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July 17, 2018. A small, privately-funded laboratory in the north-eastern part of the USA has been performing experiments on an odd substance they've recently made. It seems to have some form of hidden energy within it, but little else is known. During one such experiment, a catastrophe strikes. All of the safety equipment fails, and somehow the substance manages to tear a gap in the lab's wall, before escaping outside as a gas. They tell no-one about this.

The lab is only a few miles north of a small town, where the gas soon reaches. It's colourless, odourless, and nobody even realises that it's there, but it seems to be awakening strange powers within a few people... Strange powers that will come to be known as Niches.
Yes this is essentially another reboot of Echoes because I really liked the premise and wanted it to go somewhere.

Rules
- Normal RPG rules: no godmodding, metagaming, perfect characters etc.
- This is a freeform RP, so please don't get mad if someone does something with your plotline that you weren't expecting.
- Characters have their Niches from the start, but they start very weak, and the characters don't necessarily know they have them.
- Niches can be basically anything within reason. Usually they'll be reasonably broad categories (e.g. "fire control", "healing") that will become more powerful and specific as the story progresses, but you can make yours however you like.
- The town is quite a small community, so feel free to have your characters know other people's characters to start with. The plot doesn't have to stay in the town, though.
- You can make as many characters as you want, but if you're not using a character try to get them out of the story in a convincing way (it doesn't necessarily have to be by killing them off). Try not to just stop using them and leave them in limbo.
     - Unimportant / non-main characters don't need signup sheets, since you wouldn't be using them for very long so they're not necessary to keep track of.

Signup sheet
Name:
Age:
Gender:
Appearance:
Personality: ('to be RPed' is fine)
Niches: (not too many, around 2-3 is good)
Other:

Characters
Alive
'Killer Catalyst', M, unknown age. Controlled by \\/\/
Seram Arliek, M, 20. Controlled by \\/\/
Patty / Pat, F, 17. Controlled by CrazeePi
Iris Parkinson, F, 49. Controlled by CrazeePi
Kate Parkinson, F, unknown age. Controlled by CrazeePi
Arthur Woods, M, 21. Controlled by FlashFlire
Xander Goodall, M, 31. Controlled by FlashFlire
Thartler Valt, M, 45. Controlled by Faressain
Tsukei Kashikaze, F, 16. Controlled by Jayfeather
Brad, M, 24. Controlled by DeepFriedBacon
Luke, M, 19. Controlled by seanbobe
Sera, F, 20. Controlled by seanbobe
Dakota Duske, F, 17. Controlled by MarthTheKing
Anna Gramme, F, 19. Controlled by Tymewalk
Damian Samson, M, 20. Controlled by Tymewalk

Dead
Nobody yet

Inactive
Nobody yet

Name: A▇▇▇ "Killer Catalyst" ▇▇▇▇▇
Age: ▇▇
Gender: M
Appearance: When performing overt activities, he wears a mask. Otherwise, pretty generic.
Personality: Wants to push the universe towards the inevitable Final State of maximum entrophy. He plays his part in making it go faster via murder. Pragmatic, and does not aim for cruelty, because that would slow him down.
Niches: Command- Targeted individual must follow a command given by the user. Commands that the target is unwilling to carry out or find themselves unable to do are easier to resist (ie. killing oneself). If the target perceives the task as impossible will no longer be compelled to do the task after one hour. Targets who are more determined or persevering may find it more difficult to break free from a command this way, while others may stop after being restrained for long enough. Targets who break the task without completing it are immune for one day.
Must target one individual at a time.
Other: Will appear later in the story, after the main cast has settled in. May be scrapped in favour of a more generic superpowered serial killer. We just need to have a villain ready to drive the plot.

Name: Patty Parkinson, Pat for short
Age: 17
Gender: F
Appearance: Can I put to be RPed here as well? Uhh, I guess she has black hair because void hopping powers?
Personality: to be RPed
Niches:
Void Claws: Gains long, sharp claws that can tear reality, creating holes that lead to the void between realities, a strange place with no native sources of gravity or light exist where strange mostly unintelligent creatures float around. It is possible to reach realities that aren't her own through the void between realities, but that is very difficult to accomplish.
Void Control: Patty is able to assert a degree of control over unintelligent void-bound creatures, and even reshape them later on.
Other: Claws can regrow over time. Most creatures in the void between realities have no natural means of attack.

