Gabriel Cohuelo

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PHASE 1

PHASE 2

Gabriel Cohuelo
Portrayed by Diego Boneta
Codename:	Velocidad
Affiliations:	X-Force
Birthdate:	September 16, 1995
Journal:	xp_velocidad
Player:	Michael

"You didn't have to come get me, but you did. And you brought me here instead of jail or a hospital or whatever. Why?"

Younger than he looks, bartender and occasional thief Gabriel took refuge at the mansion when he attracted the wrong sort of trouble.

Details

Character Journal: xp_velocidad

Real Name: Gabriel Cohuelo

Codename: Velocidad

Aliases:

First Appearance: August 8, 2014

Date of Birth: September 16, 1995

Place of Birth: El Paso, Texas

Citizenship: American

Relatives: Estranged from his parents, Ricardo Velez Cohuelo and Ana Gloria Montoya. Not close to his two older sisters, Natalie (31) and Andrea (26).

Education: Gabriel only finished half of his sophomore year in El Paso before dropping out of school and moving to Austin. That has not stopped him from lying about having a high school diploma.

Relationship Status: Single

Occupation: Bartender (and occasional dancer) at a gay bar in Manhattan. Ex-hustler. Part-time student.

Team Affiliation:

Biography

Phase 1

Childhood

Gabriel Cohuelo's parents wanted a son to carry on the Cohuelo name, but after two beautiful girls, they gave up on the idea. Imagine their surprise when Ana learned she was pregnant in 1995 - and that there was a Y-chromosome. After some discussion with her husband about whether another child was something they really wanted, Ana took time off from her job as an administrative assistant and went ahead and had a baby.

So, suffice it to say, Gabriel Cohuelo was loved - especially by his father, a sales manager at a car dealership who, after 2 years of girls, was thrilled to have a boy with whom he could play catch and the like. His childhood was filled with trips across the border to family in Chihuahua, tee ball and Little League, family cookouts and church. Lots of church, actually. Gabo's father was a devout Catholic, and he expected his family to attend Mass every Sunday and to discuss God's precepts. It was a good Hispanic Catholic upbringing.

And that wasn't a problem for Gabriel for most of his childhood. He was impish and got into trouble, but because he was the baby of the family, he was usually able to get out of most of his scrapes. And he never did anything immoral. He tried to live according to the church's teachings, at least as long as either of his parents or his older sister were lurking around. He considered himself pretty normal.

At some point, though, Gabriel started to realize he was just… different. During his freshman year of high school, he and his baseball friends were surrounded by girls, and Gabo went through the motions, but he just wasn't interested. When his buddies were going on awkward dates, he hung back. Girls just seem to mean that much to him yet. And that was okay. Some people were late bloomers.

There were signs that wasn't entirely what was going on, though. Like when he'd be at the pool and catch himself staring a little too long at his teammates. But he tried to put it out of his mind. It was natural to be curious, Gabriel figured, and it wasn't like he wanted to — no. He just was comparing. Seeing whether his strength training was coming along the same way as theirs. (It wasn't, but Gabriel made up for his lack of slugger skills by sprinting between the bases effectively. His sprinting speed was almost unheard of.)

The summer before his sophomore year, Gabriel used the money he'd saved from his job as a supermarket bagboy to go to a month-long baseball camp at the University of Texas in Austin. There, away from his parents, he met Randall Evans, a fellow shortstop from the Austin suburbs who, the day Gabriel dropped his bags on his bunkbed, casually mentioned he was gay and said he hoped that wouldn't be a problem. It was Randy who, in the midst of the machismo of high school athletics, would be Gabriel's first kiss. It was Randy who made Gabriel realize he was gay.

After the month ended, Gabriel left Austin a little emboldened. By the time the summer ended, his new spirit had vanished. His priest's sermons railed against the evils of sexual deviancy; every "maricón" joke his friends made felt like a personal attack. But he said nothing and tried to go on as if things were normal. School started, and Gabriel picked up cross-country. He was fast, and if power hitting wasn't going to get him into college, maybe running could. Lord knows he was certainly fast.

