Intermission
January 2, 2026
2:42 P. M.
Anthony Johnson’s private office, Icy Sherries Publishing Division, Oregon
Konk. Konk. Konk.
“37. 38. 39.”
Konk. Konk. Konk.
“40. 41. 42.”
“Boys. What the hell are you doing?”
Anthony Johnson here, and as of this moment I am beating my head against my desk. Konk, Konk, Konk is a rough estimate of how the sound goes, my weird buttercup/sunflower friend counting for me with sadistic glee as he announced
“43. 44. 45.”
“Again. What the hell are you two doing?”
I turned my head to find an agitated Sherry Sears, only a few years older now than where we left her in our long tale. Sherry had taken to wearing her… (adoptive grandmother’s?) … trench coat to work, a solid snow white that made her look like the before mentioned princess. I was rather uncaring about any sort of torture she could administer now after the painful hell of this assignment.
So I continued to beat my head against the desk, “46. 47. 48” before I paused, explaining
“I had a conversation with my father the other day about En Passant. He asked me how I’d make this novel 70,000 words and keep it interesting the whole way through. I assured him that because it’s a Mercenary’s tale, it would write itself; that I’d be able to finish it with the same ease and joy that I find all of our other novels.
“I have written 15,000 words in two weeks. I normally do that in three days.”
Konk, “49”, Konk, “50”, Konk, “51”…
Sherry folded her arms, a gesture I finally understood to have been acquired from Sylvester Jayden as I leaned my head back and gurgled, drinking in the blood that was beginning to flow from my upper navel passages and down my parched throat. I wonder if she was just as thirsty, all too hungry for the smell and texture of my life fuel; haven’t figured out yet just how strong the allure for feeding is for these virus induced vampires.
“Well what’s the issue? Aren’t you just copying my father word for word?”
“If only. I’m starting to wonder if I would have bene better off doing this in third person; if it weren’t for you, I’d scrap the whole thing already and move on to the next project. The difficulty about taking a journal and turning it into a book is you have to have something coherent from it.”
“Which… sorry, which is overly difficult when you’re drugged up on pain meds and insist on using cursive. It’s like a chicken with one, artificial leg tried to write this putrid mess.” Flow added, head reclining back and dragging the journal forward. Sherry, stepping in as I continued to bang my head in frustration, couldn’t resist peering into her past as she examined the man’s journal for the first time in over a decade…
Only to reel back in horror in sheer disgust of the content matter. Had it not belonged to Seth, the repulsive offense to the written word would have exploded in a shower of blue flames, never to cause another pair of eyes to bleed at their pure ugliness. Seems that Sherry had restraint after all.
“Wow… that is horrible. Would take me a minute just to read a sentence.”
“Which is why… 79, 80, 81… Anthony and I are now going for the world record for most desk head bang repetitions!” The flower explained as the table continued to echo.
“Is… there really a record for that?”
“There will be by the time I’m done.” I suggested, on a good streak now as I spoke and hurt myself in perfect synch.
“Hm. Well, do it on your own time. Get back to work.”
“What do you think I’m doing this for? I’m trying to get myself motivated to do it.”
“Why? It doesn’t have to be 70,000 words.”
I froze, just one shy of a hundred. “I thought we agreed to never pitch a novella as a novel after James Patterson got lit up for-”
“We also made a rule to keep ourselves from criticizing the competition, and knowing Flow you’re already planning on including this conversation in En Passant, aren’t you?
“Maybe…”
Sherry could care less. She had work to do, and this book itself wouldn’t directly bring any money to the company… something I didn’t learn until about ten seconds after the flower has spoken his part.
“Look. My father was a great man, but he wasn’t even important enough to be considered a pawn for Jack Wallace. The story is inconsequential to the grander scheme… so we’re making it a website exclusive.”
“When did we decide that?”
“Oh, Christmas day. I just wanted to see you suffer for a week before I gave you the good news. It doesn’t have to be 70,000 words.”
All I needed to know, causing me to drop my head and slam my face into the hard wood one last time as the W.O.R.D shouted with sadistic glee
“100!”
