It would seem the Illumidas were confident enough to have no need for patrol ships - the only Illumidas vessels in the sector were the huge space station with a cavity directed towards the planet, and the Deathshadow clearly waiting for the arrival of Harlock and his crew.

"Heh, you actually came despite knowing you will lose!" the Illumidas commander manning the Deathshadow gloated over the communications, "But I will be forgiving to you and your crew and the planet - surrender and join the glorious Illumidas Empire and all your crimes will be pardoned!"

The Arcadia's sensors have indicated that the Deathshadow's weapons were already primed and ready to fire. This would lean heavily on what answer Captain Harlock decided to give. The space station was a good distance away from the planet. Clearly this was meant as a safe distance in the event their weapon fired at the planet in order to avoid receiving collateral damage.

"I do not treaty with Illumidas", Harlock said with arms crossed - a phrase that he has said numerous times to overconfident enemy commanders of the empire. He ordered communications cut.

"Full speed ahead - prepare to give her a broadside as we pass and head straight for the base."


The Arcadia lunged forward, her cannons tracking the Deathshdow as she neared.

With Captain Harlock's declaration and cutting of communications, the Deathshadow proceeded to fire all weapons that were in range at the Arcadia. It would seem that the Illumidas were determined to settle things once and for all against the wanted space pirate. The space station has started charging at this point, accumulating energy for its primary weapon.

The Arcadia closed with the Deathshadow at full speed. Enemy fire streaked passed the space battleship while a few shots found their mark but did little to slow down the Arcadia. Now parallel with the Deathshadow, Harlock yelled, "Tochiro - giver her a broadside!"

The Arcadia's Pulsar and Vibration guns opened fire on the Deathshadow, striking her on her starboard side and amidships, gouging her armored flank and causing explosions to erupt - not enough to destroy her but causing damage. The Deathshadow returned the favor, causing like damage to the Arcadia's port side.

"3rd energizer damaged, lower Pulsar cannon damaged, power conduits on decks 3 and 5 ruptured - back-ups engaging", Mime said from her station.

"Harlock, she's packing quite a punch", Tochiro said.

"Drop anti ship depth charges to discourage pursuit - realign cannons and target the space station, flank speed ahead!", Harlock ordered as he spun the ship's wheel to bring the Arcadia course directly to the Illumidas space station.

The combination of volleys unleashed by the Arcadia has somehow confounded the Deathshadow's progress, leaving the latter's crew to figure out where their target has ended up and buying time for Captain Harlock to advance for the space station.

There was no response from the space station as it continued to charge its massive superweapon for maximum power.

"Charge all cannons and load all missiles & torpedoes...Prepare to fire on my order once we are in full weapons range ", Harlock said as he held the ships wheel firm, holding a steady course for the Illumidas space station.

Harlock knew if this station/weapon of the aliens became operational, they would no doubt unleash it on those planets & colonies who would dare uprise against their empire - including Earth.

He had to destroy it here and now.

As the Arcadia approached within full weapons range, the sensors would indicate how power was being turned off in certain blocks of the station in an attempt to focus more power to the superweapon block. It was as if they were growing desperate in reaching full charge.

From behind, the Deathshadow has finally crossed through the cloud of debris the Arcadia has left behind using depth charges and attempted pursuit. Weapons were fired even if they were beyond range in an attempt to hamper the Arcadia's progress.

"Deathshadow closing - 10,000 megameters", Mime said from her station.

"Station's power output increasing - she's going to fire its weapon!" Tochiro exclaimed.

"Open fire, all weapons!", Harlock ordered. The Arcadia shuddered as all her weapons that could be brought to bear fired on the station. His grip tightened on the ship's wheel as Arcadia fired her salvo and he waited till the weapons struck to plan his next move.

Without any means of defending itself, the station started receiving hits from the Arcadia. There were explosions on contact, but did not seem to be decisive blows that would cause significant damage on the station as it continued to charge up.

From behind, the Deathshadow could be detected charging up a large cannon of sorts. It did not look to be a normal weapon that the Deathshadow would have, nor did it look like something even the Illumidas would be capable of developing. It was ready to fire at any moment, bearing its sights on the Arcadia's rear as Harlock's crew was working on bringing down the space station.

"Harlock, the Deathshadow is charging some kind of weapon - ive never seen anything like it before", Tochiro said, reading the sensors.

"Illumidas space station still charging", Mime said from her station.

"Mime, order pilots to their fighters", Harlock said. "They are to attack and harass the Deathshadow...Tochiro, Z minus 200 degress - were diving under and around the station, keeping it between us and whatever that weapon on the Deathshadow might be. If they want to destroy us, they will have to target their station, follow us or deal with the fighters - continuous fire on the cannons and fire missiles and torpedoes as they come to bear."

