Copyright disclaimer: I do not own The Legend of Zelda. Now you're just nagging me about it. Be a little more trustworthy, darling.

CHAPTER 5: At the Church

I woke up aching on my bare mattress, still in my suit which was now rumpled, to my phone ringing insistently.

"Shut up," I said as I sat up in my bed—my body felt heavy and I was incredibly tired, but I answered. "'Lo," I said flatly.

"Detective, what time is it?" Fi asked. I looked groggily at my watch.

"It's... two forty-five?"

"Is the sun shining, detective?" Crap. She hung up, and the screen of my phone displayed "53 missed calls" that started at 7:00 in the morning and spanned until I finally picked up. I hurriedly changed out of my rumpled suit and into another one, washed my face and ran out the door with a bag of Skittles. I usually didn't sleep at all, but when I did it was a heavy sleep that was difficult to wake up from. Whenever I went to sleep, I ended up being almost late to work, and that was almost much too risky.

"Good afternoon, Link," said many of my fellow detectives when I arrived at the church at 2:53. I mentally woke myself up after seven minutes, and at exactly 3:00 Impa raised her hand for silence, and there was immediate quiet.

"Hello, officers of SC. I am Impa. Today we will be playing a game. I'm going to give you a map after splitting you into three groups, and each group has to find three items marked on the map. Whatever group finds their items first and reports back here will then be split up and each group member of the winning team will be given a new map in which they will have to find the one item marked on it. Any questions?" The way Impa said it was so fierce that I'm sure any questions died in the throats in the uninformed.

"I see there are none. I will now call out the three groups." Impa proceeded to list the first two groups, and my name still wasn't called. She shuffled the few papers in her hands.

"Group three," she said loudly. "Pipit, Link, Cawlin and Stitch, Karane, Fledge, Keet, and Chairman Groose cannot make it today." The other two groups groaned.

"In what way is that fair? Pipit and Link? And Keet is like the freaking star of the intelligence department!" I saw Keet turn his head and wink at the girl who said that, who promptly turned away.

"Don't worry," said a man next to her, "with Fledge on their team, we probably have an equal chance." Fledge looked at his feet and I nudged his shoulder reassuringly.

"Alright kids, no slacking," said Impa. "Come get your maps." She held three envelopes in her hand. Representatives for group one and two walked to Impa and recieved their envelopes. When Keet walked up to get our envlope, Impa slammed it into his hand with a discontent look on her face.

"Don't cheat," she said.

"Of course not. What an accusation," Keet said with a serene smile on his face and a murderous inclination in his voice. He walked away and came up to us, waving the envelope in his hand.

"And the winner is..." he started as he opened the envelope. "What the hell is this?"

The first problem we came across before we even started. Impa clapped her hands and said, "Begin!" and the other groups began to slowly filter to their respective parts of the city.

"I can't open it," said Keet, absolutely perplexed.

"Give it to me," Karane said impatiently. Keet dropped it into her open hand and she couldn't open it either. She passed it to Cawlin, who passed it to Pipit. He inspected the seal.

"It's been superglued," he said, "so we'll have to forego the whole neatness thing you guys were hoping for." Keet pulled a letter opener shaped like an antique sword out of the pocket of his pocket and opened the envelope. He removed a blank three by five index card.

"Seriously?" Keet turned to look where Impa was standing, but she was no longer there.

"It's probably invisible ink," said Fledge, but no one bothered to listen as they were too busy trying to figure out what kind of sorcery was used on the card. I nudged him.

"Say it louder," I whispered, and he began to stutter but eventually conveyed the message. He had a light to reveal the ink on the card, which looked like it was completely covered.

"Magnifying glass?" We used the reading glasses Stitch wanted no one to know about.

"The title says... Skyview Temple." We all turned and looked at the ancient building almost blocking the summer's sun.

Inside the temple, there was a chilling noiselessness that left us all shivering.