Farewell, El Paso

It took six months for things to totally fall apart. A senior on the cross-country team, Drew Fulton, took special interest in Gabriel in September. They began to hang out frequently, and Gabriel developed something of a crush on his older mentor. Then, after a raucous party in November, they drunkenly made out in the back of Drew's car. That was not the last time it would happen.

The last time was in February 2012, outside Gabriel's house. Drew was dropping him off from a movie, and despite Gabriel's warnings that his parents were just inside, the two started to fool around anyway. Drew was in the process of pulling off his shirt when the boys heard Gabo's father enragedly shouting his name.

That was the night Gabriel's parents kicked him out of the house, and it was the first night Gabriel became aware of his powers. As his fight with his father grew more heated, Gabriel's father eventually approached him in attack mode. As his horrified mother looked on, Gabriel seemed to vanish - in reality, he'd sped away to his room, locked the doors, packed a bag, written a note for his mother and fled to Drew's. He'd thought four hours had passed; it had been 5 minutes. In that time, he'd grown stubble he'd never had before.

Gabriel lived with Drew and his family for a month, continuing to attend school while hoping his mother could force his father to come to his senses. But the whole situation had him marked as an outcast, an exile. So he dropped out of school and, lacking other options, headed to Austin. He thought he'd stay with Randy, but as supportive as Randy's parents were of his burgeoning identity, they weren't taking in a stray. So he slept at a homeless shelter, took a job working construction and supplemented his income by speeding around Austin stealing things before folks would notice they were gone. Oh, and being a hustler. Yes, that kind of hustler.

At some point, he realized all of his speeding was aging him - one day, he looked in the mirror to find he now looked closer to 18 than 16 and used it to his advantage. With a fake ID in hand, Gabriel got a job at a gay bar in Austin. Drunk, enamored patrons made easy marks for pickpocket-ing, and so he continued working petty thefts and, when money was tight, hustling would-be sugar daddies to make ends meet.

Austin didn't prove to be enough distance from his old life in Texas. After a year, it became clear his father wouldn't relent so long as Gabriel lived a "homosexual lifestyle." So, finally, Gabriel left Texas and followed a friend to Manhattan, where he took a job as a shirtless look-but-don't-touch bartender and occasional go-go boy in Chelsea. He lived in a tiny apartment with three other men in Queens. Gabriel got a few tattoos, smoked a little too much pot and continued to steal cash from wallets and lovelorn gentlemen to make sure he'd be able to pay his share of rent on time. This was his normal.

Coming to the Mansion

In August 2014, Gabriel met Jean Grey when he tried to discreetly mug her. She offered him a place at the school and he refused. Eventually, however, Gabriel's thieving ways caught up to him. In September 2014, he lifted a necklace off a feral mutant named Thornn and ended up on the run from her and her vengeful girlfriend Phantazia. Realizing he was in real danger, Gabriel called Jean, and she brought a small X-Men team to save him and lift him back to the mansion. Again, she offered him a place to stay, and this time he accepted.

Shortly after, her revelation that she was a telepath threw him for a loop - as did her sudden admission that the mansion was a dangerous place. Still, he decided to stay and settle in. His easy-going personality helped him to integrate into mansion life fairly quickly, and he made friends with many of the mansion residents - including Miles Morales and Clinton Barton, with whom he began a Not Relationship with after a night together. After several more "casual" evenings, the two finally began dating.

While his personal life developed, Gabriel also worked to better understand his powers. An experiment revealed that Gabriel did not possess superhuman speed as he previously thought. Scott Summers theorized that Gabriel was controlling time around him, and the two planned to work to give Gabriel more control over his abilities. All the while, he continued working at a bar in Manhattan.

The Dark Phoenix

The life Gabriel had created for himself came crashing down around his ears in January 2015. It started with the destruction of Muir Island, and just got worse from there. Gabriel joined a team on a hacking mission for information. The mission went to hell, however, when the team was attacked by Nazi versions of themselves (Gabriel was horribly disturbed by his alternate self's fascination with Namor's alt). They managed to come out on the better side of things, but that was far from the end of it.