…
…
…
…
The best part? This is me coming back for edits. Turns out my fears were unfounded. The book ended up being more than 70,000 words after all!
Flow: Yet we aren’t making anything from this novel, in the end. I’m just impressed you’ve made it this far. You must truly have a significant amount of determination to read this work!
Or perhaps you just don’t know when to quit! Either way, enjoy the rest of the book. It actually kind of gets better from here.
Turn 7
October 27, 2009
4:41 P. M.
Fantasmos Sin Maestros Base, Outside Darfur, Sudan
(Please Enjoy the only slightly edited writings of Seth Sears)
“So, Seth and Sherry, my two favorite Patriots in the world... Welcome to Sudan!”
Grand Boss was nothing like I expected, although I was almost always wrong when it came to Sylvester’s side of the world. An apparently unique breed of creature, a sort of anti-FTM, the one eyed man seemed to be an elder, gray haired version of the soldier Jack Wallace. With a bushy beard, a silver jump suit and a beret covering his shaggy head, I might have even suggested he was like an American Santa had he not been a muscular giant… or if I hadn’t known that George Marshall had already fit that bill.
But how did I know that the man was a monster, besides the rumors and tales I had been told? That Grand Boss didn’t sweat in this blistering heat was the first indicator, covered head to toe but still collected as if we were surrounded by air conditioning. His bright blue arm, a metallic prosthetic from his left shoulder down, might have helped with that, regulating and controlling his system much in a manner that Sylvester did when she first began to augment herself.
That he reminded me of her was a bit creepy, but the feeling went unnoticed much like many other things these last few days as I felt Sherry brush past me, descending the stair case with her nose raised and mouth in a careful half smile that was as fake as the way she had done up her face. A fourteen-year-old body masquerading as someone ten years older… something I think I might have already mentioned… my daughter at least made sure to brush aside the biggest complaint most strangers would have upon first contact.
Even her voice sounded deeper, husky and alluring like those Hollywood actresses tended to do. “Grand Boss! My mother used to tell me about you, before she passed. She never mentioned the arm though; is that a PFP limb?”
“This thing? Got this thing from a friend of your mom’s back in 04. You know, when Cato’s man killed… you know.”
“I do… but, nature of our business isn’t it?”
So the two met, shaking hands as Alucard finally appeared from within the cabin. Dressed in his usual trench coat, I was startled to find him with a AK-47 on his back as he brushed right past me, hands heavy with thick metal gauntlets that were capable of generating and firing electricity, weapons that I had made for him two years prior. I asked
“Where are you going?”
“Work. Got a warlo
rd hiding out in a hole in the ground about five miles away with thirty or so troops with a death wish. Morning Boss!”
“It’s the afternoon, Alucard.” Grand Boss chortled as the man brushed past him, Alucard not even bothering to turn around as he replied
“Not for the creatures of the night! See you all tomorrow; I’ll be back at about three.”
“We’ll be asleep!”
“And?”
So Alucard departed, leaving only me to meet the old soldier. Finally stepping off the ramp, I found that the man was much taller than I anticipated as I approached, the same size as Jack Wallace and even higher than me thanks to his padded boots. He may have made a large target, but it was like dealing with Goliath himself as he extended a hand…
Colder than he did to Sherry. Taking it, I found his mouth contort as if in disappointment, the man explaining
“You aren’t well, Seth… You shouldn’t have come.”
“You vampires aren’t exactly helpful. The last thing a dying man wants to see are frowns every time he meets someone.”
“Which is why the sick don’t leave their homes… If you wanted to meet Pierre, I could have sent him to Portland.”
“Because I want my estranged father’s first impression to be of me as a bed ridden ingrate. No, I’ll face him on my own terms… even if I have to limp with a cane to do it.”
The soldier shrugged to that, his one eye drifting away from me and towards the still high sun. It’d be a long while before we were trapped in darkness, meaning I’d be fully exposed to the judgmental evaluation of my father; clothing would do little to save me from exposure, an eye of a FTM piercing through all and finding the truth of we mere mortals much in the way Grand Boss did with me. In fact, I expected my confrontation to go just about as well as it did with the bearded man.
