Jacob Gavin Jr.

This character is currently unplayed, but is open for applications. If you are interested in applying for this character, you can contact the mods at x_moderators @ googlegroups . com and you can find the application form here.

PHASE 1

Jake Gavin Jnr.
Portrayed by Drew Fuller and Matt Bomer
Codename:	Courier
Affiliations:	X-Force
Birthdate:	April 12, 1975
Journal:	Shallow Means, Deep Ends
Player:	Available for Applications

Jake Gavin is a former courier for his family business, Infonet Inc and a former part of the Xavier’s school staff. A shapeshifter, his loyalties and morality are equally mercurial, although he remains close to many members of both the X-Men and X-Force.

Details

Character Journal: x_courier

Real Name: Jacob Joshua Gavin Jr.

Codename: Courier

Aliases: Jake, Jacqueline

First Appearance: December 1, 2003

Date of Birth: April 12, 1975

Place of Birth: Switzerland

Citizenship: Dual citizenship: Switzerland and European Union

Relatives: Jacob Gavin Sr. (father), Ariel Richmond (mother), Devi Gavin (sister)

Education: Bachelor’s Degrees in International Studies, International Law, Contemporary English Lit.

Relationship Status: Single

Occupation: Employed by Snow Valley Memorial Center for Mutant Affairs; former Courier for Infonet Inc.

Team Affiliation: X-Force

Biography

Childhood

International Infonet Inc is a very successful business and Jake grew up in comfortable luxury, attending Swiss boarding schools from age ten, finishing off with degrees in International Studies, International Law and Contemporary English Literature before he began working full time for Infonet. Due to his job, he has basic knowledge of Japanese, French, German, Russian, Cantonese and Arabic, and can curse in a dozen or so more languages.

Jake would consider his childhood pretty happy, if marred by the fact that all his life it's been the Jacobs against Ariel, and later Devi. He's Jewish and can regale you with at least twenty horror stories from his bar mitzvah in an instant. They're all probably lies. Except for the bit where his dad takes off with the stripper.

Some of Jake's mottos are: "Discretion is the better part of real estate" (an inside family joke), "Run away to run away another day" and, most importantly, "We're paid to deliver, not question". He's been a Courier for International Infonet Inc since he was 21, and since his mother (60%) and father (35%) are co-owners of the company, he's lived the life of a Courier since he was born. This has made his idea of ethics and moral a little... strange.

Living At The X-Mansion

Jake came to Xavier's as a woman, to see if Charles could help him change back into male form permanently; something he'd not been able to do since May 2003 as a result of the Big Headache. Xavier explained that the problem was probably in Jake's head, and Jake agreed to stay at the school for therapy, acting as the temporary Student Counselor along side Pete Wisdom.

The school housed several people Jake already knew a little from before, like Emma Frost, Betsy Braddock, Pete Wisdom, Warren Worthington III and Monet St. Croix. During his tempestuous first days, he was accidentally turned into a frog by Amanda Sefton. He also made the frightening discovery of Gambit, who he recognized from a chance meeting years before.

Jake remained at the school for several months, until finally regaining his control over his powers and being able to switch between forms again. Following his new success, he decided to return to the family business at the urging of his parents.

Return to Intel

While working for Infonet Inc, Jake used his former association with Xavier’s to help increase their reputation in certain areas. Unfortunately, it drew the attention of Remy LeBeau when he was working to set up new networks following Wisdom’s defection to the Hellfire Club. LeBeau brought Jake back to the mansion to assist him in the new effort to rebuild the shattered intelligence networks. Working with Betsy and Remy, Jake helped design new lines of communication, and arrange for relationships with some of his contacts at Infonet.

However, after Remy’s crippling and the return of Wisdom to the school, Jake decided that he had fulfilled his duties, and once again decided to return to his family’s business. He still maintains an unofficial alliance with Wisdom, Remy and Betsy, trading off the odd piece of information that might be of concern.

