smell is awful!” Stefan then moved along to stand between two clear plastic gunge tanks, with Rebecca sat in the one on his left, and Jenny to his right. “Here we have Rebecca and Jenny, who, unfortunately for them will be facing the threat of a forfeit should their team lose this round. It’ll be up to our battling twins, Caz and Leanne to try to save their partner from a messy fate, and I’m sure they’ll both be desperate to draw first blood by winning this game!” Stefan paused and hoped that his comments about “first blood” wouldn’t be taken literally, especially by the aggressive Leanne.

“Now, this is a new part of the plant” continued Stefan, “We couldn’t get access to it last year, but we’ve managed to get in here now, although given the smell, I’m not sure that’s such a good thing. Anyway, Caz and Leanne will be working hard in here to drain the sludge and gunk out of this large tank that’s blocking the way. Once the tank is drained, we should be able to move it aside and carry on as we journey towards the Slimecore.”

The camera showed two pipes running out of the top of the tanks containing Jenny and Rebecca, into one side of a large spherical joint, with about eight pipes running from the opposite side. These pipes intertwined and tangled, with all eight leading into the large industrial skip full of slime that Stefan had mentioned earlier. This tank was about three-quarters full of brown sludge, which would soon be coating one of the unfortunate girls stood in the tanks.

Stefan moved towards a large wall panel with two screens on it showing the series of 8 pipes that were twisted together. The left screen had one pipe coloured yellow, and the right screen featured a blue pipe running amidst the others, both coloured pipes had several red dots on them. Standing between the two, Stefan continued to explain the rules, “Whilst we have 8 pipes running out of the vat, only two of them are actually for drainage purposes, and these are both highlighted on these screens. Unfortunately, neither of them are working just yet, due to a series of blockages in the pipes that are preventing the vacuum function from sucking up the gunk. Caroline and Leanne will be following these maps to find the blockages, marked by the red dots on the map, and then they will have to dislodge the blockage by use of these high-tech blockage-removal devices.” Stefan handed both Caroline and Leanne an over-sized foam-coated plastic mallet each “…Try not to use them on each other, girls! This is a great opening game with plenty of points on offer. You’ll get ten points for each section of the pipe that you sort, and a bonus twenty points for draining the tank. So, on three… Two… One… Go!”

Stefan stepped out of the way as both Leanne and Caroline moved towards the pipes, trying to follow the map to find their pipe and its first problem. It may have seemed an easy enough job, but, as the twins were discovering, it wasn’t so easy to find their pipe amongst the others, although a number of the pipes had red lights at different points to show blockages, so, once they had found their pipe, at least, it should be easier to find the problems. The games didn’t really have a time limit to them, they had been designed so that the majority could be completed comfortably within about eight minutes and usually no longer than ten.

Caroline found her pipe first, and hit it with her mallet as the red light switched to green and the “blockage” rolled down the pipe until it got stuck and another red light came on. Leanne soon found her pipe and knocked it too, dislodging her bit of debris, as it rolled along and her pipe began to twist into the other pipes, whilst Caroline’s had stayed fairly straight so far. Moving along her pipe, Leanne found another red light and swung her mallet, striking the steel, but, as the light went out, a dribble of thick lilac slime poured down onto the left side of her head and her shoulder from the pipe. Shocked, Leanne screamed and leapt back, expecting more, but after the quick dribble, nothing more came and Leanne got back to work, noticing that Caroline had stopped to laugh but was now moving ahead.

“Oops, I forgot to mention that there may be bits of waste left in some of the pipes!” Stefan yelled, stood at his safe point, well away from the game and the gunge, “You two had better be careful!”

Leanne was working quickly to try to catch up with Caroline. Fortunately, as her pipe started to straighten out for a bit, her sister was getting a bit lost as her pipe spiralled in among 2 others to form a tight knot of piping. Unfortunately, right in the middle of this mess of pipes was a red light, indicating a blockage, so Caroline gave it a tap with her hammer, looking up carefully to ensure she hit the right pipe. As she did so, some yellow slime dribbled out, landing on her face and she immediately ducked down, wiping the slime from her eyes, before laughing at herself and moving along to the next blockage.

“This is getting a bit messy now, both girls have had some slime, but neither of them are far from the end now” Said Stefan, providing some half-hearted attempt at commentary on the game, “We could be in for a close finish.”

Both sisters continued along, Caroline struggling a little, so Leanne was able to catch up and as the two girls were neck-and neck, Caroline swung and hit a segment of another pipe. It collapsed and a few litres of orange slime poured down onto Caroline’s head, coating her hair and dripping onto her shoulders, running over her t-shirt and dripping to the floor, forming a puddle around her feet. Leanne burst out laughing at her sister’s sliming as Caroline remained frozen to the spot in stunned surprise.

“Oh dear, Caz has hit the wrong pipe!” Said Stefan, commentating on the action again, “Only the two pipes on the map are in a fit state to work, the others are damaged and brittle… Liable to fall apart at the slightest touch, as poor Caroline just found out!”

Leanne was hard at work, following her pipe, tapping it along the way. At one tight knot, she got another dribble of slime on her hair and back, but compared to Caroline’s gunging it was nothing. Caz had gotten back to work, trying to keep up, but she was struggling to catch her sister. Leanne managed to move her blockage along a bit further, as Caroline tapped a segment and got a dribble of green slime pouring over her right arm and the mallet. She shook her head and hurried along to the next segment, but it was now a little too late, with Leanne just inches from the large spherical joint of piping near to the tanks. She was tapping the pipes, moving the debris along inside as the camera switched to a nervous looking Rebecca, biting her bottom lip and looking rather anxious, concerned that she may be about receive a very messy forfeit.

Trying to catch up, Caroline was moving quickly, but Leanne gave the pipe a final knock and the “blockage” fell lose into the spherical joint as a gurgling noise echoed around the room and Rebecca glanced up nervously, before taking a deep breath and closing her eyes and mouth, her head ducked slightly forwards awaiting the slop.

She didn’t have to wait long as thick brown slime exploded out of the nozzle above her head, pouring forth with enough strength to force her head right down, her hair covered in the sludge as it splattered onto her back. Rebecca let loose an appropriate scream, with her hands shooting up to cover her face as she leant forwards. Fingers of dark brown gunge ran over her shoulders and down the front of her t-shirt, coating her arms and forming a pool in her lap. The gunge was thick and lumpy, with globs sticking to Rebecca’s hair; the majority was running down her back, some working its way inside the back of her top. As the flow began to ease off, Rebecca sat upright, slicking her hair back and causing a lot of gunk to fall to the floor of the tank behind her. Just as the flow looked to have stopped, the nozzle coughed up a final splattering, dropping slime onto her forehead, slowly trickling down over her face.

Blinking, Rebecca cleared her eyes and wiped her face, slicking her hair back again and looking down at herself in disbelief. Only small patches of yellow shone through from her t-shirt, most of it was coated in the brown gunk, and a large amount had collected in her lap, which she brushed forwards with her hands, causing it to run down her long bare legs, dripping onto the floor beneath her feet.

As she was still continuing to wipe her arms and face, Stefan approached the tanks, with Leanne and Caroline in tow. Leanne was smiling, whilst Caroline was shaking her head, mouthing the word “sorry” towards Rebecca.

Stefan opened the door to Jenny’s tank first, as she stepped out, getting a good look at the carnage inside Rebecca’s tank, a look of shock horror spreading across her face. Jenny was only just realising how thoroughly gunged Rebecca had been, and, as such, how close she herself had come to being covered in the same brown sludge.

“Judging by the look on your face, Jenny, you’re pretty happy that Leanne won that game, right?”

“Yes” Jenny said, nodding slowly, her eyes still staring at the tall brunette, covered in a layer of thick goop, “Very happy.”

Stefan then turned his attention to Rebecca, holding the mic into the tank as she continued to wipe her face, “Well, you’ve been a bit unlucky there, Rebecca, but how are you feeling right now?”

“Disgusting!” Was the instant reply, her Scouse accent showing through strongly, “It’s awful and I just want to get a shower as soon as possible. Ugh… It’s really, really sticky, too, and it gets everywhere, I’ll probably still be washing it out of my hair next week!”

Stefan nodded, knowingly; this was one of the tanks he had been bundled into during the test runs, “It can be a bit of a nightmare to get clean after such a severe gunging.” He then turned to face the twin sisters, “Caz… How could you let poor Rebecca get such an awful gunging like that?”

Caroline’s mouth fell wide open in shock, “What? It’s not like I did it deliberately, I mean, it’s not my fault… I just got caught out when I hit that wrong pipe. That’s all… I’m really sorry, Bex!”

Stefan then turned to Leanne, “Well, it’s almost a dream start for you, isn’t it? You’ve won the first game, taken the lead and seen your sister get a bit of a gunging, even if you had to get messy yourself. And, whilst it may have been Rebecca that got the forfeit, you don’t seem too unhappy!”

“Well, I don’t really have any problem with Rebecca, but, like, I’d rather it was her than me. That stuff looks, like, ew, nasty.” Leanne stuck her tongue out in disgust, “And yeah, I’d like to see Caz get that slimy, but it’ll happen soon enough anyway, it’s good to like, be in the lead, too.”

Nodding, Stefan then pulled up a map, showing it to Leanne. “Well, Leanne, after winning that round, you get to choose where we go to next, you can move to either the security room, or the chemical development laboratory. Which one do you fancy?”

Leanne thought for a second, “We’ll go to the chemical one.”

“Right,” said Stefan, “It’s the chemical development laboratory next; I think that we’ll take a quick break now as the girls all get cleaned up. After that exciting first round, the yellow team have a total of one hundred points, whilst the blues are trailing on sixty points. It looks like Leanne may be well on her way to giving her sister a big gunging if things stay like this!”

~~~

The cameras stopped rolling as a stagehand led Caroline and Leanne off to the showers. Rebecca got up slowly, the rest of the gunge in her lap running over her legs, as she stepped carefully, her bare feet sliding in the gunge as she took one of the crew’s hands for support getting out. She was handed a towel to wipe her feet and hands so that she shouldn’t slip before being led to the showers with the other two girls. Jenny, on the other hand was spotless and it was an element of the show that Stefan quite liked, which was that whilst two girls were up for the forfeit, one would get very messy for certain, but the other would usually escape clean at the end of the round. It was a sort of fifty-fifty option really and to an extent, for slightly reluctant competitors, it might be better to be facing a forfeit in some of the messier games.

Stefan picked up a cup of coffee and downed it quite quickly, grabbing another and sitting down, sipping it slowly as Jenny entered the waiting area, whilst the other three girls were still showering off. Stefan didn’t expect Leanne or Caroline to take all that long, but Rebecca could be spending a long time in the shower, trying to clean the brown gunk from her hair.

“Hey Jenny, feel free to grab a cup of coffee, or some water or something while we’re waiting. We could be here for a while.”

Jenny nodded, “You mean we’ll be waiting for Rebecca. Poor girl.”

Stefan leaned forwards, his head tilted to one side, “Do you have any problems with getting gunged? You won’t stay clean for the whole show… You know that, right?”

Jenny grabbed a glass of water and sat down, “Yeah, I know. I don’t mind if I get gunged, but well… When I saw how badly gunged Rebecca had been, I was so, so glad it wasn’t me. There was so much of it, and it looked so awful. She was smiling, but she’s a bit like that. I don’t know how I would have responded to something like that… Sort of a bit scary, I guess. The gunge, I mean.”

“It’s alright, Jenny”, Stefan took another sip of coffee, “It’s not as bad as it looks, although, I admit, the team did a very good job of making sure that Rebecca got a thorough gunging. All the gunge is room temperature, or maybe a bit warmer, and it breaks down pretty easily under warm water. We make it out to be more unpleasant than it actually is because it’s not much of a forfeit if we tell you that it’s lovely and warm beforehand.”

Stefan took another sip and thought that it wasn’t exactly a lie. The gunge was mostly room temperature, and it wasn’t that hard to wash off and it didn’t feel quite so awful, but more than anything, he needed to put this nervous girl at ease before they went back out.

“So,” said Jenny, “Uh, have you been gunged then? You seem to know a fair bit about it…”

Stefan laughed, “Yes, I’ve been gunged a few times; we have to test the games and machines somehow! I can’t say I much enjoy it, mind. It’s not awful, but I’d rather not get gunged to be honest, and you never get used to it. Somehow, it’s still always a strange, weird sensation.” He took another sip before smiling, “Of course, it’s impossible to describe, so you’ll just have to wait until it happens to you, too!”

“At least I made it through the first round unscathed” said Jenny, smiling, “So, erm, do you always greet teams and then sit around chatting like this? I sort of assumed you’d be busier.”

“You’re not saying I’m lazy, are you?” Said Stefan, as he poured himself another cup of coffee. “I usually like to greet the times. Someone has to, and I’m usually ready long before the show, so I can get quite bored and it’s something to do. As the host, I don’t have all that much involvement in things; I just go out and explain rules and stuff. It’s the production team that do all the work in setting up the stage and organising the machines, which means that I’m free to kick back and drink some coffee. It’s a pretty comfy job, really.”

At that moment, Grant leant his head around the door, “Hey guys, we’re good to go now, the other three are out on set, just waiting for you two.”

Jenny got up and followed Grant, as Stefan quickly finished the rest of his coffee and made his way down the corridor, grabbing the coin from his pocket and approaching the girls.

“Right, Rebecca, you get to call it this time. Heads or tails?”

As Stefan flipped the coin, Rebecca shouted out “Heads!” Stefan caught it and revealed that it was indeed heads, meaning that Caroline would be facing the forfeit, which Rebecca was very happy about, grinning and ruffling Caroline’s hair. “Enjoy it!”

Stefan then turned to the yellow team, flipping a coin. Jenny called out “Heads” as Stefan revealed tails to them, meaning that she would once again be facing a forfeit, as Leanne was smiling broadly, sticking her tongue out at Caroline.

“Now I have the chance to ensure you get, like, a big, horrible gunging… I’ll enjoy this!” Leanne smiled sadistically, as Caroline and Jenny were led away and Stefan took his place as they waited to restart filming.

