Name: Gunnery Sergeant Charlie Hicks

Gender: Male, straight

Age/DOB: 22@ Invasion (RY 6)

Origin: Rookery Earth, Texas

Family: currently only the HECU remnants

Other: not particularly looking for a partner but hey if someone shows interest he's not stupid...

Height: 5'9"

Weight: burly 190 and all musle

Hair: dark brown, thick and straight, kept short and usually under a helmet or protective gear

Eyes: dark brown, always behind goggles as shown unless it's down-time, and you can definitely see the tan lines around those goggles on his skin

Appearance: tan skin from lots of time in the Texas sun as a kid, though he's still a white guy under all that grunge; heavy body and facial hair, keeps a minor amount of it in a tight goatee, shaves with a knife; he is a ball of muscle and anger issues, and looks every ounce of it; always smoking, somehow he keeps finding cigarettes even though he is well aware of the dangers of both smoking and smoking near his 'trade'; his voice is likewise gritty as hell from this, and healers have told him to stop...

Genetic Abilities: none known

Icarus Processing: none, wouldn't really benefit though he doesn't have any negative markers

Image Credits: Valve, Gearbox

Skills or Profession: Engineer and Demolitions expert with the military, also knows a decent amount of chemistry and physics; loves target shooting, but enjoys tossing explosives as well; he's the guy you want to be making those grenades and molotovs, because he knows that everyone wants to keep all their fingers. Before his uncle's demise, that uncle would show off how few of his fingers were still intact, thanks to every 4th of July celebration and some back-yard experimentation...
Personality: he officially has Had It with the Combine. He wants nothing more than to see them destroyed, not just run off from his world, but absolutely wrecked. Everything about him is play-hard go-hard die-hard. He is receptive to command and respects Paxton's orders, and keeps a good head on his shoulders. He won't endanger others with antics, as he's convinced that he became an orphan because of that idiot uncle of his doing stupid shit at the refinery
Events or History: orphaned due to an oil refinery explosion that killed his father and uncle, but old enough to fend for himself rather than rely on the shaky child services of the area, and entered military training at 17. Spent a lot of time working with the crew before they headed over to Black Mesa for their 'final' duties, and escaped being killed by aliens, explosions, black-ops, and the nuke. Finally picked up by the Rookery folk and Acy enjoys his company on their deployment among the ruins and Cities near the Rookery.

Dragon

Name: Acetylene "Acy"
Gender: Female
Size/Shoulder/Length: medium-large (bulky) 11'6" s / 60' l / 100' ws
Colors: caramel tan belly from jaw to tail end; dusty brown face, neck, forelimbs; deep brown with tan and black speckles on face, neck, back, shoulders, wing arms and fingers, and hind legs, over tail; red-brown armor and trim; wingsails brilliantly yellow through orange with soot and bright yellow-white speckling; horns, spine ridges, claws red-brown with bright orange speckling; eyes blue
Features: standard Mudwing in appearance, but clearly has more than just that in her lineage given her abilities and the fancy coloring on her wings
Powers: Winged Flight, able to fly with surprising speed and grace, Acy uses her incredible heat to keep aloft where other dragons of her bulk or configuration would suffer. She can't stay in the air for a very long period, but definitely reaches her top speeds rapidly, and turns on a dime once she's going. She also lands with hardly a thud, somehow - a form of levitation or cushioning with the heat more than likely
Verbal Speech, Acy is gruff but has a good grasp on both Draconic and English, and has picked up a sprinkling of whatever her rider's colorful language might include, usually cursing in Spanish or German
Not Quite Firescales, the sprinkling of brightness along most of her armor and wingsails is there for a reason, clearly at some point fairly recently in her lineage there was a Firescales and likely a Skywing with those colors. They do not burn nor do they harm her rider, but she has a remarkably strong amount of inherent heat and can be relied upon to warm an area up, or even lay a trail for fliers to follow in the form of warm updrafts and a gentle heat current. She leads troops on quiet wings, they benefit from being in her wake as they all don't have to flap nearly as much and can soar on that warm air to go in silently to a battle. She is strongly resistant to all forms of heat based injury, including plasma weapons, they basically bounce or are absorbed by her wings if she puts them up as a shield. Which she often does: because her rider is an Engineer and Demolitions man!
Flame Breath, she can adapt her fire breath to a narrow laser-like beam that lives up to her name at close range, snipe with 'burning bullets' at up to 2km away (!), and generally burn the fuck out of everything in her way. Since she is immune to fire and heat, she protects her rider and anyone around from the explosives that he plants, and can mantle a large group of people and even dragons to keep them safe when the fires start
Parentage: Unknown Mudwings, with a Firescales Skywing likely grandparent
Origin: Adopted from Synthwave Terror on Deviantart, WoF by Tui Sutherland
Other Info: Acy truly does love saving the day, and leading folks into battle, though she knows they are more the 'setup' crew than the true combatants. She will protect her rider from Combine laser fire as he's planting bombs, and the rest of the team is moving into place. Acetylene also does like the thought of hooking up with some other handsome dragon and it's likely that sparkling firescales dragons will populate the Rookery at some point