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As a professional she is efficient, dangerous, and dramatic. [...] Her underlings support her well. She combines that professional effectiveness with being petty, unhinged, and lopsided in her focus in non-professional things, and lets the two things bleed into each other.

Unhinged in person, still dangerous.

Tattletale and Precipice, Polarize 10.6

March, real name May, is an itinerant villain, late of New York.

Personality[]

Was receptive to all of her mother's guidance and suggestions. She had several talents that she cultivated such as singing and instrumentation. as well as keeping things on point.

March is persistent and focused, willing to clash continually with Flechette while they were both in New York.[10] Has a bit of an off kilter of beat personality putting others on the wrong foot.

March does not treat cape-business as a career, but as a whimsical game.[11] This has led her to be viewed as inscrutable.[12]

Developed a long term interest in multitriggers,[13] and powers in general.

Once she was revived from her cardiac arrest she was deeply affected by the vision she saw and her long captivity. Without Tori, her crush, and Jan, her friend and colleague, March had to find her own way in the world. Given her vision occurred before Gold Morning and the destruction of the "Hub", her reasons for her blasé attitude toward death were empty, devoid of self-reflection.[14] Regardless it meant she was willing to engage is actions that had devastating consequences if it meant meeting her goals.[15]

As such she became very comfortable with killing people and added a showmen's flair to her actions.[16] She is the type to walk away and let people blow up behind her.[17] Those who interacted with her for any length of time commonly considered her mentally ill.[18][19]

Relationships[]

Mother[]

Her mother bent over backwards to give May a happy life and her daughter seemed willing to help out.

Jan[]

Friend and partner, March worked with Jan to satisfy her own newfound curiosity and explore her own powers.[20]

Foil[]

Originally just meeting her in passing with a small velleity of wanting her life, the cluster trigger morphed their relationship so that March had an overwhelmingly unhealthy obsession with Foil.

Tori Heflin[]

Struck up a romantic relationship with Tori when she and Jan investigated the Smugglers cluster. Given their age difference, nothing really happened until they were reunited years later. March was comfortable and open with her in a way she was with few others.

March's Megacluster[]

Intentionally surrounded herself with multitriggers[21] collecting them out and offering support.[22][13] It was noted that having her interest was not a good thing.[23]

Rain O'Fire Frazier[]

Was willing to work with a frantic Rain based on his commitment to help her with her own vendettas.[24] This was partially due to his "objectivity" when it came to viewing said vendetta, she also gave him general life advice.[16]

Appearance[]

March is a small Japanese-American woman who wears a military-style uniform and feathered cap, with a rabbit mask[25] that leave her eyes open.[16] She also carries a rapier[21] with sheath.

Abilities and Powers[]

March is a Multitrigger cape which gives her several abilities. Her primary power is enhanced timing.[26] March's timing ability allows her to organise groups very efficiently, to the point where she can give the exact amount of time they need to accomplish their tasks and complete a given objective.[27] Further it is a huge help with her own fighting and positioning with which she can pull off seemingly impossible feats.[28][29] When boosted, time appears to slow for March, allowing her to make decisions on the fly.[citation needed] Her thinker aspect is strong enough to make her unreadable to other Thinkers, such as Tattletale.[23] An added benefit allows her to inject theatricality into everything she does. However it requires her to be knowledgeable about the relevant factors, environment, fitness, parahuman powers, etc. involved so timing can be worked out, otherwise she can be preempted and defeated.[30]

A dangerous secondary ability of hers lets March access a Perfect offensive weapon,[31] while it's a weaker version of her clustermate's power it still lets March cut through nearly any foe's defense.[32][8]

The other clustermate's gift manifests as a watermark, spreading from its contact point until it detonates upon reaching its apex; a timed explosion.[28][33] It can interfere with breaker effects[33] and easily kill people just by applying the explosion effect sans any other damage.[34] Related to this is some sort of accuracy power, a major component of Homer's primary ability. It was similarly disrupted by spatial warping as her clustermates was.[35][36]

