Mike & Dave

Mike & Dave are a pair of hapless soldiers who have had minor encounters with the Claws of the Phoenix and Niflheim.

Biography
Mike and Dave are two adult human men who seem to be shackled together through whatever misfortune faces them. Their appearance is unknown because their faces are always obscured by masks or helmets that relate to their occupations. Their relation to each other is also unclear: Dave once said that their story began when he and Mike were born in Albuquerque, 1984, but Mike replied with "Sometimes I think you forget I'm not your brother. We're not even from the same state!", so this is disputed.

Mike presents himself as the serious voice of reason out of the two and is often cynical and miserable due to the unfortunate circumstances he often finds himself in. He blames Dave for much of their misfortunate and even once considered "telling Dave to look out towards the stars and think about a rabbit farm as he put him out of his misery", but was forced to admit that he is often no more responsible for their misfortune than Dave is. Despite this, Mike still follows Dave from job to job and tries his hardest to keep his partner in crime out of trouble.

Dave is a lighthearted and enthusiastic individual who is determined to see the best in everyone and every situation, despite the fact that this naive attitude often backfires. He is less knowledgeable about the universe than Mike is: he argues with Mike about established facts and often chooses to believe outlandish conspiracy theories over the obvious truth, but is always prepared to give people the benefit of the doubt for better or for worse.

Desert Patrol
In 150,084 CMT, Mike and Dave worked for an unidentified faction that monitored the exit point of the Island in Tunisia. When D-Klak appeared at the exit point, Mike and Dave rode to his location on horseback, dismounted, and ordered him to identify himself. D-Klak replied by telling Mike and Dave that his name was Klak and drew his gunblade in case they were hostile. Mike was more amazed that D-Klak appeared to be speaking English in an Arabic country than the fact he was an alien, but dismissed the thought and ordered D-Klak to surrender his weapon. Instead, D-Klak encouraged them to lower theirs because he was on a mission to save the universe. To Mike's chagrin, Dave decided to trust D-Klak because "stranger things [had] happened", so both sides disarmed themselves and D-Klak took the opportunity to ask if he was still in 2015 AD. Mike replied that it was and that the year had "gotten off to a bad start", which prompted Dave to comment that it wasn't so bad because there had been an "epic concert" on Tybion which ended with a "super realistic" battle. Mike quickly diverted their conversation back to the events at hand, so D-Klak explained that he had been teleported to Tunisia in his mission to stop an evil wizard from rewriting history.

Mike and Dave then remembered that they had orders to shoot whoever appeared at the spot that D-Klak had appeared at, but decided to let D-Klak live because he seemed like a "pretty nice guy". In fact, Dave declared that he would help D-Klak escape back to his homeworld by smuggling him into their base of operations and allowing him access to their Stargate. Mike tried to discourage Dave, but was interrupted by the appearance of a spatial tear that Quolas, Kakamu, Nadle, and Bob emerged from. The aliens introduced themselves and asked Mike and Dave if they knew where to find a spaceship - they did not, but Dave restated the idea that he could take them back to the camp so that the aliens could use their Stargate. Mike was vehemently opposed to the idea because he didn't want to lose his job, but Dave went ahead and radioed base camp to inform them that they had found a group of aliens and would be bringing them back to base. Mike refused to go along with Dave's plan, so he stayed behind while Dave led the aliens back to their base camp.

Dave and his alien companions soon arrived at the camp and were authorized to enter. Kakamu asked one of the human scientists inside if he could use their Stargate, but he refused because he had no idea what the aliens' intentions were or who they might share their information with, which caused Kakamu to lose his temper and kill the scientist in order to forcibly take control of the Stargate. The camp's guards opened fire on the aliens while Dave fled.

The Mazkertis Paradox
Mike and Dave both lost their jobs as a result of their encounter with the Claws of the Phoenix, so they joined the ZFT for a chance to leave Earth (though it seems that Dave wanted to leave Earth because he became paranoid that there were "vampire death cults" out to get him). On Day 76 of The Mazkertis Paradox arc, Mike and Dave were assigned to Platform 068-D of Atuar Sadiares, a space station that had recently been occupied by the ZFT, and tasked with scanning and cataloguing new arrivals to the station. One of these first new arrivals was Niflheim, who stepped onto the platform with Captain Eurobeat to bid farewell to the eccentric captain. Mike asked them both to state their full name, place of origin, and business aboard the station for official record, but was distracted when Dave asked Nif if he was a vampire. Mike and Dave then got into an argument about whether or not vampires were real, which was brought to a halt when they both realized that Nif and Captain Eurobeat were still there. Mike begged Nif not to report their unprofessionalism to their seniors because they both needed the job; Nif agreed, but only if he was allowed to pass with no further questions. Mike accepted Nif's conditions without a second thought and stepped aside to let him enter the station.

At the end of their shift that day, Mike found a cache of equipment that he and Dave were supposed to have used to process new arrivals on their shift. He looked out into space despairingly as he realized his mistake and saw an impossible sight: Santa Claus on his sleigh, accompanied by GregF and FAAAK-Cupcake, who screamed a distorted version of "All I Want for Christmas Is You". Mike wasn't sure if the vision was a miracle or some kind of evil omen, but Dave was of the opinion that he had never heard anything so beautiful in his life.

Trivia

 * Mike & Dave were partially inspired by the protagonists of the Civil Protection machinima series as well as Tag and Bink from the Star Wars expanded universe.