Link stood patiently in the chambers of Princess Zelda's massive castle. Above his boots, his forest-green tunic covered all but his face, framing his rupee-emerald eyes. It was certainly not the first time he had found himself in the heart of Hyrule Castle, but he found himself no less enraptured by his majestic surroundings. The floor was a mosaic of meaningful symbols, patterns, and images cast in stone. The walls' large rectangular stones, alternating between seafoam-tinted silver and silver-tinted jade, framed exquisite stained glass windows, enormous and each depicting the most notable legends of Hyrule's history. These walls seemed to reach towards the heavens for a mile; the ceiling was presumably breath-taking as well, but extended so high that it was hard to make out detail, the concept of which was breath-taking in its own way.
Queen Turalen was a prime specimen of the Zora race. Her entire body was covered in silver scales that seemed to reflect more light than was even present in the chambers, but there was no mistaking the brilliant blue that lay underneath the scales. This gave an overall appearance of a magnificent blue-tinted suit of form fitting armor, accentuated by deeper azure of the tips of her limbs and muscular fins that protruded from both the length of her arms and at the end of the rounded tail-like back of her head. Link had always been fascinated by her indigo eyes that portrayed a depth similar to the dark waters that they called home.
It was for that very home that Queen Turalen's eyes betrayed the formation of tears as she frantically pleaded to Princess Zelda for aid. A dress of fine white fabric flowed from her shoulders, adorned with a lavender bolero fastened at the top and a purple vertical panel, reminiscent of a banner, covered in intricate golden threaded designs meant to draw focus to the small depiction of the legendary Triforce, a single triangle comprised of two adjacent golden triangles and a third at the apex. Her forehead displays the jeweled golden band of the kingdom's royalty, from which her silver hair falls down to her waist, displaying only a hint of its former golden-yellow luster.
"As I've explained," said Queen Turalen, "the uncharacteristically careless usage of explosives being implemented for whatever the Gorons are doing up there is wreaking havoc on our waters. The Zora genuinely appreciate the efforts of the kingdom in remediating this matter, but damage is occurring at an exponential rate and we cannot idly sit by while tragedy befalls our people!"
"I fully understand the gravity of the situation and assure you that we are taking every possible measure to rectify this," Zelda assured her. "That is actually why my good friend Link is here. I trust him with not just my life, but with all lives I have been trusted to defend. I've made him aware of the situation and have the utmost faith that he will take care of this."
Zelda turned away from Turalen. "Link, the Goron leader Goldango continues to refuse to listen to our concerns and has ceased all communication," Zelda said urgently with an obviously pained look on her face. "He has indicated that any advance by my military would be seen as an act of aggression and responded to as such. That is why I need you, Link; you must go speak to the Gorons on Hyrule's behalf. I am sure that they would never show aggression towards you, their self-proclaimed "Brother" and savior of their civilization. I sincerely hope you can bring their leader to his senses, although I fear there is something darker at play here, considering the current situation's drastic contrast to our diplomatic relations of the past."
"Agreed," replied Link. "something definitely doesn't feel right here, but I promise I will get to the bottom of it immediately. You and the Zora can count on me! If you'll excuse me, I want to start my journey right away. I hope to return soon with some good news." With that, Link bowed and promptly turned to exit the castle.
Stepping out of the large yet surprisingly light front gates, Link inhaled a breath of fresh air. The surroundings seemed quieter than usual, only the sound of wild cuccos in the distance. As he walked through the tall, leafy trees in the court, he keyed the transmitter on his belt. Linked gazed up into the brilliant violet sky as he tread. The familiar whirr grew louder as his striking burnt-red smartship approached, eventually slowing and then halting to a floating position directly in front of Link, before descending to the ground as the sound then grew more faint and then ceased.
