Iris

Overview

Group/Faction Affiliation: Dark as Midnight

Status: Unknown

Queen Iris, or simply Iris, was once leader of Dark as Midnight. Her time in Gorka began just like many others, as a warboy. She always had a knack for art, and during her reign of terror she painted the canvas of South Zagoria red with blood. She focused her creativity and ambition towards destroying anyone who stood in her way in whatever manner she pleased. Quickly, Iris became infamous and feared for the psychotic acts that she commited. The kidnapping and torture of Redstar, execution of her former leader and friend Draven Sanguine, and the gruesome surgery that she preformed on Kaylee are just some of the more widely-known examples of her depravity. The deeper one dives into her history, the more torment, murder, and betrayal they will find.

Appearance

Iris wore many different ensembles, but none was more recognizable than her officer cap and red plaid dress. People rarely saw the face behind her large aviator sunglasses and red mask. She would intentionally rip holes in her black leggings as she liked the distressed look better.

Origins

Bullied and belittled for her art in school and at the orphanage, she took on the stage name “Iris”; the goddess of rainbows. She decided that anyone who learned her real name would be marked for death. Seeking revenge, Iris went on a rampage on the streets of her hometown: slaughtering those that wronged her, using their blood as paint, and robbing or pillaging everything in her path. Her girlfriend and first love, Grace worked together with Iris during these times of villainy. Their successful crime spree only made Grace and Iris fall deeper in love with each other. However, their love would soon blind them.

Beginning what seemed like a routine robbery inside a shopping mall to steal jewelry and petty cash, they soon found out it was a trap set up by the police. Grace suddenly became surrounded and Iris was left with a choice; could save Grace, or hide and save herself. Iris chose to save herself, leaving Grace behind to be taken. This decision would be one that Iris would regret for the rest of her life.

Iris’s chaos was only contained when police and people in white garments were able to lock her in a mental asylum for the criminally insane. As years went by in the white room, Iris’s sanity continued to slip. With the infection outbreak becoming rampant, the guards at the asylum became distracted allowing Iris to escape and eventually make her way to Chernarus.

Beaten down and afraid, she found herself wandering the empty streets of South Zagoria, learning of different groups and gangs. One group stood out to her the most - Dark as Midnight. With the help of the Black Sheep, people at The Market and a pantless narcoleptic friend named Aphira, she was able to make her way to Gorka. In Gorka she met Joker, the then-leader of DAMN, and asked to become a warboy. She was never an obedient or submissive recruit, and quickly earned her place as an equal in the unforgiving murderous family of misfits through brutality and raw cunning.

Demeanor

Iris was a heartless bitch - or at the very least, that is how her enemies and victims would describe her. She usually lacked the capacity for empathy, only showing blips of compassion to her closest friends or her partner. Iris abused her flirtatious mannerisms in order to manipulate nearly anyone she met. At one moment she could be laughing, and the very next full of rage. These swings in her emotions sometimes stemmed from her sensitivity to certain colors. Different colors had an effect on Iris’s behavior, stemming from her past trauma. White, because of the white room she was imprisoned in, made her feel panicked. Green and orange made her become aggressive and angry. Blue made her develop feelings of sadness and finally, red would make her feel immense amounts of joy and happiness. After all, there had to be a reason why she enjoyed blood so much, and hated pumpkins with a deep passion.

Actions

Taking her place in a ruthless apocalypse gang, Iris was finally able to be raw and real; freely exploring her interest in violence, blood art, and chaos. She tested the boundaries of her own sick creativity through torture and mayhem. Despite this, Iris felt the need to fill the void that was left by the loss of her first love. She would attempt to replace her with several women. One of the first she set her sights on was Kaya, an unlucky woman who had been kidnapped and brought to Gorka by Draven, Hades and Joker. As DAMN toyed with their prey, Iris slowly got to know her and an obsession developed. She made Kaya take off her green clothing and change into a nice red dress, before continuing with her emotional torture. Hades forced Kaya to choose between killing her friend, Angel, or herself. She ended up turning the gun on herself, only to find that the gun was not loaded. DAMN was satisfied with the sadistic game and let both of their captives live, but the mental scarring caused by the encounter would later play a part in Kaya's death.