Quote from: \//Name: A▇▇▇ "Negentropy" ▇▇▇▇▇
Age: ▇▇
Gender: M
Appearance: When performing overt activities, he wears a mask with the "-S" symbol on it. (Literally "negative entropy".) Otherwise, pretty generic.
Personality: Believes humans cause too much entropy, and must be eliminated. Pragmatic, and does not aim for cruelty.
Niches: Command- Targeted individual must follow a command given by the user. Commands that the target is unwilling to carry out or find themselves unable to do are easier to resist (ie. killing). If the target perceives the task as impossible will no longer be compelled to do the task after one hour. Targets who are more determined or persevering may find it more difficult to break free from a command this way, while others may stop after being restrained for long enough. Targets who break the task without completing it are immune for one day.
Must target one individual at a time.
Other: Will appear later in the story, after the main cast has settled in. May be scrapped in favour of a more generic superpowered serial killer. We just need to have a villain ready to drive the plot.

Quote from: CrazeePiName: Patty, Pat for short
Age: 17
Gender: F
Appearance: Can I put to be RPed here as well? Uhh, I guess she has black hair because void hopping powers?
Personality: to be RPed
Niches: Has long, sharp claws that can tear reality, creating holes that lead to the void between realities, a strange place with no native sources of gravity or light where strange mostly unintelligent creatures float around. It is possible to reach realities that aren't her own using this power, but that is very difficult to accomplish. She is able to assert a degree of control over some of the strange creatures.
Other: Claws can regrow over time. Most creatures in the void between realities have no means of attack.

Sounds good, both accepted.
(\\/\/, if your villain is coming in a bit later in the story you can have his Niche be a bit more powerful immediately)

Quote from: FlashFlireName: Arthur Woods
Age: 21
Gender: M
Appearance: Quite a tall, lanky build. Short, neat brown hair, grey eyes. Wears contact lenses.
Personality: Reserved. He's not introverted per se, but he's unlikely to interact with someone who doesn't start talking to him first. Generally optimistic.
Niches: Pyrokinesis. Can grow and manipulate already-existing fire, but cannot create new fire himself.
Other: Studying chemistry at uni.

Why, thanks for signing up to my RP, me! Accepted.

bump, I'd like at least 1 more character before we start

Name: Thartler Valt
Age: 45
Gender: Male
Appearance: Short for someone who is that old, 1.63 metres. Rather fashionless, seeing how he only wears the same military jacket and pants the same time. And the cap too.
Personality: Had a traumatic experience serving in Iraq, so he has PTSD, which makes him sometimes angry for no reason in particular. He also is kind of disappointed in his own government ability to fix problems, and introvertive.
Niches: Plague - can cause a person or animal to become sick. At beginning it is restricted to mild illnesses, such as non-intrusive common flu. It also gives him immunity to common sicknesses such as flu as for now.
Other: Could have a handgun (if allowed), or a knife as a self-defence weapon.

Quote from: FaressainName: Thartler Valt
Age: 45
Gender: Male
Appearance: Short for someone who is that old, 1.63 metres. Rather fashionless, seeing how he only wears the same military jacket and pants the same time. And the cap too.
Personality: Had a traumatic experience serving in Iraq, so he has PTSD, which makes him sometimes angry for no reason in particular. He also is kind of disappointed in his own government ability to fix problems, and introvertive.
Niches: Plague - can cause a person or animal to become sick. At beginning it is restricted to mild illnesses, such as non-intrusive common flu. It also gives him immunity to common sicknesses such as flu as for now.
Other: Could have a handgun (if allowed), or a knife as a self-defence weapon.

Accepted, I'll start soon

Name: Tsukei Kashikaze (可視風 津系)
Age: 16
Gender: Female
Appearance: 5'8". She has long, black hair and emerald green eyes. Her usual attire is a white t-shirt with shorts and tennis shoes.
Personality: To be RP'ed.
Niches:
      "Repairability". The ability to fix broken things. When she punches a piece of something, it will go back to where it was originally from and fuse back with it. If she touches a crack on something, she can fix it. Same goes for something that has been split apart. She can also heal wounds. If you've watched JoJo, her Niche is kind of like Josuke's Stand ability, Crazy Diamond. Stages of her Niche can be found in my signature.
      "True Sight". Once this Niche starts to develop, Tsukei is suddenly inflicted with blindness. Her other main senses start to sharpen, and she can start to sense objects in front of her. Once True Sight is fully developed, she won't need sight anymore, because she'll be able to maneuver around the world even better than when she had sight. This Niche will manifest later in the RPG.
Other: N/A

Quote from: Jayfeather

Name: Tsukei Kashikaze (可視風 津系)
Age: 16
Gender: Female
Appearance: 5'8". She has long, black hair and emerald green eyes. Her usual attire is a white t-shirt with shorts and tennis shoes.
Personality: To be RP'ed.
Niche: The ability to fix broken things. When she punches a piece of something, it will go back to where it was originally from and fuse back with it. If you've watched JoJo, her ability is kind of like Josuke's Crazy Diamond.
Other: N/A

Accepted

All right, let's start!


