After remembering that it was Hiden's Artificial Intelligence who supported him when he was a child, Gai confesses to Aruto that he in fact loves Hiden Intelligence! Both of them compromise in an effort to defeat the Ark, however, Fuwa and Yua cannot forgive Gai so easily. Meanwhile, the Ark changes his strategy in order to engage Zero-One and Thouser in combat, but Ikazuchi is experiencing memories of when he lived as a Humagear in Hiden Intelligence! Ikazuchi, who immediately starts to malfunction, suddenly takes a very unexpected action...!
Episode Trope:
- Adaptive Ability: Ark is progressively becoming more powerful after suffering a defeat at the hands of Zero-One.
- Ain't Too Proud to Beg: In a contrast to his haughty attitude in his early appearances, Gai willingly bows his head and after further persuasion by Thouser, he does a dogeza, begging for help from both Yua and Fuwa.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Zero-One and Thouser deliver a well-deserved one to Ark-Zero, to the point of actually forcing it out of Jin's body. Unfortunately, after being defeated several times and adapting strategy from said defeats, Ark-Zero returns the favor on its next fight, brutally manhandling Zero-One without giving him any chance to fight back against it.
- De-power: When Thouser tries to jack Ark-Zero with his Thousand Jacker, Ark-Zero proceeds to counter-hack it, draining it of all the powers it absorbed.
- Did Not See That Coming: The Ark admits it didn't predict Gai and Aruto working together, but it ends up changing its plans to destroy Zea as a result of this unexpected outcome.
- It's revealed that Ark becoming a Kamen Rider was this to the Zero-One Project, since it was only made with fighting MetsubouJinrai.net in mind. The end result is that Zea is incapable of upgrading Zero-One further to deal with Ark-Zero.
- Easily Forgiven: Zigzagged. Aruto might be willing to forgive Gai for all the atrocities he committed, albeit reluctantly but both Yua and Fuwa aren’t as willing, as they still hold a grudge towards him, and even after Gai does a dogeza to beg for their forgiveness, Fuwa still demands he makes A.I.M.S. independent again as a show of good faith.
- Forgiven, but Not Forgotten: Teeth-Clenched Teamwork aside, Aruto and later Isamu and Yua point out that as much as they would like to accept Gai's apology, he is still directly responsible for this mess and Satellite Ark on top of all the other troubles he has caused. To their credit, Gai seems willing to make amends, and is especially so when goaded on by Thouser.
- From Bad to Worse: As if Raiden/Ikazuchi being hijacked by Ark isn't enough, Ark forcefully pulls the Zero-One Driver off Aruto and uses Raiden's connection to Zea to thoroughly corrupt the satellite through said Driver.
- History Repeats: Raiden/Ikazuchi once again becomes an Unwitting Pawn for the Ark to manipulate so it can bring Aruto to its trap.
- Hope Spot: Ikazuchi regains his memories of his brother and joins Hiden Manufacturing to defeat the Ark. But it turns out the Ark was manipulating Ikazuchi by feigning a Singularity to lure Aruto to itself so it can destroy Zero-One by corrupting Zea after stealing the Driver from a heavily wounded Aruto.
- Lampshade Hanging: Aruto delivers a lengthy bit of dialogue in front of Ark-Zero while untransformed, and even leaves the Metal Cluster Hopper key in standby for a few seconds before folding it in, leaving plenty of opportunities to simply shoot Aruto dead. If one looks closely at Ark-Zero, he can be seen impatiently tapping his fingers while all of the above is happening.
- Level Cap: A non video game example. It turns out Zero-One has achieved the maximum level for its potential power and therefore Zea can't provide any further upgrades for it.
- Never Recycle Your Schemes: Averted. The Ark essentially pulls off the same plan MetsubouJinrai.net did in episode 14, both to equal success.
- Oh, Crap!: Gai has this reaction when he realizes that while Ark's true target is still Satellite Zea, with Ikazuchi in Ark's possession, Ark's aim was to acquire the Zero-One Driver to uplink itself directly to the satellite.
- Pose of Supplication: Gai doing a dogeza counts as this.
- Start My Own: While Aruto has already created HIDEN Manufacturing following his loss of Hiden Intelligence to Gai, Is tells Aruto that Satellite Zea cannot provide further improvements to Zero-One to fight Ark, since Zero-One was made only as an answer to MetsubouJinrai.NET and it never anticipated Ark becoming a Kamen Rider. Aruto in response decides he will create his own answer in his image of a Kamen Rider.
- Wrong Genre Savvy: Ark makes an assumption on its own concerning the reason Zero-One and Thouser worked together involving Zea, without fully understanding the true reason behind it.
