The lights turned on to reveal Catherine at the losers corner.

"Greetings, everybody, I'm Catherine Butterfly, and I'm here on the losers corner, to see the losers' thoughts before the final match between Athletic Fashion and School O' Rock," Catherine approached Luan, who scanned her surroundings. "Here we have Luan Loud, a well-known comedian in Royal Woods who didn't get fast in this competition. How do you feel, Luan Loud?"

Luan, however, didn't respond.

"Hello? Luan Loud?"

"Can you feel it?" Luan inquired.

Catherine raised an eyebrow. "Feel what?"

"Something doesn't feel right about this comedy grand prix," Luan answered.

The reporter, however, just ignored the statement. "As you can see, some take the loss worse than others-"

"Does nobody other than me feel it?!" Luan snapped, before snatching the microphone from Catherine. "Something about this whole comedy grand prix just feels... fabricated, like there was some hidden purpose behind it!"

Catherine snatched her microphone back. "I'd understand if you felt a bit sore about your loss, but I didn't think you would go so far as to make up some story to make it seem like-"

"No, we feel it too."

The reporter turned around to see Ronnie Anne and Lincoln approaching her.

"Tough Love?" the reporter asked in surprise.

"We were watching some of the previous teams' performances, and something just felt a bit off about them," Ronnie Anne explained. "The one that felt the most off, however, was Maggie's statement to Luan. It's almost like she had it prepared already."

"And sure, she probably just saw Luan losing early a mile away," Lincoln guessed, earning a cry of "Hey!" from Luan nearby. "But still, don't you think it's suspicious?"

The reporter hummed. "When you put it like that, it was kinda spontaneous-"

"There's also her sudden disappearence."

Everybody turned around to see Luna and Mrs. Johnson approaching, with the woman speaking, "After the first set pairs, Maggie just suddenly vanished without a trace."

"And now, Carol's gone too, but this time, nobody's replacing her," Luna added as she folded her arms. "Whichever way you look at it, something fishy's going on."

"Now that you mention it, Carol did replace Maggie right away when she vanished, so the fact nobody's replacing Carol is kinda concerning," Catherine scratched her chin. "And I can't replace her either, since I have to work as a reporter-

"May we add something?"

Everyone turned around to the source of the voice, who weren't two of the previous contestants, but the judges, Polly Pain, Haiku, Giggles, and Tabby. They had finally gotten off their chairs, and they moved Maggie's chair to reveal a secret tunnel behind it.

"How long has that been there?!" Lincoln exclaimed in shock.

"Since the competition began," Giggles somberly explained. "We saw Maggie go through that tunnel sometime before she vanished, but she made us promise not to tell anybody of her whereabouts."

"Which wasn't hard for her, taking into account her... agressive personality," Haiku shuddered.

"And Carol just went through the same tunnel as well!" Polly added. "Wherever the tunnel leads, we're bound to find Maggie and Carol there. So, does anybody want to come?"

Words didn't even need to be said, everybody, that is the reporters, the judges, the losers, and the remainin contestants, just immediately went through the tunnel-one by one of course-and they all crawled through it until they landed at the other side, where they found themselves at the start of a long hallway. Everybody exchanged looks before walking towards the end of the hallway, which Catherine took the chance to report.

"Looks like we found ourselves in the middle of some hallway, where will it lead us? Stay tuned to find out."

Eventually, the end of the hallway was reached, where everybody saw a door in there leading to a "control room" of sorts. And so, one of the judges opened the door, and what they saw on the other end surprised everybody.

The control room was a fairly large room, and it had to be to hold the several dozen monitors hanging on the wall. And who was watching these monitors? Maggie, Carol, and presumably "Mr B." or whatever his name was, sitting on the chair.

"So this is where you've been!" Tabby exclaimed, getting the emo and ditzy reporter's attention.

"Glad to see you finally decided to follow me," Maggie replied, before noticing the rest of the group. "Too bad you decided to come here with... guests."