She is very good at intuiting connections for Multitriggers, given her past study[13] and possibly personal experiences,[37] such as getting a peek "backstage".[14]

Equipment and Tactics[]

March has used several objects over her career including a baton and many bladed weapons[30] she now carries a rapier she habitually imbues with her "sting' effect. She also includes various other loadouts based on the situation, including a sniper rifle[38] and several rubber balls she can charge with her power.[39]

History[]

Background[]

May and her mother are refugees from Japan, her mother meticulously planned out and scheduled nearly all aspects of her life,[2] which May found oppressive.[40]

May was part of the same group trigger as Flechette in New York,[3] taking place sometime in January 2008.[*] May and her mother got accidentally dragged on the rails by Lily's friends. May instinctively hid in the alcove, confusing her dazed mother. A moment later, the train arrived and May triggered after realizing the results of her actions. In a seeming daze, she proceeded to the scheduled audition. Her personality was notably altered as she resented the officials' concern for where she was instead of the scheduled audition.

Newly orphaned, she used her equally new powers to slip away from her guardians, embarking on a dizzying spiral of drugs and partying.[41]

Later, she was contacted by Homer, the third cluster-mate, and he provided some insight into their situation.

March became a bodyguard for an independent parahuman investigator. Together, they tried to assist the remains of the smugglers cluster and were captured by the most aggressive member alongside other clustermates. Suffering from blood loss, March experienced near-death visions that reveal to her the artificial afterlife and upturn her world-view. She gets resuscitated by Cauldron rescue team.

Driven by her newfound obsession with Flechette March returned to New York. She repeatedly joined minor villain groups that were targeted by the wards. But her habit of escalation and brutal efficiency forced her to move on, as those groups quickly deemed "unsafe" to engage for the Wards.[11] She gained an eclectic criminal record, unattached to any particular operation.[42]

Timeskip[]

March visited Brockton Bay when the portal went up, twice. The second time she kidnapped Parian to get at the newly renamed Foil.[43]

At the same time she had run-ins with local Brockton Bay heroes and presumably other native parahumans.[44]

Gold Morning[]

Likely had a similar experience to other Parahumans.

Post-Gold Morning[]

March was able to survive Gold Morning and started seeking out other cluster capes. She reached out to the recently triggered of5 and offered information and assistance with their unfortunate group trigger dynamic.[45] Unknown to Rain she had also tried to recruit his Clustermates as well, though they seemingly rejected her overtures.[22]

Early-Ward[]

Rain was reluctant to reach out to March given how much of an unknown she was to him.[46] The Runt finally reached out to March when he had nowhere else to go He met her and her team at her hideout in the city.[47]

Mathers Compound Assault[]

Later they deployed against the Fallen, separate from the Hollow Pointers and Wardens.[22][25] She personally apprehended Mama Mathers and killed several Fallen members. After the Thomais Family revealed themselves, March hung back to see how things played out.

After a quick side chat with Parian, March decided that that her team would leave.[48] It is not known if she lingered in the area.[49]

Post-Goddess' Takeover[]

Some weeks later March upticked her group's harassment of The Needlepoints and by extension The Undersiders[50][51]

The Balance of the The Mall Cluster reached out to March and her group after their surveillance showed that that was exactly what the new alliance of Breakthrough and the Undersiders didn't want them to do.[52]

Assault on the Time Bubbles[]

March took part in a larger game Teacher and Cradle were independently playing,[18] she was focused on her own objective however.[53]

March hired some powered mercenaries from Deader and Goner and visited with her army the ruins of Brockton Bay. She recovered Ixnay's clustermate - Jotun, casually killed several defending heroes, and unleashed three broken triggers, including Dauntless.[54]

The next morning, she was tracked down and eventually killed by Foil, some ungrateful kid and Imp.[55]

Trivia[]

Fanart Gallery[]

References[]

