The Rigged Show

   The music finally began. Anna had been waiting for what felt like a lifetime. The next part of the game show would start in just a few minutes. The two hosts would just spend a couple of minutes on the stage first, then the rest of the contestants would have to walk out there too.

Anna felt a presence walk up behind her. "Do you even understand how we are still in this thing?" She turned around to see that Glitch had spoken to her. "I mean, how haven't we gotten voted out yet?" Glitch spoke with a confused tone in his voice.

"I guess we just don't seem to be too big threats yet?" Anna was also slightly confused about that, but she didn't want to question their luck too much. "And well, we are honestly not horrible at the challenges that we must do"

"That's very true, Anna!" Glitch let out a laugh, and Anna happily joined in. "What do you think we'll have to do today?"

"Hmm..." Anna put her hand to her cheek, and thought for a few moments. "Well, it could always be one of the classical painting challenges. You know, painting fruit or whatever."

Glitch hummed in agreement. "That could always be fun." They both turned to look at the stage. They saw Cole peak out at the other side of it. He seemed to be either smirking or smiling in distress, but Anna didn't know if any of those guesses were correct.

Suddenly, a sound that they always thought was made to kill their eardrums, signalled them to begin walking onto the stage. There had never been a specific order for them to walk into on, they just went in however they wanted to. The ones that walked in from the right side always got to stand in front of everyone else, though. Anna, Glitch and a couple of other people happened to be on just that side that day.

Anna tried her best to calm her nerves, but she knew that something felt off. It felt like something was going to happen, she didn't know what, but she knew it would be a big thing. Both hosts usually walk in immediately after them, but today only Todd came in, looking quite nervous about something. He had lost his usual confidence that he usually radiates. Todd seemed to decide that waiting for Rebel to arrive would be extremely important.

The contestants were not allowed to talk when on the stage during the introduction, and Anna could feel her fellow contestants fidget where they stood. They all noticed that something was wrong. Todd never waits for Rebel to arrive when she's late. It was unusually weird, making everyone confused, nervous and after a while, extremely bored.

Around seven minutes later, Rebel finally arrived. It wasn't the normal cooled off Rebel though. She was pissed. She loudly stomped her feet against the floor. Everyone could feel it. Todd even took a couple of steps back when she arrived. She opened her mouth and roared:

"TODD!!" Everyone could see his eyes shoot wide open. "What do you have to say for yourself!?" You could practically touch the anger that radiated from her. None of the people that had ever wished anything bad upon Todd would have wished for this.

"Um... Re-Rebel, wha-what do y-you mean?" Todd managed to stammer that out after a couple of soundless tries. That was anything but what Rebel would have wanted to hear. If anything, it made her angrier. She seemed to try to calm down slightly by taking a deep breath. It sounded like she just snorted.

"Todd. You know what I'm talking about" Rebel managed to make her voice sound extremely controlled, her face was dead serious. She didn't want him to mess around with her. Not at all. Unfortunately, Todd apparently decided to act as a dimwit today, because he slowly shook his head. "TODD. You know what I'm talking about! Choosing who would win. Making one of the contestants vote for someone that you wanted them to vote for"

"I-I don't... I ha-haven't done any of that" He looked like a deer in the headlights. He wanted to flee. He wanted to run. He couldn't though, everyone was looking. Everyone saw that Rebel's words had some truth to them, the people that had accused Todd of rigging in earlier seasons believed in those words than for example Anna did. She never really believed when the others blamed Todd of rigging. She never thought they had enough believable evidence.

"I ha-haven't done any of that. That's funny" Rebel let out a dry laugh. "I wonder if you would need something to get your memory to work better" She slowly took some things out of her pockets. She slowly looked down at the objects in her hands, and then she coldly looked back up toward Todd. "I could tell them exactly what you have done. But hearing it from your own mouth would be so much more satisfactory" She slowly held up a slightly big, square object. "Do you know what this is?"

Todd slowly nodded. "That's my book. 'A Minecraft Story'" Todd seemed to fidget more. He seemed to be assuming the worst. "W-Why are you s-showing me it?" Rebel completely disregarded his question, and she moved on as if nothing had happened.

"Good" She proceeded to hold up the second, smaller object. "Do you know what this is?"

"That's-That's a li-lighter" He seemed to realise something important, because he stopped mowing backwards, and instead he slowly went toward Rebel. "Why do you have those?" He managed to make his voice sound less freaked out, and mostly calm.

"What do you think I'm about to do, Todd!?" She threw her arms out in frustration. "There's not a whole lot of things I can do with a freaking lighter!" That seems to have fulfilled all of Todd's fears.

"Rebel, don't do anything rash now" He continued to walk closer to her. Rebel was stone faced. She knew what she had to do. She knew what she had to do for the results to turn out the way she wanted them to.

"Tell them" He seemed reluctant to do so. "Todd. Tell them. Tell them, and nothing will happen with your precious book" Rebel glared at Todd. He simply gazed back at her. Both stone faced, but Todd became more and more fidgety. "Todd. Now"

You could see from a mile away that he didn't want to, but everyone knew that he had to tell them. He looked extremely conflicted, he seemed to have an internal argument for a couple of moments. He took a deep breath and opened his mouth.

"Rebel is..." He nervously glanced back at the cameras, the contestants and lastly his gaze lingered over Rebel. "Correct. I... I did rig these game shows..." All the contestants suddenly perked up. They fired question after question, asking about what he had done to change the outcomes of the show. The only thing that really applied in some way to Anna, was that Todd had made Thomas tell Naomi to change some of her answers in semi-final in season three, making Glitch lose and Naomi go to the final.

At least half an hour later, when they were finally finished with pestering Todd with questions, Rebel decided to end it all with a small bang. She had called on the guards during the long mini-hearing, and they all went over to Todd.

"Todd" She began, she waved the guards toward Todd. "Due to you having done all of this rigging, I'm giving you a sort of 'timeout'. You are now banned from this game show for the unforeseeable future" She motioned with her hands to take Todd away.

Before they were out of the door, Todd said: "Oh, but who is going to keep the show going? Rebel?" he let out a spiteful laugh. "She's never on time, and she can't come up with any original challenges!" He laughed again. "Everyone will leave because of how boring it is!" Rebel simply sighed, and told the guards to throw him outside.

"Okay! What about doing that challenge now?" She gleefully turned back around toward the contestants and announced the next challenge. It was indeed, painting some fruit.

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Well... This is my entry for the Radishologist's kik competition. I hope that you all enjoyed, and that you'll leave a vote, follow, and that you'll have a fantastic rest of the day!