"Maybe the light will work better in here so we can actually see the map," said Pipit. It was dimmer inside than it was outdoors, a mechanism probably meant give a personal feeling to being inside the church, but it gave most of the people in the group chills. The stained glass windows depicted Hylian myths and legends from long ago, and though they seemed thin not much sunlight made its way through the kaleidoscope-colored glass. There were endless rows of wooden pews, and each had a book of Hylian hymns neatly placed on their cushions. The floor was made completely of uneven stone that combined a mosaic of bright colors. Our feet echoed as we walked deeper into the temple.

Fledge shone his light on the index card-turned map and Pipit held the magnifying glass under it. "Who has enough time to do all of this?" he asked, perplexed.

"And I thought there were only three rooms in the temple," he said. He held up the magnifying glass, card, and light for all to see. It was a minuscule work of complex lines in a faint green.

"Are these secret passageways?" someone asked. I looked at my watch, It was 3:17.

"Can I see the card?" I said, and Pipit handed it to me, to which I promptly flipped it over. Treasure Hunt, it said.

"A green jem," I read from the card. "The stone where the sword once stood, and what lies in the room with a golden key."

"The fuck?" said Stitch. "Does it have to be that cryptic?" Cawlin nodded his head animatedly. "There's a simpler map here... And it shows treasure chests," I said, showing the card to all.

"Okay, let's make this easy. Everybody take pictures of both sides of the card with your phones and go have a field day."

"We should get everyone's numbers, too," added Karane. "But maybe we should work in teams. I'll stick with Pipit, Cawlin is obviously with Stitch, Keet and Fledge can team up. 'Kay?"

There were no verbal objections, so we all took pictures and I watched as they exchanged phone numbers, but I didn't give mine.

"Why not, Link?"

"To be safe," I replied.

"Good luck to you, then," said Pipit as he patted me on the back. We dispersed.

Everyone found side doors, but I couldn't seem to find one. There was a table pushed into the wall of the altar with ceremonial offerings like stones, herbs, money, and old prayers written with quill pens on yellowing parchment. Most of the prayers were written in ancient Hylian, but I read the few that had the modern language:

O great Hylia,
we cleave to your eternal being as your unwise children.
We pray for your voice of ochre autumn leaves to caress our unwed minds,
and enlighten us with the stories of our flight through the heavens.
Great Hylia, goddess of all!
Bring us to your cloudy doorstep!

I read the prayer again and hoped to find some kind of clue. The other chants and prayers in ancient Hylian I could only translate with broken verse.

Lover—lost—,
Forgive—songs we sang to our—in—low
—clouds again, clouds again
For we—to you our—and—.

I took a picture and resolved to translate it in full later, but I still hadn't found a way to the deeper rooms. I looked at my photo of the map and zoomed in on the altar of the front room, and had an epiphanic moment-possibly the work of Our Goddess Hylia? I crouched down under the table and lightly tapped the bricks with the back of my hand until I felt one slide back the smallest amount, then I pushed it all the way back. It fell and I heard it hit a surface after a few seconds as the other bricks began to fall back. It would be a drop, but I took a breath and braced myself before pushing myself through the rectangular opening.

I landed crouched down in the darkness but could not see a thing. My knees hurt a little from my near-botched landing, but I could stand after a few seconds. There was a constant drip... plink that reverberated all around the velvet darkness. I walked slowly and cautiously with my arms out until I almost fell downward, into something like an abyss. I whipped my phone out from my pocket and turned the brightness up, which nearly blinded me from its sudden light, then turned it towards whatever I'd almost plummeted through.

Bad manners as they are, my jaw dropped. In front of me was an endless pool of still, pristine water, with stone islands here and there. Further down the wall on my left, there was a rusted chain hanging high up on the wall and a small ledge under it.

"Thank you for the waterproof case, Fi," I said as I took a mental image of my destination and dived into the water.

The water wasn't freezing, but it was cold, and I used the light of my phone to guide me to one of the stone islands. They were built from the ground up and had flat, circular surfaces. There, I heaved myself up onto the ledge and took a deep breath. I'd always loved swimming and had built up strong lungs from holding my breath, so I did have a longer amount of time underwater than most people.

