BRIEF STORYLINE A gang of angry pirates ride on a massive ship on wheels(the Wind Wagon) and invade a small village. Luckily, Feryl and Leoric ride into the scene and put a stop to their looting raid. Feryl, however, performs badly trying to fight off the pirates, while Leoric is sailing through the bust-up smoothly as he normally does. Feeling useless and depressed, Feryl leaves the Spectral Knights, believing he giving them a showing up.
In a Western-style bar, Darkstorm and Mortdredd enter to invite him to come join the Darkling Lords. Feryl angrily refuses, still having a passion for being a good guy, doing what's right. An infuriated Darkstorm gets Cravex to utilise his power of fear on Leoric, and make him hallucinate that Feryl has been captured by the Darkling Lords, which he has not. Leoric doesn't have time to think and races outside his New Valarak castle to find Feryl on a horse. In a clever move, Virulina is diguised as Feryl hanging from a tree and the twist in this tale causes Leoric to be held captive. His lion totem is removed in the magical dungeon inside the Dagger Assault vehicle.
Feryl witnesses all of this, and tranforms into his wolf totem to make a subtle, quiet entrance into Darkstorm's castle. He gets involved in a scuffle with Mortdredd, but he manages to sound the alarm. Darkstorm plans to seize the other, outnumbered Spectral Knights. However, Leoric and Feryl escape into the courtyard and get their totems back online using the Dagger Assault. There's not much time, as the Darling Lords arrive, and Feryl tries to distract them while Leoric is inside the magical dungeon. This is a success, as Cindarr's power of destruction monster wrecklessly swipes at Darkstorm's castle, causing some damage. The two Spectral Knights then bash the Dagger Assault into the moat area, and run from the absolute carnage.
Feryl is happy with himself, and knows he has a purpose in the team, as well as importance. They depend on him to drive the Capture Chariot, their largest vehicle.
REVIEW: A solid episode. It begins well, with the pirates invading a village in their Wind Wagon vehicle, in the only appearance they make in the cartoon. The entrance of Leoric and Feryl into the scene, could've been better. However, Leoric's opening line is a classic, "We have a special on manners today, all you can eat!". It doesn't make much sense, but a cool line it is. The pirate fight is mostly well done apart from the end. There's a good contrast though, between Leoric and Feryl, after the fight, where Leoric is the hero, surrounded by villagers, and Feryl is looking glum, sitting on his own.
When Feryl decides to leave the Spectral Knights and tells them, it's all done rather quickly and the editing is mediocre. Feryl making his mind up, could've been dragged on more, to make more of an impact, but it is only a 21 minute cartoon. One of Darkstorm's female servants or guard overhears Feryl's departure and tells the tyrant about this. This woman comes out of nowhere, with no name and never appears again in the cartoon.
Darkstorm and Mortdredd trying to intrique Feryl at the Western-style bar(we assume he's in the Anarchy Zone)to join the Darkling Lords is a strong scene indeed. Another one of the strongest scenes and most dramatic, is when Cravex's fear bites Leoric, giving him nightmares about Feryl and jumps out of bed, gets in his armour, and mounts his horse to find a disguised Virulina in Feryl's outfit. This shows Leoric has one of his closest bonds with Feryl. When he transforms into his lion form and duels with the Mollusk and Phylot of Darkstorm and Cravex, the action is sloppy, but it gets better when Leoric gets captured and the Darkling Lords celebrate.
A good feature is that the doubts in Feryl's mind prolong for him still, when he spies on the Darkling Lords. Another well done presented scene is when Leoric gets tied into Darkstorm's stretching torture device. Then, when Darkstorm is scheming with his fellow Darkling Lords around a table as Leoric is held captive, is shoddy. It's strange to see Darkstorm summon the Wisdom Owl from Leoric's power staff.
Feryl tussling with Mortdredd to rescue Leoric is surprisingly long but compelling and entertaing, and leaves a good, if not predictable cliffhanger, of Mortdredd summoning the rest of the Darkling Lords using an alarm device.The episode reaches a sweetspot here, and the panic is expressed well as Darkstorm and the others make their way to the dungeon hurriedley. A funny moment transpires when Darkstorm orders his men to search for Leoric, but not too hard! "Show less Enthusiasm" he bellows, when Cravex and Lexor are wrecking his possesions like art paintings in their wrath to get Leoric.
In the finale, we have Feryl giving back Leoric's totem using the Dagger Assault vehicle's controls, in a limp scene. Cindarr and Lexor unveiling their powers of Destruction and Invulnerability makes for more entertaining viewing and is edited better too. Very nice airbourne action where Feryl takes out the Lords Sky Claw vehicle. Feryl now believes he is worthwhile to the Knights after all. The intimate ending between Leoric and Feryl as they make up and express each other's feeling is unfortunately not greatly edited at times. FERYL STEPS OUT GETS A: 3/5 RATING.
