The heroes returned to La-Lakoosha, or at least what was left of it. Despite Pango only being absent for a short time, the village was already infested with robots - La-Lakoosha was more machine than moo at this point. The soldiers didn't appear to be destroying any more property, but were instead just walking around, patrolling as if they were looking for something, or someone. The trio hid behind some nearby rocks in order to spy on them.
"Goodness," Lolo said, popping out of Klonoa's ring to get a better look, "There's too many to take on all at once."
Klonoa turned to Pango. "Did you manage to find where they were coming from?"
"'Fraid not, kid." he answered, "All I know is that they seemed to be coming from up north. I was gonna try and make my way there, but that's when I saw you being chased by that giant robot."
Klonoa knew that he couldn't blame Pango for helping him, but "up north" isn't exactly specific enough to locate where it'd be.
"We could try and locate it, then come back and stop the robots." Pango continued, "The village is evacuated, as far as I know."
"It's too risky." Lolo stated, "The longer we spend looking for it, the more robots are going to populate La-Lakoosha. It'd only be a matter of time until they start to spread beyond the kingdom and attack the surrounding areas."
Klonoa nodded in agreement. "Lolo's right. And I also don't wanna run the risk of leaving the village unprotected. There could still be villagers in hiding."
He looked down with frustration in both his eyes and his voice, "I can't let those… things take any more lives. I just can't."
Klonoa's tone had Pango and Lolo looking at him with concern. Lolo had never heard her friend talk in that manner before, not even when he was angry. And although Pango felt like the village was evacuated, he understood the boy's worry, and knew that his belief was not a fact.
Lolo took a second to think of what to do.
"What if we try picking them off one by one?" she hypothesised, "You can inflate the robots and throw them at each other."
"Ah, I getcha!" Klonoa responded, his voice perking up a bit, "If we're careful, we can hopefully get to a point where the amount of bots won't be as overwhelming."
"And then we can advance our assault all the way to the source." Pango chipped in, "Sounds like a plan to me!"
Klonoa and Lolo looked at each other, nodding in agreement, before the Priestess retreated back into the Ring.
As they snuck around the outskirts of the village from behind the rocks and rubble, they spotted a lone robot pacing around in front of a nearby house. The automaton's singular red eye glowed as it scanned the area around it; Klonoa silently assumed that it was scanning nearby lifeforms. Luckily, it didn't seem to pick up his or Pango's presence. Klonoa knew that he had to act fast, as there was no assurance that the bot wouldn't make any noise once provoked.
Once it turned to head back, he slowly creeped up towards it and readied his Ring for attack.
- ! ! !-
A green wind bullet flew from the Ring's gem, striking the back of the robot. But rather than inflating and being pulled towards Klonoa to be used as a weapon, the robot was instead blasted back. A solid chunk of its outer shell was blown off by the attack, as if it was hit by a shotgun at point-blank, exposing the now-damaged inner circuitry.
The enemy was destroyed instantly, its limp body collapsed to the floor as sparks flew out of its wound.
Klonoa could feel the sweat dripping from his forehead as he slowly looked forward, and was met with dozens of red eyes staring back at him.
"...crap."
"Intruders! Take no Prisoners!" one of the robots shouted out, pointing towards Klonoa. Without a second to spare, the metallic army quickly aimed their cannons at him and began to fire. Luckily, he managed to dive back behind the rocks before any shots connected with him.
Klonoa saw Pango frantically fumbling through his bomb bag, before pulling a grey, spherical object out. He quickly threw it towards the enemies' direction and motioned at Klonoa to follow him. It detonated, releasing a thick cloud of smoke and fog, obscuring the bots' scanners and allowing the heroes a chance to relocate.
"What the heck was that!?" Klonoa thought out loud. He wasn't aware the wind bullets could do something like that.
"I have no idea." Lolo responded, her voice echoing from within the Wind Ring. She sounded just as surprised as Klonoa was. "I didn't mean to give it that much force."
