Waves are made, and attentions are grabbed.

After that round finished, seven contestants remained aside from Lenny, Erica, Angie, Mara, and Rena. Oddly enough, only those seven (which included the four who Mara recognized) were listed in the leaderboards as having made it to the next round.

Still, they weren’t spirited away by the dark blue **** that spirited away the masses who couldn’t secure an item drop, leaving the forest area empty aside from Leonard and his entourage. After Mara showed them how to take off their mostly black “super-suits”, the group was then met by a somewhat older man in a white suit with a similarly white bow tie.

He said “I’m sorry, but I believe you five aren’t in the proper place. You clearly aren’t the same as the usual contestants.” with a clear deference that made Lenny think he was a butler of some sort.

“Whoa, Girori already? Wait, you’re not gonna bust out the Vision Driver against us, are you?” Mara asked, getting ready to use her bright green item again to transform while also saying a lot of stuff that confused four out of the five people in her group.

Lenny put a hand out in front of Mara, before sighing “Look, you might not believe this, but where we’re from all of this is a Japanese TV show. I’m not exactly sure what this is right now, but before was a kind of computer world, like a streaming service.” as he made eye contact with the newly introduced “Girori” person, trying to stay civil despite the **** scenario they were in.

Girori’s eyes widened a touch, saying “Oh dear. It seems you’re all VIPs indeed. Perhaps a step above even that.” before snapping his fingers. In an instant the surroundings change to a void with multiple floating holographic screens. “You’ll have to forgive me, I wasn’t told that I would have guests as esteemed as you.” he continued, stepping to a small table, putting on a pair of black gloves and a hooded capelet, before placing a robotic-looking mask onto his face. “Apologies though, I can’t let any viewers participate in the DGP. It would affect the format too much, cause an upset. I hope you’ll be satisfied by a look at the inner workings of the program instead.” Girori offered, a filter now over his voice that made it match his new mask.

Lenny froze. He coughed, then stammered “N-No, uh… I mean r-right now is a TV show too. Like, I’m pretty sure you’re a c-c-character from a show that she’s seen before.” as he pointed to Mara. The girl in question blushed as she was made the center of attention.

“… yes, I’m aware. Like I said, you’re all viewers of a level I haven’t personally encountered. Niram-sama perhaps may have, but he’s a special case.” the masked Girori replied, not fazed. “Either way, I’ll try to accommodate your wishes as best I can without disrupting the game. Is there anything you would like in particular?” he asked, before pulling out a tablet and handing it to Lenny.

On the tablet was a menu listing a variety of merch items for the Desire Grand Prix, T-shirts and sweatpants and the like. At this Leonard just sighed “I just want us to get out, me and… wait. Where’s the block? The floating block thing that was with us?” as he finally realized that one of his initial party of four had been missing for the past few minutes. “That… dangit, forgot its name.”

“Did you even name it…?” Erica asked. “It called you ‘Papa’, but you didn’t really call it anything…”

“Floating block?” Girori asked, head cocked to the side. Then an alert popped up on one of the screens. “Damnit, I’m being summoned by the regular contestants. I act like a butler in the players’ lounge.” he explained, quickly removing the earlier clothing items that he’d put on. “If you’d like to leave, you’re free to. Retrieve the thing you lost however you like, just don’t interfere with the DGP.” he added, before porting away through some mechanism Leonard and the others couldn’t see.

Angie looked around, then said “… well, that’s alright then. Is there anything in here that we can actually use? What can we do with these things?” with a critical eye, looking over the holographic screens incredulously. They seemed to show the events of the earlier round from a variety of angles, like a high-tech editor’s room.

Rena asked “Wait, so we won’t get to fight more of those things? I was enjoying the chance to get experience fighting some of those Algomon lookalikes. Could’ve gotten close to Digivolving if I kept at it…” as she sighed, a hand on the black device around her waist.

“Jamato, they’re called Jamato. And what the heck are you talking about, the name is Argomon.” Mara groaned, annoyed at the situation’s sudden developments.

Leonard guessed she was hoping to do more fighting, maybe even talk directly to the show’s characters. Still, a lot was happening very quickly. “… why did Girori-san know he was in a TV show? Is this a TV show in-universe? What’s happening?” he asked, scrolling through the merch options. He was also figuring out the interface for whatever it was that Girori had on the tablet too, tapping clothing items that then appeared either on his person or in a pile on the floor in front of him.

Mara brightened up at his question, saying “Oh, that’s an interesting question. See, according to the official blog for episode 16, the episode where it’s revealed that the Desire Grand Prix is essentially a filmed reality TV show, the viewers of the DGP also include the viewers for Kamen Rider Geats itself, so technically it’s supposed to kinda be real despite being a fictional kid’s show! Also, Ace-sama is actually—” as she started a huge infodump about the show they’d apparently somehow walked directly into.

“… okay, no offense, but I want you to stop talking about all that for a little while. I have to check something.” Leonard eventually told Mara, as her explanation began to include talks of gods and gladiators. He didn’t exactly parse all of it, though he made an effort to listen to the highlights at least. But like he said, there was something he had to check at the moment.