I shone the light of my phone onto the wall across a short distance of water and found myself smiling when I saw some bricks protruding from the wall on the way up to the ledge. I jumped into the now comfortable water and swam over to the wall—there was no island near it, so I put my phone in a zipper pocket and kept my hands straight up in the air so they'd be dry when I climbed the wall. When they felt dry enough, I propelled myself out of the water to grab onto the closest brick coming out of the wall, which was three or four feet above my head.
With a grunt, I took grip of the brick with my left hand but almost slipped until I found footing on a brick jutted out underwater. I felt adrenaline pumping through my veins as I hoisted myself higher and higher until I ran out of breath halfway through and had to recollect myself, but I eventually got to the ledge where I sat slumped against the wall, panting heavily.

I regained a normal pulse and looked up to see the rusted chain swinging gently; I hoped it was a switch that'd help me see better, but I wasn't sure until I jumped up and pulled it as hard as I could and thankfully, my suspicions were right: it was a light switch.

Why is this switch placed so randomly? I thought as lights slowly flickered on and I heard the heavy friction of stone against stone, ending with an echoing bang. At the back of the room, a large door below water level had opened and the pool began to flood out. I jumped from the ledge and let myself get sucked in by the tide.

The tide pool created by the suction of water through the doorway spit me out into a circular room with a high ceiling and a door that seemed to be locked. The walls rose until I could no longer comprehend their height but natural light came from the very top, and I spun in a circle to take in the vastness of the place.

There was a draft coming from what felt like something under the floor, and I shuddered. I removed my suit jacket, my shirt and my shoes to rid them of as much water as possible: it'd only slow me down. I sat next to my clothing, cold and shirtless, until they were less damp. When I couldn't stand it anymore, I buttoned my shirt and jacket and began to search for a key to the next room.

After a few minutes of searching and failed attempts at lock picking, I decided to go back into the first room. Under the doorway was a convenient but wet set of stairs that I descended slowly. On the floor of the once-filled pool, there were lines of antique vases around the bases of the stone pillars I'd stood on top of earlier and the water reached my knees, soaking my almost dry pants again.

"A green gem, the stone where the sword once stood, what lies in the room with a golden key." I was stumped. I knew I'd probably have to look into the estimated 150 vases to find something, but I didn't have enough time to go through them all.

There was a thought stuck to the very back of the mine that kept pushing at me: would anyone mind if they broke? They were lost in here for who knows how long... But maybe they're cultural rarities? Were these in the museum? They looked, for the most part, ceramic, with ornamental painting done in vivid color. Each vase was unique, shaped a little differently, but I really needed that key.

I picked up a vase and, without enough rational thought to elicit regret, threw it at the stone pillar behind me. There was no key inside so I resigned myself to throwing as many vases as possible at once. After maybe ten minutes of stacking jars and throwing them—and an estimate of eighty vases—I was surrounded by shards of broken ceramics floating in the water and thankfully saw a large, gilded key of gold. I pocketed it and waded over to the stairs that led up to the circular room with an interminable ceiling.

I felt I had to prepare myself before unlocking the door. My clothes had dried for the most part and my phone had 34% left of battery life.

The key fit smoothly into the lock and I turned it with ease. After I turned it, I couldn't remove it from the lock no matter what I tried, so I left it. Behind the door stood a wall with a switch that looked exactly like the key: there was an arrow pointing upwards above the key, and below it an arrow pointing down. I turned the key so that its teeth were facing downward, but nothing happened, so I turned it the other way. The ground I was standing on abruptly shifted upwards and I fell onto my back. It moved slowly.

"Elevators are supposed to feel much better than this," I mumbled. I eventually regained my footing and stood while the ground raised to an uncertain place. It stopped and I fell back again. There was more light refracting through the large windows surrounding the entire room, and I got to my feet again. I turned once, looked through every window, and stopped when I saw another person there.

