Baby Flower

**Baby Flower** is the twenty-seventh Season 1 episode of Leeko: The Beginning trilogy, and the twenty-seventh episode overall.

## Summary

King Forrest’s new flower friend, Rosa, is kidnapped by Leonardo and transformed into a monster that Leeko must defeat.

## Characters

### Primary

* Leeko
* King Forrest
* Milly
* Manny
* King Leonardo
* Rosa (*debut*)

### Secondary

* Gene
* Helios & Luna
* Lady Chanter
* Sir Chanter
* Tommy
* Trees of the Vinebush Forest

## Episode summary

The episode begins in the center clearing of the Vinebush Forest. On a small mound of soil in front of King Forrest, a ray of sunlight peers through, causing a flower to grow. Forrest is pleased to see this new plant in his vicinity. A short time later, Milly, Manny, and Leeko set out to camp in the forest in order to visit Forrest again. Along the way, Leeko briefly notices an odd-looking grasshopper which turns out to be a robotic spy for King Leonardo. As before, Leonardo plans to chop down the Vinebush Forest to rebuild his country club. and is eavesdropping on the kids to find the way to the central clearing and get revenge on Forrest. As the grasshopper follows behind, Leeko and the kids reach King Forrest and reminisce on Leonardo's previous plot to take down the forest and how it was foiled. Milly and Manny come forward for some apples, but are stopped by Forrest before they inadvertently step on the new flower with grew earlier.

King Forrest introduces the kids to the flower. On Milly's advice, he names it Rosa and makes further accommodations to help it flourish. The kids help protect Rosa by fortifying the mound with a stone perimeter and placing a cancel sign down in front, while they continue to be monitored by Leonardo and Tommy. At that moment, a cloudburst occurs, prompting King Forrest to lurch forward to protect Rosa from the driving rain using his canopy. As the storm progresses, strong winds pick up, and the kids help brace the flower from the storm as well using their tent. After an exhausting effort, the storm passes, only for King Leonardo to show up and snatch Rosa away under the cover of a smokescreen. Leeko dispels the smoke using his vacuum-mouth, but by then it is too late.

Back at Castle Leonardo, the thieves place Rosa into the Monster delivery system and request that N.L.E. transform it into a monster, explaining that they intend to use it destroy the Vinebush Forest. With this deed done, they leave Rosa in a conspicuous place in the castle for the kids to find and return to the forest with. The kids re-plant Rosa in the mound - much to Forrest's gratitude - when the flower begins to speak. With her newfound power of speech, Rosa begins to infatuate Forrest, causing him to grow even more obsessed with her. Seeing this, Milly and Manny begin to grow suspicious, but they nonetheless, along with Leeko, leave Forrest and Rosa alone for the moment. Later that evening at the castle, Sir Chanter and Lady Chanter become worried that Milly and Manny have still not come home, so they send Helios and Luna to go find them.

That night, as King Forrest and Rosa sleep in the forest, some of Forrest's apples begin to rot and his leaves begin to fall, while Rosa slowly grows in size. Seeing this, Milly and Manny attempt to covertly dig Rosa out of the mound, but Rosa spots them and alerts Forrest. After some failed excuses, Milly tries to warn Forrest that Rosa has been turned into a monster, but Forrest refuses to listen to them and wraps them up with his roots. At that moment, Rosa makes her move and grows to envelop Forrest in her own roots, sapping him much of his strength while the kids remain trapped. Seeing this through their spying tool, King Leonardo and Tommy move out of the forest to finish the job while Helios and Luna watch on having found them. As Rosa continues draining Forrest's strength, he remains attached to her, still refusing to listen to Milly despite the rest of the forest appealing to him. Regardless, Rosa's sapping causes him to weaken to the point where he can no longer hold onto the kids, and they are released. Seeing this, King Leonardo and Tommy move to intercept them, but are hampered by Helios and Luna, who then proceed to destroy the spy. Milly discovers the remains of the spy bot and show it to Forrest as proof of Leonardo's plot, but this is still not enough for him. The kids move to stop Rosa again, but are knocked away. Rosa attempts to finish them off, when Forrest finally intervenes to protect them.

At that moment, King Leonardo and Tommy arrive in the woods with their Tank car, having subdued Helios and Luna. Leonardo prepares to fire at Forrest with an explosive round, but Leeko intervenes to inhale the shell and spit it right back at the king, dispatching him. Rosa then starts spinning a set of petals like a saw blade, intent on using them to kill Forrest and the kids. Finally coming to his senses, Forrest instructs Leeko to fight her, and Leeko vacuum-mouths one of these blade petals to gain the Cutter Copy Ability. After a brief duel, Cutter Leeko cuts Rosa down, as Forrest looks on with great sadness. As Rosa wilts, she promises to return one day and not be a monster again. The next day, Leeko and his friends return to the Vinebush Forest and find that in Rosa's place is a dense grove of flowers. The episode ends as Forrest lifts Leeko up before he can carelessly tread on them and playfully moves him around.

## Trivia

* This is the second episode in *The Beginning* series to feature the Cutter Copy Ability.
* King Forrest makes his second major appearance in this episode.
* This is the first time Leonardo has asked Gene to turn something into a monster. This would be done again in a later episode Monkeying Around, where he asks to turn Barbarion into a monster.
* The episode’s title is a reference to the term ‘baby shower’.
* This is the second episode to not end with an ‘iris out’ on any character. The first is the previous episode Werewolf Hour, but this episode has a happy ending.