Name: Mel(l)

Gender: Female, straight

Age/DOB: ~36/1918 (!!) preserved in 1952, reawakened in 20xx, put back in stasis until 2030s

Origin: Rookery Earth, USA, unknown location; preserved and currently residing in the North Aperture Enrichment Center testing facility

Family: Unknown presumably deceased; currently being evaluated for compatibility with Pantheon

Other: While she and the Ells have some bits in common, she's actually not related to them on Repurposed Earth; however she might be related in some way to the Color Guard, since her dna has been on file at that facility the entire time, and being from the same dimension helps... It's no coincidence that different worlds still have ladies with ell in their name at this facility.

Height: 5'8"

Weight: 140, muscular and very well toned even after 'relaxation vault' storage; highly athletic, strong, and confidently agile

Hair: Dark red, straight, somewhat stringy, kept to mid-back in a pony tail or barettes

Eyes: Medium brown, still looks a little confused, wide-eyed; once normalized to the events and areas and dragons, they'll go a little less crazy looking. Maybe.

Appearance: Fair to sallow skin with a number of moles and beautymarks, her eyebrows grow naturally that perfect, though she still scrambles for any lipstick, anything for some normalcy in this unwashed place; still likes to wear the old-school Aperture test subject gear, as shown, in a goldenrod and orange, brown booted color scheme. She speaks rarely, with a bit of a scratchy voice, and she tends to use older terms for things that have modern equivalents, and likes making up new words for things she doesn't have experience with (fancy-dancy heaty-eaty box... that my friends, is a 'microwave')

Icarus Processing: Yes, around a year after being revived again with the Rookery's exploration and the Color Guard fleshing out the Michigan EC; she has a notable improvement in strength, and likely a slight decrease in weight, though this remains to be put into practice, she's still essentially fresh out of the Icarus application vat

Image Credits: Prism Studio (Portal Stories: Mel) / Valve (portal gun)

Genetic Abilities: Most of Mell's enhanced abilities stem from her already impressive natural gymnast and athletic predispositions. She is flexible to a degree unseen outside of ragdoll physics in video games, literally always lands on her feet (with greater or lesser need for those 'long fall springs'), and can nearly climb walls with her hands and feet. Also her speed has been radically improved, though she's just starting to get the hang of it as it grows stronger. She will likely wind up being around 3x as fast as a normal person, and as indicated above when the full benefits of Icarus processing finally show, will be more than 2x stronger. She is already nearly impervious to pain or most damage, but she is incredibly weak to toxic waste or other unusual substances (radioactive water, basically anything that lines the floors in Testing Spheres ... or is sitting around near Combine habitation) and will collapse quickly with exposure. She prefers places with natural water and air sources for that reason. She does not exhibit any telepathic or empathic power, however she does seem to be able to sense Vortal auras of useful items or locations, pathing for her is very easy.
Skills or Profession: Once she was an Olympic athlete, after having a Silver medal level performance - medal stripped because of unusual tampering accusations she was never really clear about - she entered the Aperture Science community as a testing subject. While her performance in gymnastics wasn't quite enough to get onto the team in that sport, her track and field expertise nabbed her the top spot, and that was meaningful back in those days. Almost all of her professional and hobby time has been dedicated to sports of some kind. She was doing parkour decades before the wild 90s and stunt tricks became popular, no one had a name for it back then! As she is a product of literally another era, Mell is also adept at most home-life chores, housekeeping and the like. Things that the ELLs of the other dimensions are doing their entire lives. While Mell is good on a team sport like softball or pairs tennis, she's far better either at the head of that team (the anchor in a relay) or working solely against herself in time trials, speed runs, or any other performance sport. She can take orders, and understand rules implictly when learning about a new game or sport, and she applies this knowledge to learning how this weird new world she's in works. She does prefer to work out the rules if they're not obvious, on her own and without being condescended to.
Personality: Strong willed and a bit self-important, Mell is a self-starter and a self-admirer, but with good reason. Everyone else's eyes are on her too. Though compared to many in the Pantheon she doesn't have the flashy powers or doo-dah (in her words) she is right there on the front lines for strong, durable, and speedy folk. Mell is not much of an intellectual, but she knows a good deal when she sees it, and tries her best when presented with puzzles or conflict. She uses tactics well, she plays to win.
Events or History: Though it's not entirely clear when things went sideways for Mell, she started out a noted athlete and participated in the Neuremburg Olympics in the 30s... the 1930s that is. (And yes, you read that right, they weren't in Berlin... wacky worlds with different histories!) There was likely a scandal, and while she herself performed absolutely well enough and without assistance to earn a Silver medal in the Decalthalon, it was stripped from her for reasons which have been lost to history. Even she didn't understand it, very likely because it was all manufactured by the Fascists to discredit American teams. But after that point, rather than merely resting and accepting this fate, she pursued more awards. If she couldn't have an Olympic medal, she'd have something. This brought her to the attention of Aperture's recruiting department, and she wound up in the testing system for the end of the 40s and into the 1950s. The last thing she was supposed to be testing was this 'relaxation vault' thing, and then... basically... everything changed? Though she had been awakened in the 2010s by GLaDOS or ... something? She was put back in and awakened again only when the Color Guard and Pantheon discovered the vaults in Shaft 9. Protected thoroughly from the ravages of time, by a considerably stronger storage chamber than most, she has emerged into the post-Invasion world above... And really hates it. She's dealing with it okay, and understands what happened, but she does not have to like it.
She and Silver are becoming pretty decent friends - Silver's knowledge of the Repurposed world's sports statistics and events, coupled with Mell's inside angle mean that they have a lot to talk about indeed. (Silver is trying to get someone to shape a bobblehead toy in her likeness!) They often connect on screen and arrange girls-night-outings. Mell still resides in the North Aperture facility, in a reformatted version of her own Relaxation vault, down in Shaft 9/Sphere 9.

