Iberis

## Background

   Iberis is the name Lei Song gave her gang of teenage delinquents between the time she first met Elsie and the time she called in the favor Elsie owed her.

The emblem of the gang is a flower with small white petals. A katana and a shotgun cross bind the flower.

This emblem is painted onto the door of the gang's HQ, the VIP room at the Arcade by the Northgate Mall. It is also present in the room.

Yuki Inoue, a classmate of Lei's when the latter was still affiliated with Wuxing, was the only other named member of Iberis at the time of Ep 57.

Between the 2 guards at the entrance of their HQ, the 6 members (including Lei) inside and the 3 roughed-up members (including Yuki) then in a hospital room, Iberis counted with at least 11 members.

## Calling in a favor

   When Elsie met frenemy Lei at the VIP room she was already familiar with, and at the appointed time, the room was guarded by teenagers at the entrance who let Elsie in without searching her. It contained a *mission control table* covered with fries, drinks, soda and future pocky The half-dozen teenagers, with the exception of Lei herself, were described as fashionable, which meant, among other features, having fake eyeballs painted on their eyelids, wearing parachute pants and loose boots.

Members of Lei's group had been asked questions about Chelsea Whitetree and Elsie Blackwood by a small group of people. It had become a problem when these people had turned violent and, the previous day, beaten up three members, including Lei's girlfriend Yuki Inoue.

Instead of capturing Elsie and turning her over, Lei had decided to give her an opportunity to solve the problem herself. If Elsie could approach Yuki, who was at Harborview Medical Center and whose family didn't allow visits, Yuki would be able to give her names.

After meeting a cousin of Yuki's and scanning her face, MMFE went to the hospital. Elsie, who changed faces several times in the process, successfully passed all the hurdles on her way to Yuki's room and managed to get access for Zack Slater as well. She even got a glimpse of Yuki's father when he left his daughter's room.

Elsie gave Yuki the letter Lei had sent for her, unread. After being detoxed by Mordecai, she tried to hide her pain and recounted the attack in a parking lot that had left her with multiple stab wounds and her two unconscious companions with gunshots. She singled out one of her assailants:

> *It was Her, she was f\*\*\*ing terrifying*.
>
>

Yuki agreed with Elsie that she was around 13-14, with *dark hair*, *real long*, *slim build and f\*\*\*ing razor fingers*.

Elsie had already recognized her half-sister Violet by then.

Yuki had got word from Rufio, the leader of South Seattle's teenage motorcycle gang MMFEC had already met, that someone was sniffing around for Elsie.

MMFEC then went to South Seattle's Garfield High School. Elsie changed her face. She introduced herself as a friend of Elsie's to her former intern known as Gavroche. He gave her the address of the house where she would find Rufio and his gang, who were still in the area.

Elsie stayed behind when Fang, Ma1nfram3 and Mordecai approached the house. Convinced by a bloodstain that an attack had just occurred and a gang member was dying, Fang opened the door with a kick that sent it slamming against the wall and shattered its windowpane. After this inauspicious start and a tense interview at gunpoint with two teenagers, Mordecai silenced Fang with a spell and Rufio gave details about the gang's meeting with Violet.

In the last scene of the episode, Fang called Cromwell, who was on his way to joining them when he noticed someone at the door. On a hunch, while Fang convinced Cromwell to go to the back of the house, Elsie accessed her house's security system, recognized the visitor as Violet first from her build, and later when she showed her ungloved hand to a camera. Elsie contacted Violet through the security system: her target was waiting in a warehouse. Violet still approached her hand from the doorbell but finally left and got to her car.

After MMFEC solved Iberis's problem, Elsie was called to their headquarters again. There, in Yuki's presence, Lei gave her a pin, an Iberis symbol that made her an honorary member.

Elsie, who had feared a trap, was pleasantly surprised. The following discussion, in which they exchanged similar opinions about family in general (it sucks) and crazy sisters (*We all have one.*) but also broached the less pleasant topic of involvement with the Yakuza, visibly helped tip the relationship between Elsie and Lei towards the "friend" end of the "frenemy" scale.

1. ↑ Lauren translated iberis as snow flower. Here is the wikipedia article on iberis.
2. ↑ See the arc spanning Ep 21 to Ep 25.
3. ↑ See the very end of Ep 56 and Ep 57
4. ↑ See a discussion about a possible location for the Arcade here. The stores that became NeoStrom, Never 22, Veronica's Diary and NeoShack are visible on the present-day map.
5. ↑ Or a little late. See Ep 57.
6. ↑ a.k.a. *Mikado* in some parts of the world.
7. ↑ It helped that Dan gave up on having Mordecai summon Medical Sharky. Though very much in-character, such a move would probably have also been very unhelpful.
8. ↑ See Ep 58 and Violet.
9. ↑ See Ep 59.