Title: Battleflag
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Classification: AU, story.
Rating: R
Summary: A chance encounter sends a reporter's life down an unexpected path as he learns that we are not who we are.
Disclaimer: All characters/settings in this fic that I didn't make up don't belong to me. If Nintendo cracks down on fanfic, I'll delete this sucker faster than their lawyers can say, "Restraining Order." Never let it be said that I don't bow to corporate supremacy.
Warning: Check your senses of decency and artistic integrity at the door. This one ain't for anything but cheap thrills.

Prologue

Every day, it's the same old thing.

At six a.m. the same old clock radio, set all the way across the room in a vain attempt to force yourself to get out of bed when it goes off, begins to blast the latest R&B hits, jolting you out of a warm fuzzy dream world.

"Gooood morning, Hyrule Castle City! It's 34 chilly degrees out this winter morning, but we've got the best funk and soul music to get your blood pumpin'! This is Remi Marken, churnin' out the hits for you on WHRL's Big Bad Kokiri Breakfast Bash and here, for the first time ever on the airwaves, is the Indigo Go's brand new single, 'Fishin' for Your Love!'"

Groggy, you fumble around your nightstand for the same old book that is always there and toss it in the same old direction at the damn radio.

As usual, you miss.

And, as usual, you have to get up.

The same old face stares back at you from the mirror as you stumble into the bathroom to shower and shave. You aren't particularly displeased with it. In fact, you're rather pleased with the way you turned out. Dark blond hair, dark blue eyes, chisled features...they're fine by you. Good for picking up chicks.

You finish your morning ablutions and return to your bedroom just in time to hear the morning traffic report. As always, the freeway's jammed from your entrance all the way in to downtown.

Five thousand tired, aggravated folks sitting in big heavy metal objects waiting fifteen minutes to go half a mile, you think. No wonder we've got problems with road rage. As a news reporter for the city's biggest newspaper, you get to hear about all of the pleasant things that Hyrulian commuters do to one another when cut off one too many times. You hope that you'll never make the front page of your own section as the victim of an angry tire-iron wielding motorist. It would be such a pathetic way to go.

Banishing such early morning morbidity, you dig through your closet to find something that doesn't look too disreputable. Vaguely, in the back of your mind, you are aware that your editor said something to you the previous evening about an interview with some VIP. Of course, the little twerp told you about it before you went out with your sister and her husband to celebrate your alma mater's capture of the national football title. After several victory beers, it was hard to remember anything about your editor except that he was a short ugly bully who was, as always, jealous of your looks and talents.

At last, you find a relatively clean shirt and pair of pants. You have your usual debate as to whether or not you ought to hunt for a jacket, but, as usual, decide that it's not worth the effort. A tie? Well, you've always believed that a man can express himself--in a non-conforming conformist kind of way--best through his tie. You grab the black one with the little dancing chili peppers because it's the one your editor hates. And so, decently--if not stunningly--clad, you head into the kitchen to find breakfast and your briefcase.

With the same old kind of strawberry frosted breakfast pastry (the kind your sister keeps giving you disapproving, "Link-please-grow-up-and-eat-like-a-real- human-being" looks for) hanging out of one corner of your mouth, you pull on the same old worn raincoat while grabbing your keys and walking out the door. On your way down the dark hallway of your apartment building, you run into the same old bleary-eyed fellow tenants that you always pass in the hall at this time.

The conversation goes as usual.

"Mornin'," you say--or try to say--around your breakfast.

Your neighbor, be it the short balding middle aged divorcŽ or the tall raven-haired florist (about whom you've had the passing inappropriate thought or two) usually mutters something similar in reply. You take the stairs, just as you have ever since you got stuck in the elevator on a hot summer night. It had happened on a weekend, so by the time the landlord heard you pounding on the walls of what you had begun to call the container of death and managed to find a repairman, you had almost dissolved into a puddle of sweat.

After that, you vowed you would never, ever take the elevator again.