I was once again absolutely wrong.
October 27, 2009
5:04 P. M.
Fantasmos Sin Maestros Base, Outside Darfur, Sudan
“Oh, come on mes amis! It’s not that hard to hit a target fifty meters away with small arms! I’ve seen children here do double and take half the time as you lot in lining up their shots!”
Bang. “It would help if you sang to us, sir!”
“Fine, fine… we’re all singing though! Everytime you repeat after me, you fire. Got it?”
Bang. “Sir, yes sir!”
“Good… than let’s make it fun… Eskimo pussy is mighty cold!”
Bang. “Eskimo pussy is mighty cold!”
“It sure as hell never gets old!”
Bang. “It sure as hell never gets old!”
“At least that’s what my girlfriend told!”
Bang. “At least that’s what my girlfriend told!”
“Before I kicked that bitch right out the door!”
Bang. “Before I kicked that bitch right out the door!”
So… as you can imagine, my first impression was less than pleasant as the jeep began to slow, an open air vehicle that Grand Boss insisted on driving. While I had yet to see the man myself, his voice was similar enough to my own for me to recognize that it could only belong to my father, yet annoying me greatly due to him possessing that French tone that I had hoped he would have never acquired.
“Seth… you may just want to stay with us… There’s nothing for you here; nothing at all.”
We had stopped at a gun range, a row of thirty to forty men all laying on the ground as a single commander popped in and out of my view due to the tent poles that still blocked my way. That statement was true for every implication, both the local and the man who commanded it… yet I knew I had to face it anyway, cross off at least one doubt off the list before I moved on forever.
So I nodded at my daughter and, pushing the door open myself, let the man know as I propped myself out with the help of my cane “That may be, but at least I’ll have a story to tell at my funeral. I’ll walk back to the plane.”
“You sure? No hassle for me to pick you up… besides, Sherry would kill me if you had a heart attack on the way back.”
“It’s fine. I’ll be just… fine.”
The truth of it was, that numb pain within my left arm was growing sharper, making it a tad difficult to use even now. Still, I pressed onward as I began to walk away, the man shifting into gear as he prepared to leave me to my fate.
I only barely heard my daughter before the engine drowned her out. “Hey dad… just remember you always have me.”
I turned just as the car sped away, eyes locking with Sherry’s own blue mirrors to the kind soul within as I lost the chance to reply, a trail of dust clouding the sight soon after as I was left breathless and coughing. Closing my eyes, I gave him ample opportunity to approach as I became oblivious to the world around me, simply intent on staying alive.
So it was with some mixture of displeasure and disgust that the smell of cigarette began to fill the air, my weak eyes struggling to open through the mist of burning tobacco. Not being as near as dense as that dirty air produced by the earth though, even I could make out the figure that now stood before me.
The man was the perfect mercenary, but a terrible soldier, for the very first thing I noticed was his hair. Tied in a long, braided pony tail that stretched to his waist, the brown hair blended in well with the stockman’s hat upon his head, an illustrious peacock feather rising out of the looping coils tied around the chestnut cap and partially covering his eyepatch.
Which is where things begin to get even stranger. While we’ll ignore the odd tendency for every mercenary I know to somehow end up with an eyepatch, it’ll suffice to add that my father at least opted to go with a loose white square to cover the dead left eye as opposed to those dark, pirate like circles men like Grand Boss preferred to use. The reason for this must have come from the long scar that stretched from his eyebrow to his right cheek, an old gray wound now that must have healed over years ago. Of course, that may have just been the color tainted by the rising smoke, the loose cigarette hanging from pale lips and even paler skin.
