Name: Plasmid
Gender: Female
Size/Shoulder/Length: Smallish, 7'6" s / 27' l / 50' ws
Colors: Overall royal blue, with the underbelly scales being alive with a light blue mixing with darker, constantly shifting; sides and limbs, along entire body and tail, is royal blue with small grey-blue dots, outlined scales of grey with lighter sky blue, and medium to light blue-green grey tinted spikes along dorsal ridge. Wings are patterned as a Silkwing's normally are, with faded cyan trailing edges, a liquid looking and constantly moving blue-green mixed with lighter blue, and mottled, speckled blue-green, grey-blue, and denim blue center spots; horns and antennae are medium blue, claws are blue-green, and eyes are light blue; note that all scaled areas including wingsails are variable, mostly remaining in the blue and green, grey, and white ranges however.
Features specific: Though most of her physical traits are standard Silkwing, Plasmid does have a unique almost-Rainwing style coloration on her scales, perhaps due to the age at which she and her brother were when they had been captured and experimented upon. Where he was meant to become a soldier, she was more supposed to be infiltrating and spying, and thus the color-changing properties of a raw Plasmid were infused into her. Her underbelly is most obviously able to shift in color, but she can also affect the rest of her scales to some extent.
Powers: Winged Flight, a much better flier than her brother, Plasmid is light and delicate in the air and can move haphazardly to avoid being shot at. She is not durable, however, and usually flits from building to building, latching on to the next area and going into hiding before emerging from another broken rooftop. She can carry a small amount of weight - normally designed for moving around 200 kilos at most - which is to say, "the amount a Combine soldier and their gear" might weigh.
Communication, though not as adept at speaking English, Plasmid can speak Draconic and Combine 'datastream' quite well, and hears their chatter from long distances. She cannot control connected machinery with her voice, but Manhacks and other small remote units can often be distracted or stunned as she sends conflicting orders to them.
Detection, with her antennae still unaffected by Combine treatments, Plasmid can detect faint scents and particles on the wind, sensing changes in the atmosphere, weather, or indeed the location of any upwind troops. She can do this at quite a distance, more than 2km easily, and is not distracted by dust or grit from the ruins.
Silk Production, her silk glands produce a glowing, thick and sticky substance, that actually more resembles antlion spit with string in it than anything on her homeworld. It begins to constrict as it dries, which is quick in the desert but less so in Rapture it being rather... moist there. Her bite is painful, but she more uses her claws to dig into anything snared in this sticky web.
Other Info: If there were any Little Sisters left to harvest Adam, or any of the prior century's scientists aside from Rhea there in Rapture to look at this dragon, they would be in awe over how much profitability they could get from siphoning her of her blood or goo. As it is, she does voluntarily donate both blood and whatever scales she loses directly to Rhea for observation and use - she knows that this is the only way that she and her brother can make up for their rescue.
Name: 'CP' short for 'Civil Protection', his intended designation is unknown
Gender: Male
Size/Shoulder/Length: Medium-small 8'6" s / 34' l / 56' ws
Colors: Vibrant blue base, greyish blue with mottled sky coloration on underside, strip of vibrant blue mottled with black along sides and wing sail tips, dorsal scales cobalt-navy grey blue, armor along dorsal would be sky to aqua in a dull shade, all of the body and limbs are mixed with bleached white, a process of the Combine treatment, wingsails in bold pattern with several shades of blue similar to body, speckled in a darker greyish-blue - wings are quite reflective; spikes and horns are sky blue with white fade, eyes are formerly vibrant blue, now grey
Features specific: Because CP has had the start of the 'Combine Conversion' process, his body has begun to change a bit. He is bigger than he used to be, by about 6" at the shoulder, it is unknown whether he'll continue to grow; his scales have lost their shine and are turning white and grey, but are considerably harder as armor than before; his head has remnants of the Processing clamps, meaning he has drill holes and an amount of Combine technology still lodged - though inert - in his brain. The process left his eyes clouded over, he is not blind, but since he did not complete the processing he also can't see very well. Unfortunately also, this left him unable to speak properly, only a kind of static hissing is heard.
Powers: Winged Flight, though with the stiffened scales it's a bit more difficult, CP is still a decent flier. He can lift off in place, and lands on a dime, and once he gets going he is hard to stop. His maneuverability however has taken the worst of it, so he usually would attempt a straight-line for flying, or even landing and reorienting, before taking off into another direction. Notably, he hates this.
Communication, as stated, his ability to communicate has been stunted strongly by partially-complete Combine technology. While he understands everything being said around him in English and Draconic, he cannot express himself very well. He does have the ability to easily decode Combine chatter, including signals to Scanners, Manhacks, and remote troops - using this knowledge he and his sister evaded those troops.