~~~

[StoryBot]

“Welcome back to Slimecore! As you can see, Rebecca’s just about managed to get herself clean during the break and this time Caz will be facing the forfeit for the blue team, whilst Jenny is unlucky enough to be back in the firing line in this round.” Stefan strolled through the chemical development laboratory, full of once-white walls and tiled floors, with the typical “chemical lab” type décor; biohazard signs, test tubes and the like scattered around the room.

Stefan moved towards one wall, where Jenny and Caroline were trapped inside giant test tubes, full of nozzles pointed in various directions. “Now, most of you will remember this from last season, but for any newcomers, I’ll explain how the game works. Around the room there are various test tubes full of gunge in all sorts of colours, and it’s up to Leanne and Rebecca to mix these, as requested by the computer.”

The camera swung around to show a screen on the wall, it was cracked in part and flickering, but it still worked. “It’s then up to the girls to grab the appropriate colours from the room and to pour them into these tubs next to Caz and Jenny. Ten points for each successful colour mixed, and twenty points for clearing the level. Good luck girls, and remember to follow the computer’s instructions: sometimes it may change its mind during the game!”

With that, Stefan retreated out of the way as the screen counted down from three, before displaying the first combination; “red plus green”. Rebecca and Leanne quickly took off, searching the room for the requested colours, both quickly finding a red tube and pouring it into a tub. There were a lot of red, yellow and blue tubes scattered around, but other colours were harder to come by, as Rebecca gave up searching and decided to grab a blue and a yellow, seeing as how they made green anyway. She approached the tub and paused, before deciding to pour the blue tube in anyway and see if she could get away with it.

“Oh dear” said Stefan, “Not a good idea… The computer is rather fussy about this!”

Unfortunately, Rebecca discovered the outcome of the computers’ fussy nature as a thin stream of green gunge poured down on her from above, catching her by surprise with a scream, as the green trickle coated her hair, matting it to her forehead and dripping over her shoulders. She brushed it back with her hand and wiped her face, laughing as a harsh beep echoed around the room and the on-screen demands changed to “yellow plus red”. With the yellow tube still in her hand, she added it quickly before grabbing a red and adding that. As soon as she did so, another beep sounded and a second set of orders appeared; “blue plus yellow”.

Leanne had just found a green hidden in a box, putting it down and grabbing two nearby yellows, pouring one into an empty tub and adding the other to her red container. As she did so, the previous order of “yellow plus red” was crossed out.

Rebecca meanwhile, grabbed a blue tube and poured it in as more orders appeared, this time asking for “green plus orange”. Leanne quickly added a blue of her own and the two set about finding the green and orange tubes.

The game continued in much the same way, with the computer demanding combinations as the girls searched the room for them. Most of the non-primary colours were hidden in boxes or on shelves. Leanne was rudely reminded that the test tubes didn’t contain lids when she reached up for an orange tube on a shelf, knocking it over and finding herself on the receiving end. She didn’t take it well, especially as losing that orange tube meant that Rebecca was moving further ahead. Frustrated, she wiped her face and quickly went in search of another orange. Rebecca now only had one container left to fill, as Leanne still needed to find an orange and a blue to finish two already on the list as a harsh beep sounded and the final request came up; “Brown”.

Rebecca furrowed her brow, not really sure what to make of this, before shrugging and searching the room for a tube of brown gunge. Leanne was able to find another orange tube and then grabbed a blue, before also finding herself facing the task of finding a brown test tube. Having turned out half the room, Leanne was feeling pretty confident that there wasn’t a brown anywhere around but she joined Rebecca in searching for it, as both girls started tearing the room apart, checking every box and corner.

“Hmm, I’m starting to think that there may not be a brown” said Stefan, as Leanne pulled down another box of polystyrene chips, rifling through it to no avail, “Perhaps the girls need to think outside the box here?”

Rebecca and Leanne continued to search, cheered on by Jenny and Caroline in the tanks. Caroline was cheering more, Jenny was fidgeting and looking nervously at the nozzles around the tank. There were quite a few of them, at different angles, she could see one aimed at her face, and another in the floor of the tank, between her feet aimed upwards, with several others around, looking likely to ensure almost total coverage.

Shaking her head, Rebecca stepped back as Leanne continued to rip through the boxes, still finding nothing useful. Deciding that it was worth a shot, Rebecca grabbed a red and poured it into the container. Tensing up and expecting some gunge, Rebecca was left surprised as nothing happened as she grabbed a blue and added it to the container. Leanne looked up a little too late, as the brunette grabbed a final blue test tube and poured it in. Automatically, a siren sounded and the screen faded out. The lights dimmed slightly as a spot light shone upon the worried Jenny, whose hands were firmly clenched at her sides, her eyes closed and her shoulders hunched, knowing what was about to come after almost memorising the exact location of each nozzle.

The containers of gunge that Rebecca had been filling during the game now drained out and after a moment of silence, all that could be heard was a loud, high-pitched scream, followed by the noise of gunge splattering against skin and clothing. Two streams of gunging were being fired in the tank, one red stream squirting Jenny’s stomach, whilst a thin stream of lilac gunge was pouring down onto the top of her head. Whilst both streams were quite thin, they were being fired with some force, causing the gunge to splash over Jenny as she squirmed inside the tank. Suddenly, another stream kicked in, firing yellow gunge up from the floor, coating the inside of her left thigh, some working its way inside her black shorts.

As she moved one of her bare feet across, holding it over the nozzle to block the flow, a stream of orange gunge started up, firing into her face. Her hands quickly shot up, attempting to block as much of the gunge as she could, whilst several more jets began, some in the floor and others in the walls of the tank. Jenny had lost count of just how many jets there were now, as she was sprayed with gunge from all angles, ensuring an even and multicoloured coating. Her jet-black hair was now invisible under the slime, covered in all sorts of colours and the screaming had long since degenerated into a fit of giggles as the slime continued to cover her.

Gradually, the jets began to shut off and Jenny’s hands moved away from her face as she looked down, surveying the damage. As she wiped her face, Stefan, Leanne and Rebecca approached the tank, Rebecca grinning broadly whilst Jenny’s partner had a sheepish grin on her face. Stefan let Caroline out her tank first, the blonde showing signs of relief at having escaped this forfeit, seeing just how messy her opponent was.

“Are you glad that it’s Jenny in there and not you, Caz?” Stefan enquired. He often found himself cringing on the inside as he came out with such ridiculous comments, but as the host he had to ask these questions, no matter how inane they might seem.

“Yes” said Caroline quickly, looking up and down at Jenny, seeing that there was no part of her visible that hadn’t been doused with gunge, “Very glad, although I do feel sorry for her, it must be awful!” The audience booed, Caroline was meant to be the bad guy here, and therefore she should be the one getting gunged but so far that wasn’t really happening.

Stefan turned, holding the mic into the tank for Jenny, who was still blinking and resembled some sort of a brightly coloured drowned rat, “Is it really that awful in there, Jenny?”

Coughing slightly, Jenny nodded, “It’s pretty bad, yeah. I think I would like to get out of here now, and if there’s any chance I can go the rest of the show without a gunging, I’d like that.” A few droplets of lilac gunge dropped down onto her from above as she blinked again and wiped her hair back off of her face, sending a splat echoing around the studio as her gunge-laden black locks slapped against her back, “I’d like that a lot.”

Jenny laughed, suggesting that perhaps it wasn’t that bad, with Rebecca and Caroline both smiling. Leanne was the only one not smiling, clearly annoyed at having missed the opportunity to gunge her sister. Stefan moved towards the camera to provide an update, ”Right, after that game, the scores look a little like this; the blues have a total of one hundred and sixty points, whilst the yellows are still leading with one hundred and seventy.”

This news brought a smile to Leanne’s face; she was still leading, even if only by ten points. The lead, no matter how slight was what was most important to her and a good showing in the next round might be enough to put this contest to bed.

Stefan turned to the blue team, “Well Rebecca, the winner of each round gets to choose where we go next, which means that it’s up to you. We can go to either the basement, or the generator room, so which one do you like the sound of?”

The tall brunette turned to her partner, who shrugged, so Rebecca shrugged back and turned to Stefan. “Hmm, I think… We’ll go to the generator room then and see what’s doing there?”

“You don’t sound too sure, but I think you’ll enjoy that game. Well, so long as you’re not the one facing the forfeit, of course!” Stefan replied, before turning back to the camera. “The yellows still lead, but only by the narrowest of margins and with two rounds to go, this is anything but over. Be sure to be back here after the break, because things are really starting to heat up!”

~~~

As Leanne and Rebecca headed off for a quick shower, Caz hung around as Jenny was let out of the tank, handing her a towel, “Here, you look like you could do with it!”

“Thanks Caroline, I’ll be glad to get a shower.”

“…I just… Uh… No hard feelings, right?”

Jenny tilted her head, a little surprised by what Caroline had said, “No, none at all. That wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t Rebecca or Leanne’s fault either. I signed up for this knowing that there were good odds on being covered in gunge at least once during the day, so don’t feel bad. …Besides, if it had been the other way around, I wouldn’t really be feeling too bad about seeing you get gunged!”

Caroline smiled, “Well, I’m happier to be clean, yes. I just don’t know what my sister’s been saying… I’ve already apologised to Rebecca, and now, I guess I’m apologising to you that she’s gotten you involved. I don’t think it’s a big deal, but I also don’t know what you’ve heard from her. I’m not some sort of ogre.”

Jenny wiped her face with the towel again, smiling, “Don’t worry. I’ve known Leanne for years and I know what she’s like, I don’t think it was a big deal, but clearly she’s here for whatever reason. You know her well enough – she’s a bit petty about some things and perhaps if she got a gunging herself it might sort her out a little. I’m just here because she needed a partner, that’s all.”

Caroline nodded, much more comfortable now, “Well, the showers are down the hall, and I won’t keep you, since you certainly seem like you need a long warm soak. What do I do while I’m waiting?”

“Well, I’m sure if you wanted to sit around while they set up for the next game, then that would be fine, but there’s a small room off to the left where you can get a drink. I don’t think it’s reserved for the crew though, I was sat in there earlier and Stefan didn’t seem bothered.”

“Oh… Okay, great. Thanks Jenny.” With that, the rainbow-coated girl made her way towards the showers as Caroline watched her leaving slimy footprints across the floor, before heading off to find this tea room, and, hopefully, Stefan. She hadn’t admitted it to anyone, but she had a bit of a crush on Stefan and she was keen to spend some time with him, even if it was only for a little bit.

~~~

Caroline found the room easily enough from the smell of coffee wafting around the studio. Slowly, she pushed open the door, hopeful, only to find the room empty. Sighing, Caz made her way over to the kettle and poured herself a cup of coffee, settling down on a chair and taking a sip.

“Hey, that’s my chair!”

Caroline almost jumped out of the chair in shock, coming very close to spilling the coffee everywhere, but managed not to, “Hey! Don’t creep up on me like…” She said, turning to see that it was Stefan stood in the doorway, a cheeky grin on his face, and in an almost inaudible whisper she finished the sentence, “that…”

Stefan smiled and poured himself a coffee, sitting down in the chair opposite and eyeing the contents of Caroline’s cup. “Ah, coffee,” he said, smiling at Caz, “An excellent choice, the choice of heroes, champions and yours truly.”

“Yes,” said Caroline, “I’m not really a fan of tea.” She paused, staring down into the mug of warm brown liquid in front of her, “I hear you’re something a coffee-addict though, is that right?”

“Your sources are correct,” said Stefan, taking another sip, “I do rather enjoy a good cup of java when I get chance. I even enjoy the bad stuff, too. It’s all coffee and in my line of work, you sometimes find that you need it. You didn’t really think I was this chipper naturally, did you?” He raised an eyebrow as Caroline continued to look down into her coffee, “Smiling for hours on end really isn’t something the human face was designed to do on its own.”

Caz smiled, looking up at him for the first time, “No, I suppose I hadn’t really thought of it like that. I’m sure that you do need the energy boost sometimes, just to keep up with the teams… Or to keep up that smile, I guess.”