Escape to New York

In early 2009, Jake was attacked and fired from Infonet on the same day. The attack was a successful attempt to cut off and steal his arm for reasons then unknown; during his escape, he received a phone call from his sister Devi informing him that she and their mother were performing a hostile takeover of Infonet, and he and his father were no longer a part of the company. With nowhere else to turn, Jake called Remy, looking for shelter and, eventually, a job. After a rather harrowing talk (for Jake at least), Remy offered him a place with X-Force, which he eagerly accepted, happy to both find a safe place and to reunite with several of his old friends.

Jake proved useful to X-Force, his personal contacts providing them with valuable information. He reacquainted himself with Amanda Sefton and former roommate Wanda Maximoff and made several new friends, in particular the hostile young woman at the mansion Carmilla Black and the attractive Quebecois, Jean-Paul Beaubier. Jake and Jean-Paul became involved with each other, despite Jake's personal issues with committment and love and he came to spend a lot of time at the mansion.

Jake and Cammie's personal histories intertwined when Cammie was sent two severed fingers and was told they belonged to her adoptive parents. The fingers came from Jake's missing arm, something which the pair discovered when they both followed mysterious instructions to a warehouse in Cammie's home town. It was a trap designed to capture both of them, set up by George Tarleton on behalf of his lover, Monica Rappaccini; they managed to escape and call in back up, but Cammie remained upset about discovering her 'creation' as a biological weapon.

Jake continued following up leads on his missing arm, having only the name of the client who had ambushed him, the mysterious New Son group that Tarleton had once belonged to and the fact the fingers were delivered by an Infonet courier. Another piece of the puzzle slotted into place in the course of retrieving an undelivered Infonet package, with Jake confronting his mother and sister about their involvement with the Rappaccini matter and their caged non-denial. Jake burned his bridges completely with his former employer that day, the incident upsetting him deeply.

On the personal side, things continued to be rocky with Jean-Paul. When the other man was psionically tortured, Jake coped badly, even more so when Jean-Paul ended the relationship abruptly before trying to kill himself. They reconciled over the course of Jean-Paul's recovery, but Jake's issues with committment were always a problem. Following the House of Wolves affair, Jake slept with Wanda; a bout of uncharacteristic guilt led him to confess his infidelity to Jean-Paul (despite the fact they'd never agreed on monogamy) and Jean-Paul ended the relationship again, this time for good.

All of these pressures, plus the increasing danger of the work with X-Force and his relationship with Wanda, built up and following their mission in Russia, Jake left the brownstone, leaving several notes to explain things. His whereabouts were unknown for seven months.

Back From the Cold

Jake's return to New York went almost unnoticed, just the way he planned it. Mostly because he was being pursued by people unknown. Paranoid after his previous dealings with New Son, Jake returned to home ground and, reluctantly, to the people he trusted. Wanda, of course, was the first, then Jean-Paul and Cammie, neither of whom were especially comfortable with seeing him back at the mansion, although Cammie was the only one who broke his nose. In return, he suggested she look at X-Force as a potential career, something which intrigued her enough to seek out Remy, although the response wasn't exactly positive. He avoided the one person he needed to talk to, however, until Wanda bribed him to set up a meeting - talking to Remy went about as well as he had thought, with Jake dragooned back into X-Force for his own safety. Almost immediately Amanda called on him to help her research into her friend Amara's origins. For the most part, however, life was quiet, if you didn't count the tangled personal situation between himself and Jean-Paul - while they didn't get back together, they continued to try to be friends, despite the awkwardness. Eventually, tired of Jake lazing on the company dime, Remy drafted him back into active duty as well, to fill the gap left by Marie-Ange's sudden departure.

The ghost of New Son continued to haunt Jake, however, with him noticing during a lunch with Jean-Paul that they were being followed. Jake dropped off the radar for a while, letting work hide him, and while on a surveillance job in Berlin with Sarah, they were surprised to see their contact joined by a mysterious woman who appeared to be an asset in X-Force's war against Baron Wolfgang Von Strucker. Unfortunately, the bank heist her information led them into turned into a trap. Jake, Sarah and new recruit Cammie managed to be able to escape relatively easily, but Remy was captured. With all of X-Force doing their individual best to find him, Jake returned to Berlin undercover, to do his bit. He remained in Europe for an extended period of time, working on tracking down HYDRA, who escaped following Remy's rescue.

