DiapOut: Chapter 52

“Ugh, this place stinks,” Ayaya muttered, pinching her nose as she re-entered the main studio space on the hunt for a missing CassiRole. She’d been hiding out in the control booth with Jackson long enough to forget how pungent the open-air diaper pail smell was. Not even the ABDL-loving audience could withstand the unnerving aroma, with several patrons having already abandoned their seats in search of fresh oxygen. The messy diaper stuff would be the first thing to go once she took over, for everyone’s sake.

Regrettably, escaping the noxious scent of dirty diapers wasn’t an option for the four remaining constants nor the three aloof dummies stuck waiting on the sidelines for the round to finish. “Ayaya, hey!” said the dummiest of dummies, Lelaya, waving her hand high for Ayaya to see from the comfort of the loser’s seating section. “I saved you a seat!” She patted the spot next to her, smiling warmly at her friend all the while.

Snickering under her breath, Ayaya had no interest in joining the loser party. Instead, she simply disregarded Lelaya’s gesture in favor of tracking down DiapOut’s missing host. It wasn’t a huge lot, so it couldn’t be that hard to find her. Then again, with Cassi still missing, perhaps this was her best chance to wiggle her way in front of the camera.

“Sh-sh-shit!!” screamed Cade, capturing the attention of Ayaya and the rest of the studio as he flailed both arms to keep his balance after a rough landing. Tragically, he only had so much time before the rotating beam reared its ugly head again. With no time to think, he leaped over the spinning arm’s next advance at an awkward angle, resulting in his left leg missing his pedestal entirely. His chances of making a swift recovery quickly plummeted to zero.

SQUISH!

“Cade, no!” cried Kyoko, only able to offer her fallen comrade a few brief sympathetic glances as she prepared for her next jump. After all, she couldn’t afford a single slip-up, or else her clubmates were going home empty-handed. If the pressure wasn’t on before, it certainly was now.

Panting heavily as he lay amongst a nest of squishy nappies, Cade was too frustrated with his failure to enjoy the rousing sensations rising within him. “Goddess damnit!” he yelled, bursting a nearby diaper open as he slammed his fist against it. Dismally, the crowd was all too happy to see a “villain” like him get his comeuppance, celebrating his premature exit from the game.

SMASH!

Likewise, Jackson too was furiously bashing his fist against an empty space on his desk, narrowly missing thousands of dollars of expensive equipment. With Cassi still MIA, the number of reshoots that would need to be organized around this one event was quickly growing out of hand, and that’s not to mention how nightmarish the edit was going to be. At this rate, Cassi was going to get the entire production shut down before the first episode even aired.

“Jackson…Jackson, calm down,” said Keelee, pressing her headset to the side of her face with her palm to hear over the boisterous crowd. In reality, her level of freak-out was on par with Jackson’s, only she didn’t have the luxury of showing it; someone had to keep this ship afloat. “It’s not ideal but we can scrap the loser post-game interviews and–HEY!”

“Sorry, I need to borrow this,” Ayaya said, ripping Keelee’s headset off and placing it on her head in one swift motion. “Jackson, are you there? It’s Ayaya.”

“Ayaya? What’s going on? Where’s Keelee?” said a very confused Jackson. A glimmer of hope sparked within his eyes. “Did you find CassiRole?”

Stiff-arming Keelee to hold her back, Ayaya kept her reply concise. “Not yet, but we don’t need her. Let me do it. I can host the rest of the show–” she said, finishing the bulk of her statement before Keelee could snatch her headset back.

“Are you out of your mind?! Back the fuck up before I…I’m sorry, what?!” Keelee said, her lambasting of Ayaya cut short by Jackson’s latest bombshell. “You can’t be serious. HER?!”

A proud smirk formed on Ayaya’s face as Keelee’s expression slowly became more dour. She’d done it. She’d won, and it was time to claim her prize. “So…where should we set up for my close-up?”

“Pssst, Mia…thwee down…one ta go…den ish jus da two of us,” Misa said, so close to the $500k grand prize that she could taste it. Her chest burned and her legs were practically noodles by this point, but none of that mattered. She could rest all she wanted to afterward from the comfort of a higher tax bracket. “Hey…how bout…we make a deaw?”

“Heh…nice try…” responded Mia, her exhaustion beginning to rival Misa’s. That said, she was still in better shape, meaning that her odds of outlasting Misa were quite high so long as the last Messer was out of the way. “...you’d better be ready…to beat me fair and square…cuz I’m not hopping off…for anything…”

CLAP! CLAP! CLAP!

“Go, Mia! Go, Misa! Beat those stinky Messers into diaper pulp!” cheered Lelaya, rambunctiously joining the audience in applauding two of the three finalists. There was nothing for her to gain, nor did she have anything particular against the opposing team. She merely wanted to root for her friends to the bitter end.

Unfortunately, it didn’t take long for Lelaya’s boastful and slightly targeted ovation to aggravate her seatmates. Zeke covered his right ear as he recoiled away from the overenergized bunny girl. Was it really necessary to drag his team to root for hers? His Betsy Wetsy dress swished magnificently as he climbed to his feet and cupped his hands around his mouth. “C’mon, Kyoko! Don’t give up!” he yelled, retaliating against Lelaya’s cheering with some of his own.