  1. 1.0 1.1 Even in her distraction, her mother’s hands were still at her shoulders, rubbing through thin, papery-crisp fabric. Her mother’s lips absently pressed against the top of her head again. She was embarrassed, and in her glances to either side, she saw a group of girls about her age, talking and joking together. They weren’t looking at her though. They were roughhousing.
    [...]
    And that girl, who looked like she could have been May’s sister, who could have been one of the many, many people who evacuated Japan after the attack, who might have changed her name to be more American like May had changed hers, she would probably forget this momentary meeting of eyes. - Excerpt from Interlude 12.z II
  2. 2.0 2.1 "An actual playdate for a thirteen year old, my ‘date’ chosen carefully, because their parents are the right people and they’ve never been in trouble." - Excerpt from Interlude 12.z II
  3. 3.0 3.1 Foil is 17 and a senior. She triggered 3 years prior to her appearance, as part of a group trigger in New York. One of her old nemeses, March, was another part of that group trigger. - Private message by Wildbow, posted on Spacebattles
  4. “Thinker neurosis. Like the fire thinker having a thing about arson. Except you somehow think decades aren’t a commitment?”

    “Sure. Let’s call it that.”

    “Or is it the relationship that isn’t important enough to count?”

    “You are important. You count.”

    “But not as much as Flechette. Not as much as Homer.”

    “They count in a different way.” - Excerpt from Interlude 12.z II
  5. “It happens when a bunch of people get powers all at the same time. The powers get fractured and different people get different pieces. She triggered when you did. Ring any bells? Does anyone stand out?”

    “Maybe. Some people, I guess. I don’t even know what a trigger is.”

    “They say if you do something really triumphant, you get good powers. If you don’t… you get the flawed or broken ones. You trigger at major moments. Best days. Worst days. That’s the line, anyway. Does it hold up?”

    “I got good powers, so…” May paused. She thought about how she’d let her mom die. Was that supposed to be a triumph? “I guess I did something good.” - Excerpt from Interlude 12.z II
  6. I continued to find my refuge in geekery. “March’s a thinker first. Mental powers come from mental triggers. Powers that grant skill, perception, information, they tend to stem from self-centric things. Dilemmas, complexes, obsessions, delusions. Can I ask what the circumstances were around your trigger?” - Excerpt from Blinding 11.10
  7. March was the first to move. A dash forward, weapon thrusting. Foil’s weapon shimmered before it met March’s. A small, localized explosion marked the conflict between the two powers, each nullifying the other. - Heavens 12.x
  8. 8.0 8.1 “I’m invulnerable,” Caryatid growls.

    “I blow up invulnerable people,” their March answers.

    “She does,” Vista says. “Go. Run. Make sure everyone’s on the same page.” - Excerpt from Interlude 12.all
  9. The likes of Scrub, Damsel, Foil, or March would be able to damage Alexandria. - Wildbow on Reddit, archived on Spacebattles
  10. “Another pattern we will be exploring is the apparent effect of multiple trigger events occurring in the same time and place. There is a very strong correlation between coinciding trigger events and individuals displaying three or more powers rather than one or two predominant ones.”

    “Hey, Flechette,” Kid Win called across the room, “You’ve got a bunch of powers, right?”

    She turned in her seat, “Sure.”

    “Anyone else get powers at the same time you did?”

    “Not that I know of.”

    “Could someone nearby have gotten their powers, without you knowing? Way things played out? Did any capes show up around the same time as you?”

    Flechette frowned, “Yeah. A rather persistent villain.”

    “Worth thinking about.” - Excerpt from Sentinel 9.3
  11. 11.0 11.1 She joined a villain group my Wards team was already dealing with. Low-level, nonviolent, safe enough that our bosses were okay letting us try. She made them more effective and she blew up enough things that our bosses withdrew that permission. We moved on to another sanctioned target, and March joined them. [...] She would disappear for months at a time, then show up with friends. What got me was that I was trying to treat the cape stuff like a career, right from the start. Getting away from… from whatever pulled my sister down. For March, it was always a game. Not the usual way, where it’s a specific meta-approach to crime and criminality. Like an actual game.” - Excerpt from Blinding 11.10
  12. - Excerpt from Blinding 11.10
  13. 13.0 13.1 13.2 “All multi-triggers?” I asked.