Link entered the ship and promptly threw himself into the surprisingly comfy command chair in the cockpit of the ship. "Hello Link. Has there been a change of plans, or should I set course directly to Death Moon?" said the spinship's sentient AI. "To the mountains of Death Moon as planned, Epona. Just wake me up when we get there."
[CHAPTER 2?]
Epona charted a course towards the tallest mountain on Death Moon, ensuring to fly high enough that she would be able to stay clear of any spontaneous volcanic eruptions that were to occur. One such eruption was observable off toward the horizon on Epona's port side, the heat of which distorted the field of stars visible behind the volcano, but Link was still taking advantage his precious and short time to rest.
After setting down at the docks situated close to the top of the highest mountain on Death Moon, Epona woke link with a rumble in his chair. Link grabbed a bottle of Lon-Lon milk from the console, deactivated the energy seal by drawing the preprogrammed gesture across the surface, and then downed the contents.
Link then keyed the computer system in his belt to project a transparent field across the entirety of his body, spaced but a couple centimeters from his skin, and then stepped through the thin semi-permeable membrane serving as the smartship's entrance and exit, the green glow of which flashed intensely for the brief moment in which his body passed through with what Link thought of as a fuzzy sensation.
From near the top of the mountain, Link could focus towards the horizon an catch a glimpse of a massive construction site, the source of the Zora's troubles. Goron have long employed the use of explosives for excavation and construction purposes, as well as a surprising number of other questionable uses, such as cooking. Many believe that Gorons only eat rocks, but Link has personally sampled a variety of Goron dishes; the taste of most of these do much to explain why they usually just eat rocks.
However, the Goron have been setting off an unprecedented amount of controlled detonations at the mysterious new construction site as of late. Data recorded from satellites orbiting the planet of Hyrule had shown that these explosions were not only of incredible magnitude and volume, but appeared to be set off each day at oddly specific times that strongly suggested the following of some kind of pattern.
This did not cause concern at first, but surprising and horrible consequences followed. The Zora started to experience drastic changes in the elevation of the sea. Before long, low tides saw the water level descend to far below natural levels, while rising much higher than usual at high tide in turn. Investigation into satellite data confirmed that the explosions, massive and timed to always occur on the far side of the moon, had cumulatively propelled Death Moon towards the planet of Hyrule, effectively reducing the diameter of its orbit. The effect this had on the tides was quickly approaching devastation for Zora, if not the planet of Hyrule in general.
The massive structures the Zora employed to harness wave energy, their primary source of power, had been disrupted. The monolith devices had been calibrated in a way that ensured that the primary mechanisms would always be situated under the surface at any point in the tidal cycle, yet close enough to the surface as to most efficiently gather energy from the most turbulent waters. Due to the changes in Death Moon's orbit, these mechanisms become further submerged at high tide, becoming less efficient, producing far less energy. Even more disruptive, at low tide, the waters would drop below the height of the energy harvesting mechanisms. This proved to be catastrophic as it resulted in not only the inability to harvest energy during low tides, but also caused significant damage to many of the systems, which were not designed to be run in a dry state.
Continuing on, Link passed many Gorons on his way to Goldango's keep entrance. Mostly unclothed, large and round, with golden colored skin, the Gorons' stature somewhat resembled the imposing golden mountains that comprised their home here on Death Moon. Most seemed to be on some kind of recreational break; some were eating small rocks and many were sharing stories, laughing. However, some seemed to be engaged in arguments or very somber conversations, which was certainly uncharacteristic of their society.
Link continued towards Goldango's keep doors, noting that the gates were closed and accompanied by four guards. He found this odd, as the keep doors are traditionally open to the Goron community. Hearing a rustle from his left, he looked up to see a young Goron rolling down the slope of the mountain. This Goron skidded to a halt directly in Link's path and unfolded himself. "Brother! You have to help us! Something is wrong with our leader, Goldango," he pleaded. Link gestured to his side; he and the Goron stepped off to a cliff-side socialization court where they could talk.