Stefan took another sip from the cup and set it down, “So, we’re about halfway through show now. How are you finding things so far? Enjoying the Slimecore experience? Any concerns or problems at all?”

“Concerns or problems…” Caroline said, repeating it back, “I think that the answer to both of those is Leanne. She’s competitive, but she seems to be getting a bit mental with it, whilst everyone else is just having a bit of fun and enjoying the show. Even Jenny had a daft grin on her face just now, but Leanne’s determined to see me get gunged one way or another. I know you said that it wasn’t rigged, but perhaps it should be. I don’t know what she might do if we went through the entire show and I never got a big gunging.”

Stefan sat up, listening intently, “You aren’t talking about throwing the show, are you? Giving up on that luxury holiday, just because your sister’s getting into a bit of a strop?”

Caroline paused and looked down at her coffee again. “I don’t know, maybe. I don’t know what to do, really, when the cameras are rolling, Leanne’s a bit different, but that’s because the audience are still backing her as the good sister, with me as the villain. She wants to see me gunged, the audience want to see it too, so I suppose… Why not? It might be less hassle than if I stay clean and win.”

Stefan didn’t really know what to say to that, he scratched his head as he tried to find a response.

“Of course, I could do both.”

Stefan looked across to see Caroline smiling, a faint twinkle in her eyes.

“So long as we don’t lose this next round too badly, I could get gunged and keep Leanne happy, and then Rebecca and I could try to pull out all the stops in the last round to still win the holiday. It’s possible, isn’t it?”

“It’s certainly possible; the only problem is that you’re already behind. If you drop too far back, you may not catch up in the final round and so far both teams have been pretty evenly matched. It would certainly be an uphill battle to win and, personally, I think you might be better off just playing as you have done so far and seeing what comes of it in the end.”

Caroline nodded, “Maybe, but it depends. I may not be facing a forfeit. Sort of a pity though, I’d quite like to be gunged I think. I mean, I’ve got a little messy, but to get a proper gunging… Just to see what it’s like. I think it could be a lot of fun.”

Stefan couldn’t help but laugh, “You may not say that afterwards.”

At that moment, Mandy wandered in, smiling at Stefan and Caroline, pouring herself a glass of orange squash.

“You know, Mandy, you’re an adult now. You don’t have to stick to the squash any more” teased Stefan. He liked to give Mandy some ribbing when he could, she was a bit stuck up and didn’t have too much of a sense of humour, but she usually took it well from him. It was always good fun to tease her about her age, as she was only twenty-four, five years younger than Stefan and probably ten or more years younger than the rest of the crew.

The redhead sat down on a chair opposite both Stefan and Caroline, before looking up at the show’s host and smiling, “Thanks old man, I’ll try to make sure we finish recording early so we can get you back to the home for six.”

“Good, they’re cooking liver tonight.” Stefan smiled, the banter was always good and Mandy was never usually caught lacking for a snappy reply. “Anyway, how’s the show coming along? Everything going according to the plan?”

Mandy nodded. “It’s going great, really. Everything’s running smoothly so far, the audience are enjoying it, all the machines are working properly and the gunge looks great too.” She turned towards Caroline, “And I don’t know how strong the sibling rivalry thing really is, but the audience seem to like it. Leanne is getting a fair bit of support at the moment and I’m wondering if there’s a way we can make it a regular feature of the show.”

“I’d be careful if I was you, Mandy” said Stefan, “There would be an army of people looking to give you a gunging, and I’d be head of the queue.”

Mandy glared slightly, “Don’t get any ideas.”

Stefan shook his head. When the crew had run the testing day almost everyone had gotten gunged at some point or another. Mandy was the only one to have escaped being gunged, much to the disappointment of the team. Not through any real malice, but she was the show’s producer and most felt that, as such, she should have been gunged too. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

Stefan then stood up and finished his coffee, turning to Caroline, “Come on Caz, we’d best get back on set, they should be ready for us now. Mandy can stay and drink up, she’s not really that important.”

Mandy rolled her eyes, “Yeah, yeah. Just remember me when you’re stuck in the dole queue next week.”

~~~

As Stefan had suspected, the crew were all set up and once the other three girls had finished showering, they all assembled on set, ready for another game. He pulled his coin from his pocket and held it out in front of the yellows, “Leanne, do you want heads or tails?”

“Heads” was Caroline’s instant choice as the coin spun through the air, landing in Stefan’s open palm, tails facing up as the host smiled and gave the blonde a quick wink.

“Looks like you’ll be facing another forfeit in this round.” Said Stefan as Caroline gave a resigned smile and shrugged at Rebecca. He then turned to Jenny and flipped the coin again. “Call it.”

Jenny shouted “Heads!” As the coin landed, revealing the Queen’s face, much to the annoyance of Leanne.

“Oh, no way,” Leanne said, “Let me see that coin, it must be double-headed or something, this can’t be right!”

Stefan shook his head, holding out the coin to Leanne and flipping it between his fingers. “It’s a perfectly ordinary two pound coin, one side is heads and one side is tails. Neither side is weighted nor has anything else been done to it. It’s absolutely ordinary. Besides, if anyone has a right to complain it’s Caz, this will be the second time in a row that she’s had to face a forfeit, whilst you haven’t had the pleasure of it yet. Based on probability alone, you’re about due to face one.”

Stefan looked over to Jenny and smiled, “Besides, I’m sure your partner will be as keen to win the holiday as you are, so she should win the round for you and you won’t even come close to the gunge.”

Jenny nodded, but Leanne wasn’t looking quite so convinced as she and Caroline were led away by the crew in preparation for the game. As the twins were led off, Stefan could hear the mocking tone of Leanne’s voice, teasing Caroline that this was it, and that she was about to get some huge gunging that she thoroughly deserved. He shook his head, almost in disbelief. Leanne just wasn’t going to stop until Caroline got gunged, and even then it wasn’t guaranteed that she would stop. That said, he knew who would prefer to see get a good gunging, even if the show’s audience were currently on her side.

~~~

Stefan was stood on a balcony, between two large vats of multicoloured gunge and facing the camera as the show’s third game was about to get underway. “Hello, welcome back to Slimecore, and welcome to the generator room! Currently, the yellow team are leading, but only by ten points, so this game could really turn things around. It’s a new game, as this part of the plant was too heavily overrun with gremlins last year, but we’ve managed to clear enough access to get in.”

Stefan began walking down the stairs to stand between Rebecca and Jenny on the studio floor. Both girls were chained to the floor by their ankles, permitting them to turn, but preventing them from actually moving from that spot. “Rebecca and Jenny will be trying to get our generators back up and running, which will be no easy task as these systems have been down for a long time and they’ll need a real kick-start to get going again.”

“Fortunately, the two generators don’t appear to be damaged, so they should work, it’s just a case of getting them started. These generators work by a sort of windmill function, with liquid causing the turbines at one end to spin and, I am told, this will generate electricity. I’m not a scientist, so I don’t really understand it myself. It could just be magic, but it works and that’s enough for me.”

Stefan moved across to the generators, and in between the two machines were two gunge tanks, Caroline sat in one and Leanne in the other. “And here are our twins, Caz and Leanne. Are we happy in there girls?” Both twins shook their heads and Caz mouthed a forceful “no” at Stefan before giggling and brushing her long golden hair back. “Unfortunately, these generators have filled up with bits of sludge and gunge since they were last in use, and once they’re up running, they’ll need to find some way to get rid of this gunky build-up. Leanne turned to Caroline and shot her an evil grin as Stefan wandered back over to Rebecca and Jenny.

“In order to get those turbines spinning, Jenny and Rebecca will have to try to get the gunge flowing again, but unfortunately, and this does seem to be a running theme here, the pipes are blocked. To unblock the pipes, you two will have to throw these at the target until the pipe is cleared.” Stefan picked up a water balloon, filled with gunge and juggled it between his hands as he continued to explain the game, “The girls will be aiming for the target on the chute, I think about six direct hits should be enough. However, the girls need to take care not to be too far off with their aim, as there are a few motion sensors around and if any of these balloons pass by them… Well, I’m sure you have some ideas. All I can say is that you’d do well to keep to hitting the target! You’ll get twenty points for each direct hit to the target and a bonus thirty points for getting the generator back up and running, so this is a big points-scoring round. The blues could easily turn it around and take the lead for the first time, whilst the yellows could be out of sight with a convincing win.”

Stefan set the balloon down and stepped towards the camera. “I think it’s time we started the third game!” He then ducked to the side, away from the action and well away from the gunge, too as the game got underway.

Rebecca and Jenny picked up a balloon each and eyed up the target, not quite sure how to approach this. The target itself was quite big, but it was a fair distance away about nine or ten feet up in the air and neither girl much fancied their chances of hitting it. Jenny had already seen the small tanks of gunge hanging ominously above the two of them and knew what might happen should she miss the target. As Jenny was wondering how to do this, Rebecca let rip with her first balloon as it sailed through the air, just clipping the target on the left side as the tall brunette shrugged. A screen in the corner of the room moved from nil-nil to one-nil, showing that Rebecca’s effort was enough to get her off to an early lead.

“Rebecca looks like she could be about to storm through this game! She’s certainly got a height advantage over Jenny and that could be a huge difference maker in this game.” Stefan said, still providing commentary duties during the show’s games. Chris, who had provided commentary and poor, poor jokes in the first season had left the show after falling out with Mandy when he demanded a pay increase to match the increased budget and then laughing when she said that anyone could replace him. Stefan didn’t mind, Chris had been a bit of a pain to work with and most people were glad to see the back of him.

Jenny’s first balloon had narrowly missed the target, whilst Rebecca’s second had clipped the target again. Grabbing another balloon, Jenny tossed it gently into the air, hitting the target dead in the centre. Rebecca grabbed another and threw it quickly, but it flew well off to the left, nowhere near the target. The leggy brunette shrugged and turned to pick up another balloon as a buzzer sounded and a quick deluge of bright pink slime dropped down onto her from above, covering her hair and shoulders, catching her by surprise as she dropped the balloon to the floor. It exploded, splattering her feet and legs with some blue gunge too, as the brushed her long hair back and laughed, grabbing another balloon and turning back around. Jenny had stopped to watch and after permitting herself a quick grin, she turned back around and threw another balloon, watching as it arched through the air and landed on the target again to take the round to two-two.

“This is interesting! Rebecca’s opting for a more direct approach and is throwing her balloons quickly and powerfully, whilst Jenny appears to be taking a more considered approach. She’s not throwing them as quickly, but her aim is certainly a lot more accurate. We’ll see which technique wins it today!”

Rebecca grabbed another balloon and hurled it, clipping the target once again, before turning and grabbing another balloon, doing the same thing again, whilst Jenny had only thrown one balloon, but got it on target again. Rebecca was aware of the need to win this game, and, in order to do so, she’d have to keep throwing quickly to stay ahead of Jenny who seemed unable to miss. Grabbing another balloon from the tray, she took a deep breath and began to throw it, but just as she let go another balloon rolled from the tray behind her and exploded on the floor, catching her by surprise with a splattering of yellow gunge and causing her effort to go some way wide.

Jenny threw another balloon, hitting the target comfortably to level the scores once again at four each, before watching as Rebecca was doused with a shower of dark blue gunge from above. The Asian girl then grabbed another balloon and scored a direct hit, taking the lead for the first time. Rebecca was busy wiping her face when she saw that she was now trailing. Knowing what this meant, she grabbed a handful of balloons and began hurling them desperately, deciding that it no longer mattered how messy she got, since she was already quite slimy and that winning was the most important thing. Her first effort was a direct hit on the centre of the target, and her only one so far, but she quickly hurled two more, both missing as she received a double gunging, being hit with both a yellow and a orange downpour, the thick slime coating her hair and running over her face. Pretty much all of her body was now rather well-coated in slime and she wondered if she could end up messier than the person that received the forfeit.

Meanwhile, Jenny picked up a balloon and looked up at the target. One more hit and the round was hers, but she wasn’t so sure that she wanted to win, the conversation she had had with Caz earlier was lingering in her head. She looked across to Caroline and winked at her, before throwing the balloon in her usual manner, but with much more power as it sailed over the target and hit the far wall. She glanced up nervously, before looking down and biting her bottom lip as the buzzer sounded again. A couple of litres of red gunge streamed down onto her from above, coating her long black hair and running over her shoulders to form a puddle around her feet.

Rebecca, not knowing why Jenny missed made sure to make the most of her opportunity and hurled another balloon, missing the target narrowly and then quickly throwing another. As the lilac gunge poured onto her from above, her final effort had hit the bottom of the target and the gunge-coated girl began cheering, her arms raised in victory as Jenny looked on with a smile, brushing her hair back.