Silk Production, due to the alterations from the Combine, CP can still shoot out ... something from his silk glands in his wrists, but no one's really sure what it is. It is heavier than silk, and sticky - it much more greatly resembles a Barnacle tongue for its mass and effects. He can spit it out and then grasp the line of it, drawing whatever he's caught back to himself. He can bind things with it, wrapping a victim in coils of it at a distance, but he usually likes to drag things along until he can manipulate it with his own paws.
Other Info: If the remnant hardware in his brain can be accessed and modified, he might stand having cybernetics implanted to aid in his vision and other tasks such as communication
Origin: both adopted from Furrygamer2003 on Deviantart
CP was meant to be a trooper, muscle to burst through resistance lines and bring back goods, people, or just cause damage. As such his physical skills have been geared toward ground motion rather than flight, and he can, with the right assistance, scan an area to see physical weak points, choke areas, amubshes, and the like. If he had a Scanner with him, or perhaps a 'seeing eye drone' of some kind, this would be considerably easier for him to do. It's possible that the local Rapture mechanics will be able to fix something up for him in the meantime.
Plasmid as stated was meant to be an infiltration specialist, and her examinations of local areas include those same bits, but also where specifically she can get in and out of easily, to hide, or to store goods for later pickup by troops. She also has an eye for sniper nests, something her brother cannot hope to notice with his short distance vision.
CP is by nature quiet and introspective, though he doesn't hesitate to leap to the defense of anyone he deems worth protecting. He would make, as Rhea has told him, a "good" Big Daddy.
Plasmid is not 'shifty', instead being reclusive and occasionally quite loud and snippy. She doesn't like it when people speak for her, or her brother - only she's allowed to do that.
Eventually both of them might develop more deep personality traits, but they will for years be jumpy, cringy, and a bit scared of official-sounding people.
Neither of them responds to Paxton at all - they cannot hear his telepathic commands, perhaps because of their Combine interface preparations. He doesn't push it, after having seen how they might react.
Events or History: Several years ago, a beautiful blue Silkwing had heard tell of a strange new place that was to be a haven for those who didn't feel they fit in with others in their world. While she and her mate, a grey to slate blue Silkwing with a diminutive size and quiet voice, knew they wouldn't have the courage to go themselves, they determined that their children would benefit from this. They watched as a strange portal opened around a pair of hybrid Silk-Nights, and through it they saw a bizarre landscape so unlike their jungle home they had to take a chance. She moved her three eggs into proximity of that portal, and they fled when they'd covered the eggs, hearing a nearby Hivewing approaching.
The eggs remained untouched as they matured, and when the first of them hatched it was while the portal had opened, she tumbled out into the new world and found a friend in a Human male named Maa'lach. But that left the other two, which were not yet ready to hatch. The portal's destination seemed haphazard: Maa'lach and his friends were in an arid location, but the place that delivered these two later hatchlings was... Within the walls of a great structure. One which they both matched in color, to a certain extent. Surrounded by Combine soldiers, this pair knew nothing of the world, their fate was to be enslaved. They didn't know until much later, how similar their upbringing was, to that of their parents under the Hivewings' control on Pantala.
Since they were obviously growing, the Combine technicians couldn't install any equipment until they had matured. The pair had wing buds but no wings visible, until later on. CP's treatments for scale hardness had already begun when his metamorphosis occurred, making his wing sails shiny and highly reflective, if a bit more brittle than his sister's.
They were drilled and controlled by Combine Overwatch and Advisors, but they never quite understood what the fuss was even about. They had yet to be placed near other Humans, their companions were mainly fully converted soldiers, Stalkers, and other Synths.
Eventually, however, the pair were sent out
into the City nearby, to quell a small uprising. After their initial success with rounding up the Humans, they started hearing talk from those two-legged creatures: why were Silkwings fighting for the Combine? What were dragons doing here? They questioned it quietly to each other, in what was their native tongue. On asking one of those captive Humans about this, they learned that dragons had not been native to this world at all, and their specific breed had been seen here and there with rebels. They were fit to help the rebellion! When they realized that they'd been captured and mistreated, the Humans suggested that perhaps... they find their way out of the city, and look for a specific orange spray-painted logo... the Lambda symbol. That of the Resistance itself.