"I'm here to speak with Goldango, actually," replied Link. "Do you know what's going on here? In my years of knowing him, I have never known him to refuse to negotiate with Hyrule, or any peaceful faction, let alone threaten military action in response to simple attempts to communicate."
"I wish I knew, but all I know for sure is that he isn't acting like himself at all. He has ordered us to work on a particular set of plans that was not made public knowledge until just before construction was to begin; what is so disturbing is that he refuses to explain what this project even is. Blueprints show progress towards an odd structure, but the structure doesn't seem to resemble anything currently in use by our culture, nor does it resemble anything that would serve the purpose of any theoretical projects we've discussed in our innovation meetings. Even more concerning is the scale of the project; this thing requires thousands of workers and unprecedented quantities of explosives, working towards a structure larger than anything we've ever built before. Considering we don't even have any idea what it is, Goron morale is at an all time low. Granted, Goldango is legally well within his rights as leader to order any Goron to work on any project he sees fit, but the leaders have historically always been open with the rest of society with their plans, generally even sharing the decision-making itself. I just know that something or someone else has got to have control over him! You must not attempt to talk to him him; I'm afraid that he would just throw you in a cell to ensure you don't interfere."
Link tapped his chin as he contemplated his options. "Well I'm afraid that I don't have much in the way of leads otherwise."
The young Goron frowned for a brief instant, and then his eyes widened in a moment of realization. "The Space Temple! You should head there first. I know that I saw a figure nearby the Space Temple entrance when I was headed home one day shortly before the project started. It appeared much thinner than a Goron, and it was gone the next moment. I told myself that I was just tired, seeing things, as the Space Temple has been off-limits my entire life, but I swear I saw something!"
"I'll head to the Space Temple at once, then," replied Link. Thank you…"
"Darnum!"
"Thank you, Darnum. Don't worry…I'll get to the bottom of this."
[CHAPTER 3]
Epona settled down just outside the Space Temple entrance. The face of the temple was comprised of white stone columns reaching approximately 20 meters towards the stars, ending in a plain archway adorned with reflective chrome symbols. Link walked through the front entrance, open and framed in reflective purple, down a long staircase, and into a long, narrow hallway. Just three steps into the hall, and he heard the door behind him slowly slide shut. Link looked forward in back in alarm for just a moment, but seconds after the outer door had closed, the door at the far end of the hall slid open. As he walked down the hallway, he began to feel lighter, noting that the gravity in this area of the temple after the shift was easily less than half that of Death Moon's gravity, and a far cry from that of the planet of Hyrule.
Stepping through the inner door, Link found himself on a short stone ledge in a vast cavernous chamber. He could make out the bright purple frame of the exit on the opposite side of the room, which he estimated to be at least 150 meters across, jagged chrome spikes seeming to fill the entire distance. A horizontal beam appeared to be suspended at the halfway point between the floor and the 40 meter high ceiling. The beam was about 25 meters distant from Link's ledge.
Link removed his antique hookshot from its clasps on his back, a steel cylindrical device featuring a leather handle at one end and a sharp grappling spike at the other. "The 30 meter range could get me to the beam," thought Link, "but even with the gravity as low as it is, there's no way I could make it to the other side by jumping from the beam, or even far enough to use the hookshot for the last 30 meters."
Link thought carefully and surveyed the scene, lifted his brow and then smiled. He aimed the hookshot at the beam and depressed the trigger within the handle. Before he could even register the sight of the titanium claws of the grappling hook pulling themselves into the surface of the beam, Link was propelling at high speed across the 25 meter gap. Immediately after leaving the platform, link pushed the trigger mechanism forward to disengage the device, severing the grapple point's contact with the beam and retracting the line.
Link sailed past the beam, as the slight gravity was just enough to keep him from slamming straight into its surface. His stomach turned as his body was flung in a smooth arch across the remaining 125 meters of the gap, above the chrome ocean of reflections.