The outfit he wore, what must have been his typical battle attire, was anything but light in both the color and weighty… (Anthony: hey Flow, since when we’re we allowed to use weighty in a sentence?) … sense of the word. A dark flak jacket covered the dirty dirt brown uniform of the man, a sort of meshed polo shirt with slacks that blended style with resistance to small arms and bladed weapons, patches and tears covering the whole of it as a visual history of wars and battles fought. The most prestigious was that of his current unit, an emblem of a three headed dog upon his shoulder, and that of a what seemed to be a pipe with the word Hamlin stitched in beneath it, hanging upon the blowing flap of his shirt’s skirt.
So just as much as a weirdo as all the other mercenaries I’ve come across. The lord certainly had a strange sense of humor when he came up with our world; it was as if he himself was writing a story with us, we persons simply actors and characters upon a theater screen.
Enough of that though, for the Frenchman took the cigarette as a v between two gloved fingers and, tilting his head up ever so slightly so that we seemed to be of even height, blew out a ring of smoke that sent me into a fit of coughing once again. A test, one which I failed, for the man shook his head and with a bit of sadness announced
“Mon fils… hm. I expected something more. Luxury has coddled you, boy. You should have sought me out sooner; I would have made a man out of you.”
“Being… eck… a mercenary doesn’t… eck… make you a man.”
“That so?” Pierre asked, stuffing his cigarette back into his mouth as he continued to speak though his lips hardly moved, a certain skill that reminded me all too much of ventriloquism. “Well, then maybe that’s they’re starting to let gay men marry in your country. If you don’t have your dick out, who can tell what’s really a man anymore?”
“Must you be so crude?”
“I take that as a compliment; it is the Frenc
h way to cut away all the bull shit in life. Crude may be unrefined, but in your language it also means naturel, or natural as the English say it. All I have to say is true, even if you don’t like the way I say it.”
Such would be the status quo of our encounter. Throwing his smoke to the ground, stamping it out and leaving the ashes to pollute the already damaged lands, the man gestured with his head to what consisted of his current office, a simple table covered with maps and a ham radio outfitted with so many wires and antennas that even I couldn’t guess it’s purpose. One chair in particular though was turned around, back facing forward, and quickly became the favorite of my father as he took a seat in it, arms resting on top of the bars and serving as a pillow for his clean shaven but slightly cut up chin.
“So… what brings my bâtard to Sudan? Want to give pappy some money before you pass?”
“What?” I yelled, unable to hear above the gunshots. At least my father was smart; understanding immediately, the shots even affecting his own acute hearing, he picked up a mallet nearby and hit a gong which I only now noticed to be beneath the table, the whole world going silent as it continued to ring out for all to hear.
It subsided after not too long, all eyes focused on the sitting French commander. Reaching into one of many pockets and taking out a cigarette, the man smoked for a good ten or so seconds before he even bothered to address the sorry lot, their already tired faces struggling to resist groaning as he gave the order that would make a few of them pass out from exhaustion.
“Okay boys. We’ve been out here for about two hours now, meaning there must be at least a few thousand rounds. You have thirty minutes to cover the whole area and pick up every round, shell, shrapnel or other piece of metal discharged during our practice. For every piece I find after that went unnoticed, you’ll do ten pushups; if I find a hundred pieces, you’re going to run five miles instead. Am I clear?”
“Sir, yes sir!” The troop announced in unison, the commander simply waving them off. Like bunnies to a vegetable garden, they immediately plunged their faces into the ground as they meticulously began to ravage the field, no patch of dirt unturned as they began their busy search for lead gold.
Leaving Pierre and I to discuss our current state of affairs in peace… or whatever you call that tension that doesn’t result in punches but is thick enough to be cut with a saber.
“So. Like I was saying, mon enfant de l'amour, what brings you to Sudan? Anything to get off your chest before you die?”
“If I can. That blue eye of yours; is it natural, or a sign of your vampirism?”
“Straight to the heart, then? Yes, I am a FTM… Though not from this world, mind you. I was Jack’s man long before I came here and got tangled up with Grand Boss; reason why I didn’t get killed in that massacre of ‘04. Does that answer your question?”
“More than I wanted.”
“Than a question of my own, gosse. Did you need to know that because you think I can save you, or because you don’t want a monster like me helping out?”