Physical Characteristics

Height: Any. Typically 5ft 10in as male, and 5ft 7in as female.

Weight: Any. Typically 165lbs as male, and 120lbs as female.

Eyes: Any. Typically blue in both sexes.

Hair: Any. Typically black in both sexes.

Other Features: Any

Powers

Jake’s powers originate from a unique form of rapid cell regeneration. His cells move through their life cycle much faster than an ordinary human, giving him strong healing abilities, allowing him to survive even severe trauma such as a gunshot to the head, since his cells will quickly replicate and restore themselves to their original state.

Jake has complete control over his cells’ genetic makeup (a photoreflexive malleable genetic imprint, as it has been called) and can direct them to take on unique makeup, rather than being limited to copies of the parent cell’s DNA. In plain speak, this equates to shapeshifting, allowing him to change all aspects of his physique and appearance, from the very minor, such as hair color, to the more complex assuming another’s appearance, to the extreme, completely changing his gender.

Human traits or minor variations (tattoos, unusual hair coloring) are instinctive, and he can start the process with little effort or concentration by just imagining what he wants to look like. While his powers don’t technically exclude non-human traits such as tails or wings, he doesn’t have the instinctive knowledge of how such things work, so making a functioning replication would take an enormous amount of study, observation and practice, and he is far too lazy to make that type of effort.

The more complex the transformation, the longer it takes for it to complete. Small changes to his current form may only take a few seconds to minutes, surface appearances a bit longer, and a complete restructuring of his bone structure, musculature, organs, etc. could take as much as a day. He doesn’t need to continue concentrating for the entire time or even remain awake for all of it, though--as long as he has a clear picture of what he wants, the cells will continue to work once he starts the process.

Jake’s powers must follow a conservation of mass principle; he has a set number of cells, and they all must be redistributed into any new form he takes on, so making himself significantly taller means he will be thinner as a result, etc. Creating additional cells is a slow process that takes a lot of food and rest, just as it would for a normal human. Cells can be removed, either intentionally or by accident, although it can be an uncomfortable or even extremely painful process. If he loses cells, he will be smaller as a result, until he can regrow new cells. This affects even minor things, like haircuts, since unlike most people, all of Jake’s cells, including skin tissue, hair and nails, remain alive while attached to him, and he needs to either shapeshift his haircuts or spend energy regrowing new cells.

Once removed from his body, his cells can continue to live for up to a week, unless he consciously directs them to die, and at any point during that time, reabsorbed into himself. He cannot actively affect cells that are not attached to him, but he can, however, receive passive sensory input the form would have provided (e.g. a disconnected hand would still provide tactile sensation, an ear could still hear).

Equipment

None

Trivia

Jake is eminently bribable with food, quite possibly selling his soul for a slice of cake.

During his time at the mansion, he shared a suite with Wanda Maximoff, and the pair engaged in an ongoing prank war. When he returned to join X-Force, he first moved in with her, then moved into the apartment next door. They resumed their prank war, and routinely cross between apartments via the fire escape, to the point that they only use each other's front doors when something is wrong.

Because of his childhood in Switzerland, Jake is fluent in English, French, German and Swiss German. (His German-born father made him speak "proper" German at home, but he adopted the local dialect outside the house). His various Intel positions have helped him keep current on all of them.

External Links

xp_communication

xp_journal

xp_logs

Phase 1 Comms

x_staff posts

x_snowvalley posts

Plots

2004

British Invasion

Hellfire

Limbo (plot)

2005

X-Men Mission: Stalemate

2009

Congress of Behram

Rappaccini's Daughter

Old Man of the Mountain

Operation: Dead Letter Office

House of Wolves

Operation: Man of Stone

2011

Operation: Louisiana Lowdown

Operation: Sanguinicity

Meta

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AIM:

Player Icon Base: Male: Drew Fuller and Matt Bomer

Meta Trivia

Jake was introduced to the game by Sascha in 2003 and was picked up by k8 in March 2009, who left the game in September 2009. Matt (player) brought Jake back to the game in April 2010 and played him until May 2011