Identity: Lapse

Alignment: Neutral

Secret Identity: Damien Mattle, although he's long forgotten.

Powers:

*The Occasional Man: Lapse constantly flits about space and time, taking seemingly random
identities at various times. Whether the identity is fabricated on the spot or he takes over an
existing body is unknown, but whatever the case is, he seems to fit snugly into the world, always
with a family and people that know his name (and even sometimes trust him). After succeeding
whatever objective he seems to have been assigned, he simply disappears while unobserved, to
take another life at another point in the world's history. Upon dying, he either reverts back to
the beginning of his time spent in his form, or flits to another form, usually with the same
general task (although he always needs to figure out his task; nobody just tells him). As a side
effect of the spacetime slipping process, all damage dealt to Lapse's mind, whether from physical
or psychic causes, is immediately healed when he relapses, allowing him to properly process all
that happened while his mental faculties were disabled.

*I've Done This Before: If you see Lapse, chances are it's not his first time trying at this life. His
tasks are nearly always extraordinarily difficult, although sometimes he must simply give
something a subtle nudge. Regardless, he is extraordinarily experienced in many things, from
19th-century investigative procedure to modern martial arts. As a rule, he'll need much of the
information he has.

Weaknesses:

*Eternal Damnation: Lapse never gets respite, nor does he ever simply gain a content and happy
life. Something always goes wrong; either his brother betrays him despite seemingly having no
reason to do so, or his rival suddenly changes approach to snipe him from a nearby rooftop
instead of honourably dueling him, or he has a heart attack regardless of his physical state.
*How Could You Know That?: Lapse is seldom in a position to abuse his knowledge; all too often,
he is stuck in a world that refuses to listen to him, and those that do are incredibly interested to
know where he got that information from...

*John Doe: Lapse is truly the unseen hand; completely unremarkable compared to most of the
individuals in Easton (apart from his large skillset), he has no powers of his own, and as his body
is provided for him, he can't even rely on having the physical training needed to do what he
wants.

Description:

His appearance varies wildly and often. His current form is that of a bespectacled and mildly
unfit middle-aged man in a brown suit and a red tie that screams "accountant", complete with
messy black hair and beady brown eyes. He stands with bad posture, and has a mildly large nose.

Personality:

Lapse is often impatient and less than charismatic, although when it counts, he suddenly shifts
to a cold, calculating professional who seemingly knows just what to say and do, when. He is
sick to his stomach of his lot in "life", and has attempted suicide no less than 7 times, to no avail
(one time it lead to him changing lives, which must have been traumatising for his then-wife).
Underneath, he generally is always recording what's going on for later analysis, and generally
uses whatever tools he can to take down notes on key details.

Background:

Lapse was (or is it "will be"?) one of Omnitech Industries' top researches on Project Relapse, his
namesake. Originally designed to be mankind's first foray into true time travel (all other attempts
they knew of were unsuccessful and thus not branded as valid forays), it caused time and space
to ever so slightly slip, and Damien fell through the newfound gaps in the cosmic fabric. What
happened Outside is currently unknown (he himself cannot remember the details), but he woke
up back in bed, thinking it was all a dream... Until he realised that wasn't his bed. For the first
life, he panicked. He asked everyone about people who hadn't been born yet, and generally
referred to concepts nobody had even dreamed of at the time. Unfortunately, 1940s America
was not a very nice place, and he was admitted to an asylum, where he underwent electroshock
therapy (that, due to a mysterious accident, killed him, allowing him to return to the beginning
of his 'life').

After a while, he had apparently driven whatever was fuelling his mysterious condition mad with
boredom, and he woke up in a new body, although by this point he was significantly less
confused. He recognised the name on his then-new uniform - Simo Hyh. This was when
everything began clicking; after enough tries that he stopped trying to count, he finally managed
to become a good enough marksman to live up to the White Death's title, and with that, he was
whisked away to his next trial.

Lapse has been at his shenanigans for a total of around 6 years without a break, although he
stopped counting after the first 4 months (keeping time is difficult, and making excuses for
constantly writing down random times is difficult, not to mention the fact that he only started
counting on his third life). Fed up with his fate, he is at least grateful to see Easton again,
although it's not quite the same as how he left it. That said, he's been in this period of time
before; he'll be fine.

His current task is unknown.