Leanne knew exactly what this meant and wasn’t thrilled about it all, fidgeting nervously and awaiting the gunging that she knew was coming. A siren sounded and after a brief murmur, the piping kicked into life, with white gunge pouring down and spinning the turbine blades. As the generator got up to speed, Leanne was still squirming, having seen the hose peeking out of the generator and into the tank. Fortunately, she didn’t have to wait long for the machine to confirm her suspicions as a thick jet of grey-white slime then spewed forth out of the hose, aimed mostly at her body, coating her t-shirt instantly and splattering over her arms and hands, as well as her face. The rest of the gunge ran down her top and pooled in her lap, as some of it sloshed down her legs and onto the tank floor, with the hose showing no sign of letting up.

The gunge continued to spray forwards, and whilst the blonde had tried to deflect some of the flow with her hands, she hadn’t had much success and only ended up coating her arms in even more gunge. The hose was gradually tilting as it sprayed out, now moving up to fire against her mouth and face, coating it in gunge as she raised her arms in an effort to block it as best as she could. To her relief, the flow eventually subsided and she shook the slop from her hands, wiping her face, only for the tank to spit out one final load of gunge, straight into her face as she spat out a mouthful of gunge and gave a quick yell of frustration, once again wiping her face clear and attempting to smooth out her t-shirt, brushing the slime in her lap forwards as it dripped to the floor.

Stefan approached, letting Caroline out of the tank first, who was laughing at the state of her sister, whilst the audience were booing, still keen to see the “evil” twin, get gunged instead. Rebecca and Jenny were left shackled to the floor whilst Stefan addressed Caroline, “How do you feel, Caz, is it good to have escaped clean, whilst you got to see your sister got all gungey and horrible?”

“Oh, definitely” said Caroline, getting into the role of the villain, “It’s so much better that it was her and not me. I can’t begin to imagine how bad it would be to try to get clean after something like that. She’ll be washing her hair for weeks now and still finding bits of gunk!”

The audience were booing, but at least now Caroline was getting into it and it didn’t seem quite so weird any more. Stefan turned and held the microphone into the gunge tank, where a stunned Leanne was still wiping her face and trying to straighten out her t-shirt. “Leanne! It’s all gone horribly wrong, hasn’t it? How are you feeling?”

“Cold. Wet. Horrible. Like, Disgusting. I want out of here now!” Leanne didn’t look too happy either, she shot a glare to her twin before adding “You can laugh now, sis, but, like, you’ll get yours soon, and it’ll be oh so much worse than this is. I’ll have the last laugh, you’ll see.” Stefan wasn’t happy with the amount of venom in Leanne’s voice as she spat out her threats; this girl was determined to humiliate her older sister somehow and it was becoming more than just an idle threat. Fortunately, the audience weren’t quite so aware, and still cheered Leanne, keen to see her get her revenge on Caroline.

Stefan turned to Caz and gave her a quick shrug, to which she smiled back, as he moved towards Rebecca and Jenny, still stood in place, “Look at the state of you two! Rebecca, you’re almost messier than Leanne!”

“Oh, I know, but I won, didn’t I? That makes it all worthwhile!”

Stefan nodded “And, as winner, you get to choose where we’ll go for our final game today; your choice of either the control room, or the warehouse.”

“I think we’ll go to the control room then” said Rebecca, hoping she hadn’t picked somewhere awful.

“Alright, we’ll go to the control room then, but first, I think you need a shower so we’ll go to a break now.” Stefan turned to face the camera, “Thanks to a lot of luck, Rebecca managed to win that game for the blues, picking up one hundred and fifty points to give them a total score of three hundred and ten, whilst the yellows are now trailing with two hundred and seventy points. Don’t go anywhere, we’ll be right back!”

~~~

[StoryBot]

The cameras stopped rolling as the crew began the tedious process of cleaning up and resetting the room. Rebecca and Jenny were unshackled and led to the showers as Mandy wandered across to open the door to Leanne’s tank, where the blonde was still sat perfectly still, looking more than a little annoyed. Mandy opened the door and handed her a towel, motioning for her to head to the showers as Caroline kept her distance.

“You’ll want to wipe your feet on that towel, too” said Mandy, watching as Leanne carefully stepped out of the tank, “The gunge can make the floor very slippery. Take your time and tread carefully, too.”

Leanne mumbled something and wiped herself off with the towel again, walking past Stefan and Mandy towards her sister. Still unhappy, she glared at Caroline with a look that could kill, before chucking the towel at her sister’s head and breaking into a grin. Caroline just ducked and the towel landed on the floor in a heap as Mandy and Stefan both took a step forward, in case they needed to dispel the situation.

Leanne spotted the two of them and laughed, “Don’t worry you guys. I’m not, like, going to kill her or anything. I just figured that, like, she should be messy too.”

Caroline looked a bit puzzled, “So, you’re not mad then? You looked pretty mad and I didn’t think you’d enjoy being gunged…”

“Are you kidding? That was great fun! Didn’t you, like, hear me screaming and stuff? It’s not that I want to do it again right now, like, but it was fun. You have to get gunged now, Caz, or you won’t understand.”

“But you’ve been, well, a bit weird today, sis?” Said Caroline, still not sure where this was going, “I mean, you were all determined to see me gunged and stuff and you were getting a bit nasty… What’s changed?”

“Well, like, I did want to, like, gunge you, but only because it seemed sort of fun and a bit of a laugh. Not, like, I wanted to see you crying or, like, hurt or any of that but once the audience started cheering, I, like, got into character and had to be, like, keen to gunge you and stuff. I got a bit carried away with it too, like, when things didn’t go my way, and, like, you know how competitive I get about stuff. I just got a bit carried away, and, then, when I got, like, covered in that gunge, my first thought was to get you back and, like, it kind of hit me that I was being, like, totally stupid. And sat there, covered in gunge, I had to just, like, laugh, you know?”

Caroline smiled, “Glad to know we’re alright. I would hug you, but you’re a bit gungey so perhaps I’ll leave it until after you’ve had a shower?”

Leanne nodded and screwed up her face in mock disgust before heading off to get cleaned up. Caroline picked up the gunge-coated towel and handed it to Mandy, who looked at it with disgust and held it by the tips of her fingers. “Well, that was a bit weird. I thought I was going to have to referee a catfight when I wandered over, but she looks to have chilled out, thankfully.”

Stefan nodded, “Looks like you were right, Caz. She just needed to cool off.”

“Yeah, pretty much” said Caroline, “She is my twin sister after all. I’m meant to know her well.”

Mandy shrugged, “Anyway, so long as that wasn’t some front, we’re alright here and she isn’t going to cause any trouble or start any fights. I need to go and take care of some stuff anyway, but you two know the drill. You can kick back and relax for a bit. Oh, and watch the coffee intake Stefan, remember what I told you? It’s not healthy to drink that much.”

“I’m fine. I’ve been pacing myself; I’ve only had ten cups so far.” Stefan smiled, “It’s sweet of you to worry, Mandy, but I’m a big boy, I can look after myself and if I want to drink some coffee, I will. You’re not my Mother.”

Mandy paused and shot Stefan a glare over the rim of her glasses and wandered off, shaking her head. Stefan turned to Caroline, “So, Mandy hasn’t told you to stop, do you fancy another coffee?”

Caroline nodded and the two headed off to get a drink.

~~~

Stefan had stopped along the way to visit the bathroom, so when he entered the tea room, Caroline was already sat curled up on one of the chairs facing the door, a mug of coffee in her hands, whilst a fresh mug was sat on the side. “Is this for me?” He asked.

“Yeah, I assumed you’d want it. You’re not one to turn down a coffee from what I hear.”

Stefan shrugged and picked up the mug, taking a sip and sitting down opposite Caroline. Looking at the mug, he noticed it was pink with the words “Number One Grandma” written on it. He furrowed his brow and looked up, meeting Caroline’s smile.

“I thought that one was probably your mug.”

Stefan smiled, “Actually, you’re not far off. I bought it, but it was for Mandy, even if she never uses it. She might be younger than I am, but she’s got all the important attributes for being an old lady. She’s a stickler for routine and likes both gossip and complaining, even if she won’t admit to it.”

“Oh…” Said Caroline, “Erm, if you don’t mind my asking, is there something going on between the two of you? There’s a lot of teasing and flirting, and you hear about people that work together in the television industry getting together all the time…”

“Let me cut you off right there.” Stefan finished the rest of his coffee, setting the cup down and leaning forwards, looking rather a lot more serious than he usually did. “There is nothing going on between us. We work together, and we’re friends, but that’s it. For one thing, if we got together and split up, it’d cause all sorts of problems, so it’s far easier not to start anything. Secondly, Mandy and I are close, and there’s a lot of teasing, but that’s just harmless fun.”

Stefan looked down at the floor, and sighed. “It’s all just a bit of fun; we’re just workmates having a laugh and nothing more. Besides, she’s ginger.”

“Now I get it. That explains everything.”

“Hey, it’s not like that!”

Caroline smiled, it was good to see Stefan squirm a little, “I wonder what she would say if I told her that you didn’t like redheads…”

“She’d probably thank you for telling her and then find some awful job and give it to me instead. That’s why I have to wear a bright green suit, you know. I said I thought that glasses on a girl made them look like naughty librarians.”

A familiar face leant around the door, her long black hair still damp, “Hey guys, I’m not interrupting anything, am I?”

“No, not at all Jenny,” said Stefan, “Are the team waiting for us?”

“Oh, no, it will be a while yet. Leanne’s nowhere near clean, I just wondered if you were in here, it didn’t take me all that long to shower so I figured I’d come and join you guys.”

“Feel free,” said Stefan, motioning to the counter, “Get yourself a drink if you want.” He then nodded at Caroline, “Don’t worry Jen, I won’t tell Leanne that you’re conspiring with the enemy…”

“You’re too kind” said Jenny, pouring herself a cup of tea and sitting on a chair next to Caroline, “She seems to be a lot less crazy now, I don’t think she would mind that much…”

Caroline sipped her coffee and looked across at Jenny. “She might not mind you talking to me now, but if she knew what you had done earlier, then she might mind in a big way…”

“What you did earlier?” Stefan enquired, cutting in, “Have I missed something here?”

“Well, kind of,” said Jenny, looking down as her cheeks blazed red. “I sort of threw the last game, so that Leanne would get gunged. I hope you don’t mind too much.”

Stefan thought for a moment, part of him felt obliged to lecture Jenny on cheating, but he wasn’t really all that bothered. “I don’t really mind, but I don’t know how well either Mandy or Leanne might take it… It might be an idea to keep quiet about it, and just tell people that the pressure got to you and you screwed up the shot or something.”

Jenny nodded. She took a sip of tea, before looking up and smiling at Caz, “She needed to be gunged, in all fairness.”

“I won’t argue with that!” Said the blonde, setting her mug down on the table, “But I’m surprised you would throw it away like that, she might have noticed something was a bit off. I mean, you were nailing the target each time, so to miss as badly as you did… Aren’t you concerned she might have twigged?”

“Well, maybe, but she was getting too worked up and it was the best chance to gunge her. She might not face another forfeit, you know.” Jenny stopped and looked at Caz with a mischievous smirk, “Besides which, she’s a bit slow. It’s not like she would have noticed if I’d thrown the balloon at her…”

~~~

The three continued to chat for a while before being called back on set and into the control room for the final round of the series. As the trio approached, they saw Rebecca and Leanne stood with Mandy, both looking considerably cleaner than they had done last time they had all been together. True to her word, Leanne was smiling and looking a lot calmer than she had done, although she couldn’t help teasing Caz that it was now her “turn” to get slimed, but this teasing was done in a much friendlier tone. It was a bit of good-natured joking, rather than a serious threat as it had been earlier in the day.

Again, Stefan produced a coin, making sure to show the girls that it had both a head and a tail, and that it was perfectly ordinary. He turned to the blue team first, “Do you want to call it Caz?”

Stefan flipped the coin as Caroline called “heads” and as Stefan caught it, the Queen smiled back at the girl as Rebecca shook her head.

“What? This can’t be right. Caz gets to escape a forfeit for the whole show whilst I’m back in there? I’ve been gunged more than anyone!” Despite her words, the Scouse girl was smiling and shaking her head in disbelief. She didn’t have any problems with being gunged and was getting quite used to the cold, wet feeling now, but she did think it was “unfair” that Caroline wasn’t going to get a forfeit like the rest of them. “You’d better win Caz!”

Caroline laughed and patted her on the back as Stefan turned to the yellows, “Leanne, your call.” He flipped the coin for the last time, and Leanne successfully called tails, meaning that the situation was the same as the first round, with Caroline and Leanne playing the game whilst Rebecca and Jenny were looking down the barrel of a forfeit.

As the two were led away to their places, Jenny was looking a little pensive. She hadn’t failed to notice that the forfeits had gradually been getting worse as the show went on, so she expected this final forfeit to be very messy. Still able to feel the gunge on her skin from earlier, despite several showers, she couldn’t help but hope that Rebecca would be on the receiving end of this one, just like she had been in the first round.

~~~

After Jenny and Rebecca had been locked into their tanks, the crew began filming once again, as Stefan stood between the two twins. “Welcome back to Slimecore! As you can see, Leanne’s just about managed to get cleaned up and she’ll be competing against her sister Caz in this final round. With only forty points in it, this could go either way and there is everything to play for, so you can bet it’s going to be great!”