Pango had a think, then chimed in, "Well, you can't exactly 'inflate' metal, can you? So maybe that's why it did…whatever that was."
"Maybe so," she said in agreement. Neither she or Klonoa had any other theories about it. "We could use this to our advantage. If we're careful, we can take out a lot of the invaders with a single bullet each. That should help tip the scales."
"Good idea." Klonoa replied, before turning to Pango, "You ready?"
"Ready as I'll ever be!"
"Alright, then! Rupurudu!"
With that, Klonoa and Pango jumped out of the rocks and went on the offence. Klonoa and Lolo took on the opponents closer to them, whilst Pango took care of the distant threats with his bombs. This newfound ability of the Wind Ring was proving to be quite useful, as it made quick work of their foes.
But just as Klonoa and Lolo finished taking out one bot, another one managed to sneak behind them and fire a shot at Klonoa.
"KLONOA! LOOK OUT!"
Just before the blast hit Klonoa, Pango lept between him and the attacker, protecting the young cabbit as the shot hit Pango in the back.
He closed his eyes, bracing for the oncoming pain. To his surprise, however, he felt nothing, aside from a very mild warm sensation. He looked behind him - his thick scales managed to nullify the energy blast, leaving them only slightly blackened.
With this new revelation, a smirk grew on Pango's face as he quickly ran backwards towards the robot. The machine was helpless as the former soldier crushed it against the wall of a house.
"Are you alright there, Pango?" Klonoa asked.
"Perfectly fine, kid!" Pango responded. "Didn't feel a thing! When you've been a soldier for well over a decade, you grow thick skin. Or, well, scales in my case."
He gave a quick chuckle before pulling out a couple more bombs and continuing his attack. Klonoa and Lolo quickly resumed theirs as well.
As the battle went on, Klonoa, Lolo and Pango found that the waves of robots just never seemed to end, even if they were manageable. Eventually, the enemy forces circled around the heroes, forcing them to fight back to back. They could only fend them off for so long - they needed to find whatever was generating them, and fast.
But before they could do so, a large thud shook the ground beneath the trio. The level of magnitude the thud caused, alongside the metallic sound of the impact, was all too recognisable to Klonoa.
They turned around and saw a familiar face, looking back at them with rage in his eyes.
"Genrallas!" Klonoa called out at the red juggernaut.
"NNNYOU THOUGHT YOU MUSTA BEEN PRETTY CLEVER TO THINK YOU COULD TAKE OUT SOMEONE LIKE ME THAT EASILY!" Genrallas said, advancing forward towards the team. His soldiers slowly backed away as he towered over all present company.
"How did you survive a fall like that?" Pango questioned, keeping a bomb in hand in case things escalated.
"NNNYEH HEH HEEEEH!" the big bot laughed out loud. "YOUR LITTLE PUSH WAS STRONG, I'LL GIVE YOU THAT, BUT DID YOU FORGET ABOUT THE CLIFF PATH I CHASED YOU ON?"
He pointed to Klonoa, as the cabbit quickly put the pieces together.
"Damn!" the boy cursed, "He must've grabbed onto the ledge below and climbed back up after we left."
"EEEEEXACTLY, BOY!" Genrallas proudly declared, "AND NOW THAT I HAVE YOU RIGHT WHERE I WANT YOU, IT'S TIME I SHOW YOU SOME DISCIPLINE!"
He looked back to the other machines surrounding them.
"SOLDIERS!" he shouted out in a strict tone, reminiscent of a Drill Sergeant. "SPREAD OUT AND SURROUND THE VILLAGE! NNNOBODY GETS IN, NNNOBODY GETS OUT! NNNOW MOVE MOVE MOVE!"
"SIR YES SIR!" the robots answered, before running off and leaving the heroes alone with their commander.
Klonoa and Pango turned back to Genrallas, who got into a battle stance. They did the same thing as Klonoa readied his Wind Ring, and Pango readied his bombs. This was gonna be a tough battle.