Gabriel was (improbably) stepped up to leader status when the mansion came under siege, leading a team to try and fend off more alternate selves - this time it was zombies. Gabriel's zombie self was creepy and lecherous, but he fell easily. The battle looked won - until the Dark Phoenix appeared and destroyed the mansion. Gabriel managed to survive that, and even played a part in trying to bring the Dark Phoenix down by getting a power suppressor on her. The efforts all failed, however, and reality fell apart around them.

Phase 2

Rebirth, Kinda

Despite it all Gabriel managed to survive and found himself among the group of people Xorn rescued and sent to a new universe. It was only when he woke up on the lawn that he finally learned that Clint had been killed prior to the battle at the mansion. He reacted poorly, running off into the woods and disappearing into Manhattan on a bit of a bender as he tried not to think about the things that just happened. He was finally dragged back to the mansion by Wade Wilson, where he continued to drink and lashed out when people tried to help him. Running into the new universe's version of Clint during a walk of shame didn't help Gabriel's attitude toward the world (or the idea that every version of himself was beyond fucked) very much.

Despite the awkwardness of his repeated run-ins with a different Barton and his discomfort, Gabriel's year started to turn around after Wade and Marie-Ange Colbert recruited him into X-Force. He was caught up in a time loop, got to go to India, and helped put a stop to a terrorist attack on Penn Station. He also ended up trapped in the mind of a young Canadian telepath after a mistake involving Quentin Quire.

His personal life, on the other hand, had its ups and downs. He grew close with some of the new universe's versions of old friends, but he also temporarily lost his closest confidante when he found Angel was dating the new Clint. They eventually reconciled. And therapy helped him cope with the shift in the universe, and the loss of his young love, even if other pain went explored.

Gabriel also started a weird, mostly sex-only relationship with Quentin, no feelings, really. But the strings of their no-strings-attached relationship grew clearer when Quentin temporarily died in 2017, and there were, in fact, feelings. The two agreed to take a pause.

Personal Growth?

In 2018, he began to take his life at Xavier's a bit more seriously. He studied for his GED, with the only-sometimes-awkward help of Clint. And he threw himself into X-Force, eventually leaving bartending behind as he became more entrenched at spycraft and found he had an aptitude for it. Going full-time at Snow Valley, he also began training with Kevin Sydney. As Kevin became his mentor, Gabriel found himself letting his guard down -- ever so slightly. He also began a friendship with Felicia Hardy. A forced trip to Limbo cemented his status as a kind of big brother-figure to some of the slightly younger mansion residents as well, including the new universe's version of Miles Morales.

All these new connections eased the difficulty of his agreed-upon distance from Quentin — things were awkward — and the departures of Wade and Angel from the mansion. But he showed maturity in the face of the departures, and when Kevin disappeared because of his own personal trauma, Gabriel tracked him down and tried to bring him back into the fold.

The period immediately after Kevin's return was fairly quiet, and surprisingly low on drama. Gabriel grew more accustomed to the new reality and worked to build new relationships to replace those he'd lost. He was a dutiful employee, and with Kevin's blessing, he traveled overseas alone for missions, eventually grabbing major assignments.

In 2020, he and Quentin had resumed their dalliance, even if they still didn't speak about its nature.

Things Fall Apart (Again)

When a seemingly routine X-Force investigation led to a strange experience of an alternate dimension and the revelation of a patchwork universe, Gabriel stayed calm. The other-dimensional version of himself was powerful in a way that boosted his confidence and reassured him. And after years of dealing with his own trauma from what the Dark Phoenix wrought, he was able to help some mansion residents deal with the fallout of the revelation. (Still, he drew a line in the sand: He would not divulge past-universe baggage to current-universe residents unless they asked, and he would not tell anybody about his past with Clint.)