    “She… collects them. I guess. She studies them. It’s supposed to be important.” - Excerpt from Shadow 5.12
  14. 14.0 14.1 “I’m sorry,” their March says, meaning it. She thinks of losing a cluster-mate. She imagines It would make the remaining years before the end so empty.

    But her experience with that world was when it was alive. When most were connected to the Warrior-hub.

    Using March’s thoughts and patterns, the three faces dwell on the subject. The best comparison they can use while modeling her head is that the world their March glimpsed, the point she truly became theirs, was a living world, one with endless access to information, resources, patterns. She wouldn’t have much access, except as a part of them, but there would be some things. An endless date in a library, where one had to ask for permission to view the records.

    Now, with them dead, slowly burning out like coals, the connections not there, no hub to be visited?

    Two people in a room with no light, no stimulation. Only words screamed and shouted at one another. The powers will burn out in time, but the data that lives on in the shattered network- that will last for quite some time. - Excerpt from Interlude 12.all
  15. - Excerpt from Interlude 12.all
  16. 16.0 16.1 16.2 March joined us. She put out a hand for me to shake. I hesitated a moment, paranoid, then shook it.

    “We have things to talk about,” she said. “People we both know. Power things.”

    I nodded.

    “I’ll go in to get her,” she said. “I’m immune.”

    “So am I,” Rain said.

    “This is personal for you,” she said. She put a gloved hand on his shoulder. “It’s the objectivity that makes us valuable to each other.”

    She winked at me, then sauntered indoors.

    She bothered me. I didn’t like whimsical and show-off in someone that could easily kill. The mask and the marching band outfit only marked out the contrast.
    [...]
    “I like the costume,” [Rain] said. “March told me I shouldn’t be so negative all the time, so I figured I’d say it. I feel like I’ve missed a lot.” - Excerpt from Shadow 5.12
  17. Wildbow's comment in subreddit, verbatim.
  18. 18.0 18.1 The city’s already gone and everyone who matters knows it. As bargaining chips go… it’s acceptable. I feel like I could die, I’m drowning in pain, but I don’t feel like dying when I think about that reality. If the city needs to be sacrificed, then that’s fine.

    A batty, rabbit-eared woman who doesn’t care about anything except a fairy tale playing out in real life, who wouldn’t even mind dying? She’d make a fine scapegoat, when the authorities needed someone to blame.

    That felt bad, which was alien. He processed it for a second, as his soldiers moved. Because March was mentally infirm. He was taking advantage of that.

    He pushed past the realization and the feeling, every push hurting and distracting.

    If you want to save this city, we’ll volunteer our considerable resources and power to help. Just as with the Endbringer treaties of yesteryear. We have resources, manpower, and we have knowledge. There’s a chance we can solve this problem outright. Especially if it’s a broken trigger. Create a problem and then solve it, and let the heroes save face by pointing the finger at March.

    And if you don’t want to, if we’ve set a disaster in motion that this fragile, already lost city can’t handle, or if March has initiated something we can’t stop? Then Earth Gimel’s enemies are paying richly to see this city gone and this reality collapsed in on itself. You all die, Fallen boy included. - Excerpt from Interlude 12.f II
  19. “What do you gain by messing with this stuff?

    “That would be telling, and you would put more people between me and what I want.”

    “You lunatic.”

    March smiled. “You guys are the crazy ones. If you knew what I knew…” - Excerpt from Interlude 12.z II
  20. - Excerpt from Interlude 12.z II
  21. 21.0 21.1 The woman who faced him was petite, and wore a rabbit mask with a uniform that looked like a soldier from the 1800s. A rapier dangled from her waist.

    “March,” he said.

    Wordless, she invited him to come in. He did. Further inside, he could see others. A trio of people. Another pair.

    Other clusters. - Excerpt from Interlude 5d II
  22. 22.0 22.1 22.2 “You know March?” Snag asked.

    “Did you invite her?”

    “No,” he said.