You reach the bottom of the stairs and fling open the fire door, only to, as always, be assaulted by the sharp rays of the rising sun. Wiping the tears out of your eyes, you blindly walk the standard ten paces forward, then five paces to the right, which puts you at the spot where you always park your car.

By now, your vision has cleared, and you are greeted by the sight of the good old rinky-dinky imported coupe you bought over a decade ago when gas was expensive and you were broke. And though it's treated you well over the years, you can't help but glower at it now for being the same gray, boring car it was back then. Of course, you realize, you're the same broke journalist you were back then, too.

You climb in, start the engine, and try not to be too alarmed when it takes a lot of coaxing to get going. You also try to ignore the ominous clunk you hear whenever you shift gears. It's always been there, but it seems to have gotten louder of late. Your confidence that nothing out of the ordinary will happen, because nothing out of the ordinary ever happens to you, has kept you from going to the garage to have the cause of said clunk fixed.

As always, you take the shortest route to the freeway and enjoy one thrilling moment of speed on the entrance ramp before slamming on the brakes as you hit the omnipresent traffic jam.

You sit and mutter the same old complaints about traffic to yourself as you ever...so...slooowly...merge onto the express (ha ha) way. As you reach to turn on the radio, you notice that the clunk in the transmission has been joined by a strange rattling.

But nothing will happen, you tell yourself. Nothing ever happens.

And that's when something does.

You see an opening, slam on the accelerator, and expect to zip into the hole left by the car next to you. Instead, you slam on the accelerator, the engine shrieks in agony, gasps futilely for one last breath, and dies.

"SH--," your begin, but then you remember the deal you made with the goddesses and stop. You vowed one night that if your ex never called you again, you would give up with sailor-speak for good. So far, it's worked, and the last thing you want is her blubbering at you over the telephone line for a solid hour. And so, denied the emotional release of profanity, you merely grip the steering wheel, white knuckled with rage, as your car glides serenely off onto the shoulder.

You take a moment to compose yourself, then get out, open up the hood, and try to inspect the damage. Standing there in the cold winter air, listening to the honks of the other commuters, you can't see anything wrong with the engine. Of course, you're no gearhead, so something pretty drastic would have had to have happened--say, a small explosion in the vicinity of the battery-- for you to notice anything wrong.

You slam the hood back down and storm back to the open driver's side door, fumbling in your coat pocket for your cell phone so you can call for roadside assistance. But alas, your coat pocket is empty. So are your pants pockets. So, you discover after a thorough search, are the back seat, are the glove compartment, the floorboards, and the trunk.

No help for you, my man, your treacherous brain mocks you. You're stuck here until a cop cruises by and feels generous enough to take pity on you.

Which means you'll miss your morning meeting with your editor. Which means you won't get the VIP interview assignment. Which means you won't get that promotion you've been hankering for and the pay raise you really, really need. Worst of all, it means that your editor, that obnoxious little snot, will have something to hang over your head for years.

In sheer aggravation, you kick one of the tires. Unfortunately, you've angled your kick just right, and it sends the wheel cover flying into the air. It scrapes along the driver's side of the car, leaves a nice gash in the fading finish, and rebounds out into the oncoming traffic.

Overcome, you forget your divine bargain and throw your head back to howl at the uncaring sky. "DIN DAMN IT!!!"

It isn't until you're no longer blinded with rage that you see the car that's slowing down to pull over onto the shoulder beside you.

Astonished that one of your equally disgruntled commuters seems to be interested in your plight, you gape at the car as it rolls to a stop. Your reporter's mind unconsciously records all of the details that describe the vehicle: luxury, imported, sleek black finish, sporty, dare we say "sexy"... the kind of machine you've always lusted after but never had a prayer of owning on a journalist's salary.

You see your reflection in the lightly tinted glass of the passenger side window, see it suddenly decapitated as the window rolls down and the driver leans over. Again, as a trained investigator, you cannot help but take note of every feature of her face. Pale complexion, sleek blond hair cut at the jaw line, patrician features, designer sunglasses...dare we say "sexy?"

"Need a ride?" she asks in a low, boarding-school inflected voice.

And you know that nothing will ever be the same again.