Arthur stepped outside, holding his computer bag, and started making his way towards the library. Semester had finished, so he wasn't going there to study, but he enjoyed the atmosphere. He enjoyed it more than his room, at least.

Thartler was practising his aim, an once per week exercise in his garden. He put the glass bottle on the tree stump, before preparing the gun, from some length. Making sure no one got hurt, he readied the pistol and aimed, taking corrections for wind and gravity, before firing. The bottle shattered. "Ah, the trusty handgun. I'm just exercising myself in case something nasty happens..." He said that to himself.

I walk through the forest on a dirt path. I think it's always nice to enjoy walking through nature, after a boring year of school and a boring summer. I suddenly realize I'm lost; the forest stretches out in all directions, and the path is gone. My phone displays no signal.

Quote from: Jayfeather

Quote from: CrazeePiPatty sits around in class, tapping a chewed up pencil every once in a while. It felt like this class was taking forever, and it didn't help that whatever the teacher was talking about just seemed so boring to her that she wasn't catching any of it.

I'm just going to point out that this takes place in July.

Oops, uhh...

Arthur got to the library, and looked around. He couldn't see any of his friends around, but it didn't matter much to him. Finding a table to sit down on, he took out his laptop and just sat staring blankly at its screen for a while.
...What do I even want to do today?

Patty walks down the street, a bit peeved from earlier. Her parents had shut off the internet and told her to go outside due to her just staying indoors for the entire holiday so far, whatever kind of crime that is. Whatever, she figured she would just go to the library and use the computers there instead.

Arthur's phone buzzed: his friend had sent him a text.
Hey, want to come help me with an experiment? I'm helping demonstrate something to my brother and I think you could help meHe texts back:
When do you need me?Not right away, but later today would be goodAll rightHe puts his phone back in his pocket, and goes back to his laptop just to check some things before going over.

As I walk through the forest, I finally see an opening. I find myself on a road near the library... Figure I could just spend some time there.

Patty finally reaches the library, spotting some other girl on the side as she approaches the place. She decides to ignore the other girl, knowing that she's none of her business.

I casually walk into the library. I pick out a book and start to read. The book appears to have been used a lot; it is almost falling apart. It doesn't bother me, though. I do, however, think, Wow, this book is really beat up.

Arthur closes his laptop and puts it back into his bag, before standing up. As he starts to leave the library, though, he notices someone reading an incredibly worn-out book.
Wow, that's really beat up. Isn't there a cleaner copy of that anywhere? he thinks.
Well, it's not any of his business. He starts walking out of the library.

Patty walks into the library, passing by some young man as she enters. She looks back towards him as she walks out of slight curiosity, then looks back forward with her main goal in mind: find a computer and goof off.

Arthur leaves the library, and walks over to his friend Isaac's house, which thankfully wasn't that far away. He knocks on the door, and Isaac opens it, a little surprised.
"Oh, hi! I didn't think you'd be coming here this early."
"Well, I didn't have much else to do today."
"Since you're here, can you help me set up this experiment? I might be able to demonstrate it a bit sooner this way."
"Sure."
He follows Isaac into the empty garage, which is currently being used as a temporary lab, with a Bunsen burner, tripod, a few test tubes and some other things.

I close the book and put it back on the shelf. It seems to be less worn out. I don't seem to notice, though.

Patty wanders over to the nearest available computer and sits down, not really paying much attention as she does so. As the keyboard goes click and clack, she felt that her nails strangely seemed to be getting in the way of her fingers, and as such she takes a look at them and...

"AIEEE" Patty's falls back within her chair before immediately flailing around in an attempt not to fall, completely taken back by the fact that her fingers had been replaced with strange, short claws.

I look in the direction of the screaming. I see the girl's fingers, which appear to be claws, and back away, knocking over a bookshelf in the process.