Phage

Emilia, better known as Phage, is a hit woman from Oakland. She was a tertiary antagonist of Inbetween: Oakland.

## Personality

Emilia is merciless and callous. She finds particular joy in watching her victims squirm and beg as she infects them with all manner of diseases. When actually on the job, executing a contract, she is the one to reel everyone back and ensure a mark isn’t killed (unless that's what they were hired to do).

She has no problem giving people diseases, even the most debilitating ones. Her personality and looks attract certain types of individuals that she enjoys heartlessly flirting with. She is dominant around most people but is submissive to Stygian.

### Relationships

The Outcasts

Initially found the group to be of no threat and found it cute how serious they took themselves. She found Zachery attractive, possibly because of the age difference. She did not care for Antonio or Kevin as they didn't play her games. She was terrified of William because her power would not work on him. During The Time Skip, she continued to treat Conner as a child, despite his tutelage under Stygian.

#### Stygian

Emilia is in a ‘committed’ relationship with Stygian that she frequently ignores when he isn’t around. Their relationship appears to be one of convivence, rather than love or respect.

## Appearance

Emilia might be considered attractive if she didn’t dress and act trashy. She is slim and tall, her hands are exceptionally bony. She has a tongue piercing. She wears revealing crop tops underneath fishnet shirts as well as short cut off jeans. She usually wears high top boots, the sides lined with frivolous buckles.

In costume, she wears a black, skin tight costume underneath a loose fitting cloak that covers her body. The cloak is moth-eaten and sports a number of small compartments including a handgun buried within the folds of the cloak. Her face is covered behind a skin tight, dark black cloth. She regrets not choosing a more evocative costume when she was starting off, feeling stuck with the drab cloak.

## Abilities and Powers

Emilia is completely immune to all diseases and illnesses, even those created by other parahumans. For example, she was immune to the mind affecting mist generated by Defiler. More so, she is able to harbor all diseases she comes into contact with within her body in a suspended state, where they are inert but alive. She is able to activate these diseases on a whim, possibly infecting others through vectors normal for a particular disease. Further, Emilia is able to manifest symptoms from any given disease suspended within her body onto another person. Anyone within her line of perception could be afflicted at any given time. When using her power this way, symptoms don't actually come with their associated disease and quickly vanish as a victim leaves her sight line (though any damage done remains). She can slow the onset of symptoms or cause them to rapidly manifest. Victims are more than likely incapacitated by the symptoms but rarely killed outright.

It takes a few moments for her power to 'snap into place' and symptoms to manifest properly. She cannot use, or at least struggles to use, her power on individuals with atypical physiology.

It is possible she has some ability to detect viruses, certain bacteria, prions and similar vectors for disease and discern the differences. Further, it is possible she is able to detect living organisms through a similar mechanism. The true strength of Emilia's abilities are unclear as she doesn't tend to use her powers to kill targets.

She is competent in hand-to-hand combat and knife play, but generally relies on her teammates, her foes being weakened by her powers and/or shock tactics to win fights. She is not particular dangerous in a straight fight.

Over the course of several years, she was willingly exposed herself to all manners of illnesses: the Bubonic Plague, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, Ebola, HIV, the Marburg virus, just to name a few.

## History

Is considered a threat by PRO who have considered releasing a kill order for her.