He was sitting in the wide windowsill of one of the windows, made into a silhouette by the setting sun.

"Hello," he said simply. "Do you like fireworks?" he asked. I didn't answer. "Come here, look at this." I made no move and he stood and pushed me toward the window. He sat down again, and I stood awkwardly next to him as he pointed to a tall glass building in the distance.

"That one," he said. "Three, two, one, and..." The building he'd nearly covered with his finger on the glass went up in flames with a loud burst and a shaking of the ground.

I jumped as far away as I could and he turned to me.

"Who are you?" I asked with wonder and accusation in my voice.

"My name is Gear," he said as he stood slowly and faced me. "What is your name?" he asked. I couldn't believe he was being so polite, but I found my mouth moving.

"Link."

"Nice to meet you, Mr. Link."

"I'm going to have to take you in for questioning, Gear."

"That's very rude, Link, we've only just met and I am being quite polite." He reached down and pulled a long, serrated knife from a sheath that was strapped to his thigh and pointed it at me with flair. He was wearing a red full-body cloak, and it billowed behind him.

"Make me come with you, then, Link," he said mockingly.
He swayed from left to right and then ran at me, full speed. I rolled out of the way and crouched down, reaching for the gun from my waistband. I pulled the trigger after aiming at his advancing body but the pistol gave only a dissatisfying click. Of course, I remembered my little swim, and the gunpowder, which was useless when wet, had gotten soaked.

He took a stab at me and cut lightly into my arm. I ran across the room and grabbed two of the small knives I had in my suit pocket. I threw one at Gear, who dodged it with a smirk and let it clang against the wall.

"What do you do for a living, Link?" Gear asked as he took another stab at me. I was panting from evading his jabs, but he had a calm expression on his face. His next attack pierced through my arm and a blood splayed from the cut—luckily, it wasn't my dominant arm, my left side was safe. "It's impolite to leave my questions unanswered," he said. He stroked his knife and licked the blood dripping off of it, then got back in his fighting stance.

"I'm a detective."

I jumped forward with one of my knives gripped tightly in my hand and left a relatively deep cut on his cheek. He stood frozen, as if he was suspended in the moment, and I took the opportunity to connect my foot with his hand. His blade clattered onto the ground from his hand and the vacant look in his eyes left to be replaced with one of annoyance. We were now evenly matched for a one-on-one fistfight.

"And I have been assigned the humble task of raining terror onto this quaint city," Gear said. We both landed and missed hits until we were circling each other. He took a heavy swing at my face but I ducked in just in time. He'd anticipated this, though, because he grabbed my shoulder and spun me around so that my back was to him. He pulled my arm back and bent it roughly so that I couldn't move.

"You're almost a helpless child," he whispered into my ear. I shoved my heel into his foot and he stumbled backward. I then brought my fist straight to his face in a left jab with perfect form. He didn't flinch, and the punch didn't throw him, but he looked absolutely appalled.

"What if this bruises!?" he shouted. "Do you think I can afford to have such an anomaly on my face? I let you hit my chest because your blows did not hurt. But I need to get ice on this before the bruise forms." I was awestruck. I watched, amazed, as he pushed open the window and stuck one combat boot-clad foot out.

"I can say you leave quite a first impression, detective. But we'll have countless first impressions, you and I." He turned to leave, and I was glued to the spot. He turned back. "And if this bruises, I'm coming for you. Have a nice evening, Link." He threw something at me, which I caught, and dropped from the window. I ran to the open window and looked down: he was nowhere.

But I'd remember him. Tall, with chiseled features. Unnaturally white hair, tall and muscular. Dark, desecrating eyes. Gear.

The object he'd thrown at me was a large rock with a crack running through it. Upon further inspection, the interior of the rock was emerald. I'd found all three needed items in one, but first I would have to find a way back down to the front of the Temple, and deal with my blood dripping all over the place.

A/N: An intro of our main antag. Teehee.