[postalblowfish7]

Chase Prichard slowly opened his eyes. All he could see was an endless star field stretching out before him. He couldn't feel the ground beneath his feet. As if awakening from a dream in which he was falling from a great height he jolted and sat up.

'I was laying on my back?' Prichard thought to himself as he rubbed the back of his head. He glanced downward. It looked as if his arm came to a sudden and misty end, as his hand had disappeared beneath the vale of some white gaseous form. The space pirate from DX-27 lifted his hand from the mist to make certain it was still there. 'Where the hell am I?'

As if struck by a bolt of lightning he leapt to his feet. It was like standing on nothing at all, and as Prichard conducted the first visual survey of this strange new landscape his heart began to beat faster. Fear was something Chase Prichard was not used to dealing with. Clouds - there were clouds everywhere! As if he had fallen into some sort of dream Chase glanced about in a trance. 'I'm... I'm standing... on a cloud!' As if to defy his latest realization, the cloud he was standing on began to split into two different puffy shapes beneath his feet. Chase quickly activated the gravity boosters in boots just in time to escape the empty space that occupied where he had just been sleeping. 'What the hell is going on here!' he thought as he used the booster charge to make it to a nearby, and hopefully more stable, cloud.

He suddenly remembered his travel companion and beloved friend. "POKEPOKE!!" he yelled. The sound disappeared as if he was in a sound proof chamber. The air was thin here - and beneath the clouds all he could see was darkness. "POKEPOKE!!!" he yelled again, a slight hint of desperation and fear in his cry. His eye piece flashed to life. 'A telepathic signal!' Slowly before his right eye words began to flow like a stream of consciousness. "STARS SPACE DARKNESS CHASE AIR BLACK LIFE DEATH FEAR CHASE STARS DARKNESS FEAR FEAR," Pokepoke's thought patterns communicated pure thought rather than constructed language. 'Finally a lock!'

With his boots sufficiently recharged Prichard sprung up again and rushed toward the source of the signal. He found the slug-like Pokepoke, face glowing bright orange, on a nearby cloud. Chase put one arm around the Bon-Ton, feeling a little better knowing his trusted companion was with him in this new and strange dilemma. "I don't know what's going on here little guy, but I'm glad you're with me." The eye piece charged to life again, "SAFE FRIEND CLOUD STARS DARKNESS LOCATION CLOUDS DARKNESS SAFE FRIEND."

Chase chuckled, feeling more himself now. "I'm glad to see you too little guy, but don't feel too safe. I have the feeling that someone abducted us and brought us here for a reason. I also have the feeling that this isn't an ordinary cloud field - this is an arena."

Again the eye piece delivered thought to Prichard, "ARENA BATTLE FRIEND CLOUDS FEAR TOGETHER FIGHT FRIEND."

Again Chase chuckled playfully before taking a more severe tone. "Don't get too excited," he said to his slug-like companion, "we still have no idea what's going on here. But be ready to fight in a moment's notice - I have the feeling we're not alone..."