“Neither.”
Fun to catch my own father by surprise, the man nearly dropping the cigarette out of his mouth as his eye flashed. Something I hadn’t noticed until now was simply how young he appeared to be; while being an associate of Jack must have made him thousands of years old, he looked no older than twenty-three or four at most. Just a young adult yet to see a quarter of his life, making me look like the father instead of the other way around.
Yet the surprise subsided, the man taking the irritating tobacco away and blowing the excess in my direction. This time I knew to hold my breath, holding my own as the man couldn’t help but smirk. “So. Tell me what you want, then. I owe you what, twenty-seven birthdays or something?”
“Thirty for me, twenty-six for Molly.”
“Molly… that’s right. I gave her a petite fille as well. Why didn’t she come?”
“She doesn’t know about you, and I’m not sure I want her to.”
The man shook his head, taking his wide hat off and waving it about in thanks. Then, placing it back upon his head, I interrupted any foolish or snarky comment I imagined he was about to spout as I adopted his way, going straight to business if not being a bit vulgar about it.
“I’m dying, but now I’m starting to see it’s not for the reason doctors believe. My foul mood and anger didn’t cause this; this is the work of the FTV flowing within me, right?
“Two humans make a human, and two FTMs make a FTM… a vampire that ages more slowly between 12 to 18, but a vampire nonetheless. So, what I want to know… what I need to know straight from you… is what’s going to happen to me. What does a FTM and a Human produce? A hybrid?”
Something I said must have been amusing, for the man began to giggle like a school girl as he nearly dropped the smoke from his lips. Plucking it away, having no intent to waste a good cigarette, that lone blue eye grew wild with excitement as the man pulled his arms away and placed them on the table, fingers tapping into the wood as if preparing for a meal.
What was his intent? I kept a sharp lookout as he spoke once more, ever ready to fight back when questions arose. “Is that it? All you wanted to know was whether you wanted to die or not? Alucard could have told you that; man, Sherry could have told you that.”
“Except I’m not going to die, am I? Jack Wallace wouldn’t have had you donate your sperm just to produce an heir with an expiration date. What’s the play here, Pierre? What’s really going on?”
“I’m not at liberty to tell you.”
I slammed a fist into the table, radio bouncing about as a few strands of my hair came undone and floated in front of my eye. Annoying, but a good frame for bringing out the worst from me as I let my anger flow.
“Like hell you aren’t. You aren’t the sort of man to take orders easy; you’re your own man, and do whatever you feel like. That you’re so high up in the food chain yet act like a punk is evidence enough of that.”
“Smoking, talking about femmes and killing for money doesn’t make me some sort of ordure. Sophisticated animals do exist; a tigre can be just as prestigious as a human.”
“Which is diverting the subject, Pierre. What is Jack’s plan for me, and what is going to happen to me if I refuse?”
The man shook his head, taking out his cigarette and crushing the ashes within his hand. Letting them float away in the wind, he stood from his chair and paced about in his combat boots with folded arms as he pondered his words carefully, a smile still on his face more deviant than anything that had been there before.
Made me nervous just looking at it.
“What’s your name, kid?”
“Seth. Seth Sears.”
More silence, the man twirling about back and forth as if in some sort of dance. His long braid nearly hit me several times as he moved about, fingers fidgeting with a lighter as he continued to ponder. Madness, in its purest form, as I was forced to watch and suffer as he developed whatever cruel or dangerous idea that would surely screw me over.
Just when I had enough, my heart pounding and left arm aching, the man stopped and turned in my direction. Reaching into his front pocket, he took out a deck of playing cards of a game I did not recognize, patterned with three interconnected weapons that I somehow distinctly knew to represent a shuriken, a gun, and a flame for magic. In fact, just starring at the symbols upon a black background caused my head to hurt, a flash of pain that I tried to ignore though the cards were oddly nostalgic.
“Tell me. Your wife was Sylvester Jayden, right?”
“Yes.”
“Good girl. Raised a few beers in memory of her when I heard about her passing… but did she ever tell you about personas?”
