Tomax and Xamot to the Cabal
How the twins would exist in an AU where a shadow organization called the "Cabal" run by those simply called (((them))) secretly control the world through a massive surveillance machine that at least 1 in 10 citizens are part of, whether wittingly or not. Since Tomax and Xamot are wealthy, powerful figures, it makes sense they'd be deep in it by degrees. Inspired by Q-Anon conspiracy theories. Alternate names and origin stories for the twins were inspired by other peoples' fan fictions.
They were born Neven (Tomax) and Renner (Xamot) Andreani in the Corsican countryside. Their mother was exiled by her family after becoming pregnant from a summer fling with a sailor who eventually went to sea, never to be seen again. Their names meant 'saintly' and 'messenger'. They were naturally amiable and sensitive children, as their psychic gift made them high-empathy, yet they were quickly hardened by a tough childhood. Lying in bed at night, they had simple dreams of having their needs met and not going to bed hungry. Those would eventually be realized, but so much later.
When the twins were middle school aged, their mother became properly married. The stepfather, -not wanting to raise another man's sons- pawned them off as child soldiers to the Unione Corse. That's part of IDW lore. Just think....boys today worry about having the right $80 NIKE backpack to take to Soy Boy Prep. Tomax and Xamot had to haul heavy-as packs and shotguns as they marched through stinking jungles in third world shitholes. They would have first come to the attention of the Cabal at that point because all organized crime -from the mafia to the drug gangs- would all be compromised and used to provide Cabal shock troops. The twins would have been seen as extraordinary right away, as their talents both physical and mental would be difficult to hide. They would have been watched and had people planted in their lives who would groom them to become future Cabal assets. From an early age, 'loyalty to family above all else' would be drilled into their heads, with the 'family' being whomever wanted to control them. That's why they'd later be known as the 'most loyal members of Cobra'. Brain-washing like that would be difficult to shake.
-But shake it they would, and in Cabal AU, one could use Cabal retaliation to explain every bad thing that happened to them in various continuities, from them disappearing a few episodes into the second season of ARAH, to Xamot getting killed in the IDW series, to the temple of the Brothers of Light being destroyed.. They'd be wild-cards, able to communicate through wordless telepathy, thoughts unable to be spied upon. At times, they'd make attempts to break away.
The black suit/white suit IDW version of the twins would fit into this head canon well, tragedy and all. In the Cobra Special, Tomax talked about being a willing slave, whereas Xamot had a desire to be free. That sentiment would later get Xamot killed, and Tomax was well aware of the danger, which is why he told him to stop acting out like a child or else they might both get killed. Both had to know they were pawns in something so big it was all but impossible to push back against. After all...look what happened to their acquaintance, Qaddafi. He lived in isolation, then was later sodomized and beaten to death -along with his whole family down to grandchildren- for having the gall to try and put Libya on a pan-African gold-backed currency, competing with the world bank. In that continuity, however, Tomax was spared and was able to function on....a trash human being who at the very least was grateful for what he had been given. He was punished -locked up in prison for a time- but he got the message. One interesting point was that when he planned on mixing poison paint chips with his food, he talked about his brother's lack of time preference. Even though they were both completely nuts, Tomax was the more forward-thinking, apparently..
I'd imagine that because the ARAH Cobra Commander is so ridiculous and campy in both the cartoon and comic, the twins would have been tricked into feeling beholden to him. It wasn't the well-oiled machinery of the Cabal that eased their permanent residencies through without the usual hassle or made wealth seem to drop in their laps like magic...no it must have been from working for Cobra and taken under the Commander's wing. -Plus they might empathize with him a bit. After all, he came from nothing as well. He was but a used car salesman until the oppressive government got his brother killed in a needless war. Now he has devoted his life to taking it down, although after the twins see how much of a clown he is, they've got it in their heads to 'take control for his own good' if they ever come close to actual world conquest. After all...CC might be like a father to them, but he's a father who's going senile and is obviously crazy af. CC is barely fit to run a hotdog stand, whereas they are brilliant and able to rise to become CEOs of a major corporation.
Perhaps the architects (((them)))selves would take a special interest in Tomax and Xamot because of their psychic abilities. Larry Hama meant for the world of G.I. Joe to be a down-to-earth military drama and was perturbed when the twins were created as a gimmick. -So lets assume that ESP is either very rare or thought to be non-existent in that world. (((They))) might not know what to do with the twins because they don't reach their full potential as Cabal assets, just as the other few characters with paranormal abilities have an easier go of it. Zartan and the Cobra La freaks are all suitably ruthless and misanthropic. Tomax and Xamot, on the other hand, don't have it in them to kick puppies, torture children or execute servicemen. When their associate Destro nonchalantly expressed a plan to leave the crew of an abandoned submarine to die, they got visibly uncomfortable and weak in the knees.