Impacting the far wall a mere meter or two above its ledge, the resulting reaction sent his body slowly tumbling away from the wall. Link's fingers found purchase on the stone surface of the edge of the flooring and he pulled himself up and entered the doorway.
He found himself walking in to a grand expanse, the walls deep black with pinpricks of light, indistinguishable from a natural starfield. Numerous exits were framed in the familiar reflective purple. Two of the exits were obviously locked doors, adorned with golden reliefs depicting black holes, quasars, accretion disks, and other such cosmic phenomena centered around archaic keyholes. The door directly across from Link was easy twice the size as the others at about 7 meters high, while the other locked door waited on the left side of the disorienting room.
Link headed to his right, through one of the unobstructed doorways. His senses were nearly overwhelmed as he scanned the room, the entirety of which appeared to be wrapped in the colorful chaos of a supernova. The illusion was staggering: fiery red, plasma blue, and brilliant green burning gasses radiating immeasurable energy.
As Link awed at his surroundings, he heard feet hitting flooring directly behind him. Link tumbled forward, the sound of claws slashing through the air as they missed their target, twisted 180 degrees as he rose, and met the eyes of a 2 meter tall reptilian figure. Link recognized the form as Lizalfos, the scaled warriors cursed to living solely in asteroid belts, derelict ships, and abandoned space stations after being forced to leave their home planet, rendered uninhabitable by the ecological imbalances caused by their hand in the extinction of the majority of Lizalf's indigenous species.
Link ran towards the green-scaled warrior in shining green armor just as he heard a second set of footfalls near the position he had just stood. He pulled his blade from its sheath as he ran, and activated the weapon he fondly knew as the Master Sword, with its rather plain blue-steel hilt, elaborate crossguard with a fan design that almost resembled wings, and long double-edged fiber-metallic blue blade. At the moment his thumb depressed the small actuator where the crossguard met the hilt, the sword crackled with energy as superheated plasma is guided across the invisible ionized field suspended a millimeter from the blade's surface.
Link feinted a swing from his right. As the Lizalfos prepared to dodge the blow, Link rotated the tip of the blade forward and thrust directly in front of him. The Lizalfos is caught in its left shoulder, the blade never touching flesh, as the plasma layer slides through muscle and bone with a complete absence of friction.
He then raised lifted the Master Sword into an arc, the first half of which slices straight through the reptile's shoulder. The second half of the maneuver being brought down on the opposite side as Link turned to strike the second Lizalfos that had been sprinting forward to flank him.
The second Lizalfos, which link could now see featured stripes of crimson, lifted a powered shield to meet the blow and returned with his own swing of his magnetblade, recognizable by the symmetrical gaps between the many panels that comprised the double edged blade. When making contact with a surface, sensors would respond by thrusting the perfect-edged blade segments outward at high speed before retracting back to sword form.
The Lizalfos' weapon would not have the chance to demonstrate this ability. Link leapt to his right; stepping forward and turning left, he swung his blade in a counter-clockwise motion to meet the reptile with red stripes' back.
Stepping backward, he noticed that the first Lizalfos had retrieved an energy spear from its back. As the spear charged, Link pressed the Master Sword's second actuator on the other side of the crossguard and initiated a fierce strike at the empty space in front of him. Releasing the actuator at the swing's terminus, the sword-shaped ionized plasma array disengaged from the blade, cleared the distance between Link and the injured Lizalfos, effortlessly passed through its chest, and then dissipated into a fine cloud of orange plasma vapor. The figure crumpled to the floor.
Link checked the bodies and found a large mundane key. He backtracked to reach the other side of the previous room and proceeded to unlock the door. Stepping through, he felt the familiar fuzzy sensation of passing through a semi-permeable energy barrier. The moment he had finished entering the room, his stomach rebelled as his feet lifted from the floor and he found himself lacking the comforting assistance of gravity.