“Hey, quiet down in the peanut gallery! We’re trying to film a show here!” Keelee snapped, silencing both Zeke and Lelaya respectively as she waited for the camera beside her to rack focus on Ayaya’s face. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

Rolling her eyes, Ayaya had no interest in Keelee’s words of wisdom. “Just be a good girl and count me in,” she said, arching her back to accentuate her boobs while giving the camera a sultry smile. These diaper gooners weren’t gonna know what hit them.

“Stand by,” Keelee muttered, holding her hand up next to the camera. “We are rolling in 5, 4–”

CLANK!

Arriving early for a cue that wasn’t hers, Cassi threw open the double doors to the studio and beelined directly for Ayaya and Keelee. “YOU!” she shouted, pointing a fierce finger Ayaya’s way. “Get off my set! Now!”

“Woah! Woah! Let’s take it easy,” Ayaya said, feigning innocence as she raised both hands.

Sadly, no amount of calming words were going to stop Cassi in her tracks, who proceeded to walk up and grab Ayaya by the collar. “Save it. I know exactly what you’re up to, and if you think I’m gonna let you sleep your way into MY job, you’ve got another thing coming!”

“Psssh! Please, I never slept with Jackson,” Ayaya proclaimed, for once telling the Goddess-honest truth. All she did was sit around his office for an hour while he went on and on about a screenplay project he’s been working on. Boy, could Jackson ramble. “Newsflash, CassiRole. No one likes a host who stomps around the studio and berates everyone in earshot. Tell her, Keelee.”

“Do not involve me in this,” Keelee said flatly. She may not have liked Cassi in any regard, but her rapport with Ayaya was somehow even worse.

Scoffing snidely, Cassi was pleased to still have Keelee under her thumb. “Nice try, Ayaya-girl, but Keelee’s on my side,” she said, childishly sticking her tongue out to punctuate her sentence.

“The fuck I am,” shot back Keelee, too fed up with the pair of divas vying for her favor to care anymore. The veins on her forehead protruded as she tossed her headset to the floor. “You know what? I’m over this! You can drug your own contestants next time! I fucking quit!”

“Wait, was I drugged?” Cade muttered, eavesdropping on the conversation from inside the oversized diaper pail. With how things went down, it would honestly make too much sense.

Letting Ayaya go, Cassi reached out toward Keelee as she shrank into the distance. “Keelee, wait–”

SLAM!

Tragically, there was no stopping Keelee, who exited the studio space before Cassi could offer a rebuttal. With Keelee gone and Jackson taking Ayaya’s side, she was truly alone.

“Ouch, so much for loyalty, huh?” interjected Ayaya, pushing her luck at the wrong moment.

Without warning and with absolutely no forethought, Cassi balled her fists and ran at Ayaya full speed. The girls squabbled for several seconds, screaming and pulling each other's hair as they fought for dominance. However, it didn’t take long before the shoving match found the rim of the massive diaper pail stationed in the center of the studio.

“WaaaAHHHHH!” shrieked both Cassi and Ayaya as their combined force propelled them off the edge of the platform. In a twist of irony, it was Ayaya's mega-filthy pamper from Round 2 that stood ready to greet her first as they crashed down into the diaper pit.

SQUISH!

WHAM!

Sadly, Cassi’s landing was nowhere near as soft, launching her lower half into Kyoko’s pedestal before colliding with Ayaya and sinking into the sea of smelly padding.

“WHOA!” Kyoko clamored, becoming off-kilter as her tiny platform shook ferociously. It felt as though she were caught in the middle of an earthquake. Her toes curled within her sneakers in a feeble attempt to adhere to her pedestal with all her might, but it was too unstable for her to regain her balance. She was going to fall!

“Kyoko! The spinner!”

Perched on only one leg, Kyoko heard Zeke’s voice call out to her right as she was about to slip off the edge. Her head whipped around to see the spinning arm that was swinging around for its next attack. She didn’t even know if it was legal but she had only one chance to survive. Using what little support she had from the pedestal to push off, she leaped onto the rotating arm, clinging to it for dear life.

“What the–OH SHIT!” Mia shouted, a mix of confusion and fear descending upon her as she spotted Kyoko riding on the padded arm that was zooming toward her. With only seconds to decide what to do, she did her best to leap over the spinning girl. Unfortunately, her jumping abilities were nowhere near good enough to clear Kyoko’s body, resulting in a vicious body slam that swept her off her feet.

Misa, depressingly, had even less time, barely registering what was happening before Kyoko and Mia barrelled into her. She couldn’t even attempt to make a proper jump with the wall their bodies created. The impact was enough to send her flailing backward while simultaneously knocking Mia off, who barely had a hold of Kyoko's body before the big hit, leaving only Kyoko hanging from the spinner upside-down like a monkey swinging from a tree. The audience was stunned into silence.

CLAP…*CLAP*...*CLAP*

A slow, deafening clap arose from the muted crowd. “I must say, what a breathtaking performance,” announced Master for all to hear, standing up amid the rows of seated patrons. “Greatest show on Earth.”

TO BE CONTINUED…