    “Yeah. I know her,” Foil said. “She’s been after me since… forever ago. She turned up in Brockton Bay twice, after the portal, before the end of the world. She kidnapped Parian once.”

    “She wanted to recruit me, months ago.”

    “She collects multi-triggers,” Parian said.

    Cradle, Love Lost, and himself, then? - Excerpt from Interlude 5y II
  23. 23.0 23.1 “With my power, I can usually figure people out. With March, I can’t. When that happens, it’s because there is no answer, or I’m asking the wrong question.”

    That was more information than I’d ever had about Tattletale’s power and its limitations.

    “You should know I’m baring my throat and showing you some weaknesses as a gesture of good faith,” Tattletale said.

    Or as a manipulation tactic. [...] I drew out the thrust of Tattletale’s explanation, something that I seemed to have to do with regularity. “You think you can’t figure out if March is one or the other because she’s both?”

    “Or neither, but saying it’s neither would mean it’s so far afield it’s not sensible. Which would fit her. Either way, if she really likes someone, that isn’t a good thing.”

    “You’re saying not to rely on her, then?”

    “Know what you’re getting into. She’d be useful to have if you pick this fight. It’s a lot of Fallen and they’ll be going to somewhere there are friends.” - Excerpt from Pitch 6.6
  24. “I’m out of options,” he said.

    “You know what I want,” March said.

    “Foil. Flechette. From your cluster. I’ve seen her.”

    “I’ve been planning on dealing with her and her acquaintance Tattletale for some time now. It puts me in a unique position to help you.”

    “You want her to die.”

    “That discussion can wait until tomorrow. For now, you look like you need to sleep.”

    Heartbroken, exhausted, he couldn’t bring himself to say no. - Excerpt from Interlude 5d II
  25. 25.0 25.1 A woman with a bunny mask and marching band outfit, ears poking up through the brim of the flat-top, feathered cap. There were three people in costumes that I didn’t recognize, and there was Rain, with the metal mask, gloves, and dark hood. - Excerpt from Shadow 5.11
  26. “[...] Different. Timing is her main power. Situational, big-picture. Operation-level.”
    “She was good on the small scale too,” I said, following Faultline. “Is that stronger because she used what she told us about? The thing that let Goddess take all the power?”

    “No comment, not on that,” Faultline said. - Excerpt from Polarize 10.5
  27. With only sound cues and awareness of where they had been before, March could visualize their locations. She knew how fast they moved from how fast they had moved before, she knew how long it would take to get where she wanted them to go, and she knew them well enough that she knew their behaviors and they knew what she wanted of them. - Excerpt from Interlude 12.z II
  28. 28.0 28.1 A trio of half-naked teenagers ran through the mansion, hucking vinyl discs at one another. May skipped forward, her power kicking in, and she caught one of the discs out of the air, her finger at the little hole. It spun with latent momentum, and her finger traced along the underside, carving out a line of power, which became a spiral rather than a complete circle, as she moved her finger further out.

    She judged, connected to the timing, and visualized the avenues it could travel. She threw it frisbee style, lining up her own body with the ghost images.

    The vinyl passed into the boughs of an apple tree, detonating just as it reached the center. The entire tree shook, and apples began raining down. The two people beneath shrieked and made a run for it as the hail came down.

    May pumped her fists in the air. As the apples stopped falling, people ran to go get some for themselves. - Excerpt from Interlude 12.z II
  29. Their March hears rather than sees the gun drop from the base of the dragon-mech’s chin. She glances back, and she saw the caliber of it, the space between rounds. She sees it start to spin, and one facet of her power did the calculations.

    Every movement was made accurate by the efforts of the three faces. To make opening fire as difficult as possible, she charges at the hand-boy and Vista, who were making her life so very difficult, making sure that any bullet that passed through her would pass through them too.

    A bullet catches her arm, once, a second one following a moment later- punishing her for being a half-inch out of position.

    More gunfire came down at an angle, as the craft lifted up. Zig-zagging meant it was harder to draw a bead on her. - Excerpt from Interlude 12.all
  30. 30.0 30.1 A brief and violent struggle. She was good at timing, but she had to know what her enemy did.