-So while (((they))) had their hands up at a loss of what to do with them, the twins spent their days in endless fuckery posing as social justice. They financed all kinds of weird shit, such as recreating the dinosaurs, making mermaids and growing giant vegetables in downtown Chicago, awfully damn close to Wrigley field. At times, they'd be guilty of true acts of villainy, such as destroying currency, blocking out the sun, interfering with elections or tricking a whole state to letting them take over by virtue of possessing a certain jeweled cup. All the while, (((they))) would make certain the twins were as untouchable as Hillary with her emails and phony Russian dossier or Obama's lawless justice department.
Sometimes the twins would be downright DUMB, such as the time they set up surveillance stations as big, obvious red rockets doubling as WMDs sitting on top of gaudy fast food joints. Granted, it was the eighties, but even then...surely the technology was set up to make spying a lot more subtle. Naturally, they'd have people constantly watching them, but they might chalk it up to their celebrity status. After all, if it was Deep State government entities keep tabs, then they would have been pinched long ago for their misdeeds.
Oh, and because I have to put this in everything, lets assume Tomax and Xamot weren't blackmailable. The most obvious thing to have on them would be their habit of banging each other. They'd have to come clean on that right away, and they'd have a reasonable cop-out for it. They might say that their shared physical sensations made intimacy complicated. The nature of their psychic connection made everything a shared experience, and they were forced to become accustomed to it...whether they liked it or not. It was either that, or abstain, and though their dear mother would have liked for them to become priests, it wasn't in their nature..sensual high-T men as they were.
Another thing someone could have had over them was threatening the one with harm to the other. That wouldn't have worked because the potential survivor might threaten instant suicide. Letting the world know how vulnerable they were through their psychic bond was a lesser evil than being perceived as incestuous sickos. :-D
If the Renegades continuity was infected by the Cabal, then I could only assume the Brothers of Light were given the biggest fixed lottery of all time. Their powers of hypnosis were so profound that (((they))) figured they'd either need to be killed or kept contained, as the twins had the potential to set the world on fire and become serious competition. The latter happened, possibly so they could be studied to find out the genetic source of their abilities, as (((they))) might have a desire to work it into (((their))) bloodlines. A cabalistic symbol features prominently in their compound...the eye in the pyramid. All of their idols are holding it up, and they have it on their forked staffs.
-So The Brothers of Light would live in the lap of luxury. To prevent from becoming so fat they could hardly move, they'd have to have been on a strict regimen of extreme fasting and being on their feet making the rounds of their domain, possibly even working alongside the laborers to stay fit. Behind the scenes, a team of geneticists would be working on isolating the gene that explains their ESP. I'm sure they'd be easy people to get DNA samples from (in all continuities), and I only mean it in the grossest way. Maybe the scientists would know almost everything about them but the why. They'd be able to, say, narrow down the race and nationality of their unknown father by comparing their DNA to that of their mother.
I head canon that, while the female disciples would be mostly genuinely impressed by them, the male ones would be mostly not. Many would be spies sent to watch the BoL and report back to Cabal, especially if one of their many children ended up inheriting their psychic gift. The twins would get a sense of it deep down -because they can read minds- and they'd chalk it up to the government having to watch them because of their unique situation. They'd feel they'd have to put up with it to be left in peace and to prevent another Waco incident. Maybe they'd get unsettled when trying to have a conversation with one of the males to bond, because after all, they'd be like one big family isolated in the middle of nowhere. -But then they'd get hurt feelings when the guy would converse with them woodenly and be thinking, I've been told not to be friends with them.. Fortunately, they have a nifty mental trick to bypass that.
Enter Mindbender and the Joes where everything falls apart. Funny how a scientist like MB would be sure of the existence of psychics, whereas his boss would believe it nonsense and chastise him for wasting time and resources. I head canon it's because MB has some ability himself and keeps it secret. He uses it in his work creating the biovipers, but after a time, it gets painful using the helmets. Even with the chips and cattle prod thingie, BVs are dangerous and difficult to control. He might have approached the twins in good faith at first, seeking to bring in another psychic to help. When the twins double cross him, he takes it EXTREMELY badly, LOL!