He floated into a clutter of metallic cubes in a small room asymmetrically covered in panels of stone and the chrome spikes that had sent his imagination running from unpleasant places back at the temple's entrance. Kicking off from a nearby stone surface, past a glass case containing a single ornate key, Link drifted to a free-floating cube near the center. On the other side of the cube was a mechanism housed in a structure with an opening that was obviously the exact size and shape of the cube. Link felt this must be some kind of switch. Link initiated a motion to push the cube into the mechanism, but stopped in an instance and checked his surroundings.
Directly behind him, on the far side of the room, the wall's featured a panel of sharp chrome teeth. If he were to push off of the cube, the equal and opposite reaction would send him straight to a painful death. Link removed his self-propelling intelligent boomerang from his tunic. Pushing the stone in to place, floating back toward the spike wall, Link immediately threw the device to his left, the reaction offsetting his trajectory slightly. The boomerang came in contact with the wall and propelled itself back towards his hand. As he caught it, his trajectory altering yet more, he threw it once more. He slammed in to the stone panel adjacent to the spikes he had been heading towards. In the moment of intense relief, he had forgot about the boomerang, which hit its mark, smashing his knuckes.
Link cursed and then turned towards the sound of the key case opening. He pulled himself along the stone wall, grabbing the key along the way. Passing through the field, he fell onto his hands and knees as gravity reintroduced itself.
Inside a satchel attached to his waist, Link found and removed a heart-shaped medpatch, rolled up his sleeve, and applied it to his forearm. In seconds, the ache of his bruised knuckles dissipates.
Link stepped up to the largest door, placed the key, turned it, and entered.
[CHAPTER 4]
Link found himself in a large, unremarkable room with a console and multiple screens set up on the opposite side of the entrance and made his way to the controls to investigate.
One of these screen appeared to display a layout of the Space Temple, as well as readouts and controls of its status and functions. Another one of the screens prominently displayed vital data of Goldango. A diagram of the Goron brain structure featured measurements of beta waves in the frontal lobe. Yet another screen showed calculations, which appeared be commands. Link stood at the console and frantically studied and prodded the controls in an effort to stop the commands from being executed. Link noticed that one data series seemed to indicate the collective status of thousands of devices. Link's jaw dropped as he was hit with a sudden wave of realization. "Nanomachi-"
An intense pain suddenly struck the hero in his right shoulder as a blast of energy splashed against his personal protection field, small spatterings of the plasma passing through the barrier as it flickered in its attempt to stave off the nearly insurmountable levels of energy.
Brought to one knee, wincing, Link heard the phrase "Go away!" screamed in an unfamiliar voice with a disturbing quality, shrill and distant. The voice was not loud, yet seemed to cause an ache still.
Link looked up to behold the elegant form of a being no more than a meter tall suspended in the center of the control room. Her form resembling that of an underweight nude Hyrulian female, but with skin even more pale than the fairest of Hyrulians, she hung in midair thanks to delicate wings appearing like a radiant blur.
Link instantly recognized this creature, although he had never seen one in person before, or even believed that they existed. He had once shown interest in one of the stained glass windows featured at Hyrule Castle, and Princess Zelda had told him the tales of the chaos fairies, depicted in the window mural as sowing discord through the land by means of deceiving the people. Legend has it that the chaos fairies are a mysterious still-living race of beings that live on planets in various solar systems, including Hyrule, but occupy these spaces in a different dimension. The wellbeing of their race is said to depend upon the chaos, war, and strife of the inhabitants of their home and neighboring worlds, across all "nearby" dimensions. No one he had met had actually ever seen one of these fairies, though Princess Zelda believed them to be real. Link's mind reeled as he realized that the chaos fairy has been manipulating the Gorons to provoke conflict with Hyrule.
Link felt for the leather handle of his hookshot behind his back. Finding it, he swung his arm in front of him and sent its titanium claw speeding towards his target.
