AU Post of the Daemon Sort.

[xamotomax]

Two men. One bar. Nothing unusual. Businessmen will frequent bars now and then, it's just something people expect them to do.

And they're doing it.

Making their way past all the patrons this establishment has [no ordinary pub we have here], they head towards the bar and place their orders for hyper-distilled spirits [standing policy about intoxicants], a handful of business magazines, and possibly some light edibles as well.

That in hand, they make their way towards a table.

Here their breast pockets [on one man it's on his left, the other, the right (who happens to have a scar on his face)] begin to wriggle and bulge slightly. Something is in them.

One head pops out. Then another. It's an animal. A very small animal. Two. A pair of stoats, to be exact, eagerly waiting for the men to sit down so they can get out of those stuffy pockets and get some fresh air, thank you and please.

Request granted as seats are taken and the two animals begin to wrestle about on the tabletop, much to the amusement of the men.

Just another day at the Bar at the End of the Universe, where company might come from....

Comments

[xamotomax]

You may have to forgive the sudden change in subject—the twins were feeling somewhat uncomfortable there. No fault of yours, Gordon; they just were.

Now they want the discomfort to pass before they can discuss things again.

"And they ... did things to some of the people and their daemons."

[acts_of_gord]

"Something like that," Gordon says. "The humans they've taken for 'upgrading' into their Overwatch soldiers... no one's ever seen an Overwatch with a daemon. Or an Overwatch who does anything except what the Combine tell him. Most of their armies are synths- bionically upgraded and controlled organisms from half a dozen universes. The Overwatch is their way of testing whether we'd make good synths ourselves."

[xamotomax]

It is a sickening thought, even to men like the twins.

You just cannot live without a daemon. All they can think of is an army of dead men and women marching as slaves to an overlord from a distant world. One they had no hope of conquering.

Upgraded. But dead.

For all that they most desperately desire privacy from each other [the source of their discomfort and why Gordon was envied as he was], to be separated from their daemons is utterly unthinkable.

"How many survived the onslaught of the Combine?"

And should they worry? If they're extra-dimensional they can find the twins' own world, too.

[acts_of_gord]

"Not many," says Gordon. "I'm told there's maybe twenty million humans in North America in general. I don't know how it stands in the rest of the world. The people I'm with tell me it's pretty bad overall, though."

[xamotomax]

"—A population approximately equal to—"
"—That of Canada sometime—"

"—In the middle of—"
"—The Twentieth Century—"

"—Now survives as best—"
"—They can, across an—"

"—Entire continent, with—"
"—Similar scenarios playing out in—"

—"Other parts of the world."
A population reduction like that might make some of the more hard-core at the Optimum Population Trust and others of its ilk green with envy.

"Surviving but not thriving, and the danger still exists, does it not?"

The stoats become nervous and, in a move that might reflect the hidden emotions of the men, seek out refuge inside the breast pockets they rode into the bar in.

"Here" is better than "there", with the Combine taking daemons away from their humans.

[acts_of_gord]

"Unfortunately," Gordon says. "We've managed to cut them off from their home dimension. Just barely. But they've still got their forces on Earth... and that's a lot of forces."

[xamotomax]

Knowing that cannot offer much comfort to the survivors.

"Short on available manpower."

"Long on enemy ranks."
Pause.

"If this ends in your lifetime you will be extraordinarily lucky."

When the twins go home, they may find themselves appreciating it a little more.

Oh, they'll still work to take it over, but they'll appreciate it more.

[acts_of_gord]

The disturbing part is that it represents more hope than the human race's had in sixteen years.

"I don't expect it to," Gordon says quietly, glancing down at the test tube.

"I don't know, Gordon," Sati says. "If anyone's going to live to see this thing through it'll be you."

Gordon just shakes his head and reaches for his beer.

[xamotomax]

That's kinda what happens when a population that's lost sight of its perspectives on life suddenly finds itself in a fight for survival.

Here they wait for Gordon to take his drink. Wait. And think. A lot.

"Admittedly events in—"

"—Our world have been—"
"—Far less eventful than—"

"—It has been for you—"
"—Over the years, what—"

"—A kind of invasion—"

"—Of our own to deal with."

"Alien robots," Lamir says from Tomax's pocket.

"Really big ones," adds Rimal from Xamot's.

"And Earth has become the newest battlefield for two ancient factions, with humanity occasionally taking sides, and not always the side of either group."

Remember the appreciating? They're appreciating the fact that one: Earth is still intact, two: there's not a lot of robots even if most of them are at minimum five times the size of a human, and three: half of the robot population is dedicated to keeping the other half from wiping out the planet they found themselves stranded on four million years ago.

[acts_of_gord]

"That," says Gordon, "sounds like it'd be a step up. How bad do they get?"

[xamotomax]

"If everything is—"

"—Still standing after—"
"—A battle has taken place—"

"—Then it is a good day."
"The Decepticons want war. War and conquest. And the energy and resources to fuel it," squeaks Lamir. Acting every bit the terrified citizen caught in the crossfire.

"And the Autobots want to take this elsewhere. Somewhere where no one innocent gets hurt," adds Rimal.

What's left out of this is the mention of those times when the brothers through Cobra had found themselves working alongside the Decepticons when alliances between the alien mechanoids and the humans seemed most convenient and profitable.