When the twins escape and are in the wind talking about 'spreading their influence through telecommunications', the Cabal would have had to pull them aside and have a talk with them. Back in 2011 when this came out, the Fake News Media had no competition from wannabe God Emperors. Imagine their shock when five years later, The Donald would get elected, even though the fix was supposed to be in. Anyway, I already wrote that fan fiction when I created psychic mentor OCs. They'd obviously be Cabal agents tasked with reining them in.
They were born Neven (Tomax) and Renner (Xamot) Andreani in the Corsican countryside. Their mother was exiled by her family after becoming pregnant from a summer fling with a sailor who eventually went to sea, never to be seen again. Their names meant 'saintly' and 'messenger'. They were naturally amiable and sensitive children, as their psychic gift made them high-empathy, yet they were quickly hardened by a tough childhood. Lying in bed at night, they had simple dreams of having their needs met and not going to bed hungry. Those would eventually be realized, but so much later.
When the twins were middle school aged, their mother became properly married. The stepfather, -not wanting to raise another man's sons- pawned them off as child soldiers to the Unione Corse. That's part of IDW lore. Just think....boys today worry about having the right $80 NIKE backpack to take to Soy Boy Prep. Tomax and Xamot had to haul heavy-as packs and shotguns as they marched through stinking jungles in third world shitholes. They would have first come to the attention of the Cabal at that point because all organized crime -from the mafia to the drug gangs- would all be compromised and used to provide Cabal shock troops. The twins would have been seen as extraordinary right away, as their talents both physical and mental would be difficult to hide. They would have been watched and had people planted in their lives who would groom them to become future Cabal assets. From an early age, 'loyalty to family above all else' would be drilled into their heads, with the 'family' being whomever wanted to control them. That's why they'd later be known as the 'most loyal members of Cobra'. Brain-washing like that would be difficult to shake.
-But shake it they would, and in Cabal AU, one could use Cabal retaliation to explain every bad thing that happened to them in various continuities, from them disappearing a few episodes into the second season of ARAH, to Xamot getting killed in the IDW series, to the temple of the Brothers of Light being destroyed.. They'd be wild-cards, able to communicate through wordless telepathy, thoughts unable to be spied upon. At times, they'd make attempts to break away.
The black suit/white suit IDW version of the twins would fit into this head canon well, tragedy and all. In the Cobra Special, Tomax talked about being a willing slave, whereas Xamot had a desire to be free. That sentiment would later get Xamot killed, and Tomax was well aware of the danger, which is why he told him to stop acting out like a child or else they might both get killed. Both had to know they were pawns in something so big it was all but impossible to push back against. After all...look what happened to their acquaintance, Qaddafi. He lived in isolation, then was later sodomized and beaten to death -along with his whole family down to grandchildren- for having the gall to try and put Libya on a pan-African gold-backed currency, competing with the world bank. In that continuity, however, Tomax was spared and was able to function on....a trash human being who at the very least was grateful for what he had been given. He was punished -locked up in prison for a time- but he got the message. One interesting point was that when he planned on mixing poison paint chips with his food, he talked about his brother's lack of time preference. Even though they were both completely nuts, Tomax was the more forward-thinking, apparently..
I'd imagine that because the ARAH Cobra Commander is so ridiculous and campy in both the cartoon and comic, the twins would have been tricked into feeling beholden to him. It wasn't the well-oiled machinery of the Cabal that eased their permanent residencies through without the usual hassle or made wealth seem to drop in their laps like magic...no it must have been from working for Cobra and taken under the Commander's wing. -Plus they might empathize with him a bit. After all, he came from nothing as well. He was but a used car salesman until the oppressive government got his brother killed in a needless war. Now he has devoted his life to taking it down, although after the twins see how much of a clown he is, they've got it in their heads to 'take control for his own good' if they ever come close to actual world conquest. After all...CC might be like a father to them, but he's a father who's going senile and is obviously crazy af. CC is barely fit to run a hotdog stand, whereas they are brilliant and able to rise to become CEOs of a major corporation.
Perhaps the architects (((them)))selves would take a special interest in Tomax and Xamot because of their psychic abilities. Larry Hama meant for the world of G.I. Joe to be a down-to-earth military drama and was perturbed when the twins were created as a gimmick. -So lets assume that ESP is either very rare or thought to be non-existent in that world. (((They))) might not know what to do with the twins because they don't reach their full potential as Cabal assets, just as the other few characters with paranormal abilities have an easier go of it. Zartan and the Cobra La freaks are all suitably ruthless and misanthropic. Tomax and Xamot, on the other hand, don't have it in them to kick puppies, torture children or execute servicemen. When their associate Destro nonchalantly expressed a plan to leave the crew of an abandoned submarine to die, they got visibly uncomfortable and weak in the knees.
