Appearance
Leah Costache stands a modest 5'7" with a somewhat stocky build. While she's certainly not without curves, she's far too solidly built to ever pass for anything like slender. Wavy red hair frames her face with bluntly cut bangs, accentuating her deep blue eyes. She appears relatively low-maintanence, wearing only light makeup and no fragrance outside of the soap she uses.
Background and Personality
Phase was born in Omaha, Nebraska to two loving parents; Nathan and Rachel Costache. The family moved around a great deal, with Nathan being an Air Force man, so Leah was never in one spot for very long and didn't tend to make lasting connections. She was quick to make friends and jump into various activities with her extroverted nature, but didn't dwell over leaving one town after another behind. People came and people went, that's just how things worked, but she'd enjoy the time she had while she was there.
Sadly, Rachel passed away from a brain aneurysm when Leah was only eight years old. She had collapsed in the classroom where she was teaching and was pronounced dead when paramedics arrived. This left Nathan alone to raise Leah, and of course he couldn't look after her 24/7, so she ended up spending quite a bit of time looking after herself and acting independently. The family still moved around a great deal, and being raised as a military brat only encouraged her tomboy tendencies.
By the time father and daughter moved to Kokomo, Indiana, Leah had grown into a strongwilled young lady. Her mutation had manifested when she hit puberty, but Nathan was supportive of her efforts to gain control over her use of the energy blade she could create. Once she reached legal age, she expressed interest in becoming a crimefighter. A couple of years later, Nathan had pulled some strings to get her the phase suit, primarily in interest of her defense. Leah moved away to Indianapolis and spent a few years exercising her heroing skills there before the craving for something bigger set in, and she packed her things to move to Millennium City.
Having spread her proverbial wings, Leah's a woman that's not afraid to get dirty, loves a challenge, a little bit of a heartbreaker, and isn't about to let someone giving her a hard time get to her.
Powers and Abilities
Phase has training in both Kendo and fencing styles, and in the interest of flexibility, she's worked to combine the different teachings into a versatile technique, mainly where footing is concerned. The only natural power she has is the ability to manifest an energy blade, thanks to her mutation. Combined with the abilities to become insubstantial and teleport short distances with her phase suit, she can be a force with which to be reckoned.
While phased, Leah is impervious to physical harm, as things will simply pass right through her. This does leave some danger to allies who might be behind her, and she encourages people not to stand there if they can help it. She's still susceptible to energy and magic attacks, but depending on the type, it will have different effects on the phase suit. For safety reasons, she prefers to only teleport within line of sight, but she has risked blind teleports on a couple of occasions. Her capabilities have been likened to comicbook heroes such as Nightcrawler and Shadowcat.
Common questions that arise include why she doesn't just phase through her clothing, drop her blade, or doesn't fall through the ground/floor. In regards to the first, the phase suit itself projects the insubstantial effect, so anything encompassed by the suit can be phased. Her energy blade, not being physical, isn't dropped when she phases. As for not falling through the ground/floor when phased, Leah's no longer physically walking on the surface in question, but rather on the air molecules just above it, allowing her to ascend or descend if necessary.
The phase suit itself is lightly armored, allowing for freedom of movement while providing some modicum of protection should its capabilities be cancelled out. It also houses a diagnostics and backup center, giving it a delayed ability to reactivate itself.
Affiliations
After moving to Millennium City, Phase has become an employee of MIST (Metahuman Investigation and Security Team).
Quotes and Comments
Theme Songs