The stability was short-lived. When SWORD asked for help taking down a cartel, Gabriel found himself caught in a trap by a demon who elicited his deepest shames and coerced him into an orgy. The encounter reopened old wounds from his time as a teenager on the streets and revived memories of his father that were long dormant. The apparent death of Garrison Kane scarred him further.

Determined not to repeat old patterns, Gabriel refused to go on a bender. But he became withdrawn, irritable and prone to anger. He kept a good face on missions and opened up slightly to Kevin and Quentin. But he mostly tried to shove the trauma away, and his reluctance to address it drew a wedge in his relationship with Jean Grey. Learning that Amanda Sefton had been secretly working with an actually alive Garrison did not help, especially when she said that she needed him to confront the demon who had so scarred him. Though the victory was a comfort, he remained shaken by what the demon had dredged up.

As a result, Gabriel began keeping to himself more. He traveled extensively from work, staying away from Snow Valley and the mansion in an effort to avoid having to confront anything that had happened. Though he helped bring Sarah Rushman into the mix, it wasn't a conscious effort to branch out that led him there.

The hurt only deepened when X-Force took a trip to the X-Ranch as part of a mission in Nevada. Staying on the site of a mutant bordello broke Gabriel's emotions open, even though he continued to hide his feelings from friends and teammates.

Physical Characteristics

Height: 5'10

Weight: 154

Eyes: Brown

Hair: Dark brown, usually kept on the longer side

Other Features: Gabriel's a runner, and it shows. He looks pretty athletic, fairly lean with a decent amount of muscle put on by weight training. He's got light brown skin, marked by tattoos on his left shoulderblade, left pec and right hip. Despite his efforts to shave constantly, he's often got stubble as a result of his powers. And every now and then, he'll spot a gray hair in his shaggy coiffure.

Gabriel has a cluster of three stars tattooed on his right hip, an arrow above that, a black equals sign on his left pec and a falcon on his left shoulder blade.

Powers

Gabriel is a localized time manipulator. He essentially slows down the movement time immediately around him, but he doesn't get affected by the change. That gives him the appearance of a super-speedster, but he's not.

Because of the way Gabriel's powers work, when he uses them, he is speeding up his physical aging. And because he doesn't have a lot of control over them, I suspect that's accounting for him aging faster than he realizes.

Generally, the longer he uses his powers for, the faster he ages (it's more of an exponential relationship than a linear one). Currently, he is 18 years old but is physically closer to 22. Hopefully, as he develops more control over his powers, he'll be able to exert more control over the rate at which he affects time. Right now, his biggest problem is inadvertent power surges. If his powers get "stuck," he ends up both exhausted and older. That's something he's working to control.

Because he's not actually moving at a rapid velocity, Gabriel can't walk on water or run on walls like Quicksilver might do. Also, he can be easily detected by a trained telepath when he's using his powers, since his body and mental processes don't work that much faster than a normal person's.

External Links

xp_communication posts

xp_journal posts

xp_logs posts

xp_staff posts

xp_teams posts

Plots

Phase 1

2014

Second Thoughts

2015

Fires From The Ashes

Reality Coming Down

The Dark Phoenix

Phase 2

2015

Case File: The Sting

Operation: Wonderwall

Burn The Witch

Do I Know You?

Operation: Mutant of the Seas

2016

Operation: Mutant Massacre

2017

Psi War

Green-Eyed Monster

2018

Tales of Magik: Imus ad Infernum

Operation: Mad Men

Morningstar

2020

Operation: Crazy X-Girlfriend

Operation: Siege Perilous

2021

A Fistful of Nanites

Sons of Mutancy

Operation: Dewey Deceptional System

Potomac Calls to Chesapeake

Monster Mash

Operation: Wideawake

2022

Exorcism Robotica

Operation: Black Hand

2023

Operation: Bat Country

It's Not My Fault

Behold A White Horse

Operation: Behold A Red Horse

2024

Behold A Pale Horse

Meta

Player: Michael

E-mail: contact details via the private player spreadsheet

Player Icon Base: Diego Boneta

Meta Trivia