"I'm Lolo. I'm a priestess…well…a priestess in training. And this is Popka."

"Yo!"

"You're the ones who saved me, huh? Thanks. I'm Klonoa."

"Klonoa…"

"Klonoa…"

"KLONOA!"

"Huh!? Wha?" Klonoa suddenly snapped back to reality.

"Would it kill ya to use those giant ears of yours to listen?" an irritated voice rang out.

He looked behind him to see Popka tapping his foot impatiently, waiting for a response.

"S-sorry." Klonoa apologised, "It's just…being back here brings back memories."

Popka simply rolled his eyes and continued walking forward. The others followed.

"I was gonna ask if you knew where we were going." he continued.

"I have no idea," the cabbit answered, "Genrallas only told us that the Generator is in the Sea of Tears, but we still don't know where in the Sea of Tears. So we're just gonna look around and try and see if we can spot it."

"It shouldn't be too hard to miss," Lolo added, "I imagine it must be pretty big."

The trio had been wandering around the Sea of Tears for a solid 30 minutes or so; their eyes scanning the endless expanse of rocky caves and towering cliffs that surrounded them. The jagged landscape seemed to blend together; a maze of unforgiving obstacles that threatened to swallow them whole. It also didn't help that it was currently nighttime, which made it even harder to get one's bearings.

"Ugh, but I'm booooored." Popka whined.

"Well, why don't we talk whilst we walk?" Klonoa suggested. "That should help pass the time whilst we keep an eye out for any clues."

"I like that idea." Lolo replied, cheerfully.

"Fine, whatever."

Klonoa took a second to think of a conversation starter. Despite meeting and befriending many people from different worlds, he wasn't exactly a 'social butterfly'. It's been a while since he's seen Lolo and Popka, so he's not sure what stuff they could even ta-

"That's it!"

"What have you two been up to since we last saw each other?" Klonoa asked the duo. "If I remember correctly, the last we saw each other was when we did that 'Dream Champ Tournament' thing, and that was…err…that was…"

"Four years ago." Lolo finished his sentence.

"Four years!?"

Klonoa didn't realise it had been that long ago. He'd been on so many adventures that he honestly lost track of time.

"Yeah." Klonoa eventually responded. "So, what have you been up to for the past four years?"

"Well," Lolo began, "Not long after you left Lunatea, I restarted my priestess training from scratch. I didn't want to rely on others to help me 'cheat' my way towards it; I wanted to earn it. So I began to… well… train. I practised my magic, I did what I could to help those around me, and I stayed up all night studying sometimes."

"I remember." Popka butted in. "I went into your room one time to check how you were doin', and ya fell asleep sittin' up. I kicked your chair and you jolted awake. It was pretty funny, not gonna lie."

"Yeah, haha." Lolo laughed, slightly embarrassed. She truly did work herself to the bone at times.

Klonoa was happy to hear that Lolo was putting in the effort to become a better, stronger person. Not that she was bad before, not by a long shot, but she had a lot of insecurities and a lack of independence - something he saw her overcome with his own eyes on their journey.

"Over time, I managed to gain more control over my abilities." she continued. "So when I felt like I was ready, I returned to the Spirit Bell, closed my eyes, focused, and rang the bell."

"Wait, doesn't that mean-?"

"Yup. I'm a Priestess now! Legitimately, this time." Lolo pointed to the green feather in her cap. Klonoa remembered the feather as being a sign of priestesshood.

"Wow. That's great to hear, Lolo! I remember you getting pretty far in that Tournament, so I always knew you were pretty strong. I'm really happy for you."

Lolo blushed at his compliments. She let out a small chuckle as she put her hand behind her head.

"Hah, she wouldn't stop crying when the High Priestess made her a Priestess again." Popka chimed in, jokingly.

The Priestess felt more embarrassed, considering Popka wasn't lying. Water flowed from her eyes like a faucet when all her hard work paid off.

"W-Well anyways," she said after regaining her composure, "What have you been up to, Klonoa? I'm sure you must've been on so many adventures since we last talked."

"Hah, yeah." Klonoa answered. "You could say I've been busy."

Lolo and Popka were expecting him to elaborate, but the cabbit instead just left it there. The two looked at each other a bit awkwardly.

"Well, any notable examples ya wanna talk about?" the canine queried.

"Yeah, I'm quite curious about what you've been up to." Lolo followed.

Klonoa looked back at the duo, slightly slowing down as he looked forward and thought to himself.

"What adventures were interesting enough to share with them?" he thought to himself.

"Ooh, here's one!" he eventually said, "There was this one time where I was flung into some weird racing competition, where I had to snowboard down a bunch of steep hills. It was kinda like what I did in Mira-Mira that one time, except there were a bunch of other people racing alongside me. It was cool, even if I don't know why I was brought there just for a race."

He took another moment to think of another one.