    And the people of this cluster did so very many things.

    A man, heavyset, with a false magnificence that filled her with equally false strength, just to be around him. False enough that she tested and exceeded her limits, hurt herself in mind and body. A telekinetic shield that seemed to parry things just as effectively as her own timing power and enhanced baton did. He teleported short distances, and made the building shake like it was in the midst of an earthquake when he appeared. Power and force and when she finally cut him, he grabbed the line she’d drawn on him and threw it away, like it was a scrap of cloth. - Excerpt from Interlude 12.z II
  31. Wildbow's comment on Reddit
  32. S/he did get Sting lite. Remember, Sting is a 'shark' of a shard. Can't really do much to improve or vary it. - Spacebattles post by Wildbow.
  33. 33.0 33.1 “Found these guys while researching powers and options. March put the pieces together about who I am and where I’m from.”

    He’d indicated the woman with the bunny mask. March continued pacing around the group. Her rapier’s tip dragged along the ground. It left a trail behind it, like the water rippling in the wake of a stick being moved in it, and that water had hues of blue, purple, and black running through it for a second or two after the contact.
    [...]
    The large thing had fallen over, one hand planted on the ground near some of the civilians. March ran up its arm, ducking and using momentum to slide up the slope of the arm as a bony claw reached for her.

    She ran along the shoulders, cutting as she went, leaped as the head sank into the morass of the body and became two avian skulls that pecked at the air, and then came down, stabbing her rapier into the chest and dragging the point against the giant thing’s torso, cutting as she went down. The blue-purple-black watercolor spread in the wake of the blade’s tip.

    She pulled it free, stabbed at a reaching hand, and used it to reorient her fall. She landed hard, her feet planted on either side of a screaming teenage girls’ head. A slight misstep, and she would have caved in the poor girl’s face.

    March snapped her fingers and flicked with her blade.

    At the shoulder, where the long cut had started, there was a flare of the watercolor spray. Purple and blue, with deep shadow in the midst of it. [...] The flare was tracing along the line she’d cut like a flame down a cartoon bomb’s fuse. [...] The ‘fuse’ reached its terminus. What had been a flare became a fierce explosion, right down at the base of the breaker.

    I flew toward it, bringing out the Wretch, so I could catch it if it toppled onto March and the civilians. It didn’t, falling backward and dissolving as it did. - Excerpt from Shadow 5.12
  34. The breaker form dissipated, and there was only the Fallen with the demon themed skull mask, tipping backward to land on his ass. March plunged her rapier into his chest, then flicked it up, toward his throat.
    [...]
    The Fallen was patting his chest where he’d been stabbed. He touched his throat. Intact, but the line of watercolor marked him.
    [...]
    Still floating in the air, I could see the flare appear at the breaker Fallen’s chest. He brought his hands to it, quick, frantic, then tried to pat it out.

    “Hey!” the Fallen cried out. He lurched to his feet. “Stop!”

    March was walking away.

    “Hey! Fuck! Help me!”

    She flourished with her blade and sheathed it, in the very same moment the fuse reached its terminus. The explosion was smaller, but it was sufficient to take out the front of the Fallen’s throat. He dropped to his knees, still moving inarticulately, eyes wide and stunned, and then collapsed to the ground. - Excerpt from Shadow 5.12
  35. Vista stepped out into the middle of the road at the edge of the fissure, then concentrated. She felt her power extend to every solid object in front of her, formed a map in her head. There was nobody out there, which made it easier. Slowly, carefully, she began adjusting. She truncated the length of Lord street, then did it again, repeating the process to make the four lane road shorter and shorter. The fissure down the center of the road squeezed against itself like a compressed spring.

    “This is disorienting,” Flechette spoke, as she gazed at the scene. “My power gives me a grasp of angles… and I’m worried I might have a seizure if I try to use it to get a sense of what’s happening here.” - Excerpt from Sentinel 9.5
  36. "In .all, Vista shortens the rapier as it presses in. It punctures the breastplate and does superficial damage to her, blows up the breastplate. She ends up unconscious, city collapses."