Stefan moved away from the two girls towards a swivelling plastic chair, placed in front of a wall-mounted screen and a large futuristic looking computer keyboard, featuring four large buttons in red, yellow, blue and green. It was more tacky then techno, with bright flashing lights and ridiculous amounts of wiring, but that was part of the point. Slimecore was meant to be wacky and a bit over-the-top, so they didn’t take themselves all that seriously and some of the design crew literally did go wild with designs for props and sets. On the desk sat a large pair of headphones, and as Stefan continued to walk past a dividing wall, we saw the exact same set-up on the other side.

“Our two twins will each sit at one of these desks, following the on-screen computer commands. A combination of buttons will flash up on the screen and it will be up to Caz and Leanne to successfully recite it back in order, but to ensure that no-one cheats, we’ve erected this wall so that they can’t see how the other is getting on. Of course, there’s a time limit for each sequence, and they will gradually get harder. There will be twenty combinations in total, each worth ten points and should either Caz or Leanne get them all right, they will get an extra fifty points, although I wouldn’t really say that was likely. We ran this game last year as some of you may remember, and thus far, no-one has got a perfect win yet. Of course, that could all change, but, either way, there are a lot of points on offer here, which is exactly what our two girls are after!”

Stefan spun around and the camera followed him, to reveal Jenny and Rebecca sat in their gunge tanks on the opposite wall to the screens, so that they could see what their partners were up to, and to see how well they were doing. “Here we have both Jenny and Rebecca, looking a little nervous, but for now, they’ll have to wait until the end of the round, although I’m sure that you can guess what will happen to the person on the losing team!” The two girls exchanged a quick nervous smile, as Rebecca played with her hair and Jenny stared up into the large nozzle above her head, biting her bottom lip.

“So, with that, I think it’s time for our twins to take their places!” Stefan stepped back as Leanne and Caroline both took to their seats, pulling on the headphones and staring at the screen. “We’re all set now, so, three, two, one… Go!”

Stefan moved out of the screen as the first combination popped up on screen for both girls. As promised, things began easy and both girls were greeted by a single flashing coloured circle, which they copied easily enough. As expected, the sequences got longer and then flashed up faster, but both girls got to ten without struggling too much, although Leanne had come close to screwing up on number eight.

“Both girls are halfway through the combinations now, and they’re doing well so far. We’ll see how long it lasts, because this is where things start to get really tough!” Said Stefan, as the cameras showed a shot of Rebecca sat in the tank, fidgeting nervously, whilst Jenny was looking around the inside of the Perspex tank, noting that in addition to the large and sinister nozzle above her head, there were a series of smaller nozzles around the base of the tank, all aimed diagonally upwards. She imagined that they were probably designed so that the gunge would reach about waist-height when fired, coating the victims legs in the process. She also observed two more sets, one at about breast-height and another at head-height, in addition to the tank of slop above her head that would ensure fairly generous coverage on its own. Jenny had tried to get a look at the colour in the tank above her head before she got in, but she hadn’t managed to see anything, and only knew one way to find out now, and she was quite certain that she would rather not know if given the option.

Caroline and Leanne were going almost in unison, both girls appearing to have something of a knack for this sort of memory game, with Caz going slightly faster than her sister as they both got started on their eleventh pattern. Three buttons in, and Leanne was finding herself a little lost, falling behind and running out of time as she frantically looked around the keypad before settling for the blue, which was, much to her relief, correct, as she bashed in the rest of the combination and moved on. Whilst the two couldn’t see how they were faring by comparison, Leanne was sure she was behind now and was trying to knock in the combinations faster.

Caroline was ahead, but as she started the twelfth combination, she found herself a little flustered and mistakenly pressed the green button, as a buzzer sounded in the studio, and in her headphones. Instinctively, Caroline ducked her head, as a stream of green gunge poured down onto her from above. It landed on top of her blonde hair, cascading over her shoulders and down her back, as some streaked forwards, running over the material of her t-shirt and beginning to collect in her lap. The flow quickly came to a stop as Caz sat upright, flinging her long hair back, and splattering gunge across the studio floor behind her. She wiped her hair from her forehead and set about continuing with the next pattern, whilst Leanne, just over the other side of the wall had now overtaken Caz. She was also completely oblivious to her sister’s gunging, thanks to the headphones and the dividing wall.

As Leanne carried on, taking her time and slowly picking at the buttons, Caroline was left a bit flustered by her first gunging of the round, and she faltered on the fourteenth combination, pausing too long and running out of time as a wave of red gunge poured down onto her from above. This time she knew what was coming and had leant back a little, smiling as the slime was pouring down in front of her face and coating her lap. When it was done, she could barely make out her shorts under the red slop as she leant forwards and continued trying the combinations.

Unfortunately, Caz messed up the very first button of the next combination and as she heard the now-familiar buzzer again, she gave a big sigh and sat upright in the chair as the blue gunge began to coat her hair and shoulders, trickling over the front of her t-shirt to mix with the red gunge in her lap. She wiped her face clear and brushed her hair back, rubbing her hands on her t-shirt to try to get them clean as she moved on to the next set of commands, hoping that her sister was faring as poorly as she was.

Leanne was doing quite well, keeping up as the speed increased, but thanks to her earlier mistake, Caroline wasn’t doing quite so well, struggling a little more and finding that the gunge was making her hands a little slippery, although that was no excuse for why she hit the red button instead of the blue one. Again, a buzzer sounded and another flush of gunge, pink this time, poured into her. She remained sat upright, sticking her tongue out in disgust as the gunge slopped down onto her, coating her hair again and trickling over her face. The gunge slowed to a trickle and stopped, as she once again wiped her face and moved on to the nineteenth combination.

“This is getting intense now. Leanne’s still spotless and she’s on the last combination now! Is it possible that she might actually make it through the round without getting messy?” Stefan was doing his part as commentator, but he was genuinely impressed by Leanne’s performance so far in the game. He wasn’t much good at these sorts of memory games and knew well enough that to have made it this far clean was impressive enough. Even Caroline, who had been gunged a few times, was actually doing quite well, by comparison to some. He remembered the first time they had tried this game in season one, where a ditzy blonde girl called Jennifer had been gunged twelve times during the course of this round, setting a Slimecore record for the most gunging to be received by a single person. Naturally, Simon, her partner, had also been gunged although it came as no surprise to him, having looked on in almost despair as his partner just couldn’t seem to remember a single combination successfully.

Leanne was deep in concentration, slowly thinking through the twenty-button combination in her head, delicately tapping away at the keyboard in front of her, whilst Caz had managed to successfully complete the nineteenth pattern and had now moved on to the final stage, too. It didn’t take too long for Caroline’s concentration to slip as she received another gunging, sat upright once again as the thick column of yellow slime engulfed her, adding to the slime from earlier to make her once-blonde hair almost unrecognisable now as she slicked it back for the last time, looking down at her gunge-filled lap and shaking her head in disbelief.

Leanne had stopped too, she was most of the way through the final pattern, but she looked to have lost which button she was to press next. Her finger was hovering over the green button, but she didn’t look entirely certain and she moved it over the red button, but still didn’t look sure about it. Her hand moved back to the green button, but as it hovered above, a siren sounded, and Leanne almost leapt out of her chair in shock at the noise, before finding herself sat under a downpour of purple gunge. Her hands immediately shot up to her face as the slime poured down, over her hair and running down over her hands and arms, some gathering in her lap as the rest fell to the floor around her. The gunge stopped pouring quite quickly, as Leanne took her hands away from her face and shook her head, a daft grin on her face as she attempted to smooth out her t-shirt and to brush the gunge from her lap to the floor.

The screens flashed up with the words “Game Over”, as both Caroline and Leanne swivelled around on their chairs to see Rebecca and Jenny sat in the tanks opposite. Whilst the two twins couldn’t see each other, Leanne could tell she had won, if only for the huge grin on Jenny’s face.

Rebecca took a deep breath and closed her eyes, preparing herself for the worst possible gunging. She placed her hands over her face and hunched her shoulders in anticipation. Seconds later, she give a quick scream, feeling something creeping up her legs. At first, she had thought it was a spider, but opening her eyes, she saw that a series of jets around the bottom of the tank were spraying out a sort of mist of light blue gunge, coating her feet and legs in a fine layer of liquid. Upon seeing the misters, she gave a slight laugh, relieved that it was gunge and not some kind of creepy crawly.

The misters began to increase in power, and the slime gradually became thicker and less watery, coating her bare legs and feet in thick blue gunge, as she looked down, watching, her shoulders still hunched and her body still tensed, knowing that there was much more yet to come. Rebecca wasn’t wrong as another set of misters, at around chest height, started up, coating her in a fine film of dark green gunge, before growing thicker and stronger, coating her t-shirt and the tops of her arms, running down into her lap. Now, only her head remained clean, and she knew that wouldn’t last, so she closed her eyes once again, holding her nose with her left hand as the final set of misters started, coating her face and hair in lilac gunge. Following suit with the other two sets, the gunge become thicker and before long, Rebecca was coughing and spluttering, ducking forwards, with her hands over her face as the gunge coated the top of her head and her long dark hair.

These jets shut off, leaving Rebecca sat in the tank, coating in blue, green and purple gunge, with almost no inch of her clean. Silence filled the studio for a few moments before the large tank above her head kicking into gear, spewing forth thick, black gunge. This gunge was unlike the gunge used so far in the show, whilst it was still thick and fairly liquid; it had a consistency less like custard and more like jam, splurging forth in a steady flow, but with lumps and more of a splattering motion than a smooth flow. These lumps were almost like bubbles, they seemed to be just about solid, but as they fell onto her head and shoulders, the bubbles popped, causing even more gunge splatter. As the black gunk fell onto the tall brunette, she was still hiding her face in her hands as the mess coated her, adding to the various colours of gunge already adorning her body.

Brushing her hair back off of her face, a glob of black gunk landed on Rebecca’s forehead, splattering over her nose and face as she ducked down to spit out a mouthful of the black gunk. Sitting up once again, the black sludge still pouring over her, the three sets of nozzles in the tank kicked in again at full strength, as the Scouse girl squirmed about, screaming and trying her best to stay out of the way of the gunge with no success. The tank had been well-designed to make sure that the unfortunate victim was covered with nowhere to hide, and had been designed by Mandy herself in the first season. She hadn’t been sure of how it would work in reality, but upon seeing it in action; she had been very satisfied with it, referring to it as her “baby” from then on, with it often being held as the most effective gunge tank on the online forums that followed the show.

The deluge of slime continued for a while, and Rebecca noticed that the slime wasn’t draining out of this tank, as the level was rising past her ankles now, her feet completely covered by the black goop. Worrying about just how much the slime might rise, she took a great sigh of relief when the black slop ceased, just below her knees, as the misters also came to a stop. Rebecca breathed out and shook her head, flinging slime in all directions as she wiped her face. She was smiling, whether that was because she had enjoyed or simply because it was over was up for some debate, but she looked an absolute state. Only the skin around her face where she had just wiped the slime was visible. Her hair, body and clothes were all covered in a mixture of slimes, but you couldn’t see any part of her blue t-shirt showing through the slop.

As Rebecca wiped her face again and sat in stunned shock, Stefan wandered across, motioning for Leanne and Caroline to stay in their seats, before opening the door to Jenny’s tank and letting her out. Despite having been gunged herself, Jenny’s reaction was much the same as her reaction in the first round, with her hand over her mouth in genuine shock at just how gunge-coated the brunette was. Rebecca gave a sickly grin, waving to Jenny, who waved back, still looking more stunned than the girl in the tank. Stefan opened the door to the tank, allowing the cameras to get a better look at Rebecca, starting the bottom, where she was knee-deep in the gunk and moving upwards, showing the audience just how gunge-coated she really was. As the camera moved to head-height, she stuck her tongue out and gave two thumbs down before bursting into a laugh, sighing and brushing her hair back again.

“Rebecca,” Stefan said, holding the microphone towards her, but hiding himself behind the door and away from her reach, “How is it? Good?”

Rebecca grinned, wiping her face again, but still not having much luck at getting clean, “Oh yes, Stefan. It’s so great that I think everyone should be gunged with me, just so that they can all experience it, too!”

“There isn’t really the room, I’m sorry.” Replied Stefan, keeping well out of the way, before adding, “I’d love to join you, and I’m sure the others would, too, but it’s just not an option.”

“In fairness, it looks like Caz got pretty gungey already!” Rebecca said, her accent coming through strongly as she broke into another fit of giggles. Caz was also giggling too, as the cameras spun around to show her, still covered in a lot of gunge in different colours.

The cameras zoomed out as the dividing wall between the two girls retracted, and Leanne got a look at her gunge-covered sister, before breaking into pleats of laughter herself as Caroline screwed her face up and looked surprised by just how clean Leanne was.

Stefan approached, and stood between the two, leaning against the desk. “I think it’s rather obvious which team won that round, just by looking at the two of you, right Caz?”

Caroline nodded slowly, “Yeah, uh, I didn’t do too well, did I?”

