Marcie Ross

Marcie Ross's History

Becoming invisible

Marcie was a student at Sunnydale High School in 1996. Her only school activity was band, where she played the flute. She was not popular, had no friends, and her peers and teachers ignored her. On her yearbook, people only signed "Have a nice summer," a message used when someone had nothing to say.

Willow and Xander were among those who wrote in her yearbook, but they didn't seem to remember her even though they had shared four classes in the ninth grade. Marcie often attempted to engage the Cordettes clique in conversation, but Cordelia and Harmony would respond by questioning her presence and excluding her from the group.

During one of Ms. Miller's classes, Marcie repeatedly raised her hand to provide answers, but she was never called. She then noticed that her raised left hand began to fade from sight. Giles would theorize that her invisibility was the result of the Hellmouth manipulating reality on the quantum level; since people essentially perceived Marcie as being invisible, she physically became that way.[1]

Haunting Sunnydale High

Six months after becoming invisible, Marcie had taken shelter above the school's ceiling. Her loneliness and exile drove her insane, and she started using this new power to assault students and teachers in retribution for ignoring her. Marcie first beat Mitch Fargo with a baseball bat in the boy's locker room, leaving the word "LOOK" spelled in the lockers. She pushed Harmony down a staircase and suffocated Ms. Miller with a plastic bag in her classroom, leaving the word "LISTEN" spelled on the chalkboard.

Cordelia noticed that the three victims were close to her and concluded that she was the target. She sought help from the Scooby Gang and, though Buffy felt sympathy for Marcie because of what she endured, the Slayer nonetheless decided that she couldn't let it continue. Buffy tried to trap Marcie by using Cordelia as bait, but Marcie managed to capture her and knock out Buffy with a hypodermic needle. Meanwhile, Marcie also trapped Giles, Xander, and Willow by attracting them to the boiler room with a tape playing flute; she locked them in and filled the room with gas.

Marcie took Cordelia and Buffy to the Bronze, where she tied them to chairs with the word "LEARN" written on the curtain with sparkles. Marcie explained her plan of giving Cordelia a "make-over" by mutilating her face with scalpels. Buffy managed to free herself but found it difficult to fight Marcie when she couldn't see her. Buffy used her Slayer senses to detect the sound of Marcie's movements and landed a perfect punch. Marcie fell into the curtain, which covered her and rendered her silhouette visible.

"Rehabilitation"

At that moment, federal agents Doyle and Manetti, who had been observing the school the last few days, took Marcie away with them. She then arrived in a classroom full of invisible students like herself. As Marcie sat down, the teacher instructed her to turn to page 54 of a textbook. Finding the chapter titled "Assassination and Infiltration," Marcie remarked: "Cool."

The Scooby Gang would refer to Marcie's incident years later when guessing Buffy's own case of invisibility. Their experience with Marcie would also influence Buffy's advice for Dawn at Sunnydale High to stay away from "anyone that's invisible" and help Buffy identify and prevent another girl from turning invisible at the school.