So I'm brainstorming ideas for Pyrus here.  Feedback welcome.

How does a cute little dragonling keep up with the members of the setting's most elite team?  Superpowers and tech!

So, here's the idea:  Pyrus is a one-of-a-kind creature.  Either the a freak of nature, mysterious and magical, or the result of deliberate mad science.  (Maybe a lab accident on Greenery?)

- Made of rock:  He doesn't have biology like normal folk.  No eating food, sleeping, breathing, growing up in the traditional sense, etc.  Instead, in order to keep going, he must absorb heat and lots of it.  Sitting on a campfire for a while would be a nice little sandwich for him, but spending some time in a blast furnace would be much more sustaining.  When first "hatched" he was a teeny tiny little thing, but eating rocks helped him bulk up.  But the bigger he gets, the more energy it takes to stay alive.  By now, he's struck a balance between "big enough to be able to reach the top shelf without having to tiptoe," and "all this fire eating is taking up too much of my time and money."

- Tough:  Skin is made of rock, guts of lava.  So your standard street thug with brass knuckles wouldn't really be a threat.

- Malleable:  Lacking a skeleton, Pyrus can transform his overall shape in a T-1000-like ways.  But not to the extremes of that clayface-like chameleon.  Turn hands into spikes?  Sure.  Take on the appearance of another person?  Well, a rock golem version of a person, maybe.  Pour through a keyhole to get through a locked door?  Not even.  Squeeze through bars far enough apart to reach an arm through?  Sure.  Handy for reaching to that top shelf when visiting a Barakian shopping center.

- Heavy Weight:  Hits like a ton of bricks.  Well...  Probably more like 1/4 ton of bricks.  Size of a normal person, but weighs about 3 times as much due to being so dense.

- Hydraulic Strength:  Is like a living hydraulic car jack.  Can't really pull off superhero stunts like using a Harley as a ranged weapon, but given enough time, can slooowly lift things that a jack of his size could lift.  Like a cement truck.

- Flight: Yay dragon wings!  Too bad we've learned that Space Opera means "hallways just barely wide enough for one person to walk through" half the time.

https://www.deviantart.com/pet...or-concept-495964906

https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-9dD...akayama+toshiaki.jpg

Yeah!

RL interruption.

Ahem.  Back to Pyrus musings.

So I'm thinking he keeps his actual age a secret.  Haven't decided, but I figure he's in his teens at the oldest.  Probably on the low end like 13.  As for "how can lava person be hugged?" the answer is that his surface temperature is much less than the inside.  No hotter than summer beach sand.  (But no colder than clothes fresh from the dryer.)  Thinking that due to youth, he'll the lowest ranking member of the team, even if not the newest member.  And if not for superpowers, kinda not really elite material.  To compensate for lack of skill with commando stuff, he focuses on being a decent slicer.  In combat, mostly just "throw all the grenades" tactics.  Preferably from behind cover, because blasters and such still sting.  (But wound up the one made to take point once the team learned how well he takes hits.)

Wears "stealth" armor that doesn't really help with stealth outside insulating him from being a screaming obvious blip on any heat detectors.

oops.  didn't intend for this to be a thread all it's own.  doh.

so... gear.  fancy holographic computer.  because those are cooler than the more practical kind with real interfaces.  probably has a rudimentary A.I. like Nichole from Sonic cartoons.

Lots of guns 'n stuff, i guess?  dunno.  maybe a flamethrower.  since it wouldn't make sense to be constantly puking up lava guts on people when there's plenty of good tech for that.

Not really smart with money.  Thinks it's for buying gold coins to sleep on.  So Dominus pays him much less than the others and has the quartermaster properly equip him.

RL

On the one hand, would go without saying that a kid is more naive than an adult, much less commandos, but what had me thinking I had to mention something was "competent at everything."

So first scenario that came to mind is:

Dominus: "Join me, and together we'll unite the star cluster for the good of all!"
Pyrus: "Um...  what?  Aren't you some kind of evil tyrant guy?  Why should I believe you want to do anything good?"
Dominus: "Would an evil tyrant offer you this cookie?"
Pyrus: "Oh wow!  A cookie!  Thanks!"
Dominus: "More where that came from if you join my army of goodguys who have to sometimes light badguys on fire."
Pyrus: "You had me at cookie, but fire is really fun too!  You bet!"

OTOH:

Devious Badguy: "Oh good, you made it on time!"
Pyrus: "Huh?  What are you talking about?  You're a badguy!  I don't have to keep any schedules of yours."
Badguy: "Don't be silly.  I'm one of Dominus's undercover agents.  If I were a badguy, I'd be shooting at you.  But since you're here before the badguys figured me out, you can take this important message to your team for me so I won't be seen helping you guys out."  *Offers time-bomb set to 1 minute*
Pyrus: "Oh!  Yeah.  I knew that...  OK!"

Wouldn't work on any of the other commandos, and probably wouldn't work on most normal adults.  So as to not get the other commandos in trouble because of how easy it is to trick Pyrus off target, I'm thinking of just selectively inserting a flashback where his team told him earlier, "If anyone tries to trick you in this way, they're a badguy and you should shoot him.  And toss the 'message' at the badguy's life support systems."