[I'm going pretty tame with my first attempt at a Klonoa fic. This is largely just a re-envisioning of some of the ending stretch of Lunatea's Veil. You may notice a few departures from canonical physics (e.g. Lolo doesn't discorporate to power Klonoa's ring), but such deviations should be minor.

This will be a short fic, no more than two or three chapters. I'm first and foremost experimenting to see if I can capture the characters, action, and emotion of the game in prose at all.]

Rain fell in sheets upon the forested hillside near the Sea of Tears. Sorrow would soon come to Lunatea, and the sky welcomed it.

There at the crest of the hill stood three companions, soaked through their fur and tired from their ascent to that point. The path, broken by earthquakes and infested with monsters of all breeds, had sapped much of their strength. But the end was not even in sight.

"Is... is this the right place?" asked Lolo, wiping rain from her eyes with the back of her hand.

Popka gave a little jump of indignation, narrowing his shattered-glass eyes at her. "Of course it is, ya silly! The Ark has ta go over the Sea of Tears ta get ta the Kingdom of Sorrow. And we should be way ahead of 'em, this is the best shortcut I know! We'll just stop down at the edge and wait for 'em."

"Right." Klonoa wrung water from his ears, but it did little good. He picked up the surfboard from Joilant Fun Park--it hadn't been fun lugging it all the way up to the cliffs, but it would be essential in this next part of their mission--and set it down in front of him, careful to keep it trapped under one foot to keep it from sliding away. "Everyone ready?"

Lolo wrapped her arms around his waist, holding on tight, and nodded against him. "Mm." Popka clambered out onto the board, perching at the front.

Klonoa grinned--"Okay! Here we go*, hold on!"--and hopped onto the middle of the board.

The surfboard cut through the wet grass on the slope as if it were pure water, plants parting to the sides of the crew like waves, and swiftly picked up speed. Trees and boulders whipped by and vanished in the mist and darkness. Klonoa guided them through, leaning from side to side to weave through obstacles. Lolo did what she could to work with him, holding on perhaps too tight as she let her weight shift with his.

"Look out!" cried Popka, as the board approached a large rock with no time to evade it.

"On it! One, two, three, wahuu!" With a sharp pulse from his legs, the board gained lift and popped up into the air, clearing the obstacle... but coming down the other side, headed straight for a thick, low branch jutting out from a tree on the left! Klonoa's ears flapped frantically, trying to net them even another fraction of a second of air, but his sodden fur availed them nothing. The board struck the branch dead center, and the three of them went tumbling, surfboard and all, head over heels down the grassy slope.

"Oof!" Klonoa shouted, spitting wet leaves. "Try to--magya--hold--on! I'll--get--us--going--again..."

The cat reached out and grabbed hold of a protruding root, wrenching his arm but arresting their tumble. From there, it took only a quick shuffle of his center of gravity and a kick on the still-speeding ground, and they were upright again.

At that moment, the foliage gave way, and the vista of the Sea of Tears spread out before them, churning with the storm. Beyond the edge of the cliffs and below, a great eagle-winged boat glided through the air, undeterred by the weather.

"The Ark!" cried Lolo. "We're too late!"

"We can still make it if we jump," advised Popka, "just keep goin'!"

Klonoa grimaced, wide-eyed. "I don't think I could stop if I wanted to! Stay with me, guys!"

"Claire save us," said Lolo, eyes closed, as the surfboard shot out over the rain-slick precipice.**

The surfboard tumbled away, its yellow and red stripes arrowing down into the dark. Its passengers plummeted headfirst, Popka clinging to Klonoa's ankle, Lolo still latched on to his back. The Ark drifted lazily away to their left, growing ever more out of reach.

In a final desperate move, Klonoa tucked his head in, turning the ball of adventurers in a somersault, then stretched out to full height and reached out with all the flexibility his feline body could manage.

Lolo's prayers must have served them well, as his gloved hand caught a fistful of an ancient tattered banner, flapping out behind the Ark like tailfeathers. Their fall came to a halt, at the cost of another sharp twist on the arm Klonoa already strained stopping their tumble on the hill.

"All right! Way ta go, Klonoa!" woofed Popka. "Now let's get up ta the deck."

"Just... gimme a sec..." said Klonoa, whimpering, as he shifted his grip to his good arm.

"Myuu? What's all that noise?"

A familiar voice came from the deck above them, and a moment later a little creature came into view over the gunwale: Tat, lover of mischief. She peered down at them, blinking her one visible bright yellow eye. "Oooh. Hello, cuties! That's a silly place to hang around."

Lolo looked up at her, blinking as rain continued to fall in her eyes. "Tat! Help pull us up!"

The kitty-thing shook her head, grinning. "Oh, I don't think I can do that. The fabric on this old ship is just toooo threadbare, you'd never make it!" She reached out with her little claws and started scissoring along the top of the banner. The heroes' weight bearing down caused threads to groan and unravel with the widening cut.

"Tat!" shouted Klonoa, futile. A gust of wind caught his cap and started to blow it away. By reflex, he reached up with his good hand and pushed it more firmly down onto his head--leaving his weak arm holding the three of them for a moment. His grip faltered, and they slid a foot downward on the banner before he brought his other hand back to assist.

"Hee hee hee! Sorry, Klonoa darling, time to say bye-bye." Tat continued across the banner. No more than a quarter of its width now remained keeping them from a plunge into the sea. "Nyao na!"

Popka bayed with rage. Scampering up Klonoa's leg, over Lolo's back and Klonoa's head and up the final shred of banner, he reached the aft rail and dashed straight at the startled Tat. They collided and rolled, wrestling for a second on the brink, before the dog prevailed and hurled Tat over the edge.

The banner tore free of its beam. Lolo screamed.

Reacting with all his skill, Klonoa grabbed the ring from his belt and pushed with the sacred power flowing from Lolo. A Wind Bullet issued forth from his outstretched fist and struck Tat, falling beside them. The little cat inflated into a balloonish caricature of herself, and Klonoa hurled her downward, deflating her with a rush of force that propelled him and Lolo up into the air. They turned over once, twice, three times, and landed with a wet splat on the slick timbers of the deck. Lolo at last let go of Klonoa's waist, and rolled a yard or so away. Popka hopped down from the rail, and the three of them, panting, looked at each other with great relief to be alive.

From below the ship, they could hear a very faint "Nyoooooooooooooo..." and a splash.

"Will she be all right?" asked Lolo, looking back beyond the shredded top of the banner.

"No time ta mourn that twit," said Popka, "look!" He pointed at the door to the captain's cabin as it swung open.

"Well, well," said the figure that appeared there.

Klonoa struggled to his feet. "Leorina."

(to be continued...)

*Read this as "rupurudu" if you like. ;)

**Oh yes. I went there. ^.^ I wish I could say with conviction that the whole sequence wasn't just a buildup to that...