“Well, you didn’t actually do that badly, but Leanne did very, very well. She came close to actually winning the game, which would have been a first.” Stefan turned to Leanne, holding the mic towards her, “How do you feel?”

“Erm… A bit wet and, like, sticky. Good though, I’m glad to have won, and it’s great to see Caz getting all, like, gungey and horrible. She’s totally deserving and long overdue a big sloppy gunging!”

The audience began cheering, still on Leanne’s side and glad to see her get some measure of revenge on her twin sister.

“Yes,” said Stefan, “You did win, and do you remember how many points you were trailing by before you played this final game?”

“I think it was, like, forty points?” She said, growing somewhat hopeful that she may have actually turned this game around and won it.

“That’s correct,” said Stefan, “And at the end of that round, the yellows have a total of four hundred and sixty points. The blue team did well, but not so well, yet they managed to pick up their fair share of points and have a total of four hundred and… Sixty points, too. That’s right; we’ve got a tied game!”

The audience cheered the unusual result. It didn’t really have a long history, with just one season under its belt, but Slimecore had never ended in a draw before now and there were some looks of confusion on the faces of the crew, as this was an eventuality that they had never considered. As Mandy indicated to Stefan to end the segment normally and go to commercial, she was hurriedly flicking through her notes on the clipboard looking for some solution.

“Well, folks, with a tied game, this could be very interesting!” Stefan said, speaking directly to the camera, “We’ll get these girls cleaned up but be sure to join us after the break as we resolve this draw the only way we know how – with lots of gunge! See you in a few minutes!”

~~~

Once the cameras stopped filming the studio erupted into a scene of frenzied panic, as there were no plans in place for dealing with a draw. They had no tiebreaker, nor did they have a back-up plan, since the odds of teams getting a draw was seen as so unlikely that it hadn’t even been considered. The crew were talking amongst themselves, with several eyes on Mandy, looking to the young redhead for a solution.

Realising this, Mandy began barking out orders, just to keep things under control for now, “Right, come on all of you! Get these girls cleaned up first, and then we can worry about how we’ll get ourselves out of this… Mess.” She paused, realising what she’d just said. “Erm, come on, get this sorted and then we need to prep the Slimecore so that we can wrap this one up. Come on people, we’ve not got forever!” The crew immediately responded, and stagehands began handing out towels to Leanne, Caroline and Rebecca as they made their way to the showers.

Jenny stepped out of her tank, the only girl still clean at the end of the round and as she closed the door behind her, she had a quick look to see what colour the gunge had been. Red, orange and yellow slime was hooked up to the misters, and there was a large tank of dark brown gunge on top, which she was very glad to have avoided. Despite knowing that all the gunge was made of the same ingredients and that the only real differences were the consistency and the colour, she found that the idea of being covered in brown or black gunge was a more worrying thought than that of being showered in green or pink gunge, as if somehow the colours themselves had some meaning and that the darker colours made the gunge more unpleasant. She didn’t entirely understand it, but thinking back to the only forfeit she had received, with its brightly coloured varieties of gunge, she felt that she had fallen rather lucky and that if she had had to choose a forfeit, it would have been that one.

She felt a little lost, as everyone was rushing around and she didn’t know what to do. Mandy was looking a bit stressed and the crew seemed to be rather concerned by this draw, even if Jenny couldn’t really see any major problems with it. However, she wasn’t a producer, or even a member of the team, so she decided it wasn’t her place to make suggestions, especially given Mandy’s current mood, so she made her way over to the tea room, deciding it might be an idea to keep out of the way right now.

~~~

Jenny pushed open the door and walked into the coffee room. She liked it, as it was the only room she had come across so far that had carpet, and since all the contestants were barefoot on Slimecore, it was nice to walk on warm carpet, instead of the cold, solid floors that were everywhere else in the building. She went straight to the kettle and began filling it up when she heard a cough. Jenny spun around to see Stefan sat on a chair, with a mug of coffee in one hand, waving to her with his free hand. She smiled and waved back, filling up the kettle and turning it on, before slumping down onto the seat opposite him.

“Is this where you’re hiding out, too?” She asked.

“Well, it’s no secret that I like coffee, so I’m sure people can guess where I am if they need me.” He took a sip, as if to prove that he did like coffee, “Besides, you must have noticed the air of panic out there right now. I thought it was probably safer to stay in here, well out of the way.”

The kettle clicked as Jenny hopped back up and poured it into a cup, adding the tea bag and milk last. “That’s the same reason that I’m here.” She stirred the tea and settled back down onto the chair, her knees tucked in to her body as she began to drink it. “So, did I hear correctly that this programme has never had a draw before? I think I also heard that you don’t have a method of resolving tiebreak situations. Is this true?”

Stefan sighed and nodded. “Yep, it’s true. Perhaps we were being a bit naïve, but it is something that we never really considered as a possibility. With the majority of games working on a “ten points per something plus bonus” method of scoring, we didn’t expect things to ever end up level. It really isn’t something that we thought about it. I think it was mentioned, but we had more pressing issues, so it got ignored and we decided to cross that bridge when we came to it. We’re at that bridge now, unfortunately.”

“Well, surely there must be ways to settle a draw? Just flip your coin again, or have them roll dice or draw numbered balls from a bag or something.”

“We can’t do that.” Stefan sighed and rubbed his forehead, “It’s just not in the spirit of the show. To decide who wins and who loses based entirely on the flip of a coin… Well, that sort of reduces the past four games to nothing. All of you have tried and gotten gunged and sure, the odds of a draw were incredibly slight, but it just wouldn’t be sporting to settle this by chance.”

Stefan got up and poured himself another cup of coffee, leaning back against the tiled counter and staring down into his mug. “We need a real decider. A single coin flip, or a single question or something like that just doesn’t work; we said all along that this show was about competition and forfeits, but that the forfeits were for losing games. To lose the overall game because a coin landed heads just defeats the whole spirit of the competition. Which is why Mandy’s so stressed, she needs a good solution, or we could be in trouble.”

“I’m not stressed,” said Mandy, stood in the doorway, behind Stefan. He winced slightly and turned to face her, raising one eyebrow quizzically. The redhead sighed, “Alright, maybe I am stressed. This is kind of a big deal.”

She walked into the room and sat on the chair Stefan had been using, “I knew you’d be in here, hiding away. Slacker.”

“Hey, that’s not nice!” Stefan laughed, he couldn’t really argue though, he was a pretty notorious slacker as far as things went, “Besides, Jenny and I were just trying to come up with a solution that would save this programme.”

“Did you come up with anything?”

Jenny shook her head, “Nothing that would work. You don’t want to resolve the whole thing by chance, which is fair enough, but it’s hard to come up with a solution that works. If you had a fifth game to decide it, then you would need to find a way to squeeze that into the show’s timeslot along with everything else, and you would probably need to add a fifth game to every show or people might think it was a bit weird.”

Mandy nodded, taking her glasses off and wiping them on her t-shirt. “I can’t see any way that we can add anything to the show without overrunning our agreed timeslot. We would have enough time to flip a coin, but that’s the last resort, really. I don’t know how you feel, but I’d hate to have been a contestant on some show, worked my way to the final and then lost because I picked heads instead of tails…”

Stefan nodded in agreement, “We were just saying that some sort of random choice like that really did make all the games seem a bit pointless. It’s just typical that we didn’t discuss a tie-breaker because it seemed so very unlikely and, now, it’s here.”

“I think they call that Sod’s Law…” Said Jenny.

Mandy sighed and put her glasses back on, rubbing her forehead. She could feel a headache coming on, which was no surprise as she usually got one when she was stressed out, and this one had been building for quite a while. She flipped through the pages of notes and papers on her clipboard, but knew there was nothing there that would help.

Suddenly, Jenny sat forwards. “The final game… Is it the same as last year’s Slimecore? Where you have the winning team working together to complete the final game?”

Stefan nodded, “Yes, it’s changed a bit, but that’s pretty much it.” He leant forwards, “Why?”

“Well,” began Jenny, “How important is the teamwork part? Could the final round be altered so that the two people in the Slimecore are competing against each other, instead of working together?”

Mandy stopped fiddling with her clipboard and looked across at Jenny, “I think she’s got it.”

Both Stefan and Jenny turned to Mandy, slightly confused by her reaction. “Got what?” Stefan asked.

Mandy grinned and stood up, “Jenny’s just come up with the solution to our problems. The final round can be altered enough for it to work. We’ll have one girl from each team competing to win. It’s perfect, we’ve got enough time for one game, and this way, no-one feels cheated out by a coin toss. It’s still competition, which is the whole point.”

With that, Mandy was up and out of the door, off to speak to some of the crew about the best way to organise the final round to allow for two girls to compete with each other, instead of working together. She already had a few ideas about how to change things and it shouldn’t be all that difficult to pull off.

~~~

Before long, the other three girls had finished showering off and were waiting with Stefan at the edge of the set. They had been called together by Mandy, and she wandered across, still looking a little flustered, but far happier than she had done at the end of the last round.

“I’m not sure what you four know about what’s going on here, thanks to the fact that you somehow managed to draw, and that caused all sorts of trouble. Fortunately, Jenny came up with a brilliant solution. Normally, the Slimecore is played by one team, working together, to try to win all the prizes and gunge their opponents. This time around, we’ll take two of you, one from each team, and you’ll be competing. Your partners will be taking the place of the losing team, so if the blues win, whichever member of the yellows that is, will be getting very, very messy indeed.”

The four girls looked at each other and smiled warily. Rebecca felt that she had already gotten very, very messy, and was in no rush to go through that all over again.

“So it’s time to decide who will be doing what, and then we can finally get this finale started.” Mandy stopped, thought back over what she had just said and shook her head. “Anyway, you know the deal, girls, we’ll flip a few coins and then get on with the show.”

“Erm,” said Caroline, looking a little nervous, “Sorry to interrupt, but I have an idea myself, I mean, this whole thing’s been set up to give Leanne a chance to get revenge on me, right? Wouldn’t it make more sense to forget the coin flipping and have us two as the ones facing a forfeit, with Bex and Jenny actually playing the game?”

Rebecca nodded as it meant that she should stay comparatively clean. Well, compared to actually taking the forfeit, at least, but she liked that idea. Jenny nodded too, it worked for her. Leanne pondered it for a moment and shrugged her shoulders.

“Why not?” She smiled. “It does make, like, pretty good sense, I suppose, and it’ll give me the best seat in the house to see Caz get gunged…”

Caz gave a forced laugh and put her arm around her twin’s shoulder. “No, it gives you the worst seat in the house for when you get gunged…”

Mandy shook her head. She was glad that it was a much friendlier rivalry now, rather than the catty, vicious feud that seemed to be in place earlier, but she hoped that there wouldn’t be too many more “revenge” style episodes. It was good for a one-off, but if every episode was like this, she could see herself getting very fed up, very quickly.

“Well, that’s sorted then,” Stefan said, interrupting the twins before they took it any further, “Jenny and Rebecca come with me to play this round. Leanne and Caz, you go with Mandy and she’ll take care of you.”

Mandy shook her head. She wasn’t sure if Stefan had deliberately left her with the squabbling twins or not, but she took them over to the dunk tanks that were the fate of the show’s losing team. In the previous series, the losing team had to wear swimwear. Bikinis for the girls, and shorts for the guys, but Mandy had never been too keen on this as she felt that it cheapened the show’s image. Yes, its target was still students, and it was a bit of fan service, but she had always been concerned that it might be the start of a slippery slope into something that was almost pornography. She hadn’t been able to change it this time, but at least it wasn’t going any further, and the swimwear was still reserved for the final, so it wasn’t as bad as it could be.

The two twins ducked into the changing rooms and emerged in bikinis, blue for Caroline, and yellow for Leanne. Mandy then pointed them to the two dunk tanks and they climbed up and took their places on the ledges, their bare legs dangling over the gunge. Caroline was smiling, perhaps through fear, but she certainly looked a lot more relaxed than her sister, who was struggling to sit still, worried by the amount of nozzles aimed at her, as well as the tank of black gunge just inches below her toes. She took a deep breath and tried to adjust herself to sit as comfortably as she possibly could in this situation. Once the two girls were sat in position, Mandy gave the nod to begin filming the final round.

~~~

[StoryBot]

Stefan was stood alone under a spotlight on the darkened stage as the filming for the final game began. The cheers of the audience died down and the cameras zoomed in as Stefan began to speak.

“Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen! We now move on to the sloppiest, slimiest, messiest part of the show as we come to our grand finale… The Slimecore itself!” Stefan paused as the audience cheered again, gesturing for them to quieten down so that he could continue, “Now, normally we would have one team working together to try to win our fabulous Mediterranean cruise, but this show’s been a bit different since the beginning and it’s going to stay different at the end, too. If you’ve been following proceedings, you’ll know that after our final round the scores were tied, with both teams having scored four hundred and sixty points. We felt that the best thing to do was to allow one girl from each team to compete against each other in the Slimecore.”

At this point, Rebecca and Jenny wandered onto stage, dressed in the same outfits they’ve worn all show and whilst Rebecca wasn’t too bothered, Jenny was certainly glad to be wearing something a little less revealing than just a bikini on national television. They were both also wearing oversized keys on chains around their necks.

