Microstory 772: Sergeant

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Adolphe Sargent was born in 1854, in a region of France called Lorraine. Though many of his compatriots felt culturally German, because of its historical connection to the German Empire, Sargent felt French, through and through. He was only sixteen years old when Prussian forces invaded France’s borders, and he decided to fight against them in the French army. It was on the battlefield that he met a musketeer named Anatol Klugman, who was as passionately Prussian as he was French. They battled against each other for several minutes, before Anatol struck a heavy enough blow to keep Sargent from standing back up. Just before Klugman could deliver death, one of Sargent’s fellow soldiers came to his rescue, coming this close to ending Klugman’s life. Sadly for the French soldier, a magical sword appeared on the ground just in time for Klugman to turn the tables once more. And he kept that sword for decades, possibly centuries, using it to travel through time, ultimately coming to be known simply as The Warrior. But what people may not realize was that Sargent’s story did not end here. Seeing him go up against one of the most formidable fighters in history impressed a lot of very powerful people, and they decided to start using him for their own means. They pulled him out of his time, and set him up to be part of a special battalion. These soldiers, known as the salmon battalion, were tasked with traveling through time together, assuming new identities, and blending in with the locals. Consisting of a couple hundred men from all over history, the salmon battalion cycled through its roster on an as-needed basis. But Adolphe Sargent was always there. Due to what must be assumed to be a clerical error, Sargent was never relieved of his duties, no matter how many temporal attempts, in how many battles, in how many wars, the battalion went through. Though Klugman went on as the infamous Warrior, earning a reputation as the most dangerous man in all of time and space, Sargent was the hardest-working fighter ever, which was something few people knew.