"Who's behind the chair?" Lincoln asked. "Mr. B?!"

Maggie chuckled. "Yes..."

The emo snapped her fingers, and Carol turned the chair around-revealing there was nobody there-as she finished, "And no."

"What do you mean by "and no?" Lori asked.

Maggie rolled her eyes and sat on the chair, before stating, "You're looking at Mr. B right now!"

Carol casually added, "B stands for Bobby."

Everybody gasped... but not before showing confusion.

"So, wait, what's this supposed to mean?" Lola asked.

"Maggie, like, played all of us for fools and pulled the strings from behind the scenes to control how the grand prix went, obviously!" Leni answered.

"You were behind the comedy grand prix this entire time?!" Luan exclaimed, taking a step forward towards the emo. "Why would you do this, Maggie?!"

"To finally call you out for your terrible humor!" Maggie slammed her fist down her armrest. "So once you inevitably lost, I trashed your sense of humor, and then I made sure that you and the other losers watched the other contestants to see what sort of humor was considered funny or not!"

"And what about the first place prize?!" Luna added, taking a step forward.

"Be on the front line when I told all of this to you once it was all over," Maggie put her arms behind her head and crossed her legs. "But quite clearly, you decided to skip a couple steps."

Maggie turned around to face the monitors. "Now, I'm going to guess all of you want to walk out of the building, enraged at having been played by a pessimistic emo teenager, to save the last bit of dignity you all have."

"Not quite."

"We're going to have a final team: You and Carol!" Luan stated. "And the rest of us will be the judges!"

After a couple seconds of silence, Maggie turned back to the teams and asked:

"Okay, why?"

Luan raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean?"

"Why is this even necessary?" the emo growled. "You know my plan, millions of people who've watched this whole thing-and didn't turn off their tv after the statement was over-know about it too, and you definitely seem angry about it. Angry enough to show us a lesson, even. What's the point of us competing in the finals, if you're all just going to vote for me and Carol to lose?"

"We're not," Polly stated. "We've been unbiased until now-at least, I think we were-and to make this fair, what you just told us won't have any effect on our judgement; We'll solely judge your comedic ability."

Maggie scoffed. "My sense of humor is fairly dark and niche, and Carol would most likely be all over the place."

"Dude, this entire competition has been all over the place," Luna pointed out. "I'm pretty sure that whatever you got, it's bound to make someone laugh."

"Besides, what better way to end the competition than having one last comedic display by the orchestrators of this whole thing?" Catherine suggested. "After all, we've gotten up to this point, we have to end it somehow."

Then, the reporter leaned her microphone towards the emo. "So, what do you say?"

"What about Mrs. Johnson, Leni, Lynn, and Luna?" Maggie asked, raising an eyebrow. "They were supposed to be on the finals, weren't they?"

"It's okay, Luna and I weren't prepared for it anyway," Mrs. Johnson remarked, waving her hand in a dismissive manner.

"And besides, you being the final team would be much more interesting," Luna added as she walked forward and leaned closer to Maggie's face. "You tricked us into doing all this nonsensical prank stuff, and now, it's time for you to show your comedic skills, if you even have any that is!"

After a couple seconds in silence, Maggie gently pushed Luna away and got off her chair, before stating:

"If that's what you want, that's what you're gonna get!"

"You Heard it right here and now, everyone!" Catherine exclaimed to the camera. "After revealing her true colors, the emo known as Maggie and her partner in crime, Carol Pingrey, have accepted one last challenge against the other competitors! What kind of jokes will they pull from their sleeves?! Find out-"

"Before you say "right now", let me point out that we were challenged out of nowhere," Maggie growled, folding her arms. "Carol and I are going to need a lot of time to think up our strategy."

"Give us a half hour and we should be ready," Carol added with a shrug.

After a couple of seconds in silence, Catherine finished:

"Find out in a half hour from here, and stay tuned for, the "Royal Woods Comedy Grand Prix!" See ya!"