So within a few weeks of their first encounter with the Rebels, CP and Plasmid did just that. It took a couple more patrols before Plasmid spotted that same logo, tucked away in an underpass with what looked like a warehouse nearby. They used an explosion as a distraction, and darted away into the dusty rubble of the freeway nearest it. Since both of them were able to hide in plain sight - CP with the white marked hide and a cover of dust over his brilliant wings, and Plasmid because she could control her own coloration by this time - they made their way below the freeway and hid in that warehouse. Neither of them had a clue that CP's skull had been fitted with tracking devices, so when Combine troops showed up over head, they panicked and would certainly have been gunned down...
Except that the man that they'd talked to was Roman, he and his wife Julie were captured, but they had access to telepathic dragons. They requested aid, and were rescued by other dragon-riding heroes! CP and Plasmid didn't even realize this, they'd been moved out of the holding area shortly after that discussion. Having anticipated the need to find those Silkwings, other dragon riders had been on patrol distantly. Combine troops moving in on one of their Safehouses was a sure sign they had to act anyway - what they found inside this warehouse was the pair of terrified young Silkwings, abused and in need of aid.
First off, their Combine implants had to be disabled, which was possible thanks to the metal shaping of Jared and his son Gerard. It has been an ongoing process to remove the bolted-on gear that the Combine put onto them. But next, they had to find a good place to hide these dragons. After all, the Combine weren't going to just let them leave. The large Sand-Nightwing hybrid that Jared befriended helped shelter them while they sought freedom, Gerard's lithe and beautiful four-winged drak kept the Combine distracted. Of course, then the dragon troops arrived to actually fight back, brightly colored Skywings and hybrids clearly related to them, a family of orange and brown highly destructive dragons swept over the Combine and absolutely wiped them out. Once they were done, the drak Sareuz mustered all his effort and teleported them away. This was something entirely outside their experience before that point, and both siblings passed out from the surprise. Of course, so did Sareuz, but from the effort.
On arriving to the Black Mesa Rookery 'observation hall', a spot where any freshly-arrived dragons might collect their wits - as well as be observed and scanned for any untoward and unwanted extras - they were immediately quarantined due to their Combine attachments. Though the transmitter was disabled, it would have to be completely removed and destroyed before anything else could be done with them. Over the next few days, the pair was slowly coaxed out of their huddle, and given the care they so badly needed - and the kindness they deserved. They couldn't help but respond with jumping and head-bowed obeyance, and the other dragons from their world instantly recognized this.
Also one that recognized them, was their slightly older sister, Nilima. She watched from the observation area, because she was too petrified of what she saw, to go investigate. How could this have happened? She only faintly remembered the other eggs with hers when she broke out of her egg, but she knew these were her family. Eventually she did meet them, carefully, and suggested that they had a home ready for them, but it was a bit ... odd. For what she suggested was that in order to keep them absolutely hidden, and to make sure that their needs were met and features fully understood, they go to Rapture. Now, for a flighted dragon that place is all but impossible, enclosed spaces and deeply crushing undersea weight? But this pair had been raised within the Combine's Citadel structure anyway. They instinctively pulled their wings down, hunkered along. Plus, the passageways and living areas in Rapture had been refit just like Black Mesa had, to allow for much larger creatures such as dragons, to move freely. They could, eventually, also choose to move up to the Enrichment Center, the spheres and salt mine shafts being much more open air, but also still enclosed.
At that point, they still didn't really know how to disagree with suggestions or orders: they obeyed because they had been forced to do so all their lives. So it was with pity and guilt that they were brought to Rhea Mercer's home, where she and others began the long process of figuring out just what had been done to these dragons, and how they could fix the damage.
There, they have been given not only places of their own to nest in and become comfortable, but a more broad education about their current world, and the world of their ancestors. The irony is not lost on either of them, that their parents Hivewing masters were very much like the Combine on the Rookery's world.
(2025)
Other dragons had been lost, found, and arrived or departed from the Black Mesa facility, and this pair were among those finally transferred from the depths of the ocean to the driest sunny desert still able to be inhabited. Neither was really all that keen on being out under that blazing sun, but eventually they would get used to it. With that area being mainly freed from the Combine's influence, everyone felt that it was time, after three years of care and healing, education and comforts. They were ready to face the actual day, go into the world, as their own dragons.
They were still woefully unprepared for the flight training that they were 'suggested' to get. Their wings did work, but the limited amount of flight time they could get down in Rapture or the very rare but very dangerous Aerie Island on the ocean's surface, just couldn't let them get enough endurance. So out they went into the morning breeze, with other small sized dragons, and under the watchful eye of any given dragon or rider they managed to regain strength and not get winded by flying from the Rookery to the Ranch. They would never be tasked to fight, both of them requested it.