"Umm… OH! There was this one time I was brought into a world of talking frogs to find a bunch of legendary artifacts and save a city from a monster invasion. Haha, that one was really weird."

He had another think to himself; there must be at least one more adventure to talk about.

"Oh yeah, there was…"

Klonoa stopped dead in his tracks and went quiet. Deathly quiet.

The other two were quickly taken aback. Klonoa was never super-talkative or chatty, but they had never seen him grow this silent before. Something was wrong.

Lolo, concerned, reached out and touched his shoulder.

"Klonoa?" the Priestess asked, softly.

"Y-yeah?" Klonoa quickly snapped out of his frozen state.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah… yeah, I'm fine. Just feeling a bit…under the weather. That's all."

He looked at her with a wide and confident smile. Seeing him happy was always a good sight for her, but Lolo could tell that the smile was masking something; she just didn't know what. She wanted to ask again, but-

"...Maybe later." Lolo thought to herself. Although it pained her to see her best friend this way, she didn't want to overstep any boundaries.

"B-but enough about me." Klonoa blurted out. "What about you, Popka?"

"Huh?" Popka looked at him, surprised.

"Well, Lolo's become a Priestess, and I've been busy with my dream traveller duties. What have you been up to for the last four years?"

On the one hand, it was obvious to the canine that Klonoa was trying to change the subject to avoid having to talk about whatever spooked him so much. But on the other hand, what has he been up to for the last four years? He's mostly just been chilling around Lolo and being her friend; he hadn't really been striving to achieve any big feats or achievements.

"Well…I-I've been busy with… y-y'know… with… ummm… HEY, what the heck is that!?" He quickly pointed at something in a different direction.

"Why are you making excuses, Popka?" Lolo asked, displeased at her friend's laziness. "Do you really think we'd fall for that trick?"

"No, ya idiot!" He pulled Lolo down by the hand, to his eye-level, and pointed again. "What is that?"

Lolo looked at whatever he was pointing at, almost sarcastically, and something caught her eye. Klonoa noticed it as well.

It was a Moo, running towards their direction. Behind it were what appeared to be a couple of miniature tanks. As the creature drew closer, the trio noticed that it wasn't running towards them with the intention of attacking, but rather it was running away from the tanks.

The runaway Moo, noticing the trio, rushed to take cover behind Klonoa's leg. Klonoa and Lolo, without saying a word, nodded in unison as the Priestess retreated into the Wind Ring, and the cabbit readied himself to fight.

"Popka," the boy said, "keep an eye on the Moo, make sure they stay out of harm's way!"

"No way! I want a piece of the action too, y'know!"

He extended his claws and got into an action pose. Klonoa wanted to tell him to stand down, but the Tanks were getting closer by the second, so he didn't have time to argue.

"Fine." Klonoa begrudgingly agreed, rolling his eyes. "You take left, I'll take right."

He pointed to the Moo to hide behind a nearby tree, and charged forward towards the artillery.

It was here that he noticed that the Tanks were, in fact, piloted by more Moos. The 'gun' of each Tank was attached to the pilot's head, like a helmet.

As he drew near, the Moo fired a blast at the Dream Traveller, who managed to leap over it in time. However, as he readied his Ring for an attack from above, the Moo swiftly turned to face him and fired another shot. Luckily, Klonoa managed to fire a Wind Bullet that collided with the gun to nullify the attack, only knocking Klonoa back.

The gun being a helmet meant that it was harder to manoeuvre around; as long as the Moo maintained eye contact with Klonoa, its weapon would always point straight at his head. He and Popka were jumping around like fleas trying to dodge their attacks, the rocky ground beneath their feet scorched and broken up by the constant firepower.

"C'mon there's gotta be an easier way to do this!" Popka said, breathless from all the dodging and weaving. It also didn't help that the ground beneath him was starting to burn his bare feet.

"Well," Lolo spoke up from within the ring, "if we can get those cannons off the Moos' heads, somehow, they should be vulnerable and pose less of a challenge."

"Good idea!" Klonoa chimed in. "First we're gonna need to distract them. Then one of us can get the helmets off."

Klonoa was about to tell Popka to keep them occupied. But before he could do so, Lolo hopped out of the Wind Ring, grabbing the attention of both Tanks.

"Lolo, wait!"

Lolo did not budge, only giving a quick, but confident smile back to Klonoa. Although he was worried about his friend putting herself in harm's way, the look she gave him was oddly reassuring. She knew what she was doing, and she knew that, whatever she had planned, it would work.

She clapped her hands together, surrounding herself with the same green aura she had on the cliff in La-Lakoosha. Just as the two enemies took their shots at the Priestess, she threw her hands forward. A green shockwave destroyed their shells and spun the two Tanks out of control; Klonoa and Popka had to maintain their balance in order to not get blown off of their feet.