Dragon

Name: Echo
Gender: Male
Size/Shoulder/Length: Medium-Small 7'6" shoulder / 28' l / 45' ws, long and skinny in most dimensions, nose to butt is same length as tail
Colors: Minty aqua green with sharp contrast in shadow to a darker mint, legs base color fades to a snowy-green white, face has tiny freckles of deep green/black, with crescent and dots mark in faded green, tips of ears spotty, neck and body a mixture of large and tiny spots in black/dark green, with crescent and dots repeating on fore and hind limb joint, legs have tiny speckles of medium green, and tail is strong green thin stripes; backs of wings are mint with markings, spots of bright green and black occasionally inset; under sail however is vibrantly metallic purple, with a faded purple skin on limb and fingers, sails have tiny specks of black, with some number of larger almost moving tadpole-shaped marks (might this dragon be partly Nightwing?); mane blue-violet metallic; horns strong to medium green fade; all claws are charcoal; eyes are violet red
Features: four long slender legs with paws bearing four digits, ending in curved claws; two leathery wings with four visible fingers and a prominent wrist thumb, thumb only has large claw; skin is velvety very short fur (is not reptilian in any way), with silky mane of longer fur on top of head and down neck in strip; face is long and boxy with camel-like nostrils, external ears, and two sharp back pointing segmented horns; tail is very slender and long, whip-like
Powers: Winged Flight, Echo is a strong flier, and though he can maneuver fairly well when he's flying forward he doesn't have a lot of detailed motion range - he will whip his tail around a lot while trying to corner or do close-range movement, so it's best to just wind him up and let him fly somewhere directly. He looks like a total dork doing this, and doesn't care for performances in front of people, where he has to do it at all. Speed past on a track or in a straight race? Absolutely! Put objects into holes or land on a dime? Nope!
Communication, while Echo is able to speak in many mimicked languages, he can only properly speak English and Draconic, and some amount of Vortigese. He can produce virtually any sound, however, which seems to be a Vortal power and not just his physical ability. Additionally, he can recall up to ten minutes worth of whatever sounds he concentrates on nearby, and can repeat them exactly as heard; this includes radio chatter, static, bird calls, or speech. He doesn't pretend he understands all of these things, just that he can store and repeat until the next time he stores it again.
Noise Attack, because of this power however, he can use it to produce stunningly loud sounds, high or low frequency noises such as sirens or screams, or a literal wall of sound that can blow things off their feet at short range. He's been told that he might be able to functionally use this power as a fine maniulator tool, while flying, but has yet to figure out how to make sounds come out of his butt to keep his tail stable enough to prove it. The louder and broader a cone of sound he makes, the more energy it takes, and the range is limited by its cone. So he can knock a Combine soldier down at 10 meters, but put a dime-sized hole through flesh at 200 meters. Now we have to work on accuracy. That's what Mell and her portal gun is for though! Because though it's not shown, Echo has a specialized visor that gives him basically a Heads-Up Display - actually a portal tuned specifically to Mell's gun's alt-fire - that she can use to give him a visual on something quite distant. Provided he can see it in his crosshairs, as well as physically be within 200 meters line of sight, that shot will hit.
Parentage: Unknown breed, same type as Devotion and Silo
Origin: Adopted from Ghost-Flare on Deviantart
Other Info: Between the two of them, Echo and Mell are able to traverse the weirdest places in the Enrichment Center's spheres, as well as Combine-held cities. Their unique form of 'sniping' has others wondering how well their own dragon friend would take to this sort of targeting? Of course this pair make a game of it, and Echo also plays to win...