However... They smelled something on the wind. A different kind of dragon, not like the ones that were already here. And not particularly near, either - downriver along the 'Pecos'. While most of the Rookery activity was centered north of the facility, today they'd decided to head south. It was a cool, clear day, would be a crisp chill night.
There were dragons they'd never seen and didn't know how to describe, when they happened upon a particular ridge. The river snaked around but had largely dried up where it had been generations before - but it seemed like that was more recent than 'when the Combine came'. In fact it looked like something had dug a hole and diverted it?
Curious but wary, the pair approached carefully. Their movement alerted this group, and far, far more heads and eyes looked at them than should have been there given the number of bodies and wings.
It was the Death Court, who had found their way to Rookery Earth.
Privately the pair of Silkwings discussed this. Should they immediately leave? No - they might be followed and who knew what this band of extremely sharp dragons would do back at the Mesa?
All but a couple of these dragons were quite a bit more massive than both of these delicate-winged Silkwings. And they surrounded the pair easily, slipping around or - no, teleporting - they were 'Old World'?
They didn't look old world, what with all the extra heads, crowns, and sharp pointy bits.
Yet they had not attacked.
Two came forward, those with 'only' one head each. A violet with red horns, a green with strong looking wings. They both looked fierce, but they too looked curious.
It was about time they showed up, was what one of those dragons thought broadly to their friends, but the pair of Silkwings were not telepathic. The green grunted and gave some kind of information to another ... much larger dragon.
He spoke. "We are known to few here," it was gravel and fire as a voice. "But you... are known to us."
Plasmid gave a worried hum to her antennae and CP bristled, or at least, his wings tried to flutter a bit. They were very clearly at a disadvantage in this exchange.
They saw a great red-violet mass beyond this sand and blood colored beast, but only 'a couple' of her very very many heads hissed something to the air, then she turned away and went back inside their great dark den.
After thinking on it for a short period, and seemingly conversing with his companions, Kalkeneux walked very carefully and slowly toward the pair of Silkwings. One of his heads and necks could probably crush Plasmid. "Ask your... bipeds... for communication assistance. Clearly this won't do. Find the ... one wearing a tie," Kalkenoux almost chuckled at that memory. He paused. "Don't bring others with you here. They will not leave. Just find that one, ask him for aid."
Plasmid spoke to her brother with a sing-song vibration of her antennae. The scientists' mate, she said, knowing that the other dragons - big scary dragons - would not know her words. CP understood, and understood the need for silence. If that one had brought this group here and wanted them hidden, it was like their own hiding place down in Rapture.
They would eventually learn that this was only partially correct - they did need to remain hidden, but it was because they were anything but needing to hide.
When Keenan was carefully nudged by his dragon Den they got to the work of outfitting this pair of injured, altered dragons with 'translators' - and wouldn't those Death Court dragons be a touch angry when they learned it was humans who'd built them... Able now to catch mental energy though not necessarily translate telepathic speech, they could at least speak their own words, from their own parts when needed.
So they came back to the hidden den at that one round hill, carefully flitting down like ash and hardly making a sound as they hoped for another audience.
They hadn't grown truly bold, but now that they could speak and would be encouraged to do so, both Plasmid and CP related their disastrous early life. If the Death Court here - and shortly elsewhere - didn't realize it before this point, the Combine, Ulathoi, were most certainly their enemy even if they had to ally with bipeds to fight them at times.
CP gave a rumble and his artificial voice came to life. "I want to see more Combine fall," his hazy eyes could not be healed easily, but they could be aided - by the other device that they'd finally made for him, a targeting unit with heat and electronic sensing added. "I was built to fight."
The smaller of the pointy-bit-covered Death Courts, Galulith, trotted over to him and looked over the once-fancy wings, now made more metallic than scaled. She still had to prod her bond Hissth to speak. He'd been doing more of that recently, though it always seemed like he resented it. "She thinks you should drag things with that rope-thing you make, it would be a good lure. I agree." Apparently the violet dragon had seen CP's 'silk', and eventually... they would indeed get to use it that way!
Plasmid and Joakarat seemed to get along reasonably well, since the Silkwing could detect the presence of Combine soldiers, ships, or even manhacks and scanners at quite a distance, which then the hydragon would teleport directly over.
When they were informed of a new batch of Death Court eggs, a new life boiled up in both of these delicate-looking dragons. They could guide, organize, and understand their enemy. They might never quite understand how horrible it felt for an 'old world' dragon to be abandoned by their impressed bond - their kind didn't do this, those from their homeworld that had come here and shared their lives with humans and sometimes Vortigaunts were doing so voluntarily. Even that though, they could walk away - the discussions about this fact went on long into the nights after good hunting, in that roost below the ground.