Harlock spun the ship's wheel and the Arcadia answered, angling to port and diving beneath the station while her cannons turned and pointed upwards, strafing the station and scoring numerous hits as she passed under it. The Arcadia's hanger bay opened and her Space Wolf fighters launched heading straight for the Deathshadow.

Whoever was leading the Deathshadow appeared to have acted hastily, firing the weapon in an attempt to catch the Arcadia as it veered out of the way. While Harlock and his crew managed to veer underneath the space station they spot an unusual winged female humanoid standing on the station's hull and watching them. It simply nodded as debris flew past - and the humanoid was nowhere in sight when the debris was out of the way.

Something unusual happened to the space station as the Deathshadow's weapon struck it squarely. The explosions that burst outwards soon were pulled into the station by an invisible force. Smaller debris that came away from the space station soon followed. The entire station then seemed to writhe like some massive life form before its hull started to collapse inwards.

The Arcadia has fully passed the space station by the time the sensors started going wild. Gravity in the middle of the station was increasing exponentially. Outside, the space station collapsed on itself as the vicinity seemed to warp and bend into where the Illumidas installation once stood. The Arcadia could be felt shuddering as its advance was soon halted by an invisible force, slowly pulling it towards the warping space that seemed to form an massive, hungry hole.

Harlock maneuvered the Arcadia expertly, avoiding the Deathshadow's weapon. Tochiro targeted and fired the ships guns scoring hit after hit. Looking at the blasts, he saw a winged figure before flying debris took the sight away.

"Tochiro, did you see that?", Harlock asked his friend.

"See what?", Tochiro asked but then an alarm at his station took his attention. "Harlock, we have a problem."

The Arcadia cleared the station but now that station collapsed and caved in on itself and left in its wake some kind of gravitational anamoly that was now pulling on the space battleship.

"Whatever happened to the station created some kind of artificial black hole - and were getting pulled into it!", Tochiro said.

"Gravity shear increasing - force four and rising", Mime said from her station.

"Full power to engines & recall fighters! Have the fighters take an elliptical course back  and alter pitch of ship's axis 45 degrees - that will give our fighters a chance to land without fighting the pull of gravimetric forces."

The Arcadia began to turn, keeping parallel of the hole that had formed where the Illumidas station once was and opened her landing bays. Her fighters broke from the Deathshadow and began taking a circular course back, using their momentum around the anamoly and their engine thrust to attempt to land on the Arcadia's landing bay.

There weren't any problems in the recovery of the fighters, but the force of the black hole proved too great to escape from. The ship slowly but surely eased into the event horizon, and then was dragged off into the sudden darkness of the void.

A deep silence filled the entirety of the ship. It was fortunate for Harlock that they were somehow in one piece despite what was known of black holes.

Once all fighters were accounted for, Harlock ordered full power to the engines and spun the ships wheel to point the Arcadia away from the newly formed anomaly. To Harlock, this situation reminded him of the Owen Stanley Witch of Space all over again.

However, as the Arcadia was pulled into the Event Horizon and eventually into the void, his only thought was who would carry on the fight for Earth once he was gone? Once in the void however, he realized that the ship & his crew were not torn apart from the forces of the anomaly - they were just in utter blackness.

"Tochiro, power down the engines. Mime, full scan of our location...Just where are we?"

Scanning the surroundings produced unfamiliar results, wherever the Arcadia ended up with was not familiar territory for Captain Harlock and his crew. Despite this, the area seemed to behave in the same way as space should. A great void greeted them outside, but instead of planets they saw round things that seemed to be gateways to unknown places.

"Were in a void akin to space but the readings cant make out what those...Appetures are", Mime said.

Harlock stood quiet for a few seconds.

"Tochiro, all ahead half speed - get us closer to one of those openings but be ready for full reverese in case what happened to us in getting pulled in this place does it to us again...I want to see if any of these openings takes us back to where we were."


The Arcadia's engines came back to life as she headed to one of the gateways.

Cautiously approaching these world spheres, the crew could only marvel at the sight. It was like peering into other worlds that were similar to theirs, or even entirely different. One thing for sure was these worlds weren't the one they called home.

Some distance to port side, surveillance crew would notice a red light fly away from one of the spheres before it grayed out and crumbled into pieces. The light escaped quickly towards a particular direction that was too quick for the vessel to follow at this point.

"Did you see that, Tochiro?", Harlock said pointing to the one portal that just crumbled away as a red point of light left it and flew in a random direction.

"Yes - I wonder what happened there? And where that red light went? I hope that wasn't the way home", Tochiro said now visibly worried.

Harlock remained silent for a moment, hoping Tochiro was wrong.

"Mime, try to scan one of these portals - see if we can get readings from beyond it. Maybe by doing so we can pinpoint which one is the way home."

