Courage to Protect What's Important
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 Don't worry. No Xehanorts here. | ||||||
| "Courage to Protect What's Important" (Daijinamono o Mamoru Yūki) | ||||||
| Airdate | 2025 May 14 | |||||
 Watch this episode on YouTube
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As Optimus Prime battles Ignite Leo, Hydrophant must come to terms with his fear of fighting.
Synopsis
Ignite Leo, intrigued by Optimus Prime being the so called "hero" from the outside world, challenges the Autobot Leader to a duel, striking first with a flurry of attacks that puts his opponent in a disadvantaged situation. Lightlong tries to reason with his fellow Animal Tribe member, but his pleas fall on deaf audio sensors as he's quickly knocked down. Realizing that Ignite Leo is beyond reason, he undergoes Wildocking with Optimus into Lightning Optimus, who attempts to quickly defeat Ignite Leo with a sword beam made of Lightning Energy, but is neutralized by Spirituan's Earth Defense summoning a boulder to neutralize it.
Seizing on the opportunity his partner granted, Ignite Leo knocks down Lightning Optimus with relative ease while calling out the latters' ineptitude with his Elemental Energy matchups. As the lion Energy Beast moves in for the finishing blow, Hydrophant, who had been watching the duel from the sidelines, finally musters up the courage to protect Lightlong and Optimus, transforming into his robot mode to fire a stream of water that Ignite Leo is forced to dodge, and declaring that while he may hate fighting, he will stand up for what he treasures.
This declaration, inspired by Optimus' pep talk earlier, forges a bond between the elephant Energy Beast and the Energy Master, allowing them to further combine into Lightning Aqua Optimus, which briefly intrigues Ignite Leo before he is defeated by the combined form's stream of electrically charged water.
After the battle, Lightlong confronts Ignite Leo over his attack earlier, which the latter apologizes for, saying he just wanted to test Optimus' power and halt attempts to get the Element Shield, which Spirituan elaborates on: it is a wall that has existed for a long time that blocks off access to more power, or it is believed by the Dinosaur Tribe. The Spinosaurus doesn't seem to wholeheartedly trust the belief as he senses something evil from it. Shortly afterwards, a mysterious purple energy attacks Spirituan from above, briefly attempting to mess with his mind before abducting him.
When Spirituan comes to, he is forcefully wildocked to Megatron's left arm, opposite Captain Volca, who welcomes him to Megatron's team, and the Decepticon Leader declares the pieces are in place...
Featured characters
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)
| Autobots | Decepticons | Energy Beasts |
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Notes
Continuity notes
- As with before, the identity of one of the Energy Beast silhouettes from The Power of Bonds! Wildocking! is revealed, that being Abyssrain. However, unlike Spirituan, Ignite Leo and Hydrophant in the previous episode, the character wasn't named on screen.
- The "Element Shield" was mentioned by Megatron in The Hero Who Descends from the Sky!, as shown in Lightlong's flashback.