    "Hours later, Foil heads out and is joined by Imp and a wounded Vista. Vista repeats the trick to save Imp and Foil. There's the turnaround, meta space fuckery, Vista trips up March a few times, they press the advantage and beat her." - Discord WOG, on Reddit
  37. “Multitriggers,” Precipice said. “She collects them.”

    “Why?” I pressed.

    “Because I think she gets them. She understands it, she’s good at finding us out in the wild, she’s good at figuring out weird, wild shit like the power transfers. The Goddess thing.”

    “Because of her power, somehow, or-”

    Foil shook her head.

    We headed back, flying, jogging, or, in Rachel and her henchman’s case, hopping up so they hung onto the side of dogs with one hand while the dogs did the work of padding through snow and over ice.

    Chastity had a suggestion, “Natural inclination. Some people are good at music, and they were going to be people who were good at making music before they even picked up an instrument or sang a note.”

    “Maybe that,” Foil said. “Maybe she’s been focusing on that stuff while I was getting started as a Ward, getting my gear, doing patrols.” - Excerpt from Blinding 11.10
  38. I pointed at that, then spun around to point at the other end.  The headlights of March’s vehicle were sweeping into the lot as it pulled in, but March wasn’t waiting that long.  She sat in the open window of the car, leaning over the hood with a rifle in her hands. - Excerpt from Polarize 10.5
  39. Ten bouncy rubber balls bounce off of the people and the walls.  They scatter on impact and they semi-randomly come to settle to different points around the rooftop.

    Each ball is infused with a timer.  Some were still bouncing when they stopped: they were the stragglers she’d focused on more when throwing.  Aimed to be closer to Narwhal.  Closer to the boy in armor that was making the hands.  Closer to Vista.

    Some escape.  Most don’t.  Detonations rip across the roof, small and intense, dangerous, and distracting.  All but one go off. - Excerpt from Interlude 12.all
  40. Happiness was by accident only. Happiness was when the tutors got the times wrong and there was a break in the schedule, and mom just so happened to be busy with something. Or when mom had just bought the violin and cupboards and fridge were running empty, and mom messed up the timing on the preheating for the chicken kiev, so it was raw on the first bite, and there had been money only for a dollar burger and side salad. - Excerpt from Interlude 12.z II
  41. The party was one of about fifteen benders that May had participated in since her mom had died. She had a hundred thousand dollars in inheritance, and after the state had found someone who qualified as a relative, she’d ducked out, grabbing the folder that her new guardians had been left, with details on her trust.

    They were leaving her access to the account, probably because they thought it would help lead them to her. As far as they were concerned, she always just barely got away. For her, it was trivial. - Excerpt from Interlude 12.z II
  42. The woman with the bunny mask walked, almost strutted around the periphery of things, her rapier in hand. The capes with Valefor kept their attention on her, while Valefor was oblivous{sic} or uncaring.

    Rain was- he’d contacted people I barely recognized. I’d seen March’s mask before, but it had been in passing. An article about one of the big cities. There’d been a weird dynamic there, but I couldn’t afford to dwell on it. My mind went to a bizarre combination of upper-class and low-class crimes, like corporate espionage and petty vandalism, but I knew almost right away that I was thinking of the wrong person.

    It had been something offbeat like that, though. If the people hadn’t been screaming, and if I wasn’t focused on Valefor’s body language and Mama being somewhere nearby, I wanted to think I could’ve placed it. - Excerpt from Shadow 5.12
  43. - Excerpt from Interlude 5y II
  44. Vista was in play. Vista was getting in her way. They’d had a few run-ins already, when March had paid visits to Foil and had run afoul of the city’s heroes. This city’s heroes, she had to remind herself. - Excerpt from Interlude 12.z II
  45. Private Message Exchanges: Coded Name, Of5, the group chat

    of5 is reached out to by someone with a long, coded name, with a coded message. of5 asks the people from the larger group convo about it: their female friend suggested it's a bot. After briefly wondering if it's 'S' (dismissed as S "Isn't that bad with computers") they're told to ignore it and move on.