-So while (((they))) had their hands up at a loss of what to do with them, the twins spent their days in endless fuckery posing as social justice. They financed all kinds of weird shit, such as recreating the dinosaurs, making mermaids and growing giant vegetables in downtown Chicago, awfully damn close to Wrigley field. At times, they'd be guilty of true acts of villainy, such as destroying currency, blocking out the sun, interfering with elections or tricking a whole state to letting them take over by virtue of possessing a certain jeweled cup. All the while, (((they))) would make certain the twins were as untouchable as Hillary with her emails and phony Russian dossier or Obama's lawless justice department.
Sometimes the twins would be downright DUMB, such as the time they set up surveillance stations as big, obvious red rockets doubling as WMDs sitting on top of gaudy fast food joints. Granted, it was the eighties, but even then...surely the technology was set up to make spying a lot more subtle. Naturally, they'd have people constantly watching them, but they might chalk it up to their celebrity status. After all, if it was Deep State government entities keep tabs, then they would have been pinched long ago for their misdeeds.
Oh, and because I have to put this in everything, lets assume Tomax and Xamot weren't blackmailable. The most obvious thing to have on them would be their habit of banging each other. They'd have to come clean on that right away, and they'd have a reasonable cop-out for it. They might say that their shared physical sensations made intimacy complicated. The nature of their psychic connection made everything a shared experience, and they were forced to become accustomed to it...whether they liked it or not. It was either that, or abstain, and though their dear mother would have liked for them to become priests, it wasn't in their nature..sensual high-T men as they were.
Another thing someone could have had over them was threatening the one with harm to the other. That wouldn't have worked because the potential survivor might threaten instant suicide. Letting the world know how vulnerable they were through their psychic bond was a lesser evil than being perceived as incestuous sickos. :-D
If the Renegades continuity was infected by the Cabal, then I could only assume the Brothers of Light were given the biggest fixed lottery of all time. Their powers of hypnosis were so profound that (((they))) figured they'd either need to be killed or kept contained, as the twins had the potential to set the world on fire and become serious competition. The latter happened, possibly so they could be studied to find out the genetic source of their abilities, as (((they))) might have a desire to work it into (((their))) bloodlines. A cabalistic symbol features prominently in their compound...the eye in the pyramid. All of their idols are holding it up, and they have it on their forked staffs.
-So The Brothers of Light would live in the lap of luxury. To prevent from becoming so fat they could hardly move, they'd have to have been on a strict regimen of extreme fasting and being on their feet making the rounds of their domain, possibly even working alongside the laborers to stay fit. Behind the scenes, a team of geneticists would be working on isolating the gene that explains their ESP. I'm sure they'd be easy people to get DNA samples from (in all continuities), and I only mean it in the grossest way. Maybe the scientists would know almost everything about them but the why. They'd be able to, say, narrow down the race and nationality of their unknown father by comparing their DNA to that of their mother.
I head canon that, while the female disciples would be mostly genuinely impressed by them, the male ones would be mostly not. Many would be spies sent to watch the BoL and report back to Cabal, especially if one of their many children ended up inheriting their psychic gift. The twins would get a sense of it deep down -because they can read minds- and they'd chalk it up to the government having to watch them because of their unique situation. They'd feel they'd have to put up with it to be left in peace and to prevent another Waco incident. Maybe they'd get unsettled when trying to have a conversation with one of the males to bond, because after all, they'd be like one big family isolated in the middle of nowhere. -But then they'd get hurt feelings when the guy would converse with them woodenly and be thinking, I've been told not to be friends with them.. Fortunately, they have a nifty mental trick to bypass that.
Enter Mindbender and the Joes where everything falls apart. Funny how a scientist like MB would be sure of the existence of psychics, whereas his boss would believe it nonsense and chastise him for wasting time and resources. I head canon it's because MB has some ability himself and keeps it secret. He uses it in his work creating the biovipers, but after a time, it gets painful using the helmets. Even with the chips and cattle prod thingie, BVs are dangerous and difficult to control. He might have approached the twins in good faith at first, seeking to bring in another psychic to help. When the twins double cross him, he takes it EXTREMELY badly, LOL!
When the twins escape and are in the wind talking about 'spreading their influence through telecommunications', the Cabal would have had to pull them aside and have a talk with them. Back in 2011 when this came out, the Fake News Media had no competition from wannabe God Emperors. Imagine their shock when five years later, The Donald would get elected, even though the fix was supposed to be in. Anyway, I already wrote that fan fiction when I created psychic mentor OCs. They'd obviously be Cabal agents tasked with reining them in.