The two Moos were dizzy from the attack; now was their chance! Klonoa and Popka ran towards the Tanks, and before either Moo could react, they grabbed the Tank helmets. They were stuck on tight, but with enough force, the two managed to yank them off the Moos' heads and throw them aside. Klonoa and Popka quickly retreated to back Lolo up; despite the tank guns being removed, they still had to deal with two hostile enemies on heavy, treaded vehicles.

However, once the Moos got their bearings, all they did was look around, aimlessly. Once they looked down and saw what they were sitting in, they simply hopped out of the vehicles and went back to their usual, more passive selves. It was as if they were snapped out of some sort of weird trance. The trio of heroes just stood there, confused.

All of a sudden, the runaway Moo from earlier came out of hiding and called out to their chasers in its own language.

"Mo-Moo MOO!"

It giddily ran up to them and hugged their fellow kin. Klonoa and the others were totally baffled. That was until Lolo noticed small sparks coming from one of the helmets. When she walked up to investigate, she picked it up and had a closer look. The inside was full of circuitry, bright lights, and some small cables with something on the end that stuck onto the wearer's head like a patch.

"Everything ok, Lolo?" Klonoa walked up to see what she was doing.

"Something's odd here." Lolo answered, "These Moos were definitely trying to attack us, but as soon as we took these helmets off of them, they went passive."

She showed Klonoa the inside of the helmet.
"I think that whoever placed these onto the Moos used these helmets to brainwash them into following orders."

"And I think I know who might have an answer!" Popka interrupted, pointing towards a flag placed on the back of the Moo's Tanks. It was green with a yellow, G-shaped symbol in the centre.

"Ain't this the same symbol that was on that big red bot's belt?" Popka queried.

He was right; it was the same shape and the same colour as the buckle on Genrallas' belt.

"Do you think he sent them here?" Klonoa wondered out loud.

"HAH! In the condition he's in? I don't think so!"

"I do remember Genrallas mentioning a higher-up a couple times." Lolo said. "Whoever they are, they must know that we're here, and that we're after their Generator."

Klonoa took another look at the green flag. Something about it feels familiar to him, but he can't think of why. Was it the colour? Was it the symbol? Was it someone he's met before? He couldn't think of what it was, but he made a mental note on what he saw.

"Moo Mooo!"

The Moo that the trio saved ran up to Klonoa and started jumping up at him, the other two Moos right behind them.

"She's saying 'thank you!'" Popka told Klonoa.

"Wait, you understand them!?" Klonoa never took Popka as someone who'd go out of their way to learn other languages. He was also surprised at how Popka was able to tell that the Moo was a girl just from its voice.

"Yeah; considerin' how many of these guys there are around Lunatea, I figured I'd try and learn how they talk 'n' stuff."

Klonoa could feel a small smirk creep onto his face.

"Hey, I was bored, okay?" Popka snapped back, somewhat embarrassed.

"Heheh, sorry. Can you tell it…I mean, her, that it's no problem?" Klonoa asked.

"I can't exactly speak 'Moo', but I think they can understand us anyways." Popka replied.

That was when Lolo had an idea.

"Hello there." The Priestess kindly greeted the Moo, kneeling down to her line of sight. "My name is Lolo, and this is Klonoa and Popka. We're trying to find a big structure where some robots are coming from. Do you know where we might be able to find it?"

The Moo tilted its head in confusion.

"I don't think it knows what ya mean, Lo." Popka said.

Lolo thought to herself; how could she phrase it in a way the Moo could understand? She's lived alongside these creatures all her life, and they're smarter than they let on. The only reason they act as obstacles towards them is typically because they can be easily influenced by a higher level of power, such as brainwashing or bribery.

"Oh!" she said, a light bulb switching on within her head. She walked over to where the now-immobile Tanks stood.

"Do you know where these came from?" she asked, pointing towards the vehicles.

The Moo seemed to understand her this time; she closed her eyes and placed a hand on her head, as if she was wracking her brain.

"Moo!" The Moo lit up. She ran towards Lolo and pointed north. "Moo-Moo. Moo, Mo-Moo. Moo, Moo."

"She said that she saw a large building north of here; that's where those tanks came from." Popka translated. The Moo nodded in agreement.

"So that's where we're heading." Klonoa surmised. "Let's go stop that Generator!"

The trio started to head north, but before they went too far, Klonoa headed back towards the Moo that helped them.
"Thanks, little buddy!" he said, patting her on the head. "Take care, you guys."

He waved to the Moos as he rejoined Lolo and Popka. Even though the Moo couldn't give specifics, if they headed the direction she said, they should find the Generator, eventually.

The two freed Moos headed off into their own direction, but the runaway Moo couldn't help but watch her heroes disappear into the distance. One could practically see the sparkling stars in her eyes.

"Moo Mooo…"

"So cool…"