Redstar was another woman victimized by Iris. After a vicious firefight broke out between DAMN and the Lucky Bastards in Stary Yar, Redstar was left as the sole captive of the slaughter. After Altradoran and Hades interrogated Redstar about the whereabouts of Andi Walker, Iris and Queen Meg were given time to play with Redstar. They sedated the Bastard by injecting morphine into her body. Similar to Kaya, they made Redstar strip and change into a red dress; a humiliation tactic that would later become a trademark for Iris. The gruesome games they would play with their captive led to a strong bond forming between Iris and Meg, which would ultimately never break.

Eventually Altradoran implanted a seed of doubt in DAMN about their leadership, and a plot to overthrow their current leader Joker was formed. Joker was overthrown in a swift execution, and after some debate DAMN crowned Draven Sanguine, Iris’ close friend, as their Overlord. After that Iris became Draven’s right hand man, and with Meg gone she proclaimed herself The Queen of Dark as Midnight. Under Draven’s dominion Dark as Midnight focused on maintaining their menacing presence in Gorka and Berezino, patrolling their borders and playing sadistic games with trespassers. They would go on to fight endless wars with 506, Cartel and anyone in between. The battles and bloodshed strengthened Iris, and she eventually found herself leading raids and attacks while Draven pursued lost remnants of the Cult of Papa. Around this time, a new warboy named Cat was quickly making a name for herself. Iris decided to test Cat by playing a game with the warboys, making them choose one person that wouldn’t make it out alive. Instinctively Cat pulled out her shotgun and blasted the warboy beside her, instantly catching Iris’ attention. The two eventually developed a romantic relationship, causing death and destruction together just as Iris and Grace had once done.

While inside their “cannibal conversion barn” on the western side of Gorka, Iris (left) and Draven (right) roasting human flesh over a campfire.

Iris would eventually play a key role in the “Cheeseburger” incident, in which Dark as Midnight would slaughter the religious mercenary faction known as Torchwood. During a meeting with DAMN Torchwood’s leader Damien White began to preach about the direction in which he wished to take his religious assembly, claiming that Torchwood would do anything to become the pre-eminent power in South Zagoria, and that all that opposed them would need to die. Taking this as an implicit threat to DAMN’s dominance in the East, Iris nonchalantly asked Damien a rhetorical question, uttering a predetermined ‘kill’ phrase: “cheeseburger”. After hearing this word, a roar of bullets escaped the weapon of every man and woman in red, ripping all of the Torchwood in the barn to shreds and leaving the faction reeling from the death of their leadership. This incident would mark the beginning of years of enmity between Torchwood and DAMN, with both sides committing atrocities against the other in a never-ending spiral of bloodshed.

During Draven’s leadership, Iris began to fear that DAMN were losing their prestige as the most feared bandits in the land. So, Iris plotted a way to get into Draven’s head. After an emotional let down, Iris broke off her relationship with Cat. She confessed that her love was disingenuous, and that she was using Cat to repress her emotions about a woman from her past. After the heartbreak was over, Iris let her relationship with Draven develop into something more. Manipulating her way into Draven’s heart, she saw that deep down he was weak and unfit to lead, where Iris’ success and trust from fellow members gave her the power she always wanted. She had a clear cut vision of where she wanted to take DAMN, but there was one thing in her way - Draven. Iris staged a radio broadcast in which she announced a bounty on Sylvia, a girl who had been impregnated by the Cult of Papa. Before the broadcast, Iris tested the loyalties of some of her fellow members, allowing her to figure out who was loyal to her. During the broadcast she declared her desire to exhibit true power; instructing Charlie to taze Draven while she continued her cold and heartless speech, she went on to execute the former overlord; proclaiming herself the new leader of DAMN as he lay dead on the floor.

DAMN watches as Torchwood’s Mogilevka Church goes up in flames, listening to the wretched screams of the followers of the light who are trapped inside.

Although DAMN and the 506th thoroughly despised each other after years of conflict, Iris would eventually establish common goals with the West: uniting briefly to combat a resurgent Torchwood and Rangers Chernarus. Under Iris’ watchful eye, the former nemeses would form a co-raid that would hit Kaer Morhen and Torchwood’s church in Mogilevka simultaneously. The 506th successfully besieged Kaer Morhen, and were able to temporarily hold the castle while DAMN broke down the barricaded church doors and stormed inside; murdering the defending forces of Torchwood and tying the remaining followers of the Light to their altar. Preparing piles of timber and dousing them with gasoline, DAMN set the church ablaze as they left; burning the occupants to death as they remained trapped inside.