    But the person from the coded message starts speaking in plain english. of5's searches & comments on the broken multi-trigger articles have been noticed. Coded-name goes through all the instances of multi-triggers they've heard of, working out who of5 could be, and decides that of5 is the 'runt' from 'the mall'.
    • Coded-name already talked to someone else from the mall and was turned down. Lucky for of5, coded-name says, because of5 will need all the help they can get, and coded-name is offering that help.
    • The mall group has a woman, a man, and two boys, four individuals. Three members of the group are coordinating to go after one of the two boys, the runt. The woman is hiring mercenary help for the deed, and the man is talking to an information broker named Tattletale to find the runt.
    • Coded-name remarks 'a case of Kiss/Kill like I never saw and I don’t think they’re reaching for the chapstick.' - and the response from of5 is 'You’re wrong / It isn’t Kiss/Kill.'
    • But, of5 says, they're open to assistance. - Synopsis by Wildbow for Glow-worm P.4
  46. Rain stood a very real chance of dying.

    He was standing there, not responding, his thoughts tearing through his brain. He had options but none of them were options.
    [...]
    The person online- no guarantees. - Excerpt from Interlude 4.b II
  47. Interlude 5d II
  48. I was aware that March and Parian were talking, further away from the wall and the group.
    [...]
    March saluted, made a sound like she was chuckling under her breath, and ducked beneath a branch as she headed further into the woods.

    “Good riddance,” Foil hissed under her breath. In a different, softer tone, she said, “It’s been a long time, Victoria.”
    [...]
    I turned to Foil, looking to change the topic, “What’s the story with this March thing?”

    “Long story. We’ll talk later, but- not in polite company,” Foil said. - Excerpt from Pitch 6.1
  49. “We’re with Prancer, you know,” Foil said, behind us.

    “I know,” I said, turning around.

    “If you go, we’re staying. We’ll do what we can here.”

    “We’ll have to dodge March if she’s still around,” Parian said, quiet.

    “Yeah,” Foil said. “This isn’t a good day.”

    “Be safe,” I said.

    “That’s the plan,” Foil said. - Excerpt from Pitch 6.2
  50. “March,” I said, an instant before the image of her ‘hare’ mask and the brimmed hat with the masks’ ears poking out the front came into solid, crystal-clear focus.

    “She recruited,” Ashley observed.

    Yeah,” Rain said.

    “She didn’t try to recruit you?” Sveta asked.

    “I was in jail. Maybe she tried?”

    The Undersiders hadn’t gone running to Parian and Foil for refuge. Or maybe they had, but it wasn’t necessarily the primary focus. They’d gone there to protect them. - Excerpt from Polarize 10.4
  51. Blinding 11.3
  52. “I know. They said it before. They’ll be more insistent, try deals. They said the worst case scenario is that Cradle allies with March and then takes you out of commission. Second worst case scenario is you ally with March, Tattletale seemed pretty sure you wouldn’t go after Cradle.”
    [...]
    - Disjoint continued, “There was other stuff, Cheit’s mercenaries and some follow-up to the portal or something that they’re planning, but they didn’t talk much about that. Mostly their focus was on teaming up and trading enemies. Making sure March doesn’t get in contact with any member of your cluster, and making sure Cradle [doesn’t steal the powers of another member of the cluster.]”
    [...]
    Cradle seemed to know what was being typed before any phones rang, because he added Love Lost’s line, “And if they don’t want us getting in contact with March… I think that’s exactly what we need to do.” - Excerpt from Interlude 11.c II
  53. - [Excerpt] from Blinding 11.9
  54. Heavens 12.all
  55. Heavens 12.x
  56. “She has proof, kind of,” Rain said.

    “Because, Swansong, she was a member of a cluster of three. Timing, accuracy, and Foil’s trademark weapon enhancement. March found and drained their cluster’s third.”

    “She’s very strong compared to Flechette, now, and that’s her proof,” Rain said. - Excerpt from Polarize 10.5

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