The chaos fairy twisted out of the way with surprising speed, giving the appearance of having simply teleported a meter to the side. Link triggered the device again; it was clear that this thing's reactions were far too great to be hit with the hookshot's speed.
The fairy seemed to spin for a fraction of a second, glowing brightly, stopping the spin at the moment that an intense orb of pink energy was sent hurtling towards Link.
He responded by pushing off of the ground with his right foot, dashing to the left in an evasive maneuver. Before he could even grab an alternate weapon, the fairy begun its charging spin once more.
Link reached to stow the hookshot device behind his back. Simultaneously, he dodged once more while his arm returned forward with his smart boomerang firmly grasped, releasing at the apex of his swing.
He was quick enough to dodge the blast, but the fairy still recovered from her attack with plenty of time to "teleport" in response to the boomerang, which then changed course and returned to Link's hand.
Hitting what Link considered to be a rather beautiful monster with traditional weapons, or even his own assortment of peculiar devices, would be practically impossible. Link now had a plan, however.
Link snuck a glance at the control panel on the wall to his left and performed another evasive maneuver in its direction, timed with the fairy's next attack. Upon landing, Link tossed his smart boomerang once more.
The fairy instantly moved approximately a meter to the left once more, but had not noticed in the millisecond it took to react that Link's throw was aimed much further to his right than if he were actually trying to strike his target. At the moment he released the device, he ran forward and to his left, straight towards the console, as fast as he could possibly run, with his arm outstretched before him.
The self-propelled intelligent boomerang tracked its new return destination, changed course, and then launched itself directly into the chaos fairy, knocking her to the ground.
Link turned towards the controls and promptly keyed commands at the maintenance panel controlling the Space Temple's gravity levels, setting the levels to almost four times that of the planet of Hyrule's gravity . It felt as though Link was being forced towards the ground by a massive, invisible hand.
Link looked up to find the sight of a crumpled mass of gore that had only seconds earlier been the chaos fairy. His suit's energy barrier acted as a containment field when unsafe gravity levels are detected; his body in this field is still pushed to the ground, but is normalized within the confines of the field. His judgement of the fairy's physicality was accurate that it did not have the bone structure or muscle mass to withstand such a force.
Link struggled to reach the gravity controls, keyed them to the default level, and then fell back to the ground in exhaustion. After regaining his composure, he studied the controls for a time before working out the kill command used to completely disable the nanomachines that had been controlling Goldango and then activated a portal back to the Space Temple's front entrance.
Link stepped through the portal and then towards and into Epona, who's doors opened automatically upon recognizing his presence.
[EPILOGUE]
Epona set down at the Death Moon docks. Darnum was there waiting for him and rushed up to embrace him. This was not comfortable for Link.
"Brother! You did it!" said Darnum. "…Right? Goldango suddenly collapsed about a half an hour ago. He doesn't remember anything about the construction project or anything recent. Whatever you did, whatever power had a hold of him seems to be broken. He really wants to talk to you, but we convinced him to focus on rest for at least a day, as he has a pretty bad headache and is experiencing confusion. From our brief chats with Hyrule since reopening communications, it seems that the mystery project was altering the orbit of the moon, causing all kinds of problems for the Zora on Hyrule. In order to start reversing the effects, we're going to have to set off a similar amount of explosives on the side of Death Moon that faces Hyrule. I don't think there is any use for public works projects where that makes sense though; I'm leaning towards suggesting that we build a giant statue of a certain hero of mine."
"That's great, Darnum," replied Link. "I couldn't have done it without your advice. I'll certainly have to fill everyone in on the details, but I'm honestly a bit relieved that Goldango is going to get some rest first; I think I need some rest myself."
Link and Darnum parted ways, with Link returning to Epona.
"Where to now?" asked Epona.
"I think I need a long rest and a sonic shower, Epona. Take me home to Kokiri Station."