The Dark Knights

Reaching Windknight's Lot, Jonathan's group is robbed by a skilled young thief named Poco, who launches himself across a lake with a slingshot. Jonathan and Zeppeli walk over the water using the Ripple and corner the boy after a punch cracks the cliff he is scaling, yet Poco cannot recall where he is or what he was doing. As night falls, they discover Dio hypnotized Poco to lure them into a graveyard, where a horde of zombies descends on them. Zeppeli tries the Ripple against Dio, but the vampire, tipped off by Wang Chan, has devised a defense: by vaporizing his body's moisture he draws in heat and freezes Zeppeli's arms solid. Jonathan leaps in to guard him, but Dio overwhelms them both, then calls up two legendary undead knights, Tarkus and Bruford, to finish the job.

The episode recounts the sorrow behind the pair. Once devoted servants of Mary Stuart, they fought on undefeated even after Elizabeth I branded Stuart a traitor and crushed her armies, leaving their queen imprisoned. Lured into surrendering with a promise to spare Mary's life, the two knights were instead shown her severed head, and they died cursing the world itself.

Dio grants Bruford a solo bout against Jonathan, and the knight fights by directing his blade with his own hair. Hurled into the lake and unable to breathe, Jonathan struggles against a foe who moves freely underwater and, being undead, needs no air at all. He dives deeper and pries loose a rock at the bottom, and the pocket of trapped air beneath it restores his breath long enough to unleash the Underwater Turquoise Blue Overdrive on Bruford.