Microstory 1140: Anatol Klugman

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The Franco-Prussian War began in 1870, following years of complicated tension between the French Empire, and the Kingdom of Prussia. It involved a letter from Spain, border disputes, and as per usual, Russia. Anatol Klugman didn’t care about any of this, though. To him, his kingdom was calling for him to fight for his people, so he answered it. He became a musketeer, and fought with passion and relentlessness. It was on the battlefield that he met Adolphe Sargent, who was as passionate about his own home as he was about Prussia. They fought for several minutes before Anatol gained the upper hand, but before he could deliver the final blow, one of Adolphe’s fellow soldiers appeared out of nowhere, and turned the tables. But those tables just kept turning when the Sword of Assimilation appeared shortly thereafter, just in time to save Anatol’s life. The man who had come to Adolphe’s aid happened to be a time traveler, who was uncontrollably drawn to important events in his family’s history. The sword allowed his powers to be transferred into Anatol’s system permanently. But instead of being drawn to his family, he found himself traveling to other wars that involved Prussia in the past. He felt compelled to continue fighting for his people, but once he was finished with the last one, he was finally free from this pattern. He gained a reputation in the choosing one underworld as a ruthless killer. To temper these rumors, he chose to only steal powers from bad people, and only kill them when it couldn’t be helped. He didn’t enjoy it, but thought it was necessary. He wasn’t simply trying to gain powers for himself, but remove them from people who he felt didn’t deserve them. Once they were in him, they could not be given back, or given to someone else. After years of this, from his perspective, he procured the ability to travel through time in various ways, teleport, and alter people’s memories, among other things. But he was not the only one to survive that first battle, and continue on in the world of temporal manipulators. Adolphe went on to become a major force in the salmon battalion, which traveled throughout time, turning the tide of many wars, for reasons only the powers that be who controlled them could understand. Suddenly, the two of them met once more, and had to decide for themselves how they were going to react. They had both been through a lot since they tried to kill each other. They even discovered that, although they jumped back and forth throughout the timestream, the same amount of time had passed for each of them, so they had that much in common. They had both seen the future, and recognized that their differences from before were a little ridiculous now. They never became great friends, who could trust each other with anything, but they did come to an understanding, and even fought alongside each other, against some truly awful foes.