“Ah, here they are. Jenny will be representing the yellow team and Rebecca will be trying to win it for the blues. Now, I’ll bet you’re all wondering where Leanne and Caroline are, so I think the best thing is to go and see them!”

Stefan led Rebecca and Jenny towards the right-hand side of the stage, where both Caz and Leanne were sat above their individual dunk tanks, a spot light shining upon each girl as the rest of the set remained in darkness. The audience could see both girls were changed into bikinis for the final round, as was customary for the losing team, but for now, they could see very little else due to the darkness on the set. The set was being kept in darkness to hide the newly designed Slimecore for as long as possible, revealing it only when the contestants were about to enter it.

“Yes, both sisters are facing a very messy conclusion to today’s show! One of them will be getting a very messy, very smelly gunging soon. Leanne has been hoping to give her sister Caz a gunging to get back at her for ruining her favourite top, and, since we’re all about fair play here, we’re giving Caz the opportunity to gunge her sister instead, if her team wins today!”

Both girls are staring at the gunge beneath them as Stefan is talking. They then look up and exchange a glance with each other, before Caz sticks her tongue out at Leanne.

“Caz, aren’t you worried about this at all? That gunge is looking pretty nasty… It must be even worse when you’re sat up there, right?”

Caz shrugged, “It’s not a great view, and I really don’t like white as far as things go, but it doesn’t matter since I’m not going to go any nearer to that awful sludge than I am now. I have complete faith in Becca’s abilities and I know she won’t let me down now! We came for that holiday, don’t forget. We won’t lose now!” With that Caz raised her arms and cheered, as Rebecca did the same, whilst the audience booed.

Stefan gave a quick smirk, these two had really become the pantomime villains of this programme and the audience were really into it. He turned towards Leanne, holding the mic towards her, “Got a reply to that, Leanne?”

“Of course… You’re, like, going down, sister!” Leanne shouted, drawing cheers from the crowd, and an unimpressed rolling of the eyes from her twin. “Not only will we win and give you the gunging you so totally deserve, but we’ll take that holiday, too. With, like, everyone rooting for us, you won’t stand a chance!”

Leanne’s rallying cry drew more cheers from the audience, as was to be expected, whilst Stefan walked Rebecca and Jenny towards the main entrance to the Slimecore, which was currently just a large archway, with a sheet of black material hanging down, hiding what lay within from sight.

“Well, we’ve heard some real fighting talk from our beautiful twins, but one of them is going to end up very messy before we’re done here today! However, for now, they just have to sit back and wait whilst Rebecca and Jenny will be working their way through the massive messy maze we like to call the Slimecore.” Said Stefan, addressing the cameras with Rebecca and Jenny stood on either side of him. “We’ve put a lot of effort into doing up the Slimecore, making it bigger, better and, of course, slimier, than ever before!”

Cameras panned out to show the girls smiling nervously as Stefan continued his explanation, “Both girls will be trying to make their way to the very centre, where the Slimecore itself is located, and once here, they will have to use their key to turn it on, and clear out all the leftover sludge so that we can last another week without the place exploding. Honestly, the people that design these systems have some frankly awful ideas, and a control system that causes itself to explode weekly is somewhere near the top of the list. Anyway, they’re racing to get to the centre first, as upon activating the clearance system; they will have only 30 seconds to escape before that sludge is forced out onto anyone left inside! Whoever turns on the system will win the holiday for their team and will condemn either Leanne or Caroline to a messy dunking!”

We see the twins again, shaking their heads, Leanne giving the thumbs down and Caz pleading to the camera, both making mock appeals to avoid being dunked in the gunge, before the cameras returned to Stefan.

“So, if the girls are ready, we can begin.” The girls nodded and Stefan motioned them towards the arch, where they took up starting positions with Jenny on the left, and Rebecca on the right. Stefan then started a countdown, with the audience joining in. “Right girls, on three… Two… One… Go!”

The lights came up to reveal a mass of tunnels, walls, slopes and the like, all in the traditional faux-industrial style that Slimecore was known for. There was a large dome in the centre, as the two girls made their way through a mass of traps and puzzles towards it. Next to the twins, a large screen had been erected, displaying scenes from the cameras inside the labyrinth.

The cameras began following Rebecca as she entered the maze, climbing over a small set of grey steps onto an elevated platform, being met with a slight downpour of orange slime as she reached the top. The leggy brunette gave a quick, shocked scream, composed herself for a moment and began climbing down the steps and carrying on, taking care not to slip as the added goo was making it quite wet under foot. Stefan knew that if she fell, it wouldn’t do anything other than slow her down. Thanks to the health and safety police, and the Game Show Physical Challenge Act 2009, the floors had to be made of packed foam, so that whilst it was firm under foot, it wasn’t likely to cause any sort of serious injury or bruising just by tripping or slipping.

Rebecca found herself at one of the many “nodes” inside the final puzzle, confronted with three different paths to take, pausing for a second, she opted to head straight down the middle one, as the nearer she was to the centre, the closer she was to reaching the centre. Or, at least, that should be the way it works, she thought. Under normal circumstances, most teams would be looking to meet up with their partner as soon as possible, due to the final round involving a few challenges that required two people to solve. Thanks to this round being altered to be a “race” of sorts, the crew had removed the team work problems, so that they girls wouldn’t be forced to work together. This had been done prior to the girls deciding who would be competing, as it seemed fairly obvious that there was no chance of Caz and Leanne working together at any point with the audience watching and encouraging their “feud”.

Travelling down her path, Rebecca quickly came across her first puzzle as she was confronted by a locked door, as a wall dropped down behind her, trapping her in place. Glancing upwards, she saw a large nozzle above her head, linked up to a tank full of yellow gunge and it was obvious what would happen if she didn’t manage to open this door successfully. Rebecca didn’t have much time to think as a wire frame popped up on one side of the tank with a small wire circle attached to a handle. Rebecca instantly recognised it as one of those buzzer games and slowly took hold of the handle, taking a deep breath and beginning to move it across the wire shape.

Rebecca’s progress was slow, but she was showing a fair amount of skill, rarely coming too close to the wire and moving the handle comfortably enough. She was taking her time, but with the threat of a gunging, she was more concerned about success here. Gradually, confidence began to build and, in turn, speed, as Rebecca manoeuvred her way across the wire frame without touching it once as the door swung open and she stepped out, breathing a sigh of relief.

“Well, looks like Rebecca’s had no real trouble so far, let’s have a look and see how Jenny is getting on in the Slimecore” said Stefan as the screen changed to show the girl from the yellow team clambering over a set of barriers, going over and under them as she worked her way towards the end of a corridor. So far, she was the cleaner of the two, with just a bit of slime on her clothes and feet from the slime-coated floor under the barriers. Jenny was proving herself to be quite athletic as the barriers caused no real trouble, and even at the end of the corridor as they were coming closer together and one or two were very low to the floor, she was gracefully manoeuvring her way through them. “She’s quite flexible, isn’t she?” Asked Stefan as she ducked down and scurried under a low barrier where most people would have been on their knees in the slime crawling underneath it.

Reaching the end of the corridor, Jenny followed the twists and turns until she found herself in a large room, facing a six by six grid of Perspex cubicles stood atop white glowing floor panels. Clearly, she could tell that some of these were going to be rigged up as booby-traps, so she began scouring the room for some sort of instructions. All she could see was a panel on the wall behind her, with a rather vague set of instructions:

“WHITE = SAFE
BLUE = MILD
YELLOW = CAUTION
RED = DANGER
GREEN = ???

THE FIRST ROW IS SAFE”

There was an explanation of what green meant, but it had been scratched off and was now illegible. With no further instructions in the room, Jenny gingerly opened a door and stepped onto the nearest floor tile, hoping for the best. The lights in the room dropped, and all the floor tiles turned off, excluding the one Jenny was stood on which turned blue, as a slight look of worry flashed across her face.

Stefan was quite fond of this little puzzle, and felt that a larger version of it should have been a game in its own right, but the rest of the team, Mandy included, had decided to just leave it as a part of the finale. The game itself seemed quite complicated, but wasn’t actually that bad. It was based on Minesweeper, using colours, rather than numbers, to represent proximity to the mines. Despite the lack of explanation, Stefan was confident that Jenny knew what a green square meant.

As soon as Jenny had stepped onto the first floor tile, a screen had switched on at the far end of the room, revealing that she had only seventy-five seconds left to traverse the room. Taking a deep breath, she opened the door in front of her and stepped forward, onto another floor tile, which flickered blue as she began searching around again. Pausing and looking in front of her, then to either side, Jenny decided to move to the left, as she did, the floor tile turned white and as she gave a sigh of relief, it flickered for a moment and turned green as a thin stream of green slime poured down onto her from above, splattering over her black hair, trickling down her back. Jenny gave out a quick yell, more of frustration and annoyance than disgust before moving onto the tile in front of her. It turned red, and Jenny froze in her tracks, glancing around, looking for some sort of clue as to where to go next. Unfortunately, in the darkened room, she couldn’t make out whether or not there was a gunge tank hanging above any of the tiles, so she closed her eyes and headed forwards once again.

Within seconds of moving, she was met by another downpour of green slime, most of which poured over her back, forming a puddle around her feet as she shook her head and slicked her hair back, wondering where to go next. Jenny was quickly realising the biggest problem here was that a green floor tile not only resulted in a gunging, but it gave absolutely no clues about where to go next. Noticing that she now had a little over twenty-five seconds left, Jenny hopped forwards again, trying to get across the rest of the room with as little gunge as possible.

The look of a room full of cubicles helped add to the feeling of confusion, as bits of Perspex would reflect some of the lighting, but the main purpose of it was to hold the contestants in place to ensure that they got some sort of gunging when they put a foot wrong. It also served the purpose of stopping people just running across the room and hoping for the best. It also slowed down those inside the cubicles, as Jenny was finding out, meaning that you couldn’t make too many wrong choices or start back-tracking with the timer counting down.

Jenny opened the door in front of her and stepped forwards, slamming it shut as the floor turned red beneath her. Instinctively, she grabbed the door handle to the tank in front of her, but she quickly thought better of it and turned to her right, opening the door and stepping in. As the door clicked shut behind her the floor tile flickered green and Jenny ducked down under another surge of green gunge. The gunge was now coating Jenny quite well and as she was getting nearer to crossing the room, the amount of gunge she was getting seemed to be increasing. Looking up after the deluge, she wiped her eyes and ran a hand back through her slimy hair, before sighing and grabbing a door handle, stepping into the cubicle and tensing up, expecting the worst.

After a few seconds, she opened her eyes tentatively and looked down, seeing a red floor tile. Jenny also realised that she had made it across the room and grinned widely, grabbing the handle and opening the door.

Unfortunately, the door wouldn’t open and the handle just kept clicking. A look of panic flashed across her face and as she looked up at the screen on the wall and she realised too late why the door was locked. The timer, still blinking away, was just a screen full of noughts and because she had run out of time, the entire room had been locked down.

Jenny had briefly wondered about what might happen if she ran out of time here, but hadn’t paid it too much consideration. She was now about to find out as she let go of the door handle and her shoulders slumped, resigned to a gunging. She didn’t have to wait too long either, as the green gunge poured over her, adding to the many layers of green already coating her. Shaking her head and smiling ruefully, Jenny brushed her hair back, just in time for another deluge of green gunge to slap down onto her head, running over her face and dripping from her nose and chin onto the floor around her. As it ended, a third deluge added yet more green gunge to an already-covered Jenny, who was starting to resemble some sort of monster from an early horror film.

The lights came back up and Jenny give another yell, wiping her face and opening the door, before slowly making her way down the corridor, taking care not to slip, leaving a trail of green footprints behind her.

“You’ve got to feel for poor Jenny!” Stefan said, commentating on proceedings for the studio audience and fans at home. “She was doing so well before she entered that little trap and she’s certainly the worse for it! Not only has she been completely obliterated by the green gunge, but she’s fallen some way behind Rebecca and catching up won’t be easy!”

The cameras changed to show Rebecca running down a set of corridors. In the time that the cameras had been following the yellow team’s progress Rebecca had been splattered with some pink and purple gunge, but compared to the covering that Jenny had received, it was almost nothing. She turned a corner and found herself facing a set of monkey bars, over a pool of light blue gunge. Rebecca groaned loudly, this was exactly the sort of physical activity she had been hoping to avoid, but it didn’t look like she was going to get much choice.

“Oh dear, Rebecca doesn’t look too thrilled about this!” Stefan commented, as she grabbed the first hand bar and tested it, to make sure it was firm. “She’s checking to see if it’ll hold. Does she really think we’d rig up a monkey bar with dodgy bars that just gave way? Has she no faith in us?”

After assuring herself that it was safe, Rebecca grabbed it and hauled herself up, beginning the arduous task of climbing across the pool of slime. Being fairly tall, Rebecca was able to clamber across with relative ease, but she still looked pretty uncomfortable doing it. She was taking her time, being careful not to screw up, her bare legs dangling over the gunge beneath her as she worked her way across the bars.

