Elena Gomez
Elena Gomez
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Portrayed By Jessica Alba
Gender Female
Date of Birth March 28, 1988
Age 21
Zodiac Sign Aries
Aliases Elly (usual), Scrappy/Sucklips/Meatgazer (all given by Jack), Chiquita (Ramon's pet name), Emma (by Jane), Ella (by Manuel), Cluckcluck/Sunshine (by Peter), Pandora (by Gene), Laney (by Trina), Brat (lovingly bestowed by Nathan), Ele (given by Mikhail), Honey (by Rook), Angel (by Ian)
Place of Birth New York City, NY, USA
Current Location New York City, NY, USA
Occupation Junior Political Correspondent/Investigative Reporter for the Washington Post
Known Relatives Catalina Gomez (mother; deceased), Ramon Gomez (father), Desiree Gomez nee Russo (stepmother), Manuel Gomez (brother), Luis Gomez (brother), Juanita Gomez (sister)
Significant Other -_-
Known Abilities Biochemical Control
First Appearance Family Matters

Elena Gomez is the eldest child of Ramon Gomez, who is the newly appointed Chairman of the Board of Evolution Software.

History

The eldest child of Ramon and Catalina Gomez, and raised lovingly by both together, Elena grew up to reflect many aspects of their personalities. Even as a young child, she was as hardworking as her father, and as easygoing as her mother. Both of them instilled upon her the importance of education at a young age, so it was no wonder that academics have been a big part of her life since the beginning. She learned English from her mother, who was a school teacher, and was fluent in the language by the age of four. Given that the Gomez household predominantly spoke Spanish in their household, located in the heart of Queens, Elena was influenced by both American and Spanish culture - while she had exhibited a certain degree of independence early on, she remained a good and devoted daughter while her younger siblings rebelled and often did things they shouldn't.

She was an honor student almost from the moment she started schooling, a bright, cheerful, inquisitive child who had both the gift and thirst for learning. Her exemplary performance in elementary school earned her a scholarship to St. Clemens Academy, a prestigious private school in Manhattan where she was required to do menial, janitorial tasks around the campus in exchange for the privilege of attending there as a student. It was a completely different world for her, considering most of her classmates came from wealthy, caucasian families. The school's social caste system was a harsh reality that she had to learn and deal with at the tender age of 13. In those early days she would come home and hide in her room so her parents wouldn't see her crying over how mean her classmates were to her.

Her social misery was all the more increased when Catalina died in her sophomore year. The coroner declared it a suicide and the story made it to the papers. Like her father, Elena didn't believe that she would willingly kill herself and tried to convince investigating authorities who visited her house of that. In the end, her efforts proved to be futile, after all, what did a kid know of such things? Losing her mother had been devastating, but the dark cloud did have a silver lining - two other students in her school lost someone close to them the same way, and all three of them bonded over one tragic commonality.

However, determination and the desire to give her family a better life someday won out. She made a few friends, all who became her lifeline in St. Clemens. Her teachers welcomed her efforts, and some would say her teachers liked her more than her fellow students did. She continued to excel in her studies, was part of her school's Academic Decathlon team, and by her junior year, managed to convince her wealthy school that starting a Community Outreach program would be a good idea and would raise its acclaim even more in the local media. It was in one of these outreach efforts that she started becoming conscious of her strange gift….while volunteering at a clinic, she noticed that she could take other people's pain away for a short while just by willing it to. She chalked it up to her "bedside" manner, and didn't think much of it.

She also wrote for the school paper, though she never made editor as the positions went to the children of the school's board members, and was an active member of the school's Dance club. While she ran for student government as president in a last-ditch effort to defeat the status quo, she was defeated by the daughter of the school's Headmaster. However, she did make Treasurer, and spent that year organizing fundraisers to fund the school's activities.

After four years, her hard work and tenacity paid off….she graduated with a bang, becoming her school's Valedictorian. Her academic and extracurricular record couldn't be denied. She received a full scholarship to New York University, with the option to apply for a grant if she decided to major in the sciences. She applied for the grant to further ease the financial burden of supporting her schooling from her father, who was already struggling to make ends meet. She got the grant, and enrolled as a Biology major, a requirement for those taking the school's "pre-med" track.