In her quest to make Dark as Midnight ever stronger, Iris began to obsess over finding and creating powerful Warboys. The pregnancy of Kaylee, a member of the Black Sheep, was particularly intriguing to Iris, and she hatched a plan to kidnap the baby and nurture it into a strong warboy. However, as Kaylee neared the end of her third trimester, Iris became impatient waiting for the child to be born; fearing that the Black sheep would discover her plan and hide Kaylee from her. With the help of DAMN, Iris was eventually able to kidnap Kaylee, killing the child’s father Logan and badly injuring the Firefly Harry Churches in the process. DAMN brought Kaylee to Gorka, where Iris performed a botched C-section, ripping the baby out of Kaylee by force. The baby, later named Esther, was left in the hands of Iris and Dark as Midnight until a daring abduction by the traitor Jezrael; denying Iris’ dream of creating the perfect warboy.

Following these events, Iris continued to wreak havoc over South Zagoria. During this time her estranged lover, Cat, began to suffer from severe health complications stemming from her morphine addiction and neurodegeneration caused by the Kuru disease that plagued her body. Cat eventually disappeared completely, with Iris and Charlie searching extensively for clues of her whereabouts all over Chernarus. Later, a heartbreaking radio broadcast (link) by the Forsaken Loyalists president Altradoran would reveal that Cat was deceased. Altradoran explained that he had ended Cat’s life because of her health problems, and that it was her request to die. In what some would argue was a moment of spite, Altradoran blamed Iris for Cat’s death; accusing her of feeding Cat’s morphine addiction following her forced detox at the hands of Charlie. After the broadcast, Iris went searching for Altradoran and Cat’s burial site. It is unknown if she ever found either.

Notable Relationships

Draven Sanguine - After developing a strong bond from the trials and tribulations of their tenure as warboys, Iris and Draven became some of the strongest members of DAMN. In their early days, the duo would murder and mutilate many victims of South Zagoria. Eventually after Draven was proclaimed Overlord, Iris became his right hand man; handling the recruitment and cut-throat inner workings of DAMN. As Draven seemingly became weak or lazy, Iris saw an opportunity to betray her old friend, using her flirtatiousness to become closer to him before eventually orchestrating his overthrow and execution.

Cat - Cat was Iris’s true replacement for Grace, and the lover of her life. Often Cat referred to Iris as her “pretty flower”, and they would enjoy brutalizing and shaming their victims while out on Girl’s Nights. Iris’s drug addiction and obsession with drugs were ultimately the reason Cat got hooked on Morphine; with her addiction later playing a key part in her deterioration and eventual mercy killing at the hands of Altradoran.

Finn - Iris loved to flirtatiously banter with Finn, an older member of the Black Sheep. The two were known to interchange comments with gunshots when DAMN pillaged Guglovo, and would send each other love letters which they used to surreptitiously mock each other. At times, Iris would abuse their friendly rapport for her own gain, allowing her to get closer to the Black Sheep than any before her.

Georgie Luz - Due to DAMN and the 506th’s everlasting conflict, George Luz and Iris have always had a curious relationship. Although they despised each other, there was also a level of mutual respect which was gained through skirmishes and raids on opposing sides' camps. Through many attempts at executing one another, neither were successful, at one point in time they even put their differences aside to wipe out a growing threat.

Mr. Blu - Acting as Iris’s psychologist, Mr. Blu attempted to analyze and assess Iris and judge her intentions. His ultimate goal was to see if he could get her to change her ways, but in the end he was never able to achieve this lofty goal.

Aphira - The first friend that Iris made after escaping the asylum. Aphira was friends with DAMN, and later chose to introduce them to Iris. They both became Warboys after that, wreaking Havoc on those who opposed DAMN.

Where are they now?

The current whereabouts and mortality of Iris are unknown. Many in DAMN joke about Iris tripping down a flight of stairs and breaking her neck, and this rumor has led some to believe that she may have been executed in a similarly ruthless manner to other former leaders. Others assume she is cowering in some recess of South Zagoria, waiting patiently for an opportunity to return. Before her disappearance, Iris was seeking out Altradoran for answers about Cat’s burial site, while simultaneously being hunted by Charlie for the implications made about her during the broadcast.