"There are ALOT of those portals, Harlock...Do you know how long that will take?", Tochiro said as Mime went to work at sensors.

Harlock looked down at his friend. "We have few options."

Tochiro shrugged his shoulders and turned back to his console. "Programming search pattern into navigation."

Initial scans made by Tochiro gave an immediate conclusion - there was a whole world waiting within one of the portals. It was completely different from the world they came from - navigation data did not match up to their records. It was the same with the other portals they came across.

"Hey, while it's nice you've find out what this place is, I'd like to request you refrain from entering anywhere without permission for now," a youthful voice spoke beside Harlock and from the corner of his eye he would see a young man in scholarly robes and armor underneath standing by his side in a relaxed manner. He wasn't there moments ago, how did he get there without anyone noticing?
This message was lightly edited by the player at 13:26, Mon 17 June 2019.

Harlock turned to the speaker and his one eye widened in surprise. Tochiro jumped from his seat in surprise and he adjusted his glasses to see if the person was truly there. Mime turned and gasped despite the fact the woman had no mouth.

Others on the bridge turned and drew their energy pistols as they moved quickly to their captain's side but Harlock ordered them to put their weapons down with a single gesture which they complied, lowering but not holstering their weapons, ready to defend their captain.

"I am Harlock, Captain of the Space Galleon Arcadia...Am I to guess you know what this place is and our circumstances to our being here?", Harlock said, turning his body to face the robed figure.

"The name's Altair, Captain Harlock, of the Void Quartet," the unusual young man introduced himself with a quick bow before raising his head, "And as you said, I know how you ended up here."

"To keep it short and simple, an outside force invaded your world and forced you out of it," Altair explained, with glowing illustrations of light in the shape of a skull with horns forcing itself into a sphere and pushing the Arcadia out, "Technically, you and your men don't exist in your world anymore because of this course of action and is probably reshaped according to the image of whoever invaded."

Harlock remained silent but raised an eyebrow at Altair's revelation of their situation.

"How is that possible?" Tochiro asked as Harlock's men around him looked at each other in confusion at the intruder's words.

"If what you say is true, then how do we return, deal with this force that has done this to us and resume our existence? I and my men have been fighting the Illumidas Empire for the last few years and wish only to free my home planet of Earth and others who suffer under the Empire's yolk", Harlock said, crossing his arms.

"Returning is easy, but expect the world to have changed in some way or another," Altair spoke after the questions were asked, "For one, expect nearly everyone you know to not recognize you - friends, families, and even soulmates probably won't remember who you are but may feel that they can put their trust in you. Enemies will naturally have hostile inclinations towards you, like something about you would rub them the wrong way."

"As for restoring your world to the way it was, just follow these steps," the mysterious youth said as he put his hands on the back of his head, leaving the metal slate in his arms now floating before him, "Get someone not native from your world to locate the World Crystal, get rid of whatever is causing the world's Distortion, and finally you or someone native to your world come into contact with the World Crystal."

"Actually doing it may vary in difficulty though," he then added as he turned to look to Captain Harlock, "Expect resistance in the form of individuals causing the Distortions."

Harlock pondered what Altair said for a few moments.

"Harlock, you're not really believing what this person is saying about a force pulling us from our universe", Tochiro said with a look that spoke of disbelief but a small tinge of fear.

Harlock looked down at his small-statured friend. "Can you explain where we are Tochiro? Is there a scientific or theoretical cause of being pulled into a gravitational anomaly - which should have crushed the Arcadia and killed us and all hands? Or the portals that lie outside the ship?" Harlock said this not in an accusing tone, but in a calm, measured voice.

Tochiro met his friend and Captain's eyes before looking away. "No, I cant reasonably explain it", he said in a low voice.

"An Illumidas trick, sir?", One of his men said.

"If it were, Altair would reveal himself to be working for them and gloat as is usual of the alien's overconfidence and arrogance", Harlock said to his crewman. "No, I believe what has happened to us is as Altair has explained."

Harlock turned back to Altair. "How do we proceed to find this 'non-native' to find this 'World Crystal'?"

"Straightforward eh? That makes it a lot easier," Altair said as he nodded his head a few times before using his unusual powers to interface with the Arcadia. One can tell it was definitely technological in nature, but on a scale so advanced one might easily think it were some sort of magic. Tochiro would find that coordinates were added to the ship's memory banks, allowing them to at least properly navigate through this unusual space.

"You'll need allies for one, people from other worlds," the childlike ancient explained as he then disengaged from the Arcadia's systems, "I believe there were a number of them already gathered at our abode. Just follow the coordinates and we'll get there in no time!"

True enough, they would soon find the unusual-looking planet floating in the middle of nowhere. Altair guided the ship to a recess where they can dock and disembark, hopefully even meet up with the more recent visitors.

ooc: Harlock may now continue on to the Nexus of the Void!