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One Year Later…

Several events, however, have prevented her ultimately from pursuing a fulfilling career as a doctor. Nasty run-ins, kidnappings, and finally, and perhaps most importantly at all, an entreaty from her overprotective father who personally asked her to stop pursuing Science, knowing full well what she intended to do with that knowledge and a last-ditch effort in preventing his daughter from sinking in to further danger. It seemed, for the most part, that the spirited Gomez girl was willing to listen, as sometime during 2008 she looked ready to shed her involvement in dangerous activities entirely, though she kept seeing Peter Petrelli until he decided to join the Company, a decision which put a strain in their relationship and sent her leaving with her father, who was required to stay in Washington DC to aid Evolution Software's lobbying efforts in the American capital. Taking her father's concerns to heart, she abandoned science, and switched to Journalism. She graduated from George Washington University early, and true to her ambitious nature, immediately secured a position in the Washington Post as a junior political correspondent, under the supervision of senior investigative reporter, Roger Redford, a mainstay in the District of Columbia's media circles with ties to the White House's blue room.

She returned to New York in 2009, a few months after her twenty-first birthday, at the request of her father to be a little closer to home and a little more accessible to her stepmother, Desiree Gomez nee Russo.

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Abilities

Elena can control biochemicals in a physical body. Broken down to the mechanics, she can somehow control neurotransmitters in a person's body that have a direct effect on the ability of that person to feel either pleasure or pain, as well as a few other things. For example, she can induce a body to secrete adrenaline to keep someone's heart from stopping, or dopamine to keep someone who is brain-addled (or senile) lucid. At this point, she has a strong, but unconscious command on a body's ability to produce Norepinephrine…a neurotransmitter often associated with the body's "flight or fight" response to stress. A mild increase of Norepinephrine on a body could induce a state of euphoria, akin to a good "high" when someone takes recreational drugs (and as a consequence, make someone forget their pain for a while). She can also cause a bit of heightened arousal. A sudden and high increase would cause a panic attack, characterized by difficulty in breathing, sweating, chest pains and nausea or stomach distress. She can also cause the body to experience a good deal of pain. These effects are temporary, and her ability is dependent on her actively imposing her will onto the other body.

Given her quick and impressive learning curve, Elena has managed to learn how to control her powers by touch or remotely. She can use her abilities through tactile contact, or by just willing it to happen. She has also learned to affect multiple people in a given range. Her maximum range is, presently, between a five to ten feet radius. Any bigger than that, her nose will start to bleed and a migraine will hit her, killing her ability to use her gift for an entire day or more, depending on how badly she strained herself. In such extreme cases, she also tends to lose her sight as part of her brain shuts down before any damage turns permanent.

Her ability, while seemingly innocuous, has been discovered to be something that goes deep into the heart as to how Evolved powers work, and due to its nature, is extremely versatile in terms of its uses. The last three years have been spent in diligent efforts mastering these talents, and the exploring the breadth of their uses.

Stunts

Elena's abilities are surprisingly versatile, they can be benign or…not-so-benign.

Timeline

Elena's Timeline

Relationships

Elena's Connections

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Personality Profile

Elena, through the Myers Brigg Personality Test, is an ENFJ.

Astrological Profile

Elena is an Aries.

Quotes

"Nope, can't come get you. The shaman is in town, cleansing the manor so all the positive vibes will get stronger, ya know?"
"….a shaman. In New York City."
— Kitty Hanner and Elena Gomez, in Red Thread of Fate is Painful

"You wouldn't be so forgiving if they had taken Nathan from you."
— Elena Gomez to Peter Petrelli, in Red Thread of Fate is Painful

"You really are in a pissy mood."
"Jetlag."
— Noah Bennet and Elena Gomez, in One Coffee, Hold the Awkward

"Sounds like a fun time. …do I wanna know why there's a guinea pig?"
"That's Meryl's. We couldn't have the party without having Basil there. She's uhm, rather fond of her guinea pig."
— Elena Gomez and Benjamin Winters, in It's Not Us

"Just because we've all got a fraction of God's power living inside us does NOT give you carte blanche to be bloody stupid."
— An angry Elena Gomez rounds on Charlotte Corday in Fallout

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Embarrassing Elena Events

Elena is somewhat infamous for having a lot of off-the-wall and embarrassing events happen to her on a regular basis. This is a list of these.

Soundtrack

Trivia

  • The name "Elena" is a variant of the Greek name "Helen," which means "shining light."
  • Since discovering how to consciously control her powers, Elena's lost 15 pounds as of February of 2008. The nature of her gifts and their constant use has accelerated the rate of her metabolism. At 5'6" and 115 lbs, she's considered underweight. This has also markedly changed her eating habits as she's been eating enough to put a small horse to shame since then. Elena these days eats close to eight meals a day.
  • Elena was an active member of NYU's Dance Corps, though she had to leave it when she moved to DC. Dancing is still, however, an active hobby. She has also taken up kickboxing and combat lessons from Jack Derex.
  • She is a practicing Catholic and wears a gold crucifix around her neck that once belonged to her mother.

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