That same pain again. Gripping my forehead, I had to shake hard to make even a tiny bit of the numbing feeling to go away, the answer coming easier for it though.
“Something to do with reincarnation, right?”
“Wrong! Reincarnation is an insult to our ra
ce; we are better beings when we make ourselves distinct and individual, rather than trying to fit in with some oogly googly connerie in the sky. No, the persona system is the opposite; it is not man trying to become free of himself but a man truly developing himself into something he wants to be.
“We are surrounded by heroes and villains, figures who we admire and want to be like… not only in this world, but in the spiritual one where we all lived before we came here below. While we were there we chose who we would be and now struggle to develop into that person; the challenge of life is not succeeding but becoming the persona we elected for ourselves. Circumstance, economic challenges, addictions and other bad cards drawn by either the fault of ourselves, our parents, or fate are the impediments… but the goal still stays true.
“Starting to remember that… Kaiba Boy?”
I puked. I actually puked, though missing the table and staining only my shoes as I nearly fell into my own mess. As terrible as it was, the man was right; I was beginning to remember, though the memories that came didn’t seem to be of the life I lived. No, it belonged to another, a man who resembled me but was even stricter and more prideful than I was… yet wore the same clothing, the dragon like trench coat that I was prone to wearing wherever I traveled.
Who was… Seto Sears.
“Ah… so you’re beginning to remember. Good… and all without passing out. Maybe you’re stronger than you seem.”
Strong enough that I didn’t seem to need my cane anymore, pain disappearing from my limbs and head even if my stomach continued to churn. More memories, more phrases came rushing back of this Seto Sears as I found myself rising to a full height, trying to stay in reality as I found myself asking with a slightly edgy tone
“What did you do…”
“Something who’s name I never bothered to remember. A total active recall whatever the enfer it’s called. Point is, you’re starting to remember your idol, the man who inspired you… and everyone like you and Seto Kaiba in these scattered timelines.”
Satisfied with his shuffling, the man began to walk away from the tent and back towards the open road, a cement track around a large and open field that was marked off for hand to hand combat training. I followed, legs growing stronger though stumbling about from a lack of control, as I dragged my cane along with me if only as a way to keep my mind focused on reality.
It was a miracle at all that I was able to maintain a conversation, especially as my eyes kept flashing with visions of another world.
“What does… Seto Kaiba have to do with me?”
“Everything and anything, Kaiba Boy!” The Frenchman shouted, my innards nearly exploding again as more and more memories of a familiar stranger came flooding back to. I kept on marching though, eyes blinking in and out, as I listened to the guiding voice.
“Seth Kaiba Sears, Seto Kaiba… both adopted heads of an arms company, both chess players, both brown haired blue eyed giants with a fétiche for dragons and a younger sibling that they care about more than anything else in the world? That you didn’t figure it out before is an insult to your intelligence, kid.”
“… I thought it was… coincidence.”
“Coincidence doesn’t exist, boy. We are the cards used in the duel and game of good and evil played by our god Jack Wallace and devil Satan Volgin! There are no such things as mere circumstance; every move, every action, every play and counter play is a carefully calculated stratagem of two eternal beings both trying to rule the multiverse.
“Life isn’t a story of repetition, but of carefully planned parodies; our roles are not of repeating the past, but of criticizing it and making it better for future generations. We war not for land, privilege or even for fun; we war because we are either the pieces of a loving god or a hateful demon, soldiers subscribed to a never ending conflict that cosigns us to either life eternal or damnation forever!”
“Shut… shut up! You’re talking nonsense!” I answered, falling on my knees for a moment as names and terms upon name uinsgd term… rang a…bout in my head. Jack Wallace. Satan Volgin. Weaponized Organic Retaliatory Device. Adrian Vantel.
Sylvester Jayden. Sylvester Jayden. Sylevessssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss
“Oi! Stay with me Seth! We still have our game to play!”
Times of Peace: Volume 1 of the side adventures to The Mercenary's Salvation Page 38