“Rebecca should know that if we were going to set a few traps, they wouldn’t be so obvious…” Stefan said and, almost on cue, a few sprinklers fired up, spraying water down over Rebecca and the bars.

The cameras zoomed in on the brunette, showing her obvious annoyance. Whilst the water was making the bars that bit more slippery, it was washing off a fair bit of the gunge, something that Rebecca didn’t mind. Despite her frustrations Rebecca made it across in good time without any real wobbles, all the bars remained in place and her feet were back on solid ground soon enough. She was quickly off again, down yet another winding corridor, working her way towards the centre.

The entire labyrinth had been designed without any real “dead ends”, as most paths would just link up to each other, so that contestants couldn’t get too badly lost inside of it. It was still possible to go the wrong way, but if you kept going in one direction, you would either end up in the centre, or out on the edge of the Slimecore again. Rebecca found herself at another node and opted to take the path to the right, entering a smaller tunnel where she was forced to duck down to fit through it, ending up on her knees as the curving tunnel became smaller still. The tunnel then began to ascend slightly and Rebecca had a feeling she may regret it, but she carried on, crawling along on her arms and knees. Sure enough, her suspicions were confirmed when a wave of white gunge poured down the tunnel, covering her hands and most of her legs, splashing against her top and some splattering her face. Grimacing, she carried on, crawling further until she was forced onto her stomach, squirming upwards, knowing what was coming next, but also that she was now stuck like this, and therefore unable to turn around and go back.

It didn’t take long for a second wave of white gunge to cascade down the tunnel, coating her arms and hands once again, but this time covering most of her face too, before washing over the rest of her body. Rebecca shuddered at this latest gunging and spat out a mouthful of white slime before hurriedly squirming her way up towards the opening. Placing her arms either side of it, she pulled herself out, landing on an inflatable on the other side, bouncing across it and back onto the floor, heading down another almost identical corridor. Stopping for a second, she opted to go to the right, finding that as she did, the path became narrower and narrower. Stepping back, she turned around and went back another way to find that in a different direction was the set of monkey bars from earlier. Rebecca shook her head in disbelief, running one hand through her hair, before taking the only remaining path and running off to the left.

“That’s not good! Rebecca’s wasted valuable time going around in a circle, and given Jenny a chance to catch up!”

Jenny had been working her way through some more traps and obstacles, still covered in green slime from earlier, not having been blessed with any water sprinklers yet. She didn’t look to have gotten much messier since the last time though, and was busy trying to open a giant lock. The corridor was full of boxes filled with all manner of multicoloured slime and foam. Jenny was frantically searching through them, emptying some and sticking her arms into others to try to find the key to open the door.

Foraging around, she had gone through about half the boxes already, foam and slime all over the floor as she up-ended another box. Jenny then found the key in the bottom of a box of pink foam, wiping it off on her shirt and shoving it into the giant lock. Twisting it from side to side, Jenny managed to unlock it and the door swung open as she stepped out into another corridor. Running down it, she came across another set of hurdles and made her way over and under them in very quick time. The corridor swung to the right and Jenny followed it around towards some sort of intersection. As she began to run towards it, a waist-high jet of blue slime fired at her, causing her to jump. Jenny’s feet slipped on the floor thanks to the slime, but she managed to regain her balance and as she looked up she saw a figure run past the end of the tunnel.

“That must be Rebecca!” Stefan commented, stating the obvious, “All that going around in circles she did earlier means that the two girls aren’t so far apart now and Jenny’s got a real chance to catch up!”

Jenny took off, chasing after Rebecca, ignoring any other spurts of slime along the way, slipping a little but managing to keep her balance. Rebecca reached the end of the corridor first, shaking her head as she glanced at another Perspex gunge tank. The leggy brunette stepped into it, pulling the door closed behind her as Jenny arrived behind her, standing outside the tank with nothing to do other than wait for Rebecca.

Rebecca was looking at the panel, seeing a simple display with just two buttons on it; one red, one blue. Sighing, she knew that this was going to be all down to luck now. Her finger hovered over the blue button for a moment as Rebecca paused, before tensing up and pressing it anyway. To Rebecca’s delight, nothing happened and the door swung open as she grinned broadly and stepped out, running down the final corridor towards the core itself. Jenny tried to open the door to the tank, but found that it was still locked, sighing, she slumped against the door.

Rebecca entered the Slimecore, the door slamming shut behind her as she made her way towards the control panel in the centre of the room. Grabbing her key she entered it into the lock and twisted, before yanking down the lever and sounding an alarm. A thirty second timer appeared on the screen as she quickly remembered that she had to make it out of her before the excess sludge was released. The door Rebecca had entered by was locked now, so her only option was the door on the back wall. Approaching it, Rebecca quickly realised that whilst this door would take her straight out of the Slimecore, it wasn’t going to be easy as she was faced with yet another challenge.

A small digital display on the door lit up, revealing a numerical touchpad, and a screen displaying the number “539”. In an altogether original concept, Rebecca now had to enter those digits in different combinations until she got the correct one to open the door and escape. Rebecca instinctively began punching in combinations, the first one being met by a klaxon as she furrowed her brow and tried another. Fortunately, the second one was met by a ringing bell, and the door swung open as she stepped out of the Slimecore and began punching the air in celebration. Stefan made his way across to her, making sure to keep some way from the messy girl, still dripping some slime onto the floor around her as a stagehand provided Rebecca with a towel.

“Well, Rebecca, despite getting a bit lost in there, you not only won, but made it out without getting caught in the Slimecore! How do you feel?”

“I feel great! Still sort of gross because of the gunge, but I won and that’s the most important thing!” Rebecca then turned to look at the two twins, sat over their vats of gunge and yelled to her partner, “Hey Caz, I did it! We won the holiday!” Caz whooped back and grinned as her sister began booing, and sticking her thumbs down. Almost instantly the crowd joined in, booing and jeering, after all, Caroline’s the bad guy here: she isn’t meant to win.

Jenny was led out of the giant maze and handed a towel, wiping her face and hands on it as she stood next to Rebecca and Stefan.

“Unlucky there, Jenny, you got held up quite early on, but you came so close at the end!” Stefan said, before turning back to Rebecca, “Unfortunately, there can be only one winner! Now, just in case any of us forgot, let’s remind ourselves of what the blue team has won!” The same holiday package video shows, detailing the Mediterranean cruise with all the sun, fun, exotic restaurants and all of the usual fanfare that you would expect from a game show prize. At the end of the video, Stefan turned back to face the camera, “Now, we also know that there’s another prize for our winning team and that’s over here!”

Stefan then took the two girls across the studio to their partners, still poised over the gunge, still wearing just their bikinis, but this time, Caroline was grinning broadly. “Caroline’s got a smile on her face, and I don’t blame her” Stefan said, “Rebecca won the finale and that means that she gets to stay clean whilst poor Leanne is going for a plunge in the gunge!” He then held the microphone up to Leanne, “Jenny tried, but in the end, she was just beaten to it by Rebecca, that’s tough, and it means that after all your attempts at getting revenge on Caz, you’re now the one that’s going to be meeting a messy fate instead!”

“Oh, I know!” Leanne replied, shaking her head, “I don’t blame Jenny for this, she, like, tried really hard, you can tell just by the amount of gunge she got, but, I’m still gutted. I really wanted to see Caz get the dunking she thoroughly deserves, especially since, like, she didn’t even win! Rebecca totally won it all for the team whilst Caz just, like, sat back and watched!”

Stefan laughed, and the camera showed that Rebecca was nodding a little, with a smirk on her face. He took the microphone back “Well, that might be true, but you know the rules and you’ve lost. Rebecca, seeing as how you’ve done everything for your team so far, according to Leanne, why don’t you come over here and give her a dunking, too?”

“Gladly” Rebecca said, beaming. She took her place by the lever and gave Leanne a wave before wrapping her hand around the handle. The audience, led by Stefan, then began a countdown from three.

As the cry of “one” echoed around the studio, Rebecca yanked the lever down with force and the studio lights went off, save for a spotlight centred upon Leanne, sat over the black slop. A gurgling noise broke the silence and moments later the various angled nozzles kicked into action, firing streams of green slime at Leanne, splattering her body with gungey streaks. She gave out a scream the moment the gunge met her pale skin, that continued for as long as the nozzles did. Thanks to the nozzle heads all being aimed in different directions, Leanne was getting a reasonable covering, with the slime all over her arms and hands, across her exposed midriff and over her back. As might be expected, quite a few nozzles were tilted towards her head, and she was certainly noticing them, even with her hands up to try to block the gunge, her hair was well-covered in a layer of green goo and much of it was running down over her face. The rest was pooling in her lap and slowly trickling down her legs, dripping into the pool of gunge beneath her.

The nozzles stopped spraying and instinctively, Leanne held her nose, knowing what was about to happen. The seat then gave way and within seconds, she had dropped into the pool of black gunge, just keeping her head above the surface of the gunge which came up to her shoulders as she stood in shock at the coldness of it. To round things off, a final barrage of gunge, purple this time, fell from above, coating her hair, and splattering down onto her face and shoulders as she let loose another shrieking scream.

The gunging complete, the studio lights came back up to reveal Caz grinning and clapping her hands in delight at her sister’s dunking. Leanne was breathing a little heavily, but she stuck her tongue out at the camera before slicking her once-blonde hair back and wiping her face. Both Rebecca and Jenny were looking at each other, glad to have avoided being on the receiving end of such a gunging. Stefan thrust the microphone towards Leanne, to see if she had anything to say. She grimaced, “It’s so, so, so disgusting! It gets everywhere and I completely didn’t deserve to have this, like, happen to me! I can’t believe that Caz is going to get away clean! She should have, like, been gunged, not me!”

Stefan laughed and stepped back from the tank, looking deep in thought as he addressed the audience, “What do you think? Is Leanne right? Does Caroline deserve to be gunged too?” The audience responded with a loud cheer and, despite being covered in gunge herself, Leanne had her hands above her head, clapping and encouraging the crowd. Stefan smiled, “I think that’s pretty unanimous, isn’t it?” With that, he grabbed the second lever and gave it a tug as the cameras turned towards Caz.

Any trace of Caroline’s smile had no vanished and instead, there was a look of horror and shock, she clearly hadn’t been expecting this to happen. Before Caroline could ponder her situation at any length the nozzles began to spray red gunge at her, covering her exposed body much like they had done to her twin just a few minutes earlier. She had her arms up, trying to shield her face from the slime, screaming as she was coated by the gunge. The spray reduced to a dribble emerging from the nozzles and Caroline’s body tensed up, her arms held tightly against her side, fists clenched, eyes closed. The blonde girl sat there for a moment before her seat gave way, dunking her feet-first into the pool of white gunge.

Unlike her sister, Caroline went right under, resurfacing slowly, her face and hair covered in white gunge. She blinked, her arms still pinned against her sides, a look of stunned shock on her face before a deluge of light blue gunge poured down onto her from above, coating her hair and running down into the pool of gunge around her. Her mouth was wide open in shock and she blinked again before shaking her head, her hair flinging gunge in all directions. She was laughing as she brushed her hair from her face and began to clear the gunge from her eyes.

“How’s that, Leanne? Better now?” Stefan asked, knowing the answer already.

“Oh, that’s, like, much better!” Yelled Leanne, “Doesn’t she look great in white?”

Caz was still laughing as she shook her head, “No! This is awful, and we won so I really didn’t deserve this! Ugh… It’s going to take forever to wash this stuff out of my hair!”

The cameras returned to Stefan, stood alongside Rebecca and Jenny, “Well, there’s nothing like a bit of sisterly love, is there? Still, Caz won the holiday but at least Leanne got to see her get gunged, so maybe everyone’s a winner. Join us again next week when we return to our normal format, I think it’ll be a while before we do this again! So, tune in next week for the messiest show on TV, and I’ll see you… In the Slimecore!”

~~~

The cameras panned across to the gunged twins one last time before being shut off. After a few moments, the crew were given the signal that filming had ended and they could get one with restoring the set to its original state. Jenny and Rebecca were taken to the showers, which were now becoming quite a familiar site for the girls as Mandy made her way across the stage towards Stefan. She passed him a cup of coffee and slumped against a nearby pillar, “Well, that wasn’t so bad, was it?”

“Not so bad,” replied Stefan as he took a sip, “But I don’t fancy doing it again any time soon.”

“No? I’ve been thinking that maybe we should change the format to a sort of revenge show. We could call it “Get Back At Those That Have Wronged You” or something a little catchier, I guess.”

“It doesn’t exactly roll off of the tongue.” Stefan paused, looking up from his coffee and smiling, “Besides, you wouldn’t be able to handle the stress. You barely made it through this without your hair falling out.”

Mandy glared, she was prone to stressing, but hated it when people pointed it out, “I didn’t take it that badly. Besides, if the show was meant to be about two teams trying to get revenge on each other, it would all just be a part of the plan and so long as it’s a part of the plan, I’ll be fine